With an elite goalie, should the Habs try and win 5-4 or 2-1?

[paddy]

I play hockey to score goals, not prevent them.

 

[Cole Caulifield]

If you think your goalie is better than theirs.. then you need to put pressure on that, create an open game trading chances.

A defensive system should be used to insulate a bad goalie.

Not so simple. Were Brodeur/Roy bad ? Those teams were built defensively around them (for Roy, in his habs days) with meh offense and great D.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

Exactly my point, McDavid relies on the rest of the team to contribute when he isn't dominating. Same as Price.

McDavid, as an elite player, influences the two wingers on his line and the Dmen who are engaged in a shift with him. He contributes to offense, something a goalie can never do, and to defense through denying opportunities to shoot. His offense can indirectly be a defense in its own right, forcing the opposing team to take risks they would otherwise not do.

We haven't given Price that luxury, but building around the goalie means we get players that can give him that luxury.

It's irrelevant what style of team is put in front of Price as long as it generates its offense and plays its defense. Hard targets to aim for are a sub-2.50 GAA and a above-3.00 goals for average in the playoffs. The goals must come be it Jersey style or Pittsburgh style or Vegas style or Detroit style.

A starting goaltender will play more minutes in a season then a player. And come playoff time it's not even close.

Oh come on, skaters take shifts because they expend more energy in a short period of time. 45 seconds is plenty long for a shift. Goalie is more of a position of focus and endurance.
[/quote]

You can't build a winning team around a single player, that goes for every position and every player. No matter who you are, you need other great players on your team if you want to win the cup.

Mind games don't win you debates. Goalies win because they guys in front of him scored goals and limited some scoring opportunities. Building a team of players who produce is building around the goalie. But the Blackhawks built around their goalie just as much as the Kings did. The skaters could score goals and limit goals from the opposition. The style is not the main focus, but that they had the talent to win. Both goalies they had are "lesser" than Price.

 

[WeThreeKings]

Not so simple. Were Brodeur/Roy bad ? Those teams were built defensively around them (for Roy, in his habs days) with meh offense and great D.

Brodeur is a different era.. the trap era and yes there's an obvious exception when you also have two of the best defenseman to ever play the game with you.

Roy was on great offensive teams in Colorado and the 93 run they had good timely offense.

 

[nhlfan9191]

There's certainly an argument to make.

A star forward gives you 20 minutes where he impacts GF and GA, a star D might give you 27 minutes. A goalie is giving providing only half the impact (Only GA) but for the full 60 minutes. So is it bad to have half the impact but do it for 2-3 times longer?

I know goaltenders log a ton of minutes but how comparable are those minutes compared to the skaters? I was a goaltender myself. We can go a long time without doing a single thing in those minutes while the skaters are out there making every single second count. So my opinion on it is I build around the skater every single time, more specifically centers and defence as they have the most responsibility when it comes to both offence and defence. I’m not a fan of building around wingers either. If your opinion is different, that’s completely fine. But it’s just my stance on this topic.

 

[Cole Caulifield]

The goaltender being the best player on the team and thinking he can cover up other holes that just about every championship team has needed to win is what I consider building around a goalie. I’d take my chances with a team like New Jersey and LA without Quick and Brodeur on their roster 10/10 times before I’d take a team with Price and a weak/average/alright support cast.

That's not building around a goalie. That's just what Bergevin did.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

Not so simple. Were Brodeur/Roy bad ? Those teams were built defensively around them (for Roy, in his habs days) with meh offense and great D.

There is a arguable case that Brodeur had a lot of help from the team in front of him, especially in the regular season. A lot of his regular seasons have sub-.920 or even sub-.910 save percentages. Only three times did he break the .920 threshold, but he only had a GAA above 2.50 four times in his career, and some of those seasons had extremely small samples sizes of under 10 games. Having such low GAA but crappy save percentage obliges at least an ear to the though.

If trap hockey didn't exist, he might not have made the HoF.

He did step up in the playoffs though.

 

[Sorinth]

McDavid, as an elite player, influences the two wingers on his line and the Dmen who are engaged in a shift with him. He contributes to offense, something a goalie can never do, and to defense through denying opportunities to shoot. His offense can indirectly be a defense in its own right, forcing the opposing team to take risks they would otherwise not do.

I'm not sure how anything you said is really relevant.

The poster I responded to claimed building around a goaltender meant not having any great players on the team except the goalie. If that's what constitutes building around a player/position then you can't build around any player/position because no one can do it alone.

Building around a player means getting other good players that complement your initial player.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

That's not building around a goalie. That's just what Bergevin did.

It's a phrase open to way too much interpretation. Because the goalie is only responsible for the defensive aspect of the game, which is limiting goals, it is easy to interpret that building around a goalie just means lowering goals against without a single regard to offense. A team full of Plekanecs, Michael Froliks,Lars Ellers, and David Legwands can sure play defense while sucking offensively.

 

[nhlfan9191]

That's not building around a goalie. That's just what Bergevin did.

I mean yes and no. At the end of the day, the team has been relying on him to be by far the biggest difference maker, and I understand you can say that about any goalie, but it’s been magnified 10 fold the last 4-5 years during the Bergevin era. We aren’t going to win like this, and if we do, they should build Price a statue because it was probably the most heroic playoff run of all time.

 

[Sorinth]

I know goaltenders log a ton of minutes but how comparable are those minutes compared to the skaters? I was a goaltender myself. We can go a long time without doing a single thing in those minutes while the skaters are out there making every single second count. So my opinion on it is I build around the skater every single time, more specifically centers and defence as they have the most responsibility when it comes to both offence and defence. I’m not a fan of building around wingers either. If your opinion is different, that’s completely fine. But it’s just my stance on this topic.

Well a lot of time Defenceman are standing around at the blue line doing nothing. A forward can be battling in front of the net, but if the shot never comes he hasn't really done anything more then the goalie at the other end.

I think you can build around any position. But yes no matter who you build around you're going to want a strong group of centers and defence.

 

[Sorinth]

Brodeur is a different era.. the trap era and yes there's an obvious exception when you also have two of the best defenseman to ever play the game with you.

Roy was on great offensive teams in Colorado and the 93 run they had good timely offense.

If you want a more recent example, LA built around Quick.

 

[Habs100]

We need a better roster. Once we get a better roster, the style of play will be dictated by the players on the roster and the coach's style. I would also like a non-dinosaur coach - Pascal Vincent? Joel Bouchard? We'll see how Bouchard does in Laval.

 

[nhlfan9191]

If you want a more recent example, LA built around Quick.

LA was built around Kopitar/Doughty.

 

[The Ugly Truth]

This is meant more as a philosophical debate, please leave aside the fact that the Habs are better off tanking, or that Price might be declining.

The Habs' strongest point is nominally the goalie. Some might disagree but that's the perception and that's how the team is built. Given that, what makes more sense, an offense-first strategy or a defense-first strategy as emphasized by the Habs?

Advantages of an offense-first strategy:

• It complements one strength (shutting down the opponent) with a second strength (scoring);
• "High-risk, high-reward" decisions are then shifted to being of lower risk, if the goalie can more easily stop breakaways and 2 on 1's.
• Increasing the shots increases the signal to noise of the goalie differential. If both teams only fire 10 shots, then the final score is largely due to luck. However if both teams fire 40 shots, then the difference in save percentage of 1% (.925 versus .915) starts to add up, and it's worth 0.4 goals per game. The value of a save percentage offset is linearly proportional with the total number of shots.
• NHL GMs and scouts are more effective at evaluating offensive rather than defensive ability. Ergo, if they seek out to build an offensive team, they are more likely to succeed.

Disadvantage of an offense-first strategy:

• NHL players are paid salary commensurate with their ability to produce offense, whereas elite shutdown ability is not well-paid on the free agent market. Therefore, an offensive system is harder to sustain in the salary cap era.
• The backup goalies play 10-20 games a year, more if the starting goalie gets injured.

With the Habs current roster the only legitimate option is run and gun hockey. The defense is too weak to shut down teams on their own, the forwards are generally small, weak and not defensively inclined (though that can be mitigated with the right system and teaching).

The team's current strengths are small, fast forwards that can score and hopefully the return of a world-class goalie that can bail the team out from repeated mistakes.

Problem #1) Clode is not a run and gun coach

Problem #2) The forwards are not good enough to beat most teams in run and gun games

Problem #3) Price may never again be All Universe Price (jusstopdapuckpricey)

Problem #4) The defenseman are so bad that it's unlikely that the forwards can score enough goals to regularly compensate for the defense

Problem #5) Marc Bergevin is still here and will continue to undermine the team

 

[Sorinth]

LA was built around Kopitar/Doughty.

They were built around all 3.

 

[nhlfan9191]

They were built around all 3.

I was going to edit my post and say you could put Quick in there as well but the other two are more important. Selke type center who can put up points and defenceman with elite defensive play who can also put up points. Both make the players they play with better. Those two are the engine of the team.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

LA was built around Kopitar/Doughty.

Those two are their long-term pinnacles. They still had gaps even with those two. L.A always flirted dangerously with not having enough scoring. But in their two Cup wins, they were saved by a trade.

They couldn't do crap until they got Carter. And if Carter didn't pout his way out of Columbus, no first Cup for LA.

Then the next rodeo, Marian Gaborik saved their bacon in that Sharks series. Gaborik doesn't score his goals against the Sharks, and they would be out of the playoffs in the first round.

 

[WeThreeKings]

If you want a more recent example, LA built around Quick.

They added scoring to get it done. They built around a core of Doughty Quick and Kopitar

 

[Sorinth]

Those two are their long-term pinnacles. They still had gaps even with those two. L.A always flirted dangerously with not having enough scoring. But in their two Cup wins, they were saved by a trade.

They couldn't do crap until they got Carter. And if Carter didn't pout his way out of Columbus, no first Cup for LA.

Then the next rodeo, Marian Gaborik saved their bacon in that Sharks series. Gaborik doesn't score his goals against the Sharks, and they would be out of the playoffs in the first round.

Quick was just as much a long term pinnacle as the other two if not more so which is why they signed him to a 10 year contract.

I mean seriously, who gives out a 10 year contract if they aren't building around them? There's is no question that LA built around Quick.

 

[Price is Wright]

Not so simple. Were Brodeur/Roy bad ? Those teams were built defensively around them (for Roy, in his habs days) with meh offense and great D.

This kind of stuff is a bit disingenuous.

The Devils in 2000 had a D in the playoffs of Neidermayer, Stevens, Rafalski, Malakhov, White, and Daneyko. Neidermayer, Stevens, and Rafalski were all capable offensively. Same to Malakhov though he was tapering off. White and Daneyko were the more defensive only types. So the Devils still made sure to have four defencemen who could contribute offensively. So while yes they were "built defensively" they were built with offensive drivers in mind. 2003 they switched Malakhov with Tverdovsky, who used to be a 50 point defenceman but was winding down at that point. Still offensively gifted.

The 2003 Devils were not world beaters offensively but the 2000 Devils were the best offensive team in the league. I guess what bugs me is when people talk about the Devils they talk like all they did were win 2-1 games. Most games in the deadpuck era were 2-1 snoozefests. The Devils may have had some of the best defencemen in their era but they had offensively capable defencemen. History has seemed to forget that Stevens was a very good offensive D.

 

[Sorinth]

They added scoring to get it done. They built around a core of Doughty Quick and Kopitar

Agreed they built around all 3. No successful team builds around a single player, it's always a group of players. And a goalie can be part of that group.

 

[paddy]

With the Habs current roster the only legitimate option is run and gun hockey. The defense is too weak to shut down teams on their own, the forwards are generally small, weak and not defensively inclined (though that can be mitigated with the right system and teaching).

The team's current strengths are small, fast forwards that can score and hopefully the return of a world-class goalie that can bail the team out from repeated mistakes.

Problem #1) Clode is not a run and gun coach

Problem #2) The forwards are not good enough to beat most teams in run and gun games

Problem #3) Price may never again be All Universe Price (jusstopdapuckpricey)

Problem #4) The defenseman are so bad that it's unlikely that the forwards can score enough goals to regularly compensate for the defense

Problem #5) Marc Bergevin is still here and will continue to undermine the team

It's not like they allow any less goals with a boring defensive system. What's the difference between losing 4-1 and 7-3? At least I get to cheer 3 times in the latter.

 

[Deluded Puck]

Not so simple. Were Brodeur/Roy bad ? Those teams were built defensively around them (for Roy, in his habs days) with meh offense and great D.

Devils 95 team certainly.

The 2000 and 2003 teams (and the one that came within one game of repeating in 2001) were juggernauts.

The A line and Alex Moginly as a 2nd line winger! Rafalski was the no 3 D. Incredible depth and talent.

 

[LyricalLyricist]

In my opinion any team built around the last line of defense has issues.

The goal of the game is to outplay the team so they don't even get chances and you do.