Parent: Flyers’ Mrazek is hoping for a career restart
PHILADELPHIA » The job, and his future, was Petr Mrazek’s to nail down in Detroit this season. A young goalie who, like older Czech countryman Michal Neuvirth, had won a Calder Cup championship during his brief minor-league career, Mrazek had steadily improved in his three full seasons with the Red Wings and was poised to permanently displace aging and oft-injured Jimmy Howard as the team’s go-to goaltender.
As a confirmation of his future standing, Mrazek won a two-year, $8 million contract in July of 2016. This despite a decidedly mediocre second half of the 2015-16 season. Then Mrazek played in 50 games (44 starts) to Howard’s 26 last season, his numbers again relatively disappointing, though much of that had to do with the Red Wings’ drop from the Eastern Conference elite.
While Detroit struggled to find its footing this season, Mrazek seemed to lose confidence early, and Howard, who turns 34 in March, regained his old starting status. By the time he was called into a meeting with Detroit general manager Ken Holland a couple of months ago, Mrazek’s die with Detroit was cast.
“A couple of months ago I had a discussion with Ken Holland about it and he said if he had a good opportunity to do it he was going to to try to move me,” Mrazek said Tuesday in a press conference at the Wells Fargo Center. “I was really happy and the last couple of months have been better for us in Detroit. I got to play more.”
Mrazek will now get every opportunity to play as much as Holland had once foreseen him playing in Detroit. The Flyers completed a deal with Detroit Monday night that brings Mrazek to Philadelphia to serve as the goalie charged with the mission of getting his old swagger back while taking an improved Flyers team to the playoffs.
Flyers general manager Ron Hextall confirmed in a late-night call that Neuvirth, the goalie with the career-muting injury history, was hurt again and out long term. This came just a week or so after 2017 free agent acquisition and surprise solid veteran Brian Elliott had “core muscle” surgery that will likely keep him out until the last week of March.
Recent Phantoms promotee Alex Lyon looked good in finishing out a 7-4 victory over the Rangers Sunday at Madison Square Garden after Neuvirth couldn’t answer the bell for the second period. But as Hextall said, “Alex did a real good job the other night, and we have a lot of confidence in Alex, but to have Alex be the guy at this point would be an awful lot for a young player at this point. So we felt like this was a prudent move to make for the sake of our team.”
What Hextall didn’t say is Neuvirth’s latest injury — he’s had too many to count since Hextall signed him as Steve Mason’s backup goalie in July 2015 — could easily spell a premature end to his Flyers tenure.
Both Elliott, who turns 33 in April, and Neuvirth, who turns 30 next month, each have a year remaining on their respective contracts. Elliott incurs a cap hit of $2.75 million for next season, Neuvirth at $2.5 million.
Hextall, however, was already speaking with hesitation after Elliott’s injury when asked how he felt Neuvirth — backed by Lyon — could fare heading down the season’s stretch. While professing his confidence in Neuvirth’s abilities he was probably keeping his fingers crossed in his pockets. The Flyers’ GM and former goalie star is a realist, and this latest Neuvirth injury only confirms to him that this goalie can’t be counted upon.
Now there’s another new guy, another Czech goalie. Mrazek, who turned 26 last week, will be a restricted free agent at season’s end. The Flyers need only sign him to a qualifying offer to retain his rights, but that will cost them $4 million for next year. That’s a move Holland deemed too costly to make, if mostly because the Red Wings are clearly in a rebuilding mode.
Yet Mrazek is much more of an intriguing prospect to the Flyers, who have offensive core players like Claude Giroux, Jake Voracek and Wayne Simmonds all entering the back end of their prime years. The Flyers had gone 22-8-3 since a Dec. 2 loss to Boston that completed an 0-5-5 spill which had all the hockey health experts declaring premature death.
To their patient general manager, that ressurection meant something. So Hextall swapped a conditional fourth-round pick (2018) and likely conditional third-rounder (2019) for Mrazek.
“This is a sign that our players have done a really good job,” Hextall said. “They’ve worked extremely hard. We’re in a tough situation; you lose your top two goalies when you’re fighting for a playoff spot, and our players have worked hard for a long time now. I didn’t feel like it was fair to not have a proven NHL goaltender for this team. That’s the reason we acted.
“Our focus right now is to make the playoffs, and if we make the playoffs, then we’ll go from there.”
Where Mrazek goes from here is largely dependent on how he performs over the next month. He’ll be the Flyers’ daily starter for as long as it takes Elliott and/or Neuvirth to return healthy, which likely means for the rest of the regular season. At that point, the two injured Flyers goalies will probably only be sharp enough for backup duty.
Mrazek, meanwhile, will be looking to not only keep his new team on track for the playoffs, but perhaps impress Hextall to the point of winning a contract extension. Despite his struggles early in the season, that seems within the realm off possibility, since over his last dozen games with the Wings he went 6-3-2 with a .924 save percentage.
“I came to the camp ready to play, but I didn’t play much the first half of the season,” Mrazek said. “I played maybe once in two weeks, once in three weeks. So it was tough, but during that stretch I worked hard on the ice and tried to improve my game. I think in the last two months the game was in the right direction.”
Hextall and the Flyers can only hope it stays pointed that way.