Devan Dubnyk is playing great hockey right now.

[Vesa Awesaka]

Whatever does it mean? As in, when you say "best" do you mean that he faces the most high quality shots, or faces the least high quality shots?

I do note that Dubnyk's slate of opponents has not been good at all since he was picked up by Minnesota:
http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=1501681

It means he has the highest save percentage on high quality shots at 89.10 5v5 for goalies with 1000 minutes. I'm just saying theres a lot more that goes into it though. Theres much more context needed and a larger sample size. I'm not going to start saying Dubnyk is the best goalie in the league at making incredible saves.

Its something that stood out to me when looking at the data and i thought it might be useful for people who want to form an argument for dubnyk and are willing to dig a bit deeper then i cared to.

 

[rynryn]

All we needed to win this year was average goaltending, and we finally got it. Our problem wasn't letting in the high-quality shots all season, it was getting burned on friggin softies that Backs and Kuemper would let in every game.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

It means he has the highest save percentage on high quality shots at 89.10 5v5 for goalies with 1000 minutes. I'm just saying theres a lot more that goes into it though. Theres much more context needed and a larger sample size. I'm not going to start saying Dubnyk is the best goalie in the league at making incredible saves.

Its something that stood out to me when looking at the data and i thought it might be useful for people who want to form an argument for dubnyk and are willing to dig a bit deeper then i cared to.

Ah, that makes sense - thanks!

 

[Cult of Hynes]

I think a goalie like Carey Price or prime Patrick Roy would be a good fit for your squad.

Roy was terrible at handling the puck from what I remember. Same with Hasek. Well, Hasek would be the perfect goalie for the Oilers, he could drag that sorry team into the playoffs.

 

[HawksFanTim]

What the heck has happened to Smith? Turned into a sieve almost overnight.

 

[josephwild123]

And he gets another shutout against the Hawks. This guy is great!

 

[AKL]

Looked good again tonight. Gotta admit, I didn't think he had it in him, but I'm eating crow right now.

 

[GOAT AINEC]

Dubnyk 4 Vezina.

 

[NHL1674]

I'm just happy we have a guy who can do something as simple as making an average save. Our other crease monkeys couldn't stop a beach ball in slow motion.

 

[Hisch13r]

1 more win than Edmonton

 

[NHL1674]

Russo

Sounds simple, but Yeo said 6-1-1 turnaround started "with one win" delivered by Dubnyk. "We were reeling, let's be honest." #mnwild

 

[oobga]

This is why you fire an obviously bad coach instead of blaming the guy that the angry fans are all piling on (most of the time the goalie because he's the last guy people see the puck go by). I guess you can go even further back and say this is why you don't hire rookie GM's with zero management experience (aside from an EBMA he got during his weekends).

Chabot and Eakins should have been gone early in the 13/14 season. Instead, Eakins gets to be terrible for more than another season and Chabot somehow gets a contract extension into this year too before he's fired.

Just another fail on MacT's long list of failures though.

 

[57special]

This is why you fire an obviously bad coach instead of blaming the guy that the angry fans are all piling on (most of the time the goalie because he's the last guy people see the puck go by). I guess you can go even further back and say this is why you don't hire rookie GM's with zero management experience (aside from an EBMA he got during his weekends).

Chabot and Eakins should have been gone early in the 13/14 season. Instead, Eakins gets to be terrible for more than another season and Chabot somehow gets a contract extension into this year too before he's fired.

Just another fail on MacT's long list of failures though.

I thought you were being a little harsh on Yeo and Fletcher then realized you were talking about EDM

 

[Umingmak]

I'm shocked to see him doing so well. I watched him in Edmonton and he was honestly terrible. People will blame coaching or the defense, but Dubnyk was atrocious. He was letting in goals that a shooter tutor could have stopped. He put on some of the worst goaltending performances I've ever seen. Glad to see he's turned it around though. He always seemed like a good kid.

 

[oobga]

I'm shocked to see him doing so well. I watched him in Edmonton and he was honestly terrible. People will blame coaching or the defense, but Dubnyk was atrocious. He was letting in goals that a shooter tutor could have stopped. He put on some of the worst goaltending performances I've ever seen. Glad to see he's turned it around though. He always seemed like a good kid.

No type of player will be more visible when their confidence is shot than a goalie. The first Eakins swarm just ruined Dubs for the 13/14 season. He went completely in the crapper and there was zero chance of him to get out of it. No matter how good he managed to play here and there, he was still very likely going to lose while we left the slot wide open all night long. Friedman talked about how Dubs got stubborn by the end of 13/14 not wanting to listen to anyone and take direction (based on his time with Nashville), likely do to a buildup of frustration about how the season went and it took him the off-season to get focused again.

Lots of goalies have crap runs in their careers, but there are ways out most of the time, like the team around them improves and they can get some confidence back slowly. There was no chance of that happening for Dubs in Edmonton with Eakins still here pushing terrible game plans.

 

[rynryn]

I'm still not counting on Dubnyk to be anything more than an average NHL goalie. the coach is the easiest target--especially when they're new or don't have a track record of success--but goalies are a close second. Sometimes it's pretty obvious they're in a tough situation (EDM) but while the Wild's D and Yeo's system is pretty low-key it's also underrated in it's ability to protect our end of the ice. That's the thing about playing a possession game. We aren't very physical (or at all physical) on the back end but our top four are all smart, and all capable of moving the puck around rapidly.
Wild fans were all over Yeo (and still are) in the blame game but in our case it was pretty obviously crap goaltending that's responsible for the lack of success this season. Edmonton has had stacks of problems that all jenga'd together when Dubnyk was there so who knows. FWIW i thought he was horrible too, in EDM.

 

[oobga]

I'm still not counting on Dubnyk to be anything more than an average NHL goalie. the coach is the easiest target--especially when they're new or don't have a track record of success--but goalies are a close second. Sometimes it's pretty obvious they're in a tough situation (EDM) but while the Wild's D and Yeo's system is pretty low-key it's also underrated in it's ability to protect our end of the ice. That's the thing about playing a possession game. We aren't very physical (or at all physical) on the back end but our top four are all smart, and all capable of moving the puck around rapidly.
Wild fans were all over Yeo (and still are) in the blame game but in our case it was pretty obviously crap goaltending that's responsible for the lack of success this season. Edmonton has had stacks of problems that all jenga'd together when Dubnyk was there so who knows. FWIW i thought he was horrible too, in EDM.

Dubs did just fine in Edmonton before the 13/14 season though. Why did nothing jenga until Eakins decided that everyone should run at the puck along the boards and leave the slot open (because it works in the AHL where barely anyone is skilled enough to make a pass to open guys in the slot under pressure)? 3 straight seasons of respectable sav %'s in Edmonton and his worst season came when we had arguably our best D group on paper in 13/14.

There are times when it's completely obvious the coach is the biggest problem, and we saw that in Edmonton. Coaches like Eakins don't last more than a month or so in the NHL, because it's very obvious when a very bad coach is in over his head, and we all saw it very early on with Eakins and it only got worse and worse until he was finally fired. But, in 13/14 we had a special case where the need for Eakins to survive was tied to MacT's reputation because he gave him a 4 year contract and stabbed Krueger in the back to do it. You don't have a situation anywhere close to that with Yeo.

 

[McShogun99]

The year that Dubnyk had a .920 SP under Kruger he was still letting in weak shots. He'd play solid for most of the game then just let in a weak goal when it mattered. His time in Edmonton was coming to an end regardless of Eakins but it's good to see him doing well, he seemed like a good guy.

 

[oobga]

The year that Dubnyk had a .920 SP under Kruger he was still letting in weak shots. He'd play solid for most of the game then just let in a weak goal when it mattered. His time in Edmonton was coming to an end regardless of Eakins but it's good to see him doing well, he seemed like a good guy.

Entertaining thread of how each fanbase views their goalie:

http://hfboards.mandatory.com/showthread.php?t=891451

So many good goalies in there with a fan or multiple fans saying they give up weak goals. That's just hockey. So many possible situations that can make a goalie, no matter how good they are, look foolish and the simplest thing for a fan to do on any goal against is to blame the last guy the puck went by.

Every goalie lets in what fans perceive as "weak" goals (sometimes legit weak and a lot of the times is just an unlucky situation). Just go on NHL.com, pick a goalie you think is good and look at all the goals they let in this year or last. Every teams fans complain about the same thing, especially if their team is just not very good and have their list of individual occurrences they like to focus on as reasons the team is bad. Like people that say Petry makes bad turnovers so he sucks. Well, overall Petry is our best dman, but lots of people just refuse to think he's good at all because of the odd turnover he makes. Closely watch another good dman, they make turnovers too, they just don't make you mad like when the guy given the most responsibility on your team to shut other top players down makes the odd error.


For Dubs in 12/13, the fact of the matter is, he put up a very good sav%. For sure part of that was Krueger playing a system that suited Dubs. That's what coaches do if they want to win, coach to the strengths of their players. That's what pretty much every NHL coach tries to do. However, that's what Eakins had zero interest in doing while he was trying to show everyone what an innovator he was and trying to make a name for himself as a hockey revolutionist. What killed us in 12/13 wasn't Dubs, it was having only 1 good line (that included Nuge with a wrecked shoulder), a 3rd and 4th line of complete passengers just going through the motions every night, and a garbage D group with orders from management to play rookie Schultz 22+ mins/night so he could hit all his bonuses as was agreed on for us to win the Schultz sweepstakes.

 

[ALLCAPSALLTHETIME]

Glad he's doing well. I always thought he was a quality keeper and now he's doing great in Minny.

 

[ChaoticOrange]

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. He's going to get paid this offseason and deserves every penny.

He's not a 'natural' if that makes sense. He needs proper coaching to excel.

 

[Mc5RingsAndABeer]

He had decent stats on the oilers. He's a guy that can be great if coached well and has confidence.

 

[oilers_guy_eddie]

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

It just feels good seeing him turn it around after the crap that he went through in Edmonton last season. Cheering for him, bigtime.

 

[Lunatik]

Guy is 8-3-2 on a McDavid contender. Basically when he plays goal, they have a great chance at winning, whereas when Smith (5-15-2) tends net, they have no chance of winning.

Dubnyk has a .924 SV% and 2.52 GAA to go along with 1 shutout.

Given I think a lot of people had given up completely on this guy, I think it's great to see him figure things out with Burke.

I don't know how I missed this thread in December but AS this is the best thread title ever. If only your GDTs on the Flames board were this inspired

 

[bolobow]

Hope Minn commits to a playoff push and keeps Dubs around. Would suck if he had to move again. He's been on 5 teams in the last calendar year, that must be hard for him and his family.