The biggest goalie stories thus far in the Stanley Cup Playoffs

The first round of this season’s Stanley Cup Playoffs isn’t over yet, but goaltending has already gone beyond the stats sheet — not to take anything away from Braden Holtby’s .978 save percentage or Brian Elliott’s 144 saves, mind you.

Here’s a look at five goaltenders making postseason headlines.

Most Surprising Performance: Thomas Greiss

To say that Greiss has stepped up for the Islanders in Jaroslav Halak’s absence is a bit of an understatement. Sure, his numbers are solid at best — he has registered a 2.83 goals-against average and given up nine over the course of three tilts. However, through the high number of shots that the opposing Panthers put on net, Greiss has notched two wins in three games against Florida and added to Jaromir Jagr’s goal-scoring drought during postseason play.

The team is looking to be stout defensively in front of him as well by helping prevent giving up the first goal. Islanders captain John Tavares told NHL.com:

“We want to get off to a better start. I think that's already a point of emphasis," he said after the Islanders' optional morning skate. "We have to understand that the first 10 minutes are always crucial; there's always so much energy, a lot of emotion, the intensity is high. You can get out of position, try to do a little too much. It's important to stay focused on doing our job."  

Scariest Injury: Henrik Lundqvist

The Rangers and Penguins have matched up well through three games, but that could have been a different story if Hank had been done after taking a stick to the face in Game 1. Lucky for Lundqvist — and the Blueshirts, no less — the injury wasn’t serious enough to keep the netminder off the ice, and he went on to turn away 29 of 31 attempts in Game 2 to lead the Rangers to a 4-2 victory.

Despite there still being blue and purple around his right eye socket that resembles a makeup mishap, Lundqvist is thankful that it wasn’t something more serious that would have kept him from playing.

“That was more of a realization for myself, that it was a close call and I’m just happy that I’m able to be out there playing,” Lundqvist reportedly told Laura Albanese of NewsDay. “I think there are a lot of things that always remind you about why you should be grateful for where you are and what you do, and sometimes incidents happen or sometimes someone tells you something that just reminds you that this is fun.”

Biggest “Did that just happen?!” Moment: Hands down, Corey Crawford

Social media all but exploded on Tuesday night over the Blackhawks-Blues tilt for a variety of reasons, ranging from Vladimir Tarasenko’s opening goal to the homophobic slur Andrew Shaw spewed towardsthe end of the contest. Right up at the top of that list is when St. Louis’ Robby Fabbri skated into Crawford and the Chicago netminder left the crease to chase him down.