Again, I find this fascinating. So instead of "we're playing bad defensively" it's "we're playing bad defensively because of Allen." Just play strong defense all the time...
Defense played poorly last night. I agree. Worst game Petro has played in quite a while. Those are games when you need goalie to bail you out and he didn't. If our solution to poor goaltending is that we can't ever give up a scoring chance, maybe we should look to improve goalie?
He saved a bunch of scoring chances though? Goals 2, 3 and 5 were all more than just scoring chances, those were high danger scoring chances. If our solution to poor team defense is that we must rely on our goalie to stop 3-4 prime time scoring chances on the opposition's best players, maybe we should look to improve our team defense?
I was just pointing out the factual inaccuracies, I can go over the opinion portion if you like? The point is that you agree that 3 of those goals Allen has no chance, and the other 2 are debatable whether or not Allen is expected to save them. The first one we could debate, but goal 4 you can't expect any goalie to stop a puck that gets deflected twice on its way to the net, stopped by a forward's skate, and then shot by one of their best forwards on a turnaround shot directly in the middle of the slot. It's hard to stop a shot in the middle of the slot period, but in this sequence it was deflected twice on its way to the slot.
I agree that our defense needs to be better. Especially Petro. That doesn't excuse Allen not playing well. Seemed like Chicago scored on ALL their quality scoring chances. The first goal I have no idea why he moved out of way so Toews could easily score. Kane's shot was excellent and would have been tough, but again if he is playing big and at top of crease maybe he has a chance. Kruger goal was impossible to stop bc he kicked rebound right to Chicago player. I didn't think he made himself big enough on 2nd Toews goal. And breakaways are obviously tough but not 100% goals. This isn't little league. They don't give participation trophies in NHL. Good starting goalies make saves on shots that are really hard to stop and only rarely let in easy ones. Allen has his moments, but too few of them. And last night isn't one of those games he is gonna wanna put in his resume.
Exactly, especially in the Jets game. We took advantage of Chicago's poor defense and goaltending to score 4 goals, but not all teams are going to be like that.
As bad as our D was at times in last game, one more save in Chicago game and we had a win. Top goalies bail you out when defense breaks down. Ours didn't.
The point I'm trying to make here is that you can switch this statement completely around and it still works, yet we default to blaming Allen.
Even the very best defensive teams usually give up about 7 high danger scoring chances a game on average at 5v5. The worst teams give up 10+ on average, and an average team gives up about 8.5. Last year the Blues were a top 5 team in that category (fewest HDSC against).
Bingo. We have had a top defense for last few years. They played poorly for game or 2, hence we expect that they will rebound. Allen has been super inconsistent and unreliable for several years. Hence I want a better goalie.
Completely agree with everything here. Allen has been bad, so has the defense. I've stated that these are both problems. In no way am I trying to excuse Allen by bringing up the defensive woes, Allen hasn't been great. My point is that that initial post was brushing the team's defense aside and jumping to "let's trade Allen because he's given up 10 goals." If Allen was playing well, maybe that number would instead be 7-8 goals in two games. That's still not good.
I could buy that if we weren’t hanging our goalie out to dry at this high a rate.
Alright cool. That's fine, but go back and read the initial comment I quoted compared to yours. I'm fine with your line of thinking here.
So much this.
I agree that neither should excuse the other. But until we get to a 7 HDSC per game it won’t matter who is in net. The D should be easier to fix with coaching, assuming Yeo is capable of making smart decisions like not playing any version of man on man. Goalie will be harder unless Husso or Johnson can bring a good enough game. Maybe they can. I would be good to let Husso start as soon as next week.
Our defense was bad both games. I thought our offense was actually doing really well against the Jets despite only scoring once. We hit several posts and Hellebuyck stood on his head, we could have easily scored 3-4.
