Quote:
Originally Posted by Cleveland Steam Whistle
I'm not even sure that is a stat, but regardless, the result of one meaningless pre-season game is not at all a good indicator of anything. It can be a teeny tiny piece of what goes into an evaluation of Ortio (or any other goalie), but it's far from anything meaningful or the silver bullet you seem to be suggesting it is. I couldn't careless if he shut out Anahiem in Anahiem in one game during the regular season, in the big picture it means very little.
Regardless, Ortio's best years are hopefully a head, and I agree with you that from a rebuilding perspective that needs to be considered. However, even on a re-building team, being young simply isn't enough. How good do they think he can be. If the answer is, they don't think he'll ever be good enough to be their starter (not saying they think that, and admitting that's a hard thing to know for sure), then Ortio's age in comparison to the others is not relevant. If that's the case, then simply which ever goalie gives us the best chance to bridge until we can find our long term solution (Gilles or other) is wha the Flames should do.
I won't pretend to know what Ortio's ceiling is, or what the Flames think about him at this point. My best guess given on how things have been handled is that they aren't sold he is good enough to be our goalie of the future, but they also aren't sold he can't be.
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Save percentage is a stat, and it's all the more impressive in context.
My main point is that Ortio has done nothing to warrant any doubt in his abilities. He had a strong pre-season, a strong NHL showing last season and has been dominant in the AHL for 2 seasons.
Hartley starting Ramo and Hiller before Ortio could just as well be an indicator that they are shopping these goalies and showing them off to the rest of the league. They deemed Ortio the number 3 goalie to start the season, but maybe that's to prop up the value of Ramo or Hiller. From an asset management standpoint, it's a sound strategy. If a GM saw one of the other two as the third string goalie, I doubt they'd be offering as much.
Again it's speculation, but Ortio has been trending upwards for the last 2 years and it seems silly to think he could be traded instead of the other two.