Saying he faced less shots per game this past season then the one before and that this somehow should be a big factor in claiming he played worse is an lazy argument to say the least. I'd rather face 40 shots from the point than 10 from up close, the team played defense wore than they did in 13/14 and this along with his injuries caused his save % to drop a bit, he finished the season playing just as good as he did in 13/14.
News Article: NHL.com 30 in 30: Colorado Avalanche
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Foppa2118
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- Oct 3, 2003
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He was not at all worse enough for it to be a factor worth mentioning in explaining their drop in the standings. The team in front of him was much worse in terms of the quality chances they gave up, specifically the forwards who didn't play anywhere near as strong of two way hockey until Jan/Feb.
Save percentage is not immune to the team's play affecting it. The higher the quality chances on the same amount of shots given up, the more goals scored, and the worse the save percentage.
He was a notch below superman, but superman shouldn't be expected every year. That doesn't stop the media though from citing his play as a reason for their season every time. It's just lazy on their part.
According to war-on-ice, Varly's save percentage for High Danger Shots was identical for the two seasons in question at 84.29%. But for Medium Danger Shots, it dropped from 94.61% to 92.62% (and got slightly better for LDS).
And as my argument was more based on refuting that the defense was the reason for his drop in play...in 13-14, Varly faced 523 High Danger Shots in 63 games (8.30 HDS/Gm), but in 14-15 it was 440 in 57 (7.72 HDS/Gm). So Varly saw fewer High Danger Shots per game in 14-15, meaning the defense/forwards did not "stop playing defense" in front of him. He faced a higher rate of dangerous shots in 13-14, stopping them with the same efficiency. This was not his area of struggle.
For the Medium Danger Shots, he was significantly worse...2 full percentage points. He saw 7.79 MDS/Gm in 13-14, and 7.93 in 14-15, so slightly more per game. Coupled with stopping them at a lower rate, this is where the decline is. Despite 39 fewer medium danger shots, he allowed 8 more goals.
He also got worse on the Low Danger Shots, but not by as much. Still enough to have given up one more goal despite 95 fewer low danger shots.
Screw it, I will post the season numbers and you guys can look them over and see that the play in front of Varly, averaged over the entire season, was NOT worse in 14-15.
Name | Season | ShotsAgainst/60 | Sv%Low | Sv%Med | Sv%High | GoalsLow | SavesLow | GoalsMed | SavesMed | GoalsHigh | SavesHigh
Semyon.Varlamov | 20132014 | 33.21 | 97.49 | 94.61 | 84.49 | 22 | 853 | 28 | 491 | 96 | 523
Semyon.Varlamov | 20142015 | 32.52 | 97.06 | 92.62 | 84.29 | 23 | 758 | 36 | 452 | 82 | 440
And again, I am not blaming Varly for the season's troubles. He was only one part of it. Him being injured, and playing slightly worse, was not why they regressed so much. It was a combination of things. IMO, mainly offense, which should bounce back. And Varly probably will be more like 13-14 as well.
And as my argument was more based on refuting that the defense was the reason for his drop in play...in 13-14, Varly faced 523 High Danger Shots in 63 games (8.30 HDS/Gm), but in 14-15 it was 440 in 57 (7.72 HDS/Gm). So Varly saw fewer High Danger Shots per game in 14-15, meaning the defense/forwards did not "stop playing defense" in front of him. He faced a higher rate of dangerous shots in 13-14, stopping them with the same efficiency. This was not his area of struggle.
For the Medium Danger Shots, he was significantly worse...2 full percentage points. He saw 7.79 MDS/Gm in 13-14, and 7.93 in 14-15, so slightly more per game. Coupled with stopping them at a lower rate, this is where the decline is. Despite 39 fewer medium danger shots, he allowed 8 more goals.
He also got worse on the Low Danger Shots, but not by as much. Still enough to have given up one more goal despite 95 fewer low danger shots.
Screw it, I will post the season numbers and you guys can look them over and see that the play in front of Varly, averaged over the entire season, was NOT worse in 14-15.
Semyon.Varlamov | 20132014 | 33.21 | 97.49 | 94.61 | 84.49 | 22 | 853 | 28 | 491 | 96 | 523
Semyon.Varlamov | 20142015 | 32.52 | 97.06 | 92.62 | 84.29 | 23 | 758 | 36 | 452 | 82 | 440
And again, I am not blaming Varly for the season's troubles. He was only one part of it. Him being injured, and playing slightly worse, was not why they regressed so much. It was a combination of things. IMO, mainly offense, which should bounce back. And Varly probably will be more like 13-14 as well.
The Kingslayer
Registered User
I ****in hate the media when it comes to reporting on the Avs. All outlets are ****ing dumb as ****. They make it seem like our defense got worse or something this offseason. And question marks in goal? **** out of here with that non-sense. Varly's groin could be a concern but when hes playing hes one of the best. That entire write up gave me cancer of the balls.
5280
To the window!
This whole post is gold!
I loved how with CBJ they HYPED how injured they were and then talked about all of the promise of the team while they Avs they casually mentioned it and then went to spend a majority of the time complaining about their corsi.
I just found it funny as I find the 2 teams to be incredibly similar and NHL.com is known to show their biases for certain teams over the years. The one benefit of the doubt I will give them is that the Avs play in a much harder division and conference.
For me I think this upcoming year depends a lot on what the Avs can do offensively. Their big guns will have more pressure than ever and there are some question marks with players like Grigs on the roster.
I just found it funny as I find the 2 teams to be incredibly similar and NHL.com is known to show their biases for certain teams over the years. The one benefit of the doubt I will give them is that the Avs play in a much harder division and conference.
For me I think this upcoming year depends a lot on what the Avs can do offensively. Their big guns will have more pressure than ever and there are some question marks with players like Grigs on the roster.
The defense and goaltending where about the same statistically but the Offense plummeted which even after a little bit of research should have been obvious. Both Varly and Picks where lights out they just didn't get the support from a year ago.
Foppa2118
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- Oct 3, 2003
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I'm assuming "medium and high danger shots" are referring to the scoring area on the ice, because there's no way a site like that is calculating the actual quality of the shots faced by each goalie in the league, in terms of how wide open the goal scorer was, how the play developed, and how they passed the puck potentially leaving the goaltender out to dry.
The scoring area only tells half the story, and isn't enough to go on to prove how better or worse he was from the year prior.
If you wanted to do that accurately you'd have to watch each goal, and make some kind of grading system to rank how dangerous all the shots were, and then do the same for every other goalie and weigh how much better or worse each is from the other.
Aside from that you just have a general idea of what to go off, and it involves what you watched with your eyes. I didn't see a drop in play in Varly's game anywhere near the point where it warrants mentioning him as a reason why they were so much worse last year than the year prior. The difference was minuscule IMO, and easily falls into the variance from season to season for any particular goalie.
Which is why you can't quantify certain things with stats. I only missed two or three games last year, and there is no way in hell the forwards played as well defensively in the first half of the season as the year prior.
Even ROR was noticeably off his game defensivley. It was pretty much across the board.
Lemonlimey
Registered User
The Kingslayer
Registered User
You dont want that lol. The media for some reason loves to **** on us and this has been going on a loooooooooong time now and im just sick of it. TSN in particular pisses me off especially that dorkopotamus Ferraro and that jock strap Mclennan. We fired your incompetent brother in law twice little Ray get over it and Mclennan saying Varlamov was the third worse goalie in the West a few yrs ago really set me off. The 2 goalies worse on his stupid list were Bobrovsky and Mason. Bob and Varly have shown his dumbass he knows nothing and Mason seems like hes finally stabilized the Flyers goaltending. Team 1260 gets on my nerves when they talk about the Avs. During that ROR fiasco one of the guys said the Avs were too cheap to spend. Last I looked we are right near the cap are we not? All these media outlets just need to do one thing when it comes to the Avs if they just say, "hey, im going to be honest with you. I dont know anything about that team other then they are young, they have some holes to fill and I dont watch enough of them to give you an educated opinion on them." If they said that I would be fine because they all seem to act like they havent seen an Avs game since 2008.
tigervixxxen
Optimism=Delusional
Lemonlimey
Registered User
Every fanbase has a persecution complex, but its not paranoia if they are out to get you. Something is going on here. Its like every media outlet has agreed that the Central banner hanging in the Can rafters doesn't count, and is indeed an offense. We dared win a different way, to a startling extent, and with style. Columbus is due because of injuries, but not Colorado no, not even with the fact we had more actual man games lost than them last year if you include Bordeleau. Dallas and Winnipeg and Minnesota are the up and comers to watch, despite none of them sniffing the top tier of the division. You'd think Roy winnning the Jack Adams would end the snarky punditry about how he is some firebrand lunatic who only had a one time effect on the Avs like they are some excitable children. We will never stop paying for winning with poor corsi, it has become an unforgiveable offense which has warranted the further diminishing and misunderstanding of all things Avalanche ever since.
tigervixxxen
Optimism=Delusional
Calgary can still be a trendy pick despite winning with poor Corsi or Winnipeg doesn't ever get mentioned that they haven't won ONE SINGLE playoff game in their entire franchise's existence. 90 points is considered a "disaster" but Dallas is on the rise because they finished with 91 and 92 points. Its not the skepticism or criticism, its that condescending tone they all get when discussing the Avs. And even say stuff like "haven't gotten with the times", "haven't figured it out". Like the other teams have seen the magic of enlightenment meanwhile a total of 3 teams have won the Cup in almost a decade but the Avs are still bumbling away. Nobody cares what happens here in the western US and that's fine but keep the sneering to a minimum.
Bender
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- Sep 25, 2002
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It's been that way for a while and I can't say for certain WHY it exists, it certainly DOES exist.
If the San Jose Sharks had signed Beauchemin to the same deal we did and we signed Martin to the same deal they did, they would have lauded the Sharks for their signing and dumped on the Avs for signing an aging Martin.
It could be because of media availability or lackthereof or the fact that the Avs are very secretive as an organization that rubs certain members of the media the wrong way. It could be because the Avs were so good for so long and managed to win 2 cups that some people in the media are happy to pile on since they went into rebuild mode. (It's easy to see why greg wyshynski wouldn't like them, since we beat his new jersey devils in Game 7 in 2001) It's really no secret that ferraro enjoys dumping on them and there's at least the granatool connection there, so at least there's a reason, as pathetic as that might actually be. The sportsnet guys are just mostly incompetent though. John shannon & john garrett cannot be counted on to provide much of anything except poor insight and just blind homerism. Mike Johnson is pretty good though and I don't generally disagree with a lot of what he has to say.
Lemonlimey
Registered User
A great point. Every commentary on free agency I've seen, the pundit has called out Beauchemin as a bad signing because "they wonder about that third year". Like that is so clever. Well...what about that first year? Or the second? How about the potential of next season's Avs having a legitimate 1st pairing partner for EJ who, by the way, broke out into being an All Star? And then you put Zadorov with Barrie? But no, we 'topped out' at 90 points last year and in doing so proved everyone right by regressing. I hate to sound like such sour grapes, but I legitimately fear any accomplishment the Avs have this next season will just be picked apart again. While Minnesota continues to have endless smoke blowed up their ass to my endless confusion. Roy gets so much hate, but Yeo employs the Cooke effect to maximum potential and skates. Hockey traditionalism i suppose, don't rock the boat, but do be a dirtbag.
That is a very good point.
(On a tangent)
I think the reason they didn't like the Avs is because at the time a handful of people really jumped on the Advanced stats bandwagon while the Avs dominated the league that year even with contradicting numbers and they were unable to explain why so they felt threatened and became defensive about it.
Its important to note that Advanced stats are still fairly helpful but at that time there were really some outlandish proposals out there about their significance and how important they were. Since then teams have incorporated them but admitted they weren't as useful as initially thought.
Still to this day advanced stats have given otherwise mediocre hockey reporters a sense of accomplishment they otherwise wouldn't get, so any time a hockey team achieves with poor possession numbers the reporters feel a need to cry out against them. They are still out there when teams like Calgary made it however they just aren't all the rage like they were when the Avs came under fire, so its all just a timing thing. Plus CGY killing the Hamilton trade should help them avoid the criticism as well.
The 2nd issue with reporting in my mind is hockey is a sport with incredible parity so it truly is impossible to predict which teams will rise and fall this year. Even looking at the past 2 years the variance is huge. So because of this all of the reporters, especially the bigger names tend to make their decisions with either slight variations on the previous seasons ending (which we know isn't too accurate) or based on which teams made the "biggest" off season moves/ free agent signings(which we also know doesn't have a very strong correlation with a teams success).
So for example the reason everyone is really high on Dallas even though on paper swapping out Daily for Oduya, creating goalie drama between 2 mediocre goaltenders and adding an aging Sharp to a team whose goal scoring wasn't an issue isn't that impressive because they were big flashy names and trades then they accompany that with the subtle change method and walla.
tigervixxxen
Optimism=Delusional
Yeah the Beauchemin thing is stupid to me too. Was he constantly thrown under the bus when he was with Anaheim, did people complain he was holding them back. And if he would have stayed it would just be status quo. But even that the contract, so what in the third year. Stuart will be gone. Of he's just a third pairing PK guy by then who cares? Yeah it will be a lot to pay a third pairing guy by then but it's one more year and we have a lot of young defensemen (and probably even more by then). Plus we've endured much "worse". How about paying Wilson over 3M for three years to do literally nothing? I think we'll be ok. I can understand the term on Soderberg is a fair question, 5 years is a long time but 3 for Beauchemin doesn't mean much to me.
The Kingslayer
Registered User
Any free agent that signs in Denver automatically sucks. This is the media's MO for a damn long time now. Iginla was supposed to suck and it was such a terrible signing and he puts up near identical numbers as he did the year prior in Boston and not a damn peep from these so called experts. Francois plays top line minutes on one of the best d-cores in the West and now hes an old man who should be a bottom pairing. I really want the boys to come in with a huge chip on their shoulders this season and really stick it to these so called experts.
Ohh yeah lmao, I forgot that. The media ran pretty much the EXACT same story on Iggy that they did on Beauch.
Gigantor The Goalie
Speak for the Goalies
The Shermanator
HFBoards Legend
I'm psyched for the music video featuring McLeod, Zadorov, and Johnny Malkin lip-synching to "Can't Feel My Face."
Cousin Eddie
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Foppa2118
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The chip on "Noodles" shoulder could fit on Mt Rushmore. I can't figure out what he ever did in his career to have such a smug look on his face every time they cut to him on camera after asking a question.
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