Petr Mrazek Should Be the Red Wings Starting Goalie Of the Future
By Nick Seguin
7 years agoLet’s put this narrative to rest: Petr Mrazek should be the Red Wings’ starting goalie of the future. As early as yesterday, I saw some people arguing otherwise and it needs to stop. The injury-prone, 33-year-old Jimmy Howard has only two seasons left on his contract. Once Howard is gone, Mrazek should take the reigns as the starting goalie. That means making him the protected goaltender in the pending expansion draft and re-signing him long-term at the conclusion of his current contract in 2018-19.
At the start of the season, Mrazek was the undisputed starter, but he got off to a shaky start. Howard – the other half of the tandem – got off to a great start. He stole back the starter’s job and proceeded to put up career numbers. Then, as he does, Howard fell to injury in December and the Wings had to call up Jared Coreau from the Grand Rapids Griffins.
Coreau got a couple of starts, putting up some decent numbers, and Mrazek continued to struggle. The situation was so dire that Coreau got the nod for the Centennial Classic outdoor game on New Year’s Day. After that was when this narrative started. In a late-January article, Helene St. James of the Detroit Free Press posited that the Red Wings thought Coreau was ready for a full-time NHL position, so he may be the goalie the Red Wings protect in the expansion draft. In addition to this, she suggested that the Red Wings dangle Mrazek as a trade piece at the upcoming trade deadline.
This was after Coreau played his ninth career NHL game. Over the course of those nine games, he posted a .901 save percentage and 3.04 goals against average. Admittedly, these are better numbers than Mrazek’s .895 SV% and 3.13 GAA through 27 games up to that point, but they are still not elite by any means. On top of that, nine career NHL games is too small of a sample size to make such a drastic decision.
Now that the season is over, the narrative has certainly cooled down, but I still see the argument all the time: “Mrazek is too streaky, Coreau should be our starter”. No, no, NO! Jared Coreau has played a total of 14 NHL games. Petr Mrazek has played 144. Coreau has a career NHL save percentage of .887. Mrazek’s is .913. Coreau’s goals against average? 3.46. Mrazek’s is 2.56.
But still people are arguing that Coreau is the better goalie. How about we let him play another 100 games before making that call?
Look, I’m not saying that Mrazek is the best goalie in the world and I’m not saying that Coreau is the worst. He’s 25 years old and he’s still improving and perfecting his game. All I’m saying is that, based on history, Mrazek is the better goaltender and should be who the Red Wings protect at the expansion draft. When Howard is gone, Coreau will be a serviceable back-up to Mrazek, but he is not starter material.
So can we please put this narrative to rest now?
Recent articles from Nick Seguin
