Niemi of 2010 SCF vs Crawford of 2014 WCF

[Blackhawkswincup]

The Sharks had one of the league's best defenses at the time (Boyle, Vlasic, Murray, Demers, then added Burns in 2013). It's no coincidence that Niemi's numbers tanked once he left.

Your downplaying Niemi

Early on with Sharks his D was young kids (Braun , Demers , Vlasic) and aging vets like Huskins , Doulgas Murray , Boyle and a fading Nicklas Wallin

He put up a .920 sv pct with that D and went to WCF

And in Niemi's best year your overvaluing his D

Dan Boyle (Aging top pairing defender at 37)
Marc-Edwouard Vlasic (Very good #2 at that point)
Jason Demers (Struggled thru year with injuries and played)
Justin Braun (Up and down play that year)
Brent Burns (Who averaged barely 16 min a game)
Matt Irwin (No one is ever going to confuse Irwin with a good defender)
Douglas Murray (Clealry at end and worst player on Sharks D that year)
Brad Stuart (Declining at that point at age 34)

Behind that D he was a Vezina nominee

The reality is once Niemi's reflexes started to slow down (Natural with age) his style of play began to become an issue and he could no longer replicate his past performance

Also cant entirely put performance in Dallas on Niemi as the D (Especially team defense) was atrocious and was major reason Lehtonen was terrible as well

Ruff's team in Dallas was a poorly coached team defensively and it got worse in his final season

 

[Pez68]

Coaching lost the 2014 series against the Kings. Full f***ing stop.

Nothing else matters.

 

[Panzerspitze]

My "hidden" agenda got exposed... (A suddenly "ordinary" Crawford couldn't overcome that.)

 

[LordKOTL]

Long story short on this: Niemi over his career has been .913, Crawford .919. In the playoffs Crawford is still .919 career, while Niemi is .905. Crawford's number have been trending up overall through his career; Niemi's down.

That's not to say Niemi was bad, he did make timely saves when needed, but the difference overall is this: for the goalies who have seen the most rubber top 30 active goaltenders: Niemi is 25th in SV%, Crawford is 7th. Who would you want backstopping your team?

 

[Ace Card Bedard]

I thank both goaltenders for the 3 cups.

Niemi wasn't great but he made some huge, timely saves in those playoffs. His series against SJ was excellent and just that one save against Carter in the last minute of game 6 (saving OT) was worth his salary.

That being said, no way I take him over Crawford in 2014.