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MASON'S CAREER YEAR: A LOOK INSIDE THE NUMBERS
At the end of every Philadelphia Flyers' home game, just as the three-star selection is being announced by Lou Nolan, the media corps hustles to catch the first elevator to get down to the dressing rooms of the respective teams. Last night's wild finish to the game between the Flyers and Islanders and the ongoing game between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators -- with the Pens clinging to a 3-2 lead at this point, en route to a 4-3 overtime loss -- prompted livelier conversations than normal during the ride down to the event level and the walk to the dressing room.
Veteran scribe Tim Panaccio expressed some disappointment in the way the Flyers more or less hung goaltender Steve Mason out to dry on all three of the goals the Islanders scored in their third-period comeback to tie the game at 4-4 before Brayden Schenn scored his fluky game-winner with 2.1 seconds left on the clock.
"They hurt Mason's stats after he played such a great game," Panotch said. "His numbers are going to take a hit."
Mason, who stopped the first 24 shots he faced before a John Tavares power play deflection found the twine, finished the game with 36 saves on 40 shots. His season save percentage dropped very slightly from .929 entering the game to .928 at the end of the night. His season goals against average climbed slightly from a 2.19 GAA to a 2.23 GAA.
Really, these small game-to-game fluctuations are pretty insignificant 80 games into the season. Mason, whom Craig Berube said in his pregame media availability will start one of the two final remaining games, will finish the season among the NHL league leaders in both save percentage (currently ranking 3rd) and goals against average (ranked 5th).
Berube has repeatedly said this season -- and Mason has agreed -- that the primary thing he cares about is a goalie's wins and losses above all other stats. Due to the Flyers' inability to win on the road this season and spotty goal support on many nights, Mason's overall record is 18-17-11. Two of the team's shootout losses this season came in games where Mason posted a 65-minute shutout but the Flyers themselves could not muster a single goal.
There has really not been much Mason has done on the ice since a slow start in October that one can fairly say needs improvement next season. The two primary areas where he can be nitpicked are his save percentage while the opposition is on the power play as well as his shootout save percentage; the latter of which is not incorporated into his season stats.
One of the quibbles that some hockey people have had with Mason this season is a perception that since a "team's best penalty killer is the goaltender" and the Flyers' penalty kill --much more so on the road than at home -- has been a huge disappointment this season, the goaltender deserves a share of the blame.
The Flyers had usually been among the top penalty killing teams in the NHL in recent years until their numbers nosedived in 2014-15; again, primarily on the road except for a stretch in late November to early December where they couldn't kill off penalties regardless of venue. Some have said that Mason did not step up enough in helping the team rise above it.
I'm not sure how valid the criticism actually is, because there have been a lot of situations this season where opposition power play goals have resulted because either a) the Flyers have had multiple failed clearing opportunities and, eventually, the opposing power play unit wore them down and scored or b) there was simply too much time and space provided for a point-blank chance to be set up, requiring a 10-bell save to keep the puck out of the net.
Additionally, the sample size of power play shots is going to be significantly smaller than the number of five-on-five shots a goalie faces over the course of a game and the season as a whole. A few rough statistical nights on the PK can take awhile from which to "recover", because the numbers are more volatile.
For instance, on the Flyers final PK last night against the Islanders, Philly did an outstanding job of blocking shots. They blocked four shot attempts and did not yield a shot on goal. That's great work by the PK unit -- and exactly what a club needs -- but the goalie's stats for the night remained unchanged.
Of course, all goaltenders and all teams are in the same boat. A look inside Mason's situational numbers finds that he has an .848 save percentage when the Flyers are on the penalty kill. How does that rank among other notable goaltenders who have played enough minutes this season to qualify among the league's overall save percentage leaders? Here's a look:
Looking at the league-wide numbers, it is certainly fair to say that Mason has not been a savior or miracle worker for the Flyers when they have killed penalties this season. However, this really does very little to prove Mason's critics who say "he's good, not great" correct. Here's why:
1) Even strength save percentage is a much truer and more reliable performance indicator than penalty-kill numbers. Just as Mason's abnormally low penalty-killing save percentage is simply a statistical quirk, so is Semyon Varlamov's insanely high PK save percentage (the .924 stat is not a misprint). Last year, Mason had a penalty killing save percentage of .894, which was somewhat above-average league-wide in that sub-category.
2) Mason's even strength save percentage this season is a ridiculously high 94.1 percent. It was a still-solid 92.3 percent last season. Something that dragged Mason's overall save percentage last season below the .920 mark was that the Flyers yielded six shorthanded goals on 39 shots with him in net. This year, he's faced more opposing penalty kill shots (47) and stopped 45. There really isn't much that can reliably be gleaned from that volatile stat either. Note: I have some theories on why Mason's even strength save percentage is so high this year, but I will save that for a blog after the season after the NHL presents the Vezina Trophy.
3) Other top goalies also marked discrepancies. Carey Price is a shoo-in to win the Vezina Trophy. Midway through the year, it was a two-horse race between him and Pekka Rinne, but now its a formality. Price may even win the Hart Trophy and will probably at least be a finalist. No one in his right mind would say that Price has been "good, not great" this season.
However, if one is going to mark Mason down significantly because of the exceptionally steep drop-off between his overall save percentage and the penalty kill, then it should also be noted that Price's penalty killing save percentage is nothing special compared to his league-leading overall numbers. Actually, Price's little-used backup, Dustin Tokarski, has a higher PK save percentage in a much, much smaller sample size.
In reality, that's all pretty meaningless. The bottom line is that Price will be a very deserving Vezina recipient when he accepts it at the NHL Awards ceremony after the playoffs. Likewise, the bottom line on Mason is that he's developed into an upper-echelon NHL goalie in his own right.
4) The Flyers road woes dragged everyone down. I did not crunch the numbers for Mason's home-versus-road penalty killing save percentages but it is a foregone conclusion that his home PK numbers are pretty much around the league norms and it has been the road PK that is responsible for why his PK save percentage is so low. In the much more important big picture, inability to kill penalties on the road (along with terrible 5-on-5 goals for numbers) is a huge part of the reason why the Flyers won only 10 road games as a team and why Mason had a 2-12-6 road record.
5) Mason was one of the few who held his own on the road. Even with the atrocious road PK and the lack of goal support, Mason's overall road numbers this season are by no means poor: 2.56 goals against average, .914 save percentage, two shutouts (both ending in shootout losses). Again, the bottom line is that he played well enough on the road for the team to be better than it was. Meanwhile, Mason has easily been one of the NHL's best home ice goalies -- right up there with any of the top guys whom he supposedly does not deserve to be mentioned with in the same breath. At home, Mason is 16-5-5, with a 1.97 GAA, .939 save percentage and one shutout (a 1-0 regulation win over Toronto).
6) Comparison of starter vs. backup benchmarks. It is always interesting to compare goaltending teammates, since they have the same skaters defending and trying to score for them. Even those numbers have to be taken with a grain of salt because of sample sizes.
Nevertheless, when all things are considered, Mason's performance this season behind the same skaters that played in front of Ray Emery and Rob Zepp (very small sample size) was by leaps and bounds one of the best showings by a Flyers number one goaltender in a long time. That is not even taking into account that Mason dealt with knee and back issues midseason that kept him out for varying stretches of time.
7) Mason dealt with well below-average goal support this season. It should be noted that his road goal support was much lower than at home. In terms of overall goal support, Mason ranked 34th among goaltenders who played enough minutes to rank among the NHL statistical league leaders. Here's a selective sampling of where goalies ranked in average goal support per game (note: numbers culled from Stats.Hockeyanalysis.com):
Top 10
Kari Lehtonen (DAL): 3.17 (1st)
Ben Bishop (TB): 3.15 (2nd)
Henrik Lundqvist (NYR): 3.12 (3rd)
Michael Hutchinson (WPG): 3.06 (4th)
Jonas Hiller (CGY): 2.99 (5th)
Jaroslav Halak (NYI): 2.98 (6th)
Ryan Miller (VAN): 2.93 (7th)
Petr Mrazek (DET): 2.98 (8th)
Ray Emery (PHI): 2.86 (T-9th)
Antti Niemi (SJ): 2.86 (T-9th)
Goalies likely to garner Vezina votes
Pekka Rinne (NAS): 2.84 (11th)
Devan Dubnyk (ARI/MIN): 2.82 (12th)
Carey Price: 2.65 (T-21st)
Other notables
Corey Crawford (CHI): 2.72 (19th)
Marc-Andre Fleury (PIT): 2.67 (20th)
Sergei Bobrovski (CBJ): 2.65 (T-21st)
Jonathan Quick (LA): 2.64 (T-23rd)
Jimmy Howard (DET): 2.64 (T-23rd)
Tuukka Rask (BOS): 2.52 (T-28th)
Jonathan Bernier (TOR): 2.52 (T-28th) Steve Mason (PHI): 2.30 (34th)
Roberto Luongo (FLA): 2.13 (36th)
Cory Schneider (NJ): 2.02 (37th)
Mike Smith (ARI): 1.83 (39th)
One thing that jumps out in this regard -- but which should probably not be surprising -- is that many of the goaltenders at the top of the goal-support chart do not themselves have great statistics this season. Many either play for teams that play attacking, high-tempo styles or else their clubs have simply would up going off-system frequently and winding up in high-scoring games when they've been in net. Emery fits into the latter category.
Goaltending and team defense have a symbiotic relationship; one will eventually lift or sink the other if excellence or sub-par performance goes on long enough. Likewise, a lack of two-way commitment from forwards (the oft-mentioned 200-foot game) can cut either way; too much goal-scoring emphasis can sink team defense and goaltending (ask the Dallas Stars) or too conservative of defensive play and/or lack of consistent breakout ability eats into goal-scoring.
Some folks have said the Flyers' next coach, assuming Berube isn't brought back, should have a more of an up-tempo system. I would argue that structure is what wins in today's NHL even though goal-scoring is reduced to varying degrees. Personally, I have no problem with the system and structure that Berube has tried to implement.
Over the course of this season, there have been signs of the desired structure taking hold with greater regularity; part of which is reflected in Mason's season numbers and outstanding even strength save percentage. However, anyone who has watched the Flyers all year knows that the team's execution of that structure has too often been inconsistent on the whole, and there have been too many games where Mason has been all that has kept Philly competitive.
A coach can only work with the pieces he has in place. Defensively, the Flyers do the best they can with what they have available but the forwards don't always hold up their end of the load and the lack of either a true shutdown defenseman or a true two-way impact defenseman atop the lineup means that Mason has at times had to shoulder more burden than is fair or reasonable.
Viewed in that light, Mason masked a lot of flaws in front of him this season. He has done so much more often than the other way around.
He's gotten inconsistent defensive assistance and very modest goal support on a leaguewide basis, yet his personal performance indicators are all much superior to the team rankings in the same categories. It's hard to make the won-loss record match up when that's the case.
8) The Flyers are a terrible shootout team. That has not only been the case this year but pretty much throughout the 10-year history of the postgame skills competition. Does the goaltender have a piece of ownership in getting his team a bonus point? Of course he does. He's 50 percent of the equation
However, shootout numbers are extremely volatile from season to season for the majority of players. There are a few who perennially excel or habitually struggle individually but they are more the exception than the rule. The sample sizes are so small that a couple goals/none goals here and there that either go in off the post or draw iron and stay out can really skew the percentages.
The Flyers' road record this season would have looked a hell of a lot better if they had won more shootouts (and overtimes). Yes, Mason does have a piece in this: he's been scored on in six of seven attempts (.143 save percentage) in three road shootouts (0-3 record). At home, he has stopped 21 of 30 attempts (.700, tying him with Varlamov for 26th among all goalies who faced a home shootout attempt). The Flyers are 2-4 in home shootouts with Mason in goal.
Last season, it was the opposite. Mason went 3-3 in road shootouts with a .700 save percentage (4-for-20, or one save away from a "strong" 80 percent or one goal away from a "pathetic" 60 percent) but was 0-2 at home (5-for-12).
Something else to consider about shootouts: If a goalie has stopped 3-of-4 in a four-round shootout, he's "done well." Yet if his team fails to score in that fourth round and the other side then wins in the fifth round, the goalie's save percentage suddenly looks ugly.
Bottom line: Don't get too bogged down in fluctuations based on small sample sizes. However, the Flyers sure could use a few more shootout wins this season. More often than not, it has been their own shooters going 0-for-3 or 1-for-4 or more that has resulted in the bonus point going the other way. In a shootout, a team ideally want the game on their stick not the opposition's.
There's plenty of blame to go around here, too. Claude Giroux going 1-for-12 this year after previously being one of the league's more dynamic shootout finishers (last year, for instance, he was 5-for-11) to Matt Read posting a goose egg in his five attempts and Sean Couturier going 1-for-8. Too often, the Flyers have either had the gimmick-winner on their sticks and failed to convert or else needed a goal to prolong the skills competition and did not do so.
Unfortunately, the NHL has truly become a league of three-point games and losing too many of them will sink playoff hopes. The Flyers have come out without a second point way too frequently this season. Mason has a piece of ownership of it but the rest is on the Flyers' shooters.
The ultimate irony is that the shootout mercifully goes away when playoff time begins yet a team can miss out on the playoffs by a single point because of it. Come the postseason, teams play until a legitimate hockey goal decides the winner, no matter how long it takes. I personally never had a problem with regular-season ties, both in the pre-OT 60-minute tie era and the subsequent 65-minute tie era.
I am friendly with a longtime NHL scout -- whom I would love to get to go on-record with this but won't for self-explanatory reasons -- who feels that the long-term impact of shootouts in the NHL has been part of the reason why legitimate in-game goal scoring has leveled off again. He feels that too many teams play for the one point in regulation and then would prefer the flip-a-coin odds of the shootout even to going all-out for a goal in the 4-on-4 overtime portion.
If the NHL adopts a 3-on-3 segment of overtime preceding the shootout (ala the AHL this season), we will see more games decided before the skills competition. That is going to mean goalies' season save percentages go down just a tad but so be it. While 3-on-3s rarely occur under normal in-game circumstances, at least there is a team aspect to deciding the game.
Personally, when I make assessments of NHL players -- whether skaters or goalies -- I tend to completely throw out their shootout numbers in the given season being discussed. It's part of the NHL -- and, as such, it's important to at least get near the break-even point in shootouts -- but it's not hockey. Thank goodness, no Stanley Cup has ever directly been won or lost due to a shootout goal.
9) If he sees it, he usually stops it. Some Mason critics opine, largely through observation that is colored by personal rooting interest, that he "lets in too many soft goals to be considered elite." This is not born out by facts. His save percentages this season on shots that could be deemed "low danger" and even "moderate danger" are right up there in conjunction with his overall rankings.
In other words, Mason is no more or less prone than any other high-end NHL goalie to suddenly give up a marshmallow; it happens to everyone from time to time. Most of the time, if Mason can see it coming from an angle he can close off -- and it doesn't deflect and radically change direction or bounce unpredictably -- he's going to stop it.
If I were to offer an amateur's scouting report on Mason, I would say he has very quick feet, good lateral movement, an above-average glove and is an above-average stickhandler. When his rebound control is on and pucks are not going to the opposite slot, he becomes exceptionally tough to beat. He is good at stopping second-chance opportunities in close and finding loose pucks in scrambles around the net.
Anecdotally, a one-on-one shooter's best bet with him seems to be to go high blocker-side shoulder or to try to draw him out a little off his angle. Otherwise, if the shooter isn't picking the top corner with a completely unstoppable, he isn't scoring. Most glove-side attempts on Mason get snapped right out of the air.
10) Two-plus years of success in Philadelphia. To those who say "Mason may have had a fine season this year, but what about the rest of his career?" I will offer these reminders:
• Mason broke into the NHL at age 20. That is not the norm. Back in February, NHL.com's Corey Masisak wrote an article on just how long it takes most goaltenders to develop into NHL regulars.
The ultimate case in point: Capitals starting goalie Braden Holtby (151 career regular season games to date) is the only goaltender from the NHL's past eight draft classes to have reached 100 career NHL games up to this point. (Note: the article says "nine" draft classes, but is actually from 2007 onward).
The protracted development cycle for goalies is a big part of the reason why Mason's critics missed the boat. He played over his head as a 20-year-old NHL rookie but still had to experience the learning curve that nearly overwhelmed him the next few years. It should also be noted that some of those post-rookie year Columbus teams he played on early were bad all-around teams, which made his own struggles stand out even more.
• Mason is not a "one-year wonder" with the Flyers. He has consistently been solid from the time of his arrival at the 2013 trade deadline until the present time. Entering last night's game, he had a 2.34 GAA, .924 save percentage and seven shutouts in 118 appearances in a Flyers uniform. He was also stellar against the New York Rangers in the playoffs last year (1.97 GAA, .939 save percentage) after returning from a late-season concussion to play Games 3 to 7 against the eventual Cup Finalists who have gone on to win the President's Trophy this year.
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