Detroit Red Wings: Grading the goaltenders 2019-20 performances
By Tyler Kotila
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With the rest of the Detroit Red Wings regular season being a big question mark, take a look at how the goaltenders graded for their 2019-20 performances.
The Detroit Red Wings season has eleven games remaining, but with the season in limbo, it sure seems like they will not be finishing out the last eleven games. Either way, the Red Wings had one of the worst seasons in franchise history, it was bad, real bad, but there are some positives to take from it.
Jonathan Bernier is a prime example of one of the positives from the 2019-20 season, all while Jimmy Howard was the complete opposite. Since the storylines for the season have been all but decided, so taking a look into their season performances is worth the look.
First up on the slate for player grades will be the goaltenders, with Jonathan Bernier and Jimmy Howard, who spent the majority of the time between the pipes during the 2019-20 season. It was Eric Comrie and Calvin Pickard, who both have played six total games.
The two extras, made a total of three starts on the year, making most of their starts in the American Hockey League (AHL) with the Grand Rapids Griffins. In terms of young goaltenders in the minors, the Red Wings have Filip Larsson who has been sent down to the ECHL after some struggles.
Not yet in the Red Wings system, there are a plethora of goaltenders that should flourish once they get the chance, including names like Carter Gylander and Keith Petruzzelli. Both Gylander and Petruzzelli shined in their respective league/conference.
In all honesty, fans knew the Red Wings would be terrible this season, but most would have thought that Howard was going to be a reliable netminder, and Bernier would be the shaky backup. This did not mean that fans expected the Red Wings to win, but I doubt they would have expected this.
If you polled fans before the start of the season on how Bernier and Howard would do, the results would favor Howard as the “reliable” netminder in a heartbeat. Now it is clear that this is just not the case, and Howard has fallen into quite the slump.
On the other hand, the Detroit Red Wings have a new goaltender for at least one more season in Bernier. At the very minimum, he is a stopgap for one more season, or he could be trade bait in the 2020-21 season as he will be in a contract year.