Flyers GM Paul Holmgren says goaltending not at fault for sweep

The Flyers flunking out of the playoffs in a meek four-game sweep at the hands of the Boston Bruins helped bring to light more than a few flaws the team had.

While many seem to agree that the Flyers undoing came thanks to poor goaltending from Brian Boucher there’s one important figure who doesn’t exactly agree with that assessment.

Flyers GM Paul Holmgren disagrees with those saying that goaltending is the root of the problems faced by the Flyers against the Bruins. NHL.com’s Mike Morreale gets the straight scoop from Holmgren that you’re probably going to snicker at.

“I don’t think we can fault our goaltending at any point in this series,” Holmgren said. “I know it looks bad when you’re taking guys out all the time. But goaltending, as I’ve said before, is a function of your team. Was (Bobrovsky) great (in Game 4), no, but he’s a young kid and under intense circumstances. But we didn’t lose the game because of our goalie. We lost the game because their team outplayed our team.”

No one is going to disagree with Holmgren on his last point. The Bruins certainly did outplay the Flyers, but the Bruins also outscored the Flyers 20-7 over the four games. Also keep in mind here that Flyers goalies made 17 appearances throughout 11 playoff games. With that kind of circus in goal, it’s tough for defensemen and forwards alike to find a comfort zone. Yes they’ve all got familiarity with Boucher and Sergei Bobrovsky, but Michael Leighton getting appearances against Buffalo made the situation all the more baffling.

Coach Peter Laviolette has gambled and succeeded in the past with making sudden goalie changes. It worked last year when switching between Boucher and Leighton in getting the Flyers to the Stanley Cup final. It worked when he was the head man in Carolina leading the Hurricanes to the Cup in 2006 when he made the gutsy call to switch to Cam Ward over Martin Gerber, a move that resulted in Ward playing out of his mind on the way to winning the Conn Smythe Award.

These Flyers, however, were not at all like those teams as a host of other issues helped guarantee they wouldn’t move on. That said, the questionable goaltending from Brian Boucher is what the focus falls upon and putting up a goals against average of over 5.00 isn’t winning anyone anything ever. Trying to distract away from how bad the goaltending was is noble of Holmgren to make sure his guys don’t get trashed further, but the Flyers aren’t going to win anything next year unless Holmgren can figure out what to do at that position.