Agreed. I think it is interesting he decided to stay in the Metro. I'm sure family played a role, but still interesting. When Brodeur left the Devs he went to the Blues in the West, not Hank.
I wish he retired too and the thought of him in a Caps jersey makes me ill, but what are you implying with this? He wants to win, he wants a chance to play, and he wants to stay relatively local. Add the fact that he gets to play with one of his best friends in the league in Backstrom. Highly doubt Brodeur went to the Blues out of any sort of loyalty to the Devils, nor did the Devils buy his contract out.
Implying absolutely nothing. He is certainly entitled to sign wherever he wants. He doesn't owe anyone anything. As a fan I wish he didn't sign in the Metro is all. Interesting thing though is if he wants to win I'm not sure the Caps were the right team. They are trending down I think. Sure location didn't work, but he would have been better off in Colorado if he wanted to win.
I was really hoping he went to Colorado, but there was too much smoke around and references to his family situation, with his girls re-enrolling in NYC. He wasnt going that far away from them. I also think there's something around the idea of a more veteran team with guys like Ovi and Backstrom who he knows very well, as opposed to the young up-and-coming team where he'll be looked on as an elder statesman.
Fair, and the Caps will be a good team at least with those players. I'm not sure they are a top team anymore though, especially with a young unproven goalie. New coach and maybe a renewed focus could help though. We'll see.
That could actually be a really nice value for the Caps at 1.5m since he wants to stay fairly local. He's still probably a 3-4m goalie ability wise.
Not sure if you are being sarcastic or not but that is the 2nd most playoff wins among active goalies at the moment and is easily in the top 20 all-time for playoff victories. Considering the Rangers didn't win a cup in the 15 years he was on the team that's a very good playoff record.
Guess you can say #14 is easily top 20 Grevy but interestingly enough Hank and Curtis Joseph, who sits at #13 are the only 2 goaltenders on the list with under .500 records.
Most of the series they've played with Lundqvist have gone 6 or 7 games so that's why his record is around .500. A fair amount of those were when the team couldn't score much, which is also a byproduct of tight playoff hockey. Take out 2006 when they were swept in his rookie year and it's basically .500.
His 2.30 GAA and .921 SV % in the playoffs look damn good to me. His playoff W/L record is skewed by the fact that unfortunately his teams could never score in the playoffs.
Considering he is 11 wins ahead of 21 and there are only a handful on that list that can pass him I would definitely say he is solidly in the top 20.
I'm not arguing that Hank hasn't locked up a spot in the lower 10 of the top 20 playoff wins by goaltender(with 130 chances I would hope so), just the record which can also be attributed to Hank's tendency to give up bad angle goals and incompetence with the stick. If Hank could have even learned to chip the puck up the boards early in his career it would have helped the lousy defense he was stuck with get some offense going.