The Value of Playoff Experience

Pictured: Not Luongo or Schneider.
His mouth may be smiling but his eyes are filled with terror.

My beloved Canucks recently traded away a goalie with 65 games of playoff experience in exchange for Jacob Markstrom...who has played in exactly zero playoff games. Markstrom will play backup to Eddie Lack...who has also played zero playoff games. Pulling out my abacus and doing some simple calculations, I deduce that the Canucks now have two goalies who combine for the same amount of NHL postseason experience as my left shoe! 

So what exactly was Mike Gillis thinking?

To assess this trade, we need to examine what post-season experience is actually worth in evaluating goalies. How poorly does the average goaltender play in his first NHL game compared to his tenth? Or twentieth? How long does it take before the jitters wear off?

Recent Stanley Cup Champion, Corey Crawford, needed four playoff games to earn his first win. Henrik Lundqvist couldn’t get his save percentage above .875 until his fifth game. In a best-of-seven playoff format, four or five games could mean an entire season.

There are 30 active goaltenders in the NHL who have started at least five playoff games. Among those 30, only 11 won their playoff debut, the most recent being Michal Neuvirth in 2011.

So how many games does the average goalie need to notch his first playoff win? Surprisingly, it’s only 1.96. In other words, most goalies are able to win at least one of their first two games. Bear in mind that we’re looking exclusively at goalies who have started at least five playoff games, so we’re taking an elite sample. But in playoff games, these elite goalies are predominantly playing against other elite goalies, so the average winning percentage should stay close to 50% (it’s actually 52%).

Alright, so given that the average elite goaltender wins 52% of the time, how does that percentage vary given the number of playoff games he’s previously played?

Looking at the chart, it seems that goalies begin just above-average and then steadily improve over their first thirty games before suddenly crashing at the 31-35 mark. 

The 30th Game Cold-Streak

It’s a strange phenomenon, but on-the-whole, goalies seem to play consistently well in games 25-29 (winning 53-76% of their games), then consistently poor in games 30-35 (winning only 35-52%), then back to above-average in games 36-41 (winning 54-69%). 

Get this: Henrik Lundqvist, Roberto Luongo, Jonathan Quick, Ryan Miller, Nikolai Khabibulin, and Antti Niemi combined for an impressive 21-9 record in games 25-29 of their respective playoff careers (6 goalies times 5 games each), but then dropped to an ice-cold 11-25 record in games 30-35 before upswinging to 20-15 in games 36-41.

What is it about playing in your 30^th playoff game that makes you hit a six-game cold streak? Even the great Martin Brodeur lost three straight beginning with his 30^th playoff game before winning 9 in a row afterwards.

More importantly, which goalies are likely to reach their 30^th game this year? Carey Price is probably the only one (he’s played 26 thus far). But then again, he’s lost 10 of his last 14 playoff games, so maybe he just hit his slump early.

The Phoenix Coyotes are my favourite dark-horse playoff team this year, not only because they wear the right colours, but also because they’ve held their ownagainst the Sharks and Blues during the regular season. And if you need another reason to fear Phoenix: Mike Smith is heading into his prime playoff games, but he’s still distant enough from his 30^th.

Another statistic to consider is save percentage. Because we’re in elite company, the average playoff save percentage is .912. Does that fluctuate with experience?

This graph is a little more erratic, but has an overall positive trend for the first 40-45 games before a dramatic drop-off (presumably due to aging).

Between these two charts, it’s fairly safe to say that a goalie’s performance peaks around his 40^th career playoff start. Let’s see…which goalies are coming up on their 40^th game?

…Corey Crawford (36) and Tuukka Rask (35)…well, that’s just great. Oh well, at least those two are peaking when the Canucks won’t even be around. Oh hey, I forgot about the Canucks!

So did the Canucks really get ripped off by gaining a goalie with zero games of experience while losing another with 65 games?

Nah, I think this one will pay off.