The Fan Hub

With the Philadelphia Flyers returning home after a 4-game road trip on which they went 2-2, head coach Peter Laviolette made a bold statement regarding which of his goaltenders will get the bulk of the starts for the foreseeable future: “I don’t use numbers…[Bryzgalov] was brought here to be a horse, and he's received a majority of the games. I don’t see that changing.”

It’s a good thing for Ilya Bryzgalov that his coach doesn’t use numbers, because if he did the high-priced netminder would likely find himself on the end of the bench for the majority of the games. In 29 starts this season, Bryzgalov has a respectable 16 wins, but only a 3.07 GAA and a .891 SV%. Meanwhile, backup Sergei Bobrovsky has played like a true number one, winning 10 out of 14 starts while posting a 2.42 GAA and .921 SV%. This recent road trip was no different either, as the Flyers won the two games that Bobrovsky started (3-2, 2-1), and lost the two that Bryzgalov started (6-4, 4-2).

However, Laviolette may not have been entirely honest, because two numbers do stick out when trying to figure out why Bryzgalov will continue to hold onto the the top job: 9 and 51, as in 9 years, $51 million — the contract that Bryzgalov signed with Philadelphia in the offseason, the one that they reconstructed their entire team in order to be able to afford it under the salary cap. But since then Bryz has not only failed to live up to his deal, he hasn’t been able to live up to an entry-level contract.

Bryzgalov is somewhat of a proven commodity in the NHL after putting up All-Star quality numbers during his last two seasons in Phoenix, but that doesn’t say anything about his ability to handle the kind of pressure that comes from being the goaltender in Philadelphia. And while Laviolette might feel pressure from ownership against benching someone that the team sacrificed so much to acquire, at some point they’re going to have to make a decision based on quality of play rather than dollars spent.