Last week, I spent my time in these Ramblings going through the rankings released from Yahoo given that they opened their fantasy hockey lobby. Remember that the purpose of this exercise isn’t necessarily to denigrate the rankings of another but rather to gauge where the public might be moving with their draft picks. Also, too often, the focus is on the specific ranking of a player rather than the relative ranking of a player, the tier of similar options this player falls in, and what all this tells us about public perception. If I could impart one piece of advice, it is to be less concerned about what the ranking of a player is, and more about what that rankings tells us about the perception of that player.

Before we dig in, I would like to mention that a lot of the information used here will be gleaned from Ian Fleming’s site Dispelling Voodoo.

With all that aside, it’s time to finish up the Yahoo rankings by discussing the goaltenders. Keep in mind that these thoughts are construed with Yahoo’s default roto categories in mind: wins, goals against average, save percentage, and shutouts. It is also assumed that 12-team leagues are the standard.

****

With September just around the corner, be sure to get prepped for your fantasy drafts by grabbing Dobber’s Fantasy Guide!

****

Jake Allen – 32^nd overall, 6^th goalie ranked

For the entire 2016-17 season, Allen finished as the 15^th-ranked goaltender in this format which, all things considered, is good for a guy who was left at home by St. Louis for a stretch because of poor performance. If anything, this should show how long of a season it is, and that even a goalie who struggled as he did at times can still be valuable in the fantasy game.

My guess is that he’s ranked as high as he by Yahoo because of his performance when he returned; over his final 27 games of the season, Allen had a .935 save percentage in all situations. He was also a .920 goalie in 2015-16. Of course, if he can maintain anything close to that for an entire year, he would be nearly a top-5 goalie in fantasy hockey.

At the risk of stating the obvious, it is so important that a goalie have a good defensive team in front of him to increase his fantasy value. For example: last year, Robin Lehner had a .920 save percentage while Tuukka Rask’s was .915. However, Lehner’s goals against average has nearly a full half-goal higher (0.45 to be exact) because he faced so many shots. Even though Lehner saved pucks more often, he saw so many pucks that his GAA was murdered.   

That is what makes Allen intriguing as a fantasy option. Last year, the Blues allowed the fourth-fewest adjusted shot attempts per minute, pretty much neck-and-neck with Washington.  If the team repeats that performance, and Allen can be around league-average, his GAA should hover around 2.40 again and that’s fine for fantasy.

By Fleming’s adjusted goals saved above average and other measures (please go to his site, his work is phenomenal), Allen is about a league-average goaltender. That is good enough with a solid team like St. Louis in front of him. However, given the options available at a later draft cost, this feels like drafting him at his ceiling, and that is a recipe for fantasy disaster.  

Devan Dubnyk – 56^th overall, 12^th goalie ranked

This is truly bizarre to me. In 168 starts since joining the Wild, Dubnyk has an overall save percentage of .924. He’s finished top-5 in Vezina voting twice in three seasons, is playing behind a team that allowed the second-fewest adjusted scoring chances per 60 minutes at five-on-five last year – a team whose roster is largely the same – and yet is ranked in the same vicinity of much bigger question marks like Ben Bishop and Jonathan Quick.

If there is one concern, it’s that perhaps his overall season looked better than it was. When looking at things like his high-danger save percentage or expected goals saved above average, they were slightly below the league average:

If you go to Mr. Fleming’s site, you can check previous seasons, and 2016-17 was definitely a downgrade. However, as alluded to in the opening paragraph in this section, the Wild did a wonderful job at limiting high-danger shots against; for reference, his 4.79 faced per 60 minutes was considerably lower than guys like Allen (5.38), Carey Price (6.25), Braden Holtby (6.81), and Matt Murray (8.33). If Minnesota can perform similarly defensively this season as they did the last, it’s a great way to artificially inflate his save percentage by giving him easier shots to face. I don’t see any reason why there should be a big drop-off in play from the team, so another good season from Dubnyk seems likely.

As I mentioned in the opening, it’s not specifically where a player is ranked, but what that rank is relative others. Aside from a small handful of goalies like Price and Holtby, how many net minders are in a better situation with a solid track record than Dubnyk? Not many. I do wonder if there will be a discrepancy between his actual ADP and this ranking, but if he’s going anywhere near the 10^th goaltender off the board, it seems like a strong option to me.

Scott Darling – 120^th overall, 23^rd goalie ranked

I suppose there are two concerns with Darling in Carolina:

1. Can his limited but stellar track record be relied upon for fantasy owners?
2. Does he end up in some sort of timeshare with Cam Ward?

As for the second question first: please, god, no. I can’t possibly imagine a team using a 33-year-old goalie with a .907 save percentage over his last 206 starts in any sort of timeshare beyond purely a backup. However, I also thought the same thing last year, and the year before. Coaches are weird and sometimes can’t let go of their binky. Ward is the binky in Carolina.

But I just truly, madly, deeply cannot fathom Ward eating into Darling’s starts in a significant manner. If that does happen, though, it’ll break me, shake me and force me to crash and burn.

As for the track record, I get it. Goalies are notoriously difficult to predict, and beyond maybe three or four goaltenders, how many can really be relied upon? That’s even with guys like Tuukka Rask, Corey Crawford, and Henrik Lundqvist having several excellent seasons over the last five years or so. With the sample we do have, though, Darling has been very good; in his 3272 minutes of five-on-five over the last three years, his high-danger save percentage is .847. For reference, Holtby’s is .833, Murray’s is .842, and Price sits at .865. All of them are above average.

For another reference, here is how he compares to Cam Talbot over the last three seasons:

Assuming Ward doesn’t start more than 20-25 games, and that Carolina is a team on the rise (they are), the concerns are Darling handling a full workload for the first time, and the sample size of what he’s done so far. I think those concerns are built into this ranking. I do not have these concerns. His stats are solid, my extremely amateurish eyes saw when he was in net for Chicago said the same, and he’s now the man for a franchise. If I can get him anywhere in the same tier as Jaroslav Halak or Marc-André Fleury, I consider that a gift.

****

Those are three guys that really caught my eye for their rankings. Here are a few more quick hits on some others that piqued my interest.

Frederik Andersen – 76^th overall, 17^th goalie ranked

The Leafs starter going somewhere in the middle of the goalie 2 rankings feels about right. This isn’t hating on the Leafs, so put those pitchforks away (for now). It’s just the Leafs played at a very high pace last year which meant not only did they generate a lot of shots, but they allowed a lot in return. It is possible to win that way (they made the playoffs doing it!), but it also should jack up the goals against average for Andersen. He could still have a solid season personally but if he’s barraged by shots night in and night out, being much better than this ranking will be difficult.

Roberto Luongo – 198^th overall, 27^th goalie ranked

This is likely a situation that I’ll just completely avoid this year, which is a change because this was a situation I was all-in on last year, drafting both he and James Reimer in more than one league. Luongo wasn’t outright bad last year as a .915 save percentage is fine when the league average is .913. I don’t think this team improved in the off-season though and he’ll still, at best, be in a timeshare with Reimer. It’s nice that he won’t cost much at the draft table but even at that cost, I think I’d rather a backup on a good team like Phillip Grubauer or Aaron Dell.

Antti Raanta – 251^st overall, 36^th goalie ranked

The Coyotes are another team on the rise like Carolina, but they have further to go. I think the Hurricanes have a chance to push for a playoff spot while Arizona would do well just to stay out of the lottery. Speaking of lottery, though, I think this spot is well worth the risk when taking Raanta. He, like Darling, doesn’t have a huge track record, but has been stellar. We’ve seen goalies on bad teams have very good seasons before (Semyon Varlamov a few years ago, Robin Lehner last year), and that speaks to the randomness of the position. I would not want to rely on Raanta as one of my top two goalies, but if I can grab him as a third, that’s a risk very well worth taking.