Former Flyers goaltender Ray Emery will be back in the area on Wednesday, joining his old team for their morning skate on a tryout contract. The Flyers announced that news late Tuesday.
Free agent goaltender Ray Emery will report to the #Flyers on a try-out basis. Emery will join the team at morning skate Wednesday.
— Philadelphia Flyers (@NHLFlyers) March 29, 2016
When I saw that tweet in my timeline, I had to triple-check to make sure it wasn’t actually five years old. But it’s real. And totally bizarre. Emery has bounced around a bit this year, from Ontario of the AHL to Toronto of the AHL to Germany. In total, he’s only played 14 games this year. His last NHL appearance was with the Flyers in 2014-15.
So what does this mean?
1. I think it’s evident the Flyers really don’t want to throw Anthony Stolarz into the NHL fire right now, particularly in the midst of a playoff race. They know they won’t be able to ride Steve Mason until Michal Neuvirth comes back, so they’d rather have a veteran in there. You can agree or disagree with that, but it definitely seems to be their way of thinking.
2. Or maybe it’s less that they don’t trust Stolarz, but that they know that he won’t be getting much playing time here with Mason playing so well. And given that, they’d rather have their young AHL All-Star playing with the Phantoms than sitting with the Flyers.
3. The Flyers play the Capitals on Wednesday night. Maybe they’re just bringing in Emery to do this:
We’ll see if this works, or if he ever gets beyond a try out deal. Super interesting and completely out of the blue here.
