Friday, April 1, 2016

Connor Hellebuyck and John GIbson: NHL's Next Legends?

With the exit of Martin Brodeur, Martin St. Louis, Daniel Alfredsson, showing the teams are changing rapidly and using their younger players. Detroit is a big name because the stars Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, and Niklas Kronwall will sadly be leaving the team in the next 5 years, but the rise of their great prospects like Anthony Mantha, Evgeni Svechnikov, Ryan Sproul, Xavier Ouellet, Ty Bertuzzi, Zach Nastasiuk, and Jake Paterson are still in the AHL or QMJHL. Some of those players are considered active like, Gustav Nyquist, Tomas Tatar, Petr Mrazek, Tomas Jurco, Riley Sheahan, Darren Helm, and 19 year old Dylan Larkin. Not just Detroit is doing this though. The Edmonton Oilers, who've had the 1st overall picks 3 years in a row, how an average team age of 24.3. 22 yr old Taylor Hall, 21 yr old Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, 23 year old Nail Yakupov, and 18 year old Connor Mcdavid consist of some of those players. Many other teams have younger players to cope with the exit of some of their better ones. Chicago's Artemi Panarin, NYR's Oscar Lindberg, Dallas' Oscar Klingberg, Buffalo's Jack Eichel, Winnipeg's Connor Hellebuyck, and Anaheim's John Gibson are to name a few.
The rise of goaltender has changed so much since the 80's more than any other position. Player's like Martin Broduer (retired), Grant Fuhr (retired), Roberto Luongo (Florida Panthers), Henrik Lunquist (New York Rangers) have changed the goalie game completely, and I'm sure that Hellebuyck and Gibson will do the same.
After the 4 straight Western Conference Championship games, the Anaheim Ducks looked like they had the goalie game solved with Fredrick Andersen. But that proved to be false as the young goalie has struggled so far this year. They brought up John Gibson, 22, from Syracuse, and he's performed. His record is 4-2-1 with a save percentage of .944 and a goals against average of 1.47. The team seems to be performing better when he's on the ice. Which is strange because he's still considered a rookie.
Winnipeg is in the same division as Anaheim, but has a better record. Maybe what put them ahead is Connor Hellebuyck. He has a record 3-0-0, and a save percentage of .965 and a .97 goals against average.
These two players have so far made a name for themselves this year. It's no doubt they won't stop there.

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