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Connor Hellebuyck and Stuart Skinner have opposite impacts on their teams. Matt Blewett and Brad Penner / Imagn Images
In hockey, almost nothing matters more than goaltending. The problem: Almost nothing is more unpredictable than goaltending.
A goalie can look elite one year and struggle the next, or look like a sieve for years and then suddenly seem unbeatable. Goalie variance is one of the biggest hurdles when it comes to team-building, leaving two paths: Build a team that’s unimpeachable beyond goaltending, or find an unimpeachable goaltender. Easier said than done on both fronts, sometimes leaving the teams with neither scrambling when things go awry. Or celebrating if they get lucky and win the goaltending lottery. With goaltending, both can happen in the blink of an eye.
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That’s also the biggest challenge when it comes to forecasting playoff chances. When it comes to which teams surprise most in either direction in any given season, goaltending is usually the reason.
With that in mind, I wanted to conduct a little experiment to see which teams rely most on goaltending for success — and which teams are hampered most by it. To test that, I ran a playoff simulation for this season, but with every team’s goaltending set to average. The difference between playoff chances with current goaltending and average would then show which team’s chances are most affected by the sport’s most volatile position.
Here are the results. And for those wondering why the effect size is not that large at the extremes, that is by design, given the position’s uncertainty.
Those results give us three categories to look deeper into: The “goalie teams,” the “need-a-goalie teams” and the “goalie doesn’t really matter teams.”
Playoff chance change: -16.9 percent
There should be no shock at which team is at the top of this list. Connor Hellebuyck stands alone atop all goalies by a significant margin — not only in his ability, but his consistency. He is the rare goalie you can set your watch to year after year. Without him, the Jets are close to a middling roster. He is the difference. And we’ve seen exactly what happens to this very team when he can’t be counted on come playoff time. While even the best-of-the-best can sometimes have off seasons, Hellebuyck is the rare safe bet as a goalie to build around.
Playoff chance change: -10.0 percent
After a strong 2024-25, Logan Thompson’s excellent start is starting to cement his place as one of the league’s best goalies. The Capitals have depth with Charlie Lindgren behind him, but it’s Thompson who currently elevates Washington’s playoff chances. Without him, the Capitals would drift even closer to the playoff bubble, and while the difference isn’t as drastic as Winnipeg without Hellebuyck, Thompson is the reason the Capitals are a dark-horse team.
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Playoff chance change: -9.2 percent
Unsurprisingly, the Rangers depend a lot on Igor Shesterkin. He’s the reason the team is more likely to make the playoffs than not, despite a middling 8-7-2 record entering Wednesday’s game. But even Shesterkin isn’t immune to spells of sub-elite play. He currently ranks 25th in GSAx, which is part of the reason the Rangers aren’t currently dominating despite controlling play. Obviously, a weak offense is a bigger reason, but this is not a team that can thrive if Shesterkin is just good rather than great.
Playoff chance change: -7.5 percent
It is extremely bad news for the Leafs that they end up here. Last year, the Leafs were fourth in team save percentage on the back of a strong tandem of Anthony Stolarz and Joseph Woll. This year, they rank 27th as Stolarz has struggled immensely to handle a starter’s workload. While Stolarz has a strong GSAx track record that goes beyond last season, his career high for games played was just 34 last season. This year, he’s on pace for 63 — and not handling it well.
Stolarz’s strong track record suggests a bounce-back is likely and that’s the main reason Toronto’s modest playoff chances are even as high as they are. Just average goaltending is not good enough and the Leafs are currently getting much worse than that — though a leaky defense sure doesn’t help. With just average goaltending, the Leafs decline to a below-average team and are the perfect example of the dangers of becoming a team whose identity relies too much on goaltending — especially from unproven starters. You have it until you don’t.
Playoff chance change: 12.9 percent
Dan Vladar deserves a lot of credit for improved play this season with a .917 save percentage and 7.7 goals saved above expected. But his track record is still extremely poor and Samuel Ersson’s .866 save percentage cancels a lot of that out. The Flyers are an average puck possession team under Rick Tocchet with a decent history of controlling play, but poor goaltending has always been the X-factor holding them back. The team’s 8-5-2 record entering Wednesday’s game is a great start, but their goaltending tandem is difficult to bet on.
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Playoff chance change: 11.6 percent
The Blues are a good team in a bad spot and that’s entirely a product of goaltending. St. Louis’ .869 team save percentage is one of the league’s worst, undoing a lot of solid work by the team in front of them. Jordan Binnington has a really up-and-down track record that’s headed mostly down this season, thanks to a minus-7.5 GSAx. That’s positioned him as one of the league’s worst starters and Joel Hofer isn’t helping much behind him. St. Louis’ goaltending is the reason the Blues are currently 6-8-3 and it’s the reason the team isn’t closer to the playoff bubble.
Playoff chance change: 6.0 percent
File this under “duh.” If it wasn’t already apparent going into the season, it certainly was last Saturday when the Oilers got pumped 9-1 by Colorado. Stuart Skinner has shown flashes of good play, but that’s all they are: flashes. He’s not good enough as the guy getting the most starts. The bigger problem is that this team somehow doesn’t have any semblance of a safety net behind him. I’m not sure Calvin Pickard — and his .836 save percentage this season — is NHL caliber, and Connor Ingram has struggled in the AHL.
The Oilers are still a solid playoff bet as is, but poor goaltending is keeping them out of the contender’s circle and dropping their playoff chances to 75 percent. It also shows in the way the team is playing this season: low-event hockey meant to stifle out mistakes. The Oilers are at their best with an explosive offense and it’s tough to bring it out without a goalie to trust the other way.
Playoff chance change: 5.2 percent
The Penguins are one of the biggest surprise teams this season and that surprise would be a lot easier to buy into if their goalies weren’t Tristan Jarry and Artūrs Šilovs. The Penguins have the fourth-worst xGA/60 this season at five-on-five, but have found a way to succeed because of elite goaltending. Maybe it works out for them — Jarry has played at a high level in flashes while Šilovs is still young — but given their track records, it’s more likely the bottom falls out at some point.
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If it doesn’t, well, that’s goalies for you! It’s the process of oscillating between “Tristan Jarry has one of the worst contracts in the league” one year and “Tristan Jarry could make Team Canada” the year after.
Playoff chance change: -0.5 percent
You’re going to see a trend here. The league’s best (and arguably smartest) teams have mostly figured out that the best path is the first one: Focus the most on the team in front of the goalie. That a goalie that’s “good enough” is the key, rather than a goalie that’s great. That doesn’t mean ignoring goaltending completely, but it does mean putting less emphasis on it. Goaltending is a luxury position, not a focal point. It’s probably no coincidence that four of the league’s best teams have mostly average goaltending.
It’s not just that their playoff chances are already high, either; their point projections don’t move much with average goaltending.
With Carolina in particular, the hallmark of their success is dominating at five-on-five and the Hurricanes are continuing to do that this season with 56.5 percent of the expected goals and 57.5 percent of the actual goals.
Playoff chance change: 0.0 percent
The Devils were previously a “need-a-goalie” team. They got a tandem that’s good enough and now here they are flirting with Cup contention. I’d still like to see more improvement with the roster around Jacob Markström and Jake Allen, but the Devils still look like they’re on the right path with an elite core. They do need to get their act together at five-on-five, though.
Playoff chance change: 0.1 percent
The Golden Knights are one of the biggest proofs of concept that the team in front matters a lot more than the goalie. That was one of the biggest lessons from their 2023 Stanley Cup win, backed by Adin Hill. To Hill’s credit, he had a helluva run that playoffs, but the fact that he was mostly an unknown commodity going into that year shows that getting good goaltending doesn’t mean splurging for a good goalie.
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Vegas is off to a tepid 7-4-4 start and is dealing with some key injuries (as usual) right now. But with the roster built in front of their collection of mid-goalies, the Golden Knights should be more than fine reaching the playoffs this year. And likely going far with them.
Playoff chance change: 0.3 percent
The Avalanche are, without question, the best team in hockey and should run away with the Presidents’ Trophy this season. Their current chances of winning it sit at 51 percent thanks to a plus-25 goal differential buoyed by elite play-driving ability. The Avalanche are smoking the competition with 60 percent of the expected goals. Only one other team — the 2020-21 Avalanche — has won over 60 percent of the scoring chances over a season since 2007-08. Colorado is on track to do it again.
All of that is with Scott Wedgewood starting in net for 14 of 17 games. He’s been good, but that should show you exactly where a team’s priorities should lie. Unless the situation is seriously dire, the most important thing is assembling a strong team in front of the goalie first and foremost.
— Data via Evolving Hockey
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Dom Luszczyszyn is a national NHL writer for The Athletic who writes primarily about hockey analytics and new ways of looking at the game. Previously, he’s worked at The Hockey News, The Nation Network and Hockey Graphs. Follow Dom on Twitter @domluszczyszyn
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