NEW PERK: 2021-22 Goalie Cards

The long-awaited goalie cards are here!

If your last name starts with A-H, access here.

If your last name starts with I-O, access here. 

If your last name starts with P-Z, access here. 

To see the cards, navigate to the bottom of the page and select one of the Goalie Card tabs.

To select the card you would like to see, either click the arrow to the right of the player's name or select the cell where the player's name appears and type in the name of the goalie.

What are These Stats?

Goalies are notoriously hard to analyze and especially predict. So much can change from year-to-year, as we've seen from Carter Hart and Philipp Grubauer recently. With that in mind, we want to make sure that we isolate their performance from external factors like team defence as much as we can. That's why instead of using save percentage, which punishes goalies on poor defensive teams who allow great chances in tight, we use metrics based on goals saved above expected. These evaluate goalies based on their performance against the scoring chances they faced compared to "expectations" i.e. historical average. That way a goalie's stats won't look worse because they got hung out to dry.

Goals saved above expected is the basis of the stats in question here, using a model built by TopDownHockey which evaluates all shots based on the estimated likelihood that they would go in. They include:

• Wins Above Replacement: The estimated wins a goalie individually contributed to his team compared to your average third-stringer. The "projected WAR" that appears on the top of the cards is a per-game stat based on the past three seasons of play (with a regression applied to address goalies with smaller samples). 
• EV WAR: Wins Above Replacement at even strength only. We can be more confident in a goalie's performance at even strength because public expected goals models are more reliable when it comes to estimating shot quality.
• PK WAR: WAR on the penalty kill.
• High, Med, Low Danger: Goals saved above expected on three types of shot based on the quality of them. For example, a high rating on high-danger shots means a goalie performs well on shots from in tight while a low rating on low-danger shots means the goalie tends to allow looks from the point.
• Quality Starts: Based on the frequency with which a goalie allows fewer goals than "expected" based on the quality of shots faced.
• Excellent Starts: The same as quality starts but referring to starts where a goalie saves two or more goals above expected.
• Bad Starts: The same but referring. tostarts where a goalie allows two or more goals above expected.
• Rebound Control: Assesses the number of rebounds a goalie would be expected to allow based on the shots he faced and historical data, and compares it to the number he actually did.
• Consistency: How reliable the goalie is from season to season - does his performance vary dramatically or can you count on him to perform similarly.

Every one of these stats is presented as a percentile ranking where higher (and bluer) is better. This compares how they rank compared to other active goaltenders. 

These cards are set to update every morning for the rest of the season. There are several moving parts under the hood, so if you notice an error, try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, reach out to me either on here or on a Twitter DM and I'll fix it.

So what's next? Updated 2021-22 Player Cards are coming on February 2nd.

Things are getting exciting folks.

Thanks as always for subscribing.

Jack