It’s been an interesting season for the Philadelphia Flyers, who started slow this season and were stuck in the cellar of the standings for a while. Part of the reason for that was their turnstile situation in net, with an underwhelming set of goalies that failed to stick.
They’ve since freed their elite goalie prospect, Carter Hart, who has surged at the NHL level despite being just 20 years old. In tandem with interim head coach Scott Gordon, who took the reins after Dave Hakstol was fired, Hart and the Flyers have righted the ship and gotten themselves back into the playoff race.
It's been a strange path to finding their goalie of the future. On Friday night, the Flyers officially recorded one of the more bizarre records in the NHL history book — with Cam Talbot starting in goal for the first time with Philadelphia, they became the only team in league history to use eight different goaltenders in a season.
The full list of goalies that the Flyers have used this season:
- Carter Hart, 22 games
- Brian Elliott, 19 games
- Anthony Stolarz, 12 games
- Calvin Pickard, 11 games
- Michal Neuvirth, 7 games
- Alex Lyon, 2 games
- Mike McKenna, 1 game
- Cam Talbot, 1 game
Of the list, only Hart, Elliott, Neuvirth and Talbot remain with the Flyers. Neuvirth is currently injured, while Elliott, who has been solid this season, dealt with injuries earlier on. Talbot was acquired for Stolarz in February, and is playing his first game with Hart temporarily in the AHL to gain playoff eligibility.
As you can see, it’s been a wild roller-coaster in goal for the Flyers this season, but things have ended in a happy place as they seem to have found a potential goalie for the future in Hart. This was probably unexpected, but, hey, it adds a positive spin to this historical quirk.
