Caleb Weiler
With the Flyers still waiting for their franchise goaltender to develop in the system – likely Carter Hart, Felix Sandstrom, or even Anthony Stolarz [pushing it] – general manager Ron Hextall signed Brian Elliott and Michal Neuvirth to backstop this team for the immediate future.
Elliott signed with the Flyers this past offseason for two years and $5.5 million. Neuvirth signed a two-year extension last season for $5 million.
That gives the aforementioned Hart, Sandstrom or Stolarz (despite him already playing in the NHL) at least two more years to develop and possibly become the franchise goaltender the Flyers have been looking for forever.
But when Elliott signed, it was well known he wasn’t the answer in net, nor the savior of the team, but the hope was he would be a solid stop gap. When the beginning of this season began, he didn’t look good at all.
In eight games in October, Elliott had a save percentage of .844 and a goals against average of 3.23 all while gaining a record of 5-2-1. While he’s sporting a 1-3-0 record in November, he has a save percentage of .958 and a goals against average of 1.27 so far this month. He’s been playing extremely well, but the Flyers have only scored three goals in those four games, and they all came in one game against the Chicago Blackhawks.
In addition to the recent stellar play of Elliott, Neuvirth has a goals against average of 2.17 and a save percentage .928 in the six games he has played this year. Which has been an excellent start to the season for him.
In typical Flyers fashion, they have the triangle of good goaltending, good offense and good defense, and you can only pick two. It could be attributed to running into Corey Crawford and Devan Dubnyk twice, who are two of the hottest goalies in the league right now. But both the Blackhawks and Wild have struggled offensively and the Flyers were unable to take advantage of that over three of the last four games.
If the Flyers are able to figure out their secondary scoring issue, and Elliott and Neuvirth, continue to play lights out, the currently last place Flyers could make a jump up to first pretty quickly. There is only six points separating the first and last place teams in the Metro.
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