If you want tuse that like of thinking what did Michkov lead his team to?
It's not a legit argument, Wolf had a team in the mix for a long time that had zero business being there the trophy is based on the entire season of play.
It has nothing to do with Michkov and everything to do with the false idea that Wolf “carried” the Flames when in fact Vladar in lesser minutes put up better numbers later in the season backing up Wolf, who was the beneficiary of the Flames’ offense waking up when it was too late.
Calgary was a mediocre team by mid-March just like they were without Wolf the season prior. They got hot in the final month and goal-scoring increased from 2.55 GF in their first 66 games to 3.25 in the final 16, during which Wolf slashed near the bottom among NHL starters. That’s why they went 11-2-3 to keep pace with St. Louis, not some bullshit narrative that Wolf was a savior.
Was Wolf scoring all those goals?
This is simply not true. Wolf had an impactful season. 910 save percentage and 29 wins on a team that had no business competing for a playoff spot.
Very deserving of a Calder 3rd place. Michkov is very deserving of a 4th place finish.
Credit to Michkov for an impressive season. Unfortunately for him there were 2 finalists that were miles ahead of him and another that nosed him out.
OK so now we’re adjusting our rhetoric to saying Wolf was “impactful” and not “fantastic”. That’s my point. Michkov too was “fantastic” for an anemic Flyer offense but his overall season was “impactful”.
As already stated, Wolf’s numbers were neither out-of-worldly, nor consistent with how the PHWA values goaltending regardless of the team situation.
Here are most of the Calder-eligible goalies since 2006 who received votes and their voting results.
As you can clearly see, Wolf had the fourth-worst save percentage out of this 27-man cohort. Throw in the plussed-up goal support, and you can see his raw numbers like wins are team-reflected, not the other way around.
Lundqvist (4th) 30-12-9, .922
Miller (8th) 30-14-4, .914
Nittymaki (15th) 23-15-6, .895
Price (4th) 24-12-3, .920
Mason (1st) 33-20-6, .916
Rinne (4th) 29-15-4, .917
Quick (16th) 21-18-2, .914
Howard (2nd) 37-15-10, .924
Rask (4th) 22-12-5, .931
Crawford (4th) 33-18-6, .917
Bobrovsky (7th) 23-13-8, .916
Neuvirth (14th) 27-12-4, .914
Reimer (15th) 20-10-5, .921
Andersen (9th) 20-5-0, .923
Hutchinson (8th) 21-10-5, .914
Allen (10th) 22-7-4, .913
Gibson (7th) 21-13-4, .920
Murray (4th) 32-10-4, .923
Binnington (2nd) 24-5-1, .927
Blackwood (6th) 22-14-8, .916
Vanecek (6th) 21-10-4, .908
Swayman (5th) 23-14-3, .914
Skinner (2nd) 29-14-5, .913
Thompson (8th) 21-13-3, .915
Kochetkov (4th) 23-13-4 .911
Ersson (10th) 23-19-7, .890
Wolf (finalist) 29-16-8, .910
www.hockey-reference.com
