It's happening right before our eyes. Our worst hockey nightmares are being manifested in front of us. At the beginning of this season, everyone had concerns about the state of the Philadelphia Flyers goaltending, even head coach John Tortorella.
"We knew we were getting into this when everything changed with our goaltending situation. We're force-feeding guys into situations that they're not ready for, so we've got to be a little patient and keep on trying to work with them and see where we go with it," Tortorella said after the win over Columbus.
Good teams are nothing without good goalies. In the 90s, the Devils would've been nothing with Martin Brodeur and the Sabres less than nothing without Dominik Hasek. Despite a talented roster, the Penguins have been unsuccessful since ditching Marc-Andre Fleury. And yet every team he has been on has done better.
Going into this season, the Flyers had Sam Ersson, a rookie who had played well but had gotten worn down after playing in 28 of the last 34 games for Philly. Both Ivan Fedotov and Aleksei Kolosov, while experienced overseas, are new to the pace and competition of the National Hockey League. It was hoped that someone would step up and dominate. That hasn't happened yet.
Ersson may still burned out from last year. He could also be hurt and is playing through it. It could also be that he is "in his head" and struggling. Being a goalie can be a very mentally taxing position. After all, 10 years ago the aforementioned Fleury had revealed he had been seeing a sports psychologist to help him deal with his issues.
The Flyers have a goaltending problem
This article was supposed to be the second part in a series examining who the Flyers could trade away. To be fair, I'm not sure anyone would want either one of these guys; at least not on their own. Let's take a look at their stat lines.
Games Started | Record | GAA | Save Percentage | Shutouts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Ersson | 16 | 7-6-2 | 3.28 | .872 | 1 |
Kolosov | 9 | 4-6-1 | 3.34 | .878 | 0 |
Fedotov | 10 | 4-6-0 | 3.48 | .877 | 0 |
As you can see, there isn't a whole lot of difference between the three goalies. Fedotov is older and Ersson has the lone shutout, but the stats are pretty much the same. No one goalie is any better, stat-wise, than the others.
Now to be fair, there have been many, many times that the goalies have been placed in bad situations due to the defenders in front of them. In recent games, players like Anze Kopitar, Patrick Kane, and Sidney Crosby took advantage of defensive miscues and scored. When a goalie is facing three-on-ones or two-on-nones, even Bernie Parent can't stop those. That leads to breakdowns in goalie confidence which leads to more goals in net.
We are years away from Carson Bjarnason and Yegor Zavragin being able to crack the roster. And when the best available free-agent goalies in 2025 are Fleury, Jonathan Quick, and Viktor Vancek, we have a problem. Unless there is a trade that the Flyers can swing for someone's disgruntled goaltender, they are stuck with these three guys for a while.
In my lifetime, the goaltending position has always been the least stable. The Flyers have never had a goalie who has spent 10+ years in net for the organization. I'd love to see that change at some point. Maybe they have them now and they are going through the growing pains of learning to navigate the NHL. Most likely, the Flyers haven't found them yet. Unless something changes, either in the defense in front of the net or the guy guarding the net, the Flyers will continue to struggle.