Jump to content
The Official Site of the Vancouver Canucks
Canucks Community

poetica

Members
  • Posts

    5,509
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    3

Everything posted by poetica

  1. You didn't answer my question. How is 3 goals against in Game 7 "not showing up when it matters"? And, if Luo wasn't "elite" because he sucked in the 3 games in Boston despite only allowing 5 goals in our 4 home games, doesn't that mean our team wasn't elite because they scored only 8 goals in 7 games, including being kept to no more than 1 goal in 5 of those 7 games? If you argue an "elite" goalie should be able to win when a team isn't scoring well, shouldn't an elite team be able to win a few when their goalie allows more than 2 goals? Boston certainly could. They won 4 games in which Thomas gave up 3, 4 or 5 goals. We won only 2 games in which Luo gave up 3 and failed to do it one more time to get the Cup in Game 7. Are you really just mad that Luo wasn't "elite" enough to make up for the fact that our team wasn't as "elite" as Boston?
  2. Thomas did as well. 10/11 .938 SV% 2.00 GAA 11/12 .920 SV% 2.36 GAA Niemi is probably the only recent anomaly as after he was traded from Chicago to SJ his SV% improved but his GAA went down. But then, he also won a Cup with worse overall stats than Luo had during our Cup run and worse stats in the SCF than Luo had...
  3. How is 3 goals allowed in a game with a limping D squad and 0 scoring support "not showing up when it matters"? He might have sucked in Boston, but Luo absolutely "showed up" at home, allowing only 5 goals in our 4 home games, including 2 shutouts. We also only scored 5 goals at home, including being shut out in Game 7. So, why is it that Luo didn't "show up when it matters" because he allowed 5 goals in 4 home games but no one is saying the team didn't "show up when it matters" because they scored only 5 goals in 4 games, were kept scoreless twice, and scored only a single goal in 3 more games?
  4. Against the 4th best scoring team in the regular season? (They had a G/G higher than Boston.) And despite the fact that Crawford had a .927 SV% in that series? Yeah, okay.
  5. I'm not saying he does get a free pass. But why does the rest of the team? People can't harp enough about Luo not getting a shutout "when it really mattered" but don't even mention that we did not score a single goal in Game 7, scored only 8 goals in total in the SCF, and dropped our total scoring in the playoffs far more than Luo's SV% dropped from the regular season. We were the regular season's best scoring team but were kept to a single goal or none at all in 8 games. Why is it that it only matters when Luo had a bad game but not when the rest of the team didn't do their part? There are dozens of threads belittling Luo for us not winning the Cup, but I don't recall seeing any about the team not scoring enough. Hockey is a team sport, so why is Luo more personally responsible than the entire rest of the team combined?
  6. Because the coach made the decision to "shake things up" after Luo had been pulled twice. Remind me again, how did that series end? Oh right, with Luo getting the 4 wins.
  7. Oh good lord. Working hard on that one? Cory started one game, it didn't mean he replaced Luo as the starter.
  8. Really? They managed to score 22 goals in 6 games against Anaheim in the 1st round. They also had the same G/G average (2.60) in the regular season as Montreal did, who Boston needed a 7 game series to beat in the 1st round.
  9. Putting something in all caps wouldn't have changed the laws of grammar. It's incorrect to say that Luo was replaced. Cory was replaced. Luo did the replacing. But congrats on finding one thing to be snippy about while ignoring the entire substance of my post. That's definitely going to prove your point! And btw, of course Thomas wasn't pulled. He had Rask sitting behind him, who in the regular season that year had a 2.67 GAA (the worst of all 30 GAA leaders.) We had Cory with his 2.23 GAA.
  10. So, it didn't matter in the 15 games he won? Only in the 16th the team didn't win? And you're letting the team slide for failing to score "when it matters"?
  11. By only allowing 11 goals in 6 games, getting 1 shutout, and having a .933 SV%.
  12. As I said, Quick was nothing short of amazing. My point was that this attitude that we can/should expect to win most playoff games 1-0 or 2-1 is not based on reality even for a traditionally low scoring, shutdown goalie team like LA. Scoring is how you win and we simply didn't do enough of it. Likewise, Thomas was very good when Boston won the Cup. My point is that people claim Thomas gave his team a chance to win every game but then say Luo didn't give us a chance to win (at least most of) the games we lost. Unless there's a double standard for Luo, I don't see how that's true. For example, people say Luo cost us Game 6 against Boston because he allowed 3 goals in only 8:35. Yet, these same people claim Thomas gave his team a chance to "win every game" despite the fact that in ECF Thomas gave up 3 goals in just under 4 minutes, erasing the 3-0 lead Boston had taken in the 1st period. He gave up the game winner in the 3rd period. So, Luo gives up 3 quick goals and he's to be forever demonized because we didn't win the Cup, but Thomas gives up 3 quick goals in half the time and all is forgiven because his team did win the Cup. Thomas gave up 3 goals in the first half of another game against TB and no one cares because Boston won that game 6-5. Luo gave up 3 goals total in Game 7 of the SCF, only one of which came in the first half of the game, and people say Luo cost us the Cup. Yes, Luo was pulled 4 times (NOT 5! He went in to replace an injured Cory in one Chicago game) but despite your goal per game for our loses that makes it appear he gave up 5 in every game we lost, in truth Luo allowed 4+ goals in only 6 of our 25 games that year. He was also pulled in one Boston game after 3 quick goals, so it's probably fair to include that game and call it 7. In the same number of games played (25) Thomas allowed 4+ goals in 5 games. So, Thomas gave his team a chance to win "every game" because he allowed 4+ goals in 2 fewer games than Luo? Only, it's worse than that, isn't it? Some people say Luo didn't keep his team in Game 7 of the SCF when he only gave up 3 goals. Despite his infamous blowouts, during our Cup run Luo gave up 3+ goals in 10 games. In their Cup run, Thomas gave up 3+ in 9 games. I do not see how Thomas giving up 3+ goals in only 1 less game and 4+ goals in only 2 fewer games translates into him giving his team a chance to win "every game" while it means Luo didn't give the regular season's best scoring team in the league a chance to win. I'm not arguing the fact that Luo had blowout games, or that he personally put 4 games out of reach. (He also got 4 shutouts, allowing us to win all 4 of those games with only a total of 5 goals scored.) What I am arguing with is the attitude that he was supposed to turn into the goalie Quick would be the following year despite the fact that Luo was never that way. People are feigning surprise that our goalie played the same way he did when we won the President's Trophy and suddenly calling it crap. They're also forgetting that those playoffs were relatively high scoring. That year, 6 teams had a G/G over 3.00. Last year, only 2 teams did. This year, only 3 teams did. Had our point production only dropped as much as Luo's SV% did in the playoffs that year, we'd have a Cup. But, our point production actually dropped more. (Luo's SV% dropped 0.014 in the playoffs from the regular season. Our G/G dropped 0.83.) The truth is we lost because we managed to win only 2 games in which Luo gave up 3 goals and none when he gave up more. Boston won because they won 2 games in which Thomas gave up 3 AND a game in which he gave up 4 AND a game in which he gave up 5. When Luo gave up 4 or more we cried in our beer and called it a "blowout." When Thomas gave up 4 or 5, Boston gritted their teeth, got to work and twice called it a "win." As I pointed out previously, had we won Game 7 we would have gotten 16 wins with fewer goals against than Boston had in their 16 wins (which would have been identical for 15 wins because we didn't score in Game 7). Luo might have had blowout games that jacked up his totals and screwed up his stats, but he still gave us a chance to get the 16 wins we needed.
  13. No they don't. One way or the other. Was there a point?
  14. I must have missed it. Which of our players has been outstandingly good the past 2 years? Here's some stats: In 11/12, Quick was nothing short of amazing. In his 16 wins, he allowed only a total of 20 goals. In our 10/11 Cup run, Luo allowed 22 goals in our 15 wins. Had we won Game 7, we would have won a Cup with Luo allowing only 25 goals in our 16 wins. Instead, Boston won with Thomas allowing 26 goals in their 16 wins (none of which came in the 16th win.) Sure, Luo had his blowouts and some people LOVE to point them out like snotty little brats telling their moms. But only blind fools believe Luo didn't play well enough for us to the Cup.
  15. Since that game the team has also won half of Luo's 20 playoff starts. And 7 of those wins were by a single goal margin, including 2 SCF shutouts. Not exactly shabby! Also, the team hasn't scored 3 goals with Luo in net since game 2 of the SCF. (Since then, the team has only scored 3 goals in a playoff game twice but Cory was in net for both. We won the LA game and lost the SJ game.) And of course there's that little fact you stubbornly ignore: Playoff games are not often won by 1-0 or 2-1 scores. In fact, in both of the last 2 years, only 21 of the 86 playoffs played were won by 2-1 or 1-0. (Or, merely 24%.) If any team could win the Cup with mostly low scoring games it would be LA, right? Well, when LA won the Cup, only 5 of their 16 wins were won by those scores. Despite the fact that only one team scored less than LA during the regular season that year, LA still managed to score 4 or more goals in 9 of their 16 wins. In fact, LA scored 57 goals in their 20 games. During our 10/11 Cup run, we scored only 58 goals in 25 games. When they won the Cup, LA had a G/G of 2.85. In 10/11, we were the best scorers in the league in the regular season but only had a 2.32 G/G in the playoffs. In case you didn't get it: LA scored better the year they won the Cup than we did when we came within a single win. And despite their reliance on a shutdown goalie, they won only 6 games by a single goal margin while we won 10 games by a single goal margin in our Cup run. Absolutely, quality goaltending matters. But scoring is still how you win!
  16. The thread is about a Sportsnet article and a number of issues have been discussed as a result, including what "elite" even means, so I don't think questioning whether or not our goalie should be "elite" by the "regularly steals games" definition is outside the bounds of the conversation at hand. But thanks for the pointless snarkiness. Really set the example for a solid on point contribution to the discussion.
  17. I was all set to agree...but I just found this other article by Simmons which says: So maybe he is seeing the obvious when it comes to Cory after all. Maybe he was just spreading out his goalie opinions to fill website space and/or fulfill quota?
  18. Luo has far more great games than terrible games. But that's not even the point. The point is that "elite" teams don't need their goalies to steal games because they earn the win. So, all this talk about whether or not Luo (or Cory, when he was still here) being "elite" and "elite" meaning a goalie who steals games is pointless. Yes, we need our goalie to be good, but we need our team to be good too. If our team needs the goalie to steal more than the occasional a game or two, then they're not doing their jobs! So, would you rather have an "elite" goalie who has to steal entire playoff series, or an "elite" team that earns them? Personally, I prefer the latter and say we stop blaming the goalie(s) for not single-handedly winning a team sport and start calling for a full team effort.
  19. We lost 2 last year (with Cory is net) with a score of 0-1 and 1-2 (OT). As for this year, Luo was easily the best Canuck in both games and Cory allowed more than 3 goals in both of his games against SJ. If anything, Cory had the slightly better team in front of him (but even worse reffing...) So, pretending Luo played bad simply because he allowed 3 is ridiculous. If you're interested, the last time we lost a game with the score you mentioned with Luo in net was in 10/11 when we lost a 1-2 OT game against Nashville. (Luo's SV% in that series was 933.)
  20. Fair point. I obviously got confused. (For some reason I was thinking we kept a forward back with one of our D. Maybe we didn't.) It still doesn't translate into us being a "defense first" team though, does it? Nor does it negate the fact that AV was known for using that style when we had a lead. So I guess neither of us know what we're talking about. Luckily we fit right in here.
  21. Umm, you mean the stats I pointed out that show we were an offensive team? And if you have no idea who wrote the blog, why are you taking their opinion so seriously? What makes you think they actually know what they're talking about? But being that he has a blog devoted exclusively to the NYR, assuming he's a fan of theirs is probably a safe bet. Are you kidding me? From the blog YOU quoted: Well, Alain Vigneault ran a 1-2-2 forecheck and would drop guys back to trap up the neutral zone with a lead. This strategy is actually what gave man birth to the term “defense first,” not shot blocking. Leaving that Dman back is the reason the blogger defined AV's style of coaching as "defense first." And you said, "defense transforms into offense," impling that that defensive style was how we were the best offensive team in the league. It's your argument and you don't even understand it?! Both you and the blogger seem to have missed that that defensive style was employed "with a lead." That means offense was necessary first. Faceoff wins = puck possession = more opportunity to shoot = more opportunity to score It's rather straight forward. (It's also an example of how being offensive can help the defense.) And Pahlsson only played 19 regular season games for us in 11/12 (when we dropped to 3rd in faceoffs.) He wasn't part of our 10/11 Cup run and had nothing to do with the fact that we were the best in the faceoffs that year in the regular season. Obviously, I was pointing out the offensive measures in which we excelled while we did not excel nearly as much in defensive measures, including shots against, in response to your (apparently badly understood) secondhand argument was that the team played a "defense first" style game based on AV's coaching. I never said AV fired the entire coaching staff and did it all single-handedly. Obviously! Number of shots allowed is a pretty standard measure of defense. And common sense. If you're allowing them to take shots, even bad ones, you don't have control of the puck or the opposing players. No shots means no goals. Some shots might mean a goal. The more shots, the more chances the other team has to score. But don't take my word for it. Why not check out the work of people far smarter at analytical analysis than I am? I'd suggest you check out the HockeyAnalytics.com analysis of 2010/11. [PDF - 90 pages] It, like the stats I offered previously, show that in most defense measures we were in the middle of the pack at best. On some measures we were even worse, including shot quality. (Only 3 teams were worse in the quality shots given up.) But, we were better than all but one team in shooting percentage....because we were offensive. Put more plainly: (from pg 16 of the above linked PDF and fully supported by numerous measurements throughout): "Vancouver had the NHL's best offense but below average defense." If we were a defensive team, I guess we weren't very good at it. Instead, I prefer the reality -- that we were good at being offensive.
  22. Oh! A BLOG by a fan of another team said it! It MUST be true then. I mean it's not Facebook official of course, but certainly more reliable than the crap you hear on Twitter. I don't know what I was thinking! Everyone knows the law of the internet mandates that if someone bothered to write a blog about their personal opinion it must be immediately adopted as fact by all who read it! (Wonder what would happen if I wrote a blog about my contrasting opinion? Would I break the laws of logic or just the internet?) But let me see if I understand your secondhand logic: Because we had the lowest GA/G that one year it proves our style was "defense first." But, the fact that we had the highest G/G does not mean we were offensive as it was simply the product of our defensive style because...everyone knows that leaving one of your Dmen hanging back is how you score goals? And the fact that we were mid-range for SA/G doesn't mean anything because....apparently D aren't supposed to prevent shots? And the fact that our 5th highest scorer that year was a D is only more proof that we were focused on defense rather than offense because....everyone knows a Dman gets 50 points only when he's worrying about defense first? And let me guess....the fact that we were the best team on the power plays and in faceoffs was just more proof of our defensive focus? Yeah, okay. Absolutely if we allowed 50 shots a game from anywhere on the ice we were NOT good enough defensively (unless it was a long OT game.) How is that even a question?! And what does whether we had a defensive or offensive style during 10/11 have to do with Luo being "elite" or not? Besides, I never said anyone was "elite."
  23. Ok... Well, congrats on finding part of a blog by a NYR fan to make your rebuttal for you. But, that still doesn't make the claim that we were a defensively- rather than offensively-minded team true. We were a puck possession team and that is why we were the highest scoring team in the league. The fact that our offense dropped off so dramatically in the playoffs is not proof that we were always a "defense first" team. It's just the reason so many Canuck fans cry themselves to sleep at night. Defensive didn't transform into offense, puck possession and shooting created offense. In the regular season, we were 6th in shots (32.0) but 12th in shots against (30.1). If we were "defense first" why was our shots against so high? We were actually pretty mid range in our number of shots against. On average, we allowed 3.9 shots more per game than the best defensive team (NJ) and 3.1 fewer than the least defensive team (Car). (And Philly had the same SA/G average as we had though they were ranked 13th.) In fact, we were giving up 0.7 more shots on average per game than the NYR. So, how does that prove that AV was more defensively minded than Torts was? A defensive team is one like LA. In 11/12 they were 29th in scoring in the regular season, but 2nd in goals against. They were 11th in shots on goal, but 5th in shots against. That is a "defense first" team. That year they actually were able to improve their scoring in the playoffs to 3rd but they still remained a defensive team. They were 6th in shots on goal and 4th in shots against. And I was only comparing Thomas and Luo because you were arguing that an "elite" goalie (which I never called Luo or anyone else) gives his team a chance to win by never allowing more than 3 goals. I was simply pointing out that Thomas allowed 4 or more in only 1 less game than Luo did and he won a Cup. Unless you want to argue that he didn't give his team a chance to win?
  24. Seriously? That's your evidence? The team allowing a shorthanded breakaway and then Ehrhoff, having ample time and opportunity, failing to stop the shot, forcing Luo to wait to see if his stick would contact the puck and change its direction? That's a weak as our offensive effort in that game. And it doesn't explain why there was only 2 and a half minutes left in the 2nd and we still hadn't scored. Guess that was Luo's fault too?
×
×
  • Create New...