Over the past several weeks we have taken a look at players from the perspective of the approaching playoffs. Who are the teams on good schedules? Who are the skaters you might want to drop because you can't wait for them to turn it around? Who are the players who have new opportunities at the trade deadline? Through all this review, we have not yet touched on goalies, so that is what we are going to do today.

The theme for this article is really going to be opportunity. Yes, we will certainly review the performance a goalie is putting in in their opportunities, but the organizing theme here is going to be opportunity. At its most basic, who is getting more starts/in more games currently than they were before? The idea being you may need an extra boost or a few extra goalie starts in an upcoming week, so let's take a look at who are the recent winners.

In order to review this, I pulled a Big Board goalie report for two sets of time periods. The first is the time since the trade deadline, so just shy of two weeks' worth of data. I am comparing that to the month prior to the deadline. Now there wasn't a perfect way to do this within the report, but essentially, I am looking at what percentage of a team's games a goalie got in. Ideally, we would probably be looking at starts versus games where they got stats, but generally we are comparing workloads between these two time periods.

The following table contains some basic player information (name and team), and then the percent of total team games they have played during the last two weeks (GP% Since Deadline), then the same percent but for the prior month (GP% Pre Deadline), the difference between those percentages, and then how the goalies have performed in their recent run of games (save percentage, and quality start percentage).

I don't know anywhere else that we can start besides Tristan Jarry. On March 2 Tristan Jarry was in the minors, having just allowed 13 goals in his last three games (not great), but overall did have a .908 save percentage in the 12 games he had played. He was abandoned by managers across the board and it was somewhat of a surprise that he was recalled on March 3. Joel Blomqvist and Alex Nedeljkovic weren't really getting the job done. Still, no one was really ready to call it a comeback, as if to emphasize that Jarry backed up in the Penguins next two games.

Since March 9, all he has done is reel off five straight starts, four wins, four quality starts and a .928 save percentage. For context it took him until December 7 (18 games) to get his fourth quality start at the beginning of the season. Anyone who took a chance on him for their playoff push is laughing right now. A free workhorse goalie coming off of a really great stretch of hockey. The million-dollar question is what to do now? He is clearly playing his best hockey of the season, but do you put your faith in him? He has been getting all of the starts and playing well, so chances are his volume is going to stay high until he collapses. Could that be next game? Sure.

I mean to be fair; any goalie can cave at any given moment. Connor Hellebuyck put up a .762 save percentage on March 18 in an otherwise Vezina-caliber season. I think this really just comes down to your level of desperation. Maybe all you need is two starts worth of play and Jarry just might be the only guy out there who is likely to get those two. We can't really know how long this run will last, but if you have been considering a San Jose or Chicago stream, maybe grab Jarry instead.

Philipp Grubauer is trying to take a leaf out of Jarry's book. Like Jarry, he was having a dreadful season and was sent down to the minors on January 29. He was recalled on March 2 after playing seven games and putting up an .893 save percentage. Unlike with Jarry, though, Joey Daccord is still playing well so his call up has not really resulted in a strong workload. Any game is higher than the zero he played in our comparison sample (which is why he makes this list), but two of his three starts since his call up have been on back to backs. He has been fine in his action, which is not something that could be said earlier in the season. So Grubauer may be an option to spell Daccord more frequently, but we are really talking about going from non-existent to a backup and not actually a goalie who is taking on an impactful role. Between him and Jarry, I am grabbing Jarry.

Petr Mrazek came up recently when we were reviewing some of the trades and at the time it looked very much like Mrazek was entering a three-headed monster of a situation in Detroit. Instead, Mrazek has played four straight games starting on March 12. The quality was a bit worse than Jarry with a .901 save percentage and a 50 percent quality start, but the volume has been there. He didn't have a great showing in his last outing with an .846 save percentage against Washington so maybe that spells an end to Mrazek's streak of games. Comparatively, I think I am still taking Jarry ahead of Mrazek here if I need a couple of games.

Spencer Knight, brought in to replace Mrazek in Chicago has also seen his fortunes change a bit since the deadline. He wasn't consistently playing in Florida, though at times seemed to be challenging for time. In Chicago he has gotten in five games overall during his Windy City tenure, and while he started strong has been dropping steadily in save percentage each game from a .976 in game one to a .800 by game five. He has played three of the last four games, so there is potentially something here volume wise, but his overall performance does nothing to alleviate concerns about rostering a Chicago goalie. If both are available, definitely still picking Jarry here.

There is not a ton to say about Kevin Lankinen. He has covered all year for an injured Thatcher Demko. The portion of the season prior to the deadline was then Demko was actually healthy, so Lankinen was playing fewer games. Demko is now injured again and therefore Lankinen is now seeing an increase in games played. He is unlikely to be available for folks, but if somehow, he is and you need goalie help make sure you have him. And yes, I would take Lankinen over Jarry.

That is all for this week. Do your part to support organizations working to make hockey for everyone.

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