Ray Emery

During the 2009-2010 season, goaltending coach Jeff Reese got a ton of credit for the team’s success.  We started the year with Ray Emery, and finished it with a rotation of Brian Boucher, Michael Leighton and Johan Backlund.  All season long, somebody would get hurt, and another guy would step in. Then he would get hurt, and replaced by the next guy.  Throughout this rotation, the Flyers put together a run that saw them go from 14th in the Eastern conference in January, to 2 games short of the Stanley Cup. When the Flyers acquired Leighton out of nowhere, and he just started winning games, [...]

Once upon a time, the Philadelphia Flyers were one of the teams favored to win the Stanley Cup. Now, probably not so much. You may or may not have noticed that they’ve tweaked their roster a bit over the last few days. You see, back in 2010, they actually made the final round of the playoffs, and came within two games of winning it all.  After the season, the champion Chicago Blackhawks were under financial constraints mandated by the league, and thus had to unload a few of their own players. Due to this, many believed that our beloved Flyers [...]

Oh man, two more days and the market bell will ring. The landscape has changed ever since the NHL instituted the salary cap. You could never accuse the Flyers of being cheap; they always threw dollars at top free agents. Unfortunately, those days are gone forever. So while Ilya Kovalchuk is the top name, there’s no chance he’ll be wearing orange and black any time soon. Of course, offense isn’t the biggest issue for the Flyers. Instead, for the 100th time in the last 20 years, we’re looking for a goalie.

  We’re not capable of changing the past (yet). We know what happened. Chicago won the Stanley cup, on Philadelphia ice. Leighton let in a soft goal, and was pretty bad in the Finals.  But sports fans always love playing the “what if?” game. If this were different, that were different, the outcome would be different. It’s a fun argument, but one  that can never be resolved. Still, here goes…

In sports, stability is a key component of  successful franchises.  Yet, somehow, ever since 1994-95, when the Flyers returned to prominence, we have seen the starting goalie change on a consistent basis.  I may be missing a few, but since that time we’ve had Ron Hextall, Dominic Roussel, Garth Snow, Sean Burke, John Vanbiesbrouck, Roman Cechmanek, Robert Esche, Antero Niittymaki, Jeff Hacket, and Martin Biron.  Now, we have Ray Emery.  He had great numbers and a winning record in Ottawa, and of course a Cup Finals appearance. His off the ice issues lead to a stint in Russia, where he [...]