Jyrki21 wrote:
I was actually about to mock the notion of someone picking up Volpatti, so joke's on me, I guess. He did yeomanly work for the team, but he's not exactly a difference-maker -- which is precisely why I thought he'd get through no problem. Ah well, it is a bit of a loss, and he was a hometown kid, so too bad for that.
While the market would be richer for Schneider, I still don't think it'd be as good as it once would have. There is such a ridiculous goalie glut in pro hockey right now -- the Canucks just played a string of games where they faced, in order, Leland Irving, Darcy Kuemper, Richard Bachman, Jake Allen, Ray Emery, and a guy called Nilstorp whose first name I don't actually know. Even though not all of them looked great, none of them were terrible (even while Irving got shelled he also kept his team in it for a while) and some -- Allen and Kuemper in particular -- looked out-and-out excellent. Gone are the days where playing your backup goalie (or in this case, third-stringer) is inviting a blowout loss. There are more NHL goalies out there than there are NHL goalie positions.
So while we bemoan the limited market for Luongo, is it actually much worse than the market for Schneider? Even with a more appealing contract, who will give up assets for a good goalie when every team already seems to have a couple lying around.
I also think that, hockey-wise, keeping Schneider still makes the most sense, even though the return on Luongo (if there is one) will be unimpressive (something that people have to accept some day: prices are not set by a commodity's inherent 'goodness', they are set by supply and demand). I think Schneider's feeling the heat a little bit and he's been outplayed by Luongo this season (no one performs better in any job when you have a legion of thousands micro-analyzing every tiny thing you do in an effort to decide whether they're making a mistake with you). But then when the shoe was on the other foot last year in a much larger sample size, he outplayed Luongo noticeably despite not getting a typical "backup" schedule. Plus he's younger, more athletic, and less banged up, etc.
I would agree that Volpatti is not a difference maker, however he seemed to me to be an upgrade in hockey skills to say Tanner Glass and pretty much anyone we've had in that role recently. Therefore pretty safe to assume other teams would feel the same. Oh well we'll get buy.
Regarding the goalie glut, I don't get it but I think that's a problem with my analysis more that yours. I perceive a top goalie to be equivalent in winning hockey games as much as say a 50 goal scorer. A save percent difference of .020 is about 40 goals a year. And I can think of a lot of playoff series won due to heroic efforts of a goalie, not that many where the credit is predominantly given to a forward or dman. But it seems based on salary and trade history that most teams agree with you about goalie value so you're probably correct and Schneider is not worth that much either.
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how do you find the time to stay on top of everything you do? You running a streaming aggregator for every NAmerican professional franchise?
Is he just trying to prove to everyone his system is superior?