The difference between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Tampa Bay Lightning was on full display last night against the Winnipeg Jets.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have a goalie and his name is Freddie Andersen. He’s pretty good, but he isn’t great. The Shins have some nice songs, nobody is going to confuse them with the Neutral Milk Hotel. The Ozarks is an enjoyable show, but it’s no Twin Peaks, just like the Game of Thrones is cool, but it’s no Dark Tower.
In the NHL, a goalie is everything. The only reason that a goalie never achieves the status of Connor McDavid or Sidney Crosby is consistency. The best skater in the NHL rarely changes. The volatility of goalies is completely different.
As good as McDavid is, every year whoever the best goalie in the NHL happens to be is actually more valuable to his team than McDavid is. You just don’t usually know who that is going to be.
But that doesn’t mean that the position is completely random or that you can’t make good guesses. And sure, Freddie Andesen might put together a well timed playoff run, just like how any goalie capable of making the NHL can rise to the top of the league with a well timed hot streak.
The Toronto Maple Leafs Need a New Goalie
But you can’t count on him to steal games. Maybe Andersen was a top goalie in the NHL a few years ago when the Leafs weren’t very good and they over-achieved. Uninformed people like to say that the Leafs declined since Kyle Dubas took over. Technically, from a points-at-the-end-of-the-season standpoint, that is true.
But it’s also incredibly wrong. The Leafs are a much better team now with a much higher floor. Their early success under Mike Babcock in their rebuilding period was almost entirely goalie-driven. They allowed a ton of shots and were propped up by Feddie Andersen’s career best seasons.
But Andersen hasn’t shown a hint of that recently. Last night in Winnipeg, we got to see what having a top tier goalie really looks like. Last summer Columbus showed us what a couple of randomly hot goalies can do, but Winnipeg shows us what you can do when you expect that level of goaltending.
The Jets are just as poorly constructed and coached as Vancouver. Their roster isn’t as good as Montreal or Edmonton. They just happen to have the best (or second best) goalie in the NHL.
Tampa is not as good as Toronto from the blue-line out, but they have the world’s best goalie. The Leafs have maybe the world’s 20th best goalie, if we’re being generous. Last night was a gutsy effort by the Toronto Maple Leafs and it was one of their best games of the season. Connor Hellebuyck stole the game. When was the last time Freddie Andersen stole a game? (Naturalstattrick.com).
The Leafs are in a pickle here because all the analytical / game theory stuff suggests that assets and money spent on goalies is a bad investment because of the unpredictability of goalies. If you knew you could get a goalie who would play like Carey Price’s Reputation, you’d happily trade anything short of Matthews for him. But if you did that, there’s too high of a chance you just get a realistic Carey Price, the guy with worse career numbers than Jan Halak.
Tough call, but last night showed the Leafs main weakness. The Jets aren’t even close to as good as the Leafs, but they do have a way, way, way better goalie.