The Ditch part deux

you think so skinny? Quick I can understand but Canadian goaltending starting Crawford?

 

Price, luongo, brodeaur, Maf???

 

Price, Mike Smith, Ward, Luongo, MAF, Brodeur. id take all of them over Crawford. Thats a surprisingly ugly list for Canada compared to the rest of the roster. And who are the young up and comers in net for Canada? Bernier? Subban? Allen?

 

Walkom is on my list now. The missed call on the Torres hit on Hossa was a really bad game changer, but it's more understandable. At the end of the day, it was just a missed call there.
Letting game 2 of Sens and Rangers get out of hand was inexcusable. Missed calls are one thing, losing control of a game is about as bad as it gets.
Last nights decision seemed like bad judgement. I don't think it was a bad call, I think it was a terrible decision to decide to call offsetting minors then. A single penalty would have been questionable enough but far less disturbing of a call. He risked making an entire series about the officiating instead of the teams on the ice...and that's really bad for the game.

 

I don't see how Crawford is behind Mike Smith, MAF, or Brodeur (next year). I would take Price, Ward, and Luongo first, but I don't see a good argument not to put Crawford at 4th right now given his season. Crawford is pretty resilient too, 7-2 in postseason games facing elimination. Anyway, I don't like putting much stock into a single postseason, but Crawford's regular season was excellent on both sides of an injury too.

 

Thanks, I'm a little disappointed that local media isn't giving me enough credit for the win. I'll have my time.

Howard had a great 2 months, that was some "big-boy" goaltending he showed us going back to March.

 

/\ /\ /\ especially in a GAME 7 /\ /\ /\... which i'm somewhat certain qualifies as a meaningful game. i'm not a professional psychologist, but maybe Walkom is a bit of an ego maniac, you know, the ones that sit around and "google" themselves... or maybe he's just a complete moron.

 

Just looked up Walkom's bio. Former director of officiating for the NHL. i knew he was well known but head of officiating?
I like Keith Jones breakdown of it. Inexcusable as Walkom (should've) known there was a scoring opportunity happening right behind him and the team that was the victim, more or less, had the opportunity. Now if Saad was the aggressor in the situation I could somewhat see blowing the whistle there. Not many people happier than Walkom when Seabrook buried that.

 

Id take Smith over Crawford all day but you're probably right about him over Brodeur.

Crawford is too likely to give up soft goals for a team like Canada. Let me ask you this bob, do you think Crawford is a top 15 goalie in the league?

 

in my opinion, Crawford is definitely a top-15, but i'd take Smith first.

 

so who would you take from this group?-

Crawford, Reimer, Hiller, Lehtonen, Elliott, Nabokov.

 

to be absolutely honest, i would take Crawford over any of these other guys. i would trust him the most (from the choices) to keep my team in the game. Reimer has shown good stuff, but not consistent. Elliott HAD a good run for a while but fell way off. Hiller is in Reimer's boat. Nabby is good, but not good enough. and Lehtonen is Helter Skelter (Jekyll & Hyde). gotta go with Crawford on this one.

 

fair enough, i figured those guys were all in the same boat.

 

.....my hands r cramping up.....congrats hawks . You deserve it to come back from 3-1. Good luck w the kings

Pens in 3, now thats funny bob. Sol steal ur keyboard?

 

Quick has let in more soft goals than Crawford this postseason. He let in 2 in OT last year and was good against the Canucks the year before. I think the "soft goal" thing has been exaggerated when it comes to Crawford. He had terrible team defense in front of him last year too. He was bad in 12' but I was never in the camp pinning too much of the blame on him.

That being said, I think he's far less athletic and mobile than most of the starters in the league. He relies on positioning and the basics as much as anybody. He's probably never going to win a game flopping around like we've seen some goalies do but I think he is a solid starting goalie. As you mentioned before, the pool of goalies for Team Canada isn't looking too impressive. Finland and the U.S. look stronger and Sweden is all set with the King.

I don't put Crawford or Smith in the top 15. I thought Smith was a fluke last year and this year validated my opinion. He gave up a ton of bad goals and too many games giving up 3 or more.

My opinions on goaltending should be among the last people take seriously. I think my evaluation of goalies would be weaker than any other type of player.

 

Lehtonen, Hiller, Crawford, Nabokov, Reimer, Elliot. In that order.

 

I think the difference is negligible.

 

I don't put much trust into my analysis of goalies. I don't weigh the goalie's nearly as much as I used to. If you can build a winner around Elliot for example, I put more of the credit on the defense in front of them.

 

Detroit Free Press before the 1995 SCF's: Red Wings in 3

Oops...

 

haha, never thought much of the Freep. thanks for another good example of why