Bruins’ Thomas leading goaltenders in All-Star voting
Thomas/By S. Bradley
If this keeps up, Tim Thomas isn’t going to be able to play he “underrated and underappreciated” card much longer.
He’s now popular world-wide.
The NHL today announced the first round of All-Star Game balloting results, and the Bruins goaltender is leading at his position by a decent margin over Pittsburgh’s Marc-Andre Fleury. Thomas has 95,681 to Fleury’s 88,100.
Thomas’ teammate Zdeno Chara is second among defensemen with 110,098 votes. The only Bruins forward in the top 30 is Tyler Seguin, who has accumulated 41,443 write-in votes. But he’s more than 60,000 out of the top three.
Thomas is a three-time All-Star, but he has never been voted to the starting lineup. He actually has earned the win in each of his appearances in the midseason classic.
PatrickD, it was more than one game… It was not a good vintage.
In defense of Bautista, Verlander played one game on five. A starting goalie is usually 2 out of 3 games. Hell, Carey Price put in 73 games last year. I think the goalies can win the trophy if a strong case can be made that he was clearly the most valuable guy on the ice night in and night out and that the team would not have accomplished anything without him.
As I recall in the playoff run last year, Thomas was key in taking out Montreal, Tampa and Vancouver. Some of those saves in game 7 were ridiculous.
All credit to Thomas. All he heard in 2005 was that he’d never be a starting goalie in the NHL.
RD, I’m probably biased for goalies because I was a (terrible) goalie when I played. Vezina should be enough for goalie, unless one has the type of season you pointed out with Theodore.
If he starts, it’s going to be very hard for him to get credited with the win and keep his streak going.
@RD, you have hit the nail on the head. That Habs team was terrible. I seem to remember at least one game where they didn’t even get to double digits in shots on goal. Theodore was the only guy on the team who seemed to care…so a year or two later he got run out of town. Man it has got to be tough to struggle as a Hab, especially a French Canadian one. At least he didn’t get caught skiing at Mt. Tremblanc while he was on IR…As far as TT goes I think it is sort of like pitchers winning the MVP. People feel like they already have their own trophy (Vezina/Cy Young) so why should they get the Hart/MVP. Not saying its right just that it’s the common belief. Take a look at what Jose Bautista had to say about Verlander’s MVP yesterday. However if there was ever a parallel between Verlander’s season last year and a goalie, it was TTs 2010/2011 season.
I think the problem George is that the Bruins were too strong. I remember when they gave the trophy to Theodore, it was because the team in front of him was god awful. The habs were consistently being outshot by 20 shots a night.
I’m not saying Tim didn’t deserve consideration, I’m just pointing out what was likely the reasoning.
Last year Thomas had one of the best seasons for a goalie in the history of the NHL. Should have had more consideration for the Hart trophy.
Paid his dues? I think Tim was in my ball hockey league back in the 90s.
He’s a walking NHL miracle and a testament to not giving up.
Gotta love TT. He paid his dues and worked hard to get to the top of his profession, and he comes across as just an ordinary guy.The Bruins are so lucky to have him. Go Bruins!!