First things first, this post isn’t going to be funny or clever.   I almost just posted this information in the comments section.  But its an off-day and I’d like to be able to find it again.

Late last night I got curious about Stanley Cup winning goalies, and the number of games they played in the regular season.  So I went digging.  The past 20 goalies to win a Cup and their regular season games played are as follows:

95-96 Patrick Roy 39
96-97 Chris Osgood 47
97-98 Chris Osgood 64
98-99 Ed Belfour 61
99-00 Martin Brodeur 72
00-01 Patrick Roy 62
01-02 Dominik Hasek 65
02-03 Martin Brodeur 73
03-04 Nikolai Khabibulin 55
04-05 LOCKOUT
05-06 Cam Ward 28
06-07 Jean Sebastian Giguere 56
07-08 Chris Osgood 43
08-09 MAF 62
09-10 Antti Niemi 39
10-11 Tim Thomas 57
11-12 Jonathan Quick - 69
12-13 Corey Crawford 30 GP (52 adjusted for partial lockout season)
13-14 Jonathan Quick - 49
14-15 Corey Crawford Regular Season GP 57
15-16 Matt Murray 13

Note Crawford only played 30 games in 12-13 due to the partial lockout.  I’ve extrapolated that number to reflect the games he would have played, proportionally, in an 82 game season.

The average games played over 20 years for cup winning goalies is 53.

For last 20 goalies to win a cup, only eight played more than 60 games.  That’s hardly a definitive number at 40%.  But only 3 (15%) won the cup after playing more than 65 regular season games, and only 1 in 20 years not named Martin Brodeur.

Next I wanted to project where goalies where end up in GP at the end of this season.  ((TeamX Goalie GP/TeamXGP) x (TeamX remaining games)) +TeamXGP = projected GP for TeamX Goalie) Here is the current break down of projected games played:

Murray on pace - 45
Corey Crawford - 52
Price - 61
Rinne - 62
Gibson - 63
Holtby - 63
Dubnyk - 63
Rask   - 66
Mason  - 67
Martin Jones on pace for 69
Cam Talbot - 72
Bobrovsky  - 75

I didn’t include the Kings or the Blues because their goalie situations are a hot mess.

The point is this- in an effort to win now the Jackets and Oilers are pacing their goalies for the improbable.  Not to say a cup can’t be won with a goalie who played 70+ regular season games, its just to say after 65, the numbers don’t favor it.

Bring on Bob, bring on the Jackets.  After all, winning a regular season game against the Pens is their cup anyway.