Caps Soft Goal Results
by Rob Parker on Jun 14, 2011 10:56 PM EDT
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PrintHere's the results I've come up with for soft goals against the Caps this season. It's a tough line to draw, so I'm sure there will be disagreement. In general, I thought I was pretty kind to the goalies (and the goalies will likely disagree with me!), but I tried to hold them accountable for their mistakes. Where I didn't give a goalie a knock for a soft goal, but saw an argument for one, I denote the goal with an asterisk in the comments. All of the goals are available in the NHL.com highlights. Feel free to go watch the goals and form your opinion.
First, I should start with the standard. After discussion with my peers, I've decided to focus on whether or not there was a reasonable expectation for the goalie to make the save. That meant two things: first, most prime scoring chances are not going to be a soft goal. Second, style points don't really count. If the goalie is in a position where he has to bail out the team, it's not reasonable to expect the save. If the goalie, while trying to bail out the team, ends up fishing his jock out of the net because Thomas Vanek made him look silly, that's not going to be a soft goal. However, if the goalie looks ugly, and in doing so kicks what should have been a manageable rebound into the slot, then there's a soft goal.
Here is the spreadsheet I've compiled. There's a lot in there, you can sort by game, goalie, soft/not soft, and home/away. J.P. has also added which skaters were on the ice for the soft goals, as well as situation and period.
A quick tale of the tape:
Neuvirth:
Soft Goals: 17
Total Goals: 110
Shots: 1283
Minutes: 2689
*: 18
SG/TG: .155
S/SG: 75.47
M/SG: 158.18
Varlamov:
Soft Goals: 10
Total Goals: 58
Shots: 759
Minutes: 1560
*: 11
SG/TG: .172
S/SG: 75.9
M/SG: 156
Holtby:
Soft Goals: 9
Total Goals: 22
Shots: 332
Minutes: 736
*: 2
SG/TG: .409
S/SG: 36.89
M/SG: 81.78
Skater on ice for the most soft goals? Karl Alzner (14).
29 at ES, 6 on the PK, 1 at 4/4 (OT), 15 in the 1st, 11 in the 2nd, 9 in the 3rd, 1 in OT.
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Interesting stuff. Amazing the 5-0 Jersey loss only had one softie for Hotlby. The 4-3 and 4-2 wins vs Monteral and Chicago though, bruutal.
W, 4-3 1 Holtby Yes Unscreened five hole
W, 4-3 2 Holtby Yes Brutal angle
W, 4-3 3 Holtby No Goalmouth scramble, final minute of the 3rd, tying goal
W, 4-2 1 Holtby Yes Error playing he puck, :90 into first, :20 after Caps scored
W, 4-2 2 Holtby Yes Wrist shot from the high slot (but it was uncontested on the rush)
Proud member of the Popsicle Division of the Cupcake Conference.
Yeah, I was surprised at how the breakdown looked. I expected more soft goals in losses than we had (per the W/L split). Lots of these soft goals didn’t really end up hurting the team.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
I think it would be great to somehow augment this with an additional calculation of unexpected saves. Because it’s really all about the bottom line, eh?
It isn’t even anger-inducing. It does not seem to be worth that kind of emotional investment. It might not even be disappointing any more. It is expected.
-Peerless 5.6.2011
I had a similar thought – the opposite end of the spectrum is “saves he had no business making.” But that’s even harder to chart than these, both in real-time and especially now (since all saves aren’t available on NHL.com, while all goals are).
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Also, I’m not even sure how instructive it would be, given that so many “unexpected saves” would be the result of an initial misplay (positionally, rebound-wise, etc.).
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by J.P. on Jun 15, 2011 6:57 AM EDT via mobile up reply actions
I thought about it, and so many big saves are a ton of luck. Shooter just botches an open net and puts the puck back into the goalie, etc.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
For the question of great saves, I almost want to just trust in save percentage, and assume that difficult shots are relatively evenly spread out. In other words, if a goalie is saving more shots than average, then it’s safe to assume that some of those were really tough shots.
Besides, “great saves” would have too much of a component of style points. What if the guy was in perfect position because he anticipated the play better than any other NHL goalie would have? He’ll probably make a very difficult save look routine. I think it’s very tough for us to gauge what is a great save.
Soft goals is, in my mind, much easier to define. That makes the data collection much more efficient and reliable — you’ll actually get useful data (as we have done here — thank you again F&B).
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 9:18 AM EDT up reply actions 1 recs
This probably makes the most sense for the reasons you state and that others have mentioned. I suppose what it ultimately means is that if you have a .950, I really don’t care if every goal you give up is considered soft. :-)
It isn’t even anger-inducing. It does not seem to be worth that kind of emotional investment. It might not even be disappointing any more. It is expected.
-Peerless 5.6.2011
Sounds like “you” has a really good defense.
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To help with basic Timeonice functions.
If I reference a lot of stats, just assume I haven't seen anything to contradict or invalidate them.
by red army line on Jun 15, 2011 1:57 PM EDT up reply actions
Very cool and good job getting it done so quickly. Rec’d. I have to say I’ve only checked two of the “soft” goals so far and I don’t know if I agree with them.
Like this one:
W, 4-3 1 Holtby Yes Unscreened five hole
I watch the highlight and see a shot where a dman is diving, two people are in front of the net and the puck is deflected 5 hole from about 2 feet in front of the crease.
Awesome goal? No. Soft goal? No.
I guess you don’t feel he was screened enough and the redirection wasn’t enough of one where he shouldn’t have been able to make the save? I could see the argument for both of those points.
If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they'll kill you.
Who do you think deflected it? The official scorers don’t have a CHI player deflecting it, and I don’t see Carlson deflecting it or Holtby reacting like it was deflected. The guy going down wasn’t anywhere close to impeding Holtby’s view of the puck, it wasn’t exactly a blast, and it was right down the middle toward his body. If he just drops and seals himself he saves it. If you’ve got better evidence of a deflection, I’ll reconsider. A deflection down by the net was per se not soft in my coding, even when there was still an argument the goalie could have made the save. And, no, I didn’t think that was a significant screen and it looked like Holtby tracked the puck fine.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
Speaks highly of Alzner? Goals against when he’s on ice tend to be on the goalie and not him? Hard to say without knowing how many total goals against with him on ice, and relative percentages.
Regardless, awesome work. No need to nitpick individual goals, so long as the standard is consistent.
by Berube Doobie Doo on Jun 15, 2011 7:42 AM EDT reply actions
Individual Goals AgainstI’d have guessed Alzner or Carlson would be at the top here by virtue of minutes played (and maybed that’s a next step – softies/minute and/or by situation, etc.).
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Pretty cool man. Like zephyr said…impressive that you got it done so quickly. Glad you’re not my attorney :).
Granted, I’m trusting your opinion and not watching each of the goals…but in my mind I expected a higher “soft goal” percentage during the losing streak…..6/28 if I counted correct. Of course that might be because I’ve already started the process of blocking the memory.
Neuvirth, bitches.
First chuckle of the day.
Rec’d for amazing work. I also thoroughly enjoyed reading the post discussing the standards for determining a soft goal. Assuming Varly is back in the fold this upcoming season will be a great chance to track the softies for all of them. Emotionally teams seem to really falter after soft goals. They are like a dagger thrust hitting the soft underbelly.
"Hockey won’t hold still for a portrait. To gain a glimpse inside you join it in progress—just as the players do." Epilogue of 24/7
A couple of quick observations I made to F&B last night (upon adding my minimal contribution):
I have softies as 15 in the 1st period, 11 in the 2nd, 9 in the 3rd, 1 in OT. Is that surprising? Given the team’s tendancy to have lousy starts (and it apparently wasn’t just the offense), probably not.
29 softies came at fives, six at 4v5, one at 4v4 (that OT one). I was a little surprised there weren’t more softies on the PK – given the extra space, I’d have thought there’d be some more unscreened/undeflecteds. But the rate of softies is still much greater at 4v5 (BtN has TOI/G at 47.8 at 5v5 and 5.9 at 4v5)
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I was/am surprised that they were as spread out as they were. I figured that there’d just be some games that the keeper just wasn’t there be it from fatigue, injury or whatever. But in looking at the data it looks like there were only a couple of games that the same keeper let in mult. soft goals….though I could be wrong since I’m out of coffee.
That fits with BB’s characterization of Neuvirth being able to “lock down” late in the game.
"I remembered when he said that and I kind of looked at him during the warm up and told myself that I got to shut these guys out tonight." - Michal Neuvirth, 02.06.11.
I count six of the third period “soft goals” being courtesy of Neuvirth. Without counting his total GA in the 3rd I don’t think it means much…but food for thought.
By goalie, by period:
Holtby: 5-3-1-0
Neuvirth: 7-4-6-0
Varlamov: 3-4-2-1
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How does that fit with our perception that Neuvirth locks it down in the third? If he has more soft goals, but fewer total goals (or percentage) in the third, then does he still lock it down?
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
I guess you’d have to see total goals allowed and shots faced by period, but even then it’s an awfully small sample to draw a broad conclusion from – six (somewhat subjective) mental lapses in ~45 games is hardly an indictment of a dude’s focus.
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Yeah. Next I want to compare what the stats people say those 36 goals should have cost us in the standings (IIRC 6 goals is ~1 win, so ~12 points) and compare it to the game logs to see how many of the soft goals really may have cost a point. Any goal in a win won’t cost a point, and lots of them in losses most likely didn’t either (like a soft goal in the Rangers blow outs).
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
If it’s not too much trouble, please count “sent the game into overtime/shootout where the team that was already leading won it.” In other words, the situation where a soft goal didn’t actually cost the goalie’s own team a point, but it did gift a Bettman point to the competition.
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 9:23 AM EDT up reply actions
Yeah, I’ll look at that as well. Probably won’t get around to it until tonight.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
Yup. Oddly enough, Luongo this year is teaching us that sometimes it ain’t bad to cluster your soft goals. That way, they minimize the damage by blowing just a few games…
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 9:28 AM EDT up reply actions
Looks like 21 soft goals in losses, 15 in wins.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
Maybe later I’ll look and see at the W/L breakdown of soft goals by goalie. That might be interesting, and could lead to some good inferences about why Neuvirth had a better points% than Varlamov. Lots of talk about Varly not getting goal support, but maybe he’s also shooting himself in the foot in those losses/tight games.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
This comment is making me start to waver again on how strongly I care about soft goals. If Varly or Tim Thomas is stealing back as many as they give away, does it really matter? Isn’t the big number the one that really matters? Do we care how? Or just how many?
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 1:31 PM EDT up reply actions
How many has to be the bigger concern, but I think the soft goals is important. At the very least it’s a way toward penetrating the balance between defensive play and goaltending play. I don’t know how to measure how many goals a guy steals back. But if you can measure how many you are giving away, I think it’s worth figuring out if for no other reason than to get another piece of the picture.
/justifying sunk costs
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
In theory, isn’t “how” always going to be a better predictor of future results than “how many”? If hypothetical goalies A and B each had a .920 save percentage last season, but A allowed twice as many soft goalies, there’s a qualitative difference between the two. Maybe A is better – eliminate the softies and watch the SV% rise; maybe B is better – more dependable. But there is a difference there, no?
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And to this point you can look at Holtby. I don’t think anyone expected his numbers to be as good as they were, but seeing how many soft goals he let in I think you can get a sense of how raw he still is and how much luck he had in having such high numbers. Similar numbers with fewer soft goals would probably indicate a more sustainable level of play, no?
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
I’d have to think about that one a bit.
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And maybe the answer is that most goalies are similar in style, and we can assess softies across them to great effect.
Then maybe you have to take a Thomas or a Varly and hold them to a different standard — accept that the softies can’t be separated from what makes them effective in general, and be more forgiving of their softies.
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 1:54 PM EDT up reply actions
Well sure – ultimately this metric means little relative to overall save percentage, so to that end, of course you’re going to be more forgiving.
But that’s where you’d want to dive deeper into the types of softies – if Varly’s giving up a lot due to positioning, you can explain it away better with “that’s part of what makes him effective” than if they’re all just soft shots that have beaten him.
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It’s definitely just a piece of the picture, you won’t catch me saying it’s the end all be all. TT has great numbers and has earned the Vezina, but if we can determine the number of softies he gives up, I think it is useful in discussing the bigger picture.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
Yup. So is there a kind of softie that is “understandable” for an athletic goalie but not a pure position guy? Should we give any allowance for the OT goal Thomas gave up? Probably not, but it’s interesting.
I’m definitely not criticizing at all by the way. Just trying to understand this better.
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 2:42 PM EDT up reply actions
After the G2 OTG I said it was a “live by the sword, die by the sword” situation with Thomas. I don’t really “excuse” the soft goal (more like justification), I just think it comes with the territory and you have to expect that. In general you are going to have more aggressive goalies out of position more often, so you’d think you’d see that kind of soft goal appear more often.
The whole point was to launch discussion, I think it’s important to talk about these issues so we can move forward with a better understanding of the role of soft goals, etc.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
Well, I’d think that those related to positioning (like I said above) are part of what comes with a more “athletic” (read: floppy) goalie, so there’s a tacit assumption that that same athleticism allows him to make saves other guys might not. A positional goalie (a Neuvy, for example), doesn’t get the same presumption, so you’d think he’d better not have nearly as many softies that are the direct result of bad positioning.
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I also think that this is another reason that M/SG is one of the more interesting things to come from this (probably same for S/SG). The SG/G will “hurt” a guy like Thomas because his style may simultaneously increase the numerator and decrease the denominator. When you look at M/SG or S/SG you have a measure that should insulate you from stylistic concerns. It’s simply “how often does a soft goal get past this goalie?” From there you can look at how often non-soft goals get past them, and determine relative scales of value. Does that make sense?
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
It’s consistent with my personal theory, which is that the team was locking down in the 3rd, and that Neuvirth’s quality of play does not fluctuate based on period or any other situation.
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 9:22 AM EDT up reply actions
Eh, I don’t think you can use that data to support any theory without considering shots faced as well. While you’re right in that there were some games with a team-wide shutdown third, there were also many games where the team just sort of stopped playing and the goalie (usually Neuvy) kept us in it. If a goalie lets in one soft goal on 3 shots faced in the third, that’s a deal breaker, ladies. If a goalie lets in one soft goal on 18 shots faced, I can let that slide.
"Neuvy was eating pucks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
by SeattleCapsFan on Jun 15, 2011 10:09 AM EDT up reply actions
Although if you look at the 5-2 win over FLA late in the season. There were either 2 soft goals or 1 and an *, but they both came late in the third with a 4-0 lead. Do you really hold that against the goalie?
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
How does that compare to shots faced in the third?
"Neuvy was eating pucks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
by SeattleCapsFan on Jun 15, 2011 10:15 AM EDT up reply actions
I don’t know, I didn’t look at that. If I had it to do again I’d put a couple more things in the spreadsheet, but by the time I thought of it I was 2/3 through and wasn’t going to go back through it. Specifically, I should have tracked time of the goal and the score at the time of the goal. Oh well, those things are pretty easy to figure out if people are curious about individual games/goals.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
If a goalie lets in one soft goal on 3 shots faced in the third, that’s a deal breaker, ladies. If a goalie lets in one soft goal on 18 shots faced, I can let that slide.
I can’t. The goal is “eliminating mistakes.” Softies are mistakes. All are bad.
Granted, game situations are also important here (up 4-0 a softie is more excusable than in a tied game).
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I guess I see a soft goal after 18 shots as being more excusable due to exhaustion, whereas a softgoal out of 3 shots can very easily be blamed on mental lapse which, as I said below, is to me much more of a problem.
"Neuvy was eating pucks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
by SeattleCapsFan on Jun 15, 2011 10:28 AM EDT up reply actions
I’m with both of you. Yeah, 1/18 hurts less because you feel like he made so many saves, but I’m also with J.P. in that you need to eliminate the mistakes you can eliminate, regardless of your positive contributions.
I’d add that 1 soft goal in 3 shots frequently means your team is dominating the period and now you gave up a goal. Those can be mighty demoralizing.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
Oh I for sure agree that eliminating the soft goals in either situation is important. Both hurt, and 1/18 in a 1 goal game is obviously a bigger problem than 1/3 in a 4-0 or 5-0 game (like the FL game you mention above). But a goalie’s getting minimal help from the team in front of him, there’s only so much he can do. I guess I see the difference between 1/18 and 0/18 as really good vs great, whereas between 1/3 and 0/3 as second string goalie vs starter.
"Neuvy was eating pucks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
by SeattleCapsFan on Jun 15, 2011 10:44 AM EDT up reply actions
Statistically, sure. But if the 1 in the 1/3 is a breakaway or a two on one…
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
Broad, general statements can almost always be proven wrong by one outlying example.
But yes, that is true.
"Neuvy was eating pucks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
by SeattleCapsFan on Jun 15, 2011 10:51 AM EDT up reply actions
Goalies always talk about how tough it is to make a save after long periods of inactivity. Do NHL goalies get some slack for that consideration? I tend to say no, they are professionals, but at the same time if it’s a legitimate factor that impacts all (or almost all) NHL-level goalies, then maybe we do have to consider it.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
I’d love the perspective of either K_C or zephyr on this, since my goalie experience is limited to sports with much lower shots-on-goal. But from my experience, hell yes those are tough saves to make. It’s a challenge staying engaged in the game when you’re seeing limited action.
But that’s exactly why I say “no” to your question as well. It’s a facet of the goalie’s game that you have to deal with at all levels of the game, and if you haven’t figured out how to stay mentally in the game by the time you’re in the NHL you probably don’t have any business being there.
"Neuvy was eating pucks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
by SeattleCapsFan on Jun 15, 2011 11:10 AM EDT up reply actions
It definitely is more difficult to get in to a rhythm if you aren’t facing a lot of shots. It’s not just mental focus, but also physical aspects of having to adjust quickly to the speed of the play after standing around for so long.
That said I don’t cut goalies any slack for giving up soft goals because they are cold. Soft goals are pretty much by definition ones they should always stop, and as you and F&B said, staying focused is their job. I never cut myself any slack for a soft goal against just because I was cold, so I certainly won’t do it for NHL goalies.
I think the lack of shots issue is more understandable if a goalie is standing around for half a period and then face a breakaway or some other high quality scoring chance. Then you are standing around getting cold, and then thrown right into the fire as opposed to being eased back into the game with shots from the outside. But those obviously aren’t soft goals.
Release the Mackan!
by Killer_Carlson on Jun 15, 2011 11:43 AM EDT up reply actions
What kind of slack? I certainly wouldn’t change the definition of a soft goal for this. But it could be interesting context. What would you do, figure out if there was a 5 minute gametime gap between shots against that ended within 30 seconds of the soft goal? Perhaps we’ll find out that some goalies are better about this than others.
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 1:44 PM EDT up reply actions
You could also track for soft goals in periods with fewer than, say, 5 shots against or greater than a 10 shot disparity between teams. I’d say those are decent proxies for period domination (I prefer the latter).
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
I bet coaches have this kind of stuff, and can identify it as stuff the goalies need to work on.
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 1:55 PM EDT up reply actions
Yeah, I’d be shocked if teams aren’t already tracking this stuff (and probably have a much stricter definition of soft than I’ve applied).
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
They have an advanced system that’s not binomial but rather a spectrum and it’s based on which curse word the GM uses when the goalie is scored.
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Yeah, that’s fair (and obviously in a 17-save effort that same G is more likely to have made some saves at the other end of the spectrum than in a 2-save effort and thus it would likely balance out more favorably), though I’d prefer a goalie who’s not going to be mentally or physically exhausted in the middle of a tough period.
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Great work, but lord, look at all those own goals…..brutal to see so early in the morning.
And I take it that you don’t approve of Ovi being on the ice when the Caps are down a goal and the goalie’s pulled? : )
"I remembered when he said that and I kind of looked at him during the warm up and told myself that I got to shut these guys out tonight." - Michal Neuvirth, 02.06.11.
Nice work. Interesting that Varly and Neuvy are very close and clearly better than Holtby at not allowing soft goals. I know Neuvy is slightly better than Varly but taking into account all the ambiguity involved in these judgements, I am considering .155 and .172 close enough.
Have you looked at Neuvy in the playoffs? I’m curious if his soft goals rate increased. I recall what I thought were soft goals in Game 3 of both series.
I definitely think Varly and Neuvy are too close to draw a judgment from in this sample/method.
I have a tab for the playoffs. I’m sure it’ll cause disagreement. I have 3 soft goals and 2 of them came in the Rags’ loss. I’ll argue any of the other TBL goals but the only soft one I have is one of the Bergenheim goals where Neuvirth totally blew it on his rebound control. The rest of the goals were either own goals or goals where the goalie doesn’t really have a fair chance to make the save.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
DAMMIT! I looked at the playoff tab and it all came back and now I’m mad again.
Eff this team.
(Sorry)
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 2:01 PM EDT up reply actions
I didn’t even want to bring it up, wouldn’t mention it in the post, but since I did the whole regular season I figured 9 more games wouldn’t hurt.
I definitely got sick of typing “own goal” though.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
you are a stronger man than I am for even looking at them. (There are some goals in there I never saw the first time, I was so fed up with things)
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 2:43 PM EDT up reply actions
I love minutes/soft goal. If available for all teams, that would be one of my go-to stats for goalies. There’s a limit to what each player can control on the ice, but that right there is firmly in the control of the goalies.
I see Holtby’s totals actually in a very optimistic light. It means he’s going to get better…
Atta dinnin stick a who!
___
So here’s how each soft goal against (generally) was characterized:
Holtby: Angle, Positioning, Five-hole, Misplayed puck, Soft shot, Rebound, Rebound, Soft shot, Angle
Neuvy: Rebound, Rebound, Angle, Rebound, Positioning, Soft shot, Soft shot, Angle, Angle, Rebound, Soft shot, Soft shot, Soft shot, Rebound, Angle, Angle, Rebound
Varly: Rebound, Soft shot, Soft shot, Angle, Soft shot, Soft shot, Soft shot, Soft shot, Angle, Soft shot
So, generally, Holtby had a mix of “types” of bad goals, but for Neuvy it was a lot of bad angles, soft shots and rebounds and for Varly it was soft shots. This meshes with what I’d thought, though maybe a few more rebounds than I’d have expected from Neuvy.
Is there a type of softie that’s worse than others? I think I’d worry most about rebounds (probably the least-easily correctable) and least about soft shots (focus should correct that). Positioning/angles should be pretty easily correctable, too.
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by J.P. on Jun 15, 2011 9:46 AM EDT reply actions 3 recs
(I should note that those aren’t in chronological order or really any order that will make sense.)
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I was definitely surprised by the Neuvirth rebounds.
I’d say timing is more important than the type. I also come down with the conclusion on the soft shots. I agree they are the easiest to stop, but then why aren’t the goalies? Is it a mental thing? Luck? You can work on mechanics for angles/positioning/rebounds and hopefully get better, but they are all already good enough to stop the soft shots. That indicates lack of focus more to me than any of the other ones.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
Right. Of course, in 48 games, Neuvy was beaten by soft shots five times. Eh, it happens. But for Varly to be beaten by seven soft shots in 27 games is far more concerning to me.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
Right, and when you add that to the goals he was getting beat by the Pens in the playoffs (Fedotenko…) and the floodgate phenomenon he had, I’m more concerned about him.
I was glad to see that Varly didn’t have many stretches where he let in soft goal on top of soft goal.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
Is it a mental thing? Luck? You can work on mechanics for angles/positioning/rebounds and hopefully get better, but they are all already good enough to stop the soft shots.
This is actually why I disagree with JP up above. I think rebounds can be fixed much more easily than soft shots. Focus is a mental thing, which goalies pretty much have or don’t have. The mechanics to better control rebounds can be worked on throughout a goalie’s career.
"Neuvy was eating pucks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
by SeattleCapsFan on Jun 15, 2011 10:14 AM EDT up reply actions
Fair points, though I don’t think that the mental side of the game is any less fixable than certain aspects of the physical side.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
Yeah, some things you have or you don’t, and practice will only help so much. Most guys will never have Varly’s explosive athleticism no matter how much they practice. (And no matter how much Varly practices, he may never get a stable groin.)
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
(And no matter how much Varly practices, he may never get a stable groin.)
::sigh::
"Neuvy was eating pucks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
by SeattleCapsFan on Jun 15, 2011 10:47 AM EDT up reply actions
So MoJo was the forward with the most SGAON (like that?). Coincidence? Was he doing something that made these more common (chasing the puck and leaving guys open for unscreened shots, not tying up his guy after bad rebounds, etc.), or just dumb luck?
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
I’d tend to say it was dumb luck. If he was causing scoring chances against, that would normally take it out of the soft goal ledger. When guys were chasing and leaving open shooters I was pretty forgiving, even on the rebound. The Lucic goal in the 3-1 loss to Boston early in the season is an example. I could still be persuaded to call it soft, but nobody is looking at Boychuk and he comes down from the point with no D and a head of steam, fakes a slapper, then throws a shot to the far post. Neuvirth was overly aggressive, and that hurt his rebound control, but I didn’t give him a soft goal because I’m a Neuvirth fanboy the D let him down by letting a point man walk in and then failed to even do anything to cover Lucic in front.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
Well done, F&B. It’s posts like this that make the off-season actually somewhat enjoyable.
"Neuvy was eating pucks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
by SeattleCapsFan on Jun 15, 2011 10:15 AM EDT reply actions
Do people think that soft goals are more or less subjective than scoring chances? I’d say they are pretty even, maybe soft goals are a tad bit more subjective, but I don’t see an inherent difference that would make a soft goal analysis any less trustworthy or valuable than a scoring chance analysis? Are there suggestions for tightening up the methodology?
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
I don’t know that they’re any more or less subjective than scoring chances, but since the pool of scoring chances is so much larger in terms of the number of events, the questionable ones impact the final analysis to a much smaller degree, no?
For example, decide that two of Holtby’s aren’t soft or two additional ones are and you have a vastly different result. Get a handful of scoring chances “wrong” and it doesn’t change much.
Did you find at all that if you tagged a guy with a softie on a ~50/50 goal one time that you’d give him the benefit of the doubt the next to even it out at all?
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
I think with Holtby it’s definitely a concern, but with both Varly and Neuvy you saw roughly a 50/50 split of soft/* goals. So if that split is consistent, shouldn’t it stay the same over the long term? Thus, no matter what the sample, a goalie will have about as many soft goals as questionable (*) goals. With scoring chances, shouldn’t there be an equivalent ratio? Maybe not 50%, but some percentage of questionable scoring chances are not credited, and as long as the coding is consistent you should see that ratio across the board?
Another problem is that we are still looking at these as binary events, soft or not, scoring chance or not. In reality not all of these soft goals/scoring chances are equal. Some are clearly better/worse than others, and we don’t know how to address that magnitude as of now.
I really tried my hardest to not “credit” across goals. But I think it probably did happen. I think it’s natural. I’d see three goals in a row that I didn’t love, it’s hard not to say “fuck it, that was soft” by the end of them. That said, I’m pretty sure there is at least one stretch where I give Varlamov 3 straight asterisks without giving him a soft goal, so that gives at least a little credence to my ability to keep a consistent standard.
I also did some quality control and sent some of the questionable goals to people whose opinion I respect. I didn’t necessarily look for them to agree with my judgment calls, but if they were coming down the same way each time I felt like I was being consistent. I did this for both Neuvirth and Varlamov to try to make sure I didn’t let my Neuvirth fanboy bias get too involved.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
by Rob Parker on Jun 15, 2011 12:24 PM EDT up reply actions 2 recs
Word.
I’d be interested in seeing how the softies line up with goals the Caps allowed that weren’t scored on scoring chances. Maybe Neil has something on that.
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
Definitely, I thought about doing soft goals for the Caps but it would have been more than twice the work and I wasn’t sure what we could draw from it since you are dealing with small samples of each goalie.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
I did it for you -
Soft: anything scored by Jeff Schultz
Not soft: the rest
Japers' Rink: Hockey blogging from the most powerful city in the world
Rec’d. If everyone took this much care in what they did, the world would be a better place.
Atta dinnin stick a who!
by Gould Old Days on Jun 15, 2011 1:49 PM EDT up reply actions
Also, I know I tried not to use style points, but I think Tim Thomas might have the highest percentage of soft goals. He takes himself out of the play so much that I think he’d have to be tagged with soft goals a lot. You just have to assume that his aggression is more than making up for it with his highway robbery saves.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
Keep Talking, Danny...
The comments really make this awesome. Some of them are amusing (“Nice coverage, Poti”) and some are cringeworthy (“Chara one-timer from the circle”)
This is a great analysis, and it really shows that the Caps goalies were pretty effective in 2010-11.
What also stands out is that in the regular season, the Caps only allowed one ENG in 82 games. That’s pretty amazing.
Winnipeg? Winnipeg??? Oy...
I don’t know if we can draw conclusions on effectiveness without seeing other rates. If the league rate is around 20% soft goals, we look good. If it’s around 10%, not so much.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
There probably need to be analyses done for other teams… I wish I had the time to watch every goal against some teams (Pittsburgh in particular…)
Maybe take the top team in the NHL in goals against (Vancouver), the worst in goals against (Colorado) and a team that was in the middle (there was a 3 way tie for 14th-16th, Minnesota might be the team to choose from that tie since they’ll have a similar schedule to Van and Col.)
Just as a reminder, the Caps were 4th best in goals against in 2010-11.
Winnipeg? Winnipeg??? Oy...
by MikeL-Pivonka on Jun 16, 2011 11:10 AM EDT up reply actions
It’s also disturbing how many “Man open in front, bang-bangs” there are. Defensive system? Really?
"Neuvy was eating pucks for breakfast, lunch, and dinner."
by SeattleCapsFan on Jun 15, 2011 1:57 PM EDT up reply actions
You can attribute a significant percentage of soft goals to skater error, in my opinion.
by S h a g g y on Jun 21, 2011 11:12 AM EDT up reply actions
So what’s the conclusion? Do you think more/less of our three goalies after this exercise?
by Bushwood Bushwhacker on Jun 23, 2011 5:10 PM EDT reply actions
I’m not really making conclusions. We don’t have numbers for enough goalies to draw any. I’d like to see bloggers across the league track these like scoring chances and then we’d know a lot more. The only real conclusion I’d draw here is that Holtby is much more raw than the other two.
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
I looked at the numbers and I have some cursory thoughts, let me know if people are more interested and maybe we can flesh things out more.
The Caps gave up 36 soft goals, and as I understand it 6 goals is a W, so that’s 6 Ws, or 12 points that soft goals allegedly cost us this season.
The Caps gave up 15 soft goals in wins. Those obviously did not cost us any points in the standing. 5 wins with soft goals came in OT/SO, so that’s 5 points that soft goals gave to other teams.
That leaves 21 soft goals in losses. I said that you can count the soft goal as a contributor to any loss that was by 2 or fewer goals. I figure a one goal game is a crap shoot and maybe you can come back, but that soft goal for insurance really hurt. You could argue that only one goal games matter. You could also argue that soft goals cost us games that were more than 2 goal games because of the momentum, etc. Examples of those would be the 5-0 lost to ATL (3 soft goals) or 7-0 to NYR (2 soft goals). I didn’t count those as costing the team, though. Especially with 0 on our own side.
So I have Neuvirth costing us 7 games (Dallas was the worst 2 of 2 goals against were soft). I have Varly costing us 4 games. I have Holtby costing us 2 games. A note, both Neuvirth and Varly gave up soft goals in the OTL to PHI, so that’s one game but each are charged with costing us. 5 losses with soft goals came in OT/SO so those games definitely cost us points. That’s a total of 12 games that you could say soft goals cost us points. I didn’t run the exact points, and you could analyze it more closely to see if/how many points were cost, but I’d like to get some reactions/thoughts before delving any deeper. It does look like our soft goals cost us roughly as many points as would be predicted by the stats crowd, however. (Although if you say that we were cost 2 points in each of those games you could say it cost us double; I don’t think that’s reasonable, especially given how many 2 goal losses there are. Probably we’d get some other OTLs without the soft goals, but I don’t think we win all those games. There are also a few 2-0 shutouts so it’s hard to hold those too much against the goalies.)
A kitten on fire, a baby in a blender, both sound as sweet as a playoff surrender.
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