Original Source: Kevin Woodley - NHL.com Correspondent

Posted on: Nov 05, 2015

With Carey Price and now Jonathan Bernier out, depth of goalies in a teams organization seems more and more important as a team moves forward.  Here is an interesting article from Kevin Woodley regarding the importance of the 3rd goaltender!

It's popular to rank the 30 goaltending tandems heading into a new NHL season. But the increasing reality is almost all teams need more than two capable goaltenders to make it through a season.

Last season 92 goalies appeared in at least one NHL game, down slightly from 97 in 2013-14, which was the highest total in six seasons. Five teams made it through last season without needing their third-stringer to play at least one game: the Carolina Hurricanes, Los Angeles Kings, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs and Winnipeg Jets. Among the 25 teams that needed to go beyond their opening-day tandem, the goalies further down the depth chart averaged almost nine games played.

As for the impact, look no further than the Ottawa Senators, whose season and goaltending depth chart changed completely when third-string goalie Andrew Hammond was thrust into action because of injuries to starter Craig Anderson and backup Robin Lehner. Petr Mrazek helped the Detroit Red Wingsthrough injuries and into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. And Andrei Vasilevskiy and Philipp Grubauer each finished last season with important playoff wins for the Tampa Bay Lightning and Washington Capitals, respectively, after starting 2014-15 in the minor leagues.

In 2013-14 three teams made it through the season without needing to use their third-string goaltender. This season is one day old and already three teams have gone past their top two: The Tampa Bay Lightning claimed Kevin Poulin on waivers from the New York Islanders to back up Ben Bishop while Vasilevskiy recovers from surgery to remove a blood clot from near his left collarbone; the Islanders claimed Jean-Francois Berube on waivers from the Los Angeles Kings amid uncertainty regarding the health of starter Jaroslav Halak; the Vancouver Canucks called up Richard Bachman to back up Ryan Miller in their season opener Wednesday against the Calgary Flames after Jacob Markstromsustained a lower-body injury in practice; and Ottawa has big rookie Matt O'Connor on the roster while Hammond heals a groin injury.

While the increasing importance of having three NHL-capable goaltenders seems obvious, keeping three good goalies isn't always easy.

Just ask the Kings, whose well-earned reputation for developing goalies in the American Hockey League has allowed them to trade backups Jonathan Bernier, Ben Scrivensand Martin Jones, but they lost Berube for nothing to the Islanders.

The Minnesota Wild and the Flames will start the season with three goalies largely out of fear they'll lose a talent like Darcy Kuemper or Joni Ortio, respectively, if exposed to waivers.

The Montreal Canadiens took what some saw as a risk by doing just that with Dustin Tokarski, whose more active style can make it tougher to stay in rhythm through long gaps between starts. He passed through waivers unclaimed, however, and the reward to the Canadiens is a recall option more likely to be ready in case of injury to Carey Price as Tokarski should see significant playing time in the AHL. Last season his play appeared to suffer while watching Price play 66 games.

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