Things are certainly moving along in this NHL 'summer'. We have a Stanley Cup champion, we have drafted players, and we have a few trades. Dobber Hockey, as always, has hit the ground running with trade analysis for all the fantasy-worthy trades – giving you the takes you need to consider the fantasy impacts. There were a couple that caught my eye and got me thinking about goaltending. Matt Murray and Devan Dubnyk are headed to new homes in Ottawa and San Jose, made superfluous apparently by the play of their backups. The impact articles linked above are excellent and got me thinking a bit more about how these goalies had been performing and what they might be bringing to their new teams.

This week in Frozen Tools Forensics: Goalies on the move

To start I wanted to take a look at goalie performance over the last two seasons and see how our dynamic duo did in comparison. To do that I ran a Big Board Goalie Report and set a custom date range to include the last two seasons.

The first table is sorted by top ten in save percentage over that time span with the additions of Murray and Dubnyk. There is also a filter applied for a minimum of 70 games played over the course of the two seasons.

In general, we see a number of usurping goalies or tandems (and only two goalies who played over 100 games). Darcy Kuemper, Anton Khudobin, Robin Lehner, Jaraslov Halak, and Thomas Greiss (and even Jordan Binnington) have spent a significant portion of their games splitting time. It is definitely a trend we have seen over the last several seasons of teams relying significantly less on the workhorse model of goalies but running with tandems and/or willing to ride the hot hand. Our trade bait goalies didn't actually fare all that well in save percentage comparatively. Murray ranks 22nd overall, with Dubnyk ranked 33rd. Murray (at .911) was definitely near league average, which has been dropping over the several seasons, but Dubnyk (.906) is definitely falling low. That isn't a great sign as he has been playing for one of the stingiest defenses and is moving to a team that, well, isn't.

This table is the same list but sorted by quality start percentage.

There is significant overlap between our two lists here, but we do see a couple of more workhorse type goalies here with the additions of Frederik Andersen and Jacob Markstrom (though Connor Hellebuyck does fall out of the top ten). It is a little surprising how many goalies are in the 60+ percent category here, particularly given how much scoring has been happening. Kuemper in particular has been out of this world at 70.2 percent in his 84 games played. While it has been a pretty strong sample size he is ranking so much higher than everyone else we do have to wonder if he can maintain that.

Murray (23rd) and Dubnyk (33rd) rank very similarly in quality start percentage as in save percentage, and in Dubnyk's case in particular the results are a resounding not great. Murray has been better, but inconsistency (and injuries) has been a huge problem for him. These data shouldn't be all that surprising I suppose since both essentially lost their starting roles in 2019-20. The surprising thing is that a team was interested in Dubnyk (and that it was the Sharks who now have two aging, struggling starters).

Briefly switching gears for a second, let's take a look at team stats over the same time period.

The table below is pulled from the Team Stats Page and then exported so I could add a few columns to get total Shots For (SF), Shots Against (SA), and a Team Save Percentage. This list is sorted by save percentage. I included the top five and then the bottom six (because, well, that's where the teams of interest are), just to save space.

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It is no surprise that the teams on the top of the list are made up of goalies from the top ten lists above. I suppose it also isn't much a surprise to see the teams that traded for Murray (Ottawa), and Dubnyk (San Jose) ranked at the bottom of the pile. They clearly thought (and rightly so) that they needed a change. I suppose it does beg the question – what are the Devils, Red Wings, Panthers, and Flyers going to do about their poor performances over the last two seasons?

Let's start with San Jose. They have the league's worst save percentage over the last two seasons (although it is a close thing with the Panthers and the Red Wings) and as a Martin Jones owner in 2019-20 I can attest that the goaltending was indeed terrible. The .890 save rate is miserable, and Dubnyk's .906 would certainly be an improvement overall – and to Martin Jones' .896, but we would be kidding ourselves if we didn't attribute some of that difference to the team each played for. I suppose the best-case scenario for San Jose is that they enter into a productive time share like we have seen for many teams across the league, but it is hard to be optimistic about either goalie here.

Ottawa fared slightly better with Craig Anderson and co. over the past two seasons. Both Anders Nilsson and Marcus Hogberg had decent runs (albeit short), but overall ,they rank 26h out of 31 teams in save percentage over this time period. Murray, unlike Dubnyk is a clear improvement (provided he can stay healthy). He did lose his job to Tristan Jarry, but his .911 save percentage, and quality start percentage (and Cup wins) are clear improvements over Ottawa's goalie options. Those stats clearly came while tending net for a much stronger Penguins team, so they aren't necessarily going to carry over directly, but as much as we can draw conclusions on skill vs environment, Murray is looking like an improvement (again big caveat here is that he can stay healthy).

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.