Blues D stats arent that bad, goaltending has hurt

[Harry S Deals]

Just checking out some to the Blues stats this morning, interesting results

Blues are about in the middle of the pack in Shots Against, 16th in the NHL, rather stingy on most nights
9th best in overall Scoring Chances Against
Goals against has been bad, 127 tied for 4th worst
Blues are however around 11th best in the NHL with HDCA, they dont tend to give up a whole lot of dangerous chances
Blues however are 2nd worst HDSV% behind Vegas 77.7% so an alarming amount of HDSCs beat the goalie.

As we see there have been a lot of tap ins, slam dunk goals against but this is a major indicator of how bad Binnie has been this year with an .866 save pct. You can count on Binnie giving up one or two bad goals against every start.

We also see Parayko/Broberg at 3rd in the NHL in total dzone starts as a duo. Their on ice save pct is pretty good at 91.3% so they are taking a lot of tough match ups every night they dont get scored on very often. Obviously Fowler/Mallioux has been on the other extreme only an 85% on ice save pct

Longterm if the Blues can score more goals (tied for 6th fewest goals scored) AND get better goaltending (Hofer) you can see an identity start to emerge. The gameplan can work but the pieces arent there

[xweazel75]

Excellent post!

-x

[callitwhatyouwant]

Just checking out some to the Blues stats this morning, interesting results

Blues are about in the middle of the pack in Shots Against, 16th in the NHL, rather stingy on most nights
9th best in overall Scoring Chances Against
Goals against has been bad, 127 tied for 4th worst
Blues are however around 11th best in the NHL with HDCA, they dont tend to give up a whole lot of dangerous chances
Blues however are 2nd worst HDSV% behind Vegas 77.7% so an alarming amount of HDSCs beat the goalie.

As we see there have been a lot of tap ins, slam dunk goals against but this is a major indicator of how bad Binnie has been this year with an .866 save pct. You can count on Binnie giving up one or two bad goals against every start.

We also see Parayko/Broberg at 3rd in the NHL in total dzone starts as a duo. Their on ice save pct is pretty good at 91.3% so they are taking a lot of tough match ups every night they dont get scored on very often. Obviously Fowler/Mallioux has been on the other extreme only an 85% on ice save pct

Longterm if the Blues can score more goals (tied for 6th fewest goals scored) AND get better goaltending (Hofer) you can see an identity start to emerge. The gameplan can work but the pieces arent there

glad to see real stats tied to this. the Blues over the last 12 games have played good hockey in about 9-10 of them. 5 on 5 has been really good. PK an PP have been outright bad to at best mediocre. The goalie play has plagued this team. The defenders get way more than their share of the blame for 2 things they don't control a ton over, shot percentage and goalie save percentage. We have some career low shot percentage guys this year, and Binner was like 2nd or 3rd worst in expected goals against last I checked. What was funny about that stat was it's not like hes close to his peers. The closest ones are still goals above him. Not percentages, but full on goals.

[Hazelwood72]

Just checking out some to the Blues stats this morning, interesting results

Blues are about in the middle of the pack in Shots Against, 16th in the NHL, rather stingy on most nights
9th best in overall Scoring Chances Against
Goals against has been bad, 127 tied for 4th worst
Blues are however around 11th best in the NHL with HDCA, they dont tend to give up a whole lot of dangerous chances
Blues however are 2nd worst HDSV% behind Vegas 77.7% so an alarming amount of HDSCs beat the goalie.

As we see there have been a lot of tap ins, slam dunk goals against but this is a major indicator of how bad Binnie has been this year with an .866 save pct. You can count on Binnie giving up one or two bad goals against every start.

We also see Parayko/Broberg at 3rd in the NHL in total dzone starts as a duo. Their on ice save pct is pretty good at 91.3% so they are taking a lot of tough match ups every night they dont get scored on very often. Obviously Fowler/Mallioux has been on the other extreme only an 85% on ice save pct

Longterm if the Blues can score more goals (tied for 6th fewest goals scored) AND get better goaltending (Hofer) you can see an identity start to emerge. The gameplan can work but the pieces arent there

Hiya Harry!

Good post and I agree with your take.

However, you got the wrong number on Blues goals against. We are currently 138 GF vs 192 GA = minus 54.

We are 3rd worst GA right now.

Vancouver 199 GA and also minus 54. Anaheim 193 GA but only minus 12 as they’ve scored a lot more than us. Toronto 190
GA is 4th worst and a minus 11.

[bud white]

What is hurting the the Blues is net front presence on offense ... and net front responsibility - specifically tying up sticks. It doesn't make any difference where you give up the shot if you don't tie up the stick. That is where I've noticed a lot of issues this year.

[Harry S Deals]

Just checking out some to the Blues stats this morning, interesting results

Blues are about in the middle of the pack in Shots Against, 16th in the NHL, rather stingy on most nights
9th best in overall Scoring Chances Against
Goals against has been bad, 127 tied for 4th worst
Blues are however around 11th best in the NHL with HDCA, they dont tend to give up a whole lot of dangerous chances
Blues however are 2nd worst HDSV% behind Vegas 77.7% so an alarming amount of HDSCs beat the goalie.

As we see there have been a lot of tap ins, slam dunk goals against but this is a major indicator of how bad Binnie has been this year with an .866 save pct. You can count on Binnie giving up one or two bad goals against every start.

We also see Parayko/Broberg at 3rd in the NHL in total dzone starts as a duo. Their on ice save pct is pretty good at 91.3% so they are taking a lot of tough match ups every night they dont get scored on very often. Obviously Fowler/Mallioux has been on the other extreme only an 85% on ice save pct

Longterm if the Blues can score more goals (tied for 6th fewest goals scored) AND get better goaltending (Hofer) you can see an identity start to emerge. The gameplan can work but the pieces arent there

Hiya Harry!

Good post and I agree with your take.

However, you got the wrong number on Blues goals against. We are currently 138 GF vs 192 GA = minus 54.

We are 3rd worst GA right now.

Vancouver 199 GA and also minus 54. Anaheim 193 GA but only minus 12 as they’ve scored a lot more than us. Toronto 190
GA is 4th worst and a minus 11.

Yep im sorry i was looking at 5v5 not all situations good catch

[zuck698]

What is hurting the the Blues is net front presence on offense ... and net front responsibility - specifically tying up sticks. It doesn't make any difference where you give up the shot if you don't tie up the stick. That is where I've noticed a lot of issues this year.

Agreed! The goal in the last minute by Dallas is a snap shot for the lack of tying up sticks this year. We watched Parayko and Broberg not take out the stick or the man. Way too soft this year in that area. Not sure if Weber isn't preaching this or the players are just choosing to ignore the sermon?

[Kilokaai]

What is hurting the the Blues is net front presence on offense ... and net front responsibility - specifically tying up sticks. It doesn't make any difference where you give up the shot if you don't tie up the stick. That is where I've noticed a lot of issues this year.

Agreed! The goal in the last minute by Dallas is a snap shot for the lack of tying up sticks this year. We watched Parayko and Broberg not take out the stick or the man. Way too soft this year in that area. Not sure if Weber isn't preaching this or the players are just choosing to ignore the sermon?

I was thinking about this from a pragmatic perspective the other day and I couldn't really determine what I thought was best. The Blues appear to pretty intentionally trying to front pucks to block them and we struggle with the pinball'd pucks. When they are battling near the paint they are trying to keep the inside position which makes sense BUT it does mean that they are not facing the goalie for knocked down/saved but not covered shots. The opposing team if they don't have inside position is playing for the rebound in most cases but they are facing the goalie/open cage is bad situations.

If the puck lands around paint, the offense really has the advantage of already facing where they need to see/play the puck. Getting your stick behind the body is basically impossible, you can do your best to tie up the stick but if I was an opposing player I would just keep my stick up off the ice as long as possible. If you attempt the tip at net front you have a physically get your body out of the way so you already have first movers advantage where the stick side is likely rotating around their torso.

I'm not sure you can be a great blocking team and also be great at clearing out the junk that gets batted down or deflected back out to waiting sticks. This is probably why some teams block as much as possible and others let a lot of low danger stuff through but stay focused on clearing out the junk.

If your goaltending is trending well, letting some low danger stuff in and focusing on clearing out loose pucks seems fine. If no one can stop a beachball (ala October), then its basically attempt to block everything at the expense of being out of position for loose pucks potentially. I think great teams find the best mesh of both of these based on situational variables that make sense for their personnel.

(The Blues do not intentionally let anything through as far as I can tell, but they are always on the defensive side of the play when they recover possession. This likely has attributed to some of the offense reduction since we have to go 5 extra ft and through a defending player in most situations.)

Edit: Just to add a bit more to this, almost every offensive breakout the Blues have is because of a really good individual defensive play that allowed others to blow the zone early to pressure their defense getting back. We have had so few pure speed/skill breakouts this season, they almost all the result of deflected passes off legs/sticks/etc. It's a decent system when you get some favorable bounces, but man some games it is ugly if the opposing team takes care of the puck.

[seattleblue]

IMO the defense is authentically average.

Last year we got a 1G performance (also a 1C performance) = playoffs
This year we got an atrocious goaltending performance and abysmal 1C performance = bottom of the barrel

an average defense is very modifiable by the rest of the team's play, and average, highly influence-able defense like that is what we have.

the forward vets are simply behind their NHL peers in terms of elite consistency. they try. it needs to be coming from a deeper place for it to be sustainable and they do not have it, and the GM's judgment was to commit to them, and he's leaving in 25 games.

[the foregoing is why I saw Petro as an essential support beam, and why I do subscribe to build from the defense out. great defense = stable floor of results, stable making of playoffs]

[HighStick]

I just said that in another thread. I said our biggest problems were the underachieving top 6 forwards and our goalers. Our D is soft and mediocre but nowhere near our biggest problems. Glad to see others are seeing it too.

[seattleblue]

It depends on how you define biggest problem though. An average defense is guaranteed to produce the variable results while definitely not being sufficient to compete for real prizes.

So if you diagnose the "biggest problem" as underachievers not on defense, just know that until the day you prioritize the defense being THE rock first you are going to get those results.

[ratonmono2]

IMO the defense is authentically average.

Last year we got a 1G performance (also a 1C performance) = playoffs
This year we got an atrocious goaltending performance and abysmal 1C performance = bottom of the barrel

an average defense is very modifiable by the rest of the team's play, and average, highly influence-able defense like that is what we have.

the forward vets are simply behind their NHL peers in terms of elite consistency. they try. it needs to be coming from a deeper place for it to be sustainable and they do not have it, and the GM's judgment was to commit to them, and he's leaving in 25 games.

[the foregoing is why I saw Petro as an essential support beam, and why I do subscribe to build from the defense out. great defense = stable floor of results, stable making of playoffs]

The problem with this team has been staring us in the face for five years and nobody wants to admit it. Swapping out a #1D for a patchwork of guys who collectively can't do what a true #1 can has been a disaster. You're probably of the same mind here, but I think it's clear until we get ourselves another D on Petro's level this is going to be a very average team at best.

[seattleblue]

IMO the defense is authentically average.

Last year we got a 1G performance (also a 1C performance) = playoffs
This year we got an atrocious goaltending performance and abysmal 1C performance = bottom of the barrel

an average defense is very modifiable by the rest of the team's play, and average, highly influence-able defense like that is what we have.

the forward vets are simply behind their NHL peers in terms of elite consistency. they try. it needs to be coming from a deeper place for it to be sustainable and they do not have it, and the GM's judgment was to commit to them, and he's leaving in 25 games.

[the foregoing is why I saw Petro as an essential support beam, and why I do subscribe to build from the defense out. great defense = stable floor of results, stable making of playoffs]

The problem with this team has been staring us in the face for five years and nobody wants to admit it. Swapping out a #1D for a patchwork of guys who collectively can't do what a true #1 can has been a disaster. You're probably of the same mind here, but I think it's clear until we get ourselves another D on Petro's level this is going to be a very average team at best.

to just make it a neutral life analogy, defense vs. offense, it is a lot like exercise and nutrition. both interdependent and essential. but nutrition is the support beam of exercise, while exercise is flashier because it's overt, action driven, visual. nutrition is about what you don't eat as much as you do eat, and it's hard to intuitively value it as much, it's boring.

the fact of the matter is that if you want to put your physical bearing into optimum shape, it is 80% nutrition and 20% exercise (you must do this 20% IMO, it's not one or the other)

[bud white]

If we are comparing the D corps to the 2019 and the 2020 teams, one needs to keep in mind that we also lost Bouwmeester. He was steady, made very few mistakes and could be counted on in critical situations. He also ate up minutes. Parayko is the closest we've come yet to replace him. And similar to JBo, Parayko has sacrificed offense.

Petro was a huge loss.

[ratonmono2]

If we are comparing the D corps to the 2019 and the 2020 teams, one needs to keep in mind that we also lost Bouwmeester. He was steady, made very few mistakes and could be counted on in critical situations. He also ate up minutes. Parayko is the closest we've come yet to replace him. And similar to JBo, Parayko has sacrificed offense.

Petro was a huge loss.

Yeah Bouw of course. Gunnarsson, Dunn, Bortuzzo too. The whole D corps was big, rangy, strong sticks, good skaters, etc. The Blues controlled the tempo of the game with that unit. That's what an elite blueline can do.

[2forDiving]

What is hurting the the Blues is net front presence on offense ... and net front responsibility - specifically tying up sticks. It doesn't make any difference where you give up the shot if you don't tie up the stick. That is where I've noticed a lot of issues this year.

Yeah, seems like the Blues give up about 3 or 4 deflection goals/week and score a deflection goal about once a month.