Quote:
Originally Posted by Matty81
You don't need to play 80 games but 50ish is almost a platoon goalie.
When there are goalies who played 60-70 games with similar stats for me a 50 game guy who played 60% of his team's minutes shouldn't be in the conversation unless his stat line was on another planet which it wasn't. But for sure he will win being a NY player
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There's five goalies who started 60 or more games. Do Hellebuyck (0.910, 2.97 GAA, 29 wins, missed playoffs, backup has 0.920, 2.58 GAA) or Demko (0.915, 2.72 GAA, 33 wins, missed playoffs, backups combined 0.917, 2.58 GAA) really deserve Vezina consideration because they stayed healthy all season? They arguably weren't even much better than their backups who posted better numbers.
Shesterkin won 36 of the 52 Rangers wins (69%) starting in 52 (63%)
Markstrom won 37 of the 50 Flames wins (74%) starting in 63 (77%)
Saros won 38 of the 45 Predators wins (84%) starting in 67 (81%)
Vasilevskiy won 39 of the 51 Lightning wins (76%) starting in 63 (77%)
I think if Shesterkin doesn't get injured in December and plays those 5 or 6 more games, all it does is give the Rangers a greater chance of toppling Carolina and maybe makes the west more interesting for us. Huska had a 0.821 save percentage against the Avalanche during one of those games Shesterkin was injured, Georgiev didn't fair much better posting 0.871 save percentage during the other Avalanche game.
I think for Hart Trophy you can easily make a case that Saros was more valuable to his team than Shesterkin. That's in part because without Saros, Nashville had to rely on Rittich. We also saw with Georgiev in net at the start of the season, despite posting a putrid 0.856 save percentage in his October and November starts, the Rangers were somehow able to go 3-1-1 in those games (though Georgiev was pulled in one of those wins). So the Rangers could win without Shesterkin as they were a good enough team.
But then we also got to clearly see how much better Shesterkin was over Georgiev. Behind the same team, Shesterkin is posting ungodly numbers while Georgiev was getting lit up. And Georiev has a history of posting respectable numbers as a backup (even better save percentage than King Henrik during the later part of their careers). So there's no room to argue that Shesterkin's numbers were a product of a stifling Rangers defense. He was just unbelievably good. Which is why the Vezina will easily go to him I think. And I'm more secured in my belief as the Vezina is voted on by GMs who as a whole normally get it right.