The late, great comedian Mitch Hedberg used to tell a joke about how long it takes to cook a baked potato in a conventional oven. "Sometimes, I'll just throw one in there, even if I don't want it," he said. "By the time it's done, who knows?"
Drafting and developing goaltenders is much the same. It takes so long for most draft-eligible goaltenders to be ready for the NHL that, by the time they are finished "cooking", there's no telling what a team might actually have in that player. Most NHL scouts will tell you that they consider the projection of teenage goalies to involve the most guesswork of any pre-Draft preparation they do.
For this reason, I am usually leery of teams using first-round picks on goaltender. There are exceptions, of course, but the risk of subsequent buyers' remorse is just too high in most cases to justify going with a goalie over a position player in Round One.
On the other hand, I am very much a believer in taking a goalie at some point in most every Draft. An NHL team may be set in goal for right now. By the time the drafted goal is done done developing, who knows?
The 2008 Draft is a good example.
Heading into the Draft, Tri-City Americans goaltender Chet Pickard was far and away considered the best available goalie in the Draft, with some saying he had franchise player potential. It was widely reported on Draft day that the Flyers tried to move up in order to select Pickard. They were unable to do so, and the Nashville Predators chose Pickard with the 18th overall pick of the first round. Philadelphia, selecting 19th, chose defenseman Luca Sbisa.
As it turned out, Pickard was a major bust. He struggled in AHL, was demoted to the ECHL, and did not fare too well even at that level. Nashville's seventh-round selection (207th overall) in the same Draft, Anders Lindbäck, has at least gone on to become an NHL player. Up to this point, Washington Capitals fourth-round pick, Braden Holtby, has arguably been the top NHL goalie to come out of the 2008 Draft.
There is no such thing as too much organizational depth at a particular position, including goaltenders. Goalie prospects too often fall by the wayside. No matter what a goalie does in collegiate or Canadian junior hockey, the World Junior Championships or even the top European pro leagues or AHL, it's a whole different ballgame once they he gets to the NHL.
The Flyers know this first-hand.
From 1995 to 1999, the organization used its top overall Draft pick -- two first-rounders and an early second-rounder -- three times. By 1999, goaltending prospect depth was considered the biggest strength of the Philadelphia farm system. In the summer of 1999, there were no fewer than five goalies in the Flyers system who were considered to be potential future NHL starters. There was also one fringe prospect. This does not even include Johan Hedberg (drafted in the 9th round of the 1994 Draft), whose rights had been traded to San Jose after his agent and Bob Clarke were unable to agree on a contract.
Let's revisit the NHL prospect goaltenders the Flyers had in their system in the summer of 1999. Five of them played in the NHL (three only briefly). Two had stints as starters. None became long-term impact players in the NHL. Welcome to the vicissitudes of goalie drafting and development.
In 1995, the Flyers used their first-round pick (22nd overall) to select Brian Boucher. According to The Hockey News' Draft Preview that year, most scouts considered him the fourth-best goalie prospect in a goalie-rich draft, behind Martin Biron, J-S Giguere and Marc Denis but a first-round worthy prospect in his own right. As of 1999, he looked to be on track to graduate to the NHL in the near future.
In the 1996 draft, Philly took Swedish goaltender Per-Ragnar Bergkvist, in the 5th round (124th overall), largely because Bergkvist had outplayed Boucher head-to-head at the most recent World Junior Championships. Unfortunately, Bergkvist proved to be a flash in the pan and never became even an average Elitserien goalie. In 1999, however, he had a brief revival with Färjestad and was at least considered a fringe prospect.
In the 1997 draft, the Flyers used their first pick of the draft (30th overall) to select Jean-Marc Pelletier. The second-round draftee made a quick splash with the Phantoms in 1998-99 and even earned a start with the big club -- which didn't go very well -- while the club was struggling and looking for a spark. Although his stock soon fell, Pelletier still looked like a solid NHL prospect in the summer of 1999.
In the 1998 draft, the Flyers took Antero Niitymäki in the 6th round (168th overall). A product of the vaunted TPS Turku system, which produced a string of future NHL goalies, Niittymäki got an extended chance to play with the TPS team in SM-Liiga when Fredrik Norrena went down with an injury. Niitty ended up winning the 1999-2000 Rookie of the Year award in SM-Liiga and TPS won the championship.
In the 1999 draft, the Flyers selected Maxime Ouellet in the first round after Boston snapped up defenseman Nick Boyton (a draft re-entry after he was selected 9th overall by Washington in 1997 but did not sign a contract) one pick earlier. Considered by many to be the best goalie available in the draft, many scouts thought he had future NHL All-Star potential. Ouellet would go to play for Team Canada at the WJC and actually started the 2000-01 season on the Flyers' NHL roster before being returned to the QMJHL.
Of course we know what happened to this deep pool of prospects; chock full of potential "goalie-of-the-future" candidates. One by one, they fell by the wayside.
Boucher had an amazing NHL rookie season and led the Flyers to the Eastern Conference Finals in 1999-2000. He faltered badly in his second season and lost his job to Roman Cechmanek (drafted by the Flyers at age 29 in the 6th round of the 2000 NHL draft after he won five straight Czech championships with HC Vsetin). Boosh ended up becoming a journeyman backup goalie who spent four stints -- three that included time in the NHL -- with the Flyers' organization.
After flopping with Leksand and playing a year in Norway, Bergkvist's brief revival with FBK didn't last beyond the first month of the 1999-2000 season. He ended up playing his way down to third-string goalie and faded away from the hockey scene.
Pelletier's cockiness was considered a plus when he stepped up in the first half of his rookie pro season with the Phantoms, but soon started to work against him as he leveled off and gained the reputation for being uncoachable. He ended up being traded to Carolina in the deal that brought Keith Primeau to Philadelphia and sent Rod Brind'Amour to the Hurricanes. Pelletier turned into pretty much a career minor-league goaltender.
Niittymäki ended up being arguably the best of the bunch, if you exclude Czech veteran Cechmanek (who was already a finished product by the time he was drafted). Niitty won three straight Finnish championships, a Calder Cup, an AHL playoff MVP award, an Olympic silver medal and Olympic MVP award. But he had only spotty success in the NHL. Like Boucher, he was unable to keep a full-time starting job in the NHL, and he did not prove to be the answer to the Flyers' search for a long-term answer in goal. Repeated hip injuries -- which eventually resulted in hip replacement surgery and hastened the premature end to his career -- undoubtedly set back his development once he reached the NHL.
Ouellet's flaws started to become apparent soon after he graduated from junior to professional hockey. He was still highly regarded at the time the Flyers sent him to Washington in the ill-fated Adam Oates rental. However, his game never progressed and, like Pelletier, he ended up becoming more or less a career minor leaguer.
Cechmanek was not of prospect age by the time he entered the Flyers' organization, so I will not discuss him at length here. If you are interested in my take on Cechmanek's time in Philly,
click here for an in-depth blurb I wrote about him in a 2010 blog.
At any rate, the purpose for going back and looking at all of those Flyers draftees from that mid- to late-1990s time frame is to show that, of all positions on the ice, goalies are truly the hardest to predict once they turn pro. Even when they reach the top level, there are many goalies who are late bloomers.
Sergei Bobrovsky, signed by the Flyers as an undrafted free agent in 2010 and traded last summer, won the Vezina Trophy this season with the Columbus Blue Jackets. No one could have seen this coming a year ago. With the Flyers potentially looking to buy out Ilya Bryzgalov and go with former Columbus goalie Steve Mason (a former Calder Trophy winner as NHL Rookie of the Year) as part of a new tandem, the team hopes that Mason's strong late-season showing after his acquisition is the start of the player getting his once-promising career back on track.
In terms of system depth beneath the NHL level, the Flyers have nowhere near the goalie prospect depth in 2013 in their current system that they seemed to have 14 years ago. Some believe that Phantoms goaltender Cal Heeter has the potential to become an NHL backup. Meanwhile, 2012 second-round pick Anthony Stolarz, is the organization's best long-term hope, but could be at least three to four years away from being NHL-ready.
As the 2013 NHL Draft approaches, I would not be at all surprised if the Flyers choose a goaltender at some point in the Draft. It seems unlikely they'll take Zach Fucale, the lone consensus first-round candidate among Draft-eligible goalies, with the 11th overall pick. There are just too many highly regarded position players with lower risk factors to take a goalie that early this year.
However, there is a pretty good chance that someone among the likes of Tristan Jarry, Marcus Högberg, Eric Comrie, Brendan Burke, Ville Huuso, Philippe Desrosiers or Ivan Bocharov gets selected by the Flyers a little later in the Draft. It's also possible the Flyers would take an Central Scouting unranked or lower-ranked goalie prospect at some point from the middle to late rounds of this year's Draft.
Of the aforementioned goalies, the ones I personally like the best at this point are Jarry and Högberg. Jarry is an aggressive goaltender who is coming off an excellent WHL season for Edmonton. The 6-foot-4 Högberg appeared in three Elitserien games this year for Linköping while also starring for their J20 team.
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