Blackwood/Vanecek/We Really Need to Move On/Goalie Thread

[GameSeven]

If he plays well when he returns from injury there sure as hell is. Doesn't even have to be an insane run.

There's a lot worse goaltending this season in the NHL versus what Blackwood has shown so far.

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I love how Schmid is cutoff in the graph as simply "Akira"

 

[glenwo2]

What exactly is my case here - that I'm rooting for one of our players to play well?

Or that there are in fact worse goaltenders in this league and that there may be some interest in him, particularly (as I said) if he plays reasonably well once he returns from injury?

I think what Bleed (and myself) fear is that our "Genius" GM may make a stupid mistake and not deal him (if there is any interest) but re-sign him under the misguided belief that he's "back".

I mean....he's going to get his opportunity when he comes back from injury whether I like it or not but that is my ultimate concern, actually.

 

[Saugus]

My main takeaways from the chart are that the team plays very similarly in front of all of our goalies, and that Schmid has been very good (albeit in a small sample size).

And also that @Bleedred is totally correct to shit on Petersen, Nedeljkovic, and Merzlikins every opportunity he gets.

 

[glenwo2]

If I knew for certain, that Fitz won't re-sign him no matter what, I would be all for "rooting for him to play well" but that possibility of yet another FOOL believing in FOOLS GOLD is just so scary.....

 

[HBK27]

I think what Bleed (and myself) fear is that our "Genius" GM may make a stupid mistake and not deal him (if there is any interest) but re-sign him under the misguided belief that he's "back".

I mean....he's going to get his opportunity when he comes back from injury whether I like it or not but that is my ultimate concern, actually.

And what exactly are you basing using "Genius" in quotation marks for Fitzgerald? What other "stupid mistakes" has he made that makes you believe that he'll bungle this one and not see something so clearly obvious that you and Bleedred among others can see?

I personally have a lot of trust in Fitz and how he will handle the situation.

If I knew for certain, that Fitz won't re-sign him no matter what, I would be all for "rooting for him to play well" but that possibility of yet another FOOL believing in FOOLS GOLD is just so scary.....

Jesus...now Fitz is a "FOOL" as well.

Has Blackwood broken you?

 

[Guttersniped]

Tandem - This shouldn't have been one. At least not to start. Between Vanecek's hot preseason, being the better goalie the last two years, Blackwood being the worst non-AHL call up player on the team last year and his last two regular seasons being poor, Vanecek should have been given the season opener and more starts unless he started showing he wasn't capable, which he has to this point. And it wouldn't have happened if not for the injury. I'm not saying he should have played every game, but Blackwood probably should have been treated and played the way Schmid has been played since he got injured. So like once a week-ish?

Now, I had no problems with Blackwood getting those 3 straight games AFTER his Philly disaster and Vitek's Detroit home opening disaster. He did play well in those games, even though a couple of them were some of the best defensive efforts we'll see. And yes, Vitek and Akira have both benefited from some of those games being played in front of them too.

Where they really started to lose me was once again throwing him in there against Edmonton. And how can you be so sure Vitek was getting Calgary if Blackwood didn't win that Edmonton game? They let him play 3 games in a row before that, when he won 3 games in a row in his first consecutive stretch of games. I remember the speculation around here being that he might not play Edmonton because he had horrible numbers against them in his career. I didn't like playing him against Vancouver, but it made sense, because it truly would have been the ''One game a week'' since there were no back to backs.

If you remember, both Ruff and Blackwood seemed to heavily imply during their post game pressers in Vancouver that he would have started another game between his Washington blowout and pull and that Vancouver game 8 nights later. The explanation was that he was nursing a ''Sore elbow'' and he even sat out practice the day the 1-0 Colorado win, while the EBUG practiced in his place. Remember I half jokingly said they held him out of practice that day because they were having a fan or season ticket holder autograph signing event and that they wanted to keep him away from the fans after the shelling and Bronx cheering the last game he played before.

If he didn't get hurt, he would have gotten all the starts Schmid got (or as many games, it's hard to say he would have gotten the same exact games that Schmid got or the same opponents), plus I'm willing to bet 3-4 of Vanecek's starts. Maybe even 5 if they didn't sit him that stretch of games where he had the ''Sore elbow'', but still dressed.

This team and their media department has constantly hyped him up. Especially after the ''We're giving him the ball'' comments from Ruff last January. There was nothing but talk about it from that guy (I think he's the dude subbing for Matt on the radio PBP right now) during either one of the scrimmages or one of the preseason games that were streaming.

For some reason, he's been talked up as one of the core players here. At least coming into this season, likely not at this point from anybody other than maybe his biggest superfans.

He was NEVER ELITE. If he was elite, Vanecek has been elite this season. Blackwood's best stretch ever in the NHL was no better than Vanecek's run this year, although it did go on a bit longer. And that was just about 3 years ago when he had that run. I think he did have about a 28 game stretch of .928% or something from December 2019-February 2020 and maybe even a 36 game stretch of .920% or something. I ran the numbers a while ago, so I forget. This was back when he was being called the ''Best goalie in the world since Hynes was fired''. As if Vasilevskiy's 2020 playoffs while Blackwood sat home weren't enough for him to be the best goalie in the world at that time.

Now that we have a cushion, I'm sure they'll let him 'Try to find his rhythm'' but I think the people (not just me) have finally had enough of him. They were really turning on him during his last home game.

And you know what? I bet he'll play well enough at some point for a stretch of games that he fools fans and maybe even the front office into thinking he's back. Because bad goalies aren't bad every game, nor consistently bad every single month or even half a season. See: Cory Schneider's 2019 portion of the 2018-2019 season. ''Oh he's back! You're wrong Bleed! He's bouncing back! It's not a market correction! He only played those first 9 games poorly cause he was injured!''. Remember some of Martin Brodeur's crazy half season runs in his decline years too. He was literally a .920%-ish goalie for I think it was about 60 games between February of 2012 and February of 2013, including the entire 2012 playoffs.

Yes, I do believe they've given this player more rope than they should because they ''Hope'' he's what they thought he might be 3 years ago.

In conclusion, I think Blackwood might have very well been better than an .880% if he hadn't got hurt, which is his save percentage to this point, but I also don't think it would be much better than a .900%. He would have probably struggled to stay too much above that.

What does “Tandem - This shouldn't have been one. At least not to start.” even mean? That Vanacek should have played and played and played from the start? You might not believe in tandems but that’s generally the approach teams take these days unless they have a few of the proven workhorses in the NHL.

Vanacek lost in the first home game and Blackwood played 3 game which he won. He lost a game and then Vanacek got 3 games.

The only time a different goalie got a start after one guy won was when Blackwood started in Vancouver but he’s had a ton of success vs Vancouver (with eye popping stats).

And again, I believe Blackwood played in Edmonton because they were planning to play Vanacek in Calgary.

I have no proof but Blackwood had a game where he gave up 9 GA in the Saddle Dome, I personally would have gone with a different goalie. They do look at a goalie’s past record against a team into account.

I thought both guys were still a little shaky too at the time, I don’t see the coaching crime against humanity.

And the preseason? Was Vanacek really “hot” compared to Blackwood?

And you might not care about Blackwood’s previous success vs Philly but the team would.

He can’t play one guy over and over though. He needed Blackwood to be functional too. There was no scenario where Vanacek was suddenly taking a Hellebuyck-like work load. Considering his recent injury history I don’t see how Blackwood was supposed to take on that work load either.

And sorry if you’re paranoid about Blackwood potentially well, but if he gets healthy he can play well. He’s inconsistent but we all know he’s capable of playing well.

The team talked him up when we literally had no one else to play goalie and at the start of this season when he was one of our starters. He still is going to get “rope” because he’s a starter and Akira is waiver exempt depth. The best case scenario is Blackwood is serviceable enough that Schmid can be sent down.

He’s not going to be a part of the tandem if he’s not healthy and playing well.

Also, wtf, huh? ''Best goalie in the world since Hynes was fired''. He played really well and people were excited about him, not just on this board but in the general NHL media too, and suddenly that mutates into supposed claims of “best in the world”? You don’t have to invent bad takes to bitch about. (And people shat on Carter Hart because he was Flyer.)

I have just about zero faith in Blackwood. I don’t mind these rants about him sucking because there’s a solid chance that’s what he’ll do. The idea that Fitz or Ruff made terrible errors here, nope. Don’t see it. We weren’t getting two new goalies this season, not with Blackwood signed at 2.8m. I do have faith in their ability to evaluate him, so this “he could fool them!” stuff is hogwash. Hysteria about imaginary problems must be exhausting.

 

[Triumph]

What exactly is my case here - that I'm rooting for one of our players to play well?

Or that there are in fact worse goaltenders in this league and that there may be some interest in him, particularly (as I said) if he plays reasonably well once he returns from injury?

There's very few goalies worse than him and most of those goalies can stay healthy. That is Blackwood's issue at present. I expect Blackwood to play in the NHL next year, but nobody is trading anything of value for him, nor are they going to qualify him.

 

[HBK27]

There's very few goalies worse than him and most of those goalies can stay healthy. That is Blackwood's issue at present. I expect Blackwood to play in the NHL next year, but nobody is trading anything of value for him, nor are they going to qualify him.

Sure, based on where we are right now, that is probably the case.

However, in case you didn't realize it there's still a lot of the season left to play and for Blackwood to build up trade value. Is that the likely scenario? Probably not, but it's not something I would rule out either.

If he plays well when he returns from injury there sure as hell is. Doesn't even have to be an insane run.

There's a lot worse goaltending this season in the NHL versus what Blackwood has shown so far.

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[Bleedred]

What does “Tandem - This shouldn't have been one. At least not to start.” even mean? That Vanacek should have played and played and played from the start? You might not believe in tandems but that’s generally the approach teams take these days unless they have a few of the proven workhorses in the NHL.

Vanacek lost in the first home game and Blackwood played 3 game which he won. He lost a game and then Vanacek got 3 games.

The only time a different goalie got a start after one guy won was when Blackwood started in Vancouver but he’s had a ton of success vs Vancouver (with eye popping stats).

And again, I believe Blackwood played in Edmonton because they were planning to play Vanacek in Calgary.

I have no proof but Blackwood had a game where he gave up 9 GA in the Saddle Dome, I personally would have gone with a different goalie. They do look at a goalie’s past record against a team into account.

I thought both guys were still a little shaky too at the time, I don’t see the coaching crime against humanity.

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And the preseason? Was Vanacek really “hot” compared to Blackwood?

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And you might not care about Blackwood’s previous success vs Philly but the team would.

He can’t play one guy over and over though. He needed Blackwood to be functional too. There was no scenario where Vanacek was suddenly taking a Hellebuyck-like work load. Considering his recent injury history I don’t see how Blackwood was supposed to take on that work load either.

And sorry if you’re paranoid about Blackwood potentially well, but if he gets healthy he can play well. He’s inconsistent but we all know he’s capable of playing well.

The team talked him up when we literally had no one else to play goalie and at the start of this season when he was one of our starters. He still is going to get “rope” because he’s a starter and Akira is waiver exempt depth. The best case scenario is Blackwood is serviceable enough that Schmid can be sent down.

He’s not going to be a part of the tandem if he’s not healthy and playing well.

Also, wtf, huh? ''Best goalie in the world since Hynes was fired''. He played really well and people were excited about him, not just on this board but in the general NHL media too, and suddenly that mutates into supposed claims of “best in the world”? You don’t have to invent bad takes to bitch about. (And people shat on Carter Hart because he was Flyer.)

I have just about zero faith in Blackwood. I don’t mind these rants about him sucking because there’s a solid chance that’s what he’ll do. The idea that Fitz or Ruff made terrible errors here, nope. Don’t see it. We weren’t getting two new goalies this season, not with Blackwood signed at 2.8m. I do have faith in their ability to evaluate him, so this “he could fool them!” stuff is hogwash. Hysteria about imaginary problems must be exhausting.

That “Best goalie in the world since Hynes was fired” was a real quote. I didn’t wanna publicly mock the poster, since it was a while ago, but I screen shot it to you in your inbox.

I forgot the exact numbers, but Vanecek was a .920%-something in pre season. I’d have to search my posts to find it, as I posted it after preseason.

Blackwood was like a .905%. So Vanecek was significantly better in the preseason, although with the small sample size literally one period of play can be the difference in those numbers over just 3-4 games.

I had to add it up in the game logs you posted. Vanecek was a .928% in the preseason, Blackwood was a .905%.

Blackwood faced 26 more shots and I’m pretty sure he even played more in the preseason as well. He faced 26 more shots, but I’m too lazy to add up how many more minutes he played.

 

[Triumph]

Sure, based on where we are right now, that is probably the case.

However, in case you didn't realize it there's still a lot of the season left to play and for Blackwood to build up trade value. Is that the likely scenario? Probably not, but it's not something I would rule out either.

It is virtually impossible for Blackwood to build up trade value. He has suffered major injuries in each of the last two seasons and has not been good when healthy. Teams will take a chance on a banged up goalie and they will take a chance on guy who was once good but who can't seem to make a save anymore. Only the worst teams take a chance on a guy who's got both of those things.

 

[MartyOwns]

And what exactly are you basing using "Genius" in quotation marks for Fitzgerald? What other "stupid mistakes" has he made that makes you believe that he'll bungle this one and not see something so clearly obvious that you and Bleedred among others can see?

I personally have a lot of trust in Fitz and how he will handle the situation.



Jesus...now Fitz is a "FOOL" as well.

Has Blackwood broken you?

lol why are you bothering?

 

[HBK27]

It is virtually impossible for Blackwood to build up trade value. He has suffered major injuries in each of the last two seasons and has not been good when healthy. Teams will take a chance on a banged up goalie and they will take a chance on guy who was once good but who can't seem to make a save anymore. Only the worst teams take a chance on a guy who's got both of those things.

"Virtually impossible"

Sure, whatever...

We have some posters worried out of their friggin' minds that he might actually play well enough this season to be with the team next season, but it's "virtually impossible" he could build up his value to even be worth a mid or late round pick?

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

"Virtually impossible"

Sure, whatever...

We have some posters worried out of their friggin' minds that he might actually play well enough this season to be with the team next season, but it's "virtually impossible" he could build up his value to even be worth a mid or late round pick?

Serious question: What has Mackenzie Blackwood shown in his career, other than a ~2 month stretch like 4 years ago, that he is even an NHL goalie? Over his past 67 games played, he is not even a .900 goalie. That is not good enough. That doesn't even take into account his inability to stay healthy.

I just don't understand the stanning for this guy. He sucks.

 

[Triumph]

"Virtually impossible"

Sure, whatever...

We have some posters worried out of their friggin' minds that he might actually play well enough this season to be with the team next season, but it's "virtually impossible" he could build up his value to even be worth a mid or late round pick?

Both of these things can definitely be true, especially because of what you said earlier - it's kind of grim out there for goalies, a lot of teams are looking for help. The problem for Blackwood and his trade value is that he is expensive, constantly injured, and that no one is going to qualify him. That means he is basically a body for a losing team. If he plays well down the stretch, it seems likely that the Devils will just keep him and it'll be up to all parties whether he's here next year, but there's just almost no world where he's qualified.

 

[NjDevsRR]

I like the size and athletic ability

I don't like how slow he reads plays

I don’t like his injury history

I don’t like his personal history


Time to move on. It’s really whats best for all parties involved.

 

[HBK27]

Serious question: What has Mackenzie Blackwood shown in his career, other than a ~2 month stretch like 4 years ago, that he is even an NHL goalie? Over his past 67 games played, he is not even a .900 goalie. That is not good enough. That doesn't even take into account his inability to stay healthy.

I just don't understand the stanning for this guy. He sucks.

Is it a problem that I won't just get in line with "he sucks, we should just dump him" brigade?

What goalies exactly have looked good here the prior two seasons?

What 2 month stretch are you talking about considering his stats are fairly good over the 70 game stretch from the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 seasons (.916 SV% / 2.72 GAA on some shitty teams). Hell of a lot of games to cram into a 2 month schedule, don't you think?

Not to mention apparently Brodeur and the staff appeared to believe in him coming into the season, but what the f*** do they know, right?

I'm just personally sick of the amount of vitriol the guy gets on these boards - again, to the point that we have posters worried that he may perform well this season because of some stupid excuse that our (now idiotic it seems) GM might bring him back next year because obviously management must not be able to see what they see. I can understand him being a whipping boy, but that type of stance is just ridiculous and I can't get on board with actively rooting against a player on this team.

I've already stated that I don't think it's likely that he returns to form, but I guess that's not enough for you either, huh?

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Is it a problem that I won't just get in line with "he sucks, we should just dump him" brigade?

What goalies exactly have looked good here the prior two seasons?

What 2 month stretch are you talking about considering his stats are fairly good over the 70 game stretch from the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 seasons (.916 SV% / 2.72 GAA on some shitty teams). Hell of a lot of games to cram into a 2 month schedule, don't you think?

Not to mention apparently Brodeur and the staff appeared to believe in him coming into the season, but what the f*** do they know, right?

I'm just personally sick of the amount of vitriol the guy gets on these boards - again, to the point that we have posters worried that he may perform well this season because of some stupid excuse that our (now idiotic it seems) GM might bring him back next year because obviously management must not be able to see what they see. I can understand him being a whipping boy, but that type of stance is just ridiculous and I can't get on board with actively rooting against a player on this team.

I've already stated that I don't think it's likely that he returns to form, but I guess that's not enough for you either, huh?

then why carry on like this, then? Like I said, I just don't get it.

 

[Bleedred]

What 2 month stretch are you talking about considering his stats are fairly good over the 70 game stretch from the 2018-2019 and 2019-2020 seasons (.916 SV% / 2.72 GAA on some shitty teams). Hell of a lot of games to cram into a 2 month schedule, don't you think?

Not to mention apparently Brodeur and the staff appeared to believe in him coming into the season, but what the f*** do they know, right?

Yes, he played solid for two seasons there. I think so. His GSAx was nothing really special those years, in fact evolving hockey even has him as a negative those two seasons, but just barely. About roughly below a half a goal from breaking even.

Yeah, he played good in 18-19 and 19-20.

That was just about three years ago now. It’s like a tale of two careers at this point for him. At least in the NHL it is.

When you delve into his AHL numbers then you start to see some similarities between his last two seasons in the NHL and the start to this one.

As far as Brodeur goes, what is Brodeur gonna do, get up there and say he sucks and they don’t believe in him? He was already under contract this year.

I’m not sure if Brodeur personally believes in him or not.

However, if there’s a pretty good arsenal of ammo you can throw at my arguments of the organization trying to make him happen, there was a leaked quote from some “Anonymous” source in the athletic going back a while ago (no later than the 2021 off-season, maybe even earlier) where a team employee said something like Tom Fitzgerald wasn’t as high on Blackwood as he this guy was, nor as high as he believed Fitzgerald should be on him. It might have went on to go on to imply that’s why he was acquiring Crawford and Bernier and guys like that because he wasn’t sold on Blackwood as a legit starting goalie who could get a significant workload as a starter and play well.

Or maybe that whole part was in another separate article I read around the same time.

 

[HBK27]

then why carry on like this, then? Like I said, I just don't get it.

Carry on like what?

Even if I think it's unlikely he returns to form, I'm not rooting against the guy like you and others seem to be.

Funny how that's the one thing in the entire post you decide to respond to.

So again, what's the 2 month span you're referring to for Blackwood? Or did you mean 2 season?

 

[Bleedred]

I like the size and athletic ability

I don't like how slow he reads plays

I don’t like his injury history

I don’t like his personal history


Time to move on. It’s really whats best for all parties involved.

Honestly, if he has any shot at resurrecting his career it’s gotta be someone else.

Much like Steve Mason a decade ago in Columbus.

He could very well go somewhere else and play the best we’ve seen in years, although I don’t think it will be too long term. I just don’t think he’s very good. He’ll probably get quite a few chances over the next several years, whether it’s with one team or multiple teams. Teams like these types that at one point showed success. They might also see Samsonov in Toronto (in a very recent example) and think they can squeeze out that same success out of him. That’s assuming Samsonov actually doesn’t regress to the mean by season’s end.

But yeah, a divorce is needed. It was probably needed this past offseason, but it is unrealistic to acquire two new goalies in an offseason and he did have this year left under contract to give him one last chance.

Anything after this year would be a mistake, as we can walk away free after this year, as he’s not signed for next year.

 

[HBK27]

Yeah, he played good in 18-19 and 19-20.

That was just about three years ago now. It’s like a tale of two careers at this point for him. At least in the NHL it is.

Yes, which started when he had just turned 22 which is young for an NHL goaltender.

That's why I do have some hope for him, as faint as it may be.

Covid and then injuries really derailed things from there and who knows if he'll ever get back to that form, which admittedly may not have been as great as we thought at the time.

At this point, I'd be surprised if he were still on the team next season, but I'm still hoping that he can help the team this season.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

I mean when the guy plays, its not like I root for him to let in 4 goals/game (he does that well enough on his own). I still want him to help the team win.

The problem is, all signs point to that never happening consistently. And that doesn't even touch on his Covid shenanigans. Or the fact that we seemingly have better options now.

 

[Bleedred]

Carry on like what?

Even if I think it's unlikely he returns to form, I'm not rooting against the guy like you and others seem to be.

Funny how that's the one thing in the entire post you decide to respond to.

So again, what's the 2 month span you're referring to for Blackwood? Or did you mean 2 season?

His first two seasons were solid, but there was a particular couple of month stretch where he was exceptional (it was actually 3 months) from December of 2019-February of 2020.

He played well in 18-19 and I HEAVILY argued he should get more starts back then and f*** Kinkaid and f*** Schneider, but he was used more sparsely that year.

He didn’t play in the NHL the entire season was alternated back and forth for the last 1.5 months of the season with Schneider.

He had a shorter stretch where they gave him a bunch of games earlier that year, particularly in his first call up after Kinkaid started blowing up and Schneider was injured/on conditioning loan to the AHL.

But yeah, there was a particular 3 month stretch where he might have been one of the better goalies in the league for those three months in December of 2019 through February of 2020. And that held more weight that the every other game thing the year before.

That’s why there’s still any kind of belief in him. Other than maybe his first 5 games of 20-21 which were really no hotter than Schmid’s 5 games this year, but he was playing them in succession, so yeah, it’s fair to say they hold more weight than Schmid’s start so far.

But there’s been 62 games since then and the performance has been pretty nearly a league worse.

I went back a month or so ago and looked up every goalie since February 20th of 2021 with a minimum of 15 games played. Korpisalo was the only full time NHL goalie that had performed worse since that date. There were several others who were AHL call ups (Gillies lol) and even a couple of old guys who had since retired like Ryan Miller and Curtis McElhinney.

 

[HBK27]

I mean when the guy plays, its not like I root for him to let in 4 goals/game (he does that well enough on his own). I still want him to help the team win.

The problem is, all signs point to that never happening consistently. And that doesn't even touch on his Covid shenanigans. Or the fact that we seemingly have better options now.

Yes, let's continue to vilify the guy for not getting in line and getting a shot that he didn't actually need (considering he had already had Covid and has thus built up strong natural immunity) and had a very small chance of actually harming him because it might've prevented him from from traveling with the team to Canada for a few games (where he could've just gotten the night off anyway, as often happens with goalies). On a shitty team nonetheless that didn't come remotely close to sniffing the playoffs.

As much as I'm sure you think he was selfish in his decision, I think fans were much more selfish in their reaction to it.

Wonder how many would still hold that against Jack or Nico if they had made that decision instead.

 

[Zajacs Bowl Cut]

Yes, let's continue to vilify the guy for not getting in line and getting a shot that he didn't actually need (considering he had already had Covid and has thus built up strong natural immunity) and had a very small chance of actually harming him because it might've prevented him from from traveling with the team to Canada for a few games (where he could've just gotten the night off anyway, as often happens with goalies). On a shitty team nonetheless that didn't come remotely close to sniffing the playoffs.

As much as I'm sure you think he was selfish in his decision, I think fans were much more selfish in their reaction to it.

Wonder how many would still hold that against Jack or Nico if they had made that decision instead.

He was one of a handful of what, close to probably 1,000 people (players, coaches etc) league wide. Lets not act like he was some brilliant hero.

And I will vilify anyone I choose whether you like it or not, thanks. I would want the guy gone SOLELY BASED ON HIS PLAY alone. This just adds to it.