Post-Game Talk: Point taken

I could use some more of last night's Jeff Skinner... probably his best game as an Oiler. If Knob healthy scratches J. Skinner next game.. I'll be so perplexed. IMO... if anyone is struggling more recently.. it would be Arvidsson.
 
You can tell who the people are that don't watch any non-Oilers hockey games. They think that Skinner is the only goalie in the league letting in goals.

You'd probably blow their minds if you told them Bobrovsky and Shesterkin have more games with a save percentage in the .700s (or less) than Skinner does this year.

He's 27th in the league for save percentage, you get what you pay for. And his numbers here are likely inflated by playing behind one of the better defensive structure teams in the league (since Coffey/Knob have taken over). Put him on a lot of other teams and he would be a sub .900 easy.

He wouldn't be .902 on teams like Anaheim or Calgary or Vancouver or even NY Rangers, he'd be a lot worse.

I don't think he was terrible last night, but he is what he is at this stage, up and down goalie who isn't paid much because he doesn't deserve to be. There's maybe 4 teams in the league where he would be a starter and the Oilers are the only playoff team where he would be starter.
 
I wonder how many of the 20 goals Skinner let in this month were "leaky" or "bad" according to some people on here. If I weren't so lazy I'd dig through the post history of some of his biggest detractors and find out. I'd guess they complained about at least 15, if not all 20. Seems like some people on here think he should have a 0.5 GAA and .980 save percentage.

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The dude is putting up elite numbers as of late and the "Skinner is garbage" noise just keeps getting louder.

Now that his numbers are good the default goal post move is "hE diDNt mAkE ThE biG sAvE."

When the statistics begin to move away from being able to wield them in a hate ritual, some non-measurable BS like "he got out duelled again!" becomes the narrative.
 
Now that his numbers are good the default goal post move is "hE diDNt mAkE ThE biG sAvE."

When the statistics begin to move away from being able to wield them in a hate ritual, some non-measurable BS like "he got out duelled again!" becomes the narrative.



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So Jeff Skinner has 3 goals (5 points) and is a +4 in his last 9 games despite Knoblaugh trying to drive him off the team, exclusively with bottom 6 time.
That play to break up the two on one last night was the best defensive play of the game. He needs a look. Nugent Hopkins is in the midst of arguably his worst season ever. Put him on 3C and play Skinner with McDavid for an actual stretch of games.
 
If you need to come up with a dissertation on why a player is better than what all the fancy numbers say, you're probably biased or just straight up wrong.

Skinner is a backup goaltender at this stage of his career. The numbers show it, his inconsistent play shows it.

Is it his fault? Absolutely not. It's an organization that thinks "good enough" goaltending is the way to go. They pay both their goalies less than their 5th defenseman. It's wasting resources.
 
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Now that his numbers are good the default goal post move is "hE diDNt mAkE ThE biG sAvE."

When the statistics begin to move away from being able to wield them in a hate ritual, some non-measurable BS like "he got out duelled again!" becomes the narrative.
His numbers aren’t good though.
 
If you need to come up with a dissertation on why a player is better than what all the fancy numbers say, you're probably biased or just straight up wrong.

Skinner is a backup goaltender at this stage of his career. The numbers show it, his inconsistent play shows it.

Is it his fault? Absolutely not. It's an organization that thinks "good enough" goaltending is the way to go. They pay both their goalies less than their 5th defenseman. It's wasting resources.
The oilers need another goalie better than Pickard that they trust to run with when skinner is playing bad.
 
They have been for a long time.

Last 20 games he’s 13-5-2 .921 save %
So if we remove a bunch of games his save percentage looks good.

Yes, he’s been better lately, he’s also very inconsistent, he’ll have stretches where he looks like the best goalie in the league, and others where it looks like he can’t stop a beach ball.
 
So if we remove a bunch of games his save percentage looks good.

Yes, he’s been better lately, he’s also very inconsistent, he’ll have stretches where he looks like the best goalie in the league, and others where it looks like he can’t stop a beach ball.
The whole team was garbage early in the year. Himself included not excusing him but can you name a player on this roster who was meeting expectations the first 10-15 games? It’s a very short list.
 
The whole team was garbage early in the year. Himself included not excusing him but can you name a player on this roster who was meeting expectations the first 10-15 games? It’s a very short list.

On the basis of continuing to rag on his play from October, we really should still be carving up the following players because what they've done since doesn't matter apparently.

McDavid
Hyman
RNH
Bouchard
Nurse
Skinner (the new cult favourite)
Emberson
Etc

Using the same standards, all of these players should also continue to be on the hit list because of "full season" stats.

His numbers aren’t good though.

Why are we still completely fixated on October when they have been objectively good and improving since?
 
All of that is true, it factors in none of that, but you are still giving it too much credit.

I don’t remember which resident stat expert told me this, but the publicly available expected goal models can’t even distinguish whether a preceding pass contributed to the quality of a chance.

Think about what that means…

It means a routine shot from the has the same difficulty as a guy receiving and finishing a pass on a two on one break.

It means a cross crease tap in is the same difficulty as a guy coming in with two defenders on his back and jamming the puck into the pads of a goalie already down in butterfly sealing the near post. Or the same difficulty as the third and fourth whacks at a puck already lodged up against the goalies pads… those all count as high danger saves.

In short: completely f’n useless in differentiating what would be a hard save or an easy save.

We need to wait a decade before we take any of those stats half as seriously as some around here do.
I appreciate your input and I couldnt agree more.
I am not a math guy BUT even I can see where some of these analytics fall short.
The HDSC is one area where I dont take the numbers too seriously. The examples you pointed out are exactly the kind of examples I have used on here before to show why that stat is flawed.
All you have to do is pay close attention to the details in a game and then the obvious conclusion is that the stat isnt granular enough to provide anything particularily useful.

This became obvious to me a few years ago when I watched a goalie seal the ice and the post with his pad and then watched a player (from 6 inches away) try to slam the puck through the pad 3 times. That puck had little to no chance of going in yet it all counted as 3 HDSC's.
The equivalent of 3 uncontested shots from 10-15 feet in front of the goalie. A place where the shooter can pick where he wants to put the puck and he is close enough in that the goalie has very little time to react. Not even close to the same scenario in terms of acutal danger and yet they are considered equal.

Also...(as you also pointed out) the HDSC's also dont take into account really important elements like contested and uncontested shots. Uncontested shots (in a dangerous spot on the ice) is something IMO this team gives up too much.
So we completely agree...that stat for the most part is basically useless in providing an accurate assessment of how dangerous a scoring chance really is.

Yet that flawed stat is used all the time on here to 'prove' how bad Skinner is.
 
On the basis of continuing to rag on his play from October, we really should still be carving up the following players because what they've done since doesn't matter apparently.

McDavid
Hyman
RNH
Bouchard
Nurse
Skinner (the new cult favourite)
Emberson
Etc

Using the same standards, all of these players should also continue to be on the hit list because of "full season" stats.

No one believes Skinner is a .920 goalie. He'll have these little hot peaks when the team around him is locked in defensively, same thing as last season, and then he'll have a stretch where he reverts back more to the mean and is an adventure in the playoffs.

We get what we pay for 2.6 million, for about 27th best in save percentage in the league is about right.

Unfortunately we don't spend the money saved on goaltending on anything smart which makes the whole thing moot.
 
I appreciate your input and I couldnt agree more.
I am not a math guy BUT even I can see where some of these analytics fall short.
The HDSC is one area where I dont take the numbers too seriously. The examples you pointed out are exactly the kind of examples I have used on here before to show why that stat is flawed.
All you have to do is pay close attention to the details in a game and then the obvious conclusion is that the stat isnt granular enough to provide anything particularily useful.

This became obvious to me a few years ago when I watched a goalie seal the ice and the post with his pad and then watched a player (from 6 inches away) try to slam the puck through the pad 3 times. That puck had little to no chance of going in yet it all counted as 3 HDSC's.
The equivalent of 3 uncontested shots from 10-15 feet in front of the goalie. A place where the shooter can pick where he wants to put the puck and he is close enough in that the goalie has very little time to react. Not even close to the same scenario in terms of acutal danger and yet they are considered equal.

Also...(as you also pointed out) the HDSC's also dont take into account really important elements like contested and uncontested shots.
So we completely agree...that stat for the most part is basically useless in providing an accurate assessment of how dangerous a scoring chance really is.

Yet that flawed stat is used all the time on here to 'prove' how bad Skinner is.
Those stats are more objective than eye tests though.
 
No one believes Skinner is a .920 goalie. He'll have these little hot peaks when the team around him is locked in defensively, same thing as last season, and then he'll have a stretch where he reverts back more to the mean and is an adventure in the playoffs.

There's the problem. People ripping him because of what they think will happen, not what he's actually doing. This just hasn't happened yet since mid-November.

If/when that happens I'll be the first one to call him out. Still think we need a better backup. In the interim, I can't possibly understand the fixation some have on spinning his play as bad no matter what he does.
 
There's the problem. People ripping him because of what they think will happen, not what he's actually doing.

If/when that happens I'll be the first one to call him out. Still think we need a better backup. In the interim, I can't possibly understand the fixation some have on spinning his play as bad no matter what he does.

He is what he is, if we face a good goalie who's really on their game in the playoffs, probably that will be really, really tough. Stu isn't up to elevating his game that high.

He's .902-ish this year and that's about right. On many other teams he would be sub-.900, and he's a starter on maybe 4 or 5 teams tops in the league, we're the only playoff team he'd be a starter for.
 

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