We have already asked ourselves what the Philadelphia Flyers can do for a backup goaltender, and on Wednesday afternoon, they provided us at least some of that answer.
According to multiple sources — who receive the news via an email from the NHL at 2:00 p.m. every single day — the Flyers have placed goaltender Cal Petersen on waivers and are most likely going to be sending him back down to the AHL’s Lehigh Valley Phantoms.
This comes just a couple days after Petersen’s most recent appearance for the Flyers (and potentially his last) when the 29-year-old netminder allowed seven goals against the archrival Pittsburgh Penguins on just 32 shots. And through his five games he has played in orange and black, he has earned a .864 save percentage and a 3.90 goals against average — miraculously, the Flyers have won two of those five games.
And to be fair to the experienced goaltender, he was really just thrown into this situation with the Flyers. He was thrown in the Ivan Provorov trade by the Los Angeles Kings as a pure cap dump, didn’t make the team out of camp and was in the AHL aside from a couple games due to injuries. But since Carter Hart was criminally charged for his part in the 2018 World Juniors sexual assault case, the Flyers needed a goaltender to support Sam Ersson and they viewed Petersen as that guy.
Obviously, it has not gone well and now he will continue his career as a Flyer down in the AHL, probably until the end of the season, barring disaster.
Petersen has one year remaining on his contract that holds a $5-million cap hit. Approximately $1.15 million of that cap hit will be buried with the netminder in the minors, so (quick math) around $3.85 million will still be on the Flyers’ cap with Petersen not in the NHL.
The Flyers have not made any official announcements as to who will now be their second goaltender in the tandem with Ersson, but we have to assume it will be Felix Sandstrom, who has a .882 save percentage and 3.23 goals against average with the Phantoms this season — that’s not a great option either but maybe he will allow just six goals instead of seven the next time the Penguins come to town.
