Did the Canes let the right goalie go?

By Brian LeBlanc
NCSportsTalk.com - Puck Drops
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At the end of tonight's Eastern Conference final game 2, in which Michael Leighton pitched his second straight shutout behind a team that's now scored fourteen straight goals against the opposition, a friend texted me with a question that I'm sure was on many minds around here: "Why did the Canes get rid of Leighton again?"

And it's a fair question.  After all, Leighton became the first Flyers goaltender to record two shutouts in a row in the postseason since Bernie Parent in 1975, and if you had Leighton sharing a sentence with the only goaltender to backstop a Flyers team that won the Stanley Cup when the Canes lost him on waivers to the Flyers last December, you're either a liar or you hold the winning lottery numbers for tonight.

So did the Canes make a mistake when they sent Leighton packing and anointed Manny Legace as Cam Ward's backup?

Go back to November 7. Starting that night, when Ward's leg was cut by the skate of Columbus' Rick Nash and knocked him out for a month in the midst of a franchise-record 14-game winless streak, Leighton was the only option the Canes had.  Legace was playing for Chicago of the AHL and, despite playing 6 games and posting a pedestrian 3.21 GAA and .898 save percentage, wasn't in any condition to step in and start immediately in the NHL.  Thus, the job fell largely to Leighton, who hadn't distinguished himself to that point, what with a 6.09 GAA and .786 save percentage in a game and a half to that point.

Essentially, what followed was a monthlong audition to run with the ball as Ward's backup after he returned.  That audition was clearly won by Legace.

Legace: 10 GP, 4-4-2, 3.08 GAA, .900 sv%
Leighton: 5 GP, 1-3-0, 3.68 GAA, .869 sv%

Even the woebegone Vesa Toskala, the poster child for awful goaltending this season (and the worst statistical goaltender among qualifying players), managed an .880 save percentage and 3.48 goals-against this season.  So Leighton's performance was almost comically bad in comparison to even the worst goaltending the NHL had to offer this year.

So to the surprise of no one, Legace won the job and Leighton was put through waivers, where he wasn't claimed.  It wasn't until the Canes put him on re-entry waivers that the Flyers snapped him up, and since he went to the Flyers on re-entry the Canes were stuck with paying half of Leighton's remaining salary, although honestly that amount ($182,926.83) is nothing more than the cost of doing business in the NHL.  (As an aside, the Flyers paid Leighton less than $200,000 and he has two straight shutouts in the conference finals. Go figure.)

Leighton's stats with the Flyers (16-5-2, 2.48, .918) were better than Legace's (6-3-3, 2.49, .913) after the latter was awarded the backup job with the Canes, but except for the number of wins they were remarkably similar.  But since no one had any idea what Leighton would do when he joined the Flyers, the Canes made the only reasonable move they could: they went with the better goalie.  On December 15, when Leighton was claimed by Philadelphia, that goalie was very clearly Manny Legace.

So it might be a little frustrating for Canes fans to see their team sitting at home while Leighton backstops his team into a potential berth in the Stanley Cup Final, but considering he cut down his goals-against by over a goal (and, over an entire season, would have ranked him 11th in the NHL in both GAA and save percentage) when he changed teams, there's no doubt that the Canes made the right move in cutting Leighton loose.

By the way, for those interested: Cam Ward's stats were 2.69 and .926, not much worse than Leighton's after joining the Flyers.  In other words, what was a very average year for Ward was a career year for Leighton.