An optimistic view of our goaltending

[zeke]

The reported attempt at acquiring Fleury is about a big a vote of no confidence against Jack as Dubas could have expressed. Actions speak louder than words.

No wonder Dubas was angry when it went public.

Eh. I don't think fleury is even a lock to be the go to goalie in Minnesota.

He wouldn't have been here either.

 

[ACC1224]

Be a goldfish.

I wish

 

[ACC1224]

The reported attempt at acquiring Fleury is about a big a vote of no confidence against Jack as Dubas could have expressed. Actions speak louder than words.

No wonder Dubas was angry when it went public.

Yep, management is as confident as the fans are. We can only dream of what it would have been like to have a seasoned vet like Fluery start. Hopefully we catch a break and Campbell doesn’t let them down.

 

[thusk]

So, minus some potentially incoming young guys like Knies or Abruzesse we know what this roster is going to be for the playoffs. I know there has been a lot of hand wringing over the goaltending, and I get it, I’ve been alongside with my concerns, but no one was acquired so let’s look at the reasons why this could work out, since most here will and are doing the opposite:

In 2022 Cambell has played 17 games. 5 of these came prior to Muzzin’s first concussion. In those 5 games, Campbell was still at a .909 average sv%, with only 2 games under .900 and one of those was .898 on 49 shots from Colorado. I think it’s safe to conclude that at this point Jan 15th Campbell was still playing at a level that we can work with.

Over the next 12 games, Muzzin would return for 4 in the middle before getting concussed again. Campbell’s average over those 12 plummets to a dismal .850

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that one of our best defenders in front of the net, and best at clearing out people, going down or just returning coincides with this stretch for Campbell (and Mrazek). You can see this as well imo in how many more goals seemed to be coming off deflections than usual. I think teams were intentionally putting pucks in there and exposing a known weakness.

This is interesting to me.

Now Campbell has had his own struggles as well, for sure. But for what it’s worth, the softies imo seemed to ramp up as the stretch of bad play dragged on. So, to me, that’s quite likely a confidence issue resulting from the barrage of goals going into the net.

Alternatively, we can look to the Jack Campbell rib injury, which Rielly seems to confirm had been bothering him for some time before they shut him down for at least 2 weeks. No doubt, playing goal through a rib injury has the high probability of impacting your play, even your focus if you are in pain.

By all accounts Muzzin is progressing well and will return before the playoffs.

Campbell has only played 4 games with new Leaf Lyubushkin in the lineup.

Gio now inbound from the trade deadline is still excellent in his own zone.

Those 3 players are going to dramatically assist our in zone play and physicality on the backend. Their acquisitions/returns allow us to slot our D into appropriate roles where they can excel/provide the most value to the team.

Lastly, we were seeing a lot of line juggling for a while that seems to have mostly stabilized which can only help as well.

I see a lot of cause for an optimistic outlook here and I think you should too.

You said praticly the same thing i said since like 1 month. Campbell struggle stated with leafs playing worst in front and yes probably muzzin health can had a really huge impact.

You just make discover one thing, i always using JAN 15 game against STL as game changer date to explain when campbell stats started really to drop and its the exact game Muzzin get injured for the 1st time. And when he came back, he was really not at the same player and thats affecting Campbell confidence.

Saves % of campbell before muzzin get injured : 0.931 % and overall with Muzzin in the line up 0.927%

Campbell % of saves without muzzin 0.850%

 

[ITM]

The reported attempt at acquiring Fleury is about a big a vote of no confidence against Jack as Dubas could have expressed. Actions speak louder than words.

No wonder Dubas was angry when it went public.

Well, how could acquiring Fleury be more of a "big vote of no confidence" than signing Mrazek? And yet, Campbell came out in Vezina mode and sustained it until...Dubas was likely angry at the fact that a confidential discussion was made public.

If you're Auston Matthews and rumour was Alex Ovechkin might be a Leaf, do you take that as a vote of no confidence? Sure, skaters can be on at the same time but the comparison holds. ANY goalie in the league charging for the Cup would see the acquisition of Fleury as a boost. It's not as though Campbell (perhaps of all goalies) hasn't seemingly perfected the role of team player, supporting when needed, leading when asked and every hill and valley in between.

Fleury would have been a great mentor for Jack and I think he'd have taken that relationship and been ecstatic about it. Mrazek's the tougher pill to swallow. Relatively same age and on the heels of a lesser stretch, signed to a strangely lengthy contract.

Jack handled it perfectly. If there's no physical injury, I don't think it was Mrazek that derailed Jack. I think anticipation of a new contract and his perfectionism derailed Jack.

And you're right, action speaks louder than words. Plus one for Dubas placing the team first.

 

[Mess]

Leaf Nation is forced to live in the world of Optimism when it comes to Leafs goaltending, because the Realism of the situation based on the actual performance of the cold hard results provided by either Campbell or Mrazek in 2022 places the Leafs tandem in 32nd place in save percentage % this calendar year and last among all teams. So it would require ignoring the facts at hand and pretend ones not in existence will take precidence when required to achieve desired success.

Those actual results scream Pessimism, knowing you can't possibly go far in the playoffs or anywhere with goaltending like that against top opposition, where it is the most important position to drive success.

"Good teams are built from the goalie out ...."

So here we sit clinging to hope that Campbell can regain his form from the first couple of months when he returns from injury and finds his game again, because Dubas did nothing to bolster Toronto's flagging goalie situation, other then toss up a hail marry that a 32 year old KHL goalie Harri Sateri could save them, but he got claimed on waivers. Since playoff teams don't toss their starting goalie on waivers at the TD day, so pretending that Mrazek is going to be the answer is not Optimism its pure fantasy.

 

[ToneDog]

Yep, management is as confident as the fans are. We can only dream of what it would have been like to have a seasoned vet like Fluery start. Hopefully we catch a break and Campbell doesn’t let them down.

Hopefully Soup returns with "oh yeah, I'll show you" attitude, returns to form, and earns and signs a new deal with the Leafs. If not and he walks, we are left with Mrazek as our #1. That was a good plan going into last season until his game went off a cliff. God help us if Andy takes the Canes far while we are golfing.

 

[AvroArrow]

The defence looks much better for sure and I expect the goalies job to be easier with Gio in the lineup and Muzzin returning (hopefully soon) But that has nothing to do with the softies going through. It'll make it easier to see shots from a distance or make a stop in close, but regardless of how great the defence is, there's going to be weak floaters from the outside that just cannot go in. I don't see how the defensive additions fix that. I do expect our goaltending numbers to be better with the new blue line but a lot of the goals were 100% on Soup/Mrazek, I hope Soup can heal and get back to 100% soon, but stopping weak shots from the outside is 100% the goaltenders responsibility, as a defender that's what you want. If you can't strip the puck or separate the skater from the puck, force a bad angle shot or pass and rely on your teammates to do the rest.

I am confident the defence will do it's job, however I am not confident in the goaltending to do it's job (yet)

 

[Mess]

Yep, management is as confident as the fans are. We can only dream of what it would have been like to have a seasoned vet like Fluery start. Hopefully we catch a break and Campbell doesn’t let them down.

Marc-André Fleury during his 13 seasons with the Pens won Stanley Cup championships in 2009, 2016, and 2017. He received both the William M. Jennings Trophy and the Vezina Trophy last year in 2021.

He was the third goaltender to ever reach the 500 victories mark in the NHL, after Patrick Roy and Martin Brodeur.

This wouldn't be an upgrade in net, as Leafs management is content with what they have as being better.

Trading a 1st round pick to dump Marleau to get out from signing Tavares, and dumping a 1st last year for broken down Nick Foligno, were bridges he was willing to cross, but acquiring Fleury for the Leafs 1st this year was a bridge to far.

Lets hope Dubas gamble pays off and Campbell returns to form because he will need to perform like MA Fleury has already proven multiple times capable of leading a team to the Stanley Cup.

 

[Sypher04]

The defence looks much better for sure and I expect the goalies job to be easier with Gio in the lineup and Muzzin returning (hopefully soon) But that has nothing to do with the softies going through. It'll make it easier to see shots from a distance or make a stop in close, but regardless of how great the defence is, there's going to be weak floaters from the outside that just cannot go in. I don't see how the defensive additions fix that. I do expect our goaltending numbers to be better with the new blue line but a lot of the goals were 100% on Soup/Mrazek, I hope Soup can heal and get back to 100% soon, but stopping weak shots from the outside is 100% the goaltenders responsibility, as a defender that's what you want. If you can't strip the puck or separate the skater from the puck, force a bad angle shot or pass and rely on your teammates to do the rest.

I am confident the defence will do it's job, however I am not confident in the goaltending to do it's job (yet)

Well, as I outlined in the OP, I don’t think the defensive additions/returns help with the softies, but I do softies have been more of a last month or so issue than an overall one. I think they could be, in Jacks case anyway, a biproduct of playing through injury as well as loss of confidence due to the quantity of goals we’d seen going in. Basically, I think they are very fixable issues if everything else is more or less working.

 

[Sypher04]

Leaf Nation is forced to live in the world of Optimism when it comes to Leafs goaltending, because the Realism of the situation based on the actual performance of the cold hard results provided by either Campbell or Mrazek in 2022 places the Leafs tandem in 32nd place in save percentage % this calendar year and last among all teams. So it would require ignoring the facts at hand and pretend ones not in existence will take precidence when required to achieve desired success.

Those actual results scream Pessimism, knowing you can't possibly go far in the playoffs or anywhere with goaltending like that against top opposition, where it is the most important position to drive success.

"Good teams are built from the goalie out ...."

So here we sit clinging to hope that Campbell can regain his form from the first couple of months when he returns from injury and finds his game again, because Dubas did nothing to bolster Toronto's flagging goalie situation, other then toss up a hail marry that a 32 year old KHL goalie Harri Sateri could save them, but he got claimed on waivers. Since playoff teams don't toss their starting goalie on waivers at the TD day, so pretending that Mrazek is going to be the answer is not Optimism its pure fantasy.

Nobody has suggested Mrazek is the answer.

Nobody has suggested there aren’t or haven’t been issues. Everyone knows what has transpired.

There are however also a lot of reasons that we can probably expect Campbell to rebound that don’t require us to ignore any of what has happened.

This is an optimism thread. Go away with this garbage

 

[GoonieFace]

There is certainly a possibility that Campbell pulls a Binnington. However, my concern would be if the big guns can score and not get shut down.

 

[Griffin76]

What I've noticed that has been happening a lot since the Christmas break is how much chasing gets done in the defensive end. Dmen ending up out by the blueline when a goal is scored. Bodies constantly crisscrossing in front of the goalies. Causing screens, deflections and tip opportunities. One I remember in particular was Brodie chasing out on the blueline, Rielly skating from Campbell's right across to his left, the shot coming through uncontested from the point, and off Rielly's leg.

This didn't happen in either of the Kallgren wins. But in the loss to Nashville it did. The Ekholm goal was one that stood out to me. There were bodies everywhere and he had all day to just shoot the puck exactly where he wanted. No pressure on the point and a shot through lots of traffic. It's almost like the team wasn't confident in Kallgren in the first 2 games so they had to make it as clear as possible in front of him but became confident and left him out to dry in his loss.

This is the same thing I was thinking was happening to Campbell. For quite a stretch if 5 goals were scored on him then 1 was soft, 1 seemed like something he could've had and the other 3 were due to screens, deflections, bad bounces or tips.

Mrazek....well that's a completely different story.

 

[Mess]

The steady decline of Jack Campbell by month

October ......... 7 games - [record 3-2-1 .... GAA: 2.31 & sv%: .918
November....11 games - [record 9-2-0 .... GAA: 1.27 & sv%: .959
December ... 5 games - [record 3-1-1 ..... GAA: 2.97 & sv%: .909
January ......... 8 games - [record 5-1-1 ..... GAA: 3.57 & sv%: .879
February ...... 8 games - [record 3-2-1 ..... GAA: 3.42 & sv%: .894
March ............ 2 games - [record 1-1-0 ..... GAA: 4.60 & sv%: .845

Will he be able to turn this trend around in time for the playoffs, only time will tell.

 

[riffle]

The steady decline of Jack Campbell by month

October ......... 7 games - [record 3-2-1 .... GAA: 2.31 & sv%: .918
November....11 games - [record 9-2-0 .... GAA: 1.27 & sv%: .959
December ... 5 games - [record 3-1-1 ..... GAA: 2.97 & sv%: .909
January ......... 8 games - [record 5-1-1 ..... GAA: 3.57 & sv%: .879
February ...... 8 games - [record 3-2-1 ..... GAA: 3.42 & sv%: .894
March ............ 2 games - [record 1-1-0 ..... GAA: 4.60 & sv%: .845

Will he be able to turn this trend around in time for the playoffs, only time will tell.

How much of this is due to the fact he knows he's the #1 guy, made the All-Star team, a possible TeamUSA goalie before NHL'ers were out, and was looking at a huge contract extension, only to have that vanish on him. A guy seeing millions disappearing before his eyes can be unsettling and with how hard he is on himself. He built up such momentum and good will for a huge contract this off-season. It can't be helping him seeing himself destroying his financial security with his play and trying too hard to correct it to get that big pay day back in line. Too bad Kyle can't extend him now...would probably put his mind at ease, but that's the issue. Would Kyle even want to extend him as it stands right now? No.

To be optimistic is to look at the time away as good for him. Perhaps, he can't handle more than 20-30 games as a starter. He's never appeared in more than 31 games in any season of his career until the 40 he's played so far in this one. Marner was shot out of a cannon when he came back after his time away. Hoping the same applies for Jack.

 

[Rude Dog]

Jack will get back to playing the way he has done most of his Leaf career. Just hope he can stay healthy.

 

[Mess]

Goals Saved above expected - March 23

Rank	Team	Name	Games	Goals	Expected	Goals Saved	Goals Saved
			Played	Against	Goals	Above	Above Expected
					Against	Expected	Per 60
1​	Carolina Hurricanes	Frederik Andersen	43​	87​	118.40	31.40	0.74
2​	New York Rangers	Igor Shesterkin	42​	86​	116.27	30.30	0.75
3​	Tampa Bay Lightning	Andrei Vasilevskiy	49​	117​	141.40	24.40	0.50
4​	Nashville Predators	Juuse Saros	53​	130​	153.16	23.20	0.44
5​	Florida Panthers	Sergei Bobrovsky	41​	102​	122.97	21.00	0.53
6​	Colorado Avalanche	Darcy Kuemper	44​	99​	118.53	19.50	0.47
7​	Pittsburgh Penguins	Tristan Jarry	50​	111​	127.91	16.90	0.34
8​	St. Louis Blues	Ville Husso	27​	61​	75.75	14.80	0.56
9​	Los Angeles Kings	Jonathan Quick	36​	94​	107.95	14.00	0.40
10​	Winnipeg Jets	Connor Hellebuyck	54​	158​	171.56	13.60	0.25
11​	Boston Bruins	Jeremy Swayman	30​	62​	74.21	12.20	0.41
12​	Calgary Flames	Jacob Markstrom	49​	102​	113.08	11.10	0.23
13​	Vancouver Canucks	Thatcher Demko	52​	134​	143.97	10.00	0.20
14​	New York Islanders	Ilya Sorokin	41​	93​	100.84	7.80	0.19
15​	Vegas Golden Knights	Robin Lehner	38​	103​	110.58	7.60	0.21
60​	Toronto Maple Leafs	Jack Campbell	40​	101​	99.24	(1.80)	(0.05)
103​	Toronto Maple Leafs	Petr Mrazek	17​	53​	40.97	(12.00)	(0.79)

Leafs playoffs opponents all have goalies near the top of the league and Leafs tandem are ranked 60th and 103rd in Goals Saved above expected.

 

[riffle]

Goalies do, sometimes, rebound. See: Andre Vasilevskiy

from NHL.com...

 

[kevsh]

Apparently, the Leafs hopes hinge on:
- Giordano getting used to a new team/system and (potentially) a new partner before the playoffs
- Muzzin returns and plays to his usual level
- Campbell returns and plays to his early-season form
- Or, if not, one of Kall the Destroyer or Mrazek steps up in a big way
- Mitch & Matthews overcome the tight checking in the post-season and really deliver

 

[riffle]

Apparently, the Leafs hopes hinge on:
- Giordano getting used to a new team/system and (potentially) a new partner before the playoffs
- Muzzin returns and plays to his usual level
- Campbell returns and plays to his early-season form
- Or, if not, one of Kall the Destroyer or Mrazek steps up in a big way
- Mitch & Matthews overcome the tight checking in the post-season and really deliver

I'd add getting to the PP as a huge key for them. Leafs have the 3rd fewest PP opportunities in the league with 163. Only the Islanders and Coyotes have less.

When you have the best PP in the league you need it to stay hot and have opportunity. It's helped mitigate our brutal goaltending.

As far as PP percentage with us being #1...

Boston is 8th (178 opportunities)
Florida is 10th (198 opportunities)
Tampa is 17th (193 opportunities)

 

[AuraSphere]

This is my big question - Was he playing hurt, is that why the play fell off a cliff?

If so I gotta question what is going on with the goaltending coaches and/or medical staff. Back to back years with goalies playing through injuries, and playing absolutely horribly in the process. If they were still playing ok I get it to an extent but they were garbage (Andersen last year, Campbell this year) so why have them play hurt? Just shut them down and let them heal.

No he was not playing hurt - Keefe confirmed he was fine and the Rib injury was recent. It's been a mental thing for Jack since January.

This time off is probably more for his mental than it is his ribs

 

[Le Cobra]

Goalies do, sometimes, rebound. See Andre Vasilevskiy:

from NHL.com...

View attachment 520685

Belfour was routinely booed off the ice when he started as a Leaf. was letting in 5-6 goals a game. he rebounded and had the whole crowd cheering EDDIE EDDIE not long after

Campbell is a playoff performer. I have confidence he will perform well during the postseason.

 

[Tak7]

No he was not playing hurt - Keefe confirmed he was fine and the Rib injury was recent. It's been a mental thing for Jack since January.

This time off is probably more for his mental than it is his ribs

I wouldn't put any stock into what they say regarding injuries.
We don't know how long he has been playing hurt.

 

[mikeyz]

I'm quite optimistic about our goaltending. I believe Kallgren is solid enough and he'll be better with Gio and when Muzzin comes back.

I'm worried about that 2nd line and the first lines ability to perform in the playoffs. Matthews and Marner got shutdown last playoffs and teams will try the same thing this year. Thankfully the third line is better this year, so that takes some of the defensive attention away, but the 2nd line needs to step up to take more defensive attention away from the top line.

Our 3rd line was better when Kase was in the lineup.

 

[HolyCrap]

Campbell has proven to be an elite goalie and also a terrible goalie. All in the same season. What he needs to do is prove to be a consistently average tender. Then I wouldn’t be so worried. We don’t know what we have in him yet. It’s a huge gamble.