With the Flyers’ season coming to a close soon, most of Philadelphia is looking to this offseason and wondering who will don the orange and black next season – and perhaps more importantly, who won’t. That Holmgren will use one compliance or “amnesty” buyout on Danny Briere’s $6.5 million cap hit is all but a foregone conclusion at this point, but the second big name being thrown about for a potential trip out of town is Ilya Bryzgalov.
At the time of my last article, I had a thought about save percentage. We often harp on it, but very rarely do we think of it in practical, dollars-and-cents terms. If a goalie A has a .900 save percentage and goalie B has a .910, for example, what does that tell you aside from goalie B is stopping more shots? A simple way to look at it is that goalie A will let up ten out of every 100 shots he sees, while goalie B only lets up nine. Big deal, right? Prompted by Eric T.’s article over at …
On Wednesday evening in Philadelphia, the Flyers were wrapping up an all-important home stand against the second-place Montreal Canadiens, and hoping to score two points to bolster their desperate late-season playoff push. With 4:17 remaining in the second period, Simon Gagne banged home a carom off the end boards to give the Flyers a 2-1 lead, and there was much rejoicing.
With the league’s 30 General Managers meeting to discuss ways to tweak the NHL product, the issue of goal scoring totals has once again reared its head. Since the resumption of play from the cancelled 2004-05 season, scoring has slipped from 6.05 goals per game to 5.25 goals per game. Whether or not that is really a problem that needs fixing is an argument for another column, but the fixes being discussed are rather relevant to goalies. What is the solution? Well, according to some – including Mike Babcock — the answer is a simple ultimatum: bigger nets, or smaller …
This week’s Crashing the Crease comes to you with a somber tone, as the Flyers’ season appears primed to crash and burn. Some of the same wretched storylines we’re so used to being beaten over the head with are creeping into view: “Should [insert Flyers coach] be worried about his job? Who should the Flyers next goalie be? What major move will the Flyers make to fix this?” Part of the issue, in my mind, is this overly reactive approach from the top down. Don’t get me wrong — I love and respect what Ed Snider did for the city …
Tuesday night’s game at Madison Square Garden was quite possibly the single most glaring example of one of Bryzgalov’s greatest shortcomings: he is not particularly good at the poke check. Playing the poke check correctly is the epitome of a very fine line for any goaltender. A successful poke requires quick and decisive action: there is no time to spare in deciding to go for the poke, but at the same time it can’t be done too early – or “telegraphed” – lest the forward read it and simply walk around it. Against the Rangers, Bryzgalov’s poke attempts were telegraphed, …
How much can one reasonably expect from a goaltender when playing him almost nightly behind a worn down, somewhat-ramshackle NHL defense? If you live in Philadelphia, the answer may be to simply look at his cap hit for your answer. Recently, there’s been a lot of talk regarding Ilya Bryzgalov and how well he “should” be playing based on his AAV of $5.67 million. In a lot of ways, it’s a reliable fallback story for a season full of nearly regular Jekyll-and-Hyde nights where serious hockey analysis of defensive breakdowns and failed offensive forays will bore and confuse the average …
As we sit here in the midst of two days without Flyers hockey, let us take pause to reminisce about the old NHL: The forgotten, hazy days of yesteryear, in which teams had more than 21 hours between games, players skated on sharpened butter knives and, in one small corner of the league, an eccentric Russian goalie named Ilya Bryzgalov hitchhiked from Phoenix to Philadelphia and found a new providence, playing hockey for our boys in orange and black. This was a hopeful and optimistic time, one in which that entire City of Brotherly Love ever so quietly gazed with …
After the first week of the season, Ilya Bryzgalov’s first report card had him pegged as playing well despite not getting results. His play since then has only continued to impress – if not improve altogether – and in lieu of the Flyers matching a season-high two game win streak with Bryzgalov’s back-to-back victories against Carolina and Tampa Bay, the results are starting to come. At one point a week ago, Ilya was holding onto the ignominious position of most losses among NHL goaltenders despite possessing a rather strong 2.40 GAA and .920 SV%. Since then? He’s gotten a couple …
Two weeks ago, I laid out my expectations for Ilya Bryzgalov’s season. In short, I expected him to start well thanks to his keeping the engine warmed up over in Russia, but my fear was the Flyers’ lacking defensive corps would take its toll on him and lead a to a mid-season slump. I felt that a .920-or-higher save percentage wasn’t too likely by season’s end. Early on, he’s fighting to prove me wrong, posting a pretty stellar .924 save percentage and a goals-against average of 2.19, especially given the support he’s had thus far. Right now, it isn’t that …