Brian Elliot has more than proven he's capable of being a good goalie behind a competent defense.
Yeah, I can't deny that, he was a pretty good goalie behind a good defense, but that also ended 4 seasons ago when the guy was 31. He's 35 now, coming off of 4 years that range from average in the first year, to well below average last year. He's been trending downward for a while now. You can certainly fault his defense for some of it, but all of it? Anyway, I'm just thinking that I'd rather ride out the downward trending 34 year old goalie's contract that we have now than buy him out and then purchase the exact same thing, but a year older, for even more money and cap space on top of a Dubnyk buyout.
For comparison's sake, Elliot's save% above expected
this year was -.469%, putting him right around the Stalock ballpark (and nearly identical to Dubnyk in 18-19). Stalock had a nice stretch of games in the second half this year, but are we now calling him a league average goalie? If so, we don't need Elliot because we've got Stalock, and if not, we don't need Elliot because he's not a league average goaltender. There were 44 goalies above him in that stat this year, and 21 below him. That's well below average, and is adjusted for the difficulty of shots against him. His regular save% would improve, but it wouldn't be much better than we're getting with our backup goalie, and that's assuming he doesn't continue his decline, like Dubnyk has.
I, like you guys, think Dubnyk is done, but I don't see Elliot as the solution, even in the short term and even as a band-aid. He's just more of what we already have, so isn't needed. Either a better solution is presented, or you ride out Dubnyk's contract with Stalock or Kahkonen starting. Targeting a younger goalie who isn't getting a chance behind a good starter might be a good idea, but we should probably see what we have in our prospects, first.