By Rob Vollman, Special to All Habs Hockey Magazine
CALGARY, AB. — Who should be Team Canada’s starting goalie at the upcoming 2014 Olympics in Sochi? Where does Carey Price fit in – should he be the starter, the back-up, or (gasp) not on the team at all?
All ten of Sportsnet’s Hockey Central panel had Price on the team, eight of whom even had him listed first, as did all six members of CBC’s expert panel. TSN’s panel, however, had Price as Roberto Luongo‘s back-up, as did ESPN’s Pierre Lebrun after his discussion with various scouts, experts and GMs.
Never before has the question of Team Canada’s starting goalie been so tightly contested. We’ve seen these experts tackle the question in traditional ways, but perhaps examining the same question using hockey analytics can help clarify the picture.
Carey Price
First of all, an Olympic gold medal certainly wouldn’t be out of place on Price’s list of credentials. The fifth overall selection in 2005 first burst on to the scene in 2007 when he was named the CHL’s goaltender of the year, went undefeated in six games and stopped 172 of 179 shots to be named tournament MVP during Team Canada’s World Juniors gold medal triumph, and was also the playoff MVP after an incredible run with the AHL’s Calder Cup winning Hamilton Bulldogs. He followed that up by making the NHL’s all-rookie team in 2007-08 after becoming Montreal’s starter when Cristobal Huet was traded to Washington. Since then he’s played in three all-star games and currently ranks eighth among active goalies in career save percentage.
The big knock against Price is that he’s not coming off the strongest season – but he’s proven himself resilient before. His 2008-09 season was equally disappointing, both regular and the play-offs, and he ultimately lost the starting job to Jaroslav Halak the following year. However, the Habs would choose to keep Price and trade Halak, after which he had his best season, playing 72 games, leading the league in wins and posting a career best .923 save percentage with 8 shutouts – and posting a .934 save percentage in the post-season.
The Leader Board
A strong bounce-back season from Price is critical for himself apart from the pack. Even a quick look at the three-year averages for Canada’s top ten goalies shows how competitive the field really is. Price ranks fourth by even-strength save percentage, and third by Quality Start percentage, both categories led by Vancouver’s Roberto Luongo.
Last Three Seasons, Minimum 100 Starts (so no Holtby)
Goalie Team QS% ESSV%
Roberto Luongo Vancouver 63.6% .9298
Mike Smith TB/Phx 55.8% .9271
James Reimer* Toronto 48.0% .9253
Carey Price Montreal 57.6% .9240
Devan Dubnyk* Edmonton 54.5% .9234
Corey Crawford Chicago 58.7% .9225
Cam Ward* Carolina 56.1% .9225
Marc-Andre Fleury* Pittsburgh 55.8% .9216
Jose Theodore* Min/Fla 55.3% .9201
Martin Brodeur* New Jersey 51.4% .9127
* Not invited to orientation camp
Every statistic has its limitations, including save percentage, which can be affected by how much time a goalie spends killing penalties, and how effective their team plays in front of them in such situations. That’s why looking at a goalie’s save percentage at even-strength situations only avoids skewing the results in favour of those fortunate enough to play on teams with good penalty differentials or particularly strong special teams. After all, the ability to play well when down a man has never been shown to be a persistent, predictable skill.
Save percentage can be affected by other factors as well. Not necessarily just the notion of the quality of shots that are faced, but rather the way that shots are recorded differently from one place to another. When a goalie makes a save, the scorekeeper unfortunately makes a judgement about whether that would have gone in or not had he failed to stop it. Some scorekeepers are more generous about awarding saves than others.
That’s perhaps why goalies on certain teams tend to have consistently higher save percentages, like in Boston, Anaheim and Nashville perhaps, or lower save percentages, like in Philadelphia, Toronto or Tampa Bay. Another way to look at the same information is to calculate the difference between a goalie’s save percentage and those of his partners. In Price’s case, for example, his even-strength save percentage is .0067 higher than those of his partners, which is quite typical of most starting goalies, including Mike Smith and Devan Dubnyk. However, goalies like Toronto’s James Reimer (.0163), Chicago’s Corey Crawford (.0156) and even Carolina’s Cam Ward (.0133) all gave their respective teams huge advantages over their alternatives. Unless a team is cursed with particularly horrible back-ups, that could be a sign that their contributions are being undervalued by raw save percentage alone.
James Reimer is indeed a curious case. Despite his strong season, and the huge difference in Toronto’s fortunes with him between the pipes instead of Ben Scrivens, J-S Giguere or Jonas Gustavsson, he was not invited to the Olympic orientation camp – and his team even traded for another potential starting goalie Jonathan Bernier. Why the lack of love?
Reimer’s unusually low Quality Starts percentage could have the answer. A Quality Start is awarded any time a goalie stops at least a league-average number of shots, thus playing well enough for his team to win in a way that’s independent of their offense and (largely) the number of shots they face. In that regard Reimer has fared quite poorly. As for Price’s Quality Start percentage, it’s actually higher than Mike Smith’s and behind only Luongo and Crawford.
Closing Thoughts
Even when ignoring the myriad of other factors that would be considered in a decision like this and look exclusively at the analytics, the decision on who should be Team Canada’s starting goalie at the 2014 Sochi Olympics is difficult to narrow down. While an argument can certainly be made for Carey Price, an equally convincing one can be made just as easily for at least a half-dozen others.
On the surface it’s hard to argue against Roberto Luongo being the favourite to start the first game for Team Canada. He has the highest even-strength save percentage and the highest Quality Start percentage over the past few years. The only knocks against him (statistically, at least) are his weak 2012-13 season, and the fact that his even-strength save percentage has been no better than his partner Cory Schneider – and in fact, a little worse.
Beyond Luongo, and the curious case of James Reimer, there’s a tight pack of about six or seven goalies who are all about the same (statistically, at least). Of them, Price certainly stands with Corey Crawford and Mike Smith at the higher end of the pack. In the end it looks like there’s some agreement with the conclusions reached by the experts using more traditional analysis – that the decision will depend greatly on how everyone plays early this coming season.
For more information on these methods and statistics, Rob Vollman @robvollmanNHL of ESPN Insider and Hockey Prospectus just published a book called Hockey Abstract about the mainstream applications and limitations of hockey analytics.
The hard copy is available for sale on Amazon and a PDF download from his website.
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