Flyers' goaltending once again a mess

You've heard this one before.

The Philadelphia Flyers have a goaltending problem.

Following weekend contests against the Boston Bruins and Washington Capitals in which the Flyers allowed a combined 11 goals, Philadelphia is once again the league's weakest between the pipes.

The Flyers own an awful .892 save percentage as the team enters its bye week. Meanwhile, those same Capitals, a team the Flyers are chasing in the Metropolitan Division, sit atop the rankings, coming in at .931.

But concerns in the crease are nothing new to the Philadelphia faithful.

Beyond Mason and Neuvirth, the Flyers have shuffled through six other netminders (minimum 10 games played) since the team advanced to the 2010 Stanley Cup Finals.

That list includes Ray Emery, Rob Zepp, Ilya Bryzgalov, Sergei Bobrovsky, Brian Boucher, and Michael Leighton. That's eight goaltenders in eight seasons.

All but Bobrovsky are gone from the league. Bobrovsky, of course, is a 28-year-old Vezina Trophy winner who is putting up another stellar campaign this season with the Columbus Blue Jackets, and is once again in the mix as the NHL's best netminder. But he wasn't good enough for Philadelphia, sent off to Columbus for a package of three draft picks.

By comparison, and with the same 10-game standard, the cross-state rival Pittsburgh Penguins have used six netminders since 2010, though Marc-Andre Fleury has held down the majority the games - playing 445 - while the other five have primarily taken the backup role.

Here's the good news: both Mason and Neuvirth are unrestricted free agents at season's end, and given their play, neither has shown why a new contract should be in the works.

That means Philadelphia will have a clean slate to enter the offseason and repair its goaltending position once and for all.

Of course, the last time that happened, the Flyers bungled the situation, when it acquired Bryzgalov from the Arizona Coyotes, only to hand the 31-year-old a nine-year contract extension.

Bryzgalov accumulated 130 victories over four seasons in the desert, but lasted only two years in Philadelphia before he was delivered a compliance buyout. Two years, $51 million, five playoff wins. Not what the Flyers had in mind.

In all, the Flyers have been guilty of instilling goaltending half-measures, with no defined or legitimate No. 1 since the days of Ron Hextall, who has since left the crease for the general manager's seat.

Young netminder Anthony Stolarz got a preview of the big leagues this year when he made his NHL debut, winning both of his starts, but it's unlikely that the 22-year-old is ready for prime time just yet.

Of note, there are slim pickings available in free agency - unless the Flyers want to bring in another question mark - and save for a Bizarro World where the Flyers can acquire Fleury from their arch rival, the best option could be Ben Bishop, as the Tampa Bay Lightning netminder headlines the best names available this summer. Bishop is the one free agent worth the price.

It will take a big contract to land the 31-year-old, but the good news is that Bishop has a far better track record than that of Bryzgalov, so the Flyers wouldn't be repeating their history of past mistakes.

Bishop has been a key figure for the Lightning since arriving in Tampa Bay in 2012, a resume that includes a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals in 2015 and last year's run to the conference finals

But perhaps the bigger question is can the Flyers afford to wait to fix their goaltending concerns?

After rattling off a 10-game win streak through mid-December, the Flyers' fortunes have since veered in the opposite direction. The team has gone 3-8-3 since Dec. 17, grabbing just nine of a possible 28 points. That's left the Flyers barely holding down the final playoff spot in the East.

Then again, it's been years of iffy goaltending, so what's one more?