Observations XIX

[AdmiralsFan24]

As I said in another thread (or maybe it was this one) earlier. Josi and Ellis combined for 9 points and 0 goals in the playoffs. Austin Watson had 8 points.

 

[Armourboy]

It's why I've said in several places that Rinne wasnt great, but there is more than enough blame to go around. Josi and Ellis were bad, and the 2nd line may have been worse.

Ellis is the one that disappoints me the most. I can't even remember a decent shot from him.

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

So Rinne had a poor performance against the Jets that's of no surprise, he also had a poor performance against the Pens, and the Sharks dating back to 2016.

However, let's take a look at the other goalies that faced the teams Rinne faced.

2016 playoffs:
Quick against the Sharks: GAA:3.05 Sv%: 88.64
Elliott against the Sharks: GAA:3.01 Sv%:88.42
Elliott before the Sharks: GAA:2.29 Sv%:92.90
Matt Murray: GAA:1.76 Sv%:92.03
Murray before the Sharks: GAA:2.21 Sv%:92.45
Rinne against the Sharks: GAA:2.81 Sv%:89.76

Other than Murray (And even then he had a lower save percentage versus the Sharks), every other opponent had their stats suffer severely against the Sharks compared to not facing the Sharks that season. In fact both Elliott and Quick had worse stats than Rinne despite playing on arguably better teams when it comes to team defense.

2017 playoffs:
Bobrovsky: GAA:3.88 Sv%:88.24
Holtby: GAA:2.57 Sv%:88.74
Holtby before the Pens: GAA:2.36 Sv%:92.49
Rinne against the Pens: GAA:2.80 Sv%:88.80
Rinne before the Pens: GAA:1.70 Sv%:94.09
Anderson against the Pens: GAA:2.07 Sv%:93.64
Anderson before the Pens: GAA:2.49 Sv%:91.35

Other than Anderson's statistical anomaly against the Pens, every other goalies played far worse than Rinne did against the Pens. Although to Rinne's credit he did have better defense than both the Caps and BJs.

2018 playoffs:
Devan Dubnyk: GAA:3.39 Sv%:90.79
Rinne against the Jets: GAA:3.49 Sv%:89.95

Yes Rinne was worse than Dubnyk, but again it's not like Dubnyk played well. Jets are a strong team.

So while Rinne has struggled in the post season for the last few seasons, most goalies that played the opponent he faced has either performed just as poorly or worse.

 

[NoNecksCurse]

sorry but why do you have a jets avatar now?

 

[triggrman]

Rinne sucked, those goals against in game 7 were rec league bullshit.


I do think our defense wasn't as good as normal but I think they tried to play conservative because of Rinne and we're not built like that.

I'd like to see more balance on the pairings. Josi and Ellis are both smaller less physical defensemen than Subban and Ekholm. Balance that out. Josi and Subban should be the top pairing, and we all know how good Ekholm and Ellis have been in the past, make it happen.

 

[Drake744]

Well here's this stuff,

 

[NoNecksCurse]

pretty sad. we can't use the injury excuse. we were pretty much completely healthy.

 

[LCPreds]

pretty sad. we can't use the injury excuse. we were pretty much completely healthy.

Certainly no excuse there as a team. I just wonder when the Hartman injury occurred as I wonder if it had anything to do with his play in the postseason.

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

Rinne sucked, those goals against in game 7 were rec league bull****.


I do think our defense wasn't as good as normal but I think they tried to play conservative because of Rinne and we're not built like that.

I'd like to see more balance on the pairings. Josi and Ellis are both smaller less physical defensemen than Subban and Ekholm. Balance that out. Josi and Subban should be the top pairing, and we all know how good Ekholm and Ellis have been in the past, make it happen.

Rinne had a terrible game 7 I agree, but throughout the majority of the Peg series, he wasn't as bad as people think. Winnipeg generated a ton of dangerous chances, and that's not including the fact that the Jets players in general are more dangerous even in non-high danger areas (Scheifele and Laine especially). Hellebuyck also gave up some questionable goals.

 

[Bjornar Moxnes]

sorry but why do you have a jets avatar now?

Because I'd rather Winnipeg win the cup out of the 4 teams remaining.

 

[LCPreds]

Because I'd rather Winnipeg win the cup out of the 4 teams remaining.

And now we have to look at Winnipeg avatars for the next month. Ugh.

 

[Drake744]

pretty sad. we can't use the injury excuse. we were pretty much completely healthy.

Certainly could've been worse. Only thing I guess I can say is the Hartman injury probably forced us to play Salomaki who, quite frankly, does absolutely nothing.

 

[Drake744]

And now we have to look at Winnipeg avatars for the next month. Ugh.

I'd rather them win than Vegas, I'll say that.

 

[ILikeItILoveIt]

So Rinne had a poor performance against the Jets that's of no surprise, he also had a poor performance against the Pens, and the Sharks dating back to 2016.

However, let's take a look at the other goalies that faced the teams Rinne faced.

2016 playoffs:
Quick against the Sharks: GAA:3.05 Sv%: 88.64
Elliott against the Sharks: GAA:3.01 Sv%:88.42
Elliott before the Sharks: GAA:2.29 Sv%:92.90
Matt Murray: GAA:1.76 Sv%:92.03
Murray before the Sharks: GAA:2.21 Sv%:92.45
Rinne against the Sharks: GAA:2.81 Sv%:89.76

Other than Murray (And even then he had a lower save percentage versus the Sharks), every other opponent had their stats suffer severely against the Sharks compared to not facing the Sharks that season. In fact both Elliott and Quick had worse stats than Rinne despite playing on arguably better teams when it comes to team defense.

2017 playoffs:
Bobrovsky: GAA:3.88 Sv%:88.24
Holtby: GAA:2.57 Sv%:88.74
Holtby before the Pens: GAA:2.36 Sv%:92.49
Rinne against the Pens: GAA:2.80 Sv%:88.80
Rinne before the Pens: GAA:1.70 Sv%:94.09
Anderson against the Pens: GAA:2.07 Sv%:93.64
Anderson before the Pens: GAA:2.49 Sv%:91.35

Other than Anderson's statistical anomaly against the Pens, every other goalies played far worse than Rinne did against the Pens. Although to Rinne's credit he did have better defense than both the Caps and BJs.

2018 playoffs:
Devan Dubnyk: GAA:3.39 Sv%:90.79
Rinne against the Jets: GAA:3.49 Sv%:89.95

Yes Rinne was worse than Dubnyk, but again it's not like Dubnyk played well. Jets are a strong team.

So while Rinne has struggled in the post season for the last few seasons, most goalies that played the opponent he faced has either performed just as poorly or worse.

This is an enlightening post. We're about to add MAF to this list. Awesome numbers before Jets series. Thru Game 1 against the Jets = 4.00 GAA .846 SV %.
Game 7 was not lost by Pekka. He gave up 2 goals. It was 2-1 after 1 period. We had every chance to win that game. We didn't win because we couldn't put enough shots on Hellebuyck. He did not play great. He was a rebound machine but we couldn't get thru the trees for the rebounds.

 

[ILikeItILoveIt]

Because I'd rather Winnipeg win the cup out of the 4 teams remaining.

The fact is, Winnipeg is going to win the Cup because they played a little better than us. If we had won Game 7, we would have won the Cup. Vegas benefited from an easy division. They are in the process of being exposed. The Lightning are being exposed by the Caps. The Caps are good and maybe destined, but we would have beaten them.

And another thing ................... this "our season was a failure because we exited in the 2nd Round". Everyone agreed that #1 played #2 in our series. It was the result of the weird seeding the NHL does to maintain rivalries within division. Had it been seeded using the prior system, we'd be playing the Jets right now in the WCF. We were the best regular season team and 2nd best post-season team. We wanted #1 in both but in my mind it was no different than last year. There was one team better than us. This year it was just a different team.

 

[NoNecksCurse]

i will not put the series loss completely on pekka. josi, ellis, turris are 3 other guys that really stick out to me but game 7 is squarely on pekka's shoulders. no amount of smooth word pandering will change that. not including the game 3 melt down, if we scored first we won the game. if the jets scored first, they won the game. it's pretty simple knowledge that every play in a hockey game matters. not only was a rec league goal scored by the jets to make it 1-0, the jets scored another absolutely atrocious goal minutes later. that was beyond deflating. you can try to spin it however you want but if we scored first in game 7, i think we are still playing right now and pekka didn't even give our team or the fans a chance. yes it was 2-1 at the end of the first but those 2 goals changed everything in terms of how us and the jets played the rest of the game. we were never going to beat the jets by opening up and run and gun. we had to lock it down and get good goalie play. and pekka was a tire fire 75% of that series.

and fleury has played one game against the jets. let's see how he does the rest of the way. and anyone that has played sports can explain the difference between the other team scoring a good goal and a weak goal. what pekka did twice was deflating to anyone that cared about predators hockey. i would be willing to bet fleury has no goal as bad as pekkas 2 goals he let in in game 7.

 

[glenngineer]

There should never have been a game 7. We don't blow a 3-0 lead in their barn, this never happens. This falls on everyone. Also, when 1/3 or your roster or 1/2 of your upper echelon players aren't playing well, you're not going to beat a team like Winnipeg.

 

[NoNecksCurse]

 

[AdmiralsFan24]

Game 7 was not lost by Pekka. He gave up 2 goals. It was 2-1 after 1 period. We had every chance to win that game. We didn't win because we couldn't put enough shots on Hellebuyck. He did not play great. He was a rebound machine but we couldn't get thru the trees for the rebounds.

Ehh, he doesn't get all the blame because you don't win very often when you only score 1 goal but he gets quite a bit of blame when he allows two goals like that. Now if he allows a Laine missile and an easy tap in where the defense breaks down, that's different but he allowed a goal on a weak wrister from the goal line and another where he inexplicably comes off the post. Nobody has any idea how the game turns out if he doesn't allow those goals but allowing those goals and putting the team down 2-0 in the first 8 minutes of the game or whatever it was took away our home ice and had us playing from behind almost immediately.

 

[triggrman]

Rinne had a terrible game 7 I agree, but throughout the majority of the Peg series, he wasn't as bad as people think. Winnipeg generated a ton of dangerous chances, and that's not including the fact that the Jets players in general are more dangerous even in non-high danger areas (Scheifele and Laine especially). Hellebuyck also gave up some questionable goals.

Game 1 and game 7 were both terrible games by him. In the playoffs you need a goalie to steal a game or 2 for you to move on, he didn't.

 

[drwpreds]

i will not put the series loss completely on pekka. josi, ellis, turris are 3 other guys that really stick out to me but game 7 is squarely on pekka's shoulders. no amount of smooth word pandering will change that. yes it was 2-1 at the end of the first but those 2 goals changed everything in terms of how us and the jets played the rest of the game. we were never going to beat the jets by opening up and run and gun. .

I could not disagree with this more- so you are telling me that because we trail TWO TO ONE in the first freaking period, then we are doomed and have to completely abandon everything and have no hope of winning a game?? We have to open everything up and play "run and gun" in a ONE GOAL game in the first period?? Again, it was 2-1, its not like we were down 3 or 4.

That is complete BS in my opinion. We are a freaking 117 point team- if we are so bad and so fragile that a one goal deficit in the first period of the biggest game of the season is too much for us, then we were a fraud to begin with.

Which we absolutely were not- we just played like crap- the whole team, not just Pekka- and lost the game. It happens. Did you see Tampa last night?? Crap happens.

The game was there for the taking for the final 42 minutes. We lost because not only could we not score again, but we could not keep them from scoring. And Pekka Rinne was sitting on the bench for that entire 42 minutes.

I will also say this whole "run and gun" narrative that so many have jumped on is getting WAY overplayed. All of a sudden people are turning us into some poor little team that can only win by just slowing everything down and playing not to lose. It is just not true- that was not the way we played the entire season- go back and look at our games vs the Jets all season, including the playoffs. We certainly didn't play that way in game 2 (especially the OT) and won the game.

 

[triggrman]

and I disagree with you on this. We needed to score first, then we roll our lines and use our energy. we got down by 2 goals early and had to almost immediately shorten our bench. The goal late in the 1st helps but I don't agree we could just roll our normal system after he let in those stinkers.

 

[drwpreds]

and I disagree with you on this. We needed to score first, then we roll our lines and use our energy. we got down by 2 goals early and had to almost immediately shorten our bench. The goal late in the 1st helps but I don't agree we could just roll our normal system after he let in those stinkers.

Then you must think we are a way, way inferior team then. Down 1 goal in the first period, we can't roll our lines and play our game??

What if we had scored first in the game- would that have guaranteed us a W? Would Winnipeg have had to abandon their entire game because of a one goal deficit?

Sure, it would have been fantastic if we had just jumped out to a lead and cruised to victory. But if you are telling me we are complelely screwed if we fall behind, even by one goal?? We will have to agree to disagree on that one.

 

[NoNecksCurse]

turris playing in worlds so definitely healthy for him as well. he just stunk really bad.

 

[triggrman]

Then you must think we are a way, way inferior team then. Down 1 goal in the first period, we can't roll our lines and play our game??

What if we had scored first in the game- would that have guaranteed us a W? Would Winnipeg have had to abandon their entire game because of a one goal deficit?

Sure, it would have been fantastic if we had just jumped out to a lead and cruised to victory. But if you are telling me we are complelely screwed if we fall behind, even by one goal?? We will have to agree to disagree on that one.

We were behind by 2 until the end of the 1st