Photo Credit: Our very own Michael Reaves
The Goaltending carousel just continues to rear its ugly head. Samuel Ersson Jess does not look like the same goaltender that he was before his most recent injury.
Ersson, unfortunately, is brutal right now. He’s having a hard time making timely, saves, and saves that he would ordinarily make. The good thing about Ersson is he’s a big self-evaluator, Flyers’ Head Coach John Tortorella says this all the time and he is correct.
A Swede in Ersson, could not rebound, following a bad game against the Columbus Blue Jackets, to where his team bailed him out in a 5-4 Overtime victory this past Saturday night. Unfortunately, Ersson is 2-3, with a .791 Save Percentage in his last five starts. This is just not good enough, and he’s quite lucky his team bailed him out twice.
To make matters worse, he looked lost against the archrival Pittsburgh Penguins last night. He let up a very soft goal within the first two minutes of the game, and that appeared to suck the life out of the team, at least for the first period. Yes, The team defensively struggled in the first. As well, against the Penguins at times, but they still needed that big save within the first two minutes of the game.
“Erss didn’t play well,” Flyers’ Head Coach John Tortorella said following the game. Most Flyers fans agree with his sentiment, unfortunately, this team will only go to the playoffs if the goaltending improves. Aleksei Kolosov came in relief, and actually played well, with only allowing one goal, on seven shots faced.
I wrote on Ersson’s struggles, following his return from injury this past weekend. At first thought, I really thought Ersson would rebound from a bad game against the Blue Jackets, unfortunately that did not happen.
One can only hope that Ersson improves, or else the Flyers will have no shot at the playoffs. As it stands right now, this is an Ersson-Kolosov tandem and if the goaltending falters, so will the Flyers.
Matvei Michkov
Michkov has appeared to hit the rookie wall. He does not look the same, especially after garnering the lowest ice time of any Flyers player against the Penguins (11:27 of ice time). He just doesn’t seem to have that same pizzazz, and that’s okay. Every rookie hits the wall at some point, this break couldn’t have come at a better time for Michkov.
Actually, I would have given Michkov a bit more ice time, since he’s a dynamic player, but most can understand why John Tortorella didn’t play him as much.
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