Laviolette says 'Bob' is No. 1 goalie
Daily News Flyers blog
Laviolette says 'Bob' is No. 1 goalie
With Michael Leighton now back in the Flyers' fold after clearing re-entry waivers on Wednesday at noon, coach Peter Laviolette wasted no time in declaring his intentions.
And not just for the the Flyers' next contest in Buffalo on Friday night, but for the playoffs.
Laviolette said after the Flyers' practice on Wednesday that Sergei Bobrovsky is his "No. 1 goalie for the playoffs" and that Brian Boucher is his backup. It comes as no surprise, as Bobrovsky has started 8 of the Flyers' last 10 games.
"To start the playoffs, 'Bob' will be that guy," Laviolette said.
That put to bed a lot of rumors circulating that Leighton, who returns to the Flyers after posting back-to-back shutouts for the Phantoms last weekend, would see action immediately for the Flyers on Friday.
After stating his intentions for the playoffs, which are set to open on April 14 at the Wells Fargo Center for Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals, Laviolette was asked if he would be open to starting Leighton on Saturday night against the Islanders.
"I haven't gotten that far," Laviolette responded. "We spent yesterday [Tuesday] trying to figure out if he would get through [waivers] and when he would get through. Having Michael and his experience here gives us that depth."
Leighton was not with the Flyers at practice on Wednesday but arrived later in the evening for a conference call with reporters, which you can read about in Thursday's Daily News.
ROSTER MOVES: Forward Ben Holmstrom was re-assigned to the Phantoms, which means either Danny Briere, Jody Shelley or Blair Betts will be ready to play on Friday to replace him.
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is mike richards still on the flyers team?
— Shemp Howard- No goalie controversy!!!!— shawnmac
- yes, he had 2 goals last night you dope.— The Boston Strangler
- That's true about Versteeg, our record since we acquired him has been awful. It's like he confused everybody. Our guys do things 100 mph without really thinking about what they are doing and our PP hurts so much from not having a righthanded shot from the point. When you want to score off rebounds, you got to get shots to the net. The guys take too long to shoot!!— the Guffaw
- As long as this team stays in it's self-induced coma, it won't matter who is in goal! They were hoping for the playoffs to be here. Well, the playoffs are almost here. Where they will be in the standings at the end of the week remains to be seen.Let's go, guys. Start playing desperation hockey!— boris
- Bad playoffs = many changes from Homer, and Lavy will stay. But look for Carts and/or Richards to be moved. Pretty obvious at this point. They are the so-called 'core'.— Romus
- Michael Leighton + Chris Pronger = here we go with playoff hockey,....Let's Go Flyers— SyddBarrett
- Hey, as a partial season ticket holder I dont feel so bad now for not being able to get tickets to every potential playoff home game. Last year and other years if they made a deep run I could go to any game I wanted. They have mmade that irrelevant now. Thanks for taking the sting out of that Fly guys.— Big D phillies fan
- Wow the DEFEATISTS are on a rampage!!!. Remember the Flyers were 4 - 12 to end last season, but no just give up DEFEATISTS.— wgagne12
- the flyers are also 0 for the last 35 years. have no idea where the defeatist attitude would come from.
— kdub13 - I understand that this move was made in case of an injury during the short playoff run, but goaltending (in non-shootout situations) has not been the major problem. General team softness is the problem.— psuflyers
- Laviolette seems as lost as his players... their record over the last 20 games is amongst the worst in the league... hope the media starts being a little tougher on them and stops accepting all the lame excuses.— lockmaster
- i love the flyers and I am a season ticket holder, but lets be serious....everything that could go right went right for them in last years playoffs. they got a lucky draw with the devils (kovaluchuk completely disrupted that team and its style of play). They were a goalpost/overtime (game 4) away from getting swept by boston (not to mention jvr and briere lucky goals in game 7) and played a montreal team that used all of it magic against washington, the number one seed. It was fun, but everything went the flyers way. That kind of luck doesnt happen twice in a row— flyersforlife
- I'm not that stressed out by it, it's only 6 games.— AreaMan
