Frozen Tools Forensics: Playoff goaltending

Chris Kane

2020-08-28

We have been following the playoffs for the last several weeks here at Frozen Tool Forensics and I wanted to continue that trend this week. So far we looked at potential targets in the Play-In rounds, some of the results of the Play-Ins, and then some high performers from the teams that were eliminated (see links at the end). In each of these sections, we focused on the skaters, largely the forwards. Today I wanted to give the goalies their due and highlight a couple of current performances.

This week on Frozen Tool Forensics: Playoff Goalies

The process part here should be pretty familiar to anyone who has been reading through these columns. The Frozen Tools section allows us to pull the playoff data for this year in the drop-down column and then select goalies rather than skaters at the top. As we often do with the skaters we are going to focus on the Goalie Big Board report as it contains a good breadth of information that will allow us to do a couple of quick reviews.

First up – let's take a look at the goalies who are managing the largest workloads. If we sort by games played we will get a picture of essentially who is left in the playoffs as they are the ones who have played the most games.

 

Name Age Team GP W L OTL SO
JACOB MARKSTROM 30 VAN 12 8 3 1 1
SEMYON VARLAMOV 32 NYI 11 8 2 0 2
ANDREI VASILEVSKIY 26 T.B 10 7 3 0 0
CARTER HART 22 PHI 10 7 3 0 2
ANTON KHUDOBIN 34 DAL 10 6 4 0 0
CAREY PRICE 33 MTL 10 5 5 0 2
CAM TALBOT 33 CGY 10 5 3 1 2
COREY CRAWFORD 35 CHI 9 4 4 1 0
DARCY KUEMPER 30 ARI 9 4 5 0 0
JOONAS KORPISALO 26 CBJ 9 3 3 2 2

 

Carey Price, Cam Talbot, Corey Crawford, and Joonas Korpisalo still make the top ten, but will quickly be left behind as the goalies in front of them play more games. One other interesting note here is that there is no Bruin or Avalanche goalie represented here (both of whom are still in the playoffs). It just highlights the storyline for Boston that Tukka Rask jumped ship earlier this month and Jaroslav Halak has had to step up. We can expect his name to rise in these standings if the Bruins keep winning. Over in Colorado neither Philipp Grubauer nor Pavel Françouz have maintained a starting job.

This relatively basic look doesn't really give us an understanding of the goalie's real workloads though. Once we separate it out by saves and assume a least four games played we get some interesting numbers.

 

Name Age Team GP GA SA SA/G
DARCY KUEMPER 30 ARI 9 29 334 37.1
COREY CRAWFORD 35 CHI 9 30 324 36.0
JOONAS KORPISALO 26 CBJ 9 19 320 35.6
JACOB MARKSTROM 30 VAN 12 32 424 35.3
ANTON KHUDOBIN 34 DAL 10 28 323 32.3

 

In this list, we have the goalies with the top five shots against numbers per game. We might be tempted to think these numbers are high (which they are) but we also have to remember that some of these games are going into overtime (remember Korpisalo's 83-save game against the Lightning?). Big Board doesn't give us total time on ice and that is the stat we would really need if we wanted to compare these across players or to the regular season. But just for completion's sake here are the five with the lowest total shots per game against.

 

Name Age Team GP GA SA SA/G SV
PHILIPP GRUBAUER 28 COL 7 12 153 21.9 141
SEMYON VARLAMOV 32 NYI 11 18 266 24.2 248
MIKKO KOSKINEN 32 EDM 4 11 99 24.8 88
ROBIN LEHNER 29 VGK 8 19 209 26.1 190
PAVEL FRANCOUZ 30 COL 5 12 131 26.2 119

 

Four of the teams on this list are still in the playoffs (unsurprisingly). Colorado has clearly done an admirable job suppressing shots though. Their goalies have averaged about 24 shots against per game, while Darcy Kuemper over in Arizona is facing 37. Even if some of that is due to extended periods that difference is pretty stagering and leaves Colorado goalies with a lot more rest.

This brings us to performance. Big Board gives us a couple of ways to look at performance, I like Quality Start Percentage (QS%) and Save Percentages (SV%). To start with Quality Start Percentage we can take a look at the top five below (and yes I know thee are six but Carter Hart and Cam Talbot are tied).

 

Name Age Team GP GAA SV% QS QS%
JACOB MARKSTROM 30 VAN 12 2.64 0.925 10 83.3
PETR MRAZEK 28 CAR 5 2.08 0.929 4 80
SEMYON VARLAMOV 32 NYI 11 1.76 0.932 8 72.7
PHILIPP GRUBAUER 28 COL 7 1.87 0.922 5 71.4
CARTER HART 22 PHI 10 1.97 0.935 7 70
CAM TALBOT 33 CGY 10 2.42 0.924 7 70

 

It is a little surprising that two of the teams on this list are no longer in the playoffs, but I suppose it just means that goaltending was not necessarily the issue for their exit. I did briefly want to highlight Jacob Markstrom here. The guy has been incredible. An 83.3 QS% is amazing, over the largest game sample size in the playoffs and the fourth-highest per game average shot count against. Elias Pettersson has been electric and all, but without this guy, they aren't this far in the playoffs.

 

Name Age Team GP GAA SV% QS QS%
JOONAS KORPISALO 26 CBJ 9 1.9 0.941 6 66.7
CAREY PRICE 33 MTL 10 1.78 0.936 6 60
FREDERIK ANDERSEN 30 TOR 5 1.84 0.936 3 60
CARTER HART 22 PHI 10 1.97 0.935 7 70
JAKE ALLEN 30 STL 5 1.89 0.935 3 60

 

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If we sort by save percentage, we really get a who's who of high-profile goalies who are no longer in the playoffs. Only Carter Hart makes this list and is still playing. If missing two teams from the QS list was surprising four of the five top-performing goalies in save percentage being out is also unusual. A couple of them are low sample sizes (Jake Allen and Frederik Andersen with five games) but not Price or Korpisalo.

On the flip side the below table is not surprising at all.

 

Name Age Team GP GAA SV% QS QS%
MIKKO KOSKINEN 32 EDM 4 3.16 0.889 0 0
PAVEL FRANCOUZ 30 COL 5 2.69 0.908 1 20
JORDAN BINNINGTON 27 STL 5 4.72 0.851 1 20
SERGEI BOBROVSKY 31 FLA 4 3.07 0.901 1 25
ALEX STALOCK 33 MIN 4 3.03 0.897 1 25

 

These goalies played poorly and all of their teams are out. At least there is only one goalie in our sample without a quality start to his name.

If we sort by save percentage:

 

Name Age Team GP GAA SV% QS QS%
JORDAN BINNINGTON 27 STL 5 4.72 0.851 1 20
MIKKO KOSKINEN 32 EDM 4 3.16 0.889 0 0
JUUSE SAROS 25 NSH 4 3.22 0.895 1 25
ALEX STALOCK 33 MIN 4 3.03 0.897 1 25
SERGEI BOBROVSKY 31 FLA 4 3.07 0.901 1 25

 

These are some pretty brutal save percentages. I think we all expected a little better from St. Louis, Minnesota, and Nashville, even if not necessarily from the individual goalies. All small samples for sure, but they all played at least four games.

 

That is all for this week. Thanks for reading.

 

Stay safe out there.

 

Want more tool talk? Check out these recent Frozen Tool Forensics Posts.

 

Frozen Tool Forensics: Winners of the Losers

Frozen Tools Forensics: Stats from the first week of play-ins

Frozen Tools Forensics: Play-In Peak Performers

 

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Nov 05 - 22:11 ANA vs VAN
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