2 days until CBJ hockey: Goalie tandem ready to shine

The old saying in football is that if you have two quarterbacks, you have none.
For much of the history of hockey, it's kind of been the same way. It's good to have two good goalies, of course, but at the end of the day, a starter who can handle much of the load has been sought by teams.
After all, when the rubber needs the road at the end of the season, there's only one net. From Marc Denis' NHL record-setting minutes performance in 2002-03 to Steve Mason's historic 2009 to Sergei Bobrovsky's three straight seasons of 60-plus starts from 2017-19, the Blue Jackets' best teams have often had an unquestioned No. 1.

But coming off a season in which Joonas Korpisalo started 35 games and Elvis Merzlikins 31, the Blue Jackets have pledged a goalie tandem starting with the Nashville opener Thursday. It's partly because, as general manager Jarmo Kekalainen says, both have shown they can be No. 1 goalies in this league, but it's also reality that pushing too many starts on a goalie in a 56-game sprint to the finish is a big ask.
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So as the GM sees it, the Blue Jackets are set up nicely for the upcoming grind.
"I think it's a big advantage," Kekalainen said of having the two 26-year-olds in net. "There's a great internal competition with those two guys. Both are supportive of each other and both want to play every game basically, but at the same time the schedule is going to be tight. It's going to be real good to get a fresh goaltender in every night. I think it's extremely important, especially this year when we're playing back-to-back and pretty much every other night throughout the whole season."
Both goaltenders showed at different times they could be the backbone of an NHL squad a year ago, and their emergence is allowing head coach John Tortorella to open things up offensively. Korpisalo caught fire as he got into a groove last year, posting a .926 save percentage in November and December as the Blue Jackets found their game. Merzlikins, then, took over as the starter when Korpisalo was injured and posted a .935 save percentage the rest of the way while earning votes for the Vezina Trophy.
The two were just as good in the postseason, with Korpisalo's .941 save percentage in nine starts leading all qualifying goalies in the playoff bubble while Merzlikins posted a .946 save percentage in two appearances as well.
Here's what's each goalie thinks about the upcoming arrangement.

Joonas Korpisalo

The enduring image of Korpisalo from a year ago came in defeat, as the CBJ netminder turned in one of the most incredible performances in NHL history in Game 1 of the playoff series vs. Tampa Bay a year ago. The Lightning threw everything at him but the kitchen sink in that grueling five-overtime marathon before Brayden Point's goal ended the fourth-longest game in league history.
By the time it was all said and done, Korpisalo had stopped 85 of 88 shots sent his way, a modern-era NHL record that blew 12 saves past the old mark set by Kelly Hrudey in 1987's Easter Epic.

That was far from the only impressive performance the Finnish netminder turned in while in the Toronto bubble, as his league-leading save percentage, 1.90 GAA and two shutouts in nine starts turned heads around the league.
Korpisalo entered the season intent on showing NHL pundits that he was ready to escape from the shadow of Bobrovsky, but he didn't admit to taking any tremendous personal satisfaction from his success in the bubble beyond proving to himself that he could handle the league's biggest stage.
"I think overall as a team we played really good up there," he said. "For me, just to get the best out of myself in the most important games, it felt good. First big games, too, so that was a great experience. I'm looking for more of those."
He spent much of his offseason in his native Finland tightening up his game and working on skating and endurance, something he figures will come in handle in this compressed schedule. Korpisalo also said battling for the net on a daily basis with Merzlikins will be nothing new considering it's what the two have done since the start of last year.
"I've been doing it every season," he said. "I think it's a great thing to have competition. We push each other, take nothing for granted. I'll try to be my best out there."

Elvis Merzlikins

It sounds like a cliché but it's true -- you really couldn't draw up two more different goalies than Korpisalo and Merzlikins.
Korpisalo has a sneaky Finnish sense of humor and is highly respected in the locker room but does boast the quiet reserve his countrymen are known for, while Merzlikins has a bubbly personality and charisma that's contagious. On the ice, it's the same, with Korpisalo playing a quieter, more structurally sound game while Merzlikins has incredible athleticism that allows him to make the spectacular save look routine.

It's a fun yin and yang, but even Merzlikins admits his irrepressible nature didn't quite always mix with the NHL a year ago. It was a full-on learning experience for the Latvian a year ago, and now he feels a lot more comfortable going into year two in Columbus.
"There was a lot," he said when asked what he learned a season ago. "There was a lot of ups and downs. There was really a lot -- like, really a lot in everything."
Off the ice, that meant getting used to a new team for the first time in his pro career -- not to mention an entirely new culture and country in the United States. On the ice, the transition was difficult as well, as he allowed seven goals in his first start and didn't get a win in his first 10 games before his dramatic turnaround when Korpisalo was hurt in late December.
"Maybe in the start when I came here, I didn't respect that here are the best players in the world," he said. "It was hard to get used to that and see that these guys, they don't joke. They are really serious. They put the puck in the little hole when they see it. You have to respect the shooters, you have to respect the players, and yeah, that was the hardest part maybe.
"Then I think I was maybe even thinking too much when I was on the ice. … Then, when I had the last chance (when Korpisalo was hurt), I gave it to myself and I just wanted to enjoy it and have fun on the ice. Then I wasn't thinking anymore, I was just trying to play my game and have fun. Then I was stopping the puck and I felt good."
Merzlikins spent his offseason back in Lugano, Switzerland, and worked on his core strength to get ready for the season. If he shows the same growth in year two as he did in year one, it's a scary thought for the rest of the NHL.
"I'm looking at this as a long, long, long playoff mode, but I mean, it's going to be fun as well," he said. "You're playing really often the same teams, so that's why in my head I am taking this as a long playoff round. It's not going to be easy obviously mentally, but we are professionals."