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

[TomasHertlsRooster]

Ok, so now the contention is that San Jose's high danger shots against are so much worse than every other team's that it makes a .897 sv% turn into something resembling league average (.909) goaltending? San Jose has given up 17 extra goals this year over and above even the most putrid defenses in the nhl because their HDSA are especially dangerous? I just don't find that plausible in the slightest.

No need to put words in anybody’s mouth. I think Jones has been terrible all season.

I think the true “danger level” of San Jose’s high danger shots allowed are probably a little bit higher than those of other teams. And that as a whole, San Jose has a good defense, but for the purpose of flattering the raw save percentage of a goaltender, it’s likely one of the worst defenses in the NHL.

 

[Lebanezer]

People are using stats to support just how awful Martin Jones has been this year. Other people reject that idea and blame it on the defensive system. Who is in charge of the system? Peter Deboer. The two biggest problems with the team right now are Goaltending and Deboer. This team is too deep and talented to need an offensive minded system to score. Deboer could have made that change, but he hasn’t. Jones has played an entire season at garbage levels. His confidence is in the toilet. Deboer could have addressed it systematically, but he didn’t. So here we are, with awful goaltending, and a coach who’s unwilling to put the team in the best position to succeed.

 

[Bleedred]

Well, it's because your view of what screens are and what they do is seemingly without any level of understanding of what the goaltender actually sees from his position. And you're still wrong about that screen regarding Bernier and it's mind boggling that you still can't see that and it fundamentally skews your project because of that perception you have that I view as unreasonable.

I'm not doubting the goalie is actually screened on some of these things you and some others believe are ''Screens'' as much as I think the goalie shouldn't have let these questionable screens block their view.

I've also noticed that that bad goalies are ''Screened'' much more easily than the guys that are good. And I think that's certainly plausible and makes sense.

 

[Bleedred]

It is plausible. The sharks for the most part limit shots. But the shots that they let up are frequently high danger breakaways or 2 on 1's.

I'd like to see the data for this. I wouldn't say most of the shots are breakaways or 2 on 1's, but Jones must have a terrible save percentage on them.

And while I've counted some of his breakaway goals against as stoppable, there's A LOT that I haven't like the same move where a guy takes it to the net and lifts a backhander over his glove from close range? I haven't counted any of them stoppable, but it fees like he's allowed that goal about 5-7 times this year on a breakaway and beaten with that same move continuously.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

I'm not doubting the goalie is actually screened on some of these things you and some others believe are ''Screens'' as much as I think the goalie shouldn't have let these questionable screens block their view.

I've also noticed that that bad goalies are ''Screened'' much more easily than the guys that are good. And I think that's certainly plausible and makes sense.

That first line is pretty blatantly disingenuous but even if we ignore that part, what standard are you even going off of to determine what should or shouldn't be a screen that blocks their view?

 

[Bleedred]

That first line is pretty blatantly disingenuous but even if we ignore that part, what standard are you even going off of to determine what should or shouldn't be a screen that blocks their view?

If there's a maze of players or even just one guy near the goalie's face, I'm not counting it stoppable.

If a guy is ''Screened'' by someone way up top and it's just one guy, I'm gonna say the goalie needs to do a better job of finding it.

One that I remember you saying was a screen and I absolutely thought it was a dogshit excuse, was one of the early goals Jones allowed in game 1 against Vegas. I remember thinking ''That's a screen? WHAT? Well it shouldn't have been!''.

I feel like you and a few others are really a little too generous in what you accept a goalie being screened on.

 

[Barrie22]

If there's a maze of players or even just one guy near the goalie's face, I'm not counting it stoppable.

If a guy is ''Screened'' by someone way up top and it's just one guy, I'm gonna say the goalie needs to do a better job of finding it.

One that I remember you saying was a screen and I absolutely thought it was a dog**** excuse, was one of the early goals Jones allowed in game 1 against Vegas. I remember thinking ''That's a screen? WHAT? Well it shouldn't have been!''.

I feel like you and a few others are really a little too generous in what you accept a goalie being screened on.

Can't be game 1 vs vegas. Dell started that game.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

If there's a maze of players or even just one guy near the goalie's face, I'm not counting it stoppable.

If a guy is ''Screened'' by someone way up top and it's just one guy, I'm gonna say the goalie needs to do a better job of finding it.

One that I remember you saying was a screen and I absolutely thought it was a dog**** excuse, was one of the early goals Jones allowed in game 1 against Vegas. I remember thinking ''That's a screen? WHAT? Well it shouldn't have been!''.

I feel like you and a few others are really a little too generous in what you accept a goalie being screened on.

I'm going to need a lot more context than that to respond appropriately.

 

[Bleedred]

I'm going to need a lot more context than that to respond appropriately.

Then we'd need to use an example from a goal.

I haven't noticed a goal in quite some time where someone argued that Jones looked like he might have been screened, where I marked stoppable. It's been at least a few weeks.

 

[Bleedred]

Can't be game 1 vs vegas. Dell started that game.

Game 1 of the playoff series last year.

 

[Barrie22]

Game 1 of the playoff series last year.

Nope. Tipped 2 feet out.

 

[Bleedred]

Nope. Tipped 2 feet out.

Weren't there like 4 or 5 goals against Jones in the 1st period of that game 1 against Vegas last year?

 

[Barrie22]

Weren't there like 4 or 5 goals against Jones in the 1st period of that game 1 against Vegas last year?

Goal. 2 screened by 2 players plus banked off a shin.

Goal 3 was a shot from above the hashmarks and below the top of the circle through burns feet. Could be it. But this is what pf is saying those are extremely difficult saves.

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Weren't there like 4 or 5 goals against Jones in the 1st period of that game 1 against Vegas last year?

Looking through that thread, I believe you're referring to the Haula goal where Tuch is driving the net, drops the puck off and Haula takes the shot that goes through him and DeMelo while also either being tipped or skipping off the ice. I agreed with you on the third goal being stoppable but still screened. That one by Marchessault was not the same kind of screen as the Haula one that you said he had to have. Now knowing what your basis is for these goals against that you're doing, your own standard would view that as not stoppable but you made a big deal of it then.

 

[Bleedred]

Looking through that thread, I believe you're referring to the Haula goal where Tuch is driving the net, drops the puck off and Haula takes the shot that goes through him and DeMelo while also either being tipped or skipping off the ice. I agreed with you on the third goal being stoppable but still screened. That one by Marchessault was not the same kind of screen as the Haula one that you said he had to have. Now knowing what your basis is for these goals against that you're doing, your own standard would view that as not stoppable but you made a big deal of it then.

There are goals that I have said ''Stoppable'' at first, then recanted on after seeing the tip. If I'm not 100% sure about a goal, I will watch the highlight video again after a game and make sure. I usually do watch the highlight video again when I do all my reviews at the end of the night after all the games are over. That's when I then go into my file and add another number(s) to each goalie's name that allowed a goal (or more) that I counted stoppable.

Like last week, I nailed Jones for the Hoffman goal during the game, but did say it was borderline. After taking more looks at it, I did not mark that goal as stoppable, but I did write off the Dryden Scrubsen goal as stoppable, as I didn't need another look at that one.

 

[Bleedred]

Goal. 2 screened by 2 players plus banked off a shin.

Goal 3 was a shot from above the hashmarks and below the top of the circle through burns feet. Could be it. But this is what pf is saying those are extremely difficult saves.

Not every goal that I count as stoppable is a really brutal goal.

And I think that's another reason Jones is passing eye tests for many this year or at least much more than he is for me and on paper.

He hasn't allowed too many goals that would be the ''Softy of the night'' this year. Although goal 3 against Vegas the other night was and absolutely that goal he allowed to Drew Stafford back in December was probably a top 3-5 softy of the year in the entire league, but he doesn't allow a lot of brutally soft goals this year. Which is probably why he doesn't look so bad on the eye test of many people.

 

[Dicdonya]

Oh I don't think anyone's disputing that. Most Jones 'haters' can acknowledge it's not all on Jones. At least for me, all I want is for Jones defenders to at least acknowledge that he's been bad. He may not be the only problem, but he's been a big part of it. And I just don't see that being admitted very often. Yeah, the only thing left to do is tighten up on team defense and hope Jones doesn't wet the bed. That doesn't mean people are suddenly absolved from representing reality at least somewhat accurately. It really is a horrible position when having Cam Ward's statline would be a massive improvement and people still refuse to put any responsibility on the goaltender.

What Jones "defender" has ever actually stated that Jones is not struggling this year? Only argument I ever see is those defending Jones from people who scream that Jones is the worst goalie in the whole league, and utter garbage, and to jettison him into the sun. Also plenty of fights about what is, or is not, a "stoppable" goal, but that argument is futile as it is entirely subjective, as evidenced by this thread so far.

For the numbers though, lets take Fluery vs Jones as an example. Fluery is rocking a sweet .919 sv% at ES, miles better than Jones. Yet both Jones and Fluery equally suck at stopping high danger shots, like exactly the same HDsv%. So why might their numbers be so different then? Well you realize that Fluery faces less high danger shots, and more overall shots, per 60, and you start to understand why Jones numbers look so horrifically bad compared to Fluery.

Now am I saying that Jones has been as good as Fluery this year, and had we just switched teams goalies, Jones would have .919 sv%, no, but he might.

This is why my main point this year, when defending Jones, has been his HD shot ratio. He had, last time I did the math, the highest HDSA as a ratio of total shots in the entire league. We know that HDSA, even if not perfect, do indicate a higher likelyhood of goals going in. So theoretically, if two goalies both faced 10 HDSA in a game, but one faced 20 shots and the other 15, the guy who faced less shots, on average, will come out with the worse SV% over time. Does that mean either goalie is actually better than the other?

I would bet my life that if the team was able to either lower the HD chances against with current total shots allow, or increase the total shots against per/60 while HD chances stay the same, Jones numbers would look perfectly acceptable, maybe not great, but not league worst type stuff. His subpar play, mixed with HDSA ratio, is why Jones numbers look horrific, and not just mediocre.

As for Ward, yeah he faces a million more shots than Jones, has higher GAA, but better SV%. Ill take the team and goalie that are allowing less than 3 gaa per game at ES, even if that goalie/team has the worse SV%.

 

[one2gamble]

Everyone knows he been terrible, we didn't need the article or the Twitter posts

 

[PattyLafontaine]

Yeah the Vegas series looks like blast.

If the Sharks lose to Vegas they have to clean house and that includes Doug Wilson

 

[Pinkfloyd]

Yeah the Vegas series looks like blast.

If the Sharks lose to Vegas they have to clean house and that includes Doug Wilson

We all know that's not going to happen in terms of cleaning house.

 

[OrrNumber4]

This feels like the beginning of the season where Jones wasn't letting in a lot of stinkers, and you could look at the vast majority of goals conceded and not blame him...but in the aggregate, an NHL-level goaltender, much less one being paid like a top-10 goaltender, is able to make a couple of those saves.

 

[Saskatoon]

I get Wilson's loyalty to Jones to certain degree (you did just give him a big contract after all) but why he didn't find a better option at backup than Dell boogles me a little bit.

 

[Fistfullofbeer]

We all know that's not going to happen in terms of cleaning house.

I don't even know what cleaning house means in this context?

- DW is not going to be fired.

- The biggest issues for the Sharks this year has been team defense and goal-tending. Jones is not going anywhere. Very little chance PDB does either.

- The EK65 situation is really not going to be decided by us. And he may just choose to walk if we lose to Vegas.
- Doubt we put any effort into re-signing Nyquist.

- Pavs re-signs here if EK65 walks. Possibly Donskoi as well.
- Jumbo comes back for another year.

- We re-sign all of our RFA's.

No matter what happens, this team next year is not going to be that different in personnel. Both management and players.

 

[PattyLafontaine]

I don't even know what cleaning house means in this context?

- DW is not going to be fired.

- The biggest issues for the Sharks this year has been team defense and goal-tending. Jones is not going anywhere. Very little chance PDB does either.

- The EK65 situation is really not going to be decided by us. And he may just choose to walk if we lose to Vegas.
- Doubt we put any effort into re-signing Nyquist.

- Pavs re-signs here if EK65 walks. Possibly Donskoi as well.
- Jumbo comes back for another year.

- We re-sign all of our RFA's.

No matter what happens, this team next year is not going to be that different in personnel. Both management and players.

That will be part of the problem. I argued for a house cleaning after the 2014 debacle.

Sure they got to the cup, but they were run out of the building. Jones had to stand on his head just so that they could win two games.

They core is too comfortable and Wilson has handed out some bad long term contracts.

He’s also responsible for McClellan.

Sure, the cup is the most difficult trophy to win because hockey requires the most luck, but at some point when you constantly have bad luck it’s a function of not having the right team.

Wilson is an excellent GM in certain respects but mediocre in a few categories.

This is the deepest and most talented team the Sharks have had ever and they are staring down a 5 game series loss to a second year expansion team.

I’d love to be wrong but I do not have faith in DeBoer to make the necessary adjustments and the team to buy into the system needed to get by Vegas.

Talent isn’t enough and having pseudo grit guys doesn’t cut it.

We’ve seen weak fourth lines year after year.

How about playing the less experienced guys to see if they can give the team a boost. The teams that win usually have an untested rookie/second year player emerge in the playoffs and make key contributions.

Are we going too see Haley in the playoffs or is Dougie GM going to nut up and give someone like Chekhovich a shot.

 

[Fistfullofbeer]

That will be part of the problem. I argued for a house cleaning after the 2014 debacle.

Sure they got to the cup, but they were run out of the building. Jones had to stand on his head just so that they could win two games.

They core is too comfortable and Wilson has handed out some bad long term contracts.

He’s also responsible for McClellan.

Sure, the cup is the most difficult trophy to win because hockey requires the most luck, but at some point when you constantly have bad luck it’s a function of not having the right team.

Wilson is an excellent GM in certain respects but mediocre in a few categories.

This is the deepest and most talented team the Sharks have had ever and they are staring down a 5 game series loss to a second year expansion team.

I’d love to be wrong but I do not have faith in DeBoer to make the necessary adjustments and the team to buy into the system needed to get by Vegas.

Talent isn’t enough and having pseudo grit guys doesn’t cut it.

We’ve seen weak fourth lines year after year.

How about playing the less experienced guys to see if they can give the team a boost. The teams that win usually have an untested rookie/second year player emerge in the playoffs and make key contributions.

Are we going too see Haley in the playoffs or is Dougie GM going to nut up and give someone like Chekhovich a shot.

I have no faith in PDB as far as adjustments go either. I think DW has done tremendous work with drafting, trades and acquiring European free agents. He overpaid his own players in Jones, Couture and Vlasic. So not so good of a job there.

I think one of the biggest issues I have felt with DW is that he gives too much loyalty to his coaches. McLellan should have been fired a few years before we actually was. I thought PDB should have been fired after last year as well. Another issue, though not as big, is buying into role/grit players like Haley, Brown, etc.

If a healthy Sharks team loses to Vegas in the first round, it is going to be hard to defend PDB. More so, its the same team that beat us the previous year. If we have injured players, DW just uses that as an excuse to keep PDB around.