Post-Lockout “Average” Goaltending

13 years ago

Looking at save percentages I wanted to get a feeling for what an average goaltender can do post lockout. A lot of people think anything above .900 is fine for a goaltender but Craig Anderson’s .900 puts him in 37th place among goaltenders that NHL.com lists. Their list is for goaltenders who have made or on pace to make enough starts to qualify for the Vezina among other things, for the most part it weeds out guys who have played only one game.

So if there are 36 other goaltenders stopping more pucks than he is that implies that six teams have better backups than Craig Anderson. If we wanted "average" (but really median) goaltending we’d look at 15th place which is currently held by Semyon Varlamov and his .919 SV%.

Just as .900 seems low for today’s NHL .919 seems pretty high to ask for average. One of my readers at Pension Plan Puppets asked a great question last night; what if we ignore single seasons and look at data for multiple years? What’s the average then?

Varlamov is a great example; he’s got a .919 this season but had a .909 last year and his career average is a .913. It seems to me like every year a goalie gets "hot" over a season but can’t repeat those numbers. Craig Anderson was lights out last year but seems to have come back down to earth. In all likelihood it’s a sample size issue and one season of starts for a goaltender doesn’t show their true talent.

With that in mind I ran the numbers with Hockey-Reference’s excellent Player Season Finder tool to see among goaltenders with more than 100 games played post lockout what their numbers were:

Rk	Player	From	To	Tm	Lg	Pos	GP	W	L	T/O	GA	SA	SV	SV%	GAA	SO	PIM	MIN
1	Tomas Vokoun	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	324	156	123	36	804	10270	9466	.922	2.56	30	38	18808
2	Tim Thomas	2006	2011	BOS	NHL	G	284	141	94	38	689	8695	8006	.921	2.52	22	30	16407
3	Jonas Hiller	2008	2011	ANA	NHL	G	162	80	58	9	377	4737	4360	.920	2.52	8	0	8986
4	Niklas Backstrom	2007	2011	MIN	NHL	G	254	131	77	33	583	7114	6531	.918	2.39	20	16	14653
5	Jaroslav Halak	2007	2011	TOT	NHL	G	129	70	44	11	316	3856	3540	.918	2.55	13	4	7425
6	Henrik Lundqvist	2006	2011	NYR	NHL	G	367	192	122	46	840	10191	9351	.918	2.34	29	6	21568
7	Roberto Luongo	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	374	207	124	38	911	10938	10027	.917	2.51	30	20	21754
8	Martin Brodeur	2006	2011	NJD	NHL	G	361	204	124	30	836	9846	9010	.915	2.35	38	34	21354
9	Ilya Bryzgalov	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	283	131	103	31	686	8030	7344	.915	2.55	18	16	16127
10	Ryan Miller	2006	2011	BUF	NHL	G	343	194	105	36	856	10110	9254	.915	2.55	18	18	20165
11	Pekka Rinne	2006	2011	NSH	NHL	G	135	70	42	13	310	3631	3321	.915	2.45	17	14	7601
12	Craig Anderson	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	172	78	57	20	446	5187	4741	.914	2.78	13	38	9643
13	Dominik Hasek	2006	2008	TOT	NHL	G	140	93	31	13	288	3366	3078	.914	2.09	18	48	8275
14	Cristobal Huet	2006	2010	TOT	NHL	G	219	115	70	21	515	6014	5499	.914	2.47	20	6	12520
15	Carey Price	2008	2011	MTL	NHL	G	168	79	61	20	432	5039	4607	.914	2.63	8	12	9846
16	Miikka Kiprusoff	2006	2011	CGY	NHL	G	404	215	138	46	984	11309	10325	.913	2.49	30	26	23713
17	Jonathan Quick	2008	2011	LAK	NHL	G	145	79	51	10	341	3905	3564	.913	2.41	12	2	8474
18	Manny Fernandez	2006	2009	TOT	NHL	G	134	70	44	11	320	3656	3336	.912	2.49	5	20	7721
19	Kari Lehtonen	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	239	111	95	21	652	7439	6787	.912	2.85	13	22	13722
20	Chris Mason	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	248	118	87	28	605	6874	6269	.912	2.62	19	6	13849
21	J-S Giguere	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	273	138	82	40	660	7449	6789	.911	2.56	15	32	15445
22	Martin Biron	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	226	113	75	24	604	6711	6107	.910	2.82	9	45	12829
23	Evgeni Nabokov	2006	2010	SJS	NHL	G	305	172	84	37	722	8020	7298	.910	2.43	24	54	17794
24	Ty Conklin	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	142	69	41	13	341	3735	3394	.909	2.65	14	20	7720
25	Jason LaBarbera	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	129	48	52	12	317	3472	3155	.909	2.82	5	4	6739
26	Dwayne Roloson	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	286	112	130	33	775	8525	7750	.909	2.83	8	48	16432
27	Dan Ellis	2008	2011	TOT	NHL	G	135	60	48	13	328	3553	3225	.908	2.71	12	6	7258
28	Marc-Andre Fleury	2006	2011	PIT	NHL	G	309	161	100	31	800	8713	7913	.908	2.73	16	30	17602
29	Steve Mason	2009	2011	CBJ	NHL	G	141	63	55	17	365	3946	3581	.908	2.73	16	4	8016
30	Cam Ward	2006	2011	CAR	NHL	G	302	153	111	26	791	8558	7767	.908	2.77	13	14	17125
31	Brian Elliott	2008	2011	OTT	NHL	G	113	58	36	10	277	2992	2715	.907	2.68	9	0	6193
32	Ray Emery	2006	2010	TOT	NHL	G	157	84	51	15	402	4319	3917	.907	2.71	11	40	8892
33	Martin Gerber	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	174	95	55	14	462	4981	4519	.907	2.78	7	26	9954
34	Manny Legace	2006	2010	TOT	NHL	G	219	110	64	23	508	5483	4975	.907	2.54	18	6	12017
35	Rick DiPietro	2006	2011	NYI	NHL	G	215	95	85	25	597	6268	5671	.905	2.87	11	80	12471
36	Mike Smith	2007	2011	TOT	NHL	G	157	64	65	18	402	4217	3815	.905	2.74	10	53	8802
37	Marty Turco	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	346	175	120	39	851	8957	8106	.905	2.56	20	96	19972
38	Brent Johnson	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	131	52	50	14	355	3702	3347	.904	3.03	2	22	7028
39	Pascal Leclaire	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	171	61	74	15	446	4629	4183	.904	2.88	10	8	9287
40	Alex Auld	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	196	78	79	26	519	5346	4827	.903	2.84	5	10	10980
41	Peter Budaj	2006	2011	COL	NHL	G	216	95	76	26	553	5674	5121	.903	2.77	9	8	11977
42	Mathieu Garon	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	215	98	78	18	558	5767	5209	.903	2.86	15	26	11708
43	Nikolai Khabibulin	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	244	105	103	28	675	6987	6312	.903	2.88	8	34	14061
44	Antero Niittymaki	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	226	92	82	31	622	6398	5776	.903	2.95	5	6	12664
45	Curtis Sanford	2006	2009	TOT	NHL	G	100	32	36	11	234	2353	2119	.901	2.82	4	4	4974
46	Brian Boucher	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	106	37	48	12	266	2648	2382	.900	2.80	5	6	5698
47	Olaf Kolzig	2006	2009	TOT	NHL	G	175	69	77	24	543	5426	4883	.900	3.18	2	32	10254
48	Jose Theodore	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	245	125	83	24	664	6669	6005	.900	2.90	6	16	13745
49	Johan Hedberg	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	171	73	57	16	458	4547	4089	.899	3.03	5	38	9057
50	Fredrik Norrena	2007	2009	CBJ	NHL	G	100	35	45	11	243	2409	2166	.899	2.79	5	6	5235
51	Chris Osgood	2006	2011	DET	NHL	G	174	95	39	29	441	4337	3896	.898	2.68	9	24	9881
52	Vesa Toskala	2006	2010	TOT	NHL	G	226	113	71	25	605	5908	5303	.898	2.86	11	14	12679
53	Ed Belfour	2006	2007	TOT	NHL	G	107	49	39	14	311	3026	2715	.897	3.02	1	22	6186
54	Curtis Joseph	2006	2009	TOT	NHL	G	145	58	63	6	392	3735	3343	.895	3.07	8	30	7658
55	Patrick Lalime	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	121	33	61	16	345	3266	2921	.894	3.12	2	10	6640
56	Andrew Raycroft	2006	2011	TOT	NHL	G	184	75	77	17	521	4869	4348	.893	3.13	5	14	10000
57	Marc Denis	2006	2009	TOT	NHL	G	104	39	48	3	305	2779	2474	.890	3.28	2	6	5574
58	John Grahame	2006	2008	TOT	NHL	G	102	44	42	4	286	2576	2290	.889	3.11	5	20	5515

The 15th best goaltender since the lockout is Carey Price and his .914. My gut feeling was that 0.915 is a good "average" goaltender save percentage. The median on this list is 29th place which is Steve Mason’s 0.908 SV%. I think 0.910 is a reasonable number to expect year on year for a "good" goalie, not great, not terrible.

In the bottom seven spots there are four Toronto Maple Leafs goaltenders: Curtis Joseph, Ed Belfour, Andrew Raycroft and Vesa Toskala. Jonas Gustavsson’s only played 62 games but would be in 47th place on this list at his current pace. Years of terrible goaltending are a big reason why the Leafs are as bad as they’ve been.

Post-Lockout “Average” Goaltending

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