[Game Takes] Canucks 4 Flames 3

[cannon7]

Originally Posted by Inferno

Sometimes it is but saying most of the time is kind of pushing it. There's also a bias that some people have who automatically label an early goal as bad whether it is or not just because it's early.

Fair enough. Subjective thing is subjective.

But in the aggregate things break down. Unless we can produce a stat that says the Flames' first shot against is statistically more likely to be high danger than other teams in the NHL?

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Your stats say the team won more often with Markstrom in net. We can do anything with these stats.

Wow. You can do better than that.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Wow. You can do better than that.

The point is that there’s really no basis to attribute these stats to the team “playing better” in front of one than the other, or the reasons for that. Because you’d have to do a huge analysis of the opposition, the power plays, injuries, etc. and sometimes the goalies were just not good.

I mean, on a percentage basis in Markstrom’s vezina runner up year the team played better in front of him. Is the suggestion they like him less?

[cannon7]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

I mean, on a percentage basis in Markstrom’s vezina runner up year the team played better in front of him. Is the suggestion they like him less?

Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk was the best line in hockey. Granted.

But the rest of the team statistically wasn't that much different from the past two seasons. In some cases, the supporting cast was actually better.

If Markstrom was providing top ten goaltending there would be nothing to talk about here as the Flames would likely be firmly in a playoff spot. No one is expecting him to steal games like he did in 21-22, although that would be nice.

[Savvy27]

Originally Posted by Infinit47

Someone smarter than me will need to figure it out.

I'm not smarter, but looking at Natural Stat Trick there seems to be an impact on xGF due to the empty net goal.

At 5v5 in the third the Canucks xGF% is: 0.73
At All strengths in the third: 1.18
At EV: 1.18

and they didn't have any PPs.

So there seems to have been a .45 xGF% change with the goalie pulled.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by cannon7

Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk was the best line in hockey. Granted.

But the rest of the team statistically wasn't that much different from the past two seasons. In some cases, the supporting cast was actually better.

If Markstrom was providing top ten goaltending there would be nothing to talk about here as the Flames would likely be firmly in a playoff spot. No one is expecting him to steal games like he did in 21-22, although that would be nice.

You are entirely missing the point.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by cannon7

By "looking into it" you mean making a subjective judgment on every first goal against? Wouldn't that introduce bias either way?

Lets put it this way: excluding 0-0 games that go to a shootout there is always a first goal for one side or the other. So all things being equal, the odds should be 50/50 that your goalie gives up the first goal. Now for a team like the Sharks, where goals and wins are hard to come by, one would reasonably expect a higher than average rate of first goals against. Alternatively a top team like the Bruins or Golden Knights, where goals and wins have been easier to come by, should have comparatively a lower than average first goal against rate. Given this, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect a team flirting around .500 to have a first goal against rate somewhere in the middle?

We've all seen the statistic of how important the first goal is to winning a game. The fact that the Flames have as many wins as they do despite their goaltending giving up first goals at a considerably higher rate than average should be (arguably) a credit to the team in front of them. Imagine if we were just average in terms of first goals against?

We can pick whatever method you want, but right now we're not looking into it at all.

You're just assigning first goals against the goaltender 100% and not against the team.

[cannon7]

Originally Posted by Bingo

We can pick whatever method you want, but right now we're not looking into it at all.

You're just assigning first goals against the goaltender 100% and not against the team.

Well at the end of the day it is the guy between the pipes who has the job of stopping pucks. Some of the first shots he faces may be high danger, some may be low danger. I would expect that distribution to normalize in aggregate, but who knows? Maybe the Flames are really bad in this regard.

But if the goaltender's SV% is off leading up to that first goal and otherwise average after that, then this puts the team statistically in a hole. The team that scores first has a 65.2% probability of winning the game.

Sadly the MoneyPucks of the world don't currently have stats for first shot/goal of the game. Although I would imagine it could be derived from their dataset.

But it seems like you want to just attribute 11 first goals against out of 13 games as random chance. I'll grant you that it isn't a large sample size, but there were similar numbers last season.

Another poster pointed out that Vladar is worse. And I agree. But only one of them is being paid like a #1. And that #1 is ranked 29th in the league right now.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Infinit47

If the Canucks had an xg of 3.99 and Markstrom had an XGA of 3.09 then there was .9 xg while Markstrom was pulled. Not sure what they use to get that .9 of a goal, but it was pretty close.

I believe it's based on the odds of scoring a goal when you shoot at the empty net from behind the red line. The Canucks tried that three times, got two icings and a goal.

That would mean that each empty-net attempt was worth about 0.3 of a goal, which sounds cromulent.

[Bingo]

Originally Posted by cannon7

Well at the end of the day it is the guy between the pipes who has the job of stopping pucks. Some of the first shots he faces may be high danger, some may be low danger. I would expect that distribution to normalize in aggregate, but who knows? Maybe the Flames are really bad in this regard.

But if the goaltender's SV% is off leading up to that first goal and otherwise average after that, then this puts the team statistically in a hole. The team that scores first has a 65.2% probability of winning the game.

Sadly the MoneyPucks of the world don't currently have stats for first shot/goal of the game. Although I would imagine it could be derived from their dataset.

But it seems like you want to just attribute 11 first goals against out of 13 games as random chance. I'll grant you that it isn't a large sample size, but there were similar numbers last season.

Another poster pointed out that Vladar is worse. And I agree. But only one of them is being paid like a #1. And that #1 is ranked 29th in the league right now.

Honestly I don't have a horse in this race.

If we found a site or an analysis that says Markstrom is brutal in first periods or something I'd welcome the information.

But we don't really know who to blame ... it's likely the player and the team.

However I did show numbers earlier today that showed the Flames seem to have a very skewed differential between giving up a league average amount of expected goals despite being top five in shots against.

That's murder on a goalie's save percentage.

Either way ... after the last week or so of odd debates, I appreciate your class in this one!

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by dino7c

I never argued he wasn't their 5th best dman, accept what? I don't think he moved the needle much.

"won't end well"

lol they were under .500 with Zadorov in the lineup, it already wasn't ending well.

you are dancing around it...I think they are better in the 20 without Zadorov than they were in the 20 with him and you don't. That's fine.

they are .500 right now lets see

LOL!!!!!! So you're willing to point to Calgary's TEAM record to start the year and isolate Zadorov as "here's what Calgary did with Zadorov", and yet in every other thread you use the beginning of the season as a growing period for the team that they got over once they figured out the system under Huska?

Like literally c'mon the hell on man. We know you're the Iraqi defence minister for the Flames, but at least give us a little damn credit, lol.

[Rick M.]

Wow! 130 posts in a “Game Takes” thread.

[Erick Estrada]

I can't remember the last time a game take thread got this long. Is this all about Markstrom's penchant to let in early goals? I think this is something that's plagued him going back to his Canucks years so there's definitely something there.

[Toonage]

I get that if you give up a prime scoring chance early its asking a lot for him to stop the first shot that often. The odds aren't great. Thats a team issue. If its a floater or groaner for the first shot more often than not, then yeah its a problem with his starts.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by Toonage

I get that if you give up a prime scoring chance early its asking a lot for him to stop the first shot that often. The odds aren't great. Thats a team issue. If its a floater or groaner for the first shot more often than not, then yeah its a problem with his starts.

Last game wasn’t a great goal, though I think it was tipped (from way out). But this year I couldn’t tell you whether the first goal was bad or not. I suspect that was the first “first shot” goal this year though - there may have been one against Dallas in the 7-4 win. Statistically, it happens every once in a while no matter how good a goalie is.

The game before the first goal came at about 5 minutes. I rather doubt it was the first shot but couldn’t tell you. I do know it was not a bad goal.

Game before that it was about at 15 minutes and the game before that it was at 6 minutes. But still the first goal. And it was Vladar.

The thing is, I prefer to look at the actual goal than paint it according to a statistic.

[Bingo]

I was all over Markstrom in game stories last year, I'm certainly not a goalie apologist.

But this year it feels like he's one of if not the Flames best player game to game. The rank in shots vs rank in expected goals explains why the stats don't match that, at least to some degree.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Toonage

I get that if you give up a prime scoring chance early its asking a lot for him to stop the first shot that often. The odds aren't great. Thats a team issue. If its a floater or groaner for the first shot more often than not, then yeah its a problem with his starts.

In Markstrom's games in November prior to Saturday:

· 11/30: Dallas scored first on their fourth shot on goal
· 11/24: Dallas scored first on their first shot.
· 11/22: Nashville scored first on their third shot
· 11/18: NYI scored second on their seventh shot
· 11/16: Vancouver scored first on their sixth shot
· 11/14: Montreal scored second on their fifteenth shot
· 11/7: Nashville scored first on their second shot
· 11/1: Dallas scored second on their eleventh shot

Make of that what you will. I suspect this is all pretty random and that people are thinking it happens all the time because Markstrom has allowed the first goal on the first shot in two of his last three games. I don't think there is enough there from which to establish a pattern.

[Bingo]

Just for the sake of interesting timing ...

Dom from the Athletic has award standings at the roughly the quarter poll.

Good to see someone has numbers that match my potentially flawed eye test.

Same goes for Tristan Jarry and Jacob Markstrom. Their teams are struggling, but that’s through no fault of their own. Ignore Markstrom’s save percentage; the defense in front of him has been shockingly porous.

[ComixZone]

Certainly seems to point towards the Flames not being particularly good defensively, no?

Marky has the lowest SV% and xSV%, the worst GAA and xGAA, but still finds himself at 5th on that chart.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by ComixZone

Certainly seems to point towards the Flames not being particularly good defensively, no?

Marky has the lowest SV% and xSV%, the worst GAA and xGAA, but still finds himself at 5th on that chart.

I can’t think of a game where they lost and I said “Markstrom cost the game”. I think he’s been way above last year. The surface level save% number is a bit misleading here.