Sunday, October 5, 2008

The Best Damn Average AHL Goalie Around

This post is about Jeff Drouin-Deslauriers and his supposedly "average" season last year. I was giving the kid praise in droves last year, as was then Springfield head coach Kelly Buchberger and other Oilers brass.

Deslauriers was named the Falcons MVP last year despite what appeared to be average AHL numbers. However what many outsiders failed to consider is the fact that the Falcons were routinely out shot, and in many of Deslaurier's 26 wins the Falcons had no business being in the game, let alone winning them.

Deslauriers was to the Falcons what Garon was to the Oilers. I also feel that their style of play is similar. Both are RH catching French Canadian Goaltenders, both are incredibly flexible, both are quick laterally, both are known for the spectacular save, and both are far from great at handling the puck.

So where do they differ?

Deslauriers is bigger, not quite as quick, and not nearly as confident or good in the shoot out.
However who better to mentor Deslauriers than Garon? So many similarities leads me to believe that Deslauriers could fit in very well with this team. Unlike the '05-06 Cup Finalist Oilers, this team is not built around defense. It is built around speed, puck movement, and skill.

This gives Deslauriers a definite advantage over the much slower but more positionally sound Dwayne Roloson.

Here's a post that I made of HF some time ago in regards to Deslauriers' "average" play.


This is why JDD was the teams MVP...

Here's how ,many times he was pulled relatively early in games...

JDD's
Game # TOI shots saves Goal Against
2) 7:33 4-2-2
16) 11:30 9-6-3
39) 13:06 10-8-2
42) 25:47 10-7-3
44) 39:56 22-18-4
48) 4:18 7-5-2
53) 16:39 10-7-3

Total = 72sh 53svs 19GA or 0.736sv %
Subtract the 39:56 game and 50sh 35svs 15GA or 0.700sv %

Throw out these bad games and...

1607sh 1479svs or a 0.9204sv%

Minus the 39 minute game 1629sh 1497svs or a 0.9189sv%

Yes I know that you must include everything to get a good picture. However is it a coincidence that he was pulled twice in his first 38 games and 5 times in his last 19 games??? Could it POSSIBLY be because he was burned out because of how heavy of a workload he was carrying??? IMO yes, and that's why many are underrating the kid. IMO a few of those pulls were a bit premature, and generally speaking Devan Dubnyk had a longer leash because he is younger and many times he played the 3rd game of a 3 games in 3 nights stretch.

When he's fresh, he's good, when he's on, he's great, when he's not??? He isn't. 7 bad games (really only 6) in 57 games, that comes out to roughly 1 in every 10 games, and prior to hitting a skid, it was 1 in 19 games, then it became 1 in 4 games. Injury??? Worn down??? Lack of talent/skill??? I know what camp I'm in.

2 comments:

Ed said...

Nice breakdown of his past year. He's been impressive thus far in the preseason no doubt. Look forward to seeing how he handles some regular season competition.

Also look forward to hearing how DD handles the load this year.

Bryanbryoil said...

He was flat out run down by the end of the year. Prior to that he was phenomenal. Expect JDD to have a solid year this year, however his biggest weakness is his puck handling. If he keeps that to basics, he should be o.k.