Friday, December 17, 2010

Clusterf*&@! Quick clusters of goals against are killing the Leafs

Originally posted at Pension Plan Puppets...

Jonas Siegel has a great entry up today at his Eat. Leafs. Sports. Blog where he lists 10 games this season where the Leafs gave up a cluster of goals in a very short time. For those of you scoring at home, the Leafs have been torched for multiple goals in three minutes or less in 30% of their games this season. Seems like an outrageously high number to me.

I wanted to take Jonas' nice research one step further and add a goaltending column to see if there was any sort of pattern...Here's Jonas' table with my goalie column added in:


Date



Opponent



Goalie



Result



Final Outcome



October 23rd



Philadelphia



Giguere



Two goals in 1:51



Loss (5-2)



November 2nd



Ottawa



Giguere



Two goals in 2:26



Loss (3-2)



November 3rd



Washington



Gustavsson



Two goals in 0:53



Shootout Loss (5-4)



November 9th



Tampa



Giguere



Two goals in 0:19



Loss (4-0)



November 16th



Nashville



Giguere



Three goals in 3:30



Win (5-4)



November 26th



Buffalo



Gustavsson



Two goals in 1:45



Loss (3-1)



December 2nd



Edmonton



Giguere



Two goals in 0:36



Loss (5-0)



December 8th



Pittsburgh



Gustavsson



Three goals in 3:08



Loss (5-2)



December 9th



Philadelphia



Giguere



Two goals in 1:19



Loss (4-1)



December 16th



Calgary



Giguere



Three goals in 0:57



Loss (5-2)


As you can see, J.S. Giguere has been in goal for 7 of the 10 games where the Leafs were torched.

To my mind, this pattern of clustered goals against, coupled with a longitudinal look at Giguere's save percentage (nicely assembled by SkinnyFish) is yet further evidence of Giguere's ongoing decline.

Save__medium

Looking at his Giguere's play of late, I hope Gustavsson gets the bulk of Leaf starts going forward and that Burke and the MLSE brain trust are working out what their goaltending options are for next year.

1 comment:

  1. Paul Steckley4:03 pm

    Giguere has played strong at points this season. His save on Gionta in the dying seconds of the first game of the season is likely to be one of the few memorable moments from the 2010-11 season. However, I agree that Gustavsson needs to get the majority of starts for the remainder of the season. Let's hope that his play against Atlanta was simply an aberration. Giguere won't be back next season with the Leafs unless he agrees to a backup role at a significant decrease in salary, so it's time to see if the Monster can live up to his moniker.

    That said, it's more than the goalies out there in those 2-3 minute stretches. The Leafs have a very young team that plays young, and some veterans that play even younger (I'm looking at you Komisarek and your penchant for passing the puck to the other team in prime shooting spots). Their confidence is easily shattered and when something goes wrong they seem to forget their teachings and become mesmerized by the puck. They stop doing simple things like chipping the puck out off the boards, or simply holding onto it if there is no play and forcing a faceoff and time to regroup. Unless Burke can make some significant upgrades on this roster, I don't see how any goalie could do much better than either of their starters have done so far. It is nice, after the Raycroft-Toskala years, to finally not bemoan the lack of quality goaltending.

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