Goaltending Metric Shines Harsh Light on Avs' Goalies

Ugg.

about 1 year ago Mike @ MHH 27 comments 0 recs |

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neither was named as a Vezina finalist either. coincidence?

Hyphens cause writers more trouble than any other form of punctuation, except perhaps commas.

by David Driscoll-Carignan on Apr 27, 2009 12:12 PM MDT reply actions

Conspiracy?

2008-2009 Colorado Avalanche: Dry Humping Mediocrity

by Mike @ MHH on Apr 27, 2009 12:35 PM MDT up reply actions

If only Budaj played 65 games like he played the last 5 or so games…

by c0nquistad0rian on Apr 27, 2009 12:56 PM MDT up reply actions

If only the defense played in front of him (not that he didn’t play quite well, I grant that) like they did in the last 5 games….

Tells me our biggest problem in goal / defense is Cloutier. The rest are all symptoms of his system.

by Hopfenkopf on Apr 27, 2009 1:31 PM MDT up reply actions

I don’t think you can really separate the two: Goaltending and Defense, when talking about this season’s team. Neither one complimented the other very well on most occasions. When they did, we ended up with big wins (Buffalo, Washington, Detroit 3X).
Scary to think that with the defense we had on paper, it only got better when we had a bunch of injuries and had rookies trying to earn a potential spot on next season’s roster.

MHH: Like the Avs organization, we’ve now officially lost our minds.

I'm The Canary - but I'm not cute nor cuddly, and I don't sing.

by Americanario on Apr 27, 2009 1:35 PM MDT up reply actions

I agree wholeheartedly. They are a hand in glove type relationship. Although I don’t play organized hockey, 14 years of football as a defenseman made it abundantly clear that they are completely inter-related. This make me call all the louder for Cloutier’s head (figuratively) since players with what one would have said at the start of the season was much less talent managed to put up a much greater defense only because they were playing Lefebrvre (sp?) defense and not Cloutier defense.

by Hopfenkopf on Apr 27, 2009 2:13 PM MDT up reply actions

Comments

because my comments were too wordy, i won’t repeat them here. Nevertheless, I still believe the avs awful defense is reflected in Budaj and Raycroft’s stats here.

The 2008-2009 Colorado Avalanche: Slumpbusters

by Jibblescribbits on Apr 27, 2009 12:48 PM MDT reply actions

I’m not really surprised. A lot has been made of our defensemen under performing, normally citing things like point totals, plus/minus numbers, and the costly turn over. But if you take a look just the sheer number of shots that the team has blocked, you have to figure that they are taking away a decent amount of chances with those shots.

And those costly turnovers are really only noticed because most of the time, they’ve turned into goals. A quality goalie should be able to bail his team out of those situations – especially when they’re laying it on the line by blocking shots for said goalie. But more times than not, the Avs goalies haven’t been able to do that.

by c0nquistad0rian on Apr 27, 2009 12:52 PM MDT reply actions

But if you take a look just the sheer number of shots that the team has blocked, you have to figure that they are taking away a decent amount of chances with those shots

They are also taking a a decent amount of those easy-to-save chances that get through to the goalies on other teams, thereby giving the Avs goalies a disadvantage to the Save% stats. Also all those defenders getting in the shooting lanes has a tendency to screen goalies (Hello Scott Hannan), making normally easy saves harder.

The 2008-2009 Colorado Avalanche: Slumpbusters

by Jibblescribbits on Apr 27, 2009 1:03 PM MDT up reply actions

Having your defense blocking shots can actually hurt the goalie. A lot of goalies don’t want their guys blocking shots because those are normally the ones they can see and are easy to cover up. Too often the blocked shot ends up changing directions or dropping into areas that make it difficult for the goalie to save if it ends up on net, or on the stick of the opponent. Also like Jibbles said above, having guys trying to block shots can also screen the goalie making his job tougher if the puck get’s through because he either doesn’t see the angle of the initial shot, or it has changed directions by being blocked.

MHH: Like the Avs organization, we’ve now officially lost our minds.

I'm The Canary - but I'm not cute nor cuddly, and I don't sing.

by Americanario on Apr 27, 2009 1:27 PM MDT up reply actions

I am actually a goaltender myself and I agree with those points regarding shotblocking: it can make things tricky for a goalie sometimes. And to be quite honest, it can get a little frustrating when your team is blocking those shots that are the easy, confidence boosting, type of saves.

But you still have to be able to come up big for your team. We all know that good goaltending goes a long way and it can cover up – or at least make up for – your team’s flaws.

There has been plenty of blame to go around any way you slice it.

by c0nquistad0rian on Apr 27, 2009 1:56 PM MDT up reply actions

What's the deal here?

We only have a few people who actively play hockey, but they’re all goalies. Weird.

by SlamDunkTheFunk on Apr 27, 2009 2:12 PM MDT up reply actions

haha actually, I got the link to this blog from Mike while talking Avalanche on a goalie message board. Thanks, Mike!

by c0nquistad0rian on Apr 27, 2009 2:17 PM MDT up reply actions

You’re welcome.

2008-2009 Colorado Avalanche: Dry Humping Mediocrity

by Mike @ MHH on Apr 27, 2009 2:21 PM MDT up reply actions

Weird.

Is it?

Is it really?

Maybe YOU’RE the weird one, eh? Ever think about that?

2008-2009 Colorado Avalanche: Dry Humping Mediocrity

by Mike @ MHH on Apr 27, 2009 2:20 PM MDT up reply actions

No.

Because I have you guys to constantly remind me of it. Duh.

by SlamDunkTheFunk on Apr 27, 2009 2:37 PM MDT up reply actions

Hey. I played 2 seasons of indoor roller hockey. My skating skills are not so good so I gave up the NHL via rec roller hockey dream.

Never trust the lunch lady.

by Hardshell_Taco_del_Lowayne on Apr 27, 2009 3:25 PM MDT up reply actions

Would that more of the ’tards in my Adult League had your foresight…

2008-2009 Colorado Avalanche: Dry Humping Mediocrity

by Mike @ MHH on Apr 27, 2009 4:47 PM MDT up reply actions

Were it not for the 'tards, you likely wouldn't have a league :)!

by Hopfenkopf on Apr 27, 2009 6:28 PM MDT up reply actions

Cause we’re awesome, and so is this site therefore it is us goalies, mostly The Savage, and not those pesky award winning, get all the credit players, that made this place awesome.

The Savage has spoken. Let it be done

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference"
R. Frost

by Savage33 on Apr 28, 2009 2:09 AM MDT up reply actions

I was only defending Raycroft and Budaj because, nationally and locally, I think they both take way too much of the blame for this season. Neither was very good this season, but a stat like this tends to let the defense off the hook when that shouldn’t be the case at all.

The 2008-2009 Colorado Avalanche: Slumpbusters

by Jibblescribbits on Apr 27, 2009 2:13 PM MDT up reply actions

It’s the nature of the beast: goalies are generally the first ones to get the blame. No, the defense wasn’t very good this season at all.

I know that Budaj has a lot of supporters around here. But, he’s never shown that he’s more than a 1A/1B goalie: Very streaky. Low low’s and high high’s. And his largest games played total at a professional, North American level coming into this season was 59 games with Hershey in 2004-5. it still is.

And Raycroft hasn’t really done much since his Calder Trophy winning rookie season. Think of all of the pre-season predictions which questioned and almost made fun of the Avs for going into the season with that goaltending tandem. are now able to come back and say, “See! Told you so!”

And no one can tell them otherwise. Yeah, Budaj was on fire to end the season. And yeah, Raycroft at one time sported a 9-1 record and seemed to have Detroit’s number. But overall, neither of them did much to help their cause or make anyone think otherwise.

by c0nquistad0rian on Apr 27, 2009 2:37 PM MDT up reply actions

Agree

Budaj hasn’t done anything to prove he’s more than a good backup this season. What bothers me is that many think the avs will be fixed by getting a good goalie. It will certainly help, but le’ts not hink it’s the cure-all here. The avs have a lot of problems to solve… including (but not limited to) in between the pipes.

The 2008-2009 Colorado Avalanche: Slumpbusters

by Jibblescribbits on Apr 27, 2009 5:58 PM MDT up reply actions

Raycroft was horrible in Toronto. I was shocked to see he caught on with another NHL team because he honestly proved without a doubt he didn’t deserve to while playing here.

Check out my blog at fromtherink.com

by James Mirtle on Apr 28, 2009 1:49 PM MDT up reply actions

Well

After this season Raycroft looked like a backup to me. Maybe a backup on a bad team, but the guy can play backup goalie. He wasn’t completely atrocious.

The 2008-2009 Colorado Avalanche: Slumpbusters

by Jibblescribbits on Apr 28, 2009 3:00 PM MDT up reply actions

Then again...

On paper at least, our defense was supposed to be one of the strong points of this team. And There certainly hasn’t been much made of how that wasn’t the case as much as there has been discussed about injuries to the team.

I would like to see a more agressive defense corps both in the defensive zone and in the offensive zone (remember when the Avs had the highest scoring defense corps in the league about 5-6 years ago?) I would also not mind seeing Cloutier let go. But, I also wonder how much input the head coach has in in regards to defensive systems.

Bylsma has allowed his defense corps to actively jump into the play, offensively. And it seems very effective. He uses an “F3” system in which the third foward in hangs back in the high slot which allows the defensemen to be active on the boards, keeping pucks in the zone and pinching down low. The way the Pens defensemen play reminds me of the Avs when they had Rob Blake.

by c0nquistad0rian on Apr 27, 2009 2:53 PM MDT reply actions