Welcome to Part 5 of our original four-part series. We started with the skaters, but it turns out we have easy access to the goalie data as well. We have already covered centermen, left wings, right wings, and defensemen. Our goal is to figure out which players gave the most value to their fantasy teams. To do this, we are going a bit beyond the final season totals, and we are taking into account where that player was drafted. To be a valuable player in this context, a player needs to outperform his ADP. 

The ADPs are based off of draft rankings across several sites and averaged. In the case of goalies (because of an oddity of the export) we aren't looking at how they were drafted in comparison to all players, but how they were drafted compared to goalies. Please find our top five goalies below.

		ADP Rank
Andrei Vasilevskiy	G	1
Connor Hellebuyck	G	2
Jordan Binnington	G	3
Carter Hart	G	4
Frederik Andersen	G	5

Yikes. Just a hunch but my guess is that this top five did not age well though this shortened season. Andrei Vasilevskiy and Connor Hellebuyck maybe, but the rest of this list feels… optimistic at best.

For goalies we are going to use the same process as skaters: We compare their draft rank to their year-long performance. We are taking Yahoo's standard calculation for goalie points (5 points for a win, .6 points for a save, minus-3 points for a goal against, etc.) and applying that to Frozen Tool's Big Board Report. Side note – in case anyone needs a reminder: under the Reports tab you can go in and change the position of your report. In this case, we are using the Big Board Report for goalies. For this week we are exporting the report and then adding all of the values for each scoring category. That gives us a total points produced for all players, which we can then rank.

		ADP Rank	Rank PTS	Δ
Thatcher Demko	G	31	8	23
Marc-Andre Fleury	G	25	4	21
Thomas Greiss	G	42	21	21
Cam Talbot	G	30	13	17
Semyon Varlamov	G	22	6	16

It isn't entirely surprising to see Thatcher Demko at the top of the list. He was going to have an opportunity in 2021 with Jacob Markstrom moving to Calgary. It is a little surprising to see his ADP so low though. Some managers were clearly worried about him taking a step forward with the challenge of newcomer Braden Holtby. Clearly those worries were unfounded. Demko started about 60 percent of the Vancouver games. That resulted in about eight more starts than his previous career high in 2019-20. Unfortunately, he only saw three more wins on the season (but still set a career high in the category). He also set a career high .915 save percentage, just slightly edging out his 2018-19 season. His quality start percentage was right in line with his 2019-20 season, so he didn't have a ton of better games, but definitely fewer terrible ones. His RBS (really bad start) percentage dropped from 22% over the prior two seasons to 8.6.

So to summarize: without Markstrom, Demko played more games, and fewer of them were likely to blow up a manager's week. That amounts to a career season for Demko, the eighth-highest total points, and the most valuable season by this measure.

And now the flip side – who was not worth the price?

		ADP Rank	Rank PTS	Δ
Carter Hart	G	4	52	-48
Petr Mrazek	G	16	58	-42
Frederik Andersen	G	5	44	-39
Robin Lehner	G	6	43	-37
Ilya Samsonov	G	9	46	-37

Petr Mrazek, Frederik Andersen, Robin Lehner, and Ilya Samsonov, all had a combination of poorer play than hoped for and injuries. For Mrazek and Andersen, those injuries are a huge reason they are ranked so low. So let's start with Carter Hart.

Hart's season was a disaster. He was the fourth goalie off the board on average and the 52nd in terms of total points. It was ugly. In his third season with Philly, he played his fewest total games (not surprising necessarily given the shortened season), but he also saw by far his fewest wins (both in total and in percentage). His goals against numbers and his save percentage were by far the worst of his career. He went from essentially a .916 goalie over 74 games to a .877 goalie over 27 games. His quality start percentage dropped to 33.3 percent (which is terrible) and his RBS numbers rose to 37% (just as an aside – it was a worse RBS than both Martin Jones and Devan Dubnyk who, you know, were pretty terrible this season). That means the fourth-highest drafted goalie was more likely to blow you up than give you a good start this season. There really wasn't a silver lining here in any way shape or form. Managers just have to hope that this small sample was the oddity and that he can rebound in 2021-22. 

If it is possible to transition back to good news for a moment let's move to a review of the data based on actual production vs ranked production. With the full season data, we can compare all goalie's draft position to their end of year points and produce a trend line. With this line we can take any draft position and get an expected number of points. A goalie's true points then will give us an idea of how much they performed above or below expected. This helps us look at those players who were drafted highly as well.

Here is our top five:

		Actual PTS	Expected Pts	Δ
Andrei Vasilevskiy	G	587.4	380.342	207.058
Connor Hellebuyck	G	537.8	379.684	158.116
Marc-Andre Fleury	G	497.8	364.55	133.25
Philipp Grubauer	G	503.6	372.446	131.154
Semyon Varlamov	G	482.8	366.524	116.276

What becomes apparent with this list is just how well Vasilevskiy and Hellebuyck performed – even given their draft position. Vasilevskiy was head and shoulders above the competition here as anyone who was following along this season is well aware. He was just four wins shy of a career high but played ten fewer total games. He matched his career high save percentage and posted a stunning zero really bad starts. Just imagine if whoever drafted Carter Hart had gotten Vasilevskiy instead. What a dramatic change in fortunes.

The goalie I really want to focus on, though, is Marc-Andre Fleury. Fleury managed to put up one of, if not the best season of his career. In even better news he appears to have shaken off that very dramatic sword injury he sustained at the end of last season. His games played totals were down a bit (obviously) but he started a larger percentage of games than he did in 2019-20. He put up a goals-against average number below two for the first time in his career, posted a career high save percentage, and a massive 72.2% quality start percentage. 72.2%. Vasilevskiy was at about 57%.

Fleury had the benefit of a Robin Lehner injury in February and March to take the reins a bit, putting up nine quality starts in twelve games over that period, but it wasn't like he was bad prior. He had a .944 save percentage and four wins in four starts alternating games with Lehner to start the season. Once Lehner returned they went back to alternating starts and Fleury was equally excellent. His lowest save percentage in April and May was .905 and six of his eleven games had a save percentage higher than .939.

Unfortunately though, all good things come to an end, so now we return to the disappointments.

		Actual PTS	Expected Pts	Δ
Petr Mrazek	G	141	370.472	-229.472
Carter Hart	G	162.2	378.368	-216.168
Braden Holtby	G	174.8	367.84	-193.04
Jaroslav Halak	G	178.6	365.866	-187.266
Ilya Samsonov	G	198	375.078	-177.078

Again, I think we can let Mrazek slide a bit here as he was injured for the vast majority of the season. It is definitely not what managers were hoping for, drafting the starter for an up-and-coming Carolina, but it is understandable. Hart we have reviewed already, Holtby also isn't that surprising. He went to support Demko, played a bit of a backup role, and his draft numbers were likely inflated by folks hoping he would be the starter. That leaves us with Jaroslav Halak and Ilya Samsonov. Halak definitely had a down year, but at 36 and with an injury perhaps it isn't that surprising. So Samsonov then.

With Holtby out Samsonov was the de facto starter. He had a solid end to 19-20 and expectations were high taken as the ninth goalie off the board. Unfortunately, he spent a chunk of time injured, suiting up for only 19 starts. That definitely accounts for a lot of the missed points, but it isn't like he had a great 19 games either. He finished the season with a .902 save percentage and a 36.8 quality start percentage. Neither of what folks who drafted him as the ninth goalie were hoping for. His slightly bigger sample size in 19-20 did go better, but he still remains a bit of an unproven item going into 2021-22.

Unfortunately for Samsonov, Vitek Vanecek had a better season – though still not amazing. He got 37 starts, put up a 9.08 save percentage and a 48.6 quality start percentage. Neither goalie exceeded what an average NHL goalie would have done in their place so it is hard to be really excited about what either accomplished this season. 

That is all for this week. Thanks for reading. Stay safe out there.

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