Philadelphia Flyers: Bryzgalov’s out, who’s in?

With the Flyers playoff hopes dissipating in the final weeks of the 2013 season many questions are being raised about Ilya Bryzgalov’s future in the City of Brotherly Love.

Ilya, has been adequate for the struggling Flyers this season and although he is not to blame for their poor performance (you can blame that one on offense production, and porous defence), he hasn’t been much help, and that’s enough for him to be crucified by Flyers fans in the vein of Roman Cechmanek circa 2003.

Philadelphia loves to blame their goalies for all their problems since they were treated to one of the greatest goalies of all time in Bernie Parent in the seventies, but if you look at some of the teams that won the cup without crazy stellar goaltending, such as the Red Wings with Chris Osgood in 98 (in 08 and 09 he played spectacular) and Blackhawks with Antti Niemi in 10, it’s quite clear that goaltending isn’t everything. But things have gotten so bad in Philadelphia that getting rid of Bryzgalov is probably the best for each party.

If the Flyers opt to buy out his contract this summer, which is more than likely considering no one will trade for that contract, Philadelphia will be in the hole for $23 million dollars over a 14 year span. This means that they’d finish paying him in 2027, at the ripe age of forty-seven. But at least they’ll have space for a goalie and this is where things get interesting.

There seems to be more NHL quality goalies than teams these days which has pushed some people out of jobs leaving them ready to be scooped up by desperate organizations; aka Philadelphia Flyers. And that’s not a bad thing because here are some of the guys out there: Ryan Miller, Jonathan Bernier, Jaroslav Halak/Brian Elliot (one of those guys), Tim Thomas, Kari Lehtonen (Dallas might use him as trade bait), and Niklas Backstrom.

Brian Elliot is a gamble and much like Ben Bishop in Ottawa, is the benefactor of a solid defensive team. Bernier will more than likely pan out, but Philadelphia doesn’t have the patience to develop a young goaltender so their best option is Ryan Miller.

Ryan Miller has been stupendous for the Buffalo Sabres since his breakout season in 2006. He’s posted seven straight seasons of thirty wins or more, won the Vezina Trophy in 2010, and received a Silver Medal for his play in the 2010 Winter Olympics. To say the least, he’s qualified for the job.

And unlike Bryzgalov who came from relatively small hockey markets, Anaheim and Phoenix, Ryan is used to a strong media presence. This is a big one because there are sure to be trying moments in a season for every team in the league and so being able to block off the media scrutiny will be a major skill to have in a hockey crazed city such as Philadelphia.

Miller will come with a price tag that’ll probably equate two first round picks and a few prospects but that’s nothing for the Flyers who know that their small window of opportunity to win a Cup is closing.

As for Bryz, well he might find himself on a team like Calgary, Florida, or (most likely) Tampa Bay. Calgary is a long shot because chances are Ilya doesn’t want to move from one intense hockey market to another. Florida always seems to need a goaltender so that might be his stomping ground for a while. Tampa Bay is starting to figure out that it doesn’t matter what new amazing goalie you put in net if you don’t have defence so they might jump on Bryz who could bring some consistency to their offensive minded team, even if that consistency is average.

It’s almost a guarantee that Ilya won’t be back come the 2014 season. He’s burned as many bridges as possible in Philadelphia, and his comical persona would be tolerable if it went alongside some wins which he hasn’t had many of lately. Miller would be the perfect fit as his past playoff experience and international play show that he’s a big game player (which is even better when you consider how awful Buffalo’s defence is). He could fix some gaping holes in the Flyers game and give some confidence to the forwards who wouldn’t be checking back to see if another goal was going in. It might cost them a lot but who knows how far the Flyers could go if they had a truly exceptional number one goaltender.

Alex Ovechkin has Returned to His Scoring Throne

Alex Ovechkin is back. In thirty-seven games this season Ovechkin has thirty-seven points and twenty goals and if he were to play a full regular season (eighty-two games) he would be on pace for forty-four goals and eighty-two points. Currently, he’s playing some of the best hockey since 2010, though no one saw this coming early on in the year.

Ovechkin started off the season slowly with a tumultuous five goals in sixteen games. Pressure was mounting from the media who was all over him for his lack luster play, and his perception around the league was best exemplified in TSN’s NHL Player Rankings which saw Alex ranked 12^th in the league behind the likes of Corey Crawford and Nazem Kadri- quite a drop from the man who was once in the debate for the greatest player in the NHL.

But since March 14^th, when the Caps played the Carolina Hurricanes, Alex has been on fire. Last night was the end of his nine game point streak that saw him tally fifteen points and ten goals, and since his porous start, Ovechkin, has moved up to fifth in goal scoring and is five short of Steven Stamkos’s league leading twenty-five goals.

The Caps have crawled back into playoff position going 7-2-1 in their last ten, and line mate Niklas Backstrom seems to have found his scoring touch alongside Ovechkinand is nearly a point a game player. It’s quite obvious that this team lives and dies with Alex Ovechkin and if he keeps at this pace there might be some Stanley Cup buzz in the Nation’s Capital come playoff time. 

Tampa Bay Lightning Takes Chance on Ben Bishop trade

Not since the days of Nikolai Khabibulin have the Tampa Bay Lightning had a number one netminder. Instead, they’ve had a mixture of young and inexperienced (Mike Smith, Johan Holmqvist, Anders Lindback), or old and on the way out (Sean Burke, Dwayne Roloson). So of course when it came to trade deadline this year Tampa took a look at their history of poor goaltending choices over the last several years and decided to do the exact same thing in acquiring Ben Bishop.

Ben has been solid this year- there’s no doubt in that- but much like Anders Lindback, who came to the lighting with little NHL experience, Bishop has played very little in the NHL (36 games). To put things in perspective, between Lindback and Bishop the two goaltenders have played 95 games in total which is a mere thirteen games more than one NHL regular season, and together they combine for thirteen minutes in NHL playoff experience. If the lack of experience wasn’t enough, the Lightning gave up top prospect Cory Conacher who is currently second in scoring among rookies.

Ben is indeed a big goalie but he benefited from the luxury of playing for a defensive minded team. Tampa needs to improve their defensive core, and opt for a more defensive minded game if they want any success with Ben minding their net. 

Toronto Maple Leafs: No Need for New Goalie

With the season winding down and the Maple Leafs sitting in a secure 6^th place with a nine point lead over the eighth place Rangers there is much speculation about what the Leafs are going to do with their goaltending situation. This would make since a few months ago but now James Reimer has earned the right to be the starting guy come playoff time.

It's not that Reimer and Scrivens are such an outstanding tandem. In fact, despite having a .918 save percentage and two shutouts, Ben Scrivens has been an inconsistent goaltender and by all accounts has a way to go to being a solid back up. But James Reimer has been superb for the Leafs and deserves the opportunity to play in the post season because of his progression as a goaltender over the last couple of years. If there is a goaltending move it would only be logical to pick up a veteran goaltender for a ‘what if’ scenario but even then that doesn’t seem like a worthwhile move.

James, has a .920 SAV and a 2.59 GAA alongside a 13-4-4 record, and has prior experience in the playoffs with the ECHL South Carolina Stingrays where he won the Kelly Cup alongside being named MVP of the playoffs. He has been the Leafs most capable and consistent goalie since Ed Belfour and should be given the chance to play net in the playoffs.

Jim Carey: Competitive Spirit and Early Success Cost him a Career

The 90’s seemed to be filled with players who showed promise but never lived up to it, such as Patrik Stefan, or Alexandre Daigle. And there are many articles that compare the former Caps goaltender, Jim Carey, to these players. However that’s a poor comparison because, unlike them, he lived up to his potential, it may have been for a short time but none the less it happened.

In 1995 Jim Carey was nominated for the Calder and Vezina, in 1996 he won the Vezina and in 1997 everything fell apart. The question is what happened in that gap? Many people theorize that the Caps played a certain defensive game that benefitted Carey but that wouldn’t account for his stellar university statistics, or his strong numbers in Portland (Washington’s former farm team). There is an interesting case to be made for how Carey’s family life affected his career.

Carey, grew up in an athletic, extremely competitive, family that consisted of a brother, Paul Carey, that played professional baseball for the Baltimore Orioles and interestingly had a short pro career like Jim, a sister Ellen who set 11 school records in Basketball when she was a teen and then went on to become a teacher, and a mother who was shortstop on a state championship team when she was younger. Jim, being the youngest, essentially grew up in the shadow of his family’s success and was instilled with a strong sense of competition at a young age.

"I had an obsession with winning. I couldn't handle losing. I'd get so upset, I'd bite myself." said Carey in an interview with Michael Farber (whom most of this article’s evidence came from).

The extent of how cruel competition in the Carey household could be is best exemplified in this quote from his mother, Beverly, about how his doctor miss diagnosed his strep throat as competitive jitters when Jim was a child.

"He called my other children in and told them they would have to let Jim win because of his age, the doctor said it was a nervous thing, but winning should make it stop. Three weeks later Jim was still doing it. We went back, they did a throat culture, and it turned out Jim had been walking around, playing all his sports, while he had a strep throat. When we found out that was the problem, we immediately stopped being nice to him.".

“Stopped being nice to him.” the words of a caring mother. Now this isn’t to question the parenting of the Carey family because by all accounts they succeeded; two former professional athletes and a school teacher for kids. But maybe the harshness of always having to compete for everything made Carey the all star and pressure cracking goaltender that he came to be.

He was able to rise to prominence fast because he had unabashed drive to be the best. Just read this quote from Chris McDonell’s For the Love of Hockey, where he talks about the Calder Trophy.

“The only individual trophy I ever coveted was the Calder in my rookie year of 1995. I was a lot more disappointed to come runner-up for the Calder than I was pleased to come in third that year for the Vezina” said Carey. “You only get one shot at Rookie of the Year. I wanted to win the Calder so badly that when I received another nomination for the Vezina in 1996, I hardly paid attention to it. I didn’t want to get excited and then feel that letdown again.”

Understandably, he’d manage expectations to control the pain of not winning but maybe that was the issue. Losing that Calder may have been the first crack in Carey’s ego that caused him to fall apart. Think about it; he wins and then his desire to be the best is validated, he loses and suddenly he might not be the great player he thought he was. Sure, it didn’t all fall apart at once- he did go on to win the Vezina the next season- but another poor playoff performance against the offensive Penguins sealed the deal on his career. A few months later Carey found himself on the sad sack Bruins and the end was inevitable.

Now it’s important to mention that Carey’s confidence didn’t come from nothing. In fact he had success all the way to Washington. He led his high school team to three state titles, won the WCHA Rookie of the Year in 1993, and in 95 won both the AHL’s Rookie of the Year and Top Goalie- the same year he was nominated for the exact same awards in the NHL. But too much success and not enough adversity early on may have left him without the tools to cope with failure. Fans went from calling him the net detective to the net defective, the Bruins buried him in the minors, and the media tore him apart.

"Now affectionately known as the Net Defective, the hometown hero wannabe will have to get his act together as the porous Ruins' last line of defense. “wrote the Sports Forecaster Hockey in 1998.

It’s now clear that Carey came to Boston as damaged goods and remained that way.

"When we traded Jim, it wasn't under normal circumstances, we were struggling, and we traded three good, young players for three veterans.” said Dave Poile, former Washington Capitals GM. “You could already sense that the passion, the drive wasn't there in Jim. He was a nice person, but he didn't really integrate with the team. Sure, there are loners in hockey, but it just seemed that Jim didn't really want it. And you have to want it.”

When Carey finished with St. Louis in 1999 his confidence was at an all time low.

"When Jim was with us, you could see his confidence was a lot lower than it had been in Washington,'' said former Blues GM Larry Pleau. “It was like he was putting himself through a wringer. We knew it was a gamble, but we were hoping Jim could find a place in our organization to give him a chance to re-find himself.”

Jim never did re-find himself and by the summer of 99 he announced to his agent that he was done with the game.

Since then, many stories have been written about the obscure 1996 Vezina winning goaltender who went from top of the league to out of the league in a mere five years. He was a good goalie with tremendous talent that went to waste because of major confidence issues, and it’s kind of shocking to think that he’s 38 right now and could still be playing in the NHL today. 

Fans will forever have to wonder what could of been had Carey been able to get over his demons.

Here are some interesting quotes I found in my research.

Capital center Dave Poulin: "Jim will go a long way because of his demeanor, his attitude, his composure, he's controlled in the way that he plays." April 17, 1995 Michael Farber Ace In the Hole.

The Hockey News: "Did Washington's suffocating defensive system make Carey look better than he really is? Did Boston's terrible defense make him look worse than he really is? Carey calmly insists he can make any adjustments necessary. He had better be right, because at the tender age of 23, Carey went into the off-season as the only experienced goalie in the [Boston] system.” The Hockey News 1997-98 Yearbook, p. 75.

Jim Carey: "But what is it about me that made me upset when my mother beat me in around-the-world basketball games when I was 15, but if [New York Ranger defenseman Brian] Leetch beats me on a breakaway, it's like, O.K., let's go, I'll stop the next one? It's like I was bred for hockey. Like this was all meant to be." April 17, 1995 Michael Farber Ace In the Hole.

Michael Farber: “This is premature, but in the great Carey family tradition you are encouraged to get your ice-cream bets down early: Jim Carey wins a Stanley Cup before Jim Carrey wins an Oscar.” April 17, 1995 

Michael Farber Ace In the Hole.

The Sports Forecaster Hockey: "Jim Carey was absolutely awful last year. Since Colorado owns Boston's first-round pick, there's no benefit to finishing low in the standings. If Carey stinks again, they'll make a deal.” '97-'98, p. 49.

Wisconsin coach Jeff Sauer: "I think Jim left school prematurely [after his sophomore year], not so much from a hockey standpoint but from a maturity standpoint. Jim made a lot of money. Maybe things came too easy too quickly.'' David Elfin, Washington Times Staff Writer, Sunday, July 16, 2000; Page A1.

David Poile: "Everybody has to deal with adversity. Olie dealt with plenty before he finally made it. Jim made it, and then he had to deal with adversity. You don't lose the talent that Jim had overnight. I think it comes down to Jim not wanting it badly enough. He didn't fight through the adversity the way we expected.'' David Elfin, Washington Times Staff Writer, Sunday, July 16, 2000; Page A1.

Carey's agent, Brian Lawton: "When Washington traded Jim, he was hurt, he felt he had done a good job for the Caps, that Washington was home and that he was going to be there for a while. He felt the trade was like someone was saying he wasn't good enough.'' David Elfin, Washington Times Staff Writer, Sunday, July 16, 2000; Page A1.

Tuukka Rask, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Marc-Andre Fleury are Potential Vezina Candidates

A shortened season can make for some interesting award winners- as it stands Chris Kunitz is five goals shy of leading the league in goals. The reason is that anyone can catch fire for twelve games and that’ll account for a quarter of their season. Though, like in 95, star players have topped the statistical categories there are still a couple of interesting names in the mix, especially when it comes to goaltending. Tuuka Rask, Sergei Bobrovsky, and Marc-Andre Fleury might make up the most random group of Vezina candidates since 1996 when the final three were Jim Cary, Chris Osgood and Daren Puppa (if you know who Jim Cary and Daren Puppa are give yourself a pat on the back). These guys might be an odd mixture but they deserve the recognition.

Tuuka Rask has been a stellar goaltender since 2010 when he played forty-five games for the Bruins and posted a 1.97 GAA with a .931 save percentage. The only issue was that he played with goaltending great Tim Thomas and had to play second fiddle for a few more years than he would have liked. Tuuka has always been solid but is still a surprise considering there were a lot of questions going into the season about whether he could handle being a number one. Well he’s proved he can this year by posting similar 2010 numbers with a 1.90 GAA and a .928 SAV. Needless to say he is a great goaltender on a great team and is a easy pick for the Vezina.

Now here is where things get interesting. Much like Steve Mason in 2009, Sergei Bobrovsky has played incredible for the Blue Jackets and if he brings them to the playoffs he deserves serious consideration, nay, he downright deserves the Vezina Trophy. Last night Sergei single handily stole Columbus a point in a hard fought game against the powerhouse Vancouver Canucks who doubled Columbus’s shot total, proving that he can dominate even against the best. He has next to no room to make a mistake with the Blue Jackets as they are the lowest scoring team in the NHL, and if that’s not enough he has a sparkling .930 SAV and a 2.06 GAA to go along with his gigantic saves. No one saw this coming and his play is admirable.

To say a first overall pick being nominated for an award is a surprise might sound absurd but not too many saw Marc-Andre Fleury as an elite goaltender after his porous playoff performance against the New Jersey Devils. Yet, the Sorel Quebec native has rebounded quite nicely with a .918 save percentage and 2.24 GAA. He leads the league in wins with eighteen which is even more impressive when you take into consideration he’s only played in twenty-four games. To put it into better perspective if he kept at that pace and played seventy-two games he’d set the NHL record for wins in a season with fifty-four. Fleury just needs to bring his save percentage up and he’ll be a shoe in for the Vezina.

There are still enough games left in the season to let some other stars emerge such as Carey Price, or Niklas Backstrom but these three have stood out for nearly three quarters of the season and deserve a look at for their respective accomplishments. No one saw these guy coming and that's what makes their seasons even more astounding. Hopefully they get the appreciation and recognition from the league that they deserve.

Can Jay Feaster Move Iginla and Kiprusoff

The Calgary Flames are at a crucial point as the trade deadline approaches. They have two top players at the end of their careers, Jarome Iginla and Miikka Kiprusoff, that could play a significant role in their franchise's rebuild. The issue is whether Flames GM Jay Feaster is the guy to make the trade.

Now there is no knowing what kind of pressure Jay Feaster is getting behind the scenes from ownership and what role they have played in past decisions, but that still doesn’t excuse him from his obligation as a GM to make Calgary a Stanley Cup Contender (which he has not done).

 Feaster has had a rough ride with the Flames this season, highlighted by the O’Reilly blunder where he almost handed Columbus a top 6 forward and Colorado some draft picks for nothing. But it’s not just this year that he’s had trouble. He’s missed the playoffs every year of his brief tenure and has gone back to the well on former Flames Mike Cammalleri and Alex Tanguay instead of rebuilding with young talent. To cap it all off he pushed off the Iginla and Kiprusoff trade off by a year and diminished their trade value.

Still, there is hope. Feaster once turned a terrible franchise around to a Stanley Cup Champion (as he did with Tampa) and there's no reason why he can't do it again. He may be under much scrutiny now but with the right luck he could land the next franchise player for the Flames, if not a top six player.

Flames fans are hoping that this trade isn’t like the Rick Nash situation (where Columbus got the short end of the stick) and more like the Brenden Morrow trade where Dallas attained a top defensive prospect. If it isn't then Feaster might be looking for work elsewhere. Needless to say this trade deadline is going to be a significant one for Jay Feaster and the Calgary Flames.