Dave McKee vs. Yann Danis

Currently, Dave is sporting a higher GAA in conference play than Yann, but has a lower save percentage. If Brown collapses here at the end of the season (1-3 this weekend and next weekend), I don't see why McKee shouldn't take First Team Goaltender for the ECAC.

GAA is pretty much the comparitive measuring stick for goaltenders, correct? If so, Dave is a better goaltender than Hobey Danis at this juncture in the season.

Thoughts?

Most non-Cornell fans say the GAA is a result of the system and that Save % is a better judge of the quality of Cornell goalies...will be interested to see what happens with McKee at the end of the year...I think he should be RotY.

Wow. Read my mind. Disregard my post on the other thread then.

Sorry, but McKee will get the goalie slot on the all-frosh team. Danis has the best shot at GOTY, because of existing stats, though his current play is a little more down to Earth.

Anybody think he's just getting shell-shocked?

JH

Who votes, when do they vote, and are First Round/QF games considered or is it just pure RS?

I am pretty sure that the votes have to be in before the Playoffs start.

i disagree with the assumption that a better save % is more important than a better GAA. Maybe the goalie sees a higher % of quality shots b/c of his good defense? doesnt mean he is not a better goalie.

I think that McKee is clearly the best rookie in the league. Where has Ihnacak been the last few weeks? He is wilting much like the rest of his overrated team.

As for goaltender of the year, I fear they will hand it to Danis on the basis on the common opinion that he means more to Brown than McKee means to Cornell. And I agree that this is true. McKee plays on a much better team than Danis does- he doesn't see nearly as many shots as Danis and if Brown didn't have Danis they would be closer to .500. Cornell, on the other hand, could play a backup goaltender and probably still be in contention for the league title. Danis may be the better goalie, but we have the better team.

I was under the impression that the Dryden Award simply went to the goalie with the best stats in his 22 RS ECAC games, and there was no voting involved. I can't stand the ECAC web sites, or I'd go look it up (not that I'd actually expect to find any useful info there....)

Robb '94 wrote:

I was under the impression that the Dryden Award simply went to the goalie with the best stats in his 22 RS ECAC games, and there was no voting involved. I can't stand the ECAC web sites, or I'd go look it up (not that I'd actually expect to find any useful info there....)

Well someone has to vote or decide. Otherwise how do you determine who has the "best stats?" This year, is McKee's GAA better than Danis's superior Save %? And how can you explain Harvard's Oliver Jonas winning the Dryden in '01 given the following stats? Because I'm still trying to figure it out. Jonas also got 1st team All-ECAC. Clarkson's Mike Walsh got 2nd team, and Underhill got the shaft. Looking at the stats, I give Walsh the Dryden and 1st Team spot, Underhill 2nd team.

            GP Minutes  GA Savs Sav%  GAA  Record  Win% ST SO
Walsh       17 1016:47  28  379 .931 1.65 14- 3- 0 .824 17  4
Underhill   19 1132:12  34  431 .927 1.80  9- 7- 2 .556 18  1
Jonas       21 1244:32  52  666 .928 2.51 11- 8- 2 .571 21  2
Marsters    20 1135:33  42  600 .935 2.22 10- 9- 1 .525 17  2

I'll certainly agree that the abortion that is the ECAC website is an absolute mess.



Post Edited (02-21-04 16:43)

Jonas had a marginally better save percentage, a better win percentage, saw far more shots, and played (and started) more games than Underhill. He also played behind one of the worst defenses in the league and still managed to post a very good goals against average, including two shutouts. You could make a case for Jonas using a purely statistical argument, since the only category in which Underhill was better was in GAA, and many people think GAA is as much a function of team defense as goaltending ability. That would tend to reduce the importance of Underhill's (far) better GAA, especially when you consider that in 2 more GP, Jonas faced 235 more shots - that translates to approximately 11 more shots per game over the course of the season.

Edit - now that I think of it, given a .928 save percentage, 11 more shots per game translates to just under 1 GA/Gm, so you could make the logical argument that if Jonas had faced the same number of shots per game as Underhill, his GAA would have been *lower* - so there is a statistical basis for giving Jonas the award that extends to every category. Of course, this conflates the save percentage and GAA category, and effectively means that the goaltender with the best save percentage should win the award every time.

On the other hand, it does allow people like Laurie Belliveau to win these awards. She spent four years at Yale with something like a .920 save percentage and a 5.00 GAA, facing 50 or 60 shots per game, but despite her GAA and low win percentage, everyone knew she was one of the top two goaltenders in the league.

Anyway, there must be people who vote for the Dryden award, or at least a person who chooses the winner, because there wasn't a really clear advantage for either player on the basis of the statistics at hand, and everyone who followed ECAC hockey knew that Harvard's defense began and ended with Oli Jonas that year.



Post Edited (02-21-04 15:49)

Good analysis, Tom. I edited my above post to include the stats of the top 4 goaltenders that year (Walsh and Marsters in addition to Jonas and Underhill). Interestingly, there was 1 of each class (F, So, Jr, Sr).

Clarkson and Cornell clearly had the advantage of much stronger team defense over RPI and Harvard. To Underhill's credit, his W-L record was in spite of having an offense that was FAR behind the rest of the league (except for last-place Brown). Harvard was scoring over 1 GPG more, Clarkson 1.6 GPG more than Cornell.

Depending on how you weigh various factors, I think a case can be made for any of the 4 winning the Dryden that year. Given Tom's argument, I think Marsters had more of a shot than Jonas. He saw the glut of shots through a pourous defense that Walsh and Underhill didn't see, and had the higher Save %.

I wish it weren't the case that goaltenders on very strong defensive teams are discounted. But that seems to be the case then as it probably is now.

I think it probably came down to seniority. The ECAC seems to have a history of favoring Seniors for awards (and experienced coaches for COTY as well).



Post Edited (02-21-04 17:15)

After looking at those numbers, my question is:

Why didn't Walsh win the award?

I mean, the guy had by far the best win percentage, second best save percentage, best goals against average, and played for one of the best teams in the league (at least in the RS). Of course, that last bit probably hurts his chances at the award, but still - he had an incredible year.

I think you're right that seniority played a large role. As you said, it seems like it usually does in these things, which is why Danis currently has a better shot at the Dryden award than McKee.

Save % is a much better indicator of the goalie than GAA. GAA indicates how well defensively the team is - Cornell is outstanding in this area. Save % is the amount of saves the goalie makes from the shots he faces, thus that stat almost totally applies to the goalie. Danis will win goalie of the year. Whether he has been better than McKee or not, he is a senior and has a much more esteemed reputation than McKee.

[Q]Save % is the amount of saves the goalie makes from the shots he faces, thus that stat almost totally applies to the goalie.[/Q]Not entirely true. The defense affects the kind of shot faced by the goalie. Whether the shots are point blank blasts or shots from the blue line matters. Also whether rebounds are cleared, since those can set up higher percentage shots. But it's probably true that the defense has a smaller effect on Sv% than on GAA.

Danis's stats are really starting to tail off...

They definitely vote before the playoffs start, or Stempniak wouldn't have gotten shafted last year (but I'm not bitter or anything).

Only ECAC games/stats are considered for the Dryden Award, right? Well, assuming they are (and I'm 99 % sure of it), here are the stats right now:

Rk Name               GP   W-L-T    MIN  GA  SV  SV% GAA 
1 David McKee, Fr, COR 20 11-6-3 1196:41 28 419 .937 1.40 
2 Yann Danis, Sr,   BN 20 12-6-2 1202:51 35 610 .946 1.75

McKee's GAA is much better, and the save percentage isn't too far off.

For comparison, last year, LeNeveu (17-2-1) had a 1.15 GAA and a .940 save percentage in 20 ECAC games (recall that Marr played the other 2).

EDIT: I meant to reply to the last post on the thread but somehow I didn't....



Post Edited (02-23-04 01:55)

Statistically, McKee is having one of the best seasons in goal in Cornell history. If he wasn't coming on the heels of LeNeveu, he would be getting a lot more hype.

The scary thing is, I can't see him leaving as an underclassman, and the team is going to get better the next couple of years. We may see "David, Son of David" numbers from McKee.

Cornell hockey -- the House of David.



Post Edited (02-23-04 08:36)

Ben, are you implying that you believe that Stempniak was the best goalie in the ECAC last season?

Works for me. Must have something to do with that upcoming playoff against the Golden Goliaths.

JH

Final RS Stats:

McKee 13-6-3 1.37 .939
Danis 13-7-2 1.63 .948

Post Edited (02-28-04 23:53)

Greg Berge '85 wrote:

Final RS Stats:

McKee 13-6-3 1.37 .939
Danis 13-7-2 1.63 .948

Danis will win. Better save%, seniority and the overall feeling that McKee has a credible defense in front of him but Danis is forced to do it by himself. I don't know the ECAC save numbers, but in all games they have both given up 48 goals but Danis has 215 more saves (and a larger edge in save%, .944 to .926.)

This was a hell of a year for McKee, though, and he will be the ROY and the preseason favorite to take home goalie honors next year.

Ihnacak might be ROTY, but McKee sure made a great argument for it down the stretch (6 GA in his final 7 RS games).

In conference play, Danis made 660 saves to McKee's 464 -- a gap of 196/22 = 8.9 per game.



Post Edited (02-29-04 00:41)

McKee would have done better in the ROTY / All ECAC standings if he'd traded six of his one-goal games for three shutouts and three two-goal games. I haven't done the lookup, but who has the most shutouts plus one-goal games this year?

[Q]who has the most shutouts plus one-goal games this year?[/Q]

I posted this before this past weekend:


[elf.elynah.com]

....so add 1 to Brown and 2 to Cornell.

In another fun little slight guaranteed to get some blood boiling here, INCH listed their top picks for goaltender of the year. Danis is #1, Silverthorn is #5, and McKee is lumped in a bubble category.

[www.insidecollegehockey.com]

They're quick to point out that that Brown is 40th in the country in scoring offense, but seem to not have noticed that Cornell is 42nd.

[Q]but seem to not have noticed that Cornell is 42nd.[/Q]

They do mention this in the rookie rankings from a few days earlier:

[www.insidecollegehockey.com]

Ben, are you implying that you believe that Stempniak was the best goalie in the ECAC last season?

No I'm implying simply that Stempniak's omission from the All-ECAC teams was proof they voted before the playoffs. He pretty much singlehandedly beat Colgate last year in the quarterfinals (4-4-8 in 3 games).



Post Edited (03-03-04 16:12)