The very big, and very surprising, news that came down Monday morning was that the New York Islanders had fired coach Barry Trotz. The team missed the playoffs this year, but had made the postseason three years running, and had won at least a round in all three seasons. That was the first time the Islanders managed that in over 30 years. That is why this is such a shock; this is a great coach that took the team further than anyone else in decades. Dobber had his thoughts on the firing here.

Whether Trotz wants to keep coaching, or move into management, there'll be opportunities for him elsewhere in the league. It'll be interesting to see who ends up with the Islanders, because this is not a high-end offensive team, and they have a lot of aging core players.  

*

The NHL released the finalists for the Norris Trophy on Monday, and they are as follows:

Norris Trophy finalists are Hedman (TB), Josi (NASH) & Makar (COL)

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) May 9, 2022

This likely tracks from what a lot of people were chattering about online. Cale Makar threatened for 30 goals, something defencemen rarely do, while posting 86 points in 77 games. As pointed out by Marc-Antoine Godin, Colorado was even better defensively when he was on the ice than they were without him:

Roman Josi a un impact relatif sur son équipe qui est supérieur par rapport à Cale Makar, et oui, il a récolté 10 points de plus que lui. Mais l'impact de Makar quand il est sur la glace par rapport à quand il n'y est pas est assez incontournable. https://t.co/XRWFWJGi2d pic.twitter.com/f5WOSP8o0Y

— Marc Antoine Godin (@MAGodin) May 9, 2022

We can speculate about the impact of Devon Toews but according to HockeyViz, the team was still very strong offensively (expected goals/60 of 3.06) and defensively (expected goals against/60 of 2.29) when Makar wasn't playing with his regular partner. That tells us that Makar was still super-elite even without Toews beside him, and very worthy of this award.

Roman Josi finished with 96 points, the best production season by a defenceman in decades. While his actual defence remains in question, he seemed about average for his team, and he was the engine of the offence outside of the top line. He carried a heavy burden for this team, as he usually does, and a Norris finalist appearance was the result.

And then there's Victor Hedman, who is in the running for this trophy nearly every year, it seems. He had career-bests in goals, assists, and shots, and will finish as a Norris finalist for the sixth season in a row (one win). He finished top-5 in the league among defencemen in wins above replacement, third in points, and was again good defensively. He seems like he deserved a finalist spot, again.

I will say, eventually, Charlie McAvoy has to get his due. He's done a lot of heavy lifting on the blue line for Boston for three seasons now and I have to think it's only his point totals (118 points in his last 196 games) that is keeping him from top-3 recognition. He is going into his age-25 season, though, so there is still lots of time for him to get his proper respect. 

*

For the second game in a row, Pittsburgh put up seven goals on the New York Rangers, this time winning by a 7-2 final. Igor Shesterkin was pulled again, though he would have had to be inhuman to win this one for the Rangers. The Penguins dominated the game basically from start to finish, creating offence at will and stifling defensively at the other end.

This time, the top line led the way as Sidney Crosby put up a goal and two assists while Jake Guentzel had one of each with seven shots on target. Guentzel has now scored in all four games this postseason, tallying five markers in total. It has been a great start to the playoffs for him.

Mike Matheson also scored for the Penguins and now has five points in four games himself. He really has been noticeable for Pittsburgh, jumping up into the play whenever he sees an opportunity. Things like that matter a lot when trying to generate offence against top goaltenders.

Game 5 goes Wednesday night.

*

Goaltending remains one of the bigger challenges in hockey, whether in real life or in fantasy. Some of the top goalies in the league this year included Jacob Markstrom, Tristan Jarry, and Ville Husso, all goalies that weren't necessarily drafted highly in fantasy leagues. In fact, Husso was the backup to Jordan Binnington – the Stanley Cup-winning goalie with a huge contract – and was likely undrafted in most leagues. Husso then finished the season with more starts than Binnington.

One of the big problems with goaltending in the fantasy game is that goalies are generally at the mercy of their team's quality. For example, Anton Forsberg (.917) had a slightly higher save percentage than Andrei Vasilevskiy (.916), but won just half his starts (22/44) while Vasy won 62% of his starts (39/63). Not to mention that because Ottawa allowed way more shots than Tampa Bay, Forsberg's goals against average was higher by 0.32. The goalie who was, ostensibly, a better performer was a magnitudes-worse fantasy option.

To that end, I wanted to look at three goalies who had good seasons, but not necessarily good fantasy seasons. It could help us find some gems in fantasy drafts this coming September. We will be grabbing data from Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, and our own Frozen Tools.

Ilya Sorokin

This may be one of the more obvious options, given his .927 save percentage over the final three months of the season. He was good all year long, really, one of the few Islanders players that was. His problem is that Semyon Varlamov has another year left and that could keep him from reaching 60+ starts. There is also the issue of the aforementioned Trotz getting heaved from the franchise, and there's no telling how good/bad the next coach will be. At least in the bubble 2021 season, Trotz's defensive prowess helped the Islanders goaltending tandem to very good seasons. His replacement is far from certain to have the same impact on Sorokin, so this is a lot more tenuous than it was just 48 hours ago.

Regardless, Sorokin led the league in high-danger save percentage at 5-on-5, and it wasn't even close. Over his two seasons in the league, Sorokin is second in the league in HDSV%, behind only Igor Shesterkin. At all strengths, his goals saved above average is second, a bit behind Shesterkin and just ahead of Markstrom. There is a lot of mounting evidence that Sorokin is climbing into the rung of elite goalies alongside Shesterkin, Saros, Vasilevskiy, and the like. At the same time, Sorokin has just 73 career starts (Vasy had 63 this past season alone), the Islanders are getting older, and will have a new coach behind the bench. There are enough question marks here to not put him in that top tier just yet, but one more season anywhere close to this, and he will be.

Jake Oettinger

Another goalie without a lot of regular season starts is Dallas's hopeful goaltender of the future (and likely the present) in Oettinger. While he only sports only a career .913 save percentages at all strengths, that is well above average, and those were his age-22 and age-23 seasons. He still has several prime years left to go, and if this was a preview of what's to come, then Dallas Stars fans and fantasy hockey owners should be excited.

In 2021-22, Oettinger finished tied for 6^th among regular starters in high-danger save percentage at 5-on-5, one measure of goaltending prowess. (It makes sense intuitively, right? Most NHL goalies don't have trouble with low-danger shots, it's high-danger saves that separate the good from the great.) He didn't rank as strongly by other measures, like goals saved above expected, where he measured similarly to other low-end starters like Robin Lehner and Carter Hart. By the same token, this past season was an improvement basically across the board in his underlying numbers compared to his rookie season, and improvements are always a good thing.

There is also the postseason to consider. In just a few games, he has been a big reason why the Stars are in this series, with a save percentage bordering on .970 heading into Game 4. It is too small a sample to really draw any conclusions, but not seeing him wither in high-pressure situations is a good sign, at least so far.

The big issue here is what kind of roster the Stars will have going forward. They are likely to lose John Klingberg and big chunks of their core are over 30 years old. They do have a handful of excellent players, but 4-5 very good players being supported by 13-14 very mediocre ones does not make for a great goaltending environment. All the same, Oettinger is starting to show flashes of why he was a first-round pick five years ago. He is a pending RFA so his next contract should be interesting.

Vitek Vanecek

It was odd to see Vanecek get the hook from the starting gig in the playoffs given that he was a better goalie than Ilya Samsonov nearly the entire 2021-22 season. On the other hand, Samsonov played well in Game 3 so who are we to judge.

By HDSV% at 5-on-5, Vanecek (.847) finished just outside the top-10 of the league (.849 cut-off). That represents a significant departure from his rookie season, when he posted a .798 HDSV%. His one season of solid play is why he's a bit further down this list; there just isn't a mid-sized sample of him playing very well. It was largely his 2021-22 season where he played well, and he didn't even start (39) half of the team's games. We need to see at least one more full season of performance like this to have a better idea of what he can do, but he's trending in the right direction.

What is worrisome here is the Washington team defence was pretty good this season. Vanecek faced just 7.51 high-danger shots per 60 minutes, or 42^nd out of 55 regular goalies in this respect, from high to low. That means he didn't face a lot of dangerous shots – fewer per minute than Frederik Andersen in Carolina – and that's a big reason why his 5-on-5 save percentage was in the top-10 of the league.

Both Vanecek and Samsonov are in their mid-20s and are both RFAs this summer. It seems exceedingly likely that both return next season, which could give us another split-start scenario. Washington is facing the same issue as Dallas where a lot of their core is over 30 years old, so we'll see if they can replicate the team defence moving forward. I do think evidence is mounting that Vanecek is the better goalie, but that doesn't mean he'll get 60 starts in 2022-23.