Delusions of Mediocrity?
Raycroft's stats (based on goalies who played 18+ games):
42nd best Save Percentage
37th best Goals Against Average
58th in Goals Against (Dead Last - no goalie gave up more goals this year)
29th in shut-outs
9th most wins (that's good!)
6th most losses (that's bad.)
19th in Win Percentage
In the shoot-out, where the Leaf shooters fell in-line with the league average, Raycroft's .594 save percentage puts him 26th out of 33 goalies who faced 15 shots or more.
Failed to make the playoffs
Pulled nine times - including in the biggest game of the year in front of the largest TV audience in HNIC's history
What's Raycroft's take?
"I had 37 wins this year. Being in this city, there's going to be a lot analyzed ... the bottom line is that there's not many people who play goalie in the National Hockey League and get 37 wins a year, top 10 in the league. I'm happy with that. I would have like to have had 16 more in the playoffs but it is what it is," he said.Wow.
"The improvement was good. I look forward to building on this year. There were a lot of questions coming in about whether I could even play any more. I think I've answered those questions. I just look forward to having an even better year next year."
With that level of analysis and introspection, I look forward to other Q&As with Andrew.
On James Frey?
There's a guy that can hold his head up. There aren't that many guys who write a book and get it published and few who do sell as many as he did. He even got to go on Oprah. That's pretty cool.
On Enron?
In a money obsessed culture like ours there's bound to be some analysis, but those guys built up one of the largest energy firms in the world with record revenues. They should be pretty happy with that...
Coach Mo told him to be ready to start 65 games next year. That's going to be quite a load for Raycroft, I hope the additional bus travel in the ECHL doesn't wear him out...
The only positive was his win total and that had more to do with the surprising number of goals the Leafs scored this year than his play. So long as the Leafs scored one more goal than the opposition, I could win 37 games playing goal for the Leafs.
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine if the team had been as scoring poor as was predicted at the start of this season? What would Raycroft say then? "The bottom line is there's not many people that play goalie in the National Hockey League and play as many games as I did. I've shown that I can be a starter in this league and look forward to the team being more successful next season."
giggy is a free agent...
ReplyDeleteDROOOL
leafs have more than enough cap space to win the bidding war for him...
DROOOOLLLL