Who Is the NHL's Most Valuable Goaltender?
How does Jonathan Quick stack up against the league's most valuable goalies this year?
How Do You Define the NHL’s Most Valuable Goaltender?
We figure out which starting keeper is the biggest difference-maker for his team. We’ll get into how shortly. But let’s start with what Most Valuable Goaltender isn’t.
Most Valuable Goaltender VS Vezina
Most Valuable Goaltender isn’t a replacement for the Vezina Trophy. Instead, it’s a simple, statistically-driven honor and a useful supplement for the official selection of the sport’s top netminder.
Last year’s MVG was Ben Bishop. Perhaps surprisingly, Evgeni Nabokov emerged in 2013.
Calculating Most Valuable Goaltender
Here’s the fine print: The value of a team’s Starter versus their Other Goalies is measured by Most Valuable Goaltender Points (MVG Points). MVG Points are derived from the sum of Save Percentage and Points Earned Differentials (between Starter and Other Goalies).
Save Percentage is a fair in-team comparable because the Starter and Other Goalies perform behind roughly the same teammates; Points Earned also judges internal productivity with similar teammates.
Accumulated Starter MVG Points are then compared throughout the league.
As an added wrinkle, because of the randomness of shorthanded Sv %, I've included 5v5 Sv% data.
Here's our (sortable) data up to the All-Star Break: Braden Holtby is our current leader in both MVG & 5v5 MVG Points:
MVG Points: Determined by Starter Points Earned Differential + (Starter Save % Differential * 1000). 5v5 MVG Points: Determined by Starter Points Earned Differential + (Starter 5v5 Save % Differential * 1000).
- Before his injury, much had been made about Pekka Rinne's worthiness as Most Valuable Player. Perhaps Holtby, our current MVG and 5v5 MVG, merits some consideration too.
- Henrik Lundqvist makes the biggest jump from 15th in MVG to 8th in 5v5 MVG. On the other hand, Marc-Andre Fleury drops from 12th in MVG to 18th in 5v5 MVG, suggesting that the press about his new-found consistency may be short lived.
- While Kari Lehtonen and Jaroslav Halak's individual Sv% numbers have been far from outstanding, where would the Stars and Islanders be without them?
- Of course, Darcy Kuemper and Ondrej Pavelec have lost their starting jobs, but they've been their respective team's starters for most of the season. Their occupation at or near the MVG cellar tells you a lot about why they were hooked from starring roles.
- LOL Mike Smith.
- I wrote extensively about Jonathan Quick's up-and-down play recently, so this is just another illustration of his in-total averagish work (14th in MVG & 15th in 5v5 MVG) this year.
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