Goalies seem to pop out of the net with startling regularity, often moving fully behind the net to drop the puck back there before returning to the front. It seems nerve-wracking every time— how can they risk being so far out of position with the offense closing in fast?
Obviously they only do this when they have the puck themselves, but it seems like they could easily be knocked away from it while they’re leaving the net empty and vulnerable.
Please explain why they do this!
In: Other
For easy math let’s presume that every shot has a 10% chance of going in the net when a goalie is “in position”. So if a goalie sees 30 shots we expect to see 3 goals. If a goalie can keep the other team from getting the puck in their offensive zone by playing it themselves to a teammate… for every shot that didn’t occur, then they will have just removed a 10% chance of a goal.
Watch enough hockey (or just go check out the “Weird NHL” series on Youtube) and you’ll see plenty of situations where a goalie misplays a puck and the opposing team does get a shot at a wide open net. But such situations are pretty rare, you might see one every 9 or 10 games.
In our simplified math, if a goalie can prevent 10 shots from the opposing team for every 1 “free goal” he allows… then he’s coming up basically even because one of those prevented shots was likely to get through anyway. If the goalie can get that ration up to 50 for every 1 “free goal” (which I think it a pretty reasonable expectation of professional goalies given the rules that protect them). Then that goalie’s opponents will have scored 4 fewer goals than “expected” for his venturing outside the net.
Latest Answers