Keeper Conundrum

Written by Chris Wassel | 29 January 2008

Who to put between the pipes on a nightly basis is a chore that Barry Trotz has had to deal with all season. With fans pouring out love for the rookie Ellis with a record of 11-5-1, 4 shutouts, the 7th best GAA (2.25), the 5th best save percentage (.924 with Leclaire sitting in 1st at .928), and people already starting to talk about him as a Vezina trophy winner this season. Everything Ellis has shown the season has looked good.

Mason on the other hand has a record of 14-15-4, 3 shutouts, a GAA of 2.78 (31st in the league), and a save percentage of .901 (34th in the league). There isn’t much good to say about Mase this season. The flu bug he had definitely didn’t help him at all through December where he posted a record of 3-5-0. Ellis didn’t do much better through December with a record of 3-4-0. A bad month overall for our keepers.

January has spurred new faith in Chris as the number one goaltender for the Preds. The man who played so well behind Vokoun that when Vokoun was traded away, most fans were comfortable having Mason take over the spot. What us fans saw was Mason start 38 games last season posting a record of 24-11-4 with a GAA of 2.38 and a save percentage of .925. Mason (Ellis as well) is putting together a stellar January going 4-1-2 with a GAA of 1.68 and a save percentage of .935. Ellis is also doing well this month posting a 3-1-1 record with a GAA of 1.97 and a save percentage of .939. This stability in goal has definitely rubbed off on all the Predators on the ice as the play has definitely stepped up as well.

Even with all the off ice talk of how our goaltending is shaky, how we wish we never traded Vokoun, how we really don’t have a true #1 goaltender; the goalies know their roles. Ellis knows he is the backup goalie and does not expect to play every night. Mason knows he is still the go to guy for Trotz even if he is splitting time with Ellis right now. However, that doesn’t change the fans perspective that Ellis should be given more chances until he finally falters and Mason should sit in the background and have to fight to get his starting position back.

Half way through it’s still a toss up here in Nashville as to who will be more consistent in the end. However, if Mason doesn’t end the season with a flourish like what he’s doing right now in January I wouldn’t be surprised if Mason gets unloaded to another team to save his $3 mil salary as Ellis will probably get a bump up from the $500k he gets now to about $1.25 mil and have Pekka Rinne (who just won the top goaltender award in the AHL skills competition) backing him up next season.