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Truth.

The goaltending situation got more uncomfortable today. Just a few hours before Paul Holmgren traded for Pavel Kubina, JVR and Ilya Bryzgalov spoke with the media, both touching on the scrutiny put on goaltenders in Philadelphia (gee, I wonder why?). 

First up, Bryz: [quotes via the Flyers city-leading PR department] 

Q: The fans got on you a little bit today, do you think it would be better for them to support you guys during struggles like this? What’s your reaction to that?

“You know, I think it’s an easy life when you can blame one guy…’it’s a bad goalie, it’s the goalie’s mistake.’ It’s easy to find a scapegoat. You point to one guy and say we’re always losing because we have a bad goalie, but I think it’s the wrong philosophy. I know I was frustrated in my game today and I know I have to be better and I will continue to work on this, but….I will try to find peace in my soul to play in this city

 

Perhaps the woods would be a good place to find it. 

image from mobilwi.typepad.com

Photojob via reader Joe

Now JVR, coming off a ridiculous question in which he was asked if he was faking injury for the sake of not getting traded: 

Q: Talk about the goaltending situation. It’s been kind of a mess in the past, you were around for that, and people thought it was going to be fixed this year but clearly the fans seem to be turning on the goalies once again….”

Yeah, you know what, I think those guys need to kind of keep quiet up there. I know they pay their money to see the team but you win as a team and you lose as a team. You can’t ever pinpoint it on one guy and we know those guys are working hard back there so we’re going to have to support them a little bit better and figure it out. It’s not just one guy, it’s all twenty of us that have to turn this thing around.”

 

Someone should tell Jim van Riemsdyk that the whole don’t boo us refrain didn’t work too well for Eagles players. 

JVR heard about it:

 

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Screen Shot 2012-02-18 at 8.27.28 PM

 

Screen Shot 2012-02-18 at 8.27.28 PM

 

Screen Shot 2012-02-18 at 8.27.28 PM

 

Screen Shot 2012-02-18 at 8.27.28 PM

 

Screen Shot 2012-02-18 at 8.27.28 PM

 

And he responded…

… via Twitter:

To clarify my comment from earlier, never said it wasn't ok for fans to do that! My issue was with one guy getting singled out! Its a team game and the best way to make someone feel comfortable/confident is with support.

 

Hey James, your vagina is showing. Rarely, if ever, does instructing Philly fans on how to act ever turn out well, especially if the object of their ire just signed a humongous $51 million contract. Plus there’s that whole what happened to the guy we saw in last year’s playoffs, why is he playing like Chris Gratton and only taking slap shots from the blue line? thing. That’s not helping you.

Oddly, the videos of Bryz’s and JVR’s post-game comments are missing from the Flyers’ website… but CSN has video of Bryz:

Full post-game comments over on our BuzzOnBroadDOTCOM.