Olivier Roy - #19 in The Copper & Blue's Top 25 Under 25
by dawgbone98 on Feb 1, 2012 11:31 AM MST
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Olivier Roy is probably more famous so far for his meltdowns than he is for his actual ability to play goal. He got shelled in the 2011 Tournament of small sample sizes and he was obliterated in his pair of playoff starts in the QMJHL later on that spring. As a player, you can sort of escape from a couple of bad games without too much flak. As a goaltender, that label is going to hang on you for a while, especially when you do it on the stage that Roy did it.
As with all prospects, you want to see improvement year after year. Olivier Roy, despite his blow-ups, has managed to keep improving his save percentage, including in a season where he moved up to a higher calibre league. His save percentage has made a slow but steady climb each season before making a big jump this year:
- 2007-08 QMJHL .896
- 2008-09 QMJHL .905
- 2009-10 QMJHL .908
- 2010-11 QMJHL .911
- 2011-12 ECHL .919
That .919 is good enough to be tied for 7th overall, but if you exclude the guys with less than 20 GP he moves up to 5th. It’s been a good developmental year for Roy as he’s been able to get in a fair amount of games and also seen a fair amount of shots (he’s 2nd in the league in shots against per game). When looking at a goaltenders numbers, looking at his backup can be helpful in figuring out how much of his numbers are ability and how much is driven by the team. His current backup, Thomas Heemskerk, has posted a .894 save percentage up to this point, which is well behind Roy’s.
The one critique that has always come up when evaluating Olivier Roy is that he’s a bit predictable in that he basically goes down on every single shot. It’s one thing to do that when you are a taller goalie (like 6-5 Devan Dubnyk), but as a shorter goaltender you can run into troubles. If you remember the Sweden game in the 2011 WJHC, Roy gave up a couple of goals from bad angles that beat him up high. I understand the philosophy behind the butterfly/blocking style, but Roy needs to be a bit smarter in recognizing when he doesn’t have to go down.
Roy is tracking well and is in fact at about the same pace as Devan Dubnyk was at the same age (DD posted a .921 in the ECHL in his 20 year old season). The Oilers have really done a smart job in recent years at using the ECHL to get their young goalie prospects a lot of starts. It’s enabled them to separate the wheat (Dubnyk) from the chaff (Pitton, Perugini), and Roy is starting to look like the former.
What they’re saying:
Ryan "Goalie Hater" Batty (27th):
In his first season as a pro Roy is posting a save percentage that ranks him in the top half of his ECHL competitors. That's a good thing. But the development curve of any goalie is so erratic that it also means next to nothing. Until he spends some time in the AHL I just can't make a confident statement about his value as a prospect.
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Ryan actually wanted me to mention it though…
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
Tactical contributor to the Copper & Blue and just as boring on the twitters... @dawgbone98
Derek, Ryan and Ben are the father, son, and unholy ghost triumvirate of the Anti-Goaltenders Union.
Oilers fan through thick, thin and anorexic. Writer for The Cult of Hockey.
by Bruce McCurdy on Feb 1, 2012 7:05 PM MST up reply actions
If copper and blue has taught me anything its that ALL goaltenders performance are difficult to predict. Developmental predicitons are next to impossible. The smallest difference in performance translates to huge changes in perception. It seems that over time all but the truly elite and the truly disastorous end up at the mean. Not a traditional bell curve by any means.
All that being said, it seems that Roy is progressing.
And that’s kind of why he’s rated where he is. He hasn’t been a dominating goaltender at every level he’s played at so he gets a bit of a knock for that.
But he’s doing what you expect from your prospects and he’s improving. He’s also improving while taking a step up in competetion.
Now, he may completely fall on his face at the AHL level and never progress beyond that, but like you said, that’s hard to tell with goaltenders.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
Tactical contributor to the Copper & Blue and just as boring on the twitters... @dawgbone98
If copper and blue has taught me anything its that ALL goaltenders performance are difficult to predict.
I’ve learned a lot of things from C&B but that isn’t one of them. I figured that much out about 10 games into the 1967-68 season. (In my earliest years of Plante, Bower, Sawchuk, Hall, Worsley and Johnston being The Only Six Goalies In The World, goaltender performance was almost predictable, but once expansion and backup goalies started happening that turned out to be a mirage.)
Oilers fan through thick, thin and anorexic. Writer for The Cult of Hockey.
by Bruce McCurdy on Feb 1, 2012 7:11 PM MST up reply actions
Roy
Personally I dont like him as a goalie, his glove hand is terrible and his numbers have never been great, I question how he made the WJ team. I’d put Bunz miles ahead. Don’t know a lot about the 2 fins other that Perahonen has awesome hair
Just for reference, Luongo and Halak are also considered to have weak glove hands… not sure how much that actually matters to be honest.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
Tactical contributor to the Copper & Blue and just as boring on the twitters... @dawgbone98
I tend to agree goaltender performance is difficult to predict, and careers can be built largely on variance. SV% is usually not consistent year to year, and players can build careers off putting a couple of overperforming years together.
I think goaltending has gotten to the point where the butterfly style, and large equipment has taken alot of the skill aspect out, and the pool of goalies in the NHL and top of the AHL are largely of the same quality.
If Oilers drafted Yann Danis or David Lenevu, we would be raving about their performance even more so now. But for some reason, if you aren’t drafted in the the organization you play for, performance is not noticed, and performance of those drafted by the organziation seem to get the attention.
With goalies such as Michael Leighton, Evgeni Nabokov, Nittymaki, and countless others available, goaltending shouldn’t be a concern of any team in the league.
But Steve Mason is still awesome.
The Edmonton Oilers, keeping opposition fans happy for the last 6 years
Goalies today are significantly more skilled than they ever were in the past. All of this extra equipment is in direct response to all the advancements made by the shooters, including stick and skate tech as well as training.
Goaltending has become more economical. When I started in net (mid-80’s) they taught all kinds of useless shit like skate saves and that. Now, goalies from day 1 are taught proper footwoork. They spend more time learning how to navigate the crease than they ever used to.
The pool of goaltenders has increased because the coaching all through the world has gotten better. 20 years ago, most minor teams didn’t even have a goalie coach. Now, you have them as far down as house league.
And I disagree that we’d be raving about Danis or Lenevu’s performance now. These are veteran guys who have been around the block, not a 20 year old.
In theory, there is little difference between practice and theory, but in practice there is!
Tactical contributor to the Copper & Blue and just as boring on the twitters... @dawgbone98
You make fair points throughout, however your last paragraph I disagree with. Even though they are older, and would not be considered prospects I do agree with. However there is definitely a bias among teams to shower both opportunity and praise among those they have drafted themselves. Which is pretty logical, as scouting departments attempt to make themselves more relevant, and push players they have drafted and can take credit for. The only case I can think of prospects from other organizations even being noticed, is when they were involved in a big trade, and management has a vested interest in these prospects succeeding.
And just to reiterate, I don’t think goaltenders aren’t talented, and haven’t gotten better over time. I just believe that this top pool of goaltenders, which includes all NHL goaltenders, and top rated prospects in places such as the AHL are all of a very similar skill level, which makes it hard to differentiate between them. With such things as SV% having very little correlation from year-to-year as shown in a great read in a book called Stumbling on Wins (although most of the content is about the NBA).
Maybe if I have some time I’d do some analysis in the future, because SV% is a bit of a flawed stat in itself as it includes both EV, SH, and PP SV%. It would be curious to see if you could factor what impact each of these events has, and standardize it to see if overall SV% is more consistent year-to-year when taking these events into consideration.
I believe that’s been done, and EV SV% has been found to be the most consistent, with PK SV % being a big driver of variance and PP SV% being essentially irrelevant.
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
Robertson's Rants - Exceedingly occasional, lengthy ramblings on hockey topics, hosted at Puck Podcast. And no, my name's not Doug.
That doesn’t quite sound statistically sound. What I was talking about was more of indexing shots goalies face at EV, PP, and PK. So goalies who face more PK shots one year, wouldn’t be penalized for having a lower overall expected SV%. By taking a ratio of these catagories, and adjusting to SV% expectations for each catagory should create a sort of normalized number for each goalie. Seeing how this number varies from year should more accurately indicate whether true SV% is any more consistent year to year.
Oh, I see: a situationally-adjusted SV %. I don’t know if that’s ever been done.
SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there). Link now 100% less broken.
Robertson's Rants - Exceedingly occasional, lengthy ramblings on hockey topics, hosted at Puck Podcast. And no, my name's not Doug.
The reason the performance of goaltenders is difficult to predict is the new style of goaltending is to be in good position and to fill as much of the net as possible, then move as little as possible and let the puck hit you. The speed of the shots these days mean there are almost no reaction saves. This is effective however the consequence is that on any individual shot the goaltender is not in control of whether the puck goes in or not. Either the shooter hits the spot or he doesn’t. All the goaltender does is create the conditions under which the shot is taken. So if Khabibulin is hot and has a run of .950 save percentage games this tells us more about how the shooters are shooting and less about him. If he suddenly starts letting more goals in he isn’t playing worse all of a sudden, it just means the shooters are hitting their spots.
The only way to know how “good” a goaltender is, that is how much room he gives the shooters, is over a very large sample size.
by Captain Obvious II on Feb 2, 2012 10:04 AM MST reply actions
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