As the season began way back in October of 2014, we all drafted our Fantasy rosters. Whether or not it was through Hockeybuzz, Yahoo, ESPN, work pools, or whatever other type of hockey pool you decided to join. There are always the favorites like Price, Lundqvist, Rask, Fleury and so on. Those are pretty safe picks in the first couple rounds of fantasy when drafting a winning team.
The tricky selections are when to grab a goalie who you predict will have a breakout season or one that had a horrible or injury riddled season the year before. Perhaps you scooped up a goalie that was traded to a new team in the offseason, whatever the case may be. It’s vital in fantasy to have yourself a good one-two punch between the pipes to compete in all of the goalie categories. Another goalie or two can be drafted to your team in deeper pools; some even like to hoard goaltenders in case of injury or to sell off one for a major asset from another person’s roster that is in dire need.
In most fantasy scenarios there are usually four or five categories to fight for when going head to head. They include: GAA, Save %, shots saved, wins and shutouts. I’ve compiled a list of the top ten from each of the categories listed. (*must have played 20 games*)
Goals against average:
Andrew Hammond – 1.79 Carey Price – 1.96 Devan Dubnyk – 2.07 Pekka Rinne – 2.18 Cam Talbot – 2.21 Braden Holtby – 2.22 Jonathan Quick – 2.24 Steve Mason – 2.25 Henrik Lundqvist – 2.25
Save percent:
Andrew Hammond - .941 Carey Price - .933 Devan Dubnyk - .929 Steve Mason - .928 Cam Talbot - .926 Cory Schneider - .925 Corey Crawford - .924 Braden Holtby - .923 Pekka Rinne - .923 Craig Anderson - .923
Saves:
Braden Holtby – 1887 Tuukka Rask – 1855 Cory Schneider – 1834 Carey Price – 1823 Mike Smith – 1768 Jonathan Quick – 1740 Kari Lehtonen – 1694 Marc-Andre Fleury – 1685 Pekka Rinne – 1667 Antti Niemi – 1656
Wins:
Carey Price – 44 Braden Holtby – 41 Pekka Rinne – 41 Ben Bishop – 40 Jaroslav Halak – 38 Jonathan Quick – 36 Devan Dubnyk – 36 Frederik Andersen – 35 Tuukka Rask – 34 Kari Lehtonen – 34 Marc-Andre Fleury – 34
Shutouts:
Marc-Andre Fleury – 10 Carey Price – 9 Braden Holtby – 9 Jaroslav Halak – 6 Jonathan Quick – 6 Devan Dubnyk – 6 Ryan Miller – 6 Kari Lehtonen – 5 Antti Niemi – 5 Henrik Lundqvist – 5
Five others tied at 5 shutouts - (Varlamov, Schneider, Elliott, Pavelec, Talbot)
After going through each of the categories my top 3 goalie MVP’s of the regular season would be:
Carey Price Pekka Rinne Braden Holtby
*honors given to Andrew Hammond for 20 wins, 1 loss, 2 OTL with 3 shutouts*
The three biggest disappointments in net this season:
Kari Lehtonen Mike Smith Jimmy Howard
*Jonathan Bernier* - runner up by popular demand
Goalies who may take over the number one next season:
Andrew Hammond Petr Mrazek Karri Ramo
Later this week I will be going over a number of sophomore players I discussed with my predictions and their results.
Enjoy the big game six tonight as Tampa Bay can’t afford to lose another game and Chicago hopes to hoist the Stanley Cup!
Thanks for reading.