Toronto Marlies Notebook: The Goaltending Edition

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TORONTO, ON – OCTOBER 7: Head coach Sheldon Keefe of the Toronto Marlies watches the play develop against the Utica Comets during AHL game action on October 7, 2017 at Ricoh Coliseum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Graig Abel/Getty Images) /

Crowded Crease

If the NHL’s top netminders being late round picks tells us anything, it’s that patience is required to generate an informed assessment. Especially for a goaltender. So, before I delved into the Marlies current situation, I wanted to avoid making that mistake.

Garret Sparks, Kasimir Kaskisuo, and Calvin Pickard all happen to still be in the midst of their development. Basing their potential solely on their prior AHL or ECHL performance would not only be unfair to them, but also to you, the reader.

Instead, they should be awarded the opportunity to demonstrate their progress. It’s for this reason that I chose to withhold my judgment until each of them had started a minimum of one game.

Thanks to a jam-packed weekend in which the team played three games in three nights, the time for judgment has now come. You would think, with there being a recent body of evidence now, that the crowd in the Marlies crease would begin to dissipate. Not so fast, guys.

The good news is that the Marlies are now 4-1. This places them 1^st in the North Division, which is, as the kids say, dope. Such success can be attributed, in part, to strong performances from each of their goaltenders. The bad news is that this success has, in turn, made the goalie situation a heck of a lot more complicated for Leafs management.

Well, if your name isn’t Kyle Dubas or Lou Lamoriello, then I guess it’s not really “bad news”. So, how did each goalie stack up?

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