It’s a perfectly natural thing to boil down almost every single aspect of almost every single sport into a win or a loss. Games, trades, free agent acquisitions, hirings, firings — just everything was either a great win for your team or a terrible loss that was a mistake. It’s natural but it’s flawed and most of the time just wrong.
Context is, unfortunately, everything. There are reasons why teams do make those moves that could be seen as mistakes. It isn’t excusing their decisions or defending their choices, but we can at least understand where they are coming from and why they signed that bottom-six forward for way too much money for way too many years.
So, the moment Sergei Bobrovsky led the Florida Panthers to winning their second consecutive Stanley Cup victory, an ugly conversation in Philadelphia started to get louder and louder.
Of course, yes, we all know that Bobrovsky was originally signed by the Flyers as an undrafted free agent all the way back in 2010 at just 21 years old after he established himself as one of the best goalies in the KHL. Then jump 15 years into the future and suddenly the number one position of need this team has right now is in between the pipes and a netminder they actually had under contract is galivanting around with his name engraved onto the Stanley Cup for decades to come. It’s the easiest two dots to connect and get upset about.
But to make that direct connection is missing years’ worth of stories and the journey that has led Bobrovsky to this point.
If we just rewind ever so slightly, in Bobrovsky’s second season with the Flyers (and in the NHL) at just 23 years old, he earned a below-average .899 save percentage and a 3.02 goals against average. That is just not good enough for a Flyers team who were just trying to find any advantage to get another deep run out of a roster trying to get to the Cup Final once again. Add that to a massive underperformance in the playoffs and there is a growing frustration to find an answer in net. So, with unrelenting pressure from the top, the Flyers moved on.
Philadelphia traded the young Bobrovsky to the Columbus Blue Jackets, having already signed the best netminder on the market: Ilya Bryzgalov. It’s a series of events that enough digital ink has been spilled about, so we don’t need to dive any deeper but there was context to that initial move.
Immediately, Bobrovsky became one of the best goaltenders in the NHL. He won the Vezina Trophy and finished fifth in Hart Trophy voting in the very first season in Columbus and then just continued to be a solid, reliable, upper-tier starter for the Blue Jackets in the seven years he was with the organization. But, he couldn’t perform in the playoffs.
In 34 playoff games with the Flyers and Blue Jackets, Bobrovsky had a mediocre .902 save percentage and 3.00 goals against average, leading to a 12-17-5 record. He was given the label of not being able to be a postseason performer — a label Connor Hellebuyck is currently dealing with — and that was that. A goalie not able to get it done when it matters the most.
Bobrovsky moved on, and because of his regular season numbers, signed a seven-year, $70-million contract with the Florida Panthers that instantly was scrutinized by fans from every single team. At that time, paying a goaltender eight figures a year felt alien and reeked of poor management. And then to follow up that contract signing and being able to cash in, Bobrovsky massive underperformed. In his first two seasons in Florida, he had a .902 save percentage and 3.10 goals against average. Bad! Not good enough! And he was being paid more than any other goalie in the world to do a crap job.
At that time, no one in Philadelphia was criticizing the Flyers for letting him go. Maybe for all the success he found in Columbus, sure, but it’s not like they did anything with him, so it was harmless. Bobrovsky wore the scarlet letter of being an underperforming player with an albatross contract for years. And now, because the team in front of him got better and he seized a couple opportunities to stand on his head, he’s heralded as a potential Hall of Famer.
And nowww, the criticism starts to pour out. The disbelief that the Flyers, a team that currently employs the worst goaltending tandem in the NHL, once had this player who is on all of our screens wearing an ugly jersey with a smile on his face and lifting the Cup.
All of this postering of the Flyers trading Bobrovsky for a few draft picks as the worst move in Philadelphia sports history, with zero lack of awareness of the context around that move and what could have happened just a short time after.
In a hypothetical scenario of the Flyers keeping Bobrovsky — just to toy with idea for a moment — do we not think that management would also send him packing if he were to be a playoff disappointment like he continued to be in Columbus? Again, the guy labeled as someone who can’t do it when the lights are bright. Philadelphia would probably pull off a similar trade but just later; trying to find an upgrade somewhere else. Even if Bobrovsky magically stayed and management did not hastily move him away after a few disappointing years, would Flyers fans really never complain about that contract?
If the Panthers did not have championship memories and rings to remind them of said memories, that $10-million cap hit and a contract that takes him to almost 38 years old would be the main topic of conversation almost every single week. Asking themselves and the several general managers that would eventually make their way through the Flyers front office during that time span, how they could get rid of Bobrovsky because he is being paid way too much money.
It doesn’t take too much brain power to conjure up that exact situation happening.
Sure, we can criticize the decision to trade Bobrovsky to Columbus 13 years ago because that Claude Giroux-led team certainly could have used a Vezina-caliber goaltender to take them on multiple playoff runs. But that’s also over a decade ago now. It’s time to just move on and even more so, acknowledge that we have almost no clue how his career would have played out if he remained a Flyer. Zero clue! The most likely scenario would be that he had very good seasons for the Flyers before he would eventually leave in free agency in 2019, like he did for Columbus. And while those mid-2010’s Flyers teams were good, they most likely weren’t just a good goalie away from making a substantial run in the playoffs.
Putting actual effort in and spending time in the summer complaining about a trade where the result would have most likely been in the same, instead of doing literally anything else, is just a waste. Bobrovsky wouldn’t still be in Philadelphia and the outcome would’ve been the same. Let’s just all collectively move on.
