WINLESS ENROTH GIVING LEAFS WHAT THEY PAID FOR
In today’s game, back-up goaltender’s role takes on even greater importance
In terms of importance, it used to be a position that fell somewhere between the seventh defenceman and the 13th forward.
The backup goalie was an end-of-the-bench afterthought. He provided an NHL team with depth and not much else. Rarely used, it was often more important to find someone who was a good guy in the dressing room than good at stopping the puck.
Perhaps that is why the Toronto Maple Leafs settled on Jhonas Enroth. Then again, it’s not like they rushed out to get him.
Last summer, the Leafs wasted no time acquiring Frederik Andersen. They traded first- and second-round picks and signed him to a five-year, $25-million extension June 20. It wasn’t until Aug. 22 — one month before training camp — that the team spent $750,000 on his backup.
As the saying goes, you get what you pay for.
Without a win in four starts, Enroth gave up two goals in the first minute of a 3-0 loss to the Calgary Flames Wednesday. His struggles were magnified because Chad Johnson, the goalie Calgary paid $1.7-million to back up Brian Elliott, stopped all 39 Toronto shots for his third shutout of the year.
“Honestly, disappointed,” Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said after the game. “I mean, I thought we were playing well, we came in here, obviously weren’t ready — as a team, as a coaching staff, as a goaltender, not ready.”
While Enroth has become the goalie only used in emergency scenarios, with an 8-4-1 record and a .930 save percentage, Johnson has morphed into the goalie you take out only if you absolutely must.
Along with Anaheim’s Jonathan Bernier (4-1-1 with a .933 save percentage), Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy (6-2-1 with a .940 save percentage) and Los Angeles Kings’ Peter Budaj, who is tied for second in the league with 12 wins, they have blurred the line between what we thought a traditional backup was.
“You look at the importance of what Budaj has done for the L.A. Kings and you’ve got to be twodeep and in some cases threedeep,” said Detroit Red Wings general manager Ken Holland, whose team has relied equally on Petr Mrazek and Jimmy Howard this season.
“Every two points is critical for all 30 teams to make the playoffs or secure home-ice (advantage). We made the playoffs with the same amount of points as Boston, but we had more regulation wins. So we’re into photo finishes now.”
The importance of the backup goalie was best exemplified last year when Montreal’s Carey Price went down with a season-ending injury. At the time, the Canadiens were the best team in the NHL. But with Mike Condon and Ben Scrivens, the team finished with the fourth-worst record in the Eastern Conference.
The threat of an injury — or in Calgary’s case, sub-standard play — might explain why 18 teams are paying their backup goalie more than $1 million this season.