Ersson Over Used Down Stretch?

Make the playoffs, the Phantoms did, but what nobody seemed to account for was over using or underusing certain players in order to make that goal a reality. Unfortunately, it seems to be what happened as the Phantoms season came to an end in the best-of-3 series against the Charolette Checkers last night in a crushing 6-0 defeat.

One of their key players, goaltender Samuel Ersson, played 6 games in 10 nights to finish out the regular season and begin the playoffs. He also played all 3 of the Phantoms playoff games, including Thursday night's double OT where he faced 50 shots before ever even getting to the series deciding game. According to Flyers website writer, Bill Meltzer, it appears in the end it was all just too much for the young goalie. By the middle frame of last night's series deciding game he had just simply run out of gas, as Meltzer put it.

As is pretty clearly evident by the 6-0 final score, goaltending wasn't the team's only issue last night. Unlike the first two games in the series where the Phantoms always found ways to fight back offensively, it wasn't the case in the series deciding game as the offense was also fairly quiet, and also quite possibly just out of gas.

It's also fair to note that, given where the Flyers organization currently sits in organizational depth, the better team more than likely won. If we're going to admit the Flyers are in a rebuild then we also have to admit the organization has a lot of work to do to get both the AHL team and the NHL team back to being legitimate contention and/or championship threats.

That said, in the long run, the playoff experience will hopefully help boost the young guys forward in their careers, while helping the most talented of the bunch take the leap needed towards their next step to making into the NHL lineup on a regular basis.