Kari Lehtonen vs Marc Andre Fleury

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bruins4777*

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Pens4ever said:
I don't know how many times this has been said in this thread, I've said it atleast twice. I just don't think he'll get it. Ever.

Wait till his favorite goalie has crappy stats, but still does well and gets wins. Then he might come to a realization. Sometimes it just takes someboy like this to get at taste of their own medicine.
 

Jaded-Fan

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Lehtonen32 said:
*Why can't we be friends, why can't we be friends.....*


From a Pen's fan who thinks the world of both players .......... Amen. Almost ungodly tools are there for both, the sky is the limit, we all should be grateful that we have either one.
 

Taxman

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Facts:

1. Chicago is a worse defensive team than Wilkes-Barre
2. Lehtonen faces more shots per night than Fleury and stops a higher percentage of shots from going in.

Stats aren't everything but they are a good piece of support when used properly. What exactly about Lehtonen's save percentage, shots faced per night, etc is so ridiculously absurd and/or irrelevant that we should throw such quality insight into performance out the window?

Is it really stretching it to say that Lehtonen has outperformed Fleury this year based on these things? Come on.

Everynight a goalie will face both easy shots as well as a barrage of hard to stop shots. Over a season, over a large number of goals, the percentages will even out. All goalies face their share of both hard and easy shots on goal. No goalie over a season will have a ratio of hard to stop vs easy to stop shots on goal higher than all the other goalies. Law of large numbers (and common sense) will tell you that.

Lehtonen faces MORE shots a night than Fleury and he STOPS more of them than Fleury. Common sense tells you that Lehtonen is performing better than Fleury this year.

Simple fact is the better goalies prevent less goals from scoring than the poorer goalies. That is, afterall, what a goalie's job is. To throw goalie stats like save percentage out the window is absurd. It isn't everything, true, but it sure the hell isn't something to laugh at either. We all need metrics to judge our performances partly on, and for goalies, save percentage is a damn good metric.

I agree that if there is going to be some error when comparing save percentages, but in the case of Lehtonen and Fleury, their save percentages aren't really close at all. Even with room for error, Lehtonen is dominating Fleury this year.
 

bruins4777*

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Taxman said:
Facts:

1. Chicago is a worse defensive team than Wilkes-Barre
2. Lehtonen faces more shots per night than Fleury and stops a higher percentage of shots from going in.

Stats aren't everything but they are a good piece of support when used properly. What exactly about Lehtonen's save percentage, shots faced per night, etc is so ridiculously absurd and/or irrelevant that we should throw such quality insight into performance out the window?

Is it really stretching it to say that Lehtonen has outperformed Fleury this year based on these things? Come on.

Everynight a goalie will face both easy shots as well as a barrage of hard to stop shots. Over a season, over a large number of goals, the percentages will even out. All goalies face their share of both hard and easy shots on goal. No goalie over a season will have a ratio of hard to stop vs easy to stop shots on goal higher than all the other goalies. Law of large numbers (and common sense) will tell you that.

Lehtonen faces MORE shots a night than Fleury and he STOPS more of them than Fleury. Common sense tells you that Lehtonen is performing better than Fleury this year.

Simple fact is the better goalies prevent less goals from scoring than the poorer goalies. That is, afterall, what a goalie's job is. To throw goalie stats like save percentage out the window is absurd. It isn't everything, true, but it sure the hell isn't something to laugh at either. We all need metrics to judge our performances partly on, and for goalies, save percentage is a damn good metric.

I agree that if there is going to be some error when comparing save percentages, but in the case of Lehtonen and Fleury, their save percentages aren't really close at all. Even with room for error, Lehtonen is dominating Fleury this year.

When you lay it out like this, i can't help but agree with you. But based on what you were doing before, i couldn't agree with you.

I defend lehts a great deal he is the no.1 prospect to me over that overrated ovechkin. But i was just defending the fact that stats aren't everything.

Completely throwing save percentage out the window is absurd no doubt, but to base goalies entirely on save percentage is ridiculous. Unless there are things like extremes. For example turco's wonderful 84.6 save percentage in this past playoff, no way in defending that. And Luongo's 93.1 save percentage no way denying how amazing that was. But with guys like brodeur its harder.

But your bottom statement of lehtonen dominating fleury? Very true.
 

blackgoldblue

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Bottom line is that right now Lehtonen is ahead of Fleury and is the more sure prospect.
As far as futures are concerned, no one can predict who will be better. Lehtonen has an obvious advantage in size. I have not seen much of Lehtonen, but have seen alot of Fleury. Most reports I read would probably give Fleury a slight edge in quickness and I feel he is quicker than most all NHL goalies. His quickness seems to have allowed him to get away with some imperfect positional play at lower levels. Fleury seems to be getting better at squaring up to shooters. If he can improve this part of his game he should be a dominating NHL goalie.
Obviously, Fleury also needs to work on his puck handling. To label Fleury as a choker at this point in his career is ridiculous as he is still very young.
Anyways, I think that their upsides are pretty even. Lehtonen clearly has a better chance to reach his potential and is further along, but Fleury is still very young and hopefully with some good coaching has a good chance to reach his potential as all the tools are already there.
 

bruins4777*

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Mountaineer Penguin said:
Bottom line is that right now Lehtonen is ahead of Fleury and is the more sure prospect.
As far as futures are concerned, no one can predict who will be better. Lehtonen has an obvious advantage in size. I have not seen much of Lehtonen, but have seen alot of Fleury. Most reports I read would probably give Fleury a slight edge in quickness and I feel he is quicker than most all NHL goalies. His quickness seems to have allowed him to get away with some imperfect positional play at lower levels. Fleury seems to be getting better at squaring up to shooters. If he can improve this part of his game he should be a dominating NHL goalie.
Obviously, Fleury also needs to work on his puck handling. To label Fleury as a choker at this point in his career is ridiculous as he is still very young.
Anyways, I think that their upsides are pretty even. Lehtonen clearly has a better chance to reach his potential and is further along, but Fleury is still very young and hopefully with some good coaching has a good chance to reach his potential as all the tools are already there.

Hmm interesting way of looking at it. Well this is how i see it.
Size wise, lehts obviously. Puckhandling, lehts by miles. Poise, lehts by miles. Speed, fleury barely. reflexes, fleury barely. Positioning, lehts. Technical ability, lehts. Squaring, lehts. I honestly think that lehts beats fleury everywhere except speed and reflexes. And both being BARE. I personally see fleury as a guy who's positioning is vastly overrated. He has a nice sense, but i saw him a lot last year and he was constantly flopping aroudn cause he was out of position.

Maybe i'm labeling fleury too soon, but thus far in his career, he has only put together one solid performance in the clutch. And other times he's melted down HORRIBLY.
 

Taxman

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Props to Fleury tonight. He shutout Portland tonight (24 of 24 shots on goal stopped). I really wish I could watch some of these AHL games on TV.
 

Til the End of Time

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bruins4777 said:
Hmm interesting way of looking at it. Well this is how i see it.
Size wise, lehts obviously. Puckhandling, lehts by miles. Poise, lehts by miles. Speed, fleury barely. reflexes, fleury barely. Positioning, lehts. Technical ability, lehts. Squaring, lehts. I honestly think that lehts beats fleury everywhere except speed and reflexes. And both being BARE. I personally see fleury as a guy who's positioning is vastly overrated. He has a nice sense, but i saw him a lot last year and he was constantly flopping aroudn cause he was out of position.

What does that mean?
 

bruins4777*

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Til the End of Time said:
What does that mean?
It means Fleury is barely faster than lehtonen, and barely has quicker reflexes. Lehtonen is far more polished and much better in virtually every aspect. and those aspects for which fleury is ahead of lehtonen are very slim, which was the point of the whole paragraph.
 

Grave77digger

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This is the thread that never ends...it goes on and on my friend... Face it we will be forever feuding with Fleury Vs Lehtonen and Malkin Vs Ovechkin threads. and is that such a bad thing, not like theres any NHL to watch or talk about. :p:
 

The Old Master

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Grave77digger said:
This is the thread that never ends...it goes on and on my friend... Face it we will be forever feuding with Fleury Vs Lehtonen and Malkin Vs Ovechkin threads. and is that such a bad thing, not like theres any NHL to watch or talk about. :p:
barely!
 

Jaded-Fan

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Sorry to bring this thread back, but I was looking through the HF various rankings for other reasons and saw that they currently have him at 5 overall, just a small notch below Lehtonen at 2, and just after Malkin at 4, for whatever that is worth:

http://www.hockeysfuture.com/top50.php

So the writers for this site obviously overall give Maffy a bit more props and seem to be higher on his future than many on these boards.
 

Kaiped Krusader

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I don't think many people think Fleury doesn't have a bright future, just that Lehtonen's future is a bit brighter. HF's rankings of the two seem to be in consensus more or less with posters' feelings in general.

Now that we've discussed this topic ad naseum, I'm curious who people would rather build a team around: Gretzky or Lemieux?
 

Jaded-Fan

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Kaiped Krusader said:
I don't think many people think Fleury doesn't have a bright future, just that Lehtonen's future is a bit brighter. HF's rankings of the two seem to be in consensus more or less with posters' feelings in general.

Now that we've discussed this topic ad naseum, I'm curious who people would rather build a team around: Gretzky or Lemieux?


I am not so sure reading through the various posts if that is the consensus, one even threw out that Maffy should have been a 2nd rounder, many had him out of the top ten, but if that is what most think I am in that camp too. Maffy right now would be slightly less safe of a prospect than Lehtonen, but not that far back, about where HF has him. But I would remind people thaat Maffy is a full two years younger than Lehtonen and that 19 is a world of difference from 21. Hence my higher chance of being a sure fire thing for Lehtonen. He is much closer to the final product where it is still a gamble what Maffy will do these next two years.


As for your second question, it depends. Would the rule still apply that no one (absent some maybe once a year chance check where someone tripped) was allowed to check Gretzky?
 
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Sampe

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Jaded-Fan said:
But I would remind people thaat Maffy is a full two years younger than Lehtonen and that 19 is a world of difference from 21.

13 months would be closer to the truth, but consider us reminded. :)
 

arnie

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Jacobv2 said:
That's not clear at all from those stats. I just got done saying that the few shots Fleury does see are generally high-quality scoring chances.

This is a pathetic rationalization. The facts are plain: Lehtonen has much better save percentage and faces more shots. The conclusion is obvious: is his playing better.
 

arnie

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Jacobv2 said:
Let's look at what Fleury IS doing this year; He's taking the starting job away from Chiodo and has clearly separated himself as the team's go-to netminder,

Fleury won the job over an 8th round draft pick and you think that this is proof of greatness. That's really a laugh.
 

Jacob

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arnie said:
This is a pathetic rationalization. The facts are plain: Lehtonen has much better save percentage and faces more shots. The conclusion is obvious: is his playing better.
I'm not disputing that, Copernicus. What I'm disputing is that Fleury's not as far behind as some are concluding by looking at just stats.

Fleury won the job over an 8th round draft pick and you think that this is proof of greatness.
Never said that by any means, nor did I think it. Thanks for putting words into my mouth, though.
 

pensfan04

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I can't believe I just read all 14 pages just now. I see them as equals in the future, both so good that its not important to argue about such as Roy vs Brodeur.
 

Pepper

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Lehtonen probably has only a slight edge in potential, the difference is that Lehtonen is much more likely to reach his potential.
 
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