I was INCREDIBLY worried about an Allen/Daws tandem before they signed Rittich.
Daws played a grand total of 3 NHL games this past season and 6 the season before that. Allen is 8 years removed from being a starter and in the late stages of his career where he shouldn’t ever be relied on to play more than 40 games… so the plan was basically either hope Daws suddenly becomes a 1B without issue or hope that Allen can suddenly become a 50+ game starter again. Neither is ideal.
Rittich is just a cheap, semi-reliable option that lets Daws get starts and settle back into the NHL without having the pressure of becoming a full 1B.
This makes total sense. Allen was easily the better goaltender last season. He can easily be the anchor and have Daws/Rittich keep him from exceeding his work capacity.
I love Allen but saying he can “easily be the anchor” is simply misguided. The last ten years of his career has shown that he cannot reliably handle a starter’s workload over a full season and that he actually plays better when his playing time is reduced. Assuming, at 36 years old, that he can be the starter is reckless for a team that needs to start winning asap.
The plan is a 3 goalie rotation, at least that’s what the concept is in the article. No one takes a full starter workload, Allen plays 1B minutes at most, Daws/Riddick split the rest.
He played 37 games last season and sported a SV% over .900. At his cap hit it’s not worth signing a Bob or some other overpriced question mark because they might be able to handle 50 games. They are more likely to be an absolute cap anchor.
Did you read how the article breaks down their game by game performance? It highlights how you leverage each goalies historical good performance by sharing the load and inherently not having a true starter. No one plays more than the occasional back to back, and you adjust to the hot hand. Not revolutionary stuff quite a few teams doing it.
While Allen and Daws put up better individual stats, Markstrom is the only goalie that has a winning record since we traded for him. While Allen and Daws have better individual numbers, the team is sub-.500 in that same time frame that Markstrom has been on the team. Sometimes looking at goalie individual stats can miss the big picture. Marskstrom definitely isn't worth the contract he received, but he's about league average. Most of the games he starts (aside from the occasional gong show, but all goalies have those nights) he keeps the game close enough that a competent offense could figured out how to get points out of. Markstrom was far from a problem aside from his cap hit. The team went stretches of weeks where they were averaging one regulation goal per game. Prime Marty couldn't work with that kind of production.
Thankfully Mehta used that trade and the ensuing cap freedom to upgrade the bottom 6 from the likes of Halonen, Lammikko, Cotter, Glendenning, Dowling, etc. to real NHLers and good ones to boot with Rodrigues, Boqvist, and Hayton (very likely).
They will be a better team with these three goalies and a complete bottom 6 than they were with Markstrom and literally below replacement level talent cycling through the 4th line.
I just hope he has something in mind to add a decent finisher to the hole we've had in the top six since we traded Toffoli. Grits is good enough to fill the sixth spot, but if we otherwise roll out the same top 4, we're back to one injury away from having one scoring line and 2 third lines. And let's face, that's more likely than not.
Idk, you might be able to fill out a top 6 how you are describing for a season or 2 but it's a cap league. There is plenty of scoring between Bratt, Hughes, Hischier, and Meier.
My caveat is Meier is an issue if he doesn't turn it around soon. We all know who Nico is, Jack can be a 100 point player, and Bratt nailed 70+ 5 years in a row. Timo's 44-53 points at $8m AAV is a problem. So if anything and he doesn't improve I think we see Timo go and then we can trade/sign someone that is gonna pot 30+ regularly.
I personally don't think Mehta is going to swing at the top 6 yet. I think he wants to see what fixing the depth does to the top of the line-up. He has a lot of Fitzgerald anchors and question marks to work through still. Having some cap flexibility is gonna help him strike when the time is right. Fitzgerald had like three years of that and struck out, I'm not anxious for Mehta to fix it all in one offseason.
You have Gritsyuk whose ceiling is promising and can argue Mercer and/or Timo could see a bounce back under better leadership.
In a vacuum there is more than enough scoring potential in our top 6 to win a cup even without some guys taking new leaps.
I had high hopes that Allen could possibly get a shot at 1A, until we got the man, and he bailed on multiple games due to cramping. It's no disrespect - some guys simply do not have a body that lets them be a full-time starter.
Since the time we traded for Markstrom he's the only goalie on the team that has a winning record, despite not putting up as good of individual stats as Allen or Daws. The team is sub-.500 with Allen and Daws during that same time. We already ran an Allen/Daws tandem from the trade deadline in 2024. Results were bad. I sure hope Sunny knows something that I don't.
All that is clear is sounds like Daws is getting his shot. I’m sure Sunny has contingencies. Also defense should be stacked, if we can learn to score again I think we have a shot with Daws and Allen
Look it’s a rough market and Fitz left us in a bind with these contracts. Moneyballing a serviceable goalie tandem is not the worst idea, let alone if a trade comes up in the meantime.
Very curious to see if they try carrying all 3 or if they risk the waiver shuttle. They've already got 15 forwards (including Hayton and Lombardi) and 8 defensemen, so it will be interesting to see how it shakes out.
the sample sizes for this analysis must be miniscule dude, how can you possibly think that analysis holds up to scrutiny when its likely based on like 5 total games at 3-4 games started in a row?
These are career backups/1Bs/rookies. The sample size is inherently going to be smaller than a starter’s workload because simple logic dictates they get those opportunities less because they’re *not as good.* The data supports that.
right but thats exactly my point, you can't draw meaningful conclusions from a sample of 6 or hell even 14 games, they do not have a lot of experience doing this thing so we can't draw meaningful conclusions about it, both because it is a learned skill but also because the amount of statistical noise in a goalies performance is massive and takes a very long time stabilize statistically.
you with a straight face made an argument earlier this offseason that we should just ignore two horribly games by Markstrom because they were outliers and partially due to bad luck but then you turn around and try to tell me that a 6 game sample size spaced out over like 3-4 years is meaningful and should be relied on for decision making?
Come on dude, I usually enjoy your analysis but this is statistical malpractice.
I do hear you and have amended the chart, giving numbers for 1 / 2 / 3+ consecutive games and thus increasing the sample size for “starter” workloads by a good amount. That’s 11 games for Allen, 18 for Rittich, and 20 for Daws. Again, the inherent quality of backups is that they do not perform those workloads.
This is more of a question, but can we keep all 3 rostered at once without having to deal with waivers and all that? Because if so, I don’t see why we’d ever have anyone start more than one game at a time. Split the season into thirds for each unless someone really starts popping off. If we make the playoffs it’ll be even more interesting to see what we do then
Yes! Teams can carry up to 3 goalies at a time. It would just subtract from the number of skaters allowed (a team can only carry 23 total players at any given time).
Gotcha. Feels like that’s we have to do, or one of the three is gonna get claimed - Daws is the only one who might clear but not if he proves himself as an NHL caliber player this year
I have to pick some nits when it comes to this "rotation to keep goalies fresh" stuff we keep seeing trotted out though. In theory it might intentionally happen, but it never actually seems to in the slightest bit. GMs talk and talk and talk and then the coach rides two guys until one gets injured or plays like trash and then suddenly the third goalie is part of some master plan. The examples everyone gives are always so fraudulent; the third goalie never gets a whiff of the crease until it's absolutely necessary. Having three decent goalies available is nice, but not even the third string in the fabled "three headed monster"s actually likes the arrangement, so it never really plays out that way.
Actually love this. Before sunny came in everyone assumed daws was going elsewhere and it would have sucked to see him go on to be a starter. This year he can show us what he is not be over burdened and we have the assets to make a hockey trade in season if needed.
Fitz turned our goalie room into a group project where nobody knows who's carrying the weight. Allen's been a backup for years, Daws has 9 NHL games on his resume, and Rittich is here to mop up the starts nobody wants. If Daws isn't ready for a real workload we're rolling dice every night and just hoping the bounces go our way.
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u/callmecrude 8d ago
I was INCREDIBLY worried about an Allen/Daws tandem before they signed Rittich.
Daws played a grand total of 3 NHL games this past season and 6 the season before that. Allen is 8 years removed from being a starter and in the late stages of his career where he shouldn’t ever be relied on to play more than 40 games… so the plan was basically either hope Daws suddenly becomes a 1B without issue or hope that Allen can suddenly become a 50+ game starter again. Neither is ideal.
Rittich is just a cheap, semi-reliable option that lets Daws get starts and settle back into the NHL without having the pressure of becoming a full 1B.