I never knew how GAA worked, thanks for telling me. haha

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whats your malfunction, here aaron? if you really want to challenge me on this, awesome. i will provide stat after stat, goalie after goalie. i will flip the notion of cam ward being a good goalie upside down (i know you defend the canes the same way i defend the wings. you dont like them, but they are your home town club) i didnt want to return here, but i saw too much wrong not to comment, so im all in... it would be like me saying a nissian 350z is a turbo charged diesel injected 18 cylinder. you would shit bricks at how wrong that is. and thats what im doing.





im also drunk.

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I was being a smartass about not knowing how GAA worked. I still don't think it needs to be ignored as much as you do. I know it's not always a reflection of how the goalie played, but it isn't a useless stat and one to be thrown away.

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a GAA is a great way to gauge the whole team. typically, a goalie with a high GAA has a low save percentage, and so on and so forth. but, as ive said... 12 times now? if you see a goalie with a very good save percentage, and a bad GAA, you are looking at a goalie hung out to dry by his team, and yet still producing. just the way it is. this thought process alone nearly won luongo a veznia by itself. and as weve discussed in the other thread, thats what makes rasks .923 save percentage all the more impressive.

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By that standard, a defensemen could argue that his +/- has no bearing on his play, but simply a reflection of how well his goaltender played.

You cannot discount GAA and focus only on sv%. The combined statistics give you a truer picture, not just cherry picking one you like, and ignoring ones you don't.

that would be a great goaltending stat, if he had control over how many shots he faced. GAA is nothing more then the result of shots against and save percentage. it does not provide an accurate picture for how the goaltender played. in save percentage, everything is equal. simply put, its the ratio of goals to shots against. if one goalie is facing 34 shots a game, and another is facing 25, who is going to have the lower GAA? its not cherrypicking, its the truth. the most accurate statistic when evaluating a goaltender is save percentage, while one of the most misleading is GAA. and this isnt some random theory i concocted, im merely parroting what many NHL analysts have been saying for years, though once i heard it, i immediately realized its truth. i mean, GAA is what the veznia used to be based off, before they decided to change that to best overall play (the number 1 stat they look at? save percentage. its how luongo almost won a veznia on a non playoff panthers team) and then look at the jennings trophy. lowest GAA. look at who wins it. typically, teams with stacked defenses. brodeurs won the thing 5 times! even osgood has one.

i mean, shit. how many times have you seen someone score on miller, and thought, gee, the defense hung miller out to dry on that. not his fault. do you look at the box score the next day, see 4 goals against, and say "a GAA of 4?! get this guy outta here!" course not. so why are we doing that to everyone else?

GAA is more indicative to the team in front of the goaltender rather then himself. certainly, exceptions exist, and more often then not, GAA and save percentage go hand in hand. but, seeing this started with the mentioning of rask, when you see him have an inflated GAA, but a high save percentage, you have to realize the weight of one shows more of how he is playing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goals_against_average

"Since the statistic is highly dependent on the team playing in front of a goalie, save percentage is usually considered a more accurate measure of a goaltender's skill, especially in ice hockey and lacrosse."

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Citing a wikipedia opinion doesn't back up your point.

My point is that you cannot arbitrarily decide that GAA is meaningless, and SV% is the holy grail of evaluation. That's not how it works. It's cherrypicking stats to try and make it fit your point.

A goalie can have a high GAA if the team in front of them sucks. They can also have a high GAA by letting in cupcake goals and getting pulled, since they played less minutes. They can have a low GAA if the team in front of them plays a defensive style that minimizes offensive chances.

A goalie can have a high sv% if they play behind a team that allows shots, but not from good areas. (see Brodeur, Martin). That number can also suffer if the team in front sucks and they give up a lot of odd man rushes and backdoor chances that the goalies doesn't have much real chance to stop.

My point is that no statistic exists in a vacuum. Every stat is dependent on many factors and other statistics. It's flat out wrong to say that stat #1 is important, and stat # 2 isn't and should be ignored. The combination of multiple statistics combined with observation is what tells you about a player.

why is that? wikipedia is just a collaboration of sources.

but ok. i mean, ive provided stats and sources and facts, at some point i have to realize someone just not going to listen.

it should also be pointed out brodeur doesnt have high save percentage. hes had 3 seasons at .920 or above. and in fact, in 94-95 when he won the cup with a resounding 2.05 GAA, what was his save percentage? .902. thats less then 21 shots per game against. his career save percentage is .914, same as millers. thats average. difference is miller doenst play behind a defense oriented team.

he did have a sparkling 96-97 season with a 1.88 GAA and a .927 save percentage. hasek turned in a 2.27 GAA and a .930 save percentage and won a veznia.

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Wikipedia is editable by anyone without regard to their qualifications. You don't know if that sentence was placed there by a 20 year hockey coach or a 16 year old kid.

You've provided your opinion as to why you think GAA is a 'glamor stat' and meaningless. I've simply countering that you should not summarily dismiss it as unimportant.

yes, lets assume that page was recently edited to back my argument. in fact, maybe i myself changed it. we will never know. its widely accepted by fans, experts, goalie coaches, ect. that the save percentage is the best way to gauge a goaltender. i have provided alot of stats and other things that support this theory. if you wont even consider this notion, then whats the point?

if you want to think GAA has some merit in the process, thats cool. i do not. its a glamour stat, like a save in baseball. (and good god, like we needed a more useless stat to track, they now track HOLDS? FOR FUCKING REAL?)

its just one of those things.

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I never accused you of editing that page yourself. I could go find the addition if I really wanted to. I was simply pointing out that we don't know anything about who put that sentence there. It could have been anyone.

I won't consider the notion that there is a magic statistic for any position on any team for any sport. Maybe you do. I do not.

but yet, this whole discussion started because you decided to antagonize me by using rasks bad GAA.

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It was friendly jab. You went off the rails with it.

i didnt think it was a friendly jab after the last contact you and i had was that you were going to put me on ignore.

i guess i was wrong, but you can certainly see my point.

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The subject word wasn't spoken, but this topic has all the usual traits, garnering the use of this form....

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If it's a tight squeeze, spit on it! - NyI

He's a middling AHL player who had the good fortune of a drunk arbitrator. - The Squanto re: Tim Kennedy

i find article 8B of that form very offensive and racist.








kidding.

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