Athletic team goaltending rankings: Calgary #5

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

LOL

A broken rules is still a correct measuring tool with the piece that you have.

Flawed stats are worse less than no stats - especially when the stat user isn't aware that the stats are flawed.

I wouldn’t say that. There can be a lot of noise but some signal. If you are aware the error bars are very wide, you can use them to make an approximation of performance.

And if the error bars are so wide that it’s useless to properly evaluate performance based on currently available data, it’s also useless to spend any more than minimum cap space on the position. Then you’re straight guessing, or worse: going off reputation.

I think it’s the most overrated position in sports. Even “horrible” goalies can make incredible saves but you will never see someone like Calen Addison defend like Jaccob Slavin. You’ll never see someone like Trevor Lewis make moves like Nikita Kucherov.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by butterfly

I wouldn’t say that. There can be a lot of noise but some signal. If you are aware the error bars are very wide, you can use them to make an approximation of performance.

If you are aware of the error bars, yes. But not only are the parameters not available, but most people looking at this would not know how to interpret them even if they were available.

And if the error bars are so wide that it’s useless to properly evaluate performance based on currently available data, it’s also useless to spend any more than minimum cap space on the position. Then you’re straight guessing, or worse: going off reputation.

You are implying here that there is NO way to evaluate goalies if this stat is useless, and that is a pretty ridiculous position to take. We can, you know, watch them. And people with an understanding of the position (i.e. goalie coaches) can watch them with a professional lens. Suggesting that we spend no more than the minimum cap space on them suggests that they have no value, and that there is no difference between them. Which is beyond silly.

I think it’s the most overrated position in sports. Even “horrible” goalies can make incredible saves but you will never see someone like Calen Addison defend like Jaccob Slavin. You’ll never see someone like Trevor Lewis make moves like Nikita Kucherov.

It is widely regarded as the most important position in hockey, and one of the more important positions in team sports. And your bias against goalies is nothing short of bizarre. Suggesting that players in other positions never make great plays is also a completely ridiculous statement - of course they do. It happens all the time, and one need only watch highlight packages to see a perpetual stream of examples of this. More importantly, the fact that a lesser ranked goalie might make an incredible save, in no way refutes the fact that there are other, better goalies. And remember, even the 'horrible' ones, are among the best 60 or so in the world at their craft - of course they are going to make incredible saves, they are elite at their position. Again, that does not eliminate the possibility that other goalies may yet be even better.

In ANY position, art, or craft, there will be 'the best' and those that are progressively not quite as good. Anyone who understands stats will inherently understand this extremely simple fact (and I know that you do), which leaves your extremely outlying opinion of their value, and your weird view that there wouldn't be a rankable distribution of skill, as to be only explainable by some extreme personal bias.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

If you are aware of the error bars, yes. But not only are the parameters not available, but most people looking at this would not know how to interpret them even if they were available.


You are implying here that there is NO way to evaluate goalies if this stat is useless, and that is a pretty ridiculous position to take. We can, you know, watch them. And people with an understanding of the position (i.e. goalie coaches) can watch them with a professional lens. Suggesting that we spend no more than the minimum cap space on them suggests that they have no value, and that there is no difference between them. Which is beyond silly.


It is widely regarded as the most important position in hockey, and one of the more important positions in team sports. And your bias against goalies is nothing short of bizarre. Suggesting that players in other positions never make great plays is also a completely ridiculous statement - of course they do. It happens all the time, and one need only watch highlight packages to see a perpetual stream of examples of this. More importantly, the fact that a lesser ranked goalie might make an incredible save, in no way refutes the fact that there are other, better goalies. And remember, even the 'horrible' ones, are among the best 60 or so in the world at their craft - of course they are going to make incredible saves, they are elite at their position. Again, that does not eliminate the possibility that other goalies may yet be even better.

In ANY position, art, or craft, there will be 'the best' and those that are progressively not quite as good. Anyone who understands stats will inherently understand this extremely simple fact (and I know that you do), which leaves your extremely outlying opinion of their value, and your weird view that there wouldn't be a rankable distribution of skill, as to be only explainable by some extreme personal bias.

You're right. I'm not claiming that goaltenders are unable to be ranked, but if people like you, me, DeluxeMoustache, and Jay Random (and I'm sure, many of our readers who don't post) can't agree on a method of doing it, then it means there is insufficient publicly available data, not that it isn't possible. This is where revenue rich teams like Toronto and New York have a huge advantage: they're all limited to the same on-ice salary cap, but there's no limit to the amount of money they can pay for analysis. We'd do it for free for the Flames because we (irrationally?) love them, but without access to proprietary data like a DB of shots, pressure, score of game, time of game, result of shot, etc., it's a foolish undertaking. And you'd need to pay people to watch every game and either subjectively or objectively make a dataset from it.

I'm not implying that it's impossible at all, but I am implying that given imperfect data, we can either dismiss it because of its imperfections or use it knowing its limitations.

Try to predict the top 20 goalies for next season using whatever metric you like. Then try the same exercise for 2025-26. It's pretty close to playing the lottery if you ask me. That's why I'd rather funnel money to contracts that are much easier to project (defense and forwards) and pay the minimum for things that are necessary but lottery tickets.

We were one goal away from Adin Hill and Stuart Skinner being back-to-back Stanley Cup winners, and I doubt any scout or analyst would have predicted it since there's far too much variation.

[butterfly]

Originally Posted by GioforPM

Where I come to is - Markstrom was a sought after goalie with a .500 winning percentage and a .905 save%. Wolf and Vladar, with the same team in front of them, won at almost identical rates as Markstrom and were only slightly behind in save%. I know Markstrom was a GSAx darling, but then again David Rittich is way up there - that stat has a real mishmash of what people think are good and bad goalies.

Because what people think is wrong. We got a 1st round pick and an NHL bottom pair defenseman for less than $4M and got rid of $8M dead cap to boot, which I would take any day.

[gordo67]

Originally Posted by KootenayFlamesFan

That's surprising. I'm not sold on Wolf yet, Vladar is 'meh' and the prospects are all dice rolls.

I'd have them way lower, I guess the most positive area is cap hit, by far.

Wolf is the real deal IMO. Sat behind him for a few seasons playing for the Wranglers and this kid can move side to side like no one I have seen before. He NEEDs to play and play a lot. He tends to start slow but then it is lights out. When Wranglers first came to town I wasn’t super high on Wolf, but that lasted about 5 games.

[dino7c]

Originally Posted by gordo67

Wolf is the real deal IMO. Sat behind him for a few seasons playing for the Wranglers and this kid can move side to side like no one I have seen before. He NEEDs to play and play a lot. He tends to start slow but then it is lights out. When Wranglers first came to town I wasn’t super high on Wolf, but that lasted about 5 games.

I feel the same way, also lets not forget he swept "Conn Smythe vote getter" Stuart Skinner in the AHL playoffs and it wasn't too long ago