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wprager wrote:B-Sens are the highest scoring team in the AHL playoffs (playing 13 games probably doesn't hurt). And I believe Charlotte's goalie has the best SV%. Just checked, yes, he does -- .944. Lehner is a bit behind there at .926, but if you look at the difference in GAA you begin to see the real story here.
Lehner is 7th of 20 goalies in SV%, but 12th in GAA. The discrepancy is mainly due to injuries on the back end, where the Sens played the entire 1st round with 5 defensemen, including a NCAA callup who played 5 minutes in the double-OT game. In other words, they were pretty much playing with 4D.
By the 2nd round Borowiecki was playing more minutes and they were able to bring in Turner/Sloane to play a few shifts. Basically they went from 4 regulars plus a low-minutes guy, to 5 regular plus a low-minutes guy. And it showed as they only lost twice and avoided OT.
Then Cowen came in for Game 6 (essentially replacing Wiercioch) and they got a shutout. Now with Gryba back as well, I think we'll see Lehner's GAA going down. Maybe even his SV% (he's 1.000 since Cowen arrived)
The numbers on Lehner are skewed a bit because of 1 really bad game he had where he let in 4 goals in the first period or whatever it was, but the points you make are very valid. We've been talking about the return of Schira and D.Smith for a while now - and it looks like they might come back (I haven't heard anything yet about them today) and Gryba's the big surprise. He might take a couple of games to get into it full - perhaps playing 3rd pairing minutes - but he'll be a massive boost.
Turner and Sloane can sit back now and hopefully during the course of the series the D will start looking:
Cowen - Benoit
D.Smith - Gryba
Wierioch - Schira/Raymond
How the heck they got through the 1st round with 4 D is something I literally don't understand. Amazing...Lehner was awesome and a real team commitment to collapsing around the net (apparently).
I'm pumped! Go B-Sens!
