Who's The Best Dallas Stars Starting Goalie?

…to separate the team’s accomplishment’s under a goalie’s tenure, from the accomplishment’s of the goalie himself.

Personally, I liked Crazy Eddie (and he brought us Lord Stanley’s cup), but Marty (in his prime) was undeniably more fun to watch. Belfour brought us two back to back Stanley Cup appearances, while Turco never made it that far. I think there is some pretty conclusive evidence, however, that Belfour was backed by a far superior team during his tenure in Dallas.

I also think that most fans have a bit of bitterness towards Turco at present; the same way that Modano’s sterling reputation with the team has been “tarnished.” Marty is suffering a bit of negative backlash, as we only remember his last two years with the team. Give it some time though, and I feel like the votes on this poll would be a lot more even to his favor.

Turco was either fantastic in the regular season, but horrible in the playoffs, or horrible (okay, average) in the regular season, but fantastic in the playoffs. He was never really both.

For my decision, it really came down to how they performed during their “peak” years. And Eddie at his best was far superior to Turco at his best.

Give me a few more seasons to decide on Kari. I don’t think he’ll ever have the stellar numbers that the other two guys have had, but I don’t recall anyone making more timely saves than he has (unless it’s against tanguay with 1:20 to go, but that’s not his fault really).

I’ve watched a fair number of their games this season and been following SCH and other sources of Blackhawks news. I can say with a lot of certainty that Chicago’s defense is nowhere as good as it was last year.

Someone (not SCH) did an article last week about the SOG Marty has faced vs. Niemi through the same number of games last year (can’t find the link at the moment – I’ll post it when I do). It’s very eye opening. Chicago has lost their best defensive forward (Buff to Atlanta, where he is playing D again) plus Brent Sopel from the D corp. One of the new D-men, Nick Boynton, drives a lot of fans nuts with his less than stellar play and numerous turnovers. Jordan Hendry also has his poor moments. Niklas Hjalmarsson (he of the SJ offer sheet) has often not been playing up to that huge contract he ended up with.

Here’s a comment from SCH’s wrap-up of the week of 14 December that says quite a bit about the situation Marty is facing in Chicago – “The Return of Team Defense – Marty Turco must want to slam the bench door on the ankle of every Hawk that skates past him. For the last two games, the Hawks have been throwing themselves into every passing and shooting lanes taking away options from opponents. Rebounds are quickly and easily swept aside. This is the style of play that makes your good goaltenders look great.”

I don’t know if the reason for that is a lack of communication between Marty and the D, the D just not being used to the way he plays yet (remember how long it took the Stars to buy into Crawford’s system?), or even a Cup hangover, you cannot pin it all on Marty. I hadn’t really seen a complete game out of him this season where I would completely, 100%, with no questions, pin the loss on him (and as much as I like him, there have been times the past two seasons I wanted to strangle him with his stick). Even in the game he was pulled against the Avs last week (after giving up 4 goals) or the 7-2 drubbing in Calgary during the Hawks circus trip (when he was not pulled), those weren’t really his fault. The guys at SCH (who are really giving him short rope at this point), pinned none of the 4 goals in the Avs game on him and noted that for the first two periods of the Calgary game, Marty was the only one on ice who appeared to give a damn, finally seeming in the 3rd to decide “The hell with this, why should I bust my butt to keep these guys in the game”.

As Eddie Olczyk commented in one of their postgame wrap ups a few weeks ago, of the problems Chicago is facing this season, goaltending is far from being 1st on the list. Has Marty given up some softies? Hell, yes (so has Corey Crawford, although perhaps not as many). But when you get no support from the team in front of you, whether from the D not doing their job or the offense producing zip (see Chicago’s 3-0 loss to Vancouver in Chicago – Marty was not bad at all in that game), you are probably going to lose more than you win, especially at Marty’s age when the skill is naturally declining.

We’ve even had this discussion to a certain extent about Dallas, even in this season, particularly when Kari was being ridden so hard at the beginning and the defense was giving up a ridiculous number of shots on goal every single game. Eventually, everyone on the team has to get their s&@t together, at the same time, or your team is going to start losing more than you are winning. Dallas (at least minus last night) seems to have gotten it all together for the most part. Chicago is still struggling with that (and two of their top scorers – Kane and Hossa – being out right now is not helping). If Chicago (especially the D) can pull it together and start being consistent, I think we will see Marty win more games with them.

Priceless!
http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/sports/story.html?id=44adf14c-1d26-40f1-99b2-d8683e314cf9

Salo, Fuhr, Roy, and Hasek. ;-)

And as far as Lehtonen goes, I listed him because he’s the team’s current starter, and may have the potential to be another great one… not because I actually thought many people would vote for him (although, if you look at the polls, they have; it might be a good idea to redo this a year from now, after Turco’s bad rep has worn off and when Lehtonen has a resume).

The only other starting goalie the Stars have had, aside from those three, was Andy Moog, but I didn’t think anyone would seriously argue that he’s as good as Belfour or Turco, either in skill or in his impact on the team.

The main problem with ranking Turco tops is that he was mostly great when the team around him was good or great — the ‘02-03 Stars weren’t a weak team, so we have to wonder how much of that was Turco and how much of it was guys like Hatcher, Matvichuk, and Guerin. Objectively, I’m not sure it’s necessarily a coincidence that his stats started dropping off right after Hatcher left and the team started going downhill.

Likewise, while he can (and should) be given great points for doing well in the ‘06-07 playoff duel with Vancouver, the ’07-08 Stars weren’t a bad team. While Turco did play good hockey, I wonder how much of that had to do with Norstrom, Zubov, Boucher, etc. patrolling his blueline, and the forwards keeping the play in the offensive zone.

Of course, Ed never played for a weak Stars team until his stats dropped through the floor, so take all this with a grain of salt.