Blues' Love Harenstam Omitted From Top NHL Goalie Prospects List

[dhsux]

Well put MN but just curious....would you say he is not on top of or not well suited to pick the top 5 guys?

Or is the whole top 10/20 just a (bleep) shoot?

I’d say Wheeler doesn’t do a great job of keeping up with prospects post draft. But how could he? Let’s say he makes a top 10 for each team. To do that, he’d need to evaluate 15-20 prospects from each team to properly have a solid opinion of which ones were the 10 best. That’d require tracking 480 to 640 players, on top of the 150-200ish he would track for the current draft. It’s why lists coming from one singular person that try to be that encompassing are basically near useless.

IMO, his top 100 prospects list is basically just a merging of what they thought of them in their draft years with him taking into account the new data on some of them that he’s seen since then but no one person can successfully track 600-800 different players each year.

I do get that but does the wobbliness of his picks (or anyones) apply to the very top of that class?

Otherwise I would think he would have greater success in ranking 1-10 than 90-100.

Does that make sense?

If we’re talking the top-10 skaters then yes, I would expect him to have seen those guys enough to have an honest opinion on them.

But if we’re talking a top-10 of goalies, then no. Most goalies are picked in Round 2 at the earliest, most later. And that’s the range of players where Wheeler seems to not really keep up on. So no, I don’t think his goalie list is very good. I mean, he even lists one of the guys’ upside as being able to become a decent backup. There’s 32 starters in the league at any one time. So there shouldn’t really be a guy ranked as one of the best goalies in the game whose potential at this point is “decent backup.” Harenstam absolutely has NHL starter potential. Is he likely to hit that? Probably not but that’s because it’s super hard to project 18 yr old goalies and the basic math of success/failure, not really anything to do with his performance so far.

You really just have to wait and see sometimes with goalies.

That said, I think sometimes people simply throw up their hands too much when it comes to goalies. Saying “goalies are voodoo.” Or that they can’t really ever be projected. Heck, one of the top analytics guys out there whenever he discusses a goalie, nearly everytime his entire analysis is “X is a goalie.” so emphasize how unpredictable they are. But to me, that’s lazy. To me, it’s an indication that there’s a ton of growth opportunity in the area of analysis and analytics when it comes to the goaltending position if even the fancy math folks are basically offering no analysis on goalie prospects. They just haven’t found what they need to measure yet to help predict future success/failure. Whichever team(s) figure that out first will have a huge advantage IMO.

Ha! It all seems right on par with the whole "goalie mystique" of ......well......hockey.

I have always found the goalie position...and ergo the goalies themselves....rather mysteriously fascinating. This includes how they are viewed by the franchises with their widely varied contracts for a position so critical to any team.

I have this thing with JB...where I am convinced he will climb back to the top ...no stats or facts to back me up just a goalie feeling....and I'm just hoping it's here in the Lou.

To your last point MN....it would actually be refreshing if the "fancy math" folks never figure it out.

I believe you have shed some light on all of this for me....thanks

[bud white]

Well put MN but just curious....would you say he is not on top of or not well suited to pick the top 5 guys?

Or is the whole top 10/20 just a (bleep) shoot?

I’d say Wheeler doesn’t do a great job of keeping up with prospects post draft. But how could he? Let’s say he makes a top 10 for each team. To do that, he’d need to evaluate 15-20 prospects from each team to properly have a solid opinion of which ones were the 10 best. That’d require tracking 480 to 640 players, on top of the 150-200ish he would track for the current draft. It’s why lists coming from one singular person that try to be that encompassing are basically near useless.

IMO, his top 100 prospects list is basically just a merging of what they thought of them in their draft years with him taking into account the new data on some of them that he’s seen since then but no one person can successfully track 600-800 different players each year.

I do get that but does the wobbliness of his picks (or anyones) apply to the very top of that class?

Otherwise I would think he would have greater success in ranking 1-10 than 90-100.

Does that make sense?

If we’re talking the top-10 skaters then yes, I would expect him to have seen those guys enough to have an honest opinion on them.

But if we’re talking a top-10 of goalies, then no. Most goalies are picked in Round 2 at the earliest, most later. And that’s the range of players where Wheeler seems to not really keep up on. So no, I don’t think his goalie list is very good. I mean, he even lists one of the guys’ upside as being able to become a decent backup. There’s 32 starters in the league at any one time. So there shouldn’t really be a guy ranked as one of the best goalies in the game whose potential at this point is “decent backup.” Harenstam absolutely has NHL starter potential. Is he likely to hit that? Probably not but that’s because it’s super hard to project 18 yr old goalies and the basic math of success/failure, not really anything to do with his performance so far.

You really just have to wait and see sometimes with goalies.

That said, I think sometimes people simply throw up their hands too much when it comes to goalies. Saying “goalies are voodoo.” Or that they can’t really ever be projected. Heck, one of the top analytics guys out there whenever he discusses a goalie, nearly everytime his entire analysis is “X is a goalie.” so emphasize how unpredictable they are. But to me, that’s lazy. To me, it’s an indication that there’s a ton of growth opportunity in the area of analysis and analytics when it comes to the goaltending position if even the fancy math folks are basically offering no analysis on goalie prospects. They just haven’t found what they need to measure yet to help predict future success/failure. Whichever team(s) figure that out first will have a huge advantage IMO.

Ha! It all seems right on par with the whole "goalie mystique" of ......well......hockey.

I have always found the goalie position...and ergo the goalies themselves....rather mysteriously fascinating. This includes how they are viewed by the franchises with their widely varied contracts for a position so critical to any team.

I have this thing with JB...where I am convinced he will climb back to the top ...no stats or facts to back me up just a goalie feeling....and I'm just hoping it's here in the Lou.

To your last point MN....it would actually be refreshing if the "fancy math" folks never figure it out.

I believe you have shed some light on all of this for me....thanks

As fascinating as metrics and contemporary statistics for all sports are, there remains underlying performance indicators that are "real world" in nature that simply cannot be captured mathematically and require the good old fashioned "eye test". I can use many examples, but I'll stay on topic with goaltending.

When you get to this level, every guy is athletic. Every guy can stop the puck. All of these guys look great in practice. But it is game play that sets them apart.

- How do they react after being scored on? Do they have a short memory or do they lose focus and give up another one quickly? (Jake Allen, for example) Jakes meltdown in World Juniors was well publicized, and the yips returned on more than one occasion in his pro career. It should not have been a surprise, but I'm sure some hoped that he would "grow out of it".

- "Big Game / Playoff" Save percentage. These games are typically tighter checking. Fewer quality chances and plenty of time to think. A good indicator of future performance can be found in those games. Is the save percentage equal to or better in playoffs vs. regular season? This shows consistency in important games. In other words, he's giving his team a chance to win. Allowing his team to play on its toes because the defensive zone / the net, is taken care of.

The "money" guys: Dryden, Parent, Cheevers, Billy Smith, Fuhr, Brodeur, Roy - these guys only knew how to win. They understood game situations. How critical it was to deny any oxygen to the opponent. Case in point remains Binnington's right leg save on Nordstrom in the 3rd period of Game 7. Blues up 2-0, and if the Bruins score, it's 2-1. They have life. They have oxygen. You could sense their mood sag after that save - it was a great opportunity during a frenzied push. But then the Blues scored to make it 3-0 and their bench was fully defeated. (Binnington, by the way, actually had a reputation in minor hockey for being a big game goalie. So none of what he did was a surprise to those who knew him.) That is a trait that really isn't learned.

Some guys have great numbers, but for goalies there are more intangibles that are a more accurate assessment of playing well when the lights are brightest.