Bad Goaltending vs Bad D

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by troutman

That is interesting - does "high danger" distinguish between different kinds of shots? - ex. rebounds, odd man rushes, rushed or unopposed. If it only talks about where shots are taken, it may not be as useful as we need.

Nope - just shot location. However, previous analysis suggests that, a) odd man rushes are so infrequent that they don't actually have a high impact on results, and b) the vast majority of rebound chances and chances where you're outnumbering the defense are taken from the "high danger" area anyway.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by troutman

Fine. Explain why these same goalies were ok last year.

We've seen plenty of goalies put up bad numbers in Edmonton, and perform much better on other teams.

I do think there is blame to go on the goalies. 20/80. For one person to be responsible for 20% of that equation is significant.

If Price were our goalie, how many more points would we have? A few I think, but we would still be struggling.

Because they're goalies? You've never noticed that goalies don't always put up the same performance from year to year? Craig Anderson alternates between Vezina level and AHL level from year to year. Bobrovsky nearly played himself out of the league with Philly before winning the Vezina with Columbus. Now, he can't stop a beachball again this year. Even Kipper had a bad year. Hasek had a bad year. In the history of the NHL I bet you can't find more than a handful of goalies who never had a bad year. Roy and Brodeur are the only ones I can think of in my 32+ years of watching the NHL closely.

Goalies. They are not predictable creatures. And this year, ours stink.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by mikephoen

Because they're goalies? You've never noticed that goalies don't always put up the same performance from year to year? Craig Anderson alternates between Vezina level and AHL level from year to year. Bobrovsky nearly played himself out of the league with Philly before winning the Vezina with Columbus. Now, he can't stop a beachball again this year. Even Kipper had a bad year. Hasek had a bad year. In the history of the NHL I bet you can't find more than a handful of goalies who never had a bad year. Roy and Brodeur are the only ones I can think of in my 32+ years of watching the NHL closely.

Goalies. They are not predictable creatures. And this year, ours stink.

Can't those bad years be a result of changing team defence?

Explain why Oiler goalies have universally better numbers on other teams. Do they only play bad in Edmonton?

[Vulcan]

On Hockeycentral Gaudreau was asked why the defence scoring is down. His answer IIRC is because the defence is concentrating more on defence. I ask myself why the defence is concentrating more on defence this season and my answer is because our goaltending sucks.

Here's the interview.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/590/hockey-c...s-rough-start/

Another question I have is why is our goaltending so awful this year while they were okay last season? The obvious is the three goalie situation sapped their confidence? Other things could be our goalie coaching and other teams have figured our goalies out? The last one is pretty nebulous because I've heard Hiller was figured out years ago and Ramo has been around long enough that I don't see any big difference in exploiting his weaknesses.

[heep223]

Originally Posted by troutman

Can't those bad years be a result of changing team defence?

Explain why Oiler goalies have universally better numbers on other teams. Do they only play bad in Edmonton?

I'm still waiting for you to answer my question: how do you explain the fact that the Flames have given up 20% less high danger scoring chances this year, but have let in twice the amount of goals?

[CSharp]

it's too much to put blame solely on one player any losses that the Flames are going through. For all the games that have been played and lost, the Flames have sucked defensively. Even last year when the Flames were hemmed in their own zone for like 40 minutes a game, they were just not that good. This year, they're just pathetic. Last year, with Russell and Wideman blocking a lot of shots, this year, everyone's watched the tapes and are well prepared for those shot blocking.

I've been saying this before and I'll say it again - Flames D are too small and having Hamilton play like JBo and playing soft doesn't help when he's a big body. You don't need another Kipper, Brodeur, or Roy in net to win and Chicago, Detroit, and other teams with good skills and deep defence have shown. Sure, it helps to have a goalie win a few games in the playoffs, but overall, it's the guys in front of the goalie that should be doing their job by not turning the puck over continuously like what the Flames are doing.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by troutman

Can't those bad years be a result of changing team defence?

It can be, but it seems unlikely that it can account for all of the massive swings we see. Particularly when you look at the larger sample. Considering all goalies over the span of the past decade or so, and you find that there are very, very few goalies (Roberto Luongo is one) who exhibit consistent save percentages year to year. High end goalies over this period - the Rinnes, Tim Thomases, Bobrovskys - all suffer from this.

That being said, if you'd like to look at this from another angle, Eric Tulsky (who I believe now works for the Hurricanes) wrote this a little while ago:

http://www.broadstreethockey.com/201...ession-defense

The gist is, defensemen have basically no impact on goalie save percentage in the long term:

Let's turn to analyzing defensemen, whom we might expect would be more responsible for a team's save percentage. Here's the analogous plot for the 97 defensemen who were on the ice for at least 1000 shots in each three-year period:

Spoiler!

Hm. That's still pretty unimpressive. If you just close your eyes and put 97 random dots on a piece of paper, there's a 15% chance of seeing a correlation that strong just by pure chance.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by troutman

Your math assumes Price faces the same quality of shots that Flames goalies are. I don't know if that is true. I suspect not.

My eyeballs tell me opponents are having a free ride in our slot.

Imagine Ramo gets traded to another team, and his stats suddenly improve. Is he just playing better?

You're right, but every time gets free rides in the slot but their goalies make that save.

I think back to the Ottawa game when Johnny had the chance in overtime and Anderson made that ridiculous glove save. Would anyone have faulted him if that had gone in, no. But he did make the save and his team won in a shootout. That's what good goalies do.

1 in 3 shots in the "high quality area" are going in. That's atrocious.

[Fighting Banana Slug]

Originally Posted by troutman

Can't those bad years be a result of changing team defence?

Explain why Oiler goalies have universally better numbers on other teams. Do they only play bad in Edmonton?

I would be interested in seeing a similar comparison of high scoring chance/save percentage for Dubnyk on the oilers two years ago and Dubnyk on the wild last year. (Or Scrivens in years prior) That would help frame the discussion, as the OP has done. Because Edmonton is no good, I would expect that the percentage would be roughly the same, but the number of chances against are much higher playing for Edmo.

I was a bit skeptical of blaming the goaltending, but those stats do make it hard to argue with.

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Originally Posted by heep223

I'm still waiting for you to answer my question: how do you explain the fact that the Flames have given up 20% less high danger scoring chances this year, but have let in twice the amount of goals?

In fairness to both the D and goalies, part of that is just dumb luck.

The Flames have worse numbers than historically bad teams with horrible players & coaches, that deliberately set out to lose *cough* oilers *cough* . NHL teams literally couldn't be this bad when they tried. No way its stays this bad all year. (pleading with the hockey gods)

BTW - I agree with your original post and thanks for the effort.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Originally Posted by Bend it like Bourgeois

The Flames have worse numbers than historically bad teams with horrible players & coaches, that deliberately set out to lose *cough* oilers *cough* . NHL teams literally couldn't be this bad when they tried.

That's not true, and we now know it - last year, the Sabres literally tried to be bad, and so we now have at least a baseline for what it looks like when a team does that. It's actually worse than the worst Oilers teams. Significantly worse. Yet even when you try to be bad, and succeed in doing so as the Sabres did, your actual results don't end up being that much worse.

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by troutman

Can't those bad years be a result of changing team defence?

Explain why Oiler goalies have universally better numbers on other teams. Do they only play bad in Edmonton?

Sure, they could. Or it could be something else. I belive it's something else.

Your premise appears to be that adding Gio back in and picking up Hamilton made our team defense infinitely worse? From a playoff team to one of the worst defenses in a decade? Gio and Hamilton are so much worse than Diaz and Schlemko, that they catapulted our D to the absolute bottom of the league?

This makes more sense to you than our goalies being bad this year?

[mikephoen]

Originally Posted by troutman

Can't those bad years be a result of changing team defence?

Explain why Oiler goalies have universally better numbers on other teams. Do they only play bad in Edmonton?

Dubnyk actually supports my theory. From 10/11 to 12/13 he had good numbers and was a good goalie, despite the oilers being terrible in all other aspects of the game. Then in 13/14, he had an off year (like almost all goalies do) and he got shelled. Then in 14/15, back to normal, only this time behind a competent defense, and he is a Vezina candidate.

If it wasn't for the off year in 13/14, he would likely still be stuck in edmonton.

[SuperMatt18]

Originally Posted by GranteedEV

Last season among the 38 goaltenders that played a minimum 1400 even-strength minutes (Ramo played 1419.2):

Ramo was 17th best at 84.38% and Hiller 10th best (85.31%). Last place was Anton Khudobin at 77.43%

This season,

Ramo - 71.43
Hiller - 73.81

That is beyond terrible.

Also leads to more mistakes by the d-men IMO. Harder to play defense when you are trying to do too much since you are worried that every shot will end up in the back of the net.

[Samonadreau]

I wonder how much the 3 headed monster started these goalies, defense and team off in the wrong direction. Ever since Ramo has been given the reigns he is 3-2 also the team has played their 2 best defensive games in that stretch and the forwards are scoring more. Also happens Brodie has been in for that stretch as well.

Also Ortio hasn't had a fair chance, now i realize he hasn't been good but he had to sit forever and get rusty (doesnt even get full practice time) and gets 2 starts against Montreal and the Islanders. Not cake walks. And now he isn't allowed to start again? If he starts tomorrow its against the Caps. You cant baby him too much but if he is going to sit 90% of the games and you throw him in against really good teams its not really a recipe for success. In a season where we arent sure what the future is for our goaltending why dont we play the 24 year old more and give him opportunities to succeed?

[Alberta_Beef]

I voted 50-50. The defense has been making terrible mistakes and the goaltenders have been giving up terrible goals. I think this has both gripping their sticks tighter and the problems are feeding off each other.

[FBI]

Yeah the 3-headed goalie monster was basically the worst and dumbest decision by our management in quite some time. Killed the start of the season, killed everybody's confidence, spiraling downwards. Bad bad bad.

[St. Pats]

Good goaltending can make up for subpar defense. A solid defense can only cut down on the chances a subpar goalie sees. The coach can use any number of strategies to cover up on defense. Zone starts, playing time, partner changes etc.

The goalie is there and has to stop the puck. The coach can do zilch for him. They haven't been making stops.

Better defense would help but the goalie's are just not doing their job and it's the most important position on the team. They knew they needed an upgrade at this position and did nothing and are paying for it.

[thymebalm]

It's goaltending.

A good goalie actually leads to good offense. You play a lot different in front of your net minder if you believe in him. You wind up believing in yourself more too.

Poulin is not the answer. We are in deeeeep trouble and I hope we trade for Loungo at this point.

[CroFlames]

Originally Posted by thymebalm

It's goaltending.

A good goalie actually leads to good offense. You play a lot different in front of your net minder if you believe in him. You wind up believing in yourself more too.

Poulin is not the answer. We are in deeeeep trouble and I hope we trade for Loungo at this point.

You are correct on all accounts, including Poulin.

But Poulin is a just a minor league signing. He's not destined for the big club at all.