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Player Discussion All Purpose Goaltending Thread

HogtownSabresfan

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Jan 13, 2010
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Jim Bob said:
That is because solving it is easier in theory than in practice.

Exhibit A: The Oilers giving Campbell 5x5 on 7/13/2022 and wanting to fire him into the sun a mere 16 months later.

View attachment 763782

There were no locks when it comes to goalies that changed teams in FA this summer.

There is no way I would have wanted the Sabres to outbid Ottawa for Korpisalo.

Blackwood may have been the best guy that changed teams and who knows what he would look like here given that he is getting torched in SJ behind a horribad rebuilding team.

And none of the big name trade targets moved anywhere, likely because their GMs wanted an insane trade return.
Click to expand...

The pass the Sabres get for continually not solving so many problems other teams can figure out always amazes me. Let's go for 13 years of no playoffs.

Do you know who is not passing? People who actually pay. The fourth worst attendance in the NHL, and that counts Arizona, which has 5,000 seats. Get ready for better than last year's numbers arguments. vaccine mandates, no vaccine mandates, bad seats, crap food. Whatever. This team needs to start actually winning. An 82-point pace isn't wowing anybody. Season has started so mostly stuck with what we have but I would open to prospect for goalie where we send UPL back with players and give Levi some time in Rochester to really settle in. All depends on Comrie coming back.

HogtownSabresfan said:
The pass the Sabres get for continually not solving so many problems other teams can figure out always amazes me. Let's go for 13 years of no playoffs.

Do you know who is not passing? People who actually pay. The fourth worst attendance in the NHL, and that counts Arizona, which has 5,000 seats. Get ready for better than last year's numbers arguments. vaccine mandates, no vaccine mandates, bad seats, crap food. Whatever. This team needs to start actually winning. An 82-point pace isn't wowing anybody. Season has started so mostly stuck with what we have but I would open to prospect for goalie where we send UPL back with players and give Levi some time in Rochester to really settle in. All depends on Comrie coming back.
Click to expand...

Let me guess. It was impossible to get someone who could take a faceoff too. 30th in league. It was obvious a problem last year too
 
Jim Bob

Jim Bob

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HogtownSabresfan said:
The pass the Sabres get for continually not solving so many problems other teams can figure out always amazes me. Let's go for 13 years of no playoffs.

Do you know who is not passing? People who actually pay. The fourth worst attendance in the NHL, and that counts Arizona, which has 5,000 seats. Get ready for better than last year's numbers arguments. vaccine mandates, no vaccine mandates, bad seats, crap food. Whatever. This team needs to start actually winning. An 82-point pace isn't wowing anybody. Season has started so mostly stuck with what we have but I would open to prospect for goalie where we send UPL back with players and give Levi some time in Rochester to really settle in. All depends on Comrie coming back.
Click to expand...
It's not a pass, it is acknowledging that goaltending is a challenging problem to solve for plenty of NHL teams.

Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, Pittsburgh, LA, and plenty of other teams have had similar struggles finding consistent answers in goal.
 
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Chainshot

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The issue isn't having a guy who can take and win more faceoffs than they lose, it's that the centers they have - particularly the tall one who is listed as their #1 who has taken the most draws this year or the upstart who takes his place from time to time - have not put in the work to be better. Most of the best faceoff guys are a team's top center(s) like Bergeron was or Kopitar, Crosby, Tavares, Lindholm, Draisaitl. Or they are deeply flawed players who don't provide in the rest of the game and whose faceoff contributions evaporate in the face of them being shit at the other 98% of the sport (Eakin). Challenge the guys who are taking them to be better - in fact challenge their wingers to get on the right side of the play to put in the effort to have more winger wins and see where that leads.
 
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HogtownSabresfan

Registered User
Jan 13, 2010
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Jim Bob said:
It's not a pass, it is acknowledging that goaltending is a challenging problem to solve for plenty of NHL teams.

Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, Pittsburgh, LA, and plenty of other teams have had similar struggles finding consistent answers in goal.
Click to expand...

Yeah, they have 12 years of incompetence. Samsonov was quite good for Toronto last year. Even crappy Matt Murray was better than our guys until he got injured (and that's not a plea for him). Pittsburgh had better goalies than us last year. This is a team that went into last year with 40-year-old goalie, a guy with less than 50 games and a UPL who really did nothing in the AHL. So what do they do (WITH $8.5 M in cap room, no less), they roll out two of the guys and decide they are going to roll it all on a 21-year-old kid who really deserved some time in AHL.

Make excuses for the franchise.

Chainshot said:
The issue isn't having a guy who can take and win more faceoffs than they lose, it's that the centers they have - particularly the tall one who is listed as their #1 who has taken the most draws this year or the upstart who takes his place from time to time - have not put in the work to be better. Most of the best faceoff guys are a team's top center(s) like Bergeron was or Kopitar, Crosby, Tavares, Lindholm, Draisaitl. Or they are deeply flawed players who don't provide in the rest of the game and whose faceoff contributions evaporate in the face of them being shit at the other 98% of the sport (Eakin). Challenge the guys who are taking them to be better - in fact challenge their wingers to get on the right side of the play to put in the effort to have more winger wins and see where that leads.
Click to expand...

What I see is guys who cannot take a faceoff. Get a second-line or third-line guy who can take a draw. If only there were a guy in the organization who could have taught them something -- cough cough Mike Peca..
 
Jim Bob

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HogtownSabresfan said:
Yeah, they have 12 years of incompetence. Samsonov was quite good for Toronto last year. Even crappy Matt Murray was better than our guys until he got injured (and that's not a plea for him). Pittsburgh had better goalies than us last year. This is a team that went into last year with 40-year-old goalie, a guy with less than 50 games and a UPL who really did nothing in the AHL. So what do they do (WITH $8.5 M in cap room, no less), they roll out two of the guys and decide they are going to roll it all on a 21-year-old kid who really deserved some time in AHL.

Make excuses for the franchise.
Click to expand...
Murray blocked a trade to the Sabres. So, it's really weird that you are bringing him up.

Samsonov was good last year (+18.0 GSAx per Moneypuck) and he's not great to start this year (-3.0 GSAx).

Feel free to complain about results. But, a lot of times the answers are not as simple as hindsight makes them out to appear. That is just the reality of the situation.

Most top end goalies are homegrown. The Sabres issue has been drafting and developing goalies as Ullmark is the only notable NHL goalie that they have developed in a long time.
 
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Dingo44

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So weird we're still banging away on the same old complaints.

As others have pointed out repeatedly, goaltending has NOT been an issue this year. Comrie was quite good until he injured. UPL started OK, then played lights out, then was OK. Levi has struggled but also saved us.

I'm good with our goaltending. Lots of teams - some contenders - have much worse situations and a couple are going to be on their books for years to come.
 
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Chainshot

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Jim Bob said:
Murray blocked a trade to the Sabres. So, it's really weird that you are bringing him up.

Samsonov was good last year (+18.0 GSAx per Moneypuck) and he's not great to start this year (-3.0 GSAx).

Feel free to complain about results. But, a lot of times the answers are not as simple as hindsight makes them out to appear. That is just the reality of the situation.

Most top end goalies are homegrown. The Sabres issue has been drafting and developing goalies as Ullmark is the only notable NHL goalie that they have developed in a long time.
Click to expand...

Interestingly with Samsonov, the goalie edition of the PDOCast on Halloween talked about him making the same sort of saves, it's that the Leafs are yielding more of the shots he has struggled against - namely cross-slot plays. And we know what those shots are... we've seen a team yield those like they are going out of style most nights up to this year.
 
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HogtownSabresfan

Registered User
Jan 13, 2010
7,147
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Jim Bob said:
Murray blocked a trade to the Sabres. So, it's really weird that you are bringing him up.

Samsonov was good last year (+18.0 GSAx per Moneypuck) and he's not great to start this year (-3.0 GSAx).

Feel free to complain about results. But, a lot of times the answers are not as simple as hindsight makes them out to appear. That is just the reality of the situation.

Most top end goalies are homegrown. The Sabres issue has been drafting and developing goalies as Ullmark is the only notable NHL goalie that they have developed in a long time.
Click to expand...

Never wanted him. I said that. Leafs were mentioned, and he was actually better than what we have which is hilarious. Top end? I will settle for league average all day long. We have been closer to that for now. We get league average and we might make the playoffs
 
NotABadPeriod

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Jim Bob said:
It's not a pass, it is acknowledging that goaltending is a challenging problem to solve for plenty of NHL teams.

Edmonton, Ottawa, Toronto, Pittsburgh, LA, and plenty of other teams have had similar struggles finding consistent answers in goal.
Click to expand...
The answer is, and always has been, drafting and developing. Except with goalies, the curve is much longer and bust potential is high, so you need to plan well in advance.

We're paying for the sins of 5 years ago, where we let the goalie pipeline get too thin. We got damn lucky Levi's development went faster than typical, but we're still in a position where if these two fail there's nothing behind them, unless Leinonen takes a big step, or Ratzlaff pans out...and those guys are still years out in the future. In hindsight, letting Ullmark get to FA was a mistake, though at the time he was a too often injured goalie who we knew was good when he played, but very few people were willing to back the Brinks truck up for half a season on IR.
 
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Irie

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Nov 14, 2010
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Pacific Northwest
HogtownSabresfan said:
Let me guess. It was impossible to get someone who could take a faceoff too. 30th in league. It was obvious a problem last year too
Click to expand...

Prior to the Toronto game, Krebs, Okposo and Jost were all above .500 in the faceoff circle. Currently Cozens still is still above .500, and Jost is at exactly .500.

The problem is Mitts at .41 and Tage below .45.

But unless you are cutting the icetime of your top two centers, bringing in a bottom six center to take draws would not hardly change the overall team numbers.
 

dortt

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Sep 21, 2018
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Houston, TX
do we come back with Levi tomorrow or go back to UPL?

Don't see a place for Comrie with UPL and Levi playing rather well
 

Waterfowlist

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Aug 9, 2012
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I mean, we say UPL is playing well, but he is barely a top 50 goalie by most advanced stats. I’m still not convinced we need to keep him.

Levi is starting to look like the goalie we saw last spring. Hopefully he builds on these performances.
 
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