Sens win the Stanley Cup in 2003 and 2006 if they had prime Anderson those years(I know Lalime wasn't on the team in 06 but still).
Good call on 2006. Emery got diced up laterally by Buffalo, was terrible all series and especially in OT.
I feel like people are overstating Anderson's consistency here. He clearly alternated between borderline Vezina calibre play and being a middling or even below average starter from one season to the next. Yes, Lalime had better teams, but he was the starter and got it done during the regular season consistently. Anderson was nearly usurped twice as a starter to Hammond and Condon, both career backups who had a flash in the pan season. If you go back to those years, Anderson was under the microscope by quite a few around here for soft goals and inconsistent play, and those backups were praised for bringing confidence back to the guys up front.
From 2011-2017, Anderson posted a line of
293, 151-99-34, 2.59, 0.920, 24so. That's incredible for a bubble team that probably wouldn't have made the playoffs without him.
In his 3 worst seasons during that 6+ season stretch, he was better than Lalime's best 3 seasons of his career... and one of those happened in Pittsburgh.
2011-2017 Team Point Pace based on goalie record
Anderson = 97 points per 82 GP
Backups = 87
1999-2004 Team Point Pace based on goalie record
Lalime = 96
Backups = 105
For 6+ seasons, Anderson provided approximately the level of goaltending I would have expected out a CuJo in his prime.
Also, it's disgusting that Anderson had a better record considering the large disparity in team quality.
The top 4 D-men in Lalime's days were Redden, Chara, Phillips and York/Salo/Rachunek.
During Anderson's tenure, it was Karlsson, Methot and a largely awful rotation of unsuitable middle pairing d-men.
Besides 2012-2013 Anderson was never that good stat wise, that said he was facing the most shots against in the League most other years.
2013 was the only time that Anderson played behind a trapping defense like Lalime played behind his whole time in Ottawa.
I don't think ottawa has ever had a real advantage as far as goaltending goes. It's just never been a strength
I'd generally lean to Anderson because of his franchise records but even with that, he had quite a few seasons where on average he just wasn't good enough
I think it's hard to also not consider during the Lalime era that the offence just never got it done. Think about how much better Lalime's stats would have needed to be to get it done. We had some awesome teams that just weren't able to get it done and far more than Lalime were to blame for that. I'll quote myself on something i said on here months back "tkachuk is the antidote for what ailed our team from 2000 to 2005"
Choosing between Lalime and Anderson is kind of like deciding which of the last two girls without a date to the prom you're going to ask.
There's no way that Lalime could have dueled Price, Lundqvist and Rask in the playoffs.
His last 3 decline years haven't been great, but I'd take his first 6 seasons over and over if we could. The team would have been a monster if Anderson had been backstopping them between 2003-2008.
I understand what you mean, but Keith Tkachuk was a notoriously bad playoff performer who didn't produce and took dumb penalties.
They were the highest scoring team in the NHL. Its really not close here.
Lalime and Jaques Martins were to blame. Some goes to Alfie he was no good in 2003 the year they should have won.
They were the highest scoring team from 2003-2008.
From 1999-2002, it was more like 7-8th on average and it was dependent on Yashin's presence or absence. He contributed 1 point in those 4 postseasons.
Alfredsson's ice time clearly looks like they were managing an injury in 2003. He averaged 16:57 minutes per game for 12 straight games after game 3 vs NYI. That doesn't fit with his career postseason averages unless it was an injury.
2007 | 23:20 | _ |
2010 | 22:54 | _ |
1999 | 22:23 | _ |
2002 | 21:43 | _ |
2001 | 21:20 | _ |
2006 | 21:10 | _ |
1998 | 20:51 | _ |
2000 | 20:22 | _ |
2004 | 20:03 | _ |
2008 | 19:20 | Knee injury |
2013 | 19:10 | 40yo |
2003 | 18:00 | ??? |
2012 | 17:58 | Concussion |
2014 | 15:49 | Back injury |
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Amazing people remember Lalime's struggles but don't remember that the offense stunk. We were always one of the highest scoring teams in the regular season only to dry up in the playoffs. If posters want to claim the team had no confidence in Lalime these struggles began before Lalime was a Sen.
We averaged 1.5 GF against Buffalo in 1999, shut out once in 4 games with Tugnutt and Rhodes. In 2000 we averaged 1.6 GF and were shut out once in 6 games with Barrasshole in nets. Enter Lalime in 2001 and we averaged 0.75 GF (!!!!) and were shut out twice in 4 games. In 2002 against the Leafs we jumped to 2.2 and were shut out twice. Come to 2004 and we're back to averaging 1.5 and were shut out 3 times.
We have 4 different goalies in Rhodes, Tugnutt, Barasso and Lalime....and we averaged less than 2 goals a game with all of them. Common denominators being the coach and the core players.
No one is denying Lalime struggled at times, but the free pass the skaters are getting at the expense of one player is not right.
There's no doubt about that. Here are two tables that illustrate the difference between Alfredsson (who gets his share of criticism) vs the other stars we've had:
PPG RS (times they went PPG for us in the regular season - min 41 GP)
PPG (times they posted a PPG in a playoff series)
PS (total playoff series played)
PPG/PS% (% of the series they played in and posted a PPG or more.
Player | PPG RS | PPG | PS | PPG/PS% |
JS | 4 | 4 | 12 | 0.33 |
DH | 3 | 3 | 7 | 0.43 |
MH | 2 | 2 | 9 | 0.22 |
AY | 2 | 0 | 5 | 0.00 |
AYMHJSDH | 11 | 9 | 33 | 0.27 |
DA | 8 | 11 | 23 | 0.48 |
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And those numbers look better than what actually happened, because 6 those times that a star other than Alfredsson went a PPG in a series was when Spezza & Heatley did almost all of their damage in the same 3 series', as you'll see below.
This is number of times a player went a PPG in a playoff series: Alfredsson alone vs the Rest of Team from 1997-2013 and not just the stars:
_ | DA | RoT | # series' |
Total | 11 | 18 | 23 |
2006.1 | 0 | 5 | 1 |
2010.1 | 1 | 4 | 1 |
2002.1 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
2007.2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
2007.3 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
5 series' | 4 | 15 | 5 |
Other 18 | 7 | 3 | 18 |
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All of the damage was done in a handful of series with strong support and/or a weak opponent.
While obviously not in the same tier as the Belfours and Josephs, Lalime was no worse than Osgoode and we should have been able to do with Lalime what Detroit did with Osgoode. We were that deep. Osgood got run support though. I mean, his save % over the first three games in 98 was 0.835 with a GA of 4.3! He also gave up the first goal half way through the 1st in game 4.
I still take Andy.
Osgood helped blow it for a historic team in 1996.
There were 7 HHoF'ers on the 1998 Wings.
So what would it have taken Ottawa to overcome Osgood and how many chances would he get to blow before he finally won?