Thursday, March 15, 2007

 

When Bad Goalies Go Good! O_o

by Jes

The Forechecker, one of the web's best hockey bloggers for stats analysis, looks at how goalies are faring in shootouts in his latest FoxSports column.

Last week I dug into the offensive end of NHL shootouts, so now we need to give the goaltenders their due.

As we consider goaltender success during the shootout, a significant aspect to contend with is the quantity of Missed Shots (roughly one out of eight shootout attempts misses the net entirely). Within the table below, I'm including them in a "Stop Pct.", since by definition, Missed Shots aren't included in a goaltender's regular save percentage.

When it comes to the shootout, however, I'm inclined to give the netminder some credit for forcing the shooter into an untenable option. So let's get to the results, including the 2005-06 season, and this year up through the games of Feb. 4:
While a player may just totally blow a shot, the goaltenders need to get more credit for forcing a miss.

Who's at the top? That might surprise you...

Goaltender Attempts Goals Saves Missed Stop Pct. Normal SV%
Marc Denis, TBL 32 5 24 3 .844 .887 (42nd)
Kari Lehtonen, ATL 39 7 28 4 .821 .911 (13th)
Henrik Lundqvist, NYR 63 12 40 11 .810 .912 (12th)
Rick DiPietro, NYI 67 16 48 3 .761 .918 (7th)
Tim Thomas, BOS 54 13 39 2 .759 .910 (17th)
Pascal LeClaire, CBJ 33 8 20 5 .758 .897 (34th)
Manny Fernandez, MIN 51 13 29 9 .745 .911 (14th)
Ryan Miller, BUF 43 11 25 7 .744 .910 (15th)
Marty Turco, DAL 55 15 29 11 .727 .909 (18th)
Mathieu Garon, LAK 29 8 19 2 .724 .905 (25th)


I added in their regular SV% and rank, and you can see that Rick DiPietro is the only Top 10 goalie that really rocks in the shootout. The rest of the group is a mish-mash of mediocre goalies, with Marc Denis, one of the worst, as the king of the shootout.

Fortunately, the playoffs will eliminate this joke of a skills competition, so guys like Miikka Kiprusoff and Roberto Luongo won't have to worry about their poor shootout records when the games mean more. These stats are strange, and basically just tell you that regular goaltending ability doesn't seem to correlate well with shootout ability.

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Comments:
At least 5 goalies on that list are far better than Rick the Dick.

Turco
Lehtonen
Lundqvist
Fernandez
Miller

Mediocre? Well that be Rick.
 
Goldberg must be a Rangers fan, eh?

Rickie has the league's 7th best SV% behind a mediocre team. He's been good this season, and he deserves some credit.
 
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