Montreal Canadiens Schedule Shows Need For Reliable Backup Goaltender
The Montreal Canadiens have one of the best goaltenders in the world in Carey Price. They need to find a reliable backup that can take the load off him during back to back games.
The Montreal Canadiens are lucky to have one of the league’s best goaltenders locked up long term. Carey Price has proven since he was taken 5th overall in the 2005 NHL Draft that he is one of the best if not the greatest goaltender of his generation.
Price had one down season in 2017-18, but rebounded this year and showed even at the age of 31 he is still among the league’s best. However, even the greatest goaltenders in the league need a break now and then.
Price was forced to play almost every game down the stretch for the Canadiens last season as they chased a playoff berth. His backup was Antti Niemi but he forgot how to stop pucks after dominating the Florida Panthers on January 15th.
Niemi didn’t play another good game after mid-January. In fact, if you look at his season, he only had three good games all season and they all came in a two week stretch after New Year’s Eve.
That’s simply not good enough for a backup goaltender. Three solid games all season and a bunch of contests where he allowed three goals or more is not what an NHL team fighting for a playoff spot needs from their number two option in goal.
Niemi has already left the NHL and signed in Finland for next season. That leaves the Montreal Canadiens to search for a more capable backup. The NHL announced the schedule for next season and the Habs have 14 sets of back to back games next season.
Ideally, your backup is good enough that he can play one of every back to back game. This is the minimal amount required from a backup these days. Most number two options will play 20 or more games and the Habs need to find someone they can rely on to do just that.
A good backup goaltender would have propelled the Canadiens into the playoffs last year. Price played great down the stretch and didn’t fall apart, but two extra points in November or February would have been the difference. Niemi wasn’t able to provide that last year.
Many successful teams last season went with something closer to a 50-50 split than we have seen in the past. The St. Louis Blues were more or less forced into this setup when Jake Allen struggled early in the season and Jordan Bennington won nearly every game he played in the second half of the season.
The Blues won the Stanley Cup with a goaltender who played 32 games in the regular season. They beat the Boston Bruins in the Stanley Cup Final. Tuukka Rask was the starting goalie for the Bruins and he played just 46 games in the regular season, thanks to former Montreal Canadiens netminder Jaroslav Halak being his reliable backup.
The Boston Bruins earned a berth in the Stanley Cup Finals by taking out the Carolina Hurricanes in the Eastern Conference Final. Carolina platooned goalies all season with Petr Mrazek playing 40, Curtis McElhinney taking 33 games and Scott Darling playing eight.
The Calgary Flames were the best team in the Western Conference during the regular season. They split games between Mike Smith and David Rittich all season. The Dallas Stars, New York Islanders, Nashville Predators and Colorado Avalanche made the playoffs with goaltenders splitting starts. Even Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Vein Trophy winner, had a backup in Louis Domingue who played 26 games.
The Canadiens clearly need someone who can take some of the burden from Carey Price next season. With long road trips and 14 sets of back to back games, there has to be a backup goaltender who can step in after a lengthy rest and play a solid 60 minutes.
Hoping that Charlie Lindgren can handle the job would be a mistake. Lindgren played 33 games for the Laval Rocket of the AHL last season and posted a 2.94 goals against average and a .884 save percentage. Those numbers don’t give a lot of faith that he can be an NHL backup next season.
The best option on the market if Curtis McElhinney. The Hurricanes netminder played 33 games this season, posting a 2.58 GAA and a .912 SV%. He has a 20-11-2 record for the playoff bound Hurricanes.
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If the Habs can find a backup goaltender to post a 20-11-2 record next season they will definitely be in the postseason. They should try to find a more suitable replacement in the free agent market and not hope that Lindgren will be able to do what McElhinney did for Carolina last season.