The Goalies

The old saying in baseball is that you can never have enough pitching. Its the same for goaltending in the NHL. There no such thing as too many.

Unless you have a workhorse like Martin Broduer, your "backup" goalie is likely going to play in a significant number of games.

So it seems a good thing that Bruins appear to have a fairly deep reserve of goalies in
Tim Thomas, Hannu Toivonen, and Tuukka Rask as well as Joey McDonald, and Jordan Sigalet.

Unfortunately those four are questionalble in terms of quality, experience and durability.

As far as quality goes the, Tim Thomas has been average, or just slightly above it in his two years in the NHL. A 2.77 GAA and a .917 S% in 38 games in 05-06 and a 3.13GAA and .905S% in 66 games last year. These aren't bad numbers, but are not good enough for him to be the number one goalie on any contending team. And he certainly won't be leading this team to sucess anytime soon. Despite only two years in the NHL, Timmy is not an up and comer, he's 34, he is not going to get better and is only poised to decline with age.

However, I believe, given his hot streaks, he could be decent trade bait and would definately be worth keeping around as a nice backup.

Also, despite his aforemention limited NHL experience, he actually is the most seasoned goalie here.

Toivenen has the next most experience, with just 38 games under his belt in two years, partly due to injuries. Hannu was superb in the AHL, playing in 90 games in two years, compiling save percentages of .921 and .932 and goals against averages of 2.30 and 2.05. He continued his great play in 20 NHL games in 05-06, getting a .914 S% and 2.63 GAA. He struggled the following year before going down with a knee injury and eventually being left to sort out his difficulties in Providence.

Given his youth (23 yrs old), history (AHL stats above) and pedigree (1st round pick) I have no doubts in his ability to recover and become the franchise goalie that everyone had envisioned.

Tukka Rask is by far the least experienced. He has never played an NHL game. Or an AHL game. In fact, I'm not sure he's ever even set foot in North America. In fact, the only professional experience he has comes from 34 games in the Finnish Elite League, where he did excell, with a GAA of 2.09 and S% of .926. Given his inexperience, no one should expect him to be anywhere but Providence this season. But he is consider by many to be the best goaltending prospect in the game, so the future looks bright.

McDonald and Sigalet don't have as much as experience as Hannu or Timmy, but they have more than Rask. McDonald has been around the AHL enough to be considered at least a minor league vet and Sigalet has been in Providence for about a season in addition to his college experience. Neither one of these guys are as good as Thomas or Toivonen, and may not be better than Rask right now. Niether one seems to have much in the way upside, but both could maybe sneek in as a backup goalie somewhere. But they would be a true a backup and can only be trusted for a handful games.

So, it appears that the Bruins would go into camp with Thomas and Hannu battling it out. Unless of course the Bruins sign a free agent goaltender...which is a topic for another time