Too early to panic about Markstrom

[Cowboy89]

Originally Posted by wretched34

Uh... what?

Luongo has the 2nd most games played and shots faced of all NHL Goaltenders, 2nd to Brodeur.
4th all time in wins.
9th all time in shutouts
Top 10 in career save percentage in the last 6+ decades

Agreed. https://www.nhl.com/news/roberto-luo...le/c-337353110

[Erick Estrada]

It's crazy that with the same two goaltenders the Flames have gone from an 11 shutout team last season to likely zero this season. Halfway through the season and I believe the team has only had 3 games where they have surrendered 1 goal. Goaltending and defense has been a major disappointment.

[ComixZone]

Originally Posted by Joborule

Yup. With all the blaming going on with the coaching and team results right now, the biggest issue comes down to Markstrom not doing his job. It may feel like the Flames aren't producing enough goals, but they are currently 18th in the NHL for that, which is not bad. And despite horrible goaltending from Markstrom, they are 17th in goals against. So they're doing okay in keeping the puck out, but of course have room for improvement.

So majority of Flames loses are coming from Markstrom letting goals in when the game is tight. He's putting the team behind rather than keeping them ahead.

There's no justification for why Sutter keeps playing him more than Vladar, and this falls on him.

If you score the 18th most goals, and allow the 17th most goals, you’re bottom half in both categories.

That really just says this team is not good enough, and firmly back into no man’s land. Not good enough to do anything, not bad enough to improve.

Damn it’s depressing.

I agree that Vladar is the one who should be playing - but I also don’t believe there would end up being a material difference in team success if Vladar became the #1 and played 75% of the games.

[Johnny Makarov]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

Agreed. https://www.nhl.com/news/roberto-luo...le/c-337353110

too bad. He is a diving piece of crap.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

It's crazy that with the same two goaltenders the Flames have gone from an 11 shutout team last season to likely zero this season. Halfway through the season and I believe the team has only had 3 games where they have surrendered 1 goal. Goaltending and defense has been a major disappointment.

Honestly it's finishing and stopping pucks.

Calgary had an xGA60 last year of 2.29 (3rd), this year it's 2.41 (6th) and scoring up by that margin this year.

Defense isn't falling apart at all.

[DeluxeMoustache]

xGA isn’t cutting the mustard, in my opinion

Nobody really measures what is required in order to distinguish between actual real life high danger chances and statistical ones

I’m talking about shooters with time and space to pick their spots, without the immediate pressure to throw them off (often the result of egregious breakdowns)

Shot location, plus some precursor events are useful in terms of establishing reasonable probabilities.

Shot placement is not measured. Time for an unpressured shooter to pick his spot isn’t measured.

Statistically the offense is fine. In reality, it’s not so great. The Flames carry the play but their shooting percentage is brutal. 30th out of 32 teams. It’s the result of lots of shots that are unlikely to find the net, regardless of the average percentages of successful shots taken from that area. (Re-watch the 21 third period shots against Nashville and what I am saying should be crystal clear)

Defensively, same. xGA says they are doing fine. But to me it’s not just ‘make a save’ based on the data. It’s ‘clean up the play’ leading to grade A chances

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Honestly it's finishing and stopping pucks.

Calgary had an xGA60 last year of 2.29 (3rd), this year it's 2.41 (6th) and scoring up by that margin this year.

Defense isn't falling apart at all.

I don't think anyone will argue that the goaltending hasn't been as good but it seems to me like they are having more defensive breakdowns in their own end leading to goals. As said above I'm not sold that xGA60 and xGF60 are ironclad stats.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Honestly it's finishing and stopping pucks.

Calgary had an xGA60 last year of 2.29 (3rd), this year it's 2.41 (6th) and scoring up by that margin this year.

Defense isn't falling apart at all.

The defense has been better than it has any right being, with Tanev and Stone missing chunks of time and no OK.

They get sunk every night when shots that shouldn’t go in, go in.

It’s like the one thing you can’t have as a hockey team - goals are going to happen, breakdowns will occur, but you can’t be giving the other team freebies.

It affects the entire roster in such a profound way.

The defensemen play too conservative, and lose their gaps.

The forwards are too afraid to be caught out of position and thus don’t attack aggressively enough. That makes them easier to defend, and results in less offensive zone time.

Meanwhile, the goalie knows the entire team is playing on eggshells, and puts even more pressure on himself to be perfect.

Problem is, perfection is not so important to goaltending as predictability. A team with predictable goaltending is a good team.

Goals that shouldn’t go in are bad at any time. Goals that are scored on the first shot are devastating. They completely undermine all the work everyone else did to prepare for the game. 30 seconds in, we’re already down - great, now what?

I were Markstrom, I would start every game focused entirely on stopping the first shot. I would repeat it to myself until it happened. “Stop the first shot.”

Once that’s out of the way, stop the next one. Then the next one. Don’t worry about anything else. Stop thinking - just stop the next shot.

Vladar’s numbers are pedestrian. He’s a Karri Ramo/David Rittich level goalie. Nothing wrong with that, but he’s not a future 60-game starter.

He doesn’t give up many leaky goals, and that’s why the team looks so much better with him vs Markstrom. It’s not a question of talent.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I don't think anyone will argue that the goaltending hasn't been as good but it seems to me like they are having more defensive breakdowns in their own end leading to goals. As said above I'm not sold that xGA60 and xGF60 are ironclad stats.

The hole in the stat is likely that we've seen a number of games where the Flames were very good at shot suppression for a fair bit early on but then had breakdowns of unreal significance. Which, IMO made the early chances against even tougher on the goalie.

IOW, the team defence has been generally OK, but the breakdowns have been catastrophic.

[Paulie Walnuts]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

xGA isn’t cutting the mustard, in my opinion

Nobody really measures what is required in order to distinguish between actual real life high danger chances and statistical ones

I’m talking about shooters with time and space to pick their spots, without the immediate pressure to throw them off (often the result of egregious breakdowns)

Shot location, plus some precursor events are useful in terms of establishing reasonable probabilities.

Shot placement is not measured. Time for an unpressured shooter to pick his spot isn’t measured.

Statistically the offense is fine. In reality, it’s not so great. The Flames carry the play but their shooting percentage is brutal. 30th out of 32 teams. It’s the result of lots of shots that are unlikely to find the net, regardless of the average percentages of successful shots taken from that area. (Re-watch the 21 third period shots against Nashville and what I am saying should be crystal clear)

Defensively, same. xGA says they are doing fine. But to me it’s not just ‘make a save’ based on the data. It’s ‘clean up the play’ leading to grade A chances

#3 in CORSI and #15 in HDCF per game. Not going to cut it, lots of structured volume not a lot of skill being allowed to create.

Sutter is grinding the team down.

[transplant99]

Fancy stat arguments are amusing as hell.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Fancy stat arguments are amusing as hell.

As Burkie once said, “analytics are like a lamp post to a drunk - useful for support, less so for illumination.”

[keeper34]

We should be glad that the former Panther goalie gave the team one great year. Not so sure the other two former Panthers...

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by transplant99

Fancy stat arguments are amusing as hell.

I know I'm prone to being left behind, but as soon as I see 'x' preceding any acronym I stroke out.

[DeluxeMoustache]

^ understandable

And nothing wrong with that.

Fact is, you have a stat like save percentage

It’s easy. How many shots on goal are saved?
The problem is that comparing goalies, maybe not all shots are equal

The improvements on the model involve a first modification. Where are the shots coming from?
Divide the ice in to different areas. Divide the shots taken into buckets, from different places on the ice. Sure, a higher percentage of shots from the slot area are going to go in than shots from the point.

Then they try to work in what happened preceding the shot.

Good. So they are creating multiple buckets of ‘shot situations’, which each have been successful at different statistical rates

Still, there is no measurement of shooter skill, shooter prep time, goalie readiness, shot placement, etc. etc

And per game sample sizes are small, and of notably reduced statistical significance

You have roughly 30 data points (shots) that then get separated in to multiple buckets, which are based on different situations, each with their own statistical probabilities (ex. Based on analyzing 1000 shots, 83 percent of this type of shots score, 19 times out of 20). And that is ignoring material differences distinguishing one shot from another because they aren’t measured

Kudos to them, they are trying. And they are getting better

Sometimes, these stats support what you are seeing. But it’s a stretch to use them to tell you that what you are seeing isn’t actually happening

[CGY12]

To compound Markstroms struggles is his style which makes his troubles stand out all that much more in my opinion. I'm sure he is a pretty athletic guy but for a guy his size he sure doesn't rely on it, seems completely out of control and out of position more often than not, over committing when moving side to side and losing his net seems like a regular occurrence with him this year. I think that somewhat speaks to his state of mind too, he can feel the pressure, which is a by product of him letting in one early more often than not. As much as the coaching staff probably needs to work on him technically, think he needs the same amount of work on his mental game. I agree with a lot of people here who think the team has a different vibe and confidence when one guy starts over the other, whether that's intentional or not. Markstrom at 6'6, 200+ pounds often plays stylistically more like Freddy Brathwaite when he doesn't need too.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

xGA isn’t cutting the mustard, in my opinion

Nobody really measures what is required in order to distinguish between actual real life high danger chances and statistical ones

I’m talking about shooters with time and space to pick their spots, without the immediate pressure to throw them off (often the result of egregious breakdowns)

Shot location, plus some precursor events are useful in terms of establishing reasonable probabilities.

Shot placement is not measured. Time for an unpressured shooter to pick his spot isn’t measured.

Statistically the offense is fine. In reality, it’s not so great. The Flames carry the play but their shooting percentage is brutal. 30th out of 32 teams. It’s the result of lots of shots that are unlikely to find the net, regardless of the average percentages of successful shots taken from that area. (Re-watch the 21 third period shots against Nashville and what I am saying should be crystal clear)

Defensively, same. xGA says they are doing fine. But to me it’s not just ‘make a save’ based on the data. It’s ‘clean up the play’ leading to grade A chances

Well I said it's making a save and finishing.

You seemed to reply with finishing and the team not the goalie defensively, which is certainly your thing.

Will never say the stats have evolved to the point where it's perfect, but it's certainly a great way to measure something across all goaltenders and take a personal bias out of it.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I don't think anyone will argue that the goaltending hasn't been as good but it seems to me like they are having more defensive breakdowns in their own end leading to goals. As said above I'm not sold that xGA60 and xGF60 are ironclad stats.

Nor should you be.

But they're applied across all teams and all goaltenders. So you're saying the Flames are finding a way to allude the stat and are worse than what they're measured against?

Not sure that holds water.

Shot from the slot is a scoring chance. Too many of those and your goaltender is under duress.

Don't cover someone in front of the net and he takes a pass ... high danger chance.

Don't cover someone and he picks up a rebound ... high danger chance.

Those get counted. They will eventually, some day, have more detail and a split between super duper high danger, super high danger and high danger, but for now they're pretty simple counts.

If the Flames were turning basic shot attempts into high danger issues we'd see it in the numbers.

[Inglewood Jack]

in my opinion measuring the frequency and amplitude of the crowd going "ooh" during a scoring chance is a more accurate measure of high danger than the x stats can give. fans are able to process whether a play is truly dangerous and will react accordingly, and won't have as strong a response to a player putting the puck into a set goalie's chest, even if it is from a prime spot on the ice.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Inglewood Jack

in my opinion measuring the frequency and amplitude of the crowd going "ooh" during a scoring chance is a more accurate measure of high danger than the x stats can give. fans are able to process whether a play is truly dangerous and will react accordingly, and won't have as strong a response to a player putting the puck into a set goalie's chest, even if it is from a prime spot on the ice.

Right but to use the "oooh index" you'd have to watch every game with a head set and then compile a summary by team.