The One Percent Solution

When you're looking at the Goaltender position and you're glancing at the stats and your eyes glance over the SV% column I think there is a temptation to say, 'ah, my guy or this guy is going at a 90, 91 percent clip, he's playing ok'. But the point I'll try and make over the next few paragraphs is that there is a big difference between seemingly small increments. I mentioned here that SV% of .920 is really the standard of excellence in the.nhl. Above .920 and a goalie is in the running for the Vezina, but if he's below .900 the AHL is probably in his future. So almost all of the.nhl starters are clustered in a very tight group. Let's use Miika Kiprusoff and the Flames as an example. Last year Kipper's SV% was .906, a very low number for him considering his previous years' excellent work. Here's a more itemized breakdown of the numbers.Kiprusoff 2096 SA 197 GA .906 SV%C. Joseph 181 SA 17 GA .906 SV%M. Keetley 2 SA 0 GA naMcElhinney 51 SA 5 GA .902 SV%Cgy Totals 2330 SA 219 GA .906SV%Where: SA is shots against, GA is goals against, SV% is save percentage. Empty net goals are not included.So last year Kipper's SV% was the same as the Team SV%. But lets say Kipper and the other goalies were only 1 percent better, what would the result have been? That changes the Cgy SV% to .916 from .906.Over the 2330 shots against a .916 SV% would have yielded 196 (195.72) goals instead of 219 goals. That reduction in 23 goals against would have:moved Kipper from 30th to 15th in SV% rankingpushed the Flames from 16th to 6th in League Goals Against rankingchanged the Flames Goal Differential from +2 ( ranking 17th) to +25 (ranking them 6th behind Detroit, Montreal, Dallas, Pittsburgh, San Jose.)Even if the Flames SV% only improved half of one percent last year (12 goals fewer allowed), their Goal Differential would have become the best in the NW division and fourth in the conference.But Joe, I hear you say, its too much to ask of our goalies, can't we improve team defence instead? Yeah, I guess we could, but to get that same reduction in goals (23) by limiting shots instead of improving SV% the Flames would have to reduce Shots Against to 2085 a reduction of 245 shots. This would mean giving up only 25.4 shots/game. Only two teams last year managed that number or better: Detroit and San Jose. Calgary needs to get better in limiting shots against, but I think an improving SV% is a more efficient way of improving the goal differential.So...C'mon Kipper! Just give us one more percent!Source