Opening Night Backup

[Poe969]

Rittich really hasn't looked good at all. An injury would explain a lot but doesn't necessarily excuse a lot. This team needs a backup who has the potential to steal the starter spot.

[Fire]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

Francis also said he thinks the Flames will be looking at the waiver wire over the next few days and wouldn't be surprised if the Flames pick up Sparks or McElhinney if they are available.

Personally, I hate that idea because it creates too much of a goalie jam in the organization. It forces Parsons back to the ECHL for another year and that seems really dumb.

If they don't believe in Rittich then they might as well loan him to another AHL team or let him go back to Europe. I doubt they put Parsons in the ECHL.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

Francis also said he thinks the Flames will be looking at the waiver wire over the next few days and wouldn't be surprised if the Flames pick up Sparks or McElhinney if they are available.

Personally, I hate that idea because it creates too much of a goalie jam in the organization. It forces Parsons back to the ECHL for another year and that seems really dumb.

I also do not approve of this. I am quite certain that Rittich will be the backup next Wednesday evening. This is Francis spitballing—I expect the Flames are much more keenly aware about the bigger picture here.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Poe969

Rittich really hasn't looked good at all. An injury would explain a lot but doesn't necessarily excuse a lot. This team needs a backup who has the potential to steal the starter spot.

I will remind everyone that as bad as Rittich has looked (and I thought he looked just fine in the Vancouver game), he was MUCH worse in the 2017 preseason. He played in only one game and posted a 0.778 SP. He was just fine in the AHL and when he returned to Calgary. Goalies are weird, and of all the deceptive performances in the preseason they are guilty of the most. I'm not especially concerned.

[MisterJoji]

Gillies is younger, has more potential and a higher ceiling. Rittich may have a more calming presence and is a little less “scrambly” but Gillies has the better long term outlook and needs to be given the opportunity to walk so that he can run. He has looked better than Rittich in the preseason, not by a huge margin, but definitely better. Give him 4 or 5 starts and if he falters badly then look to the trade market. We need to see what he can do.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by MisterJoji

Gillies is younger, has more potential and a higher ceiling. Rittich may have a more calming presence and is a little less “scrambly” but Gillies has the better long term outlook and needs to be given the opportunity to walk so that he can run. He has looked better than Rittich in the preseason, not by a huge margin, but definitely better. Give him 4 or 5 starts and if he falters badly then look to the trade market. We need to see what he can do.

Gillies is younger than Rittich by fifteen months. People mention this as if the age difference between them is equal to several years. It's trivial. Rittich has at least established a bit of a track record as a competent NHL backup. I think it reasonable to see Gillies start to dominate in the AHL before supplanting Rittich on the Flames bench.

[MisterJoji]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Gillies is younger than Rittich by fifteen months. People mention this as if the age difference between them is equal to several years. It's trivial. Rittich has at least established a bit of a track record as a competent NHL backup. I think it reasonable to see Gillies start to dominate in the AHL before supplanting Rittich on the Flames bench.

Wow, color me surprised. I never really looked at their ages but assumed Gillies was around 3 years younger. Still, I think Gillies has performed better this preseason and has earned backup duty, at least to start.

[kyuss275]

My guess is flames pick up Pickard on waivers. I'd be fine with this. Gillies goes down and plays. Could care less what happens to Rittich. He was given the chance to be the starter last year when smith went down and blew it. IMO he was the leader to get the back up job before preseason started and he blew it. To many goalies out there that you can't blow your chances. He reminds me of Ortio.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

Francis also said he thinks the Flames will be looking at the waiver wire over the next few days and wouldn't be surprised if the Flames pick up Sparks or McElhinney if they are available.

Personally, I hate that idea because it creates too much of a goalie jam in the organization. It forces Parsons back to the ECHL for another year and that seems really dumb.

While I agree with this (and have voiced the same concern), there is one possible solution. If they lack confidence in Rittich and want to claim another body, they could then look to lend or trade Rittich out to another AHL team, thus still having room for both Gillies and Parsons in Stockton.

Making a waiver claim is essentially a vote of no confidence on the current duo. And if so, then go ahead and move one of them out. But keeping them and creating a logjam would be bad for everyone.

[Bingo]

For kicks breaking down Gillies and Rittich's numbers based on difficulty last year. I bring these up because Gillies has had the yips which could either alleviate with games played or be what keeps him from becoming a NHL goaltender.

XSv%
Gillies .891
Rittich .913

So Gillies faced harder situations

SV%
Gillies .891
Rittich .913

More or less in line with what they faced

Differential
Gillies -2.36
Rittich -1.29

Gillies faced harder shots but still underperformed in comparison to Rittich

Save percentages by type

Low Danger
Gillies .958
Rittich .970

Gillies yips

Medium Danger
Gillies .873
Rittich .910

Gillies yips?

High Danger
Gillies .773
Rittich .742

Gillies better on high danger stuff

For comparison points Smith's numbers
XSv% .922
Sv% .927
Diff +.053
LD .985
MD .941
HG .789

All numbers in five on five

To me it all comes down to Gillies settling in or if he can.

[jlh2640]

Gillies for me or Lehtonen

[Freddy]

I have been excited for Gillies since we drafted him, but Rittich has beat him out at both the AHL and to a lesser degree NHL levels. Before we gift him the NHL back up spot I’m genuinely curious if he’ll still be our #1 AHL goalie by the end of the season with Parsons there.
This CP overreaction and drama over Rittich as back up is unwarranted in my humble opinion. Our goaltending is going to be just fine this season.

[GranteedEV]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

I don't think anyone on this board does. Not sure how [Sigalet] keeps surviving coaching staff changes.

Know what's scary?

We've had seven goalies hit twenty+ games under him. Of them, Elliott is the only one who trended upward in his cumulative SV% with Sigalet:



That's six goalies who've trended downwards the longer they've spent under Sigalet.

Sure, there may be reasons beyond the goalie coach for that, like injuries or more video to analyze, but how can you trust your season to Sigalet at this point?

[PepsiFree]

That just looks like they all just settle into an average after 20 games. Or maybe that graph is just hard to read. Lots of dots, lines not connected to any of them, some lines short, others not, what IS THIS?

[Scroopy Noopers]

Edit. Forget it. I’m just salty because the Sigalet talk is... ugh.

[savardandjokinen]

I hope they don't claim Sparks if he's there, don't see the upgrade

But count me in for McBackup, tbh

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

That just looks like they all just settle into an average after 20 games. Or maybe that graph is just hard to read. Lots of dots, lines not connected to any of them, some lines short, others not, what IS THIS?

Confirmation bias is what it is

[mrdonkey]

[Bonecrushing Hits]

I was purusing the comments as I missed the game... then this made me spit my beer out. Well played

[kirant]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

That's six goalies who've trended downwards the longer they've spent under Sigalet.

One point I'd like to make: this looks like it was done with the average of the stats for the goaltender from game 1 until that point. Correct me if I'm wrong on that. If it is though, when I hear average with an increasing data set, I think that means that the data becomes more stable over time, no? One bad game (a ~30 shot sample size) will not ruin the mean save % as much as one bad game earlier in their career. For example if you start with a .900 save % and let in another shot, your save % gets much more affected letting in the 11th goal on your 101st shot against when compared to your 101th goal on your 1001st shot.

Such concerns can be seen in the first 15-20, which are so noisy they are near unreadable. Using a moving average should help reduce this type of bias in the data analysis but shouldn't destroy the loss of Save % if Flames goaltenders do have deteriorating save %s under Sigalet.

I tried something like this out myself to see if there is a correlation. Here were my conditions:

- I considered games where the goaltenders played a "significant" amount of the game (20 minutes or more) and only used regular season games. This removes effects such as playoff pressure and games with little data on goaltender (things do not meaningfully change if we removed games with <40 minutes)

- I manually calculated a 20 game moving save % after each game (9 before, 10 after...so all data starts at game 10). It would be calculated the expected way (1 - (# of goals against in 20 game period/# of shots against in 20 game period)).

- 10 game averages were also calculated, but were much noisier. The same conclusion should be reached either way.

- Players with more than 30 games played were plotted.

Here were the results.

Spoiler!

The notable trends are in Johnson, Hiller, and Elliott.

- Johnson I would not explain well as he had a very short career.

- Hiller just flat out stopped caring at the end of his tenure here.

- Elliott had a really rough start and got better as time went on. The playoffs did see him struggle, but they were not included in this analysis.

With the others:

- Mike Smith seems too early to call. Is he a .91 save % goaltender who got hot for 20 games or is he a .93 save % goaltender who has had a couple slumps? There seems to be very little in between in his play. Maybe he would fit at .92 in this analysis and be streaky?

- Ramo seemed to be on a hot streak at the end.