- The game against the NYR's last night certainly was UGLY ....... terrible effort by the Pens overall (they played pretty well the first 10-15 minutes of the first period then it was all downhill the rest of the game) ...... many of the same mistakes as last year ...... too many odd man breaks against, terrible defensive zone coverage, 0-3 on the PP, gave up a short handed goal, poor puck management, etc. ........ on the other hand, it is only one game and teams sometimes have these kind of games especially early in the season so we will see how they come out tonight against the Redwings and remember, the NYR's are expected to be one of the best teams.
- What about Jarry's performance ? ....... after looking at the video of the goals he gave up last night and looking at his advanced stats from the game, here is my evaluation of his performance ......
- Goal #1 - Shot from the right point was deflected by a Ranger in the low inner circle, TJ had no chance to react and change position to stop the shot.
- Goal #2 - puck stolen from Eller and early 2 on 1 break for the Rangers, Puljujarvi back checks and takes 2nd man but Pettersson inexplicably goes down and slides away from the puck carrier who then has an open shot from the low inner left circle and scores through the 5 hole with Jarry deep in net ....... high scoring chance but Jarry needed to close 5 hole.
- Goal #3 - shot from the left upper circle, deflected and changed direction which handcuffed goalie .... TJ still made a really good save but left rebound right on Kreider's stick who shot the puck into empty net ....... really nothing different TJ could do on the play as the deflection made it almost impossible to control the rebound.
- Goal #4 - Ranger rushes down right wing low into zone toward lower circle/goal line area and both Pens defensemen inexplicably go after him leaving an open Ranger in lower inner right circle, he gets a pass and Jarry who was playing the initial puck carrier is off angle and too deep to save the shooter, doesn't move out fast enough and is beaten to far post ...... again a high danger tough shot to stop but Jarry doesn't react quick enough to get in better position to try and stop the shot.
Goal #5 - short handed goal .... breakaway, TJ backs into the crease to soon, too far and Kreider slips a relatively weak shot through the 5 hole ..... in addition, Jarry's stick was out of position on the shot and if in proper position likely stops the shot ...... poorly played.
Goal #6 - high danger shot from low slot, TJ makes a good save but puck not controlled in the crease and Trocheck back hands it into the goal while Graves who should have been guarding Trocheck is totally out of position.
Jarry had 16 or 18 high danger shots against in the game (depending on which site you look at the goalie stats) ....... this is a massive number of high danger scoring chances, the chances that most often lead to goals ( last season, for example, Jarry faced 7.5 high danger shots per 60 minutes) ...... Jarry's SV% on the high danger shots was 81.25% which is actually good (this goes along with some great saves we saw him make in the 2nd and 3rd periods) ...... his delta SV% was minus 0.31 which is 10th out of the 22 goalies who have played so far this year (one game) and his GSAx (goals saved above average) was minus 0.22 which is 11th out of 22, and his High Danger SV% is 8th out of 22 goalies in the first game ........ Jarry had more high danger shots in the first game then any other goalie in the league .......
- Stats after one game don't mean a lot but if you take the video analysis along with his advanced stats in the game, my conclusion is that he didn't play all that well but he was not nearly as bad as a 6-0 loss might suggest ...... he was largely average or slightly worse ...... Shesterkin was outstanding ........ the Pens put TJ in way, way too many dangerous situations but also he needs to play significantly better especially from a technical aspect ...... I'd like to see Blomqvist go tonight ..... let the kid play !
- PS - Blomqvist in goal tonight is confirmed.
