Lightning, Canadiens shows that you get what you pay for the goalkeeper

Keeper. It says it all. Why did you win? The goalkeeper played well. Why did you lose? The goalkeeper struggled.

The most important position in the sport is the hockey goalie. We are reminded of it every year as NHL playoffs go around. Teams with the best goalie win. The two teams in the Stanley Cup final are arguably the top two goalkeepers in today’s game – Carey Price of Montreal and Andrei Vasilevskiy of Tampa Bay.

And yet the hockey world is still trying to figure out the complexity of the goalie’s location. Five ice skaters can all do their job perfectly, and one small goalie slip gives a goal that can be a deciding factor in a game, a series, a championship. One goal can be a turning point in team assets, the difference between ultimate success and ultimate disappointment. Yet somehow they have underestimated and underestimated except for the most critical moment. Until then, it is too late.

It starts early as scouts and sketch experts try to assess where the goalkeepers fit into the whole. It is a challenging position for scouts. If a team that is too strong plays in the years of development, the lack of competition makes evaluation difficult. But a weak team can win a chance. One popular theory is that the opportunity learns more about a bad team, by dealing with the number of shots and being left alone by teammates.

In my first NHL amateur meetings, I was interested in how goalkeepers are handled. In early meetings, lists of skaters are built geographically according to European countries, North American regions. The goalkeepers are on the sidelines, on their own island. They have their own list for each of those areas.

As different areas merge throughout the year, the goalkeeper list is merged but stays on the sidelines. Finally, the task is called – how to add an outer location to the mainstream. And the arguments begin. In the last 20 years, only three goalkeepers have found their way into the top five betting. The price was one of three, taken with a fifth choice in 2005. Marc-André Fleury finished first in 2003; Kari Lehtonen was the second choice in 2002.

There have been five in the last 10 years drafts without a single goalkeeper taken in the first round. Scouts are simply unable to figure out a position at an early age. CEOs are hesitant to use a high-selection player who is unlikely to become a regular assistant in four to six years, usually the time required. Vasilevskiy was the 19th choice in the 2012 draft, so the Scout Brotherhood considered 18 players more worthy. He wasn’t even the first Tampa Bay player to be elected that year; Lightning chose back guard Slater Koekkoek with 10th choice.

The pay structure in no way respects the goalkeeper’s position better than the scout world. There are currently three goalkeepers in the NHL’s 59 best earners. The price is the eighth, Sergei Bobrovsky 11th and Vasilevskiy 16., It is it.

The position is even more complicated given the second goalkeeper. Combinations of some teams are old and young, veterans and ascendants, others more balanced. Three of the last five Cup champions have seen more than one goalkeeper play in the playoffs, emphasizing the power of depth. Yet the total dollars spent on this position remain a challenge.

Montreal GM Marc Bergevin made an interesting move last year by protecting essentially the highest paid player in Price with 1A novice veteran Jake Allen. The Canadiens ’investment in the position this year was $ 13.375 million (US), or 16 percent of their salary margin. The second of the last four teams, Vegas, was second at the 14.7 percent level. Tampa Bay was fourth with 13.3 percent. The best teams use their location.

Maple Leafs must decide whether to hold the tandem of Frederik Anderson and Jack Campbell together. Campbell, a $ 1.65 million trade, is seen as a potential starter for the first time in his career, but he has to show he can play the entire regular season in this role. Anderson, who comes from a contract that cost him $ 5 million a year, is an unlimited free agent. If Toronto brought him back with the same salary, it would still consume eight percent of its higher goalkeeper production, which is a mid-range number.

Dave Poulin is a former NHL player and manager and TSN hockey analyst in Toronto. She is a Star freelance assistant columnist. Follow him on Twitter: @ djpoulin20