Desperation: Flyers interested in Robert Esche

Back in June 2009, the idea of signing Robert Esche seemed ridiculous. Now, with the Flyers so desperate for goaltenders that they needed to call up a college kid just to be the backup goalie, bringing in a veteran like Esche suddenly makes sense.

According to Wayne Fish of PhillyBurbs.com, the Flyers are exploring all options in net, including possibly bringing back Esche, who has played the last two seasons in the KHL. While NHL rules would permit Esche to only play for the rest of the regular season and not the playoffs, he would at the very least be insurance should Brian Boucher go down with an injury. Since Boucher is expected to be the goalie if/when the Flyers make the playoffs, Esche wouldn't be brought in with the expectation that he would be the starter and would likely only play in emergency situations. In fact, even if Boucher gets injured, Esche probably still wouldn't be the starter since the Flyers would need to get Johan Backlund ready to be their goalie in the postseason.

Should they sign him, Esche would simply make things easier for the Flyers. Rather than having to shuttle goalies up and down from the Phantoms when injuries happen, the Flyers could turn to Esche to at least temporarily fill in. Sure, Esche hasn't played in the NHL since 2007 and he is 32 years old but at least he's a warm body who has real NHL experience, something the Flyers really don't have in the system.

Would signing Robert Esche be a desperation move? Yep, but when your top two goalies have been lost to injury and you have a college kid filling in as a temporary backup, you are the very definition of desperate. Such is the sad state of Flyers goaltending when bringing back Robert Esche actually makes sense.

Flyers scraping the bottom of the goalie barrel: Robert Esche is on their radar

No, that article title isn't an error. And, no, All Things Philly Sports hasn't crashed and reverted back to a blog post from 2005. The Flyers are really interested in bringing back goaltender Robert Esche.

The Flyers recently signed Ray Emery, and while I made it pretty clear that I was against the move, they were smart to save money and get a goalie who could be as good, if not better, than Martin Biron, who would have cost several million dollars more. The latest news on who the Flyers want to back up Emery is ridiculous, however, and really speaks to just how cheap the Flyers really want to be with their goalies. According to TSN, the team is believed to be in pursuit of Robert Esche, who last played for the Flyers in the 2006-2007 season, to be their backup goaltender. Esche left the Flyers in 2007 to go play in Russia and hasn't been back to the NHL since. At 31, Esche isn't that old, and he did put up a sub-2.00 goals against average in the KHL last season, but the Flyers are really grasping at straws with this one.

Signing Esche for a million bucks to be their backup goaltender may sound good on paper, and it will make nostalgic fans happy, but how insane would the Flyers have to be to think they can enter a season with a pair of goaltenders who have been out of the league for the past few seasons? When/if Ray Emery implodes, do the Flyers really feel confident that Esche can step into the crease and be the same goalie that led them to the Eastern Conference Finals the year before the lockout? Do they not remember that the last time Esche played goal in the NHL he had a goals against average over 4?

Signing a pair of former NHL goaltenders from Russia for around a million bucks each is a pretty crazy strategy. If it somehow works, GM Paul Holmgren and the Flyers will look like geniuses. If it fails, they could be the laughingstock of the NHL. This Flyers team is on the cusp of being an elite NHL team and skimping on goaltending isn't the thing that will bump them up to the top. I understand that if they save on goalies, they can get a better group of defensemen on the roster, but what good are better defensemen if the guy behind them can't stop the puck?