Maybe I was tired last night but I think you found the words I was looking for. He's been outstanding and you're 100% correct that he's been part of the backbone of his run. But I have to disagree with his consistency. I don't want my goaltender swatting the puck into the back of the net, dropping a routine glove save in a road game (against Carey Price of all people) that forces an OT nor the constant misadventures playing the puck. He's made HUGE stops (most notably the pad save on Jesper Fast on the rebound opportunity from Nash's original shot) but I feel we've been able to overcome his mistakes as a team and I think it's shaded the issue a bit.
I just think "imagine how good he would be if it weren't for the silly mistakes" and he makes them too often in margin for me to consider him a transcendent goaltender. At least 2 times a game I'm yelling "DAMN IT BEN GET BACK IN THE NET!!!" and throwing my hat when he lets in a stoppable goal.
Some of his mistakes - at least his adventures around the net - are part of what make him good. I honestly wouldn't want to take that from his game - live by the sword die by the sword. If he were 100% perfect on his reads it'd be great, but he isn't and you can't realistically expect him to be.
It's weird - he's like the anti-Lindback. If you get a legit, grade A scoring chance it's probably going to go in, but despite how maligned Tampa's D is, we tend not to be that down and out very often to where you have that open net, goalie moving side to side shot. He tends to stop all of the medium grade scoring chances though - he tends not to get beat on a "good but not great" chance.
And to top it off, he's good for some laughable softies. Obviously that's something he could eliminate, but it's sometimes hard to remember a) he's pretty young for a goalie, and b) this is his first playoffs. He's getting a bit underrated around here by some rival fans (especially Habs and Rangers fans, oddly enough - two teams he's owned), but he's a good goaltender, and after years upon years of crap in net, it's so nice finally having a guy back there that we can count on to show up.