There is no such thing as an NHL team having too much system depth at a particular position. That is especially true when it comes to drafting and developing goaltenders and defensemen. Goalie prospects in particular -- including those chosen in the first or second rounds of the NHL Draft -- are especially hard to project, and have a way of falling by the wayside.
The Flyers know this from their own experience.
People forget that they used their top overall pick -- two first-rounders and an early second-rounder -- to select goaltenders three times in a five-draft span in the mid-to-late 1990s. By 1999, goaltending prospect depth was considered the biggest strength of the farm system.
In the summer of 1999, there were no fewer than five goalies in the Flyers system who were considered to be potential future NHL starters. There was also one fringe prospect. This does not even include Johan Hedberg (drafted in the 9th round of the 1994 Draft), whose rights had been traded to San Jose after his agent and Bob Clarke were unable to agree on a contract.
In terms of system depth, the Flyers have nowhere near the goalie prospect depth in 2012 in their current system that they seemed to have 13 years ago. In fact, they may not even have a prospect with equivalent upside to the now-traded Sergei Bobrovsky.
But at least there are three candidates who may eventually have a shot at playing in the NHL. From there, you never know what can happen.
Things have a way of changing in a hurry in the NHL, and the pecking order on the goaltending depth chart is especially fickle. Ilya Bryzgalov may have eight seasons remaining on his contract but that does mean the organization should not -- and will not -- continue to try to develop alternative candidates for the future.
As I sit here writing this on Aug. 31, 2012, there is no imminent candidate to replace Bobrovsky, much less supplant Bryzgalov as the Flyers starter. Nevertheless, there is some reason for optimism that the Flyers might get an NHL candidate within the next season or two out of one of the two AHL rookies they'll have this season. Anthony Stolarz, a 2012 second-round pick, is more of a long-term pro prospect.
Among the current prospect pool, start with 24-year-old Niko Hovinen, a
late-blooming prospect who is coming off a stellar season in Finland's SM-liiga but will be playing North American hockey for the first time.
Hovinen is also coming off hip surgery after dealing with hip issues that caused him to miss numerous second-half and playoff games last season after being arguably the best goalie in the league in the first half. The 6-foot-7 netminder still played well when available in the latter part of the season. Following the surgery, he missed the Flyers Prospect Development Camp in July while rehabbing. He is now said to be fully healed and ready to go for his first AHL season.
Next, there's Cal Heeter, who will turn 24 in November. Signed earlier this year at the recommendation of Neil Little, the 6-foot-4 Heeter had a strong collegiate career at Ohio State University and was a standout at the Prospect Development Camp earlier this summer. He looked far more polished than the teenage goalies who were at the camp.
The personable and articulate Heeter lacks nothing for self-confidence. He is borderline cocky, in fact, but not in an obnoxious way. Even with veteran Scott Munroe being brought back to the Phantoms for the 2012-13 season, Heeter is not going to simply concede AHL playing time to Hovinen and Munroe. There will be competition all year among the three, even if Heeter starts the year in the ECHL with the Trenton Titans.
Stolarz, 18, is more of a long-term prospect. The 6-foot-5 New Jersey native, who was a sheer delight to interview at the Flyers Prospect Camp this summer, is naturally athletic but also still extremely raw. The incoming University of Nebraska-Omaha freshman recently participated at Team USA's World Junior Championships camp in Lake Placid. He did well, but is considered the third or fourth goalie on the national team depth chart. With a strong collegiate season, he's got a better shot at staking a spot at the 2013-14 WJC.
Of course, none among Hovinen, Heeter or Stolarz are locks to ever play a game in the NHL, much less become starters. But that can be said of most goaltending prospects.
Let's revisit the half-dozen bonafide NHL prospect goaltenders the Flyers had in their system in the summer of 1999. Five of them played in the NHL (three only briefly). Two had stints as starters. None became long-term impact players in the NHL. But that was NOT a systemic failure. It was just the vicissitudes of goalie drafting and development.
In 1995, the Flyers used their first-round pick (22nd overall) to select Brian Boucher. According to The Hockey News' Draft Preview that year, most scouts considered him the fourth-best goalie prospect in a goalie-rich draft, behind Martin Biron, J-S Giguere and Marc Denis but a first-round worthy prospect in his own right. As of 1999, he looked to be on track to graduate to the NHL in the near future.
In the 1996 draft, Philly took Swedish goaltender Per-Ragnar Bergkvist, in the 5th round (124th overall), largely because Bergkvist had outplayed Boucher head-to-head at the most recent World Junior Championships. Unfortunately, Bergkvist proved to be a flash in the pan and never became even an average Elitserien goalie. In 1999, however, he had a brief revival with Färjestad and was at least considered a fringe prospect.
In the 1997 draft, the Flyers used their first pick of the draft (30th overall) to select Jean-Marc Pelletier. The second-round draftee made a quick splash with the Phantoms in 1998-99 and even earned a start with the big club -- which didn't go very well -- while the club was struggling and looking for a spark. Although his stock soon fell, Pelletier still looked like a solid NHL prospect in the summer of 1999.
In the 1998 draft, the Flyers took Antero Niitymäki in the 6th round (168th overall). A product of the vaunted TPS Turku system, which produced a string of future NHL goalies, Niittymäki got an extended chance to play with the TPS team in SM-Liiga when Fredrik Norrena went down with an injury. Niitty ended up winning the 1999-2000 Rookie of the Year award in SM-Liiga and TPS won the championship.
In the 1999 draft, the Flyers selected Maxime Ouellet in the first round after Boston snapped up defenseman Nick Boyton (a draft re-entry after he was selected 9th overall by Washington in 1997 but did not sign a contract) one pick earlier. Considered by many to be the best goalie available in the draft, many scouts thought he had franchise goaltender potential. Ouellet would go to play for Team Canada at the WJC and actually started the 2000-01 season on the Flyers' NHL roster before being returned to the QMJHL.
Of course we know what happened to this deep pool of prospects; chock full of potential "goalie-of-the-future" candidates. One by one, they fell by the wayside.
Boucher had an amazing NHL rookie season and led the Flyers to the Eastern Conference Finals in 1999-2000. He faltered badly in his second season and lost his job to Roman Cechmanek (drafted by the Flyers at age 29 in the 6th round of the 2000 NHL draft after he won five straight Czech championships with HC Vsetin). Boosh ended up becoming a journeyman backup goalie who spent three stints -- two in the NHL -- with the Flyers' organization.
After flopping with Leksand and playing a year in Norway, Bergkvist's brief revival with FBK didn't last beyond the first month of the 1999-2000 season. He ended up playing his way down to third-string goalie and faded away from the hockey scene.
Pelletier's cockiness was considered a plus when he stepped up in the first half of his rookie pro season with the Phantoms, but soon started to work against him as he leveled off and gained the reputation for being uncoachable. He ended up being traded to Carolina in the deal that brought Keith Primeau to Philadelphia and sent Rod Brind'Amour to the Hurricanes. Pelletier turned into pretty much a career minor-league goaltender.
Niittymäki ended up being arguably the best of the bunch, if you exclude Czech veteran Cechmanek (who was already a finished product by the time he was drafted). Niitty won three straight Finnish championships, a Calder Cup, an AHL playoff MVP award, an Olympic silver medal and Olympic MVP award. But he had only spotty success in the NHL. Like Boucher, he was unable to keep a starting job in the NHL, and he did not prove to be the answer to the Flyers' search for a long-term answer in goal.
Ouellet's flaws started to become apparent soon after he graduated from junior to professional hockey. He was still highly regarded at the time the Flyers sent him to Washington in the ill-fated Adam Oates rental. However, his game never progressed and, like Pelletier, he ended up becoming more or less a career minor leaguer.
Cechmanek was not of prospect age by the time he entered the Flyers' organization, so I will not discuss him at length here. If you are interested in my take on Cechmanek's time in Philly,
click here for an in-depth blurb I wrote about him in a 2010 blog.
At any rate, the purpose for going back and looking at all of those draftees from that mid- to late-1990s time frame is to show that, of all positions on the ice, goalies are truly the hardest to predict once they turn pro in North America.
No matter what they do in collegiate or Canadian junior hockey, the World Junior Championships or even the top European pro leagues or AHL, it's a whole different ballgame once they get to the NHL.
******************
Yesterday, the Flyers announced their slate of nationally televised games for the 2012-13 season (assuming no lockout delays). Within the United States, the Flyers will be featured on national television 11 times, either on NBC or the NBC Sports Network. They will also have 12 games on NHL Network.
In their press release, the Flyers said that their local broadcast schedule for games on CSN Philly and Comcast Network will be announced in the near future.
Within Canada, the Flyers will have 18 nationally televised games: 13 on TSN/TSN2, four Hockey Night in Canada games on CBC. Three of the Flyers' four games against Montreal will be broadcast in French on RDS, including two (Oct. 25 in Montreal, March 15 in Philly) that will also be in English on TSN. The Jan. 10 game in Philadelphia is RDS only.
For the second consecutive year, the Flyers are (barring lockout) slated to open their regular season with a nationally televised NBCSN game against the Boston Bruins. Last year's game, a Flyers victory, took place in Boston on the Bruins' Stanley Cup banner raising night. This year's opener is scheduled for Oct. 11 at the Wells Fargo Center.
Following is the Flyers' national television schedule for U.S. based viewers.
Day Date Opponent Time Network
Thu. Oct. 11 vs. Boston 7:00 PM NBCSN
Wed. Dec. 19 vs. New Jersey 7:30 PM NBCSN
Sun. Feb. 17 @ NY Rangers 7:30 PM NBCSN
Wed. Feb. 20 @ Pittsburgh 7:30 PM NBCSN
Wed. Feb. 27 vs. Washington 7:30 PM NBCSN
Wed. Mar. 13 @ New Jersey 7:30 PM NBCSN
Sun. Mar. 24 @ Pittsburgh 7:30 PM NBCSN
In addition, four Flyers games are slated for national broadcast under NBC’s flex scheduling option. If selected, the game will be televised on NBC; if not, it will appear on NBCSN.
Day Date Opponent Time Network
Sun. Jan. 20 @ Chicago 7:30 PM NBC/SN
Sun. Mar. 10 vs. Chicago 3:00 PM NBC/SN
Sun. Mar. 31 vs. Boston 7:30 PM NBC/SN
Sat. Apr. 13 vs. NY Rangers 3:00 PM NBC/SN
****************
Thirty-four years ago today, the Flyers sold the contract of veteran defenseman Joe Watson to the Colorado Rockies. A two-time NHL All-Star who had been part of the organization from the time of the 1967 expansion draft, the 36-year-old was no longer part of the team's starting lineup plans.
By the end of the 1977-78 season ended, Flyers general manager Keith Allen had begun to dismantle many of the pieces from the Broad Street Bullies' Stanley Cup team rosters. Head coach Fred Shero had recently left to accept the head coaching and general manager job with the Rangers.
The elder Watson brother's professional career had reached the crossroads. He had only managed to play 65 games in the regular season and one playoff tilt in 1977-78. During the summer, Allen summoned the player to his office.
“Keith told me that they were looking to rework the defense and that I could either stay with the Flyers and play about 30 games or give him a list of teams I’d be willing to be traded to," Watson recalled in his
Flyers Heroes of the Past profile.
The player's heart told him to remain in Philly, where he planned to make his permanent home. His head, however, told him it was time to move on to play for another team. He wanted to play at least two more years, and it was clear that his chances of doing so in Philadelphia were slim.
While the aging veteran's competitive fires still burned bright, he realized that it was time to set a goal that would probably mean playing for a non-playoff team.
“I looked for clubs where I could get a chance to play and maybe help out some of the young guys," said Watson. "So I picked clubs like Los Angeles, Colorado and Pittsburgh.”
On Aug. 31, 1978 Allen traded Watson to the Colorado Rockies (formerly the Kansas City Scouts). Unfortunately, the defenseman didn’t get much of a chance to help the club try to establish a new identity.
Just 16 games into the 1978-79 season, Watson was on the receiving end of a check from Wayne Babych of the St. Louis Blues. With his right leg pinned and nearly 400 pounds of pressure going crashing into the boards, Watson’s leg shattered, breaking in 13 places. He knew immediately that his career was over.
Over the next nine months, Joe had six operations. Three additional surgeries followed, leaving the right leg two inches shorter than the left. However, a corrective surgery in 2002 proved successful. Watson remained an extremely active member of the Flyers Alumni Team.
Last New Years Eve day, the 68-year-old Watson (he turned 69 in July) suited up in the Winter Classic Alumni Game at Citizens Bank Park.
******************
Please sign up for Flyers Buzz. For more information
click here.
Click below to follow me on Twitter:
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
Join the Discussion:
»