Dallas Stars Goalie Kari Lehtonen Is Not the Answer

May 26th, 2012 by Mitchell Klemp Leave a reply »
Kari Lehtonen of the Dallas Stars has set career bests in the past two seasons in wins, shutouts and save percentage. He is only 28 and in the prime of his career. With all that said, Kari Lehtonen is not the long term answer for the Dallas Stars in net.

On the stat sheet Lehtonen has been a solid goaltender, but when you watch him play there are times when he doesn’t quite pass the eyeball test.

On more than a handful of occasions, goals have been scored on Lehtonen when they were shot from a 90 degree angle. There have been even more instances where Lehtonen has given up what should be a textbook stop by not covering the post entirely.

It seems like Kari Lehtonen doesn’t learn from his mistakes either. The biggest example was in a shootout loss against the Pittsburgh Penguins at home on February 29th, 2012.

Lehtonen played out of the net so far he was nearly parallel with the faceoff circles. Three of four Penguins scored on very similar moves. The goals given up by the Stars in regulation were all scored right above Lehtonen’s shoulder.

That is one example, but a common theme throughout the entire seaso ...

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