Ron Hextall, Dominic Roussel, Garth Snow, John Vanbiesbrouck, Neil Little, Brian Boucher, Roman Cechmanek, Robert Esche, Jeff Hackett, Antero Niittymaki, Martin Biron, Michael Leighton, Ray Emery, Sergeyi Bobrovsky, Ilya Bryzgalov, Antony Stolarz, Steve Mason, Michael Neuvirth, Petr Mrazek, Brian Elliott, Carter Hart, and Sam Ersson. That is 22 starting goalies who've been a major part, or major projected part, of the Philadelphia Flyers since the 1994-95 season. There are another 25 goalies I haven't listed here. That's a lot of guys.
In comparison, the NY Rangers have had: Mike Richter, Glenn Healey, Kirk McLean, Henrik Lundqvist, Alexander Georgiev, Igor Shesterkin, and another 33 others. The Devils had: Martin Brodeur, Cory Schneider, Mackenzie Blackwood, Vitek Vancek, and around 30 others. Do we get the picture?
To be fair, backup goalies come and go. Most stick around for a year or so. Sometimes, you will have three backups play in a season. That's normal. Other backup netminders may remain with a team for a few seasons. However, we can see that the Rangers went, with the exception of a gap year or so, from Richter to Lundvist to Shesterkin almost seamlessly. Brodeur played for the Devils for almost forever.
Why Do the Flyers Struggle?
Why has it been so hard for the Flyers to find a franchise goalie who will lead them into Stanley Cup glory? Did they blow all their hockey karma on Bernie Parent? Even then, the Flyers had great goalies in Pete Peters, Bob Froese, and Pelle Lindbergh, right up until they had Hextall in net.
In some cases, the team gave up on young guys too soon. Boucher was traded away because Bobby Clarke got impatient. Same with Checkmanek and Bobrovsky. Others...well, we're not sure why they didn't last, despite decent stats (Biron, Esche).
Briere Needs to Fix the Issues in Net Soon
Ersson seems to be ok in net. Is he the answer? He is the answer for right now. Is he the answer for the long term? Not sure. Time will tell. However, the Flyers are going to need to see more out of the backups. Ivan Fedotov makes us want to see Cal Petersen back in between the pipes. Aleksei Kolosov looked ok in net, but did he struggle because the defense in front made some big mistakes?
While a goalie can only be as good as the team in front of him, the reverse is also true. A team is only as good as the goalie behind them. Flyers GM Daniel Briere may have to make some decisions this season. Looking at the upcoming potential crop of goalie free agents, there is probably not an answer there.
If the current rotation of Ersson-Fedotov-Kolosov can't cut it, the Flyers will have to find some answers. Maybe via trade or a future draft. However, until the Flyers learn how to play better in front of the net, they will continue to struggle overall as a team.