Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
All true, though I was more talking about how the team is currently playing in front of both goalies.
First, I’m not sure that there’s a meaningful difference between trading for a goalie and signing a UFA goalie. I mean, several UFA goalie signings have panned out well: Cujo in Toronto, Irbe in Carolina, Hasek in Detroit - and they won a cup albeit Osgood started more, and speaking of which, Osgood had actually been signed as a UFA by Detroit (he was drafted by them but had been with two other teams by then), Belfour in Dallas. Samsonov is doing Ok right now with Toronto.
There are a few teams now who are doing OK with goalies who took their time getting to the show: Logan Thompson is 25, Ullmark didn’t play until 24, Vanacek came up at 24.
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Difference could include age, cap efficiency, and general quality.
This is more of a correlation than a causation.
Thompson was 24, and Ullmark was 22. Wolf turns 22 in April.
He'll already be older than most of the elite goalies who have played in the past 20 years.
The ages of goalies at the beginning of the season in which they played their first NHL games (most of these are cup/Vezina winners):
Price: 20
Rask: 20
Markstrom: 20
Vasilevskiy: 20
Lehner: 19
Gibson: 20
Quick: 21
Holtby: 20
Fleury: 18
Rinne: 22
Crawford: 20
Thomas: 28* (tends to be an exception for everything)
Niemi: 25
Kuemper: 22
Sorokin: 25
Hellebuyck: 22
Oettinger: 20
Murray: 21
Kiprusoff: 23
Ward: 21
Again, as a matter of fact, goalies make NHL debuts are younger ages than people think they do. At least, this is the case in organizations that actually have a history of developing goalies.