Some of us aspire for good goalies, not just serviceable.
Most people here would say that we would not have won the cup without Crawford in '13, and that he is the one who carried us past the Blues and Wild in '14. So no, I don't think it's easy to just find someone to throw back there and expect to win.
This.
As good as out D is, I counted no less than 2 own goals last year by Keith, one *very* visible one by Seabrook at the Stadium Series, and the propensity going back to 2008 and before for the D to play a bit more complacent once they become comfortable with a specific netminder over the course of about 3-4 straight starts. I could go into a long diatribe, but I'll put it like this: Goalie and Team D have to go hand in hand. If you expect the Goalie to steal games the team D is crapping the bed, and with the players the 'hawks have on D IMHO it's not acceptable. Conversely, no matter how good your D is the goalie has to make fundamental saves Crawford and Raanta tend to make them more often than not, but occasionally gimmes pass by. As this concerns the 'hawks: You can't just plug in a Huet, Turco, Boucher, Lalime, Khabi, Thibault, or Caron in and expect certain victory.
At least right now Crawford IMHO has proven himself. He's got a cup, a Jennings, and IMHO (and Kaner's too) got gypped out of a Conn Smythe. Comparing other netminders making 6M this year, his numbers and results are right about where they should be. Raanta shows a lot of promise and didn't look bad last year. Leighton is a good emergency call-up. Below that, though, the depth is pretty shallow.
I like those numbers.
