Ryan Miller stops pucks, but he doesn’t win games. #mycolumn
By Sillig Ekim
8 years agoWhether you like it or not, the Vancouver Canucks are committed to Ryan Miller until the end of eternity. Or, you know, until the end of next season. It feels like the same thing whenever you pay a non-elite goaltender $6 million in 2015; but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter very much if they win games.
That’s the issue, though; Miller’s 0.913 puts him close enough to the league average to declare margin of error. Which would be okay, if it wasn’t for the fact that goalies that have been percieved to be “worse” by the numbers weren’t getting it done better than him. Take a look at this:
| SV | GP | W | L | OTL | P% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Miller | 913 | 20 | 7 | 7 | 6 | 0.5 |
| Corey Crawford | 912 | 18 | 11 | 6 | 1 | 0.639 |
| Pekka Rinne | 911 | 19 | 10 | 5 | 4 | 0.632 |
| Antti Niemi | 910 | 13 | 9 | 4 | 0 | 0.692 |
| Devan Dubnyk | 909 | 20 | 11 | 7 | 2 | 0.6 |
| Mike Smith | 909 | 16 | 10 | 5 | 1 | 0.656 |
| Tuukka Rask | 899 | 16 | 8 | 7 | 1 | 0.531 |
The charts make it obvious. Sure, Miller might be stopping a higher percentage of the pucks than these bigger names, but is he actually helping the Canucks win? No way. Look at the much better points percentage that some of these other goalies have; even Tuukka Rask, who apparently still believes it’s the offseason, is closer to bringing his team to the playoffs! The sad part is, is it wasn’t always like this. Look at last year:
| SV | GP | W | L | OTL | P% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Miller | 911 | 45 | 29 | 15 | 1 | 0.656 |
| Semyon Varlamov | 921 | 56 | 28 | 20 | 8 | 0.571 |
| Roberto Luongo | 921 | 59 | 28 | 19 | 12 | 0.576 |
| Cory Schneider | 925 | 66 | 26 | 31 | 9 | 0.462 |
| Jonas Hiller | 919 | 49 | 26 | 19 | 4 | 0.571 |
| Ondrej Pavelec | 920 | 46 | 22 | 16 | 8 | 0.565 |
| Jonathan Bernier | 912 | 56 | 21 | 28 | 7 | 0.438 |
| Steve Mason | 928 | 47 | 18 | 18 | 11 | 0.5 |
| Eddie Lack | 921 | 35 | 18 | 13 | 4 | 0.571 |
| Craig Anderson | 923 | 35 | 14 | 13 | 8 | 0.514 |
Miller managed to make a bigger impact than just about every every goalie that you all complain about missing, pretty much every “good” starting goalie in the Canadian market (you’re not invited, Edmonton), and noted bad human Semyon Varlamov.
Clearly, he’s since lost the will to win. He initially proved that he could do what it takes, accepted it as enough, and has since been playing second fiddle. This isn’t a new concept for Miller; it’s just like the time he stole a round-robin game from Canada in the 2010 Olympics, and despite having a theoretically good save percentage in the gold medal game, couldn’t deliver in overtime.
This is also the same goalie who cake-walked his way to a Presidents Trophy in 2007, and stopped caring about victories in the second round of the playoffs. At some point you have to accept these complacency habits as full-on traits. Miller can point to his numers all he wants, but until he starts winning, he’s not the answer here.
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