Goalies and Games Played

Approaching half time in BEARD Hockey’s first season, Lennart Westman and Mathias Lundgren take a look at the netminder situation.

We have identified the teams that so far have played their starting keeper more than the average 80% of the games (66 of 82) that is the full season max for starters.

As we did the check most teams had played 38 games, which means that any starter with more than 30 appearances is running on ”overtime” and needs to be rested a little or a little more, depending on the present status. Most teams are well in phase, but nine teams have played their starter more than 30 games.

The nine starting goalies that have more than 80 % appearances are: John Gibson, BOS: 35 Jacob Markstrom, SJS: 34 Jordan Binnington, OTT: 34 Robin Lehner, CHI: 34 Tuukka Rask, DAL: 32 Andrei Vasilevskiy, MTL: 31 Braden Holtby, EDM: 31 Carey Price, CAR: 31 Sergei Bobrovsky, LAK: 31

As you can see at least five of teams can adjust the statistics easily by resting the starter only one of the closest games, while four of the teams need to put a lot more trust in their back up than they have so far going into the second half of the season.

How well the starters perform is easy to follow via the individual leaders-page. Finding how well, or poor, the backups do requires a little more work. And as the season evolves and the importance of the backups increase we thought it would be interesting to take a look at those numbers.

The first thing worth noticing is that some back ups have gotten significantly more appearances than most of their colleagues.

David Rittich (DET) leads that league with 25 appearances, closely followed by Cam Talbot (BUF) 23 and Joonas Korpisalo (SEA) 22 while Devan Dubnyk (SJS) and Igor Shesterkin (LAK) only got four appearances each.

More appearances increase the chances to also put up wins, so it’s no surprise that also Talbot (14 wins) and Korpisalo (10 wins) are two of the top three on that list. But Thatcher Demko (MIN) has the second most wins as he has helped his team to a W on 12 of his 19 appearances. Worth mentioning is also that despite the 25 appearances David Rittich only got 9 wins…

Talbot and Demko are the only backups with shut outs so far and Mike Smith (NYI) is mot penalized back up with 6 PIMs.

And with that over to the most interesting stats, GAA and save percentage, listing all 32 backups from the best to the worst.

GAA 1. Anders Nilsson, MTL 1,94 2. Brian Elliot, PHI 2,32 3. Ilya Sorokin, CBJ 2,51 4. Calvin Petersen, CHI 2,62 5. Cam Talbot, BUF 2,69 6. Ryan Miler, STL 2,73 7. Thatcher Demko, MIN 2,74 8. Jake Allen, NJD 2,78 9. Marcus Hogberg, NSH 2,81 10. Mackenzie Blackwood, TBL 2,91 11. Igor Shesterkin, LAK 3,00 12. David Rittich, DET 3,02 13. Curtis McElhinney, COL 3,04 14. Jaroslav Halak, VAN 3,07 15. Mike Smith, NYI 3,08 16. Craig Anderson, WSH 3,14 17. Elvis Merzlikins, EDM 3,14 18. Corey Schneider, DAL 3,18 19. Joonas Korpisalo, SEA 3,21 20. Jimmy Howard, ANA 3,24 21. Aaron Dell, VGK 3,28 22. Henrik Lundqvist, TOR 3,29 23. Casey DeSMith, ARI 3,37 24. Laurent Brossoit, FLA 3,39 25. Alex Stalock, BOS 3,42 26. Alexandar Georgiev, WPG 3,43 27. James Reimer, OTT 3,46 28. Jonathan Quick, PIT 3,66 29. Jonathan Bernier, NYR 3,66 30. Devan Dubnyk, SEA 3,78 31. Anton Forsberg, CGY 3,79 32. Jack Campbell, CAR 3,85

SAVE % 1. Anders Nilsson 93,7 2. Brian Elliot, PHI 92,7 3. Calvin Petersen, CHI 92,1 4. Ryan Miler, STL 92,1 5. Thatcher Demko, MIN 91,9 6. Cam Talbot, BUF 91,7 7. Jake Allen, NJD 91,5 8. Ilya Sorokin, CBJ 91,3 9. Marcus Hogberg, NSH 90,9 10 Joonas Korpisalo, SEA 90,8 11. Craig Anderson, WSH 90,7 12. Mackenzie Blackwood, TBL 90,6 13. Jaroslav Halak, WSH 90,5 14. David Rittich, DET 90,4 15. Alex Stalock, BOS 90,4 16. Curtis McElhinney, COL 90.3 17. Mike Smith, NYI 90,3 18. Corey Schneider, DAL 90,3 19. Laurent Brossoit, FLA 90,3

20. Jimmy Howard, ANA 90,2 21. Igor Shesterkin, LAK 90,1 22. Elvis Merzlikins, EDM 90,0 23. Alexandar Georgiev, WPG 89,2 24. Henrik Lundqvist, TOR 89,1 25. Jack Campbell, CAR 88,9 26. Aaron Dell, VGK 88,8 27. Jonathan Bernier, NYR 88,6 28. Devan Dubnyk, SJS 88,6 29. Jason Reimer, OTT 88,2 30. Casey DeSmith, ARI 88,0 31. Anton Forsberg, CGY 87,5 32. Jonathan Quick, PIT 87,4

Beside the obvious risk with having a weak back up keeper there’s also a hidden risk, one that could actually cost you millions of dollars!

Let’s say you’re playing your starter to the max, planning to let the back up take care of the last game(s) - without scratching your regular starter. If the back up then has a bad day and gets pulled out of the game, your starter will make another appearance and you will be fined no less than $1,000,000!

That will happen for every extra appearance your starter will make after game 66. So, either you get yourself a back up you dare to play more games or remember to scratch your starter as you play your back up in the last game(s)…