Last night in the Jets-Toronto game, after the brutal giveaway from Pavelec behind his own net I let loose with a series of tweets. You can see them in this timeline. While they may sound like harsh, frustrated words they were more an experiment to see what reaction would come back. However I took the experiment one step further.
As the Jets clawed back into the game and eventually took a 3-2 lead then wining the game 4-2 and all but assuring they next see the Leafs on the golf course, I changed my tune. Pavelec posted a .920 save percentage for the game- a great performance for him one that should usually get the Jets a win, and it did. But it does not tell the whole story. Below is the series of Tweets from last night.
That should be the last time Pavelec sees ice in a Jets jersey- sums up everything
— Peter Tessier (@Teddier) April 5, 2014Looking forward to a Jets skater illuminating Pavelec's shortcomings post game tonight as the latter has done before
— Peter Tessier (@Teddier) April 5, 2014Let's hear you Pavelev defenders - explain to me why he is worth keeping? I want logic, and sound reasoning
— Peter Tessier (@Teddier) April 5, 2014So yeah Reimer
— Peter Tessier (@Teddier) April 5, 2014That's it- there's no way the jets should sign Reimer! All you Reimer defenders show me some sound logic and reasoning! Go!!
— Peter Tessier (@Teddier) April 6, 20144-2 jets!!! With 2 mins left so this Pavelec guy is pretty good
— Peter Tessier (@Teddier) April 6, 2014Pavelec won, we should get Montoya back cheap and keep the band together
— Peter Tessier (@Teddier) April 6, 2014If by now you can’t sense it, the whole run is dripping with sarcasm, and that was the point. It’s to illuminate why first, Pavelec is a lightning rod of controversy amongst Jets fans and observers, and second that watching the games using only your eyes is a dangerous way to go.
Our society as a whole is at a point where we have more data points for almost everything in our lives than we know exist. It means that we’re measured in almost all of our behaviours to some capacity. Those measurements are used to understand people and what they do and predict what we might do next. Why should we exclude professional sports from the same level of scrutiny? Why should Jets fans not use the information, that is free, readily available, well-researched to understand the players performance and value?
If you want some interesting reading about this go to see the work at Hockey Graphs or the awesome stuff from Chris Boyle at the Shot Quality Project and my friends at Arctic Ice Hockey. The founder of that site is Gabirel Desjardins a Winnipeg native who now lives in the San Jose area. He is the god father of hockey analytics and produced the first site Behind the Net to assemble the information so many people and teams use to measure players.
I’m not going to try to influence you one way or another that stats are the only way to go but last night’s Jets Maple Leafs game was the perfect example of why we need to look deeper at goalies. If you do follow me on Twitter you’ll notice that I have been pumping the idea of the Jets acquiring Reimer this off-season. He had a .902 save percentage last night on 41 shots. This season Reimer has played half the minutes of Pavelec yet has seen 62% of the shots that Pavelec has.
It’s a starting point for discussion and where things can get much deeper and much more informative. I’m not going down that rabbit hole as there are better people than I to guide you. I will say that our eyes can’t see and record everything and that’s why we need to use the information at hand to support any conclusions we make.
Last night’s game could make you think Pavelec is better than Reimer when in reality the Leafs may simply have far more issues outside the crease than the Jets do. The result is those issues tend to come back to the Leaf’s crease and only the truly elite goalies in the league can be average on that quantity of shots night in and out.