Quote:
Originally Posted by AlbertaOiler72
accept the one that counts..Goals against
Calgary has finished BEHIND Edmonton the past 2 seasons...despite that "awesome" defense
and yes I know, its all the goalie's fault...so either:
-Treliving can't find a decent goalie despite burning through 7 goalies or
-the defense bears a ton of the blame
cause the goalie carousel keeps turning yet one thing stays the same...
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It's fair and there's no harm to evaluate the collective D unit for some stress on the goaltending the past two seasons, but you're not doing it very well.
In 15-16 Giordano returned from a serious arm injury that kept him out of the entire
playoffs the year before. Hamilton had a rough start after joining his new team and learning a new system. Brodie found out his fiance was diagnosed with MS early that season. Smid returned from a serious neck injury for a short stretch only to go back on IR again. Wideman's performance dipped and then there was the "incident". Engelland was fine and Russell played decent enough though before being traded to Dallas for Jokipakka. The remainder was rounded out by Nakladal, Wotherspoon, and Kulak coming up from the minors for 27, 11 and 8 games respectively.
In 2016-17 we started the year with a new coach and completely new system. The pairings were switched. Brodie was moved to the other side if I recall correctly. The focus was on keeping the majority of the youth in the minors so we started the season with Grossman in the lineup! Wideman's play was dreadful all year until being scratched regularly. Brodie struggled on the other side and his partners constantly being shuffled. Jokipakka proved to not be a piece we would be keeping long term and was traded. Matt Bartkowski was scraped off the bottom of the barrel to help late in the year and Stone was acquired at the deadline. While they were improvements over who they replaced, it takes time for D to adjust to new partners and systems. Kulak only got 21 games early in the year but should have been given more IMO.
Those all add up to some level of impact to the success of team defense and had some affect on goaltending.
Now we move forward with a Giordano-Hamilton top pairing which will only improve with more familiarity, better execution of Gulutzan's system and Hamilton's growth. Brodie will now have Hamonic as a partner and not a weight like Wideman. Stone at #5, along side either Kulak, Bartkowski or Andersson is massive depth and injury insurance.
Goalies will be in a way better situation in 17-18.