Hockey is a game that is riddled with statistics. New ones are coming out every day it seems and everyone is trying to use CORSI or Fenwick to try and prove a point for player xyz and how good he is. Almost all of them are as subjective as could be however. Even a standard statistic like goals or plus-minus is incredibly subjective. Maybe player xyz was playing on a line with Alex Ovechkin all year or John Tavares and that makes people question their true output (Case of Matt Moulson). With goaltenders though there aren't many advanced statistics. It's all very black and white. Save percentage, goals against average. How many shots you face versus how many go in, and how many goals go in a night on average.
Yet, even those are subjective.
So far this season Olympic hopeful goaltender for Team USA, Jonathan Quick, has had a start to the season that is raising eyebrows. And not in a good way. His save percentage of .896 is currently 22nd among the NHL starting goaltenders in the league, and he has also faced the 12th most shots. His goals against average is also 15th amongst the regular starters right now.
So obviously they aren't great numbers. How much can we trust this though? Is this the real Jonathan Quick? Are these stats defining and indicative of the season he has had?
Ultimately I would say no.
While no doubt Quick has been average this season, he hasn't been as bad as his numbers indicate. I would say that the poor save percentage and goals against ultimately grind down to a statement about the overall King defense this year. It has been off and on, and at times very bad. The team has left Quick out to dry a few times. The team as a whole has put him at odds quite often this season as well. The Kings are the third most penalized team in the league this year and they aren't putting the best of penalty kills on ice in front of him. We are talking about a Kings penalty kill that currently has a six game streak going of goals against, and a team that has taken four or more penalties a game for the majority of the season. When you give a team that many opportunities they aren't going to need a ton of shots to pot a few. The Nashville game was a prime example.
Quick faced 17 shots that night, allowing 4 goals. Two of them were on the powerplay and were pretty extreme defensive breakdowns. It's tough to put the onus entirely on the goalie in those situations. While some may say that the Jonathan Quick of the past would have made those big saves and bailed his team out, he hasn't thus far and his numbers as well as the team's have suffered.
I'm not absolving Quick of any and all wrongs here. He has been average at best, and they've needed him to be better this year.
Jonathan Quick's save percentage in his last 49 games: .903.
— Adam Gretz (@AGretz) November 3, 2013
However the numbers can be deceiving. I can think of more game changing stops this season than absolute howlers from Quick. I can also think of way more defensive breakdowns and stupid penalties that led to goals rather than absolute howlers. The Kings seem to have a lot of work to do to get working as a unit defensively and staying out of the box. Help your goaltender and he will help you.
I think you might be able to say the same thing about the New York Rangers and Henrik Lundqvist, who isn't setting the world ablaze with a .914 save percentage. Is it Lundqvist? Or is it the Rangers? Is it a mixture of both? A simple eye test can tell you a lot of things. If you take the fantasy approach you won't get the full scope. How about Ryan Miller? He has been tremendous for Buffalo but they are the worst team in the league. Do you look at his record and his numbers?
Everything aside, in an Olympic year, with Josh Harding playing out of his mind, Ryan Miller keeping Sabres games WAY closer than they should be, and even John Gibson stealing the show in the AHL, do you take a chance on Jonathan Quick? Do you discount numbers and trust in the product you have seen in the past? David Poile really has some tough decisions to make it seems with Jimmy Howard, Jonathan Quick, and Corey Schneider all having subpar numbers so far. There is a lot of time until those decisions will be made though.
From A King standpoint I am not nearly as concerned about Quick, but more so concerned about an undisciplined team who can't keep the puck out of their net through the first 15 games. I am of course partial to goaltenders having grown up playing goalie in soccer. It sucks being blamed for your fair share of goals allowed when you probably shouldn't have been.