Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
The Flames were 23rd overall in team save percentage last year, so there is room for improvement for sure. The struggles for Markstrom came from a bad month long stretch when he came back from injury...and he was likely rushed back a little bit.
Markstrom was reportedly hurt on Feb 17 against the Canucks.
Before that game where he was injured Markstrom had played 13 games and had put up an impressive .924 save percentage, 2.38 GAA, and his 7.55 goals saved above average were 4th in the NHL.
Markstrom played 2 games after that game where he was supposedly injured in and was not himself putting up a .767 save percentage and -6.18 GSAA.
Markstrom missed 6 games and then struggled when he returned.
In his first 15 games back from injury he went .892 save percentage, with a 2.89 GAA, and -6.32 GSAA...he had a bad stretch when he came back from injury.
Then from that point on he finished the season fairly strong.
He played 13 games put up a .913 save percentage and a 1.72 GSAA. Not amazing but back to being at least above average.
Problem was that 27 game stretch where he was hurt/recovering from injury and Rittich didn't play very well cratered the playoff chances.
During that stretch the Flames went 10-15-2 for a .407 points percentage. The team .890 save percentage was 29th in the NHL over that time period.
Flames had a terrible season last year but the Flames were 16-12-1 outside of that stretch of bad goaltending and if not for that poor stretch they are probably a playoff team ahead of Montreal.
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This is it exactly.
With respect to Markstrom specifically, and by extension, the team as a whole, there were 3 distinct parts to the season last year. And using stats for the whole season completely muddies, and misses, what happened.
Markstrom was the goalie we expected until the injury. Then his game fell off the table and the season went to ####. Then his recovery and the Sutter effect slowly started to take hold and the team was better, but they never really got to where they should be.
Both Markstrom, and the Sutter effect, can - and likely will - be better than last year.