The one thing to note here, and this will be the hardest thing to gauge, is that we’ve seen Sparks carry a heavy workload in the AHL but we haven’t seen him play once every three weeks in the second half of a back-to-back. Curtis McElhinney we know can be that vet who just goes in every so often and plays well. He has been good now for a few years. He hasn’t always been the greatest goalie, as his career will show, but the last few years, he’s been good.
I don’t think Babcock will be quick to sit on any goalie coming in, as we saw with Jhonas Enroth — pretty good goalie, but his role as a backup was, “You’re coming in in the second half of a back-to-back and you better be good.” He struggled.
That’s a tough thing for them to gauge. I feel like Babcock will lean towards the vet on that. He knows what McElhinney can do in that role and he knows he has the temperament for it, whereas Sparks is just used to being a starter at this point.
That is not a knock on him — it’s a good thing — but for the
Leafs purposes, they are still going to give Andersen his 60 games. I can’t imagine lower than 55. Can Sparks, or Pickard for that matter, handle that pure backup role? It is not a 1A/1B situation. It is, “When is Andersen tired? When is their back to back?” And that’s it.