A look at an interesting rumor.

Image Courtsey of the Author

John Kincade, yesterday during his radio show, made two decelerations that he seems to feel are as close to fact as they could be: Ilya Kovalchuk will be moved before the Olympic roster freeze, and Kari Lehtonen is the goalie Waddell is shopping.  There has been some speculation amongst Thrasher fans about who the odd goalie out would be, but keeping with his statements and apparent frustration during the year’s first two town hall meetings, Waddell seems to think that Kari’s chances are up here in Atlanta.  Kincade tossed out two probably trade partners: Dallas for Fabian Brunnstrom, or St. Louis for a second round pick.

Let’s look at this rumor and see how it fits with the Blues.  St. Louis hasn’t had a legitimate starting goaltender since Grant Fuhr left in 1999.  Currently the crease is stocked with Chris Mason, a backup turned starter turned backup turned starter again, and Ty Conklin, career backup extraordinaire.  Both are serviceable goaltenders, and Mason was absolutely stellar when the pressure was on to win at the end of the season last year.  The Blues’ numbers have slipped this season, and with them go Mason’s.  He is 16-15-8 this season, with a .911 save percentage and a 2.51 GAA.  Not bad, really, but not stellar.  The issue with Mason is his impending free-agency.  If you can get a goalie for the remainder of this season and next year (Lehtonen is a RFA), and have that goalie be of a high ability, why not do it?

Well, because that goalie’ll be a $3,000,000 hurt groin.  All joking aside, Kari Lehtonen has never proven himself a workhorse.  Mason’s stretch of 25 games started at the end of last season would have been impossible with Lehtonen.  The Thrashers got lucky in having their AHL guy be ready to step in when Kari went down.  The Blues would have to rely on Ben Bishop, Jake Allen (neither of which are there yet), or Hannu Toivonnen – who very few people would like to see back in Scottrade.  Is this risk worth the obvious reward?  Lehtonen is an outstanding goaltender when he focuses and is healthy… but what can the Blues do to make sure that happens?  Lifetime Kari is 94-83-17 with a .911 SV% and a 3.06SV%.  That save percentage might look bad for a starting goalie, but if you take into consideration how many SOG he had to face, the law of averages kind of makes it stand to reason.

What doesn’t stand to reason is the fact that the most games in a season Lehtonen has played is 68 – respectable, but an obvious anomaly when you see that his other “full” seasons are 38, 48, and 46 games.  If we consider Kari a viable alternative to re-signing Mason, I hope Conks is ready to fill in like he did when Fleury went down in 2008.

I’m guessing people are looking at the upside of a “fixed” Lehts – repairing the  congenital defect in his back that was causing bone to press on nerves should help him – but his backs is the least of his problems.  The Blues adopted ‘Splodeybones from Toronto.  Are we adopting ‘Splodeygroin from Atlanta?

Posted by Laura Astorian on Feb 3 2010. Filed under Central, NHL Rumors, St. Louis Blues, Uncategorized, Western Conference. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.