Brian Elliott: Making opposing forwards look foolish since Jan. 18, 2010

by DarrenM on Feb 5, 2010 7:00 AM EST Comment 9 comments

If you were trying to pinpoint the cause of the Ottawa Senators' eleven game win streak, it wouldn't take you long to credit the goaltending. Mike Brodeur kicked it all off by posting a shutout against the Rangers and leading the Senators over the Habs, but since then it's been all Brian Elliott. Elliott has only allowed 11 goals in the 9 games that make up his portion of the streak, which is all kinds of absurd when you consider that the day the winning streak started I questioned if Brian Elliott and Pascal Leclaire were the worst Senators goalie tandem ever. Oops.

At the time I posted the article -- January 14 -- such criticism of Elliott was warranted. He had a save percentage of .893, which was 45th in the league. His goals against average was 2.91. His performance, at that time, was nowhere near acceptable for an NHL goaltender.

Fast forward to now, and look at the change that an incredible hot streak in net can make in one man's stats:

	GAA	SV%	SV% Rank
Elliott (Jan. 14)	2.91	.893	45th
Elliott (Feb. 5)	2.43	.913	20th

Elliott (streak)

1.22

.960

N/A

His play has been so solid over the last 9 games that it managed to erase the embarrassing stats in his first 25. Elliott's save percentage is now above that of Marc-Andre Fleury, Jonathan Quick, Carey Price, Chris Mason, and many, many others. His goals against average is also ranked 13th in the league.

I know that Elliott is going to come back down to earth at some point, but the guy needs to get some recognition for his incredible play as of late. He has given the Senators the unexpected opportunity to seize home ice for the playoffs, and he has given Sens fans a run of goaltending they are unlikely to see again for a very, very long time.

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The part that ticked me off about this resurgence was that I dropped Elliott in my fantasy league probably right after Brodeur won his second in a row. He all of the sudden picked up a couple wins and got scooped by another manager off the waiver wire. He was since traded to another manager by the guy who picked him up too. Don’t I feel stupid.

by modsuperstar on Feb 5, 2010 10:15 AM EST reply actions

Same here.

Minus the trade afterwords. :(

by oldmonk on Feb 5, 2010 11:08 AM EST up reply actions

And I’m playing the guy he got traded to this week. Insult to injury.

by modsuperstar on Feb 5, 2010 11:18 AM EST up reply actions

Ah, brutal!

Ours isn’t head-to-head, luckily.

by oldmonk on Feb 5, 2010 11:54 AM EST up reply actions

I don't know how Elliott's turned this around...

But good on him. I attribute the turnaround to a few things: Better positioning, better rebound control, and that amazing magic glove.

www.silversevensens.com

by Peter Raaymakers on Feb 5, 2010 11:13 AM EST reply actions

Not to mention overall team confidence.

The team is playing confident in front of him, he’s playing confident for them, and you get 11 games in a row. Before, whether it was pascal of ells, you always got an impending sense of doom if they carried the puck into our zone. Confidence is everything.

by DaveYoung on Feb 5, 2010 11:17 AM EST up reply actions

Maybe Eli Wilson was abusive, so when they canned him it was a weight off his shoulders.

by modsuperstar on Feb 5, 2010 11:20 AM EST up reply actions

The rebound control is the big thing.

You can see what a big difference it makes in how quickly the defensemen clear his crease. They know if he’s seeing shots, they’re getting stopped, and that makes them give that little extra effort. In return, he knows that he does kick out a rebound, his guys are going to clear it, and that lets him challenge shooters a little more.

Like Dave points out, they’re feeding off of each other’s confidence right now. It’s nice to see.