Alex Lyon and Charlie Lindgren have reached career highs this season, doing so at an older age than most goaltenders get that opportunity. Such success challenges the notion that age leads to poorer results.
Alex Lyon and Charlie Lindgren have reached career highs this season, doing so at an older age than most goaltenders get that opportunity. Such success challenges the notion that age leads to poorer results.
There’s a belief in sports that at a certain age, it’s really hard to improve. The body won’t allow it, and any progress made to an athlete’s performance takes an increasing amount of effort. Especially in a fast-paced sport like hockey, age can be a limiting factor for players to break out their best performances.
Tell that to Alex Lyon and Charlie Lindgren.
Both goaltenders are on pace for career years as goaltenders for the Red Wings and Capitals, respectively. Lyon, 31, has already earned more starts, wins and shutouts this season than the rest of his six previous seasons combined. Lindgren, 30, is charting a 20-12-5 season with a .912 save percentage and 2.67 goals against average — his best results in his second season as a starting goaltender. Five of those wins are shutouts, third most in the NHL this season.
In their successful seasons, Lyon and Lindgren are proving that age and theoretical potential aren’t always in lockstep. Lyon was signed as a third-stringer for the Red Wings in a deep but not overly talented goalie room. Then he seized his opportunity to be the starter when personal leaves, injuries and individual slumps by his peers left the door wide open for him to start. He’s the goaltender Detroit coach Derek Lalonde has leaned on most this season, and the only concern relative to age is whether Lyon is being overworked or not.
Even now, fresh off Lyon saving 31 of 32 shots he faced against Nashville, Lalonde is going right back to Lyon in Tuesday’s game against Washington despite backup James Reimer (35, by the way) riding a three-game win streak. If Lyon can play, Detroit is going to let him play.
“We’ve had some very competitive goaltending in this recent stretch, had some success,” Lalonde said Monday. “I think (it’s) probably a little bit to do with our improved team game. But that might be one of our better goalie performances in a long time, is what (Lyon) gave us in Nashville on Saturday.”
Lyon has had his struggles, including seven straight losses in which he posted a sub-.900 save percentage before Saturday's high-performance loss. But Lyon is also a product of the defense in front of him, which can help as much as it can hurt.
Overall, no one expected Lyon to come out with such a strong season, but it’s a reflection that age doesn’t correlate to success — or a lack thereof — in the NHL. The more important trait is that someone can play sound hockey and come up with timely plays, and Lyon has done that all season. He might not be a starter two or three years from now, but that doesn’t affect Detroit’s ability to lean on him in the present.
Washington figured that out with Lindgren, too.
A career AHLer and backup relegated to bit roles before last season, Lindgren has caught fire down the stretch in his second season of high-volume starts to help Washington make a playoff push. Eight of his 20 wins have come in March, and he’s chugging along at a .923 save percentage in that span. One of those wins includes a 7-6 shootout win against Carolina that he won as the backup introduced in the late second period. He followed that up with a shutout against Winnipeg on Sunday.
“Last night was a perfect example where (Lindgren) totally did a great job, kept the game at 0-0 and they get their power play goal to start the third that got them rolling,” Lalonde said. “Confident group, but they’re getting that world class goaltending and the powerplay belief — I think we had ‘em almost at 35% here over this recent sort of stretch they’ve had. Again, we talked about all these teams grouped on that (playoff) line. It’s the teams that just win, it’s as simple as that.”
Lindgren is winning, and it’s hard to question his success. Even with Stanley Cup champion and multi-year starter Darcy Kuemper in the goalie room — making $5.25 million to boot — Washington coach Spencer Carbery trusts Lindgren to be his starter.
Neither Lindgren nor Lyon are truly elite goaltenders who can steal any and every game, but they are serviceable starters who are helping their teams make a playoff push. The job of a general manager and coach is to furnish the team with players who can win, age notwithstanding.
Lyon and Lindgren are rare cases of goaltenders ripening at an older age, but maybe we’ve misunderstood the connectivity between age and development for too long. For the better part of a decade, common belief went that age led to poorer results over time, and there’s a lot of evidence to back that up. But outliers like Lyon and Lindgren are the kinds of success stories that prove trends aren’t absolutes. Maybe coaches can teach an old dog new tricks, or maybe their teams just play really good defense.
Whatever you chalk it up to, it’s impossible to deny the career-best success that Lyon and Lindgren are having past their prime years. As each team battles for a playoff spot, it’s hard to deny their impact, too.
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