Look at the great Stanley Cup champions of the past; most of them have one thing in common: elite goaltending. The Montreal Canadiens and Colorado Avalanche wouldn’t have won four championships between them in the 1980s and 1990s without Patrick Roy.
The New Jersey Devils wouldn’t have three Stanley Cups without Martin Brodeur. The Washington Capitals may have won in five games over the Vegas Golden Knights, but we’re still amazed at this Braden Holtby save.
Roy was in his element leading the Avalanche to their first two cups. Their goaltending for their third championship was a different story. Darcy Kuemper showed flashes of greatness, but he was no Roy. Kuemper had some fine moments, such as a game two shut out against the Tampa Bay Lightning, but also had a save percentage of below .900 in six of his 16 playoff games. Luckily for Kuemper, three of those games ended in Avalanche wins.
The NHL is full of elite netminders. Still, some contenders are going with serviceable, dependable, but not top-shelf, options in goal.
The Avalanche seem to be following the same formula this year after they handed the starting reigns to formidable backup but never number one Alexandar Georgiev, acquired in an offseason trade from the New York Rangers. Are good teams settling for just good enough goaltending? When asked about Avalanche goaltending in his NHL.com mailbag segment, Dan Rosen said it best:
Campbell, like Kuemper, is not an elite No. 1, but he’s reliable and can come up with big games. He needs some insulation, but he’s rarely, if ever, going to be the Oilers’ biggest concern.
The Avalanche are hoping for the same thing from Georgiev. Be serviceable. Make the saves you’re supposed to make. And make some of the saves that help your team occasionally steal a win.
That’s easy for the Avalanche to say when they have an offense that’s the envy of the NHL in front of them. As Rosen mentioned in his mailbag, the Edmonton Oilers are hoping for much of the same from Jack Campbell after a deep playoff run with a better expected, but aging, Mike Smith. The Toronto Maple Leafs are banking on the Matt Murray redemption tour as their answer in goal.
Even teams outside the playoff bubble went that route to improve their goaltending. The New Jersey Devils added Vitek Vanecek via trade with the Washington Capitals to address their goaltending concerns. Vanecek is a serviceable 1B option in a goaltending tandem but comes in with pedestrian numbers (2.67 goals against average and .908 save percentage last season). He’s no Brodeur, but he’s sure to be an improvement over John Gillies (3.70 goals against average, .887 save percentage last season) who the Devils turned to in a move of sheer desperation last season.
The Devils are an interesting case because they’re still banking on Mackenzie Blackwood being the long-term answer after he burst onto the scene in 2018-2019. They needed a clear upgrade, but the goaltending market was full of “just good enough” types such as Kuemper and Campbell this offseason. Vanecek was available and for a much better price. It’s not as if the Devils turned down an emerging goaltending superstar like the Florida Panthers Spencer Knight for Washington’s number two.
A few seasons ago when I interviewed former New York Islanders goaltender Rick DiPietro, we discussed why teams were starting to go with goaltending tandems, instead of a clear-cut number one and number two. One good point he brought up was that it was more financially feasible.
For example, you could pay two really good goaltenders $4 million each for a total cap hit of $8 million instead of paying one elite goaltender $8-10 million and then a backup another $2 million for a cap hit of $10-12 million. Kuemper and Campbell have cap hits of between $5 million and $6 million respectively, which could fit DiPietro’s thinking.
Maybe concerns of this mover towards “just good enough goaltending” are overblown. For every Kuemper and Campbell, there are clear-cut elite number ones such as Andrei Vasilevskiy with the Tampa Bay Lightning and Igor Shesterkin with the New York Rangers. Maybe this season was a one-off example of only having average goaltenders available to fill team needs. Remember, no one will turn down the services of a great goaltender.