There are a few explanations being floated around to explain the surprise firing of Dale Tallon in Chicago. The failure to send out qualifying offers to the Hawks' RFAs is an obvious possible explanation, but others feel that it was the backroom machinations of Scotty Bowman or the result of some of the big-money contracts Tallon has handed out, including those to Brian Campbell, Marian Hossa, and Cristobal Huet.
The latter reason, if it is indeed the case, is a bit curious to me. I agree he overspent wildly on Campbell, but I don't think the Hossa or Huet deals were that bad. Bringing in another goalie with Khabibulin already on the roster might have struck many as strange, but Chicago had cap room to spare last season, and now that Khabibulin has moved on the question simply becomes whether or not Cristobal Huet is worth that money. I wouldn't commit $5.6 million to a goalie unless he was a top-of-the-line elite guy with some good years still on the table, which means I probably wouldn't have signed Huet. But while the deal might not have been the optimal use of cap resources for Chicago I don't think it was that out of line given comparable deals and Huet's past history.
In the wake of the first few days of free agency, many fans and media were of the opinion that the Blackhawks would have been a top Stanley Cup contender next year except for the loss of Khabibulin. In their eyes, having the goalie with the third best save percentage in the league over the last 4 seasons isn't a suitable backup plan. Cristobal Huet is a perennially underrated goalie, a guy who has always been criticized by people who focus more on how he looks making the save and not enough on whether or not the puck goes in. A think a good description of his style was made by 2009 draft pick Edward Pasquale, who called Huet a "relaxed goalie". Playing a relaxed style sometimes makes it look like all your saves are easy and that you didn't try very hard when a puck goes past you. The latter criticism ("He always lets in soft goals!") has often been targeted at Huet.
TV "analyst" Pierre McGuire called Huet a "marginal goaltender" on free agency day, and has been claiming that the league has "solved" Huet since 2007. According to him Huet is really easy to score on if you shoot high.
I don't disagree that Huet's glove hand is average at best, and probably even a bit worse than that, but since 1998-99 Cristobal Huet has the third best penalty kill save percentage of any goalie in the league (min. 4000 SA). On the power play the opponents have the time and space to take advantage of your weaknesses - why aren't they exposing Huet with the extra man? Could it be because they simply can't? Downgrading a goalie because you can beat him high glove is outdated and old-fashioned thinking. Back in the day anything aimed glove-side was a goal unless you caught it, but modern goalies can compensate for not having a terrific catching glove by relying on positioning and blocking techniques, as well as making up some ground by allowing fewer goals than average along the ice. Henrik Lundqvist is another example of a guy who succeeds despite people saying it is so easy to score on him high glove.
Huet also gets derided as not being a great pressure goalie, mainly because his team has never won a playoff series with him as the starter. That shouldn't really fall too much on Huet, though, who was a career .917 postseason save percentage. In his 10 career playoff losses, Huet had a .914 mark, and the main problem was that his team scored just 1.45 goals per 60 minutes and allowed 33.6 shots per game. Huet hasn't been particularly good in playoff OT (1-5 record), but that is again mostly the fault of his teammates, who have scored just 1 goal for him in 63 minutes and have allowed shots against at a remarkable rate of 49 shots per 60 minutes of OT. With that kind of support, blaming Huet seems unfair to me.
All this negative talk is mostly a result of a bad first impression in Chicago. Going 3-5-2, 2.97, .897 over the first 2 months of the season will generally do that, especially when at the same time Khabibulin was lighting it up. The doubters then came crawling out of the woodwork to kick Huet while he was down and get in their "I told you so"s, and the perception remained even as he raised his game over the remainder of the season.
If you look at their past recent history, there is every reason to believe that the Bulin Wall was playing over his head and Huet was having an off-year. Since 1998-99, Khabibulin's even strength save percentage has been .920, and over the last 3 seasons he's been at the same .920 mark. That's pretty good evidence of his actual skill level, so there's not a whole lot of reason to expect him to duplicate his .933 from 2008-09. If anything at the age of 36 we should expect him to be declining.
Huet has a career .923 even strength save percentage, with a .922 mark over the last three seasons. He's certainly at the very least in Khabibulin's range, and has the advantage of being 2 years younger. Because he split starts this season, Huet faced just 805 EV shots last year. Typically the smaller the sample size the larger the variance, and the difference between Huet's recent established performance and his .916 EV SV% in 2008-09 was only about 5 goals over the whole season, a handful of bounces here and there. If Huet had managed to save 5 extra goals, his seasonal numbers would improve to 2.40, .914, pretty much within spitting distance of Khabibulin's 2.33, .919. I'd guess Huet will end up in the area of .914 this coming season, while age and team factors might very well drop Khabibulin down to around the league average of .908.
I think Chicago's decision to let Khabibulin walk and bank on Huet was pretty easy. If there was a prop bet available to predict which of Khabibulin and Huet would have the higher save percentage next year, I'd bet on Huet. I think Chicago is going to be just fine in net in 2009-10.
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9 comments:
Interesting. I can't say I'm one of those who really respects Huet. But you've posted some numbers that have me thinking.
Will def. be watching him this season and how he fares in the tough Western Conference as the unequivocal go-to guy.
You expect a save percentage around .914? Thats not really saying much of anything considering league average and a basic standard deviation. Huet is clearly overrated by you, just like Kari Lehtonen. He's a slightly less talented Evgeni Nabakov.
As for Lehtonen, when he puts together a full seasons worth of good numbers then call him a decent goalie, until then, going off of one slightly above average year in 06-07, and a bunch of injury plagued 40 start seasons really does not cut it.
"Huet is clearly overrated by you, just like Kari Lehtonen. He's a slightly less talented Evgeni Nabakov."
I clearly overrate Huet because you think my projection of his performance is too low? That's an interesting conclusion. Nowhere did I say Huet was an elite goalie, he's more like borderline top 10. I was merely defending him against his many detractors.
If Huet performs at his career rates next year and faces the same percentage of shots at ES and on the PK as he did in Chicago last year, then his expected save percentage is .914. That's where that number is coming from. And that is a solid number (.006 above league average).
"As for Lehtonen, when he puts together a full seasons worth of good numbers then call him a decent goalie, until then, going off of one slightly above average year in 06-07, and a bunch of injury plagued 40 start seasons really does not cut it."
Calling Lehtonen's '06-07 season "slightly above average" says more about your goalie evaluation methods than it does about his play. Lehtonen's EV SV% over the last 4 years has been .927, .926, .925, .923, playing on the worst defensive team in the league. His games played is also 14th in the league over the last 3 years, which means Atlanta is actually above average in games played for their starting goalie.
If you think staying healthy is a skill and that's something you prefer in a goalie, then fine. Doesn't mean an oft-injured goalie can't be considered good if he plays well when he is in the game.
Obviously staying healthy is important and to a degree I would consider it a sort of natural talent in terms relative to athletes. A guy who is lights out in net 30 games a year is useless to a team if he is consistently getting injured for the other 50. Injury prone players are unreliable, inconsistent, and always unproductive simply because a player can not contribute to his team if he is not on the ice.
I am still confounded as to why one single stat, in this case even strength save percentage, means Lehtonen is a good goalie. We could go around in circles pinching one stat here or there, or one in scenario a or b or c, that could make any guy look good.
"Injury prone players are unreliable, inconsistent, and always unproductive simply because a player can not contribute to his team if he is not on the ice."
Injury prone players are unreliable and inconsistent, sure, but certainly not "always unproductive." When they are on the ice, they score, or prevent the other team from scoring. That's a valuable contribution. You'd like to see it from them 82 games per year, but I'd much rather have a Lehtonen or a Gaborik for 45 games per year than some backup goalie or checking forward who never gets injured.
"I am still confounded as to why one single stat, in this case even strength save percentage, means Lehtonen is a good goalie. We could go around in circles pinching one stat here or there, or one in scenario a or b or c, that could make any guy look good."
I posted that stat because it is the best stat. If you think any statistical analysis is simply going around in circles, then you must think everything I do here is pointless.
It isn't just the save percentage evidence that points to Lehtonen as a good goalie. One comparison that seems to be usually be a good indicator of a dominant goalie is whether their shutout rate is much higher than the rest of their team's. Lehtonen has 13 shutouts since the lockout compared to his teammates' 4. Adjust that for minutes played and put it on the scale of a 70 game season, and Lehtonen averages 4.8 shutouts compared to his teammates' 2.0.
We can also compare GAAs:
2005-06: Lehtonen 2.94, Backups 3.40
2006-07: Lehtonen 2.79, Backups 2.89
2007-08: Lehtonen 2.90, Backups 3.40
2008-09: Lehtonen 3.06, Backups 3.52
The guy was a second overall pick, so obviously he is a talented goalie. His pre-NHL performance was terrific. I'm not coming out of left field here by using number tricks to boost some unknown guy, there's lots of subjective evidence that backs it up as well.
Lehtonen's problems are injury and weak teammates. A lot of people can't get past those things, and so they don't see him as the quality goalie that he is.
Lehtonen's EV SV% over the last 4 years has been .927, .926, .925, .923, playing on the worst defensive team in the league.
Can you justify this comment? How is Atlanta the worst defensive team in the league and not for example Tampa Bay?
I have to hand it to you, TCG, we always seem to be at odds about goalies and you frequently either change my mind or at least make me look deeper. Good work, sir.
"Can you justify this comment? How is Atlanta the worst defensive team in the league and not for example Tampa Bay?"
Since the lockout:
ATL: 3.10 GAA, .902 SV%, 31.7 SA/60
TB: 3.05 GAA, .894 SV%, 28.6 SA/60
Shot quality numbers suggest Atlanta also allows a slightly higher shot difficulty against. Put all that together and it looks like Tampa has a stronger defence and worse goaltending.
It's close, and there are a few teams that could be also in the running depending on what years you look at (L.A., St. Louis, etc.), but I think since the lockout the worst defensive team has probably been Atlanta.
I see since the lockout. I was thinking of last season in particular. Obviously the Lightning were once a better defensive team (and team in general). They were the defending Stanley Cup champs when the lockout ended.
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