Oct 12, 2024; Toronto, Ontario, CAN; Pittsburgh Penguins goaltender Joel Blomqvist (30) follows the play against the Toronto Maple Leafs during the first period at Scotiabank Arena. Mandatory Credit: Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images
*This post is in response to my friend Rick Buker’s latest post on Penguins’ Goaltenders
When was the last time a Pittsburgh Penguins’ prospect made any national, top ten prospect list for any position? I can’t even remember. Certainly, not during the nightmare Mike Sullivan, black hole era.
Jake Guentzel did turn out to be a star, but he was a 3rd round draft pick who finished his career out in college before turning professional. Sullivan tried burying him in the minors like so many other prospects in his first pro season. He started the 2016-2017 season out with the Wilkes Barre – Scranton (WBS) Penguins until injuries to many Penguins’ Forwards rescued him from the obscurity that condemned so many other prospects in the Sullivan regime. Injuries and the opportunity to skate with Evgeni Malkin and Phil Kessel gave Guentzel the opportunity to score big in his first game, potting a Goal in his first shift and also the second Goal and only other Goal a Penguin scored in that game.
Well, finally a Penguin Prospect got recognition from national writers; On July 17th the NHL website listed Joel Blomqvist as one of the top ten Goalies under 25. Unfortunately, the young Finn, although getting copious love from national scouts and writers, gets nothing but hate from Pittsburgh writers, bloggers, and fans. One particular blogger on another site only listed Blomqvist third among Penguins’ Goalies under 25, behind 2 Goalies that didn’t make the national list at all. But then again that blogger showed his ability to evaluate Goalies, or lack thereof by writing that Dubas needed to sign that great angler Tristan Jarry at all costs, so that ersatz Goalie could fish tons of pucks out Penguins’ nets.
Now even my colleague, Rick Buker displays a lack of consideration for the best Goalie in the Penguins system, a young Goalie almost everyone not blinded by Penguin Writers’ and Bloggers’ biases hails as one of the top young Goalies in the NHL.
As a former Goalie, I speak from experience when I comment on how a Goalie plays and looks, not from the naivety of a fan or even a player who played anywhere but Goal. When I wrote my glowing scouting report of Blomqvist, all those years ago when he was drafted, I wasn’t just quoting scouts or other self-important writers or bloggers or tossing around buzz words to try and sound smart. I was citing observations of game films framed by the fact that I have stopped pucks and know exactly how the position is played from the inside. When I wrote that he tracks the puck extremely well, even before almost every other scout out there said the same thing, I was commenting on what I saw in game films.
Now, to get to my friend Rick. He has been pestering me for quite a while to post an article, to see in print what I thought about the Penguins’ Goalies – a lot of that will have to wait for another day, Rick. However, I would like to address one particular issue from your last post and that is how dangerous it is to try and compare apples to oranges.
Looking at the final season totals for Jarry, Alex Nedeljkovic, and Blomqvist is grossly unfair to Blomqvist. Over half of the games Blomqvist played, he played before November 11, 2024, a time when the Penguins defense was absolutely abysmal as evidence by the team ranking 3rd worst in the league in terms of Shots Against per 60 minutes (SA/60) 5-on-5 and 2nd worst in terms of High Danger Chances Against per 60 minutes HDCA/60) 5-on-5.
| Rank | Team | SA/60 | Team | HDCA |
| 1 | Sharks | 33.96 | Ducks | 15.33 |
| 2 | Ducks | 33.9 | Penguins | 13.59 |
| 3 | Penguins | 32.21 | Sharks | 13.22 |
| 4 | Rangers | 32.11 | Canadiens | 13.18 |
| 5 | Red Wings | 30.61 | Rangers | 13.09 |
So, Rick, as you would like to say, let’s hop aboard Mr. Peadody’s WABAC machine and turn the settings to November 11th, the last day Blomqvist got regular playing time before he was sent to WBS to protect him from the pathetic excuse that was Sullivan’s defense and look at what was going on. Table one shows just how bad Sullivan’s defense was when Blomqvist was still getting somewhat of an opportunity.
Now let us take a look at the Penguins Goalies stats during that same time frame in Table 2, when the defenses were pathetic.
| Player | SA/60 | Sv% | HDSA | HDSv% | Rbd/SA | ASD |
| Jarry | 31.40 | 0.828 | 12.45 | 0.826 | 25.9% | 27.79 |
| Blomqvist | 38.03 | 0.901 | 11.25 | 0.857 | 19.2% | 35.23 |
| Nedeljkovic | 27.39 | 0.887 | 8.20 | 0.774 | 16.4% | 37.82 |
The only Goalie that got any protection from his defense was Nedeljkovic. Ned faced the least amount of SA/60 and High Danger Shots Against (HDSA). Ned’s defense also kept the opponents farther away from him than the other Goalies, evidenced by his Average Shot Distance (ASD) of 37.82. Of Course, the former Penguin also helped his defense out the best by only conceding Rebound Attempts Against per Shots Against (RAA/SA) to a team low of 16.4%.
Blomqvist, the rookie, on the other hand was subjected to 38.03 SA/60, highest on the team but faired the best in terms of overall Save Percentage (Sv%) and High Danger Save Percentage (HDSv%).
Jarry was the worst of the Penguins’ Goalies at the time. The Penguins’ highest paid Goalie faced a little more SA/60 than Ned but far less shots than Blomqvist. The pathetic fisherman of a Goalie coughed up the most RAA/SA, almost ¼ of his SA were from extremely poor rebound control from the veteran Goalie, accounting for his significantly lower ASD and team high in HDSA/60.
What makes looking at the season ending statistics so unfair to Blomqvist is the fact that Sullivan finally started adjusting his team’s defense. From November 12th on until the end of the season, the Penguins defense climbed up 10 spots from the 3rd worst to the 13th worst team in the league in terms of SA/60 and 11 spots in terms of HDCA, from 2nd worst to 13th worst.
Also confounding the statistics, you show, Rick my friend, is that of the three Penguins’ Goalies last year, Blomqvist got the very least consistent playing time. Almost half of the games the rookie, the kid who needs the most consistency, was played with 4 or more days rest (often more than a week) as noted in table 3 and nearly all were played with more than 3 days. While more than half of Nedeljkovic’s and Jarry’s games were played with between 2- and 3-days rest.
| Player | 0 Days | 1 Day | 2 Days | 3 Days | 4+ Days |
| Jarry | 1 | 14 | 6 | 6 | 9 |
| Nedelijkovic | 0 | 10 | 10 | 5 | 13 |
| Blomqvist | 1 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 7 |
The sample volumes for Blomqvist for playing games on less than 4 days rest are so small that any comparisons between the Goalies statistics is illogical, unfair, and unscientific. However, in terms of how the Goalies fared in 4+ days rest is useful and Blomqvist fares pretty well as seen in table 4.
| 0 Days | 1 Day | 2 Days | 3 Days | 4+ Days | |
| Player | Sv% | Sv% | Sv% | Sv% | Sv% |
| Jarry | 0.824 | 0.883 | 0.927 | 0.891 | 0.889 |
| Nedelijkovic | NA | 0.868 | 0.901 | 0.904 | 0.899 |
| Blomqvist | 0.733 | 0.900 | 0.780 | 0.922 | 0.895 |
All-in-all, Blomqvist is the best Goalie in the system. He is the most technically solid of the Goalies. The worst two Goalies are Jarry and Arturs Silovs. Both of those goalies are floppers who take themselves out of the play trying to guess what is going to happen. Even Sergei Murashov is an athletic Goalie (code for guesser). However, in Murashov’s case, he actually has the athleticism, like Marc-Andre Fleury to get back and make the save. He also tracks the puck far better than Jarry or Silovs; I lost count of the number of times I saw Jarry looking right as the puck was sliding past him on the left or vice versa.
The bottom line is this, the NHL web site writers got it right when they named Blomqvist a top 10 under 25 Goalie prospect, Rick, you need not worry about the kid; fix the defense and give him consistency and he will be just fine.
In addition to the trade deadline, now less than 48 hours away, there’s a weightier…
Every once in a while life prevents me from doing a full recap of a…
I was reading some articles about the Penguins’ possible approach to the looming trade deadline…
When the Golden Knights got the jump on our Penguins this afternoon at PPG Paints…
I have a confession to make. I didn’t watch today’s nationally televised matinee matchup with…
I just read that hockey insider Jeff Marek has proposed a trade involving our Penguins…
View Comments
Wow, Rick, excellent stuff. You really take a deep dive and look beyond the surface at the mitigating circumstances. Something I obviously didn't do.
I would feel chagrined if I wasn't so impressed...lol.
I'm glad I was able to provoke you back to the writing side. Again, outstanding analysis, my friend.
Rick