OH1FlyersFan

Does anyone think Reese is a good goaltending coach? I'm asking seriously. In the bolded part below, he's been coaching Mason to stay further back into his net, making him smaller. He may have made the same adjustments with Bryz and Bob, and look how those turned out.

Now you've got me scared to death. That would be another disaster of bryztastic proportions. I just watched the Carolina game and really liked how Mason looked in the last 2:30 when the Flyers were playing 4 on 6. He looked really good. Calm, not panicked, made some really good point blank saves. I'm thinking leave the kid pretty much alone and let him do his thing. Just work on rebuilding his confidence.

@murraycraven

@OH1FlyersFan

How about a darkhorse name...Rochflyer? This one seems angry and Rochflyer was one angry dude.

True. And my Kuato guess may be off because he too was able to form a sentence in a somewhat coherent manner. Maybe Murraycraven is right - this could be old Buffalo Rick......ha.

-- Oh no... for the older guys on here: is Rick back? I was always suspect about the picture of two dudes w/out shirts giving the thumbs up :blink:

Ha. But my money was on Kuato......

you really think mason win us a cup with a depleted defense

No. But at the rate our Russian friend is going, I think Mason will get us to the Cup before Bryz does. I hope you don't think that even if we got to the Cup that Bryz would win it for us. Even with a healthy, and decent, defense in front of him.

um.. HELLO!!!! ???? we scored 0 goals!!! ZERO!!! ZED! Nada. zip zilch. NONE goals scored!!

and all you dip shizz wanna do is complain about the goalie. only in philly.

Yes. I've scheduled tomorrow for complaining about the offense. And then on Saturday from 2:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. I'll be complaining about the defense. I've set aside all day on Sunday to complain about coaching and management.

I say sit Bryz for the rest of the season and play Mason. I agree with Doom - everybody looked better when he was in goal. Totally different vibe and energy level was much higher.

ain't that the truth! Damn. And this year - this stupid, lockout meaningless year - it's been even worse than normal. I didn't think that was possible. Has any team ever lost its entire D for long stretches during a season? We've got Kimmo still the lineup, that's it. And he's been playing hurt (they say) for about 4 years now. Besides him everybody else is out. That's just - I don't know what that is. A curse. Gotta be.

OTOH to see Lauridsen step up and jump right in, to watch Gus take the next step in confidence and calmness...it's been great to see.

Every year I think this is the year we get a break from the injury bug - after so many years having been bit bad. We deserve that break, by God! But it never fails and just when you don't think it can get any worse, it does. Not to be overly pessimistice, the good news is that our youngs guys are getting some good experience, like you said. But being the paranoid Flyers fan that I am, now I'm expecting all these young guys on defense to have that sophomore slump that seems to be hitting most of our youngs guys on offense this year after the pretty good performances they put in last season. Ha!

Thanks, Howie! What a HUMONGOUS relief. Awesome news. And Doom, that's good advice. From now on, I'm adding at least an extra 30 minutes!

Greetings:

So, on back-to-back nights we take out MTL and NYR. And we do with the likes of Manning and Rosehill (tonight's 3rd star) and Mason playing like he deserved the 51 million contract. They have energy and Kimmo plays like he is 10 years younger. Maybe the injuries and the early season ebbs and flows are leading to a new core that has some energy and togetherness. I suspect Mez is probably done. But we may have Gus or Manning or Lauridsen. So, even if this season is "lost" it may have some long-term payoffs.

Howie

Hey Howie. Thanks for that post! You know what kills me are those two games we lost just previous to these two wins - especially the loss to the Jets, who had lost something like 5 in a row before their win against us. Same thing with Ottawa - they had lost five in a row, too, before beating us on April 11. It sure would have been nice to have snagged four points from those struggling teams earlier in the month.

Ok, so I dvr'd the game tonight and of course the recording cut off with like 8 minutes left in the game - just when they cut to commercial because apparently Mason was being pulled after being attended to on ice. I saw Bryz was suiting up to come in to replace him which scared the bejeezus out of me.

I never got to see or hear what exactly happened to Mason. Needless to say, I'm freaking out. Mason looked darn good tonight. Almost like a goalie that finally could play some competitve hockey and make a positive contribution to this team. It would be a tragedy of Hindenburg-esque proportions if he's now down and out with some crazy injury.

It would be an epic tragedy, a tragedy for the ages, the way he's been playing - I know this sounds like hyperbole, but I'm so desparate for a halfway decent goalie that this potential disaster can't be understated. Of course, it's not entirely unexpected, as this team, this franchise has been the subject of some sort of horrendous curse for the last 35 years. Somebody please give me some good news!!!!

How about this...kill this *****g thread....it's 2 pages past it's usefulness.

Hey! Haha. As the originator of this thread......I'd actually be fine with it because it's devolved into an almost Kuato-esque exercise in futility.

no goalie will make /offense/defense better, it's the personal and coaching, this team cant score goals because it's flat out coaching and personal problem.

you are ignoring the facts that this team had bigger issues than the goalie right now.

Couldn't disagree more. From a morale and psychological perspective, a goalie most certainly can make a team better. As an aside, some goalies can even add a little bit of offense by moving the puck - and a few can even score a goal here and there. It would be ignorant to discount the impact those two aspects of the game can have on performance - both individual and the team.

I don't argue that the offense needs to do a better job scoring goals, but at least the offense has demonstrated it can. Bryz has NEVER demonstrated to me that, since he's been on this team, he is a reliable, consistent, and above-average goaltender capable of being "the man." That is the bigger issue. That is what needs to be fixed. If you can't see that, then you need to spend a little more time watching the game. This is pretty basic stuff.

I would be okay with Timo, Coby, Gross, Gus, Mesz, and Schenn on the back end.

My only fear is recurrent injuries. Timo is aging and is/could become more injury-prone. Bourdon has had his bell rung. Hopefully he shakes it off and doesn't have recurrent concussion issues. But he's the one I'm most worried about. Mesz has had this nagging shoulder situation - something that could be hard to fully recover from - I fear his better days may be behind him. Schenn seems durable enough and thankfully has avoided problems so far.

I would be ok with this group too if perfectly healthy, but there's a huge risk here with this group, in my opinion.

I still believe in Couturier. If he was pushing mid-twenties, I'd be a lot more concerned. Give the kid another season, maybe two. He's got a lot of growing up to do.

osgood wasnt special like bryz

And by "special", you mean like touched in the head, short bus kind of special? Because that's about the only special I've seen in Bryz since he started here.

I liked his quickness. I liked the fact he didn't duck in the face of hard shots fired at his head. I liked the way he handled the puck. I liked how spry and energetic he looked out there compared to Bryz.

I say start him the rest of the season and see what he can do.

Too bad about the only goal. This team is snakebit this season so such a fluke thing didn't surprise me at all. Of course such a thing would happen to this team to cause them to lose this game, handing the season's only shutout win to Buffalo's backup goalie. Of course!

Hard to blame Mason for that, though. If any blame is to be handed out this game, I blame the offense which apparently decided to take the day off.

Great, we created the next Brodeur then traded him to a division rival to haunt us for the next dozen years.

Now I'm torn. I really want to see Bob succeed and do well because I genuinely like him. That said, I also want to see him fail miserably because he will become a thorn in our side for the next 20 years - just like you say. He has the potential to be our next Brodeur. And having said that, part of me thinks that might not be a bad thing either - because it will be a constant reminder to this organization what it gave up and the collosal mistake it made.

No surprise to me - it was easy to see his speed and brains would lead to success in the NHL. All he needed was regular work with normal rest in between - he needed to be a starting goalie. Instead Lavy overplayed the hell out of him till Bob was beat, then that spring and in the POs kept yanking him on and off the bench, which is how Lavy dealt with him from then on - till finally it was "obvious" that Bob must be a bust.

I feel like punching Lavy right in the face every time I think how he screwed with Bob. I know that sounds stupid but Bobrovsky was poised to grow with the team, the [supposedly] new, young direction Homer was going. We really had a shot at BUILDING A TEAM from within for once, with the hardest position to fill finally filled with somebody young and talented.

Then to top it off he's dealt for next-to-nothing on the pretense that "he's too valuable" to sit behind Bryzgalov...when the truth was exactly that except for different a reason. They had it backward - overvaluing Bryzgalov and blinding themselves to Bobrovsky's value. They were right (in a way) and didn't even know it: Bob is too valuable to sit behind Brzygalov.

This is exactly right. Totally agree. Well said!!!

What the heck!? Even the Phantoms can't catch a break as the bizarre injury parade continues. I hate seeing this kind of stuff. Poor kid. But man he must be tough.

If I believed in such things, I might think we REALLY were under some sort of curse.......like not winning the Cup in over 30 years. Oh, wait......

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/see-gruesome-bloody-skate-left-behind-eric-wellwood-144821734--nhl.html;_ylt=AlFzoNTbwZIsScil9h2A3YZ7vLYF;_ylu=X3oDMTN1ZW9pNWNvBG1pdANGRUFUVVJFRCBNZWdhdHJvbiBOSEwEcGtnAzdiMWNiMzQ3LWQyNTMtM2M0Zi1hMmNlLTE0ZTlhM2YzZmEzNQRwb3MDNQRzZWMDbWVnYXRyb24EdmVyAzdjMzIxYWIwLWEwNWMtMTFlMi05YzNmLTEwNzg1ODUwOWEyYw--;_ylg=X3oDMTFoYWo1YzR1BGludGwDdXMEbGFuZwNlbi11cwRwc3RhaWQDBHBzdGNhdANuaGwEcHQDc2VjdGlvbnM-;_ylv=3

--- let the guy practice w/ the squad first... although, with this defense, I am not sure it will help anyway. Look, I agree that Bryz played well (not great) the first half of the season but do you think he played to the level of his ridiculous contract?

I know this is incredibly unscientific, but I went back to look at the stats. If you break the season "in half" by months, you get something like this: January and February (1st half), March and April (2nd half). Not exactly even, but bear with me. Total games played in Jan and Feb was 22. Total games played in Mar and Apr so far is 15. All told, 37 games played. Again, not really half, but close. Kinda. I know I'm taking some liberties in my definition of half.

Now look at the stats for these "halves":

The offense scored 14 goals in January over 7 games played and 50 goals in February over 15 games played. That's a total of 64 goals over 22 games in the first "half" of the season. Not bad.

Now for the second "half". The offense scored 30 goals in March over 13 games and has scored 10 goals so far in April in just 2 games. This is a total of 40 goals scored in 15 games -- 7 fewer games than the first "half". And probably on pace for more than what was scored in the first "half" when we hit 22 games in my version of the second half.

What this tells me about the offense is that it wasn't half bad.....both in the first half of the season and the second. It could have been a lot better, but the two halves were, or will be, comparable with the second half being slightly better.

Now look at the goaltending stats for my halves: Bryz played 20 games in January and February, 6 games and 14 games, respectively. His GAA was 2.19 over 6 games in January and 2.92 over 14 games in February. His save % was .924 and .892, respectively. He let in a total of 13 goals in Janaury and 38 goals in February. As an aside, Bouch played 3 games in February and psoted a .898 save % and a 2.48 GAA.

For the second half of Bryz's season (March and April), he's played 15 games, 13 in March and 2 in April. His GAA was 2.99 in March and 3.00 in April. His save % was .897 and .867 in April. He let in 38 goals in March and has let in 6 so far in April.

While these numbers demonstrate that his play hasn't been improving, it hasn't really tanked either. His goals against, on a monthly basis has been getting worse, so his play was better the first half of the season - but not to any great degree. He did let in more goals in the first half than so far in the second half, but we have played 7 fewer games to date. His save percentage has been high, then low, crept up, and then fallen again.

So, he's been pretty consistently mediocre. The offense did give him 64 goals too in the first "half" of the season. Did he carry the team or did those 64 goals carry him? I'm not sure this suggests to me that he played so well that he carried the team in the first half of the season. It definitely demonstrates that he isn't playing up to the level of his contract and what was expected.

Last night's game was a perfect microcosm of Bryz's problems. He can't stop a one on one shot about 80 % of the time and loses focus during the game at the worst possible moments. .824 save percentage coming off of 2 days of rest...and only faced what, 18 shots? I wouldn't mind being worn down like that at work.......

I could have sworn I saw him duck on a long range shot that went in last night.

EDIT: My apologies to Bertmega. I was working my way down the thread and just saw the video he posted. I was thinking of that - it was the Montreal game. It was Gallagher's goal. I remember thinking at the time that even the Montreal guys looked surprised that shot went in. Helps when the goaltender recoils in horror from it, though.

I understand what you're getting at, but buying it is just as honest... it's just not sustainable because of the constant juggling and turnover.

I was thinking about the best word to use when I wrote that post - maybe "honest" isn't it. Perhaps "pure" would be more accurate.

I always want the Flyers to win. Hate to see them lose. Especially living here in Columbus when I have to hear it from the fans of the lowly Columbus Bluejackets. That said, I totally understand why the Flyers losing would be a good thing.....strategically.