This isn't sexy. But Mikko Koskinen could well be best bet for Edmonton Oilers in net - Edmonton Journal

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Could not Edmonton find that same kind of magic with Kuemper, who has a .929 even strength save percentage these last two seasons?

Koskinen is at .916 while Mike Smith is at .906, so Kuemper appears to be a cut above. And if not Kuemper, what about the abundance of goalies who are said to be on the market this summer, everyone from veteran aces like Marc-Andre Fleury and Corey Crawford to 2019 playoff stars Anton Khubodin and Jakub Markstrom?

It’s all very enticing until you look at the goalies who have led their teams to the Stanley Cup finals in recent years and notice that almost all of them had been with their NHL organization for some time and often for a long time.

Since the 2012-13 lock-out, 16 teams have made the Cup finals. This isn’t a huge sample size of goalies, but it is eight full NHL seasons in this modern era, with its unique competitive balanced determined by the current Collective Bargaining Agreement.

Only two of those goalies were newcomers to the team, incoming goalies who had been acquired in a big splashy trade or signing. That’s Marc-Andre Fleury, who was a newcomer on a team of newcomers in Vegas in 2018, and Martin Jones, who had been acquired by the San Jose Sharks in 2015 for a first round pick and a prospect, then led San Jose to the Cup finals.

If we categorize the Stanley Cup finals goalies (and I’m including Tampa’s Vasilevsky for this year), I’d say they fall into four broad categories: long-time starters, organizational prospects making good, travelling men, and newcomers.

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