Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
These statistics lack score-and-venue adjustments. Which is notable since
1) Zadorov has played the majority of his games at home, Valimaki on the road
2) The Flames have trailed in more games Zadorov has participated in, and led in more games Valimaki has participated in
Further, Valimaki-Gudbranson were utilized as a second pair in the Pittsburgh game, which in a small sample like this skews their stats (especially since Andersson-Tanev and Kylington-Stone both finished a lot of shifts in the defensive zone that game). Zadorov-Gudbranson have been utilized exclusively as a 3rd pair.
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Look I get your point of view, and that's why I was saying that both players played well with Gudbranson. The stats point to Zadorov being slightly better. His mistakes did seem more glaring, but most of them were while he was playing with Tanev, and in preseason.
Okay how about this as a stat: The Zadorov -Gudbranson pairing has been on the ice for one goal against! Just one goal against in 10 games. What's more impressive is that their advanced stats seem to match that with an expected GA of 1.36 per 60 minutes. At least that's pretty impressive from where I'm standing.
In fact Zadorov has been on the ice for 4 goals against. 2 of which were on the terrible Zadorov - Tanev pairing, 1 PP GA, and 1 with Gudbranson. Overall, that's not too bad, and he seems to be improving.
I want to see Valimaki succeed, but right now the 3rd pairing is far from hurting the team. I'm sure he'll get a chance to play, and it's good to have depth and competition in the lineup.