New Goalie Stat - Total Games Dressed

[Benchwarmers]

Hello,

I thought I'd share a new statistic for Goalies that I've been putting together: Total Game Dressed. Its obtained by adding the total games a goalie played with the total games a goalie dressed as backup only. This really gives a good picture of what tandem of goalies a team went with all season long. The most interesting numbers to emerge form this stat is for backup goalies who spent most of the season on the bench but are much more valuable to a team than their traditional stat line might tell. I believe this stat to be very helpful for backup goalies and judging their value.

I've been able to assemble the data for the past three seasons and am currently working on 2013/14. These are some of the more interesting finds for each season.

Antti Niemi and Braden Holtby are today's goalie "Ironmen." Both guys appeared in all 82 games each season for 246 straight games dressed over the past 3 seasons. This surely extends farther back to 2013/14 so I'll add to the total when I have it.

Total Games Dressed really gives you a different picture of a goalies worth, here's Carter Hutton's number from the last three seasons:
If you googled his stats, you'd see this picture:
16/17 - 29 games played
15/16 - 17 games played
14/15 - 18 games played

Based on those numbers, you'd think he was a fringe NHLer. Total games dressed presents a different picture:
16/17 - 81 games dressed
15/16 - 78 games dressed
14/15 - 82 games dressed

With these numbers, you can clearly see that Hutton was a full time NHLer these past three seasons.

2016/2017 season

Goalies who dressed in all 82 games:
Cam Ward
Kari Lehtonen
Antti Niemi
Peter Mrazek
Carter Hutton
Keith Kinkaid
Marc-Andre Fleury
Martin Jones
Aaron Dell
Andrei Vasilevskiy
Braden Holtby
Phillip Grubauer
Devan Dubnyk
Cam Talbot
Curtis McElhinney
Cater Hellebuyck

Goalies who dressed in 50+ games as a backup only:
Aaron Dell - 62 - SJS
Darcy Kuemper - 62 - Minn
Curtis McElhinney - 61 - Clb/Tor
Al Montoya - 57 - Mon
Keith Kinkaid - 56 - NJD
Anders Nilsson - 53 - Buf
Carter Hutton - 52 - STL

Some interesting notes from this season:

- Looking at Jhonas Enroth's stats one would think he had nothing to do with the 2016/2017 Anaheim Ducks. In fact he dressed in 13 regular season and 1 playoff game with the club.

- Chicago, in a quick search, looks like they only utilized 2 goalies all season. In fact Chicago dressed 5 different goalies. A season in review might miss this fact without total games dressed.

- The Dallas Stars, San Jose Sharks and Washington Capitals had a tandem of
'iron' goalies, with all 3 teams only using only 2 goalies all season.

- Vancouver, Florida and Carolina dressed the most goalies with 6 each.

- Adam Wilcox appeared in 6 games with 2 different teams, Tampa and Florida, but still didn't see any action.

- April 3rd, the Flyers dressed 3 goalies. Semborski joined the game and was dressed due to an early injury.

-Marc-Andre Fleury not only dressed in all 82 playoff games with the Penguins, he also dressed in all 25 playoff games as the Pens won the Cup. Only he and Phil Kessel dressed in every single Penguins game this season.

Source and full season stats

2015/2016 season

Goalies who dressed in all 82 games:
Martin jones
Ben Bishop
Phillip Grubauer
Braden Holtby
Michael Hutchinson
Eddie Lack
Scott Darling
Antti Niemi
Jimmy Howard
Cam Talbot
Roberto Luongo
Jhonas Enroth
Mike Condon
Keith Kinkaid

Goalies who dressed in 50+ games as backup
Jhonas Enroth - 66 - LA
Carter Hutton - 61 - NAS
Keith Kinkaid - 59 - NJD
Jonas Gustavsson - 57 - Bruins
Al Montoya - 55 - Habs
Antti Raanta - 54 - Rangers
Scott Darling - 53 - Hawks
Darcy Kuemper - 53 - Minn
Michael Hutchinson - 52 - Winn

Some interesting notes from this season:
-Niklas Backtrom dressed in 10 games with the Minnesota Wild before being traded to Calgary. He never appeared in any official time between the pipes for Minneosta this season.

-Washington was the only team who went the whole season with just dressing 2 goalies. Holtby and Grubauer. Even more interesting, Holtby and Grubauer also played the entire 2016/17 season. Washington apparently has had killer luck in net.

-May 13th the Tampa Bay Lightning dressed three goalies in one game.

-Arizona and Montreal dressed the most goalies with 6 each.

-Looking at the stats, one would think a team like the Flyers went with two goalies all season. In actuality, they dressed 5 goalies and only 2 played. The 3 unlisted backups dressed for 22 games of the 82 games that season.

2015/2016 Source and full stats

2014/2015 season:

Goalies who dressed in all 82 games:
Jhonas Enroth (83)
Mike Smith
Jonas Hiller
Anton Khudobin
Kari Lehtonen
Jonathan Quick
Carter Hutton
Corey Schneider
Cam Talbot
Marc-Andre Fleury
Antti Niemi
James Reimer
Eddie Lack
Braden Holtby
Michael Hutchinson

Goalies who dressed in 50+ games as backup only:
Justin Peters - 66 - WAS
Carter Hutton - 64 - NAS
Martin Jones - 64 - LA
Dustin Tokarski - 64 - MON
Niklas Svedberg - 58 - BOS
Reto Berra - 54 - COL
Alex Stalock - 53 - SJS

Some interesting notes from this season:

-Jhonas Enroth was traded mid-season and thus was able to dress in 83 regular season games in an 82 game schedule.

-Buffalo dressed the most goalies this season with 7

-March 3rd Florida dressed three goalies in one games

-February 16th Richard Bachman appeared in net ONLY for the shootout with the Oilers. Statistically, this was recorded by the NHL as a game played.

2014/2015 Source/Full List


Mods, I linked the full lists to the bottom of each season. If this violates the rules for some reason (the lists would be too large to repost here) then please just remove the links but I really think they're helpful for those interested. They prove that the research is correct and the facts stated here are true.

Thanks,

Jay

Click to read more...

 

[Doctor No]

Very nice! I've actually been working on something similar - it will be interesting to compare notes.

It's interesting how this statistic is common in European hockey, but virtually ignored here.

 

[Doctor No]

I'll add that one piece of data which I was eagerly awaiting - and I'm sure that you were too - was the dressed backup log for historical NHL games.

I was mildly disappointed that these did not appear in the (otherwise pretty sweet) playoff summaries released this past spring.

Hoping to see them (and regular season) in the future, since we know that they exist because they're on (for instance) the Penguins' game sheets:

http://penguins.nhl.com/v2/ext/media/scoresheets/regular_season/1979-80.pdf

 

[Benchwarmers]

Those old Penguins game sheets are a thing of sheer beauty. As far as I know, they're the only complete game sheets like that assembled.

I always wondered if there was a box somewhere (or whole shelving unit) with all these official summaries dating back to the expansion at the Hockey Hall of Fame or NHL archives (if that exists).

I think they're missing from the FlyersHistory box score summaries because these were mostly taken from newspaper archives, which did not bother listing the back dressed. As the Penguins box scores would suggest, the information exists, its just a matter of obtaining it.

 

[Doctor No]

That's definitely why they're missing from the FlyersHistory site's data - those were compiled by the Hockey Summary Project, and our primary source of data was the Hockey News and Sporting News summaries, supplemented by newspaper box scores where available.

 

[eperry]

Okay, but why?

 

[Doctor No]

Okay, but why?

For me, it's a personal interest - and I've received inquiries from enough people to know that I'm not alone.

Keep in mind that I started my Goaltender Home Page as a repository for underrepresented information (often lumped together as "trivia"). Is it interesting that Patrick Lalime dressed for the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (between his stints in Pittsburgh and Ottawa)? Is it interesting that Richard Sevigny dressed for the Canadiens during the 1979 Stanley Cup Finals? (It did qualify him to appear on the Cup, so I'd imagine that the answer to that is "yes").

One place where I'm sure that many people find it interesting - per the current CBA, games as the dressed backup count (as a full game) towards eligibility in the pension plan:

http://www.nhl.com/nhl/en/v3/ext/CBA2012/NHL_NHLPA_2013_CBA.pdf

(page 140)

One other place where this is useful is in the identification of hidden injuries, particularly in eras where social media didn't squeeze every player until they burp.

Clearly, many do *not* find it interesting - else it would be promulgated more widely than is being done currently.

 

[Canadiens1958]

For me, it's a personal interest - and I've received inquiries from enough people to know that I'm not alone.

Keep in mind that I started my Goaltender Home Page as a repository for underrepresented information (often lumped together as "trivia"). Is it interesting that Patrick Lalime dressed for the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim (between his stints in Pittsburgh and Ottawa)? Is it interesting that Richard Sevigny dressed for the Canadiens during the 1979 Stanley Cup Finals? (It did qualify him to appear on the Cup, so I'd imagine that the answer to that is "yes").

One place where I'm sure that many people find it interesting - per the current CBA, games as the dressed backup count (as a full game) towards eligibility in the pension plan:

http://www.nhl.com/nhl/en/v3/ext/CBA2012/NHL_NHLPA_2013_CBA.pdf

(page 140)

One other place where this is useful is in the identification of hidden injuries, particularly in eras where social media didn't squeeze every player until they burp.

Clearly, many do *not* find it interesting - else it would be promulgated more widely than is being done currently.

It definitely has merit. Dr. No's interest lead to a look at the O6 era and the roster manipulations required to have a back-up goalie on hand. Spread into skaters. Will have some interesting stuff in due time.

Also the point about injuries is very true. 1953 SC playoffs, long held version was that Jacques Plante replaced Gerry McNeil for game 7 of the semi-finals because McNeil had the "yipes".Also for the first two games of the finals. Recently learned via the contemporary issues of the Montreal Herald that McNeil had suffered a minor ankle injury - picture of him on crutches was published after the playoffs.

 

[Doctor No]

look at the O6 era and the roster manipulations required to have a back-up goalie on hand. Spread into skaters. Will have some interesting stuff in due time.

I'm pretty excited to dig into this some more with you, by the way.

 

[Canadiens1958]

Archieval Data

I'm pretty excited to dig into this some more with you, by the way.

The release of archival data by the NHL, game sheets and minutes of various meetings would help. Especially any minor rule change to roster numbers and composition. Example at times in the 1940s and 1950s teams would dress two goalies, second one at the expense of a skater. Second goalie did not necessarily get ice time.

Thru the O6 era, NHL had various in season meetings where various rules would be amended. Prime example 1929 "offside" rule introduced about 1/3 of the way in to counter goal hanging that resulted from the introduction of the forward pass.