Ilya Bryzgalov Swatch Card

As the Montréal Canadiens kept answering every Philadelphia Flyers' comeback attempt earlier tonight, goaltender Carter Hart showed that one can have a world of talent, it also takes experience or at least a fierce competitive edge to have the poise to take over and shut the door in an elimination game. And he just needed to look at the other end of the ice to see that it doesn't always come, either.

It's even harder to do in Philadelphia, where the netminding heroes of the past who are remembered fondly - Bernard Parent and Pelle Lindbergh - each had their careers cut short, Parent by an eye injury, and Lindbergh of course died in a car crash. We tend to forget that Parent had two sub-par seasons in the three years following his two Stanley Cup-winning years.

And history also now sheds a more favourable light on Ron Hextall, who came into the league by winning the Vezina and Conn Smythe trophies but followed that with two sub-par playoff performances, and he was essentially run out of town, which was only delayed by a few serious injuries. He was exiled for two seasons (playing for the Québec Nordiques and New York Islanders) and came back to Philly and only had one Vezina-caliber season in his final five seasons in the City of Brotherly Love - the second, his age 31 season, the rest of the time most hockey pundits saying the Flyers still needed an upgrade at the position.

And they've been saying it ever since. As a matter of fact, since the Flyers last reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2010, 16 goalies have stood up in their crease - including an NHL-record eight in 2018-19 alone - and every single one of them was slammed by local press: Brian Boucher (two stints), Michael Leighton (two stints), Sergei Bobrovsky, Ilya Bryzgalov, Steve Mason, Ray Emery, Cal Heeter, Rob Zepp, Michal Neuvirth, Anthony Stolarz, Brian Elliott, Petr Mrazek, Cam Talbot, Mike McKenna, Calvin Pickard, and Hart; counting back to Hextall's Final, that's 42.

The only Vezina winner - Bob, of course, the only active two-time recipient of the award for best goaltending - was even run out of town before reaching his peak, replaced by Spaceman Bryz, a ne-tim finalist for the award who never again played like a #1 goalie after signing in Philly.

Tonight, as Hart twice let in goals minutes after his team would tie the game, I was reminded of the picture on this card, showing Bryzgalov looking behind himself at a puck that either went in the net or missed it:

That's card #29 from Panini's 2011-12 Crown Royale set and All The King's Men sub-set, a beautiful piece of cardboard that shows the goalie wearing the Flyers' retro/current home orange uniform, with a white game-worn "material" swatch in the crest.

Hopefully Hart's career in Philadelphia resembles more that of Parent than Bryz.

Ilya Bryzgalov Jersey Card

Another Canada-Russia game, another blowout...

One guy who is missed in today's NHL is goalie Ilya Bryzgalov, hockey's "Spaceman", who was always good for a great quote. This time around, he had a few choice odd bits for ESPN's Craig Custance regarding the 2010 Olympics, where Team Canada came out to a 7-3 win against Team Russia, in a performance he said:

They came out like gorillas out of a cage. (...) Big picture. Small picture, total domination by Canada. (...)

Not gorillas, more like Orcs from The Hobbit. You watch that movie, right? Big. Mean. Scary.

Sure, he probably meant Lord Of The Rings, but the point remains that the evil Canadians always seem to have that mix of grit and talent to wreck everything on their way to gold.

That, and exceptional coaching:

Canadian coaching much, much better than coaching in Team Russia. They're not in the same league.

 Here he is sporting the Philadelphia Flyers' current/retro orange (now-home) uniform on card #PHI-IB from Upper Deck's 2012-13 Black Diamond set and Double Diamond Jerseys sub-set:

It features two burgundy game-used jersey swatches from his days with the Phoenix Coyotes, prior to his career taking a down turn when away from the teachings of Sean Burke.

Ilya Bryzgalov Jersey Card

Here's one guy who put himself in the proverbial hot water recently: Ilya Bryzgalov said if his Phoenix Coyotes moved to Winnipeg, he wouldn't tag along, citing cold weather, nothing to do, and a lack of a Russian population:

You don't want to go to Winnipeg, right? Not many people live there, not many Russian people there. Plus it's cold. There's no excitement except the hockey. No park, no entertaining for the families, for the kids. It's going to be tough life for your family.

At least he gets points for being honest, and it reminds the rest of us who would prefer more Canadian teams in the NHL that it wasn't always easy for Winnipeg and Québec - even Calgary and Edmonton, actually - before those teams were forced to move in the mid-1990s: free agents shunned them, the smaller cities didn't have much corporate support, and the weather was becoming an issue, what with Gary Bettman establishing teams in warm, non-traditional markets.

So hockey players will have this dilemma: will they want to play for higher salaries in sold out arenas and perhaps have a summer home elsewhere, or will they want to play in non-hockey climates to empty arenas for mid-range salaries?

And with the playoffs he's had, letting in soft goals in each game, Bryzgalov may be looking at something even lower than mid-range in pay. For millions, he might have to go to the KHL, despite another terrific NHL regular season, in which he tallied 36 wins to go with his 2.48 GAA and .921 save %. And the season before that, he crushed the team record for wins (formerly of 33) by getting 42, with a 2.29 GAA and .920 save % in 69 games to garner a Vezina nomination.

That was odd, considering he is third of all time for longest shutout streak in playoff history, a feat he achieved with the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in 2006 - the year before they won the Cup.

This card (#36) is from Panini's 2010-11 Limited set, and is numbered 012/199; it sports a burgundy patch at the perfect spot right on his crotch at the bottom of the jersey, letting a bit of the team's logo pass through above it.