Ottawa Senators goalie Joonas Korpisalo played his second game in as many days on Sunday and it might have been his finest performance of the season.
When Ottawa Senators goalie Joonas Korpisalo made back-to-back starts on Saturday and Sunday, it raised an eyebrow or two. After all, NHL goalies rarely play both games that are scheduled on back-to-back days anymore.
Korpisalo not only did that, but in his second game on Sunday, he had what may have been his finest game as a Senator. Ottawa was outshot 36-16 but managed to beat the Edmonton Oilers 5-3. The Finn was in to win, going 2-0 on the weekend.
So what's wrong with goalies playing on consecutive days?
Well, sometime around the 2010 mark, NHL goalies' games played began to drop off. The prevailing wisdom was that they needed proper rest and recovery time and 24 hours wasn't enough.
That begs the question, "Do goalies work any harder than their non-goalie teammates?" While the unofficial goalie union would 100% say yes, it's up for debate.
But an injury to a starting goalie is far more devastating to a team's fortunes than it is to a single skater. So that's a factor. With more recovery time between starts, you do lessen the chances of injury.
If that's truly a serious concern, however, then it opens up the league for criticism. Why are you putting your players at risk with games on consecutive days?
The other factor is, through the rise of analytics, there's said to be a drop off in performance in the goalie's second game of a back to back. That's a tough thing to measure since we'll never know what would have happened if the backup had started. Maybe the backup would have fared even worse. Maybe the whole team is tired in game two and left their goalie out to dry that night.
In any event, Korpisalo and the Sens bucked the trend on Sunday. So it's clearly a strategy that's a best practice kind of thing, not something coaches need to obsessively adhere to each and every time. Starting a goalie two days in a row won't automatically result in his leg falling off in a 9-1 loss.
Remember there was a time (and not back in the 1920s either) when goalies not only started in consecutive games, they started in almost every game.
Grant Fuhr (1995-96, 79 GP)
Martin Brodeur (2006-07, 78 GP)
Evgeni Nabokov (2007-08, 77 GP)
Arturs Irbe (2000-01, 77 GP)
Bill Ranford (1995-96, 77 GP)
Marc Denis (2002-03, 77 GP)
No one is suggesting a return to that kind of overload, but there's also nothing wrong with occasionally starting your goalie two days in a row if you feel like that gives you your best chance to win.