Goalies. Philadelphia. Two words that have became synonymous with each other over the last twenty years, for all the wrong reasons.



Of course, it was not always that way. For the first 25 years of the Flyers’ existence, they were blessed with a pipeline of All-Star-caliber talent in net. Bernie Parent, Doug Favell, Wayne Stephenson, Pete Peeters, Pelle Lindbergh, Bob Froese and Ron Hextall – those seven netminders bridged from 1967 until 1993, with one or more being on the roster in each of the first 26 seasons in franchise history. Parent, Lindbergh, Hextall, Froese and Peeters were all legitimately among the top-five netminders in the NHL for a time, while Favell and Stephenson were above-average goalies in their own right. Yes, it’s true, stability and Flyers netminding once went hand in hand. But since then, an aging, past-his-prime Hextall, a slightly unhinged Roman Cechmánek, and reclamation projects Martin Biron and Steve Mason have been the...