Love Me Tender

by Derek Zona on May 15, 2009 9:34 PM MDT in Analysis

Roberto Luongo collapsed. Because of this, Vancouver may or may not sell the stellar goaltender to the highest bidder to hold onto the Sedinettes. Miikka Kiprusoff is in the midst of the longest day and enormous contracts for Henrik Lundqvist and Evgeni Nabokov have meant nothing to the sucess of their respective teams. There is an undercurrent of chatter about the relative worth of goaltending and what the big-ticket goaltender should be able to deliver, namely Stanley Cups.

Lowetide has proposed, and I heartily endorse his proposition, that success in a post-expansion world be measured by pennants, not cups. I took one step back in this experiment and decided to see which goalies were playing for pennants. Below is a look at a simple measure of goaltenders that have played for a pennant since the lockout. I'm focused solely on save percentage in this post, but if this looks useful, I might throw in some other stats.

The number at the left is the individual save percentage rank in the NHL that season for qualifying goalies. In 05-06 there were 47 qualifying goalies, in 06-07 there were 44, 07-08 there were 44 and the number of qualifiers in 08-09 was 46. The bracketed number to the right is the individual save percentage rank in the NHL since the lockout based on qualifed goalies with more than a single season. There are 52 such goalies since 05-06.

Only three goalies from the bottom half of the league have been able to play for a pennant - Cam Ward, Marty Turco and Chris Osgood.

One thing you may notice that is missing from the bracketed numbers column - values that are 10 and under. None of the post-lockout top 10 save percentage goalies have played for a pennant.

I'll have a more complete look at the list soon.

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Interesting stuff, coach. What would you say it means?
Of those goalies, Khabibulin, Fleury, Turco and Giguere were all big ticket goalies.
The medium ticket ones (under $3 million) are Osgood, Ward, Biron, Miller, Emery, Ward, and Hasek (as I recall in his case).
Four big tickets and six out of the 16 pennant-winning teams had big ticket guys.
So you clearly don't need the big ticket to cash in. . . Given that it's also easier to find goalies and not have to give up high picks, that they come from all over the place, this presents some interesting options for acquiring goalies and signing them. . .
At the same, time, the relative ease of finding a goalie good enough to take you to the pennant is balanced by the relative value you get from spending money on a goalie, something Dellow has been writing about . . . Can't say I've come to any conclusions here, other than the fact that a team should try to sign and develop as many 20-25 year old goalies as possible -- and the Oil sure didn't do that 2004-06, did they (or whenever it was the team lacked its own farm team).

by dstaples on May 17, 2009 5:00 PM MDT reply actions

Interesting stuff, coach. What would you say it means?

I'm not quite sure yet. Most of the goalies that are playing for the pennants are coming from the second tier and they play at the high edge of their capabilities for a year.

Maybe the overall talent level on those teams is higher because their teams have an extra $2-$3 million to spend in front of them. Maybe it's luck. Maybe it's sample size and this will straighten out soon.

So you clearly don't need the big ticket to cash in.

Doesn't seem like they are necessary, that's for sure.

by Coach pb9617 on May 18, 2009 8:53 AM MDT reply actions

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Northwest Standings

	GP	W	L	OTL	PT
Vancouver Nucks Misconduct	54	34	15	5	73
Colorado Mile High Hockey	56	28	25	3	59
Minnesota Hockey Wilderness	54	25	21	8	58
Calgary Matchsticks and Gasoline	55	25	22	8	58
Edmonton The Copper & Blue	54	21	28	5	47

(updated 2.11.2012 at 1:04 AM MST)

21 - 28 - 5

Streak: Lost 2

Oilers Schedule

Next 5 Games

@ Ottawa Silver Seven	Sat 02/11	12:00 PM MST
Toronto Pension Plan Puppets	Wed 02/15	8:00 PM MST
Colorado Mile High Hockey	Fri 02/17	7:30 PM MST
Vancouver Nucks Misconduct	Sun 02/19	7:00 PM MST
@ Calgary Matchsticks and Gasoline	Tue 02/21	7:00 PM MST

Last 5 Games

@ Detroit Winging It In Motown	Wed 02/08	L 2 - 4
@ Toronto Pension Plan Puppets	Mon 02/06	L 3 - 6
Detroit Winging It In Motown	Sat 02/04	SO - W 5 - 4
Chicago Second City Hockey	Thu 02/02	W 8 - 4
Colorado Mile High Hockey	Tue 01/31	W 3 - 2