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GDT: Maple Leafs vs Devils 7 pm LTV

[video=youtube;Ko7opk3DS24]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko7opk3DS24[/video]


Love Pilon just launching himself into Hunter.
 
Love how the narrative changes in this city, first it was "we aren't playing Reimer enough, the team doesn't respect him" now its "we're playing Reimer too much, the team's hanging him out to dry"....
 
The corsi crew were grasping last night looking for every excuse possible to blame his poor play lately on everyone but him.
 
Metalleaf said:
Love how the narrative changes in this city, first it was "we aren't playing Reimer enough, the team doesn't respect him" now its "we're playing Reimer too much, the team's hanging him out to dry"....
Click to expand...

The twitter narrative today from the Corsi brigade is to blame our defensive play and that Reimer has been fine. They've been pumping his .922 EV%....which really isn't that high, but it looks high, so let's just ignore the fact that most good goalies have EV%'s in the .930's. If Reimer had a EV% of .922 all season, he would rank 20th in the NHL, right behind Craig Anderson.

The other really telling thing about their narrative that they're not talking about is that the Leafs have been a much better Corsi team during this stretch

Corsi%

Vs Habs - 54.1%
Vs Lightning - 50.8%
Vs Wings - 49.6%
Vs Caps - 44.3%

So....here's how this narrative has changed over the course of the season

44% Corsi + .925 starting goaltender = Team sucks, Bernier is saving them, completely unsustainable
51.4% Corsi + .882 starting goaltender = Team sucks, it's not Reimer's fault he can't save them, this is the correction we've been warning you about.
 
I wasn't sure about the numbers, but I was right about them being a positive corsi team last night and losing, it seems.
 
the media is driving a wedge right between reimer and the team and city.

the thing is, though, in retrospect it looks like they jumped at getting a goaltender because they saw an opportunity to get a pretty special one for pennies on the dollar in bernier.

reimer has been given opportunities this year and he just hasn't been up to the task. earlier in the year he wasn't awful, but his play did slip whereas bernier excelled. however, the argument always was -- at some point they are going to need reimer (either because bernier's play slips or other reasons), and at htat point reimer will be given the reins and an opportunity to win back his playing time.

well, they hit a point in the year where they needed him and, not only has reimer not performed as well as bernier -- he has flat out choked.

the media can turn this into a leafs- or carlyle- vs reimer thing, but it isn't.

the leafs brought in a guy to compete with reimer, a goalie with two excellent (near elite) half seasons wedged between an awful, injury plagued season, who has had problems staying healthy throughout his career dating back to junior. that guy outperformed reimer and won the starting job outright. reimer wasnt' bad -just not as good as bernier.

but now, it's all on reimer. they're giving him his opportunity and he's doing nothing to help himself. not only that but given that he seems to be falling apart, you have to think that they must be feeling pretty relieved about going out and getting bernier...
 
Metalleaf said:
I wasn't sure about the numbers, but I was right about them being a positive corsi team last night and losing, it seems.
Click to expand...

Here's the thing, I don't necessarily disagree with the Corsi crowd on a few things. Possession is important. The Leafs looked excellent last night and the skaters played a really solid game against a good team. But there's more that determines a good team than possession. Possession and skill is the way to go. Goal scoring is a skill, goaltending is skill based. If your numbers are telling you that team SV% corrects to the mean, you've done something wrong. The Leafs have 2 sides of that pyramid figured out. Highly skilled goaltending, and highly skilled goal scoring. If they can play like they did last night, 40-50 times a season, they're going to be a very difficult team to beat for anyone.

Where the Corsi crowd goes off the rails is that they've invented numbers to say that Corsi/possession analogues are all important indicators and then they work at spinning the numbers to explain away any failings of that doctrine. While doing so they completely discount things are ridiculous on their face like goaltending returning to the mean, and skill not being important, etc. One major positive this season though is that the baseball numbers crowd has taken an interest in the argument and some of their luminaries have punched major holes in the hockey metrics crowd's number games.
 
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Yeah media has been creating this drama all year long and the dumb fans are getting suckered into it.

I've said all year long the leafs have 2 legit goalies and they probably still do, but I'm seriously starting to have doubts about Reimer. This season has showed he's maybe not mentally capable of being a #1 in a big market like Toronto.
 
MindzEye said:
Here's the thing, I don't necessarily disagree with the Corsi crowd on a few things. Possession is important. The Leafs looked excellent last night and the skaters played a really solid game against a good team. But there's more that determines a good team than possession. Possession and skill is the way to go. Goal scoring is a skill, goaltending is skill based. If your numbers are telling you that team SV% corrects to the mean, you've done something wrong. The Leafs have 2 sides of that pyramid figured out. Highly skilled goaltending, and highly skilled goal scoring. If they can play like they did last night, 40-50 times a season, they're going to be a very difficult team to beat for anyone.
Click to expand...

i think a big part of the problem is trying to distill hockey down to one stat. that, to me, makes no sense at all given the different positions, varying skill sets (both between the positions and amongst players who play the same position) and fluidity of the game.

other issues with the stat are (i) it is dependent on 11 other people and (ii) it is based on an assumption (that shots = good and shots against = bad).

it's like the proponents are trying to use corsi like the OPS of hockey, but have lost sight of the fact that OPS tracks several stats (how often a player gets a hit, how often a player walks, how many bases the batter gets to on the basis of the hit), that OPS has fewer variables (batter vs hitter with a small defensive variable) and has no assumptions (fact: getting hits is good. fact: getting walks is good. fact: a double is better than a single, a triple is better than a double or a single and a home run is better than a triple, double and single).

and to see the shortcomings with the stat you need look no further than grabovski. subjectively and objectively -- he is a talented hockey player, he skates well. he handles the puck well. he's pretty responsible all over the ice. grabovski's a nice player to have on your team. but while his corsi might be very good, hockey is still a game in which you need to score goals, and there is no doubt that a guy like i.e. kadri brings tangible skills to the table that separate him from a guy like grabovski, based on his ability to create offense...
 
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