Si les Flyers avaient re-signé Biron et Nitty pour 2009-10, aurions-nous remporté la Coupe 2010 ?
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Si les Flyers avaient re-signé Biron et Nitty pour 2009-10, aurions-nous remporté la Coupe 2010 ?
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Impossible to know, and Emery pre-injury was definitely playing well. But Biron was better than Leighton or Boosh, so assuming we go to the SCF at all I do think he’s capable of winning it.
There’s a million hypotheticals you could go down, like simply if Emery didn’t get hurt you could say they could have won but it’s important to remember they were the 7 seed and somehow got very good goaltending from Leighton and Boucher for a lot of the playoffs and had a flukey run to the finals.
I think our perception of that run is warped by how it ended but frankly we ran into a juggernaut and our Cinderella run ran out of luck.
That all being said, for some reason Niittymaki was my favorite player as a kid so I’m going to say yes.
If they were on the team and we had won the cup then definitely we would have won.
There’s a lot of what-ifs. I’m convinced they win with a healthy Emery, but Bouch/Leighton played great leading up to the SCF. Do Emery, Biron or Nitty get us there? Maybe. Does it matter against that Chicago offense? Was the defense worn out running four guys entire playoffs? Probably all of those rolled into one
We would have won if Razor Ray (RIP) didn’t get hurt
Not with Biron, but healthy Emery all day.
RIP #29
That was a flukey cup run.
It was what it was. No one factor would have guaranteed a win.
And what if we drafted Patrick Roy in 1984. The list goes on and on…
Yes easily. Niemi was absolutely awful for CHI and was only matched by a worn out possibly injured Leighton. People will argue that he and Boosh where great leading up to the final and a big reason we made it that far but let’s be honest our D core was playing absolutely out of this universe hockey and any NHL goalie would’ve looked great behind them for the first 3 rounds. CHI was a different beast though and our goaltending got exposed despite the top four playing great. I can remember so many shifts from that final where Prongs hit the ice and just straight up took over the game. Biron would’ve won us the cup in 5.
Something that gets lost in the 2010 revisionist history discussions is that the Flyers don’t get past Boston without the Leighton. He stood on his head for that series and then got 3 shutouts vs Montreal. Emery, Biron and Niitymaki had better overall careers but there’s no guarantee they’re better than Leighton up until the series vs Chicago.
What if Homer went and got Luongo?
Biron would’ve been a net positive, nitty was great but I think we kinda ruined him with the injuries.
Possibly? They might have won if Boucher stayed healthy, or if Lavi put him into game 6. They also might have won if Jeff Carter could hit an empty net. Better goaltending definitely would have helped, but they needed to get to game 7 to have a chance to win it.
Having a dependable 5th and 6th defenseman would’ve made much more difference.
Maybe? Maybe not. Biron and Nitty were far from an elite tandem and sure, they didn’t need elite to beat Chicago, but we can’t pretend like it’s a given they would have out performed Leighton/Boosh. Goalies are voodoo and especially nowadays, it just takes one getting hot at the right time to potentially land you a parade. Leighton did that vs Boston and Montreal, the run just didn’t last long enough.
I’m not sure how relevant of a hypothetical this is, since I’m pretty sure the reason they didn’t re-sign them was for cap reasons.