Florida Panthers: Another Poor Season From James Reimer in 2019

After a lackluster performance in 2017-18, goaltender James Reimer continued with another inconsistent year in 2018-19 with the Florida Panthers.

Much of James Reimer’s career has been overshadowed by inconsistency. Yes, he’s shown back in Toronto that he can come up big in certain moments, but in others, he’s displayed a side to him that one wouldn’t want to see.

In case you don’t know where I’m getting at with this, I’m specifically speaking about the side of James Reimer that loses hockey games on his own.

As I mentioned before, Reimer can steal you a game in the heat of the moment but he can also single-handedly cost you a game in the most precious moments. Essentially, to put it short, he’s what you call “hot and cold.”

In 2017-18, Reimer managed the net 44 times, owning a record of 22-14-6 while recording a .913 SV%, as well as a 2.99 GAA.

Much of that campaign can simply be described as one that was up and down. Reimer showed up in some games as the hero, making crucial saves that led the Panthers to victory, while on the other hand, there were those other games where he simply laid an egg, completely taking his side out of the game early on.

Fast forward to the following season (2018-19) and James Reimer was absolutely abominable. He featured in fewer games (36) due to injuries, putting up an underwhelming win record of 13-12-5.

In addition, his SV% decreased to .900, which was a good amount in comparison to his previous year’s figure. As well, his GAA also suffered, jumping all the way up to 3.09.

Unlike the previous season, however, Reimer hardly produced any game-changing performances and was on the tail end of a lot of losses and bad performances.

The main issues with Reimer’s game are positioning and rebound control. His positioning on a lot of the plays that resulted in goals was just completely way off.

A lot of the time, Reimer is a good two-three seconds late with his reactions when the puck enters the net. In a sense, it’s like his movement on the play is delayed.

Furthermore, his rebound control on the majority of the pucks that he faces just isn’t well handled. You can see this when he kicks out loose pucks over to the opposition in situations where he shouldn’t.

Moreover, his puck-handling skills aren’t any better, as he isn’t comfortable handling the puck behind his own goal. For an NHL netminder, that’s deeply problematic.

With two years remaining on his current contract, expect the Panthers to try and dump it somehow, with hopes of attempting to shed some more cap space.

Heading into next season, the Panthers cannot go into the year with the same goalie tandem. With Reimer’s deal being the easiest to move, don’t be surprised if he isn’t back in the sunny state of Florida.