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Vasilevskiy Dominates When the Stakes Are Highest

August 12, 2018, 9:13 PM ET [7 Comments]
Sam Hitchcock
Tampa Bay Lightning Blogger • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The goaltender position brims with possibility. The goaltender can rocket a team to success or sink a squad’s chances. When a goaltender fends off shot after shot, it urges his skaters to spirit the puck away and provide adequate goal support. Since hockey has become so fast and skilled, at forward and defense, there is something nostalgic about a goaltender confined in his crease while everything around him accelerates. Unequivocally, goaltenders are far more athletic than in decades past, but their brilliance plays out on a miniature stage. Calling a hockey net a cage is apt. The isolated work between the posts is an act of protest for his team to have a better fate.

Although it is not clear-cut who is the best goaltender in the NHL, Andrei Vasilevskiy is in the running. Vasilevskiy’s biggest enemy during the 2017-18 regular season was ennui. The Lightning spent so much time in first place in the Eastern Conference that it was natural that Vasilevskiy’s focus would flag. This is why he went from the Vezina Trophy favorite to finishing third in the voting. But that also makes the award frustrating: Pekka Rinne won a bunch of meaningless games when the stakes were low, but in the postseason he submitted an atrocious .904 and obliterated his team’s chances of advancing deep in the playoff.

In October, November, and December Vasilevskiy’s save percentage was .927, .939, and .943. He recorded 7 of his 8 shutouts in the first four months of the season. Once spring arrived, his save percentage plummeted to .883 in March and .900 in April. This cost him the Vezina. But by more nuanced stats, like hockey-reference.com’s Goaltender Point Shares, Vasilevskiy finished tied for third with Rinne.

The postseason tells an interesting story. On 5v5 High-Danger shots, per Corsicahockey, only Marc-Andre Fleury was better than Vasilevskiy, and only by a miniscule amount. Rinne was roughly 13 percentage points worse. In the regular season, Rinne was one of the best in the NHL at HDSv%, but in the postseason, against the fearsome offense of the Winnipeg Jets, he really struggled.

This volte-face happened with Vasilevskiy too. Vasilevskiy was excellent on Low-Danger Save Percentage during the regular season, but he was the worst among the postseason goaltenders who played a minimum of 500 minutes at 5v5. Rinne and Hellebuyck were also better in Middle-Danger Save Percentage. Nevertheless, Vasilevskiy finished with the best even-strength save percentage of the three. (Rinne finished last among goaltenders with a minimum of 500 minutes.) Yet, digging into the data reveals the importance of Vasilevskiy to the Lightning’s success.

Going series by series, Vasilevskiy was awesome when the Lightning needed him to rise to the moment. Against the Devils, his save percentage was .941 for the series. Facing their hated divisional foe, the Boston Bruins, the Lightning were smoked in Game 1, and Vasilevskiy saved only 18 of 23 shots. But following that performance, the Lightning won the next four. Vasilevskiy had two outstanding efforts in Games 3 and 5 and did not see much rubber in Game 2. In Game 4, he surrendered three, but it was one less than Tuukka Rask.

Against the Capitals, after the Lightning dropped the first two, Vasilevskiy saved 131 of 139 shots, which was good for a .942 save percentage. The Lightning won the next three, but squandered his brilliance in Game 6 with their failure to notch a single goal.

Vasilevskiy wasn’t the best goaltender of the regular season or the postseason. But he is like a trusty friend. When called upon, he can provide support and assistance in times of turbulence. Even if the numbers read like a roller coaster, he is steadfast in times of urgency. That isn’t just editorializing either. During the playoffs, in every single loss where his save percentage was atrocious—Game 1 against Boston, Games 1, 2, and 7 against Washington—the Lightning scored two or less goals. In every single one of those games, they trailed by four goals at some point. Context matters and informs Vasilevskiy’s play. When the Lightning got their butts kicked and started to lose handily, Vasilevskiy’s attention wavered. Understandably so.

The Lightning had a metamorphosis during the regular season. They went from having their defensemen aggressively attacking the weak side and ultimately conceding far too many odd-man rushes to becoming a contained forechecking team. The defensemen went from uninhibited to controlled. I think the move was mostly a success, but when the Lightning’s offense evaporated against Washington, they were forced to open it up again. And Vasilevskiy stretched and contorted himself to keep the pucks bouncing off him and keep the games competitive.

The ability to escalate the offense into its most hyper-aggressive form is a luxury afforded to the Lightning because most goaltenders do not have the athleticism and positioning to gobble up pucks hammered from inside the home-plate area like Vasilevskiy can. When the Lightning square off against an increasingly tough Eastern Conference field next April, Vasilevskiy will be a leverage chip. If their environment is a garden, and everything is blooming, Vasilevskiy can be depended on not to trample their chances. And if the world burns, he will be there trying to douse out the flames.
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