Picking the Vezina nominees

by James Mirtle on Apr 27, 2009 2:13 PM CDT Comment 5 comments

Steve Mason, the brilliant young goalie of the Columbus Blue Jackets, could become only the fifth NHL player to win the Vezina and Calder trophies in the same year.

But he'll have to beat out the Minnesota Wild's Niklas Backstrom, and Tim Thomas, whose league-leading goals-against average was a driving force for the Eastern Conference champion Boston Bruins this season.

— NHL.com

Unlike many of the other awards I've been talking about the past few days, the Professional Hockey Writers' Association doesn't vote for the Vezina. The NHL's 30 general managers do, and sometimes that results in some odd choices creeping into the top three.

This year's bunch aren't a bad crop, at least not the way I see it. My basic criteria for narrowing the field goes something like this:

Goaltenders have to have made at least 50 starts
They should have a save percentage that is above the league average for regular netminders (.909)
They should have won at least 30 games

Those stipulations alone leave us with just nine goaltenders, shown here ranked by save percentage (and with this year's nominees in bold):

	Name	Team	GS	W	L	OTL	GAA	SV%	SO
1	Tim Thomas	BOS	54	36	11	7	2.10	0.933	5
2	Niklas Backstrom	MIN	71	37	24	8	2.33	0.923	8
3	Roberto Luongo	VAN	54	33	13	7	2.34	0.920	9
4	Ryan Miller	BUF	58	34	18	6	2.53	0.918	5
5	Cam Ward	CAR	68	39	23	5	2.44	0.916	6
6	Henrik Lundqvist	NYR	70	38	25	7	2.43	0.916	3
7	Steve Mason	COB	61	33	20	7	2.29	0.916	10
8	Marc-Andre Fleury	PIT	61	35	18	7	2.67	0.912	4
9	Evgeni Nabokov	SAN	62	41	12	8	2.44	0.910	7

One of the main issues with goalie stats is that many of them are team based. Wins is obviously heavily dependent on things like goal scoring that netminders have no control over, and goals-against average is affected by team defence more than a stat like save percentage.

And then you have things like shot and save quality, something I got into in this post and which makes Backstrom's credentials less impressive.

My nominees would have been Thomas, Luongo and Mason, but I doubt it matters much. I'll be very surprised if Thomas doesn't win the Vezina this June.

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It's very hard to quantify the importance of

But shootout prowess is something that I think should be considered as well. I know it’s reflected to a degree in in the goaltenders’ W-L-OTL record.

Buffalo, for example, wouldn’t have been anywhere near a playoff spot without Miller’s ability in shootouts this year. What was the difference between the Habs and Rangers making the playoffs and Florida taking the 7 or 8 seed? Lundqvist was great in shootouts, Price/Halak average, and Vokoun/Anderson poor.

But it’s hard to put your finger on just how much they should be factored in to consideration, at least in my opinion. For the record, here’s how the 9 qualifiers in James’ metric fared in shootouts this year, sorted save %:

Miller 8-2, .775
Backstrom 5-2, .762
Lundqvist 9-4, .750
Fleury 3-4, .727
Luongo 3-4, .724
Mason 6-5, .710
Thomas 4-4, .679
Nabokov 5-4, .656
Ward 2-4, .632

Again, really hard to quantify the importance of that. But a lot of teams, the Rangers especially from what I remember seeing, seemed to be playing for a shootout even with a few minutes left in regulation. Buffalo very rarely “went for it” in overtime, and seemed to prefer the game be decided in a shootout. The mentality of teams like the Rangers and Sabres reflects an important aspect of their goaltenders’ ability, and often times makes a difference in the standings.

by Make a play Whitner on Apr 27, 2009 4:24 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

As long as we're making new categories...

I had a bit of fun with your numers too, Mirtle, and decided to make a new category: percentage of games started that the goalie shuts out (SO%). What prompted me to do this (as you might guess from my allegiance…) is that Luongo’s 9 shutouts look much more impressive when you take into account the fact that he played almost 20 games fewer than Backstrom (8). Anyway, here are your 9 sorted by SO%:

Roberto Luongo 16.7%
Steve Mason 16.4%
Evgeni Nabokov 11.3%
Niklas Backstrom 11.3%
Tim Thomas 9.3%
Cam Ward 8.8%
Ryan Miller 8.6%
Marc-Andre Fleury 6.6%
Henrik Lundqvist 4.3%

Luongo just edges Mason in that one. Not suggesting that it’s especially relevant… just interesting. This stat is probably a bit unreliable because of the low number of shutouts that a goalie gets. Also, shutouts are one of those categories that are highly dependent on team play…although Puck Daddy thinks that Luongo doesn’t benefit from his team’s play as much as other candidates.

Nucks Misconduct

by Metzgerhau on Apr 27, 2009 4:41 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Thomas will win, and he deserves it.

Here’s my method. It’s not very refined, but I think it does an admirable job. I take all goalies with at least 25 starts, look at their shots against by situation (ES, PP, PK), and calculate the “extra saves” they made in each situation above average (or “extra goals” below average). Then sum those up to find the total extra saves or extra goals. Here’s the resultant spreadsheet.

Pros: conceptually, it’s a really nice way of crediting goalies for extra games played and adjusting for different ratios of ES:PP shots against. It also measures a goalie’s contribution in very easily understandable terms—goals. Cons: it ignores shot quality (including different numbers of 5-on-3 shots), and it ignores wins and shutouts, which may or may not matter to you. But it’s a very elegant way to aggregate a lot of goalie stats into a single number.

by RyanV on Apr 27, 2009 5:51 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

This is great news!

For Vancouver Canucks fans.

It is not like Roberto Luongo needed any more motivation through the playoffs, then this motivational package arrives gift wrapped.

by cubanpuckstopper on Apr 27, 2009 10:23 PM CDT reply actions 0 recs

Now seriously

Comparing goalies and especially trying to find that one best guy ever is a bit dumb tradition. Best goalie is of course on a team that wins?, perhaps it’s a guy who sucked all year but when that crucial moment came he was big, maybe a guy yelling I wanna win something personal don’t you D dare to touch that puck and mess up my chances :D

…has anyone ever whined about this? “yeah but he got more shots….” :)

by nudge on Apr 28, 2009 5:34 AM CDT reply actions 0 recs

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