The unsung heroes of the crease.

[Shindigs 1,771]

Give the Backup Goalies some love!

Being a backup goalie isn't exactly glamorous, and depending on the team you're on and the TPE you're at. You may be looking at the bare minimum required starts every season. Not to mention the cutoff for games played in STHS means that your player will never ever show up on the leaderboards. This means that some pretty insane backup goalie performances will be completely missed by anyone that doesn't do a deep dive in the index on the regular.

 

Part of what I do as GM in Vegas is posting a stats breakdown after (almost) every sim, unless it's a 1 game sim. Cause that's just not really worth the hassle. But what that means is that as part of doing the stats I have to fiddle about the index a bit every day. Currently in the VHLM we have two backup goalies that are really doing some pretty insane stuff, not entirely surprising they are on the two top teams. Because really it's hard to do anything impressive as a backup goalie if your team is in the tank. Not really a fair challenge, as it were.

 

Unbeaten Goalie

So who is the first backup I want to highlight? Well it's ours in Vegas Cory Evans @Spaceium. Who is currently sitting on a 14-0-0 record with 4 shutouts. That means that he's actually 7th in the league for Wins and 6th in the league for Shutouts with only 14 games played; That's kind of nuts. Now if you look closer you'll see that all his starts have been against Mexico, Saskatoon, Houston and Philly. Which not doubt has helped, as he's faced a staggering 15.85 Shots per game on average. Last night he had a 10 save shutout against SSK for instance. But regardless of that, having the consistency to still pull off 14 wins in a row is huge. Being able to play your backup and be confident that he will give you a win is such a massive weight off your shoulders as a GM.

 

The Final Boss of San Diego

The other goalie I want to mention is SDM's DJ Fire Dragon @Firekiss who has started 13(?) games, but played in 18 of them with a 11-0-2 record, .931 SV% (League 1st, if they had enough games) and 3 Shutouts. Though they actually realistically "earned" I believe 3 more shutouts than those, as they've come on off the bench against Vegas in time to face 10+ shots 3 times IIRC and shut us out every time after doing so. A very impressive (and somewhat annoying) feat.

 

Awards?

With the VHLM being a developmental league, and backup goalies developing into starters being no small part of that. I think it would be a fun thing if we had a "Best Backup Goalie" type award in the league. Because as mentioned, being stuck behind a starter in the generally thankless job of a backup goalie can be pretty rough. So giving them a little spotlight would be a nice touch in my opinion. As it stands right now you really have to go out of your way to realize the backups even exist.

 

Sure, most goalies realize that's just the way of things and that next season will be their time to shine. But when you have backups doing what Cory and DJ are doing this season, it just doesn't seem right to have that be one of the best kept secrets of the VHLM. I know for me tracking Cory's win streak is one of the more exciting parts of the season right now, as Vegas already secured the playoff spot and don't have a whole hell of a lot to play for the last third or so of the season.