Who has the greater potential?
You gotta love Montoya's potential.
He is not polished. Plays far from a perfect style. He stays longer on his feet then I have seen any goalie his age in a really long time. He is relying allot on his reflexes and athletesisim.
He plays for a HFD that plays a wideopen style, I have only seen around 10 games from the AHL this season, but so far HFD is the only team that even remotly trys to play a puckpossesion game.
Though Montoya is still putting up decent stats despite low shotstotal against but a high number of odd man rushes.
Rangers got Benoit Allaiere to work with Alvaro, and
I am really excited to see the finnished product when he can get his style in order.
I sometimes feel with these young goalies that they are too well schooled at a young age. They learn to play the position and angles to a perfection when they are 17-18 y/o. It works perfectly at the lower levels. But when they get higher up in the ranks, and are forced to expand their register, they start to struggle.
I think thats big reason for why some of the older netminders in the game haven't really been challenged by young and upcomming goalies in a long time (before now, when they have gotten too old). Guys like Brodeur, Khabibulin and Burke came from playing a standup style, and then learned to play the positions. They master both styles, and can improvise in a completly diffrent manner when challenged.
Especially when watching Marc-Andre Fleury, and even Lundqvist at times, and several of the other top young goalies in the league, its like they get on thin ice as soon as they are forced to abandon their "playing the angles" style. They are just not comfortable there, they are extremely good at recovering, but IMO thats only a symptom for getting lost in the first place. There is a helluva diffrence in how thoose kids are handling that kind of play with for example a goalie like Mike Richter, who could ran around in the crease 70 games a season and still post great stats.
Thats the biggest reason for why I am so excited of what Montoya can become. I see him playing well in the AHL now, while not playing a extreme style/positioning/angles type of game. He got argubly the best goalie coach in the world to work with him, and he got the body, the athletisisim. Not if, but when he gets his style on par with what it takes to have success in the NHL, I think there is a good chance of him becommig a solid starter in the majorleague.
