from Amazon
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Team MVP… sent to the minors?
Scott Clemmensen (32 years old in July), prior to this year, played the equivalent of 22.5 NHL games as goalie. His save percentage was .888, which is close to where your bench goalie should be. He had a .500 record, on a good team. Basically, the kind of player you think about as a replacement-level player. Indeed, in every single year of his pro career, he’s played at least one game in the minor leagues.
This year, the goalie who has won more NHL games than any other goalie, Martin Brodeur, was injured (*). Scotty stepped in, and was fantastic. He played twice as many games this year at age 31, than in his entire NHL career. He has a .917 save percentage, which is well above-average. He even recently posted back-to-back shutouts, including against possibly the best team in the league. Pretty wow, right?
(*) Playoffs count. They certainly count more than 0.
Brodeur is now back. But, instead of letting him fight for the job, instead of letting Scotty be the backup, they are sending Scotty down on a technicality, but man does he have a great attitude:
Because he was up under emergency recall, he did not have to clear waivers. Kevin Weekes would have had to clear waivers to be assigned to Lowell. The Devils will have four recalls (without the need to clear waivers) after the March 4 trade deadline. If, however, Clemmensen was brought back before March 4, he would have to stay on the roster.... Brodeur said of Clemmensen: “He was called upon to do a job and he exceeded everybody’s expectations. Probably not his own, because I’m sure he knew he was able to do it. Definitely you feel for a guy like that having to go back. But this is what he signed up for early in the season. It’s unfortunate. “I’m sure he’s really disappointed, but he got a great chance to prove what he was able to do, not just to the Devils but to the entire league. I think he made his point. I wish him luck. I don’t know what the future will bring, coming back here or somewhere else. But he definitely made an impact on this hockey club, and I’m sure it helped his career a lot.”
An unrestricted free agent this summer, Clemmensen would not rule out re-signing with the Devils. “It still is a possibility,” he said. “I don’t harbor any ill will with New Jersey. Am I surprised? Yeah. Maybe a little upset. If (re-signing) is an option to me, I will definitely look into it. I’m not going to rule that out. That’s kind of a long way off right now.” Did he deserve better? “That’s tough to say. I don’t know if ‘deserve’ is the right word to use,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I have to like what transpired. On the other side, I believe I made the most of an opportunity and have no regrets. I did as much as I could. Because of that, I’m not going to take any ill will with me . ... I’m not going to have a bad attitude. It wouldn’t be helpful to anyone. My hockey career is too short to go a day and have any ill will. It’s not that my hockey career is ending now. My hockey career has progressed.”
By the way, this reporting by Rich Chere is exactly the kind of reporting that I like to see done, and what has tremendous value-added to a newspaper. He got the story, the angle, the quotes, the humanity in this piece. Good stuff.
