What the Boston Bruins' Tim Thomas and a Fine Wine Have in Common

Yes, we've all heard the stories of Tim Thomas' meteoric rise from the minor leagues, to Finland, to the  NHL, and back to Finland, before finally becoming a full-time member of the Boston Bruins in 2005-06.  We've all heard how he, rather suddenly, went from trying to crack an NHL roster to topping the league by winning the Vezina trophy last season.

For a while now, it seems the nation has been gripped with Thomas fever, with article after article highlighting his humble childhood, in which his parents pawned their wedding rings in order to send him to a hockey school, and how he has stayed down-to-earth even after becoming a star.

In fact, in all the great details of his off-ice personality, which show that making loads of money does not change everyone, it can become easy to forget that his on-ice performances are even better.

Ladies and gentlemen, I said it last year and I will gladly say it again: Tim Thomas is the best goalie in the NHL.

His numbers through two months may seem to indicate otherwise, with a 2.36 goals-against-average (good for tenth in the league) and a rather meager .915 save percentage (good for 15th). Perhaps most appalling of all, however, is his rather pedestrian 6-6-3 record, certainly not the mark of an outstanding goaltender. Right?

Well, while numbers certainly serve a purpose, they fail to tell the whole story. Such as how, in four of those losses, Thomas allowed two goals or fewer. Or how just as he regained his consistency and brilliance from last year, he was forced to sit out six games with a mysterious "minor" injury that was believed to be a broken hand.

But as Thomas' long journey to the NHL has proven: you can knock him down, but you can't knock him out. And if history is any kind of reliable indicator, he has spent far too long proving naysayers wrong to let a few problems such as a sputtering offense and a hand injury get in his way.

Mark my words: he'll be back, and with a vengeance.

Much has been made of his hybrid style in net, a mix of the butterfly goalie and soccer goalies all rolled into one. But his style, or lack thereof as the case may be, doesn't matter; like musical genres, they're just labels used to lump goalies into convenient categories that ignore the subtle differences unique to each personal goaltender. All that matters is that he stops the puck.

And Thomas has proven himself to be more than adept when it comes to doing just that, constantly making his rounds on the NHL's "Top Saves of the Week" clips, and usually in the top 3. As a young player of any sport, the first thing you learn is to never give up on a play; Thomas shows you exactly why, consistently snatching pucks away from gapingly wide open nets that most goalies wouldn't have even tried for, much less been successful at stopping.

And he has done so with increasing regularity ever since his debut season with the B's. From the moment he burst on to the scene, you could tell he was going to be a breath of fresh air; there was just something special about the voracity with which he protected his net. Yet at the same time, it wasn't at all uncommon for cameras to pick up shots of the goaltender suddenly smiling from underneath his cage, as if once again replaying his whole career through his mind, and realizing, perhaps for the thousandth time, that he was right where he'd been trying to get all along.

To see such a picture is a refreshing reminder that there are still athletes that enjoy doing what they are doing; that play for the love of the game, rather than solely for the big paychecks that come along with it.

But underneath the smiles is an athlete that is as intense and focused as they come.  Chances are, you've seen the footage of Thomas going after Rangers mega-pest Sean Avery after Avery "accidentally" hit him in the head with his stick while skating past during a TV timeout. Or the clip of Thomas knocking down Andrei Kostitsyn of the Canadiens when he hit Bruins defenseman Aaron Ward into the boards from behind. It's these kinds of events that prove Thomas is not only committed to stopping the puck, but also to standing up for himself, and his teammates.

At 35, a time when most goaltenders are approaching (or have effectively hit) the end of their prime, Thomas is somehow managing to get better.

Forget the "what-ifs" that often permeate articles about the guy: "What if he had made the NHL right out of college, would we be mentioning his name along with the Brodeurs and the Luongos?", or "What if he had never made it to the NHL at all?"

The "what-ifs" no longer matter.

All that matters is that he has finally made it, and he is here to stay for good.