At 4:08 PM 12/14/95, Jill Maser wrote: >We can't tell what kind of shots they were from the box score. That's true. It can help to look at the shot chart, but this is usually only available to the media and the coaches. >Stats for goalies can be subjective. Is the guy counting shots >concentrating on the game? Can he see? Is his definition of a shot the >same for all teams? We all possess some biases. Also true. I have done the shot chart for Merrimack home games since 1989, and I will admit that it isn't always possible to get things right. There is no perfect vantage point from which to do the chart. At center ice (where the press box is at Merrimack), you're on one side and on shots taken from the opposite side, you have to make a best guess as to whether the shot was on net. Experience probably helps here, but some guesswork is still involved. I like to look at things like where the shots came from (was he forced to see a lot of "quality shots"), but the chart still doesn't show things like screen shots or deflections that are really the fault of the defense. Also, at Merrimack, I have been noting which shots came on the power play. Not many DivI teams do this from what I have seen (Maine does). It gives you one more thing to look at if you realize that, for example, a goalie is forced to see a large number of his total shots when his team is down a man. This happened in a recent Merrimack-Maine game when shots in one period were 15-3 Maine but 3-3 at even strength. Maybe the overall play in the period was not as one-sided as the shot total seems to show. >A good goalie must possess the qualities we all talked about: physical >prowess, mental toughness, and consistency. The way I see it, a good goalie stops the shots he should stop. A great goalie also stops shots he normally wouldn't be expected to stop. And a mediocre or worse goalie doesn't even stop shots he should stop. These are generalizations, because even a great goalie will allow a bad goal now and then. This is why when I evaluate a goalie's performance in a game, I don't usually look at things like saves or goals allowed. Instead, I try to consider two main things: 1) How many goals did he allow that were his fault? (goals he should have been expected to stop) 2) How many shots did he stop that he probably shouldn't have been expected to stop? The great goalies allow few from category 1 and stop a lot from category 2. And I admit that it is very subjective since one person may consider a shot to have been "stoppable" while another may not. But it is entirely possible for a goalie to allow a significant number of goals and still have had a great game. This happened when BC's Greg Taylor set the HE save record against BU last year in a game that was not very close. A lesser goalie may have allowed 2 or 3 times as many goals because of the number of quality shots Taylor saw (stopping most). Thus, defense is often a big factor in how a goalie fares, including his statistics that most people tend to judge him on, and this is something we haven't even begun to discuss. Several years ago, Lowell's Mark Richards was named All-HE despite having a GAA close to 5.00 because his defense was so weak yet he consistently made great saves and kept the score closer than it probably should have been. Defensive play is closely intertwined with goalkeeping in a team's ability to keep the score down, and there are many factors in defensive play. Not just how the defensemen play - are the forwards backchecking well and picking up their men? Do they shut off the trailer pass after the Ds get back and contain the first two men? Are they breaking up plays through center ice? And so on. Outstanding team defensive play can make a good goalie appear great; conversely, poor defensive play can make a great goalie look bad. Finally, I just can't say that one style of goaltending is better than another. I have seen floppers stop everything in sight, and standup goalies who allowed many bad goals. You have to take the goalie as a whole and consider how well he gets the job done. --- --- Mike Machnik [log in to unmask] *HMM* 11/13/93 >> Co-owner of the College Hockey Lists at University of Maine System << ***** Unofficial Merrimack Hockey home page located at: ***** ***** http://www.tiac.net/users/machnik/MChockey/MChockey.html ***** HOCKEY-L is for discussion of college ice hockey; send information to [log in to unmask], The College Hockey Information List.