Former Penguin Brent Johnson dishes on goalie fatigue

[FLPensFan]

Former Pens goalie Brent Johnson had a really good series of tweets today concerning goalie fatigue. He was mainly talking in terms of Braden Holtby and his recent struggles, but he also talked in general about the goalie position.

He says Holtby is just far too overworked. Goalies are almost never going to admit it, but the number of games he has played over the past 4 or 5 years is just absurd. Also mentioned he has heard Vasilevskiy is also worn down and tired at this point of the season. Johnson talks about the mental fatigue that sets in, having to be on the ice for 60 minutes tracking the puck every second, and how often it is really the mental sharpness that leads to the mistakes a goalie makes on the ice.

Highly recommend taking a read though: https://twitter.com/JohnnyGoalie12/stat ... 7974733825

[Durbano]

Have to figure there are very few pro athletes who’d be comfortable asking for time off because of fatigue (regardless of sport or position). I guess it falls more on the coaches to be aware and have a plan, but that’s one of the ultimate tough-it-out, suck-it-up environments.

[no name]

You would think as long as you don't ask a goalie to play back to back games that should be enough to keep a goalie to be around 60 starts.

I think of most Stanley cup winners and losers, the magic number is 55 to 60 starts that goalies get who get that far. Of course there are exceptions but for the most part it pointed to 55 to 60. I would have to think depending on the quality of your back up you are playing with a lot of points with the 27 to 22 starts they might get.