The Joy of Goaltending

"Too much traffic!"

In a rather hilarious turn of events, the Philadelphia Flyers were swept out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs recently by the Boston Bruins.  While there are plenty of places to put the blame, the correct one is on the goaltending.  The Flyers, well known for stockpiling tons of great goalies, and by great I of course mean AHL caliber, somehow had problems in the crease.  Who'd have thought?


In fact, in 11 playoff games, their goalies made 17 appearances.  That's right, they pulled every one of their goalies at least once in favor of another, with Michael Leighton leading the way by finish half of the games he started.  Granted, that was only one game, but still.  Somehow, even with this joy, Paul Holmgren, the Flyers GM and long lost future-father of Mike, pointed out that "I don't think we can fault the goaltending at any point in this series..." at which point one has to assume he was talking about the Bruins' goalies.


In an effort to help the Flyers figure out that yes, goaltending is part of hockey, we here at USTN have put together a list of players who would have faired better in net than the trifecta of amazement the Flyers chose to go with.

• Ray Emery
• Rick DiPietro during surgery
• Ryan Kesler
• Pierre LeBrun
• Le Bel Desconneu, Knight of the Round Table
• Any Member of the Hat Trick Swayzes of Odenton, Maryland
• Zombie Jacques Plante
• Three large koalas, placed on top of each other and put in pads to appear as if they were a person (side note: this may explain Martin Gerber)
• Ken Griffey Jr(s).
• Each and every character from the Lord of the Rings saga with the exception of Tom Bombadill.
• Commander Wedge Antilles
• A small boulder who has gained sentience
• A small boulder without sentience