Alright, so let me walk you through my latest deep dive: Flyers goaltending. Yeah, sounds kinda niche, right? But trust me, there’s some interesting stuff to unpack.
It all started ’cause I was just messing around, watching some old Flyers games. I got thinking about how much the goalie situation has changed over the years. Like, remember when we had that dude, what was his name? Anyway, he was terrible! That’s what actually sparked the whole thing. I thought: “I gotta get into the nitty-gritty.”
So, first thing I did was hit up *. Man, that site’s a goldmine! Started pulling data on every Flyers goalie since, like, forever. Save percentage, goals against average, all that jazz. Just dumped it into a spreadsheet. Looked like a hot mess at first, I won’t lie.
Next up: visualizing the data. Gotta make it look pretty, you know? Used some simple charts to track the trends. Started seeing some patterns emerge. For instance, that period where we went through, like, five goalies in two seasons? Yikes! The chart just went straight down.
But then, things got interesting. I started digging into individual goalie stats. Compared their performance year-over-year. Looked at their strengths and weaknesses. Found some real gems. Some guys were amazing at stopping low shots, others were brick walls on the high glove side. It was fascinating.
Then I decided to see what stats “really” mattered. I took more advanced statistics, such as goals saved above average and adjusted save percentage, and I noticed that these metrics seemed to be more correlated with team success. It’s not enough to just stop a lot of shots; you need to stop the right shots.
After that, I even dove into some game film. Slowed it down, frame-by-frame. Watched the goalies’ positioning, their reactions, their technique. It’s crazy how much goes into it. A tiny adjustment in their stance can make a huge difference.
After watching the film, I started creating a model of the goaltenders style. Some are more aggressive, coming out to challenge shooters, while others prefer to stay back in the net and rely on their reflexes. I watched how these styles matched up against different offensive strategies.
Anyway, after all that digging, I started to have my own theories on how to solve our goaltending problems. What kind of goalie we should be targeting, what kind of coaching they need, that kind of thing. The team doesn’t ask me, but I’m ready if they do, haha!
Of course, this is just a starting point. I still have a lot to learn. But it’s been a blast so far. And who knows, maybe this deep dive will actually help me appreciate the position even more. Or at least give me some talking points at the next game.
- Collected goalie data
- Cleaned and visualized the data
- Analyzed individual goalie stats
- Watched game film
- Formed theories
So, yeah, that’s the story so far. Flyers goaltending: a surprisingly deep rabbit hole!
