Martin Biron.Glen Sather went for an aging player who's best days are behind him. What a surprise. The failure on the Fishermen probably came highly recommended by Chris Drury, who's advice is worth as much as his point total - virtually nothing. Ales Kotalik was highly recommended by the captain and look what happened there.
Biron was a stellar goaltender ... in 2001.
He was a decent goaltender ... in 2007.
He was a terrible goaltender last year.
See a trend there? The Blueshirts picked up a guy who's numbers have gone up each of the last two seasons while his number of starts have gone down. The fact that he played behind the horrible Isles last season is irrelevant - a good goaltender on a bad team would still be able to put up a decent save percentage, just look at anyone who played net for Florida since their inception. Biron's was below .900.
A good backup goaltender needs to be able to come in to give the team a chance to win, and there were far better goaltenders out there. That being said, when Glen decided that Chad Johnson simply was not good enough yet to play in the NHL, he set himself upon finding a veteran. He got one and at a good price - even in the saturated market of netminders, few vets were likely desperate enough to take a deal for 875k. Glen found one that would. Alex Auld, last season's stopgap, took one million from Montreal. Hope that 125k is worth losing an additional few games ... just the difference between making the playoffs and not.
I hope that Hank can handle another 70 start season.
2 comments:
And Nitti went to the Sharks. Sucks but Sather would never pay $2M for a backup. He's so lucky he has Lundy.
I really think our idiot GM is penny pinching for Kovalchuk.
I agree Biron signing was probably not the best choice, especially so early into free agency.
And Auld had a kick-ass NYR Mask. Maybe he can sell it to Biron to wear during his losses in NY
Post a Comment