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Habs Season Thread: 2024-25 Regular Season

legoalie said:
All three.. Murray and Billington both were rookies, Billington stole game 7 in Boston for the Cup.. Murray was considered for the Conn Smyth. Niemi was solid for the Hawks in 2010.. don't kid yourself, goaltending is vital in the playoffs..
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Vaselevskiy clearly won the Conn Smythe because of the forwards.
 
GrandWazoo said:
A good team makes the goalie looks better and vice versa. No matter how good is your team, if your goalie is not giving you key saves, it will be really hard to win. Goalies can't make you win on their own, but they sure can make you lose.
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I don't agree that a good team makes a goalie look good, in fact I think it's quite the opposite. A good goalie can lift up a terrible team, and a bad goalie can deteriorate a good team (to an extent). The difference is, the good teams can have more ways to bail out a bad goalie (either from shut suppression or goal support). The good goalie could have a great game, if his team can't score then he's shit out of luck. Vasilevsky didn't look good because he had the best team in the league skating in front of him, that's independent of the fact.

A terrible goalie can sink a great team, like The Choking Dog did for many of those years in Pittsburgh. The same way Dan Cloutier did in Vancouver, although I don't think he was the difference between them going far in the playoffs and not. The same way (all of them) did in Philthydelphia.

A bad goaltender can definitely be the difference. But if Team A & Team B are closely matched up and Team A has the 5th best goalie in the league and Team B has the, say, 9th best goalie in the league (statistically), then they won't a much greater impact than their counterpart... Unless one of those teams has The Choking Dog.
 
As I said "Goalies can't make you win on their own, but they sure can make you lose." So we agree about a bad goalie being the difference.

A good team defense that limits breakdown, prevent second chances, clear rebounds and let goalies see the puck will definitely make a goalie look better than if he didn't have those things. And scoring goals to overcome goalies errors will bring less concerns about their mistakes. Fuhr was giving up bad goals all the time but most were willing to forgive him because he was also making clutch saves and still winning games. Same with Dryden from what I saw. Vasilevsky had a couple of rough games in the early rounds that could have cost him with a lesser supporting group. You win a game 5-3 despite giving up a bad goal, no one cares. You lose 2-1 while giving up a bad goal and it's your fault.
 
legoalie said:
All three.. Murray and Billington both were rookies, Billington stole game 7 in Boston for the Cup.. Murray was considered for the Conn Smyth. Niemi was solid for the Hawks in 2010.. don't kid yourself, goaltending is vital in the playoffs..
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Its absolutely vital , but no longer the main reason

You need a mix of everything to come through to win cup
 
GEEMAN said:
Its absolutely vital , but no longer the main reason

You need a mix of everything to come through to win cup
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It was never the main reason...always needed to actually score to win, even during the Hasek years

The only difference is the game today is too fast, players too strong & the ridiculous flex turns the stick into a rocket launcher , thus, no human is capable of replicating the goaltending feats of pre-red line days.
 
Sal_Butera said:
It was never the main reason...always needed to actually score to win, even during the Hasek years

The only difference is the game today is too fast, players too strong & the ridiculous flex turns the stick into a rocket launcher , thus, no human is capable of replicating the goaltending feats of pre-red line days.
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Goaltending overall today is superior than those days

They cover more net with the equipment and are physically bigger by previous standards

A middle of the pack of the pack goalie nowadays is a solid starter
 
That's the biggest difference IMO, the average goalie nowadays is really good. Back in the 70s and 80s, the different between good and average goalies was quite large. Things got better in the 90s but there was still a large enough gap that you needed a pretty good goalie to make a difference.
GEEMAN said:
Goaltending overall today is superior than those days

They cover more net with the equipment and are physically bigger by previous standards

A middle of the pack of the pack goalie nowadays is a solid starter
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WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
The Habs never lose a playoff series because of goaltending, they lose because they have a pop gun offense. The series that they win tend to be those in which Price dominates at one end while the other team's goalie chokes. But as soon as they come up against a team with goaltending good enough to negate the Habs' advantage it's game over because this team just never scores enough. The business model for the Habs since Price showed up is for him to stand on his head while his teammates eke out a 2-1 or 3-2 win. If he allows more than two goals in a game the Habs are probably losing it unless the other team completely shits the bed.
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So you're arguing that the Habs win with good goaltending and lose against good goaltending. This past season, they made it to the finals which according to your argument was because of dominating goaltending. Then they lost in the finals which according to your argument was because they faced a good goaltender. It seems the common theme here is good goaltending.

You've made a compelling case here and I agree with you, goaltending is important.
 
RedLight said:
So you're arguing that the Habs win with good goaltending and lose against good goaltending. This past season, they made it to the finals which according to your argument was because of dominating goaltending. Then they lost in the finals which according to your argument was because they faced a good goaltender. It seems the common theme here is good goaltending.

You've made a compelling case here and I agree with you, goaltending is important.
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We lost in the finals because we dont score enough goals
 
GEEMAN said:
We lost in the finals because we dont score enough goals
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Which means Tampa's goaltending mattered.

Vas won the Conn Smythe for a reason. Point had a phenomenal playoffs as did Hedman but Vas won it. Wonder why that was?
 
GEEMAN said:
We lost in the finals because we dont score enough goals
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We lost in the finals because the other team scored more goals than us, which also means we allowed more goals than them. Price wasn't as good as he should have been the first 3 games. We also lost to a MUCH better team.
 
Pretty much every team loses because they don't score enough goals. The Leafs lost to us because they didn't score enough in the last 3 games, the Jets offense let them down and Vegas forwards couldn't score anything on us.
 
RedLight said:
So you're arguing that the Habs win with good goaltending and lose against good goaltending. This past season, they made it to the finals which according to your argument was because of dominating goaltending. Then they lost in the finals which according to your argument was because they faced a good goaltender. It seems the common theme here is good goaltending.

You've made a compelling case here and I agree with you, goaltending is important.
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No, I'm saying that the Habs offense is so anemic that even a mediocre goalie could probably shut them down.
 
legoalie said:
What mediocre goalie did we beat? you are talking out both sides of your mouth..
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Campbell had an excellent season and was not the reason Toronto lost, Price was.

Hellebuyck - Vezina winner but he must be mediocre

Fleury - He will try to argue that Fleury is mediocre. The rest of us know he isn't.

Vasilevskiy - Vezina/Conn Smythe winner?

The Habs faced 2 very good goalies and 2 excellent goalies and won 13 games and three series. To claim what they're claiming is worthy of a tape job (back when hazing was a thing in hockey). If they need it spelled out... if they can beat top notch goalies? They can beat mediocre goalies. Just braindead stuff.
 
GrandWazoo said:
We lost in the finals because the other team scored more goals than us, which also means we allowed more goals than them. Price wasn't as good as he should have been the first 3 games. We also lost to a MUCH better team.
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We scored 8 in 5 games ...... 31 would need 3 shutouts to even have a chance

TB has too much scoring depth , we got killed by their secondary players

They scored 9 goals vs our 8 total output
 
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