Who are the Best Goalies Tampa Bay has had historically?
There is a very good chance that Stevie Y goes out and gets a goalie this offseason because this team needs it. Since the Cup win we have had 18 goalies play for the Lightning in a game (this includes Caron, who I know technically has not played yet, and Riku’s 7 min in 2008/09). Out of those 18, only 2 have played in more than 2 seasons. (Smith and Ramo). Over the course of the 20 years they have been in the league Tampa has had some pretty bad names come through here. But who are the best?
I know most will have the top 2 as Khabibulin and Puppa and truth be told after that there is not much. I found a website that lists all the goalies that have played more than 1 min in a Lightning jersey. But be warned it can cause severe depression.
Puppa and Khabibulin as far as more being successful for more than a year. Roloson's 10-11 season is up there if we're talking about single seasons. A lot of terrible in that list.
Just for fun I did a little digging into the statically worst goalie we have had David Littman. He played only 45 min and allowed 7 goals on 21 shots. He spent most of the year playing with the Atlanta knights. After that he bounced around the AHL and ECHL before ending his career with (ready for this FP?) the solar bears. According to Wikipedia he currently works for EA working on the NHL franchise. Now we know why the goalie AI is terrible
The list only includes regular season goalies. Any goalie that only got preseason exp Is not included. Therefore it excludes the most infamous blunder/experiment/publicly stunt Manon Rheaume.
It's not a particularly inspiring list, but it's not like the goalie was otherwise the sore thumb until Khabi left.
I mean, you look at Ottawa, who came into the league the same year, and outside of Hasek for one year, who did they have? Greats like Patrick Lalime and Damian Rhodes. (and Curtis McElhinney, but his legend goes without saying)
Last edited by Felonious Python: 03-28-2012 at 06:20 PM.
If you had the magical powers to erase Marc Denis or Dan Ellis from the books who would you go for?
Ellis was a UFA and we were able to trade him out to the Ducks vs. the freaking Blue Jackets scalped us for Modin AND Frederik Norrena (who was better than Holmqvist too!) plus we had to pay him to go away.
That made the previous season's fiasco of having to drag Sean Burke from the golf course back in the net to cover for Grahame seem like solid goaltending strategy.
How fitting that a thread about the best bolts goalie turns into a discussion about all the terrible goalies we've had. All before the thread even gets to the 2nd page.
Say what you will about Holmqvist, he actually put together some decent stretches of games those couple years. It just felt like whenever he had one bad game, Denis (or Ramo, later) would be put back in and the team would completely lose all confidence.
And as others have said, no confidence in the goaltending has plagued the team ever since Khabi left. It was amazing to me how fast things changed getting Roloson last season - after he had stymied the Lightning earlier in the season and the guys already had a lot of respect for his ability. We saw the result of that in the playoffs, but now it's back to square one.
While we're on this subject, let's talk about another 'best' goalie in Lightning history - Cedrick Desjardins. He's at the right 'goalie age', he showed he had no nerve problems playing on the big stage, and yet he's on contract to the Avs and playing in the AHL again - putting up great numbers. Can someone in the know explain why he's not playing in the NHL somewhere? Just bad luck? (Lightning didn't need him after getting Roloson last year, and Avs didn't need him with Varlamov/Giguere this year)
How fitting that a thread about the best bolts goalie turns into a discussion about all the terrible goalies we've had. All before the thread even gets to the 2nd page.
We got the best out of the way in a hurry. Pupps and Khabi. Then roli last year and that is about it. We could try to debate 4 and 5. My picks would be smitty ( pre concussion) and nitty.
Khabby and Puppa obviously were the best. Then comes Roloson (last year) followed by a mixed bag in Niitty, pre-concussion Smitty, Holmqvist and Schwab.
Hey, they're thinking if Tampa can sign our lemons and make lemonade out of them, why can't we...
I was surprised no one picked up Nitty from the waivers earlier this year, now that he had a hip replacement and everything. The guy is a good goalie, he just had durability issues in the past.
