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| Future Goal Tender Anton Forsberg |
This post is about vacation. Ahhh. Vacation. At the beach. The one where Mrs. Gallos goes out before the vacation and rummages through the bargain pile at Half Price Book Store and comes home with a couple of hockey books. So I'm reading this book, I get to one point, and my jaw kind of drops, and I think 'this will make a good post!' So here we are.
I'm going to talk about three goal tenders. I am going to call them A, B, and C. And it is very interesting to compare their statistics for a particular season. The abbreviations are save percentage (SV%) and Goals Against Average (GAA).
Goalie A SV% .899, GAA 3.02
Goalie B SV% .899, GAA 3.02
Goalie C SV% .894, GAA 3.39
If you had to choose, which goalie would you want?
Personally, I'd take goalie B. Let me show you why. Lets add in their record, in Games Played, Wins and Losses in this format GP-W-L.
Goalie A SV% .899, GAA 3.02, 29-14-10
Goalie B SV% .899, GAA 3.02,0, 65-40-17
Goalie C SV% .894, GAA 3.39, 46-16-26
The other main reason that I would take goalie B, is that goalie B won the Vezina and Conn Smythe trophies that year, as the best goal tender, and the MVP of the playoffs, the very first player to win the Conn Smythe trophy as a member of the losing team. So who are our mystery goaltenders?
Goalie A is Sergei Bobrovsky, now of the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Goalie B is Pelle Lindbergh, of the Philadelphia Flyers.
Goalie C is Steve Mason, of the Columbus Blue Jackets
The statistics for Lindbergh are from the 1984-85 season, in which the Flyers lost in the Stanley Cup finals, for the other goalies, the stats are from 2011-12.
In my vacation reading, I was stunned to see that Lindbergh, who later died in a tragic auto accident, was posting regular season numbers that in today's game would see him reviled as a horrible piker. Instead, he is winning the Vezina Trophy. True, this was the era of Gretzky and Trottier and Scotty Bowman had not yet ruined the game with the Left Wing Lock defensive strategy, but I felt a lot of irony when I read those numbers.
As much as people doubt Bobrovsky throughout the media, the dude had a winning record last year. You think ANY goal tender who could have had a winning record would have been popular around here last year?
GO JACKETS!!
Which is exactly why, when someone posts numbers here or anywhere else, it's about as meaningful as apples to oranges. As far as Bob is concerned, let's see what he's got HERE. The bad part of this is, as fans we were told Mason WOULD NOT BE HERE THIS SEASON. Maybe he still won't, but if that is our starter, I'd sooner have one of the draft choices or York. For me, I guess the excuses are starting to ring hollow for Mase. Both he and the team NEED to move on. As for Bob, wasn't he actually part of a three goalie mess in Philly? That might be enough to force anyone to press whenever he got the call.If the defence is really better this year, so must be the goaltending. There are going to be a lot of one goal leads to protect, and not just the 1-0 variety. This team may actually score more goals than last years model, but it will not be any better if the G.A.A. is still where it was in 11-12.
ReplyDelete"The bad part of this is, as fans we were told Mason WOULD NOT BE HERE THIS SEASON" Tell me where anybody in management said this.
ReplyDeleteWhat is 'none of the above', Alex?
ReplyDeleteAlrighty then. Since I find I have to defend myself; an April29 Puckrakers blog with Porty and S. Howson; On what can be done about S.Mason. S.Howson" We need a different look in goal. We need better play from that position. We're GOING TO HAVE A DIFFERENT LOOK AT THAT POSITION NEXT YEAR. " There is another interview-style story in which the question is asked of Mr. Howson about the likelyhood of Mason being back in goal in 2013 and his answer is much the same. Admittedly, later in the story, the comment was made about perhaps not being able to find a suitable trade partner, but the gist of both of these articles lead me to believe that Mason would not have a spot on the N H L roster. Please forgive me if my paraphrasing of these comments offended someone. But I would rather go in to the upcoming season with Bobroski and York as the goalie tandem. I would also like to know the rationalle for not even attempting to resign C.Sanford. There were a great many things that could have been done to alieviate this mess, who knows, maybe something will still come up. But I will stand by my comments. " Sorry Alex, Not in the form of a question."
ReplyDeleteI am not sure if you already watch MVP?A monkey played the main role as a goal keeper.
ReplyDelete