Ranking Overrated Goaltenders

As the NHL playoffs continue to wind down, it looks like the Chicago Blackhawks will face off against my Philadelphia Flyers. In a crazy playoff season, three of the four remaining goaltenders aren’t considered upper-tier. My dad always likes to say that all you need in the playoffs is just to qualify and to have a hot goaltender, and Antti Niemi, Jaroslav Halak and Michael Leighton have all done that. But as San Jose sits in a 3 – 0 series deficit and looks poised to exit the playoffs early again this year, two things come to mind. One is that the regular season really is a stretch of 82 warm up games. The second, which follows the first, is that regular season goalies don’t necessarily translate into playoff heroes.

So what does it mean to be an overrated NHL goalie?

We could debate about who was or wasn’t overrated before the lockout, but now that numbers (in stats and in dollars) are even more important in a salary capped league, the picture becomes a little clearer. When a contract is signed, it represents a mixture between prior performance and potential performance and those performances in terms of dollars. Compare other goalies around the league. Consider durability and the number of starts. Count the number of playoff round wins. These can give you a good idea.

Overall, here’s a list of some easy ones and perhaps some more provocative ones:

1. Rick DiPietro, NYI.
There’s no way there could be any competition for DiPietro. Once heralded as the savior of Long Island, he’s become the albatross with a 15-year contract at $4.5 million a year. I still remember where I was the day I heard that announcement: using the free wireless at Berlin’s Sony Center, reading TSN. This was long before the huge deals that started becoming common place with young players with potential, and probably one of the first mega-deals I remember.
What has DiPietro done in Long Island? Well, last season he played 5 games and posted a 3.52GAA and .892SP. The Isles have been in a rebuilding process for as long as I can remember and should give Edmonton a long, hard sneak preview of what life is like.

2. Kari Lehtonen, DAL.
Last year, during the perennial Philadelphia goaltending crisis, there were rumors that the Flyers would go after Lehtonen. Instead, they ended up getting another broken goaltender in Ray Emery. But Emery came at a fraction of the cost of Lehtonen’s $3.5 million.

Once touted as the future in Atlanta’s pipes (like Patrik Stefan was the forward of the future), Lehtonen was decent when he played. A number one goalie should reasonably play at least 55 games, and I doubt Lehtonen will ever get to that point. Last year he came close with 46. He has had some of the worst health and inconsistency issues of any goalie in the league, aside from DiPietro. Despite his history and performance, Dallas GM Joe Nieuwendyk said that they see him as a future #1 goaltender. I guess that makes sense when your current #1 is Marty Turco…

3. Roberto Luongo, VAN.
Yes, I know he won a gold medal. But he’s not a European player, he’s a Canadian. And although winning the gold at home is definitely a remarkable moment, every North American hockey player dreams of a Stanley Cup, not a gold medal.
The first goaltender to captain a team in a long time, Luongo joked in one of his final press conferences of this season that he didn’t let “7 goals in this time,” a reference to last season’s demise at the hands of the Blackhawks. Just the kind of leadership you look for in a $6.75 million player. While he’s proved he can win in the Olympics, and certainly take a few games in the playoffs, he’s overrated until he can take his team further.

4. Evgeni Nabakov, SAN.
Nabakov is a regular season god on a team full of them in San Jose. But every spring, as well as these past Olympics, Nabby lacks the ability to raise his game and carry the team. That the offense hasn’t stepped up doesn’t help, but giving up Saloesque soft goals don’t exactly help momentum either.
And for the Montreal fans remarking on how their playoff story this year is more remarkable than a 3-0 series comeback, Anaheim was #8 last year and knocked off the President’s Trophy winner in San Jose. In the next around, they took the Cup defending Detroit to 7 games. I don’t see much of a difference. What is happening with Montreal isn’t nearly as rare as something that has occurred 3 times in the history of the league.

5. Carey Price, MON.
Price is young and he’s a winner. He’s shown in the AHL and World Juniors that he can be a lights out goalie. But as an NHL goaltender, that remains to be seen. The Flyers made short work of Price during their 2008 matchup.

Earlier on in the year, Jaroslav Halak’s agent started a Twitter war when he posted both players’ stats. Over the past season, Price has gone from the man in Montreal to playoff bench rider as Halak stole the show and his job.

It should be interesting to see how things work out in Montreal, since Price and Halak are both RFAs at the end of next year and Montreal is strapped for cash after huge free agent signings from last season.