Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
Ramo and Ortio have given us not just solid but great goaltending since Nov 13th (Ramo's amazing game in Washington)
Despite that the two goalies are a combined 19-19-4 since then.
19-19-4 is an 82 point pace. That puts us where, 10th in the conference instead of 11th?
|
That's demonstrably untrue. Great goaltending starts at around a .930 5v5 save percentage. Ortio's about .928 since February 23rd, Ramo is lower than that.
And yes, decent goaltending gets us to the bubble of the playoffs. I don't think anyone is suggesting that if we had Lundkvist we'd be competing with Washington for 1st in the league. The team is still a rebuilding work-in-progress. Most of our key players are 25 or younger. Our top two scorers are 22 and 21. We're three-years removed from a complete tear-down and in that time our highest draft pick was 4th.
Goaltending is far from the
only issue with this team. We give up too many quality chances; we're not particularly big; nor do we play a particularly tough style of hockey. There are totally legitimate criticisms which can be made of team defense, our possession metrics, our reliance on the break-out-pass, our lack of ability to carry the puck into the offensive zone.
Those are the things which, if improved, would turn a bubble team into a contending team. Last year we were a bubble-team who overachieved, this year we're a bubble team underachieving.
I believe the two primary culprits of our underachievement this year are our poor October and our goaltending (and I think our goaltending had a lot to do with our bad October). I think both the eye test and statistics bear this out. Again, I think around 80 points is where this team's true quality is, and + or - 10 points can be chalked up to the vagaries of the season. -10 points: right where we are as a result of a bad start, poor goaltending, bad special teams, and poor team defense (in that order, IMO).
Had things broken the other way, I think 90 points would have been attainable, again putting us back in the playoffs, at the top of the bubble.