Goaltending is important, isn’t it?

I’ve been thinking about this question for a long time. Do you really need that good goalies to maintain high point outcome in regular season?

Let’s start with some examples:

1. Dominik Hašek – Dominik Hašek is the one who won gold medal in 1998 olympics. He also had pretty good team in front of him, but his ,96 sv% and 0,97 GAA was something incredible in those times.

2. Jonathan Quick – LA Kings won Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014. During 2011/12 season LAK were able to score 95 points in regular season to enter the playoffs from 8th overall position in western conference. After several troubles they won entire playoffs.

3. Buffalo Sabres goalies/Pavelec of 2013/14 – 91,6% sv% is great, right? 90% is quite bad, right? It is and it is. Which team finished better at the end of the season? You’re right again!

Based on these historical experience you can clearly say, that goaltending quality is very important, but how much?

This is a chart of sv% vs points at the end of regular season. Sv% are calculated as weighted mean of goalies’ TOI and their sv%. Red line is simple (linear regression) function – f(x) = points(sv%).

Let’s take a look at some teams. Bruins managed to achieve the highest sv% and the highest points. Rangers ranked 2nd in sv% but they scored slightly above average points.

Now look at Sabres and Ducks. Their goaltending is of the same quality but the points are really different. This difference implies very significant difference in offense and defense qualities of both teams.

Hawks maintained low sv% and still scored 107 points.

My conclusion aren’t that surprising – if you want to the get to the playoffs you should either hire pretty good goalies or hire several of the best skaters in the league. Teams like Calgary, Dallas or Minnesota are equally balanced. Every team that is close to the red regression line is supposed to be balanced. Teams above have high quality skaters and teams below have lower quality skaters.

What might be surprising is that 0,92 sv% would get you to the first round but 0,915 wouldn’t be so sure.

Now the predictions – I know more about eastern conference, so speaking about Bruins is easier, but you can always apply these simple things at western conference teams.

There are several teams in the east that are said to be cup contenders: Bruins, Tampa, Rangers, Penguins and maybe others, but these teams might be Stanley Cup winners or at least eastern conference champions. Based on linear regression and premise, that next season sv% and points would look similar, I dare to say they need 91,75% sv%. These could probably guarantee them playoffs if their skaters’ skills wouldn’t change a bit. This said, Ben Bishop of TBL needs more starts and/or better saving statistics. On the other hand, Tuuka Rask could easily let some more goals in and still win President’s Trophy. Sabres need to continue their team rebuilding because, as seen in the graph, their skaters are extremely underachieving. Personally, I don’t see Rangers to repeat their playoffs success. Their skaters level was a bit lowered in post-season. Their future depends on Henrik Lundqvist. Florida Panthers made some progress in past months and I believe, that Roberto Luongo will achieve higher sv%. This could get Panthers to the 1st round.

I will update these stats after 20th round of 2014/15 season in the future in order to predict teams’ points and their positions in each conference.

I hope you have enjoyed this article, see you soon

-JH

.pdf file with all stats and the graph