Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

I hope all of the Gophers get a championship chance to redeem themselves. I remember the skaters getting blanked the last time.

OSU got blanked for 3 periods today but with the their goaltender (and some luck) keeping them in the game they found a way to win. A goaltender that's playing lights out can overcome the scenarios you listed.

Look, I fully admit that I am a harsh critic of the goaltender, but it is difficult for me to watch Scobee's fundamentals and have any faith that when the team really needs her to make a save she will.

So given that, I would love to be proven wrong in the next game and possibly the next two after that about the goaltender. And yes good luck to the rest of the Gopher team as well.

[Still Eeyore]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

OSU got blanked for 3 periods today but with the their goaltender (and some luck) keeping them in the game they found a way to win. A goaltender that's playing lights out can overcome the scenarios you listed.

And an offense that's lighting it up can overcome any scenario, too. You have yet to provide any rationale for why the goalie is different from other players in terms of an outstanding performance being able to overcome other issues. There is a Cult of the Goalie among hockey fans who myopically obsess over small parts of the roster. They make about as much sense as any other cult.

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

And an offense that's lighting it up can overcome any scenario, too. You have yet to provide any rationale for why the goalie is different from other players in terms of an outstanding performance being able to overcome other issues. There is a Cult of the Goalie among hockey fans who myopically obsess over small parts of the roster. They make about as much sense as any other cult.

And the apologist makes an appearance...Your such a phoney hypocrite with your "you have yet to provide any rationale" BS. Be honest...You don't give a crap about that.



.

[Offsides Guy]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

And an offense that's lighting it up can overcome any scenario, too. You have yet to provide any rationale for why the goalie is different from other players in terms of an outstanding performance being able to overcome other issues. There is a Cult of the Goalie among hockey fans who myopically obsess over small parts of the roster. They make about as much sense as any other cult.

Goalies are different just like pitchers are different in baseball - they play the one position on the team that can make more of a difference in a game than any other position. No single forward or D can, on a regular basis, impact the outcome of a game as much as a goalie playing hot or cold. Fairly or not, the goalie is the final line of defense regardless of the players in front of her and that makes the position that much more crucial than the others.

[Reddington]

Goalies are different just like pitchers are different in baseball - they play the one position on the team that can make more of a difference in a game than any other position. No single forward or D can, on a regular basis, impact the outcome of a game as much as a goalie playing hot or cold. Fairly or not, the goalie is the final line of defense regardless of the players in front of her and that makes the position that much more crucial than the others.

Anybody says anything differently does not follow RPI, a playoff team with Selander and 0-32-1 without.

[ARM]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

Anybody says anything differently does not follow RPI, a playoff team with Selander and 0-32-1 without.

Sure. But goalies aren't all-powerful. All goals allowed aren't the goaltender's fault, and the skaters have to do their jobs on both ends. Selander wouldn't have been able to help RPI to a playoff spot this year if her team was only going to score 21 goals.

[Still Eeyore]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

Anybody says anything differently does not follow RPI, a playoff team with Selander and 0-32-1 without.

I'm going to respond to Offsides Guy in a bit, but this comment is both misleading and irrelevant. Irrelevant because you can't formulate general principles based upon extreme outliers like Selandar. It's misleading because there was a lot more to Renssalaer's collapse than just losing Selander to graduation. In 2018-19, they scored 50 goals; in 2019-20, they scored 21. That's a much larger relative drop than the change from 88 goals allowed last year to the 122 this year. Lovisa Selandar couldn't have turned the 2019-20 Engineers into a playoff team. Had she still been around, she likely would have pushed Renssalaer from last in the ECAC all the way to last in the ECAC.

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

Goalies are different just like pitchers are different in baseball - they play the one position on the team that can make more of a difference in a game than any other position. No single forward or D can, on a regular basis, impact the outcome of a game as much as a goalie playing hot or cold. Fairly or not, the goalie is the final line of defense regardless of the players in front of her and that makes the position that much more crucial than the others.

You are a better person than I am. I have let this particular poster get under my skin. Thank you for your response. And Reddington's response as well. RPI is a good example.

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

I'm going to respond to Offsides Guy in a bit, but this comment is both misleading and irrelevant. Irrelevant because you can't formulate general principles based upon extreme outliers like Selandar. It's misleading because there was a lot more to Renssalaer's collapse than just losing Selander to graduation. In 2018-19, they scored 50 goals; in 2019-20, they scored 21. That's a much larger relative drop than the change from 88 goals allowed last year to the 122 this year. Lovisa Selandar couldn't have turned the 2019-20 Engineers into a playoff team. Had she still been around, she likely would have pushed Renssalaer from last in the ECAC all the way to last in the ECAC.

Give it a rest with the psuedo-intellectual word salad crap...

You were given reasoned answers but like I said, it doesn't matter because you don't give a crap.

[Still Eeyore]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

Goalies are different just like pitchers are different in baseball - they play the one position on the team that can make more of a difference in a game than any other position. No single forward or D can, on a regular basis, impact the outcome of a game as much as a goalie playing hot or cold. Fairly or not, the goalie is the final line of defense regardless of the players in front of her and that makes the position that much more crucial than the others.

It's important to understand the difference between descriptive statistics and predictive statistics. Yes, a goalie can have an outsize influence on a single game; we've all seen it. However, in general they do not have such an impact. It isn't something you can count on, and it's difficult to predict which goalies are likely to do so. Goalie performance is extremely volatile, and it doesn't correlate very well from one season to the next; just look at Kristen Campbell going from a .939 save percentage last year to .893 this year. Sydney Scobee jumped from last in the league to first, and a couple of other WCHA goalies saw a change of more than .02. Those are indications that a lot of the difference in goalie performance that we see is due to circumstances rather than ability.

It's also the case that the difference in performance between the best and worst goalies in the league is significantly narrower than the gap between the best and worst forwards. This year, Scobee had the highest save percentage in the conference at .933. Campbell had the worst, at .893. On average, WCHA teams faced about 30 shots a game. (All stats are conference games only, to avoid problems from unequal nonconference schedules, though even in the conference, Wisconsin has a significantly easier schedule than St. Cloud State, since they don't have to play themselves.) That means Scobee would have been just over 1 goal a game better than Campbell had they each played behind an average defense.

Daryl Watts had 49 points in WCHA games. The lowest scoring best forward in the conference was Klára Hymlárová of SCSU, who had 14 points. That's a difference of about 1.5 points per game, which is significantly wider. That's not very satisfying, because of double counting goals and assists, but a forward's impact goes beyond just goals scored, so that alone isn't a great measure, either.

So let's look at each team's best line. Trying to determine what Wisconsin's top line is hard, but it felt to me like Watts/Roque/Shirley probably played together more often than any other combo, and they combined for 50 goals. SCSU's top line of Hymlárová/Theodosopoulos/Cvar scored 20. That's a difference of 1.25 goals a game. Even though we've jammed all of Wisconsin's top scorers together, the difference between the second lines is even greater in relative terms, though less in absolute numbers: Mauermann/Pettet/Curl had 21 goals, while Bigham/Nyland/Rasmussen had 6.

And if we look at things at the team level, there is a bigger spread in goals scored than in goals allowed. Wisconsin led the WCHA with 97 goals scored in conference play; St Cloud scored 32. St Cloud allowed the most goals in the conference, with 98; Minnesota allowed the fewest, with 40.

Any way you cut it, your top goal scorers make more of a difference to a team's success than top goalies. The analogy to pitchers in baseball is correct in the influence a goalie can have on a given game; it's incorrect in that this effect is much more predictable and repeatable with pitchers.

[Still Eeyore]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

Give it a rest with the psuedo-intellectual word salad crap...

You were given reasoned answers but like I said, it doesn't matter because you don't give a crap.

You're welcome.

[Offsides Guy]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

It's important to understand the difference between descriptive statistics and predictive statistics. Yes, a goalie can have an outsize influence on a single game; we've all seen it. However, in general they do not have such an impact. It isn't something you can count on, and it's difficult to predict which goalies are likely to do so. Goalie performance is extremely volatile, and it doesn't correlate very well from one season to the next; just look at Kristen Campbell going from a .939 save percentage last year to .893 this year. Sydney Scobee jumped from last in the league to first, and a couple of other WCHA goalies saw a change of more than .02. Those are indications that a lot of the difference in goalie performance that we see is due to circumstances rather than ability.

It's also the case that the difference in performance between the best and worst goalies in the league is significantly narrower than the gap between the best and worst forwards. This year, Scobee had the highest save percentage in the conference at .933. Campbell had the worst, at .893. On average, WCHA teams faced about 30 shots a game. (All stats are conference games only, to avoid problems from unequal nonconference schedules, though even in the conference, Wisconsin has a significantly easier schedule than St. Cloud State, since they don't have to play themselves.) That means Scobee would have been just over 1 goal a game better than Campbell had they each played behind an average defense.

Daryl Watts had 49 points in WCHA games. The lowest scoring best forward in the conference was Klára Hymlárová of SCSU, who had 14 points. That's a difference of about 1.5 points per game, which is significantly wider. That's not very satisfying, because of double counting goals and assists, but a forward's impact goes beyond just goals scored, so that alone isn't a great measure, either.

So let's look at each team's best line. Trying to determine what Wisconsin's top line is hard, but it felt to me like Watts/Roque/Shirley probably played together more often than any other combo, and they combined for 50 goals. SCSU's top line of Hymlárová/Theodosopoulos/Cvar scored 20. That's a difference of 1.25 goals a game. Even though we've jammed all of Wisconsin's top scorers together, the difference between the second lines is even greater in relative terms, though less in absolute numbers: Mauermann/Pettet/Curl had 21 goals, while Bigham/Nyland/Rasmussen had 6.

And if we look at things at the team level, there is a bigger spread in goals scored than in goals allowed. Wisconsin led the WCHA with 97 goals scored in conference play; St Cloud scored 32. St Cloud allowed the most goals in the conference, with 98; Minnesota allowed the fewest, with 40.

Any way you cut it, your top goal scorers make more of a difference to a team's success than top goalies. The analogy to pitchers in baseball is correct in the influence a goalie can have on a given game; it's incorrect in that this effect is much more predictable and repeatable with pitchers.

First, I am honored to have received a six-paragraph response from you. I take that as I posted something thoughtful for a change!

Second, I'm not the numbers guy you are so I respect your statistical approach (I majored in English & Philosophy) but I still disagree for a couple of reasons. First, the idea of goalies being the most important has been around since the earliest days of the sport. And, while I realize that just because something is often said doesn't make it statistically true, players have been saying the same thing forever. The majority of players will tell you who is in goal for the game has the biggest impact on the team's confidence that day. Team confidence doesn't show up in stats but absolutely impacts wins and losses. Also, coaches seem to think goalie is most important as it seems most of them talk about building their teams from the net outward. If they felt scoring was the most important key to success, they would build their teams in the opposite fashion.

Then there's the timing of games. Playoffs is most important time of the year and it's typically when scoring drops significantly as teams scheme ways to take away top scorers. This leads to goalies often being seen as the linchpin to championships. Watts scored a boatload of goals this season but came up empty yesterday and it Braendli who was the difference in the game.

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

You're welcome.

You're not...

[FiveHoleFrenzy]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

It's important to understand the difference between descriptive statistics and predictive statistics. Yes, a goalie can have an outsize influence on a single game; we've all seen it. However, in general they do not have such an impact. It isn't something you can count on, and it's difficult to predict which goalies are likely to do so. Goalie performance is extremely volatile, and it doesn't correlate very well from one season to the next; just look at Kristen Campbell going from a .939 save percentage last year to .893 this year. Sydney Scobee jumped from last in the league to first, and a couple of other WCHA goalies saw a change of more than .02. Those are indications that a lot of the difference in goalie performance that we see is due to circumstances rather than ability.

It's also the case that the difference in performance between the best and worst goalies in the league is significantly narrower than the gap between the best and worst forwards. This year, Scobee had the highest save percentage in the conference at .933. Campbell had the worst, at .893. On average, WCHA teams faced about 30 shots a game. (All stats are conference games only, to avoid problems from unequal nonconference schedules, though even in the conference, Wisconsin has a significantly easier schedule than St. Cloud State, since they don't have to play themselves.) That means Scobee would have been just over 1 goal a game better than Campbell had they each played behind an average defense.

Daryl Watts had 49 points in WCHA games. The lowest scoring best forward in the conference was Klára Hymlárová of SCSU, who had 14 points. That's a difference of about 1.5 points per game, which is significantly wider. That's not very satisfying, because of double counting goals and assists, but a forward's impact goes beyond just goals scored, so that alone isn't a great measure, either.

So let's look at each team's best line. Trying to determine what Wisconsin's top line is hard, but it felt to me like Watts/Roque/Shirley probably played together more often than any other combo, and they combined for 50 goals. SCSU's top line of Hymlárová/Theodosopoulos/Cvar scored 20. That's a difference of 1.25 goals a game. Even though we've jammed all of Wisconsin's top scorers together, the difference between the second lines is even greater in relative terms, though less in absolute numbers: Mauermann/Pettet/Curl had 21 goals, while Bigham/Nyland/Rasmussen had 6.

And if we look at things at the team level, there is a bigger spread in goals scored than in goals allowed. Wisconsin led the WCHA with 97 goals scored in conference play; St Cloud scored 32. St Cloud allowed the most goals in the conference, with 98; Minnesota allowed the fewest, with 40.

Any way you cut it, your top goal scorers make more of a difference to a team's success than top goalies. The analogy to pitchers in baseball is correct in the influence a goalie can have on a given game; it's incorrect in that this effect is much more predictable and repeatable with pitchers.

Blah, blah blah... Just say you don't agree and you're right about everything. That would save you some typing.

[Timothy A]

Re: Minnesota Gophers 2019/2020 Season Thread

and it Braendli who was the difference in the game.

I disagree with this. OSU's overall team D was the difference in the game, they were almost flawless. Braendli had no big saves in the game. UW missed 3 great looks high when they missed the net. Soup had 2 big saves and allowed 1 on the 3 breakdowns in UW's team D.