Ramblings: Frozen Tools – Quality Weeks, Really Bad Weeks, and Star Weeks for Goalies (Aug 27)

Ian Gooding

2023-08-27

There are some new stats for goalies on Frozen Tools: Quality Weeks, Really Bad Weeks, and Star Weeks. If they sound familiar, they are simply the Quality Starts and Really Bad Starts stats expanded to a week. They are the brainchild of Ryan Brudner, who you might know as @fantasycheddar on Twitter.

By the way, this is a good time to mention that Ryan will be coming on board with DobberHockey full time this season by taking on the Geek of the Week article, which will start up again in mid-September. We're excited to have him here and look forward to what he can tell us about multicategory leagues. Ryan will be covering this topic in his article at some point, so it will be interesting to read his perspective on it.

Back to the new goalie stats. I was interested to find out if they will uncover any variations in goalie values compared to what we are used to. I won't analyze using the change variable, which I'll leave for Frozen Tools Forensics. Instead, I'll examine the best and worst in each of these three categories and pull out anything that I find interesting.

In case you couldn't view the above tweet, here's a summary of the new stats.

Weeks Active: The number of weeks (Monday-Sunday) where the goalie appeared in at least one game

Quality Week: Weeks with combined save percentage above the league average

Really Bad Week: Weeks with combined save percentage below .850

Star Week: Weeks with at least 2 wins and combined save percentage at least 2% above the league average

First, the Quality Weeks leaders from 2022-23. I've included the Weeks Active stat to show the quality week percentage in addition to the quality week total.

NameWeeks ActiveQWQW%
LINUS ULLMARK262388.5
ALEXANDAR GEORGIEV262180.8
CONNOR HELLEBUYCK272074.1
ILYA SOROKIN261973.1
JUUSE SAROS271970.4
JAKE OETTINGER251768
IGOR SHESTERKIN261765.4
ANDREI VASILEVSKIY261661.5
FILIP GUSTAVSSON241666.7
VITEK VANECEK251560

I don't see any major surprises on this list. Vezina Trophy winner Linus Ullmark appears at the top of the list, as he provided his teams with a quality week 23 out of 26 weeks. The percentages thus show he could be relied upon just about every week… Both total quality weeks and quality week percentage need to be taken into consideration when evaluating a goalie. Vitek Vanecek's 60 QW% might seem only a little better than average, as there are goalies not listed above that had a better percentage than he did. However, those goalies did not play as many games as Vanecek (52 GP) and thus did not produce as many total quality weeks.

Let's now show the worst based on percentage (minimum 25 games).

NameWeeks ActiveQWQW%
ELVIS MERZLIKINS1715.9
JOHN GIBSON24520.8
PETR MRAZEK22522.7
SPENCER MARTIN16425
JAMES REIMER23626.1
KAAPO KAHKONEN25728
JACOB MARKSTROM26830.8
MARTIN JONES22836.4
JONATHAN QUICK22836.4
DAN VLADAR19736.8

These names should also come as no surprise. Elvis Merzlikins was a disaster for fantasy teams last season, playing in 17 weeks and supplying just one quality week out of that. Simply put, you couldn't afford to keep him rostered all season. I have a hard time thinking he'll be that bad this season… At least John Gibson and Petr Mrazek were able to put together five quality weeks, although that's hardly a recipe for fantasy success. Your expectations should be higher than what the goalies above provided.

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Many of those same names appeared among the Really Bad Weeks league leaders, but the overall leader of Really Bad Weeks was Jonathan Quick with 8 RBW, equaling the number of quality weeks that he had. He was active for 22 weeks. No other goalie had more than 6 RBW. Quick shouldn't have that many RBW as a seldom-used backup to Igor Shesterkin, although it's clear he isn't the goalie he once was.

Among goalies with at least 25 games, seven did not have a single Really Bad Week. A few expected names, but others that might surprise you.

NameWeeks ActiveRBWRBW%
CASEY DESMITH2100
ALEX STALOCK1500
JOONAS KORPISALO2300
LOGAN THOMPSON1800
JAKE OETTINGER2500
CONNOR HELLEBUYCK2700
LINUS ULLMARK2600

Casey DeSmith played in 38 games and did not have a single Really Bad Week (although Penguins fans may beg to differ)… The fact that Alex Stalock played 27 games for the Blackhawks and also did not have a single Really Bad Week might also be a feat in itself. In fact, his ratios (3.01 GAA, .908 SV%) demonstrated that he didn't do as much harm to your fantasy team as you might have thought a Blackhawks goalie would. During the first half, Stalock had a 2.54 GAA and .923 SV% in 13 games. He definitely showed that he deserves to stick around in the NHL for one more season, having signed with the Ducks this offseason. However, it will take a leap of faith again this season to roster him.

As for star weeks, Ullmark was the clear leader for 2022-23 in both total star weeks (12 SW) and star week percentage (46.2% SW%). No other goalie had more than nine star weeks and 35% star week percentage, with Igor Shesterkin and Connor Hellebuyck the next two highest qualified goalies in each. Again, no surprise that the star goalies earn the most star weeks.

Conversely, there were also four goalies that played at least 25 games that did not earn a single star week.

NameGPWeeks ActiveSWSW%
JAKE ALLEN422300
JAROSLAV HALAK252200
UKKO-PEKKA LUUKKONEN332000
ELVIS MERZLIKINS301700

Jake Allen played in just over 50% of the Habs' games last season, yet he did not earn a single star week… Perhaps Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen is a surprise here, yet he never had a goals-against average of below 3.30 in any quarter. He had a decent 50% QW%, yet his high 25% RBW% seemed to prevent him from reaching any star weeks. In spite of these numbers, UPL posted a winning record in 2022-23 (17-11-4). He's a top Frozen Tools profile view this week, maybe because multiple Dobber writers believe he is in line to be the starter on what appears to be an up-and-coming Buffalo squad. He's only being drafted in 11% of Yahoo leagues, so he's definitely a Zero G candidate who you should be able to grab late in single-season drafts.

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