Last Friday, Dobber released his midseason guide (purchase it here). This season, I was fortunate enough to contribute to the guide by writing blurbs about the netminders of all 32 teams. 

Although I enjoy poring over stats throughout the season, researching every goalie for a few weeks forces one to find trends that you might not have noticed before. 

For this week, I wanted to expand on some of those trends. Here are the top 10 things I learned about goalies so far this season.

10. Andrei Vasilevskiy can’t get a shutout

I didn’t bring this up in the guide, as I was instead focusing on how great Vasilevskiy has been recently. Last year, I traded for Vas and he proceeded to get only two shutouts the entire season, instead of the five or six one might have expected. This year, he has zero. However, to make it even more frustrating, he has six games this season where he has given up one goal. In four of those games, he gave up that goal in the third period, which was extra frustrating if you were watching the game or following the box score. While 19 wins are great, shutouts can give an extra boost in many leagues. The only other goalie with at least 13 wins and zero shutouts is Jacob Markstrom, but he has only three games where he has allowed just one goal, and in only one of those games did he lose the shutout in the third period. 

9. Bruins splitting duties

Forget about the first month of the season. Boston is splitting duties pretty evenly between Linus Ullmark and Jeremy Swayman. Since November 19, Ullmark has started 13 games and Swayman has started 11. So how do their numbers compare since that date?

Ullmark: 11-1-1, .935 SV%, 1.95 GAA

Swayman: 7-2-3, .912 SV%, 2.27 GAA

While Ullmark has been great, Swayman has also been impressive. This usage is a repeat of what we saw last season. The only reason Ullmark’s stats look so much better on the year as a whole is that Swayman was injured for a good chunk of the season, so Ullmark was getting the majority of the starts during that time. 

8. Sharks goalies can’t win two in a row

Some of the Sharks’ players are having excellent years. Erik Karlsson is on pace for 104 points. Timo Meier is on pace for a career-high 45 goals. Tomas Hertl is on pace for 76 points. And then there are the Sharks goalies, who have been dreadful. Worst still, they can’t win multiple games in a row. Kaapo Kahkonen has only five wins in 18 games and has yet to win two in a row. The Sharks’ top netminder, James Reimer, had a three-game winning streak in the middle of November, but aside from that, has also struggled to put up consecutive wins. If the Sharks are sellers at the trade deadline and are trying to tank, then it would be even more difficult for the goalies to get multiple wins in a row. 

7. Cam Talbot is getting the majority of starts

If you are the type of fantasy GM who simply looks at season stats without looking more in detail, you might think that Talbot and Anton Forsberg are near even in starts (21 starts for Talbot versus 20 for Forsberg). Nothing could be further from the truth. Talbot didn’t play his first game until November 3, as he missed the first month of the season recovering from the all-too-common upper-body injury. And that November 3 appearance was in relief. However, including that game (which was a Forsberg start), Talbot has started 64 per cent of the Sens games. He’s also been the slightly better netminder:

Talbot: 10-11-1, .906 SV%, 2.90 GAA

Forsberg: 5-4-2, .897 SV%, 3.30 GAA

Ottawa is too far out and has too many teams to pass to push for a playoff spot, so what happens to Talbot for the rest of the season will be interesting. Talbot is a free agent this summer. If he doesn’t re-sign with Ottawa, expect him to be dealt at the trade deadline. That means a lot of games to showcase him. 

6. Punt goalie categories except for saves?

We often hear of fantasy general managers punting specific categories to try to win elsewhere. Usually, it’s plus/minus that is punted, but in one league (draft before the preseason began, no moves allowed), one GM selected Brian Elliott as his only goalie, drafting him in round 22 of a 24-round draft. The GM reasoned that he could use the extra picks to load up on forwards/defensemen, and while he will come last in wins, saves and shutouts, he should finish middle of the pack in save percentage and goals against average (the jury is still out whether this was a smart move, as he has 10 out of a possible 75 goalie points, but is ranked seventh out of 15 teams). While working on the guide, this got me thinking if it was smart to shift thinking regarding netminders for many fantasy squads in roto leagues. Many Yahoo leagues default to wins, saves and goals against average. Just say you are already last in wins and goals against average; why not just punt those categories now? You could focus specifically on saves, and if that was the case, you could look at acquiring players like John Gibson, Karel Vejmelka, Carter Hart and Jordan Binnington. All four are in the top nine for saves, but Hart is the highest-ranked netminder among the four in Yahoo leagues, at 17th overall. You may be able to trade for those netminders while upgrading other positions.

5. New Jersey Devils goaltenders playing great

The Devils have been a great defensive team this year, allowing 2.60 goals against per game, trailing only Boston in that category. It’s also a massive improvement from a season ago when they allowed 3.68 goals against per game. If weren’t for Mackenzie Blackwood, the Devils would be threatening Boston as the best defensive team. Vitek Vanecek has been mostly awesome, with a 17-5-2 record. His December was pretty dreadful (at one point, he was 1-3-2 with a 3.00 GAA and a .878 SV%), but has now won five in a row. That’s a crazy turnaround from the start of the season when he was rocked for five goals in his first contest and only started one of New Jersey’s first five games. 

4. Montreal won’t pull the starter when struggling

There are only four teams that have yet to pull a goalie this season when the starter has been lit up: Montreal, New York Rangers, Tampa Bay and Winnipeg. The latter three all have one thing in common: They have an elite netminder and a philosophy that when the number one guy rests, he rests the entire game. Montreal doesn’t have the luxury of an elite netminder, and their goalies have put up some stinkers. Going into Sunday’s game, Montreal was allowing 3.74 goals against per game, the fourth-worst mark in the league. Jake Allen has given up at least four goals in 12 of 27 starts, and has games where he has allowed six, seven and nine goals. Sam Montembeault has games where he allowed five and six goals, and two games where he allowed seven goals each. This makes it even tougher to start these netminders in fantasy leagues, as rough starts become abysmal. 

3. Anaheim allowing the most goals in 25 years

Going into Sunday’s action, Anaheim was averaging 4.16 goals against per game, while Columbus and Vancouver were at 3.95 each. You have to go back to the early 90s to see such futility. In 1995-96, San Jose gave up 4.35 goals against per game, the last time a team cracked four goals against per game. However, Anaheim is certainly taking a stab at that number as they’ve given up 24 goals in the past four games. Except for saves, the Ducks’ netminders just don’t offer any benefits. 

2. Pheonix Copley has the most wins since the start of December

That still seems weird to type. Look at what other netminders have done over the past seven-plus weeks. Jake Oettinger started a league-high 17 games in that span and won 11 of them. Vasilevskiy bounced back and is winning games. Ullmark started 12 games and only lost two of them (only one in regulation). Igor Shesterkin and Connor Hellebuyck continued to be elite. And then there’s Copley, who started the season in the AHL and has 12 wins since December 1. He didn’t even play a game until December 6, giving the other netminders almost a week’s head start. It’s also important to note that he’s not only defeating the teams far down the standings. He’s picked up wins against Boston, Colorado, Dallas, Edmonton, Calgary and two against Vegas. The Kings are firmly entrenched in a playoff spot, and it appears as if Copley will be the number one netminder for the rest of the year. 

1. Seattle’s strength of schedule

For those who enjoy seeing if their team can win the draft lottery, there’s a fun website called Tankathon. One of the great aspects of the site is that it provides each team’s remaining strength of schedule. The higher the number, the tougher the schedule. Seattle has the third-easiest strength of schedule remaining. The easier strength of schedule is a benefit to the Kraken goalies in terms of picking up wins, especially Martin Jones, who is third in the league in winning percentage. Maybe most important is their schedule during the fantasy playoffs. From Thursday, March 30 to Monday, April 10, the Kraken play Arizona three times, along with Anaheim, L.A., Vancouver and Chicago once, and only two of those seven games are on the road. During the fantasy championships, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see the Kraken, and their netminders, go 7-0.