The worst Philadelphia Flyers trade of all time hits a little closer to home after the Florida Panthers won their second consecutive Stanley Cup Tuesday night.
How Sergei Bobrovsky left the Flyers is something fans won’t soon forget, and the Russian’s success post-Philadelphia is all the reason for it.
Just two years into his Flyers tenure, Bobrovsky was traded by the Flyers to the Columbus Blue Jackets for an assortment of mid-round draft picks that ultimately became Anthony Stolarz, Taylor Leier, and Justin Auger.
The three of those players combined never experienced success at the NHL level to the degree Bobrovsky has, and Stolarz, ironically, has taken flight after leaving the Flyers himself.
In fact, the Edison, N.J., native was 16-7-2 with a 2.03 GAA, a .925 save percentage, and two shutouts as Bobrovsky’s backup last year. The two former Flyers, of course, went on to win the Stanley Cup over the Edmonton Oilers in seven games.
For good measure, Stolarz was 21-8-3 for former Flyers coach Craig Berube’s Toronto Maple Leafs this season, racking up an outstanding 2.14 GAA, a .926 save percentage, and a career-high four shutouts en route to picking up a Vezina Trophy vote.
As for Bobrovsky, nothing out of the ordinary for the two-time Vezina Trophy winner. The 36-year-old just enjoyed arguably his greatest postseason run yet, going 16-7 for the Panthers to the tune of a 2.20 GAA, a .914 save percentage, and three shutouts.
Formerly undrafted, Bobrovsky has now gone to the Stanley Cup Finals three years in a row, going the distance and winning all 16 necessary games in the last two.
Bobrovsky arrived in Philadelphia the season after their run to the 2010 Stanley Cup Final run, and current Flyers GM Danny Briere, who was teammates with Bobrovsky and dealt with the immediate aftermath of his departure from Philadelphia, should know better than most the value of good goaltending and what it means to give up on young goalies too early.
Briere’s Flyers had the worst team save percentage in the NHL this season (.872), trailing the Buffalo Sabres (.880) by a decent margin.
It’s unclear if developing goalies like Sam Ersson and Aleksei Kolosov can be the answer, and an inexperienced (at the NHL level) veteran in Ivan Fedotov is essentially out of developmental runway.
Briere knows he needs a franchise goalie at some point, but will he be trading for his Bobrovsky or will he repeat history and trade his Bobrovsky away?
On the other side of arguably the worst Flyers trade of all time, Bobrovsky has secured his status as a future Hockey Hall of Famer and one of the best playoff goalies ever.
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