Jag har en teori som jag har funderat på ganska länge. Det är uppenbart att Färjestad sedan guldet 2022 har varit ett lag som presterade mycket bättre under grundserien än under slutspelet. Vi har tagit flest poäng av alla lag de senaste tre säsongerna, men endast vunnit 3 matcher i slutspelet (jämför det med Skellefteås 21 segrar!).
För mig är det lite svårt att skriva det på svenska, så hoppas att ni förlåtar mig för att jag skriver på engelska istället.
I think that Wallins recruiting patterns, which are based on Wilderoths analysis, are one of the main reasons for this. They are looking for players who overperform the expectations on average. Players, who might not look outstanding for most of the scouts, but who have outstanding numbers on average.
Typical examples are our backs, Grolle, Berka, in some regards even AOM, but the best example is Tornberg.
Tornet have had extremely good stats during all three seasons in Färjestad. Great Corsi, great xG-percent, outstanding in BP as well. Much more useful than anyone has ever expected him to be.
This is a great way to build a team which can be successful on the long term, let's say under 52 games. We are a really good team on average. Possibly the best one in Sweden.
The problem is that the playoffs are different. The key is to be the very greatest team under 4 games per series.
If I try to express it in a statistical way: you need to put down 4 positive outlier performances, instead of just being good on average.
The problem is that most of our players (mostly backs) don't have the capacity for this extraordinary outlier performance. They might be better than most players in the league under a whole season, on average. But this is not enough in the playoffs. They don't have this extra gear to put down 5+ performances when it really matters. You all remember what happened to Tornberg & co. in the playoffs after two great regular seasons... Well, they were good against Frölunda, and I would say that they were also okay against Rögle as well (except for one period). But this is simply not enough to beat an opponent in playoff-mode.
The same applies to our goalies. They might be great on average, but none of them can steal 4 games on their own. The last goalie who had this extra gear in the recent years was Furch - no surprise that we won SM-guld with him between the posts. Hildeby, Tomkins, Lagacé, etc are okay-to-good keepers under a season, but none of them can put down outlier performances four times in seven games. At least not in a positive way...
That's why I'm really looking forward to see our forwards during the playoffs, because some of them have this extra gear. They can switch to playoff-mode and simply win games on their own. We know this about Steen and Tomasek, we have seen Lodin last year, but I also suspect that even Studenic can be such a game-winning player in several games.
But on the long term, we really need players who have this little extra in their game. A goalie and at least one, but rather two backs. They might cost a lot but it won't work otherwise. You might be able to overperform and win the regular season with really good fifth-sixth backs playing in all pairs. But you can never win the playoffs if you only have fifth-sixth backs in your team.
EDIT: To be clear, I generally really like the team building based on analysis. And I think that Wilderoth put down a great work. But signing players based on being "better than the average" is not enough if you want to build a winning team.
