News Article: Sharks’ goaltending is historically bad for Stanley Cup contender

CaptainShark

Registered User
Sep 25, 2004
4,131
2,128
Fulda, Germany
Just talking about this season:

Even if the Sharks goalies would play up to par, their numbers might not be flattering... but this is more than a systemic issue. In addition to facing too many high quality scoring chances (breakaways, odd-man-rushes) Jones is not stopping enough of those (in comparison to what one would call a great goalie which regular season Jones has never been) and routinely gives up absolutely bad goals...

Just take our recent home-stretch:

The Panthers second goals was an unscreened wrister... go to nhl.com and watch the goal and listen to what the Panthers announcers have to say about it, spot on! A 10-year-old should have stopped it. That was a huge momentum killer.

On Nashville’s game-winner he totally lost his net, which is another trend this season. He is overly aggressive in those situations and has been burned many times without adjusting.

The 3rd Vegas goal was craptacular.

I know this is a small sample size but it’s a mirror image of most of his starts this season.

In addition to that there are a lot of nights when he bobbles the puck early, looks awkward making a save and/or gives up inexplicable rebounds, all of which, despite what they might say into a microphone, instills zero confidence in his teammates.

We can live and survive with the HDCA with the way we produce offense, as long as those really easy goals against will stop... right now, I have not reason to believe Jones will work that out for more than a couple of saves, and if Dell is your answer, someone asked the wrong question.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RockyMTNShark

OrrNumber4

Registered User
Jul 25, 2002
15,716
4,975
If he does cost the Sharks a series, it will be interesting to see his reaction. Not that anyone would really care in the heat of the moment, but Nabokov was always able to accept his own failures.

I mean, I wonder what Jones thinks of his current level of play? Does he take responsibility for it? Is he trying everything he can to fix his issues and nothing is working? Is he just hoping everything will fall into place? Seems like the only way we'd get concrete answers to those questions is an end-of-season interview.
 

Naki

Registered User
Oct 8, 2009
4,560
899
I'm curious as to what happened to Jones. Did Vegas break him last season? It's not like he is declining physical due to age. it seems like it's all mental errors or over committing. At first glance I'd think it was a confidence issue.
 

Ronnie Residue

Burns is daddy.
Feb 15, 2015
1,482
1,266
On, Canada
I'm curious as to what happened to Jones. Did Vegas break him last season? It's not like he is declining physical due to age. it seems like it's all mental errors or over committing. At first glance I'd think it was a confidence issue.
I think the decrease in goalies equipment size has definitely played a part, considering he has never been the most acrobatic of goalies, but confidence definitely comes into play too.
 

TomasHertlsRooster

Don’t say eye test when you mean points
May 14, 2012
33,360
25,417
Fremont, CA
If he does cost the Sharks a series, it will be interesting to see his reaction. Not that anyone would really care in the heat of the moment, but Nabokov was always able to accept his own failures.

I mean, I wonder what Jones thinks of his current level of play? Does he take responsibility for it? Is he trying everything he can to fix his issues and nothing is working? Is he just hoping everything will fall into place? Seems like the only way we'd get concrete answers to those questions is an end-of-season interview.

From the interviews I’ve seen, Jones has placed most of the blame on team defense for not playing well enough.
 

Jaleel619

Registered User
Nov 16, 2016
1,217
432
SJ
It's going to take teamwork from the both of them to win a cup. Aaron Dell is great at the run and gun match ups like VS the Flames or Knights, but against the Central id probably go with Jones since its a heavier game.

Honestly if im concerned about anything its Coutures pessimism about the play this season and if DeBoer can choose the right goalie at the right time. I'm sure time will take care of it, but I will always support whoever is in net.
 

RoloTonyBrownTown

Registered User
Oct 31, 2018
356
977
Can we cut the dumb narrative that "martin jONEs Is sTIll GOOd the SHArKS jusT givE up tOo MaNy GrADe a cHANces"

Sharks Expected Goals Against, the metric that takes into account both rate and location of scoring chances, is quite good:



If you replaced Jones/Dell with league average goalies who make the saves you can expect out of a goaltender of said caliber, the Sharks improve notably. In fact, if Tampa gets league average goaltending as well (instead of superhuman freak Vasilevsky), the Sharks and Lightning are almost on equal footing.

 

OffSydes

#tank2014/5
Aug 14, 2011
3,382
2,046
Too bad Miller didnt want to waive.. You would figure that a few months away from the wife would be worth a shot at the cup.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CaptainShark

SactoShark

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
May 1, 2009
12,482
1,051
Sacramento
I have some lingering confidence Jones will pull it together when the games count the most.

But for the regular season, I've never seen such poor goatlending on this team, ever. Historically embarassing performance from this duo.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bleedred

hockfan1991

Registered User
Jun 29, 2010
2,073
296
"...the goaltending duo finds itself with the worst combined save percentage of any team in the NHL. Dead last. Thirty one out of 31 with less than 10 games to play."

Who is the next team in playoff spot after us. The low 20's
 

Bleedred

Travis Green BLOWS! Bring back Nasreddine!
Sponsor
May 1, 2011
128,938
55,941
A few of you may be aware, but I've been doing a project since the start of the year, as per request from at least two posters, where I watch every goal scored on every goalie in every game. It's been time consuming (takes about an hour a night, a little more or little less depending on how many games happen that night), but it's also been fun and I feel pretty good about it. I've never done something like this before for every single player in the league at the position.

Jones currently leads the league in goals I've counted stoppable, which doesn't necessarily mean he's the worst, but due to games played, combined with being bad, he leads the league. He doesn't have the highest percentage. Koskinen, Smith, Copley, Talbot, Kinkaid, Quick and I think Jake Allen, are all guys I have at a higher percentage of stoppable goals allowed than Jones. As well as a few others who haven't played nearly as many games, like Garret Sparks, Calvin Pickard and a couple of other call ups and seldom used backups. Linus Ullmark is another one that's been awful.

I have Jones down for 47 on 157 goals allowed. Second highest is a tie at 43 between Dubnyk, Lundqvist and Koskinen. Kinkaid, Markstrom, Hellebuyck, Anderson and Holtby have all hit 40 or more, along with the aforementioned names.

I currently only have Dell at 10 on 58 allowed, which is one of the lowest percentages in the league, but that doesn't mean I think Dell is one of the best in the league or even good. I think if Dell played more games, you'd see either that number go up by quite a bit, his save percentage go up by quite a bit, or maybe even both. There's a couple other sparsely used backups with low save percentages, that have a very low count, like Joonas Korpisalo. Not to mention, I have other theories as to why Dell has been bad. Due to his lack of size, there's probably pucks that go in on him, that hit most NHL goalies, due to their size. His numbers may also be a market correction, due to how good he was his first 1.5 years in the league when he had a .930% save percentage, which I said at the time (and I think a lot of us knew it) was pretty unsustainable.

So in conclusion, while Jones hasn't looked like the worst goalie in the league to me this year, he's definitely up there.
 

Barrie22

Shark fan in hiding
Aug 11, 2009
24,795
5,955
ontario
A few of you may be aware, but I've been doing a project since the start of the year, as per request from at least two posters, where I watch every goal scored on every goalie in every game. It's been time consuming (takes about an hour a night, a little more or little less depending on how many games happen that night), but it's also been fun and I feel pretty good about it. I've never done something like this before for every single player in the league at the position.

Jones currently leads the league in goals I've counted stoppable, which doesn't necessarily mean he's the worst, but due to games played, combined with being bad, he leads the league. He doesn't have the highest percentage. Koskinen, Smith, Copley, Talbot, Kinkaid, Quick and I think Jake Allen, are all guys I have at a higher percentage of stoppable goals allowed than Jones. As well as a few others who haven't played nearly as many games, like Garret Sparks, Calvin Pickard and a couple of other call ups and seldom used backups. Linus Ullmark is another one that's been awful.

I have Jones down for 47 on 157 goals allowed. Second highest is a tie at 43 between Dubnyk, Lundqvist and Koskinen. Kinkaid, Markstrom, Hellebuyck, Anderson and Holtby have all hit 40 or more, along with the aforementioned names.

I currently only have Dell at 10 on 58 allowed, which is one of the lowest percentages in the league, but that doesn't mean I think Dell is one of the best in the league or even good. I think if Dell played more games, you'd see either that number go up by quite a bit, his save percentage go up by quite a bit, or maybe even both. There's a couple other sparsely used backups with low save percentages, that have a very low count, like Joonas Korpisalo. Not to mention, I have other theories as to why Dell has been bad. Due to his lack of size, there's probably pucks that go in on him, that hit most NHL goalies, due to their size. His numbers may also be a market correction, due to how good he was his first 1.5 years in the league when he had a .930% save percentage, which I said at the time (and I think a lot of us knew it) was pretty unsustainable.

So in conclusion, while Jones hasn't looked like the worst goalie in the league to me this year, he's definitely up there.

The fact that you have dell at 10 shows you don't even keep the same criteria for jones and dell. For dell he allowed at minimum 5 allowable shots in just the calgary game. So you are saying that over the remainder of his 20 or so games he has only allowed 5 or less stoppable shots in.

And we have all seen your criteria for what is stoppable for jones and it is way to high.

A double screen with a slap shot from the faceoff circle is not a stoppable shot.
 

Bleedred

Travis Green BLOWS! Bring back Nasreddine!
Sponsor
May 1, 2011
128,938
55,941
The fact that you have dell at 10 shows you don't even keep the same criteria for jones and dell. For dell he allowed at minimum 5 allowable shots in just the calgary game. So you are saying that over the remainder of his 20 or so games he has only allowed 5 or less stoppable shots in.

And we have all seen your criteria for what is stoppable for jones and it is way to high.

A double screen with a slap shot from the faceoff circle is not a stoppable shot.
With guys who are backups and have played limited games, I counted less stoppable goals and sometimes more stoppable goals. Garret Sparks is a good example of that on the other end, so is Pheonix Copley.

Earlier in the year, when every goalie played much less games, I counted a fairly low percentage for Jones. I’ve found that in a lot of cases, it takes a longer while to even out. A longer number of games played.

I don’t think Dell is a better goaltender than Jones overall. In fact, I’m sure if Dell played 56 games like Jones has, I’d be willing to bet that I’d count a higher percentage of goals stoppable on Dell than Jones.

I’m holding both to the same criteria, both like I said, a lot of goalies who have played limited games, have a bad save percentage and low stoppable goal count, while a lot of other goalies that have played limited games (Sparks and Copley) have a much higher percentage of goals I’ve counted stoppable than their save percentage would indicate.

Even 30 games into the season, I was finding a lot of fluctuations between the starting goalies in the league with their save percentage and percentage of goals I’ve counted stoppable, but there’s a strong correlation now with the starters around the league in save percentage and what I’ve counted stoppable. There are a few exceptions, like Koskinen has been probably the worst after Mike Smith, despite a league average save percentage, while Fleury and Gibson have among the lowest percentages of goals I’ve counted stoppable, while their save percentages are above average but not great.

And like I also noted, Dell probably allows a lot of goals that a goalie like Jones stops, just due to how small Dell is. There’s probably a lot of goals that don’t look stoppable on Dell, but likely are due to how tiny he is. Pucks that hit larger goalies like Jones without much problem.

And I don’t think I’ve counted goals as a double screen on Jones as stoppable. And if I did, I surely did not see them this way. Just going off last two games (where he allowed three goals in each game) I counted one goal stoppable in each. And they were the third goal he allowed in both games.

While he leads the league in my count, he doesn’t lead the league in percentage of goals I’ve counted stoppable. There’s quite a few ahead of him in that regard, but due to how many games he’s played and being pretty poor, he leads the league in my count. Some of the guys with high counts from me are also guys that haven’t been bad, but have played a lot of games this year. The actual count means as much as the GAA stat for goalies. Mike Smith has allowed 10 fewer goals I’ve counted stoppable tha Jones, but the percentage of goals I’ve counted as stoppable on Smith is actually significantly higher. But he doesn’t play nearly as many games, so he’s trailing by a significant margin in actual goals I’ve counted as stoppable.
 

Barrie22

Shark fan in hiding
Aug 11, 2009
24,795
5,955
ontario
You did count a double screen as a stoppable goal for jones because we had this arguement in the game day thread. And if that is even remotely close to your standard as a stoppable goal then i am going to take your data on this stuff with even less then a grain of salt.

Edit: and how is the 3rd goal vs nashville counted as a stoppable goal?
 
Last edited:

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->