I was explaining to Antero Niittymaki the brief and the long history of February goalie controversies in Flyerdom, dating back to any guy in net AFTER Ron Hextall.

And I mentioned Niitts was part of it last season, as well, with Marty Biron.

"So what's different?" Niittymaki replied.

He thinks we're making too much about this No. 1 goalie thing. Biron has lost his job as the starter.

Now John Stevens is not one to throw his players under the bus. Never has, never will. But we'd like Stevens to be honest here and admit Biron is not playing well.

Just like we'd like him to be honest and say the real reason why Ossi Vaananen got a combined 9 minutes over 2 games on the ice this past weekend was because his play has been awful.

But Stevens' won't.

So, off we go to goalie coach Reggie Lemelin who says what the coach should have said. Marty "needs to earn his way back" to being No. 1.

Biron's confidence is shaky. Just the way he handled the interviews today, he came off that way. But he was candid. Everyone was candid. Except Stevens.

I think this is Niitty's job to lose ... like he did last year in late February after supplanting Biron for about five weeks.

Here's my story on CSNPhilly.com:

Click Here

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