but Fleury is lauded in this thread like he’s still a Vezina winning caliber goalie and he’s just NOT that guy anymore. And no, we don’t have a better option, but that’s because we signed Fleury in the first place. BG made his own bed on this one. My only complaint of him so far.
I don’t think Flower’s game has dropped very much from his Vezina season 2 years ago, he stopped EVERY shot he faced in preason other than a Joe Paveski goal off a leg in the crease (I agree its a small sample size against non full nhl rosters, but it’s what there is to go by) I didn’t have a problem with his playoff performances last year, majority of his goals given up were powerplay goals, he’ll give up the odd bad goal here or there like he has his entire career just based on his playstyle. He’s owned up to his bad play the first 2 games this season, but I think only 3 of those goals were “on him” the rest were mostly due to everyone “Playing defense like a F’ing junior team” – per Zuccy)…
Flower is a 2 year stopgap solution until Wallstedt is ready (at least that’s what GMBG and his scouts appear to be banking on) There’s ZERO chance you can find another quality starting goalie option willing to sign for 2 years at the cap number the Wild needed to stay within (maybe there could have been a trade solution for an existing starter wiht 2-3 years on their existing contract? but I don’t know of any)…maybe they could have resigned Talbot to a short term extension next offseason, maybe they didn’t want to? Maybe they wanted a 1st ballot HOF goalie to be a mentor to Wallstedt? Maybe Talbot wanted no part of a mentorship?
Like it or not, imo these next 2 seasons are just cap survival years with an emphasis on progressing through the playoff growing pains so they are ready for a full Cup push in 3 seasons, of course the Wild brass are going to say all the right things, that they expect to compete for a cup right now, etc, but there’s no way you can cut 15%+ from your payroll in a hard cap league the next 2 years and expect to win it, you’re missing out on having an additional 2+ truly impactful players available vs replacing them with rookies on ELC’s learning the pro game on the fly…Now the Wild has a solid mixture of existing talent that can challenge for the Division and create the illusion of a cup challenger, but they just aren’t there yet…
I’ve accepted this reality, i’m just enjoying the ride of watching this team gain experiance, prospects develop and Kaprizov’s insane highlights every game…
