Reference library: Goalies
Eric T.
November 02 2012 04:12PM
This article is part of the NHL Numbers reference library, which seeks to collect articles from around the web that have contributed to our understanding of the game.
This page is devoted to articles that touch on goaltending. This will include save percentage, team effects, aging profiles, and other things that relate to evaluating goalies.
We need your help to keep the library complete and up to date -- contact me on Twitter (@BSH_EricT) or via email (bsh.erict -at- gmail) with suggestions of articles you think we should consider adding.
Return to the library main index.
| Title - Prospects and aging |
Author | Date | Site | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Laraque, Cloutier, Firing JFJ, Alex Auld and trading within your conference | Tyler Dellow | 7/7/2006 | mc79hockey | AHL and NHL success are closely linked |
| The trouble with drafting goaltenders | Kent Wilson | 8/14/2008 | Five Hole Fanatics | Argument against drafting G: hard to project, limited prospect slots |
| Projecting goalie performance | Bruce McCurdy | 10/21/2008 | Copper & Blue | What age do goalies make AHL-to-NHL leap? What was AHL Sv%? |
| The impossibility of projecting goaltenders | Hawerchuk | 6/1/2009 | Hockey Prospectus | The impact of variance on identifying goalie prospects |
| Goalies in the first round | The Contrarian Goaltender | 6/21/2009 | Brodeur is a Fraud | Success rate for drafting goalie in each round |
| Fooled by randomness: Goaltender save percentage | Hawerchuk | 4/20/2010 | Arctic Ice Hockey | How long it takes to get accurate idea of goalie skill |
| How do goalies age part II | David Johnson | 4/28/2010 | Hockey Analysis | Sv% over league average vs age |
| Goaltender save percentage by age | Hawerchuk | 4/28/2010 | Arctic Ice Hockey | How save percentage changes with age |
| Johan Backlund: Quality behind Phantom defense | Geoff Detweiler | 6/4/2010 | Broad Street Hockey | What constitutes a quality start in the AHL |
| The importance of a goalie's first 15 games | Hawerchuk | 2/23/2011 | Arctic Ice Hockey | Start of career doesn't predict skill, but impacts career length |
| Judging goalies: Should we include PK save percentage? | Eric T. | 1/25/2012 | Broad Street Hockey | Goalies' future career is best modeled with career EV Sv% |
| Aging goalies: What does the future hold for Luongo, Miller & Bryzgalov? | JaredL | 4/30/2012 | Copper & Blue | Aging curve: when goalies move from starter to backup to done |
| AHL to NHL translations: Save percentage | Stephan Cooper | 7/11/2012 | Habs Eyes on the Prize | Comparison of AHL and NHL sv% and difficulty of projection |
| Looking at AHL goaltenders vs NHL players | Rob Pettapiece | 7/16/2012 | NHL Numbers | Calculating prospects' sv% vs shooters who are future NHLers |
| Title - Valuation | Author | Date | Site | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Testing Ken Holland | Jonathan Willis | 7/26/2009 | Copper & Blue | Many middling goalies are undervalued and poor ones overvalued |
| A basic goaltending model | Gabriel Desjardins | 10/7/2009 | Puck Prospectus | Calculating wins above replacement |
| Are expensive goaltenders worth the money? | Hawerchuk | 3/8/2010 | Arctic Ice Hockey | Calculating wins above replacement and value of top goalies |
| Goaltender salary per win 2000-01 to 2009-10 | Hawerchuk | 7/7/2010 | Arctic Ice Hockey | Fraction of payroll allocated to goaltending is shrinking |
| What do NHL GMs think is replacement-level goaltending? | Hawerchuk | 2/24/2011 | Arctic Ice Hockey | Estimating replacement-level goaltending from standings |
| Do you get what you pay for? | Eric T. | 7/5/2011 | Broad Street Hockey | Single-season EV sv% completely unlinked to cap hit |
| Can Rinne earn all that money? | JaredL | 11/15/2011 | Driving Play | Price per win calculation for goalies |
| How efficient is the NHL goaltending market? | Hawerchuk | 7/4/2012 | NHL Numbers | Second-tier goalies are a bargain, but tougher to evaluate |
| Title - Team effects |
Author | Date | Site | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Changes in save percentage as time elapses from past shot | Tyler Dellow | 2/19/2006 | mc79hockey | Showing how much lower sv% is for rebounds |
| Does save percentage fall as time elapses? | Tyler Dellow | 2/21/2006 | mc79hockey | Going a long time between shots has no effect on sv% |
| Shots attempts against | The Contrarian Goaltender | 11/17/2008 | Brodeur is a Fraud | No relationship between team shots against and sv% |
| The 'shot quality' fantasy | Vic Ferrari | 7/24/2009 | Irreverent Oiler Fans | Sv% when a goalie changes teams is no larger than variance |
| Even-strength goaltender shot quality since the lockout | Hawerchuk | 10/10/2009 | Arctic Ice Hockey | Multiyear expected and actual save percentages |
| The win threshold | The Contrarian Goaltender | 10/10/2009 | Brodeur is a Fraud | Calculating team impact on goalie wins |
| Shot distribution by game state | Scott Reynolds | 1/3/2010 | Copper & Blue | How many PK shots did each goalie face |
| Is it possible to determine goaltender true talent on the PK? | Hawerchuk | 3/5/2010 | Arctic Ice Hockey | Two years of PK Sv% data has essentially zero predictive value |
| How much skill is there in goaltending? | Tom Awad | 5/7/2010 | Hockey Prospectus | In 3-yr total EV Sv%, see mostly luck, some skill, no shot quality |
| DIGR: A defense independent rating of NHL goaltenders using spatially smoothed save percentage maps | Michael Schuckers | 3/4/2011 | Sloan Sports Analytics Conference | Adjusting sv% for shot location |
| Team effects and even strength save percentage | JLikens | 5/10/2011 | Objective NHL | Two ways of looking for team effect in EV sv% give split decision |
| Team effects and penalty kill save percentage | JLikens | 5/10/2011 | Objective NHL | Two ways of looking for team effect in PK sv% give split decision |
| Zone start effects on goalie save percentage | David Johnson | 4/26/2012 | Hockey Analysis | Impact of faceoffs on goalie save percentage |
| Title - On goaltending |
Author | Date | Site | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goalie fatigue | The Contrarian Goaltender | 8/19/2008 | Brodeur is a Fraud | Goalies show no sign of fatigue until perhaps 70+ games |
| Save percentage vs league average | The Contrarian Goaltender | 10/2/2008 | Brodeur is a Fraud | Comparing sv% to league average to combat era effects |
| Estimating Brodeur's shot prevention | The Contrarian Goaltender | 10/30/2008 | Brodeur is a Fraud | Elite puckhandling might be worth a shot per game |
| Howe and why | Robert Vollman | 3/25/2009 | Hockey Prospectus | Defining quality starts |
| The value of rebound control | The Contrarian Goaltender | 4/21/2009 | Brodeur is a Fraud | Arguing that rebounds are a minor factor in goalie value |
| Yet another angle on Khabibulin | Tyler Dellow | 7/25/2009 | mc79hockey | Given >5000 shots, past sv% models future sv% reasonably well |
| Do goalies wear down from playing too many games? | Jonathan Willis | 9/14/2009 | Backhand Shelf | No end-of-season dip for goalies with a lot of games played |
| Why goalie equipment was not responsible for the scoring drop | The Contrarian Goaltender | 11/15/2009 | Brodeur is a Fraud | Goaltender equipment a minor factor in rising sv% |
| Clutch play | The Contrarian Goaltender | 12/2/2009 | Brodeur is a Fraud | Laying out the argument that clutch play is a tiny factor |
| Changing goalies = shuffling the deck chairs? | Hawerchuk | 5/31/2010 | Arctic Ice Hockey | Goal differential is worse after a goalie change than without one |
| Goaltender talent | Hawerchuk | 9/16/2010 | Arctic Ice Hockey | How much of observed difference between goalies is due to luck |
| Ilya Bryzgalov and the shootout | Eric T. | 2/10/2012 | Broad Street Hockey | No relationship between sv% and shootout sv% |
| Do goaltenders really get in a rhythm? | Eric T. | 2/21/2012 | Broad Street Hockey | Tracking sv% versus consecutive games played |
| NHL average save percentages still on the rise | Derek Zona | 4/23/2012 | Copper & Blue | Charting EV sv% since the lockout |
| Replacement level goaltending in the NHL | Scott Reynolds | 5/1/2012 | Copper & Blue | Replacement goalie sv% has been rising sharply |
| What should we expect from NHL goaltenders? | Bruce Peter | 5/10/2012 | Habs Eyes on the Prize | Average performance of starter, platoon, backup, replacement |
| The myth of the hot goalie: Consistent goaltenders vs. inconsistent goaltenders | Eric T. | 5/11/2012 | NHL Numbers | Goalie streaks very closely match a coin-flipping model |
| Tender touches: An attempt to measure Martin Brodeur's puckhandling impact | Bruce McCurdy | 5/25/2012 | Cult of Hockey | Tracking goalie puckhandling |
| Jonathan Quick - not good high stick side? | Hawerchuk | 6/7/2012 | Arctic Ice Hockey | League-avg sv% for shots aimed at each quadrant of goal |
| Why are goalie save percentages rising? | Eric T. | 10/9/2012 | NHL Numbers | Rise in EV sv% is mostly from better crop of incoming goalies |
Comments are closed for this article.
Holy crap that's a lot of work. And we STILL don't really know goalies...
@Kent Wilson
Yup. One thing I've really been struck by as I put this together is how inefficient the community's effort has been.
That's partly because we've been redundant (I cut about 10 articles out of this piece because they were unknowing repeats of stuff done earlier, including one by me where I had no idea until now). But it's also partly because we've often put effort on something because it was something that came up recently or because we could see how to study it and not because it's necessarily the most fruitful place for advancing our understanding. One of my hopes for the reviews is that highlighting areas that are well- or poorly-understood will help address this.
I got halfway down the list and started saying to myself almost exactly what Kent wrote.
That is a lot of information and it still seems more like voodoo than science.
Unless the goalie is Finnish, then it's a guarantee.
In my mind the toughest question to answer in hockey is how to pick apart the goalie from the team defense and vice versa.
I thought the toughest question to answer was the location of Don Cherry's blackmarket haberdashery?