Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
What AHL quality were Niemi, Crawford, Bishop, Jones, Rinne? All guys to play in or win a recent SCF.
You don't need star goaltending in the playoffs, you need solid goaltending behind strong team defense. Heck we probably could have won a cup with 2014-15 Hiller-Ramo if we had a bit more skater talent. Ramo wasn't the reason the Ducks beat us. You can't have 2017 Elluott meltdowns but that was an outlier among playoff performances.
You do need stars at center as that position is crucial to team defense (and offense).
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Niemi doesn't belong with that crowd - every other guy listed is an elite goalie. Niemi is trash.
You do need superstar centres. The only way you get those is to draft them. And even when you have them, you don't win anything without the guy in the crease. See the Penguins during Fleury's mid career crisis.
We complain about the defense, but this top six is as deep as I've seen in Calgary since 2005/06. Much more has been done with much less, because of a goalie.
You're right that you don't necessarily need a Vezina winner to win it all - very rarely does a goalie win the Vezina and the Cup in the same year. Whoever he is needs to be a consistent .918+ guy, who can elevate his game to .920+ in the playoffs. He needs to be able to hold the line, and he needs to be able to minimize weak goals. Nothing destroys a hockey team like a softie.
Kiprusoff was that guy. Beyond rare moments in 14-15, and the first half of last year, we haven't gotten that.