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JuniorHockey · 03-06-2017, 04:23 PM

Rookie Goalie Woes

No one said coming into the SMJHL as a rookie starting goalie would be easy… and they were right not to. The first and second overall picks in the most recent SMJHL draft, Jimmy Wagner and Bartholomew Cechove, are statistically some of the worst goalies in the SMJHL. A comparison is a fairly easy to make as they have played a similar amount. Cechove has played one more game, 36 in total, and only 80 more minutes than his counterpart in St Louis Wagner.

It is hard to say which of the two teams is stronger as both sit last in their conferences with similar goal differential (-24 for Vancouver and -28 for St Louis). In the head to head matchup St Louis is up 3-1, by a combined score of 13-10. Both teams are very evenly matched, one could say St Louis is the better team due to having more points and winning the head to head matchup but the worst goal differential tells a different story. Overall a slight edge to St Louis but the difference is honestly negligible.

GAA is rightly viewed as more of a team stat than a real indicator of goaltending ability but it is one of the only statistics we have. In this category Cechove and Wagner are nearly identical. Wagner (2.88) leads the way with a 0.03 advantage over Cehcove (2.91). Earlier in the season these numbers were much worst for both goalies with Vancouver losing the first 8 games of the season and St Louis getting blown out in their opener 6-0, Wagner being scored on 4 times in 23 minutes. However both goalies have turned their seasons around and now are below the awful 3.00 GAA they both had earlier in the year. The difference here is negligible and we will cough it up as a draw.

SV% is likely the best stat we have in the SHL to measure goaltending ability. Here the difference is again small with Cechove (.891) leading the way by .02% over Wagner (.871). Cechove has also been by far the busiest goalie in the SMJHL having face 910 shots, the only goalie that has face more is Prince George Firebird Stephan Harris who has played 300 more minutes than Cechove. Meanwhile Wagner has faced only 729 shots in 80 fewer minutes than Cechove. We unfortunately cannot judge the difficulty of the shots, perhaps Cechove is facing a ridiculous amount of easy shots… we simply cannot know. While the save percentage is only slightly better for Cechove when it is combined with the ridiculous number of shots he faces a night Cechove is given an edge here.

Shutouts or should I say shutout... Jimmy Wagner is the only one of the two to have recorded a shutout; his shutout came against the Kelowna Knights. While he only had to make 15 saves to get the SO it did come against the third highest scoring team in the SMJHL. Shutouts can be described as a team stat, for example Chechove is significantly less likely to only face 15 shots in a game… but a goalie needs to stay sharp the whole game to get the shutout. Wagner gets the obvious win here.

Overall we have to say this battle is too close to call. Jimmy Wagner has a shutout and a minor GAA lead while Cechove faces way more shots and has a better SV% on top of it. At the end of the night the two goalies are only ahead of Colorado’s netminder Carter Fleury in either category. Neither goalie can hang their hat on anything they’ve done this season, hopefully for both their team’s sakes they improve in their sophomore season.

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InciteHysteria · 03-06-2017, 04:33 PM

Stick with it man. Being a goalie is frustrating shit sometimes. SMJHL discourages quite a lot of goalies. But when you get your TPE up and hit the SHL you'll be feeling better!

I believe in you man. Vancouver goalies gotta have each other's backs.