The NHL has announced the three finalists for the Vezina Award, given each year to the league’s best goaltender, as voted on by the league’s general managers. Vying for the trophy at the NHL Awards in Las Vegas this June will be the Winnipeg Jets’ Connor Hellebuyck, the Nashville Predators’ Pekka Rinne, and the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevskiy. This is the first nomination for Hellebuyck and Vasilevskiy, while Rinne has previously been up for the award three times.
At first glance, the three nominees are not surprising. All three have had great seasons and are clearly among the top goaltenders in the league. However, hockey analytics guru Rob Vollman makes a pretty good case for why the evaluation process my be flawed. As Vollman points out, the only category in which the trio were tops in the league is wins, a statistic based entirely off of team performance, not individual performance. Hellebuyck and Vasilevskiy led the league with 44 wins, while Rinne was right behind with 42. Yet, only Rinne was top three in the league among goalies with 41+ starts in save percentage, quality starts percentage, and goals saved above average, Vollman’s stats of choice. By those standards of evaluation, Vasilevskiy should have been nowhere near Vezina contention. Instead, Vollman’s poster boy for proper evaluation is the Anaheim Ducks’ John Gibson, who was a top-four finisher in each of those three categories and a top-ten finisher in wins. Also garnering some more attentions should have been the Vegas Golden Knights’ Marc-Andre Fleury and the Arizona Coyotes’ Antti Raanta, both of whom were excellent statistically, but lacked the number of starts and wins that are apparently requisite for Vezina contention in today’s NHL.
It’s no surprise that the three contenders for best goaltender are who they are. However, that doesn’t mean it’s correct, especially in a season so many other obvious choices. General managers surely do not evaluate goalies based on wins alone when evaluating them for acquisition, so why does a clearly-flawed statistic hold so much weight in the Vezina race? It’s a question worth asking and Vollman’s reaction, as well as others’, may change the voting results come next season. In the meantime, look for Rinne to finally take home the hardware this year in his fourth try, a result that was likely even with proper evaluation.
I’d even vote for Crawford. Putting up those goalie numbers on an awful team is impressive.
I would normally agree, but unfortunately Crawford was hurt for a huge portion of the season.
Crawford missed too many games. He only played 33 games. Can’t win the Vezina playing that little
Yeah, fair. Didn’t quite notice he missed that many.
Like a lot of other “voted” awards…this is always with a grain of salt. These are on top teams that are expected to show something…playoffs included. You can’t have a Vezina trophy winner that happens to be the best player on a bad team can you? Haha. It’s a fixed trophy that has politics hooked to it. I can almost guarantee that Rinne will “finally” win it, being the big favourite compared to the others. It’s kind of like the Selke as well…you don’t win it on a season stat alone…you need to put in your time and keep certain values up for a few seasons. Same with the Norris in some respects as well.
An unfortunate situation but accurate observation on your part. What happens if a guy has one great year? Nothing.
The Rafael Palmeiro rule. If something is possible, eventually it will happen. Being technically eligible for the award is all that is required to win it sometimes.
This is true. It took Lidström 3 years in a row of being runner up, before winning it the next 6 out of 7 years lol. Those 3 years, it was even controversial somewhat that he wasn’t winning it.
How does Rinne or Hellebuyck being finalists have politics hooked to it? Both of those goalies have been incredible all year. Sure, Rinne has a great team in front of him, but there were plenty of games where he stole the game for his team. His numbers speak for themselves. He certainly is a worthy finalist & would be a worthy winner. Goaltending has been a weakness for Winnipeg. Hellebuyck changed that this season. He has settled that team down & gave them great goaltending to go along with their offense. His numbers are also finalist caliber. He too is a worthy finalist & would be a worthy winner. There is no politics involved in either player being finalists. It isn’t fixed if either one of them win it. Rinne & Hellebuyck have been the best goalies in the league. That isn’t political.
Why there isn’t an actual “Defensemen” award by now is beyond me. Like the best defensive defenceman? lol
There is. It’s called the Norris Trophy
hahahahahaha…..it usually goes to the top scoring defenseman or the most talked about. looking at you PK.
You got what I was putting down haha
Don’t forget Erik Karlsson. The first Norris he won was solely on his offensive stats. He was 6th on his team among defensemen in penalty kill time that year & didn’t play against the opposing teams players. That isn’t Norris worthy
I won’t make the argument that he deserves the Vezina, but Gibson is an athletic goalie who has been the Ducks’ best player this year.
I think the only knock against Gibson is that he’s injury prone. One of these years, he’s gonna play the whole season…and win it!
Bobrovsky should win the Vezina. He was the main reason Columbus was even relevant this season and they made the playoffs
I can’t argue with any of the three. I expected them to be the finalists and they are all deserving. Raanta was not good for the first third of the season. He played well after the All-Star break, but those were all meaningless games for Arizona because the Coyotes were long out of it. Fleury only played 46 games because of injury. While his numbers are great, it is hard to give him a finalist spot over Rinne, Hellebuyck or Vasilesky who played the great the whole season. Rinne & Hellebuyck’s numbers are better than Gibson’s & Bobrovsky’s. Vasilesky has a higher GAA & a lower save % than both Gibson & Bobrovsky, but has more wins & shutouts. Rinne & Hellebuyck are no-brainers as finalists. If you want to argue against one, it would be Vasilesky.
Moneypuckers so desperately want to be Moneyballers but they are not. They are basically doing a rain dance with numbers.
Hockey has too many variables to be accurately measured by what currently passes for hockey sabremetrics.
I’d hardly call the stats he cited as sabremetrics. He’s just saying let’s focus less on Wins which is a silly stat anyways
Rinne should finally win it, but nice to see Gibson get a little love. He kept the team alive all year. His playoff career hasn’t been pretty but he will be a dominant goalie for years to come if he can avoid all the minor injuries that he rakes up each year.