One thing is for sure. Dubas inherited one of the strongest goaltending depths in the league and turned it into one of the weakest over a few weeks. Laughable he couldn't get anything for McBackup.
Laughable? Backups don't get you much of anything. Especially not older backups, or those with a large sample size of below average play. All of this true for McElhinney. At that point, he was a 34 year old who had always been a weak backup but whose last 18 games were great. Do you really think teams would throw themselves over that?One thing is for sure. Dubas inherited one of the strongest goaltending depths in the league and turned it into one of the weakest over a few weeks. Laughable he couldn't get anything for McBackup.
They called up Bracco??
Would think Petan would be the put back in.
Yeah, I was watching McBackup yesterday vs Buffalo. He gave Tampa all chances to win. And he is only 1.3M. I really want a trustworthy backup. If they can fit it in the cap - why the hell can't we.
Haha, I like what you did there. I sometimes think his cap covers his vision.You can have the best capologists money can buy but the GM has to have a thinking cap of his own.
That should tell some fans that they overrate backup goaltending to an absurd degreeOne thing is for sure. Dubas inherited one of the strongest goaltending depths in the league and turned it into one of the weakest over a few weeks. Laughable he couldn't get anything for McBackup.
Why is this thread so dead??? What is everyone doing on a Sunday?
Don't worry you will soon be rewarded, dude! I truly hope we win.i'm cleaning my house. it's really exciting stuff.
Laughable? Backups don't get you much of anything. Especially not older backups, or those with a large sample size of below average play. All of this true for McElhinney. At that point, he was a 34 year old who had always been a weak backup but whose last 18 games were great. Do you really think teams would throw themselves over that?
If we actually had one of the strongest goaltending depths in the league, we could have lost a backup without turning into the weakest. Fairly obvious.
That should tell some fans that they overrate backup goaltending to an absurd degree
How? We did't get home ice because of the backup last year and if they don't again or miss the playoffs, check our record when the backup starts. It's not all on them, but it's clear the team needs a better backup to win as they can't tighten up for worse goalies than Freddy.
It's a fault on management as a whole but especially Dubas for not addressing it 2 years in a row.
It has been proven time and time again that backup goaltending didnt cost us home ice.
Proven how exactly?
The majority of Sparks losses were on the team, not on him. McElhinney would have to have a 0.710 Win% on the season for the Leafs to have had home ice advantage, which was only done by Vasilevskiy this season.
Now not only would he need a 0.710 Win% but he would have to do it with 10 of his 17 starts being a back to back and 11 of those 17 games the Leafs scored 2 goals or fewer.
The only argument that can be made is perhaps Babcock would have more faith in McElhinney and give Andersen a bit of a break down the stretch. But considering he only played 18 and 14 games in the 2 years prior, I doubt that would be the case.
You can't just use team wins like that. They weren't the only two players on the ice. By using GSAA* there's a 9 goal difference between them. On average, that buys you another two wins. Two wins are inconsequential. Pure backups are pretty inconsequential unless your starter is injured long-term.
*GSAA basically looks at what save percentage you should expect by an average goaltender and compares it to the goaltender in question. The difference is then the amount of Goals Saved Against Average (goaltending).
This is a post by me in this thread (The teammate the leafs players missed the most this season.):
And here is a post from @Nithoniniel that same thread re: McElhinney vs. Sparks
Let me ask you, given we are in a fight to make the playoffs, do you trust Hutch or Sparks to start a random game to rest Andersen? It's more than B2B, this failure to address the position also means Andersen will once again be over worked for the playoffs.