- For those that actually do follow me on Twitter, or that follow Michael Hoffman (@CapsExaminer) and/or Angie Lewis (@LadyHatTrick), or have even read previous posts, you may have picked up on the fact that I am a big fan of Mathieu Perreault, and that I think he is being under-utilized by the Capitals. Well tonight he got possibly the biggest shot of the season thanks to team misfortunes. Backstrom is still out with a head injury, and Marcus Johansson fell ill this weekend, forcing him to miss the game. First-line center duties surprisingly fell to MP85 on a line with Ovechkin and (*gasp*) Mike Knuble against a fierce rivalry on a nationally televised game. How did he do? Skated a season-high 16:22, posted two assists and a +2, and generally looked solid defensively and offensively. His first point came on a beautiful play with Ovechkin and Semin with the team rushing up the ice. A great pass from Ovi led to a quick, hard shot by Perreault, leading to a juicy rebound and a goal for Semin. Possibly just as important, if not noticeable, was a play in the Caps' end where Neuvirth gave up a juicy rebound, only to have Perreault poke it away from the corner of the net and lead a play out of the zone. Here's hoping for more of this kind of performance and ice time for the diminutive forward.
- Much has been said about the Capitals' offensive issues this season. Not as much has been said about minor victories masking massive underlying issues. Tonight the team got goals from Laich, Ovechkin, and Semin, their three most expensive (healthy) players, and that was fantastic news. What is terrible news is that they only managed 20 shots on goal, their 7th lowest total of the season, and the fourth time this month they have only scraped together 20 or fewer shots on net. Meanwhile, the team has only allowed fewer than 20 shots against one time this month: Jan 3, when the Calgary Flames got 19 on net. While I am absolutely not ready to put much trust in Neuvirth, I am ready to trust Vokoun. I am also ready to trust the defense to limit quality shots on net, even if they are not limiting the quantity of shots. Hopefully a game like this, moreso than the two shutouts last week, will motivate the guys to shoot the puck more. It's one thing to be shut out, or to win a close game. But after an OT loss in a game where both goalies are playing sub-par, you hope the players are saying to themselves: "What if I had taken one more shot?"
- One of the big differences between Boudreau and Hunter is line-matching. I think Hunter took it a step further today with the lineup today with team-matching. Putting Knuble back on the top line, even if it was only for a short time, and starting Neuvirth were likely both moves made because they have been thorns in the Penguins' sides. Hendricks, Laich, and Brouwer were put together to match Malkin's line with (theoretically) solid defensive play and physicality. It didn't quite work out, but I have some faith that there was a thought process behind the lineups that just about everyone was questioning this morning.
- You have to give props where they are due, even if you hate to do it: Malkin and Neal were fantastic tonight. The game-tying goal was the work of a supremely gifted, powerful forward in Malkin. Geno pushed through, quite literally, all five Caps players on the ice, never lost the puck, out-powered Hamrlik up against the boards, and managed to pass it to James Neal for his 26th goal of the season. There's a reason that Malkin was taken one pick after Ovechkin, and he is reminding the league and hockey fans of that this season. Neal is reminding people why everyone in Pittsburgh thought Pens GM Ray Shero had incriminating photographs of Dallas' GM when he was brought to the Penguins. Why do I also find this hopeful? Malkin was plagued by injuries the past couple seasons, only to come back healthy and dominant. Neal was in a massive slump during his time in Pittsburgh last season, only to come back and remain tied with Malkin for 3rd in the league for goals. So, too, can our Young(ish) Guns come back from injuries and slumps to return to form. Here's hoping they do.
- More on that game-tying goal, specifically Neal's shot placement. There was a lot of traffic in between Neal and Neuvirth, and a lot of action going on in that short distance. He placed it top-shelf, over Neuvirth's left shoulder. Here's the thing about that shot: most Penguins players are going to make that one go in. Bylsma is a great coach, and Neuvirth is not that great of a goalie. He is very predictable, and while I do not have the capabilities to bring up such statistics (@ngreenberg, anyone?), I would venture a guess that about half or more of the goals against Neuvy over his last 30 games have gone in over his glove-side shoulder, and with increasing frequency the later into his career you go. The reason is that, nearly without fail, Neuvirth will always crouch, sticking his right leg out to the middle of the net, whenever a play is coming out from behind the net on his left side. This leaves an opening above his left shoulder, as he positions his glove near his chest when in this position. I am not a coach, nor am I a scout, and I know this. It is not hard to imagine, especially after watching the 24/7 special from last year, that Bylsma is not only aware of this tendency, but specifically coaches his players to make plays and take shots from that area of the ice. This is also the reason why Neuvirth seems to have so many hard-angle and junk shots go in on him. They are not flukes, those are part of a strategy to defeat a young goaltender with mediocre puck tracking skills and bad habits. In fact, it appears that all four goals went in over his left shoulder, although from different spots on the ice and in different situations. Neal's game-tying goal, while a great shot, needs to be recognized more for the implications for Neuvirth's career, and a probable explanation for his horrendous stats this season: good coaches, and therefore good teams, know precisely how to beat him, and this makes him a liability going forward unless he makes immediate changes. The future of the team he is not.
Showing posts with label neuvirth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label neuvirth. Show all posts
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Caps @ Pens Recap: 1/22/12
At the end of the final game in the Capitals and Penguins season series, the Capitals were the OT losers, 4-3, rounding out a 2-1-1 record. Both teams were missing top players due to injury and/or illness, but it still managed to live up to a lot of the hype, with the remaining big stars chipping in to make NBC happy. Some thoughts:
Southleast Southeast division, and two points ahead of Toronto to remain in the top eight teams in the conference. The next five games feature the Boston Bruins bookending two important matches against Tampa Bay and Florida, and a still-valuable two points against the Canadiens. Here's hoping for more of the team we saw in the second and third periods, and none of the team we saw in the first. Otherwise, it is going to be an ugly week for those who rock the red.
Monday, October 10, 2011
The Capitals and the Myth of Consistency, Pt. 1
So when you don't live in the DC area, and you don't have Center Ice, and you can only get a mediocre feed on the internet... you miss a lot of a particular Caps game. So I was not totally able to watch enough of the game to give a decent recap, other than to say that I am still not at all impressed with Neuvirth, that I think it is even more apparent that good teams know to shoot it glove high every time on him, and that Chimera must read this blog because he scores every game after I say he should get traded. But back to the Neuvirth thing: a lot of the recaps I have read all say that he was strong in net, and all summer and during last year he was referred to as consistent. They said Varlamov struggled with consistency. Neuvirth did fairly consistently get wins, and Varly had a losing record. But teams win games, goalies are only one aspect of that.
For example, last night Neuvirth allowed three goals on 31 shots through over 62 minutes of playing time, and got a win. Varly allowed two goals on 38 shots in 59 minutes of regulation, and his team lost because they could not score a single goal. Should Neuvirth get credit for the win, and Varly for the loss? Most logical people would say absolutely not, especially when watching Neuvirth sprawl all over the ice, give up lots of rebounds, and be too far out of position on each of the three goals scored on him. So in this post, I will examine why people think Neuvirth is consistent and why I disagree.
So one thing I learned in business school was how to use Excel, so I figured this is as good of a reason as any to try it out in the "real" world. Now, for reference, in 2010-2011 Neuvirth had a record of 27-12-4 with a .914 SV% and 2.45 GAA in 45 starts. Varlamov had a record of 11-9-5 with a .924 SV% and 2.23 GAA in 25 starts. For goalies who started 25 games or more, Varlamov was tied for 4th in save percentage and Neuvirth was tied for 23rd. For GAA, Varly was 4th in the same group of goalies and Neuvirth was tied for 14th. The only three goalies who were ahead of Varly in both categories were Tim Thomas, Roberto Luongo, and Pekka Rinne: your Vezina finalists for the season. Neuvirth's numbers put him squarely in the middle-to-bottom third of the league for starting or 1A goalies. However, he is viewed as a more consistent player, and Varly got shipped out. Let's compare their seasons using graphs.
Each graph tracks the goalies' performance in one of three measures for each game they played (as opposed to started): Goals Against (not GAA), Save Percentage, and Shots Against. One outlier game for Varlamov has been left out, and two for Neuvirth. The 7-0 loss against the Rangers is excused for Varly, while Neuvy gets a pass on a game where he allowed 6 goals as well as a game where he played for less than one minute. Every goalie has those games, and all can agree they are not the norm and realistically should not be considered in a comparison such as this. With all that said, here is the GA chart:
A best fit line here would show you that yes, throughout the season, Neuvirth averaged 2.45 goals against per game. It is a remarkably straight line. I chose not to include it here because that is not what we are looking at. We know what his GAA is, my issue is with the notion that he was consistent in that. Consistent implies that in just about each game, he is allowing two or three goals. However, if you look at the chart (Neuvirth is red), you see that, from game to game, he was anything but consistent. He allowed four goals in eight separate games. In all, his goals against were outside the one-to-three goal range in 12 of 45 games. Neuvirth had a good October, and was very solid during the second half of February and the first half of March. The rest of the year, though, he was either injured or allowing three or more goals per game, typically a number that leads to losses. Given his win-loss record, though, it is obvious that the offense bailed him out on these occasions.
Varly, on the other hand, allowed four goals only twice, and they were balanced out with two shutouts. In the interest of disclosure, his best-fit line trends slightly upwards, largely because he had his shutouts early in the season. Most of his part of the chart is centered in the one-to-three goal range, with only four of 26 games venturing out of that region. In terms of goals against game-to-game, Varly comes out ahead in the battle of consistency.
This chart shows the game-to-game save percentages. Again, Neuvirth is in red and Varlamov in blue. In October, the month where Neuvirth won rookie-of-the-month accolades from the NHL and first cemented the notion that he could be a starter, his save percentages were all over the place. Because of his low save percentage on Oct. 19, as well as his and Varly's low percentages in early February, the graph makes it appear that the variation really is not all that great. When talking about NHL-caliber numbers, though, you really want your goalies to consistently stop at least 90% of the shots against him. Realistically, if he only stops that many, your team's GM is very likely browsing the market for a new starter (here's looking at you, Theodore). Routinely varying between 85% and 95% to average out around 91-92% is not the ideal, but that is Neuvy's game. Honestly, as much as I am not a fan of the kid, I was shocked at how often he stopped less than 90% of his shots (19 out of 45 games). It absolutely baffles me how he was ever considered ahead of Varly (when both were healthy) on the depth chart when looking at those kinds of numbers. A model of consistency he is not. Varlamov, on the other hand, saw his SV% drop below 90% only three times in 26 appearances. Almost every game was spent in the 90-95% save percentage range, the very kind of consistency you want to see, even if the season percentage is the same as Neuvirth's. Varly:2, Neuvy:0.
Finally, the shots against chart. Obviously this does not speak to the goaltenders' play. Shots against for a goalie are a factor of the play of the team in front of him. I put this up mostly because I was curious about another commonly mentioned aspect of the Capital's "strengths" last season: being better defensively. The Caps' goalies backstopped the team to one of their strongest seasons ever in terms of goals against, and many attributed this to better defensive play of the forwards. Personally, I never saw it, and it was always my belief that the team just had better goalies than Theodore, Huet, and late-career Kolzig. The best-fit lines here bare that out to an extent (it is hard to say how much the number of "good shots" increased or decreased as the year went on. I can only speak to overall shots). On average, by the end of the season Neuvirth was facing one less shot per game than at the start of the year, and Varlamov was facing about two less shots. Throughout the year, though, Varly averaged more shots against than Neuvy, yet put up consistently and substantially better numbers. Neuvirth, in fact, faced fairly absurd inconsistency in the number of shots against, while Varly was pretty much guaranteed to see somewhere around 30 shots.
It is certainly possible that Neuvirth was a victim when it came to the number of shots against, but given that both his shots against and his save percentage (which NHL all-time record holder for the stat Tim Thomas calls "the best individual stat for a goalie") were lower than Varlamov's, I'm not quite buying that argument. When it comes to consistency and Neuvirth, the two are not quite as buddy-buddy as many would have you think. Just because hockey media says something is a certain way does not make it so.
For example, last night Neuvirth allowed three goals on 31 shots through over 62 minutes of playing time, and got a win. Varly allowed two goals on 38 shots in 59 minutes of regulation, and his team lost because they could not score a single goal. Should Neuvirth get credit for the win, and Varly for the loss? Most logical people would say absolutely not, especially when watching Neuvirth sprawl all over the ice, give up lots of rebounds, and be too far out of position on each of the three goals scored on him. So in this post, I will examine why people think Neuvirth is consistent and why I disagree.
So one thing I learned in business school was how to use Excel, so I figured this is as good of a reason as any to try it out in the "real" world. Now, for reference, in 2010-2011 Neuvirth had a record of 27-12-4 with a .914 SV% and 2.45 GAA in 45 starts. Varlamov had a record of 11-9-5 with a .924 SV% and 2.23 GAA in 25 starts. For goalies who started 25 games or more, Varlamov was tied for 4th in save percentage and Neuvirth was tied for 23rd. For GAA, Varly was 4th in the same group of goalies and Neuvirth was tied for 14th. The only three goalies who were ahead of Varly in both categories were Tim Thomas, Roberto Luongo, and Pekka Rinne: your Vezina finalists for the season. Neuvirth's numbers put him squarely in the middle-to-bottom third of the league for starting or 1A goalies. However, he is viewed as a more consistent player, and Varly got shipped out. Let's compare their seasons using graphs.
Each graph tracks the goalies' performance in one of three measures for each game they played (as opposed to started): Goals Against (not GAA), Save Percentage, and Shots Against. One outlier game for Varlamov has been left out, and two for Neuvirth. The 7-0 loss against the Rangers is excused for Varly, while Neuvy gets a pass on a game where he allowed 6 goals as well as a game where he played for less than one minute. Every goalie has those games, and all can agree they are not the norm and realistically should not be considered in a comparison such as this. With all that said, here is the GA chart:
A best fit line here would show you that yes, throughout the season, Neuvirth averaged 2.45 goals against per game. It is a remarkably straight line. I chose not to include it here because that is not what we are looking at. We know what his GAA is, my issue is with the notion that he was consistent in that. Consistent implies that in just about each game, he is allowing two or three goals. However, if you look at the chart (Neuvirth is red), you see that, from game to game, he was anything but consistent. He allowed four goals in eight separate games. In all, his goals against were outside the one-to-three goal range in 12 of 45 games. Neuvirth had a good October, and was very solid during the second half of February and the first half of March. The rest of the year, though, he was either injured or allowing three or more goals per game, typically a number that leads to losses. Given his win-loss record, though, it is obvious that the offense bailed him out on these occasions.
Varly, on the other hand, allowed four goals only twice, and they were balanced out with two shutouts. In the interest of disclosure, his best-fit line trends slightly upwards, largely because he had his shutouts early in the season. Most of his part of the chart is centered in the one-to-three goal range, with only four of 26 games venturing out of that region. In terms of goals against game-to-game, Varly comes out ahead in the battle of consistency.
This chart shows the game-to-game save percentages. Again, Neuvirth is in red and Varlamov in blue. In October, the month where Neuvirth won rookie-of-the-month accolades from the NHL and first cemented the notion that he could be a starter, his save percentages were all over the place. Because of his low save percentage on Oct. 19, as well as his and Varly's low percentages in early February, the graph makes it appear that the variation really is not all that great. When talking about NHL-caliber numbers, though, you really want your goalies to consistently stop at least 90% of the shots against him. Realistically, if he only stops that many, your team's GM is very likely browsing the market for a new starter (here's looking at you, Theodore). Routinely varying between 85% and 95% to average out around 91-92% is not the ideal, but that is Neuvy's game. Honestly, as much as I am not a fan of the kid, I was shocked at how often he stopped less than 90% of his shots (19 out of 45 games). It absolutely baffles me how he was ever considered ahead of Varly (when both were healthy) on the depth chart when looking at those kinds of numbers. A model of consistency he is not. Varlamov, on the other hand, saw his SV% drop below 90% only three times in 26 appearances. Almost every game was spent in the 90-95% save percentage range, the very kind of consistency you want to see, even if the season percentage is the same as Neuvirth's. Varly:2, Neuvy:0.
Finally, the shots against chart. Obviously this does not speak to the goaltenders' play. Shots against for a goalie are a factor of the play of the team in front of him. I put this up mostly because I was curious about another commonly mentioned aspect of the Capital's "strengths" last season: being better defensively. The Caps' goalies backstopped the team to one of their strongest seasons ever in terms of goals against, and many attributed this to better defensive play of the forwards. Personally, I never saw it, and it was always my belief that the team just had better goalies than Theodore, Huet, and late-career Kolzig. The best-fit lines here bare that out to an extent (it is hard to say how much the number of "good shots" increased or decreased as the year went on. I can only speak to overall shots). On average, by the end of the season Neuvirth was facing one less shot per game than at the start of the year, and Varlamov was facing about two less shots. Throughout the year, though, Varly averaged more shots against than Neuvy, yet put up consistently and substantially better numbers. Neuvirth, in fact, faced fairly absurd inconsistency in the number of shots against, while Varly was pretty much guaranteed to see somewhere around 30 shots.
It is certainly possible that Neuvirth was a victim when it came to the number of shots against, but given that both his shots against and his save percentage (which NHL all-time record holder for the stat Tim Thomas calls "the best individual stat for a goalie") were lower than Varlamov's, I'm not quite buying that argument. When it comes to consistency and Neuvirth, the two are not quite as buddy-buddy as many would have you think. Just because hockey media says something is a certain way does not make it so.
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