In the two seasons I mentioned there was no discernible relationship between higher shot volume allowed by a team and higher save percentage by a teams goalies at 5 on 5, so it does seem that it drops off enough to not affect save percentage. Unless you have another source of information you'd like to provide?
Exactly why you can't ignore goalie quality variance. You can't compare goalie to goalie. It has to be a goalie to himself comparison.
Given you're talking about averages over dozens of games, I don't see why percentage variation wouldn't be useful.
I didn't say that. I'm saying that in regards to this phenomena of goalies having lower SV% in their lower shot volume games, it's the quantity variance that plays the biggest role.
In a single game, yes saying "they scored 300% more than last time" is fairly meaningless going from 1 goal to 3 goals, but over a sample of dozens of games saying "they are scoring 20% more goals than at the start of the year" certainly has meaning.
Aggregate totals are practically meaningless when we're doing comparative analysis to two goalies.
If the claim is "individual goalies post better save percentages when they face higher shot volume"
This is NOT my claim.
then it stands to reason that "teams who allow more shots should be expected to have a higher team save percentage" unless you're also going to claim that somehow quality of a goalie employed by a team decreases as team shot volume allowed increases.
I'm not saying that higher shot volume equals higher SV%.
@Doctor No @Hockey Outsider have both fallen victim to believing that this was my claim. It's not my claim at all.
Not all goalies are equal. Funny thing is I'm actually on record saying the gap between the 31 goalies isn't very big, and I do believe that BTW.
Anyways back on topic, despite that fact the gap between all 31 starting goalies is small, there is still truth in the statement that not all goalies are equal.
It shouldn't matter how good a team's goalies are, if goalies in general post better numbers when facing higher numbers of shots, teams that allow higher numbers of shots should expect to see higher save percentages.
Problem is, I never said this. Goalie quality will always matter no matter what. So comparing goalie to goalie does not work. Goalie to himself is the proper way to compare.
Goalie quality may muddy those waters so you may expect a lower R^2 value when plotting the relationship, but it shouldn't be expected to perfectly muddy the waters and result in an R^2 value of 0 over multiple seasons.
You're not looking at the correct information. Correlative values don't come into play here. When comparing goalie to himself, you'll see that all goalies have better SV%'s when they face a higher number of shots. GAA also increases.
Goalie quality can come into play simply from the fact that one goalie could have a .930/.915 split while another goalie would have a .910/.900 split.
Except this isn't true on the team level, at least in any data I've seen. Teams that allow low shot volumes do not have goalies who have lower save percentages on average.
I also made it very clear that I never said
higher shot total = higher SV% or
lower shot totals = lower SV%.
As I mentioned earlier in this thread, I think that attempting to "not skew" the data like this is actually causing the skewing and appears to be where most of this relationship is coming from.
If I included games where goalies played fewer than 50 minutes, it'd only skew the data in my favor. That's why I excluded it.
If a goalie is having a bad night but his team is only allowing 7 shots a period he has a solid chance of finishing the game while allowing 4 or 5 goals (.750 - .800 save percentage)
Correct. But the problem is, we can't just look at the aggregate totals in order to evaluate a goalie's performance. We have to look at individual games.
If a goalie is having a bad night but his team is allowing 19 shots in the first period (like the Leafs did yesterday) that same goalie might give up 5 goals in the first period and is almost guaranteed to get pulled.
Yes. And in that case it would skew the data in MY favor. It is obviously bad if a goalie is getting pulled a lot, but I'm not really talking about the season SV% like what you look at on the back of a hockey card.
The simple fact is that when facing high shot volumes a goalie is much more likely to get pulled unless they're having a great day.
What do YOU consider a high shot total?
A goalie should be expected to post a higher save percentage if he plays the entire game when his team allows 50 shots simply because if he doesn't post a high save percentage he's likely allowed 5+ goals and is significantly likely to be pulled.
EXACTLY! The problem is we forget that seasons are made up of individual games. There is no carryover effect game to game. Everything refreshes and starts over at each game.
Now imagine if a goalie plays a lot of low shot volume games like Quick or Brodeur. You can't expect their SV%'s to be as high. Even Hasek had a sub.900 SV% when he faced fewer than 20 shots. He has a career SV% of .915 when facing fewer than 30 shots. He just didn't play in as high a percentage of low shot volume games to where it affected his SV% negatively. Brodeur faced fewer than 30 shots more than 75% of his career, and Quick faced fewer than 30 shots in about 70% of his games. Hasek on the other hand faced fewer than 30 shots in only 55% of his career.
Saying goalies post a high save percentage when they play a full game in which they face a high number of shots seems to me to be fairly close to saying goalies post a high save percentage when they post a high save percentage simply because if they don't post a high save percentage in a game where their team allows a large number of shots, they likely don't play the full game.
It doesn't happen often at all where a goalie plays fewer than 50 minutes and faces a high number of shots. Barrasso has the most such games at 8. Lundqvist played in 7 such games. I get what you're trying to say, but it just doesn't happen enough to really impact any of the data.
BTW, my main point in this whole thread was more about the low end of the spectrum. I'm trying to show the negative impact for any goalie's SV% who plays on strong defensive teams. Those goalies have a smaller margin of error, and the tiny decrease in high danger chances isn't enough to make up for the lack of overall shot volume to inflate their SV%.
