The Stanley Cup Playoffs are supposed to low-scoring, defensive slugfests.
Stanley Cup playoffs: Which goalie will bounce back after poor Game 1 start?
The first night of the Stanley Cup playoffs was all about offense, and that was mainly because four of the goalies didn’t really show up. Which team needs to be concerned about it’s netminder for the rest of the first round?
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Thist is not what we saw on Wednesday when the 2014 playoffs kicked off. Each of the three games featured at least seven goals (the regular season average was 5.49 goals per game) and while every team had its share of defensive breakdowns and turnovers, there was some shoddy goaltending taking place around the league as well.
The six goalies in uniform combined for just an .887 save percentage on the night, while only two of them (Anaheim's Frederik Andersen and, perhaps surprisingly giving his recent playoff performances, Marc-Andre Fleury) topped .900.
Not really the type of defense or goaltending you expect to see in the playoffs, even if it’s just for one night.
Which of the teams from Wednesday may have a real cause for concern as their series continues, and which goalie has the best chance of bouncing back?
Carey Price, Montreal Canadiens
Cause for concern? Probably not
Carey Price's recent playoff performances have really come under fire and he didn't really do all that much to silence the critics on Wednesday, even in victory, by giving up four goals on 25 shots. Some of the goals, particularly the first Steven Stamkos goal off the coast-to-coast rush, looked like they may have been stoppable, while others, like Stamkos' second goal, came off of a defensive breakdown that left him a rather helpless situation.
It was a weird, back-and-forth game and even though he wasn’t asked to face a heavy workload (a chance of pace from the regular season) he was still put in one or two situations where he had little chance to make a save. Until he puts together a big-time playoff performance that is going to follow him around, but it’s not like he’s never played well on a big stage before.
Cause for concern? Probably not
Going into Game 1 of the Penguins-Blue Jackets series if you were to guess which goalie would open with a sub-.900 save percentage in the opening game you probably would have picked Marc-Andre Fleury based on what he's done in his past four playoff performances. But Fleury was the better goalie on Wednesday in Pittsburgh's 4-3 win and outplayed Sergei Bobrovsky.
After a slow start, the Penguins gradually picked up the pace throughout the night and by the end of the third period were pretty much in control of the game and putting a lot of pressure on Bobrovsky. And while one of the goals that beat him was on a deflection in front, Matt Niskanen’s second period power play goal, which tied the game after Columbus jumped out to a 3-1 lead, and Brandon Sutter’s game-winning goal midway through the third period, were shots that Columbus probably expected their Vezina Trophy winning goalie to stop.
Still, he’s been one of the biggest reasons for Columbus’ success the past year-and-a-half and has been pretty consistent along the way. It’s more than likely Game 1 was simply a bump in the road.
Kari Lehtonen, Dallas Stars
Cause for concern? Not yet
The Stars have been a popular upset pick in the first round (*raises hand*) but their series in Anaheim could not have possibly gotten off to a worse start, falling into a 4-0 hole halfway through the game. It probably wasn't as bad as the score would indicate, and they put together a furious rally over the final 25 minutes of regulation and very nearly tied it, but it wasn't one of Kari Lehtonen's best games of the season as he stopped 31 of 35 shots. This is the thing you sometimes get with Lehtonen.
Even though he always ends somewhere around the league average, or maybe even a little above it, he can be prone to some really bad starts where he turns into an absolute sieve. This season alone he had 18 starts where he posted a save percentage worse than the .886 he had on Wednesday. Get a couple of those in a best-of-seven playoff series and it’s going to be a short trip through the postseason. Fortunately for the Stars, he almost always bounces back from those games, and 11 times posted a save percentage higher than .920 in his next start, including a pair of shutouts.
Anders Lindback, Tampa Bay Lightning
Cause for concern? Yes
When Ben Bishop went down with his elbow injury it was pretty obvious that it was going to be a problem for the Lightning if he wasn't ready for the playoffs. Backup Anders Lindback simply has not played well in his two seasons with the team, and had one of his worst nights of the season in Game 1 when he allowed give goals on 44 shots. It wasn't simply the number of goals that he allowed, but also the type of goals.
For example, just 19 seconds after Nikita Kucherov gave Tampa Bay its first lead of the game, he allowed this to Tomas Plekanec.
And then later gave up this goal to Lars Eller.
Was the defensive zone coverage perfect on those plays? No. Did his defense give him a lot of help on the night by allowing Montreal, a poor possession team during the regular season, to fire 44 shots at him all night? Not really. But those are probably shots you want to see your goalie stop in a playoff game.
The biggest concern for Tampa Bay coming into this series had to be whether or not Ben Bishop would be ready to go, and based on what we saw in Game 1 his ability to get back in the lineup seems to be even more important.
See More:
