As a goalie myself I am always struck by the differential assessment of "good goal" and "bad goal" when I come to the boards. I can almost immediately tell the difference between a poster who hasn't played any hockey, or if they have, what position they've played.
I'm not calling you out... in fact I agree with you that "consistency" is important. But any goalie I know would define that as "not making any mistakes", whereas many casual fans, offensive minded forwards, etc... might define it by >920 SPCT every night or some other measure which is completely devoid of context.
If we are speaking of the Winnipeg game, I can tell you I saw one mistake by Koskinen and it was on the 5th goal. He certainly can anticipate that the pass was coming and he got himself frozen to the post... failed to make the big push across on the 2-1 pass... it happens sometimes when you go into autopilot and sorta give up (mentally) on the play. Had he made the push, he may surprise himself and make that save... which would be "the big save".
The rest of those goals did not involve any obvious mistake, he just got beat by good shots... happens to the best.
My point... a top NHL goalie can be "perfect" in terms of making no mistakes, for a stretch of games and still be at 0.880 SPCT based on how his team has played... but over the season, provided his team is reasonable, it should balance back out.
#1
I have no goaltending experience, and never played organized team hockey, but some informal stuff.
#2
I have watched the game for a long time, and so yes, a lot of times how we judge individual goals is unfair, but all analysis is unfair. A GM's performance has a lot of luck involved. A goalie's performance depends a lot on the quality of defense, and luck. If a goalie lets in a lot of goals that are forgivable, they will still get a lot of heat, and all teams do this. Goalies are expected to steal a few "sure things" in a game.
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and overall I have to say that Koskinen has been solid, and the times he looked bad was largely due to small sample giving too much microscope to some goals that look weak, but like you say aren't really weak. I've known this for a long time too, and defended Dubnyk on those grounds.
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and even more overall, my review of Koskinen is that it is incomplete. He has done enough to warrant a longer look, but we need the longer look to really judge him. I don't want a highlight reel. I want a good save percent, at least one that is good compared to what other goalies on our team get. And, I really like Koskinen and feel that Chiarelli has made a good move by getting him, even with the NMC.
