You know goalies tend to have longer career than most NHLers, right? You act like being 34 is a guarantee to be a drop off, it's not... but then again playing in front of your defense might cause a drop off.

Goalies in the modern historically do not perform at a consistently high level once they hit their early 30s and especially mid 30s.

Also claiming our defense is the problem (I agree, let's talk about a reasonable price for Hanifin) and that it makes goalies look worse is a terrible pitch when you're trying to sell us a goalie.

But Vitek has given up less goals/game than markstrom over the last 2 years so seems like you should be more worried about your own defense.

We're not trying to sell ****, its your team desperate for a goaltender. We're not dumping our MVP during a playoff race unless Fitz bends over and spreads his cheeks.

Enjoy your 34 year old, call me when he’s 36 and you’re still paying him 6 mill

you keep bringing up 6m for Markstom like it's bad, take a look around the league Einstein, a Vezina caliber goaltender is is usually much more expensive than 6m. Hell your team was paying Schneider 6m almost a decade ago.

Cory Schneider was a consistently top 5 goalie for about 6 years straight. From 2010-2016 the only goalie better was Henrik.

And when he got older he fell off.

But speaking of Schneider

Over the 3 years before Scheider got traded, he ranked 1st in GAA in the NHL, and 1st in save%. 4th in overall GSAx and 2nd in GSAx/60. He was 26.

He recieved 9th overall. Easily the best goalie traded in the modern era by a wide margin and the biggest package a goalie has recieved in said era.

Markstrom over the last 3 years ranks 7th in GSAx, 12th in save% (among the 30 goalies with at least 4000 minutes). I don’t know the rank for GAA but it was 2.55. He’s also 34

And in the time since the Schneider trade

-new goalie contracts are getting smaller and smaller %s of the cap
-returning less and less in trades
-and going later and later in the draft.
Translation: NHL GMs are very clearly showing they don’t value goalies like they used to.

But thanks for bringing up Schneider . He’s a fantastic example of why you need to vastly lower your expectations