Nik said:princedpw said:Anecdotally, there are so many examples of young guys playing well and old guys playing poorly (and of course, good goaltenders simply playing well because they always play well) that I myself can't tell if experience vs inexperience really has any noticeable effect at all. Wasn't Stanley cup winning Fleury experienced but beyond awful last year? Wasn't Cam Ward great but inexperienced when he won?
Well, I think you're right but I think the point being made is that, and I think the numbers back this up, inexperience can be a factor and there are quite a few goalies, good ones, whose first crack at playoff hockey went poorly. That's not to say that you can't possibly go into the playoffs with Reimer as your #1, just that you might want a better plan B than Ben Scrivens.
I'd be interested in seeing the numbers to back it up (not that I expect you to go out and find them ... but if anybody happened to know where I could see some without much work on my part, it would be interesting).
I certainly find it plausible that inexperienced goaltenders could perform worse going from regular season to post season --- but I'm really just not sure. I also find it plausible that lots of people believe that inexperienced goaltenders perform worse because they remember some specific time (or several times) an inexperienced goaltender performed badly --- but that's balanced by experienced goaltenders performing badly (and/or inexperienced goaltenders performing well). We all know there's lots of randomness and bounces in a short 7-game series and that's going to make lots of good goalies look bad and bad goalies look good. People just aren't very good at synthesizing all that noisy information accurately and uncovering the true trends ...
Summary: I'd love to see the numbers 'cause I'm not sure how much of a factor experience is. How much value should a team trade for veteran goaltending? How much worse talent-wise can a veteran be than a rookie before their veteran status is useless?