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%.