The Goalie Report: Risers & Fallers

The NHL will head into the All-Star break early next week, and after that it'll be less than a month before the trade deadline. It's no secret that offense around the league has gone way up, and it's revealed once again that good goaltenders are rare. Once you find one, you never want to let him go.

This season's unpredictability due to player performance and injuries means that a few backups and even third-string goalies appear in this week's Goalie Report.

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Dan Vladar, Flames (Since Jan. 1: 5-0-1, .908 Sv%, 2.63 GAA)

Vladar's save percentage is slightly concerning, but the bottom line is he's getting the results that Jacob Markstrom is not. After defeating the Kraken on Friday to close the margin in the standings to four points, Vladar has now won five straight games while Markstrom allowed four goals on 28 shots against the league's worst offensive team.

The Pacific Division is tight, and right now that means starting Vladar. If he hasn't taken over the starting job already, he's on the verge of doing so if Markstrom keeps struggling. Darryl Sutter's impact seems to have lessened in the third year of his second tour with the Flames, but this is still a talented group that many had pegged to finish at least first or second in the division. Even if Vladar is a short-term answer, he still has a good chance to pick up a few wins. It should be noted that the Flames have a brilliant young goalie in the AHL in Dustin Wolf, who is 24-5-1 with a .928 save percentage and 2.20 GAA this season, but it might have to be an injury-related situation for the Flames to call him up.

Collin Delia, Canucks (Under Rick Tocchet: 2-0-0, .900 Sv%, 2.00 GAA)

Granted, Delia faced two of the worst teams in the league in the Blackhawks and Jackets, but the takeaway is his record and save percentage relative to Spencer Martin's .829 Sv% and 6.00 GAA. Martin entered the season as Thatcher Demko's backup and fared admirably in his absence for a short while but has since ceded time to Delia, who wasn't even having a good season in the AHL with a .888 Sv% at the time of his call-up. Since the Canucks aren't in the playoff race — they're delusional if they think they are — and with a new coach, Tocchet's rotation will likely be, "win and you're in."

The Canucks face one of the easiest schedules for the rest of the season due to weak divisional opponents, and Delia might be an option for fantasy managers looking for some streaming options. "Might" is emphasized because Delia's track record isn't very good, the Canucks defense is undeniably bottom five in the league and they're prepared to sell a bunch of key players in what has been a disaster of a season both on and off the ice. He's just a far better option than Martin at this point.

Mack Guzda, Panthers (AHL: 10-4-2, .911 Sv%, 2.55 GAA)

With Sergei Bobrovsky on injured reserve, Spencer Knight's status questionable and Alex Lyon starting (and losing) Friday against the Kings, that leaves the Panthers with no other option than to start Guzda on Saturday against the Bruins. That's an intimidating matchup for any goalie, much less an undrafted 22-year-old rookie who only signed late last season. Good luck to Guzda, who makes the list because it's quite the milestone to get your first NHL start, not to mention he would be the first Tennessee-born player to appear in an NHL game, but the matchups just too tough and the odds of success are very low. If Guzda fares well and the Panthers' goalie situation remains in flux, he might stick around for a while, and that's when fantasy managers can consider him for their lineups.

Kevin Mandolese, Senators (AHL: 4-6-2, .886 Sv%, 3.39 GAA)

In a similar vein, with an injury to starter Cam Talbot and starting Anton Forsberg on Friday against the Leafs, the Sens might be forced to usher in a rookie goalie making his NHL debut. The difference is that Mandolese comes with some pedigree — at least he was drafted — but he hasn't fared nearly as well as Guzda in the AHL over the past three seasons, with some stints in the ECHL in the latter two.

The Habs, however, will be a much easier matchup, and there's a small chance Mandolese is worth a streaming start. (The Sens may opt to start Forsberg in back-to-back games, which makes picking up Mandolese a moot point, and note the Sens have two other goalies with prior NHL experience on their farm team: Mads Sogaard and Antoine Bibeau.) Teams starting rookie goalies tend to play a little harder on defense, and the Sens are riding some momentum after knocking off the Leafs, 6-2.

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Jordan Binnington, Blues (18-16-3, .891 Sv%, 3.28 GAA)

This is déjà vu, right? Other than his Cup run, Binnington has been a borderline starter for most his career, and that he's probably not worth the $6 million price tag. Binnington and the Blues have now lost five of their past seven, and with the deadline approaching there's a lot of talk that the Blues are prepared to be sellers. Kudos to management recognizing that their season has already been lost, sitting at just 23-23-3 in the middle of a transition year from the Cup-winning core to one led by Jordan Kyrou and Robert Thomas. Their signature tough defense is no longer existent and too often hangs Binnington out to dry, who also hasn't been good enough to steal any games.

Should the Blues start trading away their veterans, they'll undoubtedly be a worse team and that's going to hurt Binnington's fantasy value even more. The only way Binnington's fantasy value could rise is if the Blues were to somehow trade him, but at this point it seems unlikely to happen. It'll be much easier for fantasy managers to trade Binnington instead, and the big selling point would be Binnington's workload. He's ranked 10th in the league in shots against and 11th in saves, but 49th in save percentage and 40th in GAA out of 56 goalies (min. 15 GP).