[News] Flames expanding goalie deparment. Sigalet named director. Labarbera new goalie coach

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by bax

Appreciate the work that went into this post, but I can't help but think this is a lot of stat digging that doesn't really prove anything one way or the other.

There is a ton of mediocre to bad goalies on that list- are we really going to blame Sigalet because journeymen guys like Barry Brust, and Dan Taylor didn't pan out? Hiller and Smith were all on the back half of their careers when they got here- best days behind them for sure.

Talbot, Elliot, Ramo, Rittich, Johnson? Capable of playing great in stretches, but none of these guys have been consistently great number 1 goalies anywhere.

Not to mention we are looking purely at individual goalie stats which almost never tell the full story. How good was the team? What was their defensive structure? Did the goalies get hung out to dry? Without watching the games it's really tough to know anything.

This also glosses over some serious injuries guys have battled through. Rittich has been injured in the back half of both seasons, Gillies was never the same after his hip surgery, etc.

I don't think the difference between Leland Irving being a bust and a great NHL goalie was Jordan Sigalet.

I would tend to agree with a lot of your points, but I think a deciding factor in my mind is that this didn't happen over a short period but consistently over 10 years. There has to be a reason why Goaltender individual statistics consistently plummet around this club while the team in front of them varies dramatically. Maybe it's something in the water, to quote from the pit of despair up north, but ignoring or handwaving it as individual circumstances when it has spanned a literal decade seems foolhardy to me.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Here it is actually fairly easy to generate some because the field of competitors is obvious: whether it be a set threshold # for goaltender performance. ie. over .915%, under 2.5 gaa, # of prospect goaltenders developed relative to peers over 5 years, or less precise but say "top 10 goaltending statistics in x category"... none of these would be met by the flames over the last 10 years.

Save percentage is heavily dependent on the quality of shots given up by the team.

Goals-against average is heavily dependent on team defensive play.

Number of prospect goaltenders developed is critically dependent on the number of goalies actually drafted, and where in the draft they were taken. (It is really not the fault of coaching if the GM takes a flyer on a goalie in the 6th round and he never makes the show. Nor, *ahem*, if the GM drafts a promising prospect and an injury blows his career. The sample size is too small for statistical significance.)

‘Top-10 goaltending statistics in x category’ isn't even meaningful unless you do the work to specify x.

The statistics you've just suggested don't even tell the story about goalies, let alone goalie coaches. Statistically speaking, a goalie is a big black box with about half a dozen inputs and one output. Coaching is only one of the inputs. Unless you have a very accurate measure of all the other inputs, knowing the output is not going to tell you anything useful about the quality of one input in isolation.

You are trying to solve an equation with too many variables, and the only way to pretend confidence in your value of X is to make WAGs about Y, Z, W, P, and Q.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Save percentage is heavily dependent on the quality of shots given up by the team.

Goals-against average is heavily dependent on team defensive play.

Number of prospect goaltenders developed is critically dependent on the number of goalies actually drafted, and where in the draft they were taken. (It is really not the fault of coaching if the GM takes a flyer on a goalie in the 6th round and he never makes the show. Nor, *ahem*, if the GM drafts a promising prospect and an injury blows his career. The sample size is too small for statistical significance.)

‘Top-10 goaltending statistics in x category’ isn't even meaningful unless you do the work to specify x.

The statistics you've just suggested don't even tell the story about goalies, let alone goalie coaches. Statistically speaking, a goalie is a big black box with about half a dozen inputs and one output. Coaching is only one of the inputs. Unless you have a very accurate measure of all the other inputs, knowing the output is not going to tell you anything useful about the quality of one input in isolation.

You are trying to solve an equation with too many variables, and the only way to pretend confidence in your value of X is to make WAGs about Y, Z, W, P, and Q.

I agree, but I think a decade of changing the other inputs (head coach, defensive players, offensive players, defensive strategy, organizational direction, leadership, etc.) has resulted in my belief that the one consistent input (outside of the actual physical city of Calgary) is the goaltending coach.

But it goes beyond that. The purpose of the goaltending coach is to ostensibly: 1. improve/ stabilize goaltending club wide, 2: develop more goalies from prospects
Neither of these goals have been achieved over a ten year period.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Are you trying to argue that there is no objective way for a non-insider or team member to correctly analyze coaching performance at the NHL level? I disagree. Much like any "arcane" job performance task, there are still statistical KPIs that you can generate to track performance. I don't think there are any KPIs that you could assign to the last decade of flames organization goaltending, which Sigalet has been a big part of, that would come out positive. Here it is actually fairly easy to generate some because the field of competitors is obvious: whether it be a set threshold # for goaltender performance. ie. over .915%, under 2.5 gaa, # of prospect goaltenders developed relative to peers over 5 years, or less precise but say "top 10 goaltending statistics in x category"... none of these would be met by the flames over the last 10 years.

Your steadfast denialism of our ability to judge coaching is what made me delve into this more, so I hold you to blame for why I now seem like I hate Jordan Sigalet.

Something that I was wondering as to whether it was also a factor, I seem to recall that Troy Ward was turfed because he refused to do a few things the organization wanted. I wonder if this affects the success rate of the goalie prospects Sigalet worked with early on.

- Play the young guys so that they would develop (focused on using journeymen to try and win vs development of players)
- Refused to play a style that was conducive of helping the prospects graduates to the next level (totally different styles of play in AHL vs NHL).

Somehow I seem to recall some stories that he did certain things that likely ended up obliterating the confidence and careers of several of our goalies (benching them after legitimate reasons for being away from the club etc.).

EDIT: I know you were trying to eliminate coaches as a factor, but Troy Ward barely held down a coaching job after being turfed from the Heat. Something about him is disliked by the subsequent organizations that hired him.

[bax]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

I would tend to agree with a lot of your points, but I think a deciding factor in my mind is that this didn't happen over a short period but consistently over 10 years. There has to be a reason why Goaltender individual statistics consistently plummet around this club while the team in front of them varies dramatically. Maybe it's something in the water, to quote from the pit of despair up north, but ignoring or handwaving it as individual circumstances when it has spanned a literal decade seems foolhardy to me.

I don't think goaltender statistics have plummeted around the Flames though?

Smith had a .916% his first season here.
Rittich has been .911% and .907%
Talbot was .919%
Ramo was .912%, .911%, and .909%
Hiller was .918%
Elliot was .910%

Given the pedigree of these goalies and the teams they played behind I don't think we could have expected much better than those numbers to be honest.

[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

Are you trying to argue that there is no objective way for a non-insider or team member to correctly analyze coaching performance at the NHL level? I disagree. Much like any "arcane" job performance task, there are still statistical KPIs that you can generate to track performance. I don't think there are any KPIs that you could assign to the last decade of flames organization goaltending, which Sigalet has been a big part of, that would come out positive. Here it is actually fairly easy to generate some because the field of competitors is obvious: whether it be a set threshold # for goaltender performance. ie. over .915%, under 2.5 gaa, # of prospect goaltenders developed relative to peers over 5 years, or less precise but say "top 10 goaltending statistics in x category"... none of these would be met by the flames over the last 10 years.

Your steadfast denialism of our ability to judge coaching is what made me delve into this more, so I hold you to blame for why I now seem like I hate Jordan Sigalet.

I think your post is great work to provide a lot of information.
But I also don't think it's objective.
The narrative on top of the facts is where it seems like you entered the process to prove that he's done a bad job.

[Monahammer]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I think your post is great work to provide a lot of information.
But I also don't think it's objective.
The narrative on top of the facts is where it seems like you entered the process to prove that he's done a bad job.

I will counter that I did not enter into the post intending to do so, but agree that I am guilty of adding that narrative after having made the assessment myself based on individual yearly stats of goalies. Frankly I was blown away by how many different goalies that Sigalet has had his hands on through the organization, and a bit disturbed about the absolute graveyard the organization has become for goaltender careers.

Bax, you selected the strongest years all of those players had with the club, often their first seasons here. I am going to stop replying to this thread now, but I think there is more to this: the goalies coming in are hot and ride out the new opportunity to success, but seemingly without fail by year 2 things start going sour. Hiller, Smith, Ortio, Ramo...

[bax]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

I will counter that I did not enter into the post intending to do so, but agree that I am guilty of adding that narrative after having made the assessment myself based on individual yearly stats of goalies. Frankly I was blown away by how many different goalies that Sigalet has had his hands on through the organization, and a bit disturbed about the absolute graveyard the organization has become for goaltender careers.

Bax, you selected the strongest years all of those players had with the club, often their first seasons here. I am going to stop replying to this thread now, but I think there is more to this: the goalies coming in are hot and ride out the new opportunity to success, but seemingly without fail by year 2 things start going sour. Hiller, Smith, Ortio, Ramo...

Well yeah, you had mentioned it's been a decade of goalie statistics plummeting and that just hasn't been the case. Plenty of these guys have performed exactly as expected was the point. I provided 9 seasons where I would say guys played about as well as we could have hoped.

Hiller and Smith both ran into old age, Ortio was never and NHL goalie, and Ramo has always been servicable at best.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by bax

Well yeah, you had mentioned it's been a decade of goalie statistics plummeting and that just hasn't been the case. Plenty of these guys have performed exactly as expected was the point. I provided 9 seasons where I would say guys played about as well as we could have hoped.

Hiller and Smith both ran into old age, Ortio was never and NHL goalie, and Ramo has always been servicable at best.

Ramo suffered what was essentially a career ending injury. He looked like he might be hitting another level before that.

And you are of course correct: Monahammer's analysis provides almost no consideration of the most important elements in good goaltending...

Talent and ability.

Sent from my SM-G960W using Tapatalk

[TheContact]

Originally Posted by Monahammer

I will counter that I did not enter into the post intending to do so, but agree that I am guilty of adding that narrative after having made the assessment myself based on individual yearly stats of goalies. Frankly I was blown away by how many different goalies that Sigalet has had his hands on through the organization, and a bit disturbed about the absolute graveyard the organization has become for goaltender careers.

On the other hand, correlation does not imply causation. Sure, Sigalet could be a bad coach, but you’d need to provide some insight into what about his coaching is bad. If we don’t identify an underlying behavior/factor, it’s just a meaningless guess.. We could just as easily argue that the flaming C on the jersey affects goaltender performance (a trait those goaltenders have also shared).

Note that folks here regularly provide this kind of factor with the head coach (questionable line juggling, pulling the goalie at inopportune times, etc.). Those are real things the coach does. They may not be the full reason the team loses, but it’s easier to see the argument that it meaningfully contributes, and establishes why someone thinks the coaching is good/bad beyond just stats.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

It's important to add that nobody here believes it's all on Sigalet. None of the goaltenders above were elite and some were on the decline regardless of Sigalet's input. The issue is that the results were simply never that good and when that happens over a lengthy duration you have to look at all the contributing factors outside of just the players. Maybe we can't prove Sigalet was a bad coach but conversely nobody can prove he was a good coach. Change here is clearly the best outcome.

I would go a bit further than this.

There's no way to prove Sigalet is a bad goalie coach, but I think statistically it's rather obvious he's probably nothing special.

I get that it seems unfair for people to want to get rid of a guy on those grounds, but top level pro sports is not like most jobs. On this level, replacing guys who are not better than average is reasonable and normal.

Personally I think what the Flames did is a much better idea than just replacing Sigalet. Trying to improve by finding a better man for the same job will sometimes succeed, but your odds aren't great, because most guys can't be better than average.

However, putting more resources into something has a very good chance of improving the results.

Doing this in the middle of the corona crisis also makes it clear that Treliving sees this as a really high priority move. It's not completely unexpected, but I find it surpring that they're creating new jobs NOW.

I'm sure people working for the organization appreciate that Sigalet didn't get thrown under the bus for not meeting vague and impossible to measure expectations. The Flames looked at this as a "we could do better" thing, not a "you could do better" thing.

Doesn't mean it will actually help, but it's worth a shot.

[Ace]

Looking forward to the announcement of a ‘Director of Franchise Centres’

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Ace

Looking forward to the announcement of a ‘Director of Franchise Centres’

NFL teams have 20+ coaches.

Considering the importance of goaltending, I wouldn't be surprised to see multiple goalie coaches for one team.

[browna]

Originally Posted by Itse

NFL teams have 20+ coaches.

Considering the importance of goaltending, I wouldn't be surprised to see multiple goalie coaches for one team.

There is the concern of too many cooks in the kitchen. Certainly for goalies.

However, given the upcoming generation of hockey players that get more and more specific training at younger and younger ages, as parents sink more and more money into hockey (and sports) for their kids, they'll be almost a baby sitting factor to consider for NHL teams hiring coaches and staff.

This would be because new NHL players are used to and expect to have, all sorts of specialized coaches and support staff, because that's what they have had for the previous 3-5 years every step of the way in elite programs, as teenagers. For better or worse.