If you think the new system of Carlyle has little or nothing to do with our improved defense play, including the goalies, I would honestly advise you to step away from the statistics and possibly never watch hockey again.
The change in shot quality from last year to this year is absolutely unreal.
I felt like you guys wouldn't click on the links, so I tried to quote the key points to make it super accessible, but I clearly failed you my friends.
Mock me all you want gents, everything I've said is objectively backed.
Our goalies are better than last year but the Leafs are doing a good job of blocking shots, clearing rebounds and making sure there are no second and third chances for teams to whack the rebound home.
We're not giving up many quality chances....if we were giving up the same chances as we were for the most part of last year, we would be in the hunt for Seth Jones.
I don't care if we get outshot because we usually win when we do get outshot.
Absolutely correct --
of our 20 wins, we've been outshot in all but 5 of them.
You should care, because this is a problem. This is not how good teams operate.
The top teams in the league like Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Montreal, all of those guys have positive shot differentials. The teams that people are surprised to see doing so well like us, Anaheim, Ottawa, and Columbus? Negative shot differentials. At -4.5, we're in there with the Buffalos and Floridas of the league. This is problematic, and I really can't emphasize that enough.
tl;dr teams that get outshot lose more often than not.
yep, Reimer and Scrivens have been much, much better than last year.
but, to Randy's credit, our PK is way, way better as well, even ignoring the goalies.
Mirtle had an article a couple of days ago which quoted some professional hockey stats firms' analysis of the Leafs' improvement defensively this year. They broke it down like this:
Team Defense 5-on-5 has improved 3%
Team Defense on the PK has improved 13%
Goaltending (even considering shot volume and quality) has improved 17%.
That breakdown by the stats professionals pretty much agrees exactly with what I've been seeing on the ice this year.
Everything I've been saying. 5v5 defensive improvement has been minimal. We're winning games on the back of Reimer and a top 5 PK.