What are the best metrics or stats to judge a goalie's Hall of Fame credentials?

JustOneDansOpinion

Registered User
Aug 18, 2019
1
0
I'm working on a little project to estimate which goalies are most likely to be inducted into the Hall of Fame from the NHL. The project relies entirely on their stats, and doesn't take into account politics or social intricacies. I've come up with a few stats that I think would be important to take into account, but I'm looking for input on other ideas, and how heavily weighted certain stats should be. It's obviously difficult with goaltenders especially, since a lot of stats are heavily impacted by the team, or didn't really have data taken (Save % seemingly only started being tracked in 83-84).

So far I've looked into the following stats:
- Wins
- Shutouts
- All-Star Games
- Stanley Cups
- Calders
- Jennings
- Vezinas and Vezina Votes
- Harts and Hart Votes
- Pearson/Lindsays
- Conn Smythes
- Goals Against Average versus goalies of their era
- Save % versus goalies of their era
- Playoff Wins
- Playoff GAA versus goalies of their era
- Player Save & versus goalies of their era
- Playoff Success not including Cups
- Number of seasons ended with Top 5 in Wins, GAA, Save%, and Shutouts

These are all NHL stats, though I would give additional points for success in other professional leagues, or internationally.

My current methodology is to grade all the statistics on a curve, essentially finding the best player for each stat, and giving each goalie beneath that a percentage based score. So for example, Martin Brodeur holds the Shutout record at 125 shutouts. Roberto Luongo just retired with 77 Shutouts, so that would net him a 0.616 rating in the Shutout category, whereas Brodeur would have a full 1.0 points in the Shutout category.

I calculate each of the above stats using this method, and then weight each stat with a multiplier based on how integral to the Hall of Fame induction I believe it would be. For example, I currently weigh Calders very low, as a single good rookie season wouldn't show nearly as much as say a Conn Smythe trophy.

I'm very interested to know what other stats people think are important to compare goalies of different eras. How people would rate the importance of the stats I have listed above in terms of the Hall of Fame. And if anyone sees any glaring issues with my methodology I would be very interested to hear more about it. I have no formal background in stats or data management, I just think the hockey Hall of Fame is neat.
 

suedehead6

Registered User
Jan 7, 2019
5
5
One way to approach it would be to look at the stats for goaltenders who have already been inducted and see what kind of a standard has been set and how voters have weighted the importance of different numbers.

I'd recommend checking into un-adjusted GAA and Save% too. I'd guess that plenty of voters haven't done a lot of adjusting to raw numbers.
 

DannyGallivan

Your world frightens and confuses me
Aug 25, 2017
7,562
10,110
Melonville
I'm working on a little project to estimate which goalies are most likely to be inducted into the Hall of Fame from the NHL. The project relies entirely on their stats, and doesn't take into account politics or social intricacies. I've come up with a few stats that I think would be important to take into account, but I'm looking for input on other ideas, and how heavily weighted certain stats should be. It's obviously difficult with goaltenders especially, since a lot of stats are heavily impacted by the team, or didn't really have data taken (Save % seemingly only started being tracked in 83-84).

So far I've looked into the following stats:
- Wins
- Shutouts
- All-Star Games
- Stanley Cups
- Calders
- Jennings
- Vezinas and Vezina Votes
- Harts and Hart Votes
- Pearson/Lindsays
- Conn Smythes
- Goals Against Average versus goalies of their era
- Save % versus goalies of their era
- Playoff Wins
- Playoff GAA versus goalies of their era
- Player Save & versus goalies of their era
- Playoff Success not including Cups
- Number of seasons ended with Top 5 in Wins, GAA, Save%, and Shutouts

These are all NHL stats, though I would give additional points for success in other professional leagues, or internationally.

My current methodology is to grade all the statistics on a curve, essentially finding the best player for each stat, and giving each goalie beneath that a percentage based score. So for example, Martin Brodeur holds the Shutout record at 125 shutouts. Roberto Luongo just retired with 77 Shutouts, so that would net him a 0.616 rating in the Shutout category, whereas Brodeur would have a full 1.0 points in the Shutout category.

I calculate each of the above stats using this method, and then weight each stat with a multiplier based on how integral to the Hall of Fame induction I believe it would be. For example, I currently weigh Calders very low, as a single good rookie season wouldn't show nearly as much as say a Conn Smythe trophy.

I'm very interested to know what other stats people think are important to compare goalies of different eras. How people would rate the importance of the stats I have listed above in terms of the Hall of Fame. And if anyone sees any glaring issues with my methodology I would be very interested to hear more about it. I have no formal background in stats or data management, I just think the hockey Hall of Fame is neat.

You are not going to judge a goalie's Hall of Fame credentials on paper alone. Virtually everything you listed rests heavily with the team and defense in front of them or subjective opinions.

Now, that's not to say that these should be discounted. Stats, awards, etc. are good up to a point. However, everything needs to be taken in context. What you need to do (analogy time) is to take everything you've listed, put them in a blender and pulverize them into one glob of information that you can stand back, look at for several minutes, and say "yep, he gets in".

A large part of that is the underrated (and sometimes oversimplified) "eye test". You need to have seen the goalie play. Need to have seen him actually steal games. You need to have seen the quality of shots he faced. You need to have seen him during clutch moments. The eye test should confirm what the stats seem to say.
 
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bobbyking

Registered User
May 29, 2018
1,851
868
Clearly just like forwards, it depends on how well they played compared to their peers
 

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