The Philadelphia Flyers recently announced on Twitter that Michael Leighton will be their starting goalie for Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals against the Chicago Blackhawks. If you are a fan of soft goals through the five hole then you should be elated.
I’m not trying to bash Leighton here. He’s done an admirable job considering he’s not a Roberto Luongo or Ryan Miller type of franchise net minder. The guy wasn’t in the league to start the year and has been the property of about seven different teams in his career. This means that in general he’s not very good.
But I’m not sure how Peter Laviolette doesn’t see that right now Brian Boucher is doing the better job. Both are far from perfect, but they are what they are. They can’t go out and trade for Luongo right now, no matter how much I kick and scream.
I’ve said this before, I really believe the defense is the main reason that Leighton has these gaudy numbers in the playoffs. They are blocking tons of shots and clearing rebounds immediately. That is absolutely huge, especially for a guy that likes to give up big meatball rebounds and who is frequently out of position for said rebounds.
Here’s the good news for Flyers fans: I’m almost always wrong in my prognostications. If I say they should go with Boucher, that probably means that Leighton will stand on his head Wednesday night.
So, I’m not going to complain. Let’s go, Leighton. Let’s go, Flyers. I’m going to sit here quietly while singing along to Pennywise’s “Bro Hymn” and get all Flyer’ed up from here until game time.
Was really a no-brainer Micah…
Leighton has played very well at home, which the entire team will have to do on Wed evening,
or my prediction of the Hawks winning in 6 games will come true…
I would not be surprised to hear Bouch is still suffering from his injury, actually. It’s not like he shut down the Hawks on Sunday, anyway. Both goalies gave up 3… Pronger was the big difference at -5…
hahaha i totally forgot about that song micah……..good jam