Not interested in a long form debate. I'll just say, from over 20 years of watching hockey, from what I've seen, I can confidently say that rested goalies tend to perform better in the playoffs than those that have had to endure heavy workloads during the season. Of course anyone can cherrypick examples of goalies that have had huge workloads and still played well in the playoffs. But again, from the totality of what I've seen, I'm convinced that fatigue becomes a factor for goaltenders, as it does for players at other positions as well. Of course other factors come into play as well, such as age, conditioning, nutrition, etc. Some athletes have better endurance than others.
Comparing '04 Kipper vs Detroit vs '07 Kipper vs Detroit... he was more dominant in '04. Besides, Kipper never played past the first round after '04... he likely would have started wearing down if the team made a deep run in the playoffs.
Brodeur played on dominant defensive teams that stifled their opponents with their suffocating trap system, making life realtively easy on the goaltender.
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