Two years ago, in response to an e-mail from someone at Faceoff-Factor about M-A Fleury’s poor start, I stated that:
There are very few 19-22 year old goal tenders (or players for that matter) in the league. For the most part players usually hit a peak at the age of 24 (players still get better each year until 30, but at a much slower rate). Most young goalies cannot compete with back-ups currently in the league so they’re relegated to the AHL until they are older. Here are a few of the young goalies I found. Pay attention to the development as opposed to comparing statistics (In Roy’s days 0.900 was great goaltending).
Things have changed a little since then with:Mason, Backstrom, Rask, Pavelec and Varlamov also taking the #1 (or close) spots on the roster. Some are doing well while others are getting by.
I write this because Price continues to receive substantial amount of criticism from the Montreal media. This isn’t new in Montreal, they’ve been complaining about Price from day one. Prior to the 2009 playoffs these comments were quite common: “Will somebody please tell Bob Gainey to put Halak in nets before we are swept by Boston”. I’m not sure if Montreal fans expects every goalie they draft to be the next Roy, but you cannot expect the same performance from a 22 year Price as 25 year old Price (or 24 year old Halak). Further to that here’s
the data for Price and Halak.
As a result of management’s insistence, Price has 126 games experience vs. Halak’s 80.
One important part of developing a NHL player is experience. Halak and Price are at near equal performance levels (despite the age gap) and it would be wise to invest in the player you have for another 4 years rather than the one you’ll lose in two (or sooner). Giving games to Price is a wise choice because he is and will be your number one for a while. Halak does not want to be a number two and will move on as soon as he can. Why Montreal is holding onto two young goalies doesn’t make sense to me. They really should choose one trade the other and get an experienced goalie to help Carey out.
That said, there’s no question in my mind that Price will have a better career (assuming no injury issues) compared to Halak and it doesn’t matter if you choose to measure performance based on games played, save percentage or wins or whatever else. Sure, there are growing pains, but overall Carey Price is a great goalie. However, Halak’s done a little better so far.
