Bryan Bickell

[LordKOTL]

Thank you for making my point for me. It's simply a matter of opportunity that showed you that you can win with a "no name goalie" like Niemi given you have a team like the Hawks do (and a team like the Sharks do). They did that. They showed you that it's possible. The fucking Flyers nearly did it that same season with Leighton and Boucher. Like I've been telling you, there will always be more NHL caliber goalies looking for a job than there are jobs available for them. They just need the opportunity to show it. And those are a lot harder to come by when compared to a forward trying to break into the league or a d-man.

So instead of being a no name goalie, he's all of a sudden a Cup winning goalie. Would you have thought that was possible before that happened? The Hawks don't need a 6 million dollar goalie to win a Cup.

With the way every player on our team has been playing recently (Crawford included), they're going to need far more than any 6M dollar goalie to win the cup. They're going to need a bunch of salad tongs to perform a bunch of rectal craniectomies.

 

[Variable]

Just because it happened once doesn't mean it will happen all the time.

The Blackhawks are not good enough to win a championship with every goalie out there.

There is no discernible way of knowing which ones they can with.

A bird in the hand and all of that.

I'm not saying they can win it with any goalie. You can have Hasek and you won't win the Cup every year. So many things have to go right for your team to win it. But I'll take my chances with a better quality team in front of an "unproven" goalie rather than paying more and depending more on the position that depends the most on the quality of every other position player in front of him.

 

[biscuit_in_the_basket]

I'm not saying they can win it with any goalie. You can have Hasek and you won't win the Cup every year. So many things have to go right for your team to win it. But I'll take my chances with a better quality team in front of an "unproven" goalie rather than paying more and depending more on the position that depends the most on the quality of every other position player in front of him.

Just curious as to how many unproven goalies have been on teams that have won a Cup, made it to the SCF, or even conference finals. I suspect that number is very low for all three.

 

[Tjodalv]

Just curious as to how many unproven goalies have been on teams that have won a Cup, made it to the SCF, or even conference finals. I suspect that number is very low for all three.

Not a lot. Just for the last 25 cup winners (an arbitrary sample):

Quick.
Crow.
Quick.
Thomas.
Niemi.
Fleury.
Osgood/Hasek. (HoF)
Giguere.
Ward (rookie, but a stud).
Khabibulin.
Brodeur. (HoF)
Hasek. (HoF)
Roy. (HoF)
Brodeur. (HoF)
Belfour. (HoF)
Osgood.
Osgood.
Roy. (HoF)
Brodeur. (HoF)
Richter.
Roy. (HoF)
Barrasso.
Barrasso.
Fuhr. (HoF)
Vernon.

So, yeah, that's pretty much just a list of absolute stud or near stud netminders with the exception of Giguere (that was all the huge pads prior to the size limit reduction), Barrasso (who had a fucking amazing team in front of him), Niemi (average but had a great run), and Vernon (mediocre but serviceable). In the modern era it's almost impossible to win the cup without a really good to great goalie. I mean, fuck, almost half of those were won by hall of famers or future hall of famers (Brodeur is clearly a lock).

I still can't believe we let both Belfour and Hasek off our fucking team. :shot:

 

[Variable]

Just curious as to how many unproven goalies have been on teams that have won a Cup, made it to the SCF, or even conference finals. I suspect that number is very low for all three.

Well that would depend on what your definition of unproven is. That's why I type it "unproven". Because like I say, the goalie will almost always go as the team goes. Meaning that most teams that go on to win the Cup, make it to the Final or Conference Finals, are usually teams that are extremely well rounded and, most importantly to me anyway, are high puck possession teams. Especially in recent years in the salary cap era.

That's why Tjodalv's list will never tell you the whole story. Too simplistic. Nothing is that black and white. Every single team who has won the Cup or gotten to the Final, since the salary cap has come into effect, has one thing in common. Extremely good at possessing the puck. Either the best or one of the best. Hawks, Kings, Red Wings, Bruins, Canucks, Flyers, the only kinda outlier is the Penguins when they won it, but they had two of the best in the game playing at their best, along with, at that time, a much more well rounded team than they have had in recent years because it was before all the big contracts started to kick in (Crosby, Malkin, Staal, etc).

Who would've thought that teams that were among or the best at limiting shots at their goalie and owned the puck more often than the other team and outshot them would usually find a lot of success in the playoffs? We've only been seeing it for the past 7 years here. Those goalies have a great advantage compared to just about every single other goalie in the league. It's not their "fault", but they do. Has to be taken into account. Osgood isn't getting his name on the Cup fucking 3 times or have half as many "wins" if he's not with one of the biggest powerhouse teams of all time in Detroit. But he's more proven than, say, a goalie like say Luongo? Come on.

 

[biscuit_in_the_basket]

Not a lot. Just for the last 25 cup winners (an arbitrary sample):
I still can't believe we let both Belfour and Hasek off our fucking team. :shot:

Hasek was not "all that" in his time with the 'Hawks and Belfour was showing to be a stud, so Hasek was moved. Like JR, Belfour thought the 'Hawks were not being fair with their offer....he only make ~20k more than offered with the signing to Dallas. Both had big mouths and attitudes, which ultimately doomed them both.


But that is all in the past.

 

[biscuit_in_the_basket]

Well that would depend on what your definition of unproven is. That's why I type it "unproven". Because like I say, the goalie will almost always go as the team goes. Meaning that most teams that go on to win the Cup, make it to the Final or Conference Finals, are usually teams that are extremely well rounded and, most importantly to me anyway, are high puck possession teams. Especially in recent years in the salary cap era.

That's why Tjodalv's list will never tell you the whole story. Nothing is that black and white. Every single team who has won the Cup or gotten to the Final, since the salary cap has come into effect, has at least one thing in common. Extremely good at possessing the puck. Either the best or one of the best. Hawks, Kings, Red Wings, Bruins, Canucks, the only kinda outlier is the Penguins when they won it, but they have two of the best in the game playing at their best, along with, at that time, a much more well rounded team than they have had in recent years because it was before all the big contracts started to kick in (Crosby, Malkin, Staal, etc). And Fleury actually had a worse playoff the year they won it than the year before where they lost to Detroit.

Actually, his list shows that the majority of the time the goaltender on a cup winning team has more than a year or NHL experience and usually some playoff experience. There must be a reason to that than just the rest of the players.

 

[Variable]

Well like I said, what are you defining "proven" as? What is he defining "proven" as? Because what he's saying is that it's "nearly impossible" to win the Cup, especially in recent years, without a really good or great goalie. When it's a fact that, especially in those recent years he's talking about, most teams who have gotten to the Final and all of them who've won the Cup are the teams that have given themselves the best advantage in the game and that's outshooting and possessing the puck more often than their opponents. That is exactly what the "rest of the players" do. That's a TEAM effect, not a goalie effect. The goalie can't be attributed to that.

For as much as fans in the NHL love to go on about how hockey is all about the team and working together, they seem to push that to the wayside in some of the more important aspects of viewing and analyzing the game for some reason. None more so than when talking about goalies.

 

[Shantz My Pants]

Well like I said, what are you defining "proven" as? What is he defining "proven" as? Because what he's saying is that it's "nearly impossible" to win the Cup, especially in recent years, without a really good or great goalie. When it's a fact that, especially in those recent years he's talking about, most teams who have gotten to the Final and all of them who've won the Cup are the teams that have given themselves the best advantage in the game and that's outshooting and possessing the puck more often than their opponents. That is exactly what the "rest of the players" do. That's a TEAM effect, not a goalie effect. The goalie can't be attributed to that.

For as much as fans in the NHL love to go on about how hockey is all about the team and working together, they seem to push that to the wayside in some of the more important aspects of viewing and analyzing the game for some reason. None more so than when talking about goalies.

What are you smoking? Every goalie on that list was top 5 if not top 10 in the league at their position. That would be considered better than your "above average" remarks.

Yes, many of those teams did very well in terms of possession and defense, but they still gave up quality shots in games, and those goalies had to bail them out. If you look, many of those series were close outside of a couple. You don't have that happen if your team is so much better, but a mix between solid team play and good goaltending.


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[Variable]

But I didn't say one team was so much better, I said the exact opposite. Today, most teams who tend to get that far in the playoffs have that same strength, that's why those series are usually so close. I didn't say just the Cup winners. Goalies will always have to do their part, always. All I'm saying is those teams who get that far have the same tendency to not have to rely on their goalies, to not have them consistently bail them out. Most of the time if you're the type of team that relies on that, you're not getting that far in the playoffs, or not even making them in the first place in some cases.

And those are some legendary teams and dynasties on that list prior to the cap era. I'm not talking about them when I talk about what a team needs to have their strengths in. Osgood is listed three times with Detroit having multiple hall of famers on their team every single one of those years in that era. Vernon with another one of Detroit's HoF teams. They had some of the greatest players to ever play, maybe the single greatest D-man to ever play. Hasek, as great as he was a goalie (to me the greatest of all time), only finally got his name on Cup in the twilight of his NHL career with yet another incredibly stacked Detroit team in front of him. Couldn't quite carry Buffalo all the way.

Probably none of these teams are possible to put together anymore. Unless you get extremely lucky and the timing happens just right. But that lasts, what a year, maybe two? Where you have that dominant a team but then have to rebuild a bit after you hit the cap ceiling. Like the Hawks did. These are super teams, before the hard cap, that were built by organizations that could afford to just keep spending that type of money without a cap to worry about and kept teams like that together for years along with some of the best goalies of all time in tow (as you say, a lot of people's top 3 of all time in Hasek, Roy and Brodeur who are goalies for 7 of those teams). And a team in New Jersey that built one of the most effective (call it boring if you want but it was effective) defensive strategies of all time and were able to keep it up for a decade plus.

That's something we won't see again and teams that aren't possible to build today. To even try and compare it is pointless. There's no need to even go into Fuhr and those Edmonton teams. That might as well have been an entirely different game with what they had there.

 

[Shantz My Pants]

I don't believe you are giving Crawford enough credit. There were games in the past two playoff series where the Hawks were the "superior" team, yet Crawford had to stand on his head to win a few games.

Is Crawford over paid? Maybe a bit, but I don't think this team would be as good with say Raanta in net with as much playing time as Crawford gets, not yet at least.


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[Variable]

I've said, numerous times, Crawford is all the Hawks need. He's the perfect goalie for them. I like him. But not at that price tag. Not at the expense of having to choose between extremely important position players because of it. You're going to have to have good goaltending to win the Cup, I'm not saying you don't. But a lot of goalies can provide good goaltending with a team like the Hawks have.

When you start putting too much money into that one position, you start to wear thin everywhere else. That was something those Detroit teams, those Avs teams, those Edmonton teams, didn't have to worry about. Things have changed. I mean, could you imagine if the Hawks hadn't had to deal with the salary cap, what more they already could've probably won? That's crazy to say that, but it's true.

 

[LordKOTL]

Still, the argument that "the team makes the goalie", is crap. Skater and goalie success goes hand-in-hand. No skater nor any netminder is perfect and can bring it all in all 82+games. In the point between the skaters clicking on all cyninders where they are that much better than the opposition and the point where the skaters are sucking harder than Pamela Lee at a Motel 6 (when not even Tretiak can bail their sorry asses out), in that grey area is where the goalie shines--where they can hold the fort until the skaters wake up or hold the fort after the skaters go into a shell for whatever reason.

No matter how staked a team is, they are never going to be an order of mangintude better the the rest of the league--espeically not in the cap world. A good goalie can definitly tip that balance.

And that's where I think that ditching Crawford is a mistake going into next year. Neither Darling nor Raanta have been tested much when our skaters have severely botched it--and the few times that they have they've not walked away with a victory. Crawford has. Maybe not as often as some would like, but he has.

Given Crawford's 6M, there is not a single player out there, not collection of players, that can turn the group of skaters we'll have next year that can compensate for the variance between Raanta or Darling and Crawford when it comes to games hanging in the balance IMHO--especially since the book is going to be out on both of them and they'll be subjected to the "sophomore slump" that Crawford has already been through and mitigated. If there was a player out there that could tip that balance and make us that much better--they would be worth far more than 6M--try about 10M.

 

[Spunky Porkstacker]

I've said, numerous times, Crawford is all the Hawks need. He's the perfect goalie for them. I like him. But not at that price tag. Not at the expense of having to choose between extremely important position players because of it. You're going to have to have good goaltending to win the Cup, I'm not saying you don't. But a lot of goalies can provide good goaltending with a team like the Hawks have.

When you start putting too much money into that one position, you start to wear thin everywhere else. That was something those Detroit teams, those Avs teams, those Edmonton teams, didn't have to worry about. Things have changed. I mean, could you imagine if the Hawks hadn't had to deal with the salary cap, what more they already could've probably won? That's crazy to say that, but it's true.

You have said that Crawford is overpaid, how much should he be getting?

 

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Even one million here or there can make a huge difference Lord. Forget about the 4 or 5 you may save without Crawford. One million. It may seem "small", but a number around there is the difference between having to deal a player like Andrew Ladd and signing a guy like Fernando Pisani in his place. How welcome do you think Ladd would've been to that team in 10'-11'? I'd bet he'd tip that balance a bit. Probably enough to get past the Canucks and after who knows what happens, they damn near did it without him.

 

[Variable]

You have said that Crawford is overpaid, how much should he be getting?

What Niemi's getting.

 

[BlackHawkPaul]

What Niemi's getting.

Niemi's cap hit: 3.8m (2011 signing)
Craw's cap hit: 6.0m (9/2013 extension)

The next question is who is the better netminder?
Or... which cup team was better?

Or... is the Bickell topic dead and we rename this the goalie thread?

 

[LordKOTL]

Even one million here or there can make a huge difference Lord. Forget about the 4 or 5 you may save without Crawford. One million. It may seem "small", but a number around there is the difference between having to deal a player like Andrew Ladd and signing a guy like Fernando Pisani in his place. How welcome do you think Ladd would've been to that team in 10'-11'? I'd bet he'd tip that balance a bit. Probably enough to get past the Canucks and after who knows what happens, they damn near did it without him.

If I'm not mistaken since the seedings were a couple of years ago--the Sharks or the Blues would have ate those 'hawks alive like they did in the regular season. There was more going on than the Ladd/Pisani comparison. We also had a geriactric Brunette that was more worthless than Handzus in 2014. Keith was also playing his worst defense since breaking into the league.

A mil here and there among depth players is more like the difference between Erixson and Rosival, or Kruger and Smith. You're getting support, not a gamebreaker. Therin lies the conundrum. Assuming your numbers and a 71M cap, Ditching Crawford with no salary coming back and going with Raanta/Darling (Darling at 700k), Ditching Bickell and signing Saad for 4M (No Rosival, Runblad, Erixson, Oduya, Carbomb, Nordstrom, Kruger, or Richards), leaves the 'hawks with 10M of cap space to be spread over a absolute minimum of 6--realistically 8 positions. That's 1.32M for each position with some wigle room the closer some players get to the minimum cap. Crawford being moved over Sharp saves less than 10k per player, or less than 80k total. 1.3M Even having 7 of the 8 lauers paid league-minimum, is only got to net at max a 5.25M player--which is basically Saad on the open market if he was a UFA. An extra Saad would help, but it wouldn't offset an entire pairing and a line of bottom-feeders.

That being said if we figure that aside from Bickell, one 5-6K contract gets moved, the positions currently occupied by Bickell, Oduya, Carbomb, Nordstrom, Rosival, Kruger, Richards, Runblad, Erixson, etc, are going to be taken up by a player that has a approximate value of 1.3M--or a relative value of 1.8% of the total cap--with of course some wiggle room. Chances are those contracts will not be guys who were bought out nor would they be guys with RSA's--you'd be getting players who vary from rookines/journeymen with some promise but no proof, or Bollig/Carbomb-level vets.

IMHO it would not do Darling/Raanta's development much for them to fight through a sophomore year when teams have book on them *and* they have to bail out rookie/bad players' mistakes--especially if that means having Seabs, Hammer, and Keith run ragged. I think finding a replacement for Saad's role as Saad moves into Sharp's role, and having Crawford backstop the team is a better way forward as the players develop.

Plus, there's no way Crawford is only worth 3.8M. At the time his deal was inked, he was in the 5-6M pedigree--As Niemi will be upon this signing. If Crawford had no cup, no Jennings, nor a Smythe-worthy playoff (Something Niemi didn't have), then there's an argument for the 3-4M range. I can buy being worth 5m, which is what I though he should be signed to at the time, but 6M doesn't upset me especically sinc eHammer and Keith are underpaid.

Niemi's cap hit: 3.8m (2011 signing)
Craw's cap hit: 6.0m (9/2013 extension)

The next question is who is the better netminder?
Or... which cup team was better?

Or... is the Bickell topic dead and we rename this the goalie thread?

Why not?

 

[biscuit_in_the_basket]

Well like I said, what are you defining "proven" as? What is he defining "proven" as? Because what he's saying is that it's "nearly impossible" to win the Cup, especially in recent years, without a really good or great goalie. When it's a fact that, especially in those recent years he's talking about, most teams who have gotten to the Final and all of them who've won the Cup are the teams that have given themselves the best advantage in the game and that's outshooting and possessing the puck more often than their opponents. That is exactly what the "rest of the players" do. That's a TEAM effect, not a goalie effect. The goalie can't be attributed to that.

For as much as fans in the NHL love to go on about how hockey is all about the team and working together, they seem to push that to the wayside in some of the more important aspects of viewing and analyzing the game for some reason. None more so than when talking about goalies.

Actually, you were the one that used "unproven" that I had responded to. The onus is on you to provide what you mean by "unproven". Then we can continue the discussion from there.



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[Shantz My Pants]

I wish cap geek was still up and running so I can look at the numbers for next year. NHL Numbers sucks as well as sportrac.


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