High Flying Defense: Good or Bad?

[Strange Brew]

For this Flames team to be successful, the big 3 on defense need to be very, very good. Brodie was very good this year, Giordano had is ups and downs but I would argue in general has not been as good as his stats suggest and Hamilton is still progressing.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by DJones

https://gfycat.com/RegalDamagedCoypu

That's all Hiller. Hits him in the chest and it ends up behind him. Engellend followed his man a bit too much. But if Hiller makes the easy save it's a nothing play

Watch Silfverberg skate all the way around him without resistance. Plays like that happen, to better goalies, and they don't result in easy goals.

Hiller could have had that and I am not defending Hiller. But let's not pretend that those kind of chances are just shots. Watch how the Blackhawks cover for Crawford.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

When Games are tied, the Flames High Danger Chance differential is 46.5%. They give up 12.8 high danger chances against per 60 minutes. The Panthers, for instance, give up 9.4 high danger chances against per 60 minutes when tied.

There's a clear difference in which team is likely to get scored on regardless of goaltending. The FLames chase every game and compensate their stats. But they don't play well when the game is actually in the balance.

You also cherry picked the worst number of High Danger Chance differential for the Flames - which is driven down by their horrendous special teams this year.

Change it from High Danger differential tied to high danger differential close - and all of a sudden the Flames jump the 49.2%, actually ahead of the reigning Stanley Cup champions at 49.1% but the cover for Crawford amazingly.

Or if you want to look strictly at scoring chances against the Flames do sit at 12.1. Which is identical to Boston and Dallas.

For the most part the Flames generate as many scoring chances as they give up, and really the difference for them this season lies in goaltending.

[DJones]

Just rewatching the goals now;

2nd, 5th, 6th and 7th goals were all brutal.

The 1st was a bad defensive play followed by a sad attempt at a save. Call it a wash.

3rd was an unscreened shot from the middle. Should be a 8 or 9 save out of 10 save. Hiller saves that maybe 7 out of 10.

[Enoch Root]

Goaltending isn't the only problem, no. But it is - by a mile - the primary problem.

If anyone could watch that game and claim that 5 or 6 of the goals weren't on the goalies, they either haven't a clue what they're talking about, or are related to one of said goalies.

The 2nd goal was BRUTAL by Hiller. Brutal. First, he couldn't control the initial shot, then left the rebound right in front of himself in the crease, then sat on his knees and didn't move for an agonizingly long period of time while the rest of the play developed in front of him, then couldn't even be bothered to maybe stick out a pad towards Silfverberg when he corralled the puck and moved across the crease with it.

He literally sat on his knees and didn't move for what must have been close to two full seconds. One of the laziest displays of goaltending I have ever seen in the NHL.

Then the camera zoomed in on him after the goal as he let out a huge sigh. It was clearly apparent at that moment that he was completely disengaged from the game.

Next shot - a wrister from maybe 30 feet - he wasn't anywhere near ready for, didn't have the angle properly covered, and barely bothered to react to.

That was, as several people have stated, the single worst display of goaltending I have ever seen from an NHL goalie.

Trying to downplay it with some stats is nothing more than trolling.

Edit: and then Backstrom came in and was also horrible (but at least he tried)

[dino7c]

Hiller is being played for draft position...there is no other reason to play him

everybody knows his time in the NHL is done

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by DJones

Just rewatching the goals now;

2nd, 5th, 6th and 7th goals were all brutal.

The 1st was a bad defensive play followed by a sad attempt at a save. Call it a wash.

3rd was an unscreened shot from the middle. Should be a 8 or 9 save out of 10 save. Hiller saves that maybe 7 out of 10.

That makes the score (on a brutal/sad/soft): Hiller 1-1-1; Backstrom 3-?-??

[DJones]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

That makes the score (on a brutal/sad/soft): Hiller 1-1-1; Backstrom 3-?-??

Bachstrum has apparently no clue where the post is. Hugging the post and not moving would have probably stopped 3 goals haha.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by DJones

https://gfycat.com/RegalDamagedCoypu

That's all Hiller. Hits him in the chest and it ends up behind him. Engellend followed his man a bit too much. But if Hiller makes the easy save it's a nothing play

hate to break it to you but that's a missed defensive assignment by the Captain.

England is swinging up the boards, Giordano should be moving to the front of the net.

The only one really in position on that play is Monahan and he's completely helpless.

Shinkaruk standing around doing nothing is understandable as a second game rookie, but Giordano should know better to hang out on the half wall.

[ricardodw]

I am in the camp that the Flames system is a goalies grave-yard

Couple of articles that tie goalie metrics to team style and performance

Introducing the Shot Quality Project

Part II

Clean shots account for 85 percent of a goaltender’s workload, yet only 50 percent of the goals and an average save percentage of .951. Contrast that to the .693 save percentage on transition shots and it’s pretty clear that a goaltender exposed to more transition opportunities has tougher job.

I also think that it gets into a goalies head. Hard to keep confidence when you have a low save % even if you have a higher proportion of transition shots.

Will Ortio be able to play well when his sv % indicates that he is not an NHL calibre goal tender?

Hiller was able to do it last year but never got over the mess that was the flames system in October 2015.

October
Hiller record 2-3-0 sv% .861
Ortio 0-2-1 sv% .868
Ramo 1-3-0 sv% .868

I would venture to guess that the number of transition shots would have been a lot higher than 15%. With Gio-Hamilton looking like they never played hockey before the other team would be making 2-3 passes for each shot.

Here is another article that goes against making the Flames a playoff team by getting a Goalie

In the NHL, save percentage is a team stat

[dino7c]

nobody said just getting a goalie makes them a playoff team...it certainly improves their chances and when coupled with a few other moves COULD push them over the bubble. It will be low 90s for playoffs this season...not exactly a flawless season to qualify

Montreal's save percentage is a team stat? because they were the best team with Price and are the one of the worst without him

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

I am in the camp that the Flames system is a goalies grave-yard

Couple of articles that tie goalie metrics to team style and performance

Introducing the Shot Quality Project

Part II



I also think that it gets into a goalies head. Hard to keep confidence when you have a low save % even if you have a higher proportion of transition shots.

Will Ortio be able to play well when his sv % indicates that he is not an NHL calibre goal tender?

Hiller was able to do it last year but never got over the mess that was the flames system in October 2015.

October
Hiller record 2-3-0 sv% .861
Ortio 0-2-1 sv% .868
Ramo 1-3-0 sv% .868

I would venture to guess that the number of transition shots would have been a lot higher than 15%. With Gio-Hamilton looking like they never played hockey before the other team would be making 2-3 passes for each shot.

I have seen the numbers posted a few times on SN over the past two months, but don't know off hand where to find them online. Anyhow, what has been remarkable about the Flames season is how poor Hiller's SP is on so-called "clean shots"—it is devastatingly bad. So much so that even while he sports a good SP on shots in close, the number of goals he allows from low-percentage scoring is so bad that it has dragged his overall SP to an historically career low of 0.879.

Here is another article that goes against making the Flames a playoff team by getting a Goalie

In the NHL, save percentage is a team stat

Since Ramo's injury:

Joni Ortio — 15 GP .898SP
Jonas Hiller — 12 GP .840SP
Niklas Backstrom — 3 GP .843SP

There is clearly something more to it than team defense.

[DJones]

Ortio had a .897 SV% last night and he came out of it looking good.

Not allowing bad goals is way more important than any specific SV%. Too many variables go into it.

From the shot quality project it claims "clean shots" are low quality(Part II). 3rd goal vs the Ducks, Hiller should have saved that .960 of the time. That was a bad goal. Every team lets that shot happen every game. The goalie has to be able to make a save.

https://streamable.com/1it5

Dougie was out of position on the 2nd goal last night, first one was an unsavable tip, 3rd one just got to busy in front of the net and a rebound came out.

No fault of Ortio's at all. We have not had that many games where we didn't get a few bad goals though.

[DJones]

On NHL.com they have shot type breakdowns but they don't have shots against broken down by type
I would be shocked if our tips and deflections were at 15%. That seems very high.

Interesting stats I did see is Calgary;

2nd in wrist for goals for
1st for posts and crossbars
Last place for slap shot goals
2nd Last for backhands.

Everything else we seem above average.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

I have seen the numbers posted a few times on SN over the past two months, but don't know off hand where to find them online. Anyhow, what has been remarkable about the Flames season is how poor Hiller's SP is on so-called "clean shots"—it is devastatingly bad. So much so that even while he sports a good SP on shots in close, the number of goals he allows from low-percentage scoring is so bad that it has dragged his overall SP to an historically career low of 0.879.

Not arguing or even discussing but where can you find any goalies sv% on clean shots.

Now discussing:


From the article the in close shots might be clean shots.... the goalie does not have to reset.

The transition shots, that have a really bad sv% for all goalies are shots off of passes where the goalie is forced to reset.

This seems to be intuitive. It would be why d-men take away the pass on a 2 on one and let the goalie deal with the shooter.

It is pretty obvious when you look at the PP. ALL teams are looking to get transition shots on the PP forcing the goalie to reset. ALL defenses are working to stop transition passes.

Are the Flames better or worse at allowing transition shots?

Again from the article it would seem that this information would only be mined from detailed breakdown of game films.

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by dino7c

nobody said just getting a goalie makes them a playoff team...it certainly improves their chances and when coupled with a few other moves COULD push them over the bubble. It will be low 90s for playoffs this season...not exactly a flawless season to qualify

Montreal's save percentage is a team stat? because they were the best team with Price and are the one of the worst without him

Montreal has lost 323 Man games with the 3rd most impact in the league. link Price would have likely not had as good a sv% this year had he played.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by dino7c

nobody said just getting a goalie makes them a playoff team...

Many said that.

[DJones]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Many said that.

If we changed nothing else but we're guaranteed league average goaltending. I think we would have pushed for the playoffs this year.

Would have got smoked in the playoffs but we probably would have got there. Edit; San Jose being a lot better than I expected may be a problem. But MIN and COL are pretty meh.

I don't care how many mental flaws and spread passes we use. There is no reason for our defense to give up the worst SV% in the league for a significant margin.

[SuperMatt18]

Personally I think the teams problems this year breakdown to:

40% Goaltending, 30% Special Teams Play, 20% Team Defensive Play, 10% Forward Depth & Deadweight Veterans

Fixing the goaltending would have gotten us into the playoff conversation but we really need to fix the other areas of the team in order to become a true Stanley Cup contender.

[AcGold]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Totally disagree. Brodie and Giordano are competent at times in their own end but nowhere near the best in the league in their own end. Nowhere close. This team doesn't have a shutdown defender. This team doesn't have that Willie Mitchell type guy that isn't flashy but really hard to play against for opposing forwards.

Yeah we do, his name is Derek. He was taking on 2 Ducks in the corner frequently. Perry and Getzlaf charging, pressuring and whacking at him he just took it and slowed the play down. Too bad every time they got it they scored.