At the time of my last article, I had a thought about save percentage. We often harp on it, but very rarely do we think of it in practical, dollars-and-cents terms. If a goalie A has a .900 save percentage and goalie B has a .910, for example, what does that tell you aside from goalie B is stopping more shots? A simple way to look at it is that goalie A will let up ten out of every 100 shots he sees, while goalie B only lets up nine. Big deal, right? Prompted by Eric T.’s article over at …
This week’s Crashing the Crease comes to you with a somber tone, as the Flyers’ season appears primed to crash and burn. Some of the same wretched storylines we’re so used to being beaten over the head with are creeping into view: “Should [insert Flyers coach] be worried about his job? Who should the Flyers next goalie be? What major move will the Flyers make to fix this?” Part of the issue, in my mind, is this overly reactive approach from the top down. Don’t get me wrong — I love and respect what Ed Snider did for the city …
How much can one reasonably expect from a goaltender when playing him almost nightly behind a worn down, somewhat-ramshackle NHL defense? If you live in Philadelphia, the answer may be to simply look at his cap hit for your answer. Recently, there’s been a lot of talk regarding Ilya Bryzgalov and how well he “should” be playing based on his AAV of $5.67 million. In a lot of ways, it’s a reliable fallback story for a season full of nearly regular Jekyll-and-Hyde nights where serious hockey analysis of defensive breakdowns and failed offensive forays will bore and confuse the average …
As we sit here in the midst of two days without Flyers hockey, let us take pause to reminisce about the old NHL: The forgotten, hazy days of yesteryear, in which teams had more than 21 hours between games, players skated on sharpened butter knives and, in one small corner of the league, an eccentric Russian goalie named Ilya Bryzgalov hitchhiked from Phoenix to Philadelphia and found a new providence, playing hockey for our boys in orange and black. This was a hopeful and optimistic time, one in which that entire City of Brotherly Love ever so quietly gazed with …
The Trenton Titans took on the Gwinnett Gladiators on Wednesday night as they sought to move within three games of .500 on the season and get a measure of revenge for a 4-2 loss in December. From the outset, it was clear tonight would be a back-and-forth affair. Unfortunately for Trenton, they again came up a little short, falling 3-2 to the Gladiators. The first period started out choppy, with the Titans (18-23-3-3) and Gladiators (29-18-2-1) exchanging icings and neither team finding a way to establish much sustained pressure. In what was probably the Titans’ best foray into the offensive …
Two weeks ago, I laid out my expectations for Ilya Bryzgalov’s season. In short, I expected him to start well thanks to his keeping the engine warmed up over in Russia, but my fear was the Flyers’ lacking defensive corps would take its toll on him and lead a to a mid-season slump. I felt that a .920-or-higher save percentage wasn’t too likely by season’s end. Early on, he’s fighting to prove me wrong, posting a pretty stellar .924 save percentage and a goals-against average of 2.19, especially given the support he’s had thus far. Right now, it isn’t that …
While the sport of hockey never went anywhere, NHL hockey has returned from the great beyond for a shortened 48-game season. With the impetus to get the season started quickly and wrap up before the new Collective Bargaining Agreement can expire again (pardon my hyperbole), “camps” have opened around the league and all of those changes that happened and got lost in the 119 days of revenue sharing, make-whole and @NHLPodium are now bubbling to the surface. Of course, being the Flyers, even a camp this short would have one requisite question to be answered: who will be the pretty ponies …
Word broke during the first period of the U.S. – Russia World Junior Championship game that the NHL has made a new proposal to the NHLPA, confirming Tweets made by Eklund last night on the topic I am told by a reliable source the NHL and NHLPA will be meeting Friday. — Hockey Buzz Eklund (@Eklund) December 28, 2012 More info regarding the latest new proposal here>hockeybuzz.com/blog/Eklund/NH… — Hockey Buzz Eklund (@Eklund) December 28, 2012 Pierre LeBrun of ESPN broke the new proposal down in greater detail. The key points are as follows: NHL now proposing 6-year limit on contracts, …
In my last post, I touched upon the concept of a release point and what it means to a goaltender when it comes to stuffing a breakaway attempt. This concept was also briefly touched on in my first post about Ilya Bryzgalov. The release point is pretty obvious: the location on the ice where the puck comes off of the stick of the shooter. For a clapper from the point, it’s right before the follow through, as the puck’s velocity carries it away from the stick. For a snap shot in tight, it’s that instant where the shooter’s arms stop …
We’re all Flyers fans here. Given that, we know the areas where the Orange and Black have consistently come up short. One of those, pardon my French, most damnably obvious areas has to be the shootout. The reality of just how bad this team is after the 65-minute mark may not be grasped by all, but a quick look at the stats reveals that the Flyers are very comfortable basement dwellers here. Thanks in large part to Winnipeg’s only having played in eight shootouts since re-expanding into the league, the Flyers sit firmly in 29th place in shootout wins. Their …