This feels like a non-story to me, but whatever. It’s the offseason and it’s being written about elsewhere, so I guess we can discuss it here too.
Wayne Simmonds went on Sportsnet 590 The Fan in Toronto on Thursday and talked about the Flyers offseason a bit. It was all pretty benign in my opinion, even a part about Ilya Bryzgalov’s absence from the locker room “helping.”
Here’s a transcript of the relevant part of the talk, complete with lame talk-radio jokes about Bryzgalov being a crazy Russian Martian guy.
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Wayne, how different is it going to be this year without Bryzgalov, without Danny Briere, and some of the changes Paul Holmgren has made?
Oh, I think it’s going to be different. Obviously we lose Danny, a guy who’s played in the league a long time, a great player, a good veteran leader. And obviously Ilya, you know, he played well at times for us, but we’re getting three new guys in here now. We gotta look forward. We gotta be positive. Although last year we didn’t get the results we wanted, we’re gonna come back this year that much more hungry.
Are you guys better off with Emery over Bryzgalov just from a dressing room stand point? Just for stability?
You know what, uh …. I think it’ll help. Nothing against Bryz or anything like that but um, when Mase came in last year he played really strong for us and look what Razor did with Chicago. You know, I think we got a great one-two tandem there and they can battle it out.
So when you went to Europe, did you take a detour to Mars to visit Bryzgalov or is he up there all alone right now?
I don’t know. I don’t even know. He might be up there by himself. Mars might be somewhere in Russia for him.
He’s playing in the MHL — the Martian Hockey League.
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I don’t read too much into that “I think it’ll help” comment about Bryzgalov not being in the locker room anymore, but what do you think? NJ.com went as far to say “Wayne Simmonds did not hold back when asked if he thought Bryzgalov being out of the locker room will be a positive,” which feels a bit sensationalist to me. Again, the quote seems pretty benign, especially when you listen to the interview.
You can do just that yourself, courtesy of 590 The Fan, at this link.
