How great goalies can get coaches fired

Were we supposed to be surprised by Jacob Trouba’s meltdown over the weekend, challenging his New York Ranger teammates to step up their play after he got ejected from the game?

On one hand: OK, it’s somewhat surprising to see the Rangers grinding their way to a vanilla 12-10-5 record after exploding for 52 wins and 110 points and reaching the Eastern Conference Final last season. I even pegged them to win the Stanley Cup this season on the back of their star-studded roster. So, sure, I expected them to be a lot better.

But another part of me, the side that pays closer attention to underlying numbers in the NHL, understood there was at least a possibility that this team’s success was highly dependent on one person. Yes, the Rangers had 52-goal scorer Chris Kreider, superstar Artemi Panarin and former Norris Trophy winner Adam Fox anchoring them last season but…not really. We all know it was Igor Shesterkin carrying the Blueshirts. That’s why he won the Vezina Trophy and even finished third in the Hart Trophy vote.

The Rangers were a below-average defensive club, at least by playoff contender standards, sitting in the bottom half of the league in preventing scoring chances, high-danger chances and 5-on-5 expected goals against. Shesterkin had one of the tougher workloads among the bell-cow starting goalies, which only strengthened his Vezina case.

Here’s where he ranked in some key workload-related 5-on-5 metrics in his incredible season – among 55 goalies who played 1,000 or more minutes:

Igor Shesterkin, 2021-22

Shesterkin was dominant despite a workload difficulty ranking in the top third, 18^th out of 55.

Why bring this up? It all ties to coach Gerard Gallant’s seat, which gets hotter by the day. He was credited for guiding the Rangers from out of the playoffs to one of the best records in the league last season and ended up a finalist in the Jack Adams Award vote, but the truth was that the Rangers were mediocre at driving play and allowed too many chances last season. They were goaltending-dependent, and guess what’s happening this season with Shesterkin regressing to being “merely good”? Wins have been harder to come by.

Here’s how Shesterkin ranks in the same categories this season, among 48 goalies with 400 or more minutes played so far.

Igor Shesterkin, 2022-23

The Rangers have actually improved defensively in most metrics, reducing the difficulty of Shesterkin’s workload. His play has been good-but-not great, and the team’s record has sagged as a result. So how’s this for irony: Gallant’s team wasn’t actually all that good last season, and he got credit for its success because of goaltending. This season, his team is actually playing better in its own end, but he’s getting blamed for the team’s standings regression when goaltending has actually held it back.

It’s a reminder of how much a coach’s fate can be decided by a goaltender. Often, when we get a flash in the pan Jack Adams darling who quickly falls out of favor, it’s because his “successful” team rode great goaltending to unsustainable success.

Remember Patrick Roy’s 2013-14 Colorado Avalanche? They busted out for 112 points in Nathan MacKinnon’s rookie year, and Roy took home the Jack Adams. But it was all Semyon Varlamov. The Avs were horrible defensively that year.

Semyon Varlamov, 2013-14

Varlamov finished second in the Vezina Trophy vote that season. His difficulty of workload ranked ninth out of 55 goalies who logged 1,000 or minutes at 5-on-5. He faced the third-most high-danger shots per game. The next season, he was still great but not elite, and the Avs missed the playoffs. Roy never took them back there and ended up walking away from the team by summer 2016.

Another example: Bruce Boudreau’s Vancouver Canucks, who played .649 hockey after he took over last season. Guess who was the main reason for them being so competitive? It was Thatcher Demko, who performed as a top-three goalie in the league on a team playing middling defense.

Thatcher Demko, 2021-22

With Demko’s game falling apart this season before his injury, it’s no wonder the Canucks have struggled. Suddenly, without the goaltending safety net, the Boudreau magic disappears, like it has with Gallant.

So when we start asking questions like, “Has the coach lost the room?” Maybe it’s better to ask if he had the room in the first place. The next time we’re ready to lionize a coach, we should check and see if it’s his goaltender who deserves more of the credit. If we don’t, the bench boss will be hailed as a false mastermind, and we’ll see the yo-yo effect of praising him one year and calling for his head the ensuing season.

Good luck, Mr. Gallant and Mr. Boudreau.