Brian Elliott's a living bible for Flyers goalie prospects

Once, Brian Elliott was known as the David of goaltenders, sling-shotting the St. Louis Blues past both Chicago and Dallas during an unlikely run to the Western Conference finals two seasons ago.

The more recent impression, though, is of a slumped goaltender skating to an early exit after allowing a fluttering puck to squeeze through his five hole during the deciding game of an equally unlikely sweep, the final sin in a season filled with them. Traded to be Calgary's savior, Elliott was instead cast out after a single season, leading to free agency and a new destination:

Friendly, forgiving…

… Philadelphia.

At age 32, his psyche scarred and steeled by successes and struggles of equal magnitude, Elliott's role with the Flyers will be about sharing the goaltending load, and perhaps sharing with the young goaltenders in the system  the hard lessons learned over a 10-year career. The most elusive to define of course, is also the most important:

Namely, what is that razor-thin edge that separates super and stink among NHL goalies?

"I'd write a book if I knew that,'' he said over the weekend. "No, it's something that you really just have to go through. Everybody's been the best goalie in the NHL one night and everybody's been the worst. It's how you respond from those situations. The details are so small, it's how you respond from your bad nights and how you react and come back. That's what you really learn from.

"It takes time and I think that's why for a goalie, it takes a little bit longer to get into your prime years because you have to go through those tough situations and battle through them to become mentally tough. The NHL, there's so much pressure on every night that you have to perform. If you can't handle it, that's when guys kind of slip away, slip through the cracks and you don't see them very much anymore."

The Flyers have had a lion's share of those. Roman Cechmanek, Michael Leighton, Robert Esche. You can still see Ilya Bryzgalov because he lives here, just not in net. It's a big reason that the Flyers currently have seven goalies in their system, adding one through the draft just a day after they subtracted one through the draft.

One of them is bound to be the next Bernie or Pelle. Right?

In the meantime, though, general manager Ron Hextall is committed to a goalie tandem, something Elliott embraced during his best seasons in St. Louis and Steve Mason complained about on his way out the door last April. Within hours Saturday, Mason and Elliott switched sides of the continent, each valued higher from afar than by those who watched them ply their trade up close.

The difference, and it's a significant one in the salary-cap era, is that Mason will cost the Winnipeg Jets $4.1 million for each of the next two seasons, barely more than a million under the combined incomes of Elliott ($2.75M for two seasons) and Michal Neuvirth ($2.5M for two), and a clear indication that the Jets will lean heavily on him as they either shed some doubt about erratic youngster Connor Hellebuyck  or shed the perception of him as their backstopping future.

The Jets also have an up-and-comer in Eric Comrie down in Manitoba, so it seems unlikely that Mason, still only 29, has found his final home. But right now what they see in Winnipeg is Mason's analytics, and some of those metrics  —  like his five-on-five numbers  —  say he's worthy of No. 1 status, may even be among the NHL's elite if the pucks bounce right.

Hextall, a former No.1 goaltender, clearly does not believe this, or Mason would be making that money here, and Neuvirth would have been part of that crowded island of unrestricted goaltenders who punctuated the dullest NHL free-agency period in more than a decade. Hextall even referenced Mason's performance of two seasons ago in laying down his expectations for Elliott.

"They supplied us with 82 games of pretty darn good goaltending,'' Hextall said of the Neuvirth-Mason 2015-16 edition that backstopped an unexpected playoff appearance. "And that's what we look for this year.''

It's natural to wonder why. Elliott's season in Calgary was at least as bumpy as Mason's was here, a second-half spike in his performance negated by a horrific performance in the Flames' first-round elimination by the Anaheim Ducks. Given the chance to be a No. 1 after five seasons of platooning in St. Louis, Elliott began the season at 3-9-1 with a save percentage of .885 before being replaced by his backup,  Chad Johnson.

Sound familiar?

Elliott said the other day that the birth of his first child at season's onset, coupled with a new town and team, presented variables that initially pushed him on the wrong side of that razor-thin existence that defines the job. "It was a hard time to deal with everything, being away from family,'' he said. "You feel like you need to get home right after practice and try to help out as much as possible. You didn't feel some of those connections that you usually have when you didn't have a kid to come home to — you could go out to lunch, you could talk to the guys.''

Probably not what friendly, forgiving Philadelphia wants to hear.

Then again, it's another chapter for that book, another lesson that might benefit whoever emerges from the scrum of Flyers goalie prospects. "I just come to work every day and try to have a smile on my face and take each day one day at a time,'' Elliott said. "I know that sounds cliche, but in the goalie world, you really have to embrace that. Over the past few years, that's what I've tried to do. Whether you're mentoring someone or not, you're there because you want to win and play hockey and what's best for your career. If you end up having an influence on somebody, that's probably good, too.''