NHL Playoffs 2013: Who’s The Best Goalie in Conference Finals?
By Josh Hill
The NHL is one round away from seeing who will battle for the coveted Stanley Cup, but while hockey is down to it’s Frozen Four, the question moves from not who will be in the Stanley Cup Finals but who will get their team there? In the NFL fans lean on quarterbacks and it’s often shutdown pitching that is lauded in October for baseball but in hockey it’s all about who has the better netminder and the four that are left are hard to choose from.
Each conference has their standout studs and while the lot may not have topped the stats sheets during the season, they’ve come alive in the postseason and that’s when it counts the most. One of the guys currently leading the list is no stranger to this phenomenon as Los Angeles Kings netminder Jonathan Quick helped secure his place as the best in the NHL with his run through the postseason in 2012.
But while Quick is the hands down leader of the pack, especially after his performance so far in leading the Kings single handedly, the other members of the final four goalies standing aren’t pushovers.
Quick’s opponent in the Western Conference Finals is probably the weakest of the three names as Corey Crawford had the roughest series of all the remaining netminders. However, don’t confuse the Blackhawks bad series with Crawford’s capabilities in net as he’s probably one of the only reasons the Blackhawks stayed in their series against the Red Wings.
Down 3-1, Crawford held his own long enough for the Blackhawks to get their offensive mojo back and better yet he didn’t let his confidence get rocked to the point where he cracked and the Hawks were vulnerable between the pipes.
Quick has the upper hand but don’t think that the Kings are going to feast on Crawford as he’s silently become one of the better net minders left in the postseason.
Over in the Eastern Conference, the stakes of talent are more even. While Quick is clearly the better goalie compared to Crawford, Tuukka Rask and Tomas Vokoun matchup in a way that makes the series hard to predict. Rask gets the edge against Vokoun based on his stunning performance so far this postseason where he’s been making saves that bring him on the level of Henrik Lundqvist and even Jonathan Quick.
In fact, Rask is coming off of a series where he best Lundqvist, proving that an excellent netminder with run support is the second best goalie in the postseason. He’s not better than Quick, as no one is better than Quick and that will be the case until proven otherwise. But if there’s a goalie to matchup against Rask and everything he has it’s Vokoun. Rask was able to beat the Rangers thanks to the Bruins offense coming to life and Vokoun has perhaps the most loaded offensive roster in hockey.
If you’re a fan of great netminding, the series you will be glued to is the Bruins and Penguins series as it features two amazing talents facing incredible offensive firepower and bruising defenses. The Kings and Blackhawks shouldn’t be ignored, as Jonathan Quick is required hockey viewing especially this deep into the postseason.
Quick is the best there is in hockey and while Rask isn’t quite on his level yet he’s right there as the second best netminder remaining. It’s a photo finish for the third best as both Corey Crawford and Tomas Vokoun matchup very similarly but Vokoun does get the edge. But while Crawford is the fourth best goalie left, he’s in the Frozen Four for a reason and shouldn’t be slept on against a Kings offense that might end up struggling against him.