The dust has finally begun to settle after Tuesday’s mega-deal surrounding Ivan Provorov, and the Philadelphia Flyers now find themselves in an interesting predicament with their goaltenders.
Carter Hart is still the presumable starter for the club, barring a trade that could come seemingly at any point as rumors began to swirl almost immediately after Provorov was sent to Columbus. Behind him are young guns Samuel Ersson and Felix Sandström, with the former performing admirably in a short stint before falling back down to Earth, while the latter struggled at times and didn’t receive much help from his teammates in the process.
Another piece to the goaltending puzzle was added on Tuesday, however, as Cal Petersen was dealt from Los Angeles to Philadelphia as part of the Provorov trade.
Petersen’s final season with the Kings proved to be disastrous. He couldn’t seem to find his footing in the first year of a 3-year, $15 million contract extension, losing his roster spot to Pheonix Copley and being sent to AHL Ontario after clearing waivers. He went just 5-3-2 with an .868 SV% and 3.75 GAA in 10 games for Los Angeles last season.
Petersen didn’t exactly light the world on fire with the Reign either, going 16-20-4 with a .904 SV%, 2.88 GAA, and 2 shutouts in 40 games. It was still good enough to help Ontario earn a berth in the Calder Cup Playoffs, where they bowed out to the Colorado Eagles in the first round.
After briefly serving as a Black Ace for the Kings in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Waterloo, Iowa native was able to play some more meaningful hockey and represented the United States at the 2023 IIHF Men’s World Championship. He served as the team’s backup goaltender and was teammates with Flyers prospects Cutter Gauthier and Ronnie Attard.
After going 3-0-0 with a .956 SV% and 0.71 GAA with Team USA, Petersen now finds himself on the rebuilding Flyers.
There are a few different scenarios that could play out for the 28-year-old goaltender within the Flyers organization.
The most likely situation is that Petersen will start the 2023-24 season as the (expensive) backup to Carter Hart. With a $5 million cap hit, there’s not a lot of takers for Petersen and his contract, and he also brings 101 NHL games of experience to the table. He’s someone that not only can help out Hart, but he can try to help elevate the development of Samuel Ersson or Felix Sandström as well.
Another scenario that is if Hart is traded, Petersen becomes the de facto starter while Ersson and Sandström fight for backup duties. Again, he has a solid chunk of NHL experience and the Flyers do need someone to tend goal, and he can be a good mentor for the younger guys.
The third and final scenario that can play out is that the Flyers can simply waive Petersen and hope someone claims him to rid them of his contract. If he clears and gets assigned to AHL Lehigh Valley, the Flyers can at least bury $1,150,000 of Petersen’s cap hit in the minors while rolling with a tandem of Hart and one of the Swedes in the NHL.
I think it’s most likely that Petersen remains in Philadelphia unless he really struggles in training camp. With the slight uncertainty of Carter Hart’s future with the team and with how unproven Ersson and Sandström are, the Flyers need some sort of stability in goal.
And yes, while Petersen’s statistics from last season – and even the year prior – raise a lot of red flags, the Flyers don’t really have much of a choice at this point, but perhaps Petersen could bounce back.
But for a historical goaltending graveyard, someone reviving their career in the crease in Philadelphia wouldn’t exactly be a first.
The best and most recent example is Steve Mason. After going through multiple years of struggles after his Calder Trophy-winning season in 2008-09, Mason was ready to hang up the skates for good after the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season, but he was traded from Columbus to Philadelphia and played well enough to earn a one-year contract while the Flyers bought out Ilya Bryzgalov in the process.
104 wins and 2 playoff appearances across 4-plus seasons later, and Mason became one of the best goaltenders in Flyers history. Had it not been for injuries, he could’ve had a longer and more fruitful NHL career after his brief stop in Winnipeg in 2018.
Now, I’m not saying Petersen is going to rack up 100-plus wins and become a staple in the Flyers’ crease.
With the goaltenders the Flyers have, they seem set for the foreseeable future. You could argue it’s the largest strength of their organization right now, especially when you factor in the recent KHL success of Alexei Kolosov to go along with Hart and Ersson.
However, there is potential for Petersen to rebound from his struggles and show why he originally earned that contract that Rob Blake signed him to. It’s not like Petersen magically forgot how to tend goal. He’s 28 and still has plenty left in the tank. But it’s also really hard for him to not improve in some way after the last two seasons he’s played.
Per Evolving Hockey, since 2021-22, Petersen’s goals saved above expected is -17.6, bad for 8th-worst in the league. His goals saved above average in that time is -20.22, which is 7th-worst. But if you look at his time in the league from 2018-19 to 2020-21, his GSAx was 12.79, which was 10th-best, and his GSAA was 13.56, good for 19th-best.
If you’re look at just his more basic, peripheral stats, from 2018-19 to 2020-21 he racked up a 19-25-6 record with a .916 SV%, 2.79 GAA and 1 shutout in 54 games. 50 of those games were starts, in which 27 were listed as Quality Starts. Compare that to his 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons put together, where he went 25-17-4 with an .890 SV% and 3.07 GAA with 3 shutouts in 47 games. Petersen started 44 of those games and 23 were labeled Quality Starts.
Looking at those numbers, Petersen has clearly hit a snag right now in his career, but the skill is still there and the evidence of that isn’t very far removed from the present. Funny enough, the earlier Kings teams he played on were objectively worse than the last two editions of the squad that have made the playoffs.
Goaltending is hard to predict. Sometimes goalies just get hot, sometimes they go on long slumps. Sometimes they even play just well enough and aren’t super flashy, where you don’t really notice them that often, but they just quietly rack up wins.
Petersen seems to still possess all the tools to bounce back and be a solid NHL goalie. It will be a taller task with how bad the Flyers are shaping up to be this coming season, and that’s not really a criticism of the team, that’s just the situation they’re in with their rebuild right now.
There will be a lot of losing and a lot of pain to go through before things can get better, but there are plenty of players that are vying for roster spots on this team and that want to be a part of the future in Philadelphia, and Petersen is a player that can help uplift his younger goaltending counterparts that will be with the club longer than he will.
Even if he doesn’t play in Philadelphia for very long, Cal Petersen has an opportunity to bring out his old self in the crease for the Flyers, and the organization now has a veteran presence in goal that can help them now and in the future as well.
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