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.
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.Exactly my point, McDavid relies on the rest of the team to contribute when he isn't dominating. Same as Price.
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.We haven't given Price that luxury, but building around the goalie means we get players that can give him that luxury.
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.A starting goaltender will play more minutes in a season then a player. And come playoff time it's not even close.
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.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.
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'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?
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.
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.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.
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.
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.That's not building around a goalie. That's just what Bergevin did.
That's not building around a goalie. That's just what Bergevin did.
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.
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.
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.
LA was built around Kopitar/Doughty.
They were built around all 3.
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.LA was built around Kopitar/Doughty.
If you want a more recent example, LA built around Quick.
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.
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.
They added scoring to get it done. They built around a core of Doughty Quick and Kopitar
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
Devils 95 team certainly.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.