Top 10 disappointing goalies in rotisserie hockey for 2015-16

They say great goalies can win you fantasy hockey championships. But poor goalies will ruin your chances before you even get to the postseason. Choosing goalies for your pool is always tough. A great goalie one year can be mediocre the next. Or in head-to-head leagues, your stud tandem of Henrik Lundqvist and Carey Price can easily lose to Devan Dubnyk and Andrew Hammond. So there's extra disappointment when a goalie you hoped was going to have a great season ends up being horrible and costing you the playoffs.

Below you'll find 10 goalies that let down many fantasy owners. Note we're not including goalies who were a disappointment solely because they were injured. But injuries can add to the fact if the goalie was inadequate when healthy. Here's this year's top 10 disappointing goalies.

10. Craig Anderson

Anderson is a must own if your league counts saves. But he's not having that great a year overall. His 2.80 GAA is 38th in the league out of 45 netminders. His .916 SV% is around the league average. But Anderson leads the league in games allowing three or more goals, which is a killer in many head-to-head leagues.

9. Ondrej Pavelec

We all knew Pavelec wasn't as good as his 2014-15 season. But many hoped he would at least be better than what he has been for most of his career. But many poolies selected Pavelec in hopes that last year wasn't a fluke. It was, and now those same poolies are paying the price. To paraphrase a football coach in a famous rant, Pavelec is who we thought he is.

8. Anders Nilsson

It took just one month into the NHL season for Nilsson to wrest the starting job away from Cam Talbot. And he delivered with eight wins, a 2.49 GAA and a .922 SV % in his first 16 games. That forced many poolies to run to the waiver wire to scoop him up. However, Nilsson's been one of the worst goalies in the league since Dec. 8. In 11 games played since then, he had just two wins, a 4.44 GAA and a 0.857 SV%. And owners were forced to drop him just as quickly as they picked him up.

7. Eddie Lack

How bad has Eddie Lack been this season? He's been outplayed by Cam Ward. Which I thought was impossible. But of the two, Lack has the worst GAA, save percentage and is the one with the losing record. This isn't what many poolies expected — or hoped for — when he was traded to the Hurricanes last summer. No one expected him to be lights out. But no one expected one of the worst 10 goalies in the league either.

6. Sergei Bobrovsky

I've almost given up on Bobrovsky ever being fantasy relevant. For starters, he's a starter that can't stay healthy long enough to play more than a few games in a row. And when he does play, he's not that great. He's given up at least three goals in 15 of his 31 games this year. Overall he has a .908 SV% and a 2.74 GAA for the year.

5. Jonas Hiller

Most poolies forget that Jonas Hiller was expected to be a half-decent goalie this season. He was the 18th goalie drafted on average in Yahoo pools, ahead of netminders Frederik Andersen, Brian Elliott, Jake Allen, Martin Jones and a host of others. And what have poolies got to show for it? Hillier had a losing record in 24 games and is currently has the league's worst GAA and save percentage.

4. Jimmy Howard

I thought the battle for the number one job in Detroit would have been a lot better than this. But it hasn't even been close. Howard has been brutal this year with a .909 SV% and a 2.76 GAA. He's played 28 games and has won just 10 of them. What makes it an even tougher pill to swallow is where Howard was drafted (126th overall) in comparison to Petr Mrazek (170th overall).

2. Antti Niemi and Kari Lehtonen

I've written almost a hundred top 10 columns for this site and this is the first time I've ever had a tie. It's not something I take lightly. But these two deserve each other. I've been a big believer in Niemi for a few years now. But Niemi has been dreadful this season. I've never been a fan of Lehtonen. And he's been just as horrible. Just look at the numbers:

Niemi: 22-12-7 record, 2.76 GAA, .901 SV%, 3 shutouts

Lehtonen: 21-9-2 record, 2.85 GAA, .904 SV%, 2 shutouts

Those are awful numbers. Imagine how bad those stats would look if Dallas didn't score a ton to allow these guys to pick up wins.

1. Pekka Rinne

He fooled many poolies after his 2014-15 campaign. He was the fourth goalie taken on average in Yahoo pools (usually in the middle of the second round) so expectations were high. But he's been a huge disappointment. He's going to need to go on quite a streak just to get to 35 wins.  He is currently the worst goalie in cap leagues as he did nothing to earn his $7 million cap hit. He's also given up at least five goals in a game on six different occasions this year, second most in the league (Tuukka Rask's leads with eight games). Rinne's numbers aren't as bad as many others on this list. But considering where he was drafted, he cost a lot of fantasy GMs their seasons.  

As a final note, thanks to Dobber for filling in last week while I took the kids to Disney World for the first time. But I do want to point out that I would never do a column on the top 10 drinks, as the top choice would be obvious: A Tom Collins of course.