Quote:
Originally Posted by CSharp
Jesus, Tre acting up again with his quest for a #1 goalie. Never ends... Just build a frickin team that doesn't suck in front of a goalie already.
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"Goaltending is 75% of your hockey team, unless you don't have it. Then it's 100%." - Harry Neale.
The notion that a team can win without lights out goaltending, by and large, is bunk.
People will throw up examples like Chris Osgood, who is 12th all time in wins, won three Stanley Cups (2 as a starter) and doesn't have a playoff GAA above 2.12 in any of the three years he went to the finals as a starter. At age 35, he won his last title with a 1.51 GAA and a .930 save percentage.
They might suggest Antti Niemi, who has a championship because Kane and Toews weren't yet 22, and Philadelphia had a career AHLer along with 33 year old former Flame Brian Boucher starting games.
Just last January, I was supremely confident the Calgary Flames would make the playoffs. Then we stopped having a goalie.
Very rarely will anyone win a Stanley Cups without elite goaltending. There's no amount of quality defense that can compensate for a mentally weak sieve.