Devils 2018-19 team discussion (news and notes) part V - OP warning

[theoptimist]

I was done with Cory last season in San Jose. Next.

 

[Bleedred]

I may not be a goalie connoisseur like you, but I've always felt that the difference between a good goalie and a great one is rebound control. Having good rebound control helps prevent the number of "unstoppable" goals, but to me it's also a good measure of how well a goalie's playing. If he's controlling the rebounds well, it means not only is his reactions fast enough to make the save, but also has time to put the puck where he wants.

As for being too hard on goaltenders, as long as you use the same parameters for each goalie, I don't see what the problem is. If you're hard on goalies, maybe the difference between a good vs bad goalie is like 25% vs 35% saveable goals. If you're easy on them it could be 10% vs 15%. Either way, I'd expect the better goalie to have the lower % of saveable goals let in.

If anything, I think that some people are too hard on a goalie that lets allows a goal on a rebound. If you ever look at my goals against reviews, the rebounds have to be really bad for me to ding the goalie on that one. Like that second Red Wings goal the other night, which was hardly even a rebound in the first place. It looked like he either caught and it dropped into the crease, or he got a piece of it with the glove and it dropped into the crease or it could have even went between his arm and glove and went into the crease. I dinged Reimer on a really bad rebound a few weeks back, where he soccer head butted it right to an opposing players stick who put it in the back of the net. I also got on Price for one the night before last against the Rangers. He looked like he had it in his chest and it popped up and behind him for a tap in goal.

Some people hold rebounds against a goalie when it's some shit from close range that he gets with the leg pad and it's put in.

Not that I disagree with you on the rebound control, by the way.

 

[Billdo]

Rebounds being put into the corner are never a bad thing. Goalies stopping the initial shot is also ALWAYS the priority (I can't believe I even had to type that). Schneider right now has zero confidence. That bleeds into the team not having any in him. If he can steal a game or two it'll go a long ways as far as seeing where he's at. He looked terrific in the playoffs. He's coming off surgery. Is he finished? I'd doubt he cannot play even mediocre goaltending at this point. Is he the .925 goalie anymore? No. If he can be a .915-9.18 goalie I think that's ok.

 

[guitarguyvic]

There is no end all stat for goalies. It's a combination of multiple stats and the eye test.

Agreed, which is why I think when you look at the totality of it all, Cory was never anything other than good. Not great.

I also think it's a bit unfair to hold a goalies lack of wins against him when he's playing on a bad team. If the team in front of him is scoring 2 goals or less many nights, he's got to be damn near perfect to get a win. Which is pretty much the situation Cory was in his first few years with us. Which is why I think this "he was never good to begin with" is a bunch of revisionist BS.

Speaking for myself I have never said he wasn’t good. I’ve said he wasn’t great. Nothing special. Adequate for the job while we rebuilt. Is there someone actually saying he was a bad goalie?

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Agreed, which is why I think when you look at the totality of it all, Cory was never anything other than good. Not great.



Speaking for myself I have never said he wasn’t good. I’ve said he wasn’t great. Nothing special. Adequate for the job while we rebuilt. Is there someone actually saying he was a bad goalie?

but you're underselling him just to fit your own narrative.

Schneider was at WORST a top 10 goalie for a few years there, more likely closer to top 5. He was better than adequate. Keith Kinkaid is adequate. Schneider at his best was way better than that.

 

[Devils Dominion]

How bout now?

 

[Better Call Sal]

How bout now?

Ask again later this year when he's had more than 2 starts since coming off hip surgery.

 

[MartyOwns]

holy shit how long can this go on for? you can average out schneider’s entire time here and (accurately) call him an adequate goalie. or you can look at his highs and lows separately and (also accurately) say he was a great goalie a few years back.

through no fault of his own, out goaltending situation has been murky and complicated from the second schneider was traded here. i guess we can consider it karma for going 20 years without ever needing to worry about our goalie

 

[Better Call Sal]

holy **** how long can this go on for? you can average out schneider’s entire time here and (accurately) call him an adequate goalie. or you can look at his highs and lows separately and (also accurately) say he was a great goalie a few years back.

through no fault of his own, out goaltending situation has been murky and complicated from the second schneider was traded here. i guess we can consider it karma for going 20 years without ever needing to worry about our goalie

I think that's fair, some appear to just try and disregard the latter due to those teams being fairly bad.

Like I said before, he's had a bizarre career where his individual success has run in the opposite direction of the overall team. You feel for him in that respect because he's a hell of a guy and teammate. It's gotta be difficult to go out there when you're called upon and feel like you can't shake the monkey off your back, which I'm sure is what he's going through.

 

[HenriquesJawLine]

Zacha with 2 assists today and Q with a goal on the PK. 2 games and 3 points for Pav and as much as people hate him, he is an NHL player. Is he living up to the 6th pick in a stacked draft? No, but he is a player that is useful and still has a chance for upside at 21 and we have to accept that. A bust is someone who can’t even play in the NHL. Pav is very good defensively and very good on the PK based on all metrics.

We need more from our recent draft picks to move this rebuild along bottom line.

See any similarities? I still think he'll be fine

Shane Doan hockey statistics and profile at hockeydb.com

 

[devilsblood]

Here's the thing with Cam Talbot and I know I've been through this before. In 13-14 and 14-15, Cam Talbot was the Rangers backup. When he became the starter for the Oilers, his save percentage dropped, due to becoming a starter. This is very common around the league with goalies. Talbot was still good his first two years with Edmonton, but not so much last year or the little we've gotten into this year. He just wasn't one of those .930% goalies anymore, like he was in reduced action with the Rangers.

In fact, Cory Schneider himself regressed his first season of starting a lot of games and when he came here. He was like a .930% (.927% to be exact) guy over in Vancouver, when he was playing 30 or fewer games a year and sometimes in very isolated action and stretches. Now does that mean he declined when he came here? No. I think it means he was experiencing the normal drop off a goalie experiences when accumulating more games when going from being a backup/1b guy to the starter. And that's what happened with Talbot the first couple years in Edmonton.

You know who else had that happen? Martin Jones. He had a .930% in 19 games played and 18 started for LA in 13-14. Now he did also have a .906% the next year in 11 starts and 15 games played, but he's never even had a .920% season as a starter.

Tuukka Rask is another one. Before he became a full time starter and was backing up/being a 1b guy to Thomas, he had some .929%-.931% seasons. They continued after Thomas left for two more seasons, but one of them was the lockout year, which wasn't even a career high in games started by that point. Then he has a .930% and wins the Vezina in the first full season that he's not backing up or splitting time with Thomas, but after that? He had one more season better than .920% (only one more season better than .917% actually) and he's been a .915% goalie over the last 3+ years, including playoff games and the start to this year.

So what is your take on Elliot who was 4th on that list with a .922 save %?

 

[Nubmer6]

All I know about Corey right now is that he's playing small. He LOOKS small in the net. Part of it is lack of confidence, which leads many goalies to play further back in the crease. They don't have the confidence to come further out and cut angles. Even in net mouth scrambles, he looks like his shoulders are sagging, and he's a bit further back than needed. It's just weird how that happens.

Unfortunately, it may take more than a win to break this. He's got to string a bunch of good games together to get his mojo back, I think.

 

[devilsblood]

See any similarities? I still think he'll be fine

Shane Doan hockey statistics and profile at hockeydb.com

That's a good comparison for those that want to be optimistic.

Put me in that group that is concerned but think the "he's a bust I'm done with him" group are crazy.

 

[devilsblood]

Rebounds being put into the corner are never a bad thing. Goalies stopping the initial shot is also ALWAYS the priority (I can't believe I even had to type that). Schneider right now has zero confidence. That bleeds into the team not having any in him. If he can steal a game or two it'll go a long ways as far as seeing where he's at. He looked terrific in the playoffs. He's coming off surgery. Is he finished? I'd doubt he cannot play even mediocre goaltending at this point. Is he the .925 goalie anymore? No. If he can be a .915-9.18 goalie I think that's ok.

Of course stopping the initial shot is the priority. But let's not diminish the importance of rebound control either.

And putting the puck in the corner is certainly not the biggest goalie sin in terms of rebound control, but leaving loose pucks in the slot? Asking for trouble.

 

[MartyOwns]

See any similarities? I still think he'll be fine

Shane Doan hockey statistics and profile at hockeydb.com

if zacha scores 21 goals in 39 ahl games during this stint, i’ll be inclined to agree

 

[blood gin]

See any similarities? I still think he'll be fine

Shane Doan hockey statistics and profile at hockeydb.com

I look at that page and all I see is a wasted career in NHL hell.

 

[Bleedred]

So what is your take on Elliot who was 4th on that list with a .922 save %?

My take on Elliott is that if there is such a thing as a “System goaltender” then it’s definitely him, as he has never had a good season on a team without Hitchcock being the head coach. Not before Hitchcock and not after Hitchcock.


It’s also possible that Elliott just coincidentally improved as a goalie around 2011, then fell off in 2016 in his early 30’s like Schneider did. I always said I thought Elliott would regresss as a team’s clear cut starter, but I never thought the regression would be this much.

 

[devilsblood]

So what do we think of Will Butcher and his poor Corsi to this point?

Currently at 46.57% which is the worst of our top defenders.

Last year he was at 53.14% and even to start this year was at 56% I believe before Lovejoy got hurt. Now that 56% was the initial part of the season in which we dominated as a team, and his % fall is probably tied more to the teams poor play then not being paired with Lovejoy.

Now his goals for % is still excellent at 64%, as his hdcf which is at 58.62%. His sc is also above water at 50.96%.

As per his %'s with given partners his most common partner is Lovejoy, 100 mins played, with whom he is at 47.69 cf%(though as noted this has been falling as the season has progressed). 48% sf. But a very nice gf at 77.78% (7-2)

His #s are pretty limited with everyone else.

30ish mins with Sev's, with pretty lousy results, 42.55 cf%, 36 sf%, even in gf at 1-1.

He's been good with Vat's in very limited time(20ish mins), mostly, as I remember, down late in the game, need offense type situations. 54% corsi, 59% shots for, even in goals at 2-2.

His time with Gryba was also very limited, but just awful, 17 mins, 31.43% corsi, 39% sf, 0-1 in goals.

 

[devilsblood]

if zacha scores 21 goals in 39 ahl games during this stint, i’ll be inclined to agree

What if he only has 10 goals but 30 assists?

Edit: Should be noted too that Springfield that season had Daniel Briere who at 20 had 36 goals and 56 assists in 68 games. I'm assuming Briere and Doan were linemates, I'd also guess they were part of the same pp unit.

Zacha does not have that equivalent in Bing. (edit, just realized that Stud's like Zacha is a Czech, so maybe that helps each guy a bit. I think Zacha assisted on a Stud's goal?).

 

[Zippy316]

I actually see a lot of what you’re saying, but I don’t think he’s the reason why we don’t score goals. Even if a goalie like Kinkaid (or Marty) is worth more goals for than Schneider, I can’t think it’s anything significant.

That said, I totally know what you mean by the rebounds just going wherever, and ricocheting all over the place off his shoulder, especially in the games he’s played this season. It almost seems like the rest of the team knows where Kinkaid’s rebounds are going to go, but they never know where Schneider’s rebounds will go and this sometimes causes extended play in the D-zone and being trapped in it. How much of a difference this makes when broken down, I’m not exactly sure. May or may not be of any real significance. And I think this is exactly where the old “Goalies who have worse rebound control have their save percentage inflated because of it” adage came from. Not that a goalie inflates his save percentage by making saves on rebounds. But that lack of rebound control may account for 1 or 2 extra shots on goal faced per game, due to extended time spent in the D-zone with tired players instead of getting a whistle and a change, or a skater being able to move the puck out of the D-zone.

At the end of the day, I don’t think the defense plays worse for Cory than they do Keith. I just think Keith makes more saves than Cory does these days and I’m convinced that’s because he’s better at goaltending than Cory is in this advanced and crumbling state that the last two years would suggest he’s in.

Like I said it’s difficult to quantify.

But the flow of the game changes drastically when Schneider is in net. We’re constantly on the defensive because he can’t seem to trap pucks or control rebounds. We end up getting stuck in the defensive zone so often due to it and it takes a heroic effort from someone to get the puck into the offensive zone.

I’m big on momentum in games. Often times teams come in waves because you constantly have tired guys on the ice or guys step on into a defensive position. Too many times with Schneider we’re in that position because he doesn’t control the game at all. You end up with tired bodies for extended shifts that could be prevented or shifts where half of a line is on the ice and when the puck does get out it’s 1-on-5 waiting for guys to change. For the tired bodies part, it takes its toll on you as the game goes along.

When Schneider was saving everything, it was fine even with those issues. But now he’s letting in weak goals on top of it and he’s essentially useless.

When Kinkaid is in net, you hardly ever see any of what I listed happen. But it happens in every game with Schneider.

 

[135ace]

That's a good comparison for those that want to be optimistic.

Put me in that group that is concerned but think the "he's a bust I'm done with him" group are crazy.

I definitely agree. Although I feel more pessimistic than before as I really expected him to take a step forward and become a solid 2C by now, but there's no way he doesn't at least become a very good defensive 3C. He's already a very good bottom 6 NHL player. It's not what you hope for with a 6OA pick, but it is what it is and he still has upside. He's shown flashes of dominance and if he can put it together, gain some confidence and become consistent he definitely can definitely be a 50-60point 2C. I'm not as bullish on that outcome anymore, but it's still a possibility.

 

[Better Call Sal]

Practice at 1 today, let's see what it brings.

 

[Bleedred]

Like I said it’s difficult to quantify.

But the flow of the game changes drastically when Schneider is in net. We’re constantly on the defensive because he can’t seem to trap pucks or control rebounds. We end up getting stuck in the defensive zone so often due to it and it takes a heroic effort from someone to get the puck into the offensive zone.

I’m big on momentum in games. Often times teams come in waves because you constantly have tired guys on the ice or guys step on into a defensive position. Too many times with Schneider we’re in that position because he doesn’t control the game at all. You end up with tired bodies for extended shifts that could be prevented or shifts where half of a line is on the ice and when the puck does get out it’s 1-on-5 waiting for guys to change. For the tired bodies part, it takes its toll on you as the game goes along.

When Schneider was saving everything, it was fine even with those issues. But now he’s letting in weak goals on top of it and he’s essentially useless.

When Kinkaid is in net, you hardly ever see any of what I listed happen. But it happens in every game with Schneider.

I notice these things too, just not sure if they’re the reason we can’t score with him. I think barring a drastic turnaround in play, it’s time to move on from him after this year. This will be year three of his decline in play (barring the turnaround), he’ll be 33 next year, two post-season surgeries in the last 3 years already. I really do think a buyout is imminent.

 

[MartyOwns]

What if he only has 10 goals but 30 assists?

Edit: Should be noted too that Springfield that season had Daniel Briere who at 20 had 36 goals and 56 assists in 68 games. I'm assuming Briere and Doan were linemates, I'd also guess they were part of the same pp unit.

Zacha does not have that equivalent in Bing. (edit, just realized that Stud's like Zacha is a Czech, so maybe that helps each guy a bit. I think Zacha assisted on a Stud's goal?).

so 40 points in 39 games? yeah i’d be more than ok with that too.

 

[devilsblood]

My take on Elliott is that if there is such a thing as a “System goaltender” then it’s definitely him, as he has never had a good season on a team without Hitchcock being the head coach. Not before Hitchcock and not after Hitchcock.


It’s also possible that Elliott just coincidentally improved as a goalie around 2011, then fell off in 2016 in his early 30’s like Schneider did. I always said I thought Elliott would regresss as a team’s clear cut starter, but I never thought the regression would be this much.

Aight, but how much weight do we put into save % if 2 of the top 4 guys from a particular 3 year stretch are pretty average?

Pretty sure you're not a big Ben Bishop guy but he is tied for 5th on that list, with Cory Crawford, another guy most don't consider a big time goalie.

Also consider this.

Price is the leader at .931, a good stretch above everyone else.

2 through 13 on that list are seperated by .005, from .924 to .919. In addition to Talbot, Elliot, Bishop and Crawford is also Steve Mason, who was tied for 8th at .921. So during this time, in which Schneid's was "great" he was .003 better then Steve Mason?