The goalie carousel is in full swing during the opening round of these playoffs. In daily fantasy hockey games, your goalie is the cornerstone of your lineup. Normally, in the postseason, teams settle upon one starter for the duration, so the field of possibilities narrows in the fantasy space.
This postseason, however, a number of goalie-themed storylines are already arising in the first round of the playoffs, as quite a few teams have already made changes in net.
Red Wings – Jimmy Howard earned the opening assignments over Petr Mrazek at the start of these playoffs for Detroit based on his strong play in the latter stages of the regular season. This was a bit of surprising turn, as it looked all year long like Mrazek had outplayed his veteran partner – until the young Czech fell into a late-season funk. Howard played in each of the last seven critical games as the Wings eked out a playoff berth in the waning stages of the regular season.
After suffering consecutive losses while surrendering seven goals on only 64 shots in the first two playoff games against Tampa, Howard was replaced by Mrazek, who returned with a vengeance, earning a shutout win in Games 3. He followed that up by allowing three power-play goals in a 3-2 loss and just a single goal as the Wings were eliminated on Thursday.
The longer-range story may be an offseason headache for the Wings because they're on the hook for Howard's $5.3 million cap
The goalie carousel is in full swing during the opening round of these playoffs. In daily fantasy hockey games, your goalie is the cornerstone of your lineup. Normally, in the postseason, teams settle upon one starter for the duration, so the field of possibilities narrows in the fantasy space.
This postseason, however, a number of goalie-themed storylines are already arising in the first round of the playoffs, as quite a few teams have already made changes in net.
Red Wings – Jimmy Howard earned the opening assignments over Petr Mrazek at the start of these playoffs for Detroit based on his strong play in the latter stages of the regular season. This was a bit of surprising turn, as it looked all year long like Mrazek had outplayed his veteran partner – until the young Czech fell into a late-season funk. Howard played in each of the last seven critical games as the Wings eked out a playoff berth in the waning stages of the regular season.
After suffering consecutive losses while surrendering seven goals on only 64 shots in the first two playoff games against Tampa, Howard was replaced by Mrazek, who returned with a vengeance, earning a shutout win in Games 3. He followed that up by allowing three power-play goals in a 3-2 loss and just a single goal as the Wings were eliminated on Thursday.
The longer-range story may be an offseason headache for the Wings because they're on the hook for Howard's $5.3 million cap hit for the next three seasons, while Mrazek, who has been touted as their goalie of the future, has shown enough over this regular season to earn a significant raise as a pending restricted free agent who earned $738,000 this season.
Islanders – With a groin injury to Jaroslav Halak, Tomas Greiss has proved to be a very valuable backup, as he's excelled since taking over in early March. He wound up appearing in a career-high 41 regular-season games, playing to a very impressive 2.36 GAA and .925 save percentage.
In most quarters, Halak's groin injury was viewed as a major obstacle that would doom the Isles, who were regarded as prohibitive underdogs against the Atlantic Division-winning Panthers.
Instead of folding against those odds, the Isles have earned a split of the four games in their series against Florida, with Greiss playing at least as well as the Panthers' Roberto Luongo, stopping 133 of 144 shots (.924 save percentage). Apparently, Halak has resumed skating at practice, but you have to believe he's not going to be activated before the end of this series, so Greiss looks like he will be the Isles' goaltender for the duration of this round.
Penguins – The Pens ended the season with grave concern for their goaltending situation because presumptive starter and long-time team leader Marc-Andre Fleury was sidelined with a concussion. Jeff Zatkoff and Matt Murray held the fort in solidifying a playoff spot, but were thought to be incapable of outperforming Henrik Lundqvist in the Rangers net.
Oddly, early in Game 1, the Rangers' star took a teammate's stick in the eye hole of his facemask and gave way to Antti Raanta. With Zatkoff starting for the Pens, it became backup vs. backup, and that leveling of the goaltending field contributed to a convincing 5-2 series-opening win. The Rangers then won a game, but Murray came back to the ice for the last two and simply dominated, including spinning a shutout Thursday. The Pens have proven that Fleury's absence is not an insurmountable obstacle.
Ducks – The Ducks have had their hands full with the stout effort of the Predators, which compelled Anaheim to change goalies after dropping two home games to open this series. To say that the Ducks lost those games because of John Gibson would be unfair because they were both closely contested one-goal defeats with no real edge in territorial play overall. However, coach Bruce Boudreau has the luxury of trusting both of his goalies, so it was no shock or slight when Frederik Andersen got the start in Game 3.
The skaters delivered a perfect road game of their own in front of Andersen, who certainly did his part as well in blanking the Predators for a 3-0 win, which he followed up with a one-goal effort in a Game 4 victory.
The Ducks clearly have a well-founded confidence in both of their goalies, as both have enjoyed long runs of success at various stages in this season. They represent one of the best tandems with no significant drop-off from one to the other in the NHL.
But just as in the Detroit example, it seems as though Gibson is their goalie of the future, while Andersen is the pending restricted free agent whose future in Anaheim is unsure.
So I wonder out loud whether they might look to turn things over to Gibson at the next sign of any weakness in Andersen.
Flyers – In an early hole with losses in the first three games of their series against Washington, the Flyers made a goalie change after their season-long No. 1, Steve Mason, effectively cost them the second game when he fanned on a rink-length clearing attempt, then followed that up by allowing six goals on 27 shots.
With their backs to the wall, the Flyers gave their net to backup Michal Neuvirth in Game 4. This, more than any of the other goalie switches in this round, was motivated by the combination of dire circumstances and poor efforts by the starting netminder. Happily for the Flyers, this roll of the dice worked out for them, as Neuvirth stopped 31 of 32 shots in a narrow 2-1 win. He'll be the starter again when the teams meet up for Game 5 in Washington.
Stars – Like the Ducks, the Stars are blessed with a pair of equally skilled goalies, but Antti Niemi and Kari Lehtonen have much more NHL experience than Gibson and Andersen. It probably came down to a coin flip to give Lehtonen the Game 1 start. He didn't disappoint en route to two home wins, but after he surrendered four goals on 25 shots in Game 3, the Stars saw a chance to insert Niemi in Game 4.
Niemi responded with a solid effort, stopping 28 of 30 shots and allowing the Stars to claim a 3-1 series lead. He will be the starter when the teams meet in Dallas for Game 5, but we probably haven't seen the last of Lehtonen in these playoffs or maybe even this series.
At this pace, we will surely see more goalie changes from these clubs as well as two more teams that have stuck with their No. 1 guys to date.
In St. Louis, the Blues were compelled to go with Brian Elliott because he has been superb since returning to the fold after a late-season injury. That trend has continued in the series with Chicago, as Elliott has been instrumental in recording three wins against one defeat. The Blues shouldn't hesitate to insert Jake Allen if they need to, as both sides of this tandem have been effective for them.
In San Jose, the Sharks have used former Kings understudy Martin Jones against Los Angeles and he's excelled, just as he did throughout his first full season as a starting goalie. The Sharks have every confidence in their new backup goalie, James Reimer, who has been solid since his trade-deadline acquisition. He also has prior playoff experience, which only adds to his value in reserve.
