04/25/24
May 10, 2012
SportsFilter: The Thursday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
Roddy White thinks those old guys should quit whining about football injuries.
posted by yerfatma at 01:50 PM on May 10, 2012
Oh! La la! Rangers!
posted by Hugh Janus at 05:37 PM on May 10, 2012
Anyone have a theory for why some of the best hockey goalies seriously outplay their draft status (or, to put it another way, are drafted so low)?
Here are the top 5 scorers this year by points, with their draft numbers:
1. Evgeni Malkin (2nd overall)
2. Steven Stamkos (1st overall)
3. Claude Giroux (22nd overall)
4. Jason Spezza (2nd overall)
5. Ilya Kovalchuk (1st overall)
And here are the top 5 goalies by GAA, with their draft numbers:
1. Brian Elliott (291st overall)
2. Jonathan Quick (73rd overall)
3. Cory Schneider (26th overall)
4 (tie). Jaroslav Halak (271st overall)
4 (tie). Henrik Lundqvist (205th overall)
[Worth noting that if you expand out to 12, you get Giguere at 9 (13th overall pick) Kari Lehtonen at 10 (2nd overall), and Marc-Andre Fleury (1st overall), but the rest were between 64 (Jimmy Howard) and 218 (Johan Hedberg). Also worth noting that a couple of these guys were back-ups and GAA is attributable in some measure to team defense stat.]
So, what gives? Are goalies notoriously hard to scout? Late bloomers? Too many busts to take a flyer on a goalie with an early pick? Or a theory like running backs in the NFL -- that if there is not a once-in-a-generation (Adrian Peterson-ish) talent, you find what you can in the later rounds?
posted by holden at 06:21 PM on May 10, 2012
How often are goaltenders chosen in the higher rounds?
posted by Ying Yang Mafia at 10:05 PM on May 10, 2012
Of the last 150 first rounders, only 4 were goalies.
posted by dfleming at 10:15 PM on May 10, 2012
Help us, Obi-Grum Kenobi, you're our only hope.
posted by holden at 10:28 PM on May 10, 2012
So these, like, NHL playoffs, do they ever end?
posted by owlhouse at 02:04 AM on May 11, 2012
Or the NBL playoffs for that matter.
Maybe they should have relegation, especially when it can produce final days like this.
posted by owlhouse at 05:28 AM on May 11, 2012
Goaltenders (like almost everything else) are cyclical.
There are years where there are many good goalies to pick in the first round (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005).
However, it's easier to turn a decent goalie into a good goalie with a strong defensive plan, but it's almost impossible to turn a decent forward/defenseman into a good one, so it's better to draft for those positions when star players are available.
posted by grum@work at 08:21 AM on May 11, 2012
Playoff hockey will never be the same.