from Travis Yost of TSN,

Evaluating goaltenders remains one of the most difficult objectives in hockey, whether you are pouring through video or analyzing data.

So much of the position’s performance hinges on the defensive structure and integrity in front of the goaltender, and our eyes frequently lie to us. What appears to be a great save may be a goaltender merely recovering poor positioning; what appears to be an ugly goal may have been a shot impeded by traffic in front.

But we aren’t flying totally blind (pun not intended). We know the core deliverable of a goaltender is to thwart the opposition and minimize goals against. And we know a goaltender does this by, simply put, making lots of saves.

After hundreds of games, we get a sense for which goaltenders are better than others – Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy, New York’s Igor Shesterkin, and Winnipeg’s Connor Hellebuyck have shown themselves to be a cut above the rest, regardless of how you analyze their play.

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