Reviewing the Goals Allowed by Martin Brodeur: April 2010

This is the seventh of a series of posts looking at all 168 goals Martin Brodeur gave up in the 2009-10 season for the New Jersey Devils. The intent of this series is to go beyond the stats and attempt to identify how Brodeur has been beaten, what goals were soft, and whatever information that can be found.

This is the next-to-last part of this series as it covers the shortened month of regular season games for Brodeur as well as the 09-10 season. The playoffs was already covered with this review back in April, incidentally. If you're interested in any of the prior months, you can review the past six months, or 162 goals (96.43% of all goals allowed), in these posts: October 2009; November 2009; December 2009; January 2010; February 2010; and March 2010.

The New Jersey Devils ended an inconsistent 2010 part of their 2009-10 season with a very strong showing to end the regular season in April. The playoffs, well, that was another story and I'm not going to go into here. Since the guys in front of him did well and got results, so did Martin Brodeur:

While April was a short month, these numbers are still fantastic. However, the last two months showed that not having good numbers doesn't necessarily mean that Brodeur performed so terrible. Could the reverse be true? That while Brodeur was lights-out in two games and managed to only allow 6 goals in the other 4 games, perhaps the ones allowed were silly and preventable? We can answer those questions by doing the same thing done in the previous 6 months: go to the video and check out the goals.

You can see the much, much smaller chart of goals and analysis after the jump. Please set your viewing to "Wide" before continuing.

As I stated last week, all videos come from NHL.com. Links are provided for your own curiosity and convenience, so if you disagree with me on a certain goal or if I made an error in what I found, you can check it out for yourself and be informed anyway.

As a refresher, here's how I'm defining a "soft" goal: I watch how the shot came through Brodeur and determine whether Brodeur really should have stopped the puck. This means he must have seen the shot coming, the shot was not deflected or change otherwise in motion, he was in position to actually make the stop, and whether Brodeur made an uncharacteristic mistake that led to the goal (meaning: it wasn't a difficult shot to stop). If all were true, then I deemed the goal as "soft." Again, I've included links to all the goals against so you can make your own judgment.

That said, here's the chart for all goals allowed by Martin Brodeur in April 2010, the final one of this kind for this series.

The Chart of April 2010 (Regular Season)

Note: Brodeur had two shutouts: 4/3/2010 at Carolina ; 4/6/2010 at Atlanta

Commentary

Amazingly, despite this being the lowest total of goals allowed by Martin Brodeur in any given month of the regular season, the percentage of those goals being soft is the highest. OK, there were only 6 allowed; but 2 of them were definitely stoppable. On Goal #164 Brodeur was in position for Michel Frolik's shot, there was no distraction, nothing that could stop him from making the right decision. And he didn't make the right decision on Frolik - simple as that. Brodeur just looked foolish in missing his pokecheck and while Goal #167 was a one-timer, the missed poke check gave Matt Moulson the space he needed to score.

The one I wasn't sure about, Goal #166, I marked it as yes since Brodeur was caught down in the butterfly, leaving a gaping hole just screaming for Nathan Horton to shoot at it. On the other hand, the play was the result of a long rebound at a sharp angle; Mark Fraser should have done much better than to just get torched by Horton from the corner. Make of it what you will.

Nevertheless, while the percentage of soft goals to non-soft goals this month was quite high, you're probably not going to think it was a bad month. The context justifies this. Brodeur had back-to-back shutouts prior to the Florida game where he got beaten 3 times in his only loss. In all other games, he only allowed one goal; and it's almost petty to complain about just allowing one. Especially since one of those games was a 7-1 thrashing of the Islanders. As a result, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion from this month that Brodeur was slipping in spite of his numbers. He had one poor game out of six, after all. I would just say that Brodeur could have done even better regardless of how well he did in April.

Location of Goals Against

All locations are relative to Brodeur himself, not necessarily where the puck goes into the net. It's pretty simplistic, but it'll do for general information.

What isn't good to discover is that half of the goals allowed also went right between Brodeur's legs. But again, context tells a different tale. The only soft one that got through Brodeur's 5-hole was Goal #167. On Goal #163, Brodeur was screened and on goal #168, the shot was literally point blank right at the top of the crease. They weren't soft, so they shouldn't be seen as such regardless of the fact the puck got between Marty's pads.

Interestingly, no one beat Brodeur high. Goals #164, 165, and 166 (a.k.a. all three goals by the Panthers) had elevation but they didn't pick any corners or sail over a shoulder that I could tell. I'd attribute it more to do with luck and if April had more games, then it would be likely we'd see some high ones. The small population size of this month, makes it seem daft to come to a conclusion on how Brodeur was beaten overall.

Your Take

Now I want to hear your view on this month. Was there something I missed? Was there something you disagree with? Were you surprised to see how many of the few goals Martin Brodeur allowed were soft? Please leave me your answers and other relevant thoughts in the comments. The big summary from all seven months, all 168 goals reviewed, will come next Sunday. Thanks for reading.