He was on the forefront of the puck-moving goalie revolution. He was probably better than Marty at controlling dump ins.
The NHL then added the trapezoid which promoted immobile butterfly goailes while guys like DiPietro and Turco weren't able to keep up. He was really effective from 2001-2004 though
I never found anything remarkable about his puck stopping ability. I'll excuse his 00-01 and 02-03 seasons, as he was 19 and 21 years old during those seasons. He was solid in 03-04, right around average in 05-06 (.900 save percentage was just below the league average .901 in the post-lockout inflated stats/lower save percentage year), was very good in 06-07 and then one poor season 07-08, followed by disastrous injury plagued years.
He got that stupid deal, i wanna say it was either during training camp or very early in the 06-07 season. He didn't even have that really 06-07 season by the time he got that deal. He was working with one solid season and one average season and a couple crappy seasons as a 19 and 21 year old when he got that deal.
Average is an overstatement for DiPietro my good Sir. You are right though... he was hyped like no other goalie of that generation. Somehow he knew to take that super long term deal, which always made me think that he was aware that he had chronic issues or at least prone to certain types of injuries.
And as I just said, I'm surprised he got that deal, as his only great season came the year right after he got that deal and I'm pretty sure that year wasn't apart of that deal. It kicked in the next year, which was year one of him never turning back from being awful and injury plagued. I never understood the rationale behind that deal. Just too much term.
Now if he were still playing and wasn't bought out, he'd still be under contract for 3 or 4 more years including this one.
His later years of that deal probably had very little actual dollars, so it's not like he would have played until 2021 or 2022 anyway, but it's still funny.