Going into this new season it was once again assumed that Ilya Samsonov would be the undisputed starter for the Washington Capitals. Even though the team lost and then spent an asset to get Vitek Vanecek back after losing him in the expansion draft to the Seattle Kraken, I think most assumed he would still be the teams backup.
Backup obviously doesn’t have to mean anything bad. Samsonov has only played in 45 games total in his career, I’m guessing you probably don’t want to rely on him to play 60+ for you in a season yet. In my eyes, starter for this team just means you will get the majority of starts and in this case, a majority would be at least 42.
Even in being the backup you would still think Vanecek will get his fair share of starts. If you want to put a number on it, coming into the season I would have guessed he gets to around the mid thirties in starts. Thirty-five starts, this puts Samsonov at forty-seven starts. That seems fair to me, and that sounds like a solid platoon situation.
On the other hand, when you have a platoon situation that probably means someone has the opportunity to seize the starters job. One of the Capitals goalies has proven to be more successful when that job has the chance to be seized. That is obviously Vanecek.
That was potentially proven again a couple of nights ago in the 2021-22 season opener. Most teams will usually start the guy they consider their starter in the first game of the season. There are of course some exceptions. One exception could be the team you open against.
For example, if the Capitals started this season against Buffalo, no disrespect meant towards that franchise right now, but that would make sense to perhaps start your second goalie. Then if the Caps play a division rival the next game that would be a good chance to start your number one for the first time.
Washington did not play a team like the Sabres to start this season. They started the season against a division rival Rangers team, who is looking to take a step up and contend for a playoff spot, in a highly anticipated game, on national television.
Head coach Peter Laviolette decided to go with Vanecek over Samsonov. I obviously have no inside information, but that can’t mean nothing.
To be fair here, Samsonov could be dealing with a minor injury and Vanecek is 100% healthy as far as we know. At the beginning of October Samsonov suffered a lower body injury. He had about a week and a half to recover from that. Perhaps that is the reason he did not start on Wednesday night.
That once again gave Vanecek a chance to take the starting job for himself, and once again, he did good with that opportunity. He was good, but didn’t have to be exceptional in the first game of the season. Vanecek faced just 24 shots from the Rangers, they had just 12 scoring chances while 5v5 and had a mere one high danger attempt at full and even strength.
He did have more work to do when the Rangers were on the power play. 12 of the 24 shots New York had came on the power play, they had 14 scoring chances on the man advantage and had 6 high danger attempts with a Capitals player in the box.
With the starters job up for grabs, in my opinion anyways, Vanecek is off to a good start. It’s up to Samsonov to respond. He could very well respond and answer with authority. Maybe this is the season Samsonov cements his spot as goalie of the future, and even goalie of the present.
Right now, if you ask me, this is Vitek Vanecek’s job. He is 1A in my books, which leaves 1B being Samsonov. Vanecek has proven to be better at seizing the opportunity while Samsonov, through some potential bad luck and bad decision making is forced to now play catch up.
This is a fluid situation, things can obviously change quickly. We could easily be talking about how Samsonov is the obvious starter going forward fairly soon. But right now, Vanecek is the guy. He is the guy, because up to this point, he has been better than Samsonov at seizing the opportunity.