Lehigh Valley All-Time Winningest Goalie Arrives from Flyers Taxi Squad
March 24, 2021
Lehigh Valley, PA – The Lehigh Valley Phantoms have announced that goalie Alex Lyon has been loaned to the Phantoms from the Philadelphia Flyers and goalie Felix Sandstrom has been recalled from the Phantoms to the Flyers’ taxi squad.
Lyon has played just one period of hockey in the past calendar year. Two weeks ago, on March 10, he started for the Phantoms at the Binghamton Devils and made 10 saves on 11 shots before the game was suspended due to COVID protocols affecting the Devils.
Lehigh Valley’s all-time winningest goalie has been serving on the Flyers’ taxi squad for most of the 2021 season and has dressed for the Philadelphia Flyers as a backup goalie on a few occasions as well. Lyon’s last full game was March 11, 2020 with 33 saves on 35 shots in a 2-1 overtime loss against the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins in what turned out to be the final game of the 2019-20 season.
Last year, Lyon went 11-14-5 with the Phantoms with a 2.69 goals-against average and .913 save percentage. He also played in three games with the Philadelphia Flyers going 1-1-0, 3.55, .890.
During his career, Lyon has played in 146 games with the Phantoms with an all-time record of 73-53-15 including a 2.73 goals-against average and .913 save percentage. The Yale University product has also played in 16 NHL games with the Philadelphia Flyers going 5-4-1, 3.15, .893.
On May 9-10, 2018 he was the winning goalie in the longest game in AHL history recording 94 saves on 95 shots in an epic five-overtime marathon at Charlotte that ended at 1:09 a.m.
Lyon, from Baudette, Minn., rates fourth in Phantoms franchise history in games for a goalie (145) and is third all-time in wins (73) trailing only Neil Little (177) and Scott Munroe (76). He is first among all of those categories since the team arrived in the Lehigh Valley in 2014. In his last game of the 2019-20 season he became only the third goalie in Phantoms franchise history to pass the 4000 Save milestone.
He was considered one of the top collegiate goaltenders of his era and was a two-time finalist for the Mike Richter Award (best goalie in NCAA) at Yale University. He was tops in NCAA hockey in goals-against average in consecutive seasons posting 1.62 and 1.64 marks in his sophomore and junior seasons in 2014-15 and 2015-16.
The Phantoms return to action tonight hosting the Hershey Bears at PPL Center. Lehigh Valley will travel to Newark to play the Binghamton Devils on Friday and then will return to Allentown and PPL Center for a Saturday night rematch with the Devils.