Last December, the same guy posted a rather elaborate article to make the point that Reimer was, statistically-speaking, the best option for Team Canada in Sochi, concluding: “Since the lockout Reimer has the best save percentage among the contenders and also the only above-average mark in every individual category of the shot quality project.”
http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/p...i-goalie-race/
Now, he's second fiddle to a guy who the author did not even consider a contender for Team Canada just 9 months ago. How can this be? It's called cherry picking. As he says, “I ran into these sample-size issues with James Reimer when I wrote last season about Olympic goaltender contenders last December. My self appointed window focused on performance heading into the Sochi, a window of about 60 games. The time frame highlighted the best hockey of Reimer’s pro career and an assessment, about 30 percent of his career total, leading to a favourable assessment.”
Except, that’s not exactly true. He also said in that article: “James Reimer has had three seasons of .920-plus save percentage performances. In his one playoff appearance he put up a .924 save percentage, yet this data is nullified by a nine-minute stretch last spring that ended in an historic loss for the Maple Leafs.”
Funny thing is … Reimer had never posted three.920-plus save percentage seasons. The author completely overlooked his.900 performance for the 2011-12 season. Now that he wants to make the case that Bernier is a significant upgrade over Reimer, that season’s data figure in.
It’s a judgement call how you select data for statistical presentation. Why go from 60 game comparison to entire career numbers? Virtually all of Reimer’s pre-2013/14 numbers are as a starter, whereas all of Bernier’s numbers from that period are as a backup. Not a great frame for comparison.
So, like when he made the case for Reimer being the best option for Sochi, he’s relying on 55 games from Bernier as a starter to claim he’s a significant upgrade. Old habits die hard.
