On The Results Of The Flyers and Devils Over The Past 16 Playoff Seasons

In 1995, the Flyers and Devils met in the Eastern Conference Finals. The Flyers had been on a long decline since their 1987 Cup run, a decline that culminated in the acquisition of Eric Lindros from Quebec in 1992. The Devils had reached the Eastern Conference Finals the previous year on the strength of rookie goaltender Martin Brodeur. Both teams were on the rise. The decisive moment in the series occurred in Game 5, when Claude Lemieux's shot from the blueline went through Ron Hextall in the closing seconds of the third period. The Devils broke a tie with that shot and went on to win the game, series, and Stanley Cup. The Devils went on to win 2 more Stanley Cups while the Flyers have reached the Cup Finals twice and have failed to take home the trophy.

The narrative since that point has been that the Flyers have failed to take home the Cup because of their poor goaltending, while the Devils have flourished because of their Hall of Fame goalie. The Flyers have employed 11 different starting goaltenders in the playoffs since 1995, while the Devils have used only one. Devils fans are already beginning to panic that they will 'become like the Flyers' once Brodeur leaves or retires. I'm less concerned about this, as I think that having an elite goaltender is not as important as having elite forwards or an elite defense. So, I decided to look at a year-by-year breakdown of the two clubs' playoff results, while ignoring offense - I wanted just to focus on defense and goaltending.

I suspect that fans of both teams would be surprised to learn that the Flyers have actually won more playoff games than the Devils since 1995. Still, it's hard to ignore goaltending as the difference. Here's a breakdown of the Flyers from 1995 on, numbers courtesy of hockey-reference.com - MIN is total minutes played by goalies, SA/60 is shots against per 60 minutes:

Year	Phi Goalie(s)	Phi W	Phi L	Phi GAA	Phi SV%	Phi SA	Phi MIN	Phi SA/60	PHI GA
1995	Hextall	10	5	2.84	0.906	445	920	29	42
1996	Hextall	6	6	2.13	0.915	319	761	25.2	27
1997	Snow/Hextall	12	7	2.89	0.892	453	1143	23.8	49
1998	Burke	1	4	3.56	0.86	129	303	25.5	18
1999	Vanbiesbrouck	2	4	1.46	0.938	146	369	23.7	9
2000	Boucher	11	7	2.03	0.917	484	1183	24.5	40
2001	Cechmanek	2	4	3.11	0.891	182	384	28.4	20
2002	Cechmanek/Boucher	1	4	1.71	0.937	142	315	27	9
2003	Cechmanek	6	7	2.14	0.909	353	897	23.6	32
2004	Esche	11	7	2.29	0.917	507	1101	27.6	42
2006	Esche	2	4	4.19	0.868	205	387	31.8	27
2007	Missed Playoffs	0	0
2008	Biron	9	8	2.97	0.904	540	1049	30.9	52
2009	Biron	2	4	2.56	0.919	198	375	31.7	16
2010	Boucher/Leighton	14	9	2.46	0.913	669	1414	28.4	58
2011	Boucher/Leighton/Bob	4	7	3.19	0.894	339	678	30	36
16 Years	11 Goalies	93	87	2.54	0.907	5111	11279	27.2	477

Aren't the playoffs strange? The Flyers actually got excellent goaltending in 1999 and 2002 but failed to make it out of the first round. Let's take a look at New Jersey's results:

Year	NJ W	NJ L	NJ GAA	NJ SV%	NJ SA	NJ MIN	NJ SA/60	NJ GA
1995	16	4	1.67	0.927	463	1230	22.6	34
1996	0	0
1997	5	5	1.73	0.929	268	659	24.4	19
1998	2	4	1.97	0.927	164	366	26.9	12
1999	3	4	2.82	0.856	139	425	19.6	20
2000	16	7	1.61	0.927	537	1450	22.2	39
2001	15	10	2.07	0.897	507	1505	20.2	52
2002	2	4	1.42	0.938	145	381	22.8	9
2003	16	8	1.62	0.935	630	1491	25.3	41
2004	1	4	2.62	0.902	133	298	26.8	13
2006	5	4	2.22	0.924	264	540	29.3	20
2007	5	6	2.44	0.916	332	688	29	28
2008	1	4	3.19	0.891	147	301	29.3	16
2009	3	4	2.39	0.929	239	427	33.6	17
2010	1	4	3.01	0.881	126	299	25.3	15
2011	0	0
16 yrs	91	72	2	0.918	4094	10060	24.4	335

Let's simplify things a little bit by putting the Flyers and Devils total results together:

Team	W	L	GAA	SV%	SA	MIN	SA/60	GA
Flyers	93	87	2.54	0.907	5111	11279	27.2	477
Devils	91	72	2	0.918	4094	10060	24.4	335

So the Devils have both had a better defense and a better SV%. I haven't looked at all at offense, but that's not part of the narrative, so I'm choosing to look past it. However, let's just do a fun experiment before we leave these thoughts behind - what if we take out the years the Devils won the Cup? What do the Devils' numbers look like then?

Team	W	L	GAA	SV%	SA	MIN	SA/60	GA
Flyers	93	87	2.54	0.907	5111	11279	27.2	477
No Cup Devils	43	53	2.25	0.91	2464	5889	25.1	221

They look somewhat similar, but I suspect the two teams were simply built differently. The Devils traditionally relied on an elite defense and above-average goalie, the Flyers, an elite forward corps and above-average D. Whatever the case, the Flyers signed a 'big-time' goalie and the Devils may be heading into the great beyond without one. Both teams figure to be good for quite some time, so it will be interesting to see how these numbers change if and when the tables have turned.