Between now and next spring, there will be hundreds of articles and tens of thousands of words written about the Flyers chances of making a deep run in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Inevitably, most of the articles will focus on the one word that really matters: goaltending. The Chris Pronger trade and continued maturation of the club's nucleus won't mean a thing if the team doesn't get the type of goaltending needed to prevail in must-win games.

I will reserve judgment of the Ray Emery signing until the goaltender has had a fair chance to show if he can consistently perform in the net and avoid creating off-ice distractions for the organization. But I will say this as training camp approaches: Paul Holmgren is one bold general manager.

Salary cap issues notwithstanding, the decision to hand the keys over to Emery (no pun intended) in a win-now season - the club would not have paid a king's ransom to get Chris Pronger if it wasn't swing for the fences this season - take some major Brunswick bowling equipment. To do it with Brian Boucher and perhaps Johan Backlund as the only in-house alternatives would cause many a sleepless night for a GM who did not have 100% faith in his scouting staff and his gut instincts.

I don't think it's hyperbole to say that the 2009-10 season will be the pivotal year in determining Paul Holmgren's legacy as the Flyers' general manager. If the team takes a step backwards or if Emery fails to deliver, all of the credit built up by the Eastern Conference Finals run of 2007-08 will be replaced by calls for Homer's head. John Stevens' future as Flyers coach is also riding (again, no pun intended) on the performance of Emery.

My own gut feeling on Emery is that his signing either going to be a smashing success or an unmitigated disaster with little ground in the middle. For all of natural athleticism and his role in backstopping the Senators to the Finals in 2007, Emery has never been known for his consistency. It's easy to forget that he's still just 26 and that his disastrous 2007-08 season was affected by a wrist injury from which he's now fully recovered.

In signing Emery, Holmgren pointed to the goaltender's strength in scrums around the crease. With defensemen nowadays having less leeway in clearing the porch or tying up forwards in front of the net, goalies get jostled and bumped more frequently with inconsistent enforcement of interference-with-the-goaltender penalties. Sometimes the most insignificant of contact -- or worse, contact the goalie initiates and/or embellishes -- will get called. Other times, an opposing player will feel the slightest bump from a defender and plow into the goalie with no call being made. Emery definitely has it over Martin Biron in the physical strength and toughness department. While Emery's puckhandling won't make Flyers fans forget Ron Hextall, it won't remind anyone of Dominic Roussel -- or Biron -- either. On the flip side, you always knew that if Biron got beaten, it wouldn't be because he "couldn't get motivated" (as Emery infamously described his on-ice problems two seasons ago). Emery now has every reason in the world to be motivated. So far he's said all the right things. Now he just has do them.


*****

The recent retirement of Roman Cechmanek is a good opportunity to revisit the debate over where Cechmanek stands in the pantheon of Flyers' goaltenders. Statistically, he was among the top Flyers goaltenders ever -- at least during the regular season -- over the course of his three seasons in Philadelphia. However, it was his playoff meltdowns (tinged by the utter lack of goal support he received in two playoff defeats by Ottawa) that people remember.

I have never bought the argument that Cechmanek's numbers were the product of an excellent team defense. That may have partially been the case in his third season -- in which he nevertheless won his second Bobby Clarke Trophy as team MVP. The Ken Hitchcock-coached team was solid in its own end of the ice. But that certainly wasn't the case in Cechmanek's first season. Bill Barber's team didn't do Cechmanek many favors in the backchecking department but he nevertheless was Vezina runner-up and even received some Hart Trophy consideration. As unorthodox and flaky as he was, Cechmanek was a good goaltender. He could look horrendous at times and he never looked graceful but he could also carry the club to wins in games they didn't deserve to win. People also forget that outdueled Ed Belfour head-to-head in the 2003 playoffs, that he never got more than two goals of support in any single game of the two series the club lost to the Senators and that all three of the games he won against Ottawa in the 2002 and 2003 matchups were by shutout.

Apart from his willingness to use his mask to intentionally head the puck to safety, my lasting image of Cechmanek will be of him coming out after games his first two seasons and attempting to speak with the media. His English was hard to understand and he spoke in a low voice, making it hard to hear him. But he tried to answer questions and usually did so with a smile on his face. Nevertheless, some of the writers treated him rudely. When he talked, they would roll their eyes and look at each other -- as though Cechmanek couldn't see them doing it. During his third and final season with the team, he did postgame interviews only sporadically. Whether that was largely of his own doing or because some of the more influential writers told the Flyers' staff not to bother, I don't know -- I wasn't in the loop about those sorts of things back then.

But I do know this. Players who are media-friendly and quotable often get more breaks in the coverage they receive. Mistakes get mentioned, of course, but the coverage often takes on a more positive tone. To name one obvious case apart from Cechmanek and Joni Pitkanen, Steve Downie was a guy for whom media sessions were painful to behold. If he had been more engaging with the press -- it was mutual torture to interview him, because he hated it and would give you nothing to use, half-mumbling, half-whispering his answers without making eye contact -- I think he may have been cut more slack. It doesn't matter when a player is a star. Jeff Carter, for instance, is a real tough interview who clearly dislikes the interaction with the press. Nevertheless, it's just something the media and Carter himself have to deal with.

Over in Europe, there are a lot of players who aren't particularly media savvy. Several of my Swedish, Finnish and Czech aquaintances -- including some who are affiliated with teams -- have told me that many players over there dislike talking to members of the home press, believing that they don't know the game and putting little time or effort into it. I never thought that was the case with Cechmanek. For all of his eccentricities, he at least tried to communicate.

He also won five consecutive Czech championships with Vsetin before he came to the NHL. Yes, there's a huge difference between that and having success in the Stanley Cup playoffs. But you can't tell me that Cechmanek wasn't capable of getting deep in the NHL playoffs if he had the right team around him -- not when Robert Esche and Brian Boucher got the club within a game of the Stanley Cup Finals. Cechmanek came unglued when the season was on the line, but everything else around him had broken apart, too.

*****

There's no such thing as having too much goaltending depth in the system. It wasn't all that long ago that the Flyers briefly had a young Brian Boucher (first round pick in 1995), Jean-Marc Pelletier (second round -- but first Flyers pick -- in 1997), Antero Niittymaki (6th round pick in 1998, won SM-Liiga rookie of the year and league championship in 1999-2000) and Maxime Ouellet (first round pick in 1999) in the system simultaneously. At one time or another, all four goaltenders were considered fine NHL prospects.

The fact that none have made a sustained NHL impact -- and neither Pelletier nor Ouellet proved even to be NHL backup material -- underscores just how difficult it is to project goaltenders. Goalies mature later than position players, in part because the position is every bit as much about mental focus as it physical skill. That's why a convincing argument can be made that Ray Emery still has the potential to put it all together as an NHL goaltender. He'd hardly be the first goalie who needed until his mid-20s (or later) to take his game to the next level. Of course, an equally convincing argument (based on all direct evidence to date) can be made that he's a guy who just doesn't "get it".

In the cases of Johan Hedberg (9th round, 1994) and Roman Malek (5th round, 2001), the players' NHL chances were hurt by agents who overstimated their bargaining power with the Flyers after having European success. Hedberg at least showed enough over the course of several minor league seasons to stick in the NHL as a serviceable backup. Malek, who in 2002-03 authored one of the most brilliant seasons ever recorded in a European league, did not want to prove himself in the AHL and ended up missing his window of opportunity for a North American career. By the time the NHL lockout of 2004-05 was over, interest in him had cooled.

Over the last couple of years, the Flyers increased the quantity of goaltending hopefuls in the system. Whether they've upgraded the quality remains to be seen. Here's a mini-synopsis of the current group, in descending order of age:

Johan Backlund: The 28-year-old has been an above-average goalie in Elitserien and a member of the Swedish national team but never truly starred at that level. The Flyers insist that they were higher on him than 25-year-old Jonas Gustavsson, who was courted by several other NHL teams after an outstanding (and championship-winning) season before opting to sign with the Maple Leafs. Personally, I'm skeptical of Backlund's NHL potential -- at the absolute maximum, I think he could be a Mikael Tellqvist type of keeper.

Michael Teslak: The 23-year-old put together a strong collegiate career for Michigan Tech to earn a free agent contract with the Flyers organization in 2008. He was not impressive in his AHL appearances and was clearly in need of the time he spent in the ECHL last season. He'll try to move up a level this year.

Jakub Kovar: The 21-year-old has stagnated in his development over the last two seasons, playing a so-so OHL season (and failing to stake down the starting job for the Czech WJC team) in 2007-08 and then flopping as a Czech Extraliga backup last year and winding up in the Czech minor leagues. He won't be on the radar screen unless he gets moving in the right direction.

Nicola Riopel: The 20-year-old was a late bloomer in the QMJHL, prompting the Flyers to use a fifth-round pick in the most recent draft to give him a shot. He will enter his first pro campaign this year.

Brad Phillips: The 20-year-old USNTD product missed his entire sophomore season at Notre Dame due to injury and has only appeared in five NCAA games to date. He'll be playing catch up this year. The organization has been high on his size, skating ability and athleticism.

Jacob DeSerres: A third-round pick in last year's draft, DeSerres had his share of difficulties in the early part of last season for the Seattle Thunderbirds but improved over the course of the season. Nevertheless, Calvin Pickard, who is nearly two years younger than DeSerres, was the better of the two goaltenders and received more playing time. At 19, DeSerres is still in the early part of his developmental curve. It will be easier to take stock of his development by the end of next season.

Joacim Eriksson: Drafted last year in the 7th round by the Flyers, Eriksson is stuck behind the highly touted Jacob Markstrom in the Brynas IF system. Eriksson had a fine year for Brynas' U20 team last year and earned the chance to back up Markstrom for part of the Elitserien season last year, although he did not appear in a game. When he starts playing regularly at the senior level over the next couple of seasons, Eriksson's name could be on the radar screen for a career in North America. As of now, he's an athletic 19-year-old who has taken some promising early strides but still has a long way to go. With Leksand, Eriksson stands a better chance of getting the playing time he needs.

Adam Morrison: At 18, Morrison is still several years of development away from being projectable as a professional goalie. He did a creditable job backing up Capitals prospect Braden Holtby last season in Saskatoon. Morrison has the type of size and athleticism that impress scouts.

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