racamdim
Registered User
- Jul 14, 2022
- 164
- 149
Go back to my original comment --Schmid had no track record before last year unless you are counting his first 6 games in 2021-22 as a baby.
Vitek had a very nice record before coming to NJ. And his SV% last year (.911) was barely different than his career average before coming here(.908)
There is no question that this .886 is an outlier in Vitek"s career. But you somehow believe it was expected?
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Schmid's performance against CAR (as well as his limited performance last season) strongly suggested that his NYR performance was not reflective of his true level.
VV was never a number 1 -- or even a 1A -- until last season. That wasn't even the plan (as bleedred pointed out). And his performance over the last third of the season was alarming (even before the NYR fiasco). Look at his mini-slumps in the game logs.
What was to be reasonably expected was that they would not replicate their highest level, especially when you considered everything else.
Fitz gambled that they would, or at least enough of it to muddle by -- EVEN though he knew that his D would be taking a step back in the short term.
And there is more to the story than the raw numbers. There is the eye test too. There is a reason Fitz said what he said when he acquired VV (look it up). There is a reason Fitz has expressly acknowledged that he has been actively monitoring the goalie market all summer and into the season. And it was well-documented among mainstream hockey observers/analysts going into the PO last year and coming into this season that the Devs had an Achilles' heel in net.
Are you really going to die on this hill, that the Devs goaltending is sufficient so long as they fix the rest?