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Meltzer's Musings: 8-30-10 |
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It would be an understatement to say that the goaltending position has been a source of consternation for the Flyers over the last decade. Given the candidates, the choice for the top Flyers goalie since 1999-2000 is a relatively easy one, but even that player conjures up as many negative emotions as positive ones. The choice for second team gets pretty dicey, as there really isn’t much to that makes one of the candidates clearly stand out from the rest.
FIRST TEAM: Roman Cechmanek
Two Bobby Clarke Trophies as team MVP, a Vezina first runner-up in 2000-01, a Hart Trophy finalist the same year, a share of the Jennings Trophy in 2002-03 and 23 shutouts (20 regular season, 3 playoff) in three seasons are more than enough to give the controversial Czech the nod as the Flyers’ top goaltender of the last decade. Before getting to the undeniable negatives about Cechmanek’s time in orange and black, I will address some of the areas where I feel he either didn’t get enough credit or was unfairly blamed when things didn’t go well.
One of the most common reasons to dismiss Cechmanek’s accomplishments with the team is the argument that anyone could have put up similar numbers playing in front of such a strong defensive team. The only problem is that only in his final season in Philadelphia – after Ken Hitchcock took over for Bill Barber and remade the club’s style – were the Flyers a top-notch defensive team, at least on any sort of a consistent basis. In his first season especially, the Flyers relied very heavily on Cechmanek to bail them out of trouble.
One way to tell whether a goalie’s success is at least partially a product of playing for a strong defensive team or the goalie is the one holding things together is to compare the performance of both the starter and the backup. In many cases, you will notice that there isn’t much discrepancy between the starter’s numbers and the backup’s (although you have to keep in mind that the starter usually gets the nod in the toughest games and also has to be the one to get the club through the inevitable low ebbs that even the best teams experience).
In Cechmanek’s first season with the Flyers, he posted a 2.01 goals against average, .921 save percentage and 10 shutouts in 59 games. Brian Boucher, who began the season as the starter but lost the job to Cechmanek, had a 3.27 GAA, .876 save percentage and one shutout in 27 games.
Also it should be noted that the Flyers’ top defenseman, Eric Desjardins, struggled defensively for much of that season (to the point that many Flyers fans turned on him, declared him overrated and wanted him shipped out of town). Although Dan McGillis had a career year and his pairing with Luke Richardson was a bright spot and Chris Therien had arguably his best full season as a Flyer, the rest of the defense was comprised of the likes of Michal Sykora, Chris McAllister and Andy Delmore. Not exactly a blueline for the ages.
The second main criticism of Cechmanek is that he disappeared in the playoffs. The reality is that he was maddeningly inconsistent in the playoffs – playing either brilliantly or horrendously with little room in between. I have seen professional columnists write that Cechmanek never won an NHL playoff series in his career, forgetting that he outplayed Ed Belfour in the Flyers seven-game victory over Toronto in their war of a 2003 series.
It’s also easy to forget that all three of the games the Flyers won against Ottawa in their 2002 and 2003 series came via Cechmanek posting a shutout. Goaltending was definitely a factor in many of the eight games Philly lost, but the primary blame should be placed at the feet of the rest of the team, which scored a grand total of two goals (one in overtime) in their five-game loss to Ottawa in 2002 and never scored more than two goals in any game of the 2003 series.
That said, when Cechmanek was off, he was horrid. And with the exception of Game 7 against Toronto in 2002, he played horrendously every time the club faced an elimination game (against Buffalo his first year and the two eliminations by Ottawa). He was also wrong to show up his teammates on the ice during the second loss to Ottawa. Infamously, some of his teammates responded by firing pucks at his head at practice, but given the way they were shooting all series, they’d have been better off aiming at the glass. Cechmanek, who had won five straight Czech championships with HC Vsetin prior to coming to North America at age 29, was ostensibly trying to spark his team by making his disgust obvious to everyone in the arena, but it backfired.
Cechmanek was the type of goaltender who could give his coaches, teammates and fans ulcers because he made seemingly routine saves into adventures. He was beyond unorthodox in his goaltending “style” to the point where he could only be classified a technical nightmare. His unpredictability as well as his size frequently worked to his benefit. Who could ever forget his penchant for intentionally using his mask to bat high shots into the corners? But when things went poorly, he often came unglued in a hurry.
Goalies are ultimately judged by how well they do in the playoffs. Cechmanek was average over the balance of the Flyers’ playoff loss to Buffalo (except for the final game, in which he and the rest of the team were putrid). He was inconsistent from game to game thereafter, and the highs were easily forgotten when things ended so poorly.
Although Cechmanek statistically was the best Flyers regular season goaltender of all time over his three-season tenure, very few people would consider him among the top four or five goalies in franchise history (a debate that centers around ranking who comes next after Bernie Parent among Ron Hextall, Pelle Lindbergh and perhaps, Pete Peeters or Wayne Stephenson). Scoring was way down leaguewide in the early to mid-2000s and it is fruitless to make statistical comparisons between goalies of different eras, because the norms were different. But you can fairly say that, given the modest field of competition for the Flyers’ best goalie of the first decade of the 2000s, Cechmanek is the clear-cut choice.
SECOND TEAM: BRIAN BOUCHER
I gave the second-team nod to Boucher because I’m including the 1999-2000 season as part of the time period under consideration. Boosh had a tremendous rookie year, unseating John Vanbiesbrouck and backstopping the club to the Eastern Conference Finals, where his play was not a primary culprit in the club blowing their 3 games to 1 lead over the Devils. He also earns some credit for outplaying Martin Brodeur in the first round of the 2010 playoffs and for his strong play at the tail end of the regular season, including outlasting Henrik Lundqvist in the shootout on the final day of the season.
Unfortunately, the story in between Boucher’s rookie season and the end of the 2009-10 campaign isn’t really a pretty one. A first-round pick by the Flyers in 1995, Boosh has not played like a number one NHL goalie for the majority of his career at the top level, save for his historic shutout streak (332:01) as a member of the Phoenix Coyotes in 2003-04. He is otherwise a journeyman backup goaltender.
Even so, Boosh's rookie campaign (when it often seemed like he’d be a franchise goalie for the next decade) was arguably the third best in team history, behind Ron Hextall’s 1986-87 season and Pete Peeters’ 1979-80 season. Pelle Lindbergh earned an NHL All Star Game selection his rookie year but a broken wrist in the second half of the season and quick playoff exit pushes his first season a half notch below Boucher’s.
When Boucher first came up the NHL, he was (by his own admission) extremely cocky and resistant to even potentially constructive criticism from his coaches. As his career progressed and he later had to battle just to get back to the NHL after there were no takers for his services and he signed a minor-league deal to return to Philadelphia and play for the Phantoms, he matured to the point that he became a role model for other goaltenders to follow. He has always been a quality person off the ice, and the type of person you want to see succeed.
HONORABLE MENTION: Martin Biron, Robert Esche, Antero Niittymaki, Michael Leighton
Martin Biron’s shining moment in his two-plus seasons as the Flyers starter was undoubtedly his magnificent performance in the 2008 Eastern Conference Semifinals against the Montreal Canadiens. It capped off a fairly solid season. Otherwise, Biron was inconsistent and prone to positional gaffes and turnovers. Off the ice, he’s a great guy and one of the most quotable players in the game.
Robert Esche did a good job backing up Cechmanek during the 2002-03 season and, after the club acquired Sean Burke at the trade deadline the next season, held off the veteran to be named starter for the 2004 playoffs. He justified Ken Hitchcock’s faith by playing two excellent playoff rounds as the team beat Martin Brodeur’s Devils in the first round and Ed Belfour’s Maple Leafs in the second. Esche was spotty during the Eastern Conference Finals against Tampa Bay, but still got the club to a seventh and deciding game.
Esche had a so-so first season after the NHL lockout and then played himself out of a job during the disastrous 2006-07 season. He has subsequently found a home in the KHL, where he has been one of the top goalies in the league.
Since leaving the Flyers, Esche has re-evaluated his off-ice priorities and become a born-again Christian, which he credits for attaining a more mature outlook and learning to control a temper that sometimes got him in hot water when he was younger. He has always been hyper-competitive but it took time for him to learn to leave mistakes behind and move on. In the past, depending on when you encountered Esche, he could either be extremely personable with a tremendous sense of humor (usually after a win) or glowering and surly (usually after a loss or a game where he was dissatisfied with his play).
Esche still covets another shot at the NHL and it came close to coming to fruition a few times. However, he is currently slated to return to the KHL to play for Dinamo Minsk after his former club, SKA St. Petersburg, left him go in favor of Evgeni Nabokov.
Antero Niittymaki always seemed on the brink of taking the Flyers’ starting job and running with it. Unfortunately, every time he got an extended audition for the job, he failed to earn it. At his best, the Finn could match any goalie in the league save for save. At his worst, he could leave you wondering why he was even in the NHL and could be guilty of some horrific lapses of concentration.
As winner of three Finnish championships, a Calder Cup, an Olympic silver medal, an SM-Liiga rookie of the year award, AHL playoff MVP, and Olympic tournament MVP, it was clear Niittymaki had the potential to be a fine NHL starting goalie, too. But he never quite got there with the Flyers.
I am giving Michael Leighton an honorable mention because of his three shutouts of Montreal in the 2010 Eastern Conference Finals, his role in the Flyers’ comeback from a 3-0 series deficit against Boston the previous round and his generally strong regular season play after being picked up off waivers from Carolina. The jury is still out on whether he’s a worthy number one goalie in the NHL.
Philadelphia Flyers Blogger •NHL.com • 
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