Half-Assed GDT: Blues at Oilers: impossible canada trip continues

[KingBran]

1. I don't favor Elliott over Allen or vice-versa--I favor whoever is playing best.
2. I prefer to use the Kings and Hawks as a measuring stick..certainly as opposed to the Capitals. The Kings and Hawks have won 5 of the last 6 SC's and are the cream of the crop until another team proves otherwise.
3. I think we all agree that there may be problems with the coach and the system. I wanted a coaching change last summer.
4. In a discrete sense, it is more important for a goalie to stop the shots he should save than to make the spectacular save. Stopping the ones he should save (such as clearly short side shots that are allowed for failing to hug the post) set the table for the defense to funnel attackers to the certain areas of the ice. If the defense loses confidence in the goalie to make the obvious saves, it can turn into chaos and severely deflate the team.

Fair enough. But don't say I am cherry picking stats when you turn around and do the same to a greater degree.

A goalie absolutely should stop the pucks they are supposed to but there are times they don't. It happens to every team. Getting blown out a couple games in a row happens to every team. In the playoffs look at the Hawks, Crawford was taken out in favor of Darling and there was a frenzy. Darling played good for a game or two and suddenly he's the next up and coming Patrick Roy. That died out fast. My point is a couple of games doesn't mean jack ****. I don't care how bad it is. Blues are not going to win-out the rest of the season.

Should they have beat Calgary and Edmonton? Statistically yes. Should they have won their previous 6 games in a row? Statistically no. If we just let the stats do ALL of the talking there would be no point in even playing the game. What I am getting at here is there is all this talk of Allen not playing up to snuff when our TEAM has some serious issues.

During that recent 6 game winning streak they had big trouble putting teams away or driving a stake into their heart with the lead. Which is why I brought up the goal differential against all other top teams in the league. It's a huge concern that has little to do with the goaltending because our goaltending is a huge reason we are where we are. Broken record time... its because they have both led the league in GAA and SV% at one point. I just don't get blaming them. Either of them.

I truly hate this line of thinking.

Allen has played in the NHL for two years and everyone loves to just think we've seen what he can do. I really don't think Elliott has been any more impressive than Allen this year. I'm not going to say Allen has played well the last few games, but I don't think Elliott is going to be any better when he comes back from his injury. So if we are going to forget about Allen's play earlier in the season, we have to do the same for Elliott.

Bingo.

 

[Brian39]

Allen just won 6 in a row after missing a month and before he was injured he was among the best in the league and at point leading all goalies in stats. The Blues lay a couple clunkers (as a TEAM) and suddenly Allen is the bad-guy again and has "tailed off"

Sorry but 6-2-0 after missing a month due to injury is not tailing off. That's pretty good actually.

But keep harping on our goalie please. I will be sure to let you know that Elliott has "tailed off" after he loses just two in a row with the team playing like this in front of him next time it happens.

Allen is 6-4 since coming back from injury and was let off the hook for the loss against Calgary because we scored a bunch after he was yanked. He has a .899 SV% over that stretch and hasn't allowed fewer than 2 goals a single time. That is tailing off. He looked really good for about a week and a half, but has looked really bad in the 3 games before and after that stretch. I'm not concerned about Allen at all, but acting like he isn't struggling is just ignoring reality.

 

[Brian39]

A goalie absolutely should stop the pucks they are supposed to but there are times they don't. It happens to every team. Getting blown out a couple games in a row happens to every team. In the playoffs look at the Hawks, Crawford was taken out in favor of Darling and there was a frenzy. Darling played good for a game or two and suddenly he's the next up and coming Patrick Roy. That died out fast. My point is a couple of games doesn't mean jack ****. I don't care how bad it is. Blues are not going to win-out the rest of the season.

Should they have beat Calgary and Edmonton? Statistically yes. Should they have won their previous 6 games in a row? Statistically no. If we just let the stats do ALL of the talking there would be no point in even playing the game. What I am getting at here is there is all this talk of Allen not playing up to snuff when our TEAM has some serious issues.

During that recent 6 game winning streak they had big trouble putting teams away or driving a stake into their heart with the lead. Which is why I brought up the goal differential against all other top teams in the league. It's a huge concern that has little to do with the goaltending because our goaltending is a huge reason we are where we are. Broken record time... its because they have both led the league in GAA and SV% at one point. I just don't get blaming them. Either of them.

No one is saying we are going to win out every game. No one is saying we need to give up on Allen. No one is saying that he is a terrible goalie. You can acknowledge that a goalie played badly and still believe they are a good goalie.

Allen played poorly the last 2 games. We probably win both of those games if Allen plays average or better. There were certainly other issues in the last 2 games, but even with those issues, we would have won if Allen played well. I'm not throwing Allen under the bus because it happens to every goalie in the league tons of times every year. I guarantee you that he would tell you he was bad last night. I'm sure he apologized to the team in the room.

 

[BlueDream]

Blueton just made a post about how if a goalie lets in a soft goal, "good teams pick them right back up and go score." But yet if a team is taking penalties, somehow that logic doesn't apply to the goalies who need to bail them out for a couple minutes... Interesting how that works! Only goalies are allowed to make mistakes I guess.

I don't think there's anything less I'd rather see than another dumb goalie debate but yes everyone else is right, the team was bad INCLUDING Allen. I don't see many people blame the goalies for everything. But I do see lots of people that refuse to blame the goalie for anything and they are far, far more annoying.

You can blame more than one player, you know. It's not the goalies vs. everyone else. They're all on the same team and they've all failed in the playoffs. Stop getting so defensive about a player getting criticized, at this point I think you can make a point to criticize every player on the team about something, except maybe the rookies who haven't done much to complain about. The team has to be better but it'd also be nice to have a goalie be consistent for once.

 

[KingBran]

Blueton just made a post about how if a goalie lets in a soft goal, "good teams pick them right back up and go score." But yet if a team is taking penalties, somehow that logic doesn't apply to the goalies who need to bail them out for a couple minutes... Interesting how that works! Only goalies are allowed to make mistakes I guess.

False.

Here is what I said:

Good teams pick up their mates. If a goalie lets in a softie, they go right down there and score. If the team isn't scoring the goalie makes great saves.

Good job making things up and putting words in my mouth. The point is everyone needs to pick each other up. Bad goals are going to happen and there will be times the team doesn't score much. The problem is the Blues have a serious problem with the latter where as the former is a once-in-a-while occurrence that gets blown out of proportion by some fans.

We HAVE had consistent goaltending. We have not had consistent goal-scoring. Jake and Ells have both been great this season, again I will say it. At one point for more than just a few days, each has led the NHL in GAA and SV%. Yet were the worst team out of the top 3 division leaders in goal differential. +6 compared to everyone else being at least +20 (Except NYR who is a +16 and ANA +13).

So with those kinds of numbers it just proves that our goaltending has been a huge factor in our success this season. We aren't scoring much but the goalies are performing. Both of them. Hard to believe someone likes both and is not taking sides right? If we had any kind of goalie with lesser stats its probable we would be in a wild-card or worse spot right now in the standings.

Here is something else I said in that thread you mis-quoted me on:

This is another one I don't get. Here is the Blues scoring last playoffs:
2, 4, 0, 6, 1, 1

So in 4 of 6 games they scored 2 or less goals. In three of those they scored 1 or less. So the Blues HAD to have minimum of 2 shutouts in a 7 game series to win it if were going to excuse our players and blame the goalies. The one other game would have at least gone to OT. And that's if our goalie was posting ANOTHER third shutout through 60 minutes.

So basically our goalie would have had to have posted at least 3 shutouts through 60 minutes to even have a chance at winning that series... And you want to blame the goalie.

 

[BlueDream]

Except the Blues' goalies don't make great saves when the team isn't scoring so you just made up the fact that that happens, which is a no no. Your 2nd quote I never mis-quoted so that made no sense.

Allen and Elliott have both been great in the regular season, nobody is really debating that. And yes, the offense has been the MAIN problem in the playoffs.

But the goaltending has also been a bit of an issue. It doesn't have to be the main issue to still be an issue and people like you who are blind to reality and think it's perfect are pretty funny. The game was already lost the moment Jake Allen let up that stinker in game 6, and it was surely over when he let up another one. I'm not saying the team's mentality is strong so sure blame them as well, but the goaltending hasn't been perfect like you're sitting here and saying it has.

Take a look at Jake Allen's playoff history with the Blues, Wolves and in Juniors (and the WJC). His save % is under .900 combined, and was only .904 against the Wild. He has historically choked at every level, you can look it up yourself. If you think there's no room for improvement, you're wrong. That is the exact same save percentage Brian Elliott posted in the 2012 playoffs. The only number that has been remotely respectable was in 2013 against the Kings from Elliott. And even then he let in one of the worst goals in the playoffs. Yes we should be able to get by one stinker, but there's been issues.

So yeah, hopefully one of Elliott or Allen can FINALLY take the reigns and lead this team on a run but if you're 100% convinced either one of them is truly the answer since they haven't proven it yet, that's being a borderline homer. Elliott to me deserves another shot if we have to pick a starter right now, but the Blues seem set on Allen as their guy for the future.