Thatcher Demko, Igor Shesterkin or Juuse Saros?

[SeanMoneyHands]

All 3 are the same age. Rank the 3 goalies.

Click to read more...

 

[Play]

Can’t decide

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Igor
Thatcher
Soros

 

[SnowblindNYR]

Shesterkin is such a weird goalie that's hard to peg. Dude's either barely NHL starter level or Martin Brodeur. There's no in between. I wish he'd put together more seasons like he did in 2021-22. But the last two seasons he found his game towards the end of the season and two seasons ago he shook off a terrible first round and was a wall after. I think Shesterkin has the highest ceiling in the NHL. But he's enough of a headcase that even as a Rangers fan I have trouble ranking him.

 

[M2Beezy]

Thatcher Demko AINEC

 

[SnowblindNYR]

The funny thing about Demko is that he was putting together this amazing all time season and is 0.917 and Igor had the worst season of his career and is now at 0.912. Not insignificant but lol. Demko seems to be like Price before Price REALLY broke out where he's good but his fans make him out to be something he's not.

 

[Felidae]

Lots of recency bias here. Unless we're only talking about this year, then there is no way Demko should be 1st.

This is his 1st season he's finished top 10 in sv%, and the first time he's going to be anywhere close to a Vezina finalist. He also has the lowest career sv% among the 3 by a decent margin.

Shesterkin has the best goalie peak of this decade and the highest career sv% of the 3. Also the only 1 of the 3 to lead the league in sv%, win a Vezina and be a hart finalist.

Lastly, Saros has been one of the most consistently elite goaltenders in the league. He has more top 10 sv% finishes than the other 2 goalies combined (4, 8, 8, 9) and has played 100+ more games than the other 2.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

Lots of recency bias here. Unless we're only talking about this year, then there is no way Demko should be 1st.

This is his 1st season he's finished top 10 in sv%, and the first time he's going to be anywhere close to a Vezina finalist. He also has the lowest career sv% among the 3 by a decent margin.

Shesterkin has the best goalie peak of this decade and the highest career sv% of the 3. Also the only 1 of the 3 to lead the league in sv%, win a Vezina and be a hart finalist.

Lastly, Saros has been one of the most consistently elite goaltenders in the league. He has more top 10 sv% finishes than the other 2 goalies combined (4, 8, 8, 9) and has played 100+ more games than the other 2.

Demko gets Canadian team bias on these boards. As I said this amazing season and Shesterkin's awful season sees him with 0.005 worse save %. And no that's not insignificant but when you got one guys' best and one guy's worst it's pretty telling.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

Shesterkin is such a weird goalie that's hard to peg. Dude's either barely NHL starter level or Martin Brodeur. There's no in between. I wish he'd put together more seasons like he did in 2021-22. But the last two seasons he found his game towards the end of the season and two seasons ago he shook off a terrible first round and was a wall after. I think Shesterkin has the highest ceiling in the NHL. But he's enough of a headcase that even as a Rangers fan I have trouble ranking him.

To be honest, I think last season was a lot worse than this one. This one I feel like the whole first half and then in January he was getting screwed by the defense and also some of the calls. I think the defense was probably an adjustment to Lavi's system. They weren't giving up a lot of shots, but a lot of high danger rush chances, which is terrible for a goalie's save percentage. And I don't think he's had one close goal call go his way this year. All the reviews have somehow resulted in goals, and quite a few shouldn't have.

Last year he was playing a lot worse early in the season. Giving up a lot more bad goals. Not to say he was playing at his best early this season, but I haven't felt like there's been that many bad goals or he's playing that bad for any prolonged stretch. I don't think it helped either that he started the season pretty well and then got injured. I think that might've taken away some of his sharpness.

The other thing to mention is that goaltending in the NHL absolutely sucks, and not that the goaltenders are terrible. The sport is just so unfriendly to goaltending. No one plays any more defense, and like 95% of the close calls are ruled goals. His "mediocre" season so far he's still well above NHL average in SV%, and is top 10 (close to top 5 in GSAE). It's not that bad. There just aren't a lot of .920+ seasons in the NHL anymore. Being above .915 is a very good season with today's league.

As crazy as it sounds, I don't think he's out of the Vezina race yet, especially if he plays like the best goalie in the league the rest of the season, as he has since February 1st.

 

[HolyHagelin]

When Shesterkin appeared in the all star game his sv% was .899. Today it is .912. He is in the process of putting together a second half that resembles his form from two seasons ago. As mentioned above, neither of the other two has ever been that good for a whole season.

Additionally, Shesterkin has the best sv% (career) and third most wins (125) all time through 200 starts. His 200th was the shutout against St. Louis yesterday.

Tbh as a ranger fan it’s been kind of like the pack going from Favre to rodgers, or the colts going from manning to luck, crazy having two #1 goalies this good back to back.

 

[HolyHagelin]

I just checked his game logs, shesty has 48 career 1 goal games and 13 shutouts, meaning that he’s allowed 1 goal or less in 30.5% of his career starts.

 

[Breakers]

all I know is considering the sheer amount trash goaltending in this league

teams would give up a fortune for any of the 3 names.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

To be honest, I think last season was a lot worse than this one. This one I feel like the whole first half and then in January he was getting screwed by the defense and also some of the calls. I think the defense was probably an adjustment to Lavi's system. They weren't giving up a lot of shots, but a lot of high danger rush chances, which is terrible for a goalie's save percentage. And I don't think he's had one close goal call go his way this year. All the reviews have somehow resulted in goals, and quite a few shouldn't have.

Last year he was playing a lot worse early in the season. Giving up a lot more bad goals. Not to say he was playing at his best early this season, but I haven't felt like there's been that many bad goals or he's playing that bad for any prolonged stretch. I don't think it helped either that he started the season pretty well and then got injured. I think that might've taken away some of his sharpness.

The other thing to mention is that goaltending in the NHL absolutely sucks, and not that the goaltenders are terrible. The sport is just so unfriendly to goaltending. No one plays any more defense, and like 95% of the close calls are ruled goals. His "mediocre" season so far he's still well above NHL average in SV%, and is top 10 (close to top 5 in GSAE). It's not that bad. There just aren't a lot of .920+ seasons in the NHL anymore. Being above .915 is a very good season with today's league.

As crazy as it sounds, I don't think he's out of the Vezina race yet, especially if he plays like the best goalie in the league the rest of the season, as he has since February 1st.

I will be 100% honest. My biggest pet peeve is bad goals. And I think in past seasons he's had more of a problem with that. This season his problem even during his toughest stretch was that he just forgot how to make high danger saves.

That said Vally said that he was the worst goalie in the NHL at one point down 2+. He just had a very hard time with not getting down on himself and dealing with adversity. That just points to mental struggles rather than anything else.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

I just checked his game logs, shesty has 48 career 1 goal games and 13 shutouts, meaning that he’s allowed 1 goal or less in 30.5% of his career starts.

Now you forced me to do this analysis on Lundqvist. Stay tuned.

 

[BoHorvat 53]

Comes down to criteria. Juuse is 3rd in this poll based off his play if we're going based off this season, he hasn't been nearly as good as he has been in recent years. Looking at goals saved above expected, Demko was slightly better in '20-21, while Igor was significantly better in '21-22 and '22-23, and this season Demko has been comfortably better than Igor. Comes down to what the criteria is, if we're looking at this season it's Demko > Igor > Saros, going forward I'd say it's a toss up between Demko and Igor (Although I'd probably go with Igor), if we're looking at careers thus far it's Igor > Saros > Demko

 

[SnowblindNYR]

I just checked his game logs, shesty has 48 career 1 goal games and 13 shutouts, meaning that he’s allowed 1 goal or less in 30.5% of his career starts.

Lundqvist had 49 career 1 goal games and 19 shutouts through his first 200 games. So 3.5% better. I think considering the league is higher scoring now Igor's doing extremely well for himself here.

 

[canuckslover10]

if we are talking about this season alone id have to put Demko number 1.

 

[Albatros]

1. Saros is able to carry a bad team into the playoffs together with Josi and Forsberg.
2. Shestyorkin is good but unable to play as much and also hasn't really separated himself clearly enough from Quick at 38.
3. Demko is having the best season, but was sub-par just last year and has the most support.

 

[bringbacktheskate604]

The funny thing about Demko is that he was putting together this amazing all time season and is 0.917 and Igor had the worst season of his career and is now at 0.912. Not insignificant but lol. Demko seems to be like Price before Price REALLY broke out where he's good but his fans make him out to be something he's not.

I'm one of the more critical Demko fans but I chose him because he's proven at every level when the playoffs start he's able to elevate his game a lot.
As for his 917sv% he had a stretch of about a month where he just flat out average and letting in a softy or two a game and as a team the nucks don't allow a ton of shots so his save% took a hit.

I do think part of the issue was just the fact the nucks were scoring a lot and early perhaps causing Demko to lose focus? He's been dialed in for four of his last 5 starts, playing probably his best stretch so far.

 

[Svencouver]

Lots of recency bias here. Unless we're only talking about this year, then there is no way Demko should be 1st.

This is his 1st season he's finished top 10 in sv%, and the first time he's going to be anywhere close to a Vezina finalist. He also has the lowest career sv% among the 3 by a decent margin.

Shesterkin has the best goalie peak of this decade and the highest career sv% of the 3. Also the only 1 of the 3 to lead the league in sv%, win a Vezina and be a hart finalist.

Lastly, Saros has been one of the most consistently elite goaltenders in the league. He has more top 10 sv% finishes than the other 2 goalies combined (4, 8, 8, 9) and has played 100+ more games than the other 2.

SV% is a team stat and the Canucks were really bad before this year, where they're really good. Demko has had all-world GSAAx for the past what, 2-3 seasons?

 

[Felidae]

SV% is a team stat and the Canucks were really bad before this year, where they're really good. Demko has had all-world GSAAx for the past what, 2-3 seasons?

SV% is usually a good indicator over a large sample size. But if you prefer GSAA..

Saros has the 6th highest career GSAA among active goalies. He was also top 5 in 2021 and 2022, top 3 in 2020.

Shesterkin led 2021. Was 8th best last year, and at 10 this year.

This year is Demko's first time in the top 5, he's currently 3rd. He was 10th place in 2020 and 2021.


Again, Demko has been the best of the 3 this year, but the poll didn't specify this year. If we're taking their entire careers into account, Demko is a bit behind for now in sv%, GSAA, and Vezina finishes.

 

[dirtydanglez]

for some reason i thought saros was older than the other two. seems like he's been around forever

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

2. Shestyorkin is good but unable to play as much and also hasn't really separated himself clearly enough from Quick at 38.

His fault Quick is having a great season?

Quick also gets almost all the easier matchups.

SV% is usually a good indicator over a large sample size. But if you prefer GSAA..

Saros has the 6th highest career GSAA among active goalies. He was also top 5 in 2021 and 2022, top 3 in 2020.

Shesterkin led 2021. Was 8th best last year, and at 10 this year.

This year is Demko's first time in the top 5, he's currently 3rd. He was 10th place in 2020 and 2021.


Again, Demko has been the best of the 3 this year, but the poll didn't specify this year. If we're taking their entire careers into account, Demko is a bit behind for now in sv%, GSAA, and Vezina finishes.

Goals saved above expected is the more relevant stat.

 

[SnowblindNYR]

SV% is usually a good indicator over a large sample size. But if you prefer GSAA..

Saros has the 6th highest career GSAA among active goalies. He was also top 5 in 2021 and 2022, top 3 in 2020.

Shesterkin led 2021. Was 8th best last year, and at 10 this year.

This year is Demko's first time in the top 5, he's currently 3rd. He was 10th place in 2020 and 2021.


Again, Demko has been the best of the 3 this year, but the poll didn't specify this year. If we're taking their entire careers into account, Demko is a bit behind for now in sv%, GSAA, and Vezina finishes.

Are we using GSAA, the cumulative stat or the per game stat? Because using a cumulative stat seems silly for a position where every player plays a different amount of games.

 

[HolyHagelin]

How mn

Are we using GSAA, the cumulative stat or the per game stat? Because using a cumulative stat seems silly for a position where every player plays a different amount of games.

The number of games played is part of your value. Ergo Eric Lindros is not a Mount Rushmore player.

Shesty this year, in his worst year so far, has a sv% = to demko’s career sv%. Demo, in his best year, is 4 points below shesty’s career sv%.

Shesterkin also has a .929 in the playoffs across 28 starts. Demko has incredible playoff numbers - in 3 total games.

There is literally no argument for Demko to be first here.