Everyone has been waiting for this moment since the season ended: buying out Ilya Bryzgalov.
One of the things Flyers management has been saying since April was that the back=and-forth argument on Bryzgalov was just that - back and forth.
Some in the organization wanted him retained. Afterall, this was club chairman Ed Snider's goalie, and you can't blame what happened this season on Bryz. Not in its entirety, anyway.
GM Paul Holmgren gets props for admitting the club made a "costly mistake" - largest buyout in NHL history. But they did it now and didn't saddle themselves with a contract they didn't want for the next 7 years.
Here's the Holmgren news conference transcript, courtesy of the Flyers:
Flyers GM Paul Holmgren
Hi everybody, thanks for coming over. As you know, we decided to use our second compliant buyout on Ilya. As I said in my statement it was a very difficult business decision for us to make, but moving forward it probably makes the most sense when you start looking down the road on trying to keep other players like Claude Giroux in the fold and the cap this year is a little bit of an issue obviously, but moving forward from a business standpoint this probably made the most sense. Having Steve Mason under contract, we think a lot of Steve moving forward so right now we obviously are in the market for a goalie who can play in tandem with Steve and what we feel comfortable with.
Q. Paul does this represent in your mind the biggest mistake you’ve made or the organization has made as a free agency market?
A. Obviously it’s a costly mistake that we made. You know Ilya, it’s hard to fault him. I still believe he played pretty good, but in a salary cap world you need to make decisions from time to time that put you in a better light moving forward and this is one of those.
Q. Paul is it more of a chemistry in the locker room than it is play on the ice?
A. No, it’s more of a cap number moving forward and trying to plan from this day.
Q. Paul was his personality though the vice of the time among the Flyers?
A. You know, I’m not in the room, none of us are. I think Ilya is a colorful guy. Does he say things out of the blue sometimes? Absolutely, but I don’t think he’s any different than a lot of other players I have been associated with. I didn’t have an issue with that. This is strictly a business decision.
Q. How did Ilya take it? What was that conversation like?
A. It was okay, it wasn’t confrontational in any way. It was kind of like okay, we talked to for a little bit, I thanked him and wished him well.
Q. What was the conversation like with Ed when you decided to go ahead with this move in terms of deciding to buyout Ilya?
A. It was okay. I explained my reasoning behind it moving forward. It was fine.
Q. Were you upset at all with his post-season remarks on break-up day? If I’m the General Manager and I’m reading what he has to say it sounded to me like he was a very unhappy guy here.
A. You know, as I said, Ilya is a colorful guy. Did he say things from time to time? Sure he did. He would probably be the first to admit it. This has nothing to do with anything on ice or off ice. It’s a business decision we got to make.
Q. Paul do you have an idea of who you may be targeting to play with Steve Mason?
A. I have lots of ideas.
Q. Are you looking more toward a trade or free agency? There’s not a lot of young guys out there.
A. It’s one of the ideas
Q. Yeah, but which? Or both?
A. Well, lots. I have ideas. Obviously, we’re in need of another goalie. Probably a couple. I feel like where we’re at right now we’ve got Cal Heeter, we’ve got a kid Carsen (Chubak) here on an American League deal and we’ve got Steve Mason. So, we’re in the market for goalies. How we do it, remains to be seen. I’m not trying to be an (expletive) here. There’s options out there right now and we’ll go at it the best way we can.
Q. Do you think not having a backup was one of the things that may have prevented you from acquiring Bernier from LA?
A. No, I don’t think that.
Q. When you look philosophically toward next season do you look at it as a platoon or do you look at it as a backup?
A. I’m a big Steve Mason fan. I think moving forward he’s a very good young goalie in our league that has, for his age, a lot of experience. I know there’s a short window that we got to watch him here, but he played very well. Even the game he lost, he played well. Ideally, I’d like to get a guy that will work in tandem with him, but the bulk onto Steve, but we’ll see how it goes.
Q. So, you’re saying you trust him as a number one right now?
A. I trust him as one of the two goalies, but I believe he has a bright future.
Q. Paul financially if you could make it work could you see or how would, or where would Roberto Luongo fit here?
A. I don’t see how that one would work Lisa. To be honest with you, probably not an option. That’s not one of my ideas
Q. If, as it stands, if Vancouver was to exercise a buyout in the same way you did with Bryzgalov is he a guy that could come up?
A. Who knows? I can’t really speculate on other teams’ business right now.
Q. Tim Thomas wants to come back and play hockey.
A. I think it’s going to be a crazy, what’s the date today? The 25th? It’s going to be a crazy ride here in the next, let’s see 30 days has September, April, June, and November. So that’s 30 days in June and the first five days in July. It’s going to be crazy. So, we’ll see what happens. We know we have needs and we’re in the middle of trying to work out how we can fill those needs.
Q. When you look back to 2011 bringing Ilya in here by a trade and then signing him to that deal, his agent said last week in an interview that in more or less words that the Flyers were essentially bidding against themselves. There weren’t many teams that were looking for a starting goaltender. You say that today is a business decision with Ilya. Do you have any regrets in terms of the negotiation and how it was structured?
A. No, no. What’s the sense of looking back? Today we look forward. I’m not going to look back. I admit it was a costly move, but we gotta move forward. No sense looking back.
Q. Was this difficult?
A. Yeah, yeah. Very difficult.
Q. How long did it go back and forth?
A. Probably since two days after the season ended when I started to have meetings about the team about our prospects of moving forward and trying to, it makes your team you can keep your better players moving forward. It’s been a long arduous trek.
Q. Do you think he’ll land in the league?
A. I don’t see why not, he’s a good goalie.
Q. Was there any input from your leadership group in terms of players?
A. I would say, you know, you talk to your players at the end of the year mostly about their game. I don’t get involved in talking with them about who fits here. I would say no.
For complete buyout coverage, here's CSNPhilly.com:
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