PK Save Percentage Final Tally

Over the course of the season I looked at the PK save percentage of the NHL leaders. On December 8th I looked at the top eight goalies who all had a save percentage of .900 or better and predicted that these goalies were due for a regression. When I looked things over on February 17th there were actually a couple of goalies that improved but most of the leaders did indeed fall back. Instead of using the average for this season when calculating "goals saved above average" I used the historical number of .866 (my thanks to Tyler Dellow). Here are the results:


So by the end of the year each and every one of these eight guys regressed (some more than others). I had also noted that Pekka Rinne had moved into the .900 club (minimum 100 shots) in my last post on the subject. He finished the year at .867.

These results may be a good indication of which teams could take a hit on their goal differential next season. New York and Minnesota in particular look quite vulnerable. The only guy close is Anderson but in about half as many shots. Now these are both good goaltenders and I wouldn't expect them to come all the way back to the average but if the PK for those teams allows an extra seven or eight goals Minnesota is further off the pace and New York doesn't qualify for the post-season.

Many of these goalies were actually below average after their quick start. All of Thomas, Miller, Anderson, Auld and Salo saw their goals saved above average either stagnate or decline from February 18th until the end of the season.

Speaking of Miikka Salo, let's look at those EV results. Kipper ended up in a tie with Joey MacDonald and just behind such goaltending luminaries at Johan Hedberg and Martin Gerber. Kipper does beat a few guys though. Literally. The three guys worse than Kipper who played in thirty games are Raycroft, Toskala and Osgood... Five more years!