I think there are only a handful of goalies that I would call good starters around the the league. Guys like Vasilevskiy (struggling this season), Sorokin (though he is awful so far this season), Bobrovsky, Shesterkin, Hellebuyck,.. that's about it. Guys like Saros have - in my opinion - dropped out of this level.
Then it is a lot of young guys with promise with varying levels of competency (Wolf, Dobes, Dostal), or guys that were starters winding down - (Quick, Talbot, Kuemper, Gibson), goalies that looked good like Wolf, but who cratered under the pressure so far (Swayman, Ullmark, Merzlikins),
I would put Markstrom solidly into the their tier of goalies - winding down, and still capable of steady-to-spectacular work, but lots of bad games in the mix as well. I think he is a tandem goalie now. I can see why the Devils are quick to extend him - he has been better than the goalies that they tried to run with for the last while, but I also think they didn't give those young goalies the proper support either.
I just don't think there are that many starters in the league any longer as there seemed to be even 5 or 7 years ago. If you have one now, you better hold onto him, or you better have a few really good prospects competing to be a starter in your system. I bet that the Devils don't love this, but they may be out of options at this point. They should have went after Vladar as a UFA promising him a number of games, or traded for Knight when he became available. I think those were good gambles to take if you fancied yourself as a contender with weak goaltending.
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