Carolina Hurricanes: Top three netminders in Canes history

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RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA – MAY 16: Curtis McElhinney #35 of the Carolina Hurricanes tends goal against the Boston Bruins during the third period in Game Four of the Eastern Conference Finals during the 2019 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at PNC Arena on May 16, 2019, in Raleigh, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images) /

In the history of the organization, the Carolina Hurricanes problem area has been between the pipes. With the rare netminders performing well, they usually don’t stay in Carolina for very long. That said, it got me thinking, who are the best goaltenders in Carolina Hurricanes franchise history?

Let’s set out some criteria first. They can’t have played like two games and had two shutouts. So, I’m going to only include netminders that have played a minimum of 50 games. This means no David Ayres, as much as I wanted to include him. It also means no Jorge Alves, who I also would have liked to include, but I just cannot justify doing it.

Out of all the goaltenders to ever play for the Carolina Hurricanes, only ten have played more than 50 games for the team, so as you can see, I have a great deal of choice in this. I was going to include playoff success in that, but only 8 goaltenders have ever played a playoff game for Carolina, and 4 of them were in the last three years.

I will be using a combination of goals-against average, save percentage, and their record in Carolina to judge this. It’s not a daunting task seeing as there haven’t been thousands of goaltenders in Carolina that have dominated and really made themselves Vezina candidates. Carolina’s netminders traditionally are not the best.

So, of the goalies that do well in Carolina, who ranks among the best? It’s a unique debate, and there are many candidates for these places. Only picking three is the hard part, but I had to draw the limit somewhere and three seemed as good as anywhere. I think I’ve rambled on enough, so let’s jump into this. The top three goalies in Carolina Hurricanes franchise history.

I would like to give an honorable mention to Martin Gerber who hasn’t made the list. Part of the tandem that won the 2005-06 Stanley Cup, Gerber will always be appreciated around North Carolina and will have his name etched on the cup for a long time. He doesn’t make the list because I’m only doing three and there are four realistic options.

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