Comparing this year to last: Goaltending – From The Rink

Fun stuff. I never would have guessed the Lightning to have better goaltending, much less the most improvement. Boston? Minnesota? yeah. Ottawa? Not so much.

I’m surprised, but perhaps I shouldn’t be, that the Sharks goaltending is the same as last year; what isn’t obvious is how many fewer shots per game the goalies are seeing (this, of course, is a double-edged sword, fewer shots, but with the way they play, more odd-man and breakaway situations; so in a way, “the same” is actually pretty good in my mind).

And then there is Dallas, and the “what happened to Marty Turco?” question….

Comparing this year to last: Goaltending – From The Rink:


If I gave you 30 or so guesses as to which team’s goaltending has improved the most this season, it’d be pretty interesting to see just how far down the Lightning were on that list.

Mike Smith, and to a lesser extent Olaf Kolzig, have transformed the way Tampa Bay is losing games this season, so much so that the Lightning have the most improved save percentage of any team in the league.

I wonder how many teams in NHL history have had a nearly 4-per-cent swing in a single season?
2008-09 2007-08
RK TEAM SV% SV% Change
1 Tampa Bay 0.923 0.885 3.81%
2 Boston 0.935 0.914 2.07%
3 Minnesota 0.935 0.915 1.99%
4 Ottawa 0.916 0.902 1.47%
5 NY Rangers 0.925 0.910 1.46%

15 San Jose 0.906 0.906 0.00%

30 Dallas 0.868 0.905 -3.71%
0.9050 0.9063

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