Flyers GM Paul Holmgren issued the following statement:

“I met with Ilya this morning and informed him that we are going to exercise a compliance buyout of his contract. This was a very difficult business decision to make for us and we want to thank Ilya for his time here and wish him all the best moving forward.”

This had to happen. Bryzgalov under-performed big time with the Flyers. I thought the signing initially two seasons ago would be a good since he had that great run in Phoenix, but a part of me was skeptical just because it wasn’t a long consistent run and the team threw a lot of money his way. The team will now pay two-thirds of the nine-year, $51 million contract they signed him to back in 2011. (More detail on the contract here.)

Now I wonder what the Flyers will do now about their goalie situation. I bet now they regret letting Sergei Bobrovsky go — this year’s Vezina trophy winner. Oops!