No, a goalie cannot win a game. His job is to keep his team in the game and give his forwards a chance to win it, but he can't win it himself.
As far as confidence goes, I think the idea that consciously challenges more or less because of confidence is overblown. There may be a subconscious shift, but a goalie rarely thinks about challenging more or less based on play. Goalies, like every other positionally player, go on hot and cold streaks. They just happen for whatever reason, and there is no avoiding them. Just because a goalie is playing badly doesn't mean he has no confidence, its just a natural ebb and flow.
Not to say you're wrong here but remember Mason and his body language when giving up bad or soft goals for us? I have no idea what was going thru his head but it sure seemed like he was rattled and lost confidence in his ability. There are a few positions in sports where a player has to have a certain mental makeup to be successful. Goalie is one. Closer in baseball is one. Field goal kicker in football is another. I have seen many of these guys be successful for a season or two and then flounder after success. Was it them forgetting how to play and all of a sudden becoming bad? Maybe. Maybe they lost their fundamentals. Maybe something got in their head and if it did, wouldn't that mess with their confidence?
I understand what you're saying but I think confidence is a huge thing.
Not to say you're wrong here but remember Mason and his body language when giving up bad or soft goals for us? I have no idea what was going thru his head but it sure seemed like he was rattled and lost confidence in his ability. There are a few positions in sports where a player has to have a certain mental makeup to be successful. Goalie is one. Closer in baseball is one. Field goal kicker in football is another. I have seen many of these guys be successful for a season or two and then flounder after success. Was it them forgetting how to play and all of a sudden becoming bad? Maybe. Maybe they lost their fundamentals. Maybe something got in their head and if it did, wouldn't that mess with their confidence?
I understand what you're saying but I think confidence is a huge thing.
Confidence is a big thing, but I think you underestimate a few things. First off, goalies rebound from confidence loss very well. They may look really messed up at first, but most good goalies can shake of the goal in a matter of seconds.
Secondly, the reason goalies decline is often scouting. Other teams watch film, find weaknesses, and expose them. The goalie is not getting worse, the shooters are getting smarter. The goalie then has to change his style, and its a constant chess match. Which is how you see cases like Tim Thomas (Vezina, backup, Vezina).
Confidence is a big thing, but I think you underestimate a few things. First off, goalies rebound from confidence loss very well. They may look really messed up at first, but most good goalies can shake of the goal in a matter of seconds.
Secondly, the reason goalies decline is often scouting. Other teams watch film, find weaknesses, and expose them. The goalie is not getting worse, the shooters are getting smarter. The goalie then has to change his style, and its a constant chess match. Which is how you see cases like Tim Thomas (Vezina, backup, Vezina).
I'm going to have to disagree with you. It does in fact happen that a goalie will get "into a zone" and "see the puck better". Similarly a skater can get into the same type of zone.
The human brain typically processes what your eyes are seeing at about up to 30 frames per second. But in high intensity situations (such as a car accident or a burning building) the brain kicks into overdrive and can process sight much faster like 60 frames per second or more, this is why you hear stories about people in intense situations who say it seemed like everything was in slow motion.
Note: I deleted a portion of your post when quoting to save space in my post, but my response is directed at your entire post.
I’ve discussed this topic at length and this is the most interesting rationale behind the ‘hot’ goalie topic that I’ve heard. But I just can’t fall in line with it. First, how sustainable is this high scale adrenaline rush? These flight or fright responses you are describing are over very quickly. Are you suggesting that an athlete can have super rushes of adrenaline for 60 total minutes over a 3 hour period? That seems like an amazing amount of adrenaline to harness and re-summon after constant stops and starts.
And that brings me to my second issue. Even if they could sustain it for 3 hours (or more if OT), many hot goalies are hot for several games at a time over a time span that could last for weeks (see aforementioned Roy). How possible/probable is it that a human being can peak their adrenaline over and over again in that fashion for such an extended period of time? And if they could, why couldn't they always do it?
It’s a fascinating theory, but I think it might be better served supporting very limited bursts of performance, such as series of saves, and really doesn’t adequately explain a ‘hot’ goalie, at least as we have defined it in this thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Viqsi
The problem with this theory is that it assumes sports players are 100% consistent and will give exactly the same effort in exactly the same manner 100% of the time.
Athletes are not true random number generators. There's too many variables to be able to reach conclusions like that with confidence.
I agree my theory doesn’t account for effort, but my theory isn’t all inclusive. I’m merely looking at the primary driver and should state I don’t feel luck is the end all factor. I just feel it is the overwhelming determiner.
Effort is a component, albeit a small one. In playoff hockey, it’s odd, to me, to suggest that one player can simply rise above the rest in terms of effort. There’s only so much effort that can be expended. “Try” gets maxed out by many of the players in the playoffs, so it just doesn’t seem logical it could be a strong component in the “hot” goalie scenario. Conversely, low effort doesn’t seem like a likely suggesting for the “cold” goalie scenario.
Quote:
Originally Posted by glenngineer
I would use the term, "In the groove goalie". Many times you hear goalies wanting to play all the time because they find a groove or a rhythm. When Rinne plays a lot, he appears to find his "zone" or whatever you'd like to call it. Confident is a good word or reference too.
As to your last comment, I think it depends on the team and the player you're talking about. A few players I can think about in a few different sports come to mind but it's a crazy discussion and I don't have the mental makeup to get into it right now...lol.
I don’t like the confidence explanation as a significant component either. In the highest level of competition, where these athletes have experienced success after success after success, confidence is generally brimming even if a goal or two is allowed (I can understand the Cloutier-esque meltdown being called confidence [though I don’t necessarily agree/disagree] but not Luongo’s failures against Chicago/Boston). And much like a jump shooter in basketball, so much of what a goalie does is reflexive muscle memory, with minimal room for additional internal factors.
To summarize, I think all of your opinions help build out the life of a hot goalie. I believe that hockey fans overstate their individual influence on that hotness and understate the luck component, which I feel is the largest driver of both ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ goaltending.
I haven't read through this entire thread but have been reading in the different national media sources of Bouillon's recovery issues and how his absence may leave the Preds pretty thin on defense. I have no idea what the Lebda waiving means but are the Preds potentially going to try to add a depth defenseman with some experience in the short term until Bouillon's injury status is clearer?
I ask only because the Sabres will most likely be moving Shaone Morrisonn (6'-4", 215, 29 years old, $2.075M cap hit for 1 more year) - either through trade or, failing that, by putting him on waivers to send to the AHL. I've wondered, in light of Nashiville's current defense, if they might take interest in Morrisonn - be it in a trade or waiver claim.
Jack Hillen will be #5/6 and for better or worse, Poile signed Tyler Sloan for depth. I would imagine the Preds have 0 interest in Morrison at 2 mil, but what do I know?
While I'd like a bigger stay-at-home guy like Morrisonn, I think our defense is set for now after the acquisition of Hillen...
The top two pairings are set with:
Suter - Weber
Blum - Klein
Then Hillen will fill in as one half of the third pairing until Bouillon returns and Josi, Ekholm, and Ellis will battle for that second spot on the third pairing with Teemu Laakso likely sticking as the No. 7.
Laakso did well for the Ads last season and Lambert is high on him. We've realistically got about a five way fight for the bottom two positions. Depending on where Bouillon is in is recovering when the season starts, I'm not so sure we don't just go with six d-men plus him in IR to get keep the rest of the guys playing in Milwaukee. There will be a lot of roster flexibility with the number of EL players who aren't exposed to waivers yet ... get to the big club and miss a beat there's another guy wanting to take your job.
