The last stand-up goalie finally is taking a seat a row back.
Martin Brodeur, three years since his last playoff series win and not likely to have a chance at redemption this spring, still, at 38, has some stops left. But he is no longer the name that stops the argument about the best goalie of this generation. And with that passing, the argument may no longer be worth making about anybody.
The game likely never will enjoy another era close to that of Jacques Plante, Terry Sawchuk, Glenn Hall, Gump Worsley and Johnny Bower. Since then, there always has been at least one dominant guy, though, and, through the 1990s of Brodeur, Patrick Roy Dominik Hasek and Ed Belfour, there were more.
And though NHL end-of-year All-Star teams have been littered with shooting stars like Roman Cechmanek, Jim Carey, Byron Dafoe, Roman Turek and Jose Theodore, two years out of the lockout, consensus was that goaltending in the NHL never had been deeper.
It seemed a shame that out of J.S. Giguere, Marc-Andre Fleury, Miikka Kiprusoff, Tomas Vokoun, Chris Mason, Henrik Lundqvist, Rick DiPietro, Jonas Hiller and Evgeni Nabokov, there could be just one Cup winner a year for the next 10. But only Fleury has won one, and he has struggled since.
“I don’t think there are as many elite goalies as there were three, five years ago,” said a veteran NHL scout. “Marty’s glove hand isn’t what it was. [Calgary’s] Kiprusoff has slipped, Luongo hasn’t taken Vancouver on a run yet, DiPietro got hurt, and Fleury is a mess.
“Lundqvist hasn’t played as well as he did when he first came up — they gotta get him off the goal line. Steve Mason [of Columbus] was outstanding two years ago, not as good since.
“I like [Carolina’s] Cam Ward and [Buffalo’s] Ryan Miller. Jimmy Howard [of Detroit] and Tuukka Rask [of Boston] have a chance. [The Coyotes’ Ilya] Bryzgalov and [Minnesota’s Niklas] Backstrom are pretty good, but they haven’t won [a playoff round] yet.
“The best guy right now, it’s [Jaroslav] Halak. He did something last year we hadn’t seen in a while, carry a team [the Canadiens] in the playoffs.”
After stunning both Eastern Conference favorites, Pittsburgh and Washington, Halak was ordinary in a five-game conference finals loss to the Flyers, then dumped in favor of Carey Price, who the Canadiens believe has a larger upside.
Halak now has a 1.46 goals against average for emergent contender St. Louis, so maybe he’s The Next Guy, and perhaps Ward and Miller already are. But the Hurricanes has had one run (to the 2009 semifinals) since Ward won the Cup in 2006, and Miller could not get loaded Sabres clubs to a final before they now look like a lottery team.
Meanwhile, last year’s Cup-winning goalie, Antti Niemi, was promptly dumped by Chicago. We have read multiple stories about how, as a matter of changing philosophy, fewer teams put big money into elite goalies. The fact remains: There aren’t proven winners out there.
Lundqvist got the big contract after all of two playoff series wins, admittedly with Rangers teams not capable of winning much more. Last year he got beat by Flyers journeyman Brian Boucher in a shootout for a playoff spot.
It can take a special team to give a goalie an opportunity to be special, but the opposite also can be true. Most agree Lundqvist, nothing extraordinary as the Rangers went 6-6 during Marian Gaborik’s absence, is a top-10 goaltender. But he remains on the short list of goalies who could emerge as better than that, so it’s time for him to do it.