As a goalie myself... this is a HUGE aspect of goaltending that is easy to forget when you are down in the dumps. Sometimes when you are caught out of position, the odds of making that save are so, so low... but if you keep making that final push, you just never know. You can surprise yourself with a miracle save, or force the shooter to double clutch or miss the net.
All of our starters in the past few years (from Scrivens onward) have had that "never quit" in their game on arrival. And all of them have lost it over time spent backstopping this team. You say it is contagious from the goalie out... and that's true. But the rot of futility is also contagious... and when poor effort takes hold, it is only so long before it affects the goalie too.
To me that's the best part about Hitchcock hockey... is that there will be honesty in both directions with respect to how any ones play affects their teammates. I'm a firm believer in that good team play reinforces itself and for too many years guys were taking shortcuts.
These posts are wonderful, hope they are being read. The bolded I see as well as a particular problem that has shaped here.
The trouble, as always, is that the team impacts the goalie immensely, people underestimate that side of it. To that end, Talbot is impacted, but resiient. I continue to think Talbot has considerable strength in adversity. Koski will need that as well.
As many have said hopefully we have two capable goalies now.
I've stated this before but Koski is largely not NHL scouted yet. You only know how he will endure when teams come in with reports on his tendencies and adjust accordingly. The NHL, compared to other pro sports tends to be pretty bad at that. Scouting of opponents often doesn't take shape fully until a year after. Which is one reason why a lot of clubs struggle the year after having some brief success. other teams obviously break down that success and look for ways to counter it. Of course happened with the Oilers last season and opponents playing us better.