Prior to the start of free agency in July, Flyers general manager Paul Holmgren dropped a broad hint that the team intended to re-sign impending UFA goaltender Michael Leighton to be the backup goaltender. The team signed Leighton to a one-year, $900,000 contract.
Leighton's price tag represented an $850,000 cost saving versus Sergei Bobrovsky's salary and also came in $600,000 less than than what Chris Mason received from Nashville. Many initially speculated that Mason would end up in Philadelphia.
The team's line of reasoning: Leighton knows the team, knows Peter Laviolette's system and has a strong working relationship with goaltending coach Jeff Reese. His back is also reasonably healthy again after undergoing surgery in the summer of 2010.
From day one main concern with the signing is that while Leighton has played in a backup role in the NHL before, he has never been especially effective in the role. He has tended to play better with regular work.
For his NHL career, Leighton has played 104 games, with a 2.92 GAA and .902 save percentage. When he there is a gap of five or fewer games between appearances, his career numbers are a 2.85 GAA and .909 save percentage. Conversely, when he's gone inactive for more than five games at a time, his GAA is 3.19 and his save percentage has dropped to .892. The latter numbers aren't horrific, but they aren't going to hold down a backup job in the long term, either.
The strongest play of Leighton's career came when he was a split-time starter in Chicago (2003-04) and the Flyers in 2010. When assigned to a backup role in Chicago, Nashville and Carolina, he ended up on waivers. He has also been waived several times by the Flyers; first after a brief stay in 2006-07 and then in both 2010-11 and 2011-12.
All the while, Leighton has consistently remained among the better American Hockey League starting goalies, thriving in a workhorse role where he plays a lot of minutes over the course of the season. He is sort of like a baseball starting pitcher who is a veteran AAA star but lacks the zip on his fastball or bite on his breaking pitches to be more than a marginal fifth starter in the Major Leagues and has struggled out of the bullpen.
During the 2009-10 season, Leighton worked extensively with Reese to take better advantage of his size. He moved back a bit in his crease and played a little more upright. The results were heartening -- at least until the Stanley Cup Final.
At age 31, Leighton knows that this season (whenever it starts) is his final shot at holding down an NHL job -- and that job will be as a backup goalie who may go long stretches between games. If there's a lockout, it would be nice if he could get some playing time somewhere in Europe. He'd be a tremendous asset to any team in a league such the EBEL or DEL.
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