Was Kiprusoff really as good as he was pegged?

Vordus

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He was the best rebound control goalie I've ever seen. Any puck that ever hit him would just bounce harmlessly into a corner.
 

Flames Fanatic

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I think the thing that really solidifies it for me that I'm not a pure homer is that there are nearly as many Canuck fans and Oilers fans in here laughing at the idea that Kipper wasn't very good.

Love that we can hate each other, but we can still admit (often after the fact) that our hated enemies had some gold. Canucks and the Sedins endlessly and effortlessly cycling in our zone, every god damn game. Ryan Smyth parked in front of the net, or Roloson making a huge save. Gold.
 

Rogue Winger

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Mar 10, 2018
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We'll never know if Kiprusoff could have changed the momentum of the Olympic gold medal game in 2006.

Sweden won the gold medal game 3-2 and Finnish goalie Niittymaki was the MVP of the tournament, so perhaps not the most relevant "what if".

Still, Kipper was in his prime during those times, but unfortunately was not available.
 
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iamjs

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Oct 1, 2008
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Don't get me wrong, Miikka Kiprusoff was the best goalie Calgary had for who knows how long. Also being able to play so many 70+ seasons consecutively is no feat and it's understandable why one's stats would suffer from playing that many games. Still, many pegged him as an elite goaltender, yet when you factor quality of shots and all, Kiprusoff is a negative in every season since they started tracking them (2007-2008). He did have two elite seasons with the Flames in 2003-2004 and especially 2005-2006 (Starter's workload with excellent stats in a high scoring season). From 2007-2008 to the 2012-2013 (When Kipper officially retired), he had a GSAA of -54.91 5on5 and -76.44 in all situations...

and that's where I stopped reading.
 

Troubadour

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Feb 23, 2018
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If the question read "Was Kiprusoff as good in the NHL2002 as he was pegged later in reality?"

...I would say NO!

He was pretty awful in NHL2002. I could deke him into knots. The only goalie worse than Kipper in that game was Kay Whitmore who (kinda) played for the Flames then.
 
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Felidae

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Don't get me wrong, Miikka Kiprusoff was the best goalie Calgary had for who knows how long. Also being able to play so many 70+ seasons consecutively is no feat and it's understandable why one's stats would suffer from playing that many games. Still, many pegged him as an elite goaltender, yet when you factor quality of shots and all, Kiprusoff is a negative in every season since they started tracking them (2007-2008). He did have two elite seasons with the Flames in 2003-2004 and especially 2005-2006 (Starter's workload with excellent stats in a high scoring season). From 2007-2008 to the 2012-2013 (When Kipper officially retired), he had a GSAA of -54.91 5on5 and -76.44 in all situations. He played far below what was expected of him and none of his danger zone save percentages were good. In fact all below average. What was noticeable was his poor medium save percentage and high danger save percentage. It also wasn't like Kiprusoff was some elite puck handler who are known to suppress quality chances and chances in general more often. He was an excellent rebound controller though so that did help suppress chances. Still having a DSv% of -0.70 from 2007 to the year he retired is definitely nowhere near elite territory. Heck, I'd argue he was a below average starter during this period. Yes he did have to play with an insane workload, but he simply just wasn't good enough, not as good as a lot of Flames fans peg him as.

He faced 12.32 low danger shots per 60 5on5 during this time period.
He faced 11.84 medium danger shots per 60 5on5 during this time period.
He faced 4.07 high danger shots per 60 5on5 during this time period.

For comparison, Dubnyk who faced the least amount of high danger shots 5on5 per 60 of all starter goalies in 2017-2018 faced 3.97, so barely less than Kiprusoff.

Lundqvist during Kiprusoff's time period on a Rangers team that was pegged as elite defensively still faced 5.75 high danger shots per 60.

Even Rinne who played on a Trotz coached team with prime Weber and Suter barely faced less high danger shots than Kiprusoff. Rinne is arguably the best rebound controller since Brodeur along with excellent puck handling skills, so he suppresses chances better than Kiprusoff by far.
Yet despite all this, Kiprussoff has save percentage finishes of 1, 3, 9, 9, 10.

And in all but his highest sv% season, he was at least the goalie with the 4th most minutes and 7th most shots faced.
 

Tarantula

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After reading through this forum and seeing how much workload he had for as many seasons I think he could be argued as somewhat under rated.
 

mrhockey193195

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Nov 14, 2006
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Not going to comment on Kipper, but it's pretty disappointing to see HOH posters dismiss and ridicule a seemingly honest question. I'd expect a lot more discussion beyond "of course he was great, you're an idiot".
 
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Troubadour

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Not going to comment on Kipper, but it's pretty disappointing to see HOH posters dismiss and ridicule a seemingly honest question. I'd expect a lot more discussion beyond "of course he was great, you're an idiot".

Hehe, reading the replies, for a second I was confused, thinking I accidentally ended up on the main board.

Seriously though, most of the harsh posts came from homers and you can't really blame them. They watched a great goalie game in, game out. Someone suddenly begins questioning his legacy, hence their replies are bound to sting, as to them, it appears like intolerable ignorance and/or insult.

Would be better if the guys who watched him regularly stepped up and explained why he's untouchable though.
 
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Michael Farkas

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This was a main board thread for like 85% of it right?

Kipper had great technique, great glove depth, strong rebound control...a real good director of rebounds like other Strelow guys...great anticipation too...the most important thing for any player...
 
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Dennis Bonvie

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Dec 29, 2007
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This was a main board thread for like 85% of it right?

Kipper had great technique, great glove depth, strong rebound control...a real good director of rebounds like other Strelow guys...great anticipation too...the most important thing for any player...

What's great glove depth?
 

Michael Farkas

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What's great glove depth?

Many Finns and some Americans hold their glove ahead of the plane of their body and catch pucks fingers up. Instead some Canadian goalies that hold it as basically another blocker, fingers out, on the body plane without looking pucks into it. Kipper was strong in that aspect...part of his rebound control package...
 

Felidae

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Sep 30, 2016
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Not going to comment on Kipper, but it's pretty disappointing to see HOH posters dismiss and ridicule a seemingly honest question. I'd expect a lot more discussion beyond "of course he was great, you're an idiot".
To be fair. I think this thread was almost to it's third page in the mainboard before it was moved here.
 
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Dennis Bonvie

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Many Finns and some Americans hold their glove ahead of the plane of their body and catch pucks fingers up. Instead some Canadian goalies that hold it as basically another blocker, fingers out, on the body plane without looking pucks into it. Kipper was strong in that aspect...part of his rebound control package...

Thanks
 

Nerowoy nora tolad

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May 9, 2018
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I have yet to see a goalie after him with his penchant for amazing stick saves. Some goalies only get 1 or 2 highlight reel stick saves in their NHL career. Kipper had so many

It's unfortunate that Youtube was in its infancy when he was in his prime. There's a lot of good saves of his that are impossible to find






Not meaning to rain on the parade, but if a goalie needs to rely on making desperation stick saves to pull pucks off the goal line, it usually means theyre not very good at properly positioning themselves to make saves. If he made that many of them for his career its not the greatest compliment of his technique, but maybe playing behind a weak defense really did place him in a lot of situations where a desperate save was needed

That being said I do think Kiprusoff was an elite goaltender. Theres some fair criticism to be made that his reputation hid some of his weaker late seasons, but the eye test absolutely indicates he was an incredible reflex goaltender with good technique. If he had lasted until the more recent revolution in butterfly style goaltending around 2014-2018ish Id be willing to bet he would have had a comeback with a vengeance.
 

HF007

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Sep 9, 2008
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I feel not enough people bring up his 04/05 season... dude let in no NHL goals the whole season... in fact all the goalies were on fire :sarcasm:

It’s shame we lost a year of Prime kipper and other players to the lockout.

But Kipper was great, I would take him over most if not all active goalies today... But then he is my man crush lol.

In short Kipper great... really really great.


To be fair he does probably win the vezina that year
 
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iamjs

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Oct 1, 2008
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I'm not suggesting that even strength sv% is the end-all-be-all, but I'm curious why that's a non-starter for you?

I'm quite sure there's a number of posts referencing why the OP only referenced a select number of advanced stats. That basically covers my stance on his post.
 

SladeWilson23

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7 straight seasons of 70+ games is pretty impressive

Yea it is. Just an absolute workhorse, and feats like this are often quite underappreciated.

I love numbers and stats. I think they’re an excellent tool in aiding with player valuations. But often, if looking at these numbers without the visuals to put them into context, they can be deceiving and even useless.

Kiprusoff undoubtedly was elite at his best.

Both points are spot on! Although his numbers in 03-04 were god like. Had he played more than 38 games he probably wins the Vezina.

300+ wins and top 10 all time in win %. You're seriously trying to argue he wasn't a great goalie!?

Away with you.

Team stat or not, this is very impressive.

The biggest problem with advanced stats--people start with the conclusion rather than a hypothesis then select stats that match. And instead of having honest dialogue, they use this conclusion to disagree with any evidence or opinions to the contrary. It's bad faith conversation, ugh.

To be fair, depending on which GSAA the op used it's not too complicated of a stat. Hockey-Reference has a GSAA where all you do is take the league average SV% and apply to the goalie's shots faced. For example let's say a goalie faced 1,800 shots and finished with a .920 SV%. Let's say the league average was .910.

.910 x 1,800 = 1,638
.920 x 1,800 = 1,656

His GSAA would be 18.00

Corsica also has a GSAA stat that is a little bit more complicated, but they take into shot quality.
 
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streitz

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Jul 22, 2018
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I only watched him during the 04 run and thought he played great. That Flames team outside of Iginla had so little offensive talent it would of been impossible to win any series without great goaltending. They were also completely decimated by injuries that spring if I recall.


Stopped watching after the lockout for the most part so no idea after that.
 

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