Bobrovsky reacts to trade rumors

It's the time of year when basically every team in the league has players appearing in trade rumors. One of them on the Flyers side has been Sergei Bobrovsky. The young goaltender knows the name of the game, but says he's only focusing on his job as a Flyer.

"I'm in Philadelphia now. I try to help my team the best I can. I'm not preparing to get traded. I'm only focusing on the games."

"The main thing is to just play. Everything can change very fast. You can't get stuck on things and you can't dwell on things. It's a tough schedule with three or four games a week. There's no time to get emotional."

"I like everything in Philadelphia. I respect the organization and the employees. But if something happens... That's life. And it's a part of my job."

"In this league, anyone can get traded at any time", says Flyers' goalie coach Jeff Reese. "But we like it that the Flyers have two good goalies. Look at Boston and Vancouver that played in the finals last season; both have very good tandems in goal with Luongo and Schneider and Thomas and Rask."

Bobrovsky says that sharing duties with Ilya Bryzgalov is an important experience for him.

"Ilya is a good goalie and I can learn something from him. He's helpful, he tells me things and I'm thankful for that."

Reese agrees the situation is a good learning experience for Bobrovsky.

"This season Sergei has no room for mistakes. Last season he could just go on to the next game after a bad game, but now it means riding the bench for a week behind Bryzgalov. But that's a great experience for a young goalie. I'm sure Bob will soon become a number one goaltender in the NHL."

Reese has seen improvement in Bobrovsky's play compared to last season.

"Yes. The biggest progress is in his puck handling. He used to stay deep in his goal, but now he challenges the forwards more and he likes to go behind the net to play the puck."

"He still needs to learn how to read the opponent to be one step ahead of the play and be more aggressive in certain situations."

Bobrovsky's English has improved enough that he can communicate well with Reese, even if he's still not comfortable enough to give interviews.

"We understand each other without problems", Reese says. "I know he's still uncomfortable about giving interviews without an interpreter. He sees how the journalists are pressuring Bryzgalov, so he wants to be understood correctly."

Even after working with him for a year, Reese is still very much impressed by Bobrovsky's willingness to learn and work so hard every day.

"I really like Bobrovsky. He's a workaholic. Sometimes he works on the ice for two hours. To me, that's overkill. But he just goes off the ice and continues at the gym. This season, he came to training camp two weeks before the camp opened. A year ago he started training in July."

"I think what you do is what you are", Bobrovsky says. "I try to do my best when I train, both physically and mentally. The goal above everything else is to get better."

Being ready to play at all times is one part of the learning process that Bobrovsky is going through and he admits it's something he needs to work on.

"Of course I have difficult moments, too. For example, I don't always know when I'm going to play. If I was informed about it beforehand, I'd be better prepared. Uncertainty is inconvenient."

This report was based off of a Russian-language story in the publication Sovetsky Sport. I also want to give a shout out to the original interviewer Natalia Bragilevskaya. You can follow her on Twitter @Natalia_Phila