Red Wings Goaltending Pipeline

HFNHL Red Wings

Guest
With the the team announcing today the signings of journeymen goaltender Dany Sabourin (1 year) and young up and coming goaltending prospect Josh Tordjman (3 years) it is time to look at performances to date of the potential future tenders in the system.

Excludes NHL’ers: Lundqvist, Niittymaki, Osgood, and Sabourin

Nicklas Backstrom – Grade A
NHL Rights Owner: Minnesota
Numbers (NHL): 6 GP, 2.03 GAA, .940 sav%
When you’re playing behind a highly regarded goalie like Manny Fernandez ice time is hard to get but Backstrom has made the most of his opportunities to date and has been rewarded with more playing time.
Note: As I write this he is working on a potential shutout (2 periods complete)

Adam Dennis – Grade A
NHL Rights Owner: Buffalo
Numbers (AHL): 6 GP, 2.00 GAA, .944 sav%
In just his first year in the AHL Dennis is currently ranked 3rd in GAA and 1st in save percentage and has earned a couple of brief callups during the injury to Miller.

Curtis McElhinney – Grade B+
NHL Rights Owner: Calgary
Numbers (AHL): 8 GP, 2.12 GAA, .922 sav%
Also in his rookie AHL campaign McElhinney is ranked 5th in GAA and 8th in sav%. He is currently splitting time with highly regarded prospect Brent Krahn who is not having as strong a year.

Josh Tordjman – Grade B
NHL Rights Owner: Phoenix
Numbers (AHL): 3 GP, 2.00 GAA, .915 sav%
Seems to have come out of nowhere. Tordjman went undrafted and was a training camp invite that impressed enough to earn a contract. After starting out the year in the ECHL he was called up to the AHL team and has been so impressive that there have been rumblings that he may be called up to replace Leneveu as backup to Curtis Joseph. It’s still too early to tell whether this is just a statistical blip or whther he is truly a diamond in the rough.

Jordan Parise – Grade B-
NHL Rights Owner: New Jersey
Numbers (AHL): 5 GP, 2.53 GAA, .925 sav%
At this time reports on his progress are incomplete. Statistically he is outplaying the current starter Frank Doyle and so hopefully that will lead to more starts.
If anyone here has seen him play I would love to here any insight you can provide on his play to date.

Jeff Pietrasiak – Grade C-
NHL Rights Owner: Phoenix
Numbers (AHL): N/A – Playing in ECHL
With Phoenix having so many goaltenders in their system (Joseph, LeNeveu, Morrison, Sauve, Tordjman, et. al) Pietrasiak was relegated to the ECHL which, unfortunately, happens to be the worst team in the ECHL.

Tomas Popperle – Grade D
NHL Rights Owner: Columbus
Numbers (AHL): 8 GP, 4.03 GAA, .855 sav%
It looks like GM Niece may have to eat some crow when it comes to his lofty projections on Popperle. The transition to North America has hardly been a smooth one and matters are not helped by the turmoil in Columbus which has trickled down to the farm team that is last in it’s division. Hopefully he will rebound.

Jakub Kovar – Grade TBD
NHL Rights Owner: Philadelphia
At this time there are no reports (or stats) available on how he has been performing in his first year in the Czech elite league. Again I appreciate any info that some of our European based GM’s might have.
 

Brock

Registered User
Feb 27, 2002
12,196
3,628
The GTA
ohlprospects.blogspot.com
I'm very jealous on Dennis, as I also put in an offer for him during the FA period, but ultimately underbid because I wasn't sure someone else would be after him!

Kudos Drew, a lot of under the radar guys (I can relate as you and I seem to have similar philosophies to drafting and signing) who can really become solid goalies.
 

HFNHL Red Wings

Guest
Thanks Brock. It seems I annoyed a few GM's by the amount I offered in some of the prospecting type FA offers this summer. I know Matt was annoyed about not getting Cracknell.
 

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