I feel like Colorado is the only cup winner in recent years that fits this theory though. And even then I think Kuempers play in that run is a bit underappreciated, he was playing quite well until he took a stick to the eye and after that he played fine with only an eye and a half. Every other other cup winner since 2018 has had either an elite goalie or a goalie on a total heater like Vegas with Hill last year. Goaltending is still the most important position imo and the better your goalie the better chance you have to win every game, very very few teams are as stacked or well built as the 2022 Avs.
The thing that is overlooked with the Vegas situation is that they had to have three guys who were all good enough to take on a significant load during the playoffs. In this aspect they got a little lucky IMO.
Thompson was undrafted and they basically developed him after his first year in the ECHL. He made the all-star game in 2022-2023 and was on the rise. So he took a lot of load off the other goalies.
Adin Hill was actually quite good for some mid Arizona teams and they signed him.
Brossoit was a middling Oilers prospect but those teams were an exercise in futility. After this, he was a good backup in Winnipeg, and Vegas signed him as a backup with mixed results. The next year he basically lost his job to Thompson/Hill.
Basically Thompson played 37 games (plus them trying out Quick for 10 games or so) so they had two fresh guys going into the playoffs who both had good stats. And you could argue that both of them were at the top of their NHL careers at that time. So they got lucky that both were good enough and rested enough.
Finally, you can't use this argument unless those goalies are behind a stacked defensive corps like Vegas had last season.
