Most Valuable Goalie

There are many things that can be looked at in determining the greatest of all-time. Awards voting is often heavily depended on to compare players across different eras. However, especially when it comes to goalies, the awards voting is often suspect, and goalies that aren't that good but play on very good teams are often rewarded with Vezinas and First Team All-Stars ahead of probably more deserving candidates.

However, when it comes to MVP voting, this bias is less observable. There have been goalies that finished very high in MVP voting on terrible teams, the best example being Al Rollins who won the 1954 Hart Trophy on the worst team in the league. There are some who scoff at this decision, naming it one of the worst in history, but Rollins was also rated as the league's most valuable goalie in 1951 and 1953, indicating that the observers of the time thought he was very valuable to his team.

I went through the years and found which goalie ranked the highest in Hart Trophy voting, and awarded them a "most valuable goalie" award. Here are how the top goalies came out in number of times being named the most valuable goaltender in the NHL:

1. Dominik Hasek 5
2. Roy Worters 4
3. Frank Brimsek 3
3. Ken Dryden 3
3. Glenn Hall 3
3. Al Rollins 3
3. Patrick Roy 3
3. Terry Sawchuk 3
10. Martin Brodeur 2
10. Bill Durnan 2
10. Tony Esposito 2
10. Grant Fuhr 2
10. Ed Giacomin 2
10. Mike Liut 2
10. Jacques Plante 2
10. Rogie Vachon 2

These votes tended to be more spread out among various goalies, and probably gives a more realistic indicator of which goalies were dominant, rather than simply which goalies were fortunate enough to play a number of years on a dominant team.

The Value of Opportunity

Imagine if you worked at a profession where at the highest level there was only room for the 60 best. To get to that top level, you had to work your way through a number of different entry levels, working on a lot of different teams where you contributed in a specialized role along with one or two others possessing the same skill set. Evaluation was partly based on individual performance, but much of the grade came from the success or failure of the team as a whole. I think in this scenario it is very easy to envision a very inefficient selection process, where politics, connections, and luck all play an important role in one's eventual success.

I think we would like to believe that the NHL is an efficient market for talent, and that the best will rise to the top. However, there is plenty of reason to believe that this is not the case. It is inconceivable that there are not dozens of goalies out there who are better than Andrew Raycroft or Dan Cloutier but who are not currently collecting an NHL paycheque and likely never will.

There are two main types of opportunity or lack thereof: the opportunity to play on a contending team, and the opportunity to play big minutes. Some goalies never got a chance to play on a winning team, so they never won anything. They are often judged harshly for that reason, even though their performance might have been very, very good.

Curtis Joseph never won anything, people say, so he wasn't a great goalie and shouldn't be in the Hall of Fame. Actually, his record in the first and second rounds of the NHL playoffs is quite good (and indeed very similar to Martin Brodeur's), the difference was that Cujo's teammates just weren't as good so they lost. Joseph's record of brilliant postseason games rivals anyone of his generation, yet he is somehow seen as "unclutch". There are plenty of examples of excellent goalies who get overlooked in the annals of hockey history because their teammates were a bunch of scrubs, such as Al Rollins, Gilles Meloche, pre-lockout Roberto Luongo and others.

But at least those guys got to play in the first place. Some goalies never really caught the break to allow them to displays their talents. Jamie Storr was a very talented goalie, touted as a can't miss prospect. He had some very good stretches in the NHL as well, posting above average save percentages more often than not (from 1996 to 1999 his stat line reads: .918, .925, .929, .916). But he struggled on the few occasions when he was given the chance to win the starter's role, and never broke through as a #1. Could it be argued that he didn't have the mental makeup to be an NHL starter? Maybe. But maybe he was just unlucky that his performance happened to be relatively poor in the decisive 20 or 30 games where the window of opportunity presented itself. What if a patient, rebuilding team had given him 50-60 starts for 3 years in a row? Is it likely that his talent would have revealed itself and led to a long and successful career? You can never know for sure in what-if scenarios, but I'd make that bet.

There are plenty of what-if questions. How many goalies in the Original Six era were like Johnny Bower, just waiting for a chance to show what they could do? What if overlooked goalies like Miikka Kiprusoff had played out the string in the minors or as backups on their original teams, rather than moving elsewhere and achieving greatness? Opportunity is very valuable. If Dominik Hasek could sit around as somebody else's backup in the middle of his prime then it could happen to anybody, and when there are only 60 jobs available in the world there isn't much opportunity to go around.

Whether or not you are a fan of Martin Brodeur, it is tough to deny that he had the opportunity to enter one of the best possible goaltending situations in the game. He broke in just as scoring began to decline on what would soon become the best defensive team in the league. His team had an aging veteran (Chris Terreri) as the #1 and nobody else to really challenge for the starting job. Thus Brodeur quickly received big minutes as a starting goalie in the NHL. He had a couple of stretches early in his career where he played quite well, especially the 1995 playoffs, and became entrenched as the starting goalie in the Swamp. Over a decade of stingy team defence later, he is seen as an all-time great. Would that have been the case if he was drafted by a team with an established All-Star goalie like Belfour or Roy playing most of the minutes, or perhaps if he went to an expansion team like San Jose and faced an avalanche of rubber every night? It probably would have been quite a different story.

As the most experienced starting goalie in the NHL, with over 56,000 minutes played, it shouldn't be too surprising that by now Brodeur has become a good goalie. But how much of a role did opportunity play in his success? Probably a significant one, which is why it is interesting to speculate about how many other goalies who would have had Hall of Fame careers if they broke into the NHL in 1993-94 playing for the New Jersey Devils.

Subjective Factors in Goaltending

How much weight should we give to subjective factors? Can scouts really evaluate the difference between two goalies? Are public perceptions of goalies often right? Do we properly value non-save skills in goalies?

These are important questions, especially for someone like Martin Brodeur who receives more glowing hagiography about his intangibles and his goaltending artistry than anyone since Roy. A lot of the feedback I get is along the lines of, "Haven't you ever seen him play?" The problem with putting a lot of weight into these reports, however, is that these effects are almost never observed in the data, and in a number of cases seems to suggest the complete opposite.

For example, here are a few common debate points, along with the numerical reality:

Brodeur never gives the puck away (According to NHL RTSS stats, he gives the puck away more than the opposing goalie at the other end of the ice in 2005-06, 2006-07, as well as so far in 2007-08).

Brodeur prevents shots (his backup goalies have faced essentially the same shot levels as he has).

Brodeur makes shooters miss more frequently through good positioning (He has been well below average in terms of making shooters miss this year (60th among goalies) and last (45th), source: Behind the Net)

Brodeur makes the big saves at the key times (Little evidence of that, and the playoff overtime performance sample suggests, if anything, the complete opposite).

Brodeur controls his rebounds very well...this one is probably true, but it is difficult to measure and is impacted by shot quality against and defensive play in front of the goaltender.

So there are several oft-repeated refrains in support of Brodeur. Other goalies have received similar treatment - e.g. Grant Fuhr and the "big save at the key time", or Patrick Roy's ability to "carry a team on his back". Both of these claims are just as doubtful as some of the ones listed above.

I think we have to clearly separate what is aesthetically pleasing, skillful and enjoyable to watch from what actually wins hockey games. There is very little margin in goaltending to begin with. The difference between good goalies is often something like one save in 50, a difference so small it is practically unobservable by the human eye. It can then become tempting to latch onto some other factor, like perhaps puckhandling ability, past playoff performance, or some other factor to break the tie, but this results in overweighting a single skill and ignoring the larger picture since by far the most important part of a goalie's job description is of course stopping the puck.

Two of the worst puckhandling goalies I have ever seen are Patrick Roy and Dominik Hasek. Both of them were responsible for many terrible giveaways, sometimes at the worst possible moments. Yet they both stopped a much greater percentage of shots than Brodeur did, which is why at the end of the day they were both significantly better goalies. Good puckhandling goalies are fun to watch, but the evidence is that their skills don't really make much of a difference in terms of winning or losing the game.

Another issue is clutch play, and more specifically whether it exists. Studies in other sports have found evidence of clutch play to be very slight or non-existent, and that generally players perform up to their level of ability in the clutch. Good players or players that have a lot of chances to succeed with the spotlight shining on them gain reputations as being clutch, when in reality their performance at the most important times is no better than the rest of the time.

So it is difficult to reconcile the subjective viewpoints with the objective record. I probably tend to weight the measurables more highly than some, which creates a difference of opinion. I believe that a skill, to be valuable, has to have an impact on winning hockey games, and if it does have an impact on winning games then that will sooner or later show up in some kind of observable way. But the existence of discrepancies between what is observed and what is measured ensures that debates will continue to rage, especially regarding Mr. Brodeur.

Martin Brodeur and the Upside Down Career Curve

When NHL play resumed after the 2005 lockout, Martin Brodeur re-entered the fray as the two-time defending Vezina Trophy winner. However, he longer had Scott Stevens and Scott Niedermayer playing in front of him, and the new rules were supposed to open up the game and circumvent the defensive tactics executed to perfection by his Devils teammates. Many saw this to be a test of how good he actually was.

For the first three months, Brodeur failed the test. On New Year's Eve, 2005, Brodeur was lit up for 6 goals on 22 shots by the lowly Toronto Maple Leafs. At that point in the season, his stat line was a mediocre 14-14-3, 2.94, .896. Based on that small sample, it looked like those who were claiming he was a team creation had been right all along.

But whether it was a New Year's resolution, something his goalie coach spotted in his game, or perhaps some other reason, the Martin Brodeur that went between the pipes in 2006 was very different than the 2005 version.

On January 3, Brodeur made 16 saves to shut out Florida, beginning a 9 game personal win streak, 3 of them by shutout, where he posted a .934 save percentage. This was followed by a strong finish to the year, a Vezina Trophy winning season in 2006-07 where Brodeur had his highest finish in save percentage since 1996-97, and after a rocky start to the current campaign he seems to have regained his form over the last two months to appear back up on the leaderboards.

So what happened? Has Brodeur's post-lockout performance been the proof that his backers have been waiting for? Can they claim that he was unjustifiably denigrated for years because of his poor defence, based on the evidence from the last 2 1/2 seasons? This post is certainly not going to stop them from claiming that, of course, but the reality is that the Martin Brodeur of 2006-08 is not the same goalie as he was before the lockout. Since New Year's Day 2006, Brodeur's performance has improved by every goaltending measure that I am aware of.

The result is that Brodeur's career path has been the exact opposite of most goalies. Here it is, broken down into three sections:

Up to 1997-98: .915 season save %, .931 playoffs save %
1998-99 to Dec. 31/05: .909 season save %, .917 playoffs save %
Jan. 1/06 to today: .921 season save %, .919 playoffs save %

Ordinarily, goalies would be peaking somewhere during the age 26-31 range, but those were actually some of the worst seasons of Brodeur's career so far, even during some of the most successful seasons for the New Jersey Devils and when overall league scoring was very low. Brodeur has spent roughly half his career as one of the top 5-10 goalies in the league, and has spent the other half around league average, i.e. somewhere in the top 15-20, despite playing for the same consistently strong team. This is a peculiar dichotomy, and belies the common characterization of Brodeur as a "consistent goalie".

Are there any underlying factors at work here? Could it be something related to power play differential, shot quality difference, or something else related to the new NHL rules? Let's break it down further to look at even-strength and penalty kill save percentages. Overall save percentages are often skewed by how many penalties a team takes, and Brodeur's teams have nearly always been the best in the league at avoiding calls. Detailed special team save percentage data from NHL.com is only available from the 2000-01 season, but that at least allows us to compare the "dead-puck" Devils to today's version and see what has changed.

Even-Strength:
2000-01: Brodeur .919, League .916 (Leader .932)
2001-02: Brodeur .917, League .917 (Leader .934)
2002-03: Brodeur .921, League .920 (Leader .940)
2003-04: Brodeur .924, League .924 (Leader .941)

Penalty Kill:
2000-01: Brodeur .839, League .863 (Leader .902)
2001-02: Brodeur .849, League .863 (Leader .922)
2002-03: Brodeur .866, League .868 (Leader .913)
2003-04: Brodeur .878, League .868 (Leader .916)

What do we see here? We see basically a league average goalie. This despite New Jersey allowing the easiest shot quality against in the league, as calculated by Alan Ryder at Hockey Analytics. Brodeur won two Vezinas in this period, but they were certainly undeserving choices.

Moving on to the post-lockout years:

Even-Strength:
2005-06: Brodeur .922, League .916 (Leader .941)
2006-07: Brodeur .927, League .916 (Leader .933)
2007-08: Brodeur .934, League .925 (Leader .948)

Penalty Kill:
2005-06: Brodeur .869, League .863 (Leader .899)
2006-07: Brodeur .904, League .863 (Leader .921)
2007-08: Brodeur .905, League .885 (Leader .917)

Here we see significant improvement, as Brodeur outperformed the league average significantly in both categories in 2006-07, as well as so far in 2007-08. Although he has never been the league leader in any of these categories, he is certainly much closer now than he was in the early '00s. The most drastic improvement is on the penalty kill.

Here is a graph that shows the above numbers visually.

Brodeur still faces a relatively low shot total against, even post-lockout. This year he is facing 26.4 shots per 60 minutes of play, which is just two more shots per game than he did in 2003-04 when the Devils were at their trapping best. Save percentage is independent of shots faced, so that does not seem to be a factor in his improvement.

Additionally, shot quality results from Hockey Analytics and Hockey Numbers indicate that New Jersey was among the league's best in terms of shot quality against in both 2005-06 and 2006-07. It is only this season that they have fallen off. They weren't as smothering as they were at their peak under Pat Burns in 2002-04, but the system was still functioning very effectively. Many have pointed out the inexperienced defence, but recent work by hockey bloggers indicates that it is the forward group that has a larger impact on the number and quality of shots for or against, and New Jersey has some very strong two-way forwards, led by Patrik Elias and Brian Gionta.

By bucking the normal career trend by improving as he ages, as well as having multiple seasons of average play camouflaged behind an excellent defence, Brodeur is leading many to conclude that we were missing something all along, and that he was the main reason for all the wins and shutouts, not the defence in front of him. That conclusion is wrong.

Even while facing similar numbers and quality of shots as before, Brodeur is simply stopping more of them. He is better now than he was with Stevens and Niedermayer. Nevertheless, his performance over the last two seasons does not change the fact that for 6 1/2 seasons he was very average behind one of the best defensive teams of all-time. It certainly does help his career standing, and if he continues his late career resurgence for several more years he could clearly separate himself from the crowded pack of solid long-time starters from the '90's and '00's (Belfour, Joseph, etc.). Brodeur is doing an excellent late career sales job, but he is going to have to sustain, if not even increase, his current pace for a number of seasons before he can be legitimately considered even one of the top 10 goalies of all-time.

Mike Keenan Knows Very Little About Goaltending

It is often difficult to advance contrarian positions about hockey players that contradict insider perspectives in hockey. A common retort in many of the comments and emails I receive goes something like, "But (Player X) or (General Manager Y) said Brodeur was great - how can you disagree?" General managers vote on awards like the Vezina Trophy, and their collective wisdom helps shape fan perception of certain players. However, some of these insiders have shown by their actions that they know little more about how to evaluate goalies than an average fan. One of the worst offenders has been Mike Keenan, a celebrated coach who has made his living in hockey despite being clueless about goalies for over 20 years.

In Philadelphia, Keenan built a solid defensive system that made his goalies look good most of the time. However, he chose Pelle Lindbergh as his starter over Bob Froese in 1984-85, and in 1985 until Lindbergh was killed in an accident. Lindbergh wasn't a bad goalie, but he was easily outplayed by Froese. Over the two years, the Flyers were 44-12-3 with Froese in net and 46-19-7 with Lindbergh. Froese had 2.51 GAA and .910 save percentage, Lindbergh just 3.00 and .898. It should have been obvious from the 1983-84 season who was better (Froese 28-13-7, 3.14, .887 at the age of 25; Lindbergh: 16-13-3, 4.05, .860 at the age of 24), but apparently not to Keenan. After the tragedy with Lindbergh, Keenan had to turn to Froese, but he also used the mediocre Darren Jensen and the aging Glenn "Chico" Resch. Keenan still never liked Froese, despite his excellent save percentage numbers, and handed the starting job to rookie Ron Hextall for the 1986-87 season. Midway through the year, Froese was traded to the New York Rangers.

Hextall put up worse numbers than Froese had done in 1985-86 (3.00, .902), but he won 37 games behind behind the Flyers' strong defence and received the Vezina Trophy. After this charmed season, Hextall's numbers then fell off significantly in 1987-88 (3.51, .885).

Keenan moved on to Chicago in 1988. As usual, he spent his first year there tinkering with the goaltending, challenging the incumbent starter Darren Pang with two rookies, Ed Belfour and Jimmy Waite, as well as the newly acquired Alain Chevrier. The goalie shuffle would continue in Chicago for another season, as both Jacques Cloutier and Greg Millen were brought in via trade, but both played poorly and were soon out of the league.

Dominik Hasek arrived in the NHL for the 1990-91 season, but Keenan wasn't a fan and held Hasek to just 5 games that first season, even though Hasek performed well in his first taste of NHL action (3-0-1, 2.46, .914). However, Belfour became the starter ahead of Millen and Cloutier (who was traded mid-season), playing 74 games and winning the Vezina Trophy with a 43-19-7 record, a 2.47 GAA, and a .910 save percentage. Keenan earns partial credit here for at least going with Belfour, even if he probably could have done even better with the Dominator.

Keenan moved upstairs to the GM position for the 1991-92 season, but he still didn't realize what he had with the Dominator. Hasek again put up solid stats (10-4-1, 2.60, .893), but Keenan traded him in the offseason to Buffalo for Stephane Beauregard. Iron Mike decided that he would rather have Jimmy Waite as a backup than Dominik Hasek, even though in 1991-92, Waite played 17 games with a 3.69 GAA and an .844 save percentage.

Jimmy Waite is a great example of a goalie that Keenan completely mis-evaluated. Waite played 53 games for Chicago with Keenan as coach or GM, and nearly all of them were awful - 3.72 GAA and .853 save percentage. Yet Keenan thought he was good enough to stick around, and traded one of the greatest goalies of all-time (Hasek) to move Waite up on the depth chart.

Keenan was fired in Chicago after the 1992-93 season, and found work in New York, where he made his legend by winning the Stanley Cup. With Mike Richter in net, Keenan couldn't possibly screw it up in New York. However, his term on Broadway was very short, and they were still celebrating the Cup win when he decided to move on.

Iron Mike soon found himself brought into the St. Louis Blues organization as both coach & GM. There, Keenan inherited another stellar netminder in Curtis Joseph. However, he decided to sign Shayne Corson away from Edmonton, which cost the Blues two first round picks in compensation. To get the picks back, Keenan traded Joseph and Mike Grier to Edmonton. Corson scored just 20 goals in 88 games in St. Louis, while Curtis Joseph remained one of the league's best goalies for the next decade in Edmonton, Toronto, and Detroit.

To replace Cujo, Keenan signed the aging Grant Fuhr and kept the incumbent Jon Casey, who was also getting up in years, as the backup for the next two seasons. In a low-scoring era, Fuhr was below average (.902 save percentage), and Casey was downright awful (.864). Despite a blue-line that included Al MacInnis and Chris Pronger, the Blues never won anything under Keenan, often because they were let down by their goaltending. Even after Keenan's departure, St. Louis continued to ride Fuhr to disappointing results, until they finally replaced him with Roman Turek and were rewarded with the President's Trophy in 1999-00.

Keenan moved to Vancouver, where he had Arturs Irbe and Kirk McLean. Irbe had a strong season in Vancouver in 1997-98 (2.73, .907), but he wasn't re-signed and moved on to Carolina where he had an even better one (2.22, .923). Pat Quinn was GM in Vancouver, and it is difficult to know how much input Keenan had on some of the goaltending decisions, however it is probably reasonable to assume that Quinn at least consulted with Keenan before making his moves. Midway through the season, Vancouver made a pretty good trade, swapping Martin Gelinas and Kirk McLean for Sean Burke, Geoff Sanderson, and Enrico Ciccone. However, the Canucks managed to mess it up again two months later, getting rid of Burke again in exchange for Garth Snow. Burke was admittedly not particularly outstanding in his brief stint in Vancouver, albeit on a weak team, but trading him for Snow was a blunder. Over the next 5 seasons, Sean Burke established himself as one of the best goalies in the game, posting excellent statistics (2.40, .917). During the same period, Garth Snow continued to be mediocre (2.74, .904), only outlasting Keenan in Vancouver by one season before leaving via free agency. Again, that one is probably more on Quinn than Keenan, but in any event, Iron Mike's choices for backup goalies in Vancouver, Corey Hirsch and Kevin Weekes, were terrible, combining for a 3-16-4 record with awful save statistics.

In 2000-01, Keenan coached the Bruins. He had a solid starter in Byron Dafoe (2.39 and .906 in '00-01), but throughout the course of the season Dafoe missed 35 games to injury. Keenan used four other goalies in backup and replacement duty, but they were mostly terrible, including Peter Skudra (.879), John Grahame (.867), and Kay Whitmore (.809)(!). Having such terrible goalies play big minutes was one of the major reasons the Bruins finished 9th in the East and missed the playoffs.

Keenan was fired as a result of the disappointing finish, but he found a new home in Florida, where he had an elite young goalie in Roberto Luongo. Keenan managed not to screw this situation up for three full seasons until just as he was on his way out the door, when he pulled the trigger on the now infamous trade with Vancouver (Luongo, Lukas Krajicek and a 6th round pick to Vancouver for Alex Auld, Todd Bertuzzi, and Bryan Allen). Shortly after, Keenan resigned as GM.

Keenan is now in Calgary, where he has another star goalie in Miikka Kiprusoff. Kiprusoff has been playing poorly this season, but whether that is influenced by Keenan, is because of poor team defence or just a slump is difficult to determine. It will be interesting to see how Keenan handles the situation. If he was also the GM, I would almost expect him to trade Kiprusoff for pennies on the dollar and bring in a goalie who is way past his prime (Ed Belfour, perhaps?) to take his spot.

Mike Keenan may be a good hockey coach in terms of motivation and team defensive play, but he should never be allowed to make personnel decisions about hockey goalies. His record in that department is absolutely terrible. Nearly every decision or trade he has made involving goalies has turned out bad, and some of them spectacularly so. Keenan traded Hasek, Joseph, and Luongo, and got almost nothing in return for all three of them (all the players acquired combined for just 227 games with their new teams). He also chose to play other goalies ahead of Bob Froese and Sean Burke, which probably contributed to them being traded away for little returns, and he played some brutal backups for far too many games (most notably Jimmy Waite and Jon Casey). Keenan is an extreme case, but the reality is that some scouts, GMs and coaches are not good at evaluating goalies, and whether or not they get paid by an NHL team or have a Vezina vote doesn't change that fact at all.

On Games Played

One of the differences of opinion I have with many other hockey spectators is with respect to the importance of games played for a goaltender. I maintain that in almost all cases there is no significant difference between a goalie who plays 50 games and a goalie who plays 80 games, other than the coaching and team management philosophy that led to those results. Goalies should be durable enough to play the lion's share of their team's games, but extra starts beyond that are mostly just an opportunity for certain goalies to pad their stats, simply because their coaches like to ride their starters, they have established reputations, their teams are up against the cap or because their backups are weak.

I have not seen any evidence that goalie performance deteriorates with more minutes played. Remember the talk about how Brodeur was tired in the playoffs last season? Over the last 6 seasons, Brodeur has the following line in regular season games held in April: 22-3-1, 1.87, .928. I also once did a long post about Grant Fuhr and the 1987-88 season, where he went from 44 games played to 75 games played because of the absence of Andy Moog, and put up an identical save percentage and a virtually identical winning percentage. His performance was exactly the same, just with more of it, and that won him the Vezina. Evgeni Nabokov played 56% of the minutes in San Jose last year, and did pretty well. This year he has played 98% of the minutes and his performance is very similar. Did he work on his durability over the summer? Of course not, his backup went from Vesa Toskala to a guy who put up an .888 save percentage in the AHL last season. Not surprisingly, Nabokov's coach gave him more starts.

Virtually every goalie in the NHL is capable of logging big minutes and playing well. To get to that level, they would have been the starters in minor hockey, junior or college hockey, and in most cases the minor leagues as well. I looked at the 30 current starting goalies in the NHL to see how many of them were experienced goalies (more than 5 full years in the league) without multiple good seasons with 65+ games played. Here is the complete list:

Martin Biron, Rick DiPietro, Johan Hedberg, Manny Legace, Dwayne Roloson, J.S. Giguere

I'd say there is enough evidence that Biron, DiPietro, Roloson and Giguere are capable of playing big minutes. Giguere and DiPietro have both fallen just short of my arbitrary 65 game cutoff a number of times, and Biron and Roloson have both spent most of their careers as backups or platoon goalies, although they have been quite good in the full seasons they have played (Roloson has played in 108 of 136 games since being traded to Edmonton, Biron's career best save percentage was during his 72 game season in 2001-02 and he's been great carrying the load in Philly).

So I'm not sure that Johan Hedberg and Manny Legace can handle big minutes as starting goalies, but other than that I'm pretty sure every current experienced NHL starting goalie is capable of handling a lot of games.

But Brodeur has done it year after year for over a decade, you say. Yes, he has. So have guys like Olaf Kolzig, without nearly the same level of attention. There are two main reasons why guys see their games played reduced: their backups get better, or their performance drops off. Brodeur's games played dropped when New Jersey had Mike Dunham from 1996-98. His playing time increased again when Dunham was replaced by weaker backups, even though Brodeur's performance dropped from .927 in 1997-98 to .906 in 1998-99, and then .910, .906, and .906 over the next 3 seasons. Brodeur's advantage, however, was his low shots against, so his low GAA and high win totals helped mask the fact that his performance wasn't as good. A goalie on a weaker team who had that kind of deterioration in save efficiency might have dropped below .900 in save percentage, and his coach would probably be looking to give somebody else a shot. Brodeur had an established reputation, was on a team that inflated his perceived performance level, faced fewer and easier shots than other goalies, and played with poor backups. And yes, he is very durable. So it is not surprising at all that he ended up playing a lot of games.

But surely it must be valuable to have a goalie log a lot of minutes at an above average level of play? Yes, of course, since any team would rather have above average play than mediocre play, and if the goalie is better than any other option on the team then they are better off with him in the nets as much as possible. But what about a goalie who plays fewer games, but at a higher level of performance? Is that better or worse than a Brodeur-type who is always in the net?

Well, let's take some hypotheticals here. Let's compare a .910 goalie who plays every single game in a season for his team, against a .925 goalie who, because of various personal and injury issues, isn't capable of such a demanding schedule. Let's assume that his backup goalies are terrible (.890), and that his team is about average in terms of shot prevention (30 shots per game). How many games does the second goalie have to play for his team to be ahead of the first team? The answer is just 42 games. And if his team has a quality backup, say one capable of performing at about league average (.905), the goalie needs to play in just 21 games to break even with his more durable counterpart.

Save percentages can often be misleading, because it can look like there isn't much difference between .910 and .920. In fact, a .920 goalie is much better than a .910 goalie. The higher the save percentage, the harder it is to maintain. I am of course speaking about performances over a fairly large sample size, where we can more accurately ascertain the true level of play of the goalie.

Durability is good, because you obviously want your best goaltender on the ice instead of in the press box more often than not. However, whether a goalie plays 50 games or 82 games is really not that meaningful. I'd rather have a truly excellent goalie playing in half of my games than a minutes muncher giving me league average performance in every single one of them, even if the second guy is going to end up with more wins and shutouts and Vezina Trophy votes. Alas, truly excellent goalies are rare, so teams have to make do with what they can find, so from a team management perspective it might make your job easier to find an average/above average goalie and play the heck out of him, and then cheap out on your backup. That does not, however, mean that your goalie magically becomes one of the league's best or most valuable just because he plays every night. The best goalies are the ones with the best rate stats, not the best counting stats.

Building a Defensive System

Do you need a great goalie to build a defensive system? Some would claim that whenever there is a combination of team and goalie that have a run of success that the team was able to build their defensive strength around the goalie. Does an elite defensive system require a great goalie, or is this reasoning false?

To answer this question, let's imagine a team that has a brick wall as a goalie. Yes, a 4' x 6' brick wall in net. The other team cannot score no matter how many shots it takes. What kind of strategy should that team use? Should it play a tight defensive style and try to minimize scoring chances against at the expense of offence? Or should it take every offensive risk possible, since it only needs one goal to win the game? Obviously the latter is the correct strategy, since there is no risk to giving up scoring chances and shots, and a very strong benefit for taking risks to score goals (any goal = guaranteed win). And conversely, what about a team playing with no goalie in the net? What kind of strategy should they use? In real life, teams often use an aggressive strategy with no goalie in because they are trying to tie the game, but what if there was no goalie and the score was tied? Such a team would obviously play very tight defence, because every shot on net becomes a goal. Therefore they would be very defensively focused to try to prevent shots at all costs, using a tight defensive shell and pressuring the puck carrier to block their shots or force a turnover that may allow a chance on the counterattack.

This is why claiming that a goalie is responsible for a defensive system is completely wrong. Grant Fuhr supporters may or may not be right about some things, but one thing they are definitely right about is that a great goalie is valuable for an offensive team because it allows them to take additional risks to try to score goals. If your goalie is better than the goalie on the other team, it makes sense to play a more open game with more shots on each net. If each team gets 10 shots of equal difficulty, a journeyman goalie could easily beat a Hall of Famer with a little luck. If both goalies face 60 shots, on the other hand, it is much more likely that the better goalie is going to win the game for his team.

With Dominik Hasek in net, the defencemen on the 1999 Buffalo Sabres were aggressive on their pinches, knowing that even if they gave up an odd-man rush it was likely that Hasek would make the save. In contrast, last year's Ottawa Senators played a tight defensive system and blocked as many shots as possible to try to protect their inexperienced goaltender Ray Emery. Both were the correct strategic moves, and helped them reach the Stanley Cup Final, since the trade-offs in terms of allowing/preventing scoring chances against were to their team's benefit.

Playing a defensive system does not indicate that there is a strong goalie in the net. On the contrary, a strong defensive system is most needed and most beneficial when there is a weak goalie in the net. With a great goalie, a team should take more risks to try to generate offence, since the star netminder reduces the risk of giving up extra goals from the additional scoring chances allowed.

This is also why it is so important to adjust goalie statistics for team factors. Great defensive systems can hide weak goaltenders, just as poor defensive systems can make excellent goalies look average. With the advantages of a great defensive team, a truly elite goalie should dominate, finishing at or near the top of the league in save percentage and GAA, in addition to getting their wins and shutouts. If a goalie posts an average save percentage on a great defensive team, that is a strong indicator that he is being covered by his teammates. The same thing, in reverse, can apply to goalies with a high save rate on bad teams, as their teammates may be taking a lot of risks to score and leaving their goalies open to high-quality chances against and making their performance more impressive.