Brian Elliott was once the goalie who fans in Dublin hoped would pick up where Tim Thomas left off and bring the Irish close to the top of the heap. But he never capitalized on his opportunity to shine and this week, the 34-year-old Elliott passed through waivers and it appears he will play the remainder of the season for Cool Mokum Amsterdam, Dublin’s farm club.

Thomas is the franchise leader in games played by a goalie (218) and Elliott is second (201), but Elliott could never equal Thomas’ goals against or save percentages with the team. With Thomas, the team finished in the Top 7 twice; with Elliott, it was always a struggle to make the playoffs.

Dublin General Manager Gayle Rock saw that Elliott wasn’t the answer a few seasons ago and pulled off what turns out to be a brilliant Season 7 trade in acquiring Cam Talbot in exchange for a 2019 second-round pick that Belfast used to draft defenseman prospect Cal Foote. With less than a dozen games remaining in Season 9, Talbot seems to have gotten Dublin into the playoffs with a stellar 2.58 goals against average and .910 save percentage, which puts him in the top 4 goalies in the EURO. In his career, through 188 games, he has posted a 2.89 goals against average and .905 save percentage. In the history of the EURO, only 8 goalies who have played at least 100 games have compiled better numbers.

Until recently, Talbot and Elliott had been splitting the job pretty evenly. With Elliott out of the picture, it is Talbot’s job only and barring a collpase in the next 11 games, Talbot will face a major test as a low seed in the first round of the playoffs and when his season finally ends, he will turn his attention to Season 10 and the final year of his current $3.25 million contract.

Unfortunately for Rock, Elliott will probably pick up his player option after this season ends and decide to get paid another $4.4 million next season. She will probably prefer that Jake Allen, 28, get games in as Talbot’s backup because Allen is the only goalie in the organization who will be there in Season 11, assuming Rock resigns him after his Type 2 contract expires.

Here is the Fighting Irish’s entire goalie statistics history:

Name              GP,  GAA, SvPct, W-L-OL, shutouts

Tim Thomas – 218,  3.13, .899,   111-91-15, 12

Brian Elliott* – 201,  3.49, .886,   77-101-17, 4

Jonathan Bernier – 152,  3.54, . 885, 68-67-13, 1

Cam Talbot* –   129,  2.76, .910,   63-50-5, 7

Evgeny Nabakov – 36, 3.01, .899,  20-13-1, 2

Kari Lehtonen* – 14,   4.57,  .860,  5-8-1, 0

*With the team now