Cam Ward's SV% and GAA in 2005-2006

[Rivalred 630]

Cam Ward played 28 regular season games in 2005-2006. His SV% was .882 with a GAA 3.68. Carolina went on to win the Stanley Cup that year and Cam posted a SV%.920 and GAA of 2.14 in the post season. Osgood has currently played 40 games in the regular season with a SV% of .884 and GAA of 3.18.

[Carman 387]

Cam Ward was young and wasn't being significantly out played night in night out by his "back-up". Although Gerber had much better stats that year he was very inconsistent. Ward also greatly exceeded expectations and got very hot.

I'm not saying Osgood isn't going to come around, but the situation can not be paralleled.

[Reds4Life 51]

What the has Cam Ward to do with Osgood? Because this stat sure as hell ain't gonna help Osgood.

[Guest Shoreline]

To compliment Rival's post, Carolina wasn't exactly anywhere near the top in GAA and won the cup that year.

People whining about Ozzie's save % or GAA, or the Wings GAA, really have no leg to stand on, but surely that won't stop them.

[Heroes of Hockeytown 694]

The Carolina Hurricanes are an exception to the rule. For the last decade, at least, every other championship team has finished at least top 10 in GAA.

[Guest Shoreline]

The Carolina Hurricanes are an exception to the rule. For the last decade, at least, every other championship team has finished at least top 10 in GAA.

Drake_Markus made a similar claim and ate his words. If I could find the post I made, I'd have quoted it for you but for some strange reason it looks like a mod deleted it (no idea why as I can't conceive of how it broke any rules).

Basically only could find team GAA listed as a stat from the last 4 seasons (Drake conveniently listed the last two). Carolina and Tampa weren't even in the Top 10, and one of them was actually 19th or 20th in team GAA, and there was no consistency even for teams who made the finals with them. If there is ANY correlation between team GAA or save % and winning cups, it's very minimal, and enough to suggest it's entirely useless comparing the two. Again, people need to get over the team GAA and Ozzie save % as it's Wins that actually matter.

Again though, one stat I will back is I'm 100% sure logic such as this won't stand in the way of bandwagoners or trolls bashing Ozzie like idiots.

Edited March 27, 2009 by Shoreline

[Heroes of Hockeytown 694]

I don't know where you got your figures, but you can find team GAA on NHL.com, dating back to 97-98. EDIT: By the power of the Internet I can just link this to you. Tampa Bay is the closest to falling out of the top ten outside of Carolina, and is listed 11th, but is actually tied with Montreal for 10th.

Using those figures there is a strong correlation to being in the top-third GAA and winning the Stanley Cup. I tend not to interpret all that much from those kind of stats, and was just stating a fact.

Edited March 27, 2009 by Heroes of Hockeytown

[Guest Shoreline]

I don't know where you got your figures, but you can find team GAA on NHL.com, dating back to 97-98. Go to Stats --> Team --> Goals Against/Game. Tampa Bay is the closest to falling out of the top ten outside of Carolina, and is listed 11th, but is actually tied with Montreal for 10th.

Using those figures there is a strong correlation to being in the top-third GAA and winning the Stanley Cup. I tend not to interpret all that much from those kind of stats, and was just stating a fact.

Strangely the module didn't work when I tried it out last. But glad is.

Here are the last 10:

97-98: Red Wings, 7th

98-99: Dallas, 1st

99-00: New Jersey, 7th

00-01: Colorado, 4th

01-02: Red Wings, 4th

02-03: New Jersey, 1st

03-04: Tampa Bay, 11th

05-06: Carolina, 19th

06-07: Anaheim, 7th

07-08: Detroit, 1st

Consistency? No.

Here's the Wings GAA and how well it did for them in the playoffs:

97-98: 7th, Won Cup

98-99: 9th, Lost 2nd Round

99-00: 11th, Lost 2nd Round

00-01: 8th, Lost 1st Round

01-02: 4th, Won Cup

02-03: 8th, Lost 1st Round (swept)

03-04: 9th, Lost 2nd Round

05-06: 3rd, Lost 1st Round

06-07: 2nd, Lost 3rd Round

07-08: 1st, Won Cup

That's a 33% chance with top 10 GAA of winning the cup. How useful is GAA? Zilch. There is no strong correlation between GAA and cup championships. There's a strong correlation to teams winning, especially in the playoffs, and winning championships, and no other stat people can try to make up will prove it otherwise. But, as I've said twice now, good luck getting trolls and bandwagoners to understand logic.

Edited March 27, 2009 by Shoreline

[Heroes of Hockeytown 694]

In any event, it's best taken on a case by case basis. There's something to be said for having a poor GAA, but most teams that feature poor GAA do not have the same line up or circumstances (Stanley Cup hangover) that the Red Wings do. So I'm with you on this one, but those are the numbers.

Incidentally, since you mentioned it last time: There were two Cup runners up that were also not in the top 10 GAA to make it to the Finals in the last decade. Carolina owns the dubious distincton of being featured again here, coincidentally 19th in the league again. The other was Edmonton, 12th.

[Heroes of Hockeytown 694]

More blathering: I also happen to find the use of being in X place in the league to be a dubious manipulation of stats as well, due to the small increments that can separate large swaths of standings. For example, what separates Detroit, 20th in league GAA, from Florida 10th in league GAA? Six goals against.

[Guest Shoreline]

So just to mess around, I decided to see how the #1 GAA teams fared:

97-98: Devils, Lost 1st Round

98-99: Dallas, Won Cup

99-00: Blues, Lost 1st Round

00-01: Sabres, Lost 2nd Round

01-02: Colorado, Lost 3rd Round

02-03: Devils, Won Cup

03-04: Devils, Lost 1st Round

05-06: Flames, Lost 1st Round

06-07: Wild, Lost 1st Round

07-08: Wings, Won Cup

30% chance. No consistency again. In fact, for the stat ho's, you have a 50% chance of getting booted in the 1st round if you had the best GAA.

Another irony is NHL.com's GF/G stat is messed up as the Wings have scored 276 goals to this point, which NHL.com and Yahoo NHL have, but for some reason in factoring in their GF/G they used 270, and thus messed up their per-game ratio.

Edited March 27, 2009 by Shoreline

[OsGOD 3]

The wings are not some carolina team.... they are much stronger and despite all the complaints there is no way in hell that we will lose 4 out of 7 games to any one team in this league.... sorry guys to disappoint, Ozzie and/or Conklin will step up and compete when the pressure is on them. Right now its try your hardest NOT to get hurt in the remaining 8 games... the playoffs are and have been clinched for a long time now.

[stormboy 47]

More blathering: I also happen to find the use of being in X place in the league to be a dubious manipulation of stats as well, due to the small increments that can separate large swaths of standings. For example, what separates Detroit, 20th in league GAA, from Florida 10th in league GAA? Six goals against.

hmmm...according to the stats i'm looking at now, florida has allowed 11 less than detroit while playing one more game.

the stats i'm looking at say this: let's leave out the top- and bottom-ranked teams in total goals against, assuming boston is unusually good and atlanta is unusually bad (feel free to disagree with this decision). team 2 (jersey) has 179 TGA; the eleventh ranked team (florida) has allowed 205. that's a difference of 26. between 11th and 21st (us) is a differential of 16. the differential between us and the second-to-last place team? thirty-six. what this says to me is that the top few teams are really good at stopping goals; the bottom few are really bad at it. other than that, the middle of the pack is not separated by that much--this supports your point, i think, in saying that, in the middle of the league, you can drop a large number of ranking spots by allowing only a few more goals against.

i don't know...i guess i've seen enough to believe that a rocky GAA in the regular season is not enough to condemn a team to certain playoff defeat. and whether or not it makes that much difference, it's not as if we've been getting out-played in a ton of games this year. i think that calgary game is an example in which we didn't really get out played, but still lost. ozzie let in two very weak goals, and conks understandably allowed ONE in relief. they put us away with an ENG...the game tallied 5 goals against us, but it's not like we just got beat around the whole game.

while you certainly cannot guarantee that ozzie will not let in those two soft goals in a playoff game, there's no proof that he WILL.

[stormboy 47]

i'm not sure how related this is to the actual topic at hand...but i just thought it should be noted (though it probably has already) that, according to NHL.com, wings are 3rd in 5-on-5 goals for/against ratio, and we still have the league's top ranked powerplay. obviously our PK needs a lot of work, but according to those first two stats (and again, i emphasize the according to stats bit--grab a grain of salt) our PK is really the only thing that's really weak right now.

also, and this is TOTALLY off topic, but i was just poking around NHL.com's stats, and minnesota is second best in Times ShortHanded and has the league's second best penalty kill. overall, this means that that they have half or less PPGA as 5 teams, and are a fully 20 PPGA behind all but six other teams. if our powerplay is our best weapon, i suddenly to NOT want to meat these guys in the first round...or ever.

[SouthernWingsFan 854]

What the original poster is getting at, at least in my mind, that it CAN happen when a goalie might play subpar in a regular season but improve his numbers in the playoffs. It might not happen every season, hell it might not happen even half the time, scenarios might exist where it is impossible to happen, but it CAN happen, no matter how much statistical wizardry you throw out there or bashing on Osgood saying that he is a numnutz. It happened to Ward a few years ago, it CAN certainly happen with Osgood this year. That's all the original poster is saying IMO, nothing more or less.

[OsGOD 3]

Yeah.... there is a first or second or fifth for everything... Even if it hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can never be done... I like to think of it as sandbagging during the bowling weeks when you are getting your averages for your handcaps.... Ozzie will come out and smoke the competition when it really matters.

Edited March 27, 2009 by OsGOD

[thedisappearer 291]

Strangely the module didn't work when I tried it out last. But glad is.

Here are the last 10:

97-98: Red Wings, 7th

98-99: Dallas, 1st

99-00: New Jersey, 7th

00-01: Colorado, 4th

01-02: Red Wings, 4th

02-03: New Jersey, 1st

03-04: Tampa Bay, 11th

05-06: Carolina, 19th

06-07: Anaheim, 7th

07-08: Detroit, 1st

Consistency? No.

I don't disagree with your point, but to say there is no consistency given the numbers you provided is wrong. 80% of the time the Cup winner was in the top 7 in GAA, and only twice were they outsie of the top ten. That REEKS of consistency.

[DMAC 25 18]

What the has Cam Ward to do with Osgood? Because this stat sure as hell ain't gonna help Osgood.

hes making a point that ward was worse than osgood the year they won the cup, so that means just b/c your stats suck during the regular season doesnt mean that they are going to in the playoffs. settle down next time when someones trying to make a point

[sixer 37]

lol, have you seen Osgood play this year, the number of horrible goals given up, the lack of confidence, looking confused and lost.

He's done, he can't put a consistency streak worth anything together.

He plays couple decent games against easy teams, then lets in 3 horrific goals against the flames!

He's done! Bring up Jimmy and send Ozzie packing. Conklin has to be our starter going forward for us to succeed.

[GoWings1905 2,694]

lol, have you seen Osgood play this year, the number of horrible goals given up, the lack of confidence, looking confused and lost.

He's done, he can't put a consistency streak worth anything together.

He plays couple decent games against easy teams, then lets in 3 horrific goals against the flames!

He's done! Bring up Jimmy and send Ozzie packing. Conklin has to be our starter going forward for us to succeed.

St. Louis, Columbus and Philadelphia are "easy teams"?

[GMRwings1983 8,804]

Cam Ward didn't start the playoffs for them. Based on this analogy, Conklin should start the playoffs, at which point he will suck badly, and then Ozzie will come in and lead us to the Cup.

Is that a fair way to assess the OP's idea here?

[chrisdetroit 189]

The Carolina Hurricanes are an exception to the rule. For the last decade, at least, every other championship team has finished at least top 10 in GAA.

Ok then, why can't the Wings be an exception to the rule?

When was the last time that a team finished #1 or #2 overall and was ranked in the bottom 20 in GAA.

Well looky here, we have an exception to that rule also...

[Opie 308]

Cam Ward didn't start the playoffs for them. Based on this analogy, Conklin should start the playoffs, at which point he will suck badly, and then Ozzie will come in and lead us to the Cup.

Is that a fair way to assess the OP's idea here?

I was waiting for some one to bring this up, Cam Ward's year that is being discussed now is much more similar to Ozzie's season last year (not numbers wise, but reg season numbers mean poop in the postseason) not this year. It wasn't until after the post season that Carolina made Ward the starter officially, he basically assumed the job in the post season!

[Heroes of Hockeytown 694]

Ok then, why can't the Wings be an exception to the rule?

I think I made my post perfectly clear, but for your benefit: They can.

Edited March 27, 2009 by Heroes of Hockeytown

[chrisdetroit 189]

I don't disagree with your point, but to say there is no consistency given the numbers you provided is wrong. 80% of the time the Cup winner was in the top 7 in GAA, and only twice were they outsie of the top ten. That REEKS of consistency.

You don't understand probability and statistics. A sample size of only 10 is far to small to be significant so you can't make any future predictions based on this with any reliability...