There’s a lot to say about the legendary goalie Ilya Bryzgalov. He’s a Stanley Cup winner, a three-time Olympian, a runner-up for the Vezina Trophy, and a top-five finalist for the Hart Memorial Trophy. But he was also an enormous fan favorite in the NHL, known perhaps as much for what he did off the ice as he was for stopping pucks.
Bryzgalov’s NHL career was only 12 seasons long, but he finished top-10 in the league in save percentage three times. He’s also sixth all-time in wins among Russian keepers, fifth in shutouts, and sixth in games played.
Bryzgalov played with the Philadelphia Flyers during the 2011-12 season, when HBO filmed the hit 24/7 series, following the players and coaches ahead of the Winter Classic.
Although Bryzgalov went on to be benched in the game, he was the star of the show, becoming a huge fan favorite for the things he said to the camera crew. Bryzgalov, for example, talked about the ’humungous big’ solar system, had some weird thoughts on philosophy, and nobody could help but laugh when he talked about his dog, a husky, as a ’hot girl.’
It became evident that Bryzgalov wasn’t just a top goalie but also one of the sport’s most hilarious and odd persons. Keith Yandle played with Bryzgalov in the Coyotes and said on the Spittin’ Chiclets podcast that Bryzgalov called him out for terrible defense ’every game.’
He also shared a hilarious story about a game where Bryzgalov had some bonus money on the line and wasn’t happy with how Yandle performed.
”There was like 10 seconds left in the game, we were down with a touchdown,” Yandle said.
”I wheeled the net and tried to go end-to-end, but I got stripped. They went down, got a shot on net, didn’t even score. He chased me down the hallway, and he was like, ’You try to f—k with my goals against!’”
According to Yandle, a teammate even had to go after Bryzgalov to have him calmed down.
”Nick Boynton had to, like, legitimately, jump on him. I thought he was going to kill him. He was like, ’Don’t talk to him!’ So Bryzy ended up apologizing to me.
”He was great, I actually loved him, but he was nuts.”
