Name: The Flyers’ Goaltending Is Consistently Awful
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The Flyers’ Goaltending Is Consistently Awful

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Twenty-four years ago, the Philadelphia Flyers with a talented roster of — including future Hall of Famer Eric Lindros at center and 50-goal scorer John LeClair at left wing. The oddsmakers to beat the , faster Detroit Red Wings for the Cup … until the series actually began, that is.Game 1 starting goalie Ron Hextall gave up four goals, including by Steve Yzerman from approximately 60 feet away. Hextall was by Garth Snow, who promptly let in four of his own (including from over 45 feet out). After for the rest of the series, Philly proceeded to allow eight more goals over the next two games en route to being swept by Detroit. The Flyers’ .861 save percentage was 70 percent worse than average, the second-worst goaltending performance in Cup Final history. Thirteen years later, history repeated itself: When the Flyers lost to the Chicago Blackhawks in 2010 with a save percentage 45 percent worse than league average, the of Michael Leighton and Brian Boucher for the 11th-worst goaltending performance by a team in the Final.Even in the best of times, such carousels of struggling goalies are basically the natural state of things in Philadelphia. The franchise has received nothing if not inconsistent — or outright horrible — goaltending performances in recent decades, seldom sticking with the same answer in net for more than a few seasons before moving on to the next would-be savior. This year’s version — 22-year-old Carter Hart — and perhaps the most disappointing one yet. Billed as a in preseason, all Hart has done so far in 2021 is produce . For a team with the Flyers’ netminding history, it may be disappointing — but again, it’s not surprising.Ironically, Philly’s glory years were fueled by goaltending. Hall of Fame backstop Bernie Parent became the to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP in back-to-back years with a pair of totally dominating campaigns in 1974 and 1975 — the Flyers’ only two Stanley Cup-winning seasons.Parent’s save percentage was during those regular seasons, and he played 141 out of a possible 158 games for the Flyers in goal. The result was the second-most valuable pair of consecutive goaltending seasons in the NHL since (at least) 1943 according to , with Philly leading the league in value between the pipes in 1975 and finishing second in 1974. And Parent continued to be an absolute brick wall in the playoffs, where his save percentage was 24 percent better than average during those Cup runs. Although the were known for their unprecedented mix of , they would not have won those championships without Parent’s excellence in net.related:The NHL Playoff Races To Watch Down The StretchPhilly’s goaltending tradition initially seemed like it would outlast Parent’s time with the club. The Flyers continued to rank among the league’s top 10 in goaltending value under his successors, particularly once Swedish phenom Pelle Lindbergh arrived in the early 1980s. Lindbergh had backstopped his country to the bronze medal at the 1980 Olympics — holding the gold-medalist U.S. team to a tie — and he quickly established himself as one of the best goalies in the NHL as well. He ranked fourth in goaltending GAR in 1983 and first in 1985, the year he and led Philly . Tragically, Lindbergh less than a year later, but backup Bob Froese and delivered a great season of his own, finishing despite the difficult circumstances. The next year, Philly elevated a rookie Hextall to the starting job, and he produced one of the best seasons ever by a freshman goalie — as well as the for playoff MVP (despite the Flyers to Wayne Gretzky’s Oilers in seven games).Hextall never really repeated the highs of his rookie season, however, and by the 1990s, the Flyers had begun to transform from a franchise built on goaltending to one held back by it. Going back to Hextall and Snow’s meltdown in 1997, Philadelphia has gotten the league’s fifth-most GAR per season from its skaters … but the sixth-fewest GAR per season from its goaltenders. Only once has the team stuck with the same primary regular-season goalie for more than three consecutive seasons — Steve Mason, from 2014 through 2017 — and it’s had a different primary goalie in the playoffs than the regular season seven times in 18 postseason appearances.Regular SeasonPlayoffsYearTop GoalieGA%-Adj. GARTm RkTop GoalieGA%-Adj. GAR1997R. Hextall1080.419G. Snow132-5.11998R. Hextall959.712S. Burke168-5.01999J. Vanbiesbrouck1061.724J. Vanbiesbrouck723.62000J. Vanbiesbrouck997.110B. Boucher1022.12001R. Čechmánek8127.614R. Čechmánek124-1.92002R. Čechmánek8517.89R. Čechmánek782.22003R. Čechmánek8224.67R. Čechmánek112-1.02004R. Esche958.314R. Esche1060.62006A. Niittymäki1060.621R. Esche133-2.72007A. Niittymäki112-5.327———2008M. Biron9022.28M. Biron112-1.52009M. Biron9316.95M. Biron951.52010B. Boucher113-3.321M. Leighton914.02011S. Bobrovsky989.614B. Boucher115-0.82012I. Bryzgalov1052.224I. Bryzgalov139-6.72013I. Bryzgalov114-8.521———2014S. Mason9613.619S. Mason692.82015S. Mason8523.318———2016S. Mason9711.76M. Neuvirth235.32017S. Mason1061.026———2018B. Elliott1042.824B. Elliott164-3.32019C. Hart929.829———2020C. Hart9610.216C. Hart904.32021C. Hart142-33.431———The Flyers have a few recurring archetypes in net. One is like early 2000s starter Roman Čechmánek, who played great in the regular season — finishing over his three-season stint as Philly’s primary goalie — but repeatedly struggled during the playoffs and was eventually traded. Another type is the journeyman, such as Boucher, Leighton, Michal Neuvirth or even Hart’s current backup, Brian Elliott, who is in 14 NHL seasons. This penchant for unremarkable veterans is associated with the Flyers’ tendency not to use cap space on goaltending; Philadelphia at the position this season and hasn’t ranked any higher than 26th .Normally, this would be considered a good strategy. After all, goalies are , and the Flyers by expensive flops in net before. Spending less on volatile netminders frees up more money for skaters, who can be more stable investments. But sometimes, you also get what you pay for — and the Flyers have ranked better than 14th in goaltending GAR just once since 2009.Related:Everything That Could Go Wrong For The Buffalo Sabres Has Gone WrongHart seemed like the solution to all of these problems. After a as a 20-year-old in 2019, he held up his save percentage under an increased workload in 2020, and saved his best performance for the playoff bubble, backstopping Philly as it and pushed the New York Islanders to Game 7 in the . Hart’s .926 save percentage was the second-best in franchise playoff history for a goalie playing at least 10 games. There were plenty of reasons to think Hart would build on that performance and emerge as one of the league’s best goalies in his third NHL campaign.Of course, that didn’t happen. Among goalies who have appeared in at least 20 games this season, Hart ranks dead last in , , and . Philadelphia ranks last in goaltending GAR for the first time in franchise history, and Hart’s GAR per 82 games (-33.4) is on pace to give him the fourth-worst season by an NHL goalie since 1943. To call this season a disaster is an understatement, and the sieve-like netminding has helped drag Philadelphia’s once-promising off a cliff as the season has progressed:But while poor technique on save attempts and a have certainly cost Hart loads of makeable saves, it’s not all the young netminder’s fault. Philadelphia’s defense has also been awful, ranking 30th in GAR and frequently giving up . And the team’s offense, which was supposed to be a strength after last year, has been (14th) in 2021. Just like many of Hart’s predecessors in the Flyers’ net — from the 1997 Finals on down the line — he hasn’t gotten much help from the players around him. It’s worth noting that, playing behind the same defense, Elliott well-below-average statistics, even if his numbers aren’t quite as historically dreadful as Hart’s.But that’s just the thing — the expectation is that an elite young goaltender can overcome some of the shortcomings around him, rather than be dragged down by them just the same as a 35-year-old journeyman. In falling short of that standard this season, Hart has at least tentatively added his name to the long list of letdowns in Philadelphia’s net. Perhaps a to step back and reassess his game, followed by a against the Islanders in his return (despite the loss), can help restore Hart’s form and confidence down the stretch, even if the Flyers are their playoff hopes. For now, though, it’s yet another case of gruesome goaltending for a franchise that can never seem to find the right solution between the pipes.Neil Paine is a senior writer for FiveThirtyEight.Filed underYou are now subscribed!Email AddressSign me up

Twenty-four years ago, the Philadelphia Flyers with a talented roster of — including future Hall of Famer Eric Lindros at center and 50-goal scorer John LeClair at left wing. The oddsmakers to beat the , faster Detroit Red Wings for the Cup … until the series actually began, that is.Game 1 starting goalie Ron Hextall gave up four goals, including by Steve Yzerman from approximately 60 feet away. Hextall was by Garth Snow, who promptly let in four of his own (including from over 45 feet out). After for the rest of the series, Philly proceeded to allow eight more goals over the next two games...

The Flyers’ Goaltending Is Consistently Awful

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