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How Good Was Evgeni Nabokov?
by PuckStopsHere on 08/28/10 at 03:46 PM ET
Comments (7)
When Evgeni Nabokov jumped to the KHL a lot of people wrote him off as an overpriced goalie who had his best days behind him. The common refrain is that he isn’t good enough to be the top player that shows the KHL is a serious challenger to the NHL. To some degree this is a sour grapes responce. If he is leaving the NHL, then he must not be a major loss.
One way to look at Nabokov’s 2009/10 season is shown on the top 20 list of goalie’s goals versus threshold. Nabokov was third last year behind Ryan Miller and Tomas Vokoun. This is essentially a showing that Nabokov put up a .922 saves percentage last year in 71 games played. No other goalie played as many games with as high a saves percentage.
Nabokov’s 2009/10 saves percentage as the highest of his career. That doesn’t make last season Nabokov’s career best. Most people would argue that occurred in 2007/08 when Nabokov made the First All Star Team and narrowly lost out in the Vezina race.
The biggest complaint about Nabokov is that he hasn’t won in big games. He has been part of the San Jose Sharks team that has earned a reputation as playoff chokers. This team made it to the semi-finals last year in the Stanley Cup playoffs and has never made it further than that. It is usually unfair to blame individual players for the alleged “choking” of their team. I think the best explanation of how one becomes a “choker” is that hockey writers pick a team as a probable winner and when that team doesn’t win, the writer’s decide that the failure is some character flaw of the losing team’s players and not a flaw in the initial prediction. Nabokov has put up some pretty solid numbers in the playoffs over the years. He has a career .913 saves percentage and 2.29 goals against average in his playoff career.
Nabokov is 35 years old. So it is reasonable to assume that he is in decline. Most players of his age are declining, but it is not uncommon for a top goalie to have a few good seasons left in their mid to late 30’s.
Evgeni Nabokov has been an elite goalie in his career. Probably those days are over, but it is not impossible that he might have one or two elite years left. His 2009/10 season was a very good one. It was one that many fans overlooked, as it did not include the playoff success that was hoped for (although being one of the final four teams in the playoffs ought to be considered success).
San Jose will be worse off without Nabokov in goal. A pairing of Antero Niittymaki and Thomas Greiss should not be able to match Nabokov’s success. Perhaps their plan is to acquire a top goalie at or before trade deadline time because I cannot imagine a San Jose playoff run without better goaltending.
Nabokov is the player who had the best season in the NHL the year before jumping to the KHL (at least so far). The KHL has some legitimate NHL talent. A KHL all star team would likely be in the NHL playoff race. There are a couple KHL teams that would not finish last if they were NHL teams. These are important steps in the growth of a new league. The KHL is well below the equal of the NHL, but it has some legitimate talent.
As for the NHL, they are giving up talent. This talent is not only going to the KHL, but to other European leagues, the AHL and pre-mature retirements. A lot of talent is left as unsigned free agents as August is ending and many of them will not wind up in the NHL again. This is largely due to artificial salary restraints brought on by the salary cap. The loss of talent is not a story that is given much space in the mainstream media. A solid argument can be made that Evgeni Nabokov was the third best goalie in the NHL last year and he could not find an NHL job. Many fans are quick to explain that this is no major loss as Nabokov is a high priced goalie who has yet to win the big one, but I think they are wrong. This is a major loss. Evgeni Nabokov is a top goalie. He probably has a couple more good years left and NHL fans won’t be able to see them. It is their loss.
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Tags: Evgeni+Nabokov, San+Jose+Sharks,
Comments
I dont think Nabokov is one of the elite goalies but I think he’s alright. He was on a pretty good team in San Jose. I think it would be beneficial for San Jose to spend some good money on a new goal tender.
As, EDJ pointed out, the Sharks have lots some pieces this off season. Loosing key players is detrimental to a team which historically chokes in the playoffs.
I know there are not many great netminders available this offseason. Either through trade or next summer, I think the Sharks should really go out and obtain a top 5 or top 10 goalie. A solid goalie will serve to calm fear driven players of the Sharks who are afraid of another playoff disaster.
Whether the Sharks players and coaches admit it or not, everybody in San Jose fears the playoffs. Discouragement will tear that team apart no matter who they put on the ice. A goalie who can be a leader might be able to get them over the post season hump.
Posted by Leafsfan 4life from North America on 08/28/10 at 06:14 PM ET
I for one think Nabokov was one of the top 5 goalies in the league, and SJ made a poor decision in getting rid of him. He’s streaky, but so is Luongo; if you average his numbers out over the long run, he’s elite. That being said, not sure I’d want him on my team either.
Posted by Hippy Dave from Portland by way of Detroit on 08/29/10 at 07:58 AM ET
Nabokov was never a clutch goalie. Time after time, when his team needed him to come up big in the playoffs, he didn’t. Being there in the clutch has more to do with being an elite goalie than most stats will reveal, because coming through when the pressure is on is more mental than physical; but that it what separates the elite goalies from the field.
I’m willing to bet that if you could accurately measure the objective physical requirements of the job (reflexes, foot speed, up/down speed, etc) there wouldn’t a large discrepancy between the best NHL goalies and the worst goalies. The best goalies, however, don’t get rattled. Look at Dom Hasek, Martin Brodeur, or Patrick Roy. They have/had ice water in their veins. Give up a bad goal? “Enjoy that one, cause there won’t be any more tonight.” Have a bad game in the playoffs? They’d come back with a decisive victory. OT? “Bring it.” Way more often than not, they were there when their teams needed them, Nabokov wasn’t. He was tense, mercurial, if he was feeling good, he’s play a good game, but a bad goal beget more bad goals. A bad game, beget more bad games. For that reason, he’s not an elite NHL goalie, no matter what his objective stats may say.
*the level of confidence necessary to be an elite goalie seems to also cause a goalie to hang around a few years too many. Given that, examples of failures in the twilight of an elite goalie’s careers cannot be taken to indicative of the character of that career IMHO.
Posted by wingsfanindenver on 08/29/10 at 08:20 AM ET
The overall talent pool of all NHL players has taken a slight hit with Nabokov’s departure, but the Sharks will be a better team without the salary he was asking for on their books. He wanted more money than the market-dictated price for his talent, especially since his history in the playoffs is not good. No individual Sharks player is responsible for their history of choke jobs, but they’re all individually partly responsible. As the guy on the ice for all sixty minutes, Nabokov gets his fair share of blame correctly.
While I agree with the basic concept that it’s unfortunate that one of the best goaltenders in the game is currently out of the league, I also stress that the absence of the salary cap that forced him out would create larger problems for the NHL. Nabokov’s an unfortunate victim of a combination of circumstances, some of which are his own.
Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 08/29/10 at 08:53 AM ET
Posted by Hippy Dave from Portland by way of Detroit on 08/29/10 at 08:58 AM ET
Dave
Nabokov is not a top five goalie. Not even close. He had a great team in front of him in San Jose. That San Jose team in my opinion should have won the cup.
Luongo had a shaky year. Still, you cannot compare Evgeni to Roberto.
Posted by Leafsfan 4life from North America on 08/29/10 at 03:17 PM ET
Billy Smith was a clutch goalie. That’s what you need in the playoffs. stats don’t always tell the real story. Nabakov was not clutch.
Posted by 13 user names on 08/29/10 at 07:38 PM ET
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San Jose can make a deep playoff run without better goaltending, as we obviously saw with the Flyers and Blackhawks this past season. Their defense is just as important to a long postseason, although that has also suffered with the loss of Rob Blake.
Posted by EDJ on 08/28/10 at 04:31 PM ET