Edmonton is No Good Episode 4: New Rink, Same Stink

[Muta]

I still can't get over how dejected McDavid looked when the Oilers won the lottery. That was some funny ####.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Bleeding Red

Today's Sportsnet preview is tje Oil.

Can someone please explain this to me - Cam Talbot is now a "Stanley Cup Caliber Goaltender"?

From what I can see, he has had only 1 season with great numbers. His first season with EDM were okay numbers and his time with NYR - great numbers, small sample.

Is this guy suddenly one of the 5 best goalies in the NHL?

What am I missing here?

Because the media is in the same frothy pants frenzy that they were during the "They're building something special up there" phase.

Fact is they were embarrassed that they are so bad at hockey and that they completely missed on the fact that the Oilers were truly building something es"special"ally bad up there, so they're doubling down on their dumbness factor now.

There's a blind spot that the media has especially the Canadian media when it comes to the Oilers.

[Bingo]

Certainly not a vacuum of a science experiment but the Flames 04 run came when Kiprusoff only played a half season, and they were out early in each of his 70 game seasons.

Fuhr in St. Louis got a lot of work too, and the Blues were out in the first round in each of his two 70+ game seasons, but 2nd round when he played much less

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Muta

I still can't get over how dejected McDavid looked when the Oilers won the lottery. That was some funny ####.

Or uncomfortable when Katz gave him the Welcome to the Oilers speech while mentally undressing him with his eyes and inviting him to try out the sofa in his office.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Nah. I'm just making light of the fact that people think 70+ games played for a goalie has relevance to anything.

Its the same argument that winning the President's Trophy is a curse. A wobbly argument made on small sample sizes and a bucketful of assumptions.

Buddy, we watched Miikka Kiprusoff for a decade. Playing your starter 70+ games is not what a team with serious championship aspirations does. Patrick Roy never played 70 games in a regular season. Hell, Hasek only did it once.

Dubnyk hasn't played 70 for the Wild. Crawford has never even played 60. Quick last played 70 in 2009. Rask played 70 three years ago. The Rangers didn't get to the Final until the stopped playing Lunqvist 70+ nights a year in the regular season.

Even Price hasn't played 70 games since 2010.

The Edmonton Oilers will not win a Stanley Cup if they force Cam Talbot to play 70 regular season contests.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Certainly not a vacuum of a science experiment but the Flames 04 run came when Kiprusoff only played a half season, and they were out early in each of his 70 game seasons.

Fuhr in St. Louis got a lot of work too, and the Blues were out in the first round in each of his two 70+ game seasons, but 2nd round when he played much less

Yeah but how much of that is the goalie and how much is the team?

The year Roberto Luongo played 76 regular season games for the Canucks was also the year that he had his best playoff stats posting a .941 save percentage.

In 05-06 The Ducks scored 17 goals in 7 games and won the series. I don't see how you can put the blame on Kiprusoff. When the team in front of him scores 1 goal in the last two games...


If someone can prove that goalies that play 70+ games suffer a larger drop in save percentage in the playoffs than goalies playing less than 70 games than I'll buy the theory.

Until then it's just cherry picking.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Yeah but how much of that is the goalie and how much is the team?

The year Roberto Luongo played 76 regular season games for the Canucks was also the year that he had his best playoff stats posting a .941 save percentage.

In 05-06 The Ducks scored 17 goals in 7 games and won the series. I don't see how you can put the blame on Kiprusoff. When the team in front of him scores 1 goal in the last two games...


If someone can prove that goalies that play 70+ games suffer a larger drop in save percentage in the playoffs than goalies playing less than 70 games than I'll buy the theory.

Until then it's just cherry picking.

Miikka Kiprusoff played 70 or more games in seven straight seasons, and the Flames never won a round. Never came close, in fact, after 2005.

The year he played 38 games, IT WAS ####ING IN.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Until then it's just cherry picking.

Well I started it by saying it wasn't a vacuum of a science experiment, so it certainly wan't cherry picking.

They were the first two goaltenders I thought of as hogging tonnes of ice time so I looked it up.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by Bingo

Well I started it by saying it wasn't a vacuum of a science experiment, so it certainly wan't cherry picking.

They were the first two goaltenders I thought of as hogging tonnes of ice time so I looked it up.

I wasn't trying to point the finger at any individuals for cherry picking.

I just the think the argument as a whole is based on small sample sizes.

Few goalies play 70+ games to begin with, and fewer teams make it to the conference finals and beyond.

So when you have two things that aren't likely to happen combined, well the results are what one would expect.

I think in order for the fatigue argument to have merit, you need to take the stats of all the goalies that have played 70+ games and compare their regular season to the playoffs.

And then compare that to a baseline.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

I wasn't trying to point the finger at any individuals for cherry picking.

I just the think the argument as a whole is based on small sample sizes.

Few goalies play 70+ games to begin with, and fewer teams make it to the conference finals and beyond.

So when you have two things that aren't likely to happen combined, well the results are what one would expect.

I think in order for the fatigue argument to have merit, you need to take the stats of all the goalies that have played 70+ games and compare their regular season to the playoffs.

And then compare that to a baseline.

And for the record you don't think there's a fatigue element in a goaltender playing 70+ games in the regular season two seasons in a row?

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

I wasn't trying to point the finger at any individuals for cherry picking.

I just the think the argument as a whole is based on small sample sizes.

Few goalies play 70+ games to begin with, and fewer teams make it to the conference finals and beyond...

I am curious to know why you think that is.

It seems to me that ALL NHL teams have been trending in this direction for some time now, whereby it has become a priority to limit the number of games their starting goalies will play. I would say the fact that +70-game goalies are such a rarity in the NHL today—especially compared to decades past—strongly suggests that the most consequential hockey experts agree that fatigue and playing time are indeed critical issues. In fact, it seems like quite a while that teams have planned around playing their starter +70 games, and in instances where this does occasionally occur, it is by virtue of necessity for want of a competent second option.

If this is no big deal as you are claiming, then why are there not more goalies who play 70 games? Why is it that the best starters in the League on the best teams tend to play around 60–65 games a season?

[MisterJoji]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Quick won the Cup in 2014 after playing 69 regular season games.

Therefore, Talbot only has to decrease his workload by 4 games to be fresh for the playoffs.

Should be doable.

There have been 132 instances when a goaltender played 69+ games in a season. 9 went on to win the cup. Good luck with that.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by MisterJoji

There have been 132 instances when a goaltender played 69+ games in a season. 9 went on to win the cup. Good luck with that.

There have been ZERO instances of a team with a reigning Rocket Richard Winner on the team winning the Cup.

Stay away from them goal scorers on your team.

[Oil Stain]

Originally Posted by Bingo

And for the record you don't think there's a fatigue element in a goaltender playing 70+ games in the regular season two seasons in a row?

Not especially.

These aren't guys playing with horsehair pads anymore.

Why would a goaltender be more fatigued than a 25+ minute defenseman or a 20+ minute forward?

If it was up to the goalies they'd probably play all 82 games.

As of yet I've yet to see any evidence that goalies play better in platoons.

There is some evidence that goalies do worse when starting the second game of a back to back after playing the first, but this may come down to the team being sloppier as a whole and it showing up more in the goalie's stats.

There is evidence that teams as a whole show poorly on the last in a series of 3 games in 4 nights regardless of goaltending, so fatigue can definitely be a factor.

I'm not sure why it would affect a goalie any more then players though. And I don't think there is any proof that fatigue can have an effect across multiple seasons. These guys do get months off to rest. Even the guys that win the Cup.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Yeah but how much of that is the goalie and how much is the team?

Well, in this case, considering the team (especially team defence)...

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

...I just the think the argument as a whole is based on small sample sizes...

Not really:

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Here is a breakdown of the last ten Stanley Cup finals, and the workload of goalies who played in each of these series:

2005–06
Cam Ward: Regular season – 25 GS, 28 GP; Playoffs – 21 GS, 23 GP
Dwayne Roloson: Reg – 42 GS, 43 GP; Playoffs – 18 GS, 18 GP

2006–07
Jean-Sebastian Giguere: Reg – 53 GS, 56 GP; Playoffs – 17 GS, 18 GP
Ray Emery: Reg – 56 GS, 58 GP; Playoffs – 20 GS, 20 GP

2007–08
Chris Osgood: Reg – 40 GS, 43 GP; Playoffs – 18 GS, 19 GP
Marc-Andre Fleury: Reg – 33 GS, 35 GP; Playoffs – 20 GS, 20 GP

2008–09
Marc-Andre Fleury: Reg – 61 GS, 62 GP; Playoffs – 24 GS, 24 GP
Chris Osgood: Reg – 44 GS, 46 GP; Playoffs – 24 GS, 24 GP

2009–10
Antti Niemi: Reg – 35 GS, 39 GP; Playoffs – 22 GS, 22 GP
Brian Boucher: Reg – 26 GS, 33 GP; Playoffs – 10 GS, 12 GP

2010–11
Tim Thomas: Reg – 55 GS, 57 GP; Playoffs – 25 GS, 25 GP
Roberto Luongo: Reg – 60 GS, 60 GP; Playoffs – 24 GS, 25 GP

2011–12
Jonathan Quick: Reg – 69 GS, 69 GP; Playoffs – 20 GS, 20 GP
Martin Brodeur: Reg – 59 GS, 59 GP; Playoffs – 24 GS, 24 GP

2012–13 *lockout shortened season

2013–14
Jonathan Quick: Reg – 49 GS, 49 GP; Playoffs – 26 GS, 26 GP
Henrik Lundqvist: Reg – 64 GS, 65 GP; Playoffs – 25 GS, 25 GP

2014–15
Corey Crawford: Reg – 57 GS, 57 GP; Playoffs – 19 GS, 20 GP
Ben Bishop: Reg – 60 GS, 62 GP; Playoffs – 25 GS, 25 GP

2015–16
Matt Murray: Reg – 13 GS, 13 GP (+ AHL – 31 GP); Playoffs – 21 GS, 21 GP
Martin Jones: Reg – 65 GS, 65 GP; Playoffs – 24 GS, 24 GP

The reason the Flames were never able to get over the hump in the mid part of the first decade was that by the time Kiprusoff was playing in the first round, he was already cresting on 80 games. You will notice from this list that overwhelmingly the thing that all of these players have in common is that they have all played under 90 games in a year.

Cam Talbot played a total of 86 games last season before even getting to the third round of the playoffs.

I think in order for the fatigue argument to have merit, you need to take the stats of all the goalies that have played 70+ games and compare their regular season to the playoffs.

And then compare that to a baseline.

That's one way of doing it, but certainly not the only way. A better way is to check goalie performance at the 60–70 game mark; 70–80 game mark, and 80–90 game mark.

But, by way of comparison for Talbot, here are the numbers broken down by playoff round juxtaposed against his regular season averages:

Round 1: .927 SP (+ .008); 2/6 SO = .333 (+ .233); .465 shots/min (- .028); 2.03 GAA (- 0.36); 1 +3 GA Games

Round 2: .923 SP (+ .004); 0/7 SO = .000 (- .1); .611 SA/min (+ .118); 2.83 GAA (+ 0.27); 3 +3 GA Games

Cam Talbot was obviously not as good in round 2 as he played in round 1—that much is fairly indisputable: he was pretty much worse by every metric than in the previous round, and allowed four or more goals against in three games. Would you not agree that fatigue appears to be a contributing factor for this difference?

To my eye, the fact that he played much better in round 1 than he did in the regular season with a lower SA/min avg., combined with his poorer performance against a much higher SA/min in round 2 is a pretty strong indicator that fatigue was in fact an issue for Talbot; one that was likely more manageable had he not played in his 80th game by the start of the second round.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Not especially.

These aren't guys playing with horsehair pads anymore.

Yeah and they dont stand around watching shots whizz by them anymore either.

I remember a quote from J.S. Giguere about the amount of abuse that a goalie's joints go through.

Its rough.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

Not especially.

These aren't guys playing with horsehair pads anymore.

Why would a goaltender be more fatigued than a 25+ minute defenseman or a 20+ minute forward?

Ummm - because they play 60 minutes? And anyway, it's about mental fatigue, not physical fatigue.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Oil Stain

There have been ZERO instances of a team with a reigning Rocket Richard Winner on the team winning the Cup.

Stay away from them goal scorers on your team.

The fact that you believe this to be an effective and analogous rebuttal speaks volumes.

[TheIronMaiden]

Originally Posted by Locke

Yeah and they dont stand around watching shots whizz by them anymore either.

I remember a quote from J.S. Giguere about the amount of abuse that a goalie's joints go through.

Its rough.

Not to mention mental fatigue. I would argue that losing focus leads to more goals against that physical fatigue.