23 Intently Staring Goalies
Bobrovsky wins the Vezina—and that’s okay!
by lsefton on 06/16/13 at 03:10 PM ET
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The definition for the Vezina trophy according to the NHL website: "The Vezina Trophy is an annual award given to the goalkeeper adjudged to be the best at this position as voted by the general managers of all NHL clubs."
The Vezina trophy changed from being a totally objective award to a more subjective one back in 1981, when the Jennings trophy was introduced to award the goaltender with the lowest goals against average. And if you're old enough to remember when the CBC only showed the second and third period for Hockey Night in Canada, you probably spent more than a few seasons being more than a bit miffed when you thought the best goaltender that year wasn't necessarily the one who had the lowest GAA.
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Corey Crawford not going into the Osgood File
by lsefton on 06/04/13 at 01:41 PM ET
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Not a lot of teams have had their goaltender head off to another team immediately after the team wins and Stanley Cup, but that was the situation the Chicago Blackhawks found themselves after Antti Niemi signed with the San Jose Sharks. There were a lot of fans (and writers!) who went into "What the heck are we going to do for a goalie?" mode. The goalie they had in the system, Corey Crawford, was too young (he was 26--not a baby by goalie standards), too inexperienced, to take over the lead role.
The Blackhawks signed Marty Turco.
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Quick can’t afford to dwell on Saturday night’s game
by lsefton on 05/20/13 at 11:32 AM ET
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"If you keep thinking about the last goal. you'll soon be thinking about the next, last goal."
Good advice if you're playing goal. You spend your time thinking about that last goal, and you won't see the next one coming. That extrapolates to playoff games--if you spend your energy thinking about the previous game, you won't have the energy to play well. If you're grumbling to yourself in the next game, you're not paying attention to the play. The puck goes in, and now you have more to dwell on. That's how games can go hyperbolic in a very short time.
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Flyers Goalie Conundrum
by lsefton on 05/11/13 at 10:39 AM ET
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There are teams who develop goalies.
There are teams who trade for goalies.
And then there are teams that go through goalies like a bowl of salted peanuts.
The Philadelphia Flyers fall into that last category. Even before Bobrovsky was named a Vezian finalist, there have been questions about the Flyers ability to get and keep even a decent goalie. Even when they trade for what appears to be at least a midlist goaltender, within a season they're either out the door or on their way out of town with a sub .900 save percentage, and a goals against on the wrong side of 2.5.
Here's a sampling of who's been between the pipes in the post-Hextall era:
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Crawford Proving the Naysayers Wrong
by lsefton on 05/04/13 at 02:30 PM ET
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There was a lot of "Good News/Bad News" in the Chicago Blackhawks chatter in the past few weeks.
The Good News: First in the West, won Presidents Cup, and the team is trending up.
The Bad News: Emery's hurt.
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Josh Harding Minnesota’s Nominee for Masterton Trophy
by lsefton on 04/24/13 at 06:45 PM ET
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From nhl.com:
"The Bill Masterton Memorial Trophy is an annual award under the trusteeship of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association and is given to the National Hockey League player who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to hockey."
I could write a frothy paragraph, but you know, I don't think I could add anything.
Mike Russo at the StarTribune says it all:
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Becoming “The Richard Bachman”
by lsefton on 04/12/13 at 11:52 AM ET
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Right now, if you look up "Richard Bachman", you're more likely to get an article about Stephen KIng than the Dallas Stars goaltender. And while Stephen King is an immednsely popular author, I have my suspicions he wouldn't make the cut as an NHL goaltender. Maybe Stephen King can meet us halfway and wrote a book featuring a really scary NHL goaltender.Or maybe one where the goalie's psychological gotchas parallel the supernatural badness he's having to face.
And back to reality....
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Reimer Shows Class and Cool in Toronto Trade Frenzy
by lsefton on 04/04/13 at 02:20 PM ET
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If you watched the trade deadline coverage on TSN/NHL Network/Rogers Sportsnet, their respective trade trackers, monitored Twitter feeds, hung out on Facebook, or otherwise, the biggest story of the day was what didn't happen.
No Luongo Trade
And its little brother:
No Kiprusoff Trade
And wow, James Reimer is being nice about the whole thing (via a headline from the National Post:
"Leafs goalie James Reimer calls lack of trade activity a ‘vote of confidence’"
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The Goalie, the Puck, and Physics
by lsefton on 04/03/13 at 10:46 AM ET
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Randall Munroe of xkcd takes a look at the physics of pucks hitting a goalie, and what can and can't happen.
Here's the full discussion at "what if?"
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Goalies to lose more padding—Engineering the answer?
by lsefton on 04/01/13 at 11:05 AM ET
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Goalies are natural-born structural engineers. Given a challenge, they'll figure out a way to make equipment do things that not only were never intended, but until that point, no one else had thought of those intentions. I have seen leg pad that could be patted back into legal size, side padding that flared out on sudden movement, and interior kneepadding that rotated out to cover a five-hole when the goalie went down into a butterfly. It's come a long way since the 1970's when the "modification d'jour" was making culottes out of your goalie pants.
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About 23 Intently Staring Goalies
23 Intently Staring Goalies comes from the 23 close-up photos of goalies that used to line the walls of my office.
On the good side, it kept down interruptions, but it also made sure I had to leave my trash outside my door if I wanted it picked up.
I've been watching and analyzing goaltenders for going on 40 years. Some of that was spent drawing goalies on my grade 8 math homework. Then it was taking my card decks and printouts to Indianapolis Racer games. Luckily, the Internet took off, and by 1991 I was half of the duo that would ultimately become the Plaidworks hockey mailing lists. I wrote "Handicapping the Goalies' for the San Jose Sharks mailing list, and took a lot of photos of goalies in action. I have around 5000 slides of mostly goaltenders in action from 1989 through 2001 from the WHL, IHL and NHL. Since I've gone digital, I've added about 10,000 more images to the library. During summers and when the league went dark, I was reading through multiple SF By area news papers, tracking ice hockey from the 1917 recreational leagues up through the California Seals.
We'll be talking about goalies and goaltending. We'll talk about whats going on now, who's in the system, and when the doldrums hit, I'll haul something out of the big bag of history, or something from the photo archives. We'll talk about who's hot and why, and who's not and what they can do to get back on track. We'll take a look at the trends in scouting goalies, and why a style may work for one team but not another. I'll battle with my dictation software to get it to understand Bryzgalov and Bobrovsky.
It should be interesting--hope you want to come along for the ride!
Recent Blog Posts (Page 2)
More Goalies Down at Crunch Time
Cam Ward down—can Ellis step up?
When one backup goalie just isn’t enough
DiPietro Waived—The first move?
Ty Conklin Starts His Next Career
Luongo Prognostications for a Snowy Weekend
3,000 Miles to go for a Shutout: Chad Johnson