Taxman said:
I have watched both play and Lehtonen definitely impressed me more. Fleury looked horrible last year in the World Juniors..he crumbled under pressure. Lehtonen has proven time and time again that he is a big game goalie..he has exceled in tournaments and championship runs. Lehtonen was amazing in last year's AHL playoffs. Fleury played pretty poorly in the QMJHL playoffs last year AFAIK. Lehtonen already has a rep for being a big game goalie. I have seen Fleury have a tendency to allow a run of goals after allowing one in..losing focus.
And most every scouting report favors Lehtonen over Fleury. Lehtonen has a big size advantage on Fleury and is just as fast. He positions himself better than Fleury. He also seems mentally tougher.
Nevermind all of that though. Are you really trying to say that stats, and REAL results, don't matter? Are you saying that success early on statistically isn't usually a good indicator for future performance? Why then do we pay so much attention to goals scored, points scored, etc of prospects? Why do we care how many points guys like Ovechkin and Crosby are putting up?
Results matter. The fact that Lehtonen stops more goals from scoring than Fleury IS important, and IS telling. Why would something that important be discounted as being inconsequential? Is it because it is Lehtonen who the stats favor and not Fleury? Would you guys really be downplaying the importance of stats if Fleury were the one with the better save percentage? I have a feeling not.
Stats are RESULTS. Lehtonen stops a noticeably higher percentage of shots on goals from scoring than Fleury does. IMO, that is a very important thing to look at when trying to compare the two players...actual results from actual play.
Wow.... It's in one ear and out the other with you, isn't it? Again, I ask you, if stats are ALWAYS an absolute, 100%, foolproof indicator of results, does that mean you'd take Roman Cechmanek over Martin Brodeur. If so, get your head checked. I'm not saying stats never matter, just that viewing them as the end-all, be-all in judging a player's performance is pretty foolish.
Also, don't forget that Fleury was DOMINATING in the NHL (as mentioned earlier, Darren Pang had him listed as a possible Vezina candidate) in October and November of 2003. 1.95 GAA and .943 SV%. He was 18. Kari Lehtonen was still cutting his teeth in the AHL. How's that for some real stats?
As for Fleury's "big game potential," tell me again what happened in the 2003 WJC's? I seem to recall him outplaying a certain Finnish goalie who's now the toast of HFBoards. And before you fire back with "well he didn't get the job done in the finals," riddle me this: how many WJC championship rings does Lehtonen have?
The fact of the matter is if Braydon Coburn is 6'1" instead of 6'5", we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
I'll close by politely asking you to watch (or at least listen to) some of Fleury's games with WBS this year (you CLEARLY haven't) and then try again.