the common-sense approach might assume there has to be a large skill component involved. A bad defensive player gives up breakaways and odd-man rushes and leaves men open in the defensive zone. Meanwhile, the Zdeno Charas of the world force everything to the outside and make opponents settle for low-percentage chances.
But unlike on-ice shooting, there doesn’t seem to be much consistency across players when we look at on-ice save percentage. While the on-ice shooting leaderboard features plenty of offensive stars, the top players in on-ice save percentage are a mishmash of grinders, first-liners, two-way guys, and enforcers. When Teemu Selanne is close to Brian McGrattan, something weird is going on.
In fact, when you stretch the view out over several years, it starts to look almost random, especially among forwards. (Defensemen are a little more predictable, but not by much.) There seems to be an awful lot of luck involved here.
And that’s a pretty important piece of information to know, because though on-ice save percentage doesn’t directly affect a player’s goals and assists, it can certainly affect his plus/minus. (I’ll pause here to remind you that plus/minus is an awful stat that should almost always be avoided entirely, partly for this exact reason.)
And perhaps more importantly, it can affect how the player is perceived by the “just watch the games” crowd. A player who benefits from a great on-ice save percentage never seems to get scored on, while a player with a low percentage always seems to be skating to the bench with his head down while a goal horn blasts.