A deeper look into S94 goaltending part 1 - Goals Saved Above Average

[VattghernCZ 1,014]

I'm currently in the process of writing a media spot about a bit deeper look into the S94 goaltending statistics, particularly about the stats that are not readily available. However, the research for this media spot takes hours because it literally requires me to go through all 576 game logs to take notes. And we all know life gets in the way sometimes, and I haven't had as much free time this week as I previously planned. Originally, I wanted to post it before the Awards Ceremony because a part of it was predicting the Aidan Shaw Trophy for the top goaltender. (Congratulations, Lachlan Summers! What a way to end the career! Every forward can now breathe a bit easier.)

 

Well, it didn't work out. No way I'm going through the remaining 200-ish game logs today, then crunching the numbers, then putting the article together today, it's Sunday evening. But there is a stat that actually doesn't require me to go through every single game, and that is Goals Saved Above Average (GSAA).

 

GSAA is a comparison between the number of goals a goaltender has allowed and the number of goals a goaltender with the league's average save percentage would have allowed on the same number of shots against. Obviously, the higher the number, the better—the number represents how many goals the goaltender has prevented thanks to having a higher/lower save percentage than the league average. 

 

For calculating GSAA, I needed to figure out the average save percentage, which was easy to do. In S94, there were 3,595 goals scored in total on 42,740 shots. However, 54 of the goals were scored on an empty net, so I needed to subtract 54 from both of these numbers. So there were 3,451 goals scored on 42,686 shots with a goaltender in the net, making the average shooting percentage against goaltenders 8.3% and the average save percentage 91.7%.

 

(While it's not necessarily related to this article, the S93 sliders changes which have increased scoring significantly made me curious what the average SV% has been lately. S94: 91.7%, S93: 91.9%, S92: 92.2%, S91: 92.3%, S90: 92.2%...yup, there's a drop.)

 

For the purpose of ranking the goaltenders, I'm going to split them into two groups: starter goaltenders (36 or more games played) and backup goaltenders (less than 36 games played). This is how our goalies ranked in GSAA in S94:

 

Starting goaltenders

1.  Lachlan Summers @kirbithan: 41.9 GSAA

2.  Fuukka Rask* @Jubis: 28.7 GSAA

3.  Merome Dilson @MexicanCow123: 24.0 GSAA

4.  Ash Sparks @DarkSpyro: 21.1 GSAA

5.  Red Panda @Lemorse7: 15.0 GSAA

6.  WWWWWWWWWWWW WWWWWWWWWWWW @rory: 10.9 GSAA

7.  Joel Castle @animal74: 7.1 GSAA

8.  Dalkr Vidarsson @KaleebtheMighty: 3.5 GSAA

9.   David Slezák @ShawnGlade: 0.5 GSAA

10.  Olober Syko @Spartan : -1.6 GSAA

11.  Jonny Elgar @Jonny: -5.2 GSAA

12.  Justin Lion @Emperor_Fun: -10.7 GSAA

13.  Herald Benson @Benson: -11.1 GSAA

14.  Ryan Artyomov @Enorama: -11.2 GSAA

15.  Matthew McCagg @Jack kidd: -12.3 GSAA

16.  Amir Redzic @Slav_Sloth: -13.9 GSAA

 

Backup goaltenders 

1.  Joseph Reed @BrutalBoost: 2.7 GSAA

2.  Toddly Bobbly @ToddlyBobbly: 0.5 GSAA

3.  Pipo Popa @npuBeT: -1.2 GSAA

4.  Karl Herzlich @LastGoon007: -8.0 GSAA

5.  Georgiy Costanzov* @Mongoose87: -8.1 GSAA

6.  Clark @cl4rk: -11.8 GSAA

 

*Note: Fuuka Rask and Georgiy Costanzov were deployed as a 1A/1B tandem for the Seattle Bears. Rask played 42 games (next lowest among starters: 62), and Costanzov played 33 games (next highest among backups: 13). Adjusted to 62 and 13 games, respectively, with the same rate, Rask would have ranked 1st among starters with 42.4 GSAA and Costanzov 4th among backups with -3.2 GSAA. 

 

In conclusion, it's quite obvious Lachlan Summers and Fuuka Rask were in a league of their own in the GSAA. But the much bigger workload Summers had to carry propelled him into the Scotty Campbell Trophy conversation, which he rightfully won. Preventing 42 more goals than what he could rightfully be asked to is just an insane value he brought to his team.

 

Hopefully, the rest of the article is coming next week.

Edited July 28 by VattghernCZ

[Advantage 2,893]

Great article @VattghernCZ