Goaltending conundrum

[ZBBM]

Giguere?  Turco?  Huet?  Really??

We are looking at a team that hasn't made the playoffs in nearly a decade.  Importantly, a team that is not on the cusp of being a contender.  There are 2 forks in the road here: go with Reimer or some dishrag vet and let the rest of the young team hopefully gel into a decent squad that makes the playoffs, or acquire a top-notch goaltender who, by any stretch of the imagination, ought to have at least several more years of quality play in him and let the rest of the young team gel behind NHL-level goaltending for a change.

Getting Luongo is not like mortgaging a promising future to make a quick run at glory.  It's more like enhancing a middling future so that you at least make the playoffs more often than not.

 

[BlueWhiteBlood]

Getting Luongo is not like mortgaging a promising future to make a quick run at glory.  It's more like enhancing a middling future so that you at least make the playoffs more often than not.

I think that is really the basis for any decision on goaltending, but right now and because of his contract, Luongo isn't looking as good to me as he appears to look for you at the moment. I think I'd have to be a bit more desperate to make a trade for him, certainly at the price that Gillis is thought to want.

 

[ZBBM]

Getting Luongo is not like mortgaging a promising future to make a quick run at glory.  It's more like enhancing a middling future so that you at least make the playoffs more often than not.

I think that is really the basis for any decision on goaltending, but right now and because of his contract, Luongo isn't looking as good to me as he appears to look for you at the moment. I think I'd have to be a bit more desperate to make a trade for him, certainly at the price that Gillis is thought to want.

Gillis' price is a nonstarter.  My love for Luongo, which is not passionate but more like a Platonic fanguy attachment, is entirely conditioned on getting him for nothing or less than (i.e., contract going the other way).

 

[Zee]

Getting Luongo is not like mortgaging a promising future to make a quick run at glory.  It's more like enhancing a middling future so that you at least make the playoffs more often than not.

I think that is really the basis for any decision on goaltending, but right now and because of his contract, Luongo isn't looking as good to me as he appears to look for you at the moment. I think I'd have to be a bit more desperate to make a trade for him, certainly at the price that Gillis is thought to want.

Gillis' price is a nonstarter.  My love for Luongo, which is not passionate but more like a Platonic fanguy attachment, is entirely conditioned on getting him for nothing or less than (i.e., contract going the other way).

Burke agrees with you otherwise Luongo would most likely be a Leaf right now if Gillis's price was reasonable.

 

[Knobby]

As long as we are not sending a 1st round pick I am for getting Luongo. Who are we afraid to aprt with?

 

[OldTimeHockey]

So your take is to let Reimer continue as the starter? He wasn't so good last year, I understand he hd a concussion, but he never really looked as good as he did down the stretch the year before. Love to eat crow on this, I just am not certain he is the starter we hope he is.

Well, my hope was to get Vokoun to help the young lad out. That isn't happening.

Personally, I have an issue with Allaire's coaching and I feel I saw a difference in Reimer's play from his first year to this past season...but that could be as a result of the injury..Who knows.

My personal opinion of last season is this(and not many will agree)....Scrivens has more of a future as a starter in this league than Reimer.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

As long as we are not sending a 1st round pick I am for getting Luongo. Who are we afraid to aprt with?

The question is, and I asked it earlier; Where does Luongo get us?

Does he make us a contender? No
Does he make us competitive? Perhaps
Does he get us in the playoffs? Should, but who knows

I personally don't think that giving up a Kadri or other young prospects makes sense. This team is 3 or 4 years away from contending(if everything goes right)...why mortgage the future for a goalie that could very well be washed up in 3 or 4 years?

 

[GhostofPotvin29]

So your take is to let Reimer continue as the starter? He wasn't so good last year, I understand he hd a concussion, but he never really looked as good as he did down the stretch the year before. Love to eat crow on this, I just am not certain he is the starter we hope he is.

Well, my hope was to get Vokoun to help the young lad out. That isn't happening.

Personally, I have an issue with Allaire's coaching and I feel I saw a difference in Reimer's play from his first year to this past season...but that could be as a result of the injury..Who knows.

My personal opinion of last season is this(and not many will agree)....Scrivens has more of a future as a starter in this league than Reimer.

Some questions:

What would Allaire have done, and why, to Reimer in the span of an off-season to alter his style after a very successful first NHL stint? 

Why, after working with Reimer since he was hired in 2009, through the ECHL and AHL, would he do something to alter what has got him this far? 

Lastly, what exactly, were the changes in Reimer that you saw, and that you can attribute to Allaire's coaching style, and is there anything you can point to to strengthen the point that Allaire actually did anything different with Reimer?

 

[AtomicMapleLeaf]

As long as we are not sending a 1st round pick I am for getting Luongo. Who are we afraid to aprt with?

The question is, and I asked it earlier; Where does Luongo get us?

Does he make us a contender? No
Does he make us competitive? Perhaps
Does he get us in the playoffs? Should, but who knows

I personally don't think that giving up a Kadri or other young prospects makes sense. This team is 3 or 4 years away from contending(if everything goes right)...why mortgage the future for a goalie that could very well be washed up in 3 or 4 years?

3 or 4 years of playoff experience for our young roster.  Luongo is a no brainer to me, what we give up I don't know, but our kids are now 24-26 versus 20-24 they need experience on how to win.

 

[Jalili]

As long as we are not sending a 1st round pick I am for getting Luongo. Who are we afraid to aprt with?

The question is, and I asked it earlier; Where does Luongo get us?

Does he make us a contender? No
Does he make us competitive? Perhaps
Does he get us in the playoffs? Should, but who knows

I personally don't think that giving up a Kadri or other young prospects makes sense. This team is 3 or 4 years away from contending(if everything goes right)...why mortgage the future for a goalie that could very well be washed up in 3 or 4 years?

If he allows this team to be competitive for 3 or 4 years it will be well worth it. Like atomicmapleleaf says, a no brainer.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

Some questions:

What would Allaire have done, and why, to Reimer in the span of an off-season to alter his style after a very successful first NHL stint? 

Why, after working with Reimer since he was hired in 2009, through the ECHL and AHL, would he do something to alter what has got him this far? 

Lastly, what exactly, were the changes in Reimer that you saw, and that you can attribute to Allaire's coaching style, and is there anything you can point to to strengthen the point that Allaire actually did anything different with Reimer?

Though Allaire is known as a fantastic goalie coach, I find his latter years of coaching leaned towards a 'be big and let the puck hit you' style.

This was fine in the times of Giguere's success, but I think that has passed him by. The goaltending world has trended towards a hybrid style of reflexes and being big. See Lundqvist, Miller, etc. as examples.

I personally can't point say that Allaire did something different, but what I did see was Reimer doing something different. He was attempting to block the puck as opposed to saving the puck. Like I said, it could very well of been the injury that caused him to change his style. Time will only tell.

 

[OldTimeHockey]

3 or 4 years of playoff experience for our young roster.  Luongo is a no brainer to me, what we give up I don't know, but our kids are now 24-26 versus 20-24 they need experience on how to win.

I still don't see how adding a 34 year old goalie with 74 years left on his contract is a 'no brainer'.

Could it work...sure...But I'm sorry, when you're giving up your top 2 or 3 twenty year olds, you're stuck with a group of 24-26 year olds that are 2nd liners at best and once again, no goalie with any starting experience.

 

[riff raff]

3 or 4 years of playoff experience for our young roster.  Luongo is a no brainer to me, what we give up I don't know, but our kids are now 24-26 versus 20-24 they need experience on how to win.

I still don't see how adding a 34 year old goalie with 74 years left on his contract is a 'no brainer'.

Could it work...sure...But I'm sorry, when you're giving up your top 2 or 3 twenty year olds, you're stuck with a group of 24-26 year olds that are 2nd liners at best and once again, no goalie with any starting experience.

I might be speaking out of turn, but I believe people think Luongo is a 'no brainer' if getting him does not involve gutting the team by sending any number of top young players or first round picks.

Right now, given what Gillis is supposedly asking for, Luongo is not a 'no brainer'. He becomes one when the price comes down significantly.

What's the right price? There's the rub......

 

[bustaheims]

I might be speaking out of turn, but I believe people think Luongo is a 'no brainer' if getting him does not involve gutting the team by sending any number of top young players or first round picks.

Right now, given what Gillis is supposedly asking for, Luongo is not a 'no brainer'. He becomes one when the price comes down significantly.

What's the right price? There's the rub......

It's still not really a no brainer until the team can be sure that the new CBA won't take away the current, simple options to excise his cap hit when his play inevitably declines approaching the end of his contract.

Right now, no matter what, acquiring Luongo is a calculated risk, not a no brainer.

 

[Kin]

I also think trading for Luongo is questionable just flat out in terms of whether or not he's playing well enough right now to provide what the team is looking for. People seem to assume that the Leafs + Luongo would just naturally equal a playoff team but I don't know if I'm 100% on that. He'd probably be better than Reimer but this was the 5th worst team in the league last year. I don't know if Luongo is a guy to singlehandedly make that difference.

 

[bustaheims]

I also think trading for Luongo is questionable just flat out in terms of whether or not he's playing well enough right now to provide what the team is looking for. People seem to assume that the Leafs + Luongo would just naturally equal a playoff team but I don't know if I'm 100% on that. He'd probably be better than Reimer but this was the 5th worst team in the league last year. I don't know if Luongo is a guy to singlehandedly make that difference.

Yeah. In 07-08, he put up the kind of numbers we can probably reasonably expect him to put up here next season, and it didn't get the Nyucks into the playoffs. They might get closer with Luongo (and, even that's only a maybe), but, it's hardly a foregone conclusion.

 

[ZBBM]

I also think trading for Luongo is questionable just flat out in terms of whether or not he's playing well enough right now to provide what the team is looking for. People seem to assume that the Leafs + Luongo would just naturally equal a playoff team but I don't know if I'm 100% on that. He'd probably be better than Reimer but this was the 5th worst team in the league last year. I don't know if Luongo is a guy to singlehandedly make that difference.

Yeah. In 07-08, he put up the kind of numbers we can probably reasonably expect him to put up here next season, and it didn't get the Nyucks into the playoffs. They might get closer with Luongo (and, even that's only a maybe), but, it's hardly a foregone conclusion.

Nothing is, but (setting aside all other considerations for the moment) who gives us a better chance: Luongo vs. Reimer, or Luongo vs. Scrivens, or Luongo vs. anybody else out there who's available?

And seriously -- what's wrong with Luongo's play lately?  Not much that I can see.  He's a helluva long way from dropping off the table.

 

[Kin]

Nothing is, but (setting aside all other considerations for the moment) who gives us a better chance: Luongo vs. Reimer, or Luongo vs. Scrivens, or Luongo vs. anybody else out there who's available?

That's fair but you can't just put a pin in all other considerations. If Luongo is the best of the available options you still have to decide whether or not the team is so desperate that they need to make a long term commitment to the best of a bad group of options.

And seriously -- what's wrong with Luongo's play lately?  Not much that I can see.  He's a helluva long way from dropping off the table.

Well, there's some inconsistency there but I think last year at times he looked pretty shaky. His numbers were good, not great, and you wonder how that translates onto a significantly worse team.

 

[Jalili]

If we're looking strictly at the implications Luongo may have on next season, I definitely see getting him (at a good price) as the right move. The effectiveness of Carlyle's defense system is very reliant on good goaltending, and without it, the defense is going to crumble just as it has every year basically since the post-lockout era began.

I realize that it's in the realm of possibility that Reimer and Scrivens prove to be a solid duo in net, but can't help but feel that if they were the tandem of a division rival or any other team in the league, we'd be looking at that duo as outsiders as being very questionable.

 

[bustaheims]

Nothing is, but (setting aside all other considerations for the moment) who gives us a better chance: Luongo vs. Reimer, or Luongo vs. Scrivens, or Luongo vs. anybody else out there who's available?

In a vacuum, short-term (like 2 or 3 seasons)? Probably Luongo. Long-term? Likely none of the above. But, realistically, Reimer/Scrivens + cost to acquire Luongo + players acquired/retained with cap space not used on Luongo quite possibly make the team better than acquiring Luongo.

And seriously -- what's wrong with Luongo's play lately?  Not much that I can see.  He's a helluva long way from dropping off the table.

He's likely not that far. Historically, the performance of goalies begin to drop off once they get to 35 or so, and, generally, by the time they're 37/38, they're not really capable of being starters. There are some exceptions obviously, but how much are you willing to bank on Luongo being one of them? The odds strongly favour him only having 3-5 really good seasons left in him, and, with 10 years left on his contract . . .