CALGARY — The issue is real and the debate surrounding it is vigorous.
Jacob Markstrom can’t seem to stop the Edmonton Oilers.
The debate revolves around what to do about it.
Locals have spent the last few days exchanging ideas on which netminder should start Saturday when the Battle of Alberta resumes at the Saddledome.
Welcome to life in a Canadian hockey hotbed where the starting goalie for Game 7 of the season is burning up talk-radio hotlines.
It wouldn’t generally be an issue in a market where the clear-cut no. 1 goalie was the NHL’s third-busiest netminder a year earlier, making 63 starts.
It’s Jacob Markstrom’s net.
Dan Vladar simply borrows it.
However, when these two teams met in Edmonton two weeks earlier, Darryl Sutter shocked many by starting Vladar in the team’s second game of the season.
Was he shielding Markstrom from a team that torched the Vezina finalist all season long, including the playoffs?
Not so, insisted the coach, who spelled out his plan to play Vladar at least once in all 26 weeks of the season.
Well, guess who hasn’t played since?
Vladar, who is coming off a stellar pre-season, was spectacular in Edmonton and could easily be justified as the man standing between the pipes when Saturday’s anthem is sung.
However, the much more logical tack is to start Markstrom for the fifth straight game.
The sickness that also played a role in the decision to sit Markstrom for Game 2 likely had plenty to do with the veteran’s uncharacteristically slow start, which had him admit last Saturday, “until today I don’t think I really have been where I have to be.”
His last two outings have been superb, helping him get into a groove he and the coach want him to stay in despite a schedule that has the Flames playing just twice in a nine-day stretch.
That means playing him again Saturday, giving him the night off Tuesday against Seattle when the schedule starts to heat up again.
Simply put, Markstrom needs to start proving to himself and others he can be successful against Edmonton.
The success of this franchise depends on it, as all roads to playoff success will undoubtedly go through the provincial capital.
Sutter knows that, and while he’s never been one to reveal lineup decisions, he did address the issue Thursday.
“I think it’s pretty clear who our No. 1 goalie is, and he’s going to play lots of games this year,” said Sutter.
As he should, given the fact the 32-year-old Swede was the planet’s second-best goalie last season, finishing just behind Igor Shesterkin in Vezina balloting with a 37-15-9 record, a 2.22 GAA and .922 save percentage.
It’s stellar numbers like those that make his career record against the Oilers so shocking: 16-17-2, a 3.27 GAA and .893 save percentage.
Against Connor, Leon and Co. last year he was a shocking 3-6, with a 4.40 GAA and an .866 save percentage.
Those numbers can’t be ignored, especially since the series before he faced the Oilers in the last playoffs he was playing some of the best hockey of his life, standing on his head against Dallas.
The fear some people had earlier this season, when he was pulled after allowing three first-period goals against Buffalo, was that he hadn’t recovered from the spring shellacking.
The reality is that Markstrom has been just fine so far, posting a 4-0-0 record this year with a 2.50 GAA and .907 save percentage.
The Flames are off to a 5-1 start, their fastest in franchise history, and he’s started all but one of those.
The scrutiny he's faced stems, in part, from allowing the first shot on goal to beat him on three occasions already.
“I’ve seen a goalie that wins us games,” said Sutter, when asked what he’s seen from the backbone of his team thus far.
“You’ve got to make saves to win games. It’s arguably the biggest thing we’ve needed. There’s a lot of different opinions or ideas of how you have to play, or what you have to do, or this guy or that guy. But what you really need is your goalies to have a really good save percentage. That’s two (goalies), not one.”
Only one can start Saturday, which undoubtedly should, and will be, Markstrom.
