I don't know why you've got such a hard-on for defending the play of a guy who was washed up by age 24, but if you reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally want to argue it, fine. Let's watch some tape. I did a search on YouTube for "Jim Carey Capitals 1996", and this was the second result (first was a news report from a 9-0 shutout over the Canucks):
First save he makes at 0:02 he went down (uh-oh, there's that word) to one knee; good old-school save that some still use today. Marty Brodeur used to use it fairly often, and Lundqvist still might (I honestly don't watch many Rangers games, but he used to use this amongst his save selections). The next one he gets low, dives to his left and goes for the poke check.
Now watch the penalty shot. He goes down (uh-oh, there's that word again) into a half-butterfly and makes the save. But, he got lucky. Elik shot a muffin into his left shoulder. His glove hand was low; he didn't give up a goal but he was beatable there.
Let's watch more, here're highlights from a game against the Rangers from Jan. 5, '96 (fourth YouTube search result after an interview vid):
Watch the first goal at 1:27. Leetch takes a shot from the point and Carey is
already down (dammit there's that word again!); Verbeek screens him, beaten glove-side.
Watch the next one at 1:46 by Laperriere. Carey comes out to the top of his crease to cut down the angle, Laperriere takes the slap shot and aims high on Carey's glove side. Admittedly Carey stayed up until the last split-second but he throws his glove up in a desperation move and the puck deflects off the bottom of it, and down and in. His timing on the glove was off and Laperriere was gifted a goal he shouldn't have had as a result. Less than two minutes into the game and it was already 2-0 Rangers. (Olaf Kolzig ended up making 35 saves on 37 shots.)
This was before his epic meltdown in the '96 playoffs, just to show you that this was not the result of his "disinterest" in playing after the playoff drubbing he suffered at the hands of Lemieux, Jagr, Francis, Nedved & Co. These were flaws that were already there, ripe for the picking.
Let's take another game; this is against Detroit in December of '06, when Federov scored all five goals in a 5-4 victory:
First goal (0:08): high glove side!
Second goal (1:15): breakaway, dives to his stick side, high glove side...
Third goal (2:28): Carey is slow to move across as Konstantinov catches him too far to his stick-side post, Carey goes down (**** there's that ******* word again!!) in anticipation of a shot, Konstantinov makes a cross-ice pass right in front of him to Federov instead, and Carey is waaaay too slow to get back across to defend the gaping maw on his glove side.
Fourth goal (5:07): Fetisov makes a nice pass to Larionov in the corner and Larionov catches Carey DOWN TOO EARLY as he makes a CROSS-ICE PASS RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM and Federov buries it ON HIS GLOVE SIDE.
Fifth goal (6:44): Larionov passes it to Konstantinov coming up the middle and Carey WENT DOWN TOO EARLY. Konstantinov caught him doing it, dumped it back to Federov trailing behind him, Carey had to get back off his knees—and he did—but Federov caught him overcompensating on the glove side and beat him low stick-side.
You wanna call this his "lost desire to be a professional hockey player", fine, but don't go around talking smack because you don't think I know what I'm talking about. I'm know damn well what I'm talking about. [/discussion]