Lehner has never been a quality starter prior to his season with the Islanders. Greiss has always been a mediocre backup. All that changed last year with Trotz and Korn. I think adding Varlamov, who has previously been a quality starter, is actually an improvement. Varlamov will now get the benefits of the better coaching that raised an average starter to Vezina consideration.This is by far my biggest pet peeve with Jackets skepticism. Five teams out of the eight in the Metro Division have major questions in net this year. Here are those teams, what their situation is, and how folks by and large seem to be reacting to same:
I detect a slight inconsistency somewhere in there. Very slight.
- NYI - lost their quality starter, going with a reclamation project - they're a defensive-oriented team under Trotz, so, meh
- Carolina - lost one of their top duo, still lack a quality starter - oh, they'll be fine, maybe it'll go wrong, but, whatever
- New Jersey - haven't had a quality starter, likely going with a young 'maybe' - doesn't matter, they're on their way up, they'll be fine
- Philadelphia - haven't had a quality starter, going with a young 'maybe' - doesn't matter, they're on their way up, they'll be fine
- Columbus - lost their quality starter, going with a young 'maybe' - utterly doomed, no hope, worst goaltending in the league, team irrelevant again, five to ten years in the basement, doom doom death and destruction and fail forever
Heck, one could even make a case for the Rangers being uncertain, since King Henrik seems to be doing the slow fade thing and so they're looking more and more at Georgiev and Shesterkin. But I'm not prepared to go there yet. I still pay all due respect to His Majesty.
I can understand people being skeptical about the Jackets (most of us fans are, even!), but to hear many of these folks tell it you'd think we were just sent back to the Doug MacLean era.
My specific complaint there isn't about the Jackets being picked to miss - in this case, it's how folks harp on our goaltending as being among the worst in the league, whereas those other teams in similar situations in our own division all get the benefit of the doubt. There's no question we've downgraded (well, unless Korpi has some hidden badassery he just hasn't shown yet, or Elvis turns out to have mystical superpowers); I get annoyed because folks have assumed that anything short of Bob is Eternal Damnation In Net for the Jackets.
That's certainly possible, and it would not surprise me if any or all of those teams turn out to be just fine in net, or even better. I'm not saying "all those teams secretly suck", I'm saying most of our division is getting the benefit of the doubt and we're not, and there's no reason that's been presented for it beyond "well, Bob was really really good, and Korpi didn't look as good last year, therefore DOOM".
This is by far my biggest pet peeve with Jackets skepticism. Five teams out of the eight in the Metro Division have major questions in net this year. Here are those teams, what their situation is, and how folks by and large seem to be reacting to same:
I detect a slight inconsistency somewhere in there. Very slight.
- NYI - lost their quality starter, going with a reclamation project - they're a defensive-oriented team under Trotz, so, meh
- Carolina - lost one of their top duo, still lack a quality starter - oh, they'll be fine, maybe it'll go wrong, but, whatever
- New Jersey - haven't had a quality starter, likely going with a young 'maybe' - doesn't matter, they're on their way up, they'll be fine
- Philadelphia - haven't had a quality starter, going with a young 'maybe' - doesn't matter, they're on their way up, they'll be fine
- Columbus - lost their quality starter, going with a young 'maybe' - utterly doomed, no hope, worst goaltending in the league, team irrelevant again, five to ten years in the basement, doom doom death and destruction and fail forever
Heck, one could even make a case for the Rangers being uncertain, since King Henrik seems to be doing the slow fade thing and so they're looking more and more at Georgiev and Shesterkin. But I'm not prepared to go there yet. I still pay all due respect to His Majesty.
I can understand people being skeptical about the Jackets (most of us fans are, even!
I am with you. I give credit for Lehner for his season last year, even more so as a person. He was a great story last year. But as I remind people here, he and Greiss virtually had the same stats as a starter. Both guys were not seen as no.1 caliber goalies up until they met Korn and Trotz last year. Varlymov is a #1. Goalie. I can't wait to see him play under Trotz and Korn. I expect the Isles goaltending to actually be better this year. Something Lou teams have always had.
Fair point. I do believe Minnesota gets a bit too easily dismissed simply because of the Fenton madness, which may well have people thinking "what other hidden damage has he done?" - assuming they're giving it that much thought at all. (And speaking personally, I'm still bitter enough about $uter and Rielly that I wouldn't mind seeing them crash and burn
but ideally that shouldn't make it to any assessment of the team's chances.)I'm not. I was strictly talking about goaltending in that particular post - not anything else. While an argument could be made that Columbus would be ahead of some of them despite having a clearly worse offseason, there's too many vague points and question marks all around to do so coherently, so I'm not going there.
