Samsonov has the worst stats this year of our goalies, but he has the best record. This should have been an indication for you that better overall goalie stats don't automatically equal a better team record. Winning 5-4 or 5-1 has a pretty big impact on a goalie's stats, but it doesn't change anything about a team's point percentage, and all indications are that this kind of thing is what happened here, considering the spectacular 117 point pace we have had in front of Samsonov, compared to the 92 point pace we have had while getting better goaltending away from him.
It's one thing to suggest that Samsonov's struggles compared to last year could have negatively impacted us, just as we likely benefited from better goaltending than last year in the other half of games. It's quite another however to arbitrarily tack on another 12 points and hold the expectation of a 142 point pace in front of Samsonov, in order to distract from the bigger area of concern.
Winnipeg has done better than us this year, and they have the runaway best goalie this year, who has doubled the overall goaltending impact of Samsonov last year, and they have played at a 107 point pace in front of him. If we're tacking on 12 points because we went from good goaltending to above average goaltending, what bonus are we tacking on to our franchise-record season 2 years ago, when we got bad -21 GSAx goaltending? It's not that simple.
No, we let useful players walk, that some here never appreciated, and then didn't properly add what we needed. The forwards and defensemen we added to replace good defensive players and surround an influx of rookies were some of the worst in the league defensively, we left a hole in the top-4 of our defense, and we seemed to forget PKing exists. The team took a hit this year because of it.
What are you talking about? Superstars getting their 5% bump from a 5% cap increase doesn't prevent any other players from getting their 5% bump. And for the record, superstars are usually the ones that get the short end of the stick in terms of compensation relative to impact, with the middle class, on average, benefiting most.
These are league-wide considerations involving contract standards and the realities of guaranteed contracts with term, so you should probably be writing the NHLPA to tell them about how their employees don't deserve the protections they collectively negotiated for by sacrificing other things to their billionaire corporate overlords. Until then, we just have to navigate the world and standards that currently exist.
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