37. That is the magic number for goalies.

The Panthers have a Goalie Problem

History tells us that the Panthers will have a goaltending issue in the 2026 playoffs. Nothing against Bobrovsky–I’m actually a huge fan. He played well in 2024 and 2025, resulting in the Panthers winning back to back Stanley Cups. In fact, I think he should have won the Conn Smythe over Sam Bennett.¹ Bob is likely not the best bang for your buck at $10m AAV, but Bobrovsky did his job the past two seasons. However, father time comes for all, and for goalies, that time is age 37. No other lifelong elite goalie who started their career in the 2000s has ever played well after the age of 37. Henrik Lundqvist, Marc-Andre Fleury, Carey Price, even Florida’s own Roberto Luongo–not one of them played the way they usually play at 37. If we look at the goalies even before 2000, the list of high production aged goalies is very few and include all time greats such as Hasek, Brodeur, and Roy–a level Bobrovsky has not reached. Pretty much everyone either gets injury plagued, has a below average season, becomes a backup, or becomes at best part of a goalie tandem.

If you are Bill Zito, the Panther’s GM, I’m not sure what you can do to fix your goalie situation. You already need to get a new backup goalie because your old backup, Vitek Vanacek, is heading into UFA. He wasn’t that great either so re-signing him isn’t going to fix anything.

What the Panthers did instead was trade for the 25 year old Daniil Tarasov. Likely he will be a mediocre backup goalie and unless he figures out how to play at a starter level over this summer. It’s happened before as goalies tend to take longer to develop than skaters, but if Bobrovsky has any hint of slowing down, the Panthers are in trouble because Tarasov is only at backup level, not tandem level.

I’m not faulting the GM in any way either. He’s constructed a team that won 2 Stanley Cups already, but at $10 million AAV, Bobrovsky’s contract does not give the Panthers much room to work with. They already need to sign Bennett, Marchand, and Ekblad along with depth spots with a mere $19 million as of June 27, which does not leave much space for a goalie tandem or a fantastic backup. The Panthers can only pray that Bob is still Bob if they want to win that 3rd cup.

No good goalie stays good past 37 in the modern NHL

Who have the best goalies been since the 2000s? The ones who played the back half of their careers were Roy, Brodeur, and Hasek, but the game has changed since then. From the new generation, we have Lundqvist, Price, Fleury, and Luongo as the greats, and a few more very solid goalies. What do we expect from these goalies? Full-time starting role with at least above average goaltending numbers. Unfortunately, no one except for Tim Thomas has filled that role past 37.

Let’s talk about Thomas first. I don’t really count him. He won a Vezina at 36 and played solidly at 37 while playing in 59 games and having above average stats. That was his last good season, though. All that said, I don’t count him because he started his NHL career very late compared to other goalies. His first meaningful season was at 31, playing 38 games, which means he simply does not have the same wear and tear as everyone else who had 10+ years of full time NHL starter duty.

With that out of the way, let’s start with Lundqvist. He started over 70 games some seasons and was a workhorse for most of his NHL career. The only time he played less than 40 games, though? His age 37 season with 30 games. We are talking about the goalie who has 11 30-win seasons. He could only play 30 games. His numbers? not so great. In fact he started declining at 34, which was his first season with negative GSAA. His age 37 season was his final season.

What about Fleury? He’s played 21 years in the NHL. He won a Vezina at 36 with the Golden Knights with a deep and strong playoff performance. What did the GM of the Golden Knights do? They traded him before the next season for Mikael Hakkarainen, a former 5th round pick who never played a single NHL game. This move caused tons of controversy at the time, but did the Golden Knights even lose anything for this? Not particularly. He was an average goaltender, but he was not the Marc-Andre Fleury that hockey fans knew for the 15 years before that. Good enough I guess, but at $7M AAV, there’s better use of your money. This is likely a best case scenario for Bobrovsky. If he can keep up with the average NHL goaltender, the Panthers may have a chance. Did the Vegas GM, Kelly McCrimmon, realize the same thing I did? Most likely. Fleury eventually played fewer and fewer games in the subsequent seasons. Unfortunately, this is the only story that is at least a mediocre outcome.

Carey Price? Injury riddled Carey Price? he stopped playing at 34.

Luongo? He started splitting his goaltending duties with James Reimer starting at age 37.

We can go down the list of goalies after that, but it doesn’t get prettier. Jonathan Quick, Tuuka Rask, Ryan Miller, Pekka Rinne, Evgeni Nabakov, Cam Ward, Craig Anderson, Kari Lehtonen–how much lower down the totem pole do you want me to go? Older ones like Jean-Sebastian Gigure, Thomas Vokoun, and so on… All of these either never made it to 37 or fell off a cliff if they played. At best they were part of a goalie tandem, some became backups, some played well below average to put it kindly. Unless you are an all time great like the big 3 we mentioned before (and hockey was different back then)–your days are done.

How to profit with this knowledge?

Talk is cheap, but so is knowledge… unless there is a way to profit. How do we make money off of knowing goalies fall off at 37? By being a degenerate gambler. If the markets still think Bobrovsky will have decent season stats, the panthers to have a 100+ point season, or the panthers will win the Stanley Cup, I would bet against that unless they find a real goalie tandem. Often times older goalies can be preserved and still put up good numbers if they simply play fewer games. However, after trading for Tarasov, I’m not sure fixing the goalie situation is on the Panthers’ minds. They have bigger fish to fry by signing Marchand, Bennett, and Ekblad. However, there pretty much hasn’t been a below average goalie to win a cup since Antti Niemi.

By the way, if anyone knows of any sportsbooks with a lot of NHL season props, let me know because I can’t find any.

It’s okay

Bobrovsky has a fantastic career (sorry for writing all this hate, Bob). The Panthers GM won two cups. There’s no reason to need a 3rd other than to make a dynasty, which probably wasn’t the goal in the first place. Winning just 1 cup justifies every move a GM makes, and often times solidifies a player’s career accomplishments. However, everyone is saying the Panthers are too strong, the tax situation is too favorable for Florida, and other things the kids spew nowadays, and I highly disagree. It’s not enough to win another cup in 2026. I think the Panthers will solidify their dynasty in future years, maybe 2027 or 28 when they get a new goalie, but how can you trade Bobrovsky after he won you two cups? This next year is Bobrovsky’s final year of his $10M AAV contract. The Panthers will be super scary in 2027 and 28.

1. The best forwards of the entire playoffs were easily Draisaitl and McDavid and there’s no debate. Bennett was not the best forward of the playoffs. The Panthers win through a team effort, so they don’t need a playoff MVP to win the Stanley Cup. However, Bob was the best goalie who made a deep run, which means he should have gotten the Conn Smythe, but that’s a topic for a different day. ↩︎
2. https://www.hockey-reference.com/players/v/vanecvi01.html ↩︎