In February, when Kevin Poulin was shut down for the season, Evgeni Nabokov was feeling uppity and Al Montoya was not yet on the way, I recalled a season where a team used seven goaltenders. But because the New York Islanders are graced by lady luck's sadistic sister, they got to stop at just six goalies last season.
| 2010-11 | GP | Rec | GAA | Sh | Sv% |
| Rick DiPietro | 26 | 8-14-4 | 3.44 | 773 | .886 |
| Al Montoya | 20 | 9-5-5 | 2.39 | 585 | .921 |
| Dwayne Roloson | 20 | 6-13-1 | 2.64 | 629 | .916 |
| Kevin Poulin | 10 | 4-2-1 | 2.44 | 262 | .924 |
| Nathan Lawson | 10 | 1-4-2 | 4.06 | 217 | .893 |
| Mikko Koskinen | 4 | 2-1-0 | 4.33 | 118 | .873 |
| Evgeni Nabokov |
DNP | CBA literacy |
That's still obviously not ideal. Hopefully it's not repeated. They have both potential and quantity going into 2011-12. No sure things -- there are never sure things, but these are even less sure things -- yet enough "this could work"s to at least hope the goaltending will be better than last season's .902 team save percentage.
As discussed over the weekend, each nominee has caveats: DiPietro has the three-year injury odyssey, Montoya has the brief recent history complicated by minor knee surgery over the summer, Poulin is coming off another knee cap dislocation (edit: "Another" as in he had one earlier in his amateur career), ex-All-Star Nabokov is of completely uncertain head and body, and the others are even greener than Poulin.
But any of the first four could conceivably put in a #1's year of work.
So if you had to bet, who carries the load in 2011-12? You can vote for the leader in the poll, but you might also want to explain a deeper breakdown of how things shake out in comments.