Quote:
Originally Posted by Enoch Root
So suggest someone.
Also, you have randomly decided that goalies fall off at 32-33. Some do, some don't. Kipper smoked a pack a day. Markstrom has played 284 games, and only 14 playoff games.
#Youngandfresh
(by comparison, Holtby has played 476 regular season, and 97 playoff games)
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Honestly the GP metric is a bit of red herring to me - the workload a back up goalie like Markstrom was taking in practice more than makes up for not being a starter in those years.
And I didn't randomly decide anything, age curves are a real thing and they show goalies peaking from 26-30 and then declining in their 30s.
This was an aging curve for goalies that two guys Eric Tulsky (doing good things in Carolina right now) and Jack Han had worked on in the past.
Goalies tend to improve YoY from 22-29, then starting around age 30 is when the curve flips and they start to decline year after year.
Markstrom could buck the trend but personally I don't see it happening. He's a guy that has had one top end season in his career, doesn't have a long history of elite play, and is a career .911 save percentage.
That puts him right into the camp of guys like Smith, Howard, Lehtonen, etc in terms of career performance.
Honestly I'm not a scout so don't have a lot of knowledge of what young goalies look ready to breakout. Rittich's play the last three years actually looks very similar to both Kuemper and Markstrom at the same age prior to them breaking out the last two seasons so maybe they should lean into him more.
At the NHL level guys like Merzlikins, DeSmith, Blackwood, Samsonov, Jarry, Ullmark, Demko, and the two Rangers goalies seem to be the young guys poised to take the next step to full time starters but going to be tough to trade for one of them.
Connor Ingram was a guy that Tampa just traded to Nashville for a 7th rounder with some supposed attitude issues but he's put up .914, .922, and .933 seasons in the AHL the last three years and looks like he could be good. Wish the Flames had been in on that.