Today Flyers GM Mike Holmgren admitted to the media that the Flyers had been using a cardboard stand up of a goalie in net near the end of the season and throughout the playoffs. He told the media members that because of the Kris Versteeg trade the Flyers were over the cap limit so they decided to cut all of their goalies and replace them with a cardboard look alike. "It was a risky move" Holmgren told the media, "but we thought the talents of Versteeg would counter the fact that our goalie was made of cardboard."
Defenseman Matt Carle was one of the first ones to defend Holmgren's move. When questioned about his goalie he replied, "Hey, even though he was cardboard he made some big saves for us down the stretch. We needed to play better in front of him knowing that he couldn't move from side to side or challenge shooters" Danny Briere was one of the first Flyers to admit that playing in front of a fake goalie may have thrown off their game just a little bit. "It was hard to focus on your game, and for me that's scoring goals, when you know that your last line of defense is merely leaning up against the cross bar."
When the media asked the Buffalo Sabres why they were not able to capitalize on a goalie that did not move, Patrick Kaleta, Sabres tough guy, responded this way, "We realized in game two that they were using a piece of cardboard to guard their net but they kept pulling it and replacing it with different ones so we were never sure if there was a real or fake goalie." Some players reported that Tomas Vanek knew the entire series but no one on the Sabres would believe him when he told them.
"We knew there was something up with the goalie" said veteran and Bruins forward Mark Recchi, "He never really moved or made an effort to save the puck, hearing this makes a lot more sense" Needless to say the Flyers lost in four straight games to the Boston Bruins in large part to this handicap.
When asked if he would make the same decision if he could do it again, Flyers GM replyed, "Probably not, it did not work out as well as I thought it would." He then added, "but who knows who will be in net next year, if one of those pieces of cardboard have a good training camp they could be our starting goalie."
