The Flyers are keeping mum about their plans for handling Michael Leighton's return to the roster when the player completes his rehabilitation stint with the Phantoms. Carrying three goaltenders is never a good arrangement, and the club would still need to make a move to avoid going over the salary cup.
Nevertheless, my hunch -- and this is purely speculative -- is that the club wants to buy as much time as possible to evaluate whether Leighton's back will hold up and whether he will bounce back strongly enough to displace Brian Boucher and compete with Sergei Bobrovsky for the starting job. They won't know that within a week.
As a result, I would not be surprised if the Flyers put either Ian Laperierre or Matt Walker on LTIR, carry three goaltenders for the short-term and then decide in a couple weeks whether to waive Boucher (more likely) or Leighton.
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There is no faulting the effort the Flyers put forth in their 3-0 loss to the Bruins on Wednesday. They worked hard and created some excellent scoring chances -- against a Boston team that was playing strong defense for the most part, especially in the third period -- but Tim Thomas simply played an otherworldly game in goal.
There are team shutouts and there are goalie shutouts, and shot totals really aren't a great indicator. Carey Price was rock solid in his 41-save shutout of the Flyers a couple weeks ago, but the truth of the matter was that he was rarely tested. Thomas made the same number of saves, but had to come up with no fewer than a half-dozen spectacular saves.
Thomas has been incredible this entire season. If he continues to play at anything close to his current level, he will win his second Vezina Trophy in three seasons. Being healthy again has made a huge difference in his play.
Beyond Thomas' outstanding performance, the Flyers paid dearly for a Sean O'Donnell turnover and a coverage mixup. Sergei Bobrovsky quietly played an outstanding game in his own right in the Boston tilt. He had zero chance to stop either Bruins goal.
The Flyers' power play struggles continued in the Boston game, but there were at least some signs of progress in the latter advantages. As for the Scott Hartnell penalty shot attempt, credit him for the hustle that created the opportunity, but I think everyone knew going in that it was going to be a mismatch. Harts isn't exactly a deke and tuck the puck home or a roof the puck in close kind of player.
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Today's
Daily Drop at Versus.com looks at the controversial disallowed goal with 7.6 second left in the game that sealed a 2-1 loss for the Capitals in Dallas last night. Yesterday's posting looks at the direct correlation between Milan Lucic scoring and the Bruins winning. With his goal last night in Boston's blowout win, the Bruins are now 10-0-0 in games where Lucic tallies at least one goal.
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