How much hockey can we expect Philadelphia Flyers goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov to play in this shortened 2013 NHL season? If you think he’ll somehow play less frequently than he would in a normal 82-game season, you’re likely wrong.
Here’s a chart of the top goalies, sorted by games played, from the shortened 94-95 season. 48 games were also played that year, and as you can see, a lot of goaltenders played damn near the entire season.
| Goalie Stats | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Player | Age | Tm | GP ▾ | W | L | T/O | GA | SV% | GAA | |
| 1 | Trevor Kidd | 22 | CGY | 43 | 22 | 14 | 6 | 107 | .909 | 2.61 | |
| 2 | Patrick Roy* | 29 | MTL | 43 | 17 | 20 | 6 | 127 | .906 | 2.97 | |
| 3 | Ed Belfour* | 29 | CHI | 42 | 22 | 15 | 3 | 93 | .906 | 2.28 | |
| 4 | Sean Burke | 28 | HAR | 42 | 17 | 19 | 4 | 108 | .912 | 2.68 | |
| 5 | Dominik Hasek | 30 | BUF | 41 | 19 | 14 | 7 | 85 | .930 | 2.11 | |
| 6 | Martin Brodeur | 22 | NJD | 40 | 19 | 11 | 6 | 89 | .902 | 2.45 | |
| 7 | Kirk McLean | 28 | VAN | 40 | 18 | 12 | 10 | 109 | .904 | 2.75 | |
| 8 | Bill Ranford | 28 | EDM | 40 | 15 | 20 | 3 | 133 | .883 | 3.62 | |
| 9 | Guy Hebert | 28 | MDA | 39 | 12 | 20 | 4 | 109 | .904 | 3.13 | |
| 10 | Don Beaupre | 33 | OTT | 38 | 8 | 25 | 3 | 121 | .896 | 3.36 | |
| 11 | Arturs Irbe | 27 | SJS | 38 | 14 | 19 | 3 | 111 | .895 | 3.26 | |
| 12 | Ken Wregget | 30 | PIT | 38 | 25 | 9 | 2 | 118 | .903 | 3.21 | |
| 13 | John Vanbiesbrouck | 31 | FLA | 37 | 14 | 15 | 4 | 86 | .914 | 2.47 | |
| 14 | Curtis Joseph | 27 | STL | 36 | 20 | 10 | 1 | 89 | .902 | 2.79 | |
| 15 | Felix Potvin | 23 | TOR | 36 | 15 | 13 | 7 | 104 | .907 | 2.91 | |
| 16 | Daren Puppa | 29 | TBL | 36 | 14 | 19 | 2 | 90 | .905 | 2.68 | |
| 17 | Kelly Hrudey | 34 | LAK | 35 | 14 | 13 | 5 | 99 | .910 | 3.14 | |
| 18 | Blaine Lacher | 24 | BOS | 35 | 19 | 11 | 2 | 79 | .902 | 2.41 | |
| 19 | Mike Richter | 28 | NYR | 35 | 14 | 17 | 2 | 97 | .890 | 2.92 | |
| 20 | Stephane Fiset | 24 | QUE | 32 | 17 | 10 | 3 | 87 | .910 | 2.78 | |
| 21 | Ron Hextall | 30 | PHI | 31 | 17 | 9 | 4 | 88 | .890 | 2.89 | |
| 22 | Andy Moog | 34 | DAL | 31 | 10 | 12 | 7 | 72 | .915 | 2.44 | |
| 23 | Tim Cheveldae | 26 | WIN | 30 | 8 | 16 | 3 | 97 | .881 | 3.70 | |
| 24 | Mike Vernon | 31 | DET | 30 | 19 | 6 | 4 | 76 | .893 | 2.52 | |
| 25 | Jim Carey | 20 | WSH | 28 | 18 | 6 | 3 | 57 | .913 | 2.13 | |
How many games a goaltender plays in a season obviously depends on a lot of different things: Injury, illness, opponent matchups, general gut feeling of a head coach, number of back-to-back sets in a season, etc.
But a bonafide starting goaltender can certainly play 50 games in a regular season without issue, and Bryzgalov has played many more than that each season since becoming a regular starter in 2007. In fact, Bryz hasn’t played less than 55 in a year over the last six years.
Bryzgalov won’t play every game in 2013, because the Flyers are still paying Michael Leighton money to be a guy who stops pucks every once in a while. (insert lame Leighton joke of choice here) Bryz will almost certainly play more than 35 or 40 games, though.
