Your Philadelphia Flyers

It's safe to say the Ilya Bryzgalov experiment has been a bust in Philadelphia. I can't say I am one bit surprised. He was an outstanding goalie in Phoenix, there was 0 pressure on him to succeed. He could be his quirky self and no one would really care. When he was a free agent, he was the top goal tender available and the Flyers jumped at the chance to sign him. And when they did, it made no sense.

The Flyers are less than 2 years removed from playing for the Stanley Cup finals and they did it behind a bunch of good, but not great goal tenders. Brian Boucher, Michael Leighton and company were able to get the job done and in fact, the reason the Flyers fell apart during the Stanley Cup finals was their Defense was TIRED. So the following year, GM Paul Holmgren invests in upgrading their defense and he found what some think is a gem between the pipes, Sergei Bobrovsky. But last season ended disappointedly to the Eventual Stanley Cup Champions.

So this past Off season, GM Holmgren, changed his plan and blew up the team to sign the top Free Agent Goal Tender. When I heard it, it didn't make sense. In fact, everything Holmgren has done as GM has been calculated, this sounded like a Bobby Clarke move, lets bring in the big name at any cost. So to make room for Bryzgalov, Holgren traded the cornerstones of the franchise, Mike Richards and Jeff Carter. When all was said and done, the Flyers ended up with the likes of Wayne Simmonds, Braydon Schenn, Sean Couturier and Jakob Voracek. They also, didn't trade Bobrovsky. After a ton of injuries, including new captain Chris Pronger done for the season, the Flyers have started 8 rookies this season and incredibly enough, they are in contention.

The Flyers are poised to make a run at the Cup and they picked up a couple of Defense men who will definitely help for a playoff run - Nick Grossman and Pavel Kubina. Kubina, a free agent at the end of the season, could remain a Flyer depending on Pronger's condition, in my opinion. Still the question is goal tending, how do we get out of this Bryzgalov experiment? I have faith in Holgren, all the moves that he has done, have worked out. I just have this funny feeling, the Brygalov move was more of the owner meddling as opposed of a GM wheeling and Dealing.