Quote:
Originally Posted by Pointman
He wouldn't. He needed long rest to be elite. On regular rest he was not any better than Vernon. Kipper's post-lockout teams, albeit less stacked than Vernon's, never really played to their potential either.
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Its an interesting premise- in some ways the same applies to Vernon in his Flames year- in 86 he was a late arrival (a la Kipper) only playing 18 NHL games (and not a lot of AHL work) and in 89 we bemoan the Hull deal but the arrival of Wamsley who nearly split the load 50:50 allowed Vernon to stay fresh
you may be onto something with Kipper's workload but the problem was he always had a horrible backup (combined with the Flames generally starting slow so the backup never got into the net) so he was essentially top 1-3 in league for games and minutes year after year- his normal workload unfortunately was abnormal
