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Are we in a lull of NHL goaltending talent?

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I think this is a bad year to evaluate players in a lot of ways. Everyone is only playing their own division. That's going to have an impact on performances when teams get so much additional experience against each other.
 
Hi ImHFNYR said:
How can you point out a few guys OP maybe put in the wrong category and then not put Henrik into the legends category?

Unless that difference is solely bc he's still not retired. But I didn't need Brodeur or Roy to officially retire before labeling them legends.
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Henrik sadly never got the Cup.
Not an individual reward of course, but no legends go without it (think Bourque chasing it until his very end...before 22 beers of course).

Brodeur/Roy were ultimate winners above and beyond all expectations with Cups shooting out their asses/ears/etc. since time immemorial.
Reminisce on Roy's SC wins for a sec, legendary insanity.

Henrik/Sundin and the other Swedes got their gold medal eventually after the Belarus debacle.
But it's really not anything close to a Cup win, ask any of their NHL team fans.

Conversely, weakest of my legend pool might have been Belfour, take a look at his past resume:
Ed Belfour at eliteprospects.com

Bless Henrik's hart, but he's not worthy of the HOF with 1 Vezina and a Gold medal.
 
kingsholygrail said:
I think this is a bad year to evaluate players in a lot of ways. Everyone is only playing their own division. That's going to have an impact on performances when teams get so much additional experience against each other.
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My point isn't about evaluating goaltending so far this season, but just recognition of the fact that it seems like more than ever (at least in the last 20 years I've consciously watched) teams are going with relatively unproven starters/tandems and backups to fill these roles. Between the old guard in which a lot have left this season and the young guard that are beginning to prove themselves, there seems to be a massive void of talent in the 26-35 year old range of NHL goaltending
 
Are we in a lull of NHL goaltending talent, or are we in an age of prosperity for NHL scoring talent, and defense/goaltending hasn't caught up in the proverbial arms race?

Are we perhaps just seeing the effects of equipment reductions setting in, and perhaps haven't adjusted our expectations accordingly?
 
Freaky Styley said:
My point isn't about evaluating goaltending so far this season, but just recognition of the fact that it seems like more than ever (at least in the last 20 years I've consciously watched) teams are going with relatively unproven starters/tandems and backups to fill these roles. Between the old guard in which a lot have left this season and the young guard that are beginning to prove themselves, there seems to be a massive void of talent in the 26-35 year old range of NHL goaltending
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Considering that there are some really talented (although relatively unproven) NHL goaltenders that are 25 and younger, wouldn't that mean that the lull in goaltending talent started several years ago?
 
True Tick and Tin said:
Somehow, how the position is played has evolved such that an 'average joe' goalie's effectiveness is not that far off from those who are considered the best. Just strap some pads onto any reasonably athletic 6'6 dude and teach him the butterfly and you're good to go.

End result: the gap between the #30 goalie in the league's effectiveness and #1 is not that big. Now compare that to say MacKinnon and the 30th best center and the gap in effectiveness is HUGE.
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Exactly, and that's why I'm against paying very much salary for a goalie at all, or giving them any significant terms. Especially since, unlike any other position, a goalie only affects the game around their net and has zero impact anywhere else.

IMO the game will evolve in a direction that makes the optimal course of action getting goalies for cheap, like 1mil per, and spending the extra money on some actually useful positions.
 
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True Tick and Tin said:
Somehow, how the position is played has evolved such that an 'average joe' goalie's effectiveness is not that far off from those who are considered the best. Just strap some pads onto any reasonably athletic 6'6 dude and teach him the butterfly and you're good to go.

End result: the gap between the #30 goalie in the league's effectiveness and #1 is not that big. Now compare that to say MacKinnon and the 30th best center and the gap in effectiveness is HUGE.
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Yep. Add to this the fact that goalie performance tends to fluctuate (sometimes massively) from year to year. It is rare for a goaltender to experience consistent, high-end success. For active goalies, I think only Rinne and Price come close to providing consistent, high-end performance from season to season. Price had some issues early on though and Rinne has had recent issues due to age.
 
Howe Elbows 9 said:
Considering that there are some really talented (although relatively unproven) NHL goaltenders that are 25 and younger, wouldn't that mean that the lull in goaltending talent started several years ago?
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Perhaps, yes. And we are just seeing the result of that. I think the realization was that the decade from 26-35 doesn't really have that much talent, and with a lot of the older guys retiring/falling off a cliff, this has really come to light (at least for me). These young guys aren't really being given the opportunity for a slow transition and rather being thrown into a trial by fire.
 
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SmoggyTwinkles said:
We're in the opposite of it.

Goaltending and the coaching behind it is better than ever.

All the video, huge pads, and coaching means a lot of great goaltenders, and maybe a couple outliers who are genius at it, which you can argue about amongst yourselves.
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I've been giving this a lot of thought lately, as there really isn't currently a Roy, Hasek or Brodeur in the league, to name somewhat modern elite HHOF level goaltenders. Lundqvist was that for a while. Price, too, between 2013-17. But otherwise I'd have a hard time saying any of the goalies in the NHL were to that level of dominance. So I started asking "What has changed?" Well, there really didn't used to be much training for goaltenders in the 80's and 90's (when I personally was growing up as a goalie), and probably none before then. Now there are tons of goaltending schools and some youth teams even purposely have goalie coaches on their coaching staff.

I think the result of all of this training is that all goalies are becoming trained to be optimal in their positioning, and as a result we see a smaller skill gap between the elite and the merely good goalies, and a lot of the "creative" aspects of goaltending from the past are trained out of these kids as they're growing up. As goalies become better and better trained to react to a situation in a specific way, you naturally see less of a skill gap between different tenders, as less athleticism and creativity is needed. The ones who were naturally great are still great, and the ones that aren't naturally great have the training to make up for most of their deficiencies. I think this is also why we see goalies going down to their knees for every shot, no matter the situation; they're trying to be as big in the net as possible, and the butterfly is the optimal way to do that. They're trained to do it. They don't think, they just do.

You can look at the goalies that are still around that play the "old" way, like Stalock and Khudobin, and though they're naturally talented, they're either not good enough to be starters, or not trusted enough to be.

That's the long way of me saying "This".
 
What about Jake Allen? He's a backup now but on a team like Edmonton he would probably be considered a bonafide number 1, he's played more than 2 seasons of 55+ games
 
No! NHL has done everything in it's power to increase scoring over the years. Now this year, calling 20 power plays a game. What do you expect! You can be superman and only so much you can do.
 
Crede777 said:
Yep. Add to this the fact that goalie performance tends to fluctuate (sometimes massively) from year to year. It is rare for a goaltender to experience consistent, high-end success. For active goalies, I think only Rinne and Price come close to providing consistent, high-end performance from season to season. Price had some issues early on though and Rinne has had recent issues due to age.
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Rask? Vasy?
 
It's been proven times and times that a vast majority of a goalie's effectiveness is reliant on the defensive system in front of him.
 
Bowski said:
Ben Bishop looks to be overpriced done garbage now, so definitely no #1 stats there.

A bunch of other mediocre tenders on your "bonafide #1 goalies" list.
Vasilevsky for sure, Rask close...the others have won F all in decades. (Holtby yes, but he's on a career decline now).
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LMFAO

WHAT
 
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