Pickard over Tokarski?

[HomerSimpson]

WHL All-star teams and awards finalists announced yesterday. Chet Pickard first team all-star and finalist for goaltender of the year over Tokarski?

Seriously?

[LifelongChiefsFan]

I thought Tokarski would win it, but I'm not at all concerned that he didn't. I have no idea who decides on these awards or how, but I really don't care about that either. When it comes down to it, Tokarski's ability to win the trophies he has control over (i.e. trophies that are not voted on) is pretty good and that's what I like to see.

[dondo]

Doesn't Chet have better numbers than Dustin this season? Just asking.

They are both excellent goaltenders and you can see how valuable Chet is to the Ams as they did not look great without him between the pipes.

[Pete76]

Pickard had a better 2nd half in my opinion ... Tokarski's goals against and save % and # of shutouts were better ... Tik played more minutes and gave up fewer goals ... but that blowout against Tri in the last few weeks did not help ... nor did a few of the other high score games IMO

[HomerSimpson]

Pickard had a better 2nd half in my opinion ... Tokarski's goals against and save % and # of shutouts were better ... Tik played more minutes and gave up fewer goals ... but that blowout against Tri in the last few weeks did not help ... nor did a few of the other high score games IMO

If they are going by that, Pickard had a terrible start to the season.

I just don't get it, I guess. Tokarski should be a finalist for league MVP IMO.

[RockinAmsFan]

One thing alot of people may be forgetting, the AMS rely on offense not defense. If Pickard had the Chiefs defense in front of him you would see some totally different stats. Not when it comes to shots on goal, but the AMS give up alot of breakaways too.

[LifelongChiefsFan]

After seeing a few more responses, I decided that the goalie stats were worth looking into and after looking at the stats, I'm very surprised that Tokarski didn't win goalie of the year for the West.

The stat that stands out the most to me is save percentage. True team defense does play a role in that and a good team defense can limit quality shots against, but in the end, the goalies still has to make the save. Tokarski had a 93.7% save percentage which was a whole 1.6% better than second in the league (Pickard). I don't recall ever seeing a gap that large between first and second and to my knowledge that is the best save percentage in the history of the WHL for qualified goalies. A goals against of under 2.00 (the only goalie this year to do that) and tying for the league lead in shutouts looks very nice as well. In addition, Tokarski faced three more shots per game on average than Pickard did. Again that just measures quantity and not quality, but it should not be ignored.

The main argument made in favor of Pickard appears to be more wins. While wins are obviously the goal of the game, that stat should be one of the last ones used to determine the best goalie, imo, because it's a stat that the goalies has very little control over. You have to score to win, so theoretically, a goaltender can play all 72 games in a year, have a GAA of 0.00 and a save percentage of 100% and finish with 0 wins.

Like I said in my previous post, I'm not losing any sleep over Tokarski not winning goalie of the year, in fact I hope he uses this as motivation to try and prove all the voters wrong (again). But I would be interested to see what criterion was used to determine goalie of the year, because it seems that Tokarski has Pickard beat just about everywhere.

[Pete76]

how about their stats head to head?

I think Tik won 2 shootouts vs tri and lost 1

and Tik gave up 26 goals in 10 games (not counting the last two) and Pickard gave up 24 in 10 games

I didn't acually look to see who was the goalie in the first 9 so maybe they each missed a game during the WJ's?

As far as Tri and defence ... Tokarski's job was not made any easier loosing Cowen for the season.

The stats are pretty close, I guess the tie breaker is the concussion.

[Rebelchild]

WHAT DEFENSE?! They even joke about it on the post game show that they have like 5d and all of those I don't even think are d. I think we need to drop that as an excuse for Chet getting the award and chalk it up to who knows how they decide. Makes as much sense as anything else. When is the last time we had even close to a full compliment of d? Donny probably can't remember how to play anything else at this point and I am afraid that Mitch might be starting to get confused too as they have him dropping back once in awhile. I think we can take the series with Seattle but I don't think it will be easy. If Vancouver is our next stop then please hockey gods vci22 let us have some of our d men back! This is the last game before we get Ryan back. I think Trevor is iffier than they want to admit. Jared of course is toast and with my little Dino having surgery on his hand I don't know how long before they would let him plaster up and play! Whatever we accomplish this year is going to be 100% grit because nothing is coming easy! That said ... drop the puck ... pick a postion boys and lets play hockey! clrkthj GO CHIEFS!!!!!

[RockinAmsFan]

their is one BIG deference between the Ams and the Chiefs. (Size). Everyone knows that the Ams are known for their speed and scoring ability. Which means that Pickard gets very little help at his end while the d's getting skated all over. Remember when Ryan Letts ran pickard down? when both those line brawls started, who did you see on the ground and not standing up? I agree that Tokarski does deserve it more this year. No one even came close to his numbers this year. but i can almost guarantee that their were WAY more clean shots on Pickard then on Tokarski this year. Any team we play without Pickard is gonna score alot of goals on us. So i think that's the main reason why he was picked. Due to how valuable he really is to the Ams. Im sure once the Chiefs get their players back they should feel much more comfortable in the D zone.