[genetic_phreek]

Spoiler!

Originally Posted by Mass_nerder

I've seen more than a few posters blame our goaltending for losses recently, and it made me wonder whether having "the 2nd best goalie on the ice" is the reason we're losing (hint: it's not).

My criteria is that if the flames scored 3+ goals and lost, it's on the goalie (I feel this is a fair cut-off, as the average goals per game for the NHL this season is 2.93), and if we scored 2 or fewer, it's not on the goalie.

Looking at our calendar, out of our 29 (counting ot losses), we have 25 losses in which we scored 2 or fewer, so that's 86.2% of our losses in which our offense failed to provide enough offense to win, and the loss can't be blamed on our goaltending.

Even if we moved the cut off to 1 or fewer goals (which I think it's unreasonable, considering average goals against is 2.73 goals per game), that's still 16 losses, making up 55.2%.

Now I suppose you could argue that bad goaltending early in games lets the air out of the tires, and team can't get it going after that. That might explain some % of the losses I'm talking about, but certainly not enough to consistently point to our goaltending as the reason for our lack of success.

Thanks for doing the numbers, I totally agree with this 100%. The only time I've felt we legitimately had goaltending issues was when we had Hiller and Elliott. Aside from that we give up opportunities that the opponent capitalizes yet we don't do the same.