Samuel Ersson made a surprise start for the Philadelphia Flyers after Carter Hart came ill on Thursday.
The Philadelphia Flyers just won their 16th game of the season last night. The shootout winner - scored by Bobby Brink - is sure to stick in everyone's mind. Perhaps a bigger story to emerge from this game, is how stable the Flyers goaltending has been.
Carter Hart has been solid for the team. He's sporting a 9-6-1 record to go with a 2.42 goals against average (GAA), a .919 save percentage (SV%) and one shutout. Of his 17 games played he has 10 quality starts.
Quality starts are great to look at for goalies. A quality start is a game where a goaltender has a save percentage greater than league average. It's also considered a quality start when a goalie only faces 20 (or less) shots in a game and has a .885 SV%.
An impressive thing about Hart's recent stretch - four of his last five games have been quality starts. Three of those four quality starts were wins. When a goaltender has a quality start, it gives the team their best shot at winning.
Samuel Ersson is a goalie that keeps getting better and better. Four of his last six games have been quality starts. John Tortorella himself is seeing an improvement in his back-up goalie.
"He just keeps getting better. He made some key saves at key times... (And) then in the shootout he takes over for us"
Tortorella believes that the play of their goaltenders has allowed them to be competitive during this stretch of games, "our goaltending has been good. It's given us a chance every night for quite a while.
To me, that sounds like a coach that's confident with whoever he puts in net.
When was the last time a Flyers coach could say that?
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