St. Louis Blues Goalie Battle: Elliott vs. Allen
It is often said in football that if you have not named a starting quarterback, it is because there is not one on the roster. The same should also apply in hockey, where the St. Louis Blues, over the last several seasons, have been taking a tandem goaltending approach to the game.
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The “Goaltending by Committee” approach has led to three straight first-round playoff exits and a team that has failed to win a second round Stanley Cup playoff game since May 7th, 2002 when they defeated the Detroit Red Wings behind the efforts of the great Brent Johnson.
By now you may have paused your reading to look up Brent Johnson. I’ll save you the time.
Johnson is a retired journeyman goaltender who spent parts of 13 NHL seasons with the Blues, Coyotes, Capitals, and Penguins. He was not a world-class netminder by any stretch of the imagination. However, he is the last goaltender to win a game past the first round for the Blues in 2002.
It means that it is time to pick a goalie and stick with him.
After appearing in 58 games in the 2001-02 season as the primary netminder, Johnson was relegated to a committee role in 2002-03, playing in just 38 games and seeing the Blues fall in the first round. He would eventually be traded to Phoenix for Mike Sillinger in 2004.
The Blues would go on to have seven different combinations of goaltenders over the next decade.
What does all of this mean? It means that it is time to pick a goalie and stick with him. Should it be Brian Elliott or Jake Allen?
Brian “The Moose” Elliott
Elliott was the clear number-one goalie at the start of the season, but missed time for an injury and Allen played well. When Elliott returned, so did tandem goaltending.
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Then came a game in March where Allen was having a rough night, giving up four goals in his first 21 shots faced, and was pulled for Elliott. Elliott then gave up a goal in six shots, and was replaced by Allen. The Blues would go on to lose that game in a shootout.
Reports would surface that Elliott was not happy about being pulled, and even slapped away Ken Hitchcock’s hand on the bench.
Allen would start six of the final 10 games of the season, including three of the last four.
This does not mean that Elliott has lost his job, however. Elliott is no slouch, he sports a decent career save percentage of .903, including a .917 last season. He also is great against the rush, including these two examples below.
The first from his days in Ottawa:
And in the final regular season game this year against Minnesota:
I really feel bad for Elliott at times. I really do. This is the second year in a row that he was the starter out of camp but lost the job before the playoffs (two years ago to Ryan Miller, last year to Allen) for seemingly no real reason.
However, this is a tough business and the Blues are still in win now mode. It is hard to win a playoff series when you allow goals like the one below in important situations.
Coupling that with his below average track record in the playoffs, including a .897 save percentage in 19 playoff games, and you can see why Hitchcock decided to go with the hot hand with Allen down the stretch.
Jake “The Snake” Allen
Allen has the advantage of being younger, with a smaller salary cap hit than Elliott, and improving.
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What do the stats say? The stats agree. According to Hockey Reference, Allen is already the superior playoff goaltender with a .904 save percentage and just a 2.19 goals against average, compared to Elliott’s .897 SV% and 2.54 GAA
It gets even better.
When you break down by situation, Allen is superior in both power play and shorthanded situations, and just a mere .003 points behind in even strength situations.
The lead in power play save percentage is most interesting, because on the power play is when your team is most likely to give up a rush attack. Earlier I showed how strong Elliott is against the rush, yet Allen has a better save percentage in those types of situations.
After this latest playoff run, where almost everyone would argue that there were many problems with the Blues this April against Minnesota, but Jake Allen was not one of them.
Plus, I for one would pay just to see more of this:
And, of course, no Jake Allen post is complete without everyone’s favorite save:
Allen showed a lot in that series against the most recent first round loss playoff loss to Minnesota, too.
Allen was not the reason that series was lost. He did play poorly in games five and six; however, the Blues only scored one goal in each of those games. Even if he had played well, they may very well have lost those games anyway.
However, in Games 1 – 4, he was every bit the player we saw down the stretch with a .935 save percentage. The team went 2-2 in those games. It could be argued that if not for the efforts of Allen and F Vladimir Tarasenko, the Blues could have easily lost that series 4-1, or even been swept.
The downside to Allen is, of course, those glaring games five and six, where his save percentage was a very low .813 and he gave up several bad goals in Game 6:
The Verdict: Who Should Stand Between The Pipes?
When I began this article I thought this would be a tougher decision. Yet, digging into the stats makes it easy to show that Allen is the winner.
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Puck Prose
Allen, now, has playoff experience to his name, is the less expensive of the two options, is a younger player, with a great mentor in the front office’s Martin Brodeur to help him mature as a goaltender.
Brodeur, who has 21 impressive years of goaltending himself, also has two sons who are goalies in varying levels of the sport. He knows not just what he is doing in the net, but also how to translate it to those younger than him.
However, it is important that Brian Elliott gets on board with being a backup. He is a quality goaltender who has playoff experience, and he could become a nice mentor for Allen going forward.
What do you think? We want to hear your opinion! Let us know in the comments section below!
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