Finding the Depth

When the Swedish star goalie Henrik Lundqvist debuted with the New York Rangers in the NHL at 23 years old for the 2005-06 season, he played in 53 games over an 82-game schedule. That's 65 percent. He then secured the NYR net, averaging 70-plus games for the next five seasons or 85 percent of the goaltender workload.
Those marathon-man seasons are over for Lundqvist, 38, who signed a one-year contract with the Washington Capitals this offseason after 15 years in New York. He will split time with an emerging star, the 23-year-old Russian-born Ilya Samsonov, and likely play less than half of the 2020-21 games for the Caps.

There is more here than the 15-year age difference between Lundqvist and Samsonov. Only seven NHL goalies played 50-plus games (71 percent) over what averaged out to a shortened 70-game regular season due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And only a dozen goalies over 31 NHL teams started 65 percent of their club's regular-season game. Sharing the net, let's call it goalie depth, is the new normal in the world's top professional hockey league.
The goalie-depth trend started in earnest when coaches figured out a rested goalie could helped lift a presumably still-recovering-physically team on back-to-back game nights (often during longer road trips from one coast to the other and sometime even in a road city followed by the next night at home). With the 2020-21 season likely to be shortened and at least condensed, those back-to-back situations or three-games-in-four nights will put an exclamation point on general managers rostering two goalies who can handle NHL offenses.

Free agent signings so far in this offseason prove the point: Along with the Lundqvist move, former Capitals goalie and 2018 Stanley Cup winner Braden Holtby joins the Vancouver Canucks to pair with postseason rookie star Thatcher Demko. Holtby is not likely to repeat his typical playing in 65 to 75 percent of his team's games. Same for three-time goalie Marc-Andre Fleury, who did so for Vegas last season before Robin Lehner showed up via a deadline trade. Lehner signed a new Vegas contract as a top available free agent and, best guess, plays more than Fleury.
Some 2020 free agents are penciled in for starter roles with their new teams, such as Jacob Markstrom heading to Calgary from Vancouver and Cam Talbot exiting Calgary to be the No. 1 goalie in Minnesota. Calgary's David Rittich played two-thirds of the Flames regular-season games but is considered more effective in tandem. Talbot pairs with Alex Stalock, a career NHL backup, forced into a starter's role for the Wild due to injuries. Stalock performed admirably as an above-average performer but scouts anticipate Talbot will solidify the goal protection over the grind of an NHL season.
The Lehner-Fleury duo in Vegas figures to be a top goalie tandem for the upcoming season. Others that proved superior tandems last season include Boston's Tuukka Rask and Jaromir Halak, Columbus' Elvis Merzlikins and Joonas Korpisalo, St. Louis' Jordan Binnington and Jake Allen and Dallas's Ben Bishop and Anton Khudobin (the latter could well have won the Stanley Cup MVP award if the Stars had won against Tampa Bay in the 2020 Final).
There is intrigue in these tandems. Rask left the playoffs bubble when a daughter fell ill but says he is committed to Boston and management says the same. Khudobin could have signed elsewhere as a free agent but wanted to stay in Dallas. Merzlikins and Korpisalo started the season as younger, not fully proofed NHL stalwarts who traded extremely hot hands in net during the season and playoffs.

Allen, displaced by Binnington during the Blue's incredible run from last in the league in January to Stanley Cup champion in 2019, departs for a two-year free agent deal in Montreal. Allen will share time with Carey Price, a perennial all-star who at 32 last season played a league-high 58 regular-season games for the Canadiens last season. Only Winnipeg's Connor Hellebucyk, the 2020 Vezina Trophy winner for the NHL's top goalie, played as many games.
Many hockey observers contend Montreal will be a stronger team with a proven No. 1, or think of it as 1A, sharing some of the regular season workload. Come playoffs, coaches understandably start with the goalie who has performed the best, these days using goalie analytics to help make the decision. In some cases, that choice is difficult. No matter who starts in the net during the postseason, the goaltender will have to earn the right to remain the starter based on whether the team is winning or not.
"Riding the hot hand" is the usual strategy, though with goalie depth and maybe leading in a series, coaches will trust the other member of the team's goalie tandem to start. This move keeps the backup or 1A goaltender sharp and gives the starting goalie a breather. Based on the 2020 free agency period to date, more coaches will be able to turn to a proven NHL goalie who has averaged 50 percent or more of starts over several seasons.
NHL general managers looking to shore up their net protection still have some quality choices at what will likely be market-friendly for teams: Craig Anderson, 39, leaves the Ottawa Senators as the franchise's winningest goaltender and has a winning record and solid .929 save percentage in 46 postseason appearances. Corey Schneider is on many "best free agents still available" lists likely because he is younger at 34 with a 9.18 career save percentage. Jimmy Howard, 36, a long-time starter with Detroit, and Ryan Miller, 39, the U.S. career leader in NHL wins, could prove to be positive for both a team's culture and goalie depth.