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Buy-Low and Sell-High: Goalies

March 12, 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%
Marcus Hogberg 0.8999 178 153 0.9382 0.9477

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%
Leevi Meriläinen 0.9186 295 45 0.9254 0.9111 0.9171
Mackenzie Blackwood 0.9060 1309 188 0.9144 0.9096 0.9094
Frederik Andersen 0.9157 315 53 0.9111 0.9057 0.9059
Arvid Soderblom 0.8915 962 126 0.9054 0.9048 0.9015
Darcy Kuemper 0.9139 951 151 0.9138 0.9007 0.9110
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen 0.9001 1285 183 0.8918 0.8306 0.8982
Eric Comrie 0.8976 452 53 0.9137 0.8302 0.9150
Joseph Woll 0.9088 958 135 0.9050 0.8296 0.9092
Joonas Korpisalo 0.9007 530 76 0.8943 0.8289 0.9067
Elvis Merzlikins 0.9026 1256 184 0.8957 0.8261 0.9035
Aleksei Kolosov 0.8703 347 51 0.8703 0.8235 0.8767
Scott Wedgewood 0.9061 424 55 0.9080 0.8182 0.9118
Yaroslav Askarov 0.8993 357 44 0.8964 0.8182 0.8998
Jeremy Swayman 0.9132 1332 183 0.8986 0.8142 0.9055
Thatcher Demko 0.9107 412 48 0.8908 0.8125 0.8959
David Rittich 0.9042 618 74 0.8851 0.8108 0.8938
John Gibson 0.9099 726 100 0.9091 0.8100 0.9178
Anton Forsberg 0.9039 567 83 0.8959 0.8072 0.9050
Alexandar Georgiev 0.9040 1027 160 0.8744 0.8063 0.8894
Jordan Binnington 0.9065 1185 143 0.8987 0.8042 0.9050
Justus Annunen 0.9001 608 89 0.8882 0.7865 0.8998
Dan Vladar 0.8930 704 103 0.8935 0.7864 0.9062
Marc-Andre Fleury 0.9119 594 69 0.9040 0.7826 0.9126
Ilya Samsonov 0.9018 660 66 0.8894 0.7727 0.8987
Joel Hofer 0.9062 626 70 0.8994 0.7714 0.9113
Ivan Fedotov 0.8770 516 39 0.8837 0.7692 0.8887
Cam Talbot 0.9125 1016 130 0.8996 0.7692 0.9154
Calvin Pickard 0.9030 565 55 0.8956 0.7455 0.9053
Semyon Varlamov 0.9156 262 30 0.8893 0.7333 0.9016

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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