East Meets West

Why keeping Gomez is a great plan.

Last week, I was reading my favorite hockey analytics blog, behindthenet.ca and saw this chart:

Team	SF	SA	Fen%
pit	104	67	60.8
van	50	33	60.2
was	108	89	54.8
mon	58	49	54.2
phi	85	73	53.8
det	40	37	51.9
la	67	62	51.9
nsh	38	36	51.4
ana	36	38	48.6
sj	62	67	48.1
pho	37	40	48.1
buf	73	85	46.2
bos	49	58	45.8
nyr	89	108	45.2
chi	33	50	39.8
tb	67	104	39.2

And what struck me was the relative placement of Montreal and Boston. The theory being expounded by the media was that Montreal was dominated by Boston in 5x5 situation. Except the data doesn't show that.

So if the data doesn't show it, perhaps a simpler explanation is that Tim Thomas outplayed Carey Price, and if there had been a lesser goalie between the pipes, Montreal would have advanced... Maybe the real story of the playoffs is that the Boston Bruins pulled a Montreal Canadiens...

Which is a wierd place to begin a defense of Gomez.

As I stared at that data, it got me thinking about Gomez. Seeing his +/-, I wondered what was his Corsi.

And I was a little bit shocked.

Gomez had a relative Corsi of 11. Which means that while he was on the ice, Montreal had more offensive pressure than when he was off the ice. Put in perspective only Jeff Halpern and Mathieu Darche were ahead of him.

Okay what about the regular season, a relative Corsi number of 7.4, 8th best on the Habs.

So it must have been the quality of the opposition. And there we see that indeed Gomez played against worse players than folks like Plekanec, but still it wasn't like he was playing against the bums.

Which means he was actually doing quite well beating up the players JM asked him to beat up on.

Alright then.

So what the hell?

Remember how the Habs were outplaying Boston but the media disagreed ...And it turned out that the more logical explanation was that Thomas outplayed Carey Price? An admission Carey Price made at the end of the playoffs?

Let's look at the team shooting percentage while Gomez is on the ice: 4.73% - a full 1.8% less than the next worst regular. If you compare that shooting percentage to last year it's horrifically poor dropping from 8.5 to 4.7%

So for some reason, while Gomez was on the ice, he and his teammates were shooting blanks.

Now there is this whole theory of quality of shots. And you could make the claim that Gomez was creating bad shooting opportunities. That yeah he was getting shots on net, but they were perimiter shots etc... Which might make sense but that would require a deeper analysis.

Here's my take.

I think Gomez played well but got unbelievably unlucky this year. Much like some players have a great year and their shooting percentage jumps by 5%, his dropped by 5%.

I think that the key offensive skill in the NHL is getting shots towards the net and that Gomez has not lost that skill. I believe that as long as he continues to do that he will finally get rewarded.

As far as I am concerned the "beat up Gomez" party, is as misguided as the "Halak over Price" party.

Halak was one of the wierdest hot and cold goalies of the NHL. Price was consistently better than him. It was clear that Price was improving. Whereas it was unclear whether Halak could improve his worst performances.

You heard it hear first. Gomez will have a great season.

 

 

Now that the head is gone, maybe the stench will go away too.

Apparently there may be a God. Boivin, he of the we only hire French here, left the Montreal Canadiens to pursue outside interests. 

http://habsinsideout.com/main/36526

Pierre Boivin was an interesting character. He openly advocated the French first policy for hiring of coaches, General Managers and we must assume players. As a result, he artificially constrained the talent pool the Habs could leverage. 

Was it a corporate policy? Was it his policy? Who the hell knows. The reality though was that the Montreal Canadiens, once famous for being a class act, were now famous for their reverse discrimination.

Look, if the Greeks can be coached by a German, then the Habs can be coached by a non-Francophone. And when Greece won the Euro Cup, no one cared where Otto came from, just that he was there and that Greece won. 

But the problem with Boivin's stance is that it provided cover for the uglier elements of French Quebec. Those elements spent 11 years trashing Saku Koivu, the only bright spot on the Habs. Those elements advocated that Montreal draft Francophone (or is it pure-laine?) players regardless of talent after the fourth round. Those elements trashed AK because he's not French. 

Boivin created a culture where being "French-First" was acceptable. And if the President of the Habs said it was okay to be French first about the Coach and the GM, the rest of the province probably was wondering why we were not following that principle to its logical conclusion and go all the way?

So Good Bye Boivin! Maybe your departure will see a shift away from the poisonous culture you helped create... 

And now what? Instant thoughts on the post season

Now that the Sharks were eliminated, the always entertaining post season begins.

The challenge for the Sharks, as for every team that competes for the Cup, is how to remain a cup contender within a fixed budget.

The big question marks are going to be Joe Pavelski, an RFA, Patrick Marleau, a UFA, and Nabokov.

Patrick Marleau was playing himself into a miserably poor pay day. His performance against Detroit, and his performance against Chicago, more or less guaranteed him 5+ million with many many years.

Pavelski was playing himself into Marleau like numbers but his disappearance against Detroit, and more ominously against Chicago, more or less put him back into Clowe numbers.

As for Nabokov, the new working theory is that no contending team will ever pay a goalie that kind of money, so we’re looking at either a pay cut or a new goalie.

The challenge for Wilson is that Marleau will be offered some big dollars by various teams.

And there is no guarantee Marleau won’t want a change of scenery, just because.

So my thinking is the following.

Marleau will walk. I think we’ll offer him good money, but he’s gone. He lost the captaincy, he’s blamed for too many defeats and there are stupid GM’s with lots of money to offer him a change of scenery.

Nabokov is also gone. Paying 6 million dollars for a goalie just doesn’t make sense any more.

So what do you do with that money?

I’m so very happy that I get to cheer the Sharks on, rather than have to make those decisions.

Go Sharks.