To All the Boosh Haters...

2.33 GAA, .917 SV%, 7-1-1 in last nine starts.

2.57 GAA, .915 SV%, 4-3-2 in last nine starts.

Without looking them up, whose stats are Brian Boucher's and whose are Sergei Bobrovsky's?

The first set of stats belong to the much maligned Boucher and the second to the often heralded Bobrovsky. But even after seeing the stats and watching him play, many still doubt the fact that Boosh can be a legitimate starting goaltender for the Flyers.

Boosh has better GAA (goals against average) than all of the following netminders: Jimmy Howard (DET), Carey Price (MTL), Jonas Hiller (ANA), Roberto Luongo (VAN), Cam Ward (CAR), Heinrik Lundqvist (NYR), Miikka Kiprusoff (CGY), Kari Lehtonen (DAL), Jaroslav Halak (STL), Thomas Vokoun (FLA), Corey Crawford (CHI), Anders Lindback (NSH), Antero Niittymaki (SJS), Michal Neuvirth (WAS), Niklas Backstrom (MIN), Ilya Bryzgalov (PHX), Dwyane Roloson (NYI), J.S. Giguere (TOR), Pascal Leclaire (OTT) and Johan Hedberg (NJD).

It is well known that coach Peter Laviolette plays the hot players and particularly the hot goalie. He did it last year when the recently waived Michael Leighton got on a streak and again last season when Boucher got hot. In the Carolina Hurricanes' 2005 Stanley Cup Championship season, Martin Gerber started 60 games for Laviolette's team. But who won the Con Smythe trophy that year? A man who played only 28 games for the Canes and began the season in the AHL--Cam Ward.

Look back to last season's Stanley Cup Champions, the Chicago Blackhawks. Their starting goaltender is no longer with the team and is now the backup to Antero Niittymaki in San Jose, Antti Niemi. Niemi got hot last year and rode the streak all the way to a Cup.

It doesn't matter who your goaltender is or what he has done before, as long as he is playing well now and during the playoffs, that's all that matters. Rarely in any other sport does the phrase "What have you done for me lately?" ring as true as it does with NHL goalies.

Many forget that Bobrovsky has only played a maximum of 35 games in one season in his hockey career. He's already at 26 games this season and fatigue may be setting in. So, for now, Brian Boucher is the Flyers' starting goaltender and if he continues to play well, and Laviolette is still the coach, plan on seeing Boosh between the pipes until further notice.

Leights Out & Lappy Feeling Wacky

Leights Out
Well what many had suspected has been confirmed.

When Paul Holmgren and Peter Laviolette gave the so-called prognosis on Michael Leighton of "He'll be out until Thursday," nearly every Flyers beat writer as well as me believed there was more to this injury that the Flyers originally led on.

It's nearly the same situation with how the Flyers disclosed the Ray Emery. Here's an article from Broad Street Hockey comparing the two.

They say Leighton is out a month, but it's up for debate as to how long that month ends up being. So right now, the Flyers goaltenders are Brian Boucher and Sergei Bobrovsky with Johan Backlund's recovery from offseason surgery just about over. Backlund may start one of the Flyers' preseason games this weekend.

So with the limited golies on the Flyers roster, should they pursue another man between the pipes? Well considering the Flyers cap situation and the lack of inexpensive goalies on the market, that's really not an option. Any netminder available (Manny Legace and José Théodore are a few names that pop up) will either be too expensive or too, well, crappy.

So by the time the season starts, the Flyers goalie situation should go like this: Boucher the starter, Backlund the backup and Bobrovsky starter with the Phantoms.

Obviously there will be people who want Bobrovsky to be the starter with the big club. But with the incredible amount of buzz surrounding Bobrovsky, the Flyers would be crazy to start him in the pros this early. He has played a total of five periods in an NHL-sized rink and has never played more than 40 games in a season. If the Flyers want Bobrovsky to be as good as they think he's going to be, they're going to give him all the work he needs down in the AHL for a season.

Lappy Feeling Wacky 
And then there's the Laperriere injury.

What can you really say, the guy had concussion symptoms and wanted to play in the Finals so bad that he decided to play through them to help his team win.

It's rarely understated how important Laperriere is to the Flyers penalty kill, but this does make a little more room for other players to make the Flyers roster.

Holmgren and Laviolette won't say it but this probably means Guerin will most definitely be on the team and Darroll Powe will take Laperriere's spot on the 4th line and more importantly, on the penalty kill.

I just hope this isn't a Keith Primeau-type situation, but we'll have to wait to find out.

Predictions and "Grade-ictions" Series

Brian Boucher

2009/2010 Regular season stats: 33GP, 9W, .899 SV%, 2.76 GAA
2010 Playoff stats: 12GP, 6W, .909 SV%, 2.47 GAA
Grade: B+

Boucher was brought back to Philadelphia for his second go around with the team to be the back-up to Ray Emery. Yea, that's right. You may have forgotten it, but Razor Ray was once the starting goalie for this team. Well, Emery went down with what now looks like a career-ending injury and Boosh was the one who came in to replace him.

When Boucher took over for Emery, the Flyers were in the midst of a 3-13-1 losing stretch. On the nights in which the offense scored, the goalies were sieves. On the nights in which the netminders would let up one goal, the offense would put up a goose egg. Nothing seemed to work for the team, and when Boosh went down with a finger injury, the Flyers were left searching for answers.

Well they got their answer (and no, it wasn't Allen Iverson). It was Michael Leighton. But then he went down with an injury and Boucher had to come back into the lineup and played the Flyers right into the playoffs on the regular season's final game. He then clearly outplayed future hall-of-famer Marty Brodeur in the conference quarterfinals en route to a 4-1 series win and everything looked good for Philadelphia.

But the semifinals series with Boston was a different story. The Flyers went down three games to none and were on the verge of extinction when in game four, Boucher went down with a double knee injury. And had Michael Leighton not come off of injury the day before game four, the Flyers most likely wouldn't have made sports history.

All-in-all it was kind of tough to grade Boosh. I pretty much added his regular season and his series against the Devils together and divided it by two. I think Boucher will get a number of starts this season, especially if Leighton struggles...if he's even on the Flyers.

2010/2011 Predictions: 20GP, 8W, .914 SV%, 2.54 GAA