Jacob Markstrom | #25 | G

[-AJ-]

Marky has been on fire so far this year. I'd love him to surprise fans around the league and turn into the elite starter he was once touted to be.

[aGENT]

He's always played better with more starts. I still don't think he'll ever be a top 5 goalie but there's no reason he can't be a solid 10-20 guy.

 

All the: 'he's only a backup' talk was nonsense by the usual crowd of poop coloured, glass wearers. 

 

[kloubek]

22 hours ago, Alflives said:

And in his two games his save % is .948.  That's friggin' awesome!!!!!

Still VERY early.  

[DownUndaCanuck]

He's been giving up at least 1 bad goal per game but the Flames goals were all bad goals, short side shots or nothings from the point that should have been stopped. About 3-4 of those goals against were very save-able.

 

Obviously Markstrom is not a true star or starting goalie in this league and is just here to tie us over until Demko is ready, but that might be a while. I'd be happy to see what Nilsson has to offer for the next game and honestly think that's the way the season should go. 2 or 3 losses in a row and you're swapped. He had a very poor game against Calgary.

[-AJ-]

8 hours ago, DownUndaCanuck said:

He's been giving up at least 1 bad goal per game but the Flames goals were all bad goals, short side shots or nothings from the point that should have been stopped. About 3-4 of those goals against were very save-able.

 

Obviously Markstrom is not a true star or starting goalie in this league and is just here to tie us over until Demko is ready, but that might be a while. I'd be happy to see what Nilsson has to offer for the next game and honestly think that's the way the season should go. 2 or 3 losses in a row and you're swapped. He had a very poor game against Calgary.

I agree. I'm actually quite surprised that his leash was long enough that he got last night's game. I assumed Greener would give Nilsson a shot. I hope he's playing next game.

[-AJ-]

I'm beginning to really like the unique style Markstrom is carving out for himself. He's been playing the puck a ton and last night was a crazy aggressive night for him. Reminds me of Thomas or the Dominator with how crazy he is sometimes.

[Bigturk8]

Acknowledging and analyzing the NHL’s top five goalies this season
 

After breaking down the top forward lines and defence pairings so far this season, the natural next step is to look at which goaltenders have been the biggest difference makers for their teams.

Unfortunately with goalies there just isn’t the same variety of statistics to evaluate their play that exist for skaters, so it’s a lot tougher to come to a conclusion about total value, especially in small sample sizes.

In the end I decided that sticking to 5-on-5 play made sense once again, because save percentage on special teams is highly unreliable in small samples. In order to qualify, goaltenders had to start at least 10 games this season and I wanted to look at not just overall performance, but signs that the performance is sustainable, and how much the goaltenders themselves are contributing to the shot quality they face.

With that in mind, here’s what I came up with as the top goaltenders through one quarter of the NHL season.

Be aware that in order to increase the contrast in these big numbers I started the y-axis (vertical) at 30 per cent.

Over the past several years of NHL hockey, we know that future overall save percentage is normally best predicted by how well goalies are stopping pucks in the high danger area, or inner slot. So far this season, Mike Smith is leading everyone there by a wide margin, turning away 90.7 per cent of the high danger chances he faces, which is more than 13 percentage points better than league average.

An interesting note on Smith’s high danger save percentage being the highest of this group: his outer slot save percentage is the lowest for him personally and below league average. That’s an odd outlier. Smith gives up rebounds on 62 per cent of the shots he faces, but those rebounds are recovered by his teammates or himself 87.5 per cent of the time.

Smith has a relatively high percentage of his rebounds that wind up in the inner slot area, but 98.6 per cent of those rebounds are either recovered by his teammates or smothered by Smith before opponents get a chance to get on the puck, so it hasn’t burned him yet.
 

Sergei Bobrovsky, last season’s Vezina winner, leads the NHL in even strength save percentage again, and is third in high danger save percentage while posting stronger save rates in the high slot than Smith. Bobrovsky has been a bit of a mess with rebounds though.

A whopping 71 per cent of the shots Bobrovsky faces result in rebounds, and 39 per cent of those end up in the inner slot. The Blue Jackets also recover fewer of Bob’s rebounds than league average teams do, making things tougher on him as he faces more second chances than other goalies.

That hasn’t burned him yet, but the question for Bobrovsky is whether you credit him for the extra saves or punish him for being the creator of his own increased difficulty? In a small sample size, it’s tough to say which is more important. If by the end of the season Bobrovsky still leads the NHL in even strength save percentage, you just have to tip your hat to him.

Braden Holtby puts up strong numbers across the board, and he doesn’t give up many rebounds either, with only 59 per cent of the shots he faces ending up out of his immediate control. The Capitals also recover among the highest percentage of rebounds in the NHL at 90.7 per cent – and they recover 97.5 per cent of Holtby’s rebounds into the high danger area.

Holtby has the easiest workload of this elite group, but you have to give him credit for helping to ease that by keeping second chances to a minimum.

Corey Crawford remains one of the most consistent even strength goaltenders in the NHL, posting strong save percentages and allowing the lowest percentage of rebounds to the inner slot of anyone.

The Blackhawks don’t recover Crawford’s rebounds at as high a rate as other teams, but Crawford’s own work in the high danger area leads to 97.8 per cent of those high danger rebounds being recovered.

Arguably the most surprising goaltender on this list is Jacob Markstrom, who used to be the ‘Next Great Goalie’ prospect for years, only to flounder in the NHL until this season when he’s been brilliant at even strength for an equally surprising Vancouver Canucks team.

Markstrom boasts the second-best high danger save percentage in the NHL, strong numbers in the high slot, and has the lowest percentage of shots faced that turn into rebounds at just 57 per cent.

Of those rebounds, Markstrom is tied with Crawford for the lowest percentage of them ending up in the high danger area at just 31.7 per cent. Markstrom’s teammates have done a great job recovering the very few rebounds he actually allows, too.

I think you could make a legitimately strong argument for any of Smith, Bobrovsky, and Markstrom as the top-three goalies this season. Whether those will be the same names up for the Vezina at the end of the year, though, is anyone’s guess.

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/acknowledging-analyzing-nhls-top-five-goalies-season/

Edited November 24, 2017 by Bigturk8
Formatting

[kloubek]

Well that's an interesting assessment.

[aGENT]

42 minutes ago, kloubek said:

Well that's an interesting assessment.

People keep looking at GAA and SVP (and that Markstrom, more so earlier, was letting in 'softies') and assuming Nilsson is the better goalie.

 

There's a reason the coaches have started him more.

[Wilbur]

7 minutes ago, aGENT said:

People keep looking at GAA and SVP (and that Markstrom, more so earlier, was letting in 'softies') and assuming Nilsson is the better goalie.

 

There's a reason the coaches have started him more.

Yeah, the numbers don't do Markstrom justice.  Can't think of a game this season where I thought "Well, if Nilsson played that game it would've gone better".  It's a good situation to be in.  Fair to say, ever since Luongo/Melanson, Vancouver is no longer a goalie graveyard.

[kloubek]

19 minutes ago, aGENT said:

People keep looking at GAA and SVP (and that Markstrom, more so earlier, was letting in 'softies') and assuming Nilsson is the better goalie.

 

There's a reason the coaches have started him more.

Yeah, I'm one of them to be honest.  Not so much GAA since that relies heavily in your defense blocking shots, but save %.  As good of a measure as it is, it doesn't measure difficulty of shots or frequency of rebounds.

[coastal.view]

2 hours ago, kloubek said:

Yeah, I'm one of them to be honest.  Not so much GAA since that relies heavily in your defense blocking shots, but save %.  As good of a measure as it is, it doesn't measure difficulty of shots or frequency of rebounds.

i remain one of them

i suspect that if nilsson qualified on a games played basis for these measurements

his stats would be better than markstrom

nilsson has played very well in every game i watched him in

this is not a criticism of markstrom at all. .he justifiably is getting recognition he deserves

but nilsson has just been a bit better overall in my view

still... nitpicking over who is better when both clearly are playing well. .. is a nice situation to be in

for a fan and the team

[canuckster19]

Meh kind of getting tired of him always letting in the first goal, a good goalie holds the fort once in a while until his team scores first.

[N4ZZY]

It's getting to the point where I don't even know if Markstrom is #1 starter quality anymore. I used to think he was capable, but 6-8 record thus far this season? A little disappointing, but maybe all these years there was a reason for why even Florida gave up on him? Maybe Markstrom's mental make up is better than Lack's, but perhaps not by much. Which is too bad. Demko can't get here fast enough. 

 

[-AJ-]

1 hour ago, N4ZZY said:

It's getting to the point where I don't even know if Markstrom is #1 starter quality anymore. I used to think he was capable, but 6-8 record thus far this season? A little disappointing, but maybe all these years there was a reason for why even Florida gave up on him? Maybe Markstrom's mental make up is better than Lack's, but perhaps not by much. Which is too bad. Demko can't get here fast enough. 

 

I firmly believe Markstrom is looking like a #1 for sure, but the question is how solid of a #1. Currently, I'd say he's looking like a 15-25 goaltender, but we've seen him get hot, and at those times, I'd say he pushes up to 10-15. He only seems to struggle with consistency, if he nailed that down, he'd be a top half starter in the league.

[luckylager]

7 hours ago, -AJ- said:

I firmly believe Markstrom is looking like a #1 for sure, but the question is how solid of a #1. Currently, I'd say he's looking like a 15-25 goaltender, but we've seen him get hot, and at those times, I'd say he pushes up to 10-15. He only seems to struggle with consistency, if he nailed that down, he'd be a top half starter in the league.

His starts need to be consistently better if he's to be considered a top keeper in the league.

 

He lets in a garbage goal or two every game. The worst one is usually early in the game so at least there's time to come back.

But his performance in NYC yesterday was concerning. He's gotta stop dropping his knee so early. Gets burned high glove off the RW way too often.

[Rob_Zepp]

On 11/24/2017 at 5:59 PM, canuckster19 said:

Meh kind of getting tired of him always letting in the first goal, a good goalie holds the fort once in a while until his team scores first.

I think that is exactly what he has done past couple of games - if he keeps it up, I suspect people will come around to him.

[Stormriders]

When I read all the accumulative comments over the past several weeks in the PGT, we are so hard on our goaltenders.   Come on you guys, yes the goalies have let in some soft ones (all goalies do),  but it is not only their fault.  We have been playing without our best two defensive forwards [Bo and Sutter], and now our best defender in Tanev, [and before that other defenders].  Included in that is our two best FO guys, which makes a HUGE difference in puck possession.  On top of that, our two best PK centres.  Maybe our goaltenders are trying too hard because of all of this [and just like forwards when you try to hard - results are worse].  And on top of all of this we are in a rebuild stage with aging vets who are not at the top of their game, nor the best at defending.  Not a time when you necessarily look the best defensively.

Did you SEE the last game some of the chances we gave up,  . .  ridiculous and you want to put all the blame on the goaltenders?  From what I know goaltending is a lot about confidence and right now neither have much because of the way the team is playing in front of them.  Under the current circumstance I don’t think most another goalies [such as Miller] look any better, although we will never know.  And as a side note, I think dear Willy did the team and Marky a disservice last year by not play him in more games to transition him into the starter role management thought they had in him.  Really what real difference would it have made to last year otherwise, or the standings?

It’s going to be a long season and frankly while goaltending could be better, I don’t think it is our major problem.

[DeNiro]

I think it's time we give Marky the reigns for better or for worse. No more back and forth.

 

Both goalies have proven to be inconsistent now, but I think Markstrom's development is more important in the long run.

 

He needs to learn how to bounce back after bad games. Give him 4 or 5 in a row to see if he gets in a rhythm.

 

 

[Odd.]

36 minutes ago, DeNiro said:

I think it's time we give Marky the reigns for better or for worse. No more back and forth.

 

Both goalies have proven to be inconsistent now, but I think Markstrom's development is more important in the long run.

 

He needs to learn how to bounce back after bad games. Give him 4 or 5 in a row to see if he gets in a rhythm.

 

 

I would have to agree. Nilsson has had so many opportunities to really steal that job but hasn't built on the ridiculous 6 or so games he had earlier in the season.

 

It's time to just roll with Markstrom and see what happens.

Edited December 21, 2017 by Odd.