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| Sweden goaltender Henrik Lundqvist in action against Slovakia during the 2010 Winter Olympics (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Finnish ice-hockey goalder Miikka Kiprusoff make a save in game versus San Jose Sharks (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| Miikka Kiprusoff of the Calgary Flames (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Jonathon Willis' recent article on the Cult of Hockey
Edmonton Journal blog echoes a lot of my own thoughts on drafting goalies early in the
NHL entry draft.
You Can’t Draft Goalies And Neither Can Anybody Else | Edmonton Journal:
Excerpt:
"When it comes to goalies, however, professional scouts do a terrible job of identifying talent. Sure, sometimes first round picks work out – eight of the league’s 30 most used goalies (26.7%) were drafted in the first round. Guys like Marc-Andre Fleury (1st overall), Kari Lehtonen (2nd overall), Roberto Luongo (4th overall) and Carey Price (5th overall) turned into the talents that the scouts thought they would. However, a lot of the league’s elite goalies were missed completely by the scouts.
In fact, fully 12 of the league’s 30 most-used goalies were either drafted outside the top-100, or never drafted at all. Pekka Rinne was drafted 258th overall in 2004; if today’s 210-pick system was in place that year he wouldn’t have been drafted at all. Also drafted after that 210 mark were Tim Thomas, Jaroslav Halak, Tomas Vokoun, and Evgeni Nabokov. Henrik Lundqvist went 205th overall in 2000. Miikka Kiprusoff was a fourth-round pick; Ryan Miller a fifth. Niklas Backstrom was never drafted; neither were Jonas Hiller or Antti Niemi."
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