from James Mirtle of the Globe And Mail,

On Tuesday night in Detroit, Petr Mrazek posted a shutout for the Red Wings in goal, with his 34 career starts and 23 years of age forcing Jimmy Howard’s experience and enormous contract to the bench yet again.

In Chicago, Scott Darling did the same to Corey Crawford, playing brilliantly deep into multiple overtimes.

Eddie Lack started again for Vancouver. And Braden Holtby won in overtime for Washington, tying their series with a terrific performance.

Of the four, Holtby was the big ticket at a $1.85-million cap hit.

It’s been a weird year for goalies in general. Devan Dubnyk – who’ll start for the Wild on Wednesday against another story along these lines in St. Louis’s Jake Allen – was one of the stars, the likely runner-up for the Vezina Trophy, and he was playing on a bargain basement $800,000 deal he signed to be the Coyotes backup.

There were others like Darling, Andrew Hammond and Cam Talbot in that conversation, too.

Anaheim, meanwhile, went into the year with two young, cheap goalies and won the West.

It makes one wonder why teams keep paying big at the position with so much uncertainty and so much rising talent, year after year.

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