Quote:
Originally Posted by bax
Appreciate the work that went into this post, but I can't help but think this is a lot of stat digging that doesn't really prove anything one way or the other.
There is a ton of mediocre to bad goalies on that list- are we really going to blame Sigalet because journeymen guys like Barry Brust, and Dan Taylor didn't pan out? Hiller and Smith were all on the back half of their careers when they got here- best days behind them for sure.
Talbot, Elliot, Ramo, Rittich, Johnson? Capable of playing great in stretches, but none of these guys have been consistently great number 1 goalies anywhere.
Not to mention we are looking purely at individual goalie stats which almost never tell the full story. How good was the team? What was their defensive structure? Did the goalies get hung out to dry? Without watching the games it's really tough to know anything.
This also glosses over some serious injuries guys have battled through. Rittich has been injured in the back half of both seasons, Gillies was never the same after his hip surgery, etc.
I don't think the difference between Leland Irving being a bust and a great NHL goalie was Jordan Sigalet.
|
I would tend to agree with a lot of your points, but I think a deciding factor in my mind is that this didn't happen over a short period but consistently over 10 years. There has to be a reason why Goaltender individual statistics consistently plummet around this club while the team in front of them varies dramatically. Maybe it's something in the water, to quote from the pit of despair up north, but ignoring or handwaving it as individual circumstances when it has spanned a literal decade seems foolhardy to me.