|
VJeff posted:Also, I will write a short essay (at least 250 words each) celebrating the skills and accomplishments of every goaltender who finishes ahead of Jimmy Howard in SV% this year titled "Goalies More Elite Than James Russell Howard III". September 4, 2013 What is this? As the quote suggests, back in September 2013, I made a toxx for the upcoming NHL season centered around Detroit Red Wings goaltender and one of my favorite players in hockey - Jimmy Howard. I just did it on kind of a lark at the time, not really knowing or caring where he would end up, but figuring he'd probably be around where he ended the previous year, 10th to 15th-ish place. Haha. Ha.  Ha. To make a long story short, injuries, both to the team's best players and himself, inconsistent play, a pretty bad defense to begin with and just a general pall of struggling mediocrity that covered the Red Wings for the whole year hit Howard particularly hard and it shows pretty clearly through all his stats. He ended the year rubbing elbows with goaltending luminaries such as Carter Hutton and Ilya Brygalov and I had myself one hell of a bunch of writing to get to. Now, I just want to make something clear immediately: I loving love goalies. In a way, my own laziness notwithstanding, this is the perfect project for me - I'm not just biased towards my goaltender, I am biased towards EVERY goaltender. I find the level of guts and skill it takes to play the position even remotely effectively inspiring and I find the uniformly insane personalities the position attracts to be completely engaging in a league where every skater is more of a beep-boop "GOTTA PLAY OUR GAME GET PUCKS DEEP LISTEN TO OUR COACH" robot than the last. So, a project where I have an excuse to lavish praise on practically every goalie in the league and I just happen to get to skip Emery, Brodeur and Thomas? Yeah, that sounds okay.  How this is going to work: I'm going to be using the NHL.com SV% leaders stat page for the purposes of this project, where Jimmy Howard ranks 36th in SV% for the 2013-14 season. Everybody who finished above him on that page is going to get a short essay, at least 250 words, written about their exploits in the National Hockey League that, hopefully, has an overall positive bent to it. There's going to be tons mocking and derision thrown around in this project at various bodies within the NHL, but I hope to keep a pro-goaltender tone throughout most of it. This is, after all, a project meant to celebrate the goalies of the NHL, except the ones who ranked below Howard, who I will mock at every opportunity. Full disclosure - my initial plan was to spend the summer writing this and then post it all at once a little before the season started. Then I kinda pissed away most of the summer playing video games and watching baseball, then I kinda pissed away most of September doing the same thing. So to try and salvage this and make it so it's done before the freaking All Star Game, I'm going to post one or two essays per day, depending on how my buffer looks and how good I think each essay is to stand on its own. At the most conservative estimate, that'd have every essay done and this toxx concluded sometime in early November, which is a lot longer than I ever would've intended for it to take, but hey, it's where we are and at least it'll be done. I'm really sorry this has taken so long and I know this wasn't the way NHLSAS expected me to do this, but at this point, I think this is basically the only way it's gonna get done. I'd like to thank Hand Knit for helping me come to this idea to manage this project and kinda wish I had come up with it on my own back in loving July, but, again, here we are. Without further ado, let's begin our journey, exploring the life and careers of... THE 35 GOALIES MORE ELITE THAN JAMES RUSSEL HOWARD III 35. James Reimer 34. Craig Anderson 33. Jonas Hiller 32. Karri Ramo 31. Jhonas Enroth 30. Eddie Lack 29. Antti Niemi 28. Robin Lehner 27. Darcy Kuemper 26. Braden Holtby 25. Mike Smith 24. Marc-André Fleury 23. Jonathan Quick 22. Corey Crawford 21. Steve Mason 20. Ryan Miller 19. Roberto Luongo 18. Kari Lehtonen 17. Al Montoya 16. Thomas Greiss MJeff fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Oct 27, 2014 |
#
¿
Oct 10, 2014 02:20
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:18 |
|
|
 35. JAMES REIMER Team: Nationality: Canadian Age: 26 Draft Class: 2006 Hardware: Autobot Matrix of Leadership, 2013-14 National Hockey League Players Association Shakespearean Club Award for his rendition of Et Tu, Randy? 2013-14 GAA: 3.29 2013-14 SV%: .911 2013-14 W/L: 12-16-1 in 36 games Honestly, James Reimer could be the shittiest loving goalie in the National Hockey League (and, uh, based on his 2013-14 stats and his current career trajectory, don't sleep on that), but I'd still be exceptionally impressed with him as a person, just because of the massive torrent of pain and misery he's had to suffer since his entrance into the National Hockey League and the fact that he seems to actually still be a human being despite it all and not a shambling husk in a blue sweater. And I'm not just saying that purely because he's a Toronto Maple Leaf, I'm only saying it mostly because he's a Toronto Maple Leaf. Reimer's NHL career began in rather dramatic fashion late in the 2010-11 season when, as the Marlies starter, he was called up to spell current Leafs 'tenders Jonas Gustavsson and Jean Sebastien Giguere, both of whom were suffering from a mix of injuries and an acute case of "poo poo at hockey syndrome", the source of which is still believed to be festering in the Leafs locker room, infecting players and coaches to this day. Reimer made the most of his opportunity and made a very fast impression on the Leafs faithful, who, upon seeing his spectacular play down the stretch, all stood as one and shouted "HOLY poo poo, OUR GUY IS ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO STOP THE PUCK?!" The Leafs failed to make the playoffs by about eight points (write that down, it's gonna come up again), despite a strong late surge, but Reimer, now carrying nicknames such as Optimus Reim and The Statue made an impression that nobody was going to forget anytime soon. Reimer was named the starter to begin the 2011-12 season and picked up exactly where he left off. He started out 4-0-1 and amidst a similarly blazing start by  AMERICAN HERO PHIL "THE THRILL" KESSEL , it looked like for the first time in a long time, things were looking up in Toronto and their exciting young goalie was at the center of that. Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen everything went to poo poo. During a game with the Montreal Canadiens, Reimer was run into by forward Brian Gionta. Reimer finished the period, but would not finish the game and was sent to the Injured Reserve with what the Leafs called "whiplash" because the Leafs are loving stupid and don't think we know a motherfucking concussion when we see one. Long story short, Reimer missed a huge chunk of the season and was really bad when he came back. Then he started to get good again! But then because apparently God hates this poor guy, he got hit with a neck injury and was sidelined for the rest of the season and the Leafs wound up with the dubious distinction of 3rd worst team in the Eastern Conference. Not the coming out for Reimer that ANYONE had expected at the start of the year, save the noble subset of Leafs fans who are dead enough inside to know that everything related to this miserable fuckup of a team is going to end in a torrent of pain and despair but continue to root for them anyway because, eh, excuse to get together on Saturday night and get hammered. But at least at this point, it can't get worse for Reimer, right? You beautiful, naive, stupid idiot. Reimer was, again, the starter to begin the lockout-shortened 2012-2013 season. The lockout actually provided Reimer some measure of good fortune by allowing him to get healthy, healthy enough to make sure young Marlies goalie upstart Ben Scrivens was unable to challenge his position. Reimer went on to have a much improved season, posting a .924 SV% while facing a, scientifically speaking, absolutely retarded amount of shots. Given the insane defensive structures the Leafs played under new coach Randy Carlyle, Reimer had about the best year possible you could've asked of him and helped the Leafs to their first playoff berth in nearly a decade and a round 1 matchup against the dreadnought of the East, the Boston Bruins. As he had done all year, Reimer battled a team with vastly superior personnel and vastly superior coaching and somehow managed to keep the Leafs in it enough to bring them all the way back from a 3-1 deficit to force game 7 in TD Garden. Then, Reimer put on his best show yet and smothered just about any offense the Bruins tried to generate for a solid 50 minutes while his teammates came out flying and stunned the Bruins to the tune of a 4-1 lead. With just 10 minutes to go, Reimer and the Leafs were on the cusp of knocking off the class of the Eastern Conference in their own barn. Theeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen everything went to poo poo. The Bruins came without pause after scoring about halfway into the third period and the Leafs, young and inexperienced as they were, had no counter. Reimer in particular suddenly became, as Jack Edwards meaningfully termed it "a rebound machine". In absolutely ridiculous fashion, the Leafs surrendered a two goal lead in less than 60 seconds with the Bruins' goalie pulled and were forced into an overtime where, with the sucker punch they'd just been dealt, there was only one outcome. Unable to stop coughing up rebounds, Reimer gave one to the exact wrong person, Patrice Bergeron, who put the finishing touches on one of the most inexplicable meltdowns in recent NHL history. The Leafs were stunned. Reimer was stunned. The Bruins were jubilant. They were moving on. The Leafs weren't. A season that many had thought a success now had a profoundly bitter aftertaste and the only thing more inexplicable than the collapse of the Leafs' players was the way the Leafs' management and coaches reacted. Reimer had been a bright spot for Toronto the entire year. A young starter - still only 25! - that they could build their team around, supplement the holes in their defense and depth scoring with and be prepared to make a better run the next year. So obviously, they traded for the Kings' backup and stuck Reimer on the bench. Yeah. I know. I don't get it either. Yes. Bernier. Yes. Ben Scrivens, Matt Frattin and a 2nd. No, it actually happened. Yeah, I know. In the midst of an absolutely mystifying offseason (just thank your lucky loving stars this isn't the Goal Scorers Less Elite Than Todd Bertuzzi essay 'cause I would have some poo poo to say about David Clarkson), the Leafs traded for Jonathan Bernier from the Los Angeles Kings, giving themselves a goaltending controversy entirely of their own design. Bernier and Reimer initially split time, but Bernier quickly earned the starting role and Reimer found himself parked on the bench less than a year after the best season of his life and the best season a Leafs goaltender had put together in a long time. When Bernier was injured late in the year as the Leafs were trying to remain in playoff position, they called to Reimer, hoping he could do the same thing he'd done the previous year. No such luck. The thing about being forced into the role of backup for most of the year is that it hadn't exactly done great things for Reimer's confidence. He floundered, head coach Randy Carlyle, let's say, did not take the opportunity to boost his young struggling goaltender's confidence and before you could say "That's loving moronic", the Leafs had gone back to starting an obviously not fully recovered Bernier for the remainder of the season. With an obviously injured and overtaxed Bernier and a confidence-shot Reimer, what the gently caress do you THINK happened? The Leafs lost 8 straight, fell out of playoff position and, say it with me, failed to make the playoffs by about eight points. Reimer took the high road and asked for a trade instead of choking Carlyle and General Manager Dave Nonis to death with his jockstrap, but then for some reason, he went to arbitration with the Leafs where he was awarded a two year, 2.3mil/year contract. I may just be protecting the actions of another Canadian front office on to the Leafs here, but I have the feeling Reimer isn't being traded anytime soon, so he's probably stuck as the Leafs backup for the immediate future unless Bernier gets run out of town first. But despite all of this, I don't think Reimer's a bad goalie. I think when he showed in 2011 and 2013 is the "real" James Reimer and it's just been mired in bad defense and coaching and the stupefying level of drama that always seems to follow the Leafs. If he can put up with another two years of insanely bad goalie coaching, league high shot attempts against and a total lack of confidence from his head coach and general manager, then maybe he can get to a nice team like San Jose or Dallas or Pittsburgh where the coaches can fix him, the fans will know to appreciate a goalie with his level of talent and he can get his freaking career back on track. If anyone can do it, I think he can.  If you can bounce back from this, you can bounce back from anything. Count: 1558 Words Total Count So Far: 1558 Words MJeff fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Oct 11, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2014 02:22
|
|
|
ThinkTank posted:This is an acceptable solution. However they all better be as good as that Reimer one. That might be hard. Not every team is gonna give me as much material as the Leafs. 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2014 02:39
|
|
|
HOW COULD YOU posted:Yesssss the jimmy toxx is the best toxx. I may start doing this and keep a master count in the OP since I'm gonna word count each one before I post it just to make sure.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 10, 2014 06:04
|
|
|
  34. CRAIG ANDERSON Team: Ottawa Senators Nationality: American Age: 33 Draft Class: 1999, 2001 Hardware: Ontario Dental Associations' "Best Smile in Ottawa" Award 2013-14 GAA: 3.00 2013-14 SV%:.911 2013-14 W/L: 25-16-8 in 53 games For a long drat time, Craig Anderson just seemed to be one of those interchangeable 30-something journeyman goalies who, when you mentioned him, the person you were talking to just went "who?" and then when you'd describe him, they'd say "Jose Theodore?" and then you'd just kinda let out a sigh and say Sure, Jose Theodore. 'Cause, c'mon, they're basically the same guy. Credit where credit is due though, Anderson, at least temporarily, managed to become something more than that. For the first stage of his career, Anderson struggled to stay in the NHL with any level of consistency, was eventually traded from the Blackhawks and kicked around with the Panthers and Avs for a while, where he played as both the backup and the starter. The 2009-2010 season was a particularly noteworthy one for him, where he posted 38 wins for the Avs and backstopped them to the playoffs where he spun what could be considered his masterwork as a goaltender: A 52 save shutout against the San Jose Sharks in support of one of the most offensively anemic teams you will ever see. How anemic? The Avalanche won the game 1-0 in overtime because the Sharks scored an own goal. Safe to say that if the Sharks hadn't put it in their own net, the Avs would've been content to continue sitting their all night twiddling their thumbs until Anderson said "gently caress THIS!" and scored the goal himself by banking it in off Joe Thornton's giant dopefiend head. One way or another, the shutout is one of the great playoff goaltending performances of the last few years and it's just a shame that that Avs team loving sucked, because they lost in 6 games to the Sharks anyway and Anderson, presumably deciding that he'd used up all the good goaltending he was ever going to bother wasting on that organization, struggled mightily in 2011 until the Avs traded him in February, giving him up to acquire Brian Elliott from the Ottawa Senators. Who...for some reason thought trading a bad goaltender (who ranks a lot higher than Anderson on this list, go figure) for a good one when they were close to a spot in the draft lottery with about two months left to go in the season was a good idea. Anderson went 11-5-1 the rest of the way for the Senators, dragging them kicking and screaming away from the bottom of the standings. They would go on to draft 6th overall and pick Mika Zibanejad while their erstwhile trade partners, the Colorado Avalanche, drafted 2nd overall and got Gabriel Landeskog. Whoops. As for Anderson, he's done very well for himself while also being unfortunate enough to happen to be on the Ottawa Senators. 33 wins in 2011-12 and a .933 SV% in the playoffs weren't enough as his team failed to mount any kind of meaningful assault against Henrik Lundqvist and his team was dispatched by the New York Rangers in the 1st round in 7 games. An absolutely sterling start in 2013 that had everybody mentioning Anderson as a very real Vezina candidate and even as far as a potential starter for Team USA in Sochi 2014 was abruptly derailed when an injury at the hands of New York Rangers forward Chris Kreider (remember that name! It's definitely showing up again!) sidelined him for much of the shortened season. Though he managed to recover for the playoffs and was central to a quick and thorough defeat of the Montreal Canadiens in the first round of the playoffs, it was spoiled be an equally quick and far more thorough thrashing at the hands of the Pittsburgh Penguins, of which nobody on the Senators really managed to look good coming out of, Anderson included. Whether it was luck or skill holding up Anderson to that point for the Senators, it ran out with a vengeance in 2013-14 as Anderson, along with the rest of the team, were seriously dreadful enough to chase off two captains in the space of one year. Anderson wound up with a thoroughly crummy .911 SV%, the worst mark he's had as a starter in the NHL in his entire career. It doesn't seem like he's going to follow Alfredsson or Spezza on the "get the gently caress out of town" train anytime soon as he signed an extension that will keep him a Senator all the way through 2019 and, given his age, probably the rest of his career or at least the rest of his prime years. A quick look at the Senators roster (they're still giving Jared Cowen top minutes, I know, it's loving awesome), their management and especially their owner would indicate that it's probably not going to get much better than 2013 for Anderson anytime soon unless he really digs deep. So yeah. If current trends hold (which I hope they don't, 'cause it really was awesome what he did to start 2013), he's basically Craijoseter Theobudaibibulin again. But for a while there, he was just Craig Anderson. And Craig Anderson was just a really good goalie. Also, gently caress Chris Kreider. Count: 856 Words Total Count So Far: 2414 Words
|
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2014 00:22
|
|
|
Baw gawd, it's  DOUBLE FLAMES GOALIE SATURDAY  33. JONAS HILLER Team: Calgary Flames Nationality: Swiss Age: 32 Draft Class: Undrafted Hardware: NHL All Star Game (2010-2011), U2 "How Long How Long Until I Can loving Stand Up And Get Back In The Net Again" Award 2013-14 GAA: 2.48 2013-14 SV%: .911 2013-14 W/L: 29-13-7 in 50 games Goaltenders who overcome normally debilitating ailments to come back to the NHL and continue to play are just the coolest thing in the world to me. It just happens to be a coincidence that Jonas Hiller is also a loving badass with a loving awesome mask who used to be one of the really great goaltenders in the league, at least in my estimation. Hiller started his career in the 2007-08 season on the (then defending champ) Anaheim Ducks as the backup to Jean Sebastien Giguere, his performance as backup convincing enough to Brian Burke to get him to waive goaltender Ilya Bryzgalov (who won't be appearing in these essays so I'll just take this opportunity to say - hey, remember when Philly paid him all that money?  ). From there, it wasn't long at all until Hiller asserted himself as the Ducks starter and in the 2009 playoffs, played an integral part in an absurd upset. The San Jose Sharks, President's Trophy winners, Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Devin Setoguchi, Joe Pavelski, Milan Michalek, Christian Ehrhoff, Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Evgeni Nabakov. Didn't mean a drat thing. Hiller pitched two shutouts. Only gave up more than two goals once en route to a defeat of the Sharks in 6 games. Before anyone even knew what the hell had happened, the best team in the league was going home in the first round and the 8th seeded Ducks were going on to face the defending champs, the Red Wings. As he did to the #1 seed, Hiller almost did to the champs as well, 59 saves in a Game 2 triple overtime victory. 46 saves in a Game 3 victory. 39 saves in Game 6 to keep the Ducks' season alive. 36 saves in Game 7 in Joe Louis Arena to almost, almost pull off another insane upset but come up just one squibber that he lost sight of under his pads too short. Regardless of the result, when you look at the Ducks in 2009, how far they made it and how far they could have made it if they'd come up with one more goal against the Red Wings, a lot of it circles back to Hiller putting on a simply phenomenal preformance, to the tune of a .943 SV% in 13 games. 2009-10 was a considerably more auspicious year for Hiller and the Ducks and despite him posting 30 wins, the Ducks failed to make the playoffs. 2010-11 was a year that started out great for Hiller, named to the All Star Game, but immediately after the break, he began suffering from lightheadedness which eventually came out to be symptoms of Vertigo. Hiller was off and on sidelined due to the symptoms throughout the rest of the year, the frustration of the symptoms' stubbornness only eventually topped by him being forced to watch Dan Ellis and Ray Emery flounder around for the Ducks in net as they were chewed up and spit out by the Predators in the first round of the playoffs in 6 games. The Ducks as a team were godawful in 2011-12 and Hiller wasn't really any better, despite posting nearly 30 wins again (to go with 30 losses and 12 OTL, eugh) and in the shortened 2013 season, he found himself splitting time with newcomer Viktor Fasth. Despite the Ducks finishing in the number 2 seed and Hiller being named the starter for the playoffs, the Ducks were defeated in 7 games, again by the Detroit Red Wings, but by a much, much less potent iteration of the team than 5 years prior. Hiller finished the year with a .913 and the playoffs with a .917 and things didn't really improve from there. In 2013-14, he continued to lose time to Fasth and newcomers Frederik Andersen and John Gibson. Hiller would wind up outright losing his job in the playoffs and not ever getting it back, leaving the Ducks for good to sign with the Calgary Flames as a free agent. It's overly simplistic to say that Hiller "just hasn't been the same" since his vertigo and it's similarly disingenuous to say that he's a one-hit wonder whose only truly impressive moment was the 2009 playoffs. The nightmare 2011-12 season for the Ducks certainly seems like it was the beginning of Hiller's descent into mediocrity, but who knows, maybe he'll catch on with the young, rebuilding Flames while the Ducks keep on finding new ways to have an awesome regular season and then blow it in game 7 at home in front of a huge crowd that's almost half composed of their own fans. He seems to do his best work as an underdog anyway. Count: 782 Words Total Count So Far: 3196 Words
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2014 01:24
|
|
|
 32. KARRI RAMO Team: Calgary Flames Nationality: Finnish Age: 28 Draft Class: 2004 Hardware: Psychic Hockey Players Association Player Of the Year Award For: "Telekinetically Making A Puck Hit Dave Bolland in the Crotch" 2013-14 GAA: 2.65 2013-14 SV%: .911 2013-14 W/L: 17-15-4 in 40 games Who? ....the dude that replaced Kiprusoff? Wait, Kiprusoff retired? No, no, no, I'm sure he's still playing. I would've heard about it if he had retired. Yes, I'm sure, the dude is a loving hall of famer! He deserved to win the Conn smythe in 2004! He's a Vezina winner! He didn't just loving retire and nobody said anything about it, I'm sure. A YEAR AGO? What the gently caress, we'll do a farewell tour for Teemu Selanne's old busted rear end, nobody will shut up about him for a year, he'll turn into the motherfucking Derek Jeter of hockey, but one of the best finns to ever put on the mask and pads retires and nobody even says anything about it?! And the Flames wouldn't even trade him to a contender to give him a shot at a cup? For God's sake, he led their team in Wins, Shutouts and Games Played! Miika Kiprusoff was so loving good for the Flames in 2004, he had 15 wins, a 1.85 GAA, a .928 SV% and five shutouts. You wanna know what that team was? That team was him and Jarome Iginla pulling a big fat wagon of WHO GIVES A gently caress all the way to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals! Yeah, we'll give Giggy and Selanne a victory lap before the start of a game when neither one's doing poo poo, we'll go on ~Iginla Watch~ for seven months to see what team he's gonna blow a tire on in the 2nd round this year, but we can't even get something more than "oh yeah, well, I guess he told a Finnish magazine he's done" for the motherfucking Kipper? Okay. Whatever. Screw all of you. What? Karri Ramo? ... Who? Count: 292 Words Total Count So Far: 3488
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2014 01:29
|
|
|
CBJSprague24 posted:I'm in love with the fact that there will be Ramo-esque essays for Thomas Greiss, Al Montoya, Robin Lehner, and Jhonas Enroth. I don't like using the same joke too many times, but it may be hard to avoid for a couple of those guys. But not this one!  31. JHONAS ENROTH Team: Buffalo Sabres Nationality: Swedish Age: 26 Draft Class: 2006 Hardware: Silver Medal (Team Sweden, 2014 Olympics), Gold Medal (Team Sweden, 2013 World Championships) Five Time Champion at the First Niagara Center Family Restaurant Placemat Maze Tournament 2013-14 GAA: 2.82 2013-14 SV%: .911 2013-14 W/L: 4-17-5 in 28 games I'd be absolutely stunned if Jhonas Enroth hasn't knitted a quilt that says "Always the bridemaid, never the bride." at some point in his life. He's certainly had the time to do it while he's spent most of his career on the bench. Every year since Enroth entered the NHL on a permanent basis, Sabres franchise goaltender Ryan Miller has started 66 games, 61 games, 40 games (shortened season) and 40 games (traded mid-season). He's had about 20 minutes of playoff experience in his entire career, coming only in game 7 of a 2011 series between the Sabres and the Flyers, when the Flyers had spanked Miller so thoroughly, Lindy Ruff had no choice but to pull his ace and put in Enroth in the desperate hope that it would spur his jackass can't-get-past-the-first-round can't-do-poo poo-unless-hasek-is-dragging-them-by-the-ears wah-wah-our-tummies-hurt-please-stop-throttling-us-hurricanes no account pack of losers to do something in a series that they at one point had a 3-1 lead while being up 3 games to 2 in. They didn't. They lost 5-2 and the honor of getting their clocks cleaned by the Bruins went to the Flyers instead of the Sabres. And that was the last time the Sabres would make the playoffs until now and likely for a very, very long while. And Enroth just continued being a footnote in thee Sabres' descent into mediocrity. Ryan Miller kept playing his balls off and Enroth kept getting 15ish games a year, but the Sabres just sucked way too much to get anywhere relevant again, missing by just 3 points in 2011-2012 and then pretty much bottoming out, posting the 4th worst record in the East in 2013 and an alarming, hilarious, '75 Caps-esque record of 21-51-10 to secure far and away the worst record the NHL had seen in some time. More on that in a minute though. The Sabres aren't the only team that Enroth has played for in his career, though and in that story lies his sole moment of relevance. After the 2013 lockout shortened regular season ended with all the GOOD Swedish goalies going off to play for the Stanley Cup, the Tre Kronor tapped Jhonas Enroth to represent his country in the World Championships. He was, simply put, sensational. In 7 games, he posted a 1.15 GAA, a .956 SV% and had two shutouts en route to backstopping Sweden to the gold medal and earning himself honors of best goaltender in the tournament and a place on the tournament all-star team. That chump Lundqvist couldn't have done it better himself. Probably in no small part due to his outstanding performance in the 2013 World Championships, Enroth was named the backup in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi... ...where he didn't play a single minute in the tournament behind Henrik Lundqvist and the team lost its top 3 centers, including losing Nicklas Backstrom the day of the gold medal game because somebody loving forgot to tell him sudafed is a banned substance or whatever stupid poo poo went down then. So yeah, they lost and Enroth got to relive his routine as a Buffalo Sabre overseas, watching his team get spanked from the bench. Not to say silver's bad. Silver's good, especially when you lose Henrik Sedin and Henrik Zetterberg like, freakin' immediately. When he got back to the NHL, he resumed duties as the Sabres backup until the Sabres did what they should've done like two years ago and finally loving traded Ryan Miller, offloading him to the St. Louis Blues for picks, prospects and a streaky goal scoring winger. In the absence of Miller, Enroth played mop-up duty (the only reason he even played enough games to qualify for this essay in the first place) along with trade deadline pick-up Michal Neuvirth for the rest of the garbage fire of a season and going into the 2014-15 season, finally seems to have won his shot to be an NHL starter... ...for the worst team the NHL has seen in the last, like, 10 years. Eugh. Better luck in the McDavid era, eh, Jhonas? Eh, they'll probably just replace him when they're done rebuilding. Count: 693 Words Total Count So Far: 4181
|
|
#
¿
Oct 13, 2014 02:30
|
|
|
 30. EDDIE LACK Team: Vancouver Canucks Nationality: Swedish Age: 26 Draft Class: Undrafted Hardware: Depends' Protective Undergarments "Guard Man of the Year" 2013-14 GAA: 2.41 2013-14 SV%: .912 2013-14 W/L: 16-17-5 in 41 Games Oh, goodie, we're to the part of this thing where we get to start talking about whatever the gently caress happened in Vancouver the past three years. Spectaular. Eddie Lack is a young, swedish goaltender who, despite being ranked 9th among European Goaltenders (which, I dunno, seems pretty good to me? At least enough to make it worth snagging him over some truculent punchman shmuck that's never even cracking the AHL), went unselected in the 2009 NHL Draft and went to play in Sweden instead, where he garnered the attention of Vancouver Canucks scouts and was signed to a two year entry-level contract to play in their organization. This is in 2010. He's behind Cory Schneider and Roberto fuckmothering Luongo on the depth chart. You've gotta believe that this poor kid is never making it to Vancouver as the backup muchless anything else, right? Well. You're gonna wanna sit down. This is where things get a little convoluted and a lot crazy. So on June 15th 2011, Mike Gillis lost his flipping mind, Roberto Luongo became a scapegoat (that's putting it lightly) for the failures of a bunch of chumps who wouldn't know how to check Patrice Bergeron or Brad Marchand if the instructions were written on the back of their jerseys, which the Canucks stared at, bleary-eyed, as they continued into the slot uncontested and scored another loving shorthanded goal, became increasingly lambasted for the team's failures and started ceding more and more time to Cory Schneider, culminating with Schneider becoming the starter in 2013 and it looking like Luongo would be traded at some point or another. Then, uh, Schneider was the one who got traded and Luongo became the starter again! So Lack was called up to be Luongo's backup under new coach, John Tortorella. As backup, Lack proved he had the chops to play in the National Hockey League, but he and Luongo were pretty much the only ones. Due to a combination of injuries and...whatever the hell Tortorella had them doing that he apparently construed as "standing up for themselves", the Canucks faltered to the worst season they'd had in years. Lack continued to earn time, culminating in a prestigous start at the Heritage Classic in B.C. Place. ...which then directly led to him earning a lot more time, because Lack getting the start over Luongo burned the latter so much, he was traded to Florida and Lack became the starter for the rest of the year. This got Lack playing time, but didn't really help his stats much as the Canucks were still mired in a torrent of injuries and drama that you'd expect more out of Toronto than Vancouver and, as you might've guessed, led to some lovely, lovely hockey and the Canucks missing the playoffs for the first time in, god, I dunno, six years? But what was done was done. The Canucks had entered a rebuilding period and even after casting off Luongo and Schneider, they somehow, still had a pretty decent goaltender to lean on. Lack had shown what he was - a big, young goaltender with mobility, the ability to keep his team in games (I was particularly impressed at his play against my team, the Red Wings, late in the season. Seemed like he was the only guy in blue who was even half-engaged) and if nothing else, he was at least a guy that could go out and eat up some starts while they focused on getting their team back to a competitive state, as several consecutive years of aging, injuries, ill-advised trades and free agent departures had pretty much rendered the Canucks inert. Lack was by no means an elite starter, but he had the chops to become a drat good one and the trade of Roberto Luongo had also secured blue chip goalie prospect Jakob Markstrom, so at least the Canucks wouldn't have to worry too much about their 'tending as they went into this transitional phase. So naturally, they signed Ryan Miller (and Radim Vrbata  ) in free agency, relegating Lack back to the role of the backup. Because...Ryan Miller. And Radim Vrbata. Are gonna fix ALL of the Canucks problems. Sigh. Well, on the bright side, the way this organization works, Lack'll probably be the starter again by this time next year anyway. Count: 729 Words Total Count So Far: 4910
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2014 02:09
|
|
|
grack posted:Hate to tell you this but Radim Vrbata's played very well for the 'Nucks so far. How he plays isn't really the point, the point is that Vrbata and Miller aren't really what the Canucks need right now, at least in my estimation. Also, it's like two games into the year. Although I see his contract is a lot better than I initially thought, although I also see it has a partial NTC.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2014 02:24
|
|
|
If the most controversial thing I wind up saying in this whole thing winds up being a totally offhand remark about Radim Vrbata, 1) lol 2) I think that means I'm not trying hard enough.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2014 10:35
|
|
|
 29. ANTTI NIEMI Team: San Jose Sharks Nationality: Finnish Age: 31 Draft Class: Undrafted Hardware: 2009-10 Stanley Cup Champion, Bronze Medal (2014 Winter Olympics), Most Curse Words Ever Yelled in Finnish By Someone Living in San Jose (seriously, just read his lips when he allows a goal) 2013-14 GAA: 2.39 2013-14 SV%: .911 2013-14 W/L: 39-17-7 in 64 games Oh hey, we've gotten to the San Jose Sharks. I'm pretty sure that's swahili for "Repeated Misery in June". Antti Niemi was an undrafted goaltender, who signed a free agent deal to play in the Blackhawks organization in 2008. He then spent most of the 2008-09 season in the AHL, splitting time with another Blackhawks prospect, Corey Crawford before eventually making the team fulltime in 2009-10, splitting time with Cristobal Huet. After a very good regular season, Niemi was named the starter for the playoffs over Huet and only went on to spin two shutouts and carry the Blackhawks all the way to their first motherfucking Stanley Cup in 50 years! Not bad for your rookie season, huh? (I don't know if that actually counts as his rookie season) "But VJeff", I hear you say, "That Blackhawks team was more stacked than my grandma's gigantic tits! Any idiot could've backstopped them to a cup! Including my incredibly sensual, erotic grandmother!" First off, gross. Second, the team being good doesn't take away from how good Niemi was. Do you know how easy it is for a good team to be completely neutralized if their goaltending is poo poo? Take a quick look at the Hawks in 2012 and get back to me. Niemi had to face down the Canucks, Sharks and Flyers, all incredibly talented offensive teams and came out on top. He also beat the Preds. Remember that how the Preds had a 1 goal lead and a 5 minute PP and still lost? Man that was funny as poo poo. Anyway, Niemi was good for the Hawks in 2010 playoffs and that's worth something, dammit, so don't give me this "bleh bleh anybody could've won that cup" crap. Speakin' of the Sharks, this is where they enter the story. Suffice it to say, the Blackhawks had some, ahhhhh, accounting boo-boos in the 2010 offseason (I would think making sure your loving fax machine works when July rolls around is a priority for an NHL front office, but apparently not!) and when Niemi was given a 2.75mil award in arbitration, the Blackhawks walked away to sign, not makin' this up, Marty Turco instead. Because who wouldn't want to find a way to make room in their cap for their cup winning goaltender when you can sign a guy that was good 10 years ago?! Although the Blackhawks horeshitted their way to another cup a few years later anyway, so, shows what the gently caress I know. Anyway, when the Hawks walked away, Niemi became an Unrestricted Free Agent and the Sharks jumped on that, signing Niemi to a 1-year contract to help them replace long time goaltending mainstay that at this point was held together with cheap russian vodka and duct tape, Evgeni Nabakov. Niemi initially struggled with the Sharks, splitting time with phonetically similar goaltender and FHM superstud, Antero Niittymäki, but before long, he locked down the job as starter, along with a four year contract extension. Niemi picked up where he'd left off in the playoffs, dealing a swift defeat to the Los Angeles Kings and jumping out to a 3-games-to-none lead over the Detroit Red Wings. Some shaky play from Niemi and the Sharks saw the lead evaporate and a Game 7 at the Shark Tank, but there, Niemi locked it down with a vengeance, the only blemishes on him a goal by Henrik Zetterberg and a truly absurd, borderline-unstoppable backhanded tally from Pavel Datsyuk in a decisive 3-2 victory that sent the Sharks to the Western Conference Finals for the second year in a row, where he'd be facing a familiar opponent, the Vancouver Canucks. Things went differently this time as the Canucks, eventually on one of the craziest goals ever, where the puck bounced off the stanchion and everybody except Kevin Bieksa lost track of it, defeated the Sharks in 5 games, sending the Sharks home in the third round for the second time. This can't really be qualified as a choke. The Canucks in 2011 were an outstanding team, one of the best offensive teams the modern NHL has ever seen, maybe and the Sharks had just been through an incredibly grueling 7 games series while the Canucks had been sitting pretty the whole time although it certainly didn't help that the Sharks thought dressing Ben fuckin' Eager was a good idea. Niemi and the Sharks had a much more middling 2011-12 season, particularly down the stretch, eventually culminating in them getting dispensed by the St. Louis Blues in a pretty simple 5-game defeat. This was not a choke. The Blues in 2012 looked like world beaters until they ran into the Kings' buzzsaw and they caught the Sharks at the lowest point of their year, which just unfortunately to be as the playoffs started. It happens. 2013 was a very different story. Niemi was simply sensational the entire shortened season, posting 2.16 and a .924 to go with 24 wins in 43 games. He wound up a Vezina finalist and the Sharks went into the playoffs against the Canucks in the first round, where they took their pound of flesh back for 2011, sweeping Vancouver in brutal fashion (when Raffi Torres beats you, you know your rear end just got beat) and going on to face the defending champs, the Kings. What followed was a grueling series which saw the home team win every game. Unfortunately, the Sharks were the lower seed in this case. This wasn't a choke. The Kings were one year removed from a championship in both directions and this was a rough, rough series that just happened to wear down the Kings a little bit less at the end. The Kings wound up so worn down from beating the Sharks, they didn't have much of an answer at all to the Chicago Blackhawks and were dispensed in 5 games in the Western Conference Finals. 2013-14 was a great year for the Sharks but not a pretty one for Niemi. He posted nearly 40 wins, but didn't really look like the same Vezina finalist of the year before, ending the year with, for him, pretty pedestrian numbers of 2.39 and .913. It didn't look like it'd be a problem going into the playoffs as the Sharks absolutely pounced on the Kings, leaping out to a 3-games-to-none lead before the Kings had any idea what the hell had happened. A trip to the second round for the Sharks and a trip back to Hollywood for the Kings seemed inevitab-  Uh - as I was saying, the Sharks would be heading on to play Anaheim in no t-  On their way to play the Du-  What the gently caress is going on?! Yeah, so, apparently the Kings ate their loving wheaties after getting beat in overtime in Game 3, because they came like a goddamn wrecking ball at the Sharks after that to win three straight. But hey, Niemi had been in this situation before, against the Red Wings. It was the same situation: they'd lost 3 games in a row, but they were going back to the Shark Tank for game 7. He just had to do the same thing he'd done then and the Sharks would move on. It wouldn't be pretty, but what in hockey is?  Hoooooly loving poo poo. ... ....this one's kind of a choke! I mean, don't get me wrong. The Kings turned out to be an incredibly legit team, demonstrated by them winning the loving cup that year, but when you're up 3-0 and you're 3-0 in such dominating fashion, how the hell do you not manage to string together one more win in 4 attempts? And Niemi allowed 11 goals in 3 losses, getting pulled for Alex Stalock twice and outright ceding the start in game 6 to him. In a series of frustrating losses for Niemi since he's joined the Sharks, this one's gotta be the worst. Niemi was fortunate (or maybe not, depending on how you feel about the moves they made) to survive the crazy restructuring the Sharks underwent in the offseason and as of right now, it seems as though he's still the Sharks' #1 man in net, but if his 2014-15 is like his 2013-14 was, it seems hard to believe that he'll hold off up-and-comer Alex Stalock for long. His days as a Shark may be numbered one way or the other, with his contract expiring at the end of the year. You gotta believe the Sharks are just throwing crap at the walls at this point in the hope that SOMETHING will get them to the loving finals, and switching up their goaltender might just be next on the docket. Hell of it is, I dunno if I can blame them. I mean, I can blame them for signing John Scott and taking Thornton's C. That poo poo was dumb. But a change of scenery might be best for Niemi too. Since he joined the Sharks, it's just been one hard luck loss after another. Maybe somebody should check to see if the Shark Tank is built on native remains or some poo poo. .....who wants to look at Joe's dumb sad face again? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Stupid dopefiend. Count: 1578 Words Total Count So Far: 6488 Words
|
|
#
¿
Oct 15, 2014 01:03
|
|
|
Was it the pictures? It was the pictures wasn't it.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 15, 2014 02:02
|
|
|
 28. ROBIN LEHNER Team: Ottawa Senators Nationality: Swedish Age: 23 Draft Class: 2009 Hardware: 2011 Jack A. Butterfield Trophy as Calder Cup MVP, Johan Franzen's Goalie of the Year 2013-14 GAA: 3.06 2013-14 SV%: .913 2013-14 W/L: 12-15-6 in 36 games Holy hot prospects, Batman! It's Robin, the Boy Goaltender! ...yeah, I'm pretty disappointed that there's no pictures out there of Lehner's head photoshopped on to Robin's body. Anyway. Robin Lehner's a bit of an odd case. A soccer player as a young man, he only became a hockey player very late, at the age of 10 years old. By age 17, he was touted as one of the top goaltenders in his age bracket and at age 18, he was drafted by the Ottawa Senators and no sooner did he get to Sault Ste. Marie did the Ottawa press annoint him a top goaltending prospect who would bring stability to an organization that had had to trust its cup hopes to Ray loving Emery and then proceeded to get exactly what you deserve when you trust your hopes to Ray loving Emery. The Senators were apparently super loving eager to get Lehner NHL time as soon as possible, because they moved him from the OHL to the AHL starting with the 2010-11 season then called him up to the NHL as an injury replacement not two drat days after his first AHL start! Playing a few minutes of mop up time at the end of the 3rd, Lehner became the youngest swedish goaltender to ever play in the NHL at age 19, beating out professional benchwarmer Jhonas Enroth by about two years. He spent most of the rest of the season in the AHL, culminating in an impressive Calder Cup run with the Binghamton Senators, where he posted a 2.10, .939 and 3 shutouts en route to the Calder Cup Trophy and the Jack A. Butterfield (awesome name) trophy as playoff MVP. Not bad for only 19 years old, eh? Since then, Lehner's bounced back and forth between Binghamton and Ottawa, getting a handful of starts and posting some decent stats (.935 in 2011-12, .936 in 2012-13), even getting some playoff time in 2012-13 because Craig Anderson couldn't stop getting blown the hell out by the Penguins, before eventually becoming a full-time player in the NHL in 2013-14 and putting together some.....less impressive stats at 3.06 and .913. Just like with Craig Anderson's awful year, it's hard to tell how much of that is the fault of the goaltender and how much of it is the Senators being awful. I'm inclined to go with the latter in this case because of Lehner's good track record the last few years and the Senators thinking Jared Cowen is a defenseman worth giving top minutes to, but unfortunately that doesn't really give good tidings because, much like with Anderson, it doesn't look like Lehner's getting the benefit of a better team around him anytime soon. But hey, maybe if he's as good as the hype that's been surrounding him for years, he can become good enough to win the Senators' games despite that, play himself out of the Senators budget and then they can lowball him and run him out of town while Melnyk tries to fleece the city for casino money or whatever in the tradition of the greatest players to don the Senators uniform before him! Count: 528 Words Total Count So Far: 7016
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2014 00:28
|
|
|
Holy poo poo, I'm writing 35 essays and Jimmy Howard's number is 35. I just now realized that. 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2014 00:30
|
|
|
 27. DARCY KUEMPER Team: Minnesota Wild Nationality: Canadian Age: 24 Draft Class: 2009 Hardware: 2013 Zac Efron Lookalike 2013-14 GAA: 2.43 2013-14 SV%: .913 2013-14 W/L: 12-8-4 in 26 games Kuemper, that's a weird name, huh? It's pronounced KEM-PURRR. Like the sound a cat makes. And Darcy? Don't get me started on Darcy! That's a girl's name! Hahahaha, what a weirdo. Girl's Name Cat Noise. Maybe he should be playing for the Panthers instead of the Wild, huh?! Although I guess the Wild's mascot kinda looks like a cat... ....how many words is that? Only 65? Holy poo poo. Are there any good goalies in the Wild's history that didn't get enough attention that I can blather on about instead? No? Can I spend the whole time shittalking Matt Cooke? No? okay I guess I gotta actually start talking about this shmuck. Kuemper is a product of the Wild system, playing for the Red Deer Rebels of the WHL, the Ontario Reign of the OHL, the Houston Aeros of the AHL and the Orlando Solar Bears, the owners of the best loving jersey in hockey. Let's all just appreciate it for a second. Okay, anyway. Kuemper was called up to spell Minnesota starting goaltenders Josh Harding and Nicklas Backstrom in the lockout shortened 2013 season, because the former was suffering from symptoms of a debilitating disease (we'll get to that later) and the latter was suffering from an acute case of "old, bad, finnish goaltender", which we won't get to later, because the case is fatal. Nicklas Backstrom will be an old, bad finnish goaltender forever. But Kuemper got a handful of games in the season to give Backstrom some time to rest, but didn't really accomplish much besides picking up a win against the Detroit Red Wings. In 2013-14, as the Wild's goalie situation continued being just as whacky and everybody had to pitch in, Kuemper came away with 26 games and splitting playoff duty with Russian funnyman goaltender, Ilya Bryzgalov. Despite some middling stats in both the regular season and the playoffs, he did pretty well for himself against the Colorado Avalanche, picking up 3 wins in a series that was honestly so ridiculous and had so many stupid comebacks, I've forgotten pretty much everything about the six games and only really remember game 7 where the Wild hilariously clowned the Avs in their own building. Unfortunately, the game 7 winner was Bryzgalov, not Kuemper, so he spent the next series against the Blackhawks on the bench while the Wild hung a hell of a lot tougher than I expected them to, but were dispensed in six games. To start 2014-15, an inopportune injury to Josh Harding has given Kuemper the chance to be the Wild's starter, where he's actually been pretty drat impressive and has yet to allow a goal in two games, posting his first two NHL shutouts. As of this writing, the Wild have the Ducks and the Kings next, sooooo that probably won't hold up, but it's still impressive. ...jesus, how many more no-names do I have left, here. At least MAF is coming up soon. That'll be awesome. Count: 510 Words Total Count So Far: 7526 MJeff fucked around with this message at 01:07 on Oct 17, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2014 01:04
|
|
|
Kwik posted:If you look at Lehner's MVP run in 2011 with Binghamton, it does get even more impressive when you realize that he went into those playoffs as the #2 behind Barry Brust. He got the start in game 5 of the first round series, with Binghamton down 3 games to 1. Lehner won game 5 in OT, won game 6 in double-OT (and stopped a penalty shot in double-OT to boot), and then won game 7 in OT. At that point, the run was on, they won the conference semifinals in 6, blitzed through the conference finals in 4 straight, and then took the Cup in 6. And the thing of it is, everyone thought it would be Brust to strap that team onto his back and take a run. Lehner wasn't exactly an afterthought, but I remember watching him get absolutely shelled in an early season game, and if you told me at that point that he would catch lightning in a bottle in May, I would have laughed you right out of the building. That's pretty awesome. Do you mind if I quote this in the essay? It won't count towards the word count, natch.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2014 01:05
|
|
|
toe knee hand posted:Tune in to find out! Same Goalie Time, Same Goalie Channel! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSaDPc1Cs5U
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2014 05:56
|
|
|
reach42 posted:I'm most excited for Stebe Mason, personally. There's a couple I've got ideas for that I really like, he's one of them. Tonight's essay is gonna be a bit late.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2014 00:17
|
|
|
 26. BRADEN HOLTBY Team: Washington Capitals Nationality: Canadian Age: 25 Draft Class: 2008 Hardware: Hershey Bears' "Look Like A Bear" Contest Winner" 2013-14 GAA: 2.85 2013-14 SV%: .915 2013-14 W/L: 23-15-4 Man, what is it about the Caps' system that keeps spitting out all these awesome young goalies? They must have a GREAT goaltending coach. They should make sure they never let that guy g-  Son of a bitch. Braden Holtby is another in what's turning into a conga line of hot Washington goaltending prospects that go on to become NHL starters and, if you want my honest opinion? I think THE HOLTBEAST is the best choice of any of them that the Caps could've made. Better than Neuvy (who I guess isn't really a starter right now, so, whoops), better than Varlamov. I realize that's a pretty ridiculous position to take given that I'm doing the essay for Holtby right now and it's gonna be like two weeks before I get to Varlamov's, but bear with me here. I'm going somewhere with this. Holtby got his first taste of NHL action in the 2010-11 season, replacing Michal Neuvirth for a short time and basically kicking everybody's rear end and taking everybody's name. For the week ending March 13, 2011, he posted a 4-0-0, a 1.05 and a .965 and got First Star of the Week honors from the NHL. When Neuvirth was ready to start again, he was sent back down to Hershey, posting a 10-2-2 record in his first tour of the NHL and foreshadowing things to come. A year later, injuries to both Tomas Voukon and Michal Neuvirth left the team without any goaltender, so Holtby was called up again and...oh yeah, this was at the very end of the year, so Holtby's first start came against the 2nd seeded defending Stanley Cup Champion Boston Bruins. So what did this young goalie, only 22 years of age do when faced down by the Big Bad Bruins? He proved a bear from Hershey loving kicks a Bruin from Boston's rear end, that's what he did. 43 saves in Game 2. 44 saves in Game 4. 34 saves in Game 5. 31 Saves in game 7. Three wins in TD Garden, where the Bruins only had a measly record of 10-3 in the playoffs the previous year. After a season where the Caps had scuffed all year, dealing with oftentimes inexplicably mediocre goaltending from Tomas Voukon and Michal Neuvirth, they were able to on Holtby's back, send the defending champs home in their own building and move on to the next round. It didn't get any easier from there against a stacked New York Rangers team. The Caps played well, but a couple exceedingly bad breaks (a goalpost in OT here and a bbbbaaaaad double minor penalty there) led to the Caps losing in 7 games. But as a rookie, Holtby had spun one for the ages, posting a 1.95 and a .935 in 14 games and emphatically earning himself the starting job as the Capitals goaltender. The Caps lost head coach Dale Hunter back to the London Knights at the end of the year, but with the pieces they had in place and an awesome young backstop like Holtby? All they had to do was find a guy that wasn't a complete jagoff and they'd be set to finally, finally put together a deep run in the playoffs. Son of a bitch. So yeah, the Caps hired Adam Oates. And he went on to introduce some real stupid bullshit in the shortened 2012-13 season like swapping Ovi's wing and a bunch of stuff that Caps fans could probably elucidate better than I can. The end result of this for Holtby was that he saw a buttfucking ridiculous amount of shots, registering at 32.3 shots against per game at the end of the year. Wanna see a couple relative comparison that points out how bad that is?   Yeah! Pretty bad! But Holtby managed to do well, somehow, despite this and posted a respectable 9.20 SV% along with 23 wins, despite a somewhat...less respectable 2.58 GAA, which just goes to show you how much more work he had to do to keep his team in games. The year culminated in another series against the New York Rangers and another Game 7 loss where the Caps couldn't freakin' beat Lundqvist, which has gotta be getting pretty annoying for Holtby at this point. So you remember that awesome goalie coach I mentioned earlier? His name is Dave Prior. He helped draft Semyon Varlamov, Michal Neuvirth, Braden Holtby and Philipp Grubauer, helped coach all of them when they came to Washington from Hershey and I would say the results of his work have been pretty evident for the Caps on the ice the last few years. So the God King Retard Adam Oates came to him and Holtby and said, hey, y'know that poo poo you've been doing that beat the Bruins and stopped our season from being a joke this year and is based on using your athleticism and well-honed instincts to make saves? You should stop doing it and play closer to the net. Prior, seeing a loving stupid idea for what it was, refused to encourage Holtby to make that switch and was dismissed from a job he'd held since 1997 because of a guy who'd held the job for a loving year. This quote by Prior (which does not count towards the word count of this essay) pretty much says it all: Dave Prior posted:“Adam did not agree with how I coach, both in my methods and the content of what I coached,” Prior said from his home in Ontario. “My inflexibility was perceived as ignorance or stubbornness, but I perceive it as a much deeper knowledge of the position. . . . I have no regrets. I would do the same thing again because I stand up for what I believe in. I would gladly defend a goaltender and what I believe is the toughest way to play goal and lose my job over it than to pour gas on them or give them what I believe is bad advice.” With Prior gone, Holtby was forced to adopt the changes to his goaltending style anyway and they backfired disastrously. Asked to suppress the instincts that had gotten him that far for a more conservative style of play, Holtby struggled. He needed a healthy number of starts to adjust his style for this idea to even have a chance at working, but his struggles quickly led to him being switched out for Hershey call-up Philipp Grubauer. When Grubauer was sent back to Hershey, it looked momentarily as though Holtby might have the chance to work things out, but God King Retard #2 General Manager George McPhee traded for Jaroslav Halak, planting Holtby on the bench again. Whoopee. So despite a herculean effort from Ovi (  ) to once again drag the Caps by their heels into the playoffs, they missed by 3 points, which was apparently enough for the Caps' owner to decide he'd had enough and fire Oates and the jackass that had hired Oates. He was replaced by noted neckless wundercoach Barry Trotz who brought his own goalie coach, Mitch Korn with him. With a combo like that coaching him and the defense around him, it's a lot easier to believe the ugliness of the Oates years is gonna be behind Holtby in a hurry. Hey, who did they get to play defense in front of him anyway?  Son of a bitch. Count: 1172 Words Total Count So Far: 8698 Words MJeff fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Oct 18, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Oct 18, 2014 01:35
|
|
|
 25. MIKE SMITH Team: Nationality: Canadian Age: 32 Draft Class: 2001 Hardware: 2014 Olympic Gold Medal, 2014 Piggyback Ride Champ (yes that's Marty St. Louis on his shoulders) 2013-14 GAA: 2.64 2013-14 SV%: .915 2013-14 W/L: 27-21-10 in 62 games Mike Smith is a product of the Dallas Stars system, drafted back in 2001 and, because of his big frame and athleticism, was hailed as "The next Marty Turco" back when that was, believe it or not, actually a good thing. He spent a couple years as Marty Turco's backup, doing okay-but-not-great until he was part of a blockbuster trade between Tampa Bay and Dallas involving superstar and former Conn Smythe winner, Brad Richards (from back when he was actually good). Richards had gotten too expensive for Tampa, a notion that would rear its head again a few years later, so they traded him to Dallas to get Jussi "THE JUICE" Jokinen, Jeff Halpern and Smith, none of which are still playing for the Bolts today. Whoops. Yeah, Tampa's GMing/ownership situation wasn't so hot between the Feaster years and the Yzerman years... Anyway, Smith proceeded to play around 120 games in four years with Tampa and none of them were all that good. Tampa was at a low point as a franchise and it didn't reflect well on Smith, even resulting in him being put on Waivers and sent down to the AHL to play for the Norfolk Admirals at one point. 2010-11 proved to be a much better year for the Lightning as they went to the Eastern Conference Finals with the help of badass old guy Dwayne Roloson. When Roloson struggled against the Bruins' Boston onslaught, Smith got himself a couple games in the ECF, posting a 1-1, 1.00 and .958 in 3 appearances. The Lightning went back to their main man Roloson for Game 7, however, and the Lighting were dispatched 1-0, ending Smith's career with the Lightning on a bit of a bittersweet note. As a free agent, Smith signed with the Phoenix Coyotes, who were in need of a starter after Ilya Bryzgalov went to Philly and we all know how that went. Smith, meanwhile, after four years of just being some loser in Tampa Bay proved something, that he had had the chops to be a starter in the NHL all along. Dave Tippett's defensive system, based on clearing away rebounds immediately and playing close to the net, meshed beautifully with Mike Smith's athletic, aggressive goaltending style and the Coyotes went on to have a drat fine season, Smith included, with 38 wins, a 2.21 and a .930, extending Phoenix's playoff streak. Due to a bit of a, uh, SNAFU with the Pacific Division on the last day, the Coyotes won the division and went into the playoffs as the 3rd seed. Then things hit 88 miles per hour and we got to see some real poo poo. The Coyotes drew the Blackhawks in the 1st round and a lot of people thought that the Coyotes, perennial first round flameouts would fold to the battle-tested Blackhawks before you could say "Don't Toews Me Bro". Nope. The Coyotes played the Hawks incredibly tough and Smith was outstanding, playing true Conn Smythe level goaltending to stop the Blackhawks potent combination of Toews, Kane, Hossa and Sharp from overwhelming the much less offensively charged Coyotes (although, uh, a certain incident occurred which removed Hossa from the series and that was bad. It was really bad. I mean, the guy seems to have gotten his poo poo together since then but seriously that was bad). Meanwhile, the Coyotes took advantage of the 'Hawks Achilles Heel - their own goaltending. Corey Crawford just looked outmatched by Mike Smith and gave up several back-breaking soft OT goals, putting the Coyotes in position to beat the Hawks in 6, where they stomped on the throat, the Coyotes scoring 4 goals and Smith allowing none. For the first time since they'd moved to the desert, the Coyotes had won a series and they had their big new goaltender to thank for it. In the second round, against the Predators, the Coyotes didn't slack off in the least, jumping out to a two games to none lead with a pair of brilliant offensive showings by a team that really wasn't known for their offensive flair and this is a bit of a sidetrack, but I'm gonna link an example of it anyway because this is one of my favorite playoff goals ever and it pretty well exemplifies what the Coyotes did. Safe to say, face-offs were a key part of it. After Game 2, Predators' goaltender Pekka Rinne and Smith both showed up to play, allowing a total of six goals in the final three games of the series after allowing fifteen goals in the first two. Smith wound up on top again, pitching a shutout in game 4 to put the Coyotes in winning position and then again playing masterfully in the clinching game (including coming thiiiiiis short of putting on the most awesome finishing touch possible), leading the Coyotes to a 2-1 win and a trip to the Western Conference Finals. It's hard to state how great of a day this was for the Coyotes as a franchise. Their first berth into the Western Conference finals in franchise history, halfway to the motherfucking Stanley Cup and it seemed, for the moment, like they'd taken a genuine step forward in their ownership woes (which turned out to be kind of a dud, but that eventually got solved later anyway! Yay!). For the first time, the hockey gods were smiling on the desert and Mike Smith had one hell of a lot to do with it. Then they ran into a buzzsaw wearing a crown and got chopped in half. Now, I know the Coyotes got dumped in 5 games and the Devils managed to make it 6, but honestly, I think the Coyotes played the Kings harder than anyone in the playoffs in 2012. They looked straight-up overmatched at first, but dug really deep later in the series and, for a minute there in Game 5, I thought they were gonna really make it a series again. But the pancake man, Dustin Penner, put a quick damper on that, kind of embodying the Kings' run that year with a OT goal to end the series just when it looked like the 'Yotes might make things interesting. And just like that, the Coyotes run had come to an end. Unfortunately, opportunities to build on their awesome run in 2012 haven't come to Phoenix yet. Things did not go as well in the lockout shortened 2012-13 season and though it looked like the Coyotes might make a run to squeak in with a wild card at the end of 2013-14, Mike Smith went down with an injury at the worst possible time, suffering a leg injury after a collision with an opposing player in a game against - OH GEE, WHAT A SURPRISE. THE NEW YORK RANGERS. Sigh. Well, with Smith out the rest of the season, the Coyotes had to turn to backup Thomas Greiss, who could not handle the load, leading to the Coyotes missing the playoffs for the second year in a row. It remains to be seen whether things will go any better for the Coyotes this year. Smith is their starter for the foreseeable future after locking down a six-year contract extension which might seem like too much but I honestly think is a pretty good idea. Smith fits the Coyotes well and the Coyotes system gels with his style of goaltending. 2012 proves that and I don't think that was a mirage. Whether the Coyotes can get to the Western Conference Finals again with their team the way it is right now is something I have a bit more doubt it. Vrbata's gone, Whitney's gone and Doaner ain't getting any younger. With the way the Western Conference is shaping up, the Coyotes might need more offensive punch to make it back to the playoffs, but their goaltending at least, is something they'll be able to continue to rely on. Long as they keep their head on a swivel around those Rangers. Count: 1411 Words Total Count So Far: 10109 10k. Whoot. 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2014 02:18
|
|
|
You know who is next. 
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2014 02:20
|
|
|
Uuuuugh I knew I forgot something. I might add an addendum later to talk about Smith's goal and the butt goal, since one was cool (even if it was against my team  ) and the other was funny as poo poo. Furnaceface posted:Smith really was a beast for the first 2 rounds, it was ridiculous. That Coyotes team was just awesome. Smith was top tier, Whitney-Hanzal-Vrbata was a monster line and they were practically unbeatable in faceoffs. It just goes to show you how insane the Kings were in 2012 that the Coyotes looked like kind of a joke in games 1 and 2 of the WCF.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 19, 2014 21:40
|
|
|
 24. MARC-ANDRÉ FLEURY Team: Pittsburgh Penguins Nationality: Canadian Age: 29 Draft Class: 2003 Hardware: 2008-09 Stanley Cup Champion, 2010 Olympic Gold Medal, Seriously The Gayest Nickname Ever Not That There's Anything Wrong With That! 2013-14 GAA: 2.37 2013-14 SV%:.915 2013-14 W/L: 39-18-5 Grab a drink. This one'll take a bit. Marc-Andre Fleury is a rare bird among goaltenders, a 1st overall pick. One of about fifty currently making up the Pittsburgh Penguins team (that may be an exaggeration). Being a 1st overall comes with certain obvious expectations - when the Penguins picked him, they were betting that he could turn into a franchise goaltender, a guy they could rely on for the next 10+ years to be their backstop and they tried to rebuild themselves into a force in the NHL and try to win the Stanley Cup. And for the record, I just want to start off by saying that so far in his career I think Fleury has mostly accomplished that. You can argue about how much of it is him being a decent goalie and how much of it is the Penguins team around him, but the guy has consistently gotten 30-40 wins every full season he's played in the NHL. His stats have never been sterling in the regular season, but they've been good enough to get the Penguins Ws. I don't wanna endorse a "Lots of Wins" = "Good Goalie" narrative, but still. It's worth something. That's all I wanna say to preface this. So Fleury bounced around between the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton Penguins and the Pittsburgh Penguins a lot in the first few years of his career, the latter still being really really, really bad for after they signed him and still resting at the bottom of the league for a few years more until the arrival of superstar centers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. The Penguins made the playoffs in 2006-07 and in 2007-08 made it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals where they faced the Detroit Red Wings, on the back of an outstanding run by Fleury. In the 2008 playoffs, Fleury posted a 1.97, a .933 and had three shutouts. A sure contender for the Conn Smythe, he unfortunately came up just short against a unrelenting, dominant Red Wings squad, eventually losing in game 6 on a goal that Fleury failed to trap completely in his pads, leading to it squeaking past him and into the net when he fell back on it. A backbreaker to be sure, but it's really, really hard (not to mention disingenuous as gently caress) to blame the loss in the finals on that goal or on Fleury. Fleury was great that year. The Red Wings were just better. That's how it goes sometimes. The next year, the Penguins got back into the playoffs and got back to the finals, getting past the Philadelphia Flyers, Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes to once again face the Detroit Red Wings. This time, things would go differently for Fleury and the Penguins. The Red Wings weren't as dominant as they had been the previous year, they were more beaten up, courtesy of a grueling series against the Anaheim Ducks and the Penguins were a year older and a year stronger. Fleury, strangely enough, not as sharp. In stark contrast to his stats from the previous year, he posted a 2.61 and a .908, but he made the most important save when it counted, diving across the crease in the waning seconds of Game 7 to stop a shot from Nicklas Lidstrom that would come to be known as the "Secret Service Save" and would secure the Penguins' first Stanley Cup since 1993. The Penguins had a good season as the defending champs, earning 101 points and defeating Ottawa in the first round of the playoffs. Then, they ran into a brick wall. A brick wall named HALAK.  Fresh off an absurd, impropable comeback against the Presidents Trophy winning Washington Capitals, the Montreal Canadiens played every bit as hard against the champs. The Penguins couldn't put the Canadiens away, taking three separate one game leads and surrendering all of them before eventually collapsing in game 7 where Fleury himself was pulled after surrendering four goals on only 13 shots while Halak made 37 saves on 39 shots. After getting to the finals in consecutive years, the Penguins were sent home with a whimper in 2010. ....that's when things started to get weird. The 2010-11 season saw the Penguins lose both Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. They still managed to make the playoffs and in their first round matchup against the Tampa Bay Lightning, it didn't look as if they'd even need their two superstars to get a series win. Courtesy of a game 1 shutout by Fleury and some timely contributions by, not makin' this up, Aaron Asham, the Penguins quickly found themselves holding on to a three-games-to-one lead. This however is when the absence of Crosby and Malkin started to hurt as the Lightning came back with a vengeance, hanging 4 on Fleury in each of the next two games and Dwayne frickin' Roloson posting a 36 save shutout in Game 7 to again send the Penguins home early. In the 7 game series, Fleury posted a 2.72 and a .899 after posting a 2.78 and an .891 the year previous. After a Conn Smythe-worthy year and a cup the year after, Fleury had gone through two incredibly rocky outings in the playoffs that at least partially led to the Penguins falling out far short of their goal. And somehow, things could still get worse. The Penguins backups sucked with a vengeance in 2011-12, so Fleury had to play a lot of games. He pretty much did his job and won 42 games, second most in the NHL (despite middling stats, posting a 2.36 and a .913) to get the Penguins the 4th seed for the second year, setting them up against longtime state rivals, the Philadelphia Flyers. What followed was a lot of loving shenanigans, a lot of loving stupidity and a whole lot of DOOP. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hz80LNkVrw The Penguins jumped out to a 3-0 lead in game 1 which they surrendered, eventually losing in overtime, 4-3. They had a 3-1 lead in game 2, which they surrendered, eventually losing 8-5 and here's the point where you've gotta start looking in Fleury's direction and also the direction of the defense that kept letting the Flyers pound Fleury as relentlessly as they did. The Penguins scored 5 goals. At that point, he and the defense should be able to keep them in the game. But no, the Penguins dropped the first two at home and were headed to Philly in a very unenviable position. Game 3 was a total gongshow, one of the most ridiculous showings I've ever seen as a hockey fan, period. The Flyers hung 8 goals on the Penguins again, 6 of them on Fleury and most of them looking incredibly soft. Goals you would have to expect any professional goaltender to save if your team was to have any legitimate shot at winning. Three Penguins were suspended in the wake of the Game 3 meltdown and although they managed to avert a sweep in Game 4 by giving the Flyers a taste of their own medicine (10-3, youch), they eventually collapsed again in Game 6 as Fleury allowed 4 goals on 22 shots. Fleury ended the 2011-12 playoffs with an absolutely miserable 4.36 GAA and .834 SV% and let's just get this out of the way right now. I love goaltenders. I will stick up for a goaltender as much as possible and because the position is so difficult, I will always be quicker to blame an offense for failing to lift their goaltender, a defense for failing to protect him and a coach for failing to put the players in a position to help him. And make no mistake, the Penguins defense was miserable in this series. Straight garbage. But Fleury was worse. He was out of position, he flubbed routine saves, he left huge holes for the Flyers to just putt the puck into. The wisdom that you tend to hear about goalies is "You just want him to give the team a chance to win" and Fleury completely and totally failed to do that. Personally, if you asked me who was to blame for the embarrassing meltdown the Penguins forced us to watch, I'd blame Dan Bylsma before I blamed Marc-Andre Fleury, but it'd still be pretty close. AND......THE STORY ISN'T EVEN OVER YET! Move on to the lockout shortened 2012-13 season. Fleury is again the starter to begin the playoffs and they're again up against a fast bunch of up-and-comers with lots of offensive punch and an old russian goaltender who's not very good. The Penguins as the 1 seed had assembled an apparent super group of a team through a couple deadline pickups and were the favorites to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals. They didn't account, however, for the New York Islanders running all over them. The Islanders made overwhelming use of their speed to keep the Penguins off balance and to keep Fleury completely discombobulated, dragging him everywhere in the crease except into the correct loving position and just potting goal after goal in the first four games of the series, turning it into a track meet that the Penguins, quite frankly, did not look like they could win. Bylsma made the only move he could, pulling Fleury after he allowed 3 unanswered goals in Game 4 for the veteran, Tomas Voukon. Voukon would not relinquish his position the rest of the Penguins' run, save for a minor stint against the Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference Finals. Fleury was forced to watch from the bench as his team went on to defeat the Islanders (Voukon posted a shutout in Game 5, leading NHL.com to use the headline 'Blank Czech' hehehehehe, those guys are the greatest  ), dispense the Senators in 5 and eventually get roundly throttled by the aforementioned Bruins in the aforementioned Conference Finals. For a little while there, there was serious doubt about Fleury's continued fate as the starting goaltender of the Pittsburgh Penguins. Four years in a row, he'd been knocked around in the playoffs and if Bylsma hadn't made the switch to Voukon, it was almost a certainty that it would've been three straight years of getting knocked out in the first round. Fleury was "lucky", if you wanna call it that, that Tomas Voukon would be unable to compete to take the starting job from him as he was forced to get surgery for a blood clot in his pelvis before the start of the 2013-14 season with nothing resembling a timetable to his recovery, leaving stating duties to Fleury once again. Fleury did about what you'd expect in the regular season at this point, putting up 39 wins and middling stats at 2.37 and .915, en route to another 1 seed for the Penguins and a match up with the first wild card, the Columbus Blue Jackets. This time, things looked a lot more stable for the Penguins (despite a bunch of weird lead changes for both teams) as they took a two-games-to-one lead and were looking to make it three in game 4 as they had a 2-1 lead with 30 seconds left. Then, Fleury went to play a puck behind his net, completely whiffed on it, the Jackets centered it and, say it with me, Fleury was completely out of position when Brandon Dubinsky potted the tying goal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWrkoHqPq2I (credit where credit is due, the Jackets have an awesome goal horn/song combo) So Game 4 went to overtime. Then Game 4's overtime ended abruptly when Nick Foligno fired a completely routine shot from the blue line and Fleury completely muffed it, giving up the game winning goal and tying a series the Penguins had been 30 seconds from taking a stranglehold on. History was again, for a fifth time repeating itself in Pittsburgh and this time, they didn't even have Voukon to turn to! Somehow, Fleury stabilized in game 5 to give the Penguins the lead in the series again and when the Penguins took a 4-0 lead in game 6, it looked all but over until the Jackets again attempted to come storming back, scoring a shorthanded, power play and even strength goal on Fleury in the space of five minutes to make it a one goal game. Despite the scare, however, Fleury and the Penguins held on to win the game 4-3 and the series four-games-to-two and moved on to face the New York Rangers. And, y'know, I've been loving relentlessly bagging on Fleury since 2010 here, so I'm gonna step back and give him some credit. Fleury was good against the Rangers. He was actually really good. In games 2, 3 and 4 of the series, Fleury allowed two goals on 69 shots (very naice) and posted two shutouts. It was impressive. Unfortunately for him, after that, Henrik Lundqvist put on his big boy pads and completely stymied the Penguins' offense. Fleury was clocked for 5 goals in game 5 and then just outright outplayed by Lundqvist in games 6 and 7 as the Rangers won by scores of 3-1 and 2-1 to complete the comeback on the Penguins and send them home empty handed again. With his win (clumsy as it was) against the Jackets and a good showing against the Rangers, would I go as far to say that Fleury might be "fixed" for the playoffs? Honestly, outside of his implosion in game 4 against the Jackets and the almost-comeback in game 6 against the same, Fleury wasn't bad in the playoffs last year. Not great, but, going back to that bit of wisdom about goaltenders, this time, good enough to give his team a chance to win if they had managed to score some goals. Which, granted, being unable to beat Henrik Lundqvist isn't exactly a problem that only the Penguins have. But would I say he's "fixed"? I honestly have no loving clue. Watching Fleury, I see a guy who tries as hard as anybody and will never, ever, ever lack for effort, but will sometimes just exhibit the absolute worst positioning and decision-making you can see from a professional goaltender. Is that coaching? Is that psychological? I don't know. If it's the former, maybe the Penguins' finally dumping Bylsma will see meaningful dividends for Fleury (although uh if you saw their opener against the Ducks, you might not bet on that). If it's the latter, maybe beating the Jackets and acquitting himself well against the Rangers will have some positive effect? Like I said, I have no idea. I don't wanna speculate, 'cause Fleury is just a guy I cannot figure out. But I will say this: I have no special fondness for the Penguins. They jacked a cup from my team and I think Crosby and Malkin are dirty whiners. But seeing Fleury post those shutouts on the Rangers was pretty cool. After he's had to deal with so much crap and so much failure for the past five years, I think it'd be cool to see the guy actually get some success in the playoffs again. ...although that would also mean success for the Penguins. Eugh. He's a UFA after this year, right? Okay, one more meltdown, then he can go get some success with the Jets or something. That'd be cool. Count: 2593 Words Total Count So Far: 12,702 MJeff fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Oct 20, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2014 04:00
|
|
|
I think what got people to really start scrutinizing Bylsma was 2013 because of how long it took him to make the switch to Voukon and how the Islanders just kept running on the Penguins and then how the Bruins loving destroyed them and the Penguins had no answer for it. I don't think it can be overstated, though, how negatively the Olympics impacted Bylsma's reputation. Team USA looked like an absolute joke next to Canada and Finland and when a team has that much raw talent, you gotta imagine it's something to do with the coach. And he started Quick on back to back days when he had Miller and Howard good to go. And he promised the Bronze Medal like it was an afterthought and Finland would just bend over and let them take it and then the team got annihilated. That's what pissed me off the most. That whole "Gold or bust" attitude that was permeating Hockey USA really pissed me off in general, though.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 20, 2014 22:37
|
|
|
I might've gone with a beachball pic until I saw that Flower Shop one. There was no way I could turn that down.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2014 00:44
|
|
|
 23. JONATHAN QUICK Team: Los Angeles Kings Nationality: American Age: 28 Draft Class: 2005 Hardware: 2010 Olympic Silver Medal, 2012 Stanley Cup Champion, 2012 Conn Smythe Winner, 2014 Stanley Cup Champion, 2012 Drunkest Man in LA 2013-14 GAA: 2.07 2013-14 SV%: .915 2013-14 W/L: 27-17-4 in 49 Games Jonathan Quick is better than your goaltender. Don't believe me? Read the tweet, then check back. Go ahead, I'll wait. "Yeah but my goaltender is Tuk-" EEHHHHHH. READ THE TWEET, CHOWDER BOY. QUICK'S BETTER. Okay, are we clear here? Good. Proceeding. Quick has spent his entire career with the team that drafted him in 2005, the Los Angeles Kings. Becoming the Kings starter in the 2008-09 season, he got off to something of a notable start, earning honors as the NHL's third star of the week with a 2-1-0 record, a 0.67 and a .958. The Kings, still yet to realize their potential as contenders, didn't do much for the first few years of Quick's professional career and Quick himself wasn't exactly anything to scream about. The Kings made the playoffs in 2009-10, but pretty much just got smacked around by the Canucks en route to the Canucks getting smacked around by the Blackhawks. In 2010-11, Quick had himself a pretty decent year, getting 35 wins to go with a .918 and 2.24 and for a second it looked like the Kings might do some damage in the playoffs even without star center Anze Kopitar. In their first round matchup against the Sharks, they won game 2 by a commanding score of 4-0 (Quick making an impressive 34 saves) and then going back to Staples Center, took another 4-0 lead. Then, everything went pear shaped and the Sharks came storming back in the 2nd period to tie the game and win in overtime by a score of 6-5. The Kings were pretty much sucker punched by that one and only managed one more win in the series (where Quick made a pretty drat impressive 51 saves) before going down in 6. The Kings, recognizing that this was the prime years of their core (Quick, Kopitar, Brown, Doughty) and sick of getting bounced in the first round considerably souped themselves up in 2011-12, adding Mike Richards, Dustin Penner and Simon Gagne in the offseason and Jeff Carter at the trade deadline. Quick was great all year for the Kings, eventually posting an absolutely sterling 1.95 and .929 and getting himself honors as a Vezina Finalist along with Pekka Rinne and Henrik Lundqvist. Amidst this, the Kings struggled all year, only really seeming to click when Jeff Carter joined the team at the trade deadline. Carter, glad to This time, Quick didn't get smacked around. Quick had already proven himself a good goaltender throughout the regular season. The playoff series against the Canucks is when he proved that he was a great goaltender. Quick outdueled Roberto Luongo the first two games of the series and put up a 41 save shutout against Cory Schneider. Schneider flipped the script in Game 4, averting the sweep with a 43 save preformance, but the Kings were good and rolling at that point and Quick was great again, leading the Kings to a game 5 overtime victory and a defeat of the Presidents' Trophy winners and a date with the St. Louis Blues. Quick was absolutely phenomenal again, allowing a total of six goals by the Blues while his teammates got in the Blues heads (and in their net) in every conceivable way, earning the Kings their first sweep of a seven game series in franchise history. In the Western Conference Finals, they matched up against another team having a great year with great goaltending, the Phoenix Coyotes. The Coyotes, by my measure, put up as good a fight as anybody did against the Kings in 2012, but the Kings just had way too much momentum at this point and suckerpunched the Coyotes in Games 1 and 2, Quick won another low scoring affair in Game 3 and that was basically it. The Coyotes tried to fight their way back into the series and Quick and Mike Smith had an outstanding goaltenders duel in Game 5, but the Kings were just one goal better and before anybody knew what the gently caress had happened, they were on their way to the Stanley Cup Finals with 12 wins and two losses under their belts. Their opponents? The perenniel contenders from the early 00s, the New Jersey Devils. Wanna know how it went? Lemme give you a hint. It involved a three-games-to-none lead and a shutout and it wasn't Ol' Fatso posting the shutout. Quick was awesome again in the finals, only getting minorly touched up in games 4 and 5 (in which he allowed two goals each) before he locked things down in Game 6. When the Devils' Steve Bernier committed a major penalty, the Kings leaped on top of the Devils, scoring three goals in the space of four minutes. That was all Quick needed, not that there were a lot of shots (only 18 total) being fired at him anyway after the Kings' massive offensive outburst. But he'd already written his story in the rest of his playoffs. Quick ended the playoffs with a 1.41, .946 and three shutouts in 20 games. Who else could you conceivabely give the Conn Smythe trophy to (well to be 100% honest, my picks at the time were Kopitar and Doughty, but I'm fuckin' dumb, don't listen to me)? In the immortal Doc Emrick's words, it was "an impropable, but inspiring run". The Kings had won their first Stanley Cup since their inception 45 years ago and Quick, as their MVP, was at the center of it. Quick quickly (teehee) signed an extension that summer, guaranteeing he'd be playing in black and silver for the rest of his career and the quest for the Kings to become a dynasty was on. Unfortunately, Quick was unable to complete his sweep of all the hardware a goalie can earn as the Jennings went to the Blues and he lost the Vezina to Henrik Lunqvist and personally speaking, I have nothing against Lundqvist, but I have a bit of an inkling that the votes from the Western Conference got a bit split up between Pekka Rinne and Quick, making it just a touch easier for Lundqvist to win the award than perhaps it should've been. In the lockout shortened 2013 season, Quick was not nearly as good as 2012 and posted particularly crummy stats of 2.45 and .902 to go with an 18-13-4 record in 37 games. But then when the playoffs rolled around, he was every bit the goalie of the previous year, a hard luck loser in games 1 and 2 against the Blues before he locked it down hard, leading the Kings to a backdoor sweep en route to a series against the Sharks that pitted him again against Antti Niemi, this year a Vezina finalist. Both Quick and Niemi were fantastic in the series, which was a grueling test for both teams that saw the home team win every game. Quick posted two shutouts and was just great (as was Niemi) even in his losing efforts. Eventually, it came to Game 7 at the Staples Center and it wasn't so much a matter of the Kings winning as them just managing to make it a little further before collapsing. They beat the Sharks and went on to face the Blackhawks who themselves had not had an easy time in the second round, but looked infinitely more prepared and rested for the Western Conference Finals that followed. The Kings and Quick gave it a good try, but the Blackhawks powerhouse had no brakes at that point and outside of a flailing effort to force OT in Game 5, the Kings were all out of resistance and went down on Patrick Kane's hattrick goal in double overtime of the same game. Quick came out of the Kings attempt at a cup defense better than anybody else on the team with stats close to the previous year of 1.86, .934 and 3 shutouts in 18 games. That's when people started to realize something. Quick is the anti-Fleury. The anti-Luongo. He is bizarro Henrik Lundqvist. A goalie who, with one exception, always puts up stats that stink like cheese in the regular season and then turns into motherfucking Captain America in the playoffs (a comparison that NHL.comactually made because life is loving awesome and NHL.com is the greatest site in the world). Given this, it was no real surprise in 2013-14 when he posted incredibly middling stats of .915 and 2.07 (suggesting he really had his defense and Daryl Sutter's system to thank for what good work he did do) to go with 27-17-4 in 49 games (his season being a short one due to injuries). It was kind of a surprise though when he kept stinking in the playoffs. The Sharks, looking for revenge, frickin' pounced on the Kings and jumped out to a 3-0 lead and it looked like the Kings would be going home inauspiciously in the first round. Yeah, not if this guy had anything to say about it. Game 4 was another rough one for Quick, allowing 3 goals on 39 shots, but the Kings offense lifted him with six goals before he locked the gently caress in and posted a shutout in Game 5, followed by allowing only one goal each in Games 6 and 7 to complete an amazing comeback that had only occurred for the 4th time in the history of the NHL. The Sharks, one of the best teams in the playoffs, were sent home and it remained to be seen whether anything was going to faze the Kings after what they'd just come back from. They got out to a two-games-to-none lead against Anaheim before stumbling, Quick getting chewed up for 9 goals in 3 games as young Ducks goalie John Gibson backstopped the Ducks to a three games to two lead. Backs against the wall, the Kings did the same thing again, winning a close game 6 and then exploded in game 7 to knock off the second of their fellow California teams and earn their third straight trip to the Stanely Cup Finals where, again, the Chicago Blackhawks were waiting for them. If I'm trying to advocate for goalies in this project, then the less I say about this series the better, honestly, because both Quick and Crawford got messed up in this series. It was awesome to watch, tons of offense, tons of lead changes and one of the most exciting Game 7s I've ever seen but hooboy was it not kind to the goaltenders. Long story short, the Kings took a three-games-to-one lead, the Blackhawks stormed back to tie the series and then took a 2-0 lead in game 7, but the Kings stormed back, eventually winning 5-4 in overtime to secure them a spot in the Stanley Cup Finals. As the Blackhawks had ended the Kings hope at a cup defense the year before, the Kings had now returned the favor and were on their way to face that other East Coast team that had 'New' in their name, the New York Rangers. The Rangers put up more of a fight than the Devils did, even if the scores don't really reflect that but, really, not by much. Coughed up leads in both games 1 and 2, shutout in game 3 and needed a literal pileup of sludge in their own crease to stop from getting swept. The opposing goaltender, Henrik Lundqvist, was awesome in his first trip to the finals, but he was basically the only one and eventually, even with Quick's continued inconsistency (which at this point had been plaguing him since the second round against Anaheim), Alec Martinez got past the Rangers D and got to Lundqvist for the last time, scoring the series winning goal in double overtime of Game 5 and giving the Kings their second Stanley Cup in three years. Quick wasn't winning any MVP honors this year as he ended the playofs with a, for him, startling-in-a-bad-way 2.58 and .911. But, hey, when you play three seven game series en route to the finals, it's pretty hard to have awesome stats and honestly, I'm just kinda impressed that Quick managed to play all those games (26, two shy of the maximum) without keeling over. It's worth noting that Quick was also chosen to be the starting goaltender for Team USA, but, frankly, I'm gonna do myself and every other American reading this thread a favor and state that the less said about that, the better. Bullet points: Quick was great. He was the only one. USA didn't medal.  Quick really is just a special kind of goaltender. His athleticism and flexibility are incredibly entertaining to watch and he has the capability to get on a hot streak like no other. Though his regular season stats rarely reflect it, he is legitimately one of the premier goaltenders in the NHL and though he's no doubt supported by the system of Darryl Sutter (for my money, a top three or top two coach in the NHL), there's often just as many times where the Kings' emphasis on defense leads them to sputter offensively, forcing Quick to work with little-to-no offensive support, which he tends to do just fine with. Is he the best goalie in the NHL like that tweet from the LA twitter account likes to crow about? Probably not, simply because the position of best goalie in the NHL fluctuates wildly from season to season and Quick has had himself some serious bouts of inconsistency the last couple years, but he has earned himself a place in the echelon of top goalies that I don't see him surrendering anytime soon. It's good to be King, eh?  No, not you. Count: 2385 Words Total Count So Far: 15,087 Words MJeff fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Oct 21, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Oct 21, 2014 02:15
|
|
|
 22. COREY CRAWFORD Team: Chicago Blackhawks Nationality: Canadian Age: 29 Draft Class: 2003 Hardware: 2013 Stanley Cup Champion, 2012-13 Jennings winner (w/ Ray Emery ), 2013 Illinois Motivational Speaker of the Year2013-14 GAA: 2.26 2013-14 SV%: .917 2013-14 W/L: 32-16-10 in 59 Games Do you have any idea how hard it was to find an entertaining picture of Corey Crawford? This dude is about as fun as white bread with peanut butter on it. And much like white bread with peanut butter on it, when you add in the nutritious Toews-like bananas, the zesty Kane-like cheezits and the uh...head shotting...jelly of Keith...it becomes a smorgasbord of deliciousness that....uh.... Okay what I'm getting at here is that he's good and the rest of the Blackhawks elevate that to "really good", but he's still good on his own. I dunno what was up with that sandwich metaphor. Crawford has spent his entire career with the team who drafted him, the Chicago Blackhawks. Crawford had a long line in front of him for the first stage of his career, spending most of the first phase of the career behind prime Where-Are-They-Now candidates Nikolai Khabibulin and Cristobal Huet as well as current Sharks goalie and erstwhile Blackhawks champion Antti Niemi. Things came to a head when Niemi, Huet and Khabibulin were all gone to start the 2010-11 season and the Blackhawks started the year with Crawford as the backup and Marty Turco as the starter, which means they started the year with Crawford as the eventual starter. The Blackhawks struggled mightily in their tour as the cup champs, just barely squeaking into the playoffs on the last day, where they were on their way to their third consecutive match-up against the Vancouver Canucks. As a rookie golatender, Crawford was, simply put, awesome in this series. The Canucks stormed out to a three-games-to-none lead against the Blackhawks, aided by the Blackhawks inability to meaningfully put up offense on Roberto Luongo, which left with a vengeance starting in Game 4 when the Canucks, apparently assuming after being eliminated in six games twice by the Hawks that you only need three wins to move on to the next round and pretty much stopped skating entirely. The Hawks potted twelve goals in games 4 and 5, the latter of which Crawford posted a 36-save shutout in. Game 6 was significantly tougher, but the Hawks gutted out an overtime victory and had crawled all the way back to force a Game 7 in Vancouver. There, Crawford was simply sensational, keeping the Hawks in a game that for vast stretches, they had no business being in. Courtesy of one of the gutiest loving goals I've ever seen by Jonathan Toews, the Hawks forced overtime in Game 7 and had a chance, with one goal, to complete a comeback for the history books. And then some jagoff forgot how to make a routine clear and served it right up to one of Vancouver's most dangerous forwards.  Thanks, Chris! So the Blackhawks were eliminated in the first round in 7 games, but Crawford had put on a show that he could be proud of and there was no question who would be the starter in the 2011-12 season. But maybe there should've been because whoo-doggy, was he not good that year. The Blackhawks in general struggled in 2012 and Crawford himself was not good and was repeatedly benched in favor of Ray Emery, who lucky for Crawford, just happened to suck even more. Despite their struggles, the Blackhawks scraped into the playoffs with a six seed that would set them up against the Phoenix Coyotes. Losing Marian Hossa early in the series to a lovely, no good, seriously-gently caress-you-what's-wrong-with-you hit by Raffi Torres hurt the Blackhawks deeply, but worse than that was the fact that Crawford was just bad in the series, giving up multiple soft goals in overtime (statistically, the worst time to be giving up soft goals), leading to the Blackhawks just outright imploding in game 6, where the Coyotes stomped them 4-0. Two years in a row, the Blackhawks had been eliminated in the first round and there was no moral victory to be had this time - they were just beaten. Crawford ended the year with regular season stats of 2.72/.903 and playoff stats of 2.58/.903 and there were questions of if his rookie season had just been a flash in the pan. The Blackhawks re-signed Ray Emery to push Crawford, which is kind of like putting a brick down next to your cat to push it to do Algebra. Turns out Crawford didn't need the push. He was frickin' amazing in the lockout shortened 2012-13 season. The Hawks had a hell of a team surrounding him that year, but to say Crawford wasn't one of their best players would be totally disingenuous. He was part of an absurd streak for the Hawks, where they went the entire first half of the season without losing a game in regulation, Crawford himself going 11-0-3 in that stretch. He ended the year with a 1.94, .926 and a record of 19-5-5 which was more than enough to earn him (and Ray Emery, who didn't suck either) the William M. Jennings trophy. In the playoffs, he was dominant against the Wild, helping to put them away in 5 games before a series against the Hawks' longtime rivals the Detroit Red Wings came up. By my measure, as the guy whose team was getting totally foiled by him, Crawford was the Hawks' MVP against the Red Wings. Even in the Red Wings' three consecutive wins, it wasn't like Crawford was bad and in his wins, especially in Game 7, he was nothing short of amazing, constantly stifling the Red Wings offense en route to a Game 7 overtime victory and a trip to the Western Conference Finals against the Los Angeles Kings. The Kings, worn down by their series against the Blues and the Sharks, didn't have enough left in the tank to mount any meaningful assault against the Hawks, who were well and truly a powerhouse at this point. Crawford stymied the Kings offense en route to another victory in 5 games and the Hawks were straight-up rolling. For the second time in four years, they were heading to the Stanley Cup Finals, this time for an Original Six matchup against the Boston Bruins. The series against the Bruins was a crazy one. Multiple OT games, goaltending duels, Patrick Kane's weird mullet thing. Toews' weird mutton chops. Tukka Rask's weird... .... ....everything. It was crazy. It honestly wound up being a pretty offense heavy series that kind of revealed a bit of a weakness of Crawford's (i.e. pound it down his throat high-glove side), but despite that, both Crawford and Rask were pretty good. Good enough that when the series ended in a truly absurd manner (the Blackhawks tying Game 6 with just a minute to go and then scoring the go ahead goal 17 seconds later while the Bruins' skaters were too busy pouting about it) with the Blackhawks once again Stanley Cup Champions*, I personally was really surprised when the Conn Smythe trophy went to Patrick Kane, who I guess wound up with 9 goals and 10 assists or whatever and not Crawford, who posted outstanding stats of 1.94 and .932 in 23 games. As I alluded, the prevailing narrative surrounding the Blackhawks that year was similar to 2010 in that the team was so good, that any goaltender could've gone in there and gotten the job done. I again vehemently reject this narrative on principle but in this case it was particularly disingenuous because Crawford was a huge part of what made that Blackhawks team so good. Whether or not he deserved the Conn Smythe was apparently immaterial to 'Hawks management, because they recognized how good he had done and, not wanting a repeat of the incident with Niemi a couple years prior, locked Corey Crawford up with a 6 year contract with 36 million dollars. Crawford's first year of his new contract saw him unable to replicate his 2013 as, over the course of his 59 games, he posted much more middling stats of 2.26 and 9.17 to go with a record of 32-16-10. Courtesy of injuries to Toews and Kane, the Blackhawks faded big time down the stretch, eventually ending at the 3rd seed and going up against the St. Louis Blues in the first round. The series saw four games go to OT, the first two of which only because of blown leads coming with only minutes to go by the Blackhawks. I'm gonna say it - Crawford could've been better in this series. The Blackhawks controlled play for huge stretches of this series and after two games, had nothing to show for it but a suspension to one of their boneheaded defensemen. When Crawford locked it down, starting with a shutout in game 3, the Blues pretty much went into the spiral everybody expects of the Blues and they were backdoor swept for the second consecutive year. Next up came a rematch against the Minnesota Wild and for a second, it looked like the second verse would be the same as the first with the Blackhawks jumping out to a two-games-to-none lead, before the Wild came back and cold cocked the Blackhawks with consecutive four goal outbursts to tie the series at two games a piece. Crawford again locked it down at this point, allowing only two goals in the final two games of the series as the Blackhawks won in six games on an overtime goal by Patrick Kane. The Hawks were on their way to the Western Conference Finals for the second year in a row against the Los Angeles Kings for the second year in a row. Bit of advice, get used to those words in that order, 'cause it's probably not gonna stop happening anytime soon. Now, lemme make this clear. I like both of the goaltenders in this series. I like both Quick and Crawford. But they both got smacked around in this series. Crawford started off well, allowing only one goal in game 1, then he proceeded to allow fifteen goals in the next three games of the series, all losses and twenty seven goals total in the rest of the series, necessitating some serious offensive heroics in games 5 and 6 just for the Blackhawks to force a 7th game. the Blackhawks roared out to 2-0 lead and eventually a 4-3 lead, but Crawford couldn't hold on to any of them and eventually, in overtime, a deflected shot from Alec Martinez got past Crawford, ending the Hawks' run in a way similar to the way they'd done to the Kings a year before. I usually advocate for goalies but in the case of 2014, I'd say the Hawks kind of put together their run parallel to Crawford, rather than because of him or in spite of him (because, again, I don't really think that's a thing). He ended the playoffs with a 2.53 and a .912 in 19 games and if you asked if he earned his six million dollar paycheck that year in the regular season OR the playoffs, I bet most people wouldn't think so. A lot of people have been criticizing that contract since Crawford signed it, but honestly, I don't think it's that bad of a deal. The cap is always going up, so the 6mil/year hit is gonna sting less and less as time goes on and Crawford has had a couple of really good years in the playoffs already. It's better to pay for a guy you know can be really good and has a lot of years in front of him than to let him go because of cap constraints and pay for...flippin' Marty Turco. Marty Turco. I still can't freakin' believe that. Count: 1965 Words Total Count So Far: 17,052 Words
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2014 03:29
|
|
|
Serisothikos posted:Marty Turco is the most-mentioned goaltender who won't actually appear on this list. You're right, I need to seriously step up my Tim Thomas shittalking game.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2014 07:59
|
|
|
 21. STEVE MASON Team: Philadelphia Flyers Nationality: Canadian Age: 26 Draft Class: 2006 Hardware: 2008-09 Calder Cup Trophy Winner, Best. Mask. Ever. 2013-14 GAA: 2.50 2013-14 SV%: .917 2013-14 W/L: 33-18-7 Steve Mason is a product of the Columbus Blue Jackets heavy-finger-quotes-implied-derision-is-abundant "SYSTEM". He was drafted at the age of 18 and then a couple years, before joining the Blue Jackets org, was the starting goalie for Canada at the 2008 World Junior Championships. He was particularly good there, going 5-0 with a 1.19 and a .951, earning a Gold Medal, Best Goaltender and Tournament MVP honors. To begin the 2008-09 Season, he was to play with the Syracuse Crunch, the Jackets' (at the time) AHL affiliate, but a knee injury derailed that for a month. After he healed, rather than the AHL, he found himself headed to the NHL to play for the Jackets in lieu of starter and current candidate for cyborg hip replacement Pascal Leclaire. As a rookie, Mason played very well for current coach Ken Hitchcock, at one point posting three consecutive shutouts against the Philadelphia Flyers, Los Angeles Kings and Anaheim Ducks to go with a 7-5-0, 1.41 and .950 for the month of December. Mason was even invited to the NHL YoungStars competition of the 2009 NHL All Star Game, but declined and shortly after that it was revealed by Professional Dipshit Scott Howson that he had been playing with mono for the past month! And apparently nobody had noticed because Howson had made sure the Jackets' coaching stuff was filled with bobbleheads as stupid as he was. After another couple of starts, Mason was put on to the Injured Reserve to heal. Mason eventually finished the year with a 2.29 and .916 to go with a 33-20-7 record and I know how lovely that sounds, but that Jackets team was bad and it was basically Mason and Rick Nash dragging it kicking and screaming to the 8th seed, the first playoff berth for the Jackets in their history as a franchise. They went up against the defending champs, the Detroit Red Wings and got cold cocked, but they had still broken through in a way they hadn't really been able to manage since their franchise's inception and they had Mason in big part to thank for that. The NHL recognized Mason's achievements that year by awarding him the Calder Cup Trophy and naming him a finalist for the Vezina alongside Tip-Top Toe Tappin' Tim Thomas and Nicklas Backstrom whose name doesn't lend itself to alliteration and thus loving sucks. Mason didn't win the Vezina, but his body of work in 2008-09 spoke for itself. He had done good and had helped accomplished something meaningful for his team. Perhaps there were better days ahead for the Blue Jackets now?  lol why you askin' questions you already know the answer to son you KNOW this dumb son of a bitch ain't gettin' fired for like four more years, right? Shortly into the 2009-10 season, the Jackets fired head coach Ken Hitchcock because ^^ that dumb son of a bitch ^^ and I won't directly connect that to what happened to Mason, but regardless, he was bad that year, posting a 3.05 and .901 to go with a record of 20-26-9 in 58 games. Okay, but that's just a sophomore slump, right? He'll be better ne - SHUT UP. SHUT IT UP RIGHT NOW. 3.03 and .901 in 2010-11. loving 3.39 and .894 in 2011-12. Scott Howson kept mismanaging the team, the rest of the teams in the division kept getting better, the Preds and Blues becoming regular playoff contenders, the Hawks maturing into Stanley Cup contenders and the Red Wings staying the Red Wings and before anyone knew what happened, Steve Mason had just turned into the Central Division's favorite punching bag. Rumors abounded of some truly ridiculous poo poo, like Mason was using improperly sized equipment (and y'know, this was never corroborated, but given what a shitshow the Jackets were at this point in time, I would have no problem believing that). He finally lost his job as starter in the 2012-13 lockout shortened season as the Blue Jackets traded with the Flyers for somewhat marginalized goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky and this is the part where I would call the Flyers loving idiots (and will, later on) if not for something that would happen a bit later that also has to do with Mason. So Steve Mason had been terrible, surrounded by crap for three years straight and now wasn't even the starter anymore. At this point, it legitimately looked like he was dangerously close to falling out of the bottom of the NHL and I give him credit for not just bailing on his team to run off and become a deranged mountain man like Tim Thomas did.  Pictured: Artists' Rendering of Tim Thomas circa March 2013 Mason started only a few games for the Jackets in 2012-13 and was eventually traded off the team that drafted him in the midst of their playoff push to - you guessed it - the Philadelphia Flyers and for a couple seconds, everybody was just laughing their asses off that the Flyers had actually thought this poo poo would work, but then it actually kinda did work! The Flyers missed the playoffs, but Mason was really good at the end of the season, posting a 1.90 and .944 with a record of 4-2-0 in 7 games. Mason was the Flyers starter to begin the 2013-14 season and you're not gonna believe this, but he actually continued to be pretty good. Freed from the monkey on his back that was the last three years of playing for the Blue Jackets, Mason posted a 2.50, .917, 4 shutouts and a record of 33-18-7 in 61 games to get the Flyers back into the playoffs. Mason wasn't fully healthy in the playoffs, but he still posted good stats en route to a 7 game defeat by the Rangers, with a .197 and a .939. I just wanna state outright how impressed I am with Mason for turning things around. At the time of the 2012-13 season, it really looked like he had nothing left in the tank. I thought once the Jackets traded for Bobrovsky and he started tearing it up, that that was it for Mason and he wouldn't get another starting job in the NHL except on some joke team like the Avs or the Panthers or whatever (and uh I guess there's still a chance of that if you've seen the Flyers roster this year, whoof, but that's neither here nor there). But the Flyers took a chance on him and he really turned it around. It's one thing to just be good. But to have so many expectations on you and then to fail as severely as Mason did in his tenure as Jackets starter and then still manage to come out the other end of it okay? That takes guts. That takes a lot of guts and I think it speaks to the guy's resilience. In a way, you could say that the greatest player in the world does, in fact, play for the Philadelphia Flyers.  No, not you! Not everything's about you, dammit!  Count: 1215 Words Total Count So Far: 18,267
|
|
#
¿
Oct 22, 2014 23:55
|
|
|
btw, that Giroux joke is probably my favorite I've written so far, so I hope you guys liked it.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 23, 2014 05:07
|
|
|
Emetic Hustler posted:Reading about Stebe, it occurred to me that goalies that come into the league usually post excellent numbers, but the next year they rarely equal those numbers. I didn't check any stats, so maybe I am way off. Perhaps it has to do that the scouting isn't up to date for the new guys and once they've played some games in the league their game gets picked a part and next season the book on them is known to every player in the league. In this case, I don't think you can underrate how much firing Hitch affected things. The team wasn't great, but was kinda middling, close to a spot under Hitch and then they made the 8th seed and then when he was fired, they COMPLETELY bottomed out until 2013.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 23, 2014 22:48
|
|
|
 20. RYAN MILLER Team: Vancouver Canucks Nationality: American Age: 34 Draft Class: 1999 Hardware: 2010 NHL First Team All Star, 2010 NHL Foundation Player Award, 2010 Vezina Trophy Winner, 2010 Olympic MVP, 2010 Most Asymmetrical Face 2013-14 GAA: 2.64 2013-14 SV%: .918 2013-14 W/L: 25-30-4 in 59 games Ryan Miller would've been a lot higher on this list if he had stayed on the Sabres the entire year. I just wanna say that first because it's loving hilarious. Miller is a product of the Sabres organization and the  MICHIGAN STATE SPARTANS . He established himself as the Sabres starting goalie in the latter half of the 2005-06 season when he led them all the way to the conference finals before the team all got the loving flu or something and got their asses beat by the Hurricanes. Kind of a shame 'cause Sabres-Oilers would've been a pretty fun finals for the whole "man both these teams stink but now they're kinda good?" factor. Although let's be real if the Oilers hadn't lost Roloson in Game 1, they probably would've Prongered their way to a cup no problem. Man, Roloson was so cool and so loving loving unlucky. I really wish he would've pulled off that cup win with the Bolts. That was the coolest. Fuckin' Tim Thomas.  What? Oh poo poo, right, Miller. So Miller won 40 games in 2006-07 and got the Sabres to the Conference Finals again with an awesome 2.22 and .920 (which were apparently pretty drat good stats back in the mid 00's!) where they unfortunately got pasted again, this time by the Ottawa Senators. The Senators went on to lose in 5 to the Ducks (Prongered again!) and that was, unfortunately as close as the Sabres would ever get to the cup. Miller continued being an outstanding goaltender, establishing himself as a premier goalie in the league and the best American Goalie currently active in the game. 2010 was far and away the best year of his career, earning the spot as starting goalie for Team USA and taking the team all the way to the Gold Medal Game, where they lost, but Ryan was given honors as best goaltender and tournament MVP. He also won the Vezina Trophy back in the NHL as the league's best goaltender, but unfortunately, the Sabres were bounced in the first round by Boston, then again in 2011 by Philadelphia. The Sabres haven't made the playoffs since, scrapping for a spot and falling short a couple times and being unbelievably unequivocally AWFUL a couple other times and this was with Miller still playing like one of the best goalies in the world. Without him, they'd have been an absolute garbage tire fire. And then, last year, they traded him to the St. Louis Blues! So now we get to see that garbage fire in real time. Seriously, the Sabres are 1-6 right now and have nine goals. This could be history making stuff here. But that's neither here nor there! Because Ryan Miller was traded to the Blues, a team with a rigid defense, young offensive stars like Vladimir Tarasenko and T.J. Oshie ( ). Adding an elite goalie like Ryan Miller to the mix made them sure contenders. No more blown tires in the first two rounds, the Blues were legit this time and they were gon- OH YOU DUMB SONS OF BITCHES. Yeah, the Blues made Ryan Miller change his goaltending style to be "back in the net a little more" in the middle of the year and I'm seriously wondering if there's a situation where that garbage has ever worked out. I understand the Blues play a very stifling kind of defense that focuses on giving up few shots, but come on, this is the style of play that made Miller the goalie that you traded for! IF YOU JUST WANTED HIM TO PLAY LIKE A DIFFERENT GOALIE, WHY DID YOU TRADE FOR HIM? Spoiler alert, the changes didn't work out, the Blues tumbled badly down the stretch and when they went into their first round series with the Blackhawks, it looked like things might be okay as, despite being dominated pretty badly, the Blues squeaked out a couple OT victories to open a 2-0 lead. Haha, just kidding. They immediately lost four in a row. Miller allowed 15 goals in four games of a backdoor sweep but frankly, the Blues sucked in all those games, so I'm not gonna be too quick to put the blame on him, even if all the methhead douchebags in Scottrade Center suddenly think it's okay to boo the only guy on the ice for your team that actually seems to give a poo poo. Probably all Cardinals fans anyway. God, how I hate them. Miller ended the playoffs with a crummy 2.70 and .897 and again, I don't think he's the one to blame for that when the Blues made him change his style and then all the skaters on the ice crapped their pants in unison in front of him. Apparently Blues management was too stupid to figure that out, because they let the best goalie they'd had in years walk in free agency and decided to go back to the superstud tandem of Brian Elliott and Jake Allen. I'll enjoy watching them flame out in the first two rounds and never figure out why for years to come. As for Miller, he was an unrestricted free agent with his choice of where to sign for the first time in his career. He could truly choose his own way, hook on to a contender that would let him play his own style and make a real run at capturing the only prize he's yet to earn, Lord Stanley's Cu-  ...or, there's. Vancouver too. ...are we sure this boy isn't a masochist? Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm not making any judgment here. I'm just asking. Count: 974 Words Total Count So Far: 19,240
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2014 00:05
|
|
|
Aphrodite posted:You're really not going to put in the bit about how his rubber neck changed goaltender interference forever? You mean the Lucic thing? In retrospect, I really should've included that.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2014 00:20
|
|
|
That wasn't really MAFing, that was just being old and terrible. Gunjin posted:I think enough words have already been written about Brodeur's last season. Stay tuned.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2014 02:12
|
|
|
Let's be real, America's never getting back to the gold medal game before everybody currently running Hockey USA is dead and buried.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2014 00:01
|
|
|
 19. ROBERTO LUONGO Team: Florida Panthers Nationality: Canadian Age: 35 Draft Class: 1997 Hardware: Four Time NHL All-Star (2004, 2007, 2008, 2009), 2011 William M. Jennings Trophy, Two Time Olympic Gold Medal (2010, 2014) 2013-14 GAA: 2.40 2013-14 SV%: .919 2013-14 W/L: 25-23-7 in 56 games There's not much you can say about Roberto Luongo that hasn't already been said. The guy's had a crazy up-and-down career that's taken him to three different teams, he's represented his country in the olympics twice, he's been anointed "the chosen one" and then shut down for other, younger, hipper goalies multiple times. He's made it as close to the top of the mountain as anybody and been kicked back down to the bottom about as fiercely as you can be. And through it all, he's lost lots and lots and lots of shootouts. I could just do the typical thing here, summarize Luongo's career and do my bit of editorializing for it. I could talk about him replacing old fatso in the Olympics. I could talk about him taking his team to the Stanley Cup finals before they all shat their pants around him. I could talk about his twitter account, legitimately the funniest thing in the entirety of the NHL (and if you're not following @strombone1 then seriously, what the eff is wrong with you), but seriously, it's been done and I really can't do justice to it. At an impasse for what to do to honor this luminary of goaltending, I reached out to Roberto Luongo himself and he was incredibly helpful. He agreed to pass along a few excerpts from his personal poetry collection to help. I would like to thank Mr. Luongo for his generous contribution to the project. He is a gentleman and a scholar and I always liked him more than that creepy ginger kid anyway. Okay, the contract I signed said I had to say that last part if I was gonna use these poems. Now, without further ado, Roberto Luongo, everybody:  Mil-Blunder Drafted me, made Salo cry. I ask myself, why won't he die. Every time he made a move. Like that time in the crease I went number two. Razzed me for not being properly prepared. Dude, I looked at one apartment, who cares? Said I was his guy, the future, the only one! Then he drafts DiPi, I'm off to the state of the sun. So he signs poor Rick to this massive contract? Nobody can live up to that, he's getting sent to the racks. Signs Yashin to some kinda megadeal too. Aren't they still paying that dude? Among Islanders faithful, he is the darndest. Well, at least now they've got Tavares?  The Big Bad Devil (emphasis on bad) (emphasis on big too) My good friend Cory, not a liar Out of the frying pan and into the fat, fat fire. Almost wishes he was on the waiver wire. The Stadium Series, a 7-goal quagmire. For putting up with this poo poo, the Schneid, I admire. Goals against climbs higher and higher. Thought they'd make the playoffs? Now you're a crier. His goaltending legacy grows ever more dire. Won't fit in the trapezoid if he gets any wider. Holy poo poo, Marty. Just retire.  Ode to the Orca I remember it dearly, after Game 5. It was the last time, we felt truly alive. Then off to Boston for Game 6. There, our sacks, they truly did kick. It mattered not, we felt close to heaven. Back to our home, for Game 7. But when the goals did start to rain. Our guy Gillis went completely insane. See ya Christian, off to Buffalo, To the same division, I soon will go. The new guy, Hodgson, to the Sabres too? Are the wings in buffalo really THAT goo(d)? Swept by the fish, so long Dr. V. Welcome in Torts, outrageous as can be. I dunno what that poo poo with Calgary was. Or why against LA, we caused such a fuss. Lackie in the Heritage Classic was the last straw. I nearly grabbed my stick and beat that Boston fucker raw! That's it. I'm done. No more for me. I'm off to the land of Panthers and palmtrees. While we rebuild, the 'Nucks continue to sink. No Torts, no Mike, no more fans at the rink. Is my beloved orca truly on the ropes? Meh. Not my problem. Cya dopes.  He is so freaking talented. Count: 733 Words Total Count So Far: 19,973
|
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2014 00:48
|
|
|
Bonus content will be given proper consideration after the conclusion of the core project. EDIT: To elaborate, currently, my plan is to write and post the remaining 18 essays. Then I'm gonna look over them and do any addendums I want (top of the list right now is Mike Smith scoring a goal/the butt goal and Ryan Miller's brush up with Lucic, plus him loving tackling a dude whose name I cannot recall right now for the life of me). Then I'll consider bonus content like "Goalies Less Elite Than Jimmy Howard" and so on. MJeff fucked around with this message at 04:42 on Oct 25, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Oct 25, 2014 04:31
|
|
|
 18. KARI LEHTONEN Team: Dallas Stars Nationality: Finnish Age: 30 Draft Class: 2002 Hardware: 2007 World Championships Silver Medal, 2014 Olympic Bronze Medal, Guinness Book of World Records: "First Man to Become An NHL Goalies With A Groin Made of Plaster" 2013-14 GAA: 2.41 2013-14 SV%: .919 2013-14 W/L: 33-20-10 in 65 Games Kari Lehtonen - awesome name for goalie puns, by the way. If he's doing good, you can say "HE AIN'T LEHTONEN ANY GOALS!" and hold your hand up for a high five that you'll never get and if he's doing lovely, you can say "I guess he's Kari LEHT-ONE-EN tonight, eh? eh? eh?" and elbow the guy next to you until he punches you in the loving face because you can't stop making your horrible loving puns. Puns are the lowest form of humor, you piece of garbage. Get your life together. Jesus Christ. So yeah, Kari Lehtonen. A product of the Atlanta Thrashers (remember them? Me neither) system, drafted 2nd overall in 2002. Thing about the Thrashers is, boy howdy did they suck the fantastic. They were bad. Really bad. Despite having like, Hossa, Kovalchuk and Heatley all at the same time. Is that true? I dunno, but I'm not going to research it because that'd involve researching the Thrashers. But Lehtonen was really bad with the Thrashers and struggled to stick with the club, bouncing between them and their AHL affiliate the Chicago Wolves a couple of times. His best year with them was 2006-07 when he posted 34 wins and led the Thrashers to their first and as of right now only playoff berth, seeing as Winnipeg hasn't gotten their poo poo together yet either. He started two games against the New York Rangers and Johan Hedberg started the other two. Neither were very good and the Rangers scored a video game-esque 17 goals en route to being swept out of the playoffs. Eventually, the Thrashers gave up on Lehtonen and traded him to the Dallas Stars. Have I mentioned that the Thrashers are loving stupid? 'Cause it actually turned out that Lehtonen is really good. Lehtonen became the Stars starting goalie quickly, giving the Stars stability in goal after the departure of, ah, goaltending luminary Marty Turco a couple years back. Unfortunately, the rest of the Stars kind of, ah, stunk about as bad as the Thrashers had. Lehtonen posted a few good years, ratcheting up over 30 wins twice, but the Stars kept just missing the playoffs (by one agonizing point in 2010-11). Enter Jimmy Nill, former Red Wings man, who immediately started shaking things up by acquiring Rich "The Motherfucker" Peverly and Tyler "The Motherfucker" Seguin. These new additions helped the Stars squeak into the playoffs for the first time in six years in 2013-14 where they almost pulled off an upset of the Anaheim Ducks, but came up just a couple goals short. Lehtonen was unfortunately not all he could've been, posting a 3.29 and a .885 in a short six-game sample. The Stars are getting better all the time and with the addition of Jason "The Motherfucker" Spezza to give the team a bit more offensive punch, Lehtonen could be in a position to backstop the Stars into becoming legit contenders again. ....so yeah, Lehtonen is a good goalie who's puts up good stats since coming to the Stars and has missed a lot of time with groin injuries to the point where it's kind of a running joke, but hasn't had much more than a cup of coffee in the playoffs. Not very interesting. But there is something that's very interesting: this dude has the craziest masks ever. I'm gonna show you some of the masks he's had since entering the NHL.  See the drawing on the back there? That's the Hamburglar. Because apparently while he was in the AHL, Lehtonen became so enamored with McDonald's hamburgers, he earned the nickname "Hamburglar" from his teammates. Nobody ever said hockey players are original, but it's still funny as hell on the back of a mask.  Here's Lehtonen with rapper Lil Jon! Lehotnen was a big fan of Lil Jon, so he got a picture of him on the back of his mask.  Uma Thurman and Lucy Liu from Kill Bill and Heath Ledger as the Joker from The Dark Knight.  I'm not makin' this up - that's Rikku and Yuna from Final Fantasy 10. Apparently, Lehtonen never even played the game, he just saw some commercials for it on TV (apparently there was a time when Final Fantasy got ads on TV in America) and thought the characters looked cool. Personally, I like this next one more.  Optimus motherfucking Prime. This has gotta be my favorite one although, unfortunately, it never saw an actual game and was only used in warm-ups. Lehtonen continued his trend of unique designs when he was traded to Dallas.  Chuck Norris jokes stopped being funny like four years ago, but this is still pretty great. The flag on the back is a nice touch.  A bit of old west flavor fitting of a Dallas goalie, this one has characters from the movie Tombstone on it. Unfortunately, Lehtonen went with a much more straightforward team branding to go with the Stars' new uniforms (which I think are pretty cool) last year and this year. I'm not blaming his boring mask for him losing to the Ducks in the playoffs last year. I'm just saying, maybe if he got the dog from Duck Hunt on there, it'd intimidate Getzlaf's bald rear end a little. ....you guys want one more? Okay, here's a Ned Flanders mask from Peter Budaj. Google it, there's seriously tons of these.  This poo poo is why I love goalies, man. Count: 962 Words Total Count So Far: 20,935
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2014 02:14
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 27, 2024 21:18 |
|
|
Comic Sans, gross.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 26, 2014 05:33
|
|