07-18-2024, 05:53 PM(This post was last modified: 07-27-2024, 12:06 PM by CptSquall. Edited 1 time in total.)
Coming into the SHL at my best friend’s request, I was not prepared for how quickly I would get sucked into the league, nor how well I would end up doing in Vancouver as a goalie. The creation of my player was an ongoing joke after watching the first Fallout season after all. Despite this, as the SMJHL season approached and then began, I got pings for my performance, shutouts, and more, I was pulled deeper into this place. So, I decided to look into the top ten goalies in Save Percentage to see how well I did as a rookie compared to other goalies. Below, you see that list in order from 1st to 10th in ranking as well as the Save Percentage. I’ll admit, I was surprised; there were several goalies that didn’t even break 200 TPE by the end of the season.
Anastasia Soderstrom - 425 TPE (Detroit) - 0.916
Mason remy - 181 TPE (Carolina) - 0.913
Masked Stranger - 425 TPE (Vancouver) - 0.910
Thorn Brown - 189 TPE (Detroit) - 0.909
Nicholas Scalice - 205 TPE (Regina) - 0.909
Kris - 239 TPE (Maine) - 0.907
Grant Berd - 251 TPE (Regina) - 0.907
Zsigmond Popovics - 159 TPE (Regina) - 0.907
Galton Woggins - 249 TPE (Vancouver) - 0.907
Stan Free - 370 TPE (Carolina) - 0.903
I recognize that goalies often overall perform more as a product of their team than their direct build, but I also understand the importance of a proper goalie build. For example, Nevada was a top two team this season, yet not a single one of their goalies arrived in the top ten Save Percentage for the season. The Kraken’s two goalies showed up instead though, despite being #11 by the season’s end. In this Deep Dive, I look into the builds of these goalies and see if there is an emergent pattern that arises with the minimal knowledge I have.
The clearest pattern that arises is the chronically low puck handling. This was a stat my friend explicitly told to avoid, and it seems this pattern follows across some of the best goalies as well. Nicholas Scalice is the outlier in this situation, offering it as the second highest stat of their player after the glove stat. The next two that goalies neglect in their builds seem to be passing and poke check. Some goalies put TPE into one or the other, or not at all, but never prioritize the stats. Nicholas Scalice would be an exception, if not for passing being their lowest stat by only one. I wonder if the two stats counteract each other when built together usually, or if the stats are detrimental until a certain point.
As for the prioritized stats, it appears to be blocker and glove. They are usually balanced alongside positioning, rebound, and recovery but one or the other tend to be the highest stat, with significant investment into the other per player. Unlike previously, there were two exceptions in this pattern, and those players are Thorn Brown and the Masked Stranger. Thorn Brown heavily invested into reflexes, resulting in them neglecting blocker and glove. The Masked Stranger put heavier emphasis on positioning, rebound, and recovery, which still follows the other goalies simply because everyone has put heavy investment into those as well.
This was mostly a passing curiosity I thought of when brainstorming as I plan to switch from Goalie to a Defense player instead. It seems that a large portion of the league has found a way to optimize for both the season and playoffs down to the individual level so that everyone can perform highly. I wish these players luck and good fortune as they slowly filter into the SHL.
ConjureBones
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