Why are there no good goalies anymore?

[golfortennis1]

It is probably more a relative value than actually being worst element, but there seem to be something going on Moneyball wise for the position.

This. The marginal value of taking up the amount of cap space for a "star" goalie vs a good one is just not worth the squeeze. You have Vasi as the second highest cap hit at $9.5. and the third is $6.4. A guy needs to be so much better to justify that $3 million spent on one goalie. That $3 million could likely be disbursed in better ways.

I'm not sure what the factor would be, but let's say you need to be worth half a goal a game to pay an extra $3 million to a goalie as opposed to a)strengthening the backup position, or b) improve the roster of skaters. Are there goalies who are worth half a goal a game? And are they available? Otherwise you might be looking at almost a "replacement level" type. How big a gap is there between the best goalie and the mid-point goalie and the worst goalie?

 

[The Panther]

The 2nd issue is the relative parity in the league. Teams seem to move quite easily from top-10 to middle-10 or to bottom-10 in the standings. In some other eras, teams stayed near the top for longer periods. The issue here is that teams at the top generally have higher Save% (in the large majority of games the winning team has the higher Save% in that game), and teams at the bottom generally have lower Save %. So, with teams moving around in the standings a lot from year-to-year, Save % moves around from year-to-year also....so, therefore fewer goalies are building up a consistently high Save% as some goalies have done in the past on long-time top teams (e.g. Dryden).

You made some excellent points, but I think I'd disagree with this one. I would say parity in the League is much less today than it was 10 years ago. Even less, maybe, than 5 years ago.

Just in the past few seasons, we've seen some historically awful clubs (Detroit 2020, Buffalo 2021, even Montreal 2022). A lot of clubs are basically terrible these days. Right now, there are four clubs with a +50 or better goal differential, and there are six with a -50 or worse goal differential... and there are still 13-15 games left to play! Just go back five seasons (after the full 82 games, which we aren't at yet in '23 obviously), and there were only two clubs at +50 and five at -50. So, in clubs at extreme levels that's a change from 10 (now) to 7 (five years ago). In 2014, there were 6 such extreme clubs. In 2011, there were 5 such (half as many as now).

This makes sense, in that scoring has gone up, which generally coincides with less parity and vice-versa.

More clubs actively embrace the tank now than used to, I think, as managements have adapted to the long-term planning necessities of the cap era. I mean, look at Chicago's personnel moves lately and Arizona's current line-up. Arizona, I think, would struggle to .500 in the AHL right now. The "goalie dominant era" (c. 1997 to 2004) was also the free-agent era, when any club with cash could suddenly sign a couple of All Stars and improve their team on paper overnight. That can't happen anymore, so team management has to look at long-term solutions and start to embrace the tank.

And in the recent era of many excellent goalies available, it's become difficult to distinguish elite from just really, really good. It's also not that important, anymore. As long as your goalie stops 91.5% of shots faced overall, over a large sample size, you've probably got a shot to make the playoffs and win the Cup. Teams just don't build around a goalie anymore. I mean, the Avalanche just had a dominant Stanley Cup run and victory with their back-up in goal (they then traded away that Cup-winning goalie shortly after). Pittsburgh recently won a Cup with Matt Murray in net.

 

[Staniowski]

You made some excellent points, but I think I'd disagree with this one. I would say parity in the League is much less today than it was 10 years ago. Even less, maybe, than 5 years ago.

Just in the past few seasons, we've seen some historically awful clubs (Detroit 2020, Buffalo 2021, even Montreal 2022). A lot of clubs are basically terrible these days. Right now, there are four clubs with a +50 or better goal differential, and there are six with a -50 or worse goal differential... and there are still 13-15 games left to play! Just go back five seasons (after the full 82 games, which we aren't at yet in '23 obviously), and there were only two clubs at +50 and five at -50. So, in clubs at extreme levels that's a change from 10 (now) to 7 (five years ago). In 2014, there were 6 such extreme clubs. In 2011, there were 5 such (half as many as now).

This makes sense, in that scoring has gone up, which generally coincides with less parity and vice-versa.

More clubs actively embrace the tank now than used to, I think, as managements have adapted to the long-term planning necessities of the cap era. I mean, look at Chicago's personnel moves lately and Arizona's current line-up. Arizona, I think, would struggle to .500 in the AHL right now. The "goalie dominant era" (c. 1997 to 2004) was also the free-agent era, when any club with cash could suddenly sign a couple of All Stars and improve their team on paper overnight. That can't happen anymore, so team management has to look at long-term solutions and start to embrace the tank.

And in the recent era of many excellent goalies available, it's become difficult to distinguish elite from just really, really good. It's also not that important, anymore. As long as your goalie stops 91.5% of shots faced overall, over a large sample size, you've probably got a shot to make the playoffs and win the Cup. Teams just don't build around a goalie anymore. I mean, the Avalanche just had a dominant Stanley Cup run and victory with their back-up in goal (they then traded away that Cup-winning goalie shortly after). Pittsburgh recently won a Cup with Matt Murray in net.

When I did a quick tally today of top-10 finishes in points for each team, I actually used 10 years....TB was first with 8 times, and Buffalo, Ottawa, Detroit, Arizona, and Seattle with zero. (You could also use fewest goals against, as they both have a positive relationship with Save %.

And I guess TB fits, as many people consider him the best 'tender over the past 10 years.

I wasn't trying to say parity is at its greatest now or recently, but just that it influences the perception of goaltending quality, (or particularly that nobody stands out from the crowd)....and combined with the increased scoring over the past few seasons, perhaps. But maybe the increased scoring has a much bigger effect on how goalies are perceived.

 

[Staniowski]

When I did a quick tally today of top-10 finishes in points for each team, I actually used 10 years....TB was first with 8 times, and Buffalo, Ottawa, Detroit, Arizona, and Seattle with zero. (You could also use fewest goals against, as they both have a positive relationship with Save %.

And I guess TB fits, as many people consider him the best 'tender over the past 10 years.

I wasn't trying to say parity is at its greatest now or recently, but just that it influences the perception of goaltending quality, (or particularly that nobody stands out from the crowd)....and combined with the increased scoring over the past few seasons, perhaps. But maybe the increased scoring has a much bigger effect on how goalies are perceived.

one more thing on "parity"....I didn't really describe it very well, but what I was basically thinking is that no goalies now are playing for really top teams for many, many years. Only 5 teams have placed in the top 10 more than 5 times (8,7,7,6,6) over the past 10 years. I'm not sure how that compares historically, but guys like Dryden and Roy played for very top teams almost their entire careers (and you can delete the "almost" in Drydens case).

The other thing you need to consider, of course, is how much effect the goalies had in finishing high in the standings.

But playing for top teams is a big plus for goalies.

 

[MadLuke]

When the best team with a lot money could chase the best goaltenders and get them (like Belfour with Dallas, Roy with the Avs, Leafs with Cujo) at the very least it did put them in the spotlight a lot and amplified the fact that only Detroit won a cup with a Top goaltender for such a long window of time.

We could look for all season, but a quick look for the 2018-2019 season one
The correlation between scoring goals and winning: R2 of .7
The correlation between scoring goals and having a good save percentage: R2 of -0.07 (so I am not sure it is being a good team that help the save percentage versus the other way around, having good save percentage helping you)
Correlation between your save percentage and winning: 0.5

Scoring was much more correlated with winning than save percentage.

The leaders of the past 5 years in save percentage are Sorokin, Shesterkin and Kuemper

They played for Coyotes-Rangers-Islanders, not necessarily the biggest powerhouse.

Has for scoring going up, that would in a sense make more room for a special goaltender to stand out (like Dryden-parent did or Roy in the 80s early 90s), has it is all what do you do relative to your peer I am not sure how much scoring being high would be an issue.

I could be wrong and be biased because of what Price achieve to do from time to time. And I feel he shows3 things
1) Still has a lot of value into having a goaltender better than the opposing team goaltender in a playoff series
2) How noisy it can be in terms of consistency.
3) big contract at that position can turn out a bit of an Albatros, when the star D-F end up a terrible deal and just an serviceable top 6 forward, Top 4 D, at least he his still playing minutes on the ice, a goaltender will be on the bench or hurting you on the ice.

P.S. in 2018-2019 the correlation between how many shots against a team has and a team save percentage was like for any season I looked at, virtually nill, continuing the strange notion I have that you can construct math ways to show that having less shot hurt your save percentage with some tricks looking a singular game and introducing selection bias, but league wide, at teams level, that never seem to show up.

 

[Nerowoy nora tolad]

I think it’s partly because we’re in an era where NHL teams are primarily interested in drafting the biggest goalies and not the best. Top goalies in junior don’t get a look in the NHL unless they are at least 6’2”.

The position been going through a bit of a size-queen phase lately.

There are much of these various phases in pro sports where some people think they've unlocked various cheat codes to the universe. Always drags along a bunch of empty shells.

Saros (5'11") still seems do be doing quite fine, and one of the bigger prospects at the moment (Devon Levi) is only marginally taller (6'0"), he's said to have quite a waistline though.

A story from my experiences:

I used to sub in for various pick-up shinny groups pre-covid as a goalie. One time the other goalie was a gen-x aged guy, maybe 5'8-5'9 in fairly old gear. I talked with him in the dressing room after the skate and found out hed been a major junior backup sometime in the 90s

He probably had the fastest glove hand ive ever seen live. And ive attended hundreds of junior games, and a handful of nhl games.

I think in the last 3 years or so the problem has sorted itself out, but the whole bishop, rinne phase in goaltending where goalies that were fairly obviously echl-level talents that just happened to be 6'5+ were dominating the league wasnt really reflective of what top-level goaltending should be

Shooters have gotten better at picking corners with the current sticks. I don't believe goalies are giving up more soft goals.

Idk I feel like bad-looking goals are much more common now than they were 10 years ago

But the current crop of gen z offensive players have learned to move so quickly and release from funny angles and spots that its creating those goals that didnt go in in 2012

 

[MadLuke]

but let's say you need to be worth half a goal a game to pay an extra

the median goal per game this season seem to be 3.15 this year, adding half a goal a game offensively would make a team go from mediocre to the Colorado among the best in the league, it is a lot and probably require the kind of players that typically score 40 more points than an ok first liner to do.

Defensively that the gap between Boston and San Jose, the Sharks would be quite happy to make that kind of jump.

One other way to think abou it the median team score 3.15 goal a night, even if the 6 most important player are those scoring has high has half of them that 0.25 goal a game for the top offensive guys on the median team.

But a goaltender does not play all the game obviously.

 

[golfortennis1]

the median goal per game this season seem to be 3.15 this year, adding half a goal a game offensively would make a team go from mediocre to the Colorado among the best in the league, it is a lot and probably require the kind of players that typically score 40 more points than an ok first liner to do.

Defensively that the gap between Boston and San Jose, the Sharks would be quite happy to make that kind of jump.

One other way to think abou it the median team score 3.15 goal a night, even if the 6 most important player are those scoring has high has half of them that 0.25 goal a game for the top offensive guys on the median team.

But a goaltender does not play all the game obviously.

I probably didn't say it as well as I could have. And half a goal a game was just a sort of round number I pulled out, wasn't a scientific analysis. But if a goalie could save you half a goal a game, and by your information it would suggest that is a significant number, then you probably do look at spending an extra $3 million on that goalie, because that half a goal a game against prevented is as valuable as half a goal for a game.

But the question becomes, how many goalies, given the talent level out there, can give you that half a goal per game extra? This may sound completely absurd, but let's say every goalie is worth at least 3GA prevented. There are 45-50 goalies out there who are worth that. In a cap system, you're paying for the guys who can give a marginal gain. Two or three guys might be 3.5GAP, a handful around 3.3, the large majority around 3.1.

You're not paying for 3 GAP, because you can get that relatively easily(more goalies than there are starting spots), you're paying for the .1, or .25 or .5 extra they bring. If you can get the guy who brings .5, you pay up. But if you're deciding between guys who are .17 and .15, well, you're not going to commit millions extra to the .17 guy, especially when there are also a number of guys around the same level. The marginal gain is just not worth the opportunity cost of deploying that money elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure we're saying the same thing, I just didn't necessarily word it well the first time. There is a realistic number, I just don't know the math to calculate it. Half a goal just made it a bit easier to demonstrate the point.

 

[MadLuke]

But the question becomes, how many goalies, given the talent level out there, can give you that half a goal per game extra?

If the GSAA stats is a good rough estimate, and we say a big volume goaltender play 65 games (so we look for 30+ GSAA):

NHL Yearly Top 10 Leaders and Records for Goals Saved Above Average | Hockey-Reference.com

NHL Yearly Top 10 Leaders and Records for Goals Saved Above Average

www.hockey-reference.com

Peak Price was doing that in a lower scoring environment than now, hasek was doing almost a goal a game in a low scoring environment which make him a candidate for the best peak ever.

The big issue is years after years noise that seem much larger than McDavid-Drai years after years swing.

Shesterkin GSAA of 45 in 2021-2022 could be the best non McDavid impact on a team in the league, he is not in the Top 10 this season in a 32 starter.

Sorokin his doing it 2 years in a row and it seem much more than a team effect has he outplay a lot the very solid number 2 Varlamov.

That the difference Roy was Top 3 like 7 time in 8 years, Hasek obviously number 1 or 2 when he played enough game, now we have 9 different Vezina winners that last 9 seasons and the only repeat post Tim Thomas, Bobrovsky had issues in between them.

Team would pay a lot for a constant elite above 95% of the rest of the league goaltending (and they did for Vasilevskiy), but it seem almost impossible to be something you can buy, draft or trade for now a day.

 

[golfortennis1]

If the GSAA stats is a good rough estimate, and we say a big volume goaltender play 65 games (so we look for 30+ GSAA):

NHL Yearly Top 10 Leaders and Records for Goals Saved Above Average | Hockey-Reference.com

NHL Yearly Top 10 Leaders and Records for Goals Saved Above Average

www.hockey-reference.com

Peak Price was doing that in a lower scoring environment than now, hasek was doing almost a goal a game in a low scoring environment which make him a candidate for the best peak ever.

The big issue is years after years noise that seem much larger than McDavid-Drai years after years swing.

Shesterkin GSAA of 45 in 2021-2022 could be the best non McDavid impact on a team in the league, he is not in the Top 10 this season in a 32 starter.

Sorokin his doing it 2 years in a row and it seem much more than a team effect has he outplay a lot the very solid number 2 Varlamov.

That the difference Roy was Top 3 like 7 time in 8 years, Hasek obviously number 1 or 2 when he played enough game, now we have 9 different Vezina winners that last 9 seasons and the only repeat post Tim Thomas, Bobrovsky had issues in between them.

Team would pay a lot for a constant elite above 95% of the rest of the league goaltending (and they did for Vasilevskiy), but it seem almost impossible to be something you can buy, draft or trade for now a day.

I should have known there was already a stat for this. GSAA, good to know. How has the stat been received? I know there are a few stats that are fairly common that have holes in them big enough to drive a Mack truck through.

Price also illustrates the risk with a goalie though. He is/was taking up a huge percentage of their cap space, but even at that, he is only top 10 in GSAA 5 times that I can see. But he is still a $10M cap hit (although I guess injured?) all these many years off the peak. Becomes a big question of "is it worth it?"

I thought I read somewhere that last season(or the year before, I forget), Price was the first player with a double digit millions cap hit to advance out of the first round in the cap era. That tells you something as well. Yes it may be skewed a bit given the lower caps, etc., early on, but again, tying that much cap space in a goalie can be a very risky move.

 

[MadLuke]

How has the stat been received? I know there are a few stats that are fairly common that have holes in them big enough to drive a Mack truck through.

This one has one obvious issue, it tell you just the raw goal saved above average without any adjustment to how valuable a goal was, saving 50 goals in 1999 was a much bigger deal than in 1982, but it is easy enough to mentally adjust in a very similar way would for plus minus or points scored. The other one being quality of competition of the average goaltender, changing quite a bit over time and in certain era opponent strength. That why the Parents-Esposito-Dryden figure are way up there

If you played for Montreal you never faced them which in certain part of the 06 was a big deal.

In brief, it has the same issue as many of the others stats as, but do some leg work for you, like relative to your peers being baked in, it take account volume very well which can be a lot of value in a goaltender.

If you believe coaching-team effect and not just in the rare Hitchcock blues, Julien Bruins exist a lot, this does not do anything about it, you need to take a quick look at how well the others goaltenders on the same team did.

 

[Doctor No]

I'd love to hear @Doctor No 's take on this. My theory is with the continued evolution of equipment and everyone playing the butterfly, the variance in goaltending has become much less than in previous eras. Hence, the best goalies in the league rarely stand out drastically from the pack (or at least, rarely do so for more than a season) and league average goalies are winning cups/going deep into the playoffs with more frequency.

Sorry I'm late - traffic was murder, you know, one of those manure spreaders jackknifed on the Santa Ana? Godawful mess; you should see my shoes. Anyhow, I most certainly didn't forget my password concurrently with a new laptop.

There's a lot great that's been said here already, so I'm going to deliberately try to say something that hasn't been said. I think the popularity of goaltending during the heyday (let's call it Fuhr/Roy/Hasek/Belfour onward) has led to a lot of kids growing up wanting to be goaltenders. It was easy to see how cool it was to do this, and simultaneously the gear got to a protection level where it was feasible for kids to follow that path. Kids were trading cards with big bright flashy masks and equipment on them (to me, Trevor Kidd stands out among many). Add in the standardization of coaching techniques for the position - when I played seriously, we were just getting to the point where "goalie coaching" wasn't "get in the net with your mouth open and you'll face as many shots as the shooters want to take". Tretiak's camp coming to town was a huge deal for us because that didn't happen. And the internet was allowing all of this free knowledge to spread easily - I'd likely never have heard much of Mitch Korn's technique, let alone getting to work his camps, without the internet, and you could get performance tools (I remember specifically white pucks and mini pucks) easily and compare with your peers. It became a lot easier to progress and succeed, and that formative success begat confidence and the willingness to continue.

Fast forward to today and goaltenders' styles have homogenized somewhat - certainly not perfectly - but the reason that goaltenders seem somewhat interchangeable is that they are, to a much greater extent than before. If the fourth goaltender for the Leafs doesn't seem like much of a downgrade, it's because to the extent that there's a difference (and there is), coaching is good enough that the incremental differences can be ameliorated in a good system.

I do agree that the worst goaltenders have gotten better, not that the best goaltenders have gotten worse - at least overall. And we're still at a point where the second "great wave" of goaltenders is still fresh in our memory, so people are comparing the current mass against a crop of Hall of Famers.

I'll think about this some more but that's my preliminary thoughts after reading through a thread of excellent thoughts and trying not to say "me too" or "I agree" too often.

It would be interesting to get Mike McKenna's thoughts on this.

 

[ScaryCarey31]

Many teams had good goalies in the last decade or two and never put much thought into drafting and developing replacements, take montreal for example. It was Carey price's net from 2011 on and filled the backup role with cheap free agent signings, now that he's LTIRetired they have 0 decent goaltending prospects. It will turn around though, there are lots of potential elite goalies breaking into the league. Its more or less a changing of the guard. We're coming from an era that had (Price, rask, lundqvist, miller, rinne, halak, luongo, thomas, quick, crawford, fleury, brodeur, prime bobrovsky, holtby, ben bishop, mike smith etc etc.)

 

[decma]

Maybe I missed it in the thread, but where is the support for the premise that there aren't any good goalies anymore?

Have save percentages compressed in recent seasons?

 

[authentic]

A story from my experiences:

I used to sub in for various pick-up shinny groups pre-covid as a goalie. One time the other goalie was a gen-x aged guy, maybe 5'8-5'9 in fairly old gear. I talked with him in the dressing room after the skate and found out hed been a major junior backup sometime in the 90s

He probably had the fastest glove hand ive ever seen live. And ive attended hundreds of junior games, and a handful of nhl games.

I think in the last 3 years or so the problem has sorted itself out, but the whole bishop, rinne phase in goaltending where goalies that were fairly obviously echl-level talents that just happened to be 6'5+ were dominating the league wasnt really reflective of what top-level goaltending should be



Idk I feel like bad-looking goals are much more common now than they were 10 years ago

But the current crop of gen z offensive players have learned to move so quickly and release from funny angles and spots that its creating those goals that didnt go in in 2012

Goalie equipment reduction in 2017 is the main reason for this

 

[WarriorofTime]

Maybe I missed it in the thread, but where is the support for the premise that there aren't any good goalies anymore?

Have save percentages compressed in recent seasons?

There really isn’t. I think it’s just that a lot of the best goaltenders are relatively young so they aren’t quite as established. 1988-1992 birth year goaltenders weren’t great across the board so there isn’t an established group of long entrenched crushers. But I think the sub-30 group is going to be regarded as really strong with some hall of famers in there.

 

[byrath]

Have save percentages compressed in recent seasons?

Yes, .904 this season vs .915 at its peak.

NHL League Averages | Hockey-Reference.com

Check out the latest NHL League Averages including shots, saves, goal averages and more on Hockey-Reference.com

www.hockey-reference.com

 

[decma]

Yes, .904 this season vs .915 at its peak.

NHL League Averages | Hockey-Reference.com

Check out the latest NHL League Averages including shots, saves, goal averages and more on Hockey-Reference.com

www.hockey-reference.com

I meant has the separation between the top goalies and the average goalies come down (in terms of save percentage or other metrics). That is, are the top goalies now closer to the pack (in terms of standard deviation) than the top goalies were a few years ago?

Even if league wide save percentage is down, there could still be some goalies whose relative performance is as good as the relative performance of the top few goalies was a few years ago.

 

[MadLuke]

I meant has the separation between the top goalies and the average goalies come down

Shesterkin last year .935 in a .902 nhl was historically a really good separation, the issue is the year before and this year (.915) he is closer to the median starting performance (around .908).

In the last 2 years Sherterkin-Sorokin, .925, .924 is a good separation versus the median starting goaltender (.907)

In 98 and 99 combined Roy (.917) Belfour (.915) were closer to the median starter that was around .910.

It would be possible to look at, but a feeling is not that much that the separation between the top goaltender stat wise a giving year is particularly down versus the non Hasek performance of the recent past, is that the musical chair of who is at the top versus the middle and year in, year out consistency is not what it was, Roy-Belfour were among the top 5 years before and later, Bobrosky seem at the top of the world one day and middle of the pack the next.

 

[decma]

Shesterkin last year .935 in a .902 nhl was historically a really good separation, the issue is the year before and this year (.915) he is closer to the median starting performance (around .908).

In the last 2 years Sherterkin-Sorokin, .925, .924 is a good separation versus the median starting goaltender (.907)

In 98 and 99 combined Roy (.917) Belfour (.915) were closer to the median starter that was around .910.

It would be possible to look at, but a feeling is not that much that the separation between the top goaltender stat wise a giving year is particularly down versus the non Hasek performance of the recent past, is that the musical chair of who is at the top versus the middle and year in, year out consistency is not what it was, Roy-Belfour were among the top 5 years before and later, Bobrosky seem at the top of the world one day and middle of the pack the next.

The musical chairs, or churn, among the top perceived goalies is a return to the way it was in the 80s (and for most of the past 40 seasons).

E.g,, during the first five seasons of the modern Vezina, not only were there no repeat winners, there were very few repeat nominees. Barrasso has a first and a second, and Fuhr and Lemelin each managed a 2nd and a 3rd place finish. 12 different goalies had a top-three finish.

In contrast, there has almost always been far less churn among perceived top d-men.
E.g., During that five-year period (81/82 to 85/86), only six d-men received a nomination (Bourque 4, Coffey 4, Langway 3, Howe 2, Robinson 1, Wilson 1).

For the 40 seasons of the modern Vezina, there have been 62 nominees, including 37 who only had only one nomination during that time.

For the Norris during that time, only 38 nominees and only 12 who only had one nomination.

 

[Melrose Munch]

Weak list.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

I don't care where you're from; if your list doesn't have Connor Hellebuyck on it, the list is wrong.

 

[Michael Farkas]

Swap Hill for Hellebuyck; and maybe Saros for Markstrom and that's about right. Though, I don't mind Markstrom being there.

 

[Melrose Munch]

Swap Hill for Hellebuyck; and maybe Saros for Markstrom and that's about right. Though, I don't mind Markstrom being there.

I don't care where you're from; if your list doesn't have Connor Hellebuyck on it, the list is wrong.

And truthfully not one of these guys is better than Curtis Joseph.

 

[Michael Farkas]

That's a pretty random comment. I'm not sure that that's true. They all move better than Joseph certainly. Joseph wasn't a very good skater and he wasn't good with his crease movement (which wasn't super uncommon at the time, to be fair). CuJo was a battler more than a scientist for me. So, I get why he's a fan favorite...he doesn't quit on pucks, he's "fun" to watch...but the more I go back and watch, the less impressed I am with his process.

In messy situations, Joseph might provide some advantage over the field in his day - I mean, he did. In more structured situations, I think he's less reliable than some others.