Bill Meltzer
December 28, 2010

If the Vezina Trophy was awarded for the first half of the season, it would be a two-horse race between a pair of American goaltenders: Boston's Tim Thomas and LA's Jonathan Quick. Thomas' extraordinary comeback this season has been well documented, but there has been much less attention paid on the national level to Quick's play. That is almost always the case for Western Conference players, especially those playing in the Pacific Time Zone.

After last year's playoffs, many critics felt that Quick -- who had a strong regular season, but was previously an unheralded young goaltender -- had his weaknesses exposed in the postseason. If that's the case, the 24-year-old has done a mighty good job at covering them up again this season. Following his 24-save shutout of San Jose on Monday night (his fourth shutout of the season and second in three games), Quick lowered his goals against average to 1.86 (second best  in the NHL) and raised his save percentage to .932 (third best in the league). He registered his 18th win of the season (third most in the league) in his 26th game.

Although the 4-0 final score of the Sharks-Kings game makes it seem like Quick had a relatively easy night in goal, the game was scoreless through two periods and Quick had to make several difficult saves to keep the scoreless through 40 minutes. Finally, the Kings exploded in the third period, solving San Jose goaltender Antti Niemi four times.

Perhaps the challenge of having highly regarded young Jonathan Bernier pushing him for the starting job has helped Quick elevate his game or perhaps he has simply continued to mature as a goaltender. He's allowed fewer big rebounds and short-side goals than he did a year ago, and he rarely has let one mistake snowball into a series of miscues. He's shown this season that he's tough to get to commit early in one-on-one showdowns with shooters, and he's always known how to use his big frame to make it tough to score in close.

There's nothing deceptive about the numbers Quick has put up so far this season: He really has been that good.

Go Jonathan Quick! It's been great watching him play this year. Especially the 51-save shutout vs. the Red Wings earlier this season.

Keep it up, Quick!