Breaking down every Round 3 goaltending matchup in 2023 Stanley Cup playoffs

Credit: Jake Oettinger (© Jerome Miron-USA TODAY Sports)

The NHL is down to four teams vying for Lord Stanley’s Cup, and there’s no shortage of drama between the pipes. Only two franchises remaining – Dallas and Florida – have a clear cut No.1 goaltender. Carolina and Vegas? It depends who’s healthy. Which is always a question mark for each franchise.

Here’s what to look for when the third round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs opens Thursday in Raleigh, North Carolina.

VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS vs DALLAS STARS

Vegas Golden Knights

Adin Hill

2022-23 regular season: 16-7-1, 2.50 GAA, .915 Sv%, 0 shutouts

2022-23 playoffs: 3-1, 2.19 GAA, .934 Sv%, 0 shutouts

Career playoffs: 3-1, 2.19 GAA, .934 Sv%, 0 shutouts

Jonathan Quick

2022-23 regular season: (LAK) 11-13-4, 3.50 GAA, .876 Sv%, 1 shutout

2022-23 regular season: (VGK) 5-2-2, 3.13 GAA, .901 Sv%, 1 shutout

Career playoffs: 49-43, 2.31 GAA, .921 Sv%, 10 shutouts, 2012 & 2014 Stanley Cup Champion, 2012 Conn Smythe Trophy

Logan Thompson

2022-23 regular season: 21-13-3, 2.65 GAA, .915 Sv%, 2 shutouts

Career playoffs: none

Dallas Stars

Jake Oettinger

2022-23 regular season: 37-11-11, 2.37 GAA, .919 Sv%, 5 shutouts

2022-23 playoffs: 8-5, 2.75, .903 Sv%, 1 shutout

Career playoffs: 11-9, 2.34 GAA, .927 Sv%, 2 shutouts

Scott Wedgewood

2022-23 regular season: 9-8-3, 2.72 GAA, .915 Sv%, 1 shutout

Career playoffs: 0-0, 3.41 GAA, .833 Sv%, 0 shutouts

What a wild year it’s been in net for the Golden Knights. Five goaltenders suited up for Vegas during the regular season, and it was unknown which would be the starting netminder during the postseason.

Through steady play and a 7-0-3 record, Brossoit won the starting gig. And he was solid against the Winnipeg Jets in the first round. But he allowed nine goals combined in Games 1 and 2 against the Edmonton Oilers. And then in Game 3, Brossoit suffered a nasty lower-body injury just 11 minutes into the contest. Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy said Tuesday that Brossoit has not been on the ice since, and he does not expect him to factor into the series against Dallas.

Adin Hill replaced Brossoit in Game 3, which surprised some considering two-time Stanley Cup Champion and 2012 Conn Smythe winner Jonathan Quick was available. But despite his impressive resume, Quick’s performance this year didn’t match what Hill did for Vegas during the regular season.

Hill was excellent in relief, and he was able to stymie a potent Oilers offense for the rest of the series. The only blip on the radar was Game 4, in which Hill allowed four goals on 33 shots and took the loss.

I’ve been really impressed with Hill’s progression throughout the 2022-23 season. As the year moved along, I think he became much more composed in the crease. He stopped flopping around and began to let the game come to him.

Hill isn’t the best skater, so minimizing movement and getting square to the shot early is important. Especially because he has strong natural instincts and does a nice job of reading the shot when it comes from a distance.

Golden Knights goaltending coach Sean Burke has always preached patience, and I think the message got through to Hill. Despite missing time at the end of the regular season and some of playoffs due to injury, the 6-foot-4 netminder from Comox, B.C. looked right at home against the Oilers. Hill played a critical role in Games 5 and 6: he stopped 70 of 75 shots and made several massive third period saves to close out the final game of the series.

The big question is whether Hill can continue to play at such a high level against the Stars. Five games is a small sample size. And he’ll have to contend against the NHL’s best 5-on-5 line during the regular season composed of Dallas forwards Jason Robertson, Roope Hintz, and Joe Pavelski.

For me, Hill did a nice job against Edmonton’s lethal power play. But it won’t get much easier against Dallas. The Stars have been clicking along with the man advantage at a conversion rate of more than 30 percent during the 2022-23 Stanley Cup playoffs. And Hintz has been a nightmare for goaltenders in transition.

For Dallas, the road to the Stanley Cup Final is paved by Oettinger. And although there’ve been some bumps along the way for the Minnesota-native this postseason, Oettinger has been lights out when it counted most.

He was only beaten once in Game 7 of the second round to eliminate the Seattle Kraken. And he allowed just one goal in the final two games of Dallas’ first-round series against the Minnesota Wild.

Just three years into his NHL career, Oettinger already has a reputation as one of the game’s best netminders. And it’s well-earned by virtue of several big performances in the postseason. But the fact that Oettinger was pulled twice against the Kraken in the second round can’t be glossed over.

For as strong as Oettinger is technically, there are flaws to his game. He can be over-reliant on post-integrations, which sometimes opens the short side to bad angle shots. And when the play moves quickly, Oettinger can struggle to rotate and get square to the shooter.

But the Stars netminder is often able to make up for these deficiencies with his long legs and hockey sense. Standing 6-foot-5, Oettinger is a big man. And I think his hockey IQ is exceptional. He reads the play very well.

Oettinger will face a very deep, resilient Golden Knights team that defends extremely well and lives on the rush. Vegas can skate and is excellent in transition. And the Golden Knights power play has become serviceable now that Mark Stone is back in their lineup.

Three times in the Seattle series Oettinger allowed more than four goals. And for me, regardless of how those shots went in, it won’t be good enough against a team like Vegas that can play shutdown hockey as well as any team in the NHL.

The challenge for Oettinger is finding the same level of consistency he showed in the first round against the Wild, when he only allowed more than three goals once in six games.

CAROLINA HURRICANES vs FLORIDA PANTHERS

Carolina Hurricanes

Frederik Andersen

2022-23 regular season: 21-11-1, 2.48 GAA, .903 Sv%, 1 shutout

2022-23 playoffs: 5-0, 1.80 GAA, .931 Sv%, 0 shutouts

Career playoffs: 32-23, 2.48, .917, 3 shutouts

Antti Raanta

2022-23 regular season: 19-3-3, 2.23 GAA, .910 Sv%, 4 shutouts

2022-23 playoffs: 3-2, 2.59 GAA, .906 Sv%, 0 shutouts

Career playoffs: 9-8, 2.51, .910, 1 shutout

Pyotr Kochetkov

2022-23 regular season: 12-7-5, 2.44 GAA, .909 Sv%, 4 shutouts

Career playoffs: 1-2, 3.89 GAA, .869 Sv%, 0 shutouts

Florida Panthers

Sergei Bobrovsky

2022-23 regular season: 24-20-3, 3.07 GAA, .901, 1 shutout

2022-23 playoffs: 7-2, 2.82 GAA, .918 Sv%, 0 shutouts

Career playoffs: 24-31, 3.08 GAA, .904 Sv%, 0 shutouts

Alex Lyon

2022-23 regular season: 9-4-2, 2.89 GAA, .914 Sv%, 1 shutout

2022-23 playoffs: 1-2, 3.26 GAA, .902 Sv%, 0 shutouts

Career playoffs: 1-2, 3.26 GAA, .902 Sv%, 0 shutouts

Does it really matter who’s in net for the Hurricanes? Through two rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, I’m honestly not sure. Carolina plays such a suffocating defensive game that it’s made goaltending almost a spare part of the team’s success.

Don’t take that the wrong way. I’m not slamming the Hurricanes goaltending corp. I just think that – aside from Andersen’s outstanding performance in Game 5 against the New Jersey Devils to close out the second round – they haven’t been tested very much.

The biggest question for me isn’t whether any of the three Carolina goaltenders can get the job done. It’s if they can stay healthy. Both Andersen and Raanta have missed a significant chunk of the postseason due to various illnesses and injuries.

I think there’s legitimate cause for concern given their past injury troubles. But the Hurricanes do have the luxury of having Kochetkov waiting in the wings. He’s a quality prospect that showed extremely well for most of the 2022-23 campaign.

Knocking off an offensive monster like the Devils should have been tougher than it was for the Hurricanes. But Andersen did face some adversity in the series. He allowed four goals on 12 shots during Game 3 and was pulled by coach Rod Brind’Amour. But the Danish netminder was strong in Games 4 and 5, allowing just three goals over the final 127 minutes of play.

Andersen is the expected starter for Carolina in Game 1. And against the Panthers, he’ll face a team willing to make life difficult at the edge of the blue paint. Florida forward Matthew Tkachuk is no stranger to opposing goalies. And the scary part is his skill matches his tenacity. Andersen will have to fight for sightlines and deal with occasional contact.

The Panthers have been plucky in the postseason, scoring timely goals. Andersen rarely faces a shot total over 30, so expect him to be called upon for big saves after long dry spells. And he has to respect the offensive prowess of Florida’s blueliners, led by Brandon Montour, who has six goals in 12 Stanley Cup Playoffs games.

There might not be anyone happier to have a few days off than Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky. He was mind-numbingly strong against the Toronto Maple Leafs in round 2, allowing exactly two goals in all five games despite facing 174 shots in total. That’s good for a .943 save percentage.

Bobrovsky has previously struggled to stay hydrated during long runs without a break in goal, so having six days between games (Florida ousted the Leafs on May 12) to recover is a true blessing.

I thought the Russian netminder got better as the first round series against Boston wore on, but he was flat out dynamite from the get-go against Toronto. He’s been tracking the puck extremely well during the Stanley Cup Playoffs and doing a better job of sealing holes than in the recent past.

Watching Bobrovsky play is a joy for goalies due to his athleticism and powerful skating. But those traits are also what tend to get him in trouble. The Panthers backstop can be overly explosive at times and lose the net.

That’s part of the reason why I think Bobrovsky was such a streaky goaltender during the 2022-23 regular season. Most goalies have to manufacture energy. Bob has to control it. Finding that balance can be difficult during a long season. It’s easy for him to overdo it, and when that happens, it can take Bobrovsky a few games to get back on track.

The reality for the Panthers is they need the most consistent version of him if they want to get past the Hurricanes and on to the Stanley Cup Final. Florida has been riding a postseason magical mystery tour for a month now. It’s an exciting time to be a Panther.

I think the biggest challenge for Bobrovsky against Carolina will be finding pucks through traffic. Sound familiar? Yep, Carolina is a lot like Florida in that they go to the hard areas and make life difficult on opposing goalies.

I’d say it’s more about screened shots than deflections for the Hurricanes, especially with defenseman Brent Burns slinging pucks at the net. But the byproduct is chaos in front, which emphasizes the need for Bobrovsky to be tidy with his rebounds.

Oddly, he did not play against Carolina during the 2022-23 season. But career statistics show well for the Panthers netminder. Bobrovsky is middling 13-13-1 all-time against the Hurricanes, but he sports a stout .923 save percentage and 2.39 goals against average.

I think there’s a good chance Bobrovsky will need to steal at least two games for Florida to advance. He’s been arguably the most valuable goaltender during the 2022-23 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

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