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Guest Johnz96

The biggest difference in the Nashville series

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Save percentage doesn't always tell the whole story. As Howard's teammates themselves confessed, they hung him out to dry on a regular basis in that series. If a goalie isn't seeing a lot of shots but is facing impossible-to-stop chances because of defensive muck-ups, then having a bad save percentage doesn't necessarily mean that he played poorly.

Also it doesn't differentiate between high percentage shots and low percentage shots. Facing 40 low percentage shots is a whole different animal than facing 20 high percentage shots.

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Goaltending was a non issue in my opinion. Howard did his job and he bailed out his defense more than a few times too. As pointed out, the Red Wings made things simple for Rinne, by shooting from the perimeter and not crashing the net and creating traffic in front of the him. Further I think the Red Wings wasted a lot of good opportunities by overpassing the puck in PP. The real key in my opinion was that the Red Wings had no speed whatsoever from the neutral zone to allow them to blow past the Preds defense. Many times I saw FIlppula all on his own against three defending Preds. Since he had no speed he had no choice but to circle around and wait for his team mates to catch up. Look at the goals scored in 2008, most plays were on the rush. This past series I think the Red Wings looked exactly like the 2003 and 2004 editions of the Red Wings when they couldn't score on Giguere and Kipprusoff: No speed, no heart.

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Goaltending

I am not saying Howard was bad but he wasn't nearly as good as Rinne.

I can just imagine the s*** people here would be saying about Holland if we didn't replace Hasek with Osgood in 08 and lost in the first round and went more than a decade without a Cup (most teams go a lot longer than that)

I have to respectfully disagree. The goaltending was not markedly different. I know that's the standard storyline, but I made sure to pay very close attention because Rinne had such a reputation. Most of his saves were very poor shots by the Wings.

The reason the Wings lost is because we gave up a ton of 2 on 1s and we only took one perimeter shot and then went back to our zone. Rinne was good with some amazing saves, but so was Howard. If Howard hadn't been good we would've been blown out each game.

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I have to respectfully disagree. The goaltending was not markedly different. I know that's the standard storyline, but I made sure to pay very close attention because Rinne had such a reputation. Most of his saves were very poor shots by the Wings.

The reason the Wings lost is because we gave up a ton of 2 on 1s and we only took one perimeter shot and then went back to our zone. Rinne was good with some amazing saves, but so was Howard. If Howard hadn't been good we would've been blown out each game.

I also think the Red Wings managed to hit quite a few posts.

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Guest Johnz96

I have to respectfully disagree. The goaltending was not markedly different. I know that's the standard storyline, but I made sure to pay very close attention because Rinne had such a reputation. Most of his saves were very poor shots by the Wings.

The reason the Wings lost is because we gave up a ton of 2 on 1s and we only took one perimeter shot and then went back to our zone. Rinne was good with some amazing saves, but so was Howard. If Howard hadn't been good we would've been blown out each game.

All I got to say to that is wow

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All I got to say to that is wow

What is so surprising? Rinne looked a lot worse in game 1 and 2 in the Phoenix series than Howard did in the Nashville series. The difference wasn't Rinne decided all of a sudden to not stop the puck, the difference was the team in front of him. Howard also had a better GAA (2.13) than Rinne(2.39), and had only .003% difference in SV%. They are not that different, the main difference is the 5 million in salary and

What's surprising to me is there are still Red Wing fans that blame goaltending after so many years and example after example on how goalies are often dependent on the team in front of them.

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Guest Crymson

All I got to say to that is wow

In other words, you've got no rebuttal to his post.

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Maybe we should get Kenny Holland to throw the pads on then we can blame him for all of our problems.

A great defense can make an average goalie look great ( Mike Smith ) The Red Wings have gotton away with using average goalies for years because they had one of the best defense in the league. Ozzy, Vernon, Hasek, and now Jimmy are all or were average goalies while with the Wings. The problem is that now that our defense does not look so good I can bet our GA is going to go up by a bunch. Does this make it the goalie's fault? You get what you pay for.

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Guest RedWingsDad

You can point your finger at a lot of players for under performing, including Howard... all that aside, it was very clear to me that the biggest difference in that series was *MOTIVATION*... Preds had it, Wings did not.

On another note, the officiating was TERRIBLE, including the weak sauce penalty for the Z face smash. I particularly remember the game where Bettman was in attendance - it prompted Babcock to say that "the players aren't the only ones trying to make the finals." (good one Babs) What was there 40 calls in one period? I learned today that one job of the commissioner is to *directly* appoint the officials for each game..... hmm ...... [me] remembers the non too many many men on the ice for 30 seconds call of the 2009 finals [/me]... but im getting off topic....

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