Well in my very humble opinion Collin Delia is at this very moment being "Skudra-ed" by this team: I predict he will not play another game in the NHL or at least certainly not with this team. He did indeed have a stinker of a game but I thought only two of the goals were "bad" goals and since this was the noon start road game on the trip you absolutely knew that a) Delia the cannon fodder would get the start and b) the team would play like total dogshit in front of him. It should be noted here that this was his FIRST game with this team where he had a less than .900 save %. Apparently Demko is along on this road trip so you know that the team will rush him back into action as soon as is humanly possible in the fervent hope that last-year Demko shows up (and not this year's Demko whose numbers are vastly inferior to both Delia's AND Martin's). I predict extremely mediocre performances from the Demko/Martin tandem and would like to wish Collin Delia the best of luck in his future endeavors which I can pretty much guarantee won't be with this franchise. This board tonight has outdone itself with superlatives such as "worst goaltending of the century" and "horrific" etc. etc. Well done folks.
Ok sure but he's also a guy who has gotten lots of kicks at the can at the NHL level (he had appearances every year except 2019 for the Hawks) and hasn't managed better than .905 in the AHL since 2019-2020.
Lots of guys who can't hack the NHL can dominate the AHL. Delia has NEVER done that. Martin at least had two pretty consistent years in the 'A' and then followed it up with a great 6 games up with the big club last season. It was basically one more game than Delia has had so far but he kept up his numbers. There is nothing Delia can do even if he gets his 6th game to match Martin's performance last season.
I find it difficult to believe he's being "wronged" here since it only took 1 game to plummet his save percentage to .902 which is exactly in line with his career numbers. Issue is that other guys who were already under contract for the Hawks (and younger) were giving this exact level or better of performance. He couldn't beat out an aging Cam Ward (I remember at the time I didn't think Ward deserved to be in the NHL still), Lehner/Subban, Lankinen/Subban, or MAF/Lankinen/Soderblom. Keep in mind this year the Hawks went with Mrazek....
In this case Martin is already under contract for two years and to me has a more sustainable game. Don't get me wrong, Martin has stunk this season. But I think we would be worse off with Delia in the same workload.
He's also had the same run support as Martin, since the Canucks have scored 7, 5, 2, 4, and now 4 in his appearances.
Timmins shrugging off 5 years of injury to turn back into the player that dominated the 2018 WJCs is just crazy.
I loved this player a few years ago but thought the ship had sailed on him. Stupid Leafs.
For whatever dumb mistakes they've made in the past, their ability to shed marginal players (which they got for cheap) to pick up better players (that they get for cheap) is something I envy.