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All Hail Wamsley! Must read re: Habs's goaltending


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This might be the single most incredible, sustained analysis of a very specific Habs-related issue I've ever read. Once again, Wamsley outdoes the "professional" analysts by about 10 000 country miles:

http://www.habseyesontheprize.com/2009/11/...ts-october-2009

Do yourself a favour and check it out.

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I've seen a user on that site using the name Wamsley, are you sure Chris Boyle is him?

It's him. For actually posting articles, it looks like he's going to be putting his real name behind the articles. He's a stat wiz.

Notice that 32% of all Halak's goals are scored high glove, to Price's 24%? Price's weakest area: fivehole (32%).

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It's him. For actually posting articles, it looks like he's going to be putting his real name behind the articles. He's a stat wiz.

Notice that 32% of all Halak's goals are scored high glove, to Price's 24%? Price's weakest area: fivehole (32%).

Yeah, given all the moaning about Price's supposedly awful glove-hand, I found that stat surprising.

Wamsley da man.

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I don't know. It seemed to convince me that neither of our goalies is excellent, but that the difference between them is negligible.

Imo, Wamlsey has always been on a mission to defend the goalies, but mostly Price. Hardly unbiased, regardless of the amount of data thrown on a wall. If you do that analysis on Colorado, do you find that the team makes fewer defensive breakdowns, or that their goalie stops more of the "unstoppable" shots. What is a bad goal, or a suspect goal? To me, the third goal on Saturday was a bad goal.. not because he bounced off his back, but because it should have been a routine glove save and never hit the post. To Wamsley, it might be considered a good goal. Its debatable, but depending on how you make those decisions you can sway those numbers either way.

To me it depends on the question asked. Who is the better goalie.. do you mean right now, or in 2 years? Do you mean tonight, or next week. That is one set of questions I always answer with "ride the hot hand, I don't care who it is.. you win your in" What I have always disagreed with is the view "Price gets 80% of the starts even if we lose", which is what happened too often last year. I think most people have moved beyond that nonsense.

The more pertinent question is "does Montreal have good enough goaltending". To me, that answer is no. Right now we have two inconsistent, young goalies who are at best average. Put them on a team with issues on D, and they look even worse. Either way, I think Wamsley was accurate when he said neither of them is dominating. I have seem some of the hot goalies this year and believe me, they don't always have much defense in front of them either. An example close to home is Toronto. They are not suddenly a good defensive team , what they are is confident in a young goalie who has played great for them. Put Toskala back in net and they will suck again. (for the record, I in no way want to imply that Toskala is on par with Price or Halak!).

Its no secret that our defense is beaten up, but it is not the first time in the history of Montreal that we have needed a goalie to be the first start to win a game. Right now neither goalie is one of the top players on our team and until our Defense heals up, they will have to be for us to win consistently. Are they the reason we lose most night, probably not. There were a number of times where we could have won, if they had been better. That doesn't make the loss their fault, but it does suggest our goaltending is not a strength.

The final question that comes up a lot is "how long do we wait". Ie.. how long do we go on with Price and Halak before we decide they are never going to be great. That is a much harder question and one I have no answer to. I do think that unless one of these guys gets hot, we should trade Halak and bring in a vet to work with Price, or give up on Price all together. If he doesn't have it between the ears he may never have, but that can't be answered by stats or video replay. That is the kind of judgement that Gainey and the coaches are paid to make. What I don't like is having two backup goalies fighting for a number one spot. They may both become number one goalies in this league, but they are not today.

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The stats I'd like to see is both goalie's record when the Habs trail by 1 AND when the Habs lead by 1. In other words, when the Habs most need their goalie to shut the door.

Also, the PK save % speaks a lot to me. It's a hockey cliché, but still true: "On the penalty kill, your best player has to be your goalie." To me, it goes hand in hand with the question above: which one is the best when the Habs need him the most.

If Wamsley reads this, I hope it inspires him a new set of stats based on the game's score.

Also semi-related to this topic: my 13,000th post is about the a Habs' goalie controversy. How mundane! :P

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The stats I'd like to see is both goalie's record when the Habs trail by 1 AND when the Habs lead by 1. In other words, when the Habs most need their goalie to shut the door.

Also, the PK save % speaks a lot to me. It's a hockey cliché, but still true: "On the penalty kill, your best player has to be your goalie." To me, it goes hand in hand with the question above: which one is the best when the Habs need him the most.

If Wamsley reads this, I hope it inspires him a new set of stats based on the game's score.

Also semi-related to this topic: my 13,000th post is about the a Habs' goalie controversy. How mundane! :P

Congrats! At least it wasn't regarding an Eklund rumour.

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Also semi-related to this topic: my 13,000th post is about the a Habs' goalie controversy. How mundane! :P

If it weren't for goaltending controversies, you'd only be at your 3000th post, not 13000th!

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Absolutely impressive job Wamsley :clap:

The thing that made me really wonder was why is Price facing significantly more shots? A very bizarre stat..

More rebounds? LOL.. just kidding, that is what they would say if it was Halak who had the higher shot total...

I think the entire analysis should be taken with a grain of salt when you get to that level of detail since the small data set will lead to a lot of variance. If Wamsley keeps it up each month (for the entire season), it will get more accurate and some statistical anomalies will work their way out. Right now it only takes a couple of outliers to skew the stats one way or another.

Another stat we would need and there is no way to get it (Wamlsey would never be able to compile it and still have a life), is how many SAVEs would we consider "unsaveable". Sometimes that is more important. You are in a tight game, you screw up, your goalie makes an unbelievable save... turns momentum far more then any staged fight.

Either way, the problem with these goalie discussions is that too many people are a fan of one to the other. They are really quite when their guy stinks. They are very vocal when he has a big game. What you need to be objective is not be a fan of either.

On a side note, the crap from Halak agent was terrible. It may be true (it wasn't completely true), it may be fine for us to bat those numbers around, but he only hurt Halak, Price, and the team when he spouts off. I hope Gainey meets him in a dark alley...

Absolutely impressive job Wamsley :clap:

I was pretty impressed with the graphics and stuff too... especially the shot position charts.. nice stuff Wamlsey.

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The difference in the Habs' goals scored with them in net is pretty telling for their record... with Price in goal, they averaged a 1.6 GFA while with Halak they had a 3.1 GFA. That bears out in Wamsley analysis where he shows that Price had a tougher schedule through October than Halak. So that's probably a reason why Price faced more shots... that, and those first two games inflated his shots totals badly.

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