Jim Carey downfall

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

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... )

You're absolutely bang on about him going down too early. You can really see it at the 7:55 mark of the Fedorov video when they do the behind the net view of the OT winner, he goes down, resets, then flops down again and gets beaten on a muffin. Too much hoping the puck will hit him rather than reading and reacting to the shot.

One other funny little thing I noticed from the Wings video, I think part of what contributed to Osgoods weird herky-jerky looking style, he seems to be using a goal stick thats a size or two too big for him. Thats got to be at least a 28 or 29" paddle

 

[VanIslander]

I was in uni at the time and he was considered a WIERDO!

"Creepy," my girlfriend said.

I defended him. The only other goalies i felt i had to unfairly defend, for their personality or lack of it, were Hasek, Bryzgalov and Miller.

 

[c9777666]

A lot has been made about Carey’s playoff struggles of 1995-1996, but I have a different perspective:

Carey it should be noted drew a short straw in the '96 playoffs against an absurdly stacked Penguins offense (369 goals) that had also given him fits the year before.

The ONLY team he ever faced in the playoffs were those high-powered flightless birds.

I mentioned in a thread about the 1996 playoff seeding (1996- How two games on the final day changed the playoff picture entirely)

on how Washington could have ended up facing the other Pennsylvania team if Pittsburgh hadn't gagged the 1 seed on the last day of the season.

Do you think Carey's struggles in the playoffs were Penguins-related or would he have still struggled against the Flyers?

(And remember the year before, PIT only finished 4 points back of Quebec, so he could have ended up with a better playoff fate against those untested neophyte playoff Nordiques)

For what it's worth, in that Vezina season, Carey's stats against the Keystone State teams:

Pittsburgh: 1-3, 2.72 GAA, .882 save percentage
Philadelphia: 2-1-1, 1.93 GAA, .908 save percentage

 

[JianYang]

The net detective!

 

[Dread Clawz]

The net detective!

Still the best goalie nickname of all time.

 

[ShelbyZ]

Sorry for the necro-bump, but I stumbled upon this article while looking for something else and thought it was fitting for when this thread gets referenced the next time someone asks about what happened to Jim Carey.

Jim Carey sent back to the minor leagues by Blues

ST. LOUIS -- Jim Carey is back in the minor leagues again, and the St. Louis Blues don't know when or if he'll return.

www.theledger.com

ST. LOUIS -- Jim Carey is back in the minor leagues again, and the St. Louis Blues don't know when or if he'll return.

Carey, signed a two-year deal with the Blues on March 1 -- one day after agreeing to a buyout with the Boston Bruins. On Saturday, he was assigned to the Cincinnati Cyclones of the International Hockey League.

''He's only 24 years old. Whether he can play in the NHL is up to him to prove,'' general manager Larry Pleau said. ''It's not for me to decide, it's up to him to prove.''

The former Vezina Trophy winner appeared in four games with the Blues and was 1-2 with a 3.86 goals-against average, often appearing out of sync. The Blues lost confidence in him after a spectacular flame-out against Calgary March 9, when he allowed four third-period goals in a 7-4 loss.

''He probably thought the bottom of the barrel was when he left Boston,'' Pleau said. ''But the bottom of the barrel for me was when he played against Calgary in the third period.''

Carey played only one game after that, a 5-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks, getting the start because Grant Fuhr had played the previous night and had soreness in his surgically repaired right knee.

Pleau doesn't regret signing Carey for $800,000 for the remainder of this season and next season, even though it hasn't worked out so far. The team made the move while Fuhr was recovering from knee surgery and with other candidates struggling.

''We were still looking for a No. 1 goalie and the contract was very reasonable under the situation,'' Pleau said. ''We did it, and the rest is history.''

The Blues sent Carey to Cincinnati because they already have two goalies at their Worcester, Mass., affiliate in the AHL, Brent Johnson and Rich Parent. Pleau said Carey likely will get regular work in Cincinnati due to goaltending injuries there.

''We talked to some IHL teams and felt this was his best situation,'' Pleau said. ''It'll be good experience for him.''

Pleau wouldn't rule out Carey competing for the No. 1 job next season as the Blues search for a successor to Fuhr, 36. Fuhr is signed through next season and likely will share the job.

''We can't expect Grant to be No. 1,'' Pleau said. ''We just want this guy to get us through until we can find one, and he's been doing a pretty good job of that.''

Carey won the Vezina as the NHL's top goalie in the 1995-96 season with the Washington Capitals. He played in 71 games that season, with a 35-24-9 record and 2.26 goals-against average.

He was traded to Boston during the 1996-97 season, struggled and lost his job to Byron Dafoe before being sent to the minors.

Carey played 30 games this season with Providence of the American Hockey League, where he posted a 17-8-3 record and 2.34 goals-against average.

That's actually the first I'd heard the Blues committed to Carey for more than just the end of 98/99. Considering Lawton talked about him being a free agent that summer, the Blues must've come to some buyout agreement with Jim after they acquired Roman Turek and got through the Atlanta expansion draft.

I also remembered this snippet about Jim Carey being a member of the Gold medal winning Team USA in the '96 World Cup:

1996 World Cup champs believed they could be great | NHL.com

United States team members to be inducted into U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame

www.nhl.com

His (Ron Wilson's) first task was to identify the starting goalie. He was choosing between Mike Richter, who won the Stanley Cup with the New York Rangers in 1994, and Jim Carey, who was coming off a Vezina Trophy-winning season with the Washington Capitals.

"Jim Carey had won the Vezina Trophy and he was very good," Wilson said. "But in training camp, right off the bat, I saw that he wasn't ready for this kind of assignment [and] that it was going to be Mike Richter."

Richter won five of his six starts with a 2.43 goals-against average and .920 save percentage. Guy Hebert got one start and won it. Carey never played.

 

[joestevens29]

Cable guy

 

[Michael Farkas]

He was a pretty weird goalie. As was stated early in this thread, really went down early and flat onto his knees...so, no shuffle, no real opportunity to push across...and from his knees, he'd often just kind of hack at the puck with his stick. Now, that is kind of an old school move - Billy Smith did it, etc. - but Carey just seemed sloppy about everything he did. I don't understand where he thought his posts were when he was in his stance on lo-hi/hi-lo plays. He might have had a longer career if he realized that the net doesn't move when he's not looking at it.

He kind of reminds me of Cameron Rowe an '01 birthday that played for The Program who I suggested is an obvious ND for me...everything seemed pretty ok, right up until the shot was taken and then his whole game just fell apart...

Mikey's ever-lasting tip: Don't trust goalies with only 2 or 3 flash seasons on defensive teams where the numbers don't match the technical skill. Support goalies with staying power and consistency.

 

[NewtJorden]

I remember being in high school and everyone into hockey cards were trying to get his rookie card.

 

[McGarnagle]

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.

I know I'm quoting a 4 year old post in a thread that got necrobumped, but I've revisited some 1995 Bruins games on youtube lately and the thing that stands out about Lacher is that he's a pure standup goalie. I believe he was the last traditional standup goalie the Bruins ever had - even Ranford wouldn't be described as purely standup by 1996.

He was good with reflexes but even for then he looks like a relic. If he broke in 5 or 10 years earlier, maybe he has more of a career, but by that point I believe the league had the book on standup goalies with crowding the front of the net and lateral movement. In this game highlight reel you can see just how antiquated his goaltending style was for 95-96. He's playing really deep, kicking rebounds out front, and the Bruins blow a 5-2 lead and lose 6-5 in OT after a handful of horrible goals. He played a few more games but after this, but this game probably was the point of no return. In the highlights there's a running narrative from Gary Thorne about how Lacher's been up and down with results that year and needs a big win to get back on track, and whe he makes some saves early they're running with him being back, but he quickly unravels an they start pointing out how one of his problems was losing focus throughout a game. Then Bill Clement even acknowledges that he gets booed off the ice by the FleetCenter crowd after the OT winner from Yzerman that he managed to bank into his own net after giving up a fat rebound. There still seemed to be hope for him to turn it around before this one but I think that loss sealed it. Funnily enough, this was exactly one month to the day before the Wings broke Patrick Roy in Montreal.



In the end, I think Lacher was just already outdated stylistically by the time he hit the league, and when he faced that adversity he neither adapted to a different style nor had the passion to overcome it. Some standup guys hung on after that (McLean, Irbe). But Lacher seemed to have the mentality of if he's shutting you out he'll keep shutting you out but if he let in one bad goal, then he's going to let in 3 bad goals because his confidence is shot. The numbers also show his 1995 success was overstated because the team around him was winning 5-4 games with its offense. Even then, I do think he was sheltered by the defense core and coaching under Sutter. There was turnover in the D core in the 95 offseason where Huscroft and Shaw left and were replaced by Rick Zombo and an 18-year old McLaren, and Steve Kasper took over the bench and that was an abject disaster. If he debuted in 1985 instead of 1995 and if he had a defensively sound coaching system with a defense core that cleared rebounds, maybe he'd be remembered as a star instead of a bust.

 

[Michael Farkas]

I think Lacher was just already outdated stylistically by the time he hit the league, and when he faced that adversity he neither adapted to a different style

Adaptability is a big factor and that transition to new eras/new styles/new advents etc. is a big component of greatness evaluation for me.

When the game crumbled into the sea in the early 2000's: Fairly limited goalies like Jose Theodore, Andrew Raycroft, and downright jokes like Roman Cechmanek were able to sneak into the some big spots in the voting. The lockout killed off a lot of goalies that lacked skating, lateral movement skills leaving a few old masters (Brodeur, Luongo) and young upstarts (Lundqvist, Fleury).

After they quit or got put into really tough situations, we got a lot of random fly-by-night guys again as the league dipped in quality (similar to what we saw with Carey, Lacher, etc.) where Mason, Thomas, etc. swipe some votes in the chaos...hell, we had a Niemi vs Leighton Final. What a mess.

These position evolutions happen a lot of over time, but they aren't always so apparent and obvious (like the advent of the butterfly)...for instance, now there's a bigger need for more goalies that aren't lazier blockers (like Mason), particularly in terms of post integrations. That's why we're seeing some more guys that, even though they're shorter, are able to remain upright and track plays better (Saros, young Dustin Wolf, etc.). We'll see how far that wrinkle goes.

So, that's why you look at a guy like Brodeur who grew up on 80's hockey, was excellent in the NHL before the butterfly boom took effect, then was excellent in the dead puck era, and then was excellent on the other side of the lockout and played in the Final all the way at the age of 40 or whatever it was...that can tell you a whole lot about the quality of that player and how many talents/how close to being a "5 tool" player he was/they were...

 

[Hobnobs]

I know I'm quoting a 4 year old post in a thread that got necrobumped, but I've revisited some 1995 Bruins games on youtube lately and the thing that stands out about Lacher is that he's a pure standup goalie. I believe he was the last traditional standup goalie the Bruins ever had - even Ranford wouldn't be described as purely standup by 1996.

He was good with reflexes but even for then he looks like a relic. If he broke in 5 or 10 years earlier, maybe he has more of a career, but by that point I believe the league had the book on standup goalies with crowding the front of the net and lateral movement. In this game highlight reel you can see just how antiquated his goaltending style was for 95-96. He's playing really deep, kicking rebounds out front, and the Bruins blow a 5-2 lead and lose 6-5 in OT after a handful of horrible goals. He played a few more games but after this, but this game probably was the point of no return. In the highlights there's a running narrative from Gary Thorne about how Lacher's been up and down with results that year and needs a big win to get back on track, and whe he makes some saves early they're running with him being back, but he quickly unravels an they start pointing out how one of his problems was losing focus throughout a game. Then Bill Clement even acknowledges that he gets booed off the ice by the FleetCenter crowd after the OT winner from Yzerman that he managed to bank into his own net after giving up a fat rebound. There still seemed to be hope for him to turn it around before this one but I think that loss sealed it. Funnily enough, this was exactly one month to the day before the Wings broke Patrick Roy in Montreal.



In the end, I think Lacher was just already outdated stylistically by the time he hit the league, and when he faced that adversity he neither adapted to a different style nor had the passion to overcome it. Some standup guys hung on after that (McLean, Irbe). But Lacher seemed to have the mentality of if he's shutting you out he'll keep shutting you out but if he let in one bad goal, then he's going to let in 3 bad goals because his confidence is shot. The numbers also show his 1995 success was overstated because the team around him was winning 5-4 games with its offense. Even then, I do think he was sheltered by the defense core and coaching under Sutter. There was turnover in the D core in the 95 offseason where Huscroft and Shaw left and were replaced by Rick Zombo and an 18-year old McLaren, and Steve Kasper took over the bench and that was an abject disaster. If he debuted in 1985 instead of 1995 and if he had a defensively sound coaching system with a defense core that cleared rebounds, maybe he'd be remembered as a star instead of a bust.

Not even a Bruins fan I remember the fiasco with Kasper. Made all the goalies look trash (Lacher, Billington, Tallas and Bailey). Ranford came in and did a good job.

Then after that year they replaced all the goal scorers with guys like Odgers, Jean-Yves Roy and Trent McCleary. Cheveldae was brought in for security as he had a mutual friend with Cheevers at the time. Then they brought in Jim Carey as well. Sinden really was the bane of the Bruins.

Edit: Also thanks for the video. Don't think I've seen this game since it was actually aired. Nostalgia is a good drug.

 

[ShelbyZ]

Found another old article from when Pat Burns denied Carey his first opportunity to play against his old team. The snippets from Carey seem to illustrate what Lawton referenced in terms of how Jim didn't take the trade to Boston well. The article also mentions something about migraines he suffered both in Washington and Boston:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1997/11/06/carey-not-on-thin-ice-but-he-is-on-the-bench/23813f9c-358c-4a4b-bfd8-8b6ad7342020/

While the trade was widely regarded as tilted in Washington's favor, the Capitals didn't make the playoffs. Neither did the Bruins, breaking what had been the longest ongoing postseason streak in the NHL.

"That was a wake-up call," Carey said. "Those last 18 games were the toughest I've ever played. . . . The city was down on the team and players were down on ourselves."

Carey also was struggling personally. Being traded changed the way he viewed himself as a player, and he said he will never regain the innocence he had in Washington.

"Before you get traded, you think, That's something those other guys get. I'm not in that category,' " he said. "But once you get traded, it's Hey, wait a second,' and then you start thinking, Well, how long am I going to be here at this place?' Your whole mentality changes."

He was a pretty weird goalie. As was stated early in this thread, really went down early and flat onto his knees...so, no shuffle, no real opportunity to push across...and from his knees, he'd often just kind of hack at the puck with his stick. Now, that is kind of an old school move - Billy Smith did it, etc. - but Carey just seemed sloppy about everything he did. I don't understand where he thought his posts were when he was in his stance on lo-hi/hi-lo plays. He might have had a longer career if he realized that the net doesn't move when he's not looking at it.

He kind of reminds me of Cameron Rowe an '01 birthday that played for The Program who I suggested is an obvious ND for me...everything seemed pretty ok, right up until the shot was taken and then his whole game just fell apart...

Mikey's ever-lasting tip: Don't trust goalies with only 2 or 3 flash seasons on defensive teams where the numbers don't match the technical skill. Support goalies with staying power and consistency.

On that last point, it really does seem like in a way, winning the Vezina was the kiss of death for Carey's NHL career...

IIRC, after Carey took over the starting job for the Caps in '95, they re-structured his contract so he was making money closer to what some younger starters were making at the time (Trevor Kidd maybe?) and was supposed to expire at the end of 96/97. Then after he won the Vezina and got picked for USA at the World Cup, Lawton and Carey pushed the Caps to give him a new contract that paid him like he was a top goalie, ultimately landing the 4 year $11M deal that's often referenced.

After things quickly went south in Boston, that contract likely slammed the door on other NHL opportunities that might have been available had he been at a salary befitting a goalie with an average SV% and brutal playoff resume. Which is also probably why Sinden eventually opted to just keep him as an expensive insurance policy for meeting the expansion draft exposure requirements before the contract finally had to be terminated so he could sign with the Blues.

I kind of recall that at some point when it looked like Carey was done in Boston (at least at the NHL level) in the middle of 97/98, there was some speculation/rumor around him potentially getting claimed in the expansion draft by Nashville as it would re-unite him with his GM from the Caps Poile and coach from Portland, Trotz. But ultimately it was unrealistic for Nashville because Carey's salary for 98/99 was right around the combined salaries for what eventually were the Preds two highest paid players (Ronning and Fitzgerald?). But even if the cost made sense, Carey likely would've been a complete disaster on an expansion team...