Speculation: Caps General Discussion (Coaching/FAs/Cap/Lines etc) - 2021 "Season" Pt. 5

[Ridley Simon]

I mean what exactly you want to see? There's eliteprospects.com, there's khl website, there's sites I don't want to mention cause it would break forum's rules but they have actual games to download and watch. Go in DMs if interested. I mean you can basically tap a couple of times on your keyboard and you have your comparison side by side. Basically, Sorokin and Shesterkin left the KHL as the two best goalies in the nation and second and third best overall behind only Vasilevski. Bob had a terrible last season, Varly was up and down as usual. Khudobin is a career backup who caught lightning in a bottle and had a career year then got sent back down to earth. Nobody really talked about Samsonov as a guy on the level of those two outside of the NHL.

KHL stats?

 

[Melkor]

KHL stats?

Shesterkin:
Regular season
GP GAA SV% SO record

117

1.68

.935

27

88-19-15

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Playoffs

16

1.92

.920

0

8-6-0

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Sorokin:
Regular season:

244

1.70

.930

44

134-64-22

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Playoffs

69

1.37

.940

16

50-17-0

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Samsonov:
Regular season

73

2.20

.929

7

33-16-9

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Playoffs

14

2.13

.920

0

4-4-0

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Quick note: a solid portion of Samsonov's playoff appearances is due to changing Koshechkin during games or vice versa. That's why the amount of games played and the playoff record don't really correlate here.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Can you provide what you are saying? Proof in the pudding, as it were

what flavor was that pudding?

 

[ovikovy817]

Shesterkin and Sorokin played for the 2 top teams by far in the league (at least during their time in KHL)
Mettalurg still a good team but not an overloaded team like SKA and CSKA

 

[Melkor]

Shesterkin and Sorokin played for the 2 top teams by far in the league (at least during their time in KHL)
Mettalurg still a good team but not an overloaded team like SKA and CSKA

Makes Samsonov look even worse. He wasn't able to win the starter's job even on that kinda team.

 

[crab]

Makes Samsonov look even worse. He wasn't able to win the starter's job even on that kinda team.

Wasn’t that because Samsonov was competing against Koshechkin who was a top veteran goalie and the other two weren’t? I don’t think you’re comparing similar situations between the three.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

Makes Samsonov look even worse. He wasn't able to win the starter's job even on that kinda team.

The guy he was backing up was Russia's - ahem, OAR's - starter in the 2018 Olympics.

 

[Ovechkins Wodka]

Russia been sending some pretty good goalies recently

 

[Bieronymus Trotz]

Shesterkin:
Regular season
GP GAA SV% SO record

117

1.68

.935

27

88-19-15

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Playoffs

16

1.92

.920

0

8-6-0

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Sorokin:
Regular season:

244

1.70

.930

44

134-64-22

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Playoffs

69

1.37

.940

16

50-17-0

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Samsonov:
Regular season

73

2.20

.929

7

33-16-9

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Playoffs

14

2.13

.920

0

4-4-0

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

Quick note: a solid portion of Samsonov's playoff appearances is due to changing Koshechkin during games or vice versa. That's why the amount of games played and the playoff record don't really correlate here.

So he had an identical save percentage to Sorokin's and a slightly worse one than Shesterkin's? And that's supposed to be bad?

 

[Ridley Simon]

what flavor was that pudding?

White Russian?

 

[AussieCapsFan]

So he had an identical save percentage to Sorokin's and a slightly worse one than Shesterkin's? And that's supposed to be bad?

If you look a little more closely - he played a lot less games than them, especially Sorokin. And look how many more shutouts they have.

Sammy's numbers are really good. But those other two - their numbers are phenomenal.

And our team will have to face them for years to come, which sucks

 

[ovikovy817]

Makes Samsonov look even worse. He wasn't able to win the starter's job even on that kinda team.

No.

He's not a forward or a D. He's a Goalie. So your post doesn't make any sense.

 

[Melkor]

No.

He's not a forward or a D. He's a Goalie. So your post doesn't make any sense.

Zero counter arguments. Lol. He's not a forward? Umm what?

 

[Melkor]

Wasn’t that because Samsonov was competing against Koshechkin who was a top veteran goalie and the other two weren’t? I don’t think you’re comparing similar situations between the three.

I encourage you to research the Sorokin and Shesterkin situations more. They were constantly battling with foreign goalies their clubs has been signing all the time because they both were young and the clubs were quite frankly powerhouses by local standard. But...you see the results.

 

[Melkor]

So he had an identical save percentage to Sorokin's and a slightly worse one than Shesterkin's? And that's supposed to be bad?

Umm so you decided to ignore the rest of the stats.. .okay

 

[ovikovy817]

Zero counter arguments. Lol. He's not a forward? Umm what?

If you had the possibility to play 12G in a game and he was the 13th on the list that would be a problem for him and revelant of his quality. But since you can dress only 2 goalies and most of the time only 1 of them plays the game,...

I encourage you to research the Sorokin and Shesterkin situations more. They were constantly battling with foreign goalies their clubs has been signing all the time because they both were young and the clubs were quite frankly powerhouses by local standard. But...you see the results.

Foreign, doesn't mean better. Kosheshkin was the best goalie for years in the KHL.

Since there is a rule that only 5 foreign players can play for a team in a single game. It's better to have 5 Fs or Ds instead of a G so that's why also Shesterkin and Sorokin have a lot of GP. While Samsonov was competing against another russian goalie.

 

[Melkor]

If you had the possibility to play 12G in a game and he was the 13th on the list that would be a problem for him and revelant of his quality. But since you can dress only 2 goalies and most of the time only 1 of them plays the game,...


Foreign, doesn't mean better. Kosheshkin was the best goalie for years in the KHL.

Since there is a rule that only 5 foreign players can play for a team in a single game. It's better to have 5 Fs or Ds instead of a G so that's why also Shesterkin and Sorokin have a lot of GP. While Samsonov was competing against another russian goalie.

First of all, Koshechkin has never been "the best goalie for years". He's had a very good KHL career and has always been in that mix of 7-8 goalies who give you a consistency on a regular basis but "the best goalie for years" is flatout false. Second...regarding foreign goalies. Oh yeah, so Koskinen is not a good goalie. The guy at least had a decent run in the NHL after his KHL stint. I haven't seen Koshechkin step a foot on the NHL ice. 5 foreigners rule has no business being discussed because if you followed these guys' careers you know the coaches always had an initial preference toward their foreign rivals. Shesterkin and Sorokin had actually earned their respect rather than got spoon fed with the job.

 

[SherVaughn30]

Just from the eye test Shesterkin>Sorokin>Samsonov. Sammy still looks a bit raw. He needs to tone down the athleticism and learn to become more controlled in his movements, while maintaining a compact(keeping the arms in tight) formation. Also important Sammy learns to understand and speak English, and the American culture. Communication is so key between a goalie and his d-men. Goalies need to do more than just stopping pucks.

 

[Bieronymus Trotz]

Umm so you decided to ignore the rest of the stats.. .okay

What rest of the stats? There are two there: games played and save percentage. Lower GAA with similar save percentage just means they faced fewer shots.

Using that is like crediting one goalie as better than another because he played fewer games and as a result had fewer goals-against.

Team records with the goalie in net are completely irrelevant since, you know, we have stats that actually speak to the goalie's performance specifically, like save percentage, save percentage in various game situations (tied, with a lead in the third period, etc.). If we had absolutely nothing else to go on, that would give some very vague, suggestive information about whether the goalie probably played well or probably didn't. (All a "win" definitively means is the goalie didn't play so poorly that his team couldn't find a way to win, and all a "loss" means is he didn't play so well that his team couldn't possibly lose.)

The other two had more shutouts, so they must have had more games in which they allowed 3-4 goals or many more in which they allowed 2-3 to end up at roughly the same save percentage. (And since we know from GAA that they faced significantly fewer shots per game, statistically it was much likelier in a given game for them to end up with a shutout.)

 

[Kuz]

Makes Samsonov look even worse. He wasn't able to win the starter's job even on that kinda team.

Neither did an older Shestyorkin. He was second behind Koskinen. Just because Koskinen have been an average NHL goalie doesnt mean at all he is a better goalie than Kosheckin. Kosheckin had a better save percentage than Koskinen in 4 of the 5 seasons Koskinen was in KHL. CSKA didnt really have a goalie like Kosheckin or Koskinen so Sorokin was their 1st choice. Samsonov was also younger than Sorokin and Shestyorkin on average in his KHL games than as he left KHL first and already was the youngest of them.

 

[HecticGlow]

Given Sammy’s been at his best this season (and I think last season) when he didn’t play two games in a row, I wonder how much of that is mental because he hasn’t had to learn how to handle a full time workload yet? Almost like the difference between someone who can interview well at a job because the time and mental focus on this one interview, versus the salesperson who has to be on their A-game every day. It appears, at least, that Sammy has a lot of games where he’s completely dialled in and then other games where he lets in a lot of bad or soft goals, and hasn’t really found a rhythm to play every game to a high, but not necessarily exceptional, standard.

I’m wondering if it would have helped his development to have sent him down to Hershey regularly last season to play games when he wasn’t scheduled to be more than the backup in a Holtby start. He’d never played a full-time/starter workload at any level before, and was still getting used to the North American rink, speed and talent. Given his limited time in the AHL (compared to predecessors like Grubauer and Holtby), complimenting his NHL starts with even 5 or 10 more in the AHL might just have helped him gain that bit more experience and get used to playing a lot. Especially given their expectations for him this year.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

I enjoy watching our Russian fans debating Sammy.....just sayin....

 

[OV Rocks]

Makes Samsonov look even worse. He wasn't able to win the starter's job even on that kinda team.

I think you could also look at the flip side and say, he had to compete against the top teams in the playoffs that were loaded with talent, and he had lesser skilled players in front of him when he played, and still put up comparable numbers.

For example, Carey Price on a bad Montreal team in 2018-2019 put up a .918 and 2.49 which relative to the team in front of him makes those above average numbers even better.

 

[AlexBrovechkin8]

Just from the eye test Shesterkin>Sorokin>Samsonov. Sammy still looks a bit raw. He needs to tone down the athleticism and learn to become more controlled in his movements, while maintaining a compact(keeping the arms in tight) formation. Also important Sammy learns to understand and speak English, and the American culture. Communication is so key between a goalie and his d-men. Goalies need to do more than just stopping pucks.

I prefer Sammy to Sorokin myself. Sorokin looks more refined than Sammy at this point but he seems noticeably smaller in the cage.

The things you mentioned are teachable and something Samsonov can improve quickly on (if he wants to). His raw size, athleticism, and explosiveness are rare for a goalie and can't be taught. At this point I'll take that over slightly more refinded technical skills, but that could change if Sammy doesn't work on becoming a better pro.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

I prefer Sammy to Sorokin myself. Sorokin looks more refined than Sammy at this point but he seems noticeably smaller in the cage.

The things you mentioned are teachable and something Samsonov can improve quickly on (if he wants to). His raw size, athleticism, and explosiveness are rare for a goalie and can't be taught. At this point I'll take that over slightly more refinded technical skills, but that could change if Sammy doesn't work on becoming a better pro.

but that’s what’s being suggested by others who have watched him in Russia first and now here....that these are long established and yet unresolved issues. Will they ever be is the ultimate question?

How many years do you give a guy to become a better Pro?