2010 NHL Playoffs: Are the Days of the 'Big Money Goalie' Over?

If you're a fan of Cinderella stories, then this year's NHL playoffs likely has you beside yourself with glee.

From Phoenix's unlikely trip to the post-season to Montreal's superb portrayal as "David" opposite "Goliath", played unconvincingly by both Washington and Pittsburgh; the 2010 NHL playoffs has all the earmarks of a sappy Hollywood feel-good picture.

As we're now down to the final four teams, one the biggest stories has been the unlikely names seen between the pipes in the Eastern and Western Conference Finals.

If someone told you in September that either Antti Niemi, Michael Leighton, or Jaroslav Halak was guaranteed to take their team to the Stanley Cup Finals, you would have laughed in their face.

With the exception of Evegeni Nabokov in San Jose (who has yet to win a game in the Conference Finals), every goalie currently left standing in the playoffs is a surprise, for various reasons.

Now, much has been written on each man's unlikely ascension in these playoffs, so I'm not going to rehash any of that here.

However, looking not just at this playoff year, but every year since the lockout, it seems to me that the days of needing a so-called "big money" goalie to win a Stanley Cup are, if not over, certainly numbered.

Looking at the five years prior to the lockout (2000-2004), one finds that the goalies who won the Stanley Cup in those years essentially constitute the absolute best (and highest paid) of their era.

Martin Brodeur won it twice (2000 and 2003), with Patrick Roy (2001), Dominik Hasek (2002), and Nikolai Khabibulin (2004) rounding out the group.

One could argue that Khabibulin isn't exactly on the same level as others in this group, however, his $4.5 million salary in 2004 still puts him safely in "big money" territory.

Coming out of the lockout in 2005, one finds a different pattern emerge looking at the four preceding Stanley Cup winning goalies.

Cam Ward (2006), JS Giguere (2007), Chris Osgood (2008), and Marc Andre-Fleury (2009) all got their names on the Stanley Cup post-lockout. 

With the exception of Giguere, none of these men were the odds-on favorite to win the Cup at the start of the season, and, in the case of Ward and Osgood, weren't even supposed to be their teams' starting goalie.

This season, there's a 75 percent chance that the goalie that lifts the Cup over his head in June will be largely unrecognizable to any fan outside of the city for which he plays.

If Evgeni Nabokov manages to win eight more games these playoffs, he would have scored one for the high-salary goalies (Nabokov pulled down $6 million this season).

However, if any of the others should win, combined with the last four Cup winners, they could help to continue the trend of low-paid, overlooked net-minders being a better bet than those with much higher profiles and the salaries to match.

Consider this, of the top ten highest paid goalies this season, only three (Roberto Luongo, Ryan Miller, and Evgeni Nabokov) made the playoffs and only one is still playing.

Additionally, two of the top ten, Tim Thomas and Christobal Huet, technically made the playoffs, but as their team's undisputed backup .

So, what's to be made of all of this?

What's so significant about the recent trend that seems to suggest that paying top dollar for goal-tending in the NHL is no longer a must in order to win a championship?

I suppose reasonable people can argue the point, however, to my mind, what this proves is that the so-called "new NHL" has officially arrived.

Post-lockout, the NHL said that the new rules were designed to reward skill and speed by eliminating the clutching, grabbing and obstruction that had come to define NHL hockey by 2004.

Additionally, this parity thing promised by the hard salary cap was supposed to allow individual players and teams alike a better shot at being competitive and maybe, win a championship.

The fact that teams like Vancouver, Calgary and the New York Rangers are all paying a premium for goal-tending clearly doesn't guarantee them premium goal-tending.

Shelling out multiple-millions of dollars for a goalie may have been a safe bet ten years ago, but now, it is more often a point of embarrassment upon a team's failure to make the playoffs or after an earlier than expected exit.

When GM's begin looking at their goal-tending options in the next few weeks, the smart ones should not be wondering how much to pay Marty Turco (the most prominent UFA goalie this summer), but where they can find the next Antti Niemi.