Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
Yes, it makes total sense. This is why teams that score first typically win 70% of the time on average. When a team is playing with a lead, they can be more patient and lock it down. Conversely, when a team is playing from behind, they have to open up more leaving them prone to mistakes. This is why when the goalie lets in an early goal and the team in front also only scores a couple of goals or fewer, you can say they would have lost anyway because they couldn't score.
The added pressure and urgency as the clock runs down also probably leads to more penalties. I don't have data for that, just a hunch.
Giving up an early lead can, and often does, change the whole dynamic of a game.
|
Interestingly, I started looking at this last night and noticed that we were not following this trend at all early in the season. In our first 10 or more games the team that scored first only won like 2-3 times. As the season progressed it definitely shifted back in favor of what you'd expect (there was something like 15 games in a row where the team that scored first won).
Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
The question I have is is this real or random chance? With goals be low event a Vladars sample size small is it possible that the flames have been simply luckier vs any difference in his play.
I think to test this you would need to look if DGA is a stat that is consistent year to year for goalies or is it more random?
|
It's a good question -- I took a stats class in university about 100 years ago so I don't really recall; I thought Vladar's sample size of 16 starts wasn't unreasonable though. We'll see how things progress as the season continues on.
As for a year-to-year analysis, I suspect DGA is influenced by different factors, not just the goalie. For example, I recall last year's team frequently had good starts, and even if they got behind it early wasn't a big deal as our top line could often bail them out later in the game. That is definitely not the case this year. At least with this analysis you can start testing the theory of whether (or why) they seem to play better -- and score more -- when Vladar is in net versus Markstrom.