Imagine blaming your goalie for losing you 2 cups, trading him for a "better" goalie and getting worse. Imagine saying, "I am more motivated now to make a deal, Leitner has cost me two cups!"

That is the case currently for New England as they are far off their pace last season which saw the team reach the top of the table somewhat easily behind a strong team including a John McBride trophy by former goaltender Johannes Leitner. The team lost in the playoffs and blamed Leitner despite giving up around 8 more shots per game in the playoffs and being clearly outcoached and decided to trade away Leitner to Tampa Bay for Benjamin Blue. Blue was a decent goalie for a rebuilding Tampa Bay team but put up decent enough numbers that gave some impression that a change to a team with a better overall team around him would make him a potential McBride winner.

Wrong.

Blue has not seemed to gel with New England so far and has been one of the least impressive goaltenders so far this season. Which is sad to see. I have not had any bad interactions with the user behind Blue, and I don't wish them failure at all, but I wish all the failure in the world on New England's GM. I love the players, and I love the co-GM, this was not on them.

Leitner on the other hand was traded to Tampa Bay who is in a clear rebuild. The team was decent enough to maybe grab a few wins when Leitner arrived but a few more trades occurred that have completely gutted the Barracuda of any sort of veteran players. The team is clearly the bottom of the league and not even a solid performance this season by Leitner can help them get wins. We will see the numbers in a bit which are staggering and no goalie should have to go through this. Good thing Leitner has dealt with tougher things rather than this season, such as being cast out by their GM after winning 200 games and 2 McBrides for a franchise over a 9 year career.

Let's look at the numbers!

This season, Season 54:

Leitner:
24 games
1171 minutes played
1196 shots faced
49.833 shots faced per game
115 goals against
1081 saves
.904 save percentage
5.89 goals against average
72 game rating

Blue:
22 games
1291 minutes played
488 shots faced
22.182 shots faced per game
51 goals against
437 saves
.895 save percentage
2.37 goals against average
63 game rating

Last Season Leitner:
40 games
2415 minutes played
975 shots faced
24.375 shots faced per game
74 goals against
901 saves
.924 save percentage
1.84 goals against average
74 game rating

-On average, Blue faced less shots per game than Leitner did in his McBride season in Season 53 yet has given up more goals and has a save percentage of about 30 points lower.
-Leitner's Game Rating for the season was 11 higher than Blue's, it is not even close.

This season comparing Leitner to Blue is a little weird considering the team's behind them.

New England has an elite team, maybe even better than last season and are holding opponents to just 22 shots per game, that is ridiculous. On the other hand, Leitner's Barracuda have let up over 49 shots per game and so close to 50 per game and in fact, Leitner has faced more shots than minutes he has played on the ice, which is mind boggling.

While things would not translate over perfectly if we traded the two goalies back, Leitner would have given up approximately 4 less goals which is not much but that is just how solid New England's defense has been in preventing shots. Blue on Tampa Bay would give up about 11 additional goals if he kept saving shots at the same percentage. Translated to a full season those numbers can be doubled so 8 less goals for Leitner on New England and 22 more goals given up by Blue in Tampa. This may seem somewhat small but considering a goal could change a whole game it can be a big deal.

Also, while some of the numbers may seem small in comparison. New England was expecting to get some magical result out of this trade and gave up some draft capital to make the swap. They could have done nothing, had a similar or even slightly better goalie, kept their picks and not pissed someone off that has been through the entire New England rebuild. New England may not even make the playoffs this season after being so dominant last season.

My point?

It was not Leitner. It was you Ace.