With an elite goalie, should the Habs try and win 5-4 or 2-1?

[DAChampion]

This is meant more as a philosophical debate, please leave aside the fact that the Habs are better off tanking, or that Price might be declining.

The Habs' strongest point is nominally the goalie. Some might disagree but that's the perception and that's how the team is built. Given that, what makes more sense, an offense-first strategy or a defense-first strategy as emphasized by the Habs?

Advantages of an offense-first strategy:

• It complements one strength (shutting down the opponent) with a second strength (scoring);
• "High-risk, high-reward" decisions are then shifted to being of lower risk, if the goalie can more easily stop breakaways and 2 on 1's.
• Increasing the shots increases the signal to noise of the goalie differential. If both teams only fire 10 shots, then the final score is largely due to luck. However if both teams fire 40 shots, then the difference in save percentage of 1% (.925 versus .915) starts to add up, and it's worth 0.4 goals per game. The value of a save percentage offset is linearly proportional with the total number of shots.
• NHL GMs and scouts are more effective at evaluating offensive rather than defensive ability. Ergo, if they seek out to build an offensive team, they are more likely to succeed.

Disadvantage of an offense-first strategy:

• NHL players are paid salary commensurate with their ability to produce offense, whereas elite shutdown ability is not well-paid on the free agent market. Therefore, an offensive system is harder to sustain in the salary cap era.
• The backup goalies play 10-20 games a year, more if the starting goalie gets injured.

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[Sterling Archer]

I think we have to win low scoring games. We’ve committed the majority of our resources to defence and as such need to focus on that.

All is not lost in this model. If you can limited a high scoring team who focuses on offence rather than D, you might be able to exploit their backend with quick a counterattack and PP opportunities. The issue as I see it is we don’t have enough puck moving D to make the trasnsition quickly enough to get a quick counterattack or good enough centers to help drive that offence

 

[TheBuriedHab]

You need a team that can do both. If you think you can win a series vs Washington, Tampa, Pittsburgh scoring 2 goals a game you are dreaming. Thats how we lost to the Rangers.

 

[DAChampion]

I think we have to win low scoring games. We’ve committed the majority of our resources to defence and as such need to focus on that.

All is not lost in this model. If you can limited a high scoring team who focuses on offence rather than D, you might be able to exploit their backend with quick a counterattack and PP opportunities. The issue as I see it is we don’t have enough puck moving D to make the trasnsition quickly enough to get a quick counterattack or good enough centers to help drive that offence

You wrote that the Habs are stuck with a defensive system because of they've constructed their roster in your first paragraph. But in your second paragraph, you say that they need to reconstruct their roster to have more puck-moving dmen.

Can you explain your position in greater detail?

 

[Sterling Archer]

You wrote that the Habs are stuck with a defensive system because of they've constructed their roster in your first paragraph. But in your second paragraph, you say that they need to reconstruct their roster to have more puck-moving dmen.

Can you explain your position in greater detail?

I said they’re spending a large portion of cap on defensive players and they need to add more better D if they hope to compete.

I don’t think these are juxtaposed statements.

 

[WeThreeKings]

If you think your goalie is better than theirs.. then you need to put pressure on that, create an open game trading chances.

A defensive system should be used to insulate a bad goalie.

 

[Habs Halifax]

We should try to win 3-1. We are a long way away from beating teams with offense alone. Goaltending is only once piece. You need a top 10 defense to go along with it and at least a good PP. Game breaking talent is not our strength and won't be for a while... not until we get a few more top 10 picks IMO.

 

[Et le But]

You can have the best goalie of all time, if you can't score goals then you are setting your goalie up to fail eventually.

 

[WeThreeKings]

You can have the best goalie of all time, if you can't score goals then you are setting your goalie up to fail eventually.

Pretty much this.

I've held many of my teams in many games.. but eventually, if you don't give goal support.. the other team is gonna break through, especially if you are playing to defend and spending more time in your own zone.

 

[Laurentide]

You can have the best goalie of all time, if you don't have the right attitude then you are setting your goalie up to fail eventually.

Bergevin fixed this for you.

 

[Laurentide]

Having a great goalie should give you the luxury of taking a few chances at the other end of the ice. It's only when you have a sieve like Raccicot that you have to play it close to the vest because you know that every mistake is going to wind up in your net. There is zero reason why a team with Price and Weber needs to be focused on trying to win games 1-0 or 2-1. Give your goalie some margin for error by pumping a few goals in at the other end. You can't get scored on when the puck is 200 feet away from your net.

 

[Le Barron de HF]

I always felt it was stupid how during Price's peak, we spent a f***load of money on D. It never made any sense to me. We should have been putting that money elsewhere like on one dimensional scorers. For comparison sake: 22.4M for the Wild's D corp, 23M for Washington... Meanwhile back in the day we were paying: 20M just for our top 4.

 

[Habs 4 Life]

Agree with most here, in today's game it's not easy to win 2-1 games
You need a team that can put up 4-5 goals a game
A balance of both

 

[Lshap]

Given the two options, I'll take offence-first. This point is key for me:

• Increasing the shots increases the signal to noise of the goalie differential. If both teams only fire 10 shots, then the final score is largely due to luck. However if both teams fire 40 shots, then the difference in save percentage of 1% (.925 versus .915) starts to add up, and it's worth 0.4 goals per game. The value of a save percentage offset is linearly proportional with the total number of shots.

 

[MXD]

The X-Factor is the quality of the defense.
I can't give an intelligent or enlightened answer as to whether we should aim for 5-4 wins rather than 2-1 wins a defense as dysfunctionnal as this one.

 

[Sorinth]

Offence is the best defence. Teams don't score much when they are stuck in their own zone most of the game. Even defensive strategies like the trap recognize this fact and focus on trying to create turn overs in the neutral zone in an effort to keep the puck out of the defensive zone.

The whole winning 2-1 strategies was what bad teams aimed for. Keep the score as low as possible and try to win the game off of PPs. It's what you do when you have a bad roster. It might get you to the playoffs when you shouldn't, but once the playoffs start and the refs put away the whistles it's going to fail big time.

 

[Gravity]

Doesn't really make sense that with an elite goalie you'd try to win games 5-4. I voted for offense but if your goalie is really elite then he shouldn't be letting in 4 goals. 5-2, 5-3 makes more sense

 

[Grate n Colorful Oz]

This is meant more as a philosophical debate, please leave aside the fact that the Habs are better off tanking, or that Price might be declining.

The Habs' strongest point is nominally the goalie. Some might disagree but that's the perception and that's how the team is built. Given that, what makes more sense, an offense-first strategy or a defense-first strategy as emphasized by the Habs?

Advantages of an offense-first strategy:

• It complements one strength (shutting down the opponent) with a second strength (scoring);
• "High-risk, high-reward" decisions are then shifted to being of lower risk, if the goalie can more easily stop breakaways and 2 on 1's.
• Increasing the shots increases the signal to noise of the goalie differential. If both teams only fire 10 shots, then the final score is largely due to luck. However if both teams fire 40 shots, then the difference in save percentage of 1% (.925 versus .915) starts to add up, and it's worth 0.4 goals per game. The value of a save percentage offset is linearly proportional with the total number of shots.
• NHL GMs and scouts are more effective at evaluating offensive rather than defensive ability. Ergo, if they seek out to build an offensive team, they are more likely to succeed.

Disadvantage of an offense-first strategy:

• NHL players are paid salary commensurate with their ability to produce offense, whereas elite shutdown ability is not well-paid on the free agent market. Therefore, an offensive system is harder to sustain in the salary cap era.
• The backup goalies play 10-20 games a year, more if the starting goalie gets injured.

Which one would you pick?

Id go with offense.

 

[Sorinth]

It is worth noting that you can build a defensive team around a goalie, it just wouldn't have defensive D like Alzner on it. The focus would be on causing turnovers and counterattacking.

So you would want forwards with speed who back check hard, and defence who can stand up at the blue line and are good in transition.

 

[pepperMonkey]

I think we have to win low scoring games. We’ve committed the majority of our resources to defence and as such need to focus on that.

Yet our Defense sucks...

 

[SirClintonPortis]

The goalie is an ISOLATED position manned by a single individual who only STOPS SHOTS in front of the net.

You do not build around a goalie like building a castle and keeping the king in the building. You put players in front of the goalie and tell those players to do two things: score goals and limited dangerous opportunities from the opponent.

Pylons are not valuable players regardless of offensive or defensive philosophies. They contribute to neither. Alzner is USELESS except as CHEAP FILLER. But 4 million a year is NOT CHEAP.

You're not going to get a team's GAA all that far below 2.00. That's already "elite".

You're not winning if the team can't average over three goals a game in the playoffs. EVERY team who has won the Cup broke that threshold. Yes, even the Bruins. Shutouts are of the 4-0 variety, not the 1-0 variety.

 

[Le Barron de HF]

Our 2010-11 D was pretty solid and it was essentially building from the net out.

 

[DAChampion]

Which one would you pick?

Id go with offense.

I voted for offense.

 

[SirClintonPortis]

Our 2010-11 D was pretty solid and it was essentially building from the net out.

Trading for a rental in Wisniewski and then letting him go is not building from the net out. Markov was MIA due to injury, so Subban and Hamrlik had to carry the load. Hamrlik and Wisniewski would leave after the season. It was basically Subban carrying a huge defensive load for the team. Hamrlik fell off a cliff the next season in Washington and the retired after his second season after leaving Montreal. We had only one young gun rising up and carrying a huge load defensively and a bunch of aging vets on their last legs. Our future Ds would be anchored by Subban and Markov.

 

[Sterling Archer]

Yet our Defense sucks...

Why we need to improve it. Not enough to have two good pieces in a unit. Need to shore it up and have it help the offence out more.

Weber and Price can help limit the goals against. Now we need some quality PMD to help move the puck out and into the offensive zone.