Quote:
Originally Posted by 1qqaaz
On one hand, it seems like the goaltending has been okay this year. They're both sub 91%, which is mediocre, but at least they're close.
If anything, it's better than what the Flames are used to.
It would be very nice if the Flames finally had a goaltender who could put up at least one 92% season. If I'm not mistaken, the Flames haven't had a 92% goaltender since 2010-2011, and this is the longest drought in the league. It's even longer than the Oilers (Dubnyk did it in 2012-2013) and the Hurricanes (Khubodin did it in 2013-2014).
There are 20 active goalies (200+ games played) with career save percentages over 91.5% (Talbot is actually at 91.5%). Getting a single 92% season shouldn't be that hard or rare.
Of course part of it is on the defense and coaching, but over this many years, it's hard to put all the blame there.
|
An elite goaltender would probably be worth a few more wins and cover some warts but it appears that's something that only comes around to the Flames once every 20 years or so. They have failed over and over in regards to drafting one so maybe the GM will have to be aggressive in trading for a quality young backup goaltender in another organization that has a high ceiling. To be clear I'm not faulting Rittich for the bad start but he's shown that he can't play more than four or five games in a row before his game starts falling apart and you need more than that from a starting goaltender.