Flyers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky will turn 23 years of age on Sept. 20. Through the end of the 2010-11 season, he has 130 games of professional regular season experience (KHL and NHL) under his belt, including 54 games in the NHL last season. He made 3 playoff starts for the Flyers last year and played in 1 playoff game his rookie season in the KHL.
That is actually quite a bit of pro experience for a goalie Bobrovsky's age. In terms of his development, I am not worried if he only plays 20 games or so per season in the NHL for the next few years. For one thing, it is not at all uncommon for goalies to serve extended apprenticeships as minor league starters or NHL backups before they are truly ready to take an NHL starting job and run with it.
For another, there is absolutely no guarantee that -- if contract negotiations with Ilya Bryzgalov were to fail (which, from all apparent signs, they won't) and Bobrovsky somehow ended up the primary starter again in 2011-12 -- that Bobrovsky would take continued steps forward in his second NHL season. In many cases, young players (especially goalies) either take a lateral step or have a rough second season.
There are many promising young goalies either in the NHL right now or on the cusp of breaking through to the top level. Bobrovsky is one of the better ones, but I don't know if I would say his upside is superior to that of a half-dozen others, including Washington's Michal Neuvirth and Semyon Varlamov, Los Angeles' Jonathan Bernier and Nashville's Anders Lindbäck. Sometimes the grass seems greener on the other side, when you have less opportunity to see a certain player and notice his flaws. On the flip side, sometimes there's a tendency to overrate your own players when you've seen them play at their best.
Funny things can -- and often do -- happen in hockey. Seemingly iron-clad plans can change in a hurry. Even if/when the Flyers sign Bryzgalov to a long-term deal for big bucks, that does not mean it's going to be impossible for Bobrovsky (or Niko Hovinen or someone else) to wind up getting a lot of NHL playing time at some point while Bryzgalov is still here. Injuries and slumps happen, and it could play out at some point that a young goalie would get a slate of games as the starter, outplay Bryzgalov and take over as number one.
Of course, that would not be Plan A for the Flyers if they sign Bryzgalov to a long-term contract with a huge cap hit. As goalies go, he's a pretty safe bet. He has a track record of generally strong performance in the NHL, including a Vezina (and Hart Trophy) caliber season in 2009-10. But you never know what can happen. There are never any guarantees, but there would be every reason to feel confident that the soon-to-be 31 year-old would provide the Flyers with their best season-in and season-out goaltending in a long time.
Bryzgalov himself is a classic case of a goalie emerging as an NHL star at a later age than position players. Don't forget that Phoenix acquired him off waivers from Anaheim, where he had played well in limited action but had grown frustrated at backing up Jean-Sabastien Giguere. Bryz can sometimes be a bit of a loose cannon, and he had made some
unthinking comments on how the Ducks had promised to trade Giguere to clear a spot for him but because "no one wanted" Giguere, Bryzgalov found himself stuck as the backup.
Bryzgalov did not finally become an NHL starter until he went to Phoenix on waivers. At the time he turned 27 years of age, he had a combined 60 games of NHL regular season experience to his credit -- only 6 more games than Bobrovsky played as a rookie this year.
In fact, when Bryzgalov had celebrated his 23rd birthday in July of 2003, he had all of one game of NHL experience on his resume plus two minor league seasons and two seasons in what was then known as the Russian Super League: a total of 147 games of professional experience. It should also be noted that the caliber of players in the Russian Super League at the time Bryzgalov was playing there around 2000 was not as good as the KHL by the time Bobrovsky came around. At age 25, Bryzgalov had played two more full minor league seasons and only one more game in the NHL.
This is not an argument in favor of the Flyers staying the course with Bobrovsky penciled in to start within the next year or two and the club going with a less expensive option than Bryzgalov in the interim. Bryzgalov is one of the best in the league right now and by all means should be a major upgrade in goal. Bobrovsky, despite his promising rookie season, is still an unproven commodity and he needs to refine quite a few areas of his game.
However, there is no reason to be concerned for Bobrovsky's development if he sees limited action for several years. It just as easily could take him as long as it took Bryzgalov to finally start to tap into his potential -- or he may always struggle with consistency (ala Antero Niittymäki, Brian Boucher and others). Only time will tell.
I would not be dead set against the Flyers trading Bobrovsky this summer or in the relatively near future, but I do like his chances of eventually becoming at least a mid-tier NHL starter and possibly better than that. The next couple years really aren't make-or-break for him, because time is still on his side.
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