First Among Equals

With his rival hurt, Robert Esche has the early edge in goal.

By Tim Panaccio
Inquirer Staff Writer

October 5, 2006

Antero Niittymaki had just signed a one-year contract for the same amount as had Robert Esche - $1 million.

It was summer, and Esche was on the phone with a longtime confidant, Sean Burke. Esche was fretting about how it would be perceived if he and Niittymaki, both Flyers goalies, were making the same amount. Would it mean they would both be starters? Or would it mean that neither was good enough to be No. 1?

"I know if I go there it will be an awful situation - people will run me out of town," he told Burke, a fellow goalie.

"I'm talking to Burkey, he says, 'Chico, what are you worried about? You know who you are as a goalie,' " Esche recalled.

But every year, "they won't let me run with it," Esche told Burke. "And then when they do, I go out and get [expletive] injured. I just can't stand it."

Then reality struck Esche. He had a job. Burke was the third guy at Tampa Bay and already headed for the door. He was waived late last month.

Esche feels guilty.

"I'm bitching, and meanwhile he's without a job," Esche said. "He's got all these issues. He told me to give the Flyers what they want. I started thinking he was exactly right. The goalies will be looked at the entire year."

Because Niittymaki has a questionable left hip that could hinder his ability to be a regular starter, the attention will likely shift to Esche at the outset.

There's little question what a hot goalie can mean. Martin Gerber played most of last season for Carolina, went cold at the start of the playoffs, then lost his job to Cam Ward. When the Hurricanes won the Stanley Cup, Ward was in net. He was the difference-maker.

Esche, 28, needs to be the difference-maker this season for a club that lacked chemistry in the preseason, continues to have questions on defense and special teams, and has reinvented itself with new forwards. This group has no defined personality. It's a scenario for a distress call.

If no one answers, the Flyers are in serious trouble.

"What I have to do is keep outside distractions outside," Esche said. He recalled that coach Ken Hitchcock had talked to him the day of the final preseason game, at Washington.

"He told me, 'I know you are working hard and doing technical stuff. What makes you great is your competitive streak,' " Esche said.

Esche felt underappreciated last season. Hitchcock could care less.

"You are only as good as your last game," the coach said. "You should live in the atmosphere of 'What have you done for me lately?' "

Any time you think people "owe you, frustration takes over," Hitchcock said. "Esche got into that stuff last year."

When it looked as if Niittymaki was going to need surgery, Hitchcock said Esche had a "tremendous" opportunity to cement his future here as the No. 1 goalie. But Niittymaki will play, aided by cortisone shots, and the No. 1 spot is up for grabs.

"You don't want to give it to anybody," Hitchcock said. "The guy has to go out and earn it. My hope is someone does."

Ever since Ron Hextall left, there have been questions about the goaltending and about whether the club has been good enough to win. Carolina proved you don't need someone like New Jersey's Martin Brodeur during the regular season - just during the playoffs.

Hitchcock's formula for the season is: Esche plus Niittymaki equals success.

"We need both goalies to be a great tandem," Hitchcock said, citing the play last year of Anaheim's Jean-Sebastien Giguere and Ilja Bryzgalov, and Minnesota's Dwayne Roloson and Manny Fernandez.

Esche doesn't buy the idea of a tandem.

"A two-goalie system didn't work for Carolina," he said. "Gerber played 60 games and Ward got the playoffs. I don't know how that's a two-goalie system. And one is gone now." (Gerber signed with Ottawa.)

Laughing, Esche added: "If that's two goalies, I don't want any part of it. Look, it will either come to a head or it will plateau where we both accept it. One of us either snaps and we're gone, or it works.

"I mean it sincerely - I have poured a lot into my thought process on how I feel about Philadelphia and feel about Flyers hockey. Working with Hitch, I want to be here. I am happy here. Competition is good among teammates."

Niittymaki, 26, said he had read what was written about his vying with Esche for the starting job last season. It was the usual Philly goalie-controversy stuff.

"Everyone is used to it," Niittymaki said. "This is my fifth camp. Pretty much every year - except the first year, when Checko [Roman Cechmanek] was hot - every year, it's the same conversation in the papers. It never bothered me. That is just the way it is here."

The competition within the Atlantic Division figures to be greater than last year. The New York Rangers are stronger. So is Pittsburgh. And New Jersey? The Devils stole the division title from the Flyers on the final day of the regular season, didn't they?

Judging from the preseason, Esche needs to buy the club time to come together. That may mean he has to be perfect on nights when everything in front of him is chaotic.

"I practice now with a focus, the way I will play every day forward," Esche said. "If that is carrying this team, then I'll carry them."

Esche battled an injured right hip last season. He was the starter early, lost his job in March, then regained it in the final weeks of the season.

Yet Niittymaki never thought he had lost the job.

"I was going game by game," he said. "Coach never said anything. Of course, I was playing five, six, seven straight at that point, but I never felt that I had the job. It didn't worry me. I played well. If you go to a tandem, then that is the way it will be."

Because of Niittymaki's precarious left hip, Esche has to be healthy. Esche changed his rehab after surgery on his right hip this summer. When his left hip was repaired after the loss to Tampa Bay in the 2004 conference finals, Esche took a laid-back approach, gradually building himself up.

"I remember thinking that fall with the lockout, if the season had begun, I could not play," Esche said. "The hip was killing me. It didn't feel good. I could not work out.

"This year, after my right-hip surgery, I said, 'No way.' I gave it three weeks off, didn't do stretching or anything. Then I literally got into heavy lifting, a lot of weight, a lot of reps. And the hip feels great. It was a more aggressive approach. But it worked."

Now he has to channel that aggression into the season. He knows there could be another "goalie controversy" if he falters. He laughs at those words.

"The first game I ever played here, there was a guy behind me screaming, 'Esche, you [expletives],' " he said. "And the game hadn't even begun yet."

Every year in Flyerdom, it's all about the goalie.

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Contact staff writer Tim Panaccio at 215-854-2847 or tpanaccio@phillynews.com