Age has something to do with it because you’re comparing
1) a 22 year old with a Conn Smythe, making $700K and playing backup-quality goal as he struggles to adjust to a 60 game workload
2) a 29 year old making $4M who has never played more than 42 games in a season at any level (junior, minor league, pro), playing sub-NHL quality goal as he struggles to handle 1 start per week
And that’s if you’re ONLY looking at the numbers. With Ward you had a guy who had visible potential, and while he was obviously unhappy with his results, he was also obviously dialed in and developing.
Darling came here as a guy with a checkered personal history, immediately provoked questions about his conditioning, and is now visibly crumpling under pressure. I keep saying “yips” as a baseball analogy, but honestly it’s rare to see an NHL goalie fold mentally the way he has over the past few months. That kind of response to failure is not a predictor of someone destined for future success in the NHL. Nobody wants a goalie who has collapsed mentally more than once.
So while it’s maybe an exaggeration to say it’s all over for him, I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say his career is on a thread and it’s VERY unlikely anyone picks him up if it gets to the point of a buyout. Not just because it means he’ll have continued to play terribly, but also because he has nothing comparable to Tim Thomas level confidence and determination.