tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83250950322955042782024-03-11T21:52:24.538-07:00The Contrarian GoaltenderBreaking down goaltending by the numbersThe Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-35667318065109180032015-06-25T08:00:00.000-07:002015-06-25T08:00:06.029-07:00Why History Suggests Carey Price Deserved the Hart TrophyI'm generally a fan of the Washington Post's <a href="https://twitter.com/ngreenberg">Neil Greenberg</a>, but in the wake of <a href="http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=772069">Carey Price sweeping the NHL awards</a> last night I feel obligated to respond to an argument that he has championed this season. It's been expressed in a few different ways (and by other people as well, of course), but generally has come down to some version of the claim that since goalies have rarely won the Hart Trophy historically, Alex Ovechkin should have been the expected and possibly more deserving Hart winner.<br />
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To quote <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fancy-stats/wp/2015/06/23/why-alex-ovechkin-should-beat-carey-price-for-the-hart-trophy/">Greenberg from yesterday</a>:<br />
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"But would the voters name Price as the league's most valuable player over Ovechkin? History shows they haven't in the past."</blockquote>
Obviously the voters did overwhelmingly name Price as the league's MVP (and so did the players). But Greenberg was not so much predicting the result as making a claim from historical evidence, which means that it is not the presence of hindsight that allows me to challenge his assertion. I'm not interested in criticizing anybody because their guy didn't win, but I am quite interested in what history says about the relative comparison of forwards vs. goalies, since that is an interesting problem of player valuation. My contention is that history actually shows that the voters were completely consistent in backing Price, and would in fact have been just as likely in years past to choose a goalie season equivalent to Price's over a scoring season like Ovechkin's.<br />
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It is true that goalies have rarely won the Hart (Price's win was just the fourth time a goalie has won in the past 50 years). However, I wouldn't necessarily say that Hart voters are hugely biased against goaltenders. It is pretty clear that there is a bias towards forwards, and a strong bias against defencemen. If someone wanted to argue that an elite defenceman will lose the Hart to a top forward, that would be a very safe prediction because defencemen typically never finish anywhere near the top in the Hart standings (a pattern that continued last night with Norris winner and most valuable defenceman Erik Karlsson coming in a lowly ninth behind five forwards and three goalies). In contrast, goalies may not win very often but they do routinely get significant Hart support. Since Ray Bourque narrowly lost the 1990 Hart Trophy to Mark Messier, Chris Pronger in 2000 is the only defenceman to finish in the top three in Hart voting. In that time, 17 goalies have been similarly nominated.<br />
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Looking at past years where a goalie won the Hart, it is notable that it was usually coupled with the lack of an elite scoring season by a forward. In 1961-62, Bobby Hull and Andy Bathgate tied for the scoring lead at 84 points, the second-lowest Art Ross winning total of the decade, surely a factor in Jacques Plante's MVP selection. When Dominik Hasek won his first Hart in 1996-97, Mario Lemieux's 122 points was the lowest Art Ross total in 27 years, even though it was actually still a fairly strong season in context (that season marked the start of the so-called "Dead Puck Era", and voters may not yet have fully adjusted to the new scoring environment). In 1997-98, Jaromir Jagr missed 19 games yet still won the Art Ross with 102 points, an even lower total that was no match for Hasek's peak season. And in 2001-02, Jose Theodore snuck off with the Hart when Jarome Iginla led the league with 96 points, a mark that ranks as the third-lowest Art Ross winning total in a full season since expansion.<br />
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This is what the "goalies rarely win the Hart" argument is missing. The reason that goalies rarely win the Hart is that elite forward seasons will almost always beat elite goalie seasons, and most of the time there is at least one forward out there having a really strong year. The reason that Roberto Luongo and Martin Brodeur lost out on the Hart in 2006-07 was not that they were undeserving or that the writers weren't willing to vote for them, it was that Sidney Crosby had a 120 point season. Luongo (who finished 2nd) and Brodeur (3rd) both vastly outpointed the rest of the field in Hart balloting, including high-scorers such as Joe Thornton (114 points), Vinny Lecavalier (108 points) and Dany Heatley (105 points). Similarly, Ryan Miller's '09-10 campaign could have easily been a Hart threat in other seasons, it just happened to coincide with three forwards all scoring 109 or more (even though Miller did beat out a number of strong forwards seasons in Hart voting, including Stamkos' 51 goals and Kane's 88 points for one of the league's top teams in the stronger Western Conference). An elite high-scoring forward will almost always win the Hart (pretty much barring Hasek-level goalie dominance), but in the absence of such a forward season (if, for example, the Art Ross winner scores a mere 87 points), a goalie having an elite season will absolutely become an MVP favourite.<br />
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It could be argued that voters have a pattern of tokenism for goalies, and while some might be willing to list a goalie in 2nd or 3rd place on their ballots the majority have been consistent in reserving the top spot for the Art Ross or Rocket Richard winner. I don't think there is much evidence that this is the case. To me, it looks like the most valuable goalies have consistently finished high in voting, and the determining factor of whether they come close to winning or not is the level of production of the league's best forwards.<br />
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Adjusted points, as calculated by <a href="http://www.hockey-reference.com/">Hockey Reference</a> among other places, is not a perfect stat. It is a good first step to normalizing for era, but has some limitations, including not taking into account the relative usage of top line players which can mean that some eras have disproportionately high or low scores. For example, there's a solid case to be made that today's players are somewhat underrated by adjusted points relative to scorers from the late '90s because of reduced power play levels and the increasing tendency for coaches to keep shifts short and use all four lines. That said, any comparison across eras does need to take into account the difference in scoring context, and adjusted points are certainly better than raw stats in that regard.<br />
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During the 2014-15 season, the league leaders in adjusted points ended up in the mid-90s, led by Jamie Benn's 97 and John Tavares' 96. I chose to look at Hart voting and adjusted scoring totals for every season since 1996-97, a period that corresponds to an increasingly defensive style of play in the NHL. Here's the entire list of players from 1996-97 to 2013-14 who recorded a final adjusted points total below 105 while also at the same time finishing ahead of every goalie in the league in Hart Trophy voting:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcH9srxMgeaDgPJBtjUx1S1-v3JQGWH7Clw7cifmap9lkkRpi1Rh9DyH3ACiTKOe1a_Tq5SdST1sqB_uXXIRNCUmgyrK7ZrCvlGTfQrRLmxNU_AJs7wI8ND_yLcZwPwPk4uUhtkECmz7zI/s1600/Hart+Chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcH9srxMgeaDgPJBtjUx1S1-v3JQGWH7Clw7cifmap9lkkRpi1Rh9DyH3ACiTKOe1a_Tq5SdST1sqB_uXXIRNCUmgyrK7ZrCvlGTfQrRLmxNU_AJs7wI8ND_yLcZwPwPk4uUhtkECmz7zI/s1600/Hart+Chart.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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Considering that only three Harts were awarded to goalies during this period while dozens of players recorded adjusted point totals in the 85-104 range, that is a surprisingly short list.<br />
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The presence of four players from the past two seasons seems to reinforce what I said earlier about adjusted stats shortchanging current stars. I'll get to them in a minute, but first let's dispense with a couple of players who are not particularly relevant to the current Hart Trophy conversation. Mario Lemieux is only on this list because of games missed due to injury (43 games played). Nobody in 2014-15 is even remotely close to his off-the-charts per-game scoring rate. Pavel Datsyuk is also a poor comp for any of this year's top forwards, given that he was an outstanding two-way player that not only managed that level of offensive production, but did it while winning the 2008-09 Selke, Ovechkin received plaudits this year for his improved play away from the puck, but he's still a long way from throwing his hat into the Selke discussion.<br />
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Bure and Iginla seem to have both mainly picked up Hart votes because they were elite goalscorers on fairly mediocre teams, which certainly brings to mind Ovechkin. However, it should be noted that 1999-00 was a very weak season for top-end goalies. Hasek missed much of the season due to injury, and Olaf Kolzig was awarded the Vezina almost by default as no starter in the league managed to even hit .920 (the only time that has happened since 1996-97). In contrast, 2003-04 was a much stronger year for goaltending with goalies finishing 3rd, 4th, and 6th in Hart balloting. However, all three goalies (Martin Brodeur, Miikka Kiprusoff and Roberto Luongo) had very different cases as the most valuable at their position, and it looks like Iginla benefitted from vote-splitting behind the nearly unanimous top-ranked skater Martin St. Louis. The three goalies combined for 4 first place votes, 43 second place votes and 26 third place votes compared to Iginla's 2, 20, and 15 respectively. If there was a clear goalie front-runner in the Hart debate, odds are they would have surpassed Iginla.<br />
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As for the past two seasons, 2012-13 was a lockout shortened season where few of the league's star goalies had top-drawer campaigns. The top goalie (Sergei Bobrovsky) also played on a team that missed the playoffs, something that surely cost him points among Hart voters. Last year Semyon Varlamov did have a strong season for a team that relied heavily on goaltending, but he didn't even win the Vezina and statistically can't be placed quite on the same level as Carey Price in 2014-15 (.927 vs .933).<br />
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The results from the last two seasons seem to suggest that voters are adjusting at least somewhat for the lower-scoring climate among the league's top point producers today. On the other hand, even very strong scoring seasons aren't always guaranteed to beat out goalies. Since 1997-98, 50 players have scored 105 or more adjusted points. Of that group, 23 still ended up finishing behind at least one netminder in Hart balloting. Not only is the top goalie very likely to beat out any scoring seasons in the 90-104 adjusted point range, but it's quite possible to surpass even better scoring years if the goalie has a strong enough case themselves.<br />
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Here are some of the scoring totals that were required to beat out some of the best recent goalie seasons (GSAA is Goals Saved Above Average, save percentages are adjusted to the 2014-15 league average of .915):<br />
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Miikka Kiprusoff, 2005-06:<br />
Seasonal stats: .934 adjusted save %, 41.6 GSAA<br />
Finished behind: 121 and 120 adjusted points<br />
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Roberto Luongo, 2006-07:<br />
Seasonal stats: .929 adjusted save %, 34.5 GSAA<br />
Finished behind: 122 adjusted points<br />
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Ryan Miller, 2009-10:<br />
Seasonal stats: .932 adjusted save %, 36.2 GSAA<br />
Finished behind: 119, 117 and 117 adjusted points<br />
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Tim Thomas, 2010-11:<br />
Seasonal stats: .939 adjusted save %, 45.8 GSAA<br />
Finished behind: 106, 113, and 107 adjusted points<br />
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In that context, it becomes pretty clear that Carey Price's .933 adjusted save % and 36.7 GSAA is historically on a higher level than Ovechkin's 91 adjusted points or John Tavares' 96. Elite scoring may trump elite goaltending more often than not in Hart voting, but elite goaltending has routinely beaten everything else. The only real exception in the above group is Corey Perry beating Tim Thomas in 2010-11. I'm pretty sure a few of the above netminders would have won the Hart if they were fortunate enough to peak in a year where the scoring leaders struggled to crack 85 points. It may be harder than ever for today's top scorers to rack up points, but is it 25% harder than it was just a few seasons ago? That doesn't seem likely, and that's the kind of adjustment needed to close the gap between today's top scorers and Price, based on past voting.<br />
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The only potential saving grace for those who want to claim Ovechkin got robbed is that elite goal scorers do generally get an extra push in Hart voting compared to scorers with similar overall point totals (as we've already seen in the cases of Bure and Iginla). Of the 26 snipers that managed 55 or more adjusted goals between 1996-97 and 2013-14, exactly half finished ahead of all goalies in Hart voting. On its own, that would suggest that Ovechkin and his 60 adjusted goals might be deserving after all. However, that is again comparing against any given goalie season, not necessarily a season on the level of Price's. The other problem is that most of those goalscorers also managed to collect a healthy number of assists, something that Ovechkin was unable to do in 2014-15. As a result, the lowest adjusted points total of any of the 13 was Pavel Bure's 103 in 1999-00, which as already mentioned was one of the very worst seasons for elite goaltending. Next lowest was Perry's 2010-11 at 106 adjusted points.<br />
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Eight of the 55+ adjusted goals group scored fewer adjusted points than Bure's 103, and seven of those eight actually finished behind multiple goaltenders in Hart voting. That's why Alex Ovechkin and his 91 adjusted points losing to a goalie is not at all unprecedented in a historical perspective. It would actually require the voters to give him an extraordinary boost because of the declining numbers among top forwards, something on the level of 15-20 adjusted points (perhaps even more, considering how good Price was) compared to prior benchmarks to get him to the point that he could be considered likely to win.<br />
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This entire discussion is based on historical precedent, not necessarily who was more deserving. Although I'm personally fine with Price being showered with hardware, I think <a href="http://ingoalmag.com/general/quantifying-carey-price-has-he-earned-the-hart/">reasonable cases</a> have been made for Ovechkin based on relative performance. If you want to suggest that Ovechkin's goalscoring is relatively more valuable than even Price's terrific puckstopping, by all means go ahead and present the evidence, I'm not sure there are many clearly right or wrong answers when it comes to a difficult problem like positional comparisons. I just don't think it's correct to argue that Ovi had the weight of history on his side. In actual fact, the clear and oft-repeated historical Hart Trophy benchmarks show pretty clearly that Ovechkin simply didn't score nearly enough points to be able to challenge a .933 in 66 games played, which is why it should not be considered at all surprising that the media and players cast their ballots the way they did.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-40750511709222650192015-04-22T11:52:00.000-07:002015-04-22T11:52:24.788-07:00Are Swedish Goalies Overvalued?In doing the research for my post on <a href="http://contrariangoaltender.blogspot.ca/2015/04/arbitrary-endpoints-career-numbers-and.html">Jacob Markstrom</a>, one of the things I did was run the numbers for all Swedish goalies who have played in the NHL over the past 25 years. That chart didn't end up making the final cut, but it was interesting enough on its own that I want to post it in here in the context of a discussion on the recent performance of Swedish goalies in the NHL and what that might be able to tell us about the effectiveness of that country's goalie development model.<br />
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Here is the complete NHL performance of every goalie from Sweden since 1990, with league-average adjusted save percentages normalized to .914:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfl1jPTDtKPex9WktXpALYdBne_IG243LfIU8r_8yKK7j6-tra4ET8FSbVBgL9OKiWT-4W-R-2SWOAU05kvKMkyD8rgvoAawjVO3y_JGXd8UZ4Ed_e7IV_IGy3LSG8h_4cswr6xNKmgP9J/s1600/Swedish+Goalies.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfl1jPTDtKPex9WktXpALYdBne_IG243LfIU8r_8yKK7j6-tra4ET8FSbVBgL9OKiWT-4W-R-2SWOAU05kvKMkyD8rgvoAawjVO3y_JGXd8UZ4Ed_e7IV_IGy3LSG8h_4cswr6xNKmgP9J/s1600/Swedish+Goalies.png" height="289" width="320" /></a></div>
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Two things stand out from that chart:<br />
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1. Sweden has really blossomed as a goalie producing country over the last decade (15 of the 23 Swedish goalies to ever play in the league have made their debut since the 2005 lockout).<br />
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2. The save percentage numbers are quite mediocre for the group as a whole, with the exception of the outstanding Henrik Lundqvist.<br />
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Since the Tommy Salo debacle at the 2002 Olympics that might have cost them a gold medal, Sweden has invested heavily in goaltender development across all ages, an effort that has paid dividends in terms of the number of Swedes that are guarding the crease in high level hockey, particularly in North American professional leagues.<br />
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Yet it has to be pointed out that Lundqvist and Pelle Lindbergh remain the only really good NHL starting goalies that the nation has ever produced (and given the apparent shot quality effects on goalies playing for the mid-'80s Philadelphia Flyers, one might even question how elite Lindbergh actually was, although that's another discussion for another time).<br />
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It's not uncommon in hockey for certain areas of the globe to be overlooked by scouts. Sweden itself was one of those places in the early '90s, which allowed the Detroit Red Wings and Swedish scout Hakan Andersson to scoop up an abundance of elite skater talent that would later thrive in North America, headlined by the third-round steal of Nicklas Lidstrom. Conversely, some spots may be in danger of being over-fished by eager NHL talent evaluators. Sweden has been <a href="http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=633975">a hot area</a> of late for teams looking for goaltending help, and there were lots of stories particularly in the run-up to the Sochi Olympics about how Sweden was among the countries <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/the-decline-of-canadas-goalies/article15786050/">surpassing Canada</a> in terms of goalie development. But if that is indeed true, we have yet not seen the evidence for it show up in the NHL.<br />
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I'm going to change the time frame being looked at to 2007-08 to present (to avoid having to make adjustments for every goalie given the relative stability of league average since that season), and look at the aggregate performance of goalies from Sweden against other countries around the world. It turns out that so far, Sweden is not really surpassing anybody:<br />
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1. United States, .915<br />
2. Rest of the world, .915<br />
3. Russia*, .914<br />
4. Finland, .913<br />
5. Canada, .911<br />
6. Sweden, .910<br />
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(*-Includes goalies born in the USSR)<br />
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Despite having arguably the best goalie in the league over that stretch making up about a third of their sample, Sweden still comes in behind all the other major goalie-producing nations. That's because Swedish goalies not named Lundqvist have combined for a terrible .905 save percentage since 2007-08.<br />
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I have a few theories about what might be going on here. First, it seems quite possible that North American talent scouts are overrating the strength of the Swedish Elite League. The very high percentage of domestic-born goalies there makes it tough to compare the quality of goaltending against other leagues. For example, here is the entire list of foreign-born goalies that played in the top division this past season, with their country of nationality and minutes played:<br />
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Julius Hudacek, Slovakia: 2,640 minutes<br />
Justin Pogge, Canada: 1,642 minutes<br />
Bernhard Starkbaum, Austria: 2,716 minutes<br />
Mantas Armalis, Lithuania: 1,049 minutes<br />
Niko Hovinen, Finland: 40 minutes<br />
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That's just five non-Swedes in a 12 team league, one of which didn't even manage to play a single full game. Now, here's the top 5 in save percentage in 2014-15:<br />
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1. Hudacek, .930<br />
2. Joel Lassinantti, .928<br />
3. Pogge, .926<br />
4. Starkbaum, .922<br />
5. David Rautio, .921<br />
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Three of the foreign-born goalies show up in the top four in overall save percentage, which really isn't a good sign for the domestic crop of 'tenders. Hudacek was really good in the Slovakian and Czech leagues, but he has been outright dominant in Sweden (.926, .930 and .930 in his last three full seasons). Former world junior star Justin Pogge, the possessor of a career .902 AHL save percentage, is generally seen as a huge bust in North America (and in Toronto, in particular), and spent the previous two years playing in Italy and the Allsvenskan (the second-highest Swedish division). Yet that didn't stop Pogge from having an excellent season in the Swedish top flight in 2014-15. Starkbaum went straight from Austria to Sweden and is actually having a down year after putting up .936 and .933 in his first two years in the SEL. In other words, this does not look like a league with much top goalie talent left. I don't know how NHL scouts rate the strength of the league at this exact moment, but you don't have to go too far back to find teams signing undrafted late-bloomers like Viktor Fasth and Christopher Nilstorp based on their success in the SEL. The evidence suggests teams should be very cautious about projecting goalie performance based on their play in Sweden.<br />
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Secondly, it may be possible that Sweden is producing goalies who look better as prospects than they turn out to be as elite pros. The focus on goalie coaching at all levels of play has resulted in a breed of Swedish goalies that are all technically competent, but perhaps a lot of them are still missing a few of the ingredients to become an elite professional, attributes such as athleticism, anticipation, etc. Goalies who have a strong technical base but lack that extra ability to see what is about to happen and don't quite have the explosiveness to nullify the threat even when they do are exactly the kind of netminders who we would expect to do well against lesser competition but struggle when facing the best shooters in the world. It is also possible that there is something about adapting to the smaller rink size or different North American game that makes it tougher for Swedish goalies, although I have to confess I am a bit hesitant to rely on that explanation since it can often be used as an easy, catch-all cliché to cover other more important factors (and doesn't account for Swedish goalies also being outperformed by the rest of Europe).<br />
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Finally, and I think perhaps most compellingly, Sweden may be focusing a bit too much on goalie size. Here's the listed height of all Swedish goalies that have debuted in the NHL since 2009-10:<br />
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Johan Backlund: 6'2"<br />
Jhonas Enroth: 5'10"<br />
Jonas Gustavsson: 6'3"<br />
Henrik Karlsson: 6'6"<br />
Jacob Markstrom: 6'6"<br />
Robin Lehner: 6'5"<br />
Anders Lindback: 6'6"<br />
Anders Nilsson: 6'5"<br />
Christopher Nilstorp: 6'3"<br />
Viktor Fasth: 6'0"<br />
Niklas Svedberg: 6'0"<br />
Eddie Lack: 6'4"<br />
Anton Forsberg: 6'2"<br />
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In addition, highly rated AHL prospects Magnus Hellberg and Oscar Dansk are 6'6" and 6'3" respectively. Joacim Eriksson and Johan Gustafsson have also had substantial AHL playing time this season and are both listed at 6'2".<br />
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Obviously the trend across the league is toward taller goalies, with <a href="http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/news/news-singleview/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=9126&cHash=62c34eab2a04e7d92356c11b44199dfe">the </a><a href="http://www.iihf.com/home-of-hockey/news/news-singleview/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=9126&cHash=62c34eab2a04e7d92356c11b44199dfe">IIHF measuring the average height of goalies</a> in the NHL last year at 186 cm (6'2"). It's not surprising that the above list includes some tall guys based on that fact, but it's still very noteworthy that 10 out of 13 are 6'2" or taller (14 out of 17 if we include the AHLers).<br />
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There have been 19 goalies with a listed height of 6'4" or taller that have faced 500 or more shots against in the NHL since 2009-10. Here's the breakdown of that group by nationality:<br />
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Canada 7<br />
Sweden 7<br />
Finland 2<br />
USA 2<br />
Czech Rep 1<br />
Switzerland 1<br />
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It's amazing that over one in three of those goalies are from Sweden, considering the still relatively small fraction of the overall goalie population represented by Tre Kronor. Yet the overall performance stats show that while lots of tall Swedish guys have been given extended NHL looks, they haven't been able to keep up with their counterparts from the rest of the world even when leveling the playing field based on size:<br />
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Canadian goalies, 6'4" or taller, combined: 29,213 SA, .910<br />
Swedish goalies, 6'4" or taller, combined: 14,377 SA, .906<br />
Other nationality, 6'4" or taller, combined: 25,180 SA, .916<br />
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There seems to be little doubt that Sweden is aggressively selecting for height, which raises the entirely reasonable question of whether they might be filtering out a few Enroths at the expense of a bunch of Lindbacks, thus reducing the overall effectiveness of the entire group. I also wonder whether NHL scouts in Europe are looking at young Swedish behemoths and optimistically projecting the next Pekka Rinne or Kari Lehtonen when they might really be looking at the next Jeff Deslauriers or Alex Auld.<br />
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One bright spot for Swedish goaltending is the play of their goalies in the AHL this season, where Markstrom (.932), Forsberg (.927) and Hellberg (.915) have all posted solid statistics, although 2012 31st overall pick Dansk struggled (.880), albeit in his first taste of pro hockey. It remains to be seen how those goalies will translate their games to the NHL level. Markstrom hasn't done it yet at age 25, and Hellberg is about to turn 24, which means that both should be on the cusp of gaining NHL jobs. Forsberg (22) and Dansk (21) have a bit more time in front of them to polish their games at the professional level.<br />
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If I wanted to come up with some kind of excuse for Swedish netminders, I could point out that the real revamping of their goaltender development system took place around 2002 (if you want to learn more about Sweden's training methods, here's a very good <a href="http://ingoalmag.com/general/lessons-swedens-head-goalie-development/">InGoal magazine interview of development guru Thomas Magnusson</a>). That means that the guys who would have fully benefited from the new and improved coaching at all levels would be in their early twenties today. It's possible that we just haven't yet seen the best of what Sweden has to offer. However, even if I was going to grant them that, I would also think it would then be reasonable to expect Sweden's goalie prospects to really start breaking out the near future to make up for the overall underperformance to date.<br />
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I'm not at all saying that teams should shy away from Swedish goalies, or that we should expect a guy like Magnus Hellberg to be a bust simply because of the country on his passport. I still think it's very possible that some of the current prospects pan out, and I'm far from willing to write off some of the guys who have seen the careers go off the rails a bit lately (Markstrom and Lehner, especially). What Magnusson and those working with him have done with goalie coaching remains very impressive, and it's not surprising at all that other countries still see Sweden as a model of how to set up a proper system of development.<br />
<br />
However, the evidence suggests there still might be room for improvement. I think Sweden very probably has more than a bit of a size fetish in their goaltending development model, and that NHL teams might be overrating the quality of the Swedish Elite League in projecting how goaltenders there are likely to perform in North America. If I was a team searching for overlooked, diamond-in-the-rough goalies, I'd be much more likely to send scouts to U.S. college hockey rinks or places like Switzerland or Denmark than to travel the well-worn paths to Gävle or Örnsköldsvik. In other words, the next time you hear about the next big (both literally and figuratively) thing in Swedish goaltending, it would be prudent to wait until you see how he does against the highest levels of competition over here before wagering too heavily on him becoming a future NHL star.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-81947905596953917532015-04-15T11:01:00.000-07:002015-04-15T12:30:10.152-07:00Predicting Playoff SuccessFrom <a href="http://hockeyanalytics.com/2008/01/the-ten-laws-of-hockey-analytics/">Alan Ryder's Ten Laws of Hockey Analytics</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One important warning - do not confuse correlation with causation. The former is easy to prove, the latter is quite challenging. For example, carry-in zone entries yield more scoring chances than do dump-in zone entries. But this could mean that a carry-in is evidence of better neutral zone puck control rather than a cause of better offensive zone puck control.</blockquote>
Which of these variables do you think is the best predictor of playoff series winners in the NHL between 1984 and 1990? In other words, if you were betting on matchups back then and could only look up one stat for each team to influence your decision, which is the one that would most frequently point to the eventual victor?<br />
<div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Goals For</li>
<li>Goals Against</li>
<li>Shot Differential</li>
<li>Team Shooting Percentage</li>
<li>Ratio of Shorthanded Goals For vs. Against</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
It's gotta be #3, right, based on what we know about the importance of possession? Or maybe #1 or #4, since offence had to be important in a league that was wide open and high-scoring? Or perhaps that old saw about defence winning championships held true, and it was really #2? The one that seems most out of place is #5, a variable measuring rare events that doesn't take into account anything that happens during the game's most frequent and important game situation (even strength).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But if we look at the numbers after the jump, we get some surprising results:<br />
<a name='more'></a><br />
Predicting Playoff Series Winners, 1984 to 1990:</div>
<div>
<ol>
<li>Shorthanded Goal Ratio: 70-34-1, 67.3%</li>
<li>Goals For: 68-35-2, 66.0%</li>
<li>Shooting Percentage: 66-39-0, 62.9%</li>
<li>Shot Differential: 62-43-0, 59.0%</li>
<li>Goals Against: 43-61-1, 41.3%</li>
</ol>
</div>
<div>
The best predictor of the five was in fact a team's shorthanded goal ratio. Obviously I cherry-picked the results a bit, there were other variables that were even better predictors, including some of the ones that are well-known to be commonly associated with winning teams. Yet even they weren't all that much better than a variable that most would probably dismiss as almost completely irrelevant:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
Overall Goal Ratio: 77-28-0, 73.3%</div>
<div>
</div>
Winning Percentage: 75-29-1, 72.1%</div>
<div>
Win % in Games Decided by 3+ Goals: 74-31-0, 70.5%</div>
<div>
Team PDO: 71-34-0, 67.6%</div>
<div>
Shorthanded Goal Ratio: 70-34-1, 67.3%</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Obviously teams in the 1980s were not winning playoff series solely on the basis of the number of shorthanded goals they scored, and being good on the PK has never been even close to as important as being good at even strength. What we're looking at here is an example of a variable that appears to be a great predictor not because of its own impact, but because it is a proxy for other factors that actually lead to success. During the period, top teams like Wayne Gretzky's Edmonton Oilers (who won a ton of playoff series in the mid- to late-'80s) often used their best players as penalty killers, and those players were good enough to be able to frequently score even when facing a manpower disadvantage. There was also much less parity, meaning that there were large differences in scoring ability across rosters. Overall, in an offence-driven league with a huge gap between the top and bottom of the standings, it turns out that good teams could be reliably identified just by looking at shorthanded goals for and against.<br />
<br />
It should be noted that there are more advanced statistical methods that can be used instead which might give a better perspective on whether a variable is merely correlated with success or whether it might actually cause success. However, as Ryder pointed out, it remains difficult to say with certainty what not only causes winning today, but will also keep causing that same winning in the future.<br />
<br />
All this is to say that I am in full agreement with <a href="http://puckplusplus.com/2015/04/12/puck-playoff-prediction-challenge/">other hockey analysts</a> that the <a href="http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=759479">NHL's SAP analysis</a> is almost assuredly the result of junk science where somebody dumped every possible variable into a regression model until they got the best possible result. A success rate of 85% for something as random as the NHL playoffs indicates a pretty clear case of overfitting. I'm of course interested to see what exactly they included in the model if they ever release the full details, but I'd bet it won't be that much more successful in predicting future winners than much simpler analyses based on a few key factors that not only have a decent track record of predictive success, but are also ones that we intuitively know are likely to be very important to a hockey team's overall results because they have a more direct relationship with goals scored and allowed. I'm sure some of the 37 components selected by the SAP data scientists are little more than today's version of shorthanded goal ratio, variables that by chance happened to correlate with success for a relatively brief period of time but were never the underlying drivers of anything significant.<br />
<br />
After all, if somebody ran my analysis above in 1990 and convinced themselves that shorthanded goal ratio was their secret predictive weapon for NHL playoff wagering, it turns out they would have lost their shirt over the next three years. From 1991-1993, the team with the better shorthanded goal ratio went just 18-27.<br />
<br />
In conclusion, while some sense of history is useful in developing a model, just be aware of the risks of running correlations on dozens of different variables. Odds are you are going to find something that looks much more important than it actually is, or seems to add better information when it really adds nothing at all.</div>
</div>
The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-70480886539207005132015-04-09T11:08:00.000-07:002015-04-09T11:08:54.261-07:00Arbitrary Endpoints, Career Numbers, and the Future of Jacob Markstrom<i>(As an introductory note, it's been a while since I posted here, but a lot has happened in the interim, not just on the ice during the 2014-15 season but especially off of it, with the Summer of Analytics, the emergence of new statistical resources, and some interesting perspectives on goaltending from Steve Valiquette, Chris Boyle, and others. On top of all that, I was also inspired by attending the Ottawa Analytics Conference and meeting many of the people I have worked with and interacted with online. All that means I'm planning to get back into hockey analytics, which for the time being will include contributing to the Hockey Prospectus Annual and blogging in this space. Although I was pretty fortunate in having my last post here be on a topic that makes me look pretty good in hindsight (Dubnyk vs. Scrivens), it's long past time to starting pushing that one down the page.)</i><br />
<br />
One of the things I have been thinking about lately, and something I wanted to bring up in my first post back, is the issue of career stats and arbitrary endpoints, to borrow a term used by ESPN sabermetrician Keith Law. Here's the description from <a href="http://meadowparty.com/blog/2013/08/30/glossary-of-inside-jokes/">Law's glossary</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<strong style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">#arbitraryendpoints</strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Helvetica, Arial, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 20px;">: Also known as cherry-picking, this means choosing one or both endpoints on a series of games to try to analyze a player. I’ve argued that it’s not arbitrary if the endpoint is tied to something specific, like a change in mechanics, an injury, or a recall from the minors, but even so, it’s always dangerous to throw out any data when you want to draw a conclusion.</span></blockquote>
I definitely agree that it is dangerous to throw out data and that it should never be done for the purposes of supporting an already-reached conclusion. However, I also agree that it is not always arbitrary to look at splits and segments of data rather than relying on the complete sample if there is good reason to expect that some of the data is not representative of an athlete's true talent level.<br />
<br />
There seems to be an increasing trend on Hockey Twitter for people to simply pull up a goalie's career save percentage or career EV SV% and use that as the final verdict on their talent level. This can certainly be appropriate some of the time, perhaps even most of the time. I still think that goaltending is above all else a results business, and that statistical measurements remain very powerful methods of evaluating performance. That's why save percentage over a large sample size is usually a good proxy for a goalie's talent level. However it is still only a proxy, and the three points mentioned by Law do also apply to goaltenders. In the same way that Law might discount a pitcher's performance in his first year back from an arm injury, we might have reason to believe that a goalie could be deviating from his historical average because he is not yet at 100% health after coming back from some time off or has made some changes in his game after working with a new goalie coach.<br />
<br />
On top of those factors there are others more specific to hockey goalies, such as team effects/shot quality, situational performance (e.g. EV vs. PK), home scorer bias/road performance, usage, etc. These factors generally do not have a major impact on stats, but margins are so slim in goaltending that even a slight advantage or disadvantage can have an effect on the rankings. Overall, I think sometimes insight can be missed by looking only at the big picture, and in those cases it is appropriate to take a deeper look. And I'll start doing that by focusing a magnifying glass on the short but interesting pro career of Jacob Markstrom.<br />
<br />
<a name='more'></a>In October 2010, Jacob Markstrom made his first pro appearance on this side of the pond as a member of the AHL's Rochester Americans. The 31st overall pick in the 2008 draft was coming off of a terrific season with Brynas in the Swedish Elite League, where he not only led the league in save percentage at .927, .010 clear of the next best starter, but did it while turning 20 at midseason.<br />
<br />
It looked like the sky was the limit, but success did not come immediately to the young Swede in North America. One month into the season, Markstrom's save percentage sat at just .891, and in November things got even worse. In eight November attempts, Markstrom only once managed to end a game with a save percentage above .900. On December 3 he gave up five goals on 41 shots to drop his seasonal save percentage to .880. To quote my Hockey Prospectus colleague Matthew Coller, in those early days Markstrom <a href="http://www.hockeyprospectus.com/puck/article.php?articleid=1407">"looked like he was a long, long way from ever being an NHL goaltender."</a><br />
<br />
Yet that Syracuse game would mark a pretty clear dividing point in the statistical record of Markstrom's season. It was the ninth time in 13 games that Markstrom conceded 4 or more goals against, but from that point on he only allowed 4 or more twice over the rest of the season, and was only sub-.900 in four of the remaining 19 games.<br />
<br />
How much that was a result of him adjusting to the league, fixing something in his game, or simply seeing his luck turn around I can't say for sure. But there is no question that in statistical terms the second half of his season was starkly different than the first:<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Jacob Markstrom, 2010-11 (AHL):<br />
<br />
First 559 SA: .880<br />
Remaining 600 SA: .932<br />
<br />
Here's a 20 game rolling average of Markstrom's save percentages over his AHL career:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHwmxvBxG6aZ4-p_1cx_KdQjiPOXSB4yxuuxi4tO1Pr_8zNxrdCNseEROFR8m7xGflIKuh3l_ZhFemnRRd4iCX5cA_tPPrRfNQkxK2RhRAe4kX_PR3b3sSD5FfgI5rHZJUQ76AGGKZM0QX/s1600/Markstrom+Chart.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHwmxvBxG6aZ4-p_1cx_KdQjiPOXSB4yxuuxi4tO1Pr_8zNxrdCNseEROFR8m7xGflIKuh3l_ZhFemnRRd4iCX5cA_tPPrRfNQkxK2RhRAe4kX_PR3b3sSD5FfgI5rHZJUQ76AGGKZM0QX/s1600/Markstrom+Chart.png" height="190" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
As the chart illustrates, Markstrom has been consistently excellent in the AHL since his shaky start, posting a .925 save percentage from December 2010 onward to raise his career mark to .920. Since the odds of a .920 goalie going .880 over 559 shots on chance alone are very, very slim (p<.001), there's a strong case to be made that it was not representative of Markstrom's true talent, and was likely in large part the result of a 20 year old athlete adjusting to the professional game on a weak team in a different country. Therefore, if you want to look at his AHL performance to assess his current chances in the NHL, it seems reasonable to weight that initial period less than the subsequent sample and conclude that, say, .923-.924 is likely a more accurate number to use than the actual .920 that is dragged down by those two tough months from four and a half years ago.<br />
<br />
The discussion of Markstrom in the AHL is relevant not just as an exercise in the meaningfulness of career averages, but also because it invites a parallel to the young goalie's early career struggles in the NHL. Despite his play in the minors, Markstrom's numbers in Florida and Vancouver rank him among the very worst in the league (the only goalie with both more shots against and a worse save percentage than Markstrom's .896 since 2010-11 is Chris Mason). Perhaps the only good news is that Markstrom's career NHL shots against sample is still only 1315, more than double his AHL adjustment period but still <a href="http://www.arcticicehockey.com/2010/4/20/1429278/fooled-by-randomness-goaltender">not a huge amount in goalie terms</a>. The possibility that he could duplicate his AHL experience and suddenly flip the switch in dramatic fashion at the NHL level to realize his earlier promise remains a tantalizing one.<br />
<br />
Goalies don't always follow a linear development path, and Markstrom is yet another example. His early career progression was actually not too far from expected. As shown above, once he settled into the AHL he has been consistently elite at that level. In the NHL, he impressed briefly early in '11-12 and then was handed the Florida starting job a bit earlier than expected after Jose Theodore was injured late in '12-13. Markstrom did falter during that stint, particularly late on, although it should be noted that his poorest results came as member of Florida's league-worst penalty kill unit (.813 save percentage while shorthanded that season). Only one goalie his age or younger faced more shots against than Markstrom did in the NHL in 2011-12 (Matt Hackett) and only one did the same in 2012-13 (Braden Holtby). Overall, .906 on 921 SA from the age of 21-23 is a bit below average, but not dramatically so (all goalies aged 21-23 have combined for a .909 save percentage since '07-08). The error bars are pretty large for a sample of not even 1000 shots, and another mitigating factor was that Markstrom's even strength numbers were decent (<a href="http://www.war-on-ice.com/">War-on-ice</a> has him at .916 at 5 on 5, compared to just .838 shorthanded).<br />
<br />
Then came 2013-14, and the wheels fell completely off the bandwagon. Expected to compete for a starting job, Markstrom got shelled in the first two months and was returned to the AHL in early November with an ugly .877 save percentage. He ended up being traded to Vancouver at the deadline and got lit up in four more brief NHL appearances there (.868). Even his AHL season came in below his usual standard (.918). Not only did Markstrom end up with the NHL's worst save percentage for any goalie with at least 10 GP, but if anything the situational splits make his stats look even worse:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibK79hqMT0pIXaQPzkMgllEbiW2DJwoav0EprhmyzmvMiOm0O-7U-79Du3fxIEzWG4M3zAAXpT4pgS055aLm-oHA8l1ZYpHL3IieUi7O8xIM_cSxrcAwU8SlghRGz5vk46XvwMhRW6ljoq/s1600/Markstrom+chart.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibK79hqMT0pIXaQPzkMgllEbiW2DJwoav0EprhmyzmvMiOm0O-7U-79Du3fxIEzWG4M3zAAXpT4pgS055aLm-oHA8l1ZYpHL3IieUi7O8xIM_cSxrcAwU8SlghRGz5vk46XvwMhRW6ljoq/s1600/Markstrom+chart.jpg" height="75" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Over the past two seasons, Markstrom has been terrible overall, on the road, at even strength and with the score close. Looking at shots broken down by danger category (low, medium, and high, courtesy War-on-Ice), it is interesting to note that virtually all of his regression has come on high danger shots against. There have been some <a href="http://puckplusplus.com/2015/03/23/predicting-save-percentage-dangers-zones-and-shot-volumes/">arguments</a> made lately by Matt Cane and others suggesting that high danger shots are the most useful sample for projecting a goalie's play (this is not exactly a new idea, but I'm not sure it's been empirically verified before). The high danger shots were certainly driving the overall results, but Markstrom's numbers curiously went from above-average against those types of chances to almost laughably bad.<br />
<br />
I went back and watched every goal he has given up since the start of the 2013-14 season, and the eye test definitely matches the stats on those high danger chances. Any goalie has a tendency to look bad if you only watch their goals against, but it was noticeable that Markstrom did not give up tons of goals on point shots or open looks from distance. His problem was getting destroyed over and over again on odd-man rushes and when the opposition was able to move the puck laterally around the crease area. Markstrom also gave up 10 goals on rebounds in 16 games, which seemed mostly to be a result of him losing track of the puck around the crease or not responding well to the second chance opportunity. He also exhibited a weakness on sharp angle shots, either by letting pucks squeak between him and the post or just using poor save selections, such as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiKjmCfoV-s">this goal</a> where he ends up reacting late in a reverse VH. I would say though that if anything he was probably getting a bit more unlucky than lucky, there were several fluke deflections and quite a few cases of shooters making their shots, although that may be partially because Markstrom has a bit of tendency to over-rely on his blocking ability rather than reacting to the play.<br />
<br />
To show this visually, here are the War-on-Ice Hextally shot charts at 5-on-5. Red means the goalie is doing worse than average, blue means he's doing better. Note that in the earlier period, Markstrom was fine on shots around the crease and at angles, and struggled more on mid-range shots and shots from distance. In the second one, distance shots aren't much of a problem at all with barely any red to be seen above the faceoff dots, but in front of the crease it was an absolute bright red goal-fest.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>2010-11 TO 2012-13:</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR9lKYvxPu3UMBGbUvUywXj7T8w8n1N7CXvb_uQlzbt6cKOEGcFnJu-e43SS7L2mbZUiMpbu5CVdWx0WN4-iWzKi4BnkeznwODjynelpzZSg3KHHyuKqVzSUdnXoxveCYo0rfAdmlLkJPa/s1600/Markstrom+1113.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR9lKYvxPu3UMBGbUvUywXj7T8w8n1N7CXvb_uQlzbt6cKOEGcFnJu-e43SS7L2mbZUiMpbu5CVdWx0WN4-iWzKi4BnkeznwODjynelpzZSg3KHHyuKqVzSUdnXoxveCYo0rfAdmlLkJPa/s1600/Markstrom+1113.jpg" height="320" width="309" /></a></div>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>2013-14 TO 2014-15:</b></div>
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUj4lci2ZjmpqWx_U1OhbhlBrFkuM3zQXQ4ucIVlVwrctTppqyX40hWvfht5LfhOi2osSSWHHmDrAm8ouxJNHwCf1MLUrij2flOCpxZ3Xi4pA1J0UKMXuF7wJvLGWJJbnRwJp45s_LbOoR/s1600/Markstrom+1415.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUj4lci2ZjmpqWx_U1OhbhlBrFkuM3zQXQ4ucIVlVwrctTppqyX40hWvfht5LfhOi2osSSWHHmDrAm8ouxJNHwCf1MLUrij2flOCpxZ3Xi4pA1J0UKMXuF7wJvLGWJJbnRwJp45s_LbOoR/s1600/Markstrom+1415.jpg" height="320" width="309" /></a></div>
<br />
The statistical splits are so different than it is surprising that they came back-to-back and belong to the same goalie. Variance is of course huge on these types of small samples, but if the changes were entirely due to randomness alone then that was quite the turn of luck.<br />
<br />
If I knew nothing about Markstrom other than what he did since in the NHL since 2013-14, I would say that he looks like a minor league goalie that's in over his head at the NHL level and most likely isn't good enough to make tough saves against top-level shooters. However, the earlier sample and Markstrom's dominant minor league performance don't easily support that conclusion. It still seems possible that what Markstrom needs more than anything is to focus substantial attention on his technique, and probably also his anticipation on plays around the net. I definitely think that he should be able to cut down on the number of garbage goals he's giving up from sharp angles and in close. He's <a href="http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Rollie+Melanson+mentoring+Jacob+Markstrom+leads+gains/10839964/story.html">reportedly been working hard this season</a> with the reputable Rolie Melanson, on playing deeper in his net among other things. I found Melanson's analysis of Markstrom's game from that article particularly interesting:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In the past, I found that he was chasing the game. When passes went cross-ice, he was always behind the play. Once he backed up and let his size work and trusted his athletic ability to make saves, then the game got simplified."</blockquote>
<br />
I can't disagree with any of that, although it's hard to tell how much Markstrom may have improved given that he only has two starts this season, and one of them <a href="http://www.nhl.com/gamecenter/en/boxscore?id=2014020951">didn't go so well</a>.<br />
<br />
Some have questioned whether Markstrom has the makeup to be an NHLer. It's interesting to read the early scouting reports that suggested that mental toughness was one of his strengths as a prospect. On the other hand, while I'm not huge on trying to measure a guy's mental state, especially for a young goalie where we're already limited to tiny samples for everything, I think it has to be at least mentioned that Markstrom has not only taken some time to adapt to both North American pro leagues he's played in, but also has a poor record in playoff games throughout his young career. This is true not only in the Swedish Elite League and the AHL, but also in international tournaments (U18s and world juniors), where it has become a bit of a pattern for Markstrom to be close to unbeatable during the round robin and then struggle in the playoffs.<br />
<br />
International career:<br />
Round robin games: 252/266, .947<br />
Playoff games: 132/155, .852<br />
<br />
2010 Elitserien playoffs: 112/124, .903<br />
<br />
2012 Calder Cup playoffs: 253/289, .907<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
That's a combined .875 on 568 shots, which is well below Markstrom's usual rates at those levels of competition. That doesn't by any means guarantee that Markstrom cannot succeed, it is likely largely random or affected by other factors (e.g. strength of team/opposition), and most of it came five or more years ago when Markstrom was quite a bit younger than he is now. I wouldn't wager much at all based on these results going forward, but it might be something to at least be aware of if you are the goalie coach and/or sports psychologist employed by a team that has Markstrom under contract.<br />
<br />
Those who hold out hope for Markstrom's NHL future could point out that he only just turned 25 years old and therefore still has some potentially good years ahead of him. The only problem is that goalies establishing themselves late is much rarer than many seem to believe, and a 25 year old goalie is usually already in the prime of his career. Pekka Rinne might be one of the most favourable possible comparisons for Markstrom, given that Rinne played all of 92 minutes in the NHL through age 25 and managed just .909 through three seasons in the AHL before emerging as first a starting goalie at 26 and then later a Vezina candidate at 28. Of course not everyone is Pekka Rinne, and it's not correct to expect anyone to match the performance of an outlier, but at the same time it is also true that not every goalie prospect has the pre-NHL track record of Jacob Markstrom. <br />
<br />
In summary, whether you still believe in Markstrom depends on whether you think his skillset and mental game is good enough for the NHL level, whether you think he can fix some of the obvious issues that have plagued his game recently, and how much you weight his pre-NHL play (and perhaps even his early NHL play) relative to his cumulative NHL performance. I think Markstrom's AHL dominance and the underlying numbers from his first 1000 or so NHL shots suggest that he should be better than he has shown, particularly over the past two seasons. Is he a potential future star? I doubt it, it's probably not impossible but still not too likely given his age and NHL track record, although I do still expect he's good enough to be a decent backup at the very least. That said, the clock is ticking.<br />
<br />
I might still be willing to give Markstrom a shot for the next year or two, especially if I was running a team with limited expectations that was willing to take on risk in exchange for potential future upside (e.g. Buffalo or Arizona), but I wouldn't have a lot of patience given his age and recent performance. If things don't majorly turn around and soon, then it is likely that better options would be available. Markstrom will be an RFA this summer, and although the Canucks are reportedly talking about keeping him, it looks like he will remain blocked in Vancouver behind Ryan Miller and Eddie Lack. It will be interesting to see if anyone decides to give him a shot next season and if he can finally prove that he belongs in the NHL, or if he will forever remain the minor league star that simply couldn't hack it in the big leagues.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-70994955872540855652014-01-16T20:40:00.000-08:002014-01-16T20:40:12.398-08:00Scrivens vs. Dubnyk<div>
Just 1309 shots ago, Devan Dubnyk was a three-time Team Canada representative at the world championships making $3.75 million a year and seen as the future of goaltending in Edmonton, while Ben Scrivens was a backup goalie making $612K that started just 2 of his team's last 19 games before being included as the goalie going the other way in the Bernier deal.</div>
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How things change. Dubnyk has struggled in 2013-14 (.894) while Scrivens has thrived on arrival in L.A. (.931), and as a result Edmonton's management figured it was worth pulling the trigger on two separate trades to effectively make that goalie swap.</div>
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I think there are might be a couple of legitimate reasons to prefer Ben Scrivens over Devan Dubnyk if one was forced to choose between the two of them (a cheaper cap hit being the main one), but I don't know why anybody would care that much. It seems to be an obvious overreaction by the Oilers to their goaltending issues.</div>
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Both Dubnyk and Scrivens are 27 years old and pending UFAs. Scrivens has a .917 career save percentage to Dubnyk's .910, but Dubnyk has almost 4 times the sample size at 5079 SA compared to 1365. Over the past 4 seasons, Dubnyk's situational numbers aren't too far off Scrivens' (.920 EV, .876 PK vs. .923 EV, .891 PK), and that's despite playing on an Oilers team that averaged a 68 point pace over that span (including 34-70-15, .902 without Dubnyk in net). Scrivens had better minor league numbers, but as a collegian he was more developed when he hit the pros whereas Dubnyk came from the Dub at the age of 20. Dubnyk was a first round pick, while Scrivens was undrafted, and Dubnyk would likely have been considered ahead of Scrivens in development throughout their entire careers until a couple months ago. I'm not sure half a season is enough to make a major correction in that relative ranking.</div>
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<div>
I find it very interesting that Nashville was the team acquiring Dubnyk, since the team's continued employment of Mitch Korn and track record of goalie development makes me generally trust their instincts on goaltending. Dubnyk is going to have a good opportunity to turn things around with the Predators.</div>
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Even if the Oilers are right, though, what do they really gain by this move? There are just 33 games left in another lost season, where the only real goal left to accomplish is to continue sinking faster than the Sabres and Flames and thereby gain the inside track on yet another first overall pick. Ilya Bryzgalov is also still in the mix, and it seems likely he will get his share of starts, making acquiring a goaltending upgrade even less valuable to the team.<br />
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Assume that Oiler goalies other than Bryzgalov get 500 shots the rest of the way. If Scrivens keeps up his .931, he'll allow about 35 goals, or 18 fewer than Dubnyk would have if he held steady on his seasonal pace over the same workload. That's a sizable difference, equivalent to three wins in the standings, yet how likely is it that both goalies don't regress heavily towards their career averages, and what's the advantage in finishing 28th instead of 29th or 30th? Even if they are philosophically opposed to tanking, if Edmonton is serious about handing the reigns over to Scrivens it would seem that they would have an awfully good chance of signing him this summer. The Kings certainly aren't going to be much competition for any Edmonton offer given that they have their starting goalie locked up through 2023, and with Dubnyk's $3.5 million coming off the books Edmonton would likely have more than enough cash to outbid any other teams in Scrivens' pay range. It appears they must be intending to give Scrivens a tryout to see if he merits a contract in July, but even if they do that they're making a decision from a fairly small sample size.<br />
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Then again, panicking over small samples seems to be something of an Oiler trademark. If any team should be patient, you'd think it would be a team in development mode, yet the Oilers have been the king of goalie overreactions this season:<br />
<br />
1. Signing Jason LaBarbera as the backup goalie, then dumping him to Chicago after only 146 shots against.<br />
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<br /></div>
2. Bringing up minor-leaguer Richard Bachman and giving him three straight starts because he played pretty well in the first one.<br />
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3. Signing Ilya Bryzgalov, a goalie who nobody else wanted, to a one-year deal after Bachman got injured and Dubnyk and LaBarbera continued to struggle.<br />
<br />
4. Trading Dubnyk and acquiring Scrivens.<br />
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The other big issue is the cost Edmonton paid to make the move. They gave up a 3rd round draft pick (which given the Oilers' poor play will be a very high 3rd), plus they retained $1.75 million in salary on Dubnyk, plus they took on the contract of Matt Hendricks, who is signed for $1.85 million for the next three seasons. Hendricks is 32 years old and has a -0.3 GVT this season and just 21 points in his last 170 games. Given his age and recent performance, he's very likely to be a replacement level player at best over the next three seasons, which means the Oilers are probably wasting about $4 million compared to signing an equivalent guy to the league minimum to plug in on their fourth line. The Oilers did save the difference in salary between Dubnyk and Scrivens over the rest of the season (~$1.2 million), but with the retained salary and likely overpay on Hendricks it looks to me like they may have paid in the range of $4 million plus a 3rd rounder for 33 games of a goalie that they could have had for free this summer. All in all, a perplexing move for Edmonton.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-79206069237690907332014-01-16T08:00:00.000-08:002014-01-16T08:00:03.008-08:00Goalie Utilization at the OlympicsFrom the reports I heard, Mike Babcock is looking to pick one goalie as his starter and run with him, rather than auditioning several goalies out during the preliminary rounds. I think that makes sense, because trying to <a href="http://www.mc79hockey.com/?p=6395">find the hot goalie</a> is probably little more than shooting in the dark to begin with, and it's better to just throw your chips in on the best guy.<br />
<br />
EV SV% since 2010-11:<br />
Luongo .928<br />
Price .926<br />
Smith .926<br />
<br />
EV SV% since 2012-13<br />
Price .927<br />
Smith .923<br />
Luongo .922<br />
<br />
There's probably not that much between Canada's goalies. <a href="http://www.sportsnet.ca/author/chris-boyle/">Chris Boyle</a> has made the data-supported argument that Price has faced more difficult shots, which I certainly find interesting, and with his slight advantage in recent play and his strong form this year I do think Price should have the inside track on being the guy in Sochi.<br />
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That said, the compressed <a href="http://www.iihf.com/competition/olympics-2014-men/schedule.html">Olympic schedule</a> means that it likely would not be sensible to start one goalie all the way through. Canada plays 3 games in 4 days in the preliminary round, and if they don't earn a first round bye and have to go through the qualification game, then they would be looking at another 3 games in 4 days just to get through to the semifinals. A semifinal loss means a bronze medal game the day after, while at least the gold medal game participants get a much-needed day of rest prior to the final showdown on Feb. 23.<br />
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Given the data on goalies making <a href="http://www.broadstreethockey.com/2013/4/8/4188626/philadelphia-flyers-goaltending-stats-back-to-back-games">back-to-back starts</a>, and considering that most countries have at least two quality netminders on their rosters, the argument could be made that few if any countries should be starting the same goalie in back-to-back games. Canada should be in good shape no matter what they do against Norway and Austria, since you'd expect those to be easy wins and likely a light workload for their goaltender regardless, but it would probably be a good plan to split those starts. And while it would be an extremely gutsy decision by any coach who elects to do so, if Canada ever got to a qualification game against one of those teams or another weak sister nation like Latvia or Slovenia, there would at least be an argument for the team to start their backup goalie and save the real starter for the quarterfinal the next day.<br />
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I really doubt any team would actually do this because if it ever backfired the coach would be raked over the coals, and you'd probably create all kinds of controversy by switching back and forth between goalies because everyone wearing a media badge loves to pounce all over that kind of manufactured drama. No teams tried this at the last Olympics, as all 4 qualification game winners put the same netminder right back between the pipes for the quarterfinals. That said, this strategy would make the most sense for a powerhouse team like Canada, because it would seem to have the least risk. Goaltending didn't matter in the 8-2 playoff win over Germany in Vancouver, it seems almost certain that Canada would have ran away with the game if either Brodeur or Fleury were tapped ahead of Luongo. As it happens goaltending didn't really matter against Russia either, because of Canada's outstanding offensive display in scoring 7 goals, but it's not hard to envision an alternate scenario where Luongo's 25/28 would be not good enough to advance. Don't even bother try to imagine one, just go back four years prior to when Brodeur's 31/33 QF against the same opponent resulted in a disappointing early exit for Canada.<br />
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I'll be watching Olympic goaltending decisions with interest, both in terms of why plays and when. I'm expecting pretty conventional decision-making all around, but if anybody decides to think outside of the box I'll be impressed, whether it works or not.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-88528915252144406092014-01-14T21:59:00.000-08:002014-01-14T21:59:31.494-08:00One Shining MomentI used to be much more of a baseball fan than I am right now, but on occasion I can get suckered in binge reading Joe Posnanski or someone like that, particularly in the middle of one of the sport's classic debates between sabermetricians vs. traditional media members.<br />
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Jack Morris' Hall of Fame candidacy has been one of those types of affairs, a 15 year debate about the value of a durable pitcher with a few shining postseason heroics but fairly underwhelming overall numbers. Plenty of different rationales have been offered by the pro-Morris camp, but I think that as much as any recent athlete I can think of, Morris is simply defined by a few big moments (most notably game 7 of the 1991 World Series), and the residual impact of those highlights trump all other factors in the minds of those who tend to rank players based on their gut feel as opposed to a detailed comparative analysis of their performance record. Many of the arguments in favour of enshrining Morris seem to be people reaching for justification to support their already decided position. That can of course be fairly criticized for being poor analysis, but I don't think you are going to convince many people purely by calling out their analysis, especially when they are being largely driven by subjective perceptions.<br />
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I think the power of the shining moment can be just as significant in hockey, perhaps even more so given the overwhelming importance of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Just as with pitchers in baseball, winning or losing tends to stick with goalies in that it is easier to recall the successful plays of the winner and the negative ones of the loser.<br />
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One of my personal favourite examples of this is Marc-Andre Fleury in the 2009 playoffs. Many hockey fans called him clutch and said he made the big save at the right time, because they could easily recall his stop on Lidstrom with time running out in the Finals in game 7, along with his breakaway save on Ovechkin and a few stops against the Flyers in round one. But the rest of Fleury's playoffs were pretty ordinary (.908). Nobody is able to fully recall even a small sample of shots like the 686 Fleury faced that postseason, it's going to inevitably filtered down to a few memorable ones and if the ones that stick are saves a goaltender will come off looking good.<br />
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I also think it people took longer to figure out Ondrej Pavelec was actually a pretty mediocre goalie because of his propensity to make the big highlight reel saves. Fans would be travelling home from a game thinking of that one he snatched out of mid-air and not about the fact that he let in 4 out of the other 29 shots against, but it is how many you let in out of how many chances that really matters.<br />
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On the other hand, negative perceptions can be similar. Tony Esposito seems to be remembered much less fondly by many older hockey fans than his overall record would suggest, and it doesn't take long at all in any discussion of his merits before somebody brings up Jacques Lemaire scoring on him from center ice in game 7 of the Finals. Tommy Salo wasn't an all-time great, but he was a solid NHLer with an impressive international carer even though it remains awfully hard to think of him as even a competent netminder at this point because of the taint of that one Belarus goal influencing our collective memories. I think that is how bad-team goalies tend to be forgotten and dismissed, it was always curious to me when someone like <a href="http://brodeurisafraud.blogspot.com/2009/10/underrated-allan-bester.html">Allan Bester</a> was treated as a punchline despite fairly impressive stats, but if you can't think of a goalie making a big save or winning something then you're probably going to think of some bad goal or another. No matter how good they are, no goalie ever comes off looking good in a highlight reel of their goals against.<br />
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I believe countering this effect is one of the most important uses of the statistical record in evaluating athletes. There are some legitimate quibbles about statistical recordkeeping and the reliability of various metrics, but at the same time all observers also have biases and faulty memory, and it's well worth having an extra check to ensure that the events our brains remember did actually happen in the way that we claim they did. Maybe a player was clutch and "knew how to win", or maybe certain events stick in the memory more strongly than others. The burden of proof should always be on the former position, in my opinion.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-91368614229931272412013-11-26T14:02:00.002-08:002013-11-26T14:02:35.559-08:00New Jersey Home/Road Split: Undercounting or Style of Play?Home/road goalie splits for the New Jersey Devils this season:<br />
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Home: .942 Save %, 20.98 SA/60<br />
Road: .910 Save %, 27.12 SA/60<br />
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A difference of 6 shots per 60 is a massive gap, and likely is at least partly due to some small sample size randomness. However, New Jersey has long been suspected of undercounting shots at their home rink. What is curious, however, is that the team save percentage is much higher at home than on the road, which is not what would be expected if it was purely a scorer counting issue (see, for example, <a href="http://www.hockey-reference.com/players/b/brodema01/splits/">Martin Brodeur's career splits</a>, which work out to .911 at home vs. .914 on the road, numbers more consistent with a theory of systemic undercounting).<br />
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<a href="http://www.extraskater.com/">Extra Skater</a> gives possession data at the team level, and those stats indicate that New Jersey is the lowest-event team in the league no matter where their games take place:<br />
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Most Low Event Home Teams (Combined Fenwick events per 60 minutes):<br />
1. New Jersey, 58.2<br />
2. Minnesota, 70.9<br />
3. Buffalo, 73.6<br />
4. Columbus, 74.0<br />
5. Calgary, 75.4<br />
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Most Low Event Road Teams (Combined Fenwick events per 60):<br />
1. New Jersey, 71.3<br />
2. Edmonton, 74.7<br />
3. Pittsburgh, 74.7<br />
4. Minnesota, 74.7<br />
5. Columbus, 76.9<br />
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It certainly seems possible there is some undercounting still going on in New Jersey since they come in so far below all other teams in home Fenwick events, although it should be noted that there were two other teams that had a similar split in terms of a much lower game pace at home compared to on the road. The Devils' differential of 13.1 only narrowly edged out Ottawa's 12.3 and Buffalo's 11.8.<br />
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It is also interesting that the Sabres and Senators have very different goaltending splits during 5 on 5 play (although these are very tiny sample sizes):<br />
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Buffalo: .906 at home, .934 on the road<br />
Ottawa: .911 at home, .940 on the road<br />
New Jersey: .931 at home, .911 on the road<br />
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The two most common explanations for a team giving up far more shots on the road would seem to be either a difference in the way shots are counted or a team trying to lower average shot quality by giving up more ice from the less dangerous areas of the defensive zone. Either way, what you expect to see is that the team's goalies do a little bit better on the road than expected, which is again why the Devils' splits seem abnormal.<br />
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Looking at the overall population, there is some correlation between pace and save percentage in 2013-14, although it should be noted that the data shows little relationship for 2012-13. The teams with notably different home/road splits are also quite different from 2012-13 (New Jersey had a difference of just 2.3, albeit in the same direction), with only Carolina and Dallas coming in as substantial outliers over both seasons (both of them playing with a higher pace at home than on the road).<br />
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More evidence is needed to show whether a team's pace has any kind of sustained impact on its percentages (in general it probably doesn't), but while they are no longer using the infamous neutral zone trap, it is clear that the New Jersey Devils are focusing more than any team at suppressing shots and chances at both ends of the rink.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-22170224483347849722013-11-18T16:45:00.000-08:002013-11-18T16:47:32.281-08:00Why Canada Doesn't Have a Goaltending Problem at Sochi (If You Believe in Large Sample Sizes)With the Sochi Olympics lurking on the horizon, the early season fortunes of goaltenders have caused a lot of glee or consternation among hockey fans around the world, depending on how their nation's puckstoppers have come out of the gate. With respect to goaltending, however, it is important to remember that talent is revealed in the large sample size (<a href="http://www.arcticicehockey.com/2010/4/20/1429278/fooled-by-randomness-goaltender">see here</a> for one of the definitive takes on that theme). There has been a lot written lately about how Canada no longer has top-level elite goaltending, but in my opinion that was an overreaction to a shortened lockout season where it was purely coincidence that the country's best seemingly all had off-years.<br />
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It's easy to get distracted by the flashy new models, especially when they are off to scorching starts, but looking at only the established goalies with a track record of success Canada simply does not come up short at all relative to other nations.<br />
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Goalies with at least 4000 SA <a href="http://www.hockey-reference.com/play-index/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=combined&year_min=2011&year_max=&season_start=1&season_end=-1&age_min=0&age_max=99&birth_country=&franch_id=&is_active=&is_hof=&pos=G&handed=&c1stat=shots_against&c1comp=gt&c1val=4000&c2stat=&c2comp=gt&c2val=&c3stat=&c3comp=gt&c3val=&c4stat=&c4comp=gt&c4val=&order_by=games_goalie">since 2010-11</a> (ranked by save percentage):<br />
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1. Henrik Lundqvist: .925 on 5313 SA<br />
2. Pekka Rinne: .922 on 5388 SA<br />
3. Roberto Luongo: .921 on 4359 SA<br />
4. Mike Smith: .920 on 4217 SA<br />
5. Carey Price: .919 on 5624 SA<br />
6. Kari Lehtonen: .919 on 5286 SA<br />
7. Antti Niemi: .918 on 5290 SA<br />
8. Jonathan Quick: .918 on 4771 SA<br />
9. Cam Ward: .918 on 5211 SA<br />
10. Craig Anderson: .917 on 4587 SA<br />
11. Marc-Andre Fleury: .916 on 4820 SA<br />
12. Ryan Miller: .916 on 5590 SA<br />
13. Jimmy Howard: .915 on 4923 SA<br />
14. Jonas Hiller: .914 on 4493 SA<br />
15. Niklas Backstrom: .914 on 4064 SA<br />
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The three goalies that seem likely to be named to Canada's roster are all in the top 5. Luongo and Smith are both off to solid starts this season, while Price has been outstanding. The three have them have combined for a .922 save percentage this season, which is very much in line with their historical numbers. In fact, the trio have been very consistent, with the exception of one lockout-shortened 48 game season:<br />
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Luongo/Price/Smith Combined:<br />
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2013-14: .922<br />
2012-13: .907<br />
2011-12: .922<br />
2010-11: .922<br />
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When framed like that, it looks pretty blatant that everyone was panicking over an obvious outlier. The problem remains of picking one guy to be the starter, since when it comes to crunch time you can't combine stats and play with an average of three guys. Even elite goalies have off games, and in short tournaments it's always better to have the hot hand rather than the superior talent (although the best goalies are also the ones with the best chance of running hot or, perhaps equally important, avoiding a very costly slump). Overall, though, there is no question that Canada has proven goaltending talent that is at least competitive with the other top nations.<br />
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Obviously the parameters of the above list rule out a number of goalies who are likely in the running for Olympic spots (netminders such as Rask, Varlamov, Bobrovsky, Crawford, Schneider, Lehner, Holtby, Bernier, Reimer, etc.), and I'm certainly not saying that none of those youngsters deserve spots, but it is much more difficult to identify their true talent level because of the relatively small sample size they have behind them in their shorter careers. Russia, in particular, seems to be facing a tough choice between Semyon Varlamov and Sergei Bobrovsky, both of whom narrowly missed the cutoff for this list but would have come in on the lower end anyway at .914 and .916 respectively, and the U.S. and Finland both have a number of quality contenders and limited spots, which will force some interesting roster decisions. At the end of the day, though, I expect that this Olympics will be similar to the last one in that the top nations will all have capable goaltending and it will come down to which teams play the best overall that determines the final result.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-11607098603751277002013-11-14T16:37:00.000-08:002013-11-14T16:37:21.763-08:00Why the Oilers Don't Need BryzgalovThe Edmonton Oilers didn't need to sign Ilya Bryzgalov, because goaltending isn't going to be make the slightest bit of difference for them this season. And that's even assuming he is an upgrade on what the team currently has on the roster.<br />
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It is true that the Oilers have an abysmal team rate of .881 so far this season, with both incumbent starter Devan Dubnyk (.881) and backup Jason LaBarbera (.858) off to horrific starts. As a result, goaltending has been the scapegoat in some corners for the team's early struggles. While it is obvious that getting more saves would have led to more points in the standings, the reality is that the Oilers are a terrible team in a stacked division that probably wouldn't make the playoffs if they had prime Dominik Hasek tending the twine.<br />
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The bad news is that Edmonton currently has a a 44.9% score-tied Fenwick, indicating that they are being routinely dominated by their opposition. The even worse news is that so far the team has played the majority of its schedule against the inferior Eastern Conference, going just 0-5-1 so far in games against Western Conference opponents. The top five teams in the Pacific Division currently all have records of .600 or better, and are a combined 40-14-7 against the rest of the league. If Metropolitan Division teams can run the Oilers off the ice, then it's going to be no contest against the heavyweights of the West.<br />
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Even though it is early, and some teams records are skewed based on their number of inter vs. intra-conference games, the wheat seems to already be separating out from the chaff in the Western Conference. Unless you're a big believer in Winnipeg or Dallas, it looks like nine teams will probably be challenging for the eight spots, and the current 8th place team in points percentage is Los Angeles at .639 (and while the Kings just lost Jon Quick for a while, they have played a tough schedule made up of primarily Western Conference opponents).<br />
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For the Oilers to be in contention for a spot, they'd probably have to have a goal differential of something approaching the Kings' +8, a difficult proposition considering Edmonton ranks second-last in the Western Conference at 2.35 goals per game. That implies a team save percentage of .930+, and that's not even taking into account the fact that the Oilers' shot ratio is skewed because they have spent so much time trailing (if their goaltending held them in games longer, the other team would be pouring even more rubber on net and pushing the required break-even save percentage even higher).<br />
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Look at Dallas and Montreal, two teams that have very similar offensive results to the Oilers so far, while also possessing above 50% score-tied Fenwick scores and elite goalies off to outstanding starts (Lehtonen .932, Price .933). Despite all that, both teams currently sit 5th in their divisions, with Montreal slightly better off because they are currently in position to grab the wild card crossover spot.<br />
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Ilya Bryzgalov's career high seasonal save percentage is .921. That came three years ago, when he was 30. Bryzgalov does not seem like the type of the goalie who would age well, given that he relies more on a blocking style and does not have top-drawer athleticism and lateral movement. He was shredded in the KHL during the lockout, put up a .905 over the past two seasons under the microscope in Philly, and will likely take a bit to play himself into game shape after spending most of this season waiting for the phone to ring. In short, the best case scenario for what Bryzgalov can offer the Oilers isn't even remotely close to the elite range that they're going to need to turn things around, and even if Bryzgalov could hypothetically put up .930 goaltending the team is still sunk because of their slow start and tough division and questionable backup goaltending (although I do expect Dubnyk to re-discover his game as the season goes on).<br />
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Edmonton's season is already lost, and it's because their team is awful in all areas, not just goaltending. Giving a declining goalie a look-see won't save anything, and if the goal is to look to the future I don't think a bad stretch of 14 games changes the fact that the 27-year old Dubnyk would seem to be a much better bet than the 33-year old Bryzgalov. I don't see the urgency that prompted the move. If the Oilers really wanted to solve their long-term goalie problems they should have either taken a run at one of the elite goalies who might be available through trade (someone like Ryan Miller) or waited until July to try to sign somebody. Signing Bryzgalov is too little too late, and it would be better for Edmonton to get more information on Devan Dubnyk and give him a chance to re-prove himself than to hopefully lose slightly less often with another goalie who likely won't figure into the future of the franchise anyway.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-49449318113548710662013-10-31T10:00:00.000-07:002013-10-31T10:00:01.628-07:00The Hot Hand vs. The Large Sample SizeTyler Dellow had an <a href="http://www.mc79hockey.com/?p=6395">interesting post</a> on how a goalie's save percentage has very little predictability from game to game, and how chasing hot streaks is, in his words, a "fool's game". This is the kind of post that you want to point to when you hear some broadcaster talking about a goalie's "mental strength" in recovering from a poor outing and playing well the next night. The goalie might be mentally tough, but Occam's razor suggests a more likely explanation is simple regression to the mean.<br />
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I agree with Dellow's general sentiment that goaltending evaluation is generally all about the large sample size and evaluating goalies based on single games is a poor strategy, but at the same time I think there are some legitimate merits to "riding the hot hand" as long as it is done responsibly and within reason. I think there is a clear and understandable difference in mindset between the evaluation processes of a GM and a coach. A GM wants to measure talent, a coach wants to measure talent <i>and</i> motivate his players to succeed through the options at his disposal. I'm not sure a coach can be the ultra rational type because they do have to take into account the fact that they are leading a group of personalities on the team and want to make sure that the incentives are always properly aligned.<br />
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A hockey team is a group of competitive individuals that all want to play, and it is pretty much always in a team's best interests to encourage some level of internal competition to keep everybody sharp. It is tough to have a legitimate internal competition when you are going to just keep giving the same guy playing time whether they have earned it or not. When there is a situation where there is an elite goalie playing with a replacement level backup then it doesn't really matter what the coach does, even if the top guy is struggling you give him the minutes to play into shape and nobody is going to argue. But if there is no clear #1, or an inexperienced guy who was supposed to be the starter is struggling (as Devan Dubnyk is in Edmonton, the occasion that prompted Dellow's post), then it's difficult to handle it politically if you want to keep riding a guy who is returning mediocre results, both externally to the media/fans and most likely internally in the room. It can be an easy narrative to say that a team trusts or does not trust their goalie, and I'm not convinced that the effect is all that large, but there is at least something there, and coaches tend to be the perfectionist types that want to account for every single factor (the kind of thinking that leads to putting two RHS centres on the ice for right-side defensive zone draws late in the game, for example).<br />
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There's a saying in football that the most popular guy in the city is the backup quarterback. Hockey fans can often latch onto the same kind of thinking in that the unknown abilities of the up-and-coming prospect or the journeyman AHLer might be preferable to the overly scrutinized flaws of the incumbent #1. The difference between the sports is that a backup QB often never gets to take the field, while a backup goalie will always play at least some games. In the grand scheme of things, if a team chooses to slightly overplay a backup or give a journeyman goalie a few not-necessarily-deserved starts because he is the "hot hand" and the main guy is struggling, that has very little impact on the team's overall chances across 82 games. Even in a scenario where the starter is elite (say, .920) and the backup is replacement level (.say, .905), a quick estimate indicates that an extra 5 games for the backup instead of the starter will cost the team about .001 in overall expected save percentage, which is a little less than one full point in the standings for a team with a typical rate of shots against.<br />
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That appears suboptimal, but if it has even the slightest effect in terms of motivating the top guy to improve his focus or work on his game then it might even be a positive move, despite the fact that the depth chart rankings make it overwhelming likely that the replacement goalie is in fact less talented. Who wouldn't take a tradeoff of -.010 for 3 games in exchange for +.001 over 60, for example? There's no guarantee that you get those results, of course, and I think the reactive nature of goaltending means that effort and desire is less correlated with success than at other positions, but I'm not willing to completely write off the benefits of competition either.<br />
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There can be cases where a coach gets legitimately carried away by the "hot hand" approach. Probably the most dangerous one with the highest potential for serious consequences is when a goalie starts his career in the league or with a new team hot, and then coasts on that reputation for a long time before his team figures out that he isn't all that good. In that case a reactionary coach would actually be preferable since they would be more likely to play other options rather than end up with an entrenched starter possessing overrated talent. I also particularly hate the setup where a goalie who wins gets to stay in net for the next game regardless of how well he played the previous night, simply because it is based on such a high degree of luck, but that usually only comes into play in tandem situations where there probably isn't that much between the netminders to begin with and there wouldn't be much cost to even the most random of strategies. On the whole it seems to me that it should be largely self-correcting. If there is a large talent discrepancy, then it's probably going to reveal itself pretty quickly anyway, and if it doesn't reveal itself because the inferior guy is running hot then that's not really a problem, is it?<br />
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I guess in short, what I'm saying is that the high-level, super objective rational approach might be slightly superior from a purely odds-based approach, but I completely understand some coaching decisions because they essentially save themselves a lot of explanation at the cost of very little in terms of win expectation, and because they want to create at least a decent approximation of a merit-based environment that rewards success because of the motivational benefits. If a coach starts the wrong guy come playoff time then there is good reason to be incensed, but for the most part I can't find myself getting too worked up about a little bit of suboptimal regular season goalie handling over the course of a long season.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-34704344579327246182013-10-30T11:03:00.000-07:002013-10-30T11:03:07.521-07:00Who Had the Worst Goaltending Offseason?Heading into this season, I figured there were two teams that were in the running for the candidate of the worst offseason performance in the area of goaltending: Philadelphia and Chicago. The Flyers earned that nomination for their continued pursuit of the cheap goaltending tandem that rarely seems to work out for them, betting on Steve Mason and Ray Emery. The Blackhawks would appear to be a less likely candidate for such a dubious honour, given that they are the defending Stanley Cup champions, but they gave Corey Crawford a surprisingly expensive long-term extension (6 years, $36 million) and elected to sign the 40-year Nikolai Khabibulin as their backup goalie.<br />
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(Note: In a complete vacuum the Calgary Flames would probably win in this category because of their decision to ride Kerri Ramo and Joey MacDonald this year, but I'm giving them a pass because I figure that management was pretty blatantly looking to tank the season. I'm also not ready to write off Devan Dubnyk just yet, which is why the Oilers aren't discussed further here. The other team that seems to be taking on some risk in net is the New York Islanders and their continued reliance on Evgeni Nabokov, but he had a pretty strong season last year so at the moment they seem to be fine).<br />
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Obviously it's very early, and it's not a good idea to make too much of early returns because there is plenty of season remaining, but at the same time an evaluation of decision-making should not be entirely based on hindsight either. While I'm far from a full believer in Steve Mason just yet, he has looked good enough to raise the possibility that he may have turned a corner in his career, which is enough for me to vault Chicago into the lead in the category.<br />
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Khabibulin was shredded last night by the Ottawa Senators and is off to an atrocious start (.818 in 3 GP). The risk of signing 40-year olds is that they are prone to suddenly losing a step and falling off a cliff, and while it's far too early to make that pronouncement with a high degree of confidence, he simply looks terrible in the net right now. Even if he was playing at a typical level for someone his age, it's very likely that he would be at replacement level or worse. All in all, even just a one year contract at $2 million for Khabi seems to be a very poor bet by the Blackhawks.<br />
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I'm not a big believer in Corey Crawford, I think it is very possible he had a career year last year on a great team. To my eyes, his playoff run was more impressive statistically than visually, and was buoyed by an unsustainably high PK save percentage. I'm still unconvinced Crawford is anything better than league average, but even if you think he is worth $6 million a year right now, the problem is that he is already 29. It might seem odd to say it, given that he only has 163 NHL games under his belt, but Crawford is very possibly already past his prime. History generally shows that you usually need to be an elite talent to maintain an above-average level of performance through your mid-thirties. Crawford is certainly not an elite talent, and as such the smart money would seem to be that he probably will not be able to maintain above-average play through the age of 35.<br />
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Extending Crawford at that pay scale was a curious move for the Blackhawks, a team that was once one of the trailblazers in pursuing the cheap goalie strategy. They dumped Antti Niemi right after a Stanley Cup win (which given Niemi's recent performance looks worse in hindsight than it did at the time), and since then have been relying on cheaper tandem options. It's possible that the team's strategy back then was largely influenced by the very poor results they reaped from big-money deals to Khabibulin and Cristobal Huet shortly after the 2005 lockout, and perhaps those memories have now faded enough in the rear view mirror that Chicago is ready to get on board with the long-term goalie contract trend currently sweeping the league.<br />
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The Blackhawks did make at least one positive move this summer by inking Finnish league standout Antti Raanta to a pro contract. After missing some a few games because of injury, Raanta is off to a strong start at the AHL level. At the age of 24, Raanta has already dominated a lower league, winning nearly all the awards he could win last season in Finland. Finland is a goalie factory and even though many have already migrated over here to ply their trade in the NHL it is no small task to be named the best netminder there. There are plenty of recent examples of European goalies who have been able to step right into the North American game and excel. Chicago was likely assuming it would be better for development purposes to have Raanta prove himself at the pro level in North America for a season first before relying on him with the big club, but I would bet on a 24-year old Euro league standout any day over a 40-year old NHL journeyman.<br />
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Even with average goaltending Chicago is a Stanley Cup contender. However, a big reason they won the President's Trophy last year going away was that they were 17-1-0 with their backup goalie in net. If Crawford comes back down to earth and Khabibulin continues to struggle, the Blackhawks will be remain a top contender but will probably not be able to separate themselves from the pack as thoroughly as they did last season in the hyper-competitive Western Conference.The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-72709743034493914762013-10-21T10:48:00.001-07:002013-10-21T10:48:24.388-07:00Why One Great Playoff Run Means NothingThe vast majority of early season goaltending articles or blogs should be about the variability of small sample sizes, because now is the time of year where fanbases start to freak out and demand immediate action to address their team's perceived lack of goaltending, or conversely, compose detailed narratives about their young team gaining the confidence to come together and believe in one another when they should just be pointing at a .956 team save percentage.<br />
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In other words, sell short on Semyon Varlamov and Marc-Andre Fleury and buy stock in Henrik Lundqvist and Devan Dubnyk.<br />
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Fortunately, however, a goalie's early season struggles or successes usually fade pretty quickly into the rear view mirror. Go back to 2012-13 and think about the seasons of Carey Price and Sergei Bobrovsky. Are you thinking of the first seven games where Price was at .938 and Bobrovsky just .896? A goalie's early season stats will impact his playing time and they can affect his awards recognition since a hot start can mean a goalie will spend most of the season among the league leaders, but often it just resolves itself as the goalie's play normalizes and the what-have-you-done-for-me-lately media finds another story.<br />
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The real small sample size misjudgments usually come in the playoffs. Postseason samples are equally small, but they don't get large enough to normalize over any single playoff season, and people love talking about playoff runs and using that to impact how they view goalies. The result of that is that a small sample at the right or wrong time can have a vastly disproportionate influence.<br />
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I could come up with dozens of examples, but maybe the best one is Steve Penney. Penney was a terrible NHL goaltender, but because he managed to be starting for a large market team as a 22-year old rookie out of nowhere and got hot for one spring, he has carved out a spot in the collective hockey memory that is far greater than the anonymity he actually deserves.<br />
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Here is his career regular season save percentage record:<br />
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1983-84 (MTL): 115 SA, .835<br />
1984-85 (MTL): 1344 SA, .876<br />
1985-86 (MTL): 447 SA, .839<br />
1986-87 (WIN): 134 SA, .813<br />
1987-88 (WIN): 186 SA, .839<br />
Career (TOT): 2226 SA, .859<br />
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From 1983-84 to 1987-88, Penney ranked 46th out of 47 goalies in save percentage with at least 2000 shots faced. And he did that even though 60% of his sample came on a Jacques Lemaire-coached team with Chris Chelios and Larry Robinson playing in front of him. If you look at little used goalies over the same time frame (e.g. all goalie seasons with 15 or fewer games played), the combined average is .859, which indicates that Penney was essentially a replacement level goalie, probably not appreciably different than some of his minor league playing partners like Mark Holden or Rick Knickle. But you help get the Montreal Canadiens to the Conference Finals and do it with the media friendly narrative of the unknown who makes it big and that stays on your resume forever.</div>
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Percentage-wise, an .859 career goalie posting a .910 on 354 SA is the same level of outperformance as a .905 talent goalie getting up to .940. And nobody is even three-quarters of the way to that sample size yet in this young season. Crazy numbers, both good and bad, are essentially guaranteed, and they probably have very little to do with equipment changes or coaching changes or anything else, it's just variance at work.</div>
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One final comment on the subject of regression to the mean: If you haven't read <a href="http://www.greaterthanplusminus.com/p/goalies.html">Brian Macdonald's Bayesian approach to analyzing goalies</a>, I highly recommend it.</div>
The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8325095032295504278.post-18811248271882846262013-10-17T12:53:00.002-07:002013-10-17T12:53:52.660-07:00The Maple Leafs and Shot Quality Against<div>
With Toronto off to a 6-1 start despite once again being consistently outshot in games, it looks the <a href="http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9799967/toronto-maple-leafs-advanced-stats">Maple Leafs are going to draw an lot of the focus</a> from both the hockey stats crowd and the more traditional hockey watching communities alike this season.</div>
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The Leafs have been winning games despite usually trailing in terms of possession, making up for it through their percentages. A big factor in that is the sky-high 13.1% team shooting percentage, which may or may not be somewhat accounted for by talent and/or style of play, but here I'm going to focus more on the defensive/goaltending side of the equation.</div>
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The narrative from fans and talking heads is that the Leafs are willing to trade quantity for quality on the defensive side of the puck, keeping shots to the outside while taking away the dangerous areas of the ice. I think that the overall numbers still suggest that shot quality effects in today's league are fairly minimal, but we're dealing with a single team here and it's at least possible they could be an outlier. Yet an even bigger problem with the conventional wisdom is that it is completely contradicted by the situational goaltending stats. Toronto goalies aren't putting up great numbers because their teammates are taking away the key areas of the ice at 5 on 5. Their outstanding save percentages are on the penalty kill, a game situation where every team around the league tries to take away the key areas of the ice because that's basically the only strategic option a shorthanded unit has at its disposal.</div>
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Breaking down Toronto goaltending over the last two seasons by game situation, we get:</div>
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Even strength: 1383/1497, .924</div>
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Penalty kill: 222/244, .910</div>
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Power play: 42/44, .955</div>
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League averages from 2012-13 were .920, .865 and .918 respectively. That means the Leafs were 5.1 goals above average at even strength and 12.5 goals above average on special teams. There were an additional 1.6 goals saved because the team faced fewer than average shots against while shorthanded, which means that adding it all together, special teams accounted for just 16% of shots against but 73% of the team's goals saved above league average.</div>
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The penalty kill numbers from 2012-13 also buck the narrative that high save percentages were related to a team strategy of letting opponents fire away at will from the harmless areas of the defensive zone. The Leafs were an elite PK unit in terms of shot prevention, allowing just<a href="http://www.behindthenet.ca/nhl_team_statistics.php?ds=52&s=50&f1=2013_s&c=0+1+2+3+4+43+44+45+46+47+48+49+50+51+52#"> 41.8 SA/60</a>, good enough for 5th best in the league. Compare that to even strength where nobody allowed more shots against per minute than Toronto's 33.7.</div>
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So far the 2013-14 numbers are pretty consistent at evens (33.4, 7th worst), but the PK is also getting lit up on the shot clock with 63.6 SA/60, the 6th most league-wide. I'd expect that number to drop as the season wears on, but if it continues to remain high then any save percentage regression is going to hit Leaf special teams awfully hard.</div>
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It could be argued that Toronto's shorthanded unit is so good that it reduces shot quality against, but there's no way it could account for the entire effect: Any given power play shot has been 49% more likely to go in against a league average goalie than against a Toronto netminder since the start of last season. It should also be noted that Randy Carlyle does not have a history of seeing his teams record amazing save percentages on special teams, despite some pretty good goaltending overall. The highest number any of his Anaheim teams recorded on the PK was .889, and from 2005-06 to 2010-11 Duck goalies had a very ordinary special teams split (.926 at even strength compared to .877 on the PK, along with .910 on the power play).</div>
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I think Jonathan Bernier and James Reimer are a solid duo and have the talent to make an above-average tandem, but I don't think that Toronto's shorthanded save percentage is in any way sustainable. The jury may still be out on how much Toronto's scoring performance is based on shooting talent and/or counterattacking skill, but the defensive shot quality arguments look pretty weak to me. Evidence suggests that the Maple Leafs are being carried by some good goalies running unusually hot on special teams, and if that's true then the smart bet is that their save percentage numbers are going to regress pretty strongly over the rest of the season.</div>
The Contrarian Goaltenderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03433370306939690205noreply@blogger.com1