Login

Symmetrik · 09-03-2024, 08:02 PM

Goaltending is always a fickle beast, and FHM has never really helped the situation. But everyone needs at least 2, and so I'll take a quick look at how things have gone for the teams this season. Some teams have established starters, some teams drafted starters, some teams split it right down the middle, and one team even lost a starter in the season.

The first order of business was actually far more complicated than I thought. I collected the data from the index, and pulled in Applied TPE and went to calculate the percentage of a team's minutes a goalie has played. First, that's already a pretty inexact science. There's no number for how many minutes of game time a team as a whole has had. Between OTs, pulling the goalie, and shootouts, it's practically impossible to actually put together that number. So I settled for taking the total minutes goalies have played, adding them together, and then taking their percentage of that. Second, I learned that Akira Suzuki for some reason doesn't show up in any of the goalie stats pages, and their page in the index is broken. Fortunately, I could see their stats on the NBB page and pull them in manually. And finally, I found Yukon to be missing about 300 minutes of game time - they had 53 games played, but all their goalies minutes combined was only 2843 minutes - like I said it's not an exact science, but that's WAY off simply OT/SO/pulled goalie minutes. Eventually I was able to go back game by game and find that Dexter Harrison Jr. started the season with the Malamutes, only to be called up to the SHL after 6 games. This completely removed his stats from the index, so I had to manually go into each game, and add up the minutes, saves, shots, etc.

As expected coming out of the offseason, Detroit has put Anastasia Soderstrom in nets at basically every possible opportunity. She'll be making her SHL debut next season, and Detroit is making sure they get everything they can from her. She is the only goalie to have played 80% of her team's minutes. She has Detroit 6th in the SMJHL standings. It's probably still not the season she'd hoped for though, with an 0.899 sv%.

Not far behind that is Grant Berd, who has 79.9% of the starts for Thunder Bay. Pretty far opposite to Detroit, the Walleye sit 3rd from last in the standings and Berd has a 0.886 sv% and a 3.88 GAA.

In terms of total games played, the leader is Walter Scheibli for San Diego. With 77.9% of the minutes, it's been a rough time for the Tidal's starting goalie. Only 5 players have a GAA over 4, and 2 of them are backups (including Scheibli's backup).

Among rookies, Katharina Rosenthal is the only one getting a true lion's share of stars, with 69.9 (nice)% of the minutes. It's not gone particularly well in Newfoundland, where they sit 12th in the league and the backup has mostly outperformed Rosenthal.

Ela Solberg in QCC also is a starter, as is Cristobal Khabibulin in Vancouver, though both a splitting the time more evenly, with 59.5% and 56.9% respectively. Khabibulin's 1B - I can't convince myself to call Doom Guy a backup - is probably the best goalie in the league right now.

Anchorage has almost split their game right down the middle, as Adam Joy has 51.1% of the minutes and PeanutButter Zamboni has 48.9%. It's worked quite well for the 2nd best team in the league, but it does help that both are in the top 10 in the league in TPE. and the top 10 is 60 TPE ahead of 11th.

Ahead of the draft, I said Carolina desperately needed a goalie - and they didn't take one until very late, and it has not worked out. The bulk of the starts has been going to returning goalie Mason Remy, and he has struggled. One of the aforementioned 3 starting goalies with above a 4.0 GAA is Remy. Carolina is not a good team this season, and certainly poor goaltending has only exacerbated their issues.

And finally Yukon. I think technically they do split minutes pretty evenly, though they've also played 4 different goaltenders this season. As far as I could tell, no one else had even played 3. Dexter Harrison Jr. was off to the hottest start of the season, and headed straight to the SHL with that. Jökull Magnússon took on a brief 5 games as a backup, though still on the roster the reins have been handed over to the duo of Phemeia McLaughlin and Jakub Alexa. Alexa has been on an absolute tear since signing mid-season - currently leading the league with a 0.923sv% in 22 games. The only person who was better was Harrison Jr. in only 6 games. Phemeia is getting the primary minutes, with 42.9% compared to Alexa's 38%, though she's the only goalie to suit up for Yukon this season and not put up strong numbers. Though small sample size is a thing, there are only 4 players with a sv% above 0.910 - 3 of them are Yukon goalies.

I will certainly be interested to see who gets the go in the playoffs for some of these teams. Do they continue to ride the split? Do they let 1 have the net until a loss? Certainly for some teams like Anchorage, Colorado, Yukon, and Vancouver it's going to be quite an interesting choice. Will Yukon continue to let Phemeia lead? Or will Alexa's hot hand get the go? The same for Vancouver, but even more - Doom Guy is inactive but absolutely tearing it up right now. Do you let your active rookie take the reins in playoffs?

And what of the teams who need a future? What might this offseason bring? Seeing what their failure to acquire a promising goalie this season brought, will Carolina make a direct effort this offseason? How much will Detroit prioritize the replacement of Soderstrom? Who knows if any S77 players make the jump to the SHL early, like Dexter Harrison Jr. did this season.

I'll be honest, I think I lost my train of thought for this whole piece when I tried to track down Yukon's missing goalie. That probably could have been the whole thing. "Who stole Yukon's missing games?!"

Anyway here's the full data sorted by percentage of minutes.

(table)
[Image: EKCw3fP.png]

chetib · 09-07-2024, 03:05 PM

Approved @Symmetrik @CptSquall

Navigation

Extra Menu

About us