Jim Carey downfall

Doctor No

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Blaine Lacher was another goalie from that era who had a similar career arc, albeit with much less of a peak. Great rookie year. Terrible sophomore year. Demotion to the AHL and never heard from again. No journeyman career, no battle back to the NHL, nothing.

That lockout was weird in a lot of respects, but Carey and Lacher both appearing was one of my favorite outcomes of it. It was something to get excited about.
 

Canadiens1958

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Nov 30, 2007
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what's the win probability for a goalie who allows one in 60 minutes?


Win probability is better for the goalie with the lower GAA average.

In the comparable of Fleury to Andersen, even,though your seminal data is off, Fleury has the edge in GP,SOs and GAA.

2018-19 Vegas Golden Knights Roster and Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

Andersen has a 30 GF advantage, greater margin of error:

2018-19 Toronto Maple Leafs Roster and Statistics | Hockey-Reference.com

Andersen may have a better SV% but still he gives up more goals per game.
 

vadim sharifijanov

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Oct 10, 2007
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He is one of the weirdest cases. I remember him in that shortened season, he looked pretty good. I guess sports can be a funny business, especially as a goalie, but there wasn't even that feeling out period where a team figures him out after a "lucky" season where no one scouted him. He had that good year in 1995, then played 12 games the next year, was sent down and that was it. Granted he had a 3.94 GAA in those 12 games and was 3-5-2 which meant he was pulled a couple times by the looks of it.

Then just vanished quicker than Buster Douglas.

well with lacher he had maybe the greatest start of anyone ever but kept turning into a pumpkin. three wins, two GA capped off by an OT shutout to begin the season/his career. within three weeks he has already lost his job temporarily to riendeau (a once promising young starter his coach has already replaced and discarded once before).

lacher rebounds, has good stretches and bad stretches but after the deadline loses his job again, to billington. this was also temporary and he rebounds again to finish the regular season strong. but i don’t think sutter had any faith in him and maybe regarded him (as many came to by month two of his career) as an average goalie buoyed by a strong defensive team.
 

Hobnobs

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well with lacher he had maybe the greatest start of anyone ever but kept turning into a pumpkin. three wins, two GA capped off by an OT shutout to begin the season/his career. within three weeks he has already lost his job temporarily to riendeau (a once promising young starter his coach has already replaced and discarded once before).

lacher rebounds, has good stretches and bad stretches but after the deadline loses his job again, to billington. this was also temporary and he rebounds again to finish the regular season strong. but i don’t think sutter had any faith in him and maybe regarded him (as many came to by month two of his career) as an average goalie buoyed by a strong defensive team.

I wouldnt say he lost the job to Billington more like they all lost the job to Ranford when he was brought in.

Edit: I looked it up. And yea, sorry I remembered it wrong. Yea Billington took over for a month with Bailey as backup and then Ranford came in.
 

ShelbyZ

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I wouldnt say he lost the job to Billington more like they all lost the job to Ranford when he was brought in.

Edit: I looked it up. And yea, sorry I remembered it wrong. Yea Billington took over for a month with Bailey as backup and then Ranford came in.

Speaking of Ranford... Had Carey stuck with hockey and possessed the drive he allegedly lacked, I'd bet his career would've been similar to Ranford's. Despite being mediocre to bad, would've gotten cracks at starting jobs here and there until his early 30's all because of some surprise accolade(s) accomplished in his early 20's...
 
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tony d

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It was quite a fall from grace. For a couple yrs. he was amongst the game's best goalies but when he fell he fell.

I liked him in the "Ace Ventura" film series though.:sarcasm::naughty:
 

Hobnobs

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Speaking of Ranford... Had Carey stuck with hockey and possessed the drive he allegedly lacked, I'd bet his career would've been similar to Ranford's. Despite being mediocre to bad, would've gotten cracks at starting jobs here and there until his early 30's all because of some surprise accolade(s) accomplished in his early 30's...

Maybe. The thing is. If Carey just worked on his biggest weakness he wouldve been a very good goalie.
 

vadim sharifijanov

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I wouldnt say he lost the job to Billington more like they all lost the job to Ranford when he was brought in.

Edit: I looked it up. And yea, sorry I remembered it wrong. Yea Billington took over for a month with Bailey as backup and then Ranford came in.

on the list of random bruins goalies of the mid-90s, robbie tallas and john blue come to mind but man i had completely forgotten about scott bailey.

from the game sheets, this is what the bruins' goalie graveyard looks like between casey and ranford:

- lacher starts the first three games after the '95 lockout, and as i said above, notches three wins, two GA capped off by an OT shutout to begin the season/his career. if fantasy hockey had existed back then he would have gone from 0% owned to 100% in that week.

- lacher loses game #4, 2-1. i have no idea, i'm just looking at stats, but that was two goals on only 14 shots. still for the first week/month of the season (the lockout season began in the last week of february) lacher won player of the month on with a 3-1-0, sub 1.00 GAA, .958 SV% stat line.

- riendeau starts game #5, also loses 2-1, also on 14 shots

- lacher in net for the next three as the team's de facto starter and wins them all, but gives up four goals in each game

- riendeau gets one, then lacher starts another but gets hurt, riendeau keeps the crease warm for the next four games (2-3-1, sub-3.00 GAA, .875 SV%)

- lacher back in for the body of the truncated season, same statistical story: low GAA but also low SV%

- april 7: boston picks up billington from ottawa for an 8th round pick (riendeau appears in two more NHL games before heading to europe)

- april 14: lacher gets chased (three goals on seven shots), billington starts the next four (three wins) before himself getting pulled and ceding the net back to lacher for the rest of the season, including the playoffs where the bruins were upset in the first round by new jersey en route to the cup

- october: lacher starts the first two to begin the year, then billington and he split games, amassing a horrendous collective 5-9-2 record, with GAA closer to 4.00 and than 3.00 and .845 SV%.

- october 14, lacher's second last game in the league (he gets one more a month later)

- scott bailey starts nine straight, going 5-1-2 with a pull, 3.00+ GAA, .875 SV% (he plays two more games in that season, neither are starts)

- billington starts for the next month and change, going 7-6-2, with a GAA not to much higher than 3.00 and an .872 SV%

- january 11, boston trades for ranford, who takes over from there (billington appears in four more games)


so i was wrong about lacher too. he was only replaced once, by billington. riendeau took over the crease for a short spell because lacher was injured. actually, it seems like sutter really liked the kid and kept putting him back in whenever he could, even after good stretches of play by riendeau and billington, until lacher flat out became unplayable.

what a roller coaster. lacher never played again, riendeau never played again, bailey played eight more games before going off into the wilderness, and billington settled into his destiny as a career backup-- and a highly-regarded one to patrick roy too, though unfortunately for him he caught colorado almost exactly between cups. a year later, ranford is traded to washington at the deadline for carey, who himself only has 14 games left before disappearing. that summer, it becomes byron dafoe's team.
 
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Hobnobs

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on the list of random bruins goalies of the mid-90s, robbie tallas and john blue come to mind but man i had completely forgotten about scott bailey.

from a cursory glance at the game sheets, this is what the bruins' goalie graveyard looks like between casey and ranford:

- lacher starts the first three games after the '95 lockout, and as i said above, notches three wins, two GA capped off by an OT shutout to begin the season/his career. if fantasy hockey had existed back then he would have gone from 0% owned to 100% in that week.

- lacher loses game #4, 2-1. i have no idea, i'm just looking at stats, but that was two goals on only 14 shots. still for the first week/month of the season (the lockout season began in the last week of february) lacher won player of the month on with a 3-1-0, sub 1.00 GAA, .958 SV% stat line.

- riendeau starts game #5, also loses 2-1, also on 14 shots

- lacher in net for the next three as the team's de facto starter and wins them all, but gives up four goals in each game

- riendeau gets one, then lacher starts another but gets hurt, riendeau keeps the crease warm for the next four games (2-3-1, sub-3.00 GAA, .875 SV%)

- lacher back in for the body of the truncated season, same statistical story: low GAA but also low SV%

- april 7: boston picks up billington from ottawa for an 8th round pick (riendeau appears in two more NHL games before heading to europe)

- april 14: lacher gets chased (three goals on seven shots), billington starts the next four (three wins) before himself getting pulled and ceding the net back to lacher for the rest of the season, including the playoffs where the bruins were upset in the first round by new jersey en route to the cup

- october: lacher starts the first two to begin the year, then billington and he split games, amassing a horrendous collective 5-9-2 record, with GAA closer to 4.00 and than 3.00 and .845 SV%.

- october 14, lacher's second last game in the league (he gets one more a month later)

- scott bailey starts nine straight, going 5-1-2 with a pull, 3.00+ GAA, .875 SV% (he plays two more games in that season, neither are starts)

- billington starts for the next month and change, going 7-6-2, with a GAA not to much higher than 3.00 and an .872 SV%

- january 11, boston trades for ranford, who takes over from there (billington appears in four more games)


so i was wrong about lacher too. he was only replaced once, by billington. riendeau took over the crease for a short spell because lacher was injured. actually, it seems like sutter really liked the kid and kept putting him back in whenever he could until he flat out became unplayable.

what a roller coaster. lacher never played again, riendeau never played again, bailey played eight more games before going off into the wilderness, and billington settled into his destiny as a career backup-- and a highly-regarded one to patrick roy too, though unfortunately for him he caught colorado almost exactly between cups. a year later, ranford is traded to washington at the deadline for carey, who himself only has 14 games left before disappearing. that summer, it becomes byron dafoe's team.

Youre pretty much down on your luck when you use 6 goalies in a season and all of them suck and sucked from there on.... Ranford didn't suck perhaps but its not like he was more than average by 96.
 

vadim sharifijanov

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Oct 10, 2007
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Good summary - I'd recommend these reports if you want to save time in the future:
1996-1997 Boston Bruins Goaltender Game-by-Game Performance

oh my, thank you sir

edit: and oh man, it looks like ranford got hurt in '97 and they had to go with robbie tallas as the starter for a month, backed up by cheveldae's corpse and somebody named paxton schaefer. what a gong show... maybe even as gongiferous as the canucks running out of goalies because jim benning was busy playing fortnite and getting a prized 19 year old prospect shelled this week during an emergency call up from the OHL.
 
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Doctor No

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I always remember Paxton Schafer from those Seventh Inning Sketch junior league cards back in the day, and I always had an overly-high opinion of him as a result. (The other wasn't from SIS cards, but was Pauli Jaks).
 
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Hoser

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Aug 7, 2005
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I'm gonna toot my own horn and tell you this is all you needed to know about Jim Carey's play:

(for context, this was after someone else insisted that he simply "lost his desire to be a professional hockey player", that his "flaws" were not in fact "exposed", and said someone else started arguing about it when I succinctly summarized the faults in his game: went down too early, had a weak glove and poor lateral movement. This someone else seemed to believe Carey never dropped to his knees... :loony:)

:blah:

I don't know why you've got such a hard-on for defending the play of a guy who was washed up by age 24, but if you reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally want to argue it, fine. Let's watch some tape. I did a search on YouTube for "Jim Carey Capitals 1996", and this was the second result (first was a news report from a 9-0 shutout over the Canucks):



First save he makes at 0:02 he went down (uh-oh, there's that word) to one knee; good old-school save that some still use today. Marty Brodeur used to use it fairly often, and Lundqvist still might (I honestly don't watch many Rangers games, but he used to use this amongst his save selections). The next one he gets low, dives to his left and goes for the poke check.

Now watch the penalty shot. He goes down (uh-oh, there's that word again) into a half-butterfly and makes the save. But, he got lucky. Elik shot a muffin into his left shoulder. His glove hand was low; he didn't give up a goal but he was beatable there.

Let's watch more, here're highlights from a game against the Rangers from Jan. 5, '96 (fourth YouTube search result after an interview vid):



Watch the first goal at 1:27. Leetch takes a shot from the point and Carey is already down (dammit there's that word again!); Verbeek screens him, beaten glove-side.

Watch the next one at 1:46 by Laperriere. Carey comes out to the top of his crease to cut down the angle, Laperriere takes the slap shot and aims high on Carey's glove side. Admittedly Carey stayed up until the last split-second but he throws his glove up in a desperation move and the puck deflects off the bottom of it, and down and in. His timing on the glove was off and Laperriere was gifted a goal he shouldn't have had as a result. Less than two minutes into the game and it was already 2-0 Rangers. (Olaf Kolzig ended up making 35 saves on 37 shots.)

This was before his epic meltdown in the '96 playoffs, just to show you that this was not the result of his "disinterest" in playing after the playoff drubbing he suffered at the hands of Lemieux, Jagr, Francis, Nedved & Co. These were flaws that were already there, ripe for the picking.

Let's take another game; this is against Detroit in December of '96, when Fedorov scored all five goals in a 5-4 victory:



First goal (0:08): high glove side!

Second goal (1:15): breakaway, dives to his stick side, high glove side...

Third goal (2:28): Carey is slow to move across as Konstantinov catches him too far to his stick-side post, Carey goes down (**** there's that ******* word again!!) in anticipation of a shot, Konstantinov makes a cross-ice pass right in front of him to Fedorov instead, and Carey is waaaay too slow to get back across to defend the gaping maw on his glove side.

Fourth goal (5:07): Fetisov makes a nice pass to Larionov in the corner and Larionov catches Carey DOWN TOO EARLY as he makes a CROSS-ICE PASS RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM and Fedorov buries it ON HIS GLOVE SIDE.

Fifth goal (6:44): Larionov passes it to Konstantinov coming up the middle and Carey WENT DOWN TOO EARLY. Konstantinov caught him doing it, dumped it back to Fedorov trailing behind him, Carey had to get back off his knees—and he did—but Fedorov caught him overcompensating on the glove side and beat him low stick-side.



You wanna call this his "lost desire to be a professional hockey player", fine, but don't go around talking smack because you don't think I know what I'm talking about. I know damn well what I'm talking about. [/discussion]
 
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Stephen

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That lockout was weird in a lot of respects, but Carey and Lacher both appearing was one of my favorite outcomes of it. It was something to get excited about.

When Lacher first came in, thought he was next in line after Potvin and Brodeur as a good young number one goalie. That career plummeted very quickly.
 

Stephen

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Feb 28, 2002
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I'm gonna toot my own horn and tell you this is all you needed to know about Jim Carey's play:

(for context, this was after someone else insisted that he simply "lost his desire to be a professional hockey player", that his "flaws" were not in fact "exposed", and said someone else started arguing about it when I succinctly summarized the faults in his game: went down too early, had a weak glove and poor lateral movement. This someone else seemed to believe Carey never dropped to his knees... :loony:)

Really enjoying your analysis and the nostalgic goalie talk. To be fair to Carey, the down on one knee, other leg out half butterfly combined with either a windmill glove hand or a paddle down, or all of it simultaneously was a signature 90s goalie move that was kind of the bridge between stand up goaltending and the more technical butterfly technique that was later refined into a science.

Growing up in that era, that seemed like the kind of save everyone made on TSN highlights and every kid wanted to make in street hockey!
 

Hoser

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Aug 7, 2005
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Absolutely, it looked flashy as hell when you actually made said windmill glove save. :D I think Carey was one of the last stand-up goalies to break into the league; I struggle to think of any of note who came later.
 

Sanf

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Sep 8, 2012
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on the list of random bruins goalies of the mid-90s, robbie tallas and john blue come to mind but man i had completely forgotten about scott bailey.

from the game sheets, this is what the bruins' goalie graveyard looks like between casey and ranford:

On top of that they drafted Yevgeni Ryabhikov with their first pick in 1994 draft. I can´t remember what he looked like, but I remember there where high hopes for him. I have later remember reading he was the last goalie to cut from 1994-1995 team. Ended up playing mainly in ECHL and WPHL.
 
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GlitchMarner

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In his first two seasons, he was one of the best goalies in the League. Then he was having a tough third season with WSH before being traded to BOS. Based on his stats and record, it seems he absolutely sucked in his first season as a Bruin. But why did he play so few games in The NHL after 1997? He was still very young (especially for a goaltender) after his poor 1996-1997 season - why didn't the former Vezina winner get more chances?
 

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