Almost literally, they are polar opposites; two goaltenders said to form one Achilles' heel for the Philadelphia Flyers.

	After posting a 20-10-3 record with a 1.91 GAA his rookie season, Brian Boucher was 8-12-5 with a 3.27 GAA last year.

One hails from a part of the country where the favorite summer pastime is watching lobster boats troll the bay. The other comes from a part of the world said to be cold and dark, its people depicted as humorless products of industrial upbringings.

But that's not the Roman Cechmanek his understudy knows.

"It'd be nice if I could speak Czech to see what his sense of humor is all about," Brian Boucher said of Cechmanek, the starting goalie Thursday night against the Ottawa Senators but no longer a nightly fixture in net for the Flyers. "It seems like every time he talks, the Czech guys here are always laughing. So he must be saying something funny. He breaks the Czech mold, I guess."

Cechmanek has been nothing but atypical in Philadelphia. He was a surprising sixth-round draft choice, a 29-year-old gamble from a Czech League he supposedly dominated for several years. Anticipated to be a one-year backup to Boucher while franchise goalie Maxime Ouellet developed, Cechmanek went from starting the season in the minors to being the full-time Flyers starter before the winter had set in.

And he was dropped right in the middle of the unsuspecting Boucher's career plans.

"Last year was difficult for me all around," said Boucher, who has had an 0-2-1 start this season but balances it with a 2.28 goals-against average and .922 save percentage.

"Having played the way I did the year before in the playoffs, then to be relegated to backup last season was really hard on me," he added. "Having to sit for 10 or 12 games at a time was really difficult. But it became a learning experience."

'From one jersey to another'

While the experts have predicted that goaltending will prove to be their postseason undoing, the Flyers themselves have already made a move to correct a looming locker-room problem. Without prodding from above or from any adjoining locker room stalls, unassuming Eric Desjardins stepped down this week as Flyers captain. Head coach Bill Barber and club president Bob Clarke installed Keith Primeau as the new captain. Now it's up to Primeau to make the change worthwhile. "All it is technically," Primeau said, "is a change in a letter from one jersey to another." On a deeper level, however, both Primeau and Desjardins know it can be an atmospheric change for the better. In a mix that's half overpaid stars and half young and promising players, Desjardins had difficulty acting as a go-between with media, management and the headstrong head coach. Primeau, who excels in honesty, also isn't shy when it comes to speaking his mind to either Barber or anyone else floating through his locker room. "I'm not going to change the way I approach the game," said Primeau, who becomes the lucky 13th captain for the Flyers, including two separate stints by Clarke. "I push my teammates in the locker room. Before games I joke with them, and I'm going to prepare myself the same way I have every game, through good times and bad. "We have a lot of new faces, and it's the responsibility within our core leadership that we make sure everybody's on the same page. We knew it was going to take time, but the quicker we get on the same page the better off we'll be." -- Rob Parent

As Boucher sat, he learned how effective this oddity from the Czech Republic could be, both on the ice and in the locker room. In style, Cechmanek often appears as a knockoff of his boyhood idol, Dominik Hasek. Always square to the shooter. Tends to lunge at the puck. Uses his head to deflect high shots, but doesn't use his stick as a boomerang the way Hasek can. Inwardly, however, Cechmanek is no Hasek. The displays of Type-A temperament Hasek is prone to aren't a part of Cechmanek's game. Nor is the postgame emotional hangover that became such a large part of Brian Boucher's second NHL season.

"I don't know exactly what makes him tick, but his emotions don't go anywhere," Boucher said of Cechmanek. "He's a flat-liner with his emotions, but he's a heck of a goaltender. He stops the puck and does a great job. What his trick is, I don't know. But he's got a lot of experience and maybe being a little older and playing for championship teams over there helped him learn things over the years. It's certainly a quality I'd like to learn, because if you're tense all the time over an 82-game season, that can tire you out."

Boucher knows plenty about that.

Coming off a terrific rookie run to the conference finals in the 2000 playoffs, he'd fought hard to win a two-year, $3.1 million contract. But he didn't foresee having to battle for playing time just a couple of months into the season.

Boucher fought pucks and soon began fighting himself. Soon, he had played himself onto the bench. When Boucher's former minor league coach, Bill Barber, took over the Flyers coaching chores in December, Boucher's bench seat became a permanent game-time home.

"Roman's such an easy-going guy," said Boucher. "He's a fun guy; likes to have fun when we're playing a game or practicing. He's not serious, but when things were going tough for me he was always trying to be encouraging. He always made sure to give me a pat on the back or whatever.

"The one bit of advice Roman gave me last year was, 'Play for yourself.' That made sense, because when the team was struggling last year, I was always taking the blame. The other team scored and I'd say to myself that I could have had that one. Well, obviously, you 'could've had' every goal, but nobody gets shutouts every night. So what he was trying to say to me is that you just have to worry about yourself, and if you play well and lose, don't be happy but still be proud of yourself. Stay confident."

As the Flyers struggled through yet another long season of injuries and Eric Lindros divorce-court testimony, Cechmanek began carrying the team. He stole wins and somehow guided the team to a 100-point finish. Then came a sudden and ugly playoff crash in Buffalo.

Cechmanek wound up as a runner-up to Hasek in voting for the Vezina Trophy. Of course, his last game of the season was an ignominious playoff affair in which he was pulled early and Boucher was left to finish an 8-0 elimination loss.

Through it all, Boucher watched ... and learned.

"This year I could have come in and been bitter and sour, and those things were in my head last year," said Boucher. "I wanted to be the guy. When it didn't materialize as that, it was a letdown. This year I have a different mindset. I need to enjoy it and can't always worry about what bad thing can happen next."

Having made super strides with his English, Cechmanek is now learning a little about American psychology.

"The things that happened last season to Brian has not happened now," said Cechmanek. "He's had good start. For three games he's played really well. Brian is stronger and more confident than last year, and it's good for me because I can challenge with Brian, and that makes it good for both of us. I feel I'm in the same situation as Brian was last year. We need two good goalies being challenged, because the season is long."

Easing up on the emotion pedal, Boucher seems OK with his role as younger backup to Cechmanek. But perhaps that's because Boucher has proven to Barber that it's OK to play him again.

"Brian's been great," said Barber. "He came to camp with the idea that he had to gear himself down, and he's done that. He's worked hard and he had a terrific preseason. He's been playing great, so he's going to get in a lot of games for us."

Meanwhile, Cechmanek continues to do what NHL goalies in their sophomore-jinx year aren't supposed to -- he's still relaxing. "You can sense how easy-going Roman is, and I think that's a good calming effect in the locker room," said Boucher. "No one has to make sure Roman is OK, because Roman is always OK. Win or lose, his demeanor's always the same. He's never down."

While teammates are more prone to video games or sightseeing on road trips, Cechmanek spends most of his off-hours reading novels. When the phones are shut off and his teammates are advised to take their game-day naps, Cechmanek stays awake, hitting the books or turning on his laptop to scan the Internet.

"It's really weird that he doesn't sleep," Boucher says. "After a game, it's really hard to wind down, and sometimes you're not in bed asleep until 3:30 or 4 in the morning. If you've got to get up and either play or travel the next day, and you're not grabbing a nap the next day, by the end of that night's game you're going on fumes.

"I don't know how he does it. He doesn't sleep on the beds in hotels, either. He sleeps on the floor. Doesn't like the beds. Says they're too soft. I'd go bananas if we were roommates. I'd be throwing stuff at his computer and yelling at him to go to bed."

Despite a summer of spending and roster reconstruction that has made the Flyers the popular choice to come out of the East, their goaltending continues to be a popular question mark. Of the handful of true Stanley Cup contenders, the Flyers might be the only one of them that can't brag of a goalie who wears a championship ring.

Unless the Czech League counts.

"We have a good team here," said Boucher. "It's a legitimate contender. But if we don't do our jobs, they'll all point fingers at the goaltending."

He can deal with that now, for Brian Boucher has learned from his fellow Flyers goalie how to stop pointing fingers at himself.

Rob Parent of the Delaware County (Pa.) Times is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.