The Curse of Obama

In the 20 games since the Boston Bruins' White House visit that Tim Thomas famously did not attend, the defending Vezina Trophy winner has gone 9-9-0 with a very uncharacteristic 3.07 GAA and .890 save percentage.

That .890 would look ugly for pretty much any goalie in today's NHL, but it looks especially glaring for Thomas considering his excellence over the past three seasons. Going back to the start of 2008-09, Thomas' numbers have been consistently elite even when divided up into the relatively small sample size of 20 games (playoffs included):

Nov '11-Jan '12: .935

May '11-Nov '11: .943

Mar '11-May '11: .929

Jan '11-Mar '11: .931

Nov '11-Jan '11: .939

Mar '10-Nov '11: .941

Dec '09-Mar '10: .911

May '09-Dec '09: .921

Feb '09-May '09: .936

Dec '08-Feb '09: .930

Oct '08-Dec '08: .937

The .911 and .921 came in the latter half of 2009-10 when Thomas was limited by a hip injury. If that is enough to excuse those two results, it has been over three calendar years since a healthy Thomas had to endure a 20 game stretch below .929. And then he decided to skip a team event for personal reasons and everything fell apart.

Obviously I don't actually think the flap surrounding Thomas and President Obama made any significant impact on his play, but there is no question that regression has hit the Bruins hard in net in 2012. Not only have Thomas' numbers nosedived, but Tuukka Rask is 0-3-1, 3.07, .886 since the All-Star break. The .940 team save percentage that the team was rocking early in the year was never going to hold up, but I didn't expect the wheels to come off this heavily either.

At 37, Thomas is in the age range where performance levels can change pretty suddenly, and he has had a lot of recent mileage considering his workload this year combined his playoff run last season. Thomas is already in the top-10 all-time this year for games played by a 37-year old, and including playoffs only one goalie has ever played more games in his age 36 season than Thomas' 82 last year. That doesn't necessarily mean that an awful 20 game stretch is a sign of impending doom, but it's certainly something to keep an eye on. Thomas' recent form has to be at least somewhat concerning for Bruins fans with the playoffs just around the corner, given that elite goaltending has been a big part of the team's success over the past two seasons.