The Penguins and Lightning trading their elite goalies makes sense, but it won’t happen soon

Ever since the NHL started working toward the new Las Vegas franchise, one thing was certain: A lot of teams were going to lose one or two really good players.

Specifically, goalies. See, your favorite team can only protect one goalie on its roster. For a lot of them, that’s an easy decision to make. The Canadiens will hide Carey Price in a vault somewhere. The Capitals will lock Braden Holtby at the top of the Washington Monument like he’s Rapunzel.

But this causes a problem for the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning. They have two pretty good veterans (Marc-Andre Fleury and Ben Bishop, respectively) and two excellent cheap, young goalies (Matt Murray and Andrei Vasilevskiy, respectively). The obvious move is trading the vets before the deadline this year so they don’t just lose them to Las Vegas for nothing in return. This has been common knowledge for months now.

But nothing happened. Both teams entered the year letting the goalies battle it out. We’re a month into the season, and it’s starting to look like those moves need to be made sooner rather than later.

Thanks.

In the case of the Penguins, Murray was injured to start the season. That nullified whatever battle for the net was underway, leaving the door open for Fleury to reclaim his throne for a few weeks.

Fleury did not run away with the job. By the time Murray returned in early November, Fleury’s goals against average had ballooned to 3.06. At even strength, his save percentage is a paltry .919; on the penalty kill, it’s a dismal .857. And the Penguins aren’t on the kill that often, making his poor performance that much more harmful.

Murray is back and already shutting down any talk of a goalie controversy. Here’s a telling excerpt from that Pensburgh story:

Add in his 2016 Stanley Cup playoff run and Murray’s career NHL stats (reg season + playoffs) has a line of this:

38 starts, 28-8-1, .930 save %, 1.96 GAA, 27 quality starts (71.0%), 1 really bad start (2.6%)

For reference, here’s Fleury since the beginning of 2015-16:

71 games, 70 starts, 41-21-8, .918 save %, 2.42 GAA, 38 quality starts (54.2%), 7 really bad starts (10.0%)

Now on to Tampa Bay.

The reasons there aren’t as clear cut. Coach Jon Cooper has rotated the goalies pretty often, with Vasilevskiy starting every third game. Through 11 games, Bishop owns a 2.94 GAA and a .902 SV%. In six games, Vasilevskiy has a 1.66 GAA and a .945 SV%.

Like Fleury, Bishop’s start isn’t enough to drag Tampa down the standings. They’re still third in their division. But it does drag them down into the bottom tier of the league in even-strength goaltending.

Simple. Pittsburgh needed both goalies and needed to know if Murray would keep up his pace. He has.

And Bishop is a Vezina contender every year. They had reason to be patient.

But now both teams are being forced to reconsider that urgency with Murray and Vasilevskiy playing well ahead of their elders.

Well, no. The other factor is the market has changed.

Let’s back up to last spring, when we first realized the Penguins and Lightning would need to trade Bishop and Fluery at some point. Who were the teams most desperate for goaltending?

Dallas. Calgary. Arizona. Carolina. Winnipeg. Toronto.

Surely each of them reached out to Tampa and Pittsburgh at some point. But none of them pulled the trigger. Likely the price was too high (as it should be), and they decided to take their chances in free agency or see how the next season played out.

Calgary signed Brian Elliott. Off the table.

Toronto traded for Frederik Andersen. Off the table.

Winnipeg jettisoned Ondrej Pavelec and handed the reins to Michael Hutchinson and Connor Hellebuyck. Off the table.

And Arizona, Dallas, and Carolina were content to ride their veterans for awhile longer. The market shrank, and any Bishop and/or Fleury trade got a lot harder to negotiate.

Kind of? The Coyotes lost Mike Smith in the first week, but they’re rebuilding. Why would they trade prospects for an expensive starter so quickly? Their need isn’t as dire. Carolina is kind of in the same boat, though they are closer to contending and the Eddie Lack/Cam Ward combo has been abysmal. But Ward did just shut out the Sharks on Tuesday.

In theory, Bishop or Fleury would be an upgrade for the Stars. But don’t let their record fool you: Kari Lehtonen and Antti Niemi have played well lately. Dallas is giving up the fourth-most shot attempts in the league and not scoring at nearly the clip they did last year. The two Finns have kept them in more games than they deserve to be in. Jim Nill is a patient man; there’s no reason to think Dallas’ general manager will panic, run to the Penguins or Bolts, and overpay.

Yep.

Not right now, no.

Pretty much, yeah.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I honestly have no idea! This is like the Dak Prescott and Tony Romo problem for hockey teams. Both the Penguins and Lightning are Stanley Cup contenders again. Heck, they both advanced so far through the playoffs because they had two elite goalies to lean on.

The question both teams will need to ask themselves is this: Is holding on to both veteran goalies for a chance at a championship worth losing them for nothing at the end of the year? I think, deep down, the answer is yes for both Steve Yzerman and Jim Rutherford.

It’s only November. Plenty could happen between now and the Feb. 28 trade deadline. Murray or Vasilevskiy could get hurt or regress. Carolina might get desperate. Nill’s patience may run out. But right now, as we scan the landscape, the idea of Bishop and Fleury sticking around to bolster a Cup run before moving to Las Vegas seems like a real possibility.