Most believed Domingue could hold the court until Raanta came back.
This was a really tough situation. I was never thrilled with Domingue. He was excellent when he first came up for Smith, when both he and our actual backup were injured. But even in that stint started to slow down as Smith got healthy. He was never as lights out as our current two goaltenders are in the AHL, but it was near impossible to determine his play because the AHL team was a smoldering dumpster fire at the time. He regressed his first full year as a backup, but also never got much consistent starting time because it was the Smith show. He was a fan and player favorite heading into this season, and we had no room for him in the AHL, we also had no room in the AHL to bring in a more experienced potential backup like Wedgewood.
Season starts, Anti injured, Corey Perry single handedly breaks Domingue like a horse, and now we have 0 goaltenders who can play an NHL caliber game.
We made the choice not to move on from Domingue this summer, which was the correct risk to take. He may have even been a better backup than Wedgewood had the team jumped Perry the next shift, pulled off that first win or we had a healthy Rantaa. It was a risky gamble that burned us.
Ducks fans have to be the only fans who can root for Perry. That guy...smh