The KHL goaltender market is always tumultuous, with a ceaseless revolving market. But this year especially, three trades were pinned as the determining factor of whether a team struggled or held their heads above water.
While a goaltender might not make or break his team, there have been trades that have greatly shape how we see the league at the moment. Hypothetically, what we can determine statistically-speaking is how many potential games were directly caused by the change in goaltending. We do this by working out the differences between the goaltenders’ save percentage. We then take the number and multiply by the total number of shots faced to get an idea of how many extra goals that goalie hypothetically let in. If we take Eric T’s idea that six goals equals a win — despite it being NHL metric — we can further break down the changes.
We will start with a team that missed the playoffs by a wide margin. Let’s look at Ilya Yezhov going to Lada then returning to SKA St. Petersburg at the KHL deadline. This was a stint of 33 games, so bear in mind the smaller sample size.
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Our stats show that Ilya Yezhov would have won an additional three games over Jeff Glass. If we convert that to three losses if Yezhov had not been on the team, it would mean Lada would have been eliminated out of the playoff race altogether. It could be worked out further with Yevgeni Ivnnikov coming in, as Ivannikov’s 0.934 save percentage out-performs Yezhov and we see that goaltending wasn’t really the main problem with Lada. The three wins that Jeff Glass cost them would not have put them into the post-season. They could have been blessed with above average goaltending and still missed the playoffs. And I think that says something about the team.
Next let’s look at Barry Brust leaving Medveščak Zagreb. This is a trade that led Doug Shedden to say;
https://twitter.com/Xterratu/status/569587422079684608
And, he’s right:
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The goaltender isn’t really the problem. While good goaltenders might steal games when you need it, an average goaltender isn’t that bad. And, in the, albeit small sample sizes, only three games were dropped due to the deal. It’s of little respite for the 13th placed Medveščak. Maybe, it could have put them closer to a playoff spot, because this is just hypothetical. Brust is an above average goalie, despite his hot headed temper and a noted fan favourite. It’s hard to argue that the trade wasn’t a mistake, but this mistake mistake did not cost them the season, especially in the difficult Bobrov division with both SKA and Jokerit.
The goalie was not the problem. While the move was a downgrade in net, two or three wins would not change where Medveščak landed in the standings. Barry Brust isn’t exactly the perfect goaltender as is; his hot temper netted him to finish in the top ten for penalty minutes and include a head butting incident. Is this really the goaltender to save your season? One who pits your team on the penalty kill? I don’t think so.
Next we look at the difference between Alexander Salak and Mikko Koskinen
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Possibly the most talked about trade all season, with theories of what went on behind the scenes plastered over the internet continually, this trade was less one sided than the Ilya Yezhov move as both teams benefitted from their goalie being in a new environment.
SKA St. Petersburg’s annual mid-season collapse was a huge reason why they could not keep up with rivals CSKA in recent years. After the most recent struggles, head coach Vyacheslav Bykov threw Salak under the proverbial bus, citing that goaltending and injuries where the team’s main problems. Well it’s true that injuries were an issue, Salak took an unfair share of the blame and was traded. If we take the idea that Mikko took those games instead of Salak, there’s the possibility of one additional win prior to the trade. While this would have taken them closer to the top, it’s not the three or four wins SKA needed to truly close the gap. An earlier trade would not have helped prevent the collapse. You could continue this further by comparing Igor Shestyorkin or Evgeni Ivannikov, but then you’re dealing with barely ten-game sample sizes.
Meanwhile, at the time of the deal Sibir were not quite in the comfortable second place spot they ended up in. With renewed confidence and what appeared to be a better fitting goaltender, Sibir climbed the rankings with Salak winning 11 of his first 12 starts with the team; the only loss being a shoot-out loss during which he was pulled.
It will be interesting to see where the clubs go from here. Can Koskinen can keep up his pace with SKA, following the return of Ilya Yezhov? Did Salak really turn Sibir’s season around? Probably not; his hot start and inflated save percentages helped greatly, but even with two wins less that Koskinen would have earned, Sibir would remain in a top three position.
Of course this is all hypothetical and makes a lot of assumptions. Goaltending is unpredictable and very few goaltenders are going to stay at the same save percentage for long stretches and not every goaltender played during that stretch. SKA’s example has both Ivannikov and Shestyorkin, while Koskinen and Salak’s were exchanged directly for one another.
Nonetheless, these simple examples are a way of demonstrating the impact of goaltenders have had this season. General managers and coaches still have the idea that the goaltender is the main problem on a struggling team. An elite goaltender is a team to build around and, in offense-first teams like SKA, are your backbone. But a league average goaltender still gives you a chance to win, night in and night out. Maybe the blame dart would be aimed better at another part of the team.
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