[Signing] Flames sign Jacob Markstrom. (6 yrs, $6mil AAV)

[Vinny01]

There is no doubt Markstrom was the difference in the Oilers series ending in 5. Had he been able to maintain his regular season winning % the Flames win game 2, 4 and 5. Smith rocked a .906 against the Flames but he was the better of the 2 goalies.

I am disappointed in that series but still happy with the signing and feel he is no doubt the best goalie since Kipper.

That Oilers series morphed into a lot of rush chances against and the team was unable to play their style at all through the series. It was a lot of bad goals against but a lot of grade A chances given up.

[Mathgod]

Originally Posted by DeluxeMoustache

Guys, Markstrom himself said he wasn’t hurt. He wasn’t tired. He felt good.

That should be enough for you

I’ll take his word for it.

Why would a professional athlete ever admit to being tired?

[browna]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

The Stars aren't exactly an offensive juggernaut. They are basically a one line team, from an offensive perspective.

Remember game 3 when Marky gave up those 2 juicy rebounds that led to Pavelski goals. Also factor in Hintz being suddenly unavailable for game 7, throwing Dallas' forward group into disarray. It seems that Marky was tired in the Dallas series but was able to battle through it to put up good numbers, but just couldn't keep it up for the Edmonton series.

Go back and watch the Game 7 condensed highlights. Some key saves in first and second, breakaway save in third along with a few other high danger chances in the third off Pavelski. OT as well.

Game 2 Oilers and the Hyman breakaway and the 30 seconds later the Flames goal doesn’t count. Then Draisital with another breakaway.

I blame zero goals in Game 3 on Markstrom and McDavid and crew jumped the rush and Flames D has zero confidence and score 4 goals on the odd man rush.

[Inferno]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Why would a professional athlete ever admit to being tired?

I personally don't believe he was hurt and I don't think fatigue was the problem either but I don't think he would ever admit to it if it was. He's the complete opposite of Smith and always takes responsibility whether he should or not.

I do think though last season his earlier injury affected him more than he led on but like I said he wouldn't use it as an excuse.

[Classic_Sniper]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

The Stars aren't exactly an offensive juggernaut. They are basically a one line team, from an offensive perspective.

Remember game 3 when Marky gave up those 2 juicy rebounds that led to Pavelski goals. Also factor in Hintz being suddenly unavailable for game 7, throwing Dallas' forward group into disarray. It seems that Marky was tired in the Dallas series but was able to battle through it to put up good numbers, but just couldn't keep it up for the Edmonton series.

Just seems like a convenient excuse to me. If it was just fatigue, why the struggles over the last couple years?

Personally, I didn’t see a tired goalie. I saw goalie that was overwhelmed by the opposition, the situation, the pressure and he couldn’t recover. Darryl made a bad call by constantly throwing him out there when he was clearly not in the right mental state to take on such a high powered opponent.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

I don’t buy into the Markstrom being tired theory one bit. Look at game 7 vs Dallas for instance, 6 grueling games prior and yet both Markstrom and Oettinger were performing at a high level. A few days off and then Markstrom goes up against the Oilers in game 1 where he was at his absolute worst playing easily the worst game of his entire playoffs.

I think the answer is simply, he stinks against the Oilers. He’s been bad against them for 2 years now and they probably get amped up to play him so they can exploit his weaknesses. The amount of soft goals he gave up in just one 5 game series may be more than all the weak goals he gave up in the entire 21-22 regular season combined.

How do you feel in the days after a massive/major event in your life? Most people have a 'hangover' for a day or two after. Tightly contested 7 game series culminating in an especially tight 75 minute tilt in game 7, with 15 minutes of sudden death.

1 extra day off before round 2. Even the highest workload goalies played about 7 games for each game off (ie. 70ish starts), and those 7 games would rarely come in 13 nights. Most years there is an extra off day or two mixed into each series.

Part of this is a failure to wrap up series 1 in less than 7, which would come closer to simulating a regular season flow.

Smith had 1 extra day rest between rounds and was still garbage...but playing only 6 minutes in game 1 effectively gave him 2 more days.


Ultimately these are all just excuses, but I think it's fair to say he wasn't handled optimally for success, especially given his career history in terms of workload

[Pointman]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

Just seems like a convenient excuse to me. If it was just fatigue, why the struggles over the last couple years?

Personally, I didn’t see a tired goalie. I saw goalie that was overwhelmed by the opposition, the situation, the pressure and he couldn’t recover. Darryl made a bad call by constantly throwing him out there when he was clearly not in the right mental state to take on such a high powered opponent.

Could you please describe, how a tired goalie would look in your opinion?

[sss1]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

Just seems like a convenient excuse to me. If it was just fatigue, why the struggles over the last couple years?

Personally, I didn’t see a tired goalie. I saw goalie that was overwhelmed by the opposition, the situation, the pressure and he couldn’t recover. Darryl made a bad call by constantly throwing him out there when he was clearly not in the right mental state to take on such a high powered opponent.

Covering the topic of fatigue, one could argue that being overwhelmed and struggling under pressure are symptoms of being burned out.

[FanIn80]

I've been mulling this over for a couple days, and I've come to the conclusion that EDM is just in his head. Does it suck that the guy's kryptonite is literally our most hated rival? Of course it does, but that's literally why God invented Daniel Vladar.

I get the "dance with the one that brought you" thing, but the guy with the Vezina-finalist season averaged 4 goals against per game to EDM in the regular season, and then literally looked like he couldn't stop a beachball in a 9-6 win in Game 1. After posting a 1.45 GAA in 7 games against Dallas, too. I'm just saying, I think Sutter needs to take some heat for not calling a spade a spade and going with Vladar in Game 2.

Obviously Markstrom needs to figure out his EDM thing, but I just feel like the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs is not the time for that.

[DeluxeMoustache]

This argument about fatigue being a factor is something I’m not buying.

First off, Markstrom said he felt good, wasn’t fatigued and wanted to be playing. Yeah, yeah, what else is he going to say, right? I believe him

I don’t believe the common wisdom about an ideal workload for goalies.

Martin Brodeur played over 70 games a year from 1996 through 2006, won 3 cups, and the guy had a .919 career playoff sv%.

People point to Kipper playing 38 games the year they went deep. Sure. Then he played over 70 several times, including the following 2 seasons, where he put up playoff sv% of .921 and .929. The team didn’t lose 3-0 in game 7 vs Anaheim because Kipper was tired. The team didn’t lose 2-1 in double OT to Detroit because of goaltending. They were *in* that series because of goaltending

People love to say that the ideal workload for a goaltender is 55-60 games. I think it’s an ideal situation to have a backup that plays well enough that you can trust him for 25-30 starts, more so than that you need one for the starter

Look, in this case, it was a lot of fire wagon hockey. Markstrom was not good enough. But he was not as bad as his numbers look.

The first game, yeah, he got beaten glove side three times pretty badly. His positioning wasn’t great and he looked small but the shots were like the knife thrower at the county fair. They found smell spaces. It didn’t really cost the team in the end.

Given quality of chances, especially in games 2 and 3, I think he was not at fault for many of the goals. He made a lot of big saves. The Flames D was shredded without Tanev, leading to far too many 10 bellers

They gave up a couple of breakaways on team errors, they gave up some rushes that turned in to pretty easy 2 on 1 tap ins, and they just didn’t win some crease battles, which I think they may have if not for dislocated shoulders and broken ribs.

But as game 4 and 5 came about, I think that he and everyone else expected the Oil to get 4 plus goals, and I think they got in his head a bit.

You can’t argue about the cough up 21 seconds in. That’s a killer. And the OT winner by McDavid was a pretty stoppable shot, at least 90 times out of a hundred.

I also think the writing was on the wall after the call on Coleman. You should be allowed to just win a game, not have it called back and be forced to win a second time.

I just don’t buy physical fatigue being an issue.

Markstrom was not good enough. The team was not good enough. He wasn’t as bad as his stats imply, due to team play.

This all simply makes sense without making stuff up about him being overplayed or fatigued.

[Classic_Sniper]

To the posters above, not gonna reply to each for time/effort purposes.

I'll just say that nobody really knows the answer, so it's all just speculation. It's my opinion that he wasn't overly tired. Just looking at his past gives you an indication that he's a workhorse. In Vancouver, he faced a massive workload and it wasn't even just the amount of games played, it was the volume and difficulty of shots he had to deal with most nights. So comparing his with time with the Canucks, he's got it a lot easier here in terms of energy spent.

Also, looking at the past, goaltenders in the past who won Cups routinely played 60-70+ regular seasons games to go along with 20+ playoff games. So not sure why right now would be any different. We're talking about elite athletes here, not senior citizens.

Lastly, the weak goals he allowed looked more so a lack of execution than fatigue in my opinion. It's not like he needed to push hard side to side or any extreme movements here. We're talking about a lot of straight shots that he just whiffed on.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

To the posters above, not gonna reply to each for time/effort purposes.

I'll just say that nobody really knows the answer, so it's all just speculation. It's my opinion that he wasn't overly tired. Just looking at his past gives you an indication that he's a workhorse. In Vancouver, he faced a massive workload and it wasn't even just the amount of games played, it was the volume and difficulty of shots he had to deal with most nights. So comparing his with time with the Canucks, he's got it a lot easier here in terms of energy spent.

Also, looking at the past, goaltenders in the past who won Cups routinely played 60-70+ regular seasons games to go along with 20+ playoff games. So not sure why right now would be any different. We're talking about elite athletes here, not senior citizens.

Lastly, the weak goals he allowed looked more so a lack of execution than fatigue in my opinion. It's not like he needed to push hard side to side or any extreme movements here. We're talking about a lot of straight shots that he just whiffed on.

Lack of execution is one of the primary symptoms of fatigue.

No one is suggesting he was tired in the way a person would be tired after a workout, it's tired as in you just can't execute at your highest level.

Also, there is no 'set amount'. One year a goalie could play 65 games and be great. The next year he could play 60 and be fatigued.

[Mathgod]

Not interested in a long form debate. I'll just say, from over 20 years of watching hockey, from what I've seen, I can confidently say that rested goalies tend to perform better in the playoffs than those that have had to endure heavy workloads during the season. Of course anyone can cherrypick examples of goalies that have had huge workloads and still played well in the playoffs. But again, from the totality of what I've seen, I'm convinced that fatigue becomes a factor for goaltenders, as it does for players at other positions as well. Of course other factors come into play as well, such as age, conditioning, nutrition, etc. Some athletes have better endurance than others.

Comparing '04 Kipper vs Detroit vs '07 Kipper vs Detroit... he was more dominant in '04. Besides, Kipper never played past the first round after '04... he likely would have started wearing down if the team made a deep run in the playoffs.

Brodeur played on dominant defensive teams that stifled their opponents with their suffocating trap system, making life realtively easy on the goaltender.

[Classic_Sniper]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Lack of execution is one of the primary symptoms of fatigue.

No one is suggesting he was tired in the way a person would be tired after a workout, it's tired as in you just can't execute at your highest level.

Also, there is no 'set amount'. One year a goalie could play 65 games and be great. The next year he could play 60 and be fatigued.

So was Brian Elliott's awful series against Anaheim also due to fatigue as well?

I think your theory about Markstrom would make more sense if he hadn't also been so terrible against the Oilers all of this season and this season as well. I mean game 1 of the season, 0.875 sv%. You can't say he was tired from game 1 of the season. Last year, first game against the Oilers, 0.875 sv% as well.

Dude has a 0.874 sv% vs the Oilers in his last 18 games against them. I think it's safe to say based on the numbers, he sucks in the BoA.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Originally Posted by Mathgod

Not interested in a long form debate. I'll just say, from over 20 years of watching hockey, from what I've seen, I can confidently say that rested goalies tend to perform better in the playoffs than those that have had to endure heavy workloads during the season. Of course anyone can cherrypick examples of goalies that have had huge workloads and still played well in the playoffs. But again, from the totality of what I've seen, I'm convinced that fatigue becomes a factor for goaltenders, as it does for players at other positions as well. Of course other factors come into play as well, such as age, conditioning, nutrition, etc. Some athletes have better endurance than others.

Comparing '04 Kipper vs Detroit vs '07 Kipper vs Detroit... he was more dominant in '04. Besides, Kipper never played past the first round after '04... he likely would have started wearing down if the team made a deep run in the playoffs.

Brodeur played on dominant defensive teams that stifled their opponents with their suffocating trap system, making life realtively easy on the goaltender.

Respectfully, I admire your confidence in your observations and would love to see it backed up by evidence

(You have visibility in to players’ nutrition? Cool, please share :-) Flames should share Johnny’s diet as he was their best player)

I didn’t cherry pick Brodeur and Kipper, whatever that means. They played roughly the same number of games in the regular season as Markstrom played in the regular season plus playoffs and didn’t hit a wall or fall off a cliff

They are among few goalies with high workloads, and happened to have no drop off

To be quite honest, the style of play for skaters, the intensity ratchets up and guys get hurt. But goalies I would submit are generally not affected as much by the increase in hitting and intensity of battles as skaters.

There are relatively few goaltenders that get that high workload. But it generally corresponds to a large gap between level of #1 and backup.

If you say that you have watched hockey for 20 years and feel something is true, feel free to back it up. I would be interested

[JohnnyB]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

There is no doubt Markstrom was the difference in the Oilers series ending in 5. Had he been able to maintain his regular season winning % the Flames win game 2, 4 and 5. Smith rocked a .906 against the Flames but he was the better of the 2 goalies.

I am disappointed in that series but still happy with the signing and feel he is no doubt the best goalie since Kipper.

That Oilers series morphed into a lot of rush chances against and the team was unable to play their style at all through the series. It was a lot of bad goals against but a lot of grade A chances given up.

I agree with pretty much everything here.

It sucks that Markstrom was such a contributing factor to the series loss, especially considering how his play was such a huge contribution to the win against Dallas and he could have made a similar difference against the Oilers, but his play was far from the only factor that led to the loss. He's still a good goalie to have signed long-term.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Classic_Sniper

So was Brian Elliott's awful series against Anaheim also due to fatigue as well?

I think your theory about Markstrom would make more sense if he hadn't also been so terrible against the Oilers all of this season and this season as well. I mean game 1 of the season, 0.875 sv%. You can't say he was tired from game 1 of the season. Last year, first game against the Oilers, 0.875 sv% as well.

Dude has a 0.874 sv% vs the Oilers in his last 18 games against them. I think it's safe to say based on the numbers, he sucks in the BoA.

First of all, it wasn't my theory, I was simply commenting that execution is a casualty of fatigue.

And what the hell are you on about with the game one comment? Who said - at any point - that ALL bad play is a result of fatigue? (same applies to the Brian Elliott comment)

Finally, yes, he was bad against the Oilers all year (to greater or lesser degrees), and his confidence with them no doubt played a part. But both things can be true at the same time.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by JohnnyB

I agree with pretty much everything here.

It sucks that Markstrom was such a contributing factor to the series loss, especially considering how his play was such a huge contribution to the win against Dallas and he could have made a similar difference against the Oilers, but his play was far from the only factor that led to the loss. He's still a good goalie to have signed long-term.

Yup. I actually think Markstrom was only really bad in game one, which they won. The team really tended to fold around him though, and he didn't make enough mindblowing saves (he made a bunch though). I really don't think Smith outgoaltended him so much as the Flames didn't play hard enough.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Yup. I actually think Markstrom was only really bad in game one, which they won. The team really tended to fold around him though, and he didn't make enough mindblowing saves (he made a bunch though). I really don't think Smith outgoaltended him so much as the Flames didn't play hard enough.

Can't really hide from a .901 SV%. Maybe in 1986 you could get to the finals with a goaltender sporting that low of a save percentage but today you would be hard pressed to win a seven game series against the 16th seed in the playoffs.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

Can't really hide from a .901 SV%. Maybe in 1986 you could get to the finals with a goaltender sporting that low of a save percentage but today you would be hard pressed to win a seven game series against the 16th seed in the playoffs.

Absolutely. Which is also why the Oilers appear destined to go nowhere in front of Mike Smith.

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