Buy-Low and Sell-High: Goalies

January 8, 2025 Left Wing Lock Staff 0 Comments

Introduction

Welcome to Unsustainable - our weekly look at goalies performing at unsustainable levels. Below, you'll find a data table with an emphasis on save percentages. What we know, from years and years of data, is that it unlikely that a player can maintain a save percentage that deviates significantly from his career numbers.

The aim of this weekly article is to highlight players, that the data suggests, are playing at levels inconsistent with their actual talent.

Even-strength Save Percentage

We'll first look at the EVSV% of several goalies. To put this into context, it is rare for a starting goalie to maintain an EVSV% at or above the .940 level over the course of a season. How rare? At a rate of just under 1 goalie per season since the full-season lockout of 2004-2005. So what are the chances that the starting goalie on your fantasy hockey team is going to maintain that high, early-season EVSV%? Slim to none. Below, you'll find a list of starting goalies most likely to see a regression in their EVSV% in the future.

Player	CSV%	SA	EVSA	SV%	EVSV%
Anthony Stolarz	0.9163	480	379	0.9271	0.9393

Penalty Kill Save Percentage

Next, we want to examine the PKSV% of starting goalies. We know that PKSV% is largely driven by luck, so fantasy hockey managers should be aware of starting goalies with a SV% propped up by an unusually high PKSV% (for reference, the league average in recent seasons is .865). The ASV% column tells you what a goalie's SV% would look like if he were performing at the league average in PKSV%. Note that the list includes goalies with unusually high PKSV% values and goalies with unusually low PKSV% values.

Player	CSV%	SA	PKSA	SV%	PKSV%	ASV%
Arvid Soderblom	0.8883	525	77	0.9048	0.9481	0.8954
Darcy Kuemper	0.9141	510	77	0.9176	0.9221	0.9117
Mackenzie Blackwood	0.9057	809	110	0.9172	0.9182	0.9113
Samuel Ersson	0.8904	439	72	0.8838	0.9167	0.8775
Igor Shesterkin	0.9192	829	143	0.9059	0.9161	0.9001
Joey Daccord	0.9081	649	99	0.9122	0.9091	0.9062
Juuse Saros	0.9160	899	125	0.9043	0.9040	0.8999
Jordan Binnington	0.9066	799	100	0.8961	0.8300	0.9006
John Gibson	0.9100	452	70	0.9115	0.8286	0.9209
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen	0.9017	802	109	0.8940	0.8257	0.9002
Aleksei Kolosov	0.8703	347	51	0.8703	0.8235	0.8767
Dustin Wolf	0.9060	637	90	0.9137	0.8222	0.9236
Alexandar Georgiev	0.9057	615	83	0.8764	0.8193	0.8884
Eric Comrie	0.8947	280	27	0.9036	0.8148	0.9056
Jeremy Swayman	0.9139	801	121	0.8926	0.8099	0.9020
Thatcher Demko	0.9111	185	21	0.8811	0.8095	0.8883
Anton Forsberg	0.9038	329	52	0.8875	0.8077	0.8996
Scott Wedgewood	0.9055	311	41	0.9003	0.8049	0.9064
Jonathan Quick	0.9108	400	51	0.9000	0.8039	0.9084
Elvis Merzlikins	0.9021	762	116	0.8871	0.7931	0.9007
Joonas Korpisalo	0.9008	362	43	0.8923	0.7907	0.9043
Ilya Samsonov	0.9039	431	47	0.9072	0.7872	0.9154
Joel Hofer	0.9079	385	46	0.9013	0.7826	0.9130
David Rittich	0.9051	397	49	0.8866	0.7755	0.8992
Ilya Sorokin	0.9163	817	88	0.8984	0.7727	0.9071
Justus Annunen	0.9070	390	57	0.8974	0.7719	0.9122
Calvin Pickard	0.9037	323	35	0.8978	0.7714	0.9052
Marc-Andre Fleury	0.9119	329	30	0.9027	0.7667	0.9108
Dan Vladar	0.8918	525	79	0.8876	0.7595	0.9054
Semyon Varlamov	0.9156	262	30	0.8893	0.7333	0.9016
Cam Talbot	0.9130	589	73	0.9032	0.7123	0.9241
Ivan Fedotov	0.8648	302	27	0.8742	0.7037	0.8877

Legend

CSV%: Career Save Percentage

SA: Shots against

EVSA: Even-strength shots against

PKSA: Shots against while on the penalty kill

SV%: 2024-2025 save percentage

EVSV%: 2024-2025 even-strength save percentage

PKSV%: 2024-2025 save percentage while on the penalty kill

ASV%: 2024-2025 save percentage if performing at league average on the penalty kill

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