Quote:
Originally Posted by bubbsy
listening to TSN radio on the way home from work today, and jamie maclennan really didn't sound all that positive about Elliot. Something about how he's never been a #1 goalie and that some random goalies have put together unreal years/stats with Hitchcock as coach, mentioning Leclaire (10 shutout year or something), Mason (calder trophy) as just some other obvious goalies who just did better behind a Hitchcock coached team.
I googled to see how much truth there is to this and found a frigin article/blog about it:
http://nhlnumbers.com/2012/7/17/goal...-ken-hitchcock
They summarized the point using both Elliott and Anderson in TO as examples of goalies who are trying to prove they are #1 goalies, but have shown well only on teams with far better defensive prowess. Something to be said about the hard-ass coaches in the league (hitchcock, sutter, babcock, guy in carolina) who preach defensive and actually hold folks accountable to it.
I don't know anything about this new coach, and being a younger guy, i do my best to not consider him another Eakins wonderkid. But if he can't enforce a defensive system then he won't fare any better than the guy before him.
The flames feel a bit like ottawa of the west. Decent forwards, with few top end skill guys, a mobile offensive d, but absolutely no understanding of how to defend. If the flames don't drastically improve defensively, how the heck do we get a guy like Playfair back here?
I have absolutely zero doubt that the flames are fighting for the division lead by the end of the year if we had Daryl Sutter coaching this roster  . |
A few comments to reassure you here. For starters, I don't know how Elliott will do for the entire season, but I am betting he provides at least league-average tending, and that's not bad. I think the Flames are now in the top third actually, but league-average - in my opinion - is the bottom-end of my guess.
Someone else posted up stats of goalies playing in St. Louis under Hitchcock in the last few years - before and after - and the list looks pretty translatable to me. Goalies didn't have career years. I forget where that post was, but it had a few goalies and their save percentages before St. Louis, with St. Louis and after St. Louis. They didn't 'shine' in St. Louis, so going from that, we can expect Elliott not to be just a byproduct of their defensive system.
Next up - Why was Hartley fired?
I liked Hartley - I liked him a lot, and felt he may have deserved a shot this year with decent goaltending. However, one thing I didn't like about his system was the way that the defense don't pressure the opposing team in their own zone. Hartley played a fairly passive system that tried to collapse in front of the goalie, and where shot-blocking was important. Let's contrast that with Gulutzan where he wants more pressure on the defensive side (lots of pressure generated on the PK last night, resulting in 2 SHG). Gulutzan doesn't want to give the opposing team an easy zone entry, and he wants to actively put pressure on the team to result in a turnover. Shot blocking is still utilized, but as a 'last resort' rather than a 'go to'.
Now, looking at the Flames' defence, what system do you want to employ?
I personally feel that having a very mobile, puck-moving type of defence, they should be more active and applying pressure. If there were 4 "Engelland types" and only two "Giordano/Brodie" types, then I would think a more passive system works where you focus on positioning more, shot blocking and collapsing in front of the net.
Gulutzan has also been preaching that the forwards return deeper - though I believe Hartley also preached that. Gulutzan is definitely utilizing the stretch-pass as well (I would assume it isn't Gaudreau playing outside the system).
I don't know if his system is going to result in way better defence (I think it will). We just have to wait and see how things play out. I am keeping an open mind about it, and after about 20 games we should know more about what the system looks like, as I imagine by then the players will be executing it more effectively, and some kinks will be worked out (ahem, like defensive pairings).
I am all up for new ideas. Sometimes they work, sometimes they didn't. I am not sure it didn't work, or if the Flames just weren't ready yet last night. 20+ games, and we will know. However, poor defence is one of the main reasons Treliving sacked Hartley, and this system is all about puck-possession apparently, so I would assume Elliott maintains his SV%. Flames have a pretty solid d-core, but just haven't been playing solid team defence.