Leafs Get Andersen from Ducks

[rdowdall]

Sight unseen, I'm feeling the same way about Andersen as I do about Kadri's role on the team going forward.

I don't think the Leafs should pencil in their goalie as the third line centre.  I get trying to get the first overall pick and all, but they need to be a little less blatant about it.

 

[Tigger]

Some on here want us to stay bad so they can whine.

Some of us want them to be a dynasty, maybe that's just as unrealistic and too hopeful as thinking the team is much at this point.

 

[TBLeafer]

What's his injury history like?

 

[Kin]

Sight unseen, I'm feeling the same way about Andersen as I do about Kadri's role on the team going forward.

That similarly to how the Leafs have used Kadri's connections to get into all of the hottest spots London, Ontario has to offer they'll exploit Andersen to get reservations at NOMA?

 

[Kin]

An interesting article on SV% by location and how it relates to the question of how we should look at the defense Andersen played in front of in relation to his numbers:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/frederik-andersen-gamble-maple-leafs/

 

[Bill_Berg]

I doubt any team even really plans to be in the bottom 5 of the league, at least not in the off season. They want to teach these kids how to win. Signing Andersen doesn't mean they'll win, but at least they won't have to worry about outplaying a team and losing by 4 goals, I mean hopefully.

 

[Bill_Berg]

An interesting article on SV% by location and how it relates to the question of how we should look at the defense Andersen played in front of in relation to his numbers:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/frederik-andersen-gamble-maple-leafs/

I saw that. Not very inspiring.

 

[herman]

https://mapleleafshotstove.com/2016/06/21/ingoal-magazines-kevin-woodley-shares-wealth-of-insight-on-frederik-andersen/

Kevin Woodley* is a huge Andersen fan

Kevin Woodley: I do know that Freddie Andersen was on the market around January/February. I do know the Calgary Flames were very interested at the time. They just didn?t like the price. The price was too high for them. Obviously, I think the expansion draft changes things. Clearly Anaheim had a decision to make with John Gibson and Freddie Andersen. Time will tell if they made the right one. I get to say this because I was on record before the playoffs started: I think they made the wrong choice to start the playoffs with John Gibson. I would argue that they may still have been playing long after the first round if they started Freddie Andersen. I do actually believe, as much as they are enamoured with the raw skill and the upside that presents with John Gibson, I don?t think there is that big of a falloff in terms of the skill of Freddie Andersen. I like his size and his technical game, which is where consistency comes from and is much further along than John Gibson is. To be honest with you ? and I said this before this trade was made, so it?s not hindsight ? I would?ve been looking to acquire, if I was a team looking to acquire goaltending, Frederik Andersen before John Gibson every time at this point in their careers.

[...]

What I like most about Freddie Andersen is his desire to get better. I know that kind of sounds like an intangible almost. How do you measure that? To me, I measure that based on what I?ve seen him do over the past couple of years with his offseason to make sure he is getting better every time. We talk about the skills about Freddie Andersen. What else does he having going? He?s got the size. He?s a big body. That technical ability allows him to put that body in position more often than not.

But what I really like about Freddie are the things he does. The Anaheim Angels baseball team ? going and meeting with their hitting coach and learning what they do from a vision science perspective to get their hitters to be able to read the seams and read the spin on pitches, and seeing how he can apply that to his own game in order to read the puck and be able to track the puck better. That?s one example.

He was clearly heavy when he came over to the NHL for the first time. He played heavy in his first year in the NHL. He recognized that he couldn?t be a number one and play regularly at that weight. What did he do? He went to work in the offseason, he found a trainer in Los Angeles, he canceled his trip home to Denmark, and he dropped almost 30 pounds and put on a lot of muscle. Again, another example of a guy who is not satisfied with the status quo.

Freddie Andersen is a guy who looks for advantages. Another example ? last summer, his tracking was what let him down in the playoffs. It was tangible. You could see where he stopped tracking the puck against the Chicago Blackhawks. It was a clear deficiency in his game. There was a lot of talk about this. There was a lot of talk about the Leafs bringing in Lyle Mast. In terms of that tracking, Freddie Andersen is a guy who recognized that deficiency last summer. I don?t know if you remember he was one of the goaltenders who went to the NHL kick-off media session in Toronto where they do photography and interviews and things like that. Rather than fly from Toronto to Anaheim after that, he flew to Halifax because that is where the coach who teaches it was working that week. He spent an entire week on the ice trying to get better with his tracking, trying to understand this philosophy called head trajectory. Again, just one more example that Freddie Andersen is not someone who is going to be satisfied with here he is now.

You?re not just getting what you have in Andersen now. You?re getting a goaltender who is motivated to constantly evolve, to constantly improve, and he?s always looking for details in his game where he can get better. I compare it to Cam Ward. I hate to say it ? he signed a contract recently this week ? but there?s a guy who hasn?t done the work in the past few years. Ever since he won a Cup, he got content with where he was at and thought he could survive on the skill and never went to work on the technical game. It?s polar opposite with Andersen. He?s a kid who is always looking to get better. Again, it?s intangible/immeasurable, so how much can he improve through these efforts? I guess we?ll find out, but I sure like a guy that is trying as opposed to a guy who just thinks he?s good enough right now.

* I don't know who Kevin Woodley is.

 

[Frank E]

Wow, that's super unique - a pro player trying to get better by working with trainers and not being fat.

 

[Misty]

It would seam Leafs management felt Andersen was a good building block with a solid value and took advantage of Anheim's relative position of weakness.

Expansion draft or not, having two potential starting goalies and wanting to trade one is dealing from a position of strength, not weakness.

When "wanting to trade one" is due to not wanting to lose him with no return at all, maybe not so much.

I'll concede the "need" to trade one of them wasn't sooooooooo massive, but I have some difficulty getting my head around the idea that the price the Leafs paid to obtain him was all that massive either.

 

[herman]

Wow, that's super unique - a pro player trying to get better by working with trainers and not being fat.

Yeah we don't get too many of those 'round here parts.

I like that he meshes well with Briere. We've seen how a bad goalie/coach relationship can look on the ice. I like that he goes outside the box to seek improvement and advantage (Dubas-y).

 

[Tigger]

Wow, that's super unique - a pro player trying to get better by working with trainers and not being fat.

Yeah we don't get too many of those 'round here parts.

Jeebus they better keep him away from Kadri.

 

[herman]

Sight unseen, I'm feeling the same way about Andersen as I do about Kadri's role on the team going forward.

I don't think the Leafs should pencil in their goalie as the third line centre.  I get trying to get the first overall pick and all, but they need to be a little less blatant about it.

Excuse me, but I believe he will start the season as the first line centre. With a full cage, he looks a bit like Matthews, so it shouldn't be too obvious.

I see Andersen's fit as a placeholder with the potential to 'play up in the lineup' so to speak. He's not the top-5 in the league championship goaltender that we're going to fully rely on to bail us out of every jam, just as Kadri is not the number 1 centre of the future  that we will rely on to score 50 goals; but they both do a lot of things right and can be relied upon to shepherd the new core into position as they grow into veteran/mentor roles. Despite their age, I see a longevity to the way they play the game.

 

[mr grieves]

An interesting article on SV% by location and how it relates to the question of how we should look at the defense Andersen played in front of in relation to his numbers:

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/frederik-andersen-gamble-maple-leafs/

I saw that. Not very inspiring.

The bottom line seems fair:

The question is whether average or even slightly above it, while playing platoon minutes, is worth mid-range starting goaltender money.

For a team like the Maple Leafs, who are in no rush to be competitive right away, dropping that much cash on a goaltender who isn?t likely to live up to the cost doesn?t fit very well with the precision moves the organization has made in the past year. It makes sense for the Leafs to roll the dice on a goaltender, but they rolled it with a sizeable chunk of change ? and term ? for a goaltender who hasn?t proven much yet.

Even if $5m isn't a lot for one goalie, I worry that it'll limit the team's ability (or appetite) to continue making smaller bets on guys who might emerge as legit starters, which is all I think Andersen is. The 5x5 contract is a dedication of resources you'd expect about when the goalie situation had stabilized. But I don't think many of us really thought this summer would be end of the search for the team's goaltender.

 

[Kin]

When "wanting to trade one" is due to not wanting to lose him with no return at all, maybe not so much.

The primary thing that's will determine a player's return really has nothing to do with how motivated a seller the team is. It's going to be the level of demand out there. Even in a case like Toronto with Kessel the issue wasn't that Toronto needed to deal him, it's that they only had one bidder.

 

[groundskeeper willie]

And, obviously, I don't think it was that high a price to pay.

Ok, but again, I don't think the price was high in terms of Andersen's relative value to other 1B types or highly sought after back-ups. It's the concept of insulation or stability or...whatever the third word for it is going to be I think is overvalued.

I don't know, have you ever played on a team where the goalie was so bad you held your breath on every random shot because you were worried it might go in? It gets to you no matter how hard you try to avoid it.

Obviously Bernier wasn't that bad, but there is some logic there. I believe in advanced stats and trying to measure everything you can, but there still is a mental side to the game that doesn't show up just in numbers.

 

[Kin]

Obviously Bernier wasn't that bad, but there is some logic there. I believe in advanced stats and trying to measure everything you can, but there still is a mental side to the game that doesn't show up just in numbers.

Except the logic there is belied by the exaggeration. Bernier, over his time with the Leafs, has been a league average goalie. Andersen, over his time with the Ducks, has been a very slightly better than league average goalie.

So I don't think the difference between a .918 and .915 goalie is the difference between dooming the Leafs to nervous skittishness and playing the confident he-men they were born to be.

Some people said that Bernier's propensity for giving up early goals is especially bad on confidence but that rings false. Is it better for a team's confidence if a goalie gives up bad goals late and potentially ruins a solid effort? Moreover, is there any evidence that two goalies with comparable SV% will really display competing results with any consistency in terms of when they give up bad goals?

Like always, it's not a debate between people who believe intangible factors exist and those who think they don't. It's about whether it's ever really wise to talk about intangible factors like they're tangible.

 

[L K]

Obviously Bernier wasn't that bad, but there is some logic there. I believe in advanced stats and trying to measure everything you can, but there still is a mental side to the game that doesn't show up just in numbers.

Except the logic there is belied by the exaggeration. Bernier, over his time with the Leafs, has been a league average goalie. Andersen, over his time with the Ducks, has been a very slightly better than league average goalie.

So I don't think the difference between a .918 and .915 goalie is the difference between dooming the Leafs to nervous skittishness and playing the confident he-men they were born to be.

Some people said that Bernier's propensity for giving up early goals is especially bad on confidence but that rings false. Is it better for a team's confidence if a goalie gives up bad goals late and potentially ruins a solid effort? Moreover, is there any evidence that two goalies with comparable SV% will really display competing results with any consistency in terms of when they give up bad goals?

Like always, it's not a debate between people who believe intangible factors exist and those who think they don't. It's about whether it's ever really wise to talk about intangible factors like they're tangible.

I agree with the sentiment that a late-bad goal is pretty awful, but playing from behind most games puts a lot more pressure on a team than a late game goal within the individual game itself.  Makes things more taxing even though it might be less demoralizing in the long-run.  I would rather the team be given a chance to potentially build a two goal lead to insulate a bad goal than need to score two goals to win after an almost guaranteed goal in the first 5 minutes of play.

 

[KadriFan]

Well I hope he's our number one for the next ten years!!!! 

 

[Kin]

I agree with the sentiment that a late-bad goal is pretty awful, but playing from behind most games puts a lot more pressure on a team than a late game goal within the individual game itself.  Makes things more taxing even though it might be less demoralizing in the long-run.  I would rather the team be given a chance to potentially build a two goal lead to insulate a bad goal than need to score two goals to win after an almost guaranteed goal in the first 5 minutes of play.

But again, the exaggeration comes into play there. If we went digging through Bernier's tenure with the Leafs realistically what % of games do you think we would find where he gave up a goal in the first 5? Think it would be 50%? 30? 70? My guess is that it's on the low end of that scale. My guess is that if you compare him to most goalies around the league in where he ranks in "bad" goals and quick goals compares roughly to where he ranks just in general.

It's certainly not a case of one guy letting them in all the time and another one never doing it. The truth is going to be in the margins.

Even still, neither of us are sports psychologists and it's not an exact science even if we were. There's a logic to what you're saying but there's just as much logic to saying it's worse for a team to be constantly worried about when a bad goal might occur.