I picked Roberto Luongo, but I didn't really argue it particularly well. In retrospect, what I wish I had sent him was the following chart. I didn't have these numbers back then, but I have since put together the even strength save percentage leaders from '99-00 to '08-09, minimum 250 GP, with the number of shots faced with their playoff numbers thrown in for good measure:
| Rank | Goalie | EV SV% | EV SA | PO EV SV% | PO EV SA |
| 1. | Patrick Roy | .929 | 4,962 | .934 | 1,414 |
| 2. | Roberto Luongo | .929 | 12,083 | .936 | 535 |
| 3. | Dominik Hasek | .927 | 5,986 | .935 | 1,223 |
| 4. | Tomas Vokoun | .927 | 10,510 | .917 | 276 |
| 5. | J.S. Giguere | .927 | 9,046 | .942 | 1,129 |
| 6. | Henrik Lundqvist | .925 | 5,397 | .926 | 658 |
| 7. | Sean Burke | .925 | 6,158 | .905 | 264 |
| 8. | Manny Fernandez | .923 | 6,704 | .944 | 214 |
| 9. | Miikka Kiprusoff | .923 | 7,712 | .934 | 1,199 |
| 10. | Evgeni Nabokov | .923 | 9,576 | .927 | 1,368 |
| 11. | Marty Turco | .922 | 8,298 | .931 | 1,027 |
| 12. | Martin Brodeur | .922 | 12,770 | .930 | 2,356 |
| 13. | Martin Biron | .921 | 9,085 | .927 | 604 |
| 14. | Ryan Miller | .920 | 5,902 | .932 | 775 |
| 15. | Dwayne Roloson | .919 | 8,136 | .929 | 644 |
I'd like to see the goalie of the decade finish at least somewhere in the top 10, wouldn't you? Brodeur is also just 9th in playoff EV SV% among the goalies on this list. I think I'm going to stick with Bobby Lou on this one.
Roy and Hasek are old guys here yet still show up at the top of the list, just to remind us how great they were.
The race for the second team spot is pretty tight. J.S. Giguere would probably be deserving, especially if you put a heavy weighting on playoff performance. Roy and Hasek would be in the mix, although they don't have as much playing time as some of the others. I expect if I factored in shot prevention effects that Turco and Brodeur would jump up to about the Lundqvist level, and at that point if you really like durability you could argue for Brodeur. The problem is that when we start splitting hairs over a couple thousandths of save percentages, then we're certainly painting in shades of grey. It may be true that there isn't a large variance in shot quality at even strength most of the time, but outliers do exist. There are also other variables like non-save skills and scorer biases that come into play, and even a small .002 or .003 effect for each netminder could significantly reshuffle the rankings.
It's about time for Tomas Vokoun to start getting some recognition. With his great performances on a lousy Florida team, he's pretty much Roberto Luongo V2.0. With Kiprusoff's recent slide out of elite territory, Vokoun looks like a clear top-5 guy to me.
Finally, Martin Biron is another goalie that seems to get maligned by people for no good reason. Moving him out to make room for Ray Emery and Brian Boucher strikes me as an unwise gamble. I'd probably take Antero Niittymaki over either Emery or Boucher, yet Philadelphia let him walk out the door as well. We'll see how their goaltending ends up working out for them next season.
16 comments:
as if using only one stat(save %) to rank goalies was not enough, now it looks like your getting even further carried away by only using a fraction of that single stat(ES save %) to weight goalies. the credibility continues to fade.
Again with the "you're only using one stat!" critique? Just because someone tracks numbers doesn't mean those numbers are significant. If I tried to argue that Wayne Gretzky was the best player of all time because he has 2,857 career points, would you complain about the perils of focusing on one stat and demand that I look at his giveaways, faceoff winning percentage, and penalty minutes as well?
I'm not saying that there aren't any other stats that matter, but just like points scored is the most important stat for forwards, save percentage is the most important stat for goalies. When doing a quick comparison or trying to present a concise argument, like I am doing here, then it is wise to rely on the most important numbers.
I've done more in-depth studies that have relied on different statistics or different ways of adjusting save percentage. Take this post or this one or this one. The amount of agreement between those studies and studies based primarily on save percentage are very strong evidence that save percentage is the key stat and that save percentage adjusted for team variables, non-save skills, and scorer bias would in my opinion tell you pretty much all you need to know about a goalie's performance.
I believe these numbers here are only post-lockout, but why is it yours don't seem to mesh with the chart at the bottom for goalies like Miller and Lundqvist?
If by "goalie of the decade" we are excluding the year 1998-99, clearly it has to be J-S Giguere. Giggy has three seasons as a starter with a .920 or better overall save percentage, one that is very close to .920, a Stanley Cup, and he singlehandedly nearly carried a very mediocre team to a Cup. Your own stats show him as being equally good as Dominik Hasek for the decade, to boot.
Vokoun, Luongo, Brodeur, and Kiprusoff (roughly in that order) deserve honorable mention, but since Hasek's best years were in '99 and prior, clearly it has to be Giggy for me.
Just a clarification: These are not post-lockout numbers, they are totals from the last decade, i.e. 1999-00 to 2008-09.
If '99-00 is the cutoff, then the goaltender of the decade is J-S, hands down.
Anonymous said...
If '99-00 is the cutoff, then the goaltender of the decade is J-S, hands down.
.............
Funny that not once in that span was he recognized by either the GM's (Vezina) or writers (post all star selection) as the best in the league. Yet he was the best? There is a better case out there for Kipper, if you even want to continue to contest that it isnt Brodeur.
"Again with the "you're only using one stat!" critique? Just because someone tracks numbers doesn't mean those numbers are significant. If I tried to argue that Wayne Gretzky was the best player of all time because he has 2,857 career points, would you complain about the perils of focusing on one stat and demand that I look at his giveaways, faceoff winning percentage, and penalty minutes as well?"
........
And so the contradictions continue. I remember not too long ago, a couple of months ago perhaps, you going off on some tangent about how Glenn Anderson or Jarri Kurri were not Hall of Famers despite their numbers? How it was necessary to look beyond the point totals. Now all of a sudden the tune changes...again. Surprising.
Interesting stats, sir. Your comments section always gives me a giggle for the anonymous vitriol.
"Funny that not once in that span was he recognized by either the GM's (Vezina) or writers (post all star selection) as the best in the league. Yet he was the best? There is a better case out there for Kipper, if you even want to continue to contest that it isnt Brodeur."
Your god is a good goalie. That's not argued by anybody here. He definitely deserved the '08 Vezina. But put any stock in the hockeywriters and GMs is preposterous. These are the guys who just unanimously gave a kid with ONE good month (Mason) the Calder Trophy. Why didn't they give Turco (who was more qualified than Brodeur in '03, if you don't agree with the choice of Giggy) the Vezina?
Anyhoo, thanks for keeping us entertained!
"I remember not too long ago, a couple of months ago perhaps, you going off on some tangent about how Glenn Anderson or Jarri Kurri were not Hall of Famers despite their numbers? How it was necessary to look beyond the point totals. Now all of a sudden the tune changes...again. Surprising."
You're confusing me with one of the other commenters. I have never argued, nor would I ever argue, that Jari Kurri is not a Hall of Famer. I did a post on how Glenn Anderson's scoring varied by game situation, but I don't think I discussed his Hall of Fame credentials.
Interesting stuff. I remember Sportsnet used to interview a lot of players and ask them a load of questions, every once in a while they would run a compilation.
The last one I saw was about 8 or 9 years ago, it was Anson Carter's first or second year as an Oiler I think, so probably 2000 or 2001. And the question I remember was "who was the best goalie in the league", and they couldn't pick the goalie from their own team.
It was at least two dozen players, and as you would expect Hasek and Roy were runaway leaders in the voting. I wasn't counting, but but gut feel I think Hasek probably edged out Roy about 15 to 13.
I remember the selections of the Oiler and ex-Oiler players that were interviewed. Anson Carter gave the only vote for Brodeur, Guerin the only vote for CuJo, and Weight voted for Roy. The Oilers as a team did pretty well against Roy over the years by my memory, at least compared to everyone else. Roy was completely inside Weight's head though, it was to the point that he wouldn't even take a shot on Patrick.
Belfour got two votes. His two votes came from guys who ranked high in the "best wrist shot" category in the same video poll. And since Modano couldn't vote for Eddy, I would think it was two of Kariya, Yzerman and Sakic.
It would be cool if they did the same thing now. And it would be interestng to see how close their votes would match your list. I suspect that Luongo would run away with it, and that guys like Vokoun, Giggy and Lundqvist would get a lot more love from them than they get from Kelly Hrudey. But I dunno.
Also, it is possible to turn off anonymous comments using blogger settings, should you wish to do so.
Anson Carter was always an interesting interview. I remember him talking about Hasek one time, he said that when he first started playing against Hasek and watching him on tape he thought he was just getting lucky. That he still felt that way when he watched Hasek play.
Time went by, Hasek kept stopping pucks at a terrific rate, and eventually he decided nobody could be that lucky.
Again just by memory, but I think the Oilers did pretty well against Hasek, relatively speaking, over the years as well. Smyth especially, and I remember Guerin undressing him on a breakaway in the third period to score the game winner. And Hasek was usually gold on breakaways, Guerin not so much.
CG: Somewhat off-topic, but not entirely. I'm keen to know more about your new benchmark of EV Sv%, and would like some context on a league wide basis.
What I would like to know is on a per-season basis, what is the league average in these categories:
EV Sv% + PP Sv% + SH Sv% = Sv%
Both regular season and playoffs if that is possible, as far back as those stats are available. It sounds like a big request but I get the impression you've already done the work, and it would be great to have a reference source, preferably in a separate post. Perhaps you have posted this already?
Also, can you also clarify for me whether PP Sv% is for the goalie whose team is on the PP and is therefore facing SH chances, or vice versa? It's likely clear in context with shot numbers and such, but I just want to avoid confusion so thought I would ask an authoritative source.
I have my own stat-backed opinion on Goalie of the Decade, but have no time to post right now. I'll get back to you on that.
Thanks!!!
Hi Bruce,
Looking forward to hearing your arguments. It is certainly possible to make the case for a few different guys. There is a solid group of strong goalies at the top of the leaderboard with nobody really separating themselves a la Hasek in the '90s.
I've been planning a couple of numbers dump posts for a while related to EV and PK SV%, and I will make sure to include league averages as well.
Whenever I use PK SV%, I mean that the goalie's team is on the penalty kill. The NHL.com numbers make it confusing because they have it backwards - Power Play means the goalie's team is on the PK. If you are looking at the situational numbers it's pretty easy to tell which one is which, as goalies will face a lot more shots when down a man than when up a man.
Vic: I'm not sure whether I trust players to evaluate goalies, I think they put a lot of stock in the conventional wisdom or just go with whoever they have seen good. Many of them would only have played someone like Luongo or Brodeur a couple of times per season, which isn't a representative sample.
I'd be more interested in what the goalies think about it, although even then a lot of the former goalies up in the broadcast booth seem to be consistently off the mark. I think most observers, both goalies and non-goalies alike, overrate the importance of rebound control and puckhandling, underrate the importance of making the first save, and give too much credit or blame for team results.
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