By Steve Farnham, Associate Editor, All Habs Hockey Magazine
MONTREAL, QC. – Holy mother of Hades, the Montreal Canadiens selected a goaltender with their second of two second-round picks (36th overall), so let hell-fire rain down on the streets of Montreal so that we may roam the scorched remains of what used to be this city. Okay, maybe I’m probably exaggerating a little.
This past Sunday, the Canadiens elected to pick Zach Fucale in the second-round of the draft, which had been the backstopper for the Halifax Mooseheads who won the Memorial Cup this past season. Notable teammates of his were Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin who are pretty good hockey players that you might have also heard of.
| Zach Fucale – G | ||
| Birth place: Nationality: Birth date: Age: Height: Weight: Catches: |
Rosemère, QC, CAN Canadian 1995-05-28 18 6’1″ (185 cm) 181 lbs (82 kg) Left |
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| Regular Season and Playoff Statistics | ||
We would have to go back to 2009 for the last time the Canadiens selected a goaltender at the NHL entry draft, when they had selected Petteri Similä from Karpat Jrs (Finland) with their seventh-round pick (211th overall). In his case, Similä played 19 games for Jukurit in the league Mestis (Finland 2) last season, so for now, we’ll assume he simply didn’t pan out.
Prior to this, the Canadiens had selected Jason Missiaen back in 2008 with their fourth-round pick (116th overall). He was never signed and his rights now belong to the New York Rangers but his numbers in the AHL and ECHL have not impressed so far.
Missiaen, Simila and now Fucale are the last three goaltenders drafted by the Canadiens since Carey Price was drafted fifth overall back in the 2005 NHL entry draft. Why draft a goalie now? The question deserves being asked.
The easy answer that you’ll see thrown a lot quite a lot is that the Montreal Canadiens farm system is in need of some assistance, and that’s not exactly a lie. The Canadiens have Carey Price as their starting goaltender and Peter Budaj as his backup, but their isn’t really anybody else behind them. The Habs have a lead cast but no supporting actors behind them. The other goaltenders who are currently in the system are the following:
- Dustin Tokarski (RFA)
- Robert Mayer (RFA)
- Peter Delmas
- Mike Condon
Robert Mayer will remain with the Canadiens after originally indicating a desire to play in Europe (Switzerland) next season. The Habs gave him a qualifying offer this week. Dustin Tokarski also received a qualifying offer and I would expect him to sign with the team.
Back to Fucale, where does he fit into the picture? It’s a little hard to say at the moment but what is safe to say is that he probably won’t have a chance at the NHL level for at least a good four to five years. He’s likely to play another two years in the juniors before graduating to the AHL level, or at least that’s a path that’s often followed in the cases of goaltenders. Fans of his best be patient.
Some might wonder why so many people negatively reacted to the Canadiens drafting a goaltender in the second round. The answer to this question is based on historical results of drafting goaltenders. Generally speaking, it’s a bit of a hit and miss when selecting goalies in the draft, and it ends up being a miss more often than it ends up being a hit.
I decided to take a back at all goaltenders selected in the first and second rounds, between 1988-2008 (20 seasons). The results were quite fascinating and I wanted to share some numbers with you.
Goaltenders selected in the first and second rounds – 1988-2008:
- 95: Total number of goaltenders selected in the first and second-rounds, between 1988-2008.
- 44: Total number of those goalies who were first-round selections.
- 51: Total number of those goalies who were second-round selections.
First-Round Selections:
- 44: Total number of those goalies who were first-round selections.
- 19: Number of goalies who retired with less than 100 career NHL games played. (43%)
- 05: Number of those goalies who retired before playing a single NHL game. (11%)
- 20: Number of goaltenders who played 100 or more games. (45%)
- 06: Number of those goalies were traded before playing 100 NHL games. (14%)
Here are the 20 goaltenders who went on to play 100 or more games:
| Drafted | Player | Team | Round | Overall | GP |
| 2006 | Semyon Varlamov | Washington | 1 | 23 | 147 |
| 2005 | Carey Price | Montreal | 1 | 5 | 310 |
| 2005 | Tuukka Rask | Boston | 1 | 21 | 138 |
| 2004 | Devan Dubnyk | Edmonton | 1 | 14 | 139 |
| 2003 | Marc-Andre Fleury | Pittsburgh | 1 | 1 | 467 |
| 2002 | Kari Lehtonen | Atlanta | 1 | 2 | 380 |
| 2002 | Cam Ward | Carolina | 1 | 25 | 431 |
| 2001 | Pascal Leclaire | Columbus | 1 | 8 | 173 |
| 2000 | Rick DiPietro | NY Islanders | 1 | 1 | 318 |
| 1997 | Roberto Luongo | NY Islanders | 1 | 4 | 747 |
| 1995 | Jean-Sebastien Giguere | Hartford | 1 | 13 | 575 |
| 1995 | Martin Biron | Buffalo | 1 | 16 | 506 |
| 1995 | Brian Boucher | Philadelphia | 1 | 22 | 328 |
| 1995 | Marc Denis | Colorado | 1 | 25 | 349 |
| 1994 | Jamie Storr | Los Angeles | 1 | 7 | 219 |
| 1994 | Dan Cloutier | NY Rangers | 1 | 26 | 351 |
| 1993 | Jocelyn Thibault | Quebec City | 1 | 10 | 586 |
| 1990 | Trevor Kidd | Calgary | 1 | 11 | 387 |
| 1990 | Martin Brodeur | New Jersey | 1 | 20 | 1220 |
| 1989 | Olaf Kolzig | Washington | 1 | 19 | 719 |
Without going over this list name by name, we can see that many of these goaltenders went on to be backups. Some of those who went on to be starters did so, but not with the team that originally drafted them. What jumped out at me however was how many goaltenders were traded before having played a substantial number of games with the team that drafted them. The six examples are:
- Semyon Varlamov: Traded after 59 games played with the Washington Capitals.
- Roberto Luongo: Traded after 24 games played with the New York Islanders.
- Jean-Sebastien Giguere: Traded after 8 games played with the Hartford Whalers.
- Marc Denis: Traded after 28 games played with the Colorado Avalanche.
- Dan Cloutier: Traded after 34 games played with the New York Rangers.
- Jocelyn Thibault: Traded after 57 games played with the Quebec Nordiques.
With so many goaltenders being traded, it makes you wonder why the Philadelphia Flyers can’t land a good one.
Some goaltenders went on to be starters after being traded, such as Semyon Varlamov who hasn’t looked great these past couple of seasons in Colorado. We also have Kari Lehtonen who was a starter both before and after being traded from Atlanta to Dallas. Even good goalies get traded, just ask Patrick Roy.
Out of the original 44 goaltenders that were selected in the first round for that twenty-year span, those who would go on to become starting goaltenders for the team that originally drafted them can be counted on one hand:
- Carey Price
- Marc-Andre Fleury
- Cam Ward
- Martin Brodeur
- Olaf Kolzig
Others such as Tuukka Rask and Devan Dubnyk might soon be part of this list but I excluded them for the reason that they’ve only been starters for one season on their respective teams. For now, five of 44 first-round selections became number-one goalies for the team that drafted, or 11 per cent of the selections. Let’s move to the second round.
Second-Round Selections:
- 51: Total number of those goalies who were first-round selections.
- 21: Number of goalies who retired with less than 100 career NHL games played. (41%)
- 13: Number of those goalies who retired before playing a single NHL game. (25%)
- 15: Number of goaltenders who played 100 or more games. (29%)
- 05: Number of those goalies were traded before playing 100 NHL games. (10%)
Here are the 20 goaltenders who went on to play 100 or more games:
| Drafted | Player | Team | Round | Overall | GP |
| 2000 | Ilya Bryzgalov | Anaheim | 2 | 44 | 425 |
| 2005 | Ondrej Pavelec | Atlanta | 2 | 41 | 231 |
| 2003 | Corey Crawford | Chicago | 2 | 52 | 152 |
| 2001 | Peter Budaj | Colorado | 2 | 63 | 272 |
| 2003 | Jimmy Howard | Detroit | 2 | 64 | 234 |
| 1999 | Alex Auld | Florida | 2 | 40 | 237 |
| 1993 | Kevin Weekes | Florida | 2 | 41 | 348 |
| 2002 | Josh Harding | Minnesota | 2 | 38 | 122 |
| 1996 | Mathieu Garon | Montreal | 2 | 44 | 341 |
| 1994 | Jose Theodore | Montreal | 2 | 44 | 648 |
| 1988 | Stephane Fiset | Quebec City | 2 | 24 | 390 |
| 1990 | Felix Potvin | Toronto | 2 | 31 | 635 |
| 2006 | Michal Neuvirth | Washington | 2 | 34 | 121 |
| 1992 | Jim Carey | Washington | 2 | 32 | 172 |
| 1989 | Byron Dafoe | Washington | 2 | 35 | 415 |
Once again, we find ourselves with quite a few goaltenders (29%) who were traded before having played 100 games with the team that originally drafted them. These would be:
- Ilya Bryzgalov: Traded after 69 games played with the Anaheim Ducks.
- Alex Auld: Traded after one season as starter with the Vancouver Canucks.
- Kevin Weekes: Traded after 11 games played with the Florida Panthers.
- Mathieu Garon: Traded after 43 games played with the Montreal Canadiens.
- Byron Dafoe: Traded after 11 games played with the Washington Capitals.
You could argue that not a single goaltender in this list is a starter, but then again, Ilya Bryzgalov would argue that he’s better at Angry Birds Star Wars than you are.
From the list of second-round goaltenders who played 100 or more games, the only names you can truly say became number one goaltenders are Ondrej Pavelec and Jimmy Howard, unless you want to include Jose Theodore and Felix Potvin on that list, but their careers were awkward, in the sense that they weren’t consistently starters. 2 of 51 second-round selections became number-one goalies for the team that drafted, or 4% of the selectees.
Let’s now tally up the results.
First and Second-Round Selections:
- 95: Total number of those goalies who were first-round selections.
- 40: Number of goalies who retired with less than 100 career NHL games played. (42%)
- 18: Number of those goalies who retired before playing a single NHL game. (19%)
- 35: Number of goaltenders who played 100 or more games. (37%)
- 11: Number of those goalies were traded before playing 100 NHL games. (12%)
- 07: Number of goalies who became starters with the team who originally drafted them. (7%)
In the end, it would appear that teams have an almost three-times better chance of drafting a goalie who will retire before playing a single NHL game than they will of drafting a goalie who will become their starter.
It doesn’t mean that good goalies can’t be drafted. It simply means that more often than not, they can be obtained via trade or free agency. A wasted pick in the eyes of many.
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