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23
Nov
2009
Netminder Notes - Catching Up PDF  | Print |  E-mail
NetMinder Notes
Written by Jesse Mendelson   
altSo I’ve been away for a little while, but its given us a chance to look closer at some of the early season slumps and hot streaks. For example, Craig Anderson is still the second best goalie in most leagues, but is #33 over the past three weeks, behind such luminaries as Mathieu Garon and Johan Hedberg and only barely better than the venerable Manny Legace.

And it works the other way, too. People had very high hopes for Tomas Vokoun coming into this year (yes, I was one of them), and he was downright awful for most of the first month of the season. But over the past three weeks, he has 5 wins, a GAA of 1.94, a save percentage of .940 and two shutouts. Pekka Rinne, too. Horrible the first month, the Preds’ netminder has 5 wins over the past three weeks.

So what does this all mean?

Well, it means that goalies are streaky and virtually impossible to follow. But here’s what to do about it:

1. Ride the hot streak as long as you can. If the Wings’ Jimmy (Chitwood) Howard is playing often and well, then grab him and start him. If Antero Nittymaki of Tampa has wrested the started job from Mike Smith, then Nitty should be owned, not Smith. If Canucks’ $100 million man Roberto Luongo has turned in exactly two good starts through the season’s first six weeks, then see if you can cash in on his name value and trade him for top value. Basically, don’t wait it out – capitalize where capitalization is possible.

2. Try to get the Sharks’ Evgeni Nabakov or the Flames’ Miikka Kiprusoff. They’ve been the best goalies for most of this year, by a wide margin, they play on top teams, have great offenses and defenses in front of him, and Nabakov in particular looks like this year’s version of Niklas Backstrom. They will demand a king’s ransom, and won’t win 50 games, but they’re as much of a sure thing as there is.

3. Goalies on high-octane, free-wheeling teams are dangerous, and will burn you with their drastic ups-and-downs (so don’t rely on them as your first goalie). Jonathan Quick (Kings), Cristobal Huet (Blackhawks), Ray Emery (Flyers), Marc-Andre Fleury (Penguins), Semyon Varlamov (Capitals) to name a few. The more offensive-minded the team, the less defensive-minded it is, the more pressure on the goalie to stop the inevitable odd-man rushes. They might get you wins, but just be forewarned.

4. Finally, don’t fall in love with your guys. That’s the #1 rule in fantasy sports anyway, and the one most consistently broken, but its especially true when it comes to goalies. Ottawa’s Pascal Leclaire was amazing for a few weeks – you should have traded him. Quick, too. After the Blueshirts’ Henrik Lundqvist looked like the second coming of Ken Dryden through the first few weeks of the season, you should have jettisoned him for top offensive talent before he thudded back to Earth (as he has in the past month). 

Remember the Goalie Golden Rule – play the hot hand, trade the hot hand, and don’t fall in love. Do that, and you’ll be golden, just like Mika.
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