I hear a lot of talk about Carey Price and Josh Harding as up and coming \"can\'t miss\" goaltenders, but why is no one talking about Tuukka Rask? Is it because he doesn\'t play in North America? Or because he was once drafted by the Maple Leafs?

Rask (as a 19 year old) put up great numbers in the top men\'s league in Finlnad. Nothing against Price or Harding, but I don\'t see how either the WHL or even the AHL compares to a mens league in Europe.

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12 team limited keeper leauge: 9 protected players. Maximum 3 players at any position but only 1 goalie (and option of keeping one extra "prospect" at any position)
21 man roster: 3C 3LW 3RW 4D 2G 1UTL 5BN 2IR. Scoring:G,A,+/-,PIM,PPP,GWG,W,GGA,SV%,SO
C: H. Sedin, E. Staal, Brunner (RW)
LW: Ovechkin, Hall, Dupuis (RW), Boedker
RW: Perry, Skinner (C), Voracek, Fehr, Boll
D: Chara, Hedman, J. Johnson, Bieksa, Despres
G: Louongo, Varlamov, Nabokov, Ellis
Prospects: Grandlund, Turris, Coyle, Nyquist, Lack

Probably because he\'s:
(A.) In Europe. No press on him, no NHL play, not in the spotlight
(B.) Boston has a less controversial goaltending situation than Minnesota and Montreal, currently. Tim Thomas is pretty much #1, and Hannu Toivonen is kind of #2. Sigalet/McDonald(I think he\'s on the team still) are running for 3rd right now while Tuukka hasn\'t been able to get a chance at challenging for anything yet. Meanwhile, Montreal had injury to Huet, Aebischer played badly with zero confidence, Halak came up from the minors after outplaying Yann Danis(also a great prospect who could have stepped in with probably a little bit less impact than Halak). Price had the benefit of being in the international spotlight. Previous to that, there was only talk about him at the draft, and due to him keeping a bad team in the running. Harding\'s played equally as good as any Minnesota goalie this year on his chances, so he\'s obviously being looked at a lot as well.

Post edited by: lockedge, at: 2007/04/24 19:15

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Bowman-Legwand-Mitchell
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Butler,Horak,Nodl,Omark,Bartulis, Carson,Demers,Staios,Garon,Schneider

PROSPECTS
Nyquist,Bennett,Guptill,Haula,Knight, Kristo,Ranford,Rieder,Sundher,Barberio
Dumoulin,Deslauriers,Janosik,Klefbom
Ness,Sproul,Vatanen,Poulin

Toivonen isn\'t the #2 ... maybe by default !

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Bench : Hudler, Colborne, A. McDonald, Selanne, Zidlicky, Orlov, Lindback, Luongo, Halak

Minor : Weiss, Jurco, Jarnkrok, Kaberle, Lack

Even with Tim Thomas the B\'s are in trouble.He might slide around and look like a fish out of water but he really isn\'t that good. Just bring rask up next year and play the hell out of him, why not. Timmy Thomas is not going to win them playoff rounds, take your chances on RASK. Or atleast bring him to North America and get him in the AHL.

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Zorro says "vote for Dobber"
Angus is my best friend at dobberhockey..
Bruins believer since BIRTH..
Fav player: Cam Neely..

I disagree Z, when you\'ve got a prospect of Rask\'s caliber (especially in net), putting him into a situation where he is likely to fail is the worst thing you can do. AHL might be a good idea as you say though. But kudos to the Bruins if they let him develop before throwing him into the fire.

As for Toivonen, kid\'s got game and I think will end up showing it somewhere not too far down the road. Flashes of brilliance marred by inconsistency, but he\'s young yet. Just as guys like Crosby, Malkin & Ovechkin tend to raise our expectations for skaters, I think that recently guys like Lundqvist, Ward and Raycroft (for one season at least) have us a little impatient when it comes to young goalies. I saw a lot of people drop Ryan Miller about three years ago, and today lots of people seem ready to jettison Toivonen and Leclaire. For whatever reason, we seem to forget that success at their ages would statistically be the exception rather than the norm.

I would love to see Boston pursue Giguere and bring Rask in as backup. He\'s already got the reflexes, but could learn a lot from JSG\'s technique.

Post edited by: Thieving Giraffe, at: 2007/04/25 15:33

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T.G.

Yeah Toivenen is a little bit of an enigma.
But TG is prolly right here Hannu got thrown to the wolves a little too soon and his confidence got singed a tad. So you would not wan\'t to repeat that deal with Rask.. let him develop and be patient then he\'ll pay the big dividends.

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Prospects- Bowmman CAR, Glennie DAL, LeBlanc MTL, Ferraro DET, Tangradi PIT, Yip COL, Kuznetsov WAS, Neuvirth WAS

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I saw Tuukka Rask play at the Vancouver WJC (along with Pogge). He was stellar.

I owned Toivonen for most of the last 2 years, across all of two pools. I\'ve tried to read everything in cyberspace on this disappointing, and yet still promising, fracking player. Kudos, BSG.

I read somewhere that a goalie coach diagnosed Toivonen\'s problem as being \"between his ears\". Nice public comment.

I\'ve read elsewhere that Boston has a history of destroying goalies (although he might just have been talking about Raycroft, who is certainly no worse than Belfour).

My guess is that Boston signs someone middlin\' in from Free Agent-land, opens up their pre-season and first half to the goalie competition they were hoping for from this season, and that somebody and Tim Thomas emerge from the rubber blitz...

So, semi-safe bet on Tim Thomas.
Longshots on Toivonen, Rask.
Keeper picks for Rask, and a traded Toivonen.
Their free-agent signee? If not top-tier, he\'s Aebischer-like chum there...

Post edited by: Steffen, at: 2007/04/25 21:34

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D: Byfuglien Chara Ju.Schultz Josi Myers Brodin Dillon Postma Orlov
G: Price Dubnyk

Thieving Giraffe wrote:
Excellent post Giraffe.

I own Rask in one of my keeper leagues and Toivonen in another and think they both should get lots of playing time in the AHL before moving up to Boston, partly to get used to the North American game as well as to develop confidence at this level. Toivonen played great last year in the show before getting hurt (which is why I took a gamble on him late in my draft thinking he might beat Thomas for the number 1 spot), but he struggled early on and was sent down to the AHL to develop his game.

I\'m hoping that the Boston brass learn from this and don\'t rush Rask. Most goaltenders spend years in the AHL or Europe before making the transition to the NHL level. I think Rask deserves much more attention as a up and coming netminder who is going to be stellar in the NHL, but I hope Boston doesn\'t rush him and set his development back even further.

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12 team limited keeper leauge: 9 protected players. Maximum 3 players at any position but only 1 goalie (and option of keeping one extra "prospect" at any position)
21 man roster: 3C 3LW 3RW 4D 2G 1UTL 5BN 2IR. Scoring:G,A,+/-,PIM,PPP,GWG,W,GGA,SV%,SO
C: H. Sedin, E. Staal, Brunner (RW)
LW: Ovechkin, Hall, Dupuis (RW), Boedker
RW: Perry, Skinner (C), Voracek, Fehr, Boll
D: Chara, Hedman, J. Johnson, Bieksa, Despres
G: Louongo, Varlamov, Nabokov, Ellis
Prospects: Grandlund, Turris, Coyle, Nyquist, Lack

I hear what you are saying T.Giraffe. The goaltending position is the hardest to land and hold in the NHL and probably in all sports. I am just a huge B\'s fan and would love to see them get a goalie VIA free agency, for as long as I remember the B\'s have never signed a goalie that was on the FA market.They brought up Lemelin, Ranford, Blain Lacqer, Raycroft, Toivenen.They traded for Moog, Jim Carey. I guess you can say they signed Tim Thomas but come on he\'s far from a top tier goalie. When rumors were out in the mid 90\'s that the B\'s were going to sign CUJO in the off-season I was jumpin for joy. But the Buds got him and the B\'s have been hruting in net ever since. I am just sooo impatient and can\'t wait anymore. Maybe Rask can get thrown in their and maybe against all odds he can become a great goalie. If he flops well then we will have to sign somebody. But Giguere would be interesting...sorry for the rant...

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Zorro says "vote for Dobber"
Angus is my best friend at dobberhockey..
Bruins believer since BIRTH..
Fav player: Cam Neely..

I agree that their track record is not stellar, but on the other hand the signing of Savard and Chara was out-of-character as well.

My hope is that new management styles will be reflected in this year\'s off-season moves, as during the last. There seems to be an abundance of good goaltending available in the NHL right now. But with both Thomas and Toivonen signed to one-way contracts next season, I\'m certainly not holding my breath.

P.S. Bring Drury to Beantown!!! (yeah, right)

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T.G.