Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Starting Goalies - December 2nd

Canucks Oilers Hockey

Edmonton Oilers’ goalie Nikolai Khabibulin takes a break from play against the Vancouver Canucks during the second period of a preseason NHL hockey game in Edmonton, Alberta, on Sunday, Sept. 26, 2010. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, John Ulan)

AP

Whether you’re interested for fantasy hockey reasons or just want to know which goalie your team is playing in a given day, we thought it might be helpful to share our best guesses (based on various previews from newspapers and Web sites plus our own instincts) on who might start each day. Here’s what’s on tap for this afternoon’s starts. We’ll get you tonight’s starting goalies later today. We’ll also update this post when starters are confirmed.

7:00 pm ET games

Tampa Bay @ Boston

Likely Tampa Bay starter: Mike Smith (Source.)

Likely Boston starter: Tim Thomas - He just shut out the Philadelphia Flyers, so chances are pretty high that they’ll want to keep his hot streak going. (Source.)

Edmonton @ Toronto

Likely Edmonton starter: Nikolai Khabibulin - It’s been quite a while (November 17th to be exact) since we saw The Bulin Wall in net for Edmonton, but it sounds like he’ll come back tonight. (Source.)

Likely Toronto starter: Jonas Gustavsson - This will be his seventh consecutive start. Wow. (Source.)

Montreal @ New Jersey

Likely Montreal starter: Carey Price (Source.)

Likely New Jersey starter: Johan Hedberg - Not sure when Martin Brodeur will be back, but Hedberg’s been pretty decent in his absence. (Source.)

NY Rangers @ NY Islanders

Likely NY Rangers starter: Martin Biron - The two teams are playing back-to-back games, so my guess is that Biron gets the first start and then Henrik Lundqvist will play on Friday ... unless that order is switched up. (Source.)

Likely NY Islanders starter: Rick DiPietro - It’s unclear if the Islanders will follow the Rangers’ lead or if they’ll start Ricky D in both games, though. He should at least play tonight, though. (Source.)

Atlanta @ Pittsburgh

Likely Atlanta starter: Ondrej Pavelec - It looks like a bout between two of the NHL’s hottest goalies tonight. (Source.)

Likely Pittsburgh starter: Marc-Andre Fleury - No surprise with either starters. (Source.)

7:30 PM ET game

San Jose @ Ottawa

Likely San Jose starter: Antero Niittymaki - He hasn’t been playing that well lately, but Antti Niemi has been even worse. (Source.)

Likely Ottawa starter: Pascal Leclaire - My best guess (haven’t been able to find confirmation) based on how well he’s playing so far.

8:30 PM ET game

Washington @ Dallas

Likely Washington starter: Michal Neuvirth - Few teams can sport the kind of goaltending depth that the Caps enjoy right now. (Source.)

Likely Dallas starter: Andrew Raycroft - Kind of surprising he got the nod instead of Kari Lehtonen. Perhaps Lehtonen will be glad to be on the bench considering the offensive talent on the other side of the ice. (Source.)

10:30 PM ET game

Florida @ Los Angeles

Likely Florida starter: Tomas Vokoun - Allowing two George Parros goals isn’t good for any goalie’s psyche. We’ll see if he can recover tonight. (Source.)

Likely Los Angeles starter: Jonathan Quick - This is a great opportunity for the Kings to work out of their funk: playing against a so-so Panthers team coming off a humbling loss to the Ducks last night.