Goaltending was the crutch of the Philadelphia Flyers down the home stretch of last season, which saw the team fall out of a playoff spot after going just 5-10-3 after the trade deadline. Sam Ersson appeared in 15 of those 18 games, going 5-7-2 with a .861 SV%, 3.65 GAA, and 1 shutout. On the entire season, Ersson’s body of work was okay, but there was a clear divide between his first and second halves of the year.
Ersson began the year as Carter Hart’s backup, going 12-6-3 with a .909 SV%, 2.36 GAA, and 3 shutouts before Hart left the team to face charges stemming from the 2018 Hockey Canada sexual assault scandal. Rather suddenly, Ersson became the team’s number one goalie from that point onward and played a lot.
From January 23rd until April 16th’s season finale, Ersson played in 29 of Philadelphia’s 35 remaining games. In that stretch, Ersson went 11-13-14 with a .875 SV%, 3.20 GAA, and 1 shutout. 15 of those games saw Ersson give up 3 goals or more, and in 9 of those games he gave up at least 4. The Flyers were also periodically banged up and lost Sean Walker via trade to Colorado, so there are other variables that attributed to the team’s struggles, but the workload was clearly wearing Ersson down as well.
But this is a new season with a fresh opportunity for Ersson to fully prepare himself for the starting job, and so far, he looks ready. After playing in the Euro Hockey Tour and IIHF Men’s World Championship this past summer for his native Sweden, Ersson entered Training Camp in tremendous shape and performed admirably in the preseason. Ersson registered a 37-save shutout in his preseason debut against the Islanders on September 26th.
“I thought he played great,” said assistant coach Rocky Thompson. “Played really good, even right down to the wire there at the end, we were up two-nothing, he made a huge save right off the blocker. I thought he looked solid. It was a great confidence builder for him. Really important game in my opinion just to get a steady footing for himself in the crease.”
Ersson followed that up by going 30 for 32 on saves in a tough loss against the Bruins on October 1st.
“Obviously was kind of a nice game again,” said Ersson. “Got to see a lot of pucks, so it’s a good way to kind of get into things. Because it’s preseason it’s kind of a nice game actually for me to kind of really feel things out, and I like I said, see a lot of pucks.”
Goaltending as a whole was perhaps Philadelphia’s largest question mark entering this year between Ersson’s sour second half and Ivan Fedotov’s lack of North American experience, but the former’s strong play should hopefully serve as an indication of what’s to come this season. Remember, Ersson is still relatively young as well. He’ll turn 25 on October 20th, so it’s not like what we saw last year is just who he is for the rest of his career. There’s still plenty of room for growth and there still may be some mistakes along the way this season, but that’s to be expected.
However, he seems especially sharp to begin this year, both physically and mentally.
“I think I come in with a different mindset into camp this year,” said Ersson ahead of Training Camp. “But the big thing for me is to not get comfortable either. I know nothing will be given to me, I’ve got to earn everything here, so I’ve got to earn playing time and all that. So, the mindset for me, I know I’ve got to work extremely hard here and push myself and push the other goalies as well, and they’ll push me too. We’ll all try to get better here.”
After an impressive camp and preseason, Ersson looks like he’s ready to put his mindset into action ahead of the Flyers’ season opener in Vancouver on Friday night.
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