Goaltender Game-by-Game Logs (1965-66 to present) and research questions

[Doctor No]

Stupid things one notices while they're making sure that things uploaded properly...

Al Smith's final four NHL appearances were shared with a teammate (either him replacing them, or them replacing him). And the four teammates are different.

Anyhow, goal support, schedule strength, and game variation are all updated. Happy hunting!

Other minutia:
Don Beaupre's 1981 playoff faced an average opponent 1.07 goals better than average.

Dan Bouchard's career revival going from the Flames to the Nordiques? His 1980-81 save percentage only went from 88.4% to 89.5%, but his goal support went from 3.74 to 4.66, and his average opponent went from +0.28 goals to -0.24 goals. The result? A 4-5-3 win-loss record becomes 19-5-5.

It seems that the Bruins knew what they were doing with Jim Craig, who faced an average opponent 0.45 goals worse than Rogie Vachon in 1980-81. Without that bit of knowledge, their statistics look quite comparable.

Do you know who else may have been sheltered? Hall of Famer Tony Esposito, who faced an average opponent 0.36 goals worse (1980-81) and 0.29 goals worse (1981-82) than Murray Bannerman.

In Mike Liut's Pearson-winning season, his average opponent was a bit above average (+0.10 goals).

The 1981 and 1982 Cup runs for Billy Smith (not surprisingly) had some of the lowest average opponent strengths (+0.01 in 1981, +0.05 in 1982).

 

[Doctor No]

Found something interesting today while looking at 1979-80...

Two goaltenders made their National Hockey League debuts on the same day for the same team (can you name them?)

I'm curious how often this has happened in the league - it surely can't be too often.

 

[Sanf]

Found something interesting today while looking at 1979-80...

Two goaltenders made their National Hockey League debuts on the same day for the same team (can you name them?)

I'm curious how often this has happened in the league - it surely can't be too often.

Don´t really know. Just guessing that it might have something to do with WHA merger. Jim Corsi and Ed Mio?

Sammy Hebert and Art Brooks in the first game of first NHL season shared the job in Toronto. Both played in NHA though.

With bit of cheating both Alex Levinsky and Red Horner (King Clancy was the third but he had already done it once before) were Maple Leafs "goalies" once in same game when Lorne Chabot was serving penalty. edit. And ofcourse they had debuted before as skaters

Don´t know/remember others

 

[Doctor No]

Ooo - I like the way you're thinking on this.

The two I was thinking of were Jim Stewart and Marco Baron. Both Cheevers and Gilbert were out, so Stewart started against the Blues and gave up five goals on nine shots. Baron finished the game, and it was the NHL debut for both.

(Of course, it was Stewart's last game as well - at least in the NHL).

 

[Sanf]

Ooo - I like the way you're thinking on this.

The two I was thinking of were Jim Stewart and Marco Baron. Both Cheevers and Gilbert were out, so Stewart started against the Blues and gave up five goals on nine shots. Baron finished the game, and it was the NHL debut for both.

(Of course, it was Stewart's last game as well - at least in the NHL).

Well there are still goalies that I have never heard of . Bruins goalies would have probably been last ones that I would have guessed. They had lot of veteran goalies during that time. Plus both were real rookies and not WHA "veterans". Very surprising indeed.

 

[Doctor No]

Dang, I found one that's more recent:

On October 18, 1986, Chris Terreri replaced Karl Friesen (first NHL game for both).

I don't have a fun story for this one, because it looks like Alain Chevrier wasn't hurt, the Devils were just trying things out. McLean and Billington were in the minors, so I believe they just had three rostered goalies at the time.

 

[Sanf]

Didn´t know that, but briefly after it Devils waived Friesen and he came back to Europe. Took the starter job from Jiri Kralik in Rosenheim.

So he couldn´t take playing spot from the one of the worst teams in NHL, but beat Kralik who was just 1,5 year ago selected as the best hockey player in Europe (Golden Stick voting). I know that the foreign player limit in German league played a part in that, but still its baffles me.

 

[Doctor No]

The Devils were a really odd situation for Karl - he had played above-average in the AHL the year before, so it's odd that the Devils would give up after a four game trial (none of which were entire games, for that matter). Did they have so many young goalies in the system - Burke, McLean, Billington, Terreri, Chevrier - that they could punt on one?

Or was the choice Friesen's? He had an awfully good thing going in Germany.

 

[Doctor No]

Now here's the reason that I do this sort of crap (other than it being bad for my eyesight).

I knew that Gerry Cheevers broke Andy Brown's NHL record for regular season penalty minutes by a goaltender in a season (62). What I didn't know was that Cheevers did it deliberately.

On April 2, 1980, the Bruins faced the Maple Leafs. In the last minute of play, Cheevers shot the puck out of play to get a delay of game penalty. "It was a 5-1 hockey game with a half a minute to play so I just couldn't allow the chance to pass. Records are difficult to get so you have to grab one when you can, even if it isn't one of the most glittering ones in the book."

Goalies, amirite?

 

[Doctor No]

I'll be updating my site to include NHL game logs back through 1978-79 this weekend (and will post an update when this has been completed).

This will also allow me to update the proximate measures that I calculate from these data, including goal support, game-to-game variability, strength of schedule, and the clutch metrics I've been playing around with.

In the meantime, I do still have several games where I have questions about certain in-game events. If you are interested in helping me make these data more accurate, I have a PDF list of known questions here:

http://hockeygoalies.org/stats/Discrepancies.pdf

Anyhow, I'd *love* the help - I consider this stuff open source (which is why I publish it in the first place) and want it to be as good as possible, so that we can then argue about things like whether Gerry Cheevers cared about his save percentage in blowouts.

 

[Doctor No]

Okay, I've now updated the game-by-game logs for the 1978-79 and 1979-80 NHL seasons. If your franchise entered the NHL from the WHA, then all of their goaltenders' NHL game data are now recorded.

I'll be updating the statistics that follow from this - game-to-game variation, above average/below average games, strength of schedule metrics, and goaltender goal support - over the next few days.

The following goaltenders' NHL careers began in 1978-79 or 1979-80 (which means that I now have their complete careers in my logs):
Steve Baker
Marco Baron
Rollie Boutin
Richard Brodeur
Jim Corsi
Jim Craig
Jiri Crha
Don Cutts
Michel Dion
Bob Dupuis
John Garrett
Robbie Holland
Randy Ireland
Steve Janaszak
Doug Keans
Reggie Lemelin
Mario Lessard
Jean-Louis Levasseur
Mike Liut
Markus Mattsson
Lindsay Middlebrook
Greg Millen
Eddie Mio
Robbie Moore
Pete Peeters
Nick Ricci
Pat Riggin
Richard Sevigny
Jim Stewart
Vincent Tremblay

Thanks to the WHA merger, there are a *lot* of goaltenders who made their NHL debuts in 1979-80.

The following goaltenders' NHL careers ended in 1978-79 or 1979-80 (which means that I finally have some of their data in my logs):
Jim Bedard
Yves Belanger
Gerry Cheevers
Jim Corsi
Don Cutts
Dave Dryden
Ken Dryden
Bob Dupuis
Doug Favell
Doug Grant
Goran Hogosta
Randy Ireland
Gord Laxton
Jean-Louis Levasseur
Bill McKenzie
Bill Oleschuk
Bernie Parent
Jim Pettie
Terry Richardson
Gary Smith
Jim Stewart
Dunc Wilson
Bernie Wolfe

Finally nice to have Cheevers, Dryden, and Parent with some data.

Some interesting items in there - so far, it's neat to see Dryden's 1979 Cup run, and the dominance established by the Canadiens there.

 

[Doctor No]

One favorite of mine in there now - Jim Stewart's only NHL game (4 saves on 9 shots) is now preserved for anyone who dares look at it.

 

[Killion]

^^^ quite a fascinating site there Doc. Guys Ive never heard of including the aforementioned Stewart out of Holy Cross.... what is that, a Seminary? Young Jimmy gave up an NHL career for the Church or what? Its A Wonderful Life making a huge impression on him in his formative years perhaps.

 

[Doctor No]

Thanks! Yeah, Stewart had a tough go of it - he was only 22 at the time, so I'm surprised that he didn't get another go at it.

One of my favorite stories in these two years is the meteoric rise of (alleged) five-foot-five Robbie Moore. If Parent hadn't been injured, he never would have seen the net, but he rode a debut shutout into a playoff starting role.

I do have the schedule strengths up now (and the other metrics I describe above), and although Moore's numbers at the end of 1979 look great, they were inflated to a great degree by a strength of schedule that saw him face a mean opponent that was 0.85 goals/game below average. Of course, his debut shutout was against Don Cherry's woeful Rockies, but his other starts were against a bad Blues team at home (5-3 win) and at home against Vancouver (a 5-0 win). He also spelled Stephenson twice on the road, but looked good enough to get the keys to the Flyers' car at the end of the year.

 

[Doctor No]

Random things I notice just poring through the new set of numbers...

In 1978-79, although Bowman played Bunny Larocque a fair amount (34 games to Dryden's 47), Dryden (+0.03) still got the tougher starts compared to Larocque (-0.18). This makes me a bit excited to pull the data back a few years more to see how consistent the pattern is.

Even in his last year (where he had doubts to his abilities), Dryden was much more consistent than league average in 1978-79 (81% as variable as average).

Dan Bouchard consistently had the tougher schedules in the last two years of the Atlanta Flames' history. Jim Craig was not only especially erratic (167% as variable as average), but he played a cupcake schedule (-0.63).

Chicago's usage of Tony Esposito is contrary to what you might expect. It's an interesting bit of trivia that Esposito and Mike Veisor never replaced each other midgame in either 1978-79 or 1979-80, but Esposito's schedules those years (-0.16, -0.08) were significantly easier than Veisor's (+0.37, +0.22). I believe that the 1978-79 split is the largest split (of significance) since 1978-79. It looks like Espo was getting the home games; of Veisor's seventeen starts in 1978-79, only five were in Chicago.

Ed Staniowski didn't play a heavy workload with the Blues in these two years, but always got the tougher matchups. In 1978-79, he and Phil Myre both played 39 games, but Staniowski's opponents were +0.25 while Myre's were -0.18. Mike Liut came over from the WHA the following year, and played the greatest amount of games, but Staniowski (+0.15) outscheduled Liut (-0.08).

This doesn't make the Ray Bourque trade look any better, but Ron Grahame (+0.23) was playing the harder games for the Kings in 1978-79, compared to rookie Lessard (+0.01).

It's fun having these data to see the Capitals emerge from their dumpster fire era. In 1978-79, Jim Bedard (+0.44) not only played the hardest games, compared to fellow starter Gary Inness (-0.02), Bedard's schedule is one of the hardest I've seen from anyone with sample size.

Not only did Rogie Vachon (+0.10, -0.10) struggle in Detroit for his two years post-free agency, but he was getting the easier games compared to Jim Rutherford (+0.23, +0.20).

A very interesting example of sheltering a promising rookie: the Penguins in 1978-79 gave Denis Herron a +0.32 schedule, while Greg Millen played a -0.34 schedule. It's not a home/road artifact, either.

For someone who didn't like Hardy Astrom (+0.13), Don Cherry certainly gave him the tougher starts over Bill McKenzie (-0.21) or Bill Oleschuk (+0.02). Of course, given the Rockies' goaltender injuries that year, he might not have had much of an option.

Pete Peeters' 27-game unbeaten streak to start 1979-80 is now registered (the loss in the All-Star Game doesn't count). He faced noticeably weaker opponents (-0.24) than counterpart Phil Myre (+0.05).

Cheevers and Gilbert show a similar schedule split, with the more regarded Cheevers getting a mildly tougher schedule in 1978-79 (+0.05 vs. +0.00) and 1979-80 (-0.07 vs. -0.11). Interestingly, Seaweed Pettie had a truly tough schedule (+0.26) in a decent sample 1978-79 sample size.

 

[Ace36758]

Doctor No, thank you for sharing! Your website is fantastic. Really applaud all the effort that has gone into this. Outstanding.

 

[Doctor No]

Thanks - I appreciate it!

I have to admit, it's somewhat of an esoteric pursuit, but I've always wanted to answer some of the questions that I'm now able to answer. And the microfilm work is good vision practice.

 

[seventieslord]

One thing I should have added above - with these two additions, I now have the complete game log history of the New Jersey Devils franchise (which moved in the summer of 1982):

http://hockeygoalies.org/bio/nhl/newjersey.html

The difference between Chico Resch's actual W/L record in 1982-83 (15-35-12) and his support-neutral W/L record in 1982-83 (31-31) is interesting.

Resch was said to have performed remarkably that season - he received some all-star/norris votes and a couple for the Hart, and the scouting report books of the time make it very clear that his W/L record was not indicative of his level of play.

 

[seventieslord]

A very interesting example of sheltering a promising rookie: the Penguins in 1978-79 gave Denis Herron a +0.32 schedule, while Greg Millen played a -0.34 schedule. It's not a home/road artifact, either.
.

this doesn't surprise me. Herron was a pretty highly regarded goalie; he received a few scattered votes here and there, greatly outperformed teammates in sv% and was spoken of highly in scouting reports.

Strangely, he could not seem to be a good "good team goalie". He was GREAT "bad team goalie" and a mediocre "good team goalie" with the Habs. If he had done something of significance with that team he'd be much better remembered today.

 

[Doctor No]

Resch was said to have performed remarkably that season - he received some all-star/norris votes and a couple for the Hart, and the scouting report books of the time make it very clear that his W/L record was not indicative of his level of play.

He also scores out as more consistent (game to game) than average, which must have been tough on that type of team.

I always felt bad for Resch when he was the one who was shuttled off to Denver (although being a Denver resident, it's not so bad). It appeared that Arbour was going to rotate goalies in the 1980 playoff run, but Resch was bad in his period of action, and didn't play for a month.

 

[Doctor No]

this doesn't surprise me. Herron was a pretty highly regarded goalie; he received a few scattered votes here and there, greatly outperformed teammates in sv% and was spoken of highly in scouting reports.

Strangely, he could not seem to be a good "good team goalie". He was GREAT "bad team goalie" and a mediocre "good team goalie" with the Habs. If he had done something of significance with that team he'd be much better remembered today.

Herron had good numbers with Montreal, even, although he couldn't stay healthy. I thought 1982 was going to be a good chance for him to make a playoff run, but he got hurt at the end of March and didn't get (take) the chance. Of course, rookie Rick Wamsley got the call and couldn't take out provincial rival Quebec.

Two things that I'd like to study related to schedule strength (among a few others) are (1) are younger goaltenders sheltered to a greater degree, and (2) do certain coaches have patterns related to goaltender usage. As Johnny Wilson goes, I've only got two years of his coaching record, so it's hard to establish anything there.

 

[Doctor No]

Working through 1976-77 at the moment, and saw something interesting (at least to me). Gerry Desjardins' last "real" season was 1976-77; he suffered an eye injury on February 10, 1977, making it back for one playoff game, then three subpar games the next year after eye surgery. Many know the story of Al Smith's departure the following game, which led to 21-year-olds Don Edwards and Bob Sauve becoming the fulltime tandem for the Sabres through 1981-82.

What I didn't realize is this - Desjardins started every single game for the Sabres between October 20, 1976 and February 10, 1977, with the exception of consecutive games in late January where I presume he was nursing a minor injury. Smith also came in twice in relief, but other than that, it was all Desjardins, all the time.

I don't know if this was a hallmark of Floyd Smith's coaching style (there's really not enough coach-specific data to tell one way or the other), or a perceived indictment of Al Smith's ability (the Don Edwards recall suggests the latter narrative).

 

[Sanf]

Working through 1976-77 at the moment, and saw something interesting (at least to me). Gerry Desjardins' last "real" season was 1976-77; he suffered an eye injury on February 10, 1977, making it back for one playoff game, then three subpar games the next year after eye surgery. Many know the story of Al Smith's departure the following game, which led to 21-year-olds Don Edwards and Bob Sauve becoming the fulltime tandem for the Sabres through 1981-82.

What I didn't realize is this - Desjardins started every single game for the Sabres between October 20, 1976 and February 10, 1977, with the exception of consecutive games in late January where I presume he was nursing a minor injury. Smith also came in twice in relief, but other than that, it was all Desjardins, all the time.

I don't know if this was a hallmark of Floyd Smith's coaching style (there's really not enough coach-specific data to tell one way or the other), or a perceived indictment of Al Smith's ability (the Don Edwards recall suggests the latter narrative).

IIRC it was order from GM Punch Imlach to play Don Edwards in that game, but certainly this gives background to why Al Smith reacted so strongly. Probably hard to see future in that club at that moment. "One horse tactics" (don´t know if that is only Finnish saying ) were really out of fashion in 70´s so this is really quite interesting.

Were these goalie Smiths somehow related? All of them seemed quite a characters .

 

[Doctor No]

I looked into familiar connections between Al, Gary, and Billy at one point, and couldn't find anything (sadly). I prefer to think of them as soul brothers.

As far as 1976-77 goes, Smith certainly didn't give much credence to continuing NHL ability - the Sabres used him early in the year (I believe that Desjardins was nursing something or other), and he was okay in a 4-0 loss, but then was pulled after allowing three goals on four shots (I believe - looking for newspaper data on this).

Of course, he never really got the chance to acquit himself; the late January games were a test in a way, and he had one decent loss, but the other loss was to the Capitals (yes, "those" Capitals).

I was glad that he made it back to the show when the Whalers joined the league. His post-career life always seemed more than a bit sad to me.

 

[Doctor No]

Hi all -

Good news for people who love goalie news; I'm within a few days of uploading game logs for the 1975-76, 1976-77, and 1977-78 NHL seasons. This will also allow me to build my strength of schedule, game variation, and goal support statistics for these seasons, and hopefully you love this era of goaltenders - Dryden, Cheevers, Parent, Davidson, Giacomin, Esposito - as much as I do.

The data are not perfect (of course) - a lot of this is sourced from the Hockey Summary Project (as a first pass) and then dug into via news archive sources on Google and other locations.

With that said, if you're interested in helping with a snipe hunt, these are the items where I still have questions or concerns:
http://hockeygoalies.org/stats/Discrepancies.pdf

As you can see, the vast majority of instances are places where a goaltender changed mid-period and I can't find a precise count of shots/saves for each. Most of these will likely never be resolved (depending upon what the NHL releases for their centennial), although I'm hopeful.

The most crucial items (my opinion) are in BLUE.

Other most interesting items (to me) are in the OTHER column. I'm particularly interested in knowing when and why goaltenders left games for reasons other than poor performance, since I'd like to do an injury analysis at some point (I attempt to track these on goaltender biographies reasonably meticulously where possible).

Hyperlinks lead to the goaltender's biography pages, in case it's useful (I usually find it useful).

I'm aware of (and own) Sebastien Tremblay's Goaltenders book, which has goaltender game logs in it - I feel that it's not fair to Sebastien for me to use that as a primary source (I have used it to confirm odd things that I've found elsewhere). Moreover, since he doesn't publish his sources (and I have found errors), I don't want to inadvertently propagate any errors into my work. There are a lot more sources available to researchers these days than when Sebastien was researching his book (I know, since I helped with his efforts on a smaller level), so I'm hopeful that these can be resolved independently. Sebastien's work is a great reference, by the way.

I also intend to visit the world's friendliest homeless shelter, the Denver Public Library, in the next few weeks to check out the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News archives - which should hopefully resolve some of my Rockies based issues. Terry Frei was surprisingly good, for the late 1970s, at including quality minutia in his game reports.

If you find anything, you will get:

• My gratitude
• A mention on the discrepancies cover page: http://hockeygoalies.org/stats/discrepancies.html
• Half of the income that I currently receive from the site (ha ha #sadbuttrue).

Anyhow, happy hunting if you're interested in helping. Thanks! Details to follow once I get the logs up on the site.