Post-Game Talk: Oilers are good at shootouts now?

[CupofOil]

As the team is made up right now, they aren’t it.

They might climb back into the playoff picture etc. but the same issues that plagued them in the playoffs still exist.

The NHL reffing is also the same, so there’s that too.

The team played a great game though. It was mostly on the goalie. If he makes a simple save on the 3rd goal (after many many minutes of inactivity), they win this game going away.
In fact, the team in general has played a much better brand of hockey in the last 6 games or so outside of the Carolina game. They're playing with great energy and more structure.

Long term I agree though. They need more from the bottom 6 and the defense will always have issues but, as of right now, the goaltending isn't giving them what they need. An even average goalie on a team like this that can score can mask a lot of issues and they're not getting even close to average most nights.

 

[McShogun99]

I detest dump and chase. Just like I hate giving up solid posession for a line change only to piss the energy away retrieving.

Same. Dump and chase was good when the game was slower and teams had more Neanderthals. Now the game is speed and possession.

 

[bucks_oil]

Right because Kolesar sitting wide open at the side of the net was Skinner's fault. Imagine if Skinner would have let the goals Thompson let in especially Gagner's goal. Embarrassing some of these comments.

That Gagner goal was right up there with some of the WORST goals any of our goalies have EVER let in and Oiler fans be like "yay Gagner" and "Thompson had a higher save percentage".

Thompson knocked it off the heel of his own glove, at least a half-foot out from his body and through his seven hole... he literally scored on himself with very little traffic. On Janmarks goal his rebound control was SO BAD he was convinced he still had the puck after it hit him in the chest. Talk about "not feeling it" and "battling the puck"... those were both HORRENDOUS goals.

 

[CupofOil]

I will not say good but he was okay today, I dont think he deserves the flack he is getting but I get it, the fuse is very short right now with him...
2 of the goals were basically impossible for him to do anything about.

That I would agree with but a capable NHL goalie just can't let in that 3rd goal, just can't. Team is playing an airtight game, playing in the opposition end pretty much the entire game, and your goalie gives up a stinker on pretty much the 1st scoring chance of the period (which wasn't really much of one) almost 14 minutes into the period. It's only one bad goal against but it's the timing of it that costs teams games or almost did in this case. He and Campbell have been doing that all season.

That Gagner goal was right up there with some of the WORST goals any of our goalies have EVER let in and Oiler fans be like "yay Gagner" and "Thompson had a higher save percentage".

Thompson knocked it off the heel of his own glove, at least a half-foot out from his body and through his seven hole... he literally scored on himself with very little traffic. On Janmarks goal his rebound control was SO BAD he was convinced he still had the puck after it hit him in the chest. Talk about "not feeling it" and "battling the puck"... those were both HORRENDOUS goals.

Thompson is a backup goalie though. Skinner is not. Therein lies the problem.
Thompson also made a ton of good saves to keep the deficit at 2 goals while Skinner was having a picnic back there.

 

[bobbythebrain]

People need to cool it on McLeod. His brother was the same as him. Fast but no hands and finish. Good in certain areas and meh in others. The Devils stuck with him and are now reaping the benefits of an average but effective player

Lot of McLeod hate in this PGT yet he went 77.8% in FO last nite, and is over 50% on the year.

Stick with him imo and he will be a useful bottom 6 player

 

[Fourier]

Haha... a gaming magazine advertising that game, sometime in early summer of 1991 is what prompted my lazy ass to get my first job at McDonalds so that I could afford to buy the game (and the Genesis to go with it).

And play goalie... I still play though I am now reaching the intersection of two opposing vectors, physical age vs experience & learning.

That's why I'm quick to defend (also quick to criticize)... for me the position is about tactical precision. So I criticize errors, because errors are what I can see as a goalie-fan. If it's possible or likely that a screen happened, then it's possible or likely that he didn't see it. Next question is did he create a screen for himself by poor positioning or failing to fight past the screen (either physically, or moving his head to find a sight line). If the answer is no, and on the third goal, it's no... then I'll give the benefit of the doubt.

In my opinion many goals include a goalie error, and to my eye, that includes many goals that fans forgive or don't even worry about. I often (any goalie really, not "me") will see mistakes that a non-goalie wouldn't always pick up. Smith for example was classic for TERRIBLE positioning and shrinking back to the goal line... relying only on his size when he should be relying on both his size AND his mobility (which would limit the back-door-angle risk of him playing too far out... his skating would let him cover the distance)... instead, and this was a classic "on Smith" goal, if there were a rush chance with a hard shot pass forward into the slot, you'd see Smith cowering on his goal line rather than challenging on the top of his crease. Then the tip/shot of that shot-pass would go top corner and nobody would give a peep... meanwhile I'm screaming at my TV that it could have been right into his breadbasket if he was in position.

And of course many goals do not, including many that "look terrible" to someone who didn't play the position - for example a classic seven hole shot from a good shooter in a good position... the goalie almost gets it, but it squeaks through. Some of those goals happen to the best goalies, because those goalies are also facing the best shooters.

Also... don't mistake my defense of Skinner on a goal, for my defense of Skinner as a whole. I am not convinced he's an NHL goalie, but it's not because of a goal like last night... it's because his positioning is above average, but not above average enough to compensate for average mobility and below average reflexes.

He'll be fine as a backup (for somebody), because he generally, generally stops the shots you are supposed to and plays a steady game... but the game has too many errors in it and too few unique physical attributes (other than size) that allow him to compensate for the errors.

And having said that, he could be a great starter if you gave him a few more god-given ticks in the physical (reflexes, speed) category, but that stuff is hard to work on, so his upside is limited for me. If he had that stuff he'd be Hellebyuck (sp).

And finally... if and when we have a steady starter, I almost prefer my backups to be erratic and "exciting"... more in the Campbell mode, because if they only play every 3-4 games, you want a guy that can pump you up with a huge, unexpected save... not a robotic guy who will bore you to tears and never be as good as your starter due to his limitations. But this is a personal preference, both can be fine

Your bolded points really caught my attention. I fully respect your ability to analyze a goalie from a technical perspective. It is not in my tool chest at all and I learn from each of your posts. That said I think the bolded points above capture the essence of how in our previous discussion we may well have been a lot closer together than it seemed.

As I have said in other posts for me there is a bit of an analogy between goalies and hitters in baseball in the sense that in both cases the difference in 4-5 outcomes out of 100 is the difference between an also ran and an all star. In both cases, I don't think it is easy for a novice like me to actually discern the technical difference between the .880 and .930 goalie. You mention reflexes for example. Even an AHL goalie will have great reflexes relative to the population at large. But it is absolutely possible that even a tiny difference in this aspect could mean the difference between 1 or 2 saves out of 100. Add in other aspects like positioning, tracking and athleticism, CONFIDENCE and you have a lot of reasons why one guy makes a save or two more over those 100 shots that the other guy does not. But how does the average fan really identify these differences?

In short time frames numbers won't tell you all that much about either situations. But over the long haul the old central limit theorem kicks in and pictures can be more clear. Top goalies just tend to stop more of the same sorts of shots than weaker ones. That may sound incredibly simplistic but in the end it just is what it is. There may be local reasons for the discrepancies that can explain some of the differences. But certainly, the goalie himself has to be the #1 factor in all of this. For me that is why I look to things like xGA vs GA. While definitely not perfect, at least they tell you that there is smoke to investgate.

 

[tiger_80]

Don’t remember the last time we scored on our first two shots.

Still need a goalie imo.

IIRC, they were quite good in the Hall/Eberle era, but not in the McDavid/Draisaitl period.

 

[bucks_oil]

That I would agree with but a capable NHL goalie just can't let in that 3rd goal, just can't. Team is playing an airtight game, playing in the opposition end pretty much the entire game, and your goalie gives up a stinker on pretty much the 1st scoring chance of the period (which wasn't really much of one) almost 14 minutes into the period. It's only one bad goal against but it's the timing of it that costs teams games or almost did in this case. He and Campbell have been doing that all season.


Thompson is a backup goalie though. Skinner is not. Therein lies the problem.
Thompson also made a ton of good saves to keep the deficit at 2 goals while Skinner was having a picnic back there.

Having a picnic has zero to do with whether or not the next shot is stoppable or not.

Oilers playing near perfect defensively has zero impact on how major or minor the next breakdown is going to be.

It doesn't matter if we "needed" the save or not either. All of this "boy we really needed a save there, we were playing so well" is hocus pocus. If you believe in that nonsense it's no wonder you'd think goalies are voodoo. Go ahead and live in that reality.

Where I live, these are discrete events and aren't related to each other.

I'm telling you that third goal was very likely not visible to Skinner in time for him to react to it. It came through the legs of a sliding Erne... Erne was in the shooting lane before he went down and continued to strafe across the sight line until the shot was made... he didn't do anything wrong, other than being in no-mans land (harder to see around) and miss the block. If you try to block you risk you goalie not seeing the puck especially if are in no-mans land... and that's exactly what happened.

Does Connor Hellebuyck stop that shot? Maybe... only maybe. Maybe Connor Hellebuyck doesn't have his forwards trying to do his job as much because they trust him to stop the puck... I understand that can also happen when goalies are struggling.

I'm just saying on that particular play, it's tough to blame Skinner and us "wanting" or "needing" a save at that point is irrelevant to the point that you are talking voodoo.

We can certainly agree on Thompson not being an NHL goalie and Skinner not being a quality NHL starter. These are separate issues.

 

[Jimmi McJenkins]

Despite the. Start, the Oilers aren't on this list.

 

[bucks_oil]

Your bolded points really caught my attention. I fully respect your ability to analyze a goalie from a technical perspective. It is not in my tool chest at all and I learn from each of your posts. That said I think the bolded points above capture the essence of how in our previous discussion we may well have been a lot closer together than it seemed.

As I have said in other posts for me there is a bit of an analogy between goalies and hitters in baseball in the sense that in both cases the difference in 4-5 outcomes out of 100 is the difference between an also ran and an all star. In both cases, I don't think it is easy for a novice like me to actually discern the technical difference between the .880 and .930 goalie. You mention reflexes for example. Even an AHL goalie will have great reflexes relative to the population at large. But it is absolutely possible that even a tiny difference in this aspect could mean the difference between 1 or 2 saves out of 100. Add in other aspects like positioning, tracking and athleticism, CONFIDENCE and you have a lot of reasons why one guy makes a save or two more over those 100 shots that the other guy does not. But how does the average fan really identify these differences?

In short time frames numbers won't tell you all that much about either situations. But over the long haul the old central limit theorem kicks in and pictures can be more clear. Top goalies just tend to stop more of the same sorts of shots than weaker ones. That may sound incredibly simplistic but in the end it just is what it is. There may be local reasons for the discrepancies that can explain some of the differences. But certainly, the goalie himself has to be the #1 factor in all of this. For me that is why I look to things like xGA vs GA. While definitely not perfect, at least they tell you that there is smoke to investgate.

Thanks... three points:

1) But how does the average fan really identify these differences? Well you can't and neither can I. Nobody can truly tell whether Connor Hellebuyck or Stuart Skinner are differentiated by their reflexes on a given shot, because there are just too many other variables, least to mention it's not the same shot. So that's why I look at errors. Errors are visible. The difference between 0.17 and 0.168 reaction time isn't truly measurable and sure it may accumulate when the n-size gets above 1000, but it still won't be the biggest difference between those two goalies. So then...

2) What's the difference: As you rightly say, at that level they all have pretty good reflexes but the goaltending is a mix of so many other factors, many of which will determine where they are in the net, and whether they make the right tactical decision on a given shot... again... errors are visible. They are visible whether a guy was too slow or too stupid to be in the right position or some combination of both. And over time, if you see a goalie making error after error after error, he's playing for the wrong team or in the wrong league...

3) There may be local reasons for the discrepancies that can explain some of the differences. Exactly... that's why I don't like those stats. They still wash too much away. You are a numbers guy. I would put $1000 down to say that the p-value of xGA vs actual GA gets closer to 1 in the middle third of the league vs the bottom third. Now we can argue about why... is it the poor goalies at the bottom of the league or the poor defense or both? Two our of three of those answers would have you say xGA and stats derived from it aren't particularly useful in comparing goalies on different teams.

Most people still say John Gibson is a good goalie right?

And I'm not saying there are better stats, or that they aren't useful... over time and with increased n-size and with player movement and situations changing, I'm sure at the most macro of levels they are entirely useful... as coaching tools... which is what they were developed for.

 

[frag2]

McDavid will pass all book it.

He'd have even more points in the last few games IMO if he didn't pass it off to his linemates more and just shot the puck. He's still guilty of trying to get his linemates 'going' and often ends up giving up the better scoring opp for himself.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

Am I the only one that thought McLeod looked better tonight? He's still not where I want him, but that third line was pretty good the whole night. Our third line led the team in CF% tonight, with McL leading the team at 70.83%. I need to see some f***ing finish, but, overall, I'm happy with how they looked tonight.

Your CRAZY!

 

[joestevens29]

Was very interesting to hear gregor talk about our pk yesterday and then ask Ekholm after the game.

Essentially Gregor went back and watched all the penalty kills this year to see what differences there are from Woody to Knobby. Essentially same system, but we are blocking way more shots. Guys seem to just be getting into the lanes.

Amazing how guys just doing their jobs can get such better results.

 

[joestevens29]

Also really like Spec talking with Karius this morning about our depth.

A bottom 6 in Janmark gets elevated and scores a goal.
Kane takes Hyman's spot on PP and gets a goal
Gagner who wasn't even supposed to play, ends up being a late addition to the game and scores.


As Spec said tomorrow will be a big game for the boys. Last game in like 5 days so if you can win tomorrow going into this mini-break will be good for the clubs mental side of things. Just a week ago Gregor had this break marked down on his calendar as the make it or break it for the guys. That Knobby would finally have some time to implement some things that he might want. Now even with a loss I don't know that there is going to be a lot of change, just more tinkering with some set plays, being in the right spot etc...

 

[GMofOilers]

We are already seeing a controlled break out in which the boys sliced the middle of the ice last night. Vegas was so used to crowding the boards and trying to intercept the neutral zone but we went up the middle with speed. Dam it was fun to see them have no answers for that play last night.

 

[snag]

Your CRAZY!

and a good speller

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Boy blasting the Jets would feel so nice.

 

[CornKicker]

We are already seeing a controlled break out in which the boys sliced the middle of the ice last night. Vegas was so used to crowding the boards and trying to intercept the neutral zone but we went up the middle with speed. Dam it was fun to see them have no answers for that play last night.

that, and aiden hill standing on his head were the 2 things that killed the oilers in the playoffs. and even then it was only for a chunks of a period or 2 a game. watching them carving up the middle of the ice with speed is a nightmare for vegas, they are built to play big on the boards not try to match speed in open ice.

 

[CupofOil]

Having a picnic has zero to do with whether or not the next shot is stoppable or not.

Oilers playing near perfect defensively has zero impact on how major or minor the next breakdown is going to be.

It doesn't matter if we "needed" the save or not either. All of this "boy we really needed a save there, we were playing so well" is hocus pocus. If you believe in that nonsense it's no wonder you'd think goalies are voodoo. Go ahead and live in that reality.

Where I live, these are discrete events and aren't related to each other.

I'm telling you that third goal was very likely not visible to Skinner in time for him to react to it. It came through the legs of a sliding Erne... Erne was in the shooting lane before he went down and continued to strafe across the sight line until the shot was made... he didn't do anything wrong, other than being in no-mans land (harder to see around) and miss the block. If you try to block you risk you goalie not seeing the puck especially if are in no-mans land... and that's exactly what happened.

Does Connor Hellebuyck stop that shot? Maybe... only maybe. Maybe Connor Hellebuyck doesn't have his forwards trying to do his job as much because they trust him to stop the puck... I understand that can also happen when goalies are struggling.

I'm just saying on that particular play, it's tough to blame Skinner and us "wanting" or "needing" a save at that point is irrelevant to the point that you are talking voodoo.

We can certainly agree on Thompson not being an NHL goalie and Skinner not being a quality NHL starter. These are separate issues.

This is the reality I live in. The other goalie made a lot more saves than Skinner, and higher quality ones that kept them in the game so when your goalie lets in a stoppable shot after working so hard to maintain a 2 goal.lead, it's deflating.

Yes, Erne did screen Skinner but goalies have stopped shots when they're screened all the time because they're positionally sound. Skinner has a tendency to shrink (a Schwartz trademark) so he wasn't in position to make the save. It was a shot from distance and the screen wasn't right in the paint so, yes, I do believe he should have stopped that shot. The Kolesar goal was another story, that was the defense losing their man and it was nice hand to eye by Kolesar so there was nothing he could do but I will certainly blame Skinner when his team is badly outplaying the opponent yet they're headed to OT in a 4-4 game.

 

[KeithIsActuallyBad]

Nuge has the best wrist shot on the entire team. It's a real shame he doesn't use it more often.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Your bolded points really caught my attention. I fully respect your ability to analyze a goalie from a technical perspective. It is not in my tool chest at all and I learn from each of your posts. That said I think the bolded points above capture the essence of how in our previous discussion we may well have been a lot closer together than it seemed.

As I have said in other posts for me there is a bit of an analogy between goalies and hitters in baseball in the sense that in both cases the difference in 4-5 outcomes out of 100 is the difference between an also ran and an all star. In both cases, I don't think it is easy for a novice like me to actually discern the technical difference between the .880 and .930 goalie. You mention reflexes for example. Even an AHL goalie will have great reflexes relative to the population at large. But it is absolutely possible that even a tiny difference in this aspect could mean the difference between 1 or 2 saves out of 100. Add in other aspects like positioning, tracking and athleticism, CONFIDENCE and you have a lot of reasons why one guy makes a save or two more over those 100 shots that the other guy does not. But how does the average fan really identify these differences?

In short time frames numbers won't tell you all that much about either situations. But over the long haul the old central limit theorem kicks in and pictures can be more clear. Top goalies just tend to stop more of the same sorts of shots than weaker ones. That may sound incredibly simplistic but in the end it just is what it is. There may be local reasons for the discrepancies that can explain some of the differences. But certainly, the goalie himself has to be the #1 factor in all of this. For me that is why I look to things like xGA vs GA. While definitely not perfect, at least they tell you that there is smoke to investgate.

It's an interesting analogy. But baseball hitters 1 of 3 are wildly successful and largely a singular activity against a pitcher while goaltending 9 of 10 is largely average and result is highly interdependent to the team in front of them (along with high speed, high chaos nature of the game). A critical foundation upon which technique and athleticism rests is the mental strength, resiliency, coping and confidence. It's kind of like the iceberg analogy in which the majority of the iceberg itself is unseen, beneath the surface.

I've been interested in this for a wee bit especially around the mythology of goaltenders and especially so with the Oilers struggles and most recently with Jack Campbell. A few things I've come across that may or may not interest peeps on here:


U.S. Hockey Mental Skills Training (begins at 18 minute mark):

Ted Monnich: Ted Monnich - Mental Conditioning, Performance Coach

An Interesting Academic Thesis, Examining the Relationship Between Psychological Skills and Confidence in Goalkeepers: https://scholars.unh.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1203&context=thesis

"Confidence is largely associated with the ability to cope with adversity (Cresswell & Hodge, 2004). This may be due to the role confidence plays in the appraisal of situations, as confidence increases the effectiveness of coping strategies (Hardy et al, 1996). For instance, Cresswell and Hodge (2001) have shown that athletes who have high confidence were able to cope effectively by peaking under pressure and successfully dealing with adverse situations. Confident athletes use psychological skills and sources of efficacy to enhance their interpretation of events in a positive manner. Athletes who interpret events to gain confidence are often those who succeed at making it to higher levels of competition. Confidence is often a mental state that often distinguishes elite athletes from others."

"Sport confidence is defined as:
A relatively enduring belief system which is the result of the interaction between possessing an expectation that good things will happen
(dispositional optimism), believing one’s skills and abilities can successfully fulfill the demands of a sport task (sport competence), and a positive
estimation of the cause and effect contingency between one’s ability and the resultant performance and outcome."


For me, I think increasingly that drafting or trading for goaltenders without understanding their underlaying mental make-up and aptitude creates is an incomplete process that fails to identify the foundation of the house so to speak. Technique and athleticism can fail if the mental strength and aptitude aren't underpinning it.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

That Gagner goal was right up there with some of the WORST goals any of our goalies have EVER let in and Oiler fans be like "yay Gagner" and "Thompson had a higher save percentage".

Thompson knocked it off the heel of his own glove, at least a half-foot out from his body and through his seven hole... he literally scored on himself with very little traffic. On Janmarks goal his rebound control was SO BAD he was convinced he still had the puck after it hit him in the chest. Talk about "not feeling it" and "battling the puck"... those were both HORRENDOUS goals.

that was a bad goal, but it was the 1-0 goal...not a 3rd period softy...when the goals are scored matters as much as how they are scored

he also made some key saves in the 3rd, especially on the PP where the Oilers were all over the Knights but couldn't make it 5-2 because Thompson made the saves he needed to

once again, Skinner was the 2nd best goalie on the ice tonight

 

[FiveFourteenSixOne]

Fire McLeod into the sun.

He's such a useless, wet-noodle of a player it infuriates me every time I see him spin away from contact (which is every shift).

Getting him off the roster would be addition by subtraction.

The thought that we could have kept Bjugstad, for the same money we're paying the human wet-fart McLeod blows my mind.

McLeod must be the unluckiest guy of all time. How else can you explain that a player of his ilk, that does everything he can to avoid touching or being touched by another player, and purposefully avoids shooting lanes, could be missing his front teeth? There's no way he lost them in a game is there? He's more likely to have, in a drunken stupor, tripped and hit his mouth on a doorknob.

The guy is a useless pile of chicken shit.

 

[VainGretzky]

I am really starting to like that Hamblin kid he sure hustles on every shift and you can see the confidence in his game since he sniped his first goal, Would like to see him get some 2nd unit PP time he is a smart player

 

[Drivesaitl]

According to Schwartz he’s killing us it out there. In reality he’s decent in no more than 2 game segments. After that the wheels fall off.

That hair toss though. its Grade A Mike Smith impersonation.

I don't get Skinner at all. Guy is all full of himself and he's the worst goalie playing in the league right now but he's got the cocksure grin all the time like he's a stud.

You'd think the guy would be humble.