Goalie Primer: Brick Walls and Swiss Cheese

Fantasy hockey season — as well as real hockey season, I suppose — is fast approaching and our gritty team at Yahoo Canada Sports will be here with you through it all, led by our fearless leader, me, Fantasy Cants, and a bunch of less important people behind the scenes.

You won’t see a confusing, overwhelmingly analytical approach to our 2018-19 fantasy coverage this season, but rather one that focusses on folk wisdom, possibly-inebriated hunches, and the good ol’ eye-test – with a few relevant numbers and trends reluctantly sprinkled in.

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We’ll have a bit fun, and hope to earn you some sweet, sweet cash (or bragging rights, or both) in your league, too. So buckle up, grab a bevy, or six, and let’s kick this business off with a pre-season goalie primer.

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Goalies, the weird, complex creatures they are, don’t need to be gobbled up in the early rounds of a 10-12 team league draft, as the top-flight skaters available in the first, second and third rounds are too valuable to let go. If you want to draft like Fantasy Cants does (you definitely do), then I’d recommend grabbing at least two, but preferably three, of the best skaters available before you select your tender.

If you want to take a bit of a different approach, albeit the wrong one, you can sacrifice one one your early picks to grab either of the top-rated guys in Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck and Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, who are definitely at the peak of the food chain but not so far ahead of their peers that it’s worth passing up on a 80-plus point player to grab them.

That said, here are the guys you should try to grab versus the one’s that may have you fooled.

(Standard categories in most leagues: wins, shutouts, saves and/or Sv%, goals against and/or GAA)

Brick Walls

Andrei Vasilevskiy (Lightning). A Vezina Trophy finalist from last season, Vasi finished the 2017-18 tied for first in wins (44) and shutouts (8), while ranking second in saves, and ninth in save percentage. A proven ability to rack up wins and shutouts while playing behind a team considered a consensus Stanley Cup contender…. that’ll play, I suppose.

Connor Hellebuyck (Jets). A fellow 2018 Vezina finalist, CH shared the wins lead with Vasilevskiy and finished third in saves, fifth in Sv%, and fourth in goals against average. Entering the prime of his career and his fourth NHL campaign, and on a defensively staunch Jets team expected to make a run at a Cup, a 50-win season and a top-three Sv% and GAA is certainly within Hellebuyck’s grasp.

Braydon Holtby (Capitals). After three straight season with a plus-.920 save percentage, Holtby easily had the worst regular season of his career last year, but immediately after his worst statistical campaign, Holtby went on an absolute tear in the playoffs as the Caps marched to their first Stanley Cup. Over the previous three seasons, he averaged nearly 44 wins with a .923 Sv% and a minuscule 2.17 GAA. Buy low, my friends, and watch with glee as Holtby turns aside a whole bunch of biscuits.

Freddie Anderson (Maple Leafs). The Maple Leafs netminder plays behind a less-than lockdown defence corps and sees buckets of rubber on a nightly basis, but where he’ll stumble slightly in GAA and Sv% categories, he’ll earn his keep in wins and saves — which he led the NHL by over 100 last season. The only ginger on this list, too — would draft 10/10.

Pekka Rinne (Predators). He’s the reigning Vezina Trophy winner and plays behind the best blueline in the NHL. As genres of goalies go, “Big Finnish Man” is usually a good investment.

Antti Raanta (Coyotes). The Arizona netminder might be the most under-the-radar goalie in the league, but don’t let the silence distract you from the performance he put forward last year with the lowly Coyotes. His .930 Sv% was tops in the NHL, and Arizona is shaping to be one of the better young teams in the Western Conference, maybe. If you’re looking for a mid-late round steal, Raanta’s your guy even if he ends up playing behind a team full of donkeys again.

Swiss Cheese

Tuukka Rask (Bruins). The Bruins netminder has always put up the numbers, but his inconsistency and tendency to go through lengthy slumps followed by long streaks of brilliance make him an give fantasy managers a worse headache than a tequila and beer hangover – especially in head-to-head leagues. Also, there’s no points for wild stick throws and freak-outs, unfortunately.

Henrik Lundqvist (Rangers). As tempting as it is to jump a little bit early at the future Hall of Famer, don’t be tricked by the brand name and dreamy eyes. King Henrik is coming off the two worst seasons of his career and is on the other side of age 36. He only finished in the top ten in one of the standard fantasy categories for goaltenders last season, and the Rangers are likely to be renting out the Metro Division basement this time around.

Marc-Andre Fleury (Golden Knights). Yes, I’m doing it. I’m betting against Vegas, AGAIN. There’s no way this team is anywhere near the top of the Western Conference standing again, is there? Maybe? They definitely made everybody eat their words last season, but Vegas is more-than-likely to come down to earth this year, and so are Fleury’s numbers. I would still give my left kidney and spleen to Fleury if he ever needed it, he’s lovely, I just wouldn’t draft him here.

Jake Allen (Blues). Just don’t do it. Don’t.