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Originally Posted by Thom Yorke
I mentioned before in this thread that I thought the Rangers always collapsed well around the net and their D-core has been very strong for years now. He's had a ton of support over the years. Maybe not the goal-support all the time, but great defensive structure around him to help him out. In a Conference as shallow as the East is, the Rangers are and were far from an average team.
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I agree that he has had some very good defensive rosters in front of him, particularly in the last few years (and this year in particular). In 2012, the lack of goal support was too much to overcome. The current defensive structure has been weakened by the Kings' punishing forecheck and net front presence, though. Staal/Girardi look absolutely lost, and even McDonagh has had some massive brain farts defensively. This series has been a culmination of bad bounces, sloppy play, poor puck management, and playing a flat out better team. The Rangers are definitely one of the better teams in the league - the Kings, on the other hand, are arguably the best hands down.
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I realize I sound very anti-Lundqvist, but I think he's one of the best goalies (albeit the pool of elite goalies is not very deep nowadays), and is certainly number 1 when you consider body-of-work in the regular season. But ultimately, I don't care about that if you drop-off in the playoffs, relative to his own level of play, and others.
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He doesn't drop off in the playoffs, though.
Average regular season GAA/sv% for career: .920/2.26
Average playoff GAA/sv% for career: .921/2.26
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I look at Rask the same way. He's so damn consistent for such long periods of time, but I don't have confidence in him coming up big all the time. He can even look dominant in the playoffs at times (outdueling Vezina winner Ryan Miller in 2010 while being an underdog, or holding Crosby/Malkin and company to 2 goals in a series), but I don't know if (or think) he has what it takes to elevate his game all the time like Quick does.
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The notion that Quick elevates his game "all the time" in the playoffs does not ring true, IMO. He's had two excellent playoffs runs, but he hasn't proven much outside of those two performances. His regular season numbers are spotty and inconsistent at best. He hasn't even been that great this year in the playoffs, and his average numbers attest to that. The goal support in front of him has been absolutely tremendous.
I think it's pretty safe to say that Lundqvist is a better goaltender than Quick. It's just that the upgrade from Quick to Lundqvist isn't near enough to make up for the difference in quality between the Kings' forward group and the Rangers'.