The Between the Lockouts Cohort

A look at goalie Hall of Famers listed by birthday reveals a repeated clustering effect, as I pointed out in my last post. I want to take a more detailed look at one group that seems to have been particularly disadvantaged by environmental factors in terms of their Hall of Fame chances, the group of goalies that entered the NHL during the Dead Puck Era (which has been given differing endpoints by different people, but for now I'll use the period between the lockouts as a convenient definition).

On the surface, breaking into the NHL at a time when scoring was low seems to be a great opportunity for a goalie to put up some great numbers. However, this "between the lockouts cohort" was a group of goalies that faced increased competition from a larger talent pool, consisting of both better North American athletes choosing to play goal as well as a new influx of talent from Europe, making it much more difficult to stand out from the pack. They also had to deal with a quartet of first-ballot Hall of Famers that not only dominated the league's awards, but also hogged the starting jobs on the league best teams for much of the pre-lockout period.

Once those greats faded off into the sunset, and the new crop began looking for their own shot at backstopping a contending team to glory, the salary cap changed the way great teams were built. Instead of bringing in a hired gun veteran All-Star netminder to complete a championship team, as every Cup winning team did between the lockouts other than the Devils and the '98 Red Wings, many of the league's best teams have decided to invest their precious payroll dollars in maintaining depth in their group of skaters rather than spending big money on the goaltending position, or have decided to develop goalies internally rather than take the risk of shelling out big money on the free agent market.

As a result, a fairly mediocre collection of goalies have won the Cup since the lockout, while many of the league's most tenured netminders currently ply their trades for non-contending teams. Once again, the universe seems to have stacked the deck against the between the lockouts group.

The overall result was that this group did not win much individual award recognition or experience much team success, increasing the chances that few of them will be remembered long after their careers come to an end.

To be considered part of the group that I'm talking about, a goalie's first season as a starter has to have come between 1994-95 and 2003-04 inclusive. Since 2005 there have been a number of goalies with promising starts to their career who could attract Hall of Fame attention, either because of their play/awards recognition (e.g. Lundqvist, Thomas, Miller) or playoff success (e.g. Ward, Fleury).

Between the Lockouts Goalies, Sorted by Career Games Played:

Goalie	GP	W	SO	Sv%	PO W	PO SO	PO SV%
Nikolai Khabibulin	730	314	43	.908	39	6	.917
Roberto Luongo	653	296	54	.919	17	1	.919
Tomas Vokoun	615	258	43	.917	3	1	.922
Jose Theodore	567	254	30	.909	19	1	.911
Evgeni Nabokov	563	293	50	.912	40	7	.913
Dwayne Roloson	545	204	28	.910	18	1	.915
Marty Turco	536	273	41	.910	21	4	.914
Tommy Salo	526	210	37	.905	5	0	.909
J.S. Giguere	518	231	34	.913	33	6	.925
Miikka Kiprusoff	505	263	37	.913	25	6	.921

These ten goalies have combined for just 2 Stanley Cup rings and 2 Vezinas, with none of them managing to win both. Not only does the group have only two Vezinas, but it came awfully close to not having any at all. Jose Theodore tied Patrick Roy with 105 points in the 2002 voting, winning only via the first place votes tiebreaker. If just one of the GMs with Theodore first and Roy second had switched their vote, Roy would have taken home that award. As if to reinforce the narrowness of Theodore's victory, the Habs netminder lost out on the First Team All-Star honour to Roy.

As for Kiprusoff's Vezina in 2006, here are his stats up until the Olympic break compared to Dominik Hasek's:

Kiprusoff: 29-14-7, 2.23, .915, 6 SO
Hasek: 28-10-4, 2.09, .925, 5 SO

At that point in the season Hasek may have had the edge, despite playing for a stronger team, but then he went and pulled his groin at the Olympics and left the door open for Kiprusoff to run away with it. Kipper did have a fantastic second half that year, and may have won regardless, but I think it's safe to say that without the injury Hasek would have been a strong contender for the 2006 Vezina.

On the other hand, I think this group lost out on several awards that it rightfully should have won, including Turco in 2003 and Luongo in both 2004 and 2007. But with respect to what did happen, it's not too hard to envision a scenario where they would have been completely shut out.

Khabibulin and Giguere are the only goalies in the group with Cup rings. Those two as well as Kiprusoff and Roloson are likely considered by many to be good playoff goalies based on all of them having a signature deep postseason run to their credit. However, if you look at their playoff careers other than that one year none of them have a distinguished record of success, except for Giguere, who won the Cup and Conn Smythe in separate postseasons.

Yet even Giguere has had his share of bad games and more than a typical share of being relegated to the backup role by a teammate. Without '03, Giguere is 18-11 but with a pedestrian .907 save percentage in the playoffs. Without their runs in '04 Khabibulin is 23-24, .911 and Kiprusoff is 10-17, .915, and without '06 Roloson is 6-7, .892.

Evgeni Nabokov has had some postseason opportunities on strong teams, but although he leads this group in playoff wins he is considered by many to be a playoff disappointment. I'm not sure it's really fair to suggest Nabokov didn't play up to his usual standards in the playoffs. I doubt he performed all that differently, the main difference was likely that the higher level of postseason opposition removed much of the team advantages that helped boost his traditional stats in the regular season.

Nabokov is the only one of these goalies that has repeatedly started in the playoffs on legitimate Stanley Cup contenders. Giguere and Khabibulin had great teams when they won but not too much help outside of that. Turco played for a couple of very strong teams in Dallas and Nashville was a really good team in 2007 with Vokoun, although it was never easy to make it through the tough Western Conference. Other than that, there haven't been many teams with any of these goalies in net that would have been found among the Stanley Cup odds leaders on the eve of the playoffs. Luongo, Roloson and Vokoun have all missed the playoffs far more often than they have made it, despite strong regular season play. All 10 have a playoff save percentage as high or higher than their regular season mark. The cause of the general lack of playoff team success seems to be primarily the result of a lack of support, rather than poor clutch performance by these goalies as a group.

With Nabokov's attempted move to Detroit blocked by Garth Snow and Turco relegated to the bench in Chicago, the only goalies from this group that appear to be in a good position to make some playoff noise this spring are Luongo and Roloson. Because of his age and the strong group of teammates around him, Luongo has a great chance to add to his playoff portfolio over the next 5 seasons. It seems unlikely that any of the others will be in a similar position, although of course deadline deals or free agency could significantly alter their prospects.

Right now, I don't think any of the between the lockout group are sure Hall of Famers. I think Luongo is very much on track to get there some day, and would be close to a sure thing already if he was fairly evaluated for his performance in Florida or if there wasn't such a focus on team success for goalies. Other than that I'm not sure anyone else will come close.

The top contenders either have the individual hardware but lack the career totals (Giguere, Kiprusoff, Theodore), or have the career numbers but lack the awards (Luongo, Vokoun, Nabokov, Khabibulin). In another time and place, most of these goalies might well have racked up lots of hardware and wins and team success and fame and "money goalie" accolades. Yet with the hand they were dealt, most of them appear fated to be remembered as little more than good goalies that played in the shadows of Hall of Famers.

Hall of Famers Come In Fours

Looking through the list of goalies in the Hall of Fame sorted by birthday, there seems to be a repeating pattern. Several goalies will be inducted that were all born over a short time period. That will be followed by an extended dry spell, before another cluster of similarly-aged candidates gets enshrined. This is followed by another gap, and the cycle repeats.

This doesn't particularly apply to the oldest goalies in the Hall of Fame (Hugh Lehman, Georges Vezina, Hap Holmes, Clint Benedict and George Hainsworth), all of whom were born between 1885 and 1895. Then again, things were quite different back then in hockey's early days, with several different professional leagues, teams folding and moving all the time, and some goalies having very atypical career curves, often playing many years of amateur hockey before breaking into the professional at an advanced age.

The first group of Hall of Fame goalies who spent the large majority of their careers in the National Hockey League were born around the turn of the 20th century: Roy Worters (1900), Alec Connell (1902), Tiny Thompson (1903), and Charlie Gardiner (1904). After those four, it took a decade to produce the next Hall of Famer (Turk Broda in 1914).

Broda was quickly followed by Brimsek the following year and Bill Durnan the year after that to create the trio of goaltending legends that dominated the NHL in the 1940s. In the decade after Durnan, Chuck Rayner (1920), Johnny Bower (1924) and Harry Lumley (1926) were born. Lumley and especially Bower made most of their Hall of Fame cases after the previous "Big Three" had retired.

Perhaps the best goalie cohort of all was the 1929-1931 group, which includes Terry Sawchuk, Jacques Plante, Gump Worsley and Glenn Hall. In the wake of that dominating quartet there was a gap of eight years until the next Hall of Famer, and even then the next two inductees born (Ed Giacomin in 1939 and Gerry Cheevers in 1940) are both among the weakest goalies enshrined, with Hall of Fame cases largely built on taking advantage of an unbalanced league.

It took 12 years after Hall until the next no-doubt first-ballot Hall of Fame netminder came into the world in the person of Tony Esposito in 1943. Once again, he was quickly followed by a couple of others: Bernie Parent in 1945 and Ken Dryden in 1947, with Billy Smith arriving not far behind in 1950.

The next decade (1951 to 1961) didn't see any goaltenders born who would eventually be considered Hall of Famers, and that is probably not likely to change either with the games played leaders from that period including Mike Liut, Greg Millen, Andy Moog, Kelly Hrudey and Don Beaupre.

With 1962 came Grant Fuhr to break the drought, but 1965 was the real money year for goaltending ability, producing three first-ballot Hall of Famers in Dominik Hasek, Patrick Roy and Ed Belfour. All goalies born in 1965 combined to play a 4,687 games in the NHL, well ahead of any other year on record, and Tom Barrasso may still have an outside chance at making it four Hall of Famers from one birth year.

Yet again the feast and famine pattern looks like it will continue, with Curtis Joseph the only goalie born from 1966 to 1971 that is likely to be even seriously discussed by the Hall of Fame committee, and although some goalies have significant portions of their careers remaining the only guaranteed Hall of Famer born since 1971 remains Martin Brodeur.

What is causing all this? Is it merely that the random allotment of goaltending ability just happened to result in some groupings close together? That's likely part of it, but it's not particularly probable that a similar pattern would have repeated itself essentially four times in a row.

Factors that may have had some impact are the level of league scoring, the size and level of parity in the league, and changing league rules or revolutions in goalie training or techniques. Certain periods seemed to be set up better than others to create Hall of Famers, either because lower scoring levels led to lower GAAs and higher shutout totals or because an unbalanced league made it easier to rack up wins on the top teams.

Beyond that, it seems apparent that opportunity would have played a significant role, especially in smaller leagues with only 6 or 12 starting jobs available. In reality it was likely even more restrictive than that, given the required level of team success typically needed to produce a Hall of Fame career. With two or three teams dominating the standings year after year throughout much of the NHL's history, goalies usually either had to be fortunate enough to be signed by those elite clubs, or else they had to play well enough for long enough on one of the league's bottom-feeders that they were eventually given the chance to don the sweater of a Cup contender.

I'd say that the most likely explanation is that a few elite goalies have a tendency to monopolize awards and gravitate towards the best starting jobs in the league, making it that much harder for the guys coming after them to put together the trophy case and team success that the Hall of Fame has historically required for entry.

I don't rate goalies based on traditional accomplishments like Vezina Trophies, postseason All-Star selections and Stanley Cups, but many people do, including apparently most of the Hall of Fame voting committee. In that type of evaluation method, I think it is important to consider the strength of a goalie's teammates and the quality of goaltending peers he was competing against, and to consider not just how many times a goalie won an award but also how many times he got close to winning. After all, the best goalie in a particular season and the best goalie in the league are not always the same thing. There are additional useful ways to verify how well a goalie was rated by his contemporaries, if you consider that to be an important piece of information, such as looking at observer accounts and other primary sources, salary/trade history, international selections, coach and player polls, etc.

That said, I still maintain that a careful analysis of historical statistical performance remains the best method to properly evaluate the accomplishments of a netminder, with care taken to adjust for team factors during the parts of the league history that were more unbalanced than others.

The Streakiness of Stamkos

I thought this was kind of interesting:

Steven Stamkos, 2010-11:

First 22 games: 21 goals, 4.0 shots per game
Next 6 games: 0 goals, 2.8 shots per game
Next 10 games: 10 goals, 3.7 shots per game
Next 6 games: 0 goals, 3.7 shots per game
Next 7 games: 7 goals, 2.6 shots per game

That makes two goal-less streaks the length of a typical playoff series for Stamkos this season, even in the midst of a truly dominant stretch of goalscoring.

I can imagine the kind of silly things the media would be tempted to write if Stamkos just happened to hit another 0 for 6 streak some time in late April. To the right kind of reactionary, frequentist, narrative-loving mind, that would reflect his flawed inner character, prove he was a perimeter player unsuited to the playoffs, show that he hasn't yet learned what it takes to win, and probably confirm a dozen other meaningless cliches that you've heard many times before. All because the release point on that famous one-timer may have been off by a couple of centimetres for a few games in a row.

This type of thing is why it is so important to compare performances to a baseline. Do you think your hometown scorer is playing poorly because he hasn't scored in two weeks? Maybe he is, but that is not necessarily the case, he might just be on a streak of bad luck. In any event it's far from abnormal, it happens to the elite as well. Just look at Stamkos.

How The Game of Hockey Taught Me That Goalie Wins Don't Matter

There was a personal story posted over at Lighthouse Hockey by "Mikb" (who is also an occasional commenter here) that I wanted to use as a starting point in a discussion on the impact of hockey experience on goalie evaluation. Here's an excerpt of what he wrote, reproduced with his permission:

I was on a very successful team for a number of years – I was the MVP of a tournament we won, won a few leagues with the guys, good times – and then a lot of the guys I’d started with began to leave… jobs, age, moving away, etc. etc. The guys who were left were pretty good too, but we wound up losing four seasons in a row (we play three seasons per year, usually)…. tough OT losses, one loss in a nine-round shootout. These are single-eliminations, too, at least until the best-of-three final. ANYTHING can happen in a single game like that.

Well – those new guys kicked me off their team. Another team gladly snapped me up, and for the first year (three more seasons) it was the same thing… in fact, I think we got shut out each of the games.

If I had to guess, I’d say I had about a 1.50 GAA with nothing to show for it except a big fat scapegoating. Then just this Tuesday night, my new team and I finally won. It was easily my WORST game out of the whole lot – two horrible goals against in the first five minutes, and my guys pulled [me] out of it with a big final period.

So – it annoys me when I hear stuff like “not clutch,” “learning how to win,” and “playoff choker.” I didn’t forget how to win for three years, and just remember this week. I wasn’t choking. I wasn’t “big when they needed it.” Hell, if I HAD been even barely competent early on, I wouldn’t have needed to make ANY big saves, we would have been winning 3-0, there would have been no OT heroics and no shootout saves.

I think a lot of that is probably very familiar to long-time goalies, the vast majority of whom would have their own anecdotes about either taking heat for losing on a bad team or having to do little more than show up to win behind a powerhouse.

When I was much younger, I remember disagreeing with an older goalie who stated that a goalie is mostly just as good as the team in front of him, but as much as anything else it was my experience that changed my outlook. I don't think it was ever more clear to me that I was just one small part of an overall team effort than in one particular game where in my estimation I played about as well as I could possibly play and my team still lost 4-0. On a different day maybe I would have been a bit luckier, maybe they wouldn't have made a few of the shots that they made and we could have at least still squeaked a tie out of it, that's the variability of goaltending and that's always the hope that goalies cling to for the next outing. But on that day I was in peak form and it didn't matter one bit, we still got crushed.

The other thing that I concluded from both personal experience and subjective observation is that it is ridiculous to describe people in absolutes, and that you are doomed to failure if you expect to be able to perfectly predict performances based on past results. Like Mikb points out, labels are easily applied but mostly meaningless; I see them as the product of bias and lazy thinking. Some individuals may have tendencies, even more so at lower levels of play, but people are complicated and randomness happens. Every athlete knows that they are not consistent every time out, regardless of their best intentions.

There was one particular big game I played in where I was just completely out of form. I had been playing well leading up to it, and I wasn't that nervous and didn't feel any different than usual before the game, right up until the point where I realized that I could barely catch a puck in warmups. That's when I started to get a bit concerned (perhaps another example in support of Kent Wilson's argument that confidence is an effect, not a cause?) I spilled rebounds on most of the shots against that day, but luckily my defence was outstanding and we ended up with a shutout win.

Other times in that exact same scenario I've been calm and confident. I don't think I'm a choker or a clutch player, but it's entirely possible that next time out I might choke and the game after that my play will be supremely clutch. I'm not a robot with only one setting, and I don't believe anyone else is either. I've been described before as trying to "erase the human element" by discounting clutch play, but I hardly see how it is any more of an acknowledgement of the human element to have a perspective of players as video game characters who perform exactly the same way in every clutch situation based on the value of their "poise" rating. Good days, bad days and luck are all big parts of that human element, and are likely all big reasons why it is difficult to find evidence of clutch skill in the data.

I want to make it clear that I am not saying that we can extrapolate every beer league observation and apply it to the pros. Their level of talent and preparation is on a completely different level and they are playing for much, much higher stakes. At the end of the day, though, they're still people, and they are still playing the same sport with the same basic rules as the peewees down at the local rink.

That's why I struggle to understand how anyone could play a large number of games as a hockey goaltender on a variety of different teams without coming to the conclusion that rating goalies based on wins and team success is a foolish endeavour. I think it must simply be the case that conventional hockey wisdom is at fault, and that the cliches and coaching points that people hear at the rink, on TV and around the game have taken root to such a degree that people let them overshadow their own observations.

Sometimes the problem areas of sports logic stick out most clearly when they are compared to an analogous setting in a different area (which, as someone who is a bit of a stickler for logical consistency, I like to do every now and then). It's a rare individual indeed who wouldn't scream and yell and cry martyr when he gets blamed individually for the failings of others at work or school, but for some reason that same guy goes home and sits down in front of his TV and heaps scorn on the quarterback or the goalie when his team loses. It doesn't make a lot of sense, especially if that guy had sports experiences of his own the prior weekend that should have further reinforced the point. It really does seem that hockey groupthink has a powerful impact on many observers.

So, if you are one of those types who think that stats are meaningless and Cup rings are the litmus test for a goalie and that Chris Osgood is a fully deserving Hall of Famer but Grant Fuhr was the best you ever saw, I can only recommend that you strap on the pads and get into a game and focus on your own observations. If you are honest with yourself and if you take the time to compare your experiences against some of the premises that you have long accepted as uncontested fact, I think you just might come around to a different way of thinking on the matter.

Road Performance - Active Goalies

There are a number of active or recently retired goalies who did not meet the minimum games cutoff for my last post. I wanted to run the road numbers on them as well to see if there were any interesting results. I decided to limit it to goalies with at least 250 games played, to avoid guys with really small road samples. Unlike the last post, these numbers include 2010-11 numbers.

Active or recently retired goalies:

1. Tim Thomas: +.013 save %, +58 goals

2. Ryan Miller: +.009 save %, +45 goals

3. Henrik Lundqvist: +.009 save %, +42 goals

4. Niklas Backstrom: +.009 save %, +29 goals

5. Manny Fernandez: +.006 save %, +29 goals

6. Kari Lehtonen: +.007 save %, +27 goals

7. Manny Legace: +.005 save %, +22 goals

8. Cam Ward: +.004 save %, +15 goals

8. Ilya Bryzgalov: +.004 save %, +15 goals

10. Cristobal Huet: +.001 save %, +3 goals

11. Chris Mason: +.000 save %, +0 goals

12. Kevin Weekes: -.001 save %, -3 goals

13. Rick DiPietro: -.003 save %, -13 goals

14. Vesa Toskala: -.005 save %, -19 goals

15. Marc-Andre Fleury: -.005 save %, -22 goals

16. Johan Hedberg: -.005 save %, -23 goals

17. Mathieu Garon: -.006 save %, -24 goals

18. Andrew Raycroft: -.007 save %, -26 goals

19. Brian Boucher: -.007 save %, -31 goals

20. Patrick Lalime: -.007 save %, -39 goals

21. Marc Denis: -.014 save %, -71 goals

- There is a clear top three here, which isn't too surprising, although I didn't expect Miller to rank ahead of Lundqvist. Given that the Swede is two years younger than the American it is still probable that King Henrik ends up ahead over the long run.

- As I discussed in the comments to my last post, Buffalo actually was much more disciplined at home than on the road during this period, yet Miller's save percentage was .912 at home and .916 on the road. I think there may have been a difference in style of play for the Sabres at home through much of Miller's career, with a lot more scoring taking place in Buffalo home games. Perhaps that affected Miller's numbers, as going by road stats only he looks like an elite goalie. I think it is possible he was a bit underrated based on his numbers when the Sabres had their terrific offensive team going immediately after the lockout.

- This is also a reminder that Roberto Luongo stands head and shoulders above his goaltending peer group in terms of career success. Despite being just one year older than Miller and three years older than Lundqvist, Luongo has double the road goals against average of either of his rivals.

- Adjusting for special teams factors would put Kari Lehtonen solidly in fourth on this list, considering that the Thrashers faced more power plays than average while Backstrom and Fernandez both had the benefit of playing on very disciplined Minnesota squads.

- Cam Ward is coming on strong in this ranking. His numbers were hurt by being rushed to the NHL before he was ready in 2005-06 and 2006-07, but he is +20 over the past two and a half seasons.

- Cristobal Huet was very good at home (.919) and very average on the road (.908). I think that, knowing what we know now, Huet was probably never as good as his numbers suggested he was during his peak from 2006 to 2008. In addition to the road numbers, which suggest a potential helping hand from either teammates or the official scorer, Huet also has the other warning sign for goalies: Strong numbers on special teams compared to average numbers at even strength. Huet's career EV SV% of .918 is right at league average over the course of his career, while his career PK SV% of .887 and his career PP SV% of .961 are both off the charts relative to the league average from 2002-03 to 2009-10 (.866 and .913 respectively).

- Yes, Pittsburgh fans, you read that right: Marc-Andre Fleury rates below Vesa Toskala. Toskala had a couple of nice years in San Jose that pull his numbers up, but Fleury has never really been all that good on the road in his career.

- I remain baffled as to why some of the goalies near the bottom of this list were able to carve out such long careers. It makes no sense that a guy like Patrick Lalime is still drawing an NHL paycheque. He has never that good of a goalie, and he has only gotten worse in recent seasons. Lalime's post-lockout save percentage is .894 and the Sabres are 9-25-5 with Lalime in net over the last three seasons. Any random starting goalie from the AHL or the Swedish Elite League would probably beat those numbers. There are too many good goalies out there today for any team to keep giving washed-up veterans opportunities at the highest level.

- Marc Denis: Yikes. Denis was 29.7 goals below average on the road in 2002-03, second only to Jeff Hackett's brutal record behind the completely outclassed San Jose Sharks in 1992-93. To be fair, Denis was on a young expansion team as well, and the third-year Blue Jackets ranked fourth in the league in power play opportunities against. That said, Denis only had one season in his career with positive goals above average on the road. It looks to me like his career may have been aided by some fortunate timing, as the Quebec goalie factory was at the peak of its reputation when Denis broke into the league in the mid-'90s. If his name was Mark Dennis, would he have lasted as long as he did in the NHL? His numbers certainly make one wonder.

Goalie Performance on the Road

It has been shown pretty convincingly that the definition of a shot on goal can vary from rink to rink around the NHL. The problem is that there is still a fair bit of guesswork involved in trying to tease out exactly which rinks may be padding the stats and which ones may be shorting them, and even once we can prove that there has been a track record of bias in one city or another it could still change instantly with a single hiring decision.

In response to this uncertainty, I thought to take an ultra-conservative route in this post and assume that every official scorer in the NHL is so biased that they can't be trusted for anything at all related to the home team. Under that assumption we would have to throw out all home save percentage data and rely on road numbers only, hoping that any potential undercounting or overcounting will roughly balance out for goalies who play in a variety of rinks on the road.

In addition to the issue of scorer bias, it seems more likely that a team could control their style of play while in their home rink. To quote Vic Ferrari, "When a team wants to play a low tempo game, the opponent is more likely to oblige in your barn than in front of their own fans." The home team has last change and can decide whether it wants to shut down the opposition's best players with a defensive line or whether to slug it out power vs. power. It seems that the level of parity in today's NHL is such that there is little difference in shot quality from team to team, but if there are any persistent team effects on a goalie's numbers from style of play it seems more likely that they would appear in the home sample than in the road sample.

I'd like to break these down by game situation, ideally, but that special teams goaltending data only goes back about a decade or so whereas detailed home/road splits for all goaltending stats are available going back to 1988 on Hockey Reference. For each season, all home games were thrown out and the road numbers were adjusted based on the league average that year. Current season results were not included.

Nothing changes much in terms of rankings at the top of the list, but there are a few goalies with unusual results that either indicate that there may have been something going on with the shot counting or with the team's style of play at home. On the other hand, perhaps they really enjoyed that home cooking, or maybe it is no more than a statistical quirk arising from cutting the sample size in half. Nothing can be proven with any certainty by this type of surface analysis, but there are some team situations that definitely seem to warrant a closer look.

The goalies are sorted by road goals saved over average, calculated by subtracting the league average save percentage from the goalie's road save percentage for each season and then multiplying by the number of shots faced on the road. Note that since goalies typically have better numbers at home than on the road, comparing to league average means that this definition of average is a slightly higher standard than usual. Current goalies with fewer than 450 career games played were not included for now, but will be discussed in a future post. Keep in mind also that these numbers represent partial career results for goalies who played in the NHL prior to 1987-88.

Tier 1: The Elite

1. Patrick Roy: +.015 save %, +180 goals

2. Dominik Hasek: +.017 save %, +163 goals

3. Martin Brodeur: +.010 save %, +145 goals

4. Ed Belfour: +.009 save %, +110 goals

5. Roberto Luongo: +.010 save %, +92 goals

Tier 2: The Good

6. Marty Turco: +.006 save %, +40 goals

7. Curtis Joseph: +.003 save %, +36 goals

8. J.S. Giguere: +.005 save %, +35 goals

9. Felix Potvin: +.003 save %, +27 goals

10. Dwayne Roloson: +.003 save %, +25 goals

11. John Vanbiesbrouck: +.003 save %, +25 goals

Tier 3: The Average

12. Evgeni Nabokov: +.002 save %, +14 goals

13. Chris Osgood: +.001 save %, +12 goals

14. Tomas Vokoun: +.001 save %, +11 goals

15. Sean Burke: +.001 save %, +10 goals

16. Nik Khabibulin: +.001 save %, +5 goals

17. Guy Hebert: +.001 save %, +4 goals

18. Jose Theodore: +.001 save %, +4 goals

19. Ron Hextall: .000 save %, +3 goals

20. Mike Richter: .000 save %, +2 goals

21. Martin Biron: .000 save %, -1 goal

22. Andy Moog: .000 save %, -2 goals

23. Tom Barrasso: .000 save %, -2 goals

24. Miikka Kiprusoff: -.001 save %, -8 goals

25. Jocelyn Thibault: -.001 save %, -10 goals

26. Jeff Hackett: -.002 save %, -12 goals

27. Arturs Irbe: -.002 save %, -16 goals

Tier 4: The Mediocre

28. Ron Tugnutt: -.003 save %, -19 goals

29. Kelly Hrudey: -.003 save %, -26 goals

30. Olaf Kolzig: -.003 save %, -32 goals

31. Tommy Salo: -.005 save %, -33 goals

Tier 5: The Dinosaurs

32. Ken Wregget: -.006 save %, -39 goals

33. Grant Fuhr: -.006 save %, -46 goals

34. Mike Vernon: -.006 save %, -57 goals

35. Kirk McLean: -.007 save %, -58 goals

36. Bill Ranford: -.007 save %, -65 goals

Some points of discussion:

- The top five really separate themselves from the field by this metric. All are 50+ goals better than the rest. Both Brodeur and Belfour had higher save percentages on the road than at home over the course of their careers, and both benefit quite a bit from going on away numbers only. In fact, assuming the road numbers accurately reflect the overall level of performance and taking into account shot prevention while also recognizing both Roy's team advantages in Montreal as well as the weaker pool of goaltending talent that Patrick was competing against in the late '80s, plus the fact that Roy retired younger than the other two and skipped his decline phase, there may not actually be that much separation between the three of them in terms of regular season results.

For example, if we add one shot prevented to Belfour's save percentage and assume that Brodeur's shot prevention is balanced out by his special teams advantages, then both are around 145 goals saved. All it would take to drop Roy to roughly the same career number is to assume that either he created one extra shot per game against on average or that his expected save percentage was understated by .003 because of weaker competition or Montreal's defensive play and team discipline. Having said that, this doesn't take into account playoff play and the 1988 cutoff means Roy isn't getting credit for two of his seasons. Brodeur is also on pace to give back around 15 goals compared to average this season if he can't fix his struggles in the second half.

- In his first 12 seasons in the NHL, Curtis Joseph saved his teams 68 goals compared to league average on the road. In his final 7 seasons, he gave 32 of them back. Joseph's early career peak would have put him near the elite group, but he did not have anything close to the staying power of the top 4.

- Sean Burke is the anti-Cujo, with -41 in his first dozen seasons and +50 in his final six. If you want further evidence of my argument that it was technique not equipment that was driving the changes in goaltending through the '90s, you'd be hard-pressed to find better examples than Burke and Joseph. Joseph's athleticism allowed him to excel early on, but when that faded as he aged the game rapidly passed him by. In contrast, Burke remodeled himself into a butterfly blocker and put up his best performances in the twilight of his career.

- If you define a goalie's peak as his best five consecutive seasons with a significant number of games played (and including numbers from light workload seasons that fell within the same stretch), Burke ranks an impressive 7th in peak road goals above average per game, trailing only Hasek, Roy, Joseph, Belfour, Luongo and Brodeur.

- Other surprise goalies in the top 15 for peak road results include Jeff Hackett (9th), Dwayne Roloson (10th), Felix Potvin (11th) and Arturs Irbe (15th).

- Arturs Irbe had an eight season stretch where he was 37 goals better than average on the road, playing three of them behind the fledgling San Jose Sharks. His overall numbers nosedived when he stuck around too long after his game fell off a cliff in Carolina, but that was a pretty impressive run without much team support at all.

- To show the kind of impact playing on the Sharks in the early '90s had, Jeff Hackett was -44 goals in San Jose in the first two seasons of that expansion franchise and +32 everywhere else.

- Trivia question: From 1992-93 to 1997-98, which goalie ranked third behind Hasek and Roy in most goals above average on the road? Not Brodeur, not Belfour, not Joseph, not Vanbiesbrouck. Would you believe Felix Potvin? Potvin was a lot like Cujo in that he didn't age well, but there was a lot to like early in his career, even though a lot of people underrate him because he played for mostly mediocre teams.

- Chris Osgood ranks 13th in career total, but just 25th in peak. Osgood has a close comparable in Evgeni Nabokov, who ranked 12th and 29th respectively. Nabokov had a few more peaks and valleys than the fairly steady Osgood, but the end result is that neither was able to put together a five season stretch on the road that was any better than slightly above average for a starting-calibre goalie.

- The biggest surprise on this list has to be Miikka Kiprusoff coming out as slightly below average. Throughout his career, Kiprusoff has a .920 save percentage at home compared to just .906 on the road. Even in his 2006 Vezina year Kiprusoff did not have great results on the road (a mere .904 in 35 games played). The confusing thing is that his shots against split is 27.0 per 60 at home compared to 29.6 per 60 on the road, which really doesn't seem to suggest a generous home scorer.

If there is a logical explanation for this, I'm not aware of it. Was Calgary more disciplined at home, did they change their style of play, did they benefit from lots of back-to-back games against teams that had just played the Oilers? I really have no idea.

- Olaf Kolzig is another guy who had underwhelming results relative to his reputation on the road both overall and in a Vezina winning season (.903 in 1999-00).

- Tomas Vokoun is another interesting case. His save numbers have been very good, especially post-lockout, but he has a Kiprusoffian home/road split of .923/.910. Vokoun's road numbers in Nashville were actually below average, which makes it seem even more clear that there is something going on in Nashville. Vokoun's numbers are better in Florida, although some remain skeptical about his performance there as well.

- I strongly suspect that Guy Hebert got his stats padded in Anaheim. He is a guy that I've noted before as often doing well in various save percentage rankings, but that's probably a bit misleading as Hebert was very average on the road and has another extreme home/road split (.916/.902).

- I still have no idea where to rank Tom Barrasso. Like the rest of his stats, his road numbers are all over the place throughout his career, although he'd presumably rate above average if his extra seasons from the mid-eighties were included.

It Doesn't Matter How Good His Teammates Were, He Still Had To Make the Saves

"Hey, I just back from the new shopping mall. Gotta give it up for our mayor, that guy is the best ribbon-cutter in the town."

"He is? How could you possibly go about trying to determine that?"

"Well, I was there, and he was the guy in charge of opening the mall, and it got opened. Can't argue with results."

"OK, but that's kind of a simple thing, isn't it? I mean, any public figure can give a short speech, work a pair of scissors and pose for a few photos. The mayor is just the guy that gets assigned to show up and do it, that doesn't mean he is the best."

"Sure it does, you still have to cut the ribbon. Doesn't matter how easy you think the job is, it still needs to get done. You don't see anybody else cutting the ribbon, do you?"

"No, but that's because it is the mayor's job, not because other people couldn't do it."

"Who cares about other people? It's his job and he did it, that's all that matters, that's why he deserves the credit."

"It is? There were mayors before him that did it just as well and there will be mayors after him that will do exactly the same thing. Why does it matter who actually does it? You don't think that guy that narrowly lost the election two years ago could have done it?"

"I don't want to talk about what-ifs, just what actually happened. Yesterday the mall wasn't open, and today it is. I don't know why you hate the guy so much, why you won't give him any credit, you're probably just jealous. I was there when they opened the new library too, sure he may have flubbed a line or two and dropped the scissors twice but he showed his mental toughness by bouncing right back and when the big moment came he got the job done."

"I'm not arguing that he didn't get the job done. I'm saying that his job was fairly easy, and he did not make much of a difference in doing it. The mall and the library are both just as open right now as they would have been if another politician was wielding the ceremonial scissors. Giving credit for an easily replaceable effort makes little sense at all, you're just being overly impressed by the privileges of the guy's position."

"Obviously you don't understand anything about politics. Since that guy became mayor, he has cut the ribbons at 3 grand openings, while all the other losing candidates in that election have combined for zero. How can you argue with those stats?"

"Again, I'm not disputing that those accomplishments happened. I'm disputing their value. Of course our mayor did the job, but he did it no better than somebody with similar qualifications would have done it. The difference between him and those other guys with respect to grand openings was entirely a matter of opportunity, not a matter of skill. Why is that something to be celebrated? I'm completely baffled here."

"Say whatever you want, he can't hear you because of all of the freshly cut ribbons in his ears. You geeks never give that guy any credit, he's the most underrated mayor ever. Haters gonna hate, I guess. We're done here, I'll catch you later."