He’s called “Monster” for a reason

If it were up to me, I’d choose Jonas Gustavsson (a.k.a. “Monster”) in net over J.S. Giguere right now.  Sure, Jiggy is the Leafs’ number one starting goaltender but ever since his groin injury, he hasn’t been the same. Gustavsson on the other hand, has proven to Wilson, Burke, his teammates and the rest of Leafs Nation that he is dependable and capable as a potential number one goalie for the Leafs.

I never had much faith in our back-up goaltender until now.  When Jiggy was first injured, I thought: “Oh no, now we got to rely on Gustavsson and out losing streak is going to continue.”  But Gustavsson surprised me and I think everyone else in Toronto.  Although we only won two out of seven games with the Monster in net at the time, he made some great saves that Giguere probably wouldn’t have made.  Don’t get me wrong, Giguere has had his share of tremendous saves last night versus the Calgary Flames, like when he robbed Niklas Hagman with a cross-ice save in the first period.  But lately he’s been allowing goals into the net that weren’t very hard to stop.  Take last night’s game for example. Two of those four goals he let in in the second period were goals he could of saved: one from the blue line by Olli Jokinen and the other by Rene Bourque through the five-hole if Giguere wasn’t that deep into his net.

I don’t know what goes behind closed doors on the Leafs team, but I think Giguere returned way too soon after his groin injury. Whether that was Wilson’s idea to play him that soon against the Bruins on Dec. 6 or if Giguere was eager to get back into the lineup, he did sit out the game after because he “wasn’t fully recovered yet”, according to media sources in Toronto.  And now I just heard from the AM640 that Giguere is listed day-to-day because he re-aggravated his groin.  I mean come on, it’s obvious Giguere is clearly not ready to play 100% yet.  Wilson should know this...

And besides, Gustavsson has proven again and again that he deserves to play more games this season. Ever since he got the start to play in replacement of Giguere, his save percentage has gone up.  He now sits with a .901 save percentage and a 2.91 GAA.  Giguere on the other hand only has a .894 save percentage and a 2.80 GAA which went down a bit after those goals he let in last night against the Flames.

So who’s better? You tell me.  Sure, Giguere is a long-time veteran who was one of the top goalies in the NHL when he was with the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.  He even was good for us the past couple seasons but he seems to be going through a slump right now.  Whether it’s his groin injury or their team chemistry and leadership as a whole (which by the way I think is a huge part of why the Leafs and Giguere hasn’t been doing so well this season), in those seven games that Gustavsson played, his stats and ability to make key saves in order to keep his team in the game definitely shows that he deserves to be the number one goalie over Giguere right now.  Or, at least after Giguere recovers from his injury and pulls out of his goalie slump.