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Thursday, April 19, 2012

Where's the Goaltending in the Flyers vs. Penguins Series?

I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been asking this for the past week, but where is the goaltending in the Flyers vs. Penguins series?
Even someone who loves goal scoring would have to be disgusted by the lack of defense and goaltending that has been on display in the first four games of the series (thankfully, my beloved Flyers still hold a 3-1 series lead).  But, in the first four games, the teams have combined to score 45 goals! That's 11.25 goals/game, a disgusting number.  It's sad that the first game of the series saw seven goals given up in a Flyers OT win and that was considered the defensive struggle of the series.
Since that game last Wednesday, the scores of the games have been as followed: 8-5 Flyers, 8-4 Flyers, 10-3 Penguins.  Frankly, I'm embarrassed as a goalie myself that this is actually happening in the playoffs.  But, any Flyers fan who has watched them closely this season knows that $51 million goalie Ilya Bryzgalov is streaky and has been known to look lost out there, but for Marc-Andre Fleury to be just as bad, if not worse, is a complete surprise in itself.


If the Flyers go on to win this series (and I swear to God, they better), then they are going to need a huge improvement not just in the goaltending department, but in the entire defensive zone.  I've been saying it since they went up 2-0 in the series that they're going to need to be able to win close games, such as Game 1, and not just outscore opponents because as everyone witnessed last night, the scoring well can run dry and then they give up double-digits.
Let's hope that Bryz turns things around and finds his month-of-March groove, in which he had a shutout streak of over three games and only gave up more than two goals twice.  Let's hope that is very, VERY soon.

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