Player Discussion All Purpose Goaltending Thread

In Chad D's mailbag pod last night, he said he is expecting Adams to plan for the third time to be the charm with regards to starting next season with UPL + Levi...

:help:

When it's always broke, why change it?

Since losing Ullmark, his plan has been... run around and sign the ancient and a bunch of good AHL guys. Seems like he's learned from that.

What he learned is that there is no repercussions to doing it for a fifth season in a row.
 
I see the Habs have signed Fowler. That gives them three youngish quality goalies in their system with Dobes, Primeau and now Fowler. It'll be interesting to see how they shuffle that about. Buffalo of course is about to have to do some shuffling since Leinonen and Ratzlaff will be joining Levi waiting in queue.
 
In Chad D's mailbag pod last night, he said he is expecting Adams to plan for the third time to be the charm with regards to starting next season with UPL + Levi...

:help:
Hey we agree on something. Thats lining up to be a disaster.
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Levi seem to have a habit of overplaying the puck and trying to make an easy save look like a big save.

That combined with Buffalo's porous defense was a recipe for disaster.

Hopefully he has cleaned that up a bit. Every save doesn't have to be a highlight of the night.
 
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Levi having sub .900 save percentage in 12 of his 23 starts was fine? He was not good, particularly at the start of the season when it was clear he wasn't ready... just like this year.

he wasn't ideal, but was good enough to be a backup. Numbers were on par with Reimer's current year numbers

Much better than the tire fire this year
 
In Chad D's mailbag pod last night, he said he is expecting Adams to plan for the third time to be the charm with regards to starting next season with UPL + Levi...

:help:

Back in 2021-22, the Bruins rolled with a 50-50 split with Ullmark in his age 28 year old season, and Swayman in his age 23 year old season. Would it be that different if we went with UPL and Levi in their 26 and 24 year old seasons?

I've been bullish on Levi up to this point, so might as well triple down on my previous takes!
 
he wasn't ideal, but was good enough to be a backup. Numbers were on par with Reimer's current year numbers

Much better than the tire fire this year

At his age and experience level, he needed game reps to improve. That's why he should have been in the AHL from the get go. And his numbers were worse than Reimer's looking last year to this year, mostly due to being inconsistent as hell. The way forward for almost every tender at that age is repetition and experience at the AHL level. It's been pointed out time after time that almost every quality netminder in the NHL had over 100 games in the AHL to get ready
 
Back in 2021-22, the Bruins rolled with a 50-50 split with Ullmark in his age 28 year old season, and Swayman in his age 23 year old season. Would it be that different if we went with UPL and Levi in their 26 and 24 year old seasons?

I've been bullish on Levi up to this point, so might as well triple down on my previous takes!
Neither UPL nor Levi have thrived in a situation where they aren't getting 75%+ of starts.

The last time Levi played a 50/50 split was in Midget AAA in 2016-17. It is a very different situation for goalies to deal with how to stay sharp when not getting 75%+ of the starts.

It worked for Ullmark and Swayman. It could work with UPL and Levi. Or, it could go the other way and not allow either guy to get into a solid rhythm and they both struggle to play their best.

Given that they are 14 years into a playoff drought, that is a big roll of the dice for me.

I wouldn't hate it if they re-sign Reimer and make Levi force them to call him up midway through next season if UPL doesn't bounce back.
 
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Reimer Saves!
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Boy, they have really broke UPL here haven't they ?
Goalies are historically up and down.

Screenshot 2025-04-07 075834.jpg


Since turning pro after his breakout season in Sudbury, UPL has had an inconsistent pro career.

One interesting part for me is how he had his best pro season last year while playing 54 games in Buffalo and people are talking about him getting overworked having played 53 games so far this season. His workload was only slightly more than last year and his results are much worse.

The challenge is that given how inconsistent UPL has been and how inconsistent goalie play is in general at the NHL level, it wouldn't shock me if UPL was back to a .910+ Save% next year playing 50+ games.
 
Goalies are historically up and down.

View attachment 1008060

Since turning pro after his breakout season in Sudbury, UPL has had an inconsistent pro career.

One interesting part for me is how he had his best pro season last year while playing 54 games in Buffalo and people are talking about him getting overworked having played 53 games so far this season. His workload was only slightly more than last year and his results are much worse.

The challenge is that given how inconsistent UPL has been and how inconsistent goalie play is in general at the NHL level, it wouldn't shock me if UPL was back to a .910+ Save% next year playing 50+ games.
and are we going to chance that? (Of course we are...because KA...)
 
and are we going to chance that? (Of course we are...because KA...)
I wonder what the realistic options are,

Ruff, and the Sabres, likely do not have a good reputation around the league for being goalie friendly.

And what are the UFA or trade options?

Screenshot 2025-04-07 090927.jpg


There are 6 pending UFA goalies with a .900+ Save% this season.

One of them is retiring (MAF) and one was absolute trash in Buffalo (JJ).

None of them have played 41+ games this season, or even close to 50%.

No matter how you slice it, they are going to take some sort of gamble in net going into next season.
 
I wonder what the realistic options are,

Ruff, and the Sabres, likely do not have a good reputation around the league for being goalie friendly.

And what are the UFA or trade options?

View attachment 1008100

There are 6 pending UFA goalies with a .900+ Save% this season.

One of them is retiring (MAF) and one was absolute trash in Buffalo (JJ).

None of them have played 41+ games this season, or even close to 50%.

No matter how you slice it, they are going to take some sort of gamble in net going into next season.

TBH I wouldn’t mind Allen.
 

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