I voted Ellis again. He is one year removed from dominating the QMJHL with 23-1 record, sub 2 GAA in juniors. He did struggle last year but he was on a pretty bad team and he was only 20, an age when a lot of goalies are still in juniors.
Plus the organization is showing faith in him. We did not sign a AHL goalie replacement to replace Lindgren. Griess replaces Husso. The organization has enough faith in our 3 young goalies not to sign a veteran minor league goalie. We easily could have kept Zherenko in Liiga, kept Ellis in ECHL and signed a vet if they didn't trust Ellis.
Ellis will be our AHL backup at 21, an injury away from AHL starter. That is the same position we gave Hofer last year when he was the same age. They have very similar career trajectories. Hofer didn't exactly light the world on fire as a 20 year old either. Granted he was a league up but he was also getting cherry-picked starts. Despite the similarity in their trajectories, Hofer is considered a top 5 pick and I'm the only one voting for Ellis @9? Doesn't make sense to me.
Edit: Comparing Hofer and Ellis is only in their results, and career trajectory. Stylistically they are different types of goalies. Hofer is big with good positioning. Ellis is smaller (not small, just smaller) and very, very athletic. I tend to prefer Hofer's style more than Ellis. But Ellis is very good at how he plays. I think the flaws in his game can very much be worked on. You can improve positioning and moving too much in net. Its much harder to achieve Ellis' Gumby level of flexbility and speed of movement across the crease.