EHM The Blue Line

POLL 1 - BOS
1) Brad Marchand
2) David Krejci
3) David Backes

POLL 2 - CAR
1) Elias Lindholm
2) Lee Stempinak
3) Victor Rask

POLL 3 - COL
1) Nathan MacKinnon
2) Gabriel Landeskog
3) Matt Duchene

Results for Poll #3!

3) FORWARDS #1

POLL 1 - BOS
1) Brad Marchand 29
2) David Krejci 21
3) David Backes 10

POLL 2 - CAR
1) Victor Rask 19
2) Elias Lindholm 18
3) Lee Stempniak 17

POLL 3 - COL
1) Gabriel Landeskog 28
2) Nathan MacKinnon 25
3) Matt Duchene 13

Carolina was VERY even. Glad I managed to get a tight vote. A bit surprised Duchene got no love from you.

____________________________________________________________

POLL #4!!


4) GOALIES #1

A bit more interesting. No one if from the same team.
Probably the hardest one yet... we'll see.

POLL 1 - ELITE
1) Braden Holtby
2) Cory Schneider
3) Henrik Lundqvist

POLL 2 - GREAT
1) Jaroslav Halák
2) Pekka Rinne
3) Semyon Varlamov

POLL 3 - GOOD
1) Cameron Talbot
2) Devan Dubnyk
3) John Gibson

POLL 1 - ELITE
1) Lundqvist
2) Holtby
3) Scheinder

POLL 2 - GREAT
1) Varlamov
2) Rinne
3) Halak

POLL 3 - GOOD
1) Talbot
2) Dubnyk
3) Gibson

Number 2 is a hard one for me. I like both Varly and Rinne and even if it looks like a homer vote it's not. I just think that seeing how much Varlamov get shot at since he's with the Avs makes me put him above Rinne for that reason.

Lunqvist and Holtby was pretty close for me too but Lundqvist has been consistent for a couple of years and Holtby just had his top season last year so we'll see iff he can keep the rythm.

Goalie analytics is quite young and not very mainstream yet so i can't really explain myself like i have in the earlier votes, i'll just write here which stats i mostly use for my rankings. I mostly look at 5v5 stats since Special Teams are very system dependant and doesn't give a 'fair' view imo. A team with a bad PK will allow so many more high danger shots that the All Situation stats will take a nose dive no matter how good the goalie is.

The main stat i look at is adjGSAA/60 aka Mercad/60 (because of it's creator Nick Mercadante), it adjusts for shot locations and shows how many goals per 60 minutes a goalie saves (or you know, not saves ) over the league average goalie. I also use 5v5 SV% alot aswell as AAA% (Above Average Appearance). Those are the 3 stats i mostly look at, but i also weigh in WT%/LT% (Win threshold and loss threshold, also from Mercad), fSV% (Corsica) and probably a few other that i can't remember right now

POLL 1 - ELITE
1) Henrik Lundqvist
2) Cory Schneider
3) Braden Holtby

Easy poll imo, Hank is still comfortably in the top-2 along with Price. Schneider is in the tier below, easily top-5 in the league while Holtby is another tier below, still comfortably in the top-10 but it's quite a big jump from Tier 2 to Tier 3.

POLL 2 - GREAT
1) Jaroslav Halák
2) Semyon Varlamov
3) Pekka Rinne

Another easy poll, Halak is really good, i have him as a top-10 goalie in the league. Varlamov is about an average starter and Pekka Rinne is a bottom 3 starter in the league over the last 4 years, he's been really really bad. He fell off a cliff 4 years ago, then he had some injuries too, bounced back a bit in 14/15 just to fall back over the cliff in 15/16.

POLL 3 - GOOD
1) Cameron Talbot
2) John Gibson
3) Devan Dubnyk

This one is tighter and harder, especially since we have some sample size issues. But Talbot has posted some pretty darn nice numbers and i think they are mostly sustainable. When it comes to Gibson vs Dubnyk it's really really close, it's so close that i'd say it's about preference. Do you want a solid goalie who will make the easy saves but will struggle on the tougher shots or do you want one that has some issues on the 'softer' shots but might make that big tough save to win you the game? Gibson is the solid goalie while Dubnyk is the more unpredictable. Gotta remember that sample size is an issue with Gibson here but i take consistency over unpredictability.

POLL 1 - ELITE
1) Henrik Lundqvist
2) Cory Schneider
3) Braden Holtby

POLL 2 - GREAT
1) Jaroslav Halák
2) Semyon Varlamov
3) Pekka Rinne

POLL 3 - GOOD
1) Cameron Talbot
2) Devan Dubnyk
3) John Gibson

I have to say, these polls were a little easier to decide on

POLL 1 - ELITE
1) Henrik Lundqvist
2) Cory Schneider
3) Braden Holtby

POLL 2 - GREAT
1) Jaroslav Halák
2) Semyon Varlamov
3) Pekka Rinne

POLL 3 - GOOD
1) Cameron Talbot
2) John Gibson
3) Devan Dubnyk

I'm not so sure about Gibson/Dubnyk and Schneider/Holtby, but I'll stay with this.

POLL 1 - ELITE
1) Henrik Lundqvist
2) Cory Schneider
3) Braden Holtby

POLL 2 - GREAT
1) Jaroslav Halák
2) Pekka Rinne
3) Semyon Varlamov


POLL 3 - GOOD
1) Cameron Talbot
2) John Gibson
3) Devan Dubnyk

POLL 1 - ELITE
1) King Henrik
2) Cory Schneider
3) Braden Holtby

POLL 2 - GREAT
1) Pekka Rinne
2) Semyon Varlamov
3) Jaroslav Halák

POLL 3 - GOOD
1) Cameron Talbot
2) John Gibson
3) Devan Dubnyk

Not much variation in your votes so far.

For the record, Rinne would be last for me even if he was on Poll 3

POLL 1 - ELITE
1) Henrik Lundqvist
2) Braden Holtby
3) Cory Schneider

POLL 2 - GREAT
1) Pekka Rinne
2) Semyon Varlamov
3) Jaroslav Halák

POLL 3 - GOOD
1) John Gibson
2) Devan Dubnyk
3) Cameron Talbot

CJ wrote:Not much variation in your votes so far.

I didn't vote as I don't believe any goaltender is Elite at this time, the Elite guys would be in the Great category IMO (and they're essentially interchangeable IMO; Lundqvist could just as easily be third of the three as first), and the Great would be in the Good (with Rinne/Gibson at the bottom)

nino33 wrote:I didn't vote as I don't believe any goaltender is Elite at this time

That's the reason why you didn't vote? And you know the "Elite" is just the name of the Poll, as they're all in different teams.

CJ wrote:

nino33 wrote:I didn't vote as I don't believe any goaltender is Elite at this time

That's the reason why you didn't vote? And you know the "Elite" is just the name of the Poll, as they're all in different teams.

From a researcher's perspective isn't Elite in the 180-190 CA range? I don't think any goaltender in the poll currently fits that CA range

While Lundqvist hasn't fallen as far as Rinne, I don't think he's as good as he was & non of the others listed are Elite IMO

Peter_Doherty wrote:For the record, Rinne would be last for me even if he was on Poll 3

I'd have Rinne over Gibson or Dubnyk but that's just me

ClassicSwarley wrote:

Peter_Doherty wrote:For the record, Rinne would be last for me even if he was on Poll 3

I'd have Rinne over Gibson or Dubnyk but that's just me

I don't think he's even close to either of them. He's been one of the leagues worst starter over the last 4 seasons, he's had 1 good and 3 very bad seasons in that time span.

nino33 wrote:

CJ wrote:

nino33 wrote:I didn't vote as I don't believe any goaltender is Elite at this time

That's the reason why you didn't vote? And you know the "Elite" is just the name of the Poll, as they're all in different teams.

From a researcher's perspective isn't Elite in the 180-190 CA range? I don't think any goaltender in the poll currently fits that CA range

While Lundqvist hasn't fallen as far as Rinne, I don't think he's as good as he was & non of the others listed are Elite IMO

Lundqvist hasn't even started to decline yet, last season was a career average season for him, above average in most metrics. Show me any actual data to support him being on decline.

Since we're on the subject of goalies, here is a recent PDOcast where Dimitri Filipovic and Nick Mercadante rank and talk about goalies, https://twitter.com/DimFilipovic/status ... 3822389248

Peter_Doherty wrote:Since we're on the subject of goalies, here is a recent PDOcast where Dimitri Filipovic and Nick Mercadante rank and talk about goalies, https://twitter.com/DimFilipovic/status ... 3822389248

Darn it, now I have another hockey podcast to listen to! (but seriously, thanks, this looks like a good one )

ClassicSwarley wrote:

Peter_Doherty wrote:Since we're on the subject of goalies, here is a recent PDOcast where Dimitri Filipovic and Nick Mercadante rank and talk about goalies, https://twitter.com/DimFilipovic/status ... 3822389248

Darn it, now I have another hockey podcast to listen to! (but seriously, thanks, this looks like a good one )

It's great, i love Dim Filipovic, always has great guests too.

Peter_Doherty wrote:Lundqvist hasn't even started to decline yet, last season was a career average season for him, above average in most metrics. Show me any actual data to support him being on decline.

My opinion is based on watching him play (last year's playoffs), above average is not elite, and I was referencing CA/EHM editing (you recently said "I don't really know what 130CA/150CA actually means" so I don't think you understand what my reference point is).....I think he's overrated, like all modern goalies (Price might be the exception)

nino33 wrote:

CJ wrote:

nino33 wrote:I didn't vote as I don't believe any goaltender is Elite at this time

That's the reason why you didn't vote? And you know the "Elite" is just the name of the Poll, as they're all in different teams.

From a researcher's perspective isn't Elite in the 180-190 CA range? I don't think any goaltender in the poll currently fits that CA range

While Lundqvist hasn't fallen as far as Rinne, I don't think he's as good as he was & non of the others listed are Elite IMO

There might be an argument with Lundqvist isn't the same goalie as a few years ago. I don't think it's necessarily skill that has declined though. From a 'researcher' standpoint maybe reduce his consistency a tad and make him a bit more injury-prone?

Was thinking about this with Girardi as well from the earlier poll. Watching him play this season so far he doesn't look that different a player to 'old' when he has a good night, just that 'good night' just doesn't happen quite as often as before, over an entire season. Might be worth looking at his consistency and injury-proneness before doing too much to his CA? He's still a valuable player, but it should be a gamble playing him on the top line every game from now on IMO.

I thought I'd mention CJ's a spectacularly good researcher, and while we discuss things at times he's most definitely his own person/researcher, so my opinions are "my opinions" (not to be confused with TBL Roster NHL ratings! HaHa)

nino33 wrote:

Peter_Doherty wrote:Lundqvist hasn't even started to decline yet, last season was a career average season for him, above average in most metrics. Show me any actual data to support him being on decline.

My opinion is based on watching him play (last year's playoffs), above average is not elite, and I was referencing CA/EHM editing (you recently said "I don't really know what 130CA/150CA actually means" so I don't think you understand what my reference point is).....I think he's overrated, like all modern goalies (Price might be the exception)

Above average as in above his career average, which certainly is elite. I wasn't even mentioning the elite thing either, i was arguing that he's not declining which you said he was.
There is no actual data to support the statement that Lundqvist is on the decline that i've seen, none whatsoever. Feel free to enlighten me if i'm wrong here.

Henrik Lundqvist was considered the best goalie in the league last season according to anyone into goalie analytics.

My opinions are based on watching 95% of his games in the last 4 seasons and reading up on goalie analytics.

I don't have to enlighten you, we can just have different opinions & hockey is not math so analytics don't "prove" anything beyond doubt