It's unclear whether some of the NHL's award voters are aware of the existence of the Arizona Coyotes.
That is the only plausable explanation to why Darcy Kuemper did not receive a Vezina Award nomination.
To be clear, I think Robin Lehner should win the Vezina, or that he should at least split it with Tomas Greiss.
Those guys took a pretty bad team to the second round of the Playoffs on the back of absoultely insane goaltending.
But what Darcy did was even better, arguably.
The Islanders have a much better roster than the Coyotes do, at least when 90% of the Coyotes roster missed 83% of the season.
The fact that the Coyotes were even close to the playoffs - and if they scored more then four goals on their last four game game roadtrip, they'd have done it - means that Kuemper should get some credit from voters.
Kuemper, playing behind an absolutely terrible roster, for the most part, had a .925 save percentage, which is a top 50 all time mark for goalies who played over 50 games.
I know I'm given to homerism and hyperbole - it's a trade off I have to make in order to make these things fun to read. So I know that I am like the boy who cried Vezina, and that you may be disinclined to trust ol' Tanner on this one.
I get it.
But don't let that stop you from doing your own research. Look into how good Kuemper was this year - don't take it from me.
This guy deserves some recognition.
He definitely deserved a nomination - especially in a year where hardly any goalies played over 50 games and also had good seasons.
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