Southeast Division Goalie Preview
Atlanta- The Thrashers have who I consider one of the best young goaltenders in the league in Kari Lehtonen. He has all of the tools to succeed in the NHL. He has a massive buterfly and is excelent at controling rebounds. The questionmark here is his health. For the past few years, he has been injured every year and actually twice last year, only playing 38 games last year. This year the safety net is a bit better. Hedberg is a solid backup and he proved that last year in Dallas. They also picked up Brathwaite, who has played the last few years in Russia. Neither is a quality starter, but they are better than Dunham and Shields and are more experienced than Garnett. if Lehtonen is healthy, though, he can carry the team to the playoffs.
Carolina- Ward comes into the regular season with the number one job, but may not deserve it. he did play amaizing in the playoffs, but he was lousy in the regular season, having a sv% of .882 He has shown that he can play under pressure, but not in the regular season. The backup, Grahame, was terrible for Tampa Bay and proved that he truely wasnt a starter. He should be decent in the backup position. But since Ward hasnt played well in the reagular season, Grahame may have to play more than desired, and the team may struggle. The team may end up bringing up Peters, who played wel in the OHL last year, or they may bring up Nastiuk, who played extremely well in the ECHL
Florida- Trading Luongo will come back to haunt them. They give up a ton of shots and neither Auld nor belfour can handle that workload. Auld is a decent goalie who played continuously after Coutier got hurt and showed that he is a decent goalie, but the shear amount of shots that he will face will hamper any further development. The only reason that he will be the starter is because Belfour is feaching the end of his career. He struggled last year and will definately struggle this year with the pood defense of Florida. Behind those two is Anderson, who I believed played well in Chicago and could potentially see some time this year in Florida.
Washington- Kolzig will once again be the man in between the pipes and Johnson will be the backup. Kolzig was one of the reasons that this team actually won a few games and he played well despite having a terrible team in front of him. The D has become more experienced and has also been upgraded in the offseason, but Olie the Goalie will still need to stand on his head game in and game out. Johnson can steal the odd game now and again, but is far less consistent than Kolzig. He will be called upon sparingly this year. If there is an injury, either Daigneault or Cassivi will be called up, and neither of them have proven that they are capable of playing in the NHL, even though Cassivi did play well in the AHL playoffs last year.