The Puck Stops Here

One method to survive in a salary capped environment is to have one number one goaltender and a bargain basement backup, who is seldom played. There are more and more teams that are playing their number one goalie more and more games and very seldomly playing their number two goalie at all. Is this strategy one that leads to overwork of your starter and you eventual downfall when this occurs?

Last season, five goalies appeared in 70 or more games. They were Martin Brodeur of the New Jersey Devils (78 games), Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks (76 games), Miikka Kiprusoff of the Calgary Flames (74 games), Andrew Raycroft of the Toronto Maple Leafs (72 games) and Henrik Lundqvist of the New York Rangers (70 games). These were the four best goalies in the league (the 2007 Vezina nominees) and Andrew Raycroft, who was not as successful in goal.

Any goalie on pace to play 70 or more games this season would have missed at most four of his team's games. This list this season includes: Evgeni Nabokov of the San Jose Sharks (appeared in every game so far), Miikka Kiprusoff (missed one game), Rick DiPietro of the New York Islanders (missed two games), Henrik Lundqvist and Ryan Miller of the Buffalo Sabres (missed three games), Martin Brodeur, Roberto Luongo, Johan Holmqvist of the Tampa Bay Lightning and Tomas Vokoun of the Florida Panthers (missed four games). That is a full nine goalies on pace for 70 or more games played. That is up from the five who did it last season (although the number may drop between now and the end of the season). Four of the goalies on the list were there last year as well as this year.

The question is do goalies burn out? Is this counter-productive to play a goalie this much? It is hard to say. There are still relatively few cases of modern day goalies getting this many games played. Should any of these goalies have successful Stanley Cup playoff runs, they could have over 100 games played all season. That would be an unprecedented total. The most games played by a Stanley Cup winning goalie to date is Martin Brodeur in 2002/03 who played in 97 games (73 regular season and 24 playoffs).

Is it meaningful that of the five goalies that were heavily played last season, none made it beyond the second round of the playoffs? Jean-Sebastien Giguere won the Stanley Cup with 74 total games played. That is approximately the regular season workload of one of these goalies and it includes playoffs.

Here are the games played totals for Stanley Cup winning goalies since 1980 (when the playoffs became four rounds long):

Games Played For Stanley Cup Winning Goalies

Season	Goalie	Team	Games Played Total	Reg Season	Playoffs
1979/80	Billy Smith	NYI	58	38	20
1980/81	Billy Smith	NYI	58	41	17
1981/82	Billy Smith	NYI	64	46	18
1982/83	Billy Smith	NYI	58	41	17
1983/84	Grant Fuhr	Edm	61	45	16
1984/85	Grant Fuhr	Edm	64	46	18
1985/86	Patrick Roy	Mon	66	46	20
1986/87	Grant Fuhr	Edm	53	44	19
1987/88	Grant Fuhr	Edm	94	75	19
1988/89	Mike Vernon	Cgy	74	52	22
1989/90	Bill Ranford	Edm	78	56	22
1990/91	Tom Barrasso	Pit	68	48	20
1991/92	Tom Barrasso	Pit	78	57	21
1992/93	Patrick Roy	Mon	82	62	20
1993/94	Mike Richter	NYR	91	68	23
1994/95	Martin Brodeur	NJD	60	40	20
1995/96	Patrick Roy	Col	83	61	22
1996/97	Mike Vernon	Det	53	33	20
1997/98	Chris Osgood	Det	86	64	22
1998/99	Ed Belfour	Dal	84	61	23
1999/2000	Martin Brodeur	NJD	95	72	23
2000/01	Patrick Roy	Col	85	62	23
2001/02	Dominik Hasek	Det	88	65	23
2002/03	Martin Brodeur	NJD	97	73	24
2003/04	Nikolai Khabibulin	TBL	78	55	23
2005/06	Cam Ward	Car	51	28	23
2006/07	Jean-Sebastien Giguere	Ana	74	56	18

This table tells us only that we could be getting into unprecedented workload for the Stanley Cup winning goalie, if it is one of the most worked goalies so far this season. Of course, a goalie who has had some time off like Giguere of Anaheim or Hasek of Detroit could win the cup also. More teams are working their number one goalie in more games than before. This is a trend that might lead to goalies burning out. If it was up to me, I would rather have a more rested goalie for the playoff run.