TAMPA, Fla. _ He has been good, no doubt about that. He was 20 years old when he came off the bench to win Game 2 of the Stanley Cup finals against the Blackhawks. He was 23 when he led the NHL in shutouts, and 24 when he accepted the Vezina Trophy as the game's best goaltender.
But has Andrei Vasilevskiy been as good as you expected? Or as good as the Lightning have needed?
The questions are undoubtedly unfair. Mostly because they are borne of Vasilevskiy's enormous potential. He is so talented that you have come to expect otherworldly performances and are disappointed when he is merely grand.
So, tell me, is that his fault, or is it ours?
Either way, Vasilevskiy, 26, has a chance in the coming weeks to shape perceptions to his liking, for it is the Stanley Cup playoffs where goaltender legacies are typically written.
Now it's true, Vasilevskiy still has plenty of years ahead of him. Dominik Hasek and Tim Thomas didn't win the Stanley Cup until they were 37 and 36. But the window of opportunity is not going to remain open forever in Tampa Bay, and the Lightning already have fallen short more times than you would care to remember. This isn't do-or-die for Vasilevskiy's career, but it's a pivotal moment on his journey.
"Every discussion we have, every adjustment we make is to put ourselves in a better spot to win the next game," said goaltending coach Frantz Jean. "The championship is at the end of a long playoff road, so what we want is to win the next playoff game and slowly advance towards our objective. You don't look at a player's legacy until the player is done.
"It's very hard to coax a legacy out of a player while he's still playing."
Nevertheless, a couple dozen postseason games often create a goaltender's greatest legacy. A skater might have a few bad shifts, or even a few bad periods, and it isn't as noticeable. But a single slip or one great game by a goaltender can shift the direction of an entire series.
For instance, how do you recall Nikolai Khabibulin in Tampa Bay?
He was a big-money acquisition who was never close to being the league's top goaltender during his three full seasons here. In Khabibulin's third season he surrendered a lot of playing time to backup John Grahame, who had a better goals-against average, a better save percentage and a better winning percentage. If that had been the extent of his time here, Khabibulin would have been a massive disappointment.
And yet, his place in Tampa Bay lore is forever secure because of the 2004 Stanley Cup run. After getting three shutouts in 55 regular-season games, Khabibulin got three more in the first-round series against the Islanders. His 2.33 goals-against average in the regular season was in the middle of the pack, but he had a spectacular 1.71 average in 26 postseason games. His save percentage went from .910 to .933.
That's the type of legacy Vasilevskiy is capable of creating. In fact, Vasilevskiy has a chance to be even greater. There have only been a half-dozen goaltenders in the past 20 years to have won a Cup and a Vezina Trophy. When you start talking about multiple Vezina Trophies _ which is certainly within Vasilevskiy's grasp _ then you're talking about Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur.
It's premature to lump Vasilevskiy anywhere near that conversation, but he has that potential. And he needs more postseason success to make it happen. Especially after what went down last year.
To be sure, the first-round debacle against Columbus in 2019 was not Vasilevskiy's fault. The defense in front of him was shaky, and the star forwards vanished in crunch time.
But this point cannot be overlooked:
Vasilevskiy had a chance to rescue the Lightning, and he never did. He never made the game-changing save, he never put the Lightning on his back and won a series-changing game. Combined with Games 6 and 7 losses to Washington in the Eastern Conference finals in 2018, he was riding a six-game postseason losing streak.
"The goalie's job is obviously to make those big saves, but the team has to come up with its 'A' game, too," Jean said. "The whole thing doesn't just rely on the goaltending. Goaltending is part of the solution. And I think Vasy has shown he can bring that type of hockey in the playoffs."
That's been evident through the first two games of the round-robin tournament in Toronto. Vasilevskiy had some trouble covering rebounds and deflections, but those are the kind of plays that are difficult to simulate in practice after a four-month layoff.
"I've been really happy with Vasy's game. He's looked confident in the net," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "You look at his third periods in (the first two) games; that's when you need your goalie and he's been there for us."
The official start of Tampa Bay's postseason is just days away.
How will we recall Andrei Vasilevskiy?
