Colorado's goaltenders are the backbone of their success

“The puck stops here.”

That’s the quote, right? No? Well for our purposes here today we’re going to pretend it is as we look at our final position preview before the Avalanche play their first round-robin game this afternoon against the St. Louis Blues.

We’re looking at the goaltenders, of which the Avs have two who had solid (or better) seasons. Because you can only play one at a time, sometimes having two means really having none, what with the history of the position demanding a ‘true’ starter emerge in order to have playoff success.

But times have changed and platoons are more common than ever with about 10 teams across the league having decisions to make at the position entering the postseason. The Avs are one of them as Philipp Grubauer and Pavel Francouz continue to battle it out for playing time.

Philipp Grubauer – 36 GP, 18-12-4, .916 sv%, 2.66 GAA

At 28, this was the first time in Grubauer’s career he entered the season expected to be the full-time starting goaltender. He was no longer in competition with other proven starters and finally had the net to himself.

Right?

Apparently not! Grubauer started off with a strong October before experiencing a poor November and average stretches in December and January. It was the same kind of swoon he had the year before and it opened the door for Francouz to show what he could do.

What really hurt Grubauer, though, was injuries. He got hurt in the fall and struggled to come back as it lingered and made life difficult for him. When he finally got healthy, we saw the best of Grubauer just as the Avs were beginning their drive to the postseason.

It was the second time in as many years Grubauer had saved his best for the spring as he was posted spectacular numbers in February, going 4-2-0 in seven starts with a .939 save percentage and 1.81 goals-against-average. The game he did not finish, however, proved costly.

When Ian Cole accidentally ran into Grubauer during the Stadium Series debacle, it ended Grubauer’s regular season and thrust Francouz into the starting role. While Grubauer is still looked upon highly by the coaching staff and front office, he simply hasn’t done enough yet to separate himself from his competition.

If the Avs roll with Grubauer and he gives them the playoff performance he did last year, he and the Avs will be just fine. Anything less and he could be looking at a job loss entirely.

Pavel Francouz – 34 GP, 21-7-4, .923 sv%, 2.41 GAA

Purely looking at the numbers, Francouz had the better year. In fact, I don’t believe there’s any metric out there that favors the season Grubauer put up.

Some of the numbers could be deceiving because Francouz had a clear-cut backup role early in the season, meaning he (in theory) faced the lesser competition and had the easier path to strong numbers.

Grubauer’s struggles with injuries changed that equation as it gave Francouz a little more time in net to settle in and find a rhythm. Throughout most of the year, it was an average season for Francouz that was propped up by a high save percentage but all other metrics showed an unspectacular season.

Then Grubauer got hurt the second time and Francouz had an outrageous stretch that really elevated this into a serious conversation. Francouz became the first Avs player ever to be named one of the NHL’s Three Stars of the Week in consecutive weeks when he went through a six-game stretch where he gave up just eight goals. The Avs won all six.

And that’s the stretch everybody remembers. If you talk to the average Avalanche fan, they’ll tell you what a hot finish to the season Francouz had. In reality, he had cooled off a bit as three of his final five games featured games in which he recorded a save percentage under .900 and the Avs went 2-2-1 in that time.

It wasn’t a bad stretch, especially given the ridiculous injuries suffered by the team in front of him, but it wasn’t quite the burning white-hot finish we had all remembered. Regardless, it was good enough in Grubauer’s absence that he turned this into a real conversation.

And here we sit.

After the exhibition game, the conversation didn’t move very much. Francouz posted the better numbers, Grubauer faced the tougher competition. How do you settle that up?

It’s a question without an obvious answer but one the Avs need to tackle this week as they prepare for the first round of the playoffs.

As with all the other position previews, I was going to post specific highlights of each guy being awesome but it turns out the NHL did that for me. There are a couple of goals on here but this is actually a list of both goalies being awesome.