Big-money goalies don't guarantee success
January 15, 2003 Print it
Bryan Ethier
For the Sporting News
How much would you pay for a groin-wrenching skate save in a close game of the Stanley Cup finals?
Ask the Red Wings, who last year paid Dominik Hasek $8 million to help them toast a Stanley Cup with the most expensive bottle of Moet & Chandon in Hasek's vaunted career.
After kick-saving the Wings to the title, Hasek hung up his leg leathers. But Wings GM Ken Holland remained busy. In the offseason, he wooed Maple Leafs free agent Curtis Joseph into the octopus' den with a similar big-dollar offer. Then Maple Leafs GM-coach Pat Quinn replaced one high-profile and high-salaried goalie with another, signing Ed Belfour, who helped Dallas win the 1999 Stanley Cup.
The big-dollar deals lead one to ask: Goalies are for sale, but are they worth the price?
"It was last year for Detroit, but that's not going to happen every year, right?" says former NHL goalie Glenn "Chico" Resch, an analyst on Devils broadcasts. "You're not going to spend that kind of money and guarantee yourself a Stanley Cup."
Bruins GM Mike O'Connell says: "It probably is worth the price, if you can get them."
That's a big if.
"When you lose an $8 million goalie and one of the best goalies, you want to make sure you have someone who's in that class. But that's a unique situation," Resch says.
Red Wings assistant GM Jim Nill says: "We've been there at the right time. To get Hasek and then have the opportunity to get Cujo doesn't happen every year."
Similarly, near the end of 2000-01, the Lightning extricated hockey czar Nikolai Khabibulin from a self-imposed IHL exile. Through the weekend, Khabibulin had every one of Tampa Bay's wins, and it was no coincidence the club was in good shape for its first playoff spot since 1995-96. In 2000-01, the Kings obtained butterfly goalie Felix "The Cat" Potvin from the Canucks, and he has been among the league leaders in stats ever since.
Thus far, all four goalies' performances have been commensurate with their paychecks.
When Quinn and Leafs president Ken Dryden began to pursue Belfour, they had little doubt his subpar 2001-02 was an aberration. Belfour's play this season has assured the Leafs' brass that it has a goalie who is capable of taking them to June.
"We needed someone who performed not only in the regular season but in the playoffs," says Dryden, who helped the Canadiens win six Stanley Cups. "To compete for the Stanley Cup, you need a goalie who can mentally handle the pressure and make your team better. Ed Belfour has done that and more."
As with any high-priced goalie, a team wants to make sure it gets its money's worth. Potvin, who has the best playoff overtime winning percentage of all active goalies, played in 71 games last season, surpassing the Kings' record set by Rogie Vachon in 1977-78.
"With Felix, we looked at his track record with Toronto and playing in the conference finals," Kings GM Dave Taylor says, referring to Potvin's play in 1993 and 1994. "Since coming over, he doesn't allow bad goals. Felix has a calm demeanor and is a very positive, even-keel, quality person."
Despite the allure of a Stanley Cup-quality netminder, most teams opt to develop their own goalies, for a few reasons.
First, championship goalies are as scarce as square wooden pucks. Of the elite, Cup winners Patrick Roy, Martin Brodeur and Mike Richter don't look to be going anywhere. Also, in the last 30 years, only Roy and Mike Vernon have won Stanley Cups with two teams.
Furthermore, the rich-get-richer philosophy that applies to baseball is germane to hockey. Clubs with money and a chance for sterling silver have more to attract top-shelf goalies than do young or rebuilding teams.
That's why teams with smaller budgets take a different approach. Wild GM Doug Risebrough says his team's chances of having a realistic shot at signing Belfour or Joseph were "off the chart," presumably because the Wild has a smaller payroll than the Leafs and Wings. Most teams get by with good to streaky-great goalies. The Wild, for example, are going with Manny Fernandez and Dwayne Roloson, two goalies who were cast aside by other teams but are playing well this season.
"As a new team," Risebrough says, "we are giving people the opportunity and have them do it collectively, share the load and raise competition, to get the best of each player."
Last season the Hurricanes proved a team can win without name-brand netminders when they rode the kick saves of Kevin Weekes and Arturs Irbe to the finals.
However, some richer teams are disproving the axiom that goalies need reputations as large as their checking accounts to be successful -- at least in this regular season.
The Flyers, a team with the talent to go deep into the playoffs, could use a goaltending upgrade. But they have been unwilling to part with steady but sometimes flappable Roman Cechmanek.
After letting Byron Dafoe go as a free agent, O'Connell's Bruins were faring better than expected with former AHL Calder Cup champion John Grahame and career backup Steve Shields.
The Stars, following suit, rewarded prospect Marty Turco with the starting job when Belfour left for Toronto. Turco, who makes nearly $2 million less than backup Ron Tugnutt, has one of the best goals-against averages in the league and could be a star.
"One of the biggest fallacies is that a goalie carries a team and wins a Stanley Cup," Resch says. "If you don't have a team that can carry you through those four rounds, a goalie's not going to carry you through those four rounds."
The best goalies in this regular season don't necessarily have the highest profiles. Among the goalies with the most wins this season, only Brodeur and Belfour have won Cups, and the Capitals' Olaf Kolzig has been to the finals. Joseph and Khabibulin are capable of carrying teams on their shoulders, but neither has won a Cup. Other top goalies, including the Blackhawks' Jocelyn Thibault, the Canucks' Dan Cloutier, Turco, the Senators' Patrick Lalime and the Ducks' Jean-Sebastien Giguere, still are looking to build their reputations and make it to the big show.
Those goalies thrive, in large part, because they fit into their teams' systems and philosophies. Potvin, for one, knows how hard it can be for a goaltending savior to feel like a square magnet in a round goal post. After Joseph supplanted him in Toronto, Potvin moved to the Islanders and then to the Canucks, where he was a poor fit and played poorly. A free agent at the end of this season, Potvin likes the idea of being the Kings' money goalie.
"I bounced around a little bit before I got to LA," Potvin says. "With a family now, if I look at it at the end of the year, I'd definitely like to stay in LA. When a team brings you in like this, there's a reason for it. I think the next step is to try and get the Stanley Cup."
If the Stanley Cup is hockey's Holy Grail, the goalie is Sir Galahad. So, aside from the sure bets, which goalie has a chance to ride through his hometown on a white horse, carrying Lord Stanley's Cup?
Thibault, the Canadiens' Jose Theodore and Lalime rate high, Resch says. Then there's Turco, the Stars' newest Vezina Trophy candidate.
"Marty Turco is a really good goalie," Resch says. "He is solid. He plugs that five-hole; he moves laterally really well. That thing about being there (in the finals) -- a little bit overrated."
Until you've sipped champagne from the sterling silver, of course.
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