Since I'm in the process of moving to a new apartment, I haven't had much time to update. Luckily, some dedicated readers have sent me a couple links so I can put up a post with minimal effort.
Earlier, I posted a Michigan article from CSTV and was sent an email, saying that CSTV put up a bunch of other good links surrounding college players in the NHL draft.
Here's one article featuring Paul Statsny, and there's links to a bunch of other articles on that page.
The Ann Arbor News had a nice article on Al Montoya's departure as well as some quotes from the new goalie Billy Sauer.
Hopefully Michigan fans take it a little easier on Sauer than they did on Al Montoya. This post and the resulting replies are basically a bunch of Michigan fans saying "good riddance" to Montoya. Montoya was called good, but not great, mediocre, and the most overrated goalie in Michigan history.
And of course, they bring up a good point. What use does a team like Michigan have a goalie with a save percentage under .900, that gives up a ton of soft goals, doesn't really play that well in the regular season, wanders out of his net, occasionally getting into trouble, and really only plays his best in the NCAA tournament?
Hey, wait a minute. That sounds really,really, familiar.
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
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9 comments:
I know you like to compare Montoya to Marty Maize, but I saw Marty all 4 years at Michigan and there are some pretty big differences despite the similarity in the stats. Turco actually rarely gave up soft goals. Usually any strange goals on him resulted from him misplaying the puck and turning it over. He did not lose concentration during regular season games like what plagued Montoya over the last year. Remember when Turco was there UM was money to win or at least tie if they entered the third with a lead. When the game was on the line, even regular season, he shut the door.
Bottom line, I think Montoya got drafted too high based on a hot showing in the 2003 WJC. He probably really has the talent of a 2nd round pick (remember Turco went in the 4th or 5th round). I don't think he's as bad overall as some others have said, but his head was in the NHL last year, no doubt.
Michigan didn't lose a game after getting a lead until the Colorado College game this past season.
We may not have blown a lead until the CC game, but at the same time, I don't think we WON a game where we scored less than 3 goals til the last game of the Notre Dame series (if i'm not mistaken).
Montoya played "well enough" to win a lot of game (30 in fact). But when you're the #6 overall pick and an All-American, "well enough" isn't necessarily good. He wasn't BAD this past season, he was just kind of...blah.
Michigan only scored 2 goals in a game twice this past season. A 4-2 loss to Northeastern, and a 2-2 tie against Michigan State.
The only two games that Michigan lost in which they scored more than one goal were the first and last games of the season.
The other losses can hardly be blamed on Montoya.
-A 1-0 overtime loss to Ferris State.
-A 5-1 loss to Minnesota where he was left out to dry on 4 first period goals
-A 3-1 loss at Wisconsin where the team played flat
-A 4-1 road loss to Ohio State
-A 3-1 loss to Northern where Montoya didn't play well.
So by my count, you could argue that he cost Michigan the Northern game, and the tie against New Hampshire when he played horribly, but you can't really fault him for the others.
I think just about any other team would be thrilled if their goalie put them in that kind of position.
So if the team can be at fault in some losses (Montoya was hung out to dry, the team played flat...), why isn't it fair to say that in a lot of games he played like crap and the offense bailed him out?
2 BGSU games, the MSU game at Yost that Michigan won, the tie against UNH...those are just off the top of my head. He was terrible in all those games and the nation's best offense bailed him out. If they had even a NORMAL Michigan season offensively, U of M surely wouldn't have won the CCHA and they might have struggled to even make the tourney the way Montoya played a lot of the time.
He was awful a few times, decent a lot of the time, and only played up to his caliber a few times all season.
I don't care what our record was (hell the Wings won a Stanley Cup with Chris Osgood--doesn't make him a good goalie)...I saw the kid play probably close to 30 times last season and he wasn't even CLOSE to his first two years.
The CC game wasn't his fault, but I'm pretty sure that the Montoya of freshman/sophomore year would've found a way to make enough saves that we win that game. He just didn't have it last year.
Link
HAHAHAHA. Good call dickless!
ps - This blog sucks more dick than your mom, which is pretty damn tough to do.
Maizerage
Nice prediction about Tambellini "definitely" returning, dumbass. Got any other hot tips, stock market, etc? Hahahaha
Pinhead Nation owns you.
I enjoyed Maize Rage's great prediction on Tambellini as well. Let's hope Maize isn't going to be managing anybody's 401K in the future. hahahaha
To be fair, Tambellini himself said he was 100% coming back to Michigan as recently as 2 weeks ago.
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