Welcome to RANKED. Each week we will be ranking players, moments and anything else we can think of, hockey or not. This week, thanks to Cal Petersen, we’re ranking random Flyers goaltenders throughout modern history.
Every single team in the NHL has their cult heroes. Players who have played for a season or two, who are just loved by most of the fans of that team and is essentially unknown to every single other fan base. The Philadelphia Flyers might lead the league on these random fan favorites and this city’s entire sports catalogue might be at the very tippy top of falling in love with role players.
But those are players who have actually done something and might just be not good enough to find a home outside of Philadelphia.
This past week, we got to witness a player who will never be a fan favorite in this town just get absolutely shelled by the cross-state rival and then promptly put out on waivers to probably never see The Farg again.
Cal Petersen suffered at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins and while some of those seven goals on 32 shots were not his fault, some of them absolutely were. It was a horrific display that just left you with a bad feeling at the center of your gut. I don’t think he will be anything but the butt of a joke from here on out.
Petersen’s five games for the Flyers this season will hardly be remembered outside of someone scrolling through HockeyDB or Hockey-Reference for random team trivia in several years. But, even with him gone recently, we should take a look back at similar types of goaltenders throughout Flyers history, and rank them.
This week, we just have to look at any goaltender since the 2000-01 season (because if not we would be here forever), who has played five games or fewer for the Flyers, and decide to rank them. It won’t be a ranking on performances or ability, but purely on how odd this one-off story is. These names are for the true sickos as we remember some guys.
8) Cal Petersen
Maybe it’s just recency bias, but as we go through this list and have some fun memories of wild and wacky stories, Petersen showing up as a one-time great goaltender and as a pure cap dump for a rebuilding Flyers team, to then get shelled, isn’t fun at all. It’s not a cute story of an ECHL goaltender getting their shot because of an injury disaster in between the pipes, it’s someone who is making millions and then completely lost control of their game.
Good on him for having one good season and tricking the Los Angeles Kings into signing him to a big contract, to then end up on a different team and in the AHL just two years later. Not fun, just depressing.
7) Martin Houle
Martin Houle is perhaps the most random goaltender you could think of as part of the Flyers. At just 21 years old, the eighth-round pick made his one and only NHL appearance on Dec. 13, 2006 and just like many other single-game goaltenders on this list, it was against the Penguins.
After Antero Nittymaki came off, and Houle was thrust into the NHL and allowed one goal on the three shots he faced in just 132 seconds. According to a newspaper clipping we found online that looks real, Flyers head coach John Stevens pulled Nittymaki for Houle in an effort to give the original starter just a simple break. Stevens attempted to put Nittymaki back in, but the Flyers iced the puck and then the Penguins ended up scoring a goal against Houle, and then he was quickly replaced by Nittymaki yet again. That rocks. It’s not a good appearance, or one that would have people chanting your name, but just a random plug that might as well have been a shooter tutor in an 8-4 loss to the rivals.
There is nothing special about it, but just extremely A Guy.
6) Jeremy Duchesne
Jeremy Duchesne is a perfect example of what we are looking for. A fourth-round pick of the Flyers back in 2005, he steadily just chipped away at the path of someone with a hockey dream. He turned pro two years after being drafted, went down to the ECHL for a bit, played in the AHL a handful of times, and then because of a crisis, got to appear in exactly one, single NHL game for the Flyers. He never played in the league again and the very next season, was out of the typical professional hockey tiers all together, and was in the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey, a goon-filled league out in his home province of Quebec.
The best part about his appearance was that it wasn’t even for a full period. On April 1, 2010, in an eventual 6-4 loss to the New York Islanders, Duchesne had to come in relief after Brian Boucher allowed five goals on 24 shots and the team was down by a score of 5-1. Funny enough, with the rookie, minor-league netminder in the Flyers started to come back. They completely shut the Islanders’ attempts at offense down, allowing just four shots for the remainder of the game and they ended up scoring three goals to make it look just slightly better.
Still with the loss, Duchesne allowed one goal on those four shots in the 16:44 time-on-ice he managed to appear in. He played under 20 minutes in the NHL but I’m sure he still thinks about every second to this day.
And the best part about it, former general manager Paul Holmgren didn’t like the move to put him in the game at the time.
5) Cal Heeter
Cal Heeter is the guy to remember when talking about random Flyers goalies in the year of 2024. Most current fans are able to remember his time with the Flyers all the way back in 2014. Like Duchesne (and most goalies on this list) he appeared in just one game in the NHL. Except what separates him just a bit was that he was actually in between the pipes from start to finish.
At 25 years of age, on April 13, 2014 as the Flyers were hosting the Carolina Hurricanes, Heeter was thrown into the net and was depended on to at least be competent. At the time, the Flyers were a fairly good team. They held a 42-30-10 record before the game and it was simply the peak of fun Philadelphia hockey featuring Wayne Simmonds, Brayden Schenn, prime Claude Giroux, and then remembering a guy like Adam Hall for some reason.
Heeter ended up allowing five goals on an onslaught of 38 shots on goal by the Hurricanes as neither team decided to play defense. He ended up losing in the shootout after a respectable first appearance from someone who was having a decent AHL season at that point, but was never seen from again.
The netminder from St. Louis ended up in the ECHL the season after playing for the Flyers and then had a trip to the KHL and the German DEL before returning and playing two seasons of minor hockey, most recently for the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL in in 2017-18 season. Right now, he’s coaching U18 Triple-A hockey in his hometown. Cool!
4) Maxime Ouellet
Maxime Ouellet is unlike those one-off goaltenders on this list, but he is special in his own way. He has managed to ingrain himself in the lore of three separate NHL organizations. It isn’t just a single-game appearance for the Flyers, but Ouellet was able to play two games here, and then six games for the Washington Capitals, and then four more for the Vancouver Canucks — all separated by at least two years. He is a Guy among guys.
His time in Philadelphia was unique. He managed to make NHL appearances at the age of just 19 years old in the same season he appeared in the QMJHL. After coming in relief and saving all six shots he faced in under 16 minutes of action against the Boston Bruins on Oct. 7, 2000, Ouellet was called upon again just five days later and started what ended up being a 4-1 loss by the Flyers to the Dallas Stars. Ouellet played just 12 games in the NHL but he is among the history of league netminders who have allowed Brett Hull to score two goals in a game.
To add to his random Flyers goalie status, he was famously included as the only player heading to the Washington Capitals in the trade that sent Adam Oates to Philadelphia.
Ouellet went down in history as a guy to multiple fan bases and a fairly solid minor-league goalie. Not bad.
3) Johan Backlund
How often does a goaltender play just two games in the NHL in their career, and one of those games be in the playoffs? Johan Backlund is among the few.
In his first ever year after coming over from Sweden during the 2009-10 season, Backlund was called upon to come in relief of Brian Boucher (it is hilarious that this has happened multiple times in this ranking) after the original Flyers starter allowed two goals on seven shots in the first period. Backlund then had a respectable game. Through 40 minutes, the Swede saved 22 of the 24 shots he faced and ended with a .917 save percentage. Look at that!
Roughly six weeks later, on May 5, 2010, in Game 3 of the second round of the playoffs against the Bruins — the infamous series where the Flyers game back from a three-game deficit to win in seven games and eventually make the Cup Final that actually never happened and we will not talk about — Backlund had to come in for the final moments of the game.
He ended up on the ice for just 84 seconds, but it was a weird sequence. With the Flyers on the power play, head coach Peter Laviolette pulled Brian Boucher and put Backlund in between the pipes. Why? Well this goalie substitution gave the skaters on the ice a breather and essentially was a free time-out that the team could use to keep their best players on the man advantage and attempt to come back from a two-goal deficit.
Boucher would make his return to the crease with Backlund not even facing a shot against. How’s that for your second NHL appearance and what would be your final moment on that pad of ice before finding yourself in the minors for the rest of your time in North America? Backlund would head back to Europe and play in the Liiga, KHL, and SHL in short stints before retiring in 2016.
2) Mike McKenna
Mike McKenna feels like the ultimate journeyman goaltender. He had to be high up on this ranking just for what a wacky career he has had and the pit stop in Philadelphia as part of it.
Before being a Flyer, McKenna played a total of 34 NHL games six different organizations and never played in the league for the same team in two different seasons. Just hopping around to any team that needed adequate netminding.
To go through his career would take an entire novel, but the best part of it is that his last start in the NHL was his only game as part of the Flyers, and then he retired just months later. And before he got to the crease for Philadelphia, there was a transactional whirlwind. McKenna signed with the Ottawa Senators in the summer of 2018 and went on to play half a season there as a depth goaltender, making 10 total appearances. In January 2019, he was traded to the Vancouver Canucks in a weird goalie-and-skater swap that saw Anders Nilsson and Darren Archibald come to Ottawa, and McKenna and Tom Pyatt go over to Vancouver (what a bunch of names). And then just two days after the trade, without ever lacing up for the Canucks, he was placed on waivers.
And of course, the Flyers love their wavers and claimed him and just four days after that, on January 8, 2019, he found himself starting against the Capitals in a 5-3 loss. Just several months later, he retired from the game and has actually taken part of Flyers Alumni games, funny enough. Just one game and now you get to hangout with Eric Lindros.
1) Neil Little
The cream of the crop. The top of the pops. The best of the rest. Neil Little is a name that is still ringing in believers’ ears decades after he made his brief appearances for the Flyers.
Little gets the top spot on this ranking just because he never left. He was an 11th-round selection by the Flyers all the way back in 1991 and played in 11 years in the AHL, firmly establishing himself as a guy that they clearly loved having in the organization. Did that amount to anything in the NHL? Hell yes it did. Two separate NHL appearances, baby.
Even without acknowledging that Little was the minor-league goaltending guy through the late-90s and early-00s for the organization, and then was turned into their AHL goaltending coach and an amateur scout until 2015, before then going to the Florida Panthers and Montreal Canadiens as a pro scout (where he still is today); Little’s career box score is special.
He has two separate starts for the Flyers. One in March of 2002, at the age of 30 during the 2001-02 season where he stopped 25 of the 29 shots the Hurricanes hurled at him in a 4-1 loss for our Flyers. And the other one, almost two full years later, on Feb. 2, 2004 when he managed to allow two goals on just eight shots against the Lightning and then got pulled after 33 minutes. It was also a loss.
Little remained with the organization, being the Phantom’s starter through the NHL lockout, then went off to play in Europe the next season before retiring and getting a job with the organization. Honestly, we don’t have financial information on his career, but Little might just have the dream job. Be consistent to be with the same organization through multiple decades, laying under the radar for so long and getting a brief opportunity to at least mark your name down in the NHL history books, and then just continue working in hockey forever. That just simply rocks.
We love looking at names and remembering guys, don’t we folks?
