Buy-Low and Sell-High: Goalies

March 26, 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	0.9158	403	67	0.9181	0.9254	0.9114
Leevi Meriläinen	0.9186	295	45	0.9254	0.9111	0.9171
Arvid Soderblom	0.8892	1002	127	0.8992	0.9055	0.8956
Elvis Merzlikins	0.9026	1379	200	0.8963	0.8300	0.9031
Joonas Korpisalo	0.9008	596	88	0.8960	0.8295	0.9072
Jakub Dobes	0.9053	338	41	0.9053	0.8293	0.9074
Spencer Martin	0.8828	175	29	0.8457	0.8276	0.8616
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen	0.8987	1373	196	0.8878	0.8265	0.8947
Jordan Binnington	0.9066	1304	165	0.8995	0.8242	0.9039
Aleksei Kolosov	0.8703	347	51	0.8703	0.8235	0.8767
Eric Comrie	0.8968	483	56	0.9089	0.8214	0.9130
Yaroslav Askarov	0.8993	357	44	0.8964	0.8182	0.8998
David Rittich	0.9045	654	77	0.8884	0.8182	0.8958
Jeremy Swayman	0.9111	1440	197	0.8924	0.8173	0.8988
Alexandar Georgiev	0.9041	1093	163	0.8765	0.8098	0.8901
Anton Forsberg	0.9040	611	88	0.8969	0.8068	0.9056
John Gibson	0.9101	760	102	0.9118	0.8039	0.9205
Thatcher Demko	0.9106	437	51	0.8902	0.8039	0.8962
Scott Wedgewood	0.9061	486	59	0.9074	0.7966	0.9131
Justus Annunen	0.9003	680	96	0.8897	0.7917	0.9001
Dan Vladar	0.8930	749	105	0.8932	0.7905	0.9044
Ilya Samsonov	0.9020	724	73	0.8923	0.7808	0.9004
Joel Hofer	0.9083	696	73	0.9052	0.7808	0.9155
Marc-Andre Fleury	0.9118	631	70	0.9033	0.7714	0.9123
Calvin Pickard	0.9037	624	61	0.9006	0.7705	0.9078
Ivan Fedotov	0.8716	570	47	0.8772	0.7660	0.8835
Cam Talbot	0.9124	1051	135	0.8982	0.7630	0.9148
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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