2011-12 Most Overpaid Goalies

June 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Before we start it is important to point out that the Puckonomics methodology sees the True Value of goalies consistently being significantly lower than the actual salaries of the top goalies in the league. Essentially this means there is significant inefficiency in the goalie salary market which results in high-end goalies being disproportionally over-compensated for the value they contribute.

Now that being said there are a couple of caveats to the list below.

Team GP Wins OTL True Value ($M) Cap Hit ($M) Amt Overpaid   ($M)
1. Niklas Backstrom MIN 46 19 7 2.53 6.00 3.47
2. Henrik Lundqvist NYR 62 39 5 4.15 6.88 2.72
3. Ryan Miller BUF 61 31 7 3.66 6.25 2.59

First off, Rick Dipietro would be at the top of this list if he played in more than eight games, but since he was injured for most of the season he did not qualify for this list. We will do a separate analysis of his true value compared to his cap hit shortly.

Niklas Backstrom is at the top of the list for a similar reason, if he hadn’t gotten hurt and played in 60 or more games he likely would not have been on this list.

Lundqvist and Miller made the list due mostly to the over-compensation of high-end goalies detailed above and just partially due to number of games played.

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2011-12 Most Valuable Goalies

June 17, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Before we detail the winners, it is very important to be clear about what the Puckonomics analysis calculates and what it does not. For goalies, we determine who provided the most value over the 82 regular season games. What the analysis does do not assess is who is the best goalie during the season. To be more specific, Brian Elliott and Jaroslav Halak might be two  of the best goalies in 2011-12 but because they shared the St Louis Blues net, neither played enough games to be one to have be one of the highest True Value goalies.

So here are the results:

Team GP Wins OTL True Value ($M) Cap Hit ($M) Difference ($M)
1. Pekka Rinne NSH 73 43 8 4.66 3.40 1.26
2. Marc-Andre Fleury PIT 67 42 4 4.36 5.00 -0.64
3. Jonathan Quick LAK 69 35 13 4.33 1.80 2.53

A couple of notes.

First, the obvious question is why isn’t Henrik Lundqvist on this list?  Well, he is one of the highest True Value goalies in the league, but not in the Top 3. Compare to Pekka Rinne he only play in 62 games and that 11 game differential means a lot. In particular it means the New York Rangers back-up, Martin Biron is worth a lot more than a regular back-up, which decreases the True Value of Lundqvist. This does not mean he wasn’t the best goalie in the league during 2011-12. He in fact may win the Vezina trophy and it will be well-deserved. The Rangers got phenomenal goaltending from Lundqvist when he played. By there were at least 20 games when they used another goalie, so that goalie created value for the Rangers too.

On a separate note, as detailed in previous posts, it is important to point out that the Puckonomics methodology sees the True Value of goalies as being significatnly lower than the actual salaries of the top goalies in the league. Essentially this means there is significant inefficiency in the goalie salary market which results in high-end goalies being disproportionally over-compensated for the value they contribute.

 

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2011-12 Top 3 Underpaid Goalies

June 16, 2012 by Leave a Comment

There aren’t that many surprises in the most underspaid goalies of 2011-12 based on how things went in the playoffs. What is a slight surprise is that Ondrej Pavelec is at the top of the list.   This mostly has to do with him having such a low cap hit of $1.1M.

Here are the numbers:

Team Wins OTL Cap Hit ($M) True Value ($M) Amt Underpaid   ($M)
1. Ondrej Pavelec WPG 29 9 1.15 3.81 2.66
2. Jonathan Quick LAK 35 13 1.8 4.33 2.53
3. Mike Smith PHX 38 10 2 4.31 2.31

Ondrej Pavelec is an RFA this summer, while Quick and Smith are in entering the final year of their deals before becoming UFAs. Both Quick and Smith should expect huge increases next summer.

As always, it is important to point out that the Puckonomics methodology sees the True Value of goalies as being significatnly lower than the actual salaries of the top goalies in the league. Essentially this means there is significant inefficiency in the goalie salary market which results in high-end goalies being disproportionally over-compensated for the value they contribute.

Note: Players with significant injuries are not included in this analysis. A separate analysis of the Rick Dipietro will shed light on the challenge of his situation.

 

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