By Justin Hein -
When the season ends, there is always a mix of emotions. Disappointment in some cases and relief in others. In the Minnesota Wild’s case, it’s something between confusion and bewilderment.
The Wild returned largely the same core that scored 100 points over the past two seasons. Marco Rossi replaced the departures in the forward group in some measure, and Calder candidate Brock Faber replaced Matt Dumba on the blue line.
Yet, that high-floor roster dug a deep hole in the standings, and they played meaningless hockey for most of April.
How did that happen?
At first glance, it’s easy to look at the numbers and point to goaltending. In The Athletic's analytical Wild post-mortem, Michael Russo identified goaltending as the driving force that cost Minnesota a playoff spot. And he has a point. The Wild have a team save percentage (sv%) below .900, ranked 21st in the league. At five-on-five, their save percentage is .910 (also ranked 21st).
But these numbers aren’t so bad as to disqualify the Wild from the playoffs. The Colorado Avalanche and Toronto Maple Leafs posted a worse five-on-five sv%, and the Dallas Stars were barely better at .911. Dallas is currently one of The Athletic’s four favorites to win the Stanley Cup.
So why the scrutiny on Gustavsson and Fleury?
Recently, a Twitter post based on data from SportLogiq broke down how many standings points each team lost to goaltending and finishing. Minnesota posted one of the worst margins (minus-13 standings points), and Marc-Andre Fleury and Filip Gustavsson became lightning rods for criticism.
However, Minnesota’s goaltending performance is only part of what drives those negative-13 points.
The numbers above are based on expected goals, an analytical tool that estimates the danger of a scoring chance. Every shot is tracked based on location, and shots from the middle of the ice or closer to the net are given a higher value since they have a higher chance of going into the net.
Minnesota and the other team’s goaltending performance are factors. The model also doesn’t know who is shooting the puck, so the Wild’s poor shooting is a factor. Similarly, the other team’s shooting talent is baked in as well.
That means the goalies and the rest of the team must share the blame for those 13 points. But how big should each group’s share be?
Sportlogiq’s xG model is proprietary, so we can’t access those numbers directly. However, some public models allow us to dive deeper into the issue of goaltending and finishing. The xG model at MoneyPuck.com can give us an idea of how many goals Minnesota lost to finishing and how many goals they allowed due to goaltending. Those numbers can then be compared to the teams performing poorly based on SportLogiq’s analysis.
At the time of the above post from JFresh, this is how the shooting and goaltending numbers stacked up for Minnesota and the other unlucky teams. Goals For Above Expected (GFAx) measures total scoring above expected, and Goals Against Above Expected (GAAx) measures goaltending talent based on the quality of chances they face. A high GFAx is good, and a low GAAx is good.
Overall, Minnesota’s finishing (12 goals below average) is nearly as much to blame as the goaltending (15 saves below average). That absolves the goaltenders of a lot of blame because the skaters clearly failed to provide offensive support. Sure, the goaltenders underperformed -- but the offense did, too.
Another factor not captured by these models is that Minnesota’s skaters limit the other team’s ability to beat Gustavsson and Fleury. xG models are blind to skater positioning, so they can’t account for screened goaltenders.
Even more so than that, the players need to cover their opponents’ best scorers. The models don’t account for the person shooting. If the Wild leave Alexander Ovechkin open to shoot from his spot, it’s sometimes counted as a medium-to-low danger chance because of his shot location. However, in reality, everybody watching at home knows it’s got a great chance of going in.
This can be true of all teams, and the models are calibrated to account for extremes throughout the season. But in the Wild’s case, there were stretches when so many of the team’s best players were hurt that the model wasn’t very well-calibrated to handle these scenarios.
That’s especially true when defensive stalwarts like Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin, and Marcus Foligno miss so much time. Brodin missed 20 games, Foligno missed 27, and Spurgeon missed a whopping 66.
All those injuries also help explain some of the finishing issues, but this isn’t about assigning blame to the skaters against the goaltenders. It’s about weighing how much this season means when evaluating the talent of the Wild goaltenders.
In addition to the skater injuries, recall that a lower-body injury on December 29 forced Gustavsson to IR for two weeks. During his absence, the team had to accelerate rookie Jesper Wallstedt’s NHL debut to get Fleury some rest. Then, Fleury was unavailable from January 19 to 27 with a concussion. It’s difficult to say for sure, but it’s reasonable to speculate Gustavsson may not have been playing at 100 percent health for significant stretches between January and April.
There are many reasons to read between the numbers when analyzing Minnesota’s goaltending and how much it contributed to the Wild missing the playoffs.
This isn’t just another post railing against analytics as a tool to understand hockey. Instead, it’s about knowing when to trust the numbers and when to look at them skeptically.
In the case of Minnesota’s goaltending, maybe they really do carry a great deal of blame for a disappointing early end to the season. Be cautious in jumping to that conclusion, though. Many qualitative factors stacked the deck against Fleury and Gustavsson.
If that’s true, nobody can lay this season at the feet of the goaltenders.
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