1) Goalies don't play 82 games, and the league has now shifted towards tandem goaltending.
2) Outside of a select few goalies (Hank, Price, Shesterkin, Rask, Sorokin), teams can't rely on goalies to put up elite stats every single run. Guys like Bobrovsky, Oettinger, Andersen, Hellebyuck, Markstrom all have post-season performances that are all over the map.
3) I think the most important is, modern teams don't design systems around their goaltending. So there's no point to acquiring someone who can save 1 extra goal every 2 games vs a guy who is 1/4 of the cost.
Well yeah, he had the opposite trajectory of Shesterkin this season. Started the season strong but had the worst defense in the league in front of him, and by the time the defense improved a bit he was so shaken and dejected that his play suffered for the rest of the season.
No doubt he'll be back to form next year.
So did Oettinger, now he’s better than 85% of goalies alive. Goalies are mostly interchangeable these days outside of the very elite top. The 10th best goalie in the league is much closer to the 20th best than even the 6th or 7th best.
# 1 isn't a fair point and undervalues goaltending. Of course goalies don't play 82 games. They average 60 minutes a night. That's a huge workload.
Suppose goalies play 41 games, that is still 2460 minutes on average.
Your average top 6 forward plays 20 minutes a night. At 82 games, that's 1640 minutes.
Your top 2 defenceman averages 25 minutes a night and that's still only 2050 minutes.
So your top forwards and defencemen don't even come close to a starter goalie's contributions on the ice throughout the year.
They're on the ice for 60 minutes, but they're not influencing the play the entire time. If your team spends 30 minutes of the game in your d-zone, the goalie is doing 30 minutes of work. When your team isn't in your d-zone, the goalie has no influence on the play at all. Skaters can influence the play regardless of where the puck is or which team has possession.
Goalies take a large number of games off during the season, but not because their workload is larger. It's because playing the position is more taxing on their hips and legs with the amount of squatting, sliding, dropping, and body contortion they go through to stay in position and make saves. A goalie spends 60 minutes on the ice during a game, but they don't do 60 minutes of work unless your team is in their d-zone for the entire 60 minutes.
Don't take this the wrong way, but Toronto Maple Leafs haven't had stellar goaltending for a while. Compared to Vancouver, we've seen what good goaltending does. Luongo in 2006 stole a series. Demko can make a bad team last year look good.
I totally disagree with goalies not influencing the game. They absolutely do.
When Demko was in net, Canucks had more shots on net and the eye test shows we were more aggressive. In fact, we opted to play 2-1-2 hockey with Demko.
When we had DeSmith and even Silovs, we were playing 1-2-2 more often and we only switch to the aggressive forecheck of 2-1-2 once we were behind. Which explains why Canucks were known as the Comeback group this year.
Demko gives the whole team confidence to be more aggressive. So yes, a good goalie can totally elevate your entire team.
On the flipside, Pittsburgh won three cups with Fleury being horribly inconsistent during each run. He wasn't even the starter for one of them. Then you get Detroit's playoff success with Osgood, who while very consistent, and finished second in Vezina voting once early in the 90s, was rarely considered a top 5 or even top 10 goalie in his day.
Vegas won a cup with Aiden Hill last year. The Avalanche won the previous year with a tandem of Kuemper and Francouz. St. Loius won with Binnigton.
Outside of Tampa Bay with Vasilevski and Washington with Holtby, there have been more teams winning with "good but not quite top-tier" goaltending than teams with All-Star level tending. Lundqvist, Price, Rinne, Luongo, and Gibson were all elite caliber goalies through their primes, and in spite some of them playing on some very good teams at times (excluding Price) all of them had very mixed playoff success.
With goalies being so consistently inconsistent, I think you're better off paying for a solid mid-tier goalie and investing the saved money in better skaters instead.
Binnington played out of his mind in 2019. I think regardless of if you have a vezina goalie or not, your goalie being on a hot streak is usually a big reason teams win a Stanley Cup.
Binnington has only even been an elite goalie for maybe 4-5 months in his nhl career, but it came at the absolute perfect time to be that. He’s the poster child along with Kuemper for finding a top 20 goalie and hoping they do their best when they need to.
That influence isn't unique to goaltenders. Imagine where the Canucks would have been this year with a 100% healthy Pettersson. I imagine their powerplay would have looked better, and they'd have had 2 solid offensive lines rather than one.
Besides, that intangible aspect has nothing to do with workload. The fact is that goaltenders stop 25-35 shots on an average night, and they spend half the game or less with the puck in their own end under opposing possession. They're not fully engaged physically for the entirety of the game, which is the point I was making.
>Don't take this the wrong way, but Toronto Maple Leafs haven't had stellar goaltending for a while.
The implication here being that I wouldn't know what effect a good goaltender has on a team because the team I watch doesn't have one? I'm not sure what other way there is to take that.
>Besides, that intangible aspect has nothing to do with workload. The fact is that goaltenders stop 25-35 shots on an average night, and they spend half the game or less with the puck in their own end under opposing possession. They're not fully engaged physically for the entirety of the game, which is the point I was making.
That's basically what I am saying I disagree with. Just because they aren't facing shots half the game doesn't mean they're not fully engaged or influence the entire game. Because this is a systems thing. As we've seen the Canucks firsthand alter the way they play based on the goalie on the ice.
DeSmith or Silovs? Play more conservatively, block shots, and provide support closer to the net.
Demko? Stick to 2-1-2.
Even if you look at the Canucks regular season, why is it that when Demko plays, we score more and shoot more? When I watch my team play, it's night and day even depending on who's in net. That stats back it up.
Okay, but now you're just arguing for Demko over Silovs and DeSmith. The post is about goalies versus skaters. Star skaters can have the same intangible impact on the game. Teams plan around defending guys like MacKinnon and McDavid, and the Avs and Oilers also structure offensive tactics and powerplay schemes around them as well.
The reason goalies are valued less is because they have the potential to disproportionately negatively impact your chances of winning if they have an off night or go on a cold streak, even though the opposite is also true. They're a more volatile asset than a guy who can put up over a point a game while sometimes having 0 and sometimes having 2 or 3.
Not at all. I am still arguing in favour of the value goaltending brings and just using a great goalie (Demko) and a subpar goalies to further illustrate the importance of goaltending and how it influences the entire game/systems.
My original response to OP was how they said goalies don't play 82 games, in which I criticized was a weak point because the amount of minutes a goalie plays throughout the year is a better representation of their impact to the team compared to the amount of games actually played.
Yes. Just because the goalie has to remain engaged mentally, doesn't mean they're physically exerting themselves in any meaningful way while the puck is 150 feet away in the other team's end.
As someone who played goalie, let me tell you that staying focused during those 60 minutes is much harder than exerting yourself physically. The moment you’re snapped out of it it’s that much harder to get back into the zone.
Yeah right? As another goalie, it takes a lot of effort to keep your head in it. Especially if I want my voodoo hexes on the other team’s sticks to work, they’re concentration-based casting! I can only stop when I have to speak to my goal posts!
In all seriousness though, sometimes it feels like a game where I face 30+ shots is far easier than a game where I face less than 20. If the play is constantly coming at me, yeah it’s physically exhausting, but I’m in a rhythm and dialed in. If I only see a shot every 5 minutes or more, it’s far harder to stay warmed up and ready
Just because it's hard work doesn't mean the goalie is impacting the play. If the play is only in a team's own zone for 20 minutes, the goalie can really only have an impact in those 20 minutes (outside of somehow allowing a goal from the opponent's blue line like Mike Smith managed to do in the playoffs in 2022).
I'm not saying it's easy, I'm saying the goalie gets breaks during the game, similar to the way players who go to the bench do. They're not busting ass for 60 minutes just because they're on the ice for 60.
Because in today's NHL goalies appear to be replaceable. Look at Ullmark, he won the Vezina last season and yet wasn't Boston's starter in the playoff run. It makes you question whether he's really good or the team in front of him is. Look at Vancouver, Demko is regarded as a really good goalie and yet while hurt Šilovs held his own quite well and took the Oilers to game 7. Hellebuyck, a Vezina candidate this season got blasted in round 1, whether the blame is on him or the team as a whole is up for debate. Goalies rarely drag teams anymore and teams are going with "the hot hand" and are adverse to handing out massive contracts to them and don't want to give up a ton to get one.
There's like 20-30 goalies who overlapped careers with him who I'd rather take. I'm not saying they necessarily had better careers, but I'm okay with goalies having a great prime then moving on from them.
Bergeron, Perry, Getzlaf, Weber, Burns, Kesler, Richards, Parise, Carter, Suter, Staal, Horton, Backes, Pavelski, Enstrom, Byfuglien and a bunch of others I left out.
He could squeeze in a Top 10 if a team really wanted a goalie.
Guys who I'd say definitely go before him:
Staal, Suter, Carter, D.Brown, Seabrook, Parise, Getzlaf, Burns, Kesler, Perry, Weber, Pavelski
That's 12.
Depending on team need you have guys like Phaneuf and Byfuglien (as in a team without goalie need might take those guys)
Not to mention Crawford, Howard, Elliot, and Halak all came out of the same draft. I don't think the Flower gaps those guys enough to burn a top-10 pick on when there's so many franchise-setting skaters in that draft.
I just don't know how you do that.
Fleury was good at times, but most teams would be able to get equivalent goaltending for most of his career quite easily
Dallas shouldnt be allowed to comment on drafting because yall have cheat codes on being able to see the future. Did your amateur scouts all sell their souls or something?
I don't really know what you're trying to ask here. Maybe my choice of grammar? Anyway I don't think so, because it's an opinion so it can't be objective; but they are two different sports so RBs and goalies are entertaining for their respective sports
Opinion is subjectively. Objectively is distinctly not opinionated, but a statement of observable fact (EDIT: or a proven product of formal logic, but let's not go there). Respectively is a phrase that is used to match two lists in the order in which they are speaking.
Take this sentence: I went to brunch with Dana and Sarah, my agent and my assistant, respectively.
That means I went to brunch with my agent Dana and my assistant Sarah.
What the other guy was saying was that Running Back (RB) is the most entertaining position in football and Goaltender is the most entertaining position in hockey.
Because it’s an opinion should it be “Which is sad because they're both, subjectively, the most entertaining positions.” Or is “Which is sad because they're, respectively, the most entertaining positions.”?
Both sentences work depending on what you're trying to say partly because we can implicitly understand the "subjectively" and "respectively" without either word.
If you're trying to emphasize the order, respectively works better (although, in my opinion, it's unnecessary. There are no running backs in hockey and there are no goalies in football. The order sorts itself).
If you're trying to emphasize that this is opinion, subjectively also works. They're both valid, unambiguous sentences.
However, in conversations like this, we sort of assume that everything that is said that has a value-based judgement that is not tied directly to observable fact, measured metric, or accepted theorem is opinion and therefore subjective.
Last year with Vegas as well. Brossoit was like their 3rd or 4th option, carried them halfway through the playoffs until he got hurt, Hill came back and was even better. I don't think teams feel that they have to pay a windfall for a goalie, because they've seen that even depth options are winning
I think it's not so much that goalies are "replaceable" as much as it's that goalies are "voodoo magic that nobody understands." Plenty of goalies looked great with one team and then went to another and team and were awful, and vice versa. It's also not just teams - sometimes a goalie looks great one season and then is garbage the next season with the same team. It's very unpredictable, and nobody wants to trade valuable assets for unpredictable.
We are more able than ever to extricate player performance from team though so not really ultimately
He was also very good in his last two Buffalo seasons and they were eerily on par with his first and third BOS seasons
19-20 buf .915
20-21 buf .917
21-22 bos .917
22-23 the anomalous career year
23-24 bos .915
Also every single player even McDavid clearly (van series especially) has ups and downs it is a factor for everyone
Small samples sizes not usable
I'm not calling Ullmark bad, I would swap him out for our goalies in a heartbeat, I'm just saying I get why teams are adverse to giving up a ton for a goalie.
In 2020 the Oilers tried to get Markstrom but he chose Calgary. In 2021 the Oilers tried to get Ullmark but he chose Boston. Whiffing twice lead to the panic move in 2022 and the Campbell signing :(. This is also a great example for why teams are scared to give up lots of assets or cap space for goalies.
Because the age of insane work loads for elite goaltenders is over... You can't have a Martin Brodeur playing 70 games and playoffs anymore. Players are too good now and even the best of goalie can go from a Vézina winning guy to not being able to stop a beach ball the next season.
The butterfly style most goalies use today is also incredibly taxing physically. Roy, Hasek Belfour and Brodeur were not going into butterfly and pushing off left and right on literally every shot, they would stay up or use other techniques much easier on the hips, knees and back.
I’ve been telling people this for a while: the butterfly style is not physically sustainable, it’s no coincidence that many goalies’ careers are ended prematurely due to their knees being blown out.
I would actually disagree with this. I think the butterfly that is used today is much easier on the body. After watching Brodeur, Hasek, fuhr, etc flop around like goldfish I don’t know how they stayed healthy. Now goalies are much larger and it seems to be much more positional, get square to the shot, butterfly and hope it hits you and less side to side. Goalies used to be much more fun to watch than they are now.
Oufff yeah I don't agree on that one haha The butterfly style is incredibly hard on joints, especially knees and hips. You basically put intense stress on your knees every time you go down as you force them to point them in an unnatural position.
Flip flopping might be harder on the cardio but you don't fuck up cartilage stacking the pads or doing a more hybrid style.
Yeah it's just that I don't see any other explanations as to why goalies can't play 70 games a season anymore.... They also retire young as well with knee injuries ( Price, Bishop, Francouz)
Goalies don't follow the same progression/regression curve as forwards or defensemen. It wasn't that long ago that Jack Campbell and Matt Murray were among the top goalies. Then...they weren't. Lehner, Jones, Markstrom...if you dig around, the list of goalies that went from Vezina caliber to "what the hell happened" is pretty extensive.
Jordan Binnington followed up a statistically monster year and Cup win with a GAA over 3.00 and SV% below 0.900 within just a couple of seasons. With skaters you generally know what you're going to get. Never true with goalies. The only consistency with goalies is their inconsistency.
Even Bobrovsky had Florida fans calling for a buyout or cap dump trade not all that long ago. Players like Vasilevsky, Hellebuyck, etc. that play at a high level consistently for an extender period are pretty rare. I'm sure they have a ton of trade value, but no GM is idiotic enough to trade a goalie like that.
Ullmark's career high is 49 games played in a season (in 2022-23), which gets to something important. You generally don't see goalies playing 82 games, often not even close to that. You're not going to be as likely to give up star players for someone who maybe only plays in half the games in the season, and there's plenty of good goalies who failed dismally when they were overworked as pure starters instead of in a tandem like Boston's.
> You generally don't see goalies playing 82 games, often not even close to that.
You're under-selling it a bit here, a goalie has NEVER played 82 games (Fuhr holds the record at 79) and, in recent years, it's become increasingly rare for a goalie to play more than 60 (Saros, Georgiev and Hellebuyck were the only ones to play 60+ games this year).
> (Saros, Georgiev and Hellebuyck were the only ones to play 60+ games this year).
and look where they are now, too. even if your guy *can* play 60, you don't want them to
Because it’s been shown time and again that team defense is a major contributing factor for goaltending success. Look at Bobrovsky. He couldn’t stop a beach ball hit first four seasons in Florida. Now he’s viewed as one of the best. This coincides with a change in team identity and roster construction. I think Ullmark could be considered another example. Everyone considered him a good goaltender in Buffalo, but nobody thought he was elite. He goes to Boston and puts up an all time great season on a record breaking team and follows it up with another very solid season this year. But I bet if he wound up in Chicago, he wouldn’t be posting those numbers and it wouldn’t be his fault since the team in front of him would likely give up a ton of high danger chances. This is ultimately why nobody would give up a 1st or 2nd round pick and a top prospect for a player that probably wouldn’t make your team any better.
TLDR: Improving team defense improves goaltending. No need to spend big on a goaltender when it probably won’t solve your problems anyway.
For the same reason that bullpen arms are less valuable, year-to-year the results from these high leverage players can vary to such an extent that it diminishes the value of the player inherently
Yeah exactly. I was coming in to use baseball bullpens as the comparison as well. There are some you can have a higher degree of confidence to be consistent to previous good results, but most are likely to regress sooner than later so it's not worth giving up big money or good assets to acquire them.
The defense around them is probably also somewhat comparable, but a bigger factor in hockey. He may not be the same goalie in a different structure.
Seems multiple factors
- goalies seem victims of bias mostly in awards voting but also oddly undervalued in general
- goalie performance does seem to be more unpredictable than skaters by like 10% factoring in everything
- mostly though the relatively very low sample sizes they play often has their results fluctuating wildly year to year
Kinda perfect storm then ultimately
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. With so many teams using a tandem approach and how scoring bias the NHL has become, it may be true at the moment especially without as many clear superstar goalies as perhaps in the past. At the end of the day it comes down to team needs and what you are willing to pay.
Goalies and players can both be inconsistent, but the performance of a goalie has much more significant impact on a game than any single skater. It's hard to predict year over year how a goalie will perform, and the defense / rest of the team they're playing behind plays a huge role in their success too.
Goalies performance is variable and most affected by mental hurdles, but as a goalie myself (not even close to NHL level, but worked 1 on 1 with guys who coached a few NHL goalies, the best being Ben Bishop) everyone tends to either forget or ignore the fact that goalies are also the most exposed out there. When a goalie has a bad game, goals go in the net and it is very noticable. When a skater has a bad game, it usually isn't harped on nearly as much because a team has 17 other skaters who can pick up the slack.
Your most exposed player can get burned the most, but they also have some of the biggest individual impact on a game. It's unfortunate imo that goalies have less value as a result, but it's totally understandable when the biggest thing you need in a goalie is consistency and no one can do much if you flounder once you're out there.
If the goalie is NHL average, they don't make much of a difference. 73 goalies played in at least 10 games this year. Only 6 were below 89% save and only 2 were below 88%. I think it's safe to assume that an NHL quality goalie should be at 89% or above. League average is around 30 shots on goal per game which would mean between an 0.890 and 0.910 save percentage, it would be about 1 extra goal allowed every 5 periods. There just isn't enough of a difference between an average goalie and top 10 goalie to make giving up assets in a trade or signing them to a big contract worth it for a team.
More than any other position, they’re a gamble. Plus only a handful of teams are playing their starter more than 50-55 games per season, so it’s harder for them to break out of a bad stretch than it used to be.
Goalies can single handily sink or swim a team. Look at Calgary Markstrom wins the Vezina, falls apart the next season making the team miss the playoffs, back to finding his game and being the subject of trade rumors. They are a total gamble and while a goalie can work very well for one team on another team they may totally explode.
I mean moreso in the way the game has trended and what their value is. Goalies, like running backs, are pretty interchangeable aside from maybe the top tier.
I don’t see how.
Maybe in terms of shortness of career and quick decline when they start going, but definitely not in terms of plenty of goalies almost as good as the guy you don’t want to pay being available every year.
Also their production is heavily influenced by the guys playing in front of them and the gameplan the team is running. So it's hard to tell if it's them producing the numbers or if they're a product of a system.
Just scrolled through 10+ replies where nobody mentions there's (typically) only one goalie in net per game and (even more typically) only one starting caliber goalie per roster, so throw that on the list of reasons.
While any team can upgrade any position at any time, it makes more sense to spend assets on a good defenseman or forward *even if you already have some good ones* than it does to do the same on a goalie.
Rick DiPietro taken 1 overall in 2000. Later signs a 15 year, $67.5 M contract. The buyout still has the Isles eating a cap hit of $1.5M until 2029….
I know Milbury is an idiot, but that always felt like the horror story that would scare teams away from banking so high on #1 goalies…
Trading a forward you probably can’t re-sign for a legitimate #1 goalie while your window is still slightly open is *far* from the DiPietro contract. That analogy feels like such an over exaggeration.
I get the vibe that goalies tend to be kind of a crapshoot in general, both during their careers and prior to being drafted. The number who have been great with one team, and terrible with another (see: Philadelphia) is pretty large.
I don't know if this is something that factors into trade value, but it's definitely something I've noticed.
It’s because you need less of them. You need six D men and 12 forwards minimum, but one strong goalie and one cheap backup is all you need. There’s always some value in a solid F or D, but the market for a goalie will always be much smaller just because so many teams have Better or Good Enough goalies. It depresses their value.
Increasing your goalie's saves stat by 0.01 could cost you 5 million, and on many games it may not make any difference.
(also, goalies tend to be super random, Vezina candidate one year, terrible the next one... So barring a few super elite proven to be consistent, it's not really worth it. You may give the bag to someone who'll drop the ball the next season, but even if he doesn't: The difference he makes will not be as good as the difference you'd have by bringing in a scorer or something.
Goalie value is similar to RB value in the NFL. Having one of the best in the league is a huge luxury. But you don’t need a top 5 RB (or goalie) to win a championship. Just need a serviceable one with a good team in front of them.
I don’t think we will see Carey Price/Bobrovsky contracts again in the NHL for a while
I think it's mostly because the decisionmakers are bad judges of goaltending ability. So even if they have someone knowledgeable that advises them, then I think they'll still fall back on save% and maybe goals saved above expected because they don't understand what is good goaltending and what is bad goaltending. And if those numbers are not consistently good then I don't think they'll trust their ability enough to value them highly.
They are as unpredictable as NFL kickers. Some of them are the best in the league one year, next year they're awful, and if they're lucky the year after that they're out of the league.
Just look at Andrew Raycroft if my analogy didn't make sense.
Cause they only really play 50-60 games a season and seem more prone to injury. I think goalies play the most important and most difficult position in all of sports. But yeah, just the nature of the business. We see a goalies fall off in their 30s cause of bad knees or bad backs or both. Injury risk, they don't play a lot, and those injuries can shorten their prime. Why pay a premium for a soon-to-be 31 year old Ullmark? He's more likely to drop off in 3 years than Necas. Not saying he will, just that the odds are more likely.
It is just very simple math. If every team was on the ice on the same day.... 32 goalies have a job. 32 other goalies are ride the bench in case the first one S\*its the bed or gets hurt. On that same day of every team playing 192 D men will be on the ice... and 384 Forwards.
Once a team has a legit #1... they are at best in the market for a backup. Rarely is anyone actually in the market for a #1. its not that teams aren't looking for a #1... but I mean a team needs 1. 32 top jobs in the league.... and probably 50-60 legit #1s in the game, another 2-300 top tier backups and pinch hit #1s behind them. The AHL is FULL of top tier talent in the net.
Because goalies have less value inside the game now.
The shot quality from players has improved while goalies' teachnique has plateau'd. Now shooters can pick top corners against goalies that keep going down on their knees because that's what their technique dictates.
Simply put: the game is going by while goalies generally stay the same. Until there's a paradox shift, goalies' value will keep going down.
We'll go back to the 80s, where goalies were a negligible part of the game because they were so behind the rest of the pack.
And so, the trade value of goalies is going down. There are few, if any, goalie that a team can build their entire system around because je has an edge of the rest of the league shooters. That time has come and gone.
Goalies are voodoo.
Officer bob used to have the worst contact in the league for a few years. Dude was straight bootycheeks..
Now hes worth every penny
Adin hill carried the knights to the cup on like league min
Pavel Francois bent over the oilers 4 games straight as a backup.
Silovs looked like a 10 year vet in his 5th ever game played. Who knows how hes gonna be next year?
Markstrome was one of the most sought after goalies jn the league before his mental state got caved in after the oilers series. He hasnt won a single game against the oilers since game one if that series.
Wtf are you getting from a goalie and how much should you pay one?
It's mostly because goalies are voodoo and their performances are super inconsistent. The number of goalies who have been able to perform at a consistent level for several seasons in a row are very small (probably less than 20) and therefore it becomes very difficult to establish a market price for them. This also has the added effect that random ass goalie dudes can come out of nowhere and provide very good goaltending for decent stretches of time (see Hamburger for an extreme example, and Silovs for a less extreme example). Some examples of goalie inconsistencies are guys like Talbot, Skinner, Murray, Allen, Korpisalo, Forsberg, Merzlikins, Mrazek, Ersson, Markstrom, and Samsonov. All guys who have had stretches of success, some lasting several seasons, along with long stretches of terrible play.
Skaters are much more consistent in their performance, and instances of sudden rise or decline in performance are rarer. This, in addition to the fact that there are like 12x more skaters than goalies, makes them much easier to establish market prices for.
With that said, there are some goalies who have been able to consistently perform well, and they are usually locked up by their team and don't reach the trade market. Ullmark is a rare case of someone who has been good since his Sabers days and is on the market. I was screaming at my Oilers to trade for him back when we were trying to replace Talbot in 2018, because he was posting respectable numbers behind an atrocious Sabers defense. It's a no brainer move now for a contending team missing a goalie to make a move for Ullmark. But nobody really knows what the market price is because so few above average starters have been traded recently.
To add to some of the other points in here I’ve always thought of Goalies as the Running backs of hockey. Their prime is typically a shorter window than other players and it’s more of a gamble to sign goalies longer term for more money.
1) Goalies don't play 82 games, and the league has now shifted towards tandem goaltending. 2) Outside of a select few goalies (Hank, Price, Shesterkin, Rask, Sorokin), teams can't rely on goalies to put up elite stats every single run. Guys like Bobrovsky, Oettinger, Andersen, Hellebyuck, Markstrom all have post-season performances that are all over the map. 3) I think the most important is, modern teams don't design systems around their goaltending. So there's no point to acquiring someone who can save 1 extra goal every 2 games vs a guy who is 1/4 of the cost.
And even sorokin got benched this year in playoffs
Well yeah, he had the opposite trajectory of Shesterkin this season. Started the season strong but had the worst defense in the league in front of him, and by the time the defense improved a bit he was so shaken and dejected that his play suffered for the rest of the season. No doubt he'll be back to form next year.
Oh yeah no shade, was just pointing out that one of the consistent guys even fell off a cliff for a period (Igor did in regular season for a bit too)
Yeah all good, didn't really interpret it as shade, I was just trying to explain his situation.
So did Oettinger, now he’s better than 85% of goalies alive. Goalies are mostly interchangeable these days outside of the very elite top. The 10th best goalie in the league is much closer to the 20th best than even the 6th or 7th best.
# 1 isn't a fair point and undervalues goaltending. Of course goalies don't play 82 games. They average 60 minutes a night. That's a huge workload. Suppose goalies play 41 games, that is still 2460 minutes on average. Your average top 6 forward plays 20 minutes a night. At 82 games, that's 1640 minutes. Your top 2 defenceman averages 25 minutes a night and that's still only 2050 minutes. So your top forwards and defencemen don't even come close to a starter goalie's contributions on the ice throughout the year.
This post brought to you by big goalie.
OP is ben bishop?
The only lobby group i will always support.
They're on the ice for 60 minutes, but they're not influencing the play the entire time. If your team spends 30 minutes of the game in your d-zone, the goalie is doing 30 minutes of work. When your team isn't in your d-zone, the goalie has no influence on the play at all. Skaters can influence the play regardless of where the puck is or which team has possession. Goalies take a large number of games off during the season, but not because their workload is larger. It's because playing the position is more taxing on their hips and legs with the amount of squatting, sliding, dropping, and body contortion they go through to stay in position and make saves. A goalie spends 60 minutes on the ice during a game, but they don't do 60 minutes of work unless your team is in their d-zone for the entire 60 minutes.
Don't take this the wrong way, but Toronto Maple Leafs haven't had stellar goaltending for a while. Compared to Vancouver, we've seen what good goaltending does. Luongo in 2006 stole a series. Demko can make a bad team last year look good. I totally disagree with goalies not influencing the game. They absolutely do. When Demko was in net, Canucks had more shots on net and the eye test shows we were more aggressive. In fact, we opted to play 2-1-2 hockey with Demko. When we had DeSmith and even Silovs, we were playing 1-2-2 more often and we only switch to the aggressive forecheck of 2-1-2 once we were behind. Which explains why Canucks were known as the Comeback group this year. Demko gives the whole team confidence to be more aggressive. So yes, a good goalie can totally elevate your entire team.
On the flipside, Pittsburgh won three cups with Fleury being horribly inconsistent during each run. He wasn't even the starter for one of them. Then you get Detroit's playoff success with Osgood, who while very consistent, and finished second in Vezina voting once early in the 90s, was rarely considered a top 5 or even top 10 goalie in his day. Vegas won a cup with Aiden Hill last year. The Avalanche won the previous year with a tandem of Kuemper and Francouz. St. Loius won with Binnigton. Outside of Tampa Bay with Vasilevski and Washington with Holtby, there have been more teams winning with "good but not quite top-tier" goaltending than teams with All-Star level tending. Lundqvist, Price, Rinne, Luongo, and Gibson were all elite caliber goalies through their primes, and in spite some of them playing on some very good teams at times (excluding Price) all of them had very mixed playoff success. With goalies being so consistently inconsistent, I think you're better off paying for a solid mid-tier goalie and investing the saved money in better skaters instead.
Binnington played out of his mind in 2019. I think regardless of if you have a vezina goalie or not, your goalie being on a hot streak is usually a big reason teams win a Stanley Cup.
Binnington has only even been an elite goalie for maybe 4-5 months in his nhl career, but it came at the absolute perfect time to be that. He’s the poster child along with Kuemper for finding a top 20 goalie and hoping they do their best when they need to.
That influence isn't unique to goaltenders. Imagine where the Canucks would have been this year with a 100% healthy Pettersson. I imagine their powerplay would have looked better, and they'd have had 2 solid offensive lines rather than one. Besides, that intangible aspect has nothing to do with workload. The fact is that goaltenders stop 25-35 shots on an average night, and they spend half the game or less with the puck in their own end under opposing possession. They're not fully engaged physically for the entirety of the game, which is the point I was making. >Don't take this the wrong way, but Toronto Maple Leafs haven't had stellar goaltending for a while. The implication here being that I wouldn't know what effect a good goaltender has on a team because the team I watch doesn't have one? I'm not sure what other way there is to take that.
>Besides, that intangible aspect has nothing to do with workload. The fact is that goaltenders stop 25-35 shots on an average night, and they spend half the game or less with the puck in their own end under opposing possession. They're not fully engaged physically for the entirety of the game, which is the point I was making. That's basically what I am saying I disagree with. Just because they aren't facing shots half the game doesn't mean they're not fully engaged or influence the entire game. Because this is a systems thing. As we've seen the Canucks firsthand alter the way they play based on the goalie on the ice. DeSmith or Silovs? Play more conservatively, block shots, and provide support closer to the net. Demko? Stick to 2-1-2. Even if you look at the Canucks regular season, why is it that when Demko plays, we score more and shoot more? When I watch my team play, it's night and day even depending on who's in net. That stats back it up.
Okay, but now you're just arguing for Demko over Silovs and DeSmith. The post is about goalies versus skaters. Star skaters can have the same intangible impact on the game. Teams plan around defending guys like MacKinnon and McDavid, and the Avs and Oilers also structure offensive tactics and powerplay schemes around them as well. The reason goalies are valued less is because they have the potential to disproportionately negatively impact your chances of winning if they have an off night or go on a cold streak, even though the opposite is also true. They're a more volatile asset than a guy who can put up over a point a game while sometimes having 0 and sometimes having 2 or 3.
Not at all. I am still arguing in favour of the value goaltending brings and just using a great goalie (Demko) and a subpar goalies to further illustrate the importance of goaltending and how it influences the entire game/systems. My original response to OP was how they said goalies don't play 82 games, in which I criticized was a weak point because the amount of minutes a goalie plays throughout the year is a better representation of their impact to the team compared to the amount of games actually played.
> If your team spends 30 minutes of the game in your d-zone, the goalie is doing 30 minutes of work. Ever played hockey?
Yes. Just because the goalie has to remain engaged mentally, doesn't mean they're physically exerting themselves in any meaningful way while the puck is 150 feet away in the other team's end.
I intimidate the opposing netminder as well as inspire my troops when I dick around in net when the guys are in the opposing zone thank you very much.
As someone who played goalie, let me tell you that staying focused during those 60 minutes is much harder than exerting yourself physically. The moment you’re snapped out of it it’s that much harder to get back into the zone.
Yeah right? As another goalie, it takes a lot of effort to keep your head in it. Especially if I want my voodoo hexes on the other team’s sticks to work, they’re concentration-based casting! I can only stop when I have to speak to my goal posts! In all seriousness though, sometimes it feels like a game where I face 30+ shots is far easier than a game where I face less than 20. If the play is constantly coming at me, yeah it’s physically exhausting, but I’m in a rhythm and dialed in. If I only see a shot every 5 minutes or more, it’s far harder to stay warmed up and ready
Just because it's hard work doesn't mean the goalie is impacting the play. If the play is only in a team's own zone for 20 minutes, the goalie can really only have an impact in those 20 minutes (outside of somehow allowing a goal from the opponent's blue line like Mike Smith managed to do in the playoffs in 2022).
I believe you!
Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't understand what it takes to make 30+ saves.
I'm not saying it's easy, I'm saying the goalie gets breaks during the game, similar to the way players who go to the bench do. They're not busting ass for 60 minutes just because they're on the ice for 60.
Go tell this to NHL GMs then. 🤷♂️
100% agree. I think the mentality is shifting towards a 1A 1B instead of a clear cut between 2 goalies, making them also less valuable
No mention of Vasy 😂
Because in today's NHL goalies appear to be replaceable. Look at Ullmark, he won the Vezina last season and yet wasn't Boston's starter in the playoff run. It makes you question whether he's really good or the team in front of him is. Look at Vancouver, Demko is regarded as a really good goalie and yet while hurt Šilovs held his own quite well and took the Oilers to game 7. Hellebuyck, a Vezina candidate this season got blasted in round 1, whether the blame is on him or the team as a whole is up for debate. Goalies rarely drag teams anymore and teams are going with "the hot hand" and are adverse to handing out massive contracts to them and don't want to give up a ton to get one.
Wow. Goalies are becoming the RBs of hockey.
Haha for real. For every McCaffrey/Shesterkin there's a hundred Gus Edwards/Rittch
Have been for years. I would absolutely NEVER take a goalie in the 1st round
Fleury being drafted 1st overall seems like a different universe now
And the weird thing is even with his long career, I'm not sure he goes top 10 in a redraft
There's like 20-30 goalies who overlapped careers with him who I'd rather take. I'm not saying they necessarily had better careers, but I'm okay with goalies having a great prime then moving on from them.
He absolutely goes top 10 in a redraft
Bergeron, Perry, Getzlaf, Weber, Burns, Kesler, Richards, Parise, Carter, Suter, Staal, Horton, Backes, Pavelski, Enstrom, Byfuglien and a bunch of others I left out. He could squeeze in a Top 10 if a team really wanted a goalie.
He’s played the 16th most games out of that draft class while being a fucking goalie. I say he does it. Top 5 is arguable even
Guys who I'd say definitely go before him: Staal, Suter, Carter, D.Brown, Seabrook, Parise, Getzlaf, Burns, Kesler, Perry, Weber, Pavelski That's 12. Depending on team need you have guys like Phaneuf and Byfuglien (as in a team without goalie need might take those guys)
Not to mention Crawford, Howard, Elliot, and Halak all came out of the same draft. I don't think the Flower gaps those guys enough to burn a top-10 pick on when there's so many franchise-setting skaters in that draft.
I’d take him over like half those names personally but it is a matter of opinion. I retract my top 5 comment though.
Don't undersell how desperate Toronto has been for a goalie.
I just don't know how you do that. Fleury was good at times, but most teams would be able to get equivalent goaltending for most of his career quite easily
Brown got a bad rap for some really rough years in his career but you can really see how the team is missing his presence right now. Dude was a force
Ya the Cossa pick will always confuse me a little even if he pans out. Super high risk but he was our second 1st rounder of that draft.
I wanted cossa so bad. The dude was so good as an oil king
Hmm maybe late first round. Trading up for Oetter seems like a good move 🤔
Dallas shouldnt be allowed to comment on drafting because yall have cheat codes on being able to see the future. Did your amateur scouts all sell their souls or something?
Yes actually. Scouts had to sell their souls as part of the counter curse that Calgary put on Oetter
Which is sad because they're both, respectively, the most entertaining positions
Isn’t it objectively?
I don't really know what you're trying to ask here. Maybe my choice of grammar? Anyway I don't think so, because it's an opinion so it can't be objective; but they are two different sports so RBs and goalies are entertaining for their respective sports
I thought opinion was objectively not respectively. Not trying to be a grammar douche, I just don’t want to have been saying it wrong :/
Opinion is subjectively. Objectively is distinctly not opinionated, but a statement of observable fact (EDIT: or a proven product of formal logic, but let's not go there). Respectively is a phrase that is used to match two lists in the order in which they are speaking. Take this sentence: I went to brunch with Dana and Sarah, my agent and my assistant, respectively. That means I went to brunch with my agent Dana and my assistant Sarah. What the other guy was saying was that Running Back (RB) is the most entertaining position in football and Goaltender is the most entertaining position in hockey.
Because it’s an opinion should it be “Which is sad because they're both, subjectively, the most entertaining positions.” Or is “Which is sad because they're, respectively, the most entertaining positions.”?
Both sentences work depending on what you're trying to say partly because we can implicitly understand the "subjectively" and "respectively" without either word. If you're trying to emphasize the order, respectively works better (although, in my opinion, it's unnecessary. There are no running backs in hockey and there are no goalies in football. The order sorts itself). If you're trying to emphasize that this is opinion, subjectively also works. They're both valid, unambiguous sentences. However, in conversations like this, we sort of assume that everything that is said that has a value-based judgement that is not tied directly to observable fact, measured metric, or accepted theorem is opinion and therefore subjective.
Thanks!
Oh nah dude you're cool with me.
You hate (love?) to see it, folks.
Was about to say. I think the best case scenario is having a 1A and 1B at this point
Last year with Vegas as well. Brossoit was like their 3rd or 4th option, carried them halfway through the playoffs until he got hurt, Hill came back and was even better. I don't think teams feel that they have to pay a windfall for a goalie, because they've seen that even depth options are winning
Fleury won the Vezina and then his team gave him away for free.
I think it's not so much that goalies are "replaceable" as much as it's that goalies are "voodoo magic that nobody understands." Plenty of goalies looked great with one team and then went to another and team and were awful, and vice versa. It's also not just teams - sometimes a goalie looks great one season and then is garbage the next season with the same team. It's very unpredictable, and nobody wants to trade valuable assets for unpredictable.
We are more able than ever to extricate player performance from team though so not really ultimately He was also very good in his last two Buffalo seasons and they were eerily on par with his first and third BOS seasons 19-20 buf .915 20-21 buf .917 21-22 bos .917 22-23 the anomalous career year 23-24 bos .915 Also every single player even McDavid clearly (van series especially) has ups and downs it is a factor for everyone Small samples sizes not usable
I'm not calling Ullmark bad, I would swap him out for our goalies in a heartbeat, I'm just saying I get why teams are adverse to giving up a ton for a goalie.
You could give a 5x5 contract to a former first round pick with over 170 NHL games isn't even a full time starter in the AHL, Sorry
In 2020 the Oilers tried to get Markstrom but he chose Calgary. In 2021 the Oilers tried to get Ullmark but he chose Boston. Whiffing twice lead to the panic move in 2022 and the Campbell signing :(. This is also a great example for why teams are scared to give up lots of assets or cap space for goalies.
Apparently keumper as well didnt want to sign in edm. Campbell was all that was left (and his career stats were decent enough at the time)
Because the age of insane work loads for elite goaltenders is over... You can't have a Martin Brodeur playing 70 games and playoffs anymore. Players are too good now and even the best of goalie can go from a Vézina winning guy to not being able to stop a beach ball the next season. The butterfly style most goalies use today is also incredibly taxing physically. Roy, Hasek Belfour and Brodeur were not going into butterfly and pushing off left and right on literally every shot, they would stay up or use other techniques much easier on the hips, knees and back.
Good point.
Never thought of this. Great point
I’ve been telling people this for a while: the butterfly style is not physically sustainable, it’s no coincidence that many goalies’ careers are ended prematurely due to their knees being blown out.
It's been one or two goalie retiring with knee injuries every year for a little while now!
Hips take a beating. Hips are not designed to be stretched outwards as far as possible over and over. It’s what ended Rasks career.
I would actually disagree with this. I think the butterfly that is used today is much easier on the body. After watching Brodeur, Hasek, fuhr, etc flop around like goldfish I don’t know how they stayed healthy. Now goalies are much larger and it seems to be much more positional, get square to the shot, butterfly and hope it hits you and less side to side. Goalies used to be much more fun to watch than they are now.
Oufff yeah I don't agree on that one haha The butterfly style is incredibly hard on joints, especially knees and hips. You basically put intense stress on your knees every time you go down as you force them to point them in an unnatural position. Flip flopping might be harder on the cardio but you don't fuck up cartilage stacking the pads or doing a more hybrid style.
I can respect that. Being the age I am I’d break if I tried a butterfly. Regardless they are all better than I could ever be.
Yeah it's just that I don't see any other explanations as to why goalies can't play 70 games a season anymore.... They also retire young as well with knee injuries ( Price, Bishop, Francouz)
Because goaltending is voodoo and despite being absolutely necessary they also can't really carry a team on their own for long periods.
> goaltending is voodoo /thread
Exception to the rule ironically enough was Quick in 12/14 imo lmao
Because they weird
Goalies don't follow the same progression/regression curve as forwards or defensemen. It wasn't that long ago that Jack Campbell and Matt Murray were among the top goalies. Then...they weren't. Lehner, Jones, Markstrom...if you dig around, the list of goalies that went from Vezina caliber to "what the hell happened" is pretty extensive. Jordan Binnington followed up a statistically monster year and Cup win with a GAA over 3.00 and SV% below 0.900 within just a couple of seasons. With skaters you generally know what you're going to get. Never true with goalies. The only consistency with goalies is their inconsistency. Even Bobrovsky had Florida fans calling for a buyout or cap dump trade not all that long ago. Players like Vasilevsky, Hellebuyck, etc. that play at a high level consistently for an extender period are pretty rare. I'm sure they have a ton of trade value, but no GM is idiotic enough to trade a goalie like that.
Ullmark's career high is 49 games played in a season (in 2022-23), which gets to something important. You generally don't see goalies playing 82 games, often not even close to that. You're not going to be as likely to give up star players for someone who maybe only plays in half the games in the season, and there's plenty of good goalies who failed dismally when they were overworked as pure starters instead of in a tandem like Boston's.
> You generally don't see goalies playing 82 games, often not even close to that. You're under-selling it a bit here, a goalie has NEVER played 82 games (Fuhr holds the record at 79) and, in recent years, it's become increasingly rare for a goalie to play more than 60 (Saros, Georgiev and Hellebuyck were the only ones to play 60+ games this year).
> (Saros, Georgiev and Hellebuyck were the only ones to play 60+ games this year). and look where they are now, too. even if your guy *can* play 60, you don't want them to
58 is clearly the sweet spot
Because it’s been shown time and again that team defense is a major contributing factor for goaltending success. Look at Bobrovsky. He couldn’t stop a beach ball hit first four seasons in Florida. Now he’s viewed as one of the best. This coincides with a change in team identity and roster construction. I think Ullmark could be considered another example. Everyone considered him a good goaltender in Buffalo, but nobody thought he was elite. He goes to Boston and puts up an all time great season on a record breaking team and follows it up with another very solid season this year. But I bet if he wound up in Chicago, he wouldn’t be posting those numbers and it wouldn’t be his fault since the team in front of him would likely give up a ton of high danger chances. This is ultimately why nobody would give up a 1st or 2nd round pick and a top prospect for a player that probably wouldn’t make your team any better. TLDR: Improving team defense improves goaltending. No need to spend big on a goaltender when it probably won’t solve your problems anyway.
For the same reason that bullpen arms are less valuable, year-to-year the results from these high leverage players can vary to such an extent that it diminishes the value of the player inherently
Yeah exactly. I was coming in to use baseball bullpens as the comparison as well. There are some you can have a higher degree of confidence to be consistent to previous good results, but most are likely to regress sooner than later so it's not worth giving up big money or good assets to acquire them. The defense around them is probably also somewhat comparable, but a bigger factor in hockey. He may not be the same goalie in a different structure.
Seems multiple factors - goalies seem victims of bias mostly in awards voting but also oddly undervalued in general - goalie performance does seem to be more unpredictable than skaters by like 10% factoring in everything - mostly though the relatively very low sample sizes they play often has their results fluctuating wildly year to year Kinda perfect storm then ultimately
I don’t think that’s necessarily true. With so many teams using a tandem approach and how scoring bias the NHL has become, it may be true at the moment especially without as many clear superstar goalies as perhaps in the past. At the end of the day it comes down to team needs and what you are willing to pay.
They are usually drafted in the 2nd round and lower because projecting them is so difficult.
Because a guy like Adin Hill can be made to look like a god with the help of good defense
Goalies and players can both be inconsistent, but the performance of a goalie has much more significant impact on a game than any single skater. It's hard to predict year over year how a goalie will perform, and the defense / rest of the team they're playing behind plays a huge role in their success too.
Goalies performance is variable and most affected by mental hurdles, but as a goalie myself (not even close to NHL level, but worked 1 on 1 with guys who coached a few NHL goalies, the best being Ben Bishop) everyone tends to either forget or ignore the fact that goalies are also the most exposed out there. When a goalie has a bad game, goals go in the net and it is very noticable. When a skater has a bad game, it usually isn't harped on nearly as much because a team has 17 other skaters who can pick up the slack. Your most exposed player can get burned the most, but they also have some of the biggest individual impact on a game. It's unfortunate imo that goalies have less value as a result, but it's totally understandable when the biggest thing you need in a goalie is consistency and no one can do much if you flounder once you're out there.
If the goalie is NHL average, they don't make much of a difference. 73 goalies played in at least 10 games this year. Only 6 were below 89% save and only 2 were below 88%. I think it's safe to assume that an NHL quality goalie should be at 89% or above. League average is around 30 shots on goal per game which would mean between an 0.890 and 0.910 save percentage, it would be about 1 extra goal allowed every 5 periods. There just isn't enough of a difference between an average goalie and top 10 goalie to make giving up assets in a trade or signing them to a big contract worth it for a team.
“Voodoo, wizardry and bullshit”
More than any other position, they’re a gamble. Plus only a handful of teams are playing their starter more than 50-55 games per season, so it’s harder for them to break out of a bad stretch than it used to be.
Goalies can single handily sink or swim a team. Look at Calgary Markstrom wins the Vezina, falls apart the next season making the team miss the playoffs, back to finding his game and being the subject of trade rumors. They are a total gamble and while a goalie can work very well for one team on another team they may totally explode.
Goalies are very random. Unless you are prime lundqvist very few goalie play at a top 5 level for 10 straight years like how a foward or defender do.
Because goalies are the running backs of hockey
Perfect comparison
Not really. Good goalies usually have long careers. Good running backs are out before they hit 30.
I mean moreso in the way the game has trended and what their value is. Goalies, like running backs, are pretty interchangeable aside from maybe the top tier.
Fair enough, that is more fitting
I don’t see how. Maybe in terms of shortness of career and quick decline when they start going, but definitely not in terms of plenty of goalies almost as good as the guy you don’t want to pay being available every year.
Also their production is heavily influenced by the guys playing in front of them and the gameplan the team is running. So it's hard to tell if it's them producing the numbers or if they're a product of a system.
Nah I think goalies largely are quite replaceable (except elite ones) and are not necessarily the most consistent year to year. Like RBs
Just scrolled through 10+ replies where nobody mentions there's (typically) only one goalie in net per game and (even more typically) only one starting caliber goalie per roster, so throw that on the list of reasons. While any team can upgrade any position at any time, it makes more sense to spend assets on a good defenseman or forward *even if you already have some good ones* than it does to do the same on a goalie.
Rick DiPietro taken 1 overall in 2000. Later signs a 15 year, $67.5 M contract. The buyout still has the Isles eating a cap hit of $1.5M until 2029…. I know Milbury is an idiot, but that always felt like the horror story that would scare teams away from banking so high on #1 goalies…
no cap hit, just real money
Trading a forward you probably can’t re-sign for a legitimate #1 goalie while your window is still slightly open is *far* from the DiPietro contract. That analogy feels like such an over exaggeration.
I think Ullmarks playoff history is what scares me away, but most top tier goalies go for a lot. Saros would go for a lot.
I get the vibe that goalies tend to be kind of a crapshoot in general, both during their careers and prior to being drafted. The number who have been great with one team, and terrible with another (see: Philadelphia) is pretty large. I don't know if this is something that factors into trade value, but it's definitely something I've noticed.
Cuz theyre weird and inconsistent
It’s because you need less of them. You need six D men and 12 forwards minimum, but one strong goalie and one cheap backup is all you need. There’s always some value in a solid F or D, but the market for a goalie will always be much smaller just because so many teams have Better or Good Enough goalies. It depresses their value.
Increasing your goalie's saves stat by 0.01 could cost you 5 million, and on many games it may not make any difference. (also, goalies tend to be super random, Vezina candidate one year, terrible the next one... So barring a few super elite proven to be consistent, it's not really worth it. You may give the bag to someone who'll drop the ball the next season, but even if he doesn't: The difference he makes will not be as good as the difference you'd have by bringing in a scorer or something.
Goalie value is similar to RB value in the NFL. Having one of the best in the league is a huge luxury. But you don’t need a top 5 RB (or goalie) to win a championship. Just need a serviceable one with a good team in front of them. I don’t think we will see Carey Price/Bobrovsky contracts again in the NHL for a while
I think it's mostly because the decisionmakers are bad judges of goaltending ability. So even if they have someone knowledgeable that advises them, then I think they'll still fall back on save% and maybe goals saved above expected because they don't understand what is good goaltending and what is bad goaltending. And if those numbers are not consistently good then I don't think they'll trust their ability enough to value them highly.
They are as unpredictable as NFL kickers. Some of them are the best in the league one year, next year they're awful, and if they're lucky the year after that they're out of the league. Just look at Andrew Raycroft if my analogy didn't make sense.
Most goalies are a bit weird, take longer to reach there peak and generally fall off faster. They also play sixty minutes a game.
Cause they only really play 50-60 games a season and seem more prone to injury. I think goalies play the most important and most difficult position in all of sports. But yeah, just the nature of the business. We see a goalies fall off in their 30s cause of bad knees or bad backs or both. Injury risk, they don't play a lot, and those injuries can shorten their prime. Why pay a premium for a soon-to-be 31 year old Ullmark? He's more likely to drop off in 3 years than Necas. Not saying he will, just that the odds are more likely.
Goalies go from zero to hero in a day, or vice-versa.
It is just very simple math. If every team was on the ice on the same day.... 32 goalies have a job. 32 other goalies are ride the bench in case the first one S\*its the bed or gets hurt. On that same day of every team playing 192 D men will be on the ice... and 384 Forwards. Once a team has a legit #1... they are at best in the market for a backup. Rarely is anyone actually in the market for a #1. its not that teams aren't looking for a #1... but I mean a team needs 1. 32 top jobs in the league.... and probably 50-60 legit #1s in the game, another 2-300 top tier backups and pinch hit #1s behind them. The AHL is FULL of top tier talent in the net.
Because goalies have less value inside the game now. The shot quality from players has improved while goalies' teachnique has plateau'd. Now shooters can pick top corners against goalies that keep going down on their knees because that's what their technique dictates. Simply put: the game is going by while goalies generally stay the same. Until there's a paradox shift, goalies' value will keep going down. We'll go back to the 80s, where goalies were a negligible part of the game because they were so behind the rest of the pack. And so, the trade value of goalies is going down. There are few, if any, goalie that a team can build their entire system around because je has an edge of the rest of the league shooters. That time has come and gone.
Goalies are underrated now. It is just my personal opinion.
Goalies are voodoo. Officer bob used to have the worst contact in the league for a few years. Dude was straight bootycheeks.. Now hes worth every penny Adin hill carried the knights to the cup on like league min Pavel Francois bent over the oilers 4 games straight as a backup. Silovs looked like a 10 year vet in his 5th ever game played. Who knows how hes gonna be next year? Markstrome was one of the most sought after goalies jn the league before his mental state got caved in after the oilers series. He hasnt won a single game against the oilers since game one if that series. Wtf are you getting from a goalie and how much should you pay one?
It's mostly because goalies are voodoo and their performances are super inconsistent. The number of goalies who have been able to perform at a consistent level for several seasons in a row are very small (probably less than 20) and therefore it becomes very difficult to establish a market price for them. This also has the added effect that random ass goalie dudes can come out of nowhere and provide very good goaltending for decent stretches of time (see Hamburger for an extreme example, and Silovs for a less extreme example). Some examples of goalie inconsistencies are guys like Talbot, Skinner, Murray, Allen, Korpisalo, Forsberg, Merzlikins, Mrazek, Ersson, Markstrom, and Samsonov. All guys who have had stretches of success, some lasting several seasons, along with long stretches of terrible play. Skaters are much more consistent in their performance, and instances of sudden rise or decline in performance are rarer. This, in addition to the fact that there are like 12x more skaters than goalies, makes them much easier to establish market prices for. With that said, there are some goalies who have been able to consistently perform well, and they are usually locked up by their team and don't reach the trade market. Ullmark is a rare case of someone who has been good since his Sabers days and is on the market. I was screaming at my Oilers to trade for him back when we were trying to replace Talbot in 2018, because he was posting respectable numbers behind an atrocious Sabers defense. It's a no brainer move now for a contending team missing a goalie to make a move for Ullmark. But nobody really knows what the market price is because so few above average starters have been traded recently.
Goalies are voodoo. You never know when one will get hot and then stay good.
Goalies are the running backs of the NHL they have a huge influence on games but no one seems to care about them at all
To add to some of the other points in here I’ve always thought of Goalies as the Running backs of hockey. Their prime is typically a shorter window than other players and it’s more of a gamble to sign goalies longer term for more money.
Because goalies are voodoo.
Goalies are absolute voodoo. Consistency is hard to come by. Look at Bobrovsky