On Friday evening, the Philadelphia Flyers will have Cam Talbot starting in goal. This will be the eighth different goaltender to start a game for them this season, which will set an NHL record.
The Philadelphia Flyers have a bit of an interesting history with goaltenders. Two-time Vezina Trophy winner Bernie Parent is obviously the king. Ron Hextall is the NHL’s career leader in penalty minutes among goalies and later served as the Flyers perhaps too calm general manager. But after those two, it gets dicey.
Philly will fulfill its destiny on Friday, March 1. They’ve been destined to hold some kind of record of ineptitude for goaltenders. On Friday, Cam Talbot will start his first game for the Flyers. Talbot will be the eighth different goaltender to start a game for them this season, which is a new NHL record.
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The previous record of seven was held by three different teams, most recently achieved by the 2007-08 Los Angeles Kings. Other teams to hold the dubious one are the 2002-03 St. Louis Blues (who somehow still made the postseason) and the 1989-90 Quebec Nordiques.
So How Did They Get Here?
Let’s take about the previous seven goaltenders, working our way up from the bottom to the top. Mike McKenna made one appearance for the Flyers, losing to the Washington Capitals. Alex Lyon made two appearances, including one start. Michal Neuvirth made six starts (seven appearances).
Calvin Pickard, who is now with the Arizona Coyotes, started eight games (11 appearances). Anthony Stolarz, who got traded for Talbot, started 10 games and made 12 appearances. Brian Elliott was the unofficial number one goalie going into the season. He’s made 19 appearances and 16 starts.
Carter Hart has started the most games with 22. He wasn’t even supposed to be in the NHL as a 20-year-old unless the worst case scenario happened. Thanks to a bunch of injuries and goalies being bad, the worst case scenario happened. Hart, to his credit, has been quite good. Of course, in typical Flyers fashion, he got injured right before their outdoor game.
Which brings us to Talbot. He’ll arguably be no worse than the third-worst goalie they’ve used this season. Talbot has a .893 save percentage this season, though he has yet to play a game for Philadelphia. That might sound bad, but it ranks fourth (!!!!) among Flyers goalies this season. Given Talbot played for the notoriously awful Edmonton Oilers, you could easily argue he’s better than Stolarz (.902 save percentage).
Two of the three teams to use seven goaltenders were downright terrible. The 1989-90 Nordiques won 12 games all year while the 2007-08 Kings finished in last place in the Western Conference and tied with the Tampa Bay Lightning for the worst record in the league. It’s odd the Blues still made the playoffs despite using seven goalies, but hey, the Blues are odd, so it’s fitting.
The Flyers are somewhere in between. They’re just above being bad (only six points out of a playoff spot), but not good enough to be considered “good”. The Flyers have had an eight-game losing streak and an eight-game winning streak. Fitting Philadelphia would have a team capable of being so good and so bad in the same season.
Give the Flyers credit. They tried to resist their fate and fought valiantly. When Hart started for them in November, they were already at five goalies. It took them until January to use their seventh to tie the NHL record. Things were going smoothly until Hart’s injury. The Flyers might have tried to run from their fate, but they’ll hold the record they were always meant to hold – most goalies used in one season.