It’s funny how you bring up Hellybuyck like he’s the only workhorse in the league and that strategy can’t win in the postseason when Vasilevski played every game in 20 and 21 and they won both years…
Binnington ran the show in 19
Adin Hill played 3 rounds straight after injury
I guess you could point the finger at Colorado with the Keumper and Francouz finals but I really don’t think it mattered who was in net that series they were so loaded
Regardless, you’re acting like this two goalie tandem is now the norm for the postseason but it’s really more of an effective strategy for the regular season.
I want my best players playing every night down the stretch. You can only dress 18 skaters and one goalie and when you have holes in your roster and no assets to spend to improve them the really only option is taking away from an area of strength
Exactly this
I'm glad you bring up Vasilevski. In 2020, he played 52 regular season games followed by a 20 week break before they finished the season in the bubble. He didn't play 60+ and roll right into the playoffs.
In 2021 he only played 42 games before the playoffs as it was a shortened season of 56 games.
In 2022 he played 63 in the regular season, and he looked cooked in the finals. He's never won a cup playing 75% of games followed by 4 rounds of playoffs.
Love how you acknowledged then disregarded Colorado by saying "they were so loaded". Well done.
Adin Hill appeared in 16 straight playoff games. But he only played 27 in the regular season and went two full months between appearances from March until May. Vegas had used 4 goaltenders over 10 games each that year and that doesn't include the presumptive starter (Lehner) before the season began.
Last year, Sergei Bobrovsky didn't play for 3 1/2 weeks before he was put in against Boston. That mattered in the final outcome of the series. He benefitted from the rest. Conversely, he looked cooked in the finals as was his team who couldn't sustain that hard-charging forecheck for 4 rounds of the playoffs.
The Capitals ran Holtby in the ground from 2015-2017, asking him to play 73. 66 and 63 games respectfully. In 2018, he shared the net with Grubauer and only played 54 and didn't even start the playoffs until Game 3. I don't think that it's a coincidence he had his best playoff run that year.
The 2017 Penguins played Murray 49 games and Fleury 38 in the regular season. Fleury won Rounds 1 and 2, Then Murray was back and won Rounds 3 and 4. Pitched back-2-back shutouts in the final two clinching games. Their opponent, Pekke Rinne, was at Game 83 of his season by the end.
Murray carried the ball in the 2016 playoffs, but he only played 13 games in the NHL and 31 in the AHL prior to the playoffs. And keep in mind he was only 22 years old at the time. The guy they beat in that year's finals was Jones who had played 65 regular season games and reached Game 89.
Binnington ran with it in the 2nd half of 2019, but overall his NHL and AHL totals for that year was 48 games prior to the playoffs, only 12 prior to his January call-up to the Blues.
Our own Tuukka Rask only cracked 60+ games three times in his career. 2015 (70), 16 (64) and 17 (65). Two years were his only two years to miss the playoffs. The third year, his coach got fired mid-season and the performance of his back-ups prior to the firing was absolutely awful so much that it got Khudobin waived and demoted until Cassidy got hired. When Julien got fired on Feb 7th, 2017, Rask was already up to Game 44.
What's that, 8 years of examples from 2016 to now where not a single championship team ran one goalie out there for 75% of the games plus 4 complete rounds of playoffs and was successful at the end. Zero examples. The workload in the regular season has an impact on the workload and success of the post-season. Running your perceived No.1 guy 60+ games appears to be a failed strategy based on the last decade of NHL hockey. That's your norm now. And in the Bruins case, they've conditioned their two goalies to expect to play frequently, so they should stick to that come playoffs as what they have been conditioned for also matters. At the end of the day, managing goalie workloads, much like managing pitching workloads in baseball, is a real thing and that's a heck of a lot easier when you have two guys back there the coaches and players trust.
All that to say the situation in net will be evaluated every off-season. Swayman and Ullmark won't be teammates forever. If the Bruins have faith in Bussi to play 30-35 games at minimum, maybe they move Ullmark this off-season. But right here today and at this year's deadline, it's not the time in my opinion. And with a rising cap and some less-than ideal contracts coming off the books (Gryz, Forbort), maybe they don't need to bust up their tandem to improve another area of the team.
