With the season just past the quarter pole, the resilient Flyers deserve a solid B for their all-around play.
Solid, but ironic.
It's ironic because the grade would be higher if their biggest off-season addition - goalie Ilya Bryzgalov - had been performing as expected.
In the season's first seven weeks, Bryzgalov - the chatty, likeable Russian whom the Flyers presented with a nine-year, $51 million deal in the off-season - has been an enigma.
Bryzgalov, 31, has shown signs of dominance. Witness the six-game span in which he went 5-0-1 with a 1.66 goals-against average.
He has also shown signs of being easily distracted. He appeared to lose focus early in the season and labored through a four-game losing streak in which his goals-against average was 5.05 and his save percentage was .802. That left him exasperated, saying he was "lost in the woods" and had "zero confidence."
That was followed by the aforementioned six games of excellence, which seemed to suggest that his swagger had returned.
But that was followed by a pair of lackluster efforts as he allowed seven goals over four periods - and was pulled after the opening stanza against the Islanders on Wednesday. The Flyers trailed at the time, 3-1, but Sergei Bobrovsky was flawless in relief to key a 4-3 win. That earned Bobrovsky another start, and he responded brilliantly with a 3-1 win over Montreal on Friday. He also started Saturday against the Rangers.
That said, the Flyers didn't shell out so much money to have Bryzgalov as their backup, so he figures to get the majority of the starts the rest of the way.
For the Flyers, the good news is this: The player they call "Bryz" has four-plus months to get his game in order for the real season.
That's ample time to create more chemistry with his defensemen and build confidence going into the playoffs, where, by the way, he has not exactly resembled Bernard Marcel Parent.
The Flyers have had many positives, including Claude Giroux's rise as a bona-fide league MVP candidate, the blossoming of rookies Matt Read and Sean Couturier, Jaromir Jagr's excellence when healthy, and the way most of the team - despite 10 new players this season - has meshed so quickly.
Bryzgalov's uneven play has been the most disappointing part.
When the Flyers signed him, many of us thought they had solved their longstanding goalie problem. Finally, they had someone who would not only provide consistency but would actually steal some games with his acrobatic play.
