Buy-Low and Sell-High: Goalies

January 15, 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	0.8882	559	79	0.9034	0.9367	0.8958
Mackenzie Blackwood	0.9061	891	127	0.9192	0.9291	0.9123
Igor Shesterkin	0.9192	908	153	0.9075	0.9150	0.9016
Darcy Kuemper	0.9143	559	80	0.9213	0.9125	0.9164
Samuel Ersson	0.8910	506	78	0.8874	0.9103	0.8837
Leevi MerilÃ¤inen	0.9148	174	33	0.9253	0.9091	0.9182
Philipp Grubauer	0.9083	530	65	0.8698	0.8308	0.8751
Alexandar Georgiev	0.9057	669	88	0.8789	0.8295	0.8890
Stuart Skinner	0.9080	778	82	0.9023	0.8293	0.9058
Jordan Binnington	0.9069	856	105	0.8995	0.8286	0.9037
Spencer Martin	0.8828	175	29	0.8457	0.8276	0.8616
Aleksei Kolosov	0.8703	347	51	0.8703	0.8235	0.8767
Jeremy Swayman	0.9143	919	138	0.8977	0.8188	0.9063
Anton Forsberg	0.9034	350	55	0.8829	0.8182	0.8924
John Gibson	0.9098	519	75	0.9056	0.8133	0.9160
Marc-Andre Fleury	0.9120	366	36	0.9098	0.8056	0.9147
Scott Wedgewood	0.9055	311	41	0.9003	0.8049	0.9064
Jonathan Quick	0.9108	400	51	0.9000	0.8039	0.9084
Joel Hofer	0.9080	408	50	0.9020	0.8000	0.9118
Elvis Merzlikins	0.9023	793	118	0.8890	0.7966	0.9016
Calvin Pickard	0.9034	345	39	0.8957	0.7949	0.9014
Joonas Korpisalo	0.9008	362	43	0.8923	0.7907	0.9043
David Rittich	0.9050	415	57	0.8867	0.7895	0.8987
Ilya Samsonov	0.9036	478	50	0.9038	0.7800	0.9123
Ilya Sorokin	0.9167	847	90	0.9020	0.7778	0.9097
Dan Vladar	0.8921	550	83	0.8891	0.7711	0.9051
Justus Annunen	0.9059	412	60	0.8956	0.7667	0.9111
Semyon Varlamov	0.9156	262	30	0.8893	0.7333	0.9016
Ivan Fedotov	0.8695	330	28	0.8788	0.7143	0.8901
Cam Talbot	0.9130	637	77	0.9027	0.7143	0.9224

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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