Buy-Low and Sell-High: Goalies

April 2, 2025 Left Wing Lock Staff 0 Comments

Introduction

Welcome to Unsustainable - our weekly look at goalies performing at unsustainable levels. Below, you'll find a data table with an emphasis on save percentages. What we know, from years and years of data, is that it unlikely that a player can maintain a save percentage that deviates significantly from his career numbers.

The aim of this weekly article is to highlight players, that the data suggests, are playing at levels inconsistent with their actual talent.

Even-strength Save Percentage

We'll first look at the EVSV% of several goalies. To put this into context, it is rare for a starting goalie to maintain an EVSV% at or above the .940 level over the course of a season. How rare? At a rate of just under 1 goalie per season since the full-season lockout of 2004-2005. So what are the chances that the starting goalie on your fantasy hockey team is going to maintain that high, early-season EVSV%? Slim to none. Below, you'll find a list of starting goalies most likely to see a regression in their EVSV% in the future.

Player	CSV%	SA	EVSA	SV%	EVSV%

Penalty Kill Save Percentage

Next, we want to examine the PKSV% of starting goalies. We know that PKSV% is largely driven by luck, so fantasy hockey managers should be aware of starting goalies with a SV% propped up by an unusually high PKSV% (for reference, the league average in recent seasons is .865). The ASV% column tells you what a goalie's SV% would look like if he were performing at the league average in PKSV%. Note that the list includes goalies with unusually high PKSV% values and goalies with unusually low PKSV% values.

Player	CSV%	SA	PKSA	SV%	PKSV%	ASV%
Frederik Andersen	0.9159	418	67	0.9187	0.9254	0.9119
Leevi Meriläinen	0.9186	295	45	0.9254	0.9111	0.9171
Arvid Soderblom	0.8886	1033	128	0.8974	0.9063	0.8938
Mackenzie Blackwood	0.9062	1436	210	0.9150	0.9048	0.9112
Thatcher Demko	0.9106	492	59	0.8923	0.8305	0.8974
Spencer Martin	0.8828	175	29	0.8457	0.8276	0.8616
Jonathan Quick	0.9107	599	69	0.8982	0.8261	0.9028
Aleksei Kolosov	0.8703	347	51	0.8703	0.8235	0.8767
Elvis Merzlikins	0.9021	1444	204	0.8940	0.8235	0.9021
Eric Comrie	0.8968	483	56	0.9089	0.8214	0.9130
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen	0.8978	1405	199	0.8854	0.8191	0.8933
Yaroslav Askarov	0.8993	357	44	0.8964	0.8182	0.8998
Jeremy Swayman	0.9109	1494	202	0.8922	0.8119	0.8997
Alexandar Georgiev	0.9036	1198	179	0.8756	0.8101	0.8895
Anton Forsberg	0.9044	646	91	0.9009	0.8022	0.9098
Scott Wedgewood	0.9062	513	60	0.9084	0.8000	0.9132
David Rittich	0.9044	703	80	0.8890	0.8000	0.8978
Dan Vladar	0.8934	779	110	0.8947	0.8000	0.9048
John Gibson	0.9101	785	104	0.9121	0.7981	0.9212
Justus Annunen	0.9008	737	103	0.8915	0.7961	0.9010
Ilya Samsonov	0.9020	724	73	0.8923	0.7808	0.9004
Ivan Fedotov	0.8758	599	50	0.8815	0.7800	0.8866
Calvin Pickard	0.9034	706	68	0.8994	0.7794	0.9052
Joel Hofer	0.9081	714	77	0.9048	0.7792	0.9155
Marc-Andre Fleury	0.9118	631	70	0.9033	0.7714	0.9123
Cam Talbot	0.9126	1131	142	0.9019	0.7676	0.9168
Semyon Varlamov	0.9156	262	30	0.8893	0.7333	0.9016
Ville Husso	0.9007	253	22	0.8735	0.6364	0.8948

Legend

CSV%: Career Save Percentage

SA: Shots against

EVSA: Even-strength shots against

PKSA: Shots against while on the penalty kill

SV%: 2024-2025 save percentage

EVSV%: 2024-2025 even-strength save percentage

PKSV%: 2024-2025 save percentage while on the penalty kill

ASV%: 2024-2025 save percentage if performing at league average on the penalty kill

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