Stephen
Moderator
- Feb 28, 2002
- 79,229
- 54,521
In the mid to late 90s, it seemed like Quebec butterfly goaltending was everything. Patrick Roy (and the hybrid Martin Brodeur) were in the middle of their Hall of Fame careers, lesser goalies like Felix Potvin, Jocelyn Thibault, Stephane Fiset were putting together quality seasons as workhorse goalies, prospects like Dan Cloutier, Eric Fichaud, Jose Theodore, Roberto Luongo, Maxime Ouellet, JS Giguere, Martin Biron, Marc Denis, Marcel Cousineau, JF Damphousse and Pascal Leclaire were all hyped as good to great goaltending prospects.
Yet a decade and a half later, only a small handful of this group has experienced any kind of success comensurate to their hype or early potential. Maybe goalies who demonstrated star potential early in their careers like Potvin, Thibault, Cloutier and Theodore all ended up fizzling to mediocrity. And what's worse, the QMJHL is no longer even a relevant factor in producing goaltending talent these days. My question is, what the heck happened?
Yet a decade and a half later, only a small handful of this group has experienced any kind of success comensurate to their hype or early potential. Maybe goalies who demonstrated star potential early in their careers like Potvin, Thibault, Cloutier and Theodore all ended up fizzling to mediocrity. And what's worse, the QMJHL is no longer even a relevant factor in producing goaltending talent these days. My question is, what the heck happened?