Backup goalies are the hotter hand entering playoffs for Avalanche, Kings
Winning in the Stanley Cup Playoffs often comes down to having a goalie get hot at the right time.
It doesn’t even need to come from the starter. The 2006 Carolina Hurricanes, 2010 Chicago Blackhawks, 2016 Pittsburgh Penguins and 2023 Vegas Golden Knights are all teams that won the Cup with a goalie that did not lead the team in starts in the regular season.
For this year’s Colorado Avalanche and Los Angeles Kings, it may be the backups who have earned the first crack at Game 1 of the first round.
In Colorado, Scott Wedgewood has been the hot hand of late, winning his past four starts while allowing just five goals. While in Los Angeles, Anton Forsberg has outplayed Darcy Kuemper as of late, going 4-0 with a .967 save percentage in his last four starts with the team’s season fully on the line.
On Monday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton discussed while for the Avalanche and Kings, starting the playoffs with the hot backup in net might be the right call.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Let’s kick things off with our man of the weekend, Hutts, and I’lll let you go first, because there’s a goalie you want to give some love to.
Carter Hutton: There is a goalie that I want to give some love to. A goalie that I think the Ottawa Senators wish they still had in Anton Forsberg out in LA. He’s been playing very, very well as of late. He’s been a big time difference-maker when you think about this team… The numbers are pretty wild when we start to break them down. Even in his last four, he’s 4-0 in his last four and he’s got a .963 save percentage, and those games are so important because it’s been crunch time. There’s been a lot of pressure on the LA Kings to win and win now in a division where it’s been sloppy… And another team that potentially is going to have the same problem with their starter underperforming and the backup being very good, which we’re probably going to see in the first round the way things are laying out… is the LA Kings and the Colorado Avalanche. Scott Wedgewood has been the difference-maker in Colorado compared to MacKenzie Blackwood… [Since the Olympic break] they’ve each played 12 games, a .916 and two shutouts for Forsberg, and now Scott Wedgewood, 9-2-1 with a .938. These are unbelievable numbers for the two guys.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…