Fantasy Hockey: Deep Dive Into Goalie Starts and Wins

When you dig into starting pitching stats—particularly innings pitched and closers—you see a larger number of pitchers occurring each year. The question begs, is a similar trend occurring in the NHL? Well, we are here to look into that.

Let’s start this by looking into games started by various goalies

Total counts of games started at goalie:
2018-2019: 93 goalies started at least one game
2019-2020 (shortened season due to Covid): 87 different goalies started a game
2020-2021: 98 different goalies started a game

Digging into each year, here are the concentration percentages

2018-2019

1. 17 goalies (18% of total goalies) started at least 60% of their teams games; 9 (12% of total goalies) started 70%
2. 70% started: Devan Dubnyk, Carey Price, Connor Hellebuyck, Martin Jones, Marc-Andre Fleury, Sergei Bobrovsky, Frederik Andersen and Jacob Markstrom
3. Devan Dubnyk, MIN, highest at 80.49%

2019-2020

1. 14 (16%) started at least 60%; 7 (8%)started 70%
2. 70% started: Carey Price, Connor Hellebuyck, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Frederik Andersen, John Gibson and Sergei Bobrovsky
3. Carey Price, MTL, highest at 81.69%

2020-2021

1. 15 (15%) started at least 60%; 4 (4%) started 70%
2. 70% started: Connor Hellebuyck, Jacob Markstrom, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Jordan Binnington
3. Connor Hellebuyck, WPG, highest at 80.36%

Summary:

• While total goalies with starts moved up from 92-98 over three years, the percentage that started 70% of games dropped in half from 8% down to 4%.
• Only Connor Hellebuyck started 70% all three years. Only Sergei Bobrovsky, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Frederik Andersen did it in two of three years.

We’ve seen starts, now let’s look into Wins

By now most of us know which teams you can isolate for wins, but which goalies have accounted for a majority of their team’s wins consistently over the years?

2018-2019

1. 17 (18% of total goalies) goalies won at least 60% of their teams wins; 11 (12%) won 70%
2. 70% winners: Devan Dubnyk, Marc-Andre Fleury, Jacob Markstrom, Carey Price, Sergei Bobrovsky, Martin Jones, Frederik Andersen, John Gibson, Connor Helleuyck, Jimmy Howard, Mikko Koskinen
3. Devan Dubnyk, MIN, highest at 83.78%

2019-2020

1. 13 (15%) goalies won at least 60%; 7 (8%) won 70%
2. 70% winners: Jonathan Bernier, Carey Price, Connor Hellebuyck, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Frederik Andersen, Mackenzie Blackwood and Jordan Binnington
3. Jonathan Bernier, Det, highest at 88.24% - Detroit was not very good this year.

2020-2021

1. 15 (15%) goalies won at least 60%; 7 (7%) won 70%
2. 70% winners: Andrei Vasilevskiy, Jacob Markstrom, Connor Hellebuyck, Philipp Grubauer, Mackenzie Blackwood, Martin Jones and Kevin Lankinen
3. Andrei Vasilevskiy, TB, highest at 86.11%

Goalie Wins Summary:

• 88 goalies had a win in 2018-2019, 96 goalies had a win last year; meanwhile goalies with 70% of their teams wins dipped from 12% to 7% over that time.
• Only Connor Hellebuyck won 70% each of the last three years; Jacob Markstrom, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Mackenzie Blackwood, Martin Jones and Frederik Andersen did it two of three years.

In a nutshell:

• Looking for games started: Connor Hellebuyck, Sergei Bobrovsky, Andrei Vasilevskiy and Frederik Andersen have historically started a lot of games.
• Looking for games won: Connor Hellebuyck, Jacob Markstrom, Andrei Vasilevskiy, Mackenzie Blackwood, Martin Jones and Frederik Andersen were part of a high concentration of their teams wins.