Around the NHL - 2018 Stanley Cup Champions, the Washington Capitals

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Seriously? This is hockey buddy! Just look at Vegas this postseason, or Holtby game 2

Cmon. Laughable post

Look at the teams who won cups. Look at who the most important players on those teams were. Aside from Tim Thomas in 2011, every team since 2008 who has won a cup has done so with elite talent in front of the net rather than elite talent in the net.

Penguins 2009, 2016, 2017: Crosby, Malkin
Blackhawks 2010, 2013, 2015: Kane, Toews, Keith
Kings 2012, 2014: Kopitar, Doughty

The goalies for those teams: Niemi, Fleury, Crawford, Quick, Murray. Those are good goalies. Not elite. Not the same level as Lundqvist. Yet they won the Cup. Because the goalie wasn't their best player. They had players in front of their goalie decide games for them. When your goalie is your best player, your chances of winning it all, aren't that great.

 

[Edge]

Just as important...NO STATE INCOME TAX...compared to Nassau County and New York State. VGK will be able to compensate the one less year with a contract of more actual take home.

Vegas has a shot to be a serious contender for quite a while.

Even if we assume that several players fall back to earth; you still have a solid pipeline of talent in the system already. Then you have the attraction of living in Vegas, which was going to be pretty alluring before the Knights went to the finals.

 

[Inferno]

Vegas has a shot to be a serious contender for quite a while.

Even if we assume that several players fall back to earth; you still have a solid pipeline of talent in the system already. Then you have the attraction of living in Vegas, which was going to be pretty alluring before the Knights went to the finals.

Eh....it doesn't appeal to everyone...certainly wouldn't appeal to me.

 

[Edge]

Eh....it doesn't appeal to everyone...certainly wouldn't appeal to me.

Not everyone's cup of tea for sure, but Vegas has never had a hard time recruiting hockey players --- even going back to the IHL and ECHL years.

 

[Mac n Gs]

Not everyone's cup of tea for sure, but Vegas has never had a hard time recruiting hockey players --- even going back to the IHL and ECHL years.

And now Vegas has the benefit of being able to dump a truckload of money at these players’ feet with the allure of no income tax. I think they have almost $30M in cap space right now

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

And now Vegas has the benefit of being able to dump a truckload of money at these players’ feet with the allure of no income tax. I think they have almost $30M in cap space right now

Theodore, Miller, Nosek and Karlsson are RFA though. Perron, Neal, Reaves UFA.

 

[Captain Lindy]

I'll forever love the Henrik makes too much money narrative when he's the only guy you can count on year in and year out to actually earn his money.

We also would have had money to get other guys if we didn't pay Marc Staal $5.7 million, Dan Girardi $5.5 million, Tanner Glass $1.45 million, etc etc.

12 forwards
6 or 7 D men
If your goalie is making 10 percent of your cap, that hurts your prospects at the other positions.

OH, and also....lots of goaltenders earn their money while making a lot less and win cups a lot. Paying a goaltender that much money is just stupid, I don't care how great they may be.
Montreal will learn this lesson hard next year.

 

[NYRFAN218]

12 forwards
6 or 7 D men
If your goalie is making 10 percent of your cap, that hurts your prospects at the other positions.

OH, and also....lots of goaltenders earn their money while making a lot less and win cups a lot. Paying a goaltender that much money is just stupid, I don't care how great they may be.
Montreal will learn this lesson hard next year.

The thing is I don’t even disagree with the goalie making a lot premise. But when the team essentially sets $11+ million (15+% in recent years) of their cap on fire by locking themselves into guys whose play negatively impacts the team, I’ll focus my attention on that over one of the best players in franchise history who is consistently the backbone of the team.

 

[Nopuckluck]

Look at the teams who won cups. Look at who the most important players on those teams were. Aside from Tim Thomas in 2011, every team since 2008 who has won a cup has done so with elite talent in front of the net rather than elite talent in the net.

Penguins 2009, 2016, 2017: Crosby, Malkin
Blackhawks 2010, 2013, 2015: Kane, Toews, Keith
Kings 2012, 2014: Kopitar, Doughty

The goalies for those teams: Niemi, Fleury, Crawford, Quick, Murray. Those are good goalies. Not elite. Not the same level as Lundqvist. Yet they won the Cup. Because the goalie wasn't their best player. They had players in front of their goalie decide games for them. When your goalie is your best player, your chances of winning it all, aren't that great.

Again flawed argument.

You can argue that Crawford isn’t elite and was surrounded by ridiculous talent, but Quick and Murray are elite. And they are so because they raise their level and keep it there during the playoffs which is alL that matters. Yes they had many talented skaters, some even generational BUT THE GOALIE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION IN HOCKEY. PERIOD!

Roy
Feuhr
Brodeur
Smith
Quick
Murray
Fleury

All multiple cup winners past 30 years

Now as far as Lundqvist goes he has been too inconsistent in the playoffs for my liking. Great at times laughably bad at others

 

[will1066]

Nothing worse than having to sit through a long lunch with coworkers where the convo is just about the Caps

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

Again flawed argument.

You can argue that Crawford isn’t elite and was surrounded by ridiculous talent, but Quick and Murray are elite. And they are so because they raise their level and keep it there during the playoffs which is alL that matters. Yes they had many talented skaters, some even generational BUT THE GOALIE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION IN HOCKEY. PERIOD!

Roy
Feuhr
Brodeur
Smith
Quick
Murray
Fleury

All multiple cup winners past 30 years

Now as far as Lundqvist goes he has been too inconsistent in the playoffs for my liking. Great at times laughably bad at others

And that is the biggest difference between those goalies and elite goalies like Price and Lundqvist. Those goalies have won cups because they had elite talent in front of them. Which is exactly my point. Thanks for playing along and proving my point.

 

[TheTakedown]

12 forwards
6 or 7 D men
If your goalie is making 10 percent of your cap, that hurts your prospects at the other positions.

OH, and also....lots of goaltenders earn their money while making a lot less and win cups a lot. Paying a goaltender that much money is just stupid, I don't care how great they may be.
Montreal will learn this lesson hard next year.

10% of the cap on a goalie isn't a lot.

With the Exception of Matt Murray, all of the cup winning teams have allotted around that percentage for their goalie...

2005-06: $39M Salary Cap --Martin Gerber split time with Cam Ward, Total of $1.748M, 4.5% of Salary Cap
2006-07: $44M Salary Cap -- Jean-Sebastian Giguere, $5M AAV, 11.3% of salary cap
2007-08: $50.3M Salary Cap -- Chris Osgood and Dominik Hasek split time, Total of $2.95M AAV, 5.8% of salary cap
2008-09: $56.7M Salary Cap --Marc-Andre Fleury, $5M AAV, 8.8$% of salary cap
2009-10: $56.8M Salary Cap --Cristobal Huet was the initial starting goalie, %5.625M AAV, 9.9% of salary cap
2010-11: $59.4M Salary Cap -- Tim Thomas, $5M AAV, 8.41% of cap

and for kicks

2017-18 Runner Up: Marc Andre Fleury: $5.75M, 7.7% of salary cap.

Jonathan Quicks contract is illegal in the new CBA so I am not counting it. The last couple of pittsburgh cups have been tandem goaltending duos, so I'm not counting those other than the 2 exceptions above.

Corey Crawford made $2.6M on a bridge contract for his first cup (2012-13), then his $6M extension kicked in, which has him at 8.5% of the salary cap.

Are we really going to bitch about the 2% additional cap hit that hank has? It's as if some of you people's evaluations of "we pay hank an outrageous percent of the salary cap" seem to forget that you still need a f***ing goalie on the team that's going to take up anywhere between 4 and 9% of the salary cap anyways...

If anything, this chart tells me that there is no formula to how much you should be spending on your goaltender... It kind of just happens to work out however your contract situation is configured, which is different for every team

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

Again flawed argument.

You can argue that Crawford isn’t elite and was surrounded by ridiculous talent, but Quick and Murray are elite. And they are so because they raise their level and keep it there during the playoffs which is alL that matters. Yes they had many talented skaters, some even generational BUT THE GOALIE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT POSITION IN HOCKEY. PERIOD!

Roy
Feuhr
Brodeur
Smith
Quick
Murray
Fleury

All multiple cup winners past 30 years

Now as far as Lundqvist goes he has been too inconsistent in the playoffs for my liking. Great at times laughably bad at others

Murray isn’t elite. Murray wasn’t even the full time goaltender for either cup run

 

[Boris Zubov]

Murray isn’t elite. Murray wasn’t even the full time goaltender for either cup run

He looked incredibly average during the playoffs this year.

 

[Nopuckluck]

And that is the biggest difference between those goalies and elite goalies like Price and Lundqvist. Those goalies have won cups because they had elite talent in front of them. Which is exactly my point. Thanks for playing along and proving my point.

How’d I prove your point? Yourmoving the goalposts because your point was proved wrong.

Your original statement was goalie is the least important position in hockey which is ridiculous because it’s the most important
Your first sentence literally is “goalies are the least important on the team”. Ridiculous statement from you.

 

[Nopuckluck]

He looked incredibly average during the playoffs this year.

His 2 Stanley Cups say hi!

1 could be a fluke like Niemi. 2. No fluke

 

[GeorgeKaplan]

His 2 Stanley Cups say hi!

1 could be a fluke like Niemi. 2. No fluke

He wasn’t even the starter until round 3 for number 2

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

How’d I prove your point? Yourmoving the goalposts because your point was proved wrong.

Your original statement was goalie is the least important position in hockey which is ridiculous because it’s the most important
Your first sentence literally is “goalies are the least important on the team”. Ridiculous statement from you.

My actual quote: "Goalies are the least important on the team because the impact of an elite goalie compared to a good goalie is minimal, compared to centers, wingers and D men"

Out of all positions, goalie is the one that least benefits from having an elite player in that position. An elite center, winger or D-man has a bigger impact on a team's success than an elite goalie. Saying that "Yes they had many talented skaters, some even generational" was exactly my point. Those goalies won, because they had elite talent in front of them winning those games."

 

[Boris Zubov]

His 2 Stanley Cups say hi!

1 could be a fluke like Niemi. 2. No fluke

His two rings don't change the fact he was only average this spring.

By the way, Andy Moog won 3 Cups. Food for thought.

 

[Leetch3]

 

[Leetch3]

 

[Tawnos]

His two rings don't change the fact he was only average this spring.

By the way, Andy Moog won 3 Cups. Food for thought.

Murray won those rings as the starter. Moog won his rings as the backup. He was also an excellent goalie.

As always, you don’t need an elite goaltender to win the Cup, but in most cases, you need a goaltender who is playing at an elite level in the playoffs. Murray did it. Crawford did it. Quick did it. Etc. And when it came down to it, so did Holtby.

We see what happens when your goalie doesn’t give you elite play in the playoffs, to your point about Murray this spring.

 

[will1066]

Nothing worse than having to sit through a long lunch with coworkers where the convo is just about the Caps

Nothing worse than seeing people everywhere decked out in Caps gear going to the parade.

 

[Boris Zubov]

Murray won those rings as the starter. Moog won his rings as the backup. He was also an excellent goalie.

As always, you don’t need an elite goaltender to win the Cup, but in most cases, you need a goaltender who is playing at an elite level in the playoffs. Murray did it. Crawford did it. Quick did it. Etc. And when it came down to it, so did Holtby.

We see what happens when your goalie doesn’t give you elite play in the playoffs, to your point about Murray this spring.

Murray won one of those Cups earning 7 wins. And to your point, had he played at Fleury's level in these playoffs, the Pens would've advanced past the Caps.

Andy Moog was better than average & played on some great teams, but he was not elite. His career win numbers are very inflated.

 

[will1066]

Parade is airing on TV here. Firetruck with a banner that says Ovechkin For President. Idiots.