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The Senators Should Steer Clear of Askarov at the Draft

April 3, 2020, 10:50 AM ET [31 Comments]
Michael Stuart
Ottawa Senators Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
One of the most frequent questions to hit the mailbag this year is whether the Ottawa Senators should consider drafting Yaroslav Askarov with one of their two presumed top-10 picks in this year’s draft. The hype around the young Russian goaltender is very real, with some having described him as the best goaltending prospect since Carey Price.

Even so, my answer to that question every time it’s been asked has been a resounding ‘no’. The reasons for that position can be broken down into three buckets:

1) The Senators already have a fair amount of goaltending depth and potential in their system.
2) The marginal benefit of great goaltending over league average goaltending isn’t as great as the marginal benefit of adding a true first-line offensive threat to the roster.
3) There are no guarantees when it comes to Askarov’s development, and good goaltending can come from anywhere.

With respect to the first point, Anders Nilsson, Marcus Hogberg, Filip Gustavsson, Joey Daccord, Mads Sogaard, and Kevin Mandolese form a fairly deep goaltending pipeline. Whether all of the prospects included there become functioning NHL pros or not is irrelevant (and extremely unlikely). Goaltenders, much like draft picks, are often like lottery tickets… it’s better to have more of them. Both Nilsson and Hogberg have shown that they can play in the NHL *today*, and there’s enough depth elsewhere to eliminate a pressing need. This is without even going out to the free agent or trade market, should there ever be a feeling that the team needs more quantity or quality.

Secondly, the margin between the very best skaters and Joe Average is significantly greater than the margin between the very best goaltenders and Joe Average. To simplify that point, consider the following rough calculation:

Goaltending Differential

The math checks out, as the differential is almost identical to Natural Stat Trick’s “Goals Saved Above Average” metric for the top performer. Now consider that 64 skaters scored 22 or more goals this season, which doesn’t even take into account any tallies that they may have created and assisted. It starts to become clear that taking the right skaters at the top of the first round can more than compensate for the difference between the ABSOLUTE best goaltender in the league and a merely average one.

If those points aren’t convincing, perhaps this final one will be. The calculation above took into account the best goaltending performance… this year. However, the best goaltending performance this year didn’t come from the same player it did last year, or the year before that, or even the year before that. Great goaltending comes from strange places at unexpected times. Henrik Lundqvist, who was drafted in the 7th round, will go down as one of the greatest goalies in NHL history. Jordan Binnington, a former third round pick, carried the St. Louis Blues to the Stanley Cup. It’s a lot easier to find goaltending like that in the later rounds than it is to find a Connor McDavid or Alexander Ovechkin, though even that’s not necessarily impossible.

Anecdotes aside, consider this mapping (save percentage by draft round) of goaltenders with more than 1800 minutes of action in 2019-20:

Goaltending Map

The trend line isn’t particularly strong. If we extend back a year to include goaltenders with more than 3600 minutes played from 2018-19 through 2019-20, the trend line actually reverses:



Now, this isn’t really statistical analysis in its truest sense; there are factors such as weighting and age that aren’t accounted for here. It also doesn’t account for shot quality, or the fact that bad goalies drafted late aren’t going to get as much runway as bad goalies drafted early. Still, it starts to paint a picture that says good goaltending in today’s NHL comes from everywhere. Andrei Vasilevskiy, the last “best goalie prospect since Carey Price” has a lower GSAA metric this year than Elvis Merzlikins, who most of us had never heard of before. That’s not to say that Vasilevskiy is a bad goaltender, but it is to say that what he brings to the table isn’t something that can’t often be found elsewhere.

In conclusion, Askarov has the potential to be a phenomenal goaltender in the NHL. Or he might be slightly above average. Or he might be slightly below average. Goalies are notoriously tough to project. Even if we accept that he is going to be something special as the scouting reports suggest, the Senators should steer clear. Using immensely valuable draft capital at the top of the first round to chase goaltending just seems foolish, especially for a team like this. Goaltending isn’t some final piece to the puzzle for this organization right now. There are bigger, more pressing needs that can and should be addressed.

As always, thanks for reading.
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