Should Avs, Wild have pulled their goalies in high-scoring Game 1?
Game 1 of the second-round series in the Central Division between the Colorado Avalanche and Minnesota Wild was one of the craziest Stanley Cup Playoff games in recent memory.
The Avalanche held serve on home ice with a 9-6 victory that saw 14 different players score the 15 goals. It was a tough night in net for Minnesota’s Jesper Wallstedt and Colorado’s Scott Wedgewood, who posted save percentages of .810 and .833, respectively.
What was striking as the game wore on and the goals piled up was that neither John Hynes nor Jared Bednar opted to make changes in net, even as both teams have starting-caliber options as their backups in Filip Gustavsson and MacKenzie Blackwood.
On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed whether their respective coaches were right to let Wallstedt and Wedgewood work through their struggles between the pipes.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s go out West where the series kicked off between the Minnesota Wild and Colorado Avalanche, and boy, did it ever kick off. 15 total goals between the two sides. It’s the Avs who come out on top with a 9-6 victory, 7.5 expected goals, only two Minnesota forwards didn’t register a point. Only five Colorado skaters didn’t register a point last night. The goals were flying everywhere, but I want to look at this from, as we always do, a goalie perspective with you, Hutts. I was watching, and when it was 3-0 Colorado, as much as none of those were really Jesper Wallstedt’s fault, I sat there and thought it’s Game 1 of what should be a long series. I would have protected my young goalie and said, ‘Hey, it’s 3-0 13 minutes in, you’re out. We’re putting in Filip Gustavsson who is more than capable…’ I was stunned they didn’t pull Wallstedt. Honestly, I was surprised when Colorado went down 5-4 and it looked like they were scrambling with 3 goals against in 10 minutes, I was surprised Scott Wedgewood didn’t get the pull for MacKenzie Blackwood. Were you surprised that both goalies rode out a 14-goal night with one of them being an empty-netter.
Carter Hutton: I’m not surprised Wedgewood stayed in just because the game was still so tight at that point, but the Wallstedt one, it’s easy now with hindsight to look at this and think if Gustavsson goes in it might have changed this whole game. A lot of pucks went through him after that too, it was a lot of straight shots, just things finding their way in the back of the net, and you don’t have it. Again, if I was the goalie in this situation now as I’m reflecting today, if you’re Scott Wedgewood and you gave up six, you’re like, ‘Who cares, we won…’ You just want wins. Wins are all that matters at the end of the day. The stat line can go out the window, but if you’re Jesper Wallstedt I think doubt starts to creep into you, right? You just had a big series. You’re playing against the Colorado Avalanche now who are the stars of the National Hockey League. You’ve got Cale Makar, MacKinnon, all these guys coming down hill at you, and then all of a sudden your timing is a little bit off… That’s where I think the pull is almost a protection factor. And it’s easy sitting here now saying this, right? Maybe if you stick with Wallstedt and he makes a couple timely saves when the game is 5-4, maybe it changes the whole outcome. Sitting here today, I think this stings Minnesota a lot more than the six that went in on Wedgewood.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…