Goaltending tandems are here for good in the NHL
With the success of goaltending tandems, is there a new wave of goalie tandems in the NHL?
A few weeks ago, when Jake Allen was traded to the Montreal Canadiens, it got me thinking. I think we are about ready to see a new way of thinking when it comes to goaltenders in the NHL.
Now, this could be a product of the times we lived in what this whole bubble hockey playoffs experiment. Being forced to play all these games in quick succession could benefit teams that have two legitimate goaltenders, such as the New York Islanders, Boston Bruins, and Vegas Golden Knights.
The traditional method of goaltenders used to be running your number one goalie into the ground. You would have your top goalie start roughly 70% to 80% of the games during the regular season. Usually, backup goaltenders only played either during a losing streak for the starting goalie, during games on back-to-back nights, or on the tail end of a cross-country road trip.
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Once playoffs start, typically, number one goalies turn into work horses. Your number one goalie starts every single postseason game, barring injury or significant struggles. If a goalie was able to carry a team all the way to the legendary silver chalice, their names would go on to live on in infamy.
However, the drawback is all this work would lead to goalies flaming out, or their prime typically ending once they hit their early 30’s. Once goalies start to drop off in terms of production, it’s typically ends quickly and at times ugly. Jonathan Quick and Henrik Lundqvist are good examples of this.
So today, teams are learning to get around that by adding a second goalie. But now, it seems you add a more experienced goalie that can step in, and not just a kid you throw in on the tail end of a back to back in Canada.
There are benefits to this. Instead of the traditional 75%/25% split, teams can do more of a 60%/40% or 55%/45% split, maybe even a 50%/50% split, and then go with the hot goalie once the Stanley Cup Playoffs come around.
We see this a lot more in the NBA with load management. It’s a term that has caused some scorned among the NBA fan base, but it allows star players to add years onto their career if they take a few games off now. Load management can also help players be more efficient.
Jake Allen isn’t going to usurp Carey Price as the Montreal Canadiens starter, but he is going to help share the load, like Samwise in Lord of the Rings when he offered to carry the ring for Frodo.
Most other NHL teams might start doing this going forward. The Pittsburgh Penguins were ahead of the curve when they had Marc-Andre Fleury and Matt Murray to get them back-to-back Stanley Cups.
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With a potentially region heavy and shortened season next year for the NHL, this may be a new way of looking at goalies moving forward. If you can develop one goalie in your system and then maybe find a second, maybe spending $10 million on a number one may not seen that bad.