Adjusted goalie stats. Has it been done?

[Taco MacArthur]

Originally Posted by reckoning

Slightly off-topic, but...

Would it be a better idea to somehow convert save percentage to a whole number that would represent the amount of goals a particular goalie prevented for his team? It might be a good way to compare say a goalie who is .929 in 40 games with somebody who is .925 in 70 games. A forward who had the highest PPG in a season, but only played half the year, would never be considered for an All-Star spot. But a goalie in the same situation would. It might be a better way to look at career numbers as well, since career save percentage obviously benefits goalies who retire early.

I do this on my site (although it's currently only on the site for goalies who played in the NHL last year; the rest will come when I've finally got the database architecture up to speed):

http://hockeygoalies.org/bio/brodeurm.html

Under SEASON-BY-SEASON:

GD represents the "goal differential", or the number of goals above (below) average a goaltender was during the year (I would have used "goals above average", but the acronym is unfortunate).

GAR represents "goals above replacement", which is the same as above but compares against replacement level (which I define arbitrarily as a save percentage 0.015 lower than league average).

SNW/L% represents the winning percentage a goaltender would be expected to have if they had average defense and opposition (this, of course, ignores the biases that defenses and oppositions have on a goaltender's save percentage in the first place).

Z-SCORE represents how many standard deviations a goaltender performed during the season compared with an average goaltender.

[ushvinder]

1994 was a freak year for goalies. Patrick Roy had a season good enough to be vezina worthy, and yet Hasek and Beezer even outperformed him. Adjust hasek's season to that of the deadpuck era and its prolly a 94.5 save%. If hasek played 70+ games in 1994, i woul have easily picked him over federov for the hart.

[reckoning]

Originally Posted by Taco MacArthur

I do this on my site (although it's currently only on the site for goalies who played in the NHL last year; the rest will come when I've finally got the database architecture up to speed):

http://hockeygoalies.org/bio/brodeurm.html

I didn't know you changed your username. I was wondering why Doctor. No never posted on here anymore.

[reckoning]

Originally Posted by TheDevilMadeMe

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this what goals versus threshold tries to do?

My biggest problem with GVT are the instances where you see goalies on the lower end who end up having negative scores. I can't grasp the concept that someone could play 60 games and have their worth quantified as less than a goalie who only played one game.. I'm looking for something similar to points for forwards, where zero is the minimum score.

[Taco MacArthur]

Originally Posted by reckoning

I didn't know you changed your username. I was wondering why Doctor. No never posted on here anymore.

It's a long story, but it was time to mix things up.

[overpass]

Originally Posted by plusandminus

Regarding hockey stats in general, I'm still confused about some things:
* why doesn't people co-operate more into producing as reliable (factual) stats as possible? (I spend "enormous" amounts of time trying to correct and complete stats, and am constantly surprised it hasn't already been done by others.)
* why isn't there more research being done on different things (like "how much does skaters affect save percentage?", "how important are faceoffs?", "how much of team success can be attributed to goaltending?", etc., etc?)?
* why aren't readers interested in communicating about things like that? (This HOH section is generally very stats oriented, but for some reason interest seem low when it comes to researching things depper.)

For goalies:
* how consistant are single goalie save percentage from season to season?
* how much do save percentage change when goalies change team?
* how similar are save percentages for goalies on the same team?
* how accurate/reliable is save percentage stats anyway for older seasons?
etc...
Wouldn't it be interesting to try to find out? (I myself have not studied it. But if I would do, any result or presentation likely would get unnoticed, misunderstood or - rightly or wrongly - criticized. I'm the wrong person to do it, as basically no one here thinks I'm of any positive use whatsoever. Like yesterday, when I posted about face offs... it just got ignored. If I'm good at anything here, it might be being good at doing bad.)

I think it has basically never happened that anyone have asked me about anything, or shown any interest in my data or "research". Being a person having spent this much time, having built up all this data, and having spent relatively much time analyzing things, it's amazing how extremely poorly I seem to have performed on this board. It's almost as if I don't even exist.
Obviosly I'm procuding "products" of low quality or for which there is no demand, or are bad at "selling" them, or try to sell them in the wrong environment or at the wrong time. Maybe it would be easier if I would focus on writing/asking something about, for example, which is best of Lidstrom or Bourque. )

I've spent on average about 15-25 hours per week during the last year on hockey data, including about 50 hours per week during the summer vacation. I have followed hockey for at least 30 years, and am a professional programmer which makes it possible for me to do advanced things with stats, but here I've learnt that I'm basically a nobody and I suppose nothing will likely ever change that. When I for example communicate with former elite level players IRL, I get a much different response, i.e. they listen and confirm that I know what I'm talking about (but don't have the time that most people writing here seem to have). I have tried to get some feedback or co-operation here regarding studies, but to no interest. My "self-esteem" or "self-confidence" here is at an all-time low. Not being more fluent in the English language frustrates me too.

I'm not trying to chase you away, but if you are looking for an audience, this is the History board, not the Statistics board. Generally the statistical posts that get a good reception and generate discussion here relate to the history of the game and are accessible and understandable to non-stats people. There aren't that many people who are interested in a pure stats or theory discussion.

For example, if I posted a thread on "best power play players in history" with some relevant stats, that would probably draw some discussion. If I posted a stats heavy post on "how important is it to have a good power play", that probably wouldn't draw as much discussion. Everyone here has watched hockey, already has an opinion on that, and it's not an easy topic to discuss without diving into the numbers.

I would absolutely be interested in reading some studies on the goalie topics you mentioned (keeping in mind that conclusions may be different for different eras and leagues based on the way the game was played.) IMO there is a great deal of potential for investigating the relationship between team performance and goalie performance. (Brian Elliott is an excellent example that suggests they aren't independent.) If nobody is posting on it it's because nobody currently interested in taking the time to do so. But if you can find an interesting conclusion and communicate that it should find an audience.