2024-25 was the worst Flyers goaltending season ever

The standard when watching any Philadelphia Flyers hockey the last few decades concerned the goaltender. If it wasn\'t mentioned by the Flyers\' own television or radio broadcast it was almost part of a script the opposing play-by-play and color commentary cited over the game. \"If they just had a goaltender, yadda yadda....\"

It did not matter who was stopping the pucks, the Flyers have had issues in goal. This despite eight trips to the Finals (and yes, being the bridesmaid each of the last six consecutive times). They simply could not get the stops when they were required or couldn\'t make the easiest of stops to hoist the Cup or win that round. Yes, Steve Mason, I remember you ! Although Michael Leighton gets his fair share of grief (and deserved) for Patrick Kane\'s Cup winner in 2010, the Flyers are currently looking at a goaltending situation which makes Leighton\'s and Mason\'s post-season gaffes look Vezina worthy by comparison.

After wrapping up the season April 17 in Buffalo, the Flyers were last in several goaltending statistics and metrics. Sam Ersson <a href=\"https://evolving-hockey.com/stats/goalie_standard/?_inputs_&std_gl_table=%22On-Ice%22&std_gl_team=%22All%22&std_gl_str=%22All%22&std_gl_adj=%22Score%20%26%20Venue%22&std_gl_range=%22Seasons%22&std_gl_span=%22Regular%22&std_gl_group=%22Team%2C%20Season%22&std_gl_age1=%2217%22&std_gl_age2=%2250%22&std_gl_dft_yr=%22All%22&std_gl_status=%22All%22&std_gl_info=%22No%22&std_gl_players=null&std_gl_fa=%2250%22\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https://evolving-hockey.com/stats/goalie_standard/?_inputs_&std_gl_table=%22On-Ice%22&std_gl_team=%22All%22&std_gl_str=%22All%22&std_gl_adj=%22Score%20%26%20Venue%22&std_gl_range=%22Seasons%22&std_gl_span=%22Regular%22&std_gl_group=%22Team%2C%20Season%22&std_gl_age1=%2217%22&std_gl_age2=%2250%22&std_gl_dft_yr=%22All%22&std_gl_status=%22All%22&std_gl_info=%22No%22&std_gl_players=null&std_gl_fa=%2250%22\">ranked 27th regarding minute leaders among all NHL goaltenders, with roughly 2600 minutes played. However, there is no correlation between playing time and quality of play.

2024-25 Regular Season Save Percentage GSAA (Goals Saved Above Average) GSAx (Goals Saved Above Expected) Sam Ersson .883 (rank #73) -20.14 (rank #96) -22.09 (rank #98) Ivan Fedotov .880 (rank #76) -10.95 (rank #90) -12.03 (rank #96) Aleksei Kolosov .867 (rank #88) -12.92 (rank #93) -11.09 (rank #94) All stats via Evolving-Hockey

Of the roughly 100 NHL goalies who saw action this year, Ersson is 73rd when it comes to save percentage at .883. That\'s bad. Even worse? That\'s the best of the Flyers lot. Ivan Fedotov is 76th with an .880, Aleksei Kolosov is 88th at .867. Want more bad news? That\'s scratching the surface of how horrible this trio was.

How about we break things down into their individual appearances and how they fared. Note, each appearance doesn\'t mean a full game. Also, some games saw two goalies used due to injury or just bad play.

Save percentages Sam Ersson Ivan Fedotov Aleksei Kolosov 1.000 4 (2 shutouts, 2 other partial game appearances) 0 1 (20 minutes versus San Jose Dec. 31) .900 to .999 17 10 5 .800 to .899 22 11 9 .700 to .799 3 4 2 .600 to .699 1 0 0 ,400 to .499 1 0 0 .300 to .399 0 1 0

That row of .800 to .899 adds up to 42 appearances, a sizeable amount of substandard performance. But to see 12 appearances under .800 is also concerning. That\'s a far greater number of appearances than those above the .900 line, which was 37. So in short, they got a lot more poor appearances than they did average to above average appearances. The fact there was such a glut of bad goaltending makes one wonder at times how they managed to even get to 21 regulation wins.

Let\'s dive into the GSAA (Goals Saved Above Average) shall we? Obviously, the goal is to be on the plus side of the stat. The higher the plus, the better you were at stopping rubber. Again, almost 100 goaltenders were in the mix this season. Winnipeg\'s Connor Hellebuyck had a sensational year and his GSAA was 41.11, so he\'s in rarified air. Fedotov was the top Flyers goaltender in this stat and ranked 90th among NHL goalies (-10.95). Aleksei Kolosov was 93rd (-12.92), and Ersson was 96th (-20.14). Regarding Ersson only Buffalo\'s Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen (-21.59) and San Jose\'s Alexandar Georgiev (-21.46) were worse this season.

Another stat used to measure effectiveness is GSAx (Goals Saved Above Expected). Hellebuyck again is head and shoulders above the rest (49.48). Fedotov is 96th (-12.03), Kolosov is 94th (-11.09), and Ersson is dead last (-22.09). Simply put, the Flyers rarely won the goaltending battle on most nights this season. A few nights the trio somehow managed to put together a decent 60 minutes. But generally what you saw through 82 games was what this writer endured during annual deep Philadelphia drives into the post-season: a horribly bad goal allowed at almost the worst possible time. Nobody wants to see it. But statistically there\'s so much more awfulness to see.

If the 2024-25 Flyers goaltenders aspired to be league average, they have a long way to go. The average goals-against average was 2.81. The Flyers were at 3.45. That\'s over 3/5th of a goal more allowed than the run-of-the-mill netminder. Not a star. Not a Hellebuyck. Just an average goaltender. The league average for save percentage was .900. Philadelphia\'s was at .872. According to Hockey-Reference , the team\'s quality starts were also spooky bad. A good quality start percentage for the season is roughly north of 60 per cent. Less than 50 per cent was bad. The league average was around 53 per cent in 2024-25. The Flyers\' team quality start percentage for 2024-25 was 37.8. And they had 29 really bad starts (with the starter\'s save percentage for the game under .850). By comparison, Hellebuyck had just four really bad starts in 63 games.

Comparing the GSAA stat to every single season the Flyers have been in existence, the 2024-25 season was their worst ever in that category (-45.5). Philadelphia\'s 2023-24 season (-31.2) and 2020-21 (-39) aren\'t great, but even those were better than what Ersson, Fedotov, and Kolosov were capable (or incapable) of doing this past season. By comparison, the other end of the GSAA spectrum (sorry, when I see a pun I use it) saw 1973-74 (67.8), 1984-85 (60.7), 1986-87 (54.7), 1985-86 (53.3), 1980-81 (45.2), and 1974-75 (42.4) as the best years the Flyers\' goaltending tandems put together.

Now granted, there have been Flyers goaltenders who have posted more wins than the three Flyers goaltenders this season and have had higher goals-against averages and lower save percentages. However, the stats for those eras, particularly the \'80s, need to be taken into consideration as it was far more freewheeling hockey. But taking into account Ersson\'s .883 save percentage and being the Flyers \"number one\" starter, there are only a handful of previous Flyers starters to have a similar save percentage over a season. However most of those goaltenders were marginally above or marginally below the league average save percentage for those respective season.

Goaltender Games Played Save Percentage League Average Save Percentage Ron Hextall (1991-92) 45 .883 .888 Ron Hextall (1987-88) 62 .886 .880 Bob Froese (1983-84) 45 .887 .873 Pete Peeters (1981-82) 44 .871 .873 Wayne Stephenson (1978-79) 40 .873 .883

Of course some might say that the reason the Flyers\' goaltending has been bad is because they are not teeming with high-end offensive talent. There is some sliver of truth to that. If they were more talented offensively, generally one could assume the Flyers would have the puck more. And more often away from the Flyers goaltenders. But one can\'t forget that former head coach John Tortorella\'s reason for existing often revolved around players blocking shots, taking some of the pressure off the goaltenders while nursing a season\'s worth of bumps and bruises from October through April.

The Flyers had six players who blocked 90 or more shots this season led by Nick Seeler (200), Travis Sanheim (170), Cam York (126), Jamie Drysdale (102), Rasmus Ristolainen (94), and Egor Zamula (91). The team total was 1455 blocked shots. An average of 17.74 per game which led the league (Montreal was second with 17.37). It is beyond comprehension to think how much worse the goaltending statistics would be if the 18 Philadelphia skaters opted to shy away from blocking shots. Even if they had blocked only 1100 shots over 82 games, it\'s conceivable the trio of Ersson, Fedotov and Kolosov would be the three lowest ranking goaltenders this season in the NHL. I do not want to think about it. I might bury my head in my five hole.

But let\'s think about it for a few more minutes. If the Flyers blocked only 1100 shots this year, that\'s another 355 shots the Flyers\' goaltending trio would\'ve faced. And let\'s suspend disbelief for a second. Let\'s assume every one of those shots made it to the goaltender for sake of argument. Given the season average of an .879 team save percentage, the trio would\'ve stopped 312 of those shots. Meaning 43 would\'ve went in. Add another 43 goals to the 283 they gave up and you\'re left with a goals-against average of 3.97 for the season. A full goal and change more allowed per game than the average (2.81)!

It\'s difficult for a young goaltender like Ersson who probably considered himself as the backup to begin the 2023-24 season to be thrust into the starter\'s role. To go from starting every fourth or fifth game and sitting for a week to 10 days is far different than getting the nod three out of four or four out of five games. Ersson was run into the ground in 2023-24 as Tortorella had no other viable option. Tortorella started this season saying the goaltending issue was scaring the shit out of him. Not exactly the confidence boost Ersson probably needed. Tortorella praised the goaltenders at times. Most of the time he was extremely leary of all them, even using one of the emergency call ups down the stretch for Kolosov before he was fired. However, the goaltending was bad. Very, very bad. And with two unproven and obviously ill-equipped backups -- Fedotov intimating he had a problem with the team blocking shots while Kolosov spent most of the season not playing in either Philadelphia or Lehigh Valley -- it was a gong show.

Using the basic stats of the Flyers roster, there is some humor in the numbers as Fedotov, Ersson and Kolosov -- all being goaltenders of course -- had zero blocked shots. The more cynical fans would say that\'s exact as they figuratively didn\'t stop anything all year. It\'s unclear if Danny Briere tries to get a short-term fix for 2025-26. He could try jettisoning off Fedotov and/or Kolosov somewhere else (and possibly retaining salary). But other general managers aren\'t stupid, they can see the underlying numbers. And Briere (we hope) isn\'t dumb enough to attach a third-round or second-round pick to get rid of one of the three. Adding a cheap veteran backup to perhaps serve as a mentor for Ersson as he tries to find his way might be an option. The goal is probably to have just average goaltending until Carson Bjarnason or Yegor Zavragin are ready. But that could be a few seasons away.

At the end of season exit interview, Kolosov didn\'t meet with the media but Flyers general manager Danny Briere said he spoke with Kolosov and told him he needed to be better. The same speech was given essentially to Kolosov and Ersson. Briere also didn\'t hesistate to suggest that if the opportunity presented itself to improve the goaltending (and it made sense), the Flyers would do that. Whether that ends up being one or two of Ersson, Fedotov and Kolosov gone before training camp starts remains to be seen. It\'s obvious the Flyers need vast improvement in goal just to get to the middle of the pack. And it looks like running this trio back for another kick at the can is a non-starter.

Ideally, there\'s a vast improvement in goal in 2025-26. Or at least something that gives the Flyers\' skaters confidence that not every turnover is going to end up in the net. If that continues to happen, the draft picks, development, trades and off-season moves won\'t make a damn bit of difference in hoping to get to the playoffs. Something needs to be done. Hopefully it\'s done before September.

Talking Points