CSNPhilly.com
Rich Winter, who has represented his share of competitive goalies over the years, doesn’t mince words about Ilya Bryzgalov.
“If you study his performance the last couple of years, the only Flyer goaltender to have a statistical performance like that was Bernie Parent,” Winter said of his newest client.
“Look at the best two seasons a Flyer goaltender ever had and the only one who ever had a performance like that was Parent in back-to-back seasons when the Flyers won the Stanley Cup.”
On Tuesday night, the Flyers acquired the 30-year-old Bryzgalov’s negotiating rights from the Phoenix Coyotes in exchange for left wing Matt Clackson plus the Flyers’ third-round pick in 2012 and a conditional draft pick, which general manager Paul Holmgren wouldn’t speculate upon.
Holmgren has employed this move before – acquiring rights before free agency. He did that in 2007 with Kimmo Timonen and Scott Hartnell.
Just because the Flyers have Bryzgalov’s rights doesn’t necessarily mean they are a lock to sign him. They traded for Evgeni Nabokov’s rights last June (from San Jose) at the NHL draft and failed to sign him.
“We’re going to give it our best shot,” Holmgren said. “You give up an asset to get in early so we have every intention of trying to get a deal done.”
Also, Winter will be looking for a minimum of a four-year deal worth about $5 million a season for Bryzgalov.
Holmgren and the organization have said in recent months they feel Sergei Bobrovsky is their goalie of the future and needs another year or two of development.
Four or five years might be a stretch for the Flyers, although Holmgren was asked during a conference call about whether he felt confident “Bob” was his goalie of the future, but said that still has to plays out.
“We’ll see what we can do,” Holmgren said of signing him. “He’s certainly not an old goaltender. I feel like he has a lot of good years left in him. We’ll see how it goes. When you get into a negotiation like this you are dealing with a salary cap and you try to get a number you can live with.”
For all practical purposes, the Flyers need to clear about $5 million in cap space, although the New York Post reported the cap may rise to as much as $63 million next season from its present high of $59.4.
In other words, the amount of space the Flyers need to sign Bryzgalov could decrease in the weeks ahead once the cap is set for next season. Right now, the Flyers have less than $450,000 cap space for next season.
“Once we know what the salary cap is for next year we’ll have a better idea of what we have to do down the road,” Holmgren said. “We have options.”
Bryzgalov made the Coyotes a competitive team – basically carrying the club start to finish – in the Pacific Division, which was easily the most competitive in the Western Conference last season.
In many ways, every game he played in for Phoenix, which doesn’t have the talent of San Jose or even Los Angeles, forced him into almost a playoff mode. In other words, he knew when his team’s best chance of winning was with him in net every start.
This past season, Bryzgalov appeared in 68 games and won 36 games with a 2.48 goals against average and a .921 save percentage, while recording seven shutouts. He is a former runner-up for the Vezina Trophy (2009-10 season) and was the backup to J.S. Giguere in 2007 when Anaheim won the Cup. He’s played with both Chris Pronger and Sean O’Donnell.
In 27 career playoff games, he is 12-13 with a 2.55 GAA and .917 save percentage.
Winter said he had an “inkling” that this might happen but nothing concrete.
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