February 8, 2015

Thomas Drance

2015-02-08

A unified theory of goalie analysis, Los Angeles rights the ship, Dubnyk can’t be scored on and more…

The Toronto Maple Leafs finally ended their franchise record 11-game losing streak on Saturday, defeating the lowly Taylor Hall-less Edmonton Oilers by a score of 5-1. Goaltender James Reimer, who has been on a nice run of late, nearly managed a shutout, but Luke Gadzic – really? – scored his first goal of the season with seconds left to the break the goose egg.

Not bad for Reimer’s second start in back-to-back games.

There was some discussion in this space yesterday of whether or not Reimer or Bernier is the better netminder. I’ve generally thought that it’s closer than most believe, but in terms of projecting future performance, I prefer to rely on large sample even-strength save percentage. Since the 2009 season, and not including this year, Bernier has managed a solid .927 save percentage at even-strength – which is roughly what Pekka Rinne has done, albeit in more minutes. Reimer lags behind, but not by as much as you’d think, with a .926 save percentage that puts him in the company of Ryan Miller and Craig Anderson over a similar time frame.

With goaltenders a lot of people, many of whom have little in the way of formal goalie coaching experience or training, and who probably struggle to identify save selections or when a goaltender is using a post integration technique, seem to enjoy discussing how a guy “looks” in net. “Oh he doesn’t look comfortable!” “His glove hand is shaky!” etc. etc.

I’ve always been really reluctant to pay any credence to these sorts of arguments. The difference between an elite goaltender – one who can consistently post a .928 or better even-strength save percentage over a large sample – and a liability like Ondrej Pavelec is 12 additional saves (or so) over 1000 shots faced. If you think your eyes can pick up on that, I’d suggest that you’re being obtuse.

Thomas Boswell wrote an excellent piece on Greg Maddux as the former Atlanta Braves great was about to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. In a part of the piece, Maddux explains why he didn’t really try to overpower big league batters (even though he had a good fast-ball and could bring the heat). I think it’s relevant here:

Maddux was convinced no hitter could tell the speed of a pitch with any meaningful accuracy. To demonstrate, he pointed at a road a quarter-mile away and said it was impossible to tell if a car was going 55, 65 or 75 mph unless there was another car nearby to offer a point of reference.

"You just can't do it," he said. Sometimes hitters can pick up differences in spin. They can identify pitches if there are different releases points or if a curveball starts with an upward hump as it leaves the pitcher's hand. But if a pitcher can change speeds, every hitter is helpless, limited by human vision.

Maddux didn’t think that the eyes of big league hitters could reliabily pick up the difference in the speed of a pitch. That’s similar to what I’ll call my unified theory of goalie analysis: that I don’t buy that the eyes of laymen hockey fans can pick up the difference in the quality of goaltenders.

You watch Dominik Hasek in his prime, and his prime was the best any goaltender has ever been, and tell me he looked comfortable in his crease. Didn’t matter, he saved a way above average rate of shots.

Reimer isn’t at that level, or even close to it, and he never will be. But when comparing him with the smoother, more efficient Bernier, I think it’s worth remembering that both goalies save pucks at an above average rate – and are decent bets to continue doing so for several years to come.

Speaking of how goalies are super weird, in less than a year Devan Dubnyk has gone from being out of hockey to being Minnesota’s great hope.

He sure looked shaky last year though, but if you were distrustful of what your eyes said and relied instead on the way he’s saved pucks at an above average rate for several years behind an atrocious defensive club, maybe you wouldn’t be so surprised.

Remember a bit earlier in the column when I discussed how Bernier’s even-strength save percentage has been roughly equivalent to Pekka Rinne’s over the past five years? Well Jhonas Enroth’s has been better – albeit in a much smaller sample of games.

Doing what Rinne has done consistently – starting 60+ games a year and maintaining an elite level of performance – is different and more impressive than managing those results in platoon and backup duty like Bernier and Enroth have. They’re still good bets though for a team looking to improve in net.

Enroth is a pending unrestricted free agent, and a sharp team will overlook his size issues and sign him to a deal. It would be very interesting to see him play behind a team that isn’t historically awful.

In a high-octane, Eastern Conference heavyweight matchup, the Boston Bruins outlasted the New York Islanders thanks to a third-period goal from Loui Eriksson. Though he didn’t get the win the Islanders have to be relieved that Chad Johnson didn’t get blown up – as he’s been wont to do this season. The Bruins meanwhile have now gone 7-2-1 over their past 10 games and are looking every bit the threat we expected in the Eastern Conference.

Some particularly good signs for Boston: Milan Lucic managed seven hits and a shot on Saturday, while Brad Marchand and Patrice Bergeron combined for 10 shots (and Bergeron scored a goal). Meanwhile that third-line of Eriksson, traffic director Carl Soderberg, and Chris Kelly manufactured the game winner and did very well to control play throughout. This is a team that’s looking deep and stingy again, which is bad news for the Eastern Conference.

Life without Henrik Lundqvist began for the New York Rangers with a 3-2 loss against Nashville on Saturday. Cam Talbot played well, and even the two goals in 41 seconds weren’t really on him. I do worry about this Rangers club in Lundqvist’s absence though.

The Rangers, for the past couple of months, have been getting rolled in the puck possession battle at five-on-five. Those flaws have been covered up rather thoroughly though by the stellar goaltending Lundqvist (and yes, Talbot too) have provided.

Luckily for New York, there isn’t a team like Minnesota that’s charging hard and really poised to challenge them in the East. This could be a very long three weeks for Rangers fans though.

Shea Weber and his defense partner Roman Josi managed to deflate the Rangers with two quick goals late in the second frame. Both of Nashville’s top-pairing guys are now in the top-10 among all NHL defenseman in terms of their fantasy rank (assuming a standard Yahoo! league that counts G, A, PPP, +/-, and SHOTS).

The Columbus Blue Jackets rolled both the Ottawa Senators (who have been play much better hockey of late) and the St. Louis Blues (one of the league’s best teams) by a combined score of 11 to 2 this weekend. What could’ve been if they’d been healthy…

The Montreal Canadiens game, a 6-2 defeat of the New Jersey Devils, maybe should have been ended with one of the on-ice officials pleading with the Habs power-play “Stop! Stop! They’re already dead.”

It was a fantastic night for P.K. Subban fantasy owners at least, as the Canadiens defender racked up three assists – all of them on the power-play. Max Pacioretty had a big night too with two assists and five shots, while Brendan Gallagher took seven shots and added an assist. Dale Weise meanwhile scored two goals. Two goals! So don’t expect him to be off that top-line anytime soon…

Tomas Tatar scored his 23rd goal of the season, and I swear, he’s going to hit 30 and no one will write about it.

I don’t understand why Tatar’s emergence as this bona fide top-six slayer has been so overlooked this season. On a team with Pavel Datsyuk, Henrik Zetterberg, and Gustav Nyquist it’s Tatar who leads all Red Wings players in scoring rate this season. He’s the 14th most efficient goalscorer in hockey, and hasn’t been reliant on the bounces to achieve it.

He’s just a goal scoring machine.

Vancouver destroyed Pittsburgh 5-0 and several of their players hit career milestones. Daniel Sedin, for example, beat Markus Naslund’s franchise record for power-play goals with a garbage time third period tally. Radim Vrbata meanwhile recorded his 500th career NHL point, which is a pretty great accomplishment for a player who even most ardent hockey fans couldn’t pick out of a crowd.

Justin Faulk’s three assits helped power the Carolina Hurricanes past a San Jose Sharks club that specializes in losing to inferior clubs.

Though it came in a losing effort, Patrick Marleau managed a goal and an assist on Saturday and is quietly on a nice little streak. The aging Sharks forward has managed four goals and seven assists in his past 10 games.

Thomas Drance is the editor in chief of the Nation Network.

UPCOMING GAMES

Dec 23 - 13:12	N.J	vs	NYR
Dec 23 - 14:12	TOR	vs	WPG
Dec 23 - 19:12	DET	vs	STL
Dec 23 - 19:12	CBJ	vs	MTL
Dec 23 - 19:12	BOS	vs	WSH
Dec 23 - 19:12	FLA	vs	T.B
Dec 23 - 19:12	PIT	vs	PHI
Dec 23 - 19:12	NYI	vs	BUF
Dec 23 - 20:12	NSH	vs	CAR
Dec 23 - 20:12	MIN	vs	CHI
Dec 23 - 21:12	UTA	vs	DAL
Dec 23 - 21:12	VAN	vs	S.J
Dec 23 - 22:12	VGK	vs	ANA