The Goalie Battles Rage On

Now that we're down to five days before the hockey pool draft, we're now getting down to the nitty-gritty for NHL training camps and that means the goalie situations are starting to be hammered out a little bit more.

Goalies are going to be hot commodities in this year's pool, especially given that we're going to give the goalie survivor pool a whirl this year and for those who need a refresher about what that is, please head back to my mini-games post from earlier in the month.  Some of the best players in last season's pool were goalies, so that would generally mean that we're going to see a lot of crease talent be taken early and possibly often, so be sure to get your homework done on that front.

It's no secret that Kristy & Don walked away with the pool, thanks to have a pair of starting goalies for a couple great teams in Pekka Rinne and Frederik Andersen.  Let's not forget that they didn't exactly take these two in their first two picks, rather they were in their first three picks, they were just very fortunate with the Anaheim situation.

Their tandem was so good, that if the goalie survivor pool was to have happened last year, they would have won that as well.  There's no guarantee that the winning team will win this contest, but it doesn't hurt your chances at all to get those two good goalies.

The goalie survivor pool is the one mini-game of the three that does have an effect on the overall standings and it could very well dictate where you take your keepers, but the difference between the top end goalie and a back-up goalie is so great, that you'd have to really do well with your forwards in the later rounds to make up for it.

It would be some sage advice to say that you'll want at least one number one goalie on your pool team, but if you're going to be trading a Carey Price for some top end scoring, like a Sidney Crosby, that's definitely up to you and one of the risks that you're going to take and that's the beauty of this draft.  In theory, there are 30 number one goalies in the league, although we know that 30 is not exactly an accurate number, despite that being the number of teams in the league.

As the cuts through Monday went down, teams were starting to define their goalie pairs, while other teams were still trying to separate trios.

Teams that were down to two goalies this afternoon included Carolina, Columbus, Florida, New Jersey, New York, Philadelphia, San Jose and St. Louis.  Two of those teams, by my estimation, are still trying to decide who their number one goalie is, as Cam Ward and Eddie Lack are vying for the job for the Hurricanes and Jake Allen and Brian Elliott are doing the same in Blues camp.  These are the goalie battles, if gambled on correctly, can go a long ways for your pool team.

Sergei Bobrovsky, Roberto Luongo, Cory Schneider, Henrik Lundqvist, Steve Mason and Martin Jones should be locks for their respective teams at this point in the preseason, barring the unforeseen and they all have some kind of value in the first few rounds of the draft.

It should be fair to assume that the starters elsewhere should be Frederik Andersen, Mike Smith, Tuukka Rask, Robin Lehner, Corey Crawford, Semyon Varlamov, Jonathan Quick, Devan Dubnyk, Carey Price, Pekka Rinne, Jaroslav Halak, Marc-Andre Fleury, Ben Bishop, Jonathan Bernier, Ryan Miller and Braden Holtby.

Calgary, Dallas, Detroit, Edmonton and Ottawa still have some real battles for their number one (or their duos) going on, something to really keep an eye on this week.  Calgary and Edmonton are running with three goalies to decide from, while the other three have legitimate starter questions, in my mind.  These are the battles that can produce some real sleeper picks, if done correctly.