Analysis: Kent Hughes has a nasty problem if he wants to win with this core

The Canadian has laid the foundations of his reconstruction over the last few seasons, so much so that the hard core of the team is taking shape with Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Kirby Dach and Kaiden Guhle as leaders, to whom will be added a few promising young people in the organization. But one question remains: who will be the team’s starting goalie when it ultimately aims to make it to the playoffs?

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The simple answer to this question, at the moment, is that the Canadian has nothing, in his team or even in his sector, allowing us to foresee stability at the goalkeeper position when the core of the team arrives. in his best years. To his primein good French.

To establish this observation, we calculated the average age of the core of each of the champion teams since 2010, i.e. over the last 14 years. On average, this core was between 24 and 30 years old.

• 2010 (Chicago): Patrick Kane (20), Duncan Keith (26), Jonathan Toews (21), Patrick Sharp (27), Seabrook (24). Average: 24 years
• 2011 (Boston): Milan Lucic (22), Patrice Bergeron (25), David Krejci (24), Zdeno Chara (33), Tim Thomas (36). Average: 28 years
• 2012 (Los Angeles): Anze Kopitar (24), Drew Doughty (21), Jonathan Quick (26), Dustin Brown (26), Justin Williams (29). Average: 25 years
• 2013 (Chicago): Patrick Kane (23), Duncan Keith (29), Jonathan Toews (24), Brent Seabrook (27), Patrick Sharp (30). Average: 27 years
• 2014 (Los Angeles): Anze Kopitar (26), Drew Doughty (23), Jonathan Quick (28), Justin Williams (31), Dustin Brown (28). Average: 27 years
• 2015 (Chicago): Jonathan Toews (26), Patrick Kane (25), Marian Hossa (35), Duncan Keith (31), Patrick Sharp (32). Average: 30 years
• 2016 (Pittsburgh): Sidney Crosby (28), Kristopher Letang (28), Evgeni Malkin (29), Phil Kessel (27), Chris Kunitz (35). Average: 29 years
• 2017 (Pittsburgh): Sidney Crosby (29), Kristopher Letang (29), Evgeni Malkin (30), Phil Kessel (28). Average: 29 years
• 2018 (Washington): Alex Ovechkin (31), Evgeny Kuznetsov (25), Nicklas Backstrom (29), John Carlson (27), Braden Holtby (29). Average: 28 years
• 2019 (St.Louis): Ryan O’Reilly (27), Vladimir Tarasenko (26), Brayden Schenn (27), Alex Pietrangelo (28). Average: 27 years
• 2020 (Tampa Bay): Nikita Kucherov (26), Steven Stamkos (29), Brayden Point (23), Victor Hedman (28), Andrei Vasilevskiy (26). Average: 26 years
• 2021 (Tampa Bay): Nikita Kucherov (27), Steven Stamkos (30), Brayden Point (24), Victor Hedman (29), Andrei Vasilevskiy (27). Average: 27 years
• 2022 (Colorado): Mikko Rantanen (24), Nathan MacKinnon (26), Cale Makar (22), Gabriel Landeskog (28). Average: 25 years
• 2023 (Vegas): Jack Eichel (25), Jonathan Marchessault (31), Alex Pietrangelo (32), Mark Stone (30). Average: 28 years

For the Canadian, at present, the average age of the four players mentioned above (Suzuki, Caufield, Dach and Guhle) is 23 years old.

We can therefore think that CH has a window of around seven more years to hope to take advantage of the best years of its core in order to give it a real chance for the Cup, that is to say until the 2030-2031 season.

Aging goalkeepers

Now back to our original question: who will be the goaltender to play behind this core?

With the big club, Jake Allen celebrated 33 years last August and the decline has begun. In September, THE Newspaper revealed, with the help of the specialist firm Sportlogiq, that progression in the efficiency of NHL goaltenders was notable until they reached the age of 29, after which the decline began until the age of 33, the age at which several masked men no longer saw their services retained.

We can therefore remove his name from the column of medium-term solutions.

That then brings us to Samuel Montembeault, whose contract expires at the end of this campaign. At 27 years old, based on the statistics previously explained, we can expect that the Quebec goalkeeper will be able to offer honest services to the CH at least for two more seasons. For another six or seven years? It’s not impossible, but it would be a big mandate, especially since it’s not yet clear if he’s a true number one goaltender in the NHL.

The case of Cayden Primeau remains difficult to assess since at 24 years old, he has still not been able to establish himself as an NHL goalie, even as a reserve. We are not saying that he will never do it, but things will have to resolve quickly in his case.

The sector and the age of 25

In the system, the Canadian has six goalkeepers worthy of mention. But, when will they be ready to contribute and, once their potential is reached, will they have what it takes to help the Canadiens win?

We’ve established an overall profile of the development time the majority of starting goalies in the NHL have taken right now. To do this, we used a sample of 27 active goaltenders, the majority established and starting netminders, some younger and a few proven veterans.

On average, they arrived in the NHL – mostly as backups – at the age of 22, then became starters at 25.

We will quickly move on to Joe Vrbetic who, at 21 years old, is still playing in the ECHL with the Trois-Rivières Lions.

Besides him, Jakub Dobes is perhaps the one closest to a position in the NHL, he who already plays in the American Hockey League with the Laval Rocket. However, the 22-year-old Czech is having difficulty making the transition to professional hockey after having two excellent seasons in the NCAA with Ohio State University. Let’s give him time anyway.

Emmett Croteau, a sixth-round pick of the team in 2022, is playing his first season in the NCAA at Clarkson University.

The trio of 2023?

But the most interesting names are still young. During the last draft, CH selected three goalkeepers: Jacob Fowler in the third round, Quentin Miller in the fourth round then the mysterious Russian Yevgeni Volokhin in the next round. Could it be that the organization’s next number one goaltender is in this line?

One thing is certain, the three are having an excellent time. Fowler is the starting goalie for the Boston College Eagles in the NCAA, where he is off to a remarkable start, while Miller has accepted the starting role with the Quebec Remparts with aplomb. Volokhin also does well in MHL, Russia’s junior league.

These three young people are 18 years old. We remind you that on average, goalkeepers become starters at the age of 25. If they follow this trend, we are therefore talking about a starting position in seven years, i.e. in 2030-2031. We would therefore arrive at the very end of the window of opportunity for the core of the team.

Transaction or free agents?

Is it essential to have a top goalie to win the Stanley Cup? No, but it helps.

Since 2006, nine Stanley Cup championship teams had a star goaltender between the pipes: Anaheim (Jean-Sébastien Giguère), Detroit (Chris Osgood), Pittsburgh (Marc-André Fleury), Boston (Tim Thomas), Los Angeles (two once with Jonathan Quick), Washington (Braden Holtby) and Tampa Bay (twice with Andrei Vasilevskiy). If you are good at mathematics, you will have understood that half of the champion teams for 18 years did not have a star in net.

The Canadian has amassed ammunition in recent years and will be able to afford to negotiate for a goalie when the time comes, you might say. This is true, in fact, but perhaps not so simple in reality. Top goalkeepers are very rarely made available and those who change addresses mostly do so when they become free agents.

In recent years, Darcy Kuemper (5 years, $5.25M), Jack Campbell (5 years, $5M), Frederik Andersen (2 years, $4.5M), Philipp Grubauer (6 years, $5.9M) , Linus Ullmark (4 years, $5M), Jakob Markstrom (6 years, $6M), Sergei Bobrovsky (7 years, $10M) were notably hired by a new team via the free agent market. Some successful, others less so.

So, we ask you the question: who will guard the CH net when he is ready to pronounce the “p” word again?

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