Markstrom was fantastic today.
He's a clear NHL starting goalie, and probably deserves some more recognition for his play so far.
It was the same last year. Our goalies have about the same save percentages as last year but reversed, so on average it's the same. A 0.912 save percentage by Markstrom last year was constantly attacked as being awful and that he clearly isn't an NHL goalie. It's not that bad of a save percentage by NHL standards, significantly ahead of Schneider and Price albeit in a poor year. Now combined with the D we have and it should really make people reassess how they've played.
With Tanev and Edler out Hutton is our de facto #1 D. Stetcher, Gudbranson, Del Zotto, Pouliot, Biega, all of these are fringe D. Del Zotto has not been good for a while, I like Stetcher but he is not a top 4 guy wither. I love Hutton, but he is definitely not a top pairing guy right now. We have
five 6/7D and a 4/5/6 guy in Hutton. Sure we're missing our top 2 but it highlights that we have no 2nd pairing and it's not like Tanev was healthy last year either.
Our goaltending this year has stolen us games and last year I think they played extremely well given their situation. Behind a team with some D depth I think you would see Markstrom and Nilsson putting up some very good numbers.