Read the first 4 out of 5 replies...
This signing really affects nothing. Like Easton said, we didn't need to do it but we didn't NOT need to either. It's just what the club felt like doing at this point so who cares.
Confirmed with Link: Evan Fitzpatrick signs ELC
- Thread starter PiggySmalls
- Start date
This signing really affects nothing. Like Easton said, we didn't need to do it but we didn't NOT need to either. It's just what the club felt like doing at this point so who cares.
Celtic Note
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Celtic Note
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Bluesnatic27
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Well when someone posts "we need a new GM" in a thread about a prospect signing, I think it's pretty understandable to think at least some people were upset.
Although I agree that upon closer inspection, those posts were seeming to ask more of why this move happened.
Yeah I mean you could just read between the lines. Nobody is going to question a signing they are happy with.
*Blues sign Parayko*
"Nice but why?"
*Blues sign Parayko*
"Nice but why?"
LastWordArmy
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carter333167
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bleedblue1223
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I don't get the reaction of some in here. Sure, we didn't have to sign him now, but signing him now also doesn't have any downside. He has to play in juniors anyway and his contract slides. This is good work of Army to just get the stuff out of the way before the actual important stuff needs to be handled.
STL fan in MN
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This signing caught me off guard a bit as I wasn't expecting it but clearly the Blues like Fitzpatrick. He has pretty horrific stats but he's also on a horrific team (16 of 18 QMJHL teams make the playoffs and his team wasn't one of them). Are they bad partially because of him or would they be even worse without him? I honestly have no idea as I don't watch the Q at all these days. Has anyone here really seen him play much? The reports indicate that he's big, athletic with solid fundamentals but who really knows.
Now that his season is over I wonder if they'll send him to the Wolves just to soak in the atmosphere. Ie. no games but let him get into some practices, sit in on the video sessions, etc. as that sort of exposure would do nothing but help his development and let him know where his game needs to get to to get to the next level.
Now that his season is over I wonder if they'll send him to the Wolves just to soak in the atmosphere. Ie. no games but let him get into some practices, sit in on the video sessions, etc. as that sort of exposure would do nothing but help his development and let him know where his game needs to get to to get to the next level.
If Army didn't sign him and he walked as a FA in a year or two, people would have squawked about THAT. Sign the kids when you can and then you don't have to sweat it later.
2 Minute Minor
Hi Keeba!
That was my reaction to this thread, too. There are a lot of folks who seem to knee-jerk to being critical of any move Armstrong makes. Literally, any move.
Majorityof1
Registered User
I think that people got confused about his age/the rules. Seems they thought he'd have to play in the ECHL or AHL next year, creating another 3-headed goalie monster. Or that he'd take up a contract slot. That confusion snow-balled to every subsequent poster. Notice how once it was clarified that he'd most likely be going back to juniors, the "anger" has for the most-part disappeared.
We signed a draft pick with potential to a entry-level deal after the trade deadline ended and Army could devote his time to it. Its a typical time to sign prospects and not all of them go pro. We signed Musil at the same time last year and he is still working on his game in juniors.
I think the more interesting question deals with Opilka. He just turned 20 and we already gave him a contract. He will be the one in the EC or AHL, unless Kitchener wants him as an over-ager. I am not familiar enough with their team to know if they would. Which would be better for his development: ECHL or another year in juniors? Maybe better suited to prospects thread, but we have the same situation with Opilka that everyone was worried about for Fitz
We signed a draft pick with potential to a entry-level deal after the trade deadline ended and Army could devote his time to it. Its a typical time to sign prospects and not all of them go pro. We signed Musil at the same time last year and he is still working on his game in juniors.
I think the more interesting question deals with Opilka. He just turned 20 and we already gave him a contract. He will be the one in the EC or AHL, unless Kitchener wants him as an over-ager. I am not familiar enough with their team to know if they would. Which would be better for his development: ECHL or another year in juniors? Maybe better suited to prospects thread, but we have the same situation with Opilka that everyone was worried about for Fitz
That's something I've been trying to figure out for most of the year. Is Sherbrooke bad because of Fitz, or in spite of Fitz? It doesn't make sense to answer that question by comparing him to other teams' goalies, because they're on teams that aren't bottom-feeders. Sherbrooke had 5 goalies suit up for games this season, which seems like a lot to me, but it might be typical for junior teams to do that, especially since Fitz missed some time with injuries this season. Regardless, of those 5 goalies, only one had better stats than Fitz, and only marginally so, and over a much smaller sample size. Brendan Cregan played in 1/5th of the games that Fitz did, and so did Justin Blanchette, who was the backup that started the season for Sherbrooke. Cregan's stats were, let's say, comparable, probably not significantly better than Fitzpatrick's statistically speaking. Blanchette, however, was much worse. Blanchette's 5.52GAA and .834sv% compare, um, unfavorably to Fitzpatrick's 3.46GAA and .899sv%. There were a few weeks at the beginning of the season where Fitz's save percentage crept over .900 (into the .910's IIRC). Between his mid-season injury, a huge workload, and the really bad team playing in front of him, maybe Fitz's stats aren't too bad all considering. Would a better goalie have fared better (Cregan and Blanchette aren't exactly world beaters)? It's hard to say. But clearly the Sherbrooke coaches trusted Fitz with a 50-game workload, and he showed enough to earn his ELC.
You're right, I was confused about his eligibility in my first post. I think this is about the time Opilka earned his first contract too, so not really that surprising that Fitzpatrick did too.
Re: Opilka... I think he needs more time in the OHL. Injuries nagged him the whole year, and he still doesn't look like he did pre-mono and (knee? hip? I don't remember) injury. There's a chance the Blues think his development would be better served in the ECHL facing minor-pro competition, but the quality of services available to players in the OHL might actually be better than those available to players in the ECHL (see: Husso in Kansas City earlier this season). Kitchener might not mind having him back anyways, it's not looking like Luke Richardson is any better than Opilka, and they also drafted Adam Scheel but he took the USNDP route and will be going to NoDak next season. So, it certainly looks (unless Kitchener drafts a top goalie this season who's capable of handling the workload) that a healthy Opilka would still have the steering wheel for the Rangers next season, it's not worth having him be 3G in Chicago, and the ECHL is maybe not the best place to have him go to develop/recover from his injury. I'd rather send him back, wait until next season, and see who between Opilka and Fitzpatrick is ready to take the AHL backup reigns from Binnington.
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Seems like there is a lot of projecting going on here.
My questions stem from the question, what has Fitzpatrick shown to earn a contract? He doesn't seem to be playing that well based off his stats.
My questions stem from the question, what has Fitzpatrick shown to earn a contract? He doesn't seem to be playing that well based off his stats.
[NHL2][/NHL2]
Maybe his survival was impressive enough to earn a contract. Kid ate more rubber [mod] last year. That should count for something.
Maybe his survival was impressive enough to earn a contract. Kid ate more rubber [mod] last year. That should count for something.
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Well, a couple things. First off, goalie stats in the Q and the WHL are typically "deflated," in that the bar for above-average performance is a lot lower than other leagues. For example, the average GAA in the Q this year was 3.33, the Sv% was .891. So, given the fact that Fitz was on a horrendously bad Sherbrooke team, that he was right at the league average actually says quite a bit, especially considering he started the 4th most games in the league.
The word I would use to describe Fitzpatrick's performance this year, purely from a stats perspective, is inconsistent. I'll lay it out here since it might be helpful:
Format: Gp/W/L/T/GAA/Sv%
Weeks 1-7 (I flubbed my tracking, so it's compiled): 9/2/4/3/2.92/.914
Week 8: 2/1/1/0/3.00/.909
Week 9: 3/3/0/0/1.99/.936
Week 10: 2/0/2/0/6.96/.847
Week 11: 1/0/1/0/6.21/.793
Week 12: 3/0/2/0/7.00/.800
Week 13-14: (Injured)
Week 15: 2/1/1/0/2.78/.914
Week 16: (Winter break)
Week 17: 3/2/1/0/2.02/.950
Week 18: 2/2/0/0/2.50/.929
Week 19: 2/0/2/0/7.14/.800
Week 20: 2/1/1/0/3.05/.922
Week 21: 2/0/2/0/1.53/.955
Week 22: 2/0/1/0/4.52/.865
Week 23: 3/1/2/0/2.74/.900
Week 24: 3/1/1/1/3.87/.895
Week 25: 3/1/2/0/3.37/.899
Week 26: 1/0/1/0/5.00/.828
Week 27: 1/1/0/0/0.00/1.00
Week 28: 3/0/3/0/4.15/.875
So, there were really only 6 weeks (a fifth of the season) that he was below the league average in save percentage, and some of those weeks in the fall were especially brutal and tanked his stats. If you wipe those games out as "outliers," things look a lot rosier for his stat line. It's also not insignificant that he's played almost 20 more games this season than any of our other goalie prospects, even with the 2-week injury in December. So, no, his aggregate stats aren't the prettiest thing in the world, but the more nuanced picture is actually quite a bit nicer to look at. There's obviously a reason this kid was ranked the #1 North-American goalie going into last year's draft, but I think it's also pretty obvious by now that he's got quite a bit more work to do, and a long path ahead of him before he gets into the NHL conversation at all.
Bluesnatic27
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The bolded is my problem with goalie statistics in juniors. It's very rare you find any statistics that look reasonable. I mean the goaltender with the highest SV% that had played more than 30 games was Callum Booth with .911. That's not really significantly better than Fitzpatick, and Booth's the starter for the St. John Sea Dogs, probably the favorite for the Memorial Cup this year. The point is, goalie stats in junior aren't that reliable. Those stats are usually much more indicative when the player is playing in a professional league of some sort. I mean, I find it pretty astonishing Fitzpatrick put up average numbers on the team he's on. That should be a pretty good sign in of itself.
In the end, he's going to need time like any other goalie prospect. He has a lot of abilities that any goalie would covet like his size, mobility, flexibility, and athleticism. There was a reason he was a very highly touted goalie prospect even as far as 2014. I'm not suggesting he's the next Price or anything, but he's definitely a curious prospect that has strong natural abilities. So we'll see.
Just one more thing to include so we can over-extrapolate a small piece of data that more than likely doesn't mean anything: Traverse City last summer.
Husso's stat line:
3/0/3/0/3.39/.875
26.7 shots/game, 10 goals allowed, 177 minutes
Fitzpatrick's stat line:
1/0/1/0/2.07/.941
34 shots, 2 goals allowed, 58 minutes
So... there's that
Husso's stat line:
3/0/3/0/3.39/.875
26.7 shots/game, 10 goals allowed, 177 minutes
Fitzpatrick's stat line:
1/0/1/0/2.07/.941
34 shots, 2 goals allowed, 58 minutes
So... there's that
542365
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Also of note, despite the fact that the Q is the highest scoring of the CHL leagues, nobody on Fitz's team was at a point per game. Seems like the team is just completely devoid of talent. Hard to read anything into the stats until he's behind a competent team.
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Regarding his Weeks 10-12, I took those numbers with a grain of salt given his injury status in Weeks 13-14 and expect that he was likely playing hurt for most or all of that stretch. He faced 54 shots in the game that started his slide and was awful for 2 weeks, then was out injured for 2 weeks, then returned and played reasonably well thereafter.
PiggySmalls
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A few tidbits to chew on for Fitzpatrick. He faced the second most shots of any other starter. For being in one of the worst teams in the league, he was still chosen to be part of the CHL Prospect game and was in the QMJHL All-Star game.
If a call up or a injury occurs in the A, he can go fill in without Wolves the remainder of the season instead of resorting to signing someone to a PTO.
If a call up or a injury occurs in the A, he can go fill in without Wolves the remainder of the season instead of resorting to signing someone to a PTO.
Welp. Time to cut him. It's been a nice few posts but this guy says he likes Cheerios so it's probably not worth investing/wasting too much more time in him. More like Evan FitzBADtrick, amiright?
A real life, not fake fact that is actual and real and true: Adam Musil referenced Justin Bieber as his favorite musician in his draft profile. More like Adam BOO-sil.
izzy
go
I wouldn't say that, they have some high end defensemen and a few decent forwards. they just lack a "superstar" like all the other Q teams seem to have. They'' be a good team next year most likely and should be around .500 IMO so it'll be easier to judge Evan.
I haven't watched as much Q this year as I usually do and have barely even followed the Moose but Gregoire, Green, Alexeyev and especially MacDonald should have very good seasons next year and their depth is going to look better with a bunch of guys turning 18 and 19. They should be able to turn it around relatively quick with that roster. Also, AFAIK they have their first round pick and Lafrienne, Poulin and Parent would all make a big difference next year. I'd say all will bring more offense than Groulx has this season.
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