Philly Situation

[jhonny]

Dear Goalie Guild,

Sorry if this post is a bit loaded...

Check out my sig and you can see my goalie dilemma this season... picked up Khabibulin after reading about him serving time over the summer off-season (he's my insurance policy for Leighton going down). I am trying like heck to make a trade to reduce my goalies to three roster spots only... I am keeping Rask.

I wonder if Bobrovsky has what it takes to steal the starter job in Philly given this opportunity/trial by fire. Your input will surely affect my thought process...

I have a potential deal where I offload Leighton and Boucher for Hiller... my gut says keep the Philly goaltending since the team is much better than the Ducks, and they are my hometown team! But Hiller has no competition...

Also, what do you predict for Khabibulin assuming no in-season jail time... in case I have to decide between Khabi and "Bob"...

[GoalieGuild]

Bobrovsky has what it takes to be successful this season. Not sure if he "steals" the starting role as he may not get that opportunity but he's at least getting a chance to start the season with the Flyers and that alone is a pretty amazing feat compared to where we thought he would be about a month ago.

Teams and scouts don't know how to play against him. Everyone will shoot low on him. He'll make a lot of stops and play very well. He's a confident kid who is already riding a high from an awesome training camp and some shootout wins in the pre-season. You can't discredit what that could mean for his fantasy value this season.

Khabibulin will probably have a good start to the season. But beyond the first 10-12 games I'm just not very confident in his ability to stay healthy. He's still a very capable goalie who hasn't shown any signs of fading off or losing his ability to stop the puck, but it's a pretty big risk to take. I would rather go with Hiller and know I have a goalie that's going to play 60 games and post a very solid save percentage than try and roll with a guy that is such a huge question mark.

Hope that helps! I would only roll with Bobrovsky if you are willing to take the risk, but he could potentially bring you a very high reward. Boucher and Leighton for Hiller is a pretty fair trade and I'm a big fan of Jonas so I would think about that one. Leighton is going to be a huge question mark and doesn't bring you any return for the first 5-6 weeks of the season. And backs are not something you want to mess with (see Khabibulin).