Today on Frozen Tools Forensics we are going to turn to goalies. It is hard to read too much into any preseason results so instead we will be looking back to the 2023-24 data to see if there are any little bits of wisdom we can pick up. We should start with the known quantity that there is a ton of randomness with goalies so making predictions can be incredibly challenging. We do have a couple of stats though that can help explain a bit about what happened to a goalie's season that will give us a better context for expectations going forward.

The focus for today will be on a series of stats, but most importantly shorthanded save-percentage (SHSV%), quality start percentage (QS%), and goals saved above expected (GSAV 5V5). As a quick primer, short-handed save percentage is exactly what it sounds like a goalies save percentage while the team is shorthanded. It is an interesting stat to review because it can have a pretty big impact on a goalies season, but is an incredibly small sample of minutes. Because of that the results can vary wildly and are typically non-repeatable from year to year. Short-handed save percentages are typically not fantastic but if a goalie is well above .860 or well below .840 we can assume that some kind of luck was impacting their numbers.

Quality starts are games where a goalie is above the league average in save percentage, or a game with fewer than 20 shots and a save percentage above 88.5. This stat gives us an excellent snapshot of how often a goalie is really blowing up your numbers and hurting your fantasy team. An effective goalie should definitely be over 50 percent here, though it is not often a goalie is up above 70 percent.

Our goals saved above expected stat is taken using just five on five play. It attempts to take in the quality of the workload the goalie has faced. Since team and defense quality vary wildly, we might expect a goalies' individual results to change based on the team they play for. This stat is a way to assess the danger of all the shots against and make a guess as to what an average goalie would have stopped in that situation. That number is compared to the goalie's actual results and we see the difference. A zero then would indicate the performance level of an average NHL goalie.

Moving right on to our data then. Starting on the left, our table contains some basic player information (name, team, and games played). We then move on to some basic top line numbers with wins and overall save percentage. Then finally we move into some more depth with short-handed save percentage, quality start percentage, and goals saved above expected.

For our first table we are sorting by goalies that had the highest shorthanded save percentage.

Right off the bat we know that is a group who we should be asking some questions about. The fact that their shorthanded save percentages are this high means that a chunk of the success they experience is very unlikely to be repeated.

I would like to group these goalies a little bit more though. Thatcher Demko, David Rittich, Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen, and Charlie Lindgren are my first group, and probably the group I am least concerned about. They all have decent save percentages so wouldn't be destroyed if they dropped off by a couple of percentage points, all had strong quality start numbers, but most importantly were all in the positives in terms of their five-on-five play. Essentially even though they benefited a bit from some lucky shorthanded numbers their overall play was still quite good, and they performed better than an average NHL goalie would have done in their place at five-on-five. It shows that they still mostly deserved the seasons they got, and hopefully can do the same again in 2024-25.

My second grouping is Cam Talbot, Pyotr Kochetkov, and Jake Oettinger. This group is definitely less consistent than the prior, which makes me a little bit more concerned about their results. Talbot had a great quality start number and a good save percentage, but was only ok at even strength and saw a pretty amazing penalty kill save percentage. Without being able to count on that in the future it is pretty unlikely he repeats this performance. Basically, the same story for Kotchetkov though his quality start numbers and five on five performance are a bit worse. Oettinger has a bit of an asterisk in the group as his shorthanded save percentage is a lot closer to reasonable (if still high) but his overall save percentage, his quilty start numbers, and his goals saved above expected are the worst of the group, and in particular his goals saved above expected number is a bit worrying. He has less potential for a fall than the other two, but he performed worse.

That leaves us with a group with definitely a few red flags. Both Joseph Woll and Adin Hill had high save percentages, were under water in terms of quality starts, and saved fewer goals at even strength than an average NHL goalie would have. Neither have a particularly long track record so that is another reason for concern. It just doesn't strike me as optimistic that some exceedingly good luck while shorthanded didn't produce better results in overall save percentage and quality start numbers, and I wonder what happens when that shorthanded save percentage goes in the other direction.

Frederik Andersen sort of is in his own tier here. His quality start number is fantastic, his overall save percentage very impressive, and his short-handed save percentage incredible. Clearly that is going to change, but he also only got to play in 16 games, so it is a little hard to read too much into this sample.

On the flip side here are the goalies who had the worst short-handed save percentage.

In the opposite case of the above group, there might be some reason for optimism here as some of these goalies' disappointing performances should certainly be attributed to their bad luck shorthanded.

Our first group consists of Arvid Soderblom, Darcy Kuemper, Joonas Korpisalo, and Anton Forsberg. Luckily most of this group are backups as I am the least optimistic about a bounce back here. Yes, save percentages could improve a bit but Kuemper leads the pack with a quality start percentage of 42.4 percent – which let's just be clear, is very bad. All of them were also significantly under water at even strength, performing worse than we would have expected an average goalie to perform in their situation. Essentially that implies that even a bit of a course correction shorthanded likely wouldn't be enough to fix their overall performance. Dustin Wolf kind of falls into this category too, but I am more willing to cut him a little slack. Both because it was his first NHL experience, and because we are talking about the smallest sample size of only 17 games.

I am a little more optimistic for our next group. While not always exactly the same profile, Marc-Andre Fleury, Kevin Lankinen, John Gibson, and Ilya Samsonov show some potential. Lankinen had a miserable quality start number, but a good save percentage and excellent GSAx number. All with an atrocious shorthanded save percentage. Fleury and Samsonov had slightly more reasonable quality start numbers than most of this group even with a poor short-handed save percentage and with a change in tune there their save percentages probably at least break .900. Gibson is the definition of 'eh' of the group, but clearly a rebound shorthanded would be helpful.

That leaves us with Ilya Sorokin. He somehow managed a .909 save percentage and almost a 60 percent quality start number while having one of the worst short-handed save percentages in the league. He performed significantly above his expectation at five on five as well. All things considered it was not a terrible performance from Sorokin and there is certainly reason to believe it could have gone even better. That makes me the most optimistic about him going forward. Unfortunately, the issue is clearly going to be his current injury concerns, which also hampered his overall volume at points in 2023-24.

That is all for this week

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