Confirmed with Link: [TOR/OTT] Matt Murray (25% retention), a 3rd in 2023 and a 7th in 2024 for Future Considerations.

[Tak7]

Goal tending is definitely and afterthought with Shanny/Dubas

I wouldn't say it's an afterthought.

Think it's more accurate to suggest they don't have the tools / smarts to properly evaluate goaltenders. Nor do they have a clue how to address the position.

Remember - they lucked into Jack Campbell. He was an emergency backup trade because they were sick of the Michael Hutchinson experiment and failed in their gamble with Garrett Sparks.

 

[WTFMAN99]

I wouldn't say it's an afterthought.

Think it's more accurate to suggest they don't have the tools / smarts to properly evaluate goaltenders. Nor do they have a clue how to address the position.

Remember - they lucked into Jack Campbell. He was an emergency backup trade because they were sick of the Michael Hutchinson experiment and failed in their gamble with Garrett Sparks.

Ironically they inherited their best back up in McBackUp from Lou, squandered it and it took until the arrival of Campbell to adequately replace him, brutal planning and ability to mitigate disaster.

 

[McSnypsky]

Is this speculation? Or something that was confirmed?

It was in that interview with woodley i believe on leafs lunch today

 

[crump]

Murray seems to be just going through the motions in this isolation video. rarely goes to the edge of the crease, no urgency. Hopefully new environment will spark him back to better focus.

 

[Dayjobdave]

Who would trade for a Goalie with stats like this and put your hopes on him recovering? When has that ever worked out for a team?
View attachment 570486

Oh sorry posted the wrong stats for Murray
View attachment 570488

The previous post was Ed Belfour when we signed the washed up Bum who posted a .922 and .918 follow up seasons.

As I recall, the media was so down on the Eddie signing that Tie Domi had to speak out to the fans to give Eddie a chance - and he was spectacular until his back went out.

 

[Tak7]

It was in that interview with woodley i believe on leafs lunch today

Thanks - will catch up a little later tonight.

 

[TorMapleJays]

As I recall, the media was so down on the Eddie signing that Tie Domi had to speak out to the fans to give Eddie a chance - and he was spectacular until his back went out.

I dont like the trade.

I hope they are both lights out and SOMEONE steals us a game in the play offs.

 

[Stephen]

I wouldn't say it's an afterthought.

Think it's more accurate to suggest they don't have the tools / smarts to properly evaluate goaltenders. Nor do they have a clue how to address the position.

Remember - they lucked into Jack Campbell. He was an emergency backup trade because they were sick of the Michael Hutchinson experiment and failed in their gamble with Garrett Sparks.

I'm always baffled when I hear the phrase that "goalies are voodoo" from certain segments of hockey fans, like they don't know what's going and they have no interest in looking at it in more detail. The position is a sport within a sport and the more you listen to goalies talk about the craft, the more you appreciate it for being the science that it is. Hopefully the new staff will bring greater insights and the Leafs won't be playing the guessing game moving forward.

 

[Bowski]

Murray seems to be just going through the motions in this isolation video. rarely goes to the edge of the crease, no urgency. Hopefully new environment will spark him back to better focus.

Urgency and Murray are oil and water.

The reason the Pens won during his reign was that he was the complete opposite of MAF.
The team goes down, MAF sprays gasoline on the flop fire.
Murray always had a calming effect when things broke down.

Of course, his dad died, and he's had endless concussions while sporting a weak glove hand, so who knows?

 

[Sypher04]

I wouldn't say it's an afterthought.

Think it's more accurate to suggest they don't have the tools / smarts to properly evaluate goaltenders. Nor do they have a clue how to address the position.

Remember - they lucked into Jack Campbell. He was an emergency backup trade because they were sick of the Michael Hutchinson experiment and failed in their gamble with Garrett Sparks.

Saying they lucked into Campbell is seriously such a bad take. If they were just needing a backup goaltender, there we far less expensive ways to do accomplish that. The Leafs gave up the assets to bring Campbell to Toronto because they evaluated that he was a goalie with the ability to potentially take on a much larger role. They’ve made a number of mistakes at the position, but they should be credited where they are due.

 

[GardinerTheForward]

Saying they lucked into Campbell is seriously such a bad take. If they were just needing a backup goaltender, there we far less expensive ways to do accomplish that. The Leafs gave up the assets to bring Campbell to Toronto because they evaluated that he was a goalie with the ability to potentially take on a much larger role. They’ve made a number of mistakes at the position, but they should be credited where they are due.

lmao

 

[Gary Nylund]

I'm always baffled when I hear the phrase that "goalies are voodoo" from certain segments of hockey fans, like they don't know what's going and they have no interest in looking at it in more detail. The position is a sport within a sport and the more you listen to goalies talk about the craft, the more you appreciate it for being the science that it is. Hopefully the new staff will bring greater insights and the Leafs won't be playing the guessing game moving forward.

I've always taken that phrase to mean that as a general rule, it's impossible to predict how goalies will perform from year to year. It's true too as far as I can tell.

Saying they lucked into Campbell is seriously such a bad take. If they were just needing a backup goaltender, there we far less expensive ways to do accomplish that. The Leafs gave up the assets to bring Campbell to Toronto because they evaluated that he was a goalie with the ability to potentially take on a much larger role. They’ve made a number of mistakes at the position, but they should be credited where they are due.

People are always ragging on Dubas, but picking up Campbell was indeed a great move and I give him full credit for that. Now I have to say that overall I'm not impressed by the way he's handled the goaltending position but yeah, I give him high marks for that one.

 

[paulhiggins]

In his post-signing interview I noticed he reached for his left shoulder a few times and mentioned a few times about leaning on the support staff. Hopefully he's healthy and can stay healthy.

 

[saltming]

I'm always baffled when I hear the phrase that "goalies are voodoo" from certain segments of hockey fans, like they don't know what's going and they have no interest in looking at it in more detail. The position is a sport within a sport and the more you listen to goalies talk about the craft, the more you appreciate it for being the science that it is. Hopefully the new staff will bring greater insights and the Leafs won't be playing the guessing game moving forward.

Apparently it's systemic through the hockey world.

Travis Yost’s recent article on the difficulty of evaluating goaltenders sings that familiar refrain. As usual, his research and analysis is illuminating. General Managers don’t know how to evaluate and pay goalies. Save percentage, in all its forms, is poor at predicting future performance. Average and replacement-level goaltenders are almost statistically indistinguishable, and aside from a tiny elite and small batch of failures, everyone is in this range.

Nonetheless, the evolving narrative of goaltending madness influences, and is influenced by, the perception that goaltending is an unknowable mystery. The position is inherently complex, to be sure, but the hockey community has traditionally preferred to dismiss that complexity with clichéd folk-psychology instead of learning it.

Yost’s article points out the current limitations of predicting goaltenders through save percentage. Strides are being made with descriptive and comparative measures, like my own work using danger zones and adjusted even strength save percentage, as well as Nick Mercadante’s voodoo-evoking version of the latter. These post-hoc approaches provide usefully concrete descriptions, but do little to statistically predict a given goaltender’s future performance.

Voodoo, Madness, Mysticism: Goalie Ignorance Excuses | InGoal Magazine

ingoalmag.com

 

[Tak7]

I'm always baffled when I hear the phrase that "goalies are voodoo" from certain segments of hockey fans, like they don't know what's going and they have no interest in looking at it in more detail. The position is a sport within a sport and the more you listen to goalies talk about the craft, the more you appreciate it for being the science that it is. Hopefully the new staff will bring greater insights and the Leafs won't be playing the guessing game moving forward.

I do actually think that there's elements of the position that are very difficult / impossible to predict. We see it a lot in hockey - a goalie that we all expect to do really well, struggles, and vise-versa. Connor Hellebuyck's numbers were significantly down from where they usually are. How many people saw that coming?

I think it's okay for fans to say this sort of stuff, but I would expect / hope that professional NHL front offices (and especially ones such as the Leafs that have such massive budgets for staffing at that level), have much more thorough tools & methods to evaluate and predict goalie success.

However, I genuinely do believe that even with the most accurate tools and methods, the nature of the position is of a heavily padded man trying to stop a rubber disk from entering a 6x4 space. There's always going to be some variance, randomness, and things you just can't predict.

 

[zeke]

I'm always baffled when I hear the phrase that "goalies are voodoo" from certain segments of hockey fans, like they don't know what's going and they have no interest in looking at it in more detail.

Baffled?

Goalies sorted by caphit:

 

[justashadowof]

Urgency and Murray are oil and water.

The reason the Pens won during his reign was that he was the complete opposite of MAF.
The team goes down, MAF sprays gasoline on the flop fire.
Murray always had a calming effect when things broke down.

Of course, his dad died, and he's had endless concussions while sporting a weak glove hand, so who knows?

The quietness of his style in that video reminds me of Ed Belfour. It was a weird edit: never smothers the puck, never catches the puck, never comes out to play the puck, never leaves the crease at all.

 

[justashadowof]

With so many eyes on each NHL goalie, tendencies and weaknesses get figured out and that information spreads as those things get exploited. The good ones adjust and the cycle begins again. As the goalie athlete ages he accumulates injuries that weaken parts of his game to exploit. He learns to compensate for it if he can. All of this is for the expert hockey eye to spot not the actuarial to model.

 

[Tak7]

Saying they lucked into Campbell is seriously such a bad take. If they were just needing a backup goaltender, there we far less expensive ways to do accomplish that. The Leafs gave up the assets to bring Campbell to Toronto because they evaluated that he was a goalie with the ability to potentially take on a much larger role. They’ve made a number of mistakes at the position, but they should be credited where they are due.

They didn't acquire Campbell to be the #1, and they didn't intend for him to take the net from Freddie - something that only occurred due to Andersen's injury.

 

[Bowski]

The quietness of his style in that video reminds me of Ed Belfour. It was a weird edit: never smothers the puck, never catches the puck, never comes out to play the puck, never leaves the crease at all.

Oh if only Murray could be Eddie The Eagle 2.0, the crease would be cleared:

 

[BertCorbeau]

They didn't acquire Campbell to be the #1, and they didn't intend for him to take the net from Freddie - something that only occurred due to Andersen's injury.

..but isn't the point of acquiring a good backup is to have a goalie that could step in and handle starts if there is an injury?

 

[Stephen]

Baffled?

Goalies sorted by caphit:

View attachment 570608

There's 4x Stanley Cups, 6x finals appearances, 4x Vezina Trophies, 1x Conn Smythe and a Hart Trophy in the Top 5 goalies paid. Add 3x more Stanley Cups, 3x more finals appearances, another Conn Smythe and a Vezina if you expand the list to Top 10 goalies. Not really all that voodoo at all.

 

[Stephen]

I do actually think that there's elements of the position that are very difficult / impossible to predict. We see it a lot in hockey - a goalie that we all expect to do really well, struggles, and vise-versa. Connor Hellebuyck's numbers were significantly down from where they usually are. How many people saw that coming?

I think it's okay for fans to say this sort of stuff, but I would expect / hope that professional NHL front offices (and especially ones such as the Leafs that have such massive budgets for staffing at that level), have much more thorough tools & methods to evaluate and predict goalie success.

However, I genuinely do believe that even with the most accurate tools and methods, the nature of the position is of a heavily padded man trying to stop a rubber disk from entering a 6x4 space. There's always going to be some variance, randomness, and things you just can't predict.

Variances in player production can vary wildly too, and analytical models aren't always able to predict them either.

Andrew Mangiapane scoring 35 goals to nearly double his career production, Matthew Tkachuk popping off for a 104 point season, Steven Stamkos having a completely unexpected 1st 100 point season at 32, are all great surprises. Ex-Leafs prospects Mason Marchment and Carter Verhaeghe weren't expected to flourish the way they have. Michael Bunting was a complete surprise.

Max Domi and Alex Galchenyuk declining in the prime of their careers is voodoo. PK Subban was as overpaid as Bobrovsky on his last deal as his Norris level defense declined sharply...

 

[Buds17]

They didn't acquire Campbell to be the #1, and they didn't intend for him to take the net from Freddie - something that only occurred due to Andersen's injury.

This is a tough one for me to rule out entirely considering the previous history that exists between Dubas and Campbell.

 

[LeafEgo]

Apparently it's systemic through the hockey world.

Travis Yost’s recent article on the difficulty of evaluating goaltenders sings that familiar refrain. As usual, his research and analysis is illuminating. General Managers don’t know how to evaluate and pay goalies. Save percentage, in all its forms, is poor at predicting future performance. Average and replacement-level goaltenders are almost statistically indistinguishable, and aside from a tiny elite and small batch of failures, everyone is in this range.

Nonetheless, the evolving narrative of goaltending madness influences, and is influenced by, the perception that goaltending is an unknowable mystery. The position is inherently complex, to be sure, but the hockey community has traditionally preferred to dismiss that complexity with clichéd folk-psychology instead of learning it.

Yost’s article points out the current limitations of predicting goaltenders through save percentage. Strides are being made with descriptive and comparative measures, like my own work using danger zones and adjusted even strength save percentage, as well as Nick Mercadante’s voodoo-evoking version of the latter. These post-hoc approaches provide usefully concrete descriptions, but do little to statistically predict a given goaltender’s future performance.

Voodoo, Madness, Mysticism: Goalie Ignorance Excuses | InGoal Magazine

ingoalmag.com

Generic stats and publicly available advanced stats won't help. Too many variables at play to separate team support from goaltending.

No doubt some goalies are better than other goalies though.

I look at the consistency of a guy like Gibber behind the good ducks and bad ducks and wonder - most goalies don't have that kind of a record to look at. There are also extremes like Hasek, Shesty this year, Freddy for a few years with the Leafs.

But I don't pretend to know goalies. I do love reading the goalie experts on here break down the technicals though.