It’s been a difficult start to the season for the Flyers. Despite some good and positive flashes shown, they’ve struggled with consistency, with stringing together wins, and as such have spent most of these easily goings hanging around in the bottom of the league’s standings. But with two big wins this week to close out the month of October, the Flyers are beginning to look like they’re primed to hit an upswing. It’s taken a number of things coming together for them at the right time, but nothing has been more critical to the team’s recent success than the play of goaltender Sam Ersson.
“Sam’s playing well,” head coach John Tortorella summed up pretty succinctly after Thursday’s win. “I know his numbers, I’m not sure what they are, I know they’re not great numbers, he’s played well right from the get-go. Last year when he struggled, it was too much… [but] we really had no one else playing at that time and Sam had to eat it. So we’re gonna try to do it the right way with him in a long season, but I think from camp on he’s played really well.”
Those numbers he mentioned, in fact, are not great, but they’re getting better — Ersson’s still sitting with an .897 save percentage on the season, but with a 25-save shutout on Tuesday and a .952 SV% (21 saves on 22 shots) outing on Thursday, the average is finally beginning to be pulled up to match the level of play.
Ersson has made himself a dependable fixture within the organization — and the beginning of this season really feels like it’s solidified this — for the fact that he’s not someone we have to worry about. Any concerns that last season’s positive play was a flash in the pan were quickly put to rest by the fact that he carried that strength of play into this season as well. He’s not someone we have to worry about the wheels coming off at any moment. He’s also not someone the coaching staff has to worry about managing too heavily. “I don’t need to hold him accountable,” Tortorella added. “He’s very aware, has always had a very honest assessment about his game. Sure, he’s made some really good saves, and it’s the ones you need at that specific time.”
There isn’t an expectation for perfection from Ersson — a tall ask for anyone in this league, much less a goaltender who hasn’t even reached the 100 games played threshold yet — but there’s a confidence in his ability to perform well, and to take care of the details within his control. There’s also a renewed confidence in his level of conditioning, and while the initial positive returns from Aleksei Kolosov (and the hope that Ivan Fedotov can find his form eventually after some targeted work with the coaching staff in practice settings) mean that the situation isn’t so dire as last season, when Ersson felt like the only option available to put them in a position to win games, they do feel comfortable giving him a good majority of the workload, if it comes to it — as Tortorella also said, “I’m not afraid to ride him.”
This season, as much as it’s about Ersson finding a way to continue building on his positive play and continuing to come into his own as an NHL regular, it’s about the coaching staff finding a way to work a little smarter as it relates to him. “We’re force feeding him, he’s not supposed to be in this position right now in his career. We’re supposed to develop him. So a lot of things are coming at him pretty quick and I think he’s handling it pretty well.” There’s no doubt in his ability to perform at a high level, and perhaps this season will see the team approaching his game and management with the long-term approach they should have been allowed to take all along.
A real strength of Ersson’s throughout his career has been his ability to remain level and take everything in stride, and while Flyers fans have already seen well the dividends that’s paid here, hopefully this season allows the team to make things a little bit easier on him in turn, all the same.
