I disagree. As I mentioned I think the back up gets a lot of games this year, and at some point AHL experience is better than ECHL experience. If he was only going to get in a couple games/month, then yeah I'd agree with you. But that won't be the case.
At any rate, I'm expecting a lot of movement of our goalies between the 3 teams.
We are in a somewhat unique situation because Stockton is one of the AHL teams that plays fewer games than the rest. The proposed 60/40 split would really be a 41/27 split. I don't think that's a high enough number for either goalies development. Even a 50/50 (34/34) split is not ideal in my mind.
50+ games in the ECHL is better for McDonald than 27 in the AHL. Similarily, 50+ games for Gillies in the AHL with Rittich playing limited games, is better than 41 or 34 or whatever if he is running tandem with McDonald.
Goalies are hard to judge...the more the better. Ortio has done nothing to show that he is anything more than a backup.
He was horrible when the pressure was on.
Rittich has done nothing to show that he is anything more than a Czech league goalie. I simply don't see how the Rittich signing means Ortio won't be back.
Gillies had a year off...who knows what he is now.
McDonald I am totally not sold on.
Gillies did not have a year off. The return from his surgery was 4-6 months, and IIRC, he had a pretty quick recovery, granted I can't find any details online. He likely would have started rehab before the 4 month mark, and back on the ice right around that time. He'll have the entire summer to train and rehab. It's not like he had a calendar year of doing nothing.
Regardless, I find it hard to believe that a blue-chip prospect would forget how to play hockey after 4-6 months.