The last line of defense, often the first line of criticism, and ultimately the most difficult position for people to evaluate.
Goaltending and goaltenders.
They are a pretty big deal in the NHL, sometimes to the point of single handedly carrying you to success (2014-15 Carey Price anyone?) or being a major concern and problem in a team's season (Too many teams to list). Then again, it does not always work out like Carey Price and the Canadiens or Varlamov and the 2013-14 Avalanche. Sometimes good goalies play on bad teams and never go anywhere. Sometimes good goalies play on great teams and are knocked in value because of it. That is the reality of a world where the two major statistical categories in which we use to rate them are actually team based metrics. Is save percentage reflective of the goaltender or the team? Is goals against average reflective of the team or the player? While some roll their eyes at an "eye test" or something outside of stats, that is probably one of the better ways to evaluate a goaltender in combination with statistics. Like all analytics, they should be taken as support metrics to coincide with game action, not as a standalone evaluator.
Goaltending, however, tries even our most basic instincts with that. They say goaltenders are a unique breed, and when evaluating their performances you have to treat them as so.
Jon Rosen of LA Kings Insider just recently posted the evaluations of both Martin Jones and Jonathan Quick. Check out both for a good overview of the good and bad of their respective seasons.
For the most part, any sort of goalie evaluation shows the peculiarity of appraising such a position. This is why the idea of awarding the Vezina trophy to the best goaltender can be a frustrating thing at times. Because what is "the best" ?
Take Jonathan Quick's "Bad" for example in the Jon Rosen evaluation. He was middle of the pack in overall save percentage. He had an outstanding start to the year, an incredibly poor middle of the year, and a good solid finish to the year. As we have discussed on the blog before, the bad portion was outstandingly bad.. Then again, the entire team was struggling during that portion of the year. How much of that is placed on your goaltender? This sort of symbiant circle exists throughout hockey. He also faced some of the lowest "high-danger" opportunities in the league. That is the crutch that some critics lean on when it comes to Quick, is that he is an above average goaltender on a great defensive and shot suppressing team. Then why do we not say the same about Lundqvist? Who had equally as low "High-danger" chances faced. Altogether it is a fairly fruitless argument because the two factors of good goaltending and good defensive team are not mutually exclusive. Then there is the shootout, where the entire team struggled but it is simple to point out that Quick had poor shootout numbers this year. These are "bad" things that are hard to really stress on too much given their overall connectedness to team play.
Thankfully, War on Ice has helped overall a little bit with their introduction of hextallies and adjusted save percentage. We can get an idea of how difficult a goaltender's job is each night. Even then, there are still some very strange things.
As a refresher, adjusted save percentage factors in shot difficulty by weighting the save percentage in regards to three categories: High Danger, Medium Danger, and Low Danger. Thus it should give us a pretty good idea of who was the best goalie based purely on statistics then right? Guess again. There are still some really strange ones out there that probably will make you scratch your head.
If we go by adjusted five on five save percentage during regular season, here are the five best goalies in the league according to that measurement:
(We use five on five purely because it is the best judge of unadulterated hockey...I guess)
It should also be noted that the much maligned and oft criticized Ondrej Pavelec was 6th with a 93.74.
*Only goalies playing above 1600 even strength minutes or roughly 35 games were included
Does not quite match up with the Vezina voting does it?
Not a single vote for Steve Mason or Corey Schneider was cast despite the duo having some of the best save percentages and statistical contributions in the entire league last season. Not to mention the best five on five CLOSE save percentages as well. If sample size was an issue, at least with Mason, there were votes cast for Talbot and Hammond. Also, Dubnyk played just seven games more than Mason. If you want to make a further case for Mason, he faced the seventh most even strength shots of the sampled goaltenders. Yes, higher than Price, higher than Dubnyk, and higher than Rinne. Maybe it was shot difficulty. Mason had to make about five or six "High-danger" saves a game. Price? About the exact same amount. (Price 5.24, Mason 5.25). Schneider? More towards five (5.1). For sake of reference, Quick had to make about four to five a game (4.1). Carey Price did however stand out as having the 4th highest high-danger save percentage in the league. (Allen, Holtby, Halak, Price). It furthered his allure of being a big time goaltender making big saves for his club.
Regardless, it is strange though. Two of the best goaltenders in the league, Mason and Schneider, were completely left off Vezina voting. Even Cam Talbot, a back-up, got a vote before the aforementioned tenders.
This is where we get into the overall difficulty of it all. There is only one logical reason why Corey Schneider and Steve Mason were not recognized whatsoever for the outstanding season's they had:
Their respective teams did nothing.
How important was every game? How pressure filled was the situation? Did it even matter at the end of the day if they had a good or a bad season? It did not. That is why seven of the eight goaltenders who received Vezina votes played on playoff teams. Of the top four vote getters, three had 40+ win seasons. Again, is that not more indicative of a team metric?
The Vezina trophy is supposed given to "the National Hockey League's top goaltender who is 'adjudged to be the best at this position'"
Then how did two of the top three statistical goaltenders not get a vote?
Quite simply because measuring and awarding goaltending in a statistical fashion is dumb. UNLESS we separate the two. If they really wanted less controversy with the Vezina it should be worded as the goaltender adjudged to be THE MOST VALUABLE at his position. Yes we already have a most valuable player award, but goaltending is incredibly specialized, and should probably be recognized in such a way that reflects that.
Although that completely eliminates the Vezina being awarded to the BEST, it does award it to the goaltender who, like Carey Price, pretty much carried his team into the postseason. Or, in the situation of Andrew Hammond, came in and was part of one of the most inspiring, historic, and downright entertaining stretch runs in the history of the game.
Value and best are not synonymous. Again, to reiterate, how important were the games down the stretch for Schneider and the Devils or Mason and the Flyers? They weren't! Despite going super fancy stattish and looking at five on five close save percentages (One goal games) in which Mason is still the top goaltender, the grander picture wins out when it comes to the Vezina. The team position, the volume of every game, the importance of every save. All respect to Steve Mason, he did not face the same pressures as Carey Price or Andrew Hammond. He did not face the same pressures as a Devan Dubnyk, or even a Pekka Rinne. Unfortunately, we can be mislead by the language of the Vezina trophy, an award granted to the BEST goaltender in the league. Some value "Best" as a purely statistical mark, and it can be hard not to believe that. What goalie kept the most pucks out of the net on a regular basis? Who stopped the highest percentage of shots? Like most things in the modern day game of analytics vs. traditionalists, it is never one or the other, even though we tend to argue it in that respect.
Cam Talbot and Andrew Hammond should have never received votes for the Vezina in a world of statistical analysis. However, in a romantic and traditionalists view, their contributions were invaluable to the playoff lives and overall season success of the Rangers and Senators. Where would the Rangers be without Talbot stepping in with Lundqvist out? They probably would not have won a President's Trophy that is for sure. Where would the Senators have been without the heroics of a former AHL goalie taking the league by storm? Do we really put their contributions behind that of Steve Mason and Corey Schneider? Great goalies having amazing seasons on bad teams. They were the last meal of roast beef to a death row inmate. It is hard not to be respectable to the contributions of guys like Hammond and Talbot, who really went above and beyond in a situation that could have gone the opposite way in spectacularly bad fashion. Guys like Hammond or Dubnyk, who were part of amazing turnarounds that ultimately saved seasons, should be recognized beyond statistical value. However, they should not be recognized on the same ballot as goaltenders like Mason and Schneider.
The hockey world is not a perfect world by any means. There are contradictions that stem from clinging to tradition over practicality. How long did it take for helmets to become mandatory? How long before visors are mandatory? How long has it taken for players to swallow a bit of pride and put their brain health before playing the next shift?
It is absolutely, 100%, what people love about the game. There is tradition within it that other sports simply do not have.
Nevertheless, should we redefine the Vezina trophy just a touch? Or what about including a second trophy which actually factors in the best OVERALL statistical goaltender versus the most valuable goaltender? At this point that is essentially what the Vezina has become. The most valuable goaltender. Maybe we should re-define the Jennings, a trophy given to the team with the best goals against. At this point there is a butting of heads on what actually defines the best goaltender. Is it the situation or the stats? We already have something along these lines amongst skaters. The Art Ross and Rocket Richard trophies measure statistical contributions while the Hart Trophy measures the most valuable player. Most the time the Art Ross and Hart end up being the same player, sometimes it isn't, and that is the right call.
Goaltending should be afforded the same thing. Why? So we can appreciate and reward both the contributions of a Carey Price, Andrew Hammond, and Devan Dubnyk, while also appreciating and rewarding the contributions of a Steve Mason or Corey Schneider. It would probably be the most reasonable course of action to have two-three awards to represent most valuable and best overall goaltenders. Not all goalies, situations and teams surrounding the goalies are created equal, and they should not be treated as such with a single defining trophy.
In the end goaltending still remains an enigmatic, infuriating, and overall mystifying position. Do we gauge it by team, individual, or scenario?
Despite everything, just enjoy things like this when they happen. No save percentage or awards can properly show things like this.
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