<---- #1 Cloutier fan
Honestly the Dan Cloutier bashing gets overblown. Fans tend to have this bipolar tendency to love a guy one season but the moment he slips up completely turn on them. See: Jannik Hansen, aka the loveable Honey Badger who you would have to overpay to get a year ago, and today you trade his ass for whatever draft pick and let a kid take his spot. Alex Burrows works just as well for an example.
Following a number of bad years post-Kirk McLean, Cloutier was the first guy we had that brought some stability to the position. A guy that was a decent through the regular season but struggled in the playoffs. Though for the latter it was looking like he may have turned that around early in the '04 playoffs, but a fluke injury tripping on a bad bit of ice in Calgary and injuring his angle put Auld in net who was sub par. Only reason Auld was the starter post-lockout is because Cloutier was injured all year, Auld was basically our Devan Dubynk.
I always saw Dan Cloutier as a Chris Osgood caliber goalie, except didn't play for Detroit and injuries ruined any chance for longevity. Not the best, but he was okay holding the fort until between McLean and Luongo. One of the reasons who got ripped on so hard around the league because at the time the 'model' to winning the cup was to have a top 5 goalie. Ironically the moment we got Luongo the mindset changed and it was all about having a good cheap goalie so you can spend more cap space on the skaters