Fleury and the Eye Test

It is funny how Anthony and I totally switch philosophical sides when it comes to hockey. He becomes the stat guy while I talk about certain players passing the “eye test.” Fleury is one of those guys.


Save percentage in hockey is comparable to RBIs in baseball. It has a lot to do with your surroundings and how your teammates perform in front of you. This is proven by the fact that the guy who leads the league in save percentage in a given year is usually a guy playing on a "neutral zone trap" type team. Those teams tend to give up a lot of long shots but not very many good shots. Perfect example of a ton of shots that weren't good chances was the Capitals in game 7 the other night. Halak had an unreal save percentage but never made what you would call a memorable save.


Meanwhile, getting back to Fleury, it all comes back to the fact that defense within the Penguins organization has been optional since ....well, forever. They are more interested in pushing forward and scoring goals. Its been especially atrocious this year. As a result, Fleury gets "hung out to dry" more than any goalie I have ever seen (at least on a good team) by defenders who should probably just give up and be wingers (Alex Goligoski anyone?). He may face 25 shots in a game but 24 of them will be GREAT scoring chances. The three overtime game against Ottawa in game 5 was the classic case. The Pens controlled play the majority of that game but couldn't do much to generate solid scoring chances. However, Ottawa got a number of odd man breaks that forced MAF to make great saves. Those break outs only count as one or two shots.


Bottom line is...Stats just don't tell you as much in hockey as they do in baseball. There is nothing in the box score for the play Sidney Crosby made in the crease in the Ottawa series. There is no stat to show how much better Fleury has become at handling the puck behind the net as his career has gone on. He has gone from being about as comfortable looking as my Alaskan Malamute in 90 degree heat to it being almost second nature. On the other hand, you can determine almost anything that happened in a baseball game somewhere in the box score or on a site like Fangraphs.com.


One final note.. Don't let Anthony convince you that Marc-Andre Fleury is the only goalie he has ever "doubted." This goes back as far Tom Barrasso. If Marty Brodeur was in goal for the Pens, he would still be complaining about his "terrible" play in the Olympics. MAF would probably need to go 82-0 with a 98% save percentage to appease Anthony. Crosby also tends to be a target of Anthony, but we will get back to that some other time.

Typical chance on MAF, Notice the large number of Penguin players around the net protecting him...

Fluery & Bird vs. Anthony and STATS!!!

Marc Andre Fleury. Just another human being...and a HUGE source of disagreement between Bird and I.

First of all, I love how the morning talkshow hosts on 93.7 "The Fan" dismiss Fleury bashers like we're 9-11 conspiracy theorists. Personally, I love bashing Fleury because I can prove he's not great. And as long as it is being shoved down my throat that he's elite, I'll continue to prove people wrong.

I'm going to take a page out of Bird's argument handbook. I'm going to use stats to back up my argument.

The two most telling statistics for a goaltender are save percentage and goals against average (GAA). In the 2009-2010 regular season, Fleury's GAA was 2.65 (ranking him 24th amongst all qualifying NHL goaltenders in the 30 team league), and his save percentage was .905% (he was not in the top 30 in the NHL for this. How does that happen? Well, some backup netminders who qualified based on games played ALSO had a better save percentage than Fleury). Fleury's save percentage ranked 53rd, total, out of all goaltenders that played in the NHL this year.

The Penguins backup goaltender, Brent Johnson, had a better save percentage than Fleury. And Johnson sucks.

Flower (brilliant nickname) was also pulled from games 8 times this past season. Is that elite?

Here's where Fleury supporters get crazy. They'll argue that Fleury is a great bounce-back goalie. Are you kidding me? Is that a good thing? If true, that means Fleury essentially needs destroyed in order to raise his level of play. In a playoff series, if you need to "bounce back," that suggests you already probably single-handedly cost your team a game. Remember, there are only a maximum of 7 games in a series, so every game means a TON. Why shouldn't you ALWAYS have your game face on? The great goaltenders do.

In the Ottawa series, I've heard a lot of Penguins fans give Fleury credit for playing extremely well after game 1. Really? Again, to beat a dead horse, why is it okay for him to get shelled just so he can raise his level of play? Of the 8 remaining goaltenders in the playoffs, Fleury has the worst save percentage so far (.890%) and is 6th in GAA (2.75).

Fleury should thank God he has Sidney Crosby on his team. Besides making a save in Game 1 versus Ottawa, Crosby does enough offensively for the Pens that they can afford to deal with Fleury's inconsistencies and outscore opponents when needed (see the 7-4 win vs. Ottawa as an example).

All of that said...I don't think Fleury is terrible. I just think he's about average. He makes some pretty awesome saves and allows some pretty soft goals. He's at an age where he should be in his prime, but his play just hasn't been very good this year. I'm hoping he decides to play great every night, and that he doesn't need a shlacking (remember the 5-0 loss to Detroit last year) in order to play great (remember games 6 and 7 vs. Detroit last year?)

The next time someone says Fleury isn't all that great, don't just dismiss it because he's won a Stanley Cup or because he seems like a nice kid. Remember, the Steelers won a Superbowl with Mitch Berger, too. Just sayin'

The stats don't lie. Flower is average.