There is a goalie glut in the NHL

An interesting development is occurring this summer in the NHL. There are a number of veteran players who are still anxiously waiting for an offer but this has become most pronounced for a glut of veteran goalies. The only team that were looking for a starting goalie was Philadelphia and Colorado. The Flyers took a chance by signing Ray Emery. Colorado is going with ex-Panther backup Craig Anderson. A number of backup goalies bounced around. Clemmensen moved from the Devils to the Lightning; Conklin bounced from the Wings to the Blues; Auld from the Senators to the Stars; and Raycroft landed in Vancouver after a year in Colorado. Seven teams plan to go with rookie backup goalies.

That leaves a number of veteran goalies sitting and waiting including Martin Biron, Manny Fernandez, Manny Legace, Martin Gerber, Brent Johnson, Joey MacDonald, Curtis Sanford, Wade Dubielewicz and Kevin Weekes. Only Calgary has yet to decide who will backup Kiprusoff so if one of these guys is willing to work for close to the minimum they may still have a job in the NHL. The only other scenario is for them to stay in shape and hope that one of the rookies falters and their team decides on plan B. Here is the list of goalies anticipated to start the season:

	STARTER	BACKUP
Anaheim	Giguere	Hiller
Atlanta	Lehtonen	Hedberg
Boston	Thomas	Rask (R)
Buffalo	Miller	Laline
Carolina	Ward	Leighton
Calgary	Kiprusoff
Chicago	Het	Crawford
Colorado	Anderson	Budaj
Columbus	S. Mason	Garon
Dallas	Turko	Auld
Detroit	Osgood	Howard (R)
Edmonton	Khabibulin	Druin-Deslauriers
Florida	Vokuon	Clemmensen
Los Angeles	Quirk	Bernier (R)
Minnesota	Backstrom	Harding
Montreal	Price	Halak
Nashville	Rinne	Ellis
New Jersey	Brodeur	Frazee (R)
NY Islanders	DiPietro	Roloson
NY Rangers	Lundqvist	Valiquette
Ottawa	Leclaire	Elliott
Philadelphia	Emery	Boucher
Phoenix	Bryzgalov	LaBarbera
Pittsburgh	Fluery	Curry (R)
San Jose	Nabakov	Greiss (R)
St. Louis	C. Mason	Conklin
Tampa Bay	Smith	Niittymaki
Toronto	Toskala	Gustavsson (R)
Vancouver	Luongo	Raycroft
Washington	Varlamov	Theodore