Goalie controversy thread

[Brian39]

Thankyou for your detailed post. Just reaffirms to me that blues fans are passionate and super knowledgeable. I’d like to comment on quick. Yes he won a second cup after he signed his contract, but he was very average in that second cup run. In his first cup run in 2012, he had one year left of his deal and that summer is when he signed his current contract. Well in 2012 playoffs quick posted a .941 save% and 1.41 GAA. Signs contract summer of 2012, he wins a second cup in 2014 with a .911 save% and a 2.58 GAA in 2014 playoffs.

I get what his numbers said, but they don't tell a very full story of what he did that year. He and the rest of the Kings were awful to start the Sharks series. They went down 0-3 and then Quick just decided that he wasn't going to let them lose. He put up a .955 in the next 4 games and allowed just 2 total goals in games 5-7. His series SV% was .922 after a brutal start. The Sharks were the league's 7th best offense that year.

They were down 3-2 vs Anaheim. He posted a .955 in game 6 and a .926 in game 7. His overall SV% was a .916. The Ducks were the league's best offense that year and had the highest shooting percentage in the league (10.2%). A .916 doesn't impress anyone, but it is pretty damn good against a #1 offense.

After that you had the Hawks in what was arguably the most competitive series of hockey in the cap era. The 1st OT in game 5 is the best period of hockey I've ever watched. It took just 26 actual minutes to complete the 1st OT period because the pace of play was just relentless. The Hawk's were the league's #2 offense that season and looked the part in this series. Both goalies came out with ugly numbers that really don't tell the story of how they played. But Quick outdueled Crawford in the end, putting up an .889 while Crawford put up an .878.

And then the Final where he wasn't facing an elite offensive team for the first time all playoffs. He posted a .932 in a 5 game series that saw his team win 3 games in OT. I'm not sure it is fair to say that he outdueled Hank, because LA was the better team. But his .932 was better than Hank's .923.

All in all, he ended with a .911 for the playoffs despite facing the #1, #2 and #7 offenses in the league along the way. He was .916 after the initial 3 game disaster and he went 7-0 with his team facing elimination. He posted a .923 or higher in each of those elimination games except for one (a 5-4 OT win where he stopped 37 of 41). He had some real clunkers along the way, but he was absolutely amazing when the Kings needed him to be. He also won the Jennings and was 5th in Vezina voting in the regular season. They got every penny out of him that season.

 

[BlueSeal]

The one thing I'd like to stress on this topic from where I sit is that the Blues never do anything the logical, simple or easy way. We are a team that works best when we baffle everyone. Look at the stats on our Cup Run, it defies physics more than Rey Mysterio. Get us a solid meat and potatoes LD to play with our D boys and let's just ride. Too worried about a position that we're swimming in talent with; Binny is bad until he catches fire and then everyone will shut up. Husso is loved until he starts losing and then he's the worst guy we got and needs to get tossed. I had that sentiment but have learned that our clutch players are usually the ones we either don't think highly of/less talented or have had rough patches. Maroon's 'garbage goal' changed everything for us. Never underestimate the heart and resolve in any of these guys. Believe in the Note. Army will find a way.

 

[Brian39]

I think the side to side is where he is getting beat too. This year I have noticed that he frequently overcommits on his first look and scrambles on cross ice plays, often behind the play because he started in a bad position. Many of the goals he lets in on those plays are avoidable in my mind. If you are composed on the first look and play a simple, stay square to the shooter positioning, then you don’t need to make so many hard saves.

Why he is getting into a poor starting position, I am not sure. Many of the first looks are not coming from fast moving plays either where he needs have aggressive movements. Often it’s at a relatively normal pace that gets thrown out of position.

I'm seeing him slow to react to the puck off the stick that causes him to start his lateral movement late and/or misread which target the puck is going to (and thus where his slide should be going to). He's also failing to catch his edge more often than usual. He's absolutely falling behind some plays, but I don't think it is because he is playing overly aggressive.

Goal #2 last night saw him correctly retreating deep as the puck carrier drifted below the faceoff circle. He started going into a reverse VH to seal the post and the puck carrier recognized this and sent an uncontested pass to the slot. Binner was either screened or didn't read the pass quickly and never got a good lateral push off the post to get square to the shot. Nothing to do with aggression.

Goal #3 was a similar play, except Bortz plowed through Binner and fully prevented him from moving laterally.

Goal #4 was a cross ice pass that he read poorly. He was fully square and stationary to the passer with his skate on the post (we were on the PK). He either misread where the pass was going or blew an edge, becauase he pushed to the center of the net and then had to push again to get closer to the correct angle. The delay getting over left a big opening far side, but it wasn't due to aggression.

Goal #5 was a leaky rebound on a shot that he was perfectly square to. He was fully inside his crease and not at all too far out.

Goal #6 was a tic tac toe play that he played as well as he could. It started below the circle with a cross crease pass back up into the slot. Binner correctly butterfly slid from his right to left and he correctly stayed fairly deep in his crease. He had no other save selection without cheating off his post early and opening up the short side. He executed a good slide and would have been in decent shape for a shot. Instead, the Flame player one-timed a pass back across the crease and this pass was one-timed in. Binner did a good job stopping his slide and pushing the other way, but there is just no getting back over that quickly. That play goes in 100% of the time the shooter places it far side, which he did. There was absolutely no over aggression here and I'd argue no flawed lateral movement at all.

The other 2 goals were clean shots.

I'm not going to break down every goal from the last month. I've done it for a couple of games now and I'm not seeing him late due to aggressive positioning. I'm seeing him slow to read pucks off the stick combined with some bad edgework leading to failed execution of the proper save selection. His positioning has been off at times, but his depth has been pretty much good. If anything I think he is retreating into a reverse VH too often to try and combat his below NHL-average lateral movement.

 

[Celtic Note]

I'm seeing him slow to react to the puck off the stick that causes him to start his lateral movement late and/or misread which target the puck is going to (and thus where his slide should be going to). He's also failing to catch his edge more often than usual. He's absolutely falling behind some plays, but I don't think it is because he is playing overly aggressive.

Goal #2 last night saw him correctly retreating deep as the puck carrier drifted below the faceoff circle. He started going into a reverse VH to seal the post and the puck carrier recognized this and sent an uncontested pass to the slot. Binner was either screened or didn't read the pass quickly and never got a good lateral push off the post to get square to the shot. Nothing to do with aggression.

Goal #3 was a similar play, except Bortz plowed through Binner and fully prevented him from moving laterally.

Goal #4 was a cross ice pass that he read poorly. He was fully square and stationary to the passer with his skate on the post (we were on the PK). He either misread where the pass was going or blew an edge, becauase he pushed to the center of the net and then had to push again to get closer to the correct angle. The delay getting over left a big opening far side, but it wasn't due to aggression.

Goal #5 was a leaky rebound on a shot that he was perfectly square to. He was fully inside his crease and not at all too far out.

Goal #6 was a tic tac toe play that he played as well as he could. It started below the circle with a cross crease pass back up into the slot. Binner correctly butterfly slid from his right to left and he correctly stayed fairly deep in his crease. He had no other save selection without cheating off his post early and opening up the short side. He executed a good slide and would have been in decent shape for a shot. Instead, the Flame player one-timed a pass back across the crease and this pass was one-timed in. Binner did a good job stopping his slide and pushing the other way, but there is just no getting back over that quickly. That play goes in 100% of the time the shooter places it far side, which he did. There was absolutely no over aggression here and I'd argue no flawed lateral movement at all.

The other 2 goals were clean shots.

I'm not going to break down every goal from the last month. I've done it for a couple of games now and I'm not seeing him late due to aggressive positioning. I'm seeing him slow to read pucks off the stick combined with some bad edgework leading to failed execution of the proper save selection. His positioning has been off at times, but his depth has been pretty much good. If anything I think he is retreating into a reverse VH too often to try and combat his below NHL-average lateral movement.

I don’t think we are seeing dissimilar things.
What I am referring to is the goal #4 end result. I am not sure he did it last game on a goal scored, but too often on the initial look/shot he is past the post, ranging from 1/4 of a body width to a 1/2. That positioning and the need to make a very hard push on cross ice plays is what I was referring to as aggressive. I wasn’t referring to the typical definition of aggressive for goalies (how high they are in the crease). I should have taken more time to explain.

I am not 100% on why he is doing it, but I have to assume some of it is not seeing or reading the play. Another part of it may be lack of focus.

 

[Xerloris]

I don’t think we are seeing dissimilar things.
What I am referring to is the goal #4 end result. I am not sure he did it last game on a goal scored, but too often on the initial look/shot he is past the post, ranging from 1/4 of a body width to a 1/2. That positioning and the need to make a very hard push on cross ice plays is what I was referring to as aggressive. I wasn’t referring to the typical definition of aggressive for goalies (how high they are in the crease). I should have taken more time to explain.

I am not 100% on why he is doing it, but I have to assume some of it is not seeing or reading the play. Another part of it may be lack of focus.

Probably trying to compensate for the insane number of back door plays the Blues have been allowing this year.

 

[Celtic Note]

Probably trying to compensate for the insane number of back door plays the Blues have been allowing this year.

That certainly doesn’t help.

I still think him being in a better initial position helps him save more of those cross ice plays. Not all, but more of them.

 

[Brian39]

I don’t think we are seeing dissimilar things.
What I am referring to is the goal #4 end result. I am not sure he did it last game on a goal scored, but too often on the initial look/shot he is past the post, ranging from 1/4 of a body width to a 1/2. That positioning and the need to make a very hard push on cross ice plays is what I was referring to as aggressive. I wasn’t referring to the typical definition of aggressive for goalies (how high they are in the crease). I should have taken more time to explain.

I am not 100% on why he is doing it, but I have to assume some of it is not seeing or reading the play. Another part of it may be lack of focus.

Yeah I get what you're saying and I agree that he has done that in the past. I just don't see him doing it right now. He's been playing further inside his posts than he has in the past, which is why it is strange that he's still late getting over. He's trying to better integrate the reverse VH into his game so that he is better prepared for cross crease plays than when he is overlapping the post the way he used to. Strategically, he should be in better position to get over on those plays as he has less distance to cover and can push off with the help of his post. But for whatever reason, it is slowing down his lateral pushes or causing issues with him following the attackers in his peripheral vision to know where to push. We rarely see a camera angle that shows the goalie's actual edgework, so it is tough to guess whether he's blowing his edges off the post or getting the push he wants but going to the wrong spots. Id guess it's an edge thing, but it is just a guess.

He could be retreating to the RVH because he's gun shy from the number of back door plays we give up. Or it could be that he and the staff have determined that it is something he needs to integrate into his game in our current system. Whether it is conscious or unconscious, he either needs to quickly get better at moving out of his RVH or he needs to abandon it.

 

[centipede2233]

While Binner hasn’t been at his best this year, I do think his numbers are inflated a bit.

During the first stretch of the year(vs COL/ARI/LA) and the Winter Classic game, he gave up 8 goals after the team had already had a pretty sizable lead and just stopped trying. Take those out and he’s sitting around a 2.70 GAA and a .915 SV%.

Those are pretty decent numbers given how awful the defense plays in front of him, especially compared to when Husso or Chucky are between the pipes.

I’m all for Husso getting more starts while he’s on an absolute heater, but the talk of Binner getting bought out or traded for peanuts are a bit much.

Well I read the posts here and you blues fans disect binnington’s play quite nicely, definite students of the game. I don’t watch binnington, but I know numbers. Since the cup run, he’s been average to below average during the last 2 years, and horrible in both playoffs. In the last 2 playoffs, his goals saved above expected were bottom 3 and bottom 4 of all playoff goalies. This year he is having his worse save% and goals saved above expected. Hope for the blues sake he can turn it around. Atleast you have a red hot husso waiting in the wings. Hope biner doesn’t take the Matt Murray path after his success and fall off a cliff, because judging by binn8ngton’s numbers, he is heading that way.

 

[Brian39]

Well I read the posts here and you blues fans disect binnington’s play quite nicely, definite students of the game. I don’t watch binnington, but I know numbers. Since the cup run, he’s been average to below average during the last 2 years, and horrible in both playoffs. In the last 2 playoffs, his goals saved above expected were bottom 3 and bottom 4 of all playoff goalies. This year he is having his worse save% and goals saved above expected. Hope for the blues sake he can turn it around. Atleast you have a red hot husso waiting in the wings. Hope biner doesn’t take the Matt Murray path after his success and fall off a cliff, because judging by binn8ngton’s numbers, he is heading that way.

He was absolutely horrible against Vancouver in 2020.

He was not horrible vs Colorado. He wasn't great, but we got absolutely demolished in all 4 games. He was absolutely incredible in game 1 and he was very good in game 4. Most of the series was an absolute shooting gallery with the Avs sustaining O-zone possession for minute+ long chunks and picking ideal situations to shoot. They scored (I believe) 4 goals on long distance shots that would get recorded as low danger, but were seeing eye shots that passed through multi layer screens and picked a corner. There were also a couple deflections on these shots. Over a large sample, these types of shots smooth out, but MacKinnon and Makar are two of the best in the game at these types of shots and executed them to perfection multiple times.

I'm a big advocate of advanced stats, but 4 game sample sizes aren't big enough to reliably tell the story. Binner could have been better, but he was far from horrible. Swap goalies and our best case scenario was losing that series in 5 (there was a single game where Kuemper had to be really good and Binner was shakey). Remember how lopsided the Avs/Coyotes series was the year before? Every underlying number had our series as much more lopsided in favor of the Avs. The Avs did basically whatever they wanted in our zone and the 14.89 xGF through 4 games (while high) doesn't accurately describe their level of dominance.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

The Bubble series was absolutely garbage and everyone should take that with a grain of salt. Didn't they say we had multiple players coming off of having Covid including Binnington? Everyone on the team was fighting something and no one looked like themselves from top of the lineup (Pietro, RoR, Parayko) to the bottom. Especially when they wanted to stop play for multiple months and then randomly say "oh hey, playoffs time let's go"

 

[Stealth JD]

Bubble or not, if the Blues were to meet Colorado in the first round again this year, which is very likely, I'd expect the outcome to be the same. Warm knife through cold butter. We may score a few more times than last year; but Colorado would feast on this team defense. Binner would look a lot better if he still had the 2019 defense playing in front of him. I can't blame him for too many losses this year; he's been keeping his team in the game despite the shit-show in front of him most nights. Husso's just been on another planet though, so good for Berube and the Blues. They need it.

 

[Reality Czech]

The Bubble series was absolutely garbage and everyone should take that with a grain of salt. Didn't they say we had multiple players coming off of having Covid including Binnington? Everyone on the team was fighting something and no one looked like themselves from top of the lineup (Pietro, RoR, Parayko) to the bottom. Especially when they wanted to stop play for multiple months and then randomly say "oh hey, playoffs time let's go"

Yeah, I remember it as a team loss and don't think Binnington deserved any more blame than the rest of the team. I seem to recall a few key moments in that series that could have swung the momentum towards us, but we couldn't come up with the big goals while the Canucks did. Games 2 and 5 were quite winnable but we just didn't have an answer for the young Nucks.

Shame how that season went, because we really hit the ground running at the start of that year and then everything was basically reset in the bubble. Now that I look back at the team stats from that year, I didn't realize that Allen had much better numbers than Binner did while playing about 1/3 of the games. Kind of reminiscent of the current situation with the backup outperforming the starter, but I don't think anyone had much confidence in Allen at that point. And Allen played far better in the playoffs and started half the games against the Canucks.

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Yeah, I remember it as a team loss and don't think Binnington deserved any more blame than the rest of the team. I seem to recall a few key moments in that series that could have swung the momentum towards us, but we couldn't come up with the big goals while the Canucks did. Games 2 and 5 were quite winnable but we just didn't have an answer for the young Nucks.

Shame how that season went, because we really hit the ground running at the start of that year and then everything was basically reset in the bubble. Now that I look back at the team stats from that year, I didn't realize that Allen had much better numbers than Binner did while playing about 1/3 of the games. Kind of reminiscent of the current situation with the backup outperforming the starter, but I don't think anyone had much confidence in Allen at that point. And Allen played far better in the playoffs and had taken over as starter by the end of that series.

Blues had about 20% of their roster still dealing with the aftereffects of the initial covid strain. All the players were out of sync (remember Parayko and Scandella colliding with eachother at the Blue line and the Nucks player just being like "oh cool time for a goal") and it was not pretty.

 

[i aint Dunn yet]

husso or bust

 

[Linkens Mastery]

Bubble or not, if the Blues were to meet Colorado in the first round again this year, which is very likely, I'd expect the outcome to be the same. Warm knife through cold butter. We may score a few more times than last year; but Colorado would feast on this team defense. Binner would look a lot better if he still had the 2019 defense playing in front of him. I can't blame him for too many losses this year; he's been keeping his team in the game despite the shit-show in front of him most nights. Husso's just been on another planet though, so good for Berube and the Blues. They need it.

I feel like a Blues vs Avs serves goes to 7 this year. Avs goaltending is barely better than ours, if they are even better in general. Avs get scored on more than us and their PK is in the lower 1/4 of the league. All the Avs have is firepower, but, hilariously enough we are 5th in GS/PG and GS in general. If Binnington or Husso can give us Average/Above Average goaltending in the post season and our offensive stays hot we can win any series.

 

[EastVillageBlues]

I feel like a Blues vs Avs serves goes to 7 this year. Avs goaltending is barely better than ours, if they are even better in general. Avs get scored on more than us and their PK is in the lower 1/4 of the league. All the Avs have is firepower, but, hilariously enough we are 5th in GS/PG and GS in general. If Binnington or Husso can give us Average/Above Average goaltending in the post season and our offensive stays hot we can win any series.

Right, Aves have a lot of advantages, but their team-D definitely isn't one of them. They are arguably actually the one with the most porous defensive zone coverage right now, out of the top 10 teams in the league.

If we met them in the first round, I expect them to win 9 times out of 10. Not because of our defensive lapses (which I expect to be plenty in both directions), but their pure high end star power, in MacKinnon, Rantanen, and Makar, to have a few game breaking moments in the series, and that should be a big enough advantage to tilt the series heavily in their favor.

 

[Bluesnatic27]

Right, Aves have a lot of advantages, but their team-D definitely isn't one of them. They are arguably actually the one with the most porous defensive zone coverage right now, out of the top 10 teams in the league.

If we met them in the first round, I expect them to win 9 times out of 10. Not because of our defensive lapses (which I expect to be plenty in both directions), but their pure high end star power, in MacKinnon, Rantanen, and Makar, to have a few game breaking moments in the series, and that should be a big enough advantage to tilt the series heavily in their favor.

Well their team defense is much better than the Blues. And their 5-on-5 defense is in the top-10 in the league. Really, the PK is Colorado's only problem right now.

We as a fanbase really don't like giving Colorado respect for their overall game. They have created a fantastic team on both ends of the ice.

 

[EastVillageBlues]

Well their team defense is much better than the Blues. And their 5-on-5 defense is in the top-10 in the league. Really, the PK is Colorado's only problem right now.

We as a fanbase really don't like giving Colorado respect for their overall game. They have created a fantastic team on both ends of the ice.

Purely looking at percentages at 5 on 5 doesn't tell you much about the quality of team-D, especially coverage in their own zone. One of the biggest factors in those numbers is the ability of the Aves top end players to back off the opposing D from pinching and maintaining the cycles down low, and the quality of their possession minutes. And PK is normally a very large part of a team's D, especially if you are talking about their own D-zone.

They definitely do not have a "fantastic" team in their D-zone coverage, especially if you compare them to some of the other top teams, such as Fla, Carolina, TBL, etc; even Vegas is considerably better in that department when healthy.

 

[Brian39]

Purely looking at percentages at 5 on 5 doesn't tell you much about the quality of team-D, especially coverage in their own zone. One of the biggest factors in those numbers is the ability of the Aves top end players to back off the opposing D from pinching and maintaining the cycles down low, and the quality of their possession minutes. And PK is normally a very large part of a team's D, especially if you are talking about their own D-zone.

They definitely do not have a "fantastic" team in their D-zone coverage, especially if you compare them to some of the other top teams, such as Fla, Carolina, TBL, etc; even Vegas is considerably better in that department when healthy.

It's not just great percentages that are bolstered by offensive numbers. They are good at preventing chances, period.

They are 5th in the league at xGA per 60 at 5 on 5. 4th in scoring chances against, 9th in high danger chances against, and 11th in goals against. Whether that is a result of good D zone coverage or preventing teams from getting into their zone is debatable, but the outcome is that they are very good at limiting chances against their goalie. If we assume that their D zone coverage isn't on par with any of the teams with similar defense metrics, then you also have to agree that they prevent teams from entering their zone better than anyone in the league. Describe it how you want, but they are a top 10 defensive team in the league if the measure of team defense is preventing scoring chances.

They have been incredibly good since their slow 4-5-1 start. Since then, they are 26-3-2, which includes a 17 game win streak in Denver. They were 22-4-2 at home last season, so I think it is safe to say that they have a monstrous home ice advantage. No team is unbeatable in the playoffs. But the gap between them and the rest of the Conference is wide.

 

[AjaxManifesto]

Binny will be loved by all once again. Give it time.

Book it.

 

[Joshuar56]

Binny will be loved by all once again. Give it time.

Book it.

Loved for keeping the bench warm?

 

[TheDizee]

send him to the AHL to get better

 

[MissouriMook]

Well, I think it’s safe to say that there is no controversy anymore. Just like in 2019 when Allen came back and played well in a backup role, Husso should be the starter from here on out regardless of how Binnington plays the rest of the season and we can figure the rest out in the offseason.

 

[Hinterland]

Well their team defense is much better than the Blues. And their 5-on-5 defense is in the top-10 in the league. Really, the PK is Colorado's only problem right now.

We as a fanbase really don't like giving Colorado respect for their overall game. They have created a fantastic team on both ends of the ice.

I wouldn't say that. The only really reliable defender is Toews. All other guys logging the bigger minutes are either slow and lacking mobility or young and soft. The Johnson's are way past their prime and battling injuries and the young guys are making tons of mistakes against the puck or if pressured by an efficient forecheck. Their defense isn't bad but it's no secret that their defenders are small, soft and inexperienced and they're not as good as the Blues.
If I was an NHL goalie and could pick my team, I'd go Blues over Avs every day of the week.

 

[centipede2233]

Neutral fan perspective, husso should be your starter until proven otherwise. I am going to be interested who starts in the playoffs. Husso is playing near top of the league, binnington has a 5 GAA in his last 5 games…