Post-Game Talk: Wings def. Canucks - 5-2 (Beauvillier, Pettersson)

[Aphid Attraction]

Thats more like it!

Lol, thanks for indulging my stupidity

 

[PuckMunchkin]

Lol, thanks for indulging my stupidity

I still love you.

(But do want to also see other people)

 

[mossey3535]

Clark could easily cut a goal a game from all the goalie's games by eliminating unecesssary post integrations. But he's hung his hat on that system since he came in so I guess he's sticking to his guns. Go back to the last ten games. There's at least one goal every game where our guy is down early and then he can't push to adjust to the play. Or the guys lean towards the post in anticipation of getting into the RVH and that gives up space on the far side.

I don't think Martin or Delia are THIS bad. Are they good? Probably not. Martin before this season I would have said he would continue to develop as a backup because he can be quick and his skating is decent. But both have to basically play a platoon/starter role at a level they're not ready for. I think that has to be factored into this.

Still, a good goalie coach should be able to keep these guys to a range that's at least within .900. Delia has posted better than .899 every season with Chicago. Martin had a good year in Abbotsford statistically and then an amazing year with the Canucks. Of course all backup goalies enjoy a bit of a sheltered existence but despite his age he was showing the usual progression as guys come up to the league.

I know MS is going to say that these are AHL goalies without that much talent so why is Clark suddenly doing a bad job. First of all, every year guys come up and play 10-20 games and often put up great numbers because they are the backup and therefore not too well scouted. Most AHL callups can at least manage .900 save percentage if they have the numbers in the AHL. Second, most teams unconsciously protect their backup and play tighter in front of them or score more goals. That one is hard to quantify but year after year you see guys put up gaudy backup numbers and when they become starters nobody knows how they will react.

More importantly, the reason is because the whole point of all these things you see every year like RVH or now overlap, or whatever....something new becomes common in the goaltending world at least every year or two. It's because until now the goaltending profession has evolved to adjust to how shooters were playing. And for the most part we were ahead of skaters. Now this is a perfect storm. Leaguewide scoring is up due to defending being harder (penalties for slashes to hands, better shot philosophy from skaters, dilution of defence talent).

The trend towards exploiting RVH is at least three years old now. McDavid has been hunting bad angle shots against Demko for at least two seasons. Shooters are now literally taught to look at the goalie's feet so they can predict how to shoot from bad angles.

IMO you can't some in and have a whole "trackdown" system based on early RVH, when the whole league is trending towards exploiting the RVH, and the rest of the goalies are trending towards only using it sparingly. In this context Clark's argument that "you can adjust to a netfront slot shot as fast as if you were on your feet" might have been true 2-3 years ago but no longer holds. Then also add in that our guys make some mistakes in the system.

Usually skating is the bottleneck in many goalie's development. But in our case our guys are clearly not reading the play or tracking the puck particularly well. Clark has always been big on movement patterns and his recent innovations are for desperation save systems. But that's not what these guys need, and a good goalie coach should be drilling them in more game situations and increasing their tracking confidence. Obviously I'm not exactly sure as to what drills are doing except for some twitter posts here and there (most people don't cover the goalie practices) but it's clear he has failed to produce a result.

 

[Petey But Really Jim]

Stop it...

This is getting out of hand.

The sooner the handful of retool apologists just man up and admit they got it wrong. That they thought the team was closer than it actually is, the sooner we get to actual normal hockey discussion.

No. We are not a team worth retooling even if Demko was healthy this year. Sorry.

Loser core. Just a loser group. Nothing worth salvaging if Petey and Quinn don’t wanna wait around.

 

[mathonwy]

I wonder how much an analysis would even uncover. It seems to me like the skaters have been bad on the PK for the last two years but the goaltending has been the difference this year vs last. PK is 8% worse this year overall.

Teams have also killed them all season on cross-ice one-timers which you can probably blame on everyone.. but Martin sure seems to suck more than most at it.

Fact is we let Tanev walk and perma f***ed our PK.

We have never recovered from that.

f*** you Benning and FAQ.

 

[arttk]

I think we are just few UFA signings and Räty away from contending my self.

I thought Bedard would’ve gotten us there

 

[Hit the post]

Finally saw the highlites, woof those were some bad Starship Troopers highschool football uniforms the Red Wings were rocking

Underated film (Starship Troopers).

Fact is we let Tanev walk and perma f***ed our PK.

We have never recovered from that.

f*** you Benning and FAQ.

What is this "we"? Gillis left Jethro with a 24 year old Tanev.

But Gillis!

 

[PuckMunchkin]

I thought Bedard would’ve gotten us there

No need for Bedard level players.

We have pretty much all we need.

 

[Zippgunn]

Finally saw the highlites, woof those were some bad Starship Troopers highschool football uniforms the Red Wings were rocking

Their worst ever!

 

[Zippgunn]

I know MS is going to say that these are AHL goalies without that much talent so why is Clark suddenly doing a bad job. First of all, every year guys come up and play 10-20 games and often put up great numbers because they are the backup and therefore not too well scouted. Most AHL callups can at least manage .900 save percentage if they have the numbers in the AHL. Second, most teams unconsciously protect their backup and play tighter in front of them or score more goals. That one is hard to quantify but year after year you see guys put up gaudy backup numbers and when they become starters nobody knows how they will react.

.

I usually agree with your posts which seem informed and well thought out but this is where I get off the bus. I can agree that most AHL call ups get a bit of a "honeymoon" period when they first get called up (certainly Martin had one) because the rest of the league hasn't figured them out just yet but your second point, at least in the case of the Canucks, is something that made me laugh out loud. I'm assuming that, like me, you keep track of the backup's starts and the game situations. If you look carefully at our club over the last really long time you will find our backups are more than likely to get the starts that are much harder to win and that they get the call to do that after stupidly long layoffs. This is, IMHO, the reason Holtby, Halak and a host of other goalies from the past have struggled here (and more often than not blossomed once they changed teams). Sitting for 14 days and then getting chucked into a back to back road game isn't going to help your numbers out one bit but it DOES save the golden child the stress of playing a game that they are far less likely to win. They do this, again IMHO, in order to make the starter's job easier ("pump their tires"?) and this is the reason that our #1 goalies often look much better than they are (and I include Demko, Markstrom and even Luongo and, God forbid, Cloutier in this group). As a result of this misguided approach our goalies get pumped up by the fanbase and the media and suddenly we have "Vezina calibre" goaltending (but, naturally without the Vezina). Currently there is a legion of Canuck fans who think that Demko is some kind of world class goalie, a conceit that I disagree with wholeheartedly. I say that if you had made Demko and Holtby (just to cite one example) switch starts in their season together you would likely have seen Demko flail just as badly as Holtby, perhaps even worse. It is significant that in at least two cases once our backup goalies extricated themselves from the hell that is the Canucks backup role they fled and ended up almost immediately winning the #1 job with other teams...

 

[mossey3535]

I usually agree with your posts which seem informed and well thought out but this is where I get off the bus. I can agree that most AHL call ups get a bit of a "honeymoon" period when they first get called up (certainly Martin had one) because the rest of the league hasn't figured them out just yet but your second point, at least in the case of the Canucks, is something that made me laugh out loud. I'm assuming that, like me, you keep track of the backup's starts and the game situations. If you look carefully at our club over the last really long time you will find our backups are more than likely to get the starts that are much harder to win and that they get the call to do that after stupidly long layoffs. This is, IMHO, the reason Holtby, Halak and a host of other goalies from the past have struggled here (and more often than not blossomed once they changed teams). Sitting for 14 days and then getting chucked into a back to back road game isn't going to help your numbers out one bit but it DOES save the golden child the stress of playing a game that they are far less likely to win. They do this, again IMHO, in order to make the starter's job easier ("pump their tires"?) and this is the reason that our #1 goalies often look much better than they are (and I include Demko, Markstrom and even Luongo and, God forbid, Cloutier in this group). As a result of this misguided approach our goalies get pumped up by the fanbase and the media and suddenly we have "Vezina calibre" goaltending (but, naturally without the Vezina). Currently there is a legion of Canuck fans who think that Demko is some kind of world class goalie, a conceit that I disagree with wholeheartedly. I say that if you had made Demko and Holtby (just to cite one example) switch starts in their season together you would likely have seen Demko flail just as badly as Holtby, perhaps even worse. It is significant that in at least two cases once our backup goalies extricated themselves from the hell that is the Canucks backup role they fled and ended up almost immediately winning the #1 job with other teams...

This is a lot of words to push your agenda that our starters are overrated and you love our backups, whoever they are. I have noticed you trying to mention this constantly during GDT's. I disagreed but didn't bother addressing it.

Here was our back-to-back record last year:

13 back-to-back games (I defined as games on consecutive day)
1st game of back-to-back: 9-4 (I didn't differentiate between OT/SO W/L)
2nd game of back-to-back: 3-10

Times starter (Demko/Martin) started 1st game: 10/13 = 77% (In the NHL the starter starts the 1st game around 80% of the time. This is the average for the WHOLE LEAGUE regardless of individual team philosophy)
Times Demko started 1st game: 9/12 = 75%

Times Demko's opponent was better than the second opponent: 5/12 = 42%
Times Halak's opponent was better than the first opponent: 4/12 = 33%

Times Demko started both games in the back-to-back: 3/12 = 25% (not including the QoC in the previous two lines)
In the double starts above, times Demko's first start was against a better opponent: 3/3 = 100% (It's possible Demko was not planned to start both games and coaches would see how he was doing after the 1st one. Also all these games were during the Bruce bounce back and also all in the 2nd half of the season when they were trying to make the playoffs

Number of times Halak started the 1st game of the back-to-back: 3/12 = 25%
Number of times Halak's start was against a more difficult opponent: 2/3 = 67%
Number of times Halak's inverted start was during a road trip: 3/3 = 100%

Times Demko faced BETTER OPPOSITION in his start: 8/12 = 67%
Demko's record: 6-9
Halak's record: 2-4

I only did one year but in my recollection they haven't really made a concerted effort to "give the backup the harder opponent" since most teams just give their starter the first start. The thing is, the NHL is pretty random so the odds of the favourite winning are just not as good as in, say, the NBA. Anyone can beat anyone so most teams give the starter the 1st of b2b's based on freshness of the team rather than the actual opponent.

This last year Demko got the hard starts in the b2b's but I'm sure if I did other years (I won't) it would come down to random variation and the starter would get the 1st start around 80% of the time (like the whole league). Unless it was like Lu in Minny or something.

 

[Zippgunn]

This is a lot of words to push your agenda that our starters are overrated and you love our backups, whoever they are. I have noticed you trying to mention this constantly during GDT's. I disagreed but didn't bother addressing it.

Here was our back-to-back record last year:

13 back-to-back games (I defined as games on consecutive day)
1st game of back-to-back: 9-4 (I didn't differentiate between OT/SO W/L)
2nd game of back-to-back: 3-10

Times starter (Demko/Martin) started 1st game: 10/13 = 77% (In the NHL the starter starts the 1st game around 80% of the time. This is the average for the WHOLE LEAGUE regardless of individual team philosophy)
Times Demko started 1st game: 9/12 = 75%

Times Demko's opponent was better than the second opponent: 5/12 = 42%
Times Halak's opponent was better than the first opponent: 4/12 = 33%

Times Demko started both games in the back-to-back: 3/12 = 25% (not including the QoC in the previous two lines)
In the double starts above, times Demko's first start was against a better opponent: 3/3 = 100% (It's possible Demko was not planned to start both games and coaches would see how he was doing after the 1st one. Also all these games were during the Bruce bounce back and also all in the 2nd half of the season when they were trying to make the playoffs

Number of times Halak started the 1st game of the back-to-back: 3/12 = 25%
Number of times Halak's start was against a more difficult opponent: 2/3 = 67%
Number of times Halak's inverted start was during a road trip: 3/3 = 100%

Times Demko faced BETTER OPPOSITION in his start: 8/12 = 67%
Demko's record: 6-9
Halak's record: 2-4

I only did one year but in my recollection they haven't really made a concerted effort to "give the backup the harder opponent" since most teams just give their starter the first start. The thing is, the NHL is pretty random so the odds of the favourite winning are just not as good as in, say, the NBA. Anyone can beat anyone so most teams give the starter the 1st of b2b's based on freshness of the team rather than the actual opponent.

This last year Demko got the hard starts in the b2b's but I'm sure if I did other years (I won't) it would come down to random variation and the starter would get the 1st start around 80% of the time (like the whole league). Unless it was like Lu in Minny or something.

I appreciate your efforts; I'm not good at accessing the stats I need to make my assertions so I guess it just appears to me that the backups get screwed by our team. I thought Holtby did for sure; Halak I'm not so sure about and your research confirms that. This year when Demko went down it was just assumed that the order would be Martin/Delia probably simply because the team had gone and signed Martin based on his 6 game NHL "honeymoon" of last year but even after way too many bad games by Martin, Delia was relegated to only occasional use until quite recently. None of this changes the fact that a lot of our backups flourish once away from this team though which suggests to me that they have been somewhat mis-handled. As for Demko I still think he has been seriously overrated by our fanbase and if it were up to me I would be shopping him (to the California teams especially), that is if we are in fact rebuilding especially if he starts to look like he's injury prone. Anyways always glad to compare views with you

 

[RobertKron]

I appreciate your efforts; I'm not good at accessing the stats I need to make my assertions so I guess it just appears to me that the backups get screwed by our team. I thought Holtby did for sure; Halak I'm not so sure about and your research confirms that. This year when Demko went down it was just assumed that the order would be Martin/Delia probably simply because the team had gone and signed Martin based on his 6 game NHL "honeymoon" of last year but even after way too many bad games by Martin, Delia was relegated to only occasional use until quite recently. None of this changes the fact that a lot of our backups flourish once away from this team though which suggests to me that they have been somewhat mis-handled. As for Demko I still think he has been seriously overrated by our fanbase and if it were up to me I would be shopping him (to the California teams especially), that is if we are in fact rebuilding especially if he starts to look like he's injury prone. Anyways always glad to compare views with you

Is that because they've been mishandled, or because this has been a terrible team with dogshit coaching and a piss-poor D corps?

Miller saw a bump after moving on, and Markstrom had a big year last year after initially having concussion issues the season before.

 

[MarkusNaslund19]

People are incredibly invested in this being the WORST TEAM EVER, WORST DEFENSIVE TEAM EVER, NO HOPE, HAVE TO TANK and really don't want to have a discussion about how much the shockingly terrible goaltending has played into the record.

Again, you have to go back 30 years to find a team that was statistically this much worse than league average goaltending.

People are incredibly emotionally driven and don't know what they're watching.

You and I disagree on the exact course to take. I think dealing Horvat was correct and we needed to lean into a retooling year and get as high of a pick as we can and deal Schenn, etc.

But we absolutely concur that goaltending is making this team, which if things had gone right was probably 13th to 18th in the league, become a catastrophic mess.

Martin and Delia have been figured out, Delia looks better because he's played less and seems like less of a mental midget.

Goaltending is the facet of the game I am least confident in breaking down the minutiae but what I see on both is:

Martin's reads are poor and he doesn't trust his lateral movement, so he has to come out and rush the puck carrier. When this wasn't scouted, he was doing a decent chance of getting in front of the puck. Now that teams are onto him, I'm not sure I've seen another goalie in 28 years of watching get more regularly victimized for routine tap-ins.

Delia, I think maybe tracks the puck poorly at times. One thing I have noticed about him that you see from non NHLers and very rarely from the elite goalies, is turning his back to the puck. Getting lost and literally having his back to the play.

I will say that I also saw far more of that from Demko this year, so it's possible that @mossey3535 can comment on whether that is partly indicative of what Clark is teaching them.

But neither are close to being even temporary platoon number 1s.

Getting rid of Petey or Hughes (barring an insane haul on the latter, emphasis on insane) is just ignorance. Hughes is having a challenging season without any support on a tire fire of a team, and is 6th in the league in assists and has played less games than anyone above him.

These are the kind of players you pray you get by tanking, but you can easily end up with Luca Raymond and Simon Edvinsson (both good, but not likely to be nearly as influential players), so you're restarting and if you get lucky, you might end up right back here in 7 years. Miss me with that shit.