Some random September thoughts

Photo Credit: @keeperofthecup (Philip Pritchard)

Finally. September. The ridiculous 90+ degree heat hasn’t seemed to stop, but at least hockey is not only weeks, instead of months, away. There has been a summer full of great off-season analysis, and Traverse City is right around the corner. As we move at break-neck speed back toward hockey season, I have some thoughts…

There have been several slightly off-topic articles written over the past few weeks that I wanted to throw my .02 in, at least just conceptually.

Nick Mercandante over at Blueshirt Banter wrote a great article about how Goalies are Voodoo. After reading this piece, I tried to take stock of the direction advanced goaltending statistics are moving. It seems that the two main areas of focus are 1. Leveling the statistical playing field and 2. Delineating shot difficulty based on shot location. Both of these concepts are useful, of course. I think what has frustrated me over the years is that, and you long-time readers already know this, I’m of the school of thought that what separates good goalies from great goalies is consistency.

So, how do you measure consistency? Therein lies the challenge. The thing to know about goaltending, if you haven’t played the position, is that with the exception of communication and puck distribution, you are very self-contained. Your movements, puck tracking and save selection are all products of how the play develops around you, not how it involves you. This may seem a little abstract, but I feel that we need to start measuring positional efficiency and weighting shot types, situations.

For example, if you were to freeze an overhead shot of a goal, draw a line from the center of the puck from where it is shot to the point it crosses the goal line, then measure the angle to the center of the goalie’s chest. The more extreme the angle, the less efficient the goalie’s positioning is. The point of the position is to center yourself as squarely on the puck as possible, creating maximum surface area and thus, probability of the puck hitting you. If you were to measure how “square” a goalie is on any given shot, and then weight it by preceding event, I guarantee it would normalize (I haven’t studied any data on it, so a lot more work would be required to determine specifics) and you would have a much better idea of who is going to consistently perform based on the efficiency of their movements.

Another article I found interesting, was again over at Blueshirt Banter, written by Mike Murphy on ridiculous it is to hold a hockey player culturally and morally above any other athlete. There are some seriously heavy socio-economic and racial connotations to an analysis like this, which I feel requires a very in-depth analysis to even begin to formulate an educated opinion on.

I will say this. I believe that being a professional athlete is a privilege. It is a social contract with the game and the people who follow it. You are a highly skilled entertainer and you have a responsibility to uphold while being paid millions of dollars to generate revenue for the sport. You don’t have to be a good person; you just have to not break the law.

I don’t really care which sport it is; the leagues have a responsibility to not tolerate this behavior. The bar is not set very high when all you are asked to do is not sexually assault/physically abuse women, bring a gun into a nightclub or kill someone. I understand the value that the publicity that these athletes bring to the league, but I’m of the opinion that if you are unable to keep from committing felonies, you do not deserve your job as an athlete.

Finally, I figured I would touch on Antti Raanta. In case you missed it, the new Rangers backup goalie made some statements that were not particularly team oriented. Long story short, in a Finnish-language interview, he stated that he wished Nashville swept the ‘Hawks in this past season’s playoffs so he could go back to Finland sooner. The context seemingly being that he was relegated to the press box and his accommodations in this role were less than stellar.

It’s very difficult to imagine a positive spin on this type of statement, even if taken out of context. However, the statements were made in Finnish, so it’s possible something was lost in translation. As unlikely as that may be, I am going to try and reserve judgment until he is able to address it himself, in English, when he is inevitably bombarded about it when he arrives to training camp. In the event that Raanta is the world’s worst teammate, his contract only runs one season before he becomes a UFA.