When you're looking at the Goaltender position and you're glancing at the stats and your eyes glance over the SV% column I think there is a temptation to say, 'ah, my guy or this guy is going at a 90, 91 percent clip, he's playing ok'. But the point I'll try and make over the next few paragraphs is that there is a big difference between seemingly small increments. I mentioned here that SV% of .920 is really the standard of excellence in the NHL. Above .920 and a goalie is in the running for the Vezina, but if he's below .900 the AHL is probably in his future. So almost all of the NHL starters are clustered in a very tight group. Let's use Miika Kiprusoff and the Flames as an example. Last year Kipper's SV% was .906, a very low number for him considering his previous years' excellent work. Here's a more itemized breakdown of the numbers.
- Kiprusoff 2096 SA 197 GA .906 SV%
- C. Joseph 181 SA 17 GA .906 SV%
- M. Keetley 2 SA 0 GA na
- McElhinney 51 SA 5 GA .902 SV%
- Cgy Totals 2330 SA 219 GA .906SV%
Where: SA is shots against, GA is goals against, SV% is save percentage. Empty net goals are not included.
So last year Kipper's SV% was the same as the Team SV%. But lets say Kipper and the other goalies were only 1 percent better, what would the result have been? That changes the Cgy SV% to .916 from .906.
Over the 2330 shots against a .916 SV% would have yielded 196 (195.72) goals instead of 219 goals. That reduction in 23 goals against would have:
- moved Kipper from 30th to 15th in SV% ranking
- pushed the Flames from 16th to 6th in League Goals Against ranking
- changed the Flames Goal Differential from +2 ( ranking 17th) to +25 (ranking them 6th behind Detroit, Montreal, Dallas, Pittsburgh, San Jose.)
Even if the Flames SV% only improved half of one percent last year (12 goals fewer allowed), their Goal Differential would have become the best in the NW division and fourth in the conference.
But Joe, I hear you say, its too much to ask of our goalies, can't we improve team defence instead? Yeah, I guess we could, but to get that same reduction in goals (23) by limiting shots instead of improving SV% the Flames would have to reduce Shots Against to 2085 a reduction of 245 shots. This would mean giving up only 25.4 shots/game. Only two teams last year managed that number or better: Detroit and San Jose. Calgary needs to get better in limiting shots against, but I think an improving SV% is a more efficient way of improving the goal differential.
So...C'mon Kipper! Just give us one more percent!
