Not for that level, no. Not like Bobrovsky's bridge deal I was alluding to. Freddi is on his "hey, you're now a backup" deal. I don't think we'll jump the "hey, you're now a good starter" deal and straight go to the "hey, you're now a top level starter" deal - which he really hasn't earned.
Not really. Just because you consider them comparable doesn't make them. I don't think there's GMs around that would just pay him according to those comparables, either.
I don't believe the wins matter "a great deal", at all, and neither does GAA, another pure team stat. Sure, a > .920 SV% would help make a case, but he's even this season not on course towards maintaining that. This year's SV% is nice, but really just a bit above average for a starter. And that's another stat that the team helps. I don't think those numbers earn him that money, at all, at least not when he's done it once or twice (if he repeats it next year).
I find the notion that he's earning to be "one of the highest paid goalies in the league" to be the only thing ridiculous there. Still facing competition and having to live up to a contract after you earned it is really a basic reality and a part of the job description for a goalie. Or mostly any player.
I think the situation is relatively close to Bobrovsky's situation, in terms of contract situation and age. Just that the season that lead to Bob getting $5.6M/2yrs being better than Andersen's current season.
Wins and GAA aren't even goaltending statistics. Both are pure team stats. The fact that people tagged those things "goaltending statistics" due to a lack of other metrics doesn't change that. SV% is somewhat meaningful, not completely pointless like wins/GAA. But even SV% is heavily impacted. This is hardly groundbreaking news.
Huh? Being on a good team makes you rack up wins and keep a low GAA, itself. The SV% as the only actual goaltending metric is slightly above average. There's nothing too shocking in the coexistence of these exact numbers.
He's an above average NHL starter at this point, but not by too far. Probably in the 10-12 range for goalies.
I doubt that too many teams would pay "through the nose". Nor do I think it's worth it for us to trade him now.
Neither are average NHL starters, at this point.
Ideally, I don't, because stat scouting is rather entirely impossible for goalies.
You got me. "Purely" was not literally the right term. The goalie still factors in, but is a minor part. It does tend to show when there's non-NHL goalies there. (Not even that regularly, though.) For comparisions of goalies on different teams, it's entirely useless.
Yes, the eye test is more valuable for goalies than stats are. If you don't like that, okay. It's inconvenient, I know. But that's the way it is. You don't need to watch every minute of every single goalie. Just like you don't need to watch every minute of every shift that Getzlaf, Malkin, Staal or Bozak take to tell who has which abilities.
Sure. The reason being not having another way. People tend to do it because they aren't goaltenders and/or can't evaluate their specific abilities/strengths. There's no shame in that. There's NHL coaches that will gladly admit they don't know the position well enough to say much about them and let their goalie coaches handle all goaltending decisions.
They wouldn't say it like that, because it would sound derogatory. But yeah, looking at the entire picture of a complete team, the vast majority of GMs, coaches and players know that. Not minor compared to a 4th line player individually, or even an individual 2nd pairing defender, but in contrast to an entire damn group of skaters - you bet it's minor.
It really isn't remotely what I'm suggesting. Nothing I said has that as a necessary consequence. Goalies can still be better and worse. They're just not the primary factor for the range of the GAA. An NHL starting goaltender doesn't and cannot give up so many soft goals or stop so many high-percentage chances that he comes close to negating an entire team being either very good or very bad defensively. That's all it takes. And it's really obvious.
Compaired to the entire group in front of them? It certainly is minor. Just look at last year's leaders in the GAA category with at least a bunch of games played. Do you think Cam Talbot, Martin Jones or Alex Stalock were elite players? Or even Brian Elliott or Corey Crawford? They aren't. They played on good defensive teams, and in case of the backups likely got a few favourable matchups. But they were clearly not driving their factors in how their teams did. Those backups did even better than their unanimously superior starters. A guy like Ryan Miller on the other hand, who was playing out of his mind before the trade for an incredibly bad defensive team in Buffalo had a stunning SV% then, but that couldn't nearly translate into a halfway decent GAA due to the team.
IIRC, Bryz was signed because both Gibson and LaBarbera were injured at about the same time.
The only reason why Gibson is still in the minors is because BM would look like an idiot for another failed reclamation project and he already had one too many. So Bryz has to sit in NHL.
On the bright side, we have obscene amount of (overpaid) 4th liners and so many 7-8 pairing Dmen we could field our own league.
Watch BM pulling the strings but come out empty handed at the deadline yet again, then making trades for even more depth players to save his face.
Comedy central...
