In hockey, goaltending is 75% of the game. Unless it’s bad goaltending. Then it’s 100% of the game because you’re going to lose”.
Gene Ubriaco
No team has seen the impact of the ups and downs of goaltending like the Edmonton Oilers have. Whether it be the fall off of Jack Campbell’s play after arriving in Oil Country, or the volatility in Stuart Skinner’s game or memories of the Mike Smith-Mikko Koskinen tandem before them, the Oilers have long been searching for some stability in the crease. Since waiving Campbell and recalling Calvin Pickard in November, the new tandem with Skinner starting with a clear back up in Pickard has brought some stability to the crease.
It doesn’t all fall on the goaltending either. The Dave Tippett era Oilers were horrendous off the rush, leading to high controlled entries and inflated goals against numbers. Former Head Coach Jay Woodcroft immediately fixed that, instituting a 1–1–3 neutral zone that controlled the play. Last, year Woodcroft and Assistant David Manson opted for a 1–2–2, giving up a little bit defending the rush in favour of increased forecheck while instituting man-on-man in zone defence. Those tactics stayed the same in the neutral zone to start this year, but the team transitioned to zone defence in their own end to try to eliminate high profile breakdowns. Current Head Coach Knoblauch has more or less maintained the same structure that Woodcroft started the year with, but has helped eliminate some of the mistakes being made earlier in the season.
Those mistakes are a large part of why Edmonton has had inflated goals against for so long. Quite simply, the Oilers have had a collection of personnel, specifically defencemen, that have been extremely prone to making grade A mistakes. The team routinely gives up unpressured shot attempts where shooters can pick their spot, while also just losing guys in coverage that leave open pass attempts. This was partircularly evident early in the year, where the Oilers were in the bottom five in expected goals against according to Clear Sight Analytics, despite being one of the better teams at in zone 5v5 defending. When they made mistakes, they led to chances that could not be more dangerous for the goalie. Goaltending has more variance than any other position in hockey, but it’s also the most prone to be affected by the environment in which they play behind. There’s now metrics that attempt to parse out the impacts of the two, but how has each affected the Oilers’ bottom line in the standings?
The methodology for GF-GSAx
When dealing with statistics, generally binning results is frowned upon, as the timing of positive or negative events is more or less random so there is greater importance on the entirety of the results. This presents a challenge when looking at the impact on a game-by-game basis, as each game is a discrete sample size, with fixed results. No matter how great or poor a performance is, it is localized to 60 minutes (plus overtime) and can have a maximum impact of two points in the standings. Additionally, since the goalie has no impact on his team’s finishing and little if any impact on his defensive environment, the skaters’ impact is best measured by looking at the Goals For-Expected Goals Against (GF-GSAx). These results also filter out events on an empty net, since that net would not occur or be weighted the way they are without the slim leads that result in empty-net situations. Each performance from a goalie ultimately falls into one of six categories, as defined below.
The team should project to collect two points when they have a positive GF-xGA, and would typically lose when that difference is negative. The difference between how many points are actually collected and that projected point total is the goaltenders’ standing points impact.
When isolating for a single same performance, sample sizes become extremely small which makes it tough to skew randomness from results. Another factor that can sway a goaltender’s defensive environment in a single game is the quality of chances can skew toward lower or higher danger chances. Public expected goal models are based on the entirety of events for a season, and end up being very accurate over the aggregate. However, in single same samples, there can be a higher ratio of high or low-danger changes compared to normal, which will make the goaltender’s workload more difficult or easier respectively.
To deal with this, I employed a strategy much like MoneyPuck’s Deserve To Win O’Meter, but applied it to goalies. For each individual and independent expected goal event, I’ve “flipped” a weighted coin of whether it’s a goal or not, with the xG value representing the likelihood that it’s a goal. This is repeated 1000 times to create a simulated sample size. The actual goals against totals are compared to the simulated sample size to come up with a goaltender’s performance percentile against his expected environment.
This is not accurate for all games. Based on game breakdowns, we can get a more detailed look at fault on each goal, or how good a goalie was in a given game. The game in Edmonton against Dallas is a good example of the former, with Skinner giving up four goals off odd man rushes in a 4–3 loss. Pickard’s recent start in Pittsburgh is a good example of the latter, where Clear Sight recorded just two high danger scoring chances for the Penguins while EvolvingHockey tabulated 4.38 expected goals against.
Here’s how the Oilers’ goalies have fared so far.
Was Campbell’s performance poor?
Here’s Jack Campbell’s five-game stretch with Edmonton this season.
The five games sample was not great. After a strong preseason with many giving hope of a bounce back season, Campbell struggled out of the gate, eventually leading to a demotion to the AHL Bakersfield Condors. However, things weren’t nearly as bad as they seemed on the surface.
In the five games, Campbell was not the primary reason the Oilers won or lost at any point, but was merely a reflection of the environment in front of him. Private models show the same, with Campbell reportedly falling just below expected according to Clear Sight Analytics. The last start against Nashville was rough, and ultimately the decision to send him down was more based on his cumulative career as an Oiler rather than just season.
Skinner’s rocky performance
Here’s Skinner’s game log for the 2023–24 season.
The 2023–24 season obviously started off poor for Skinner. The only above expected performance in his first eight appearances came outdoors and it looked like he was floundering. Since then, he’s been one of the league’s best goaltenders, by any metric.
Skinner had another small stumble coming out of the All-Star break, but by and large Skinner has routinely been playing at a 90th percentile based on expected since Knoblauch was hired. The defensive environment has improved substantially, but even Clear Sight Analytics had Skinner as a top three goaltender from December 1 to the All-Star break. Skinner has brought his game back from points where he was -6 towards the standings for Edmonton to being +5 at the present. This includes six stolen wins during the Oilers’ historic 16-win game streak, in which Skinner set the franchise record with 12 personal wins in a row. With Skinner returning to his peak form as of late, things look promising in the crease as the Oilers head down the stretch.
Pickard making a case for himself
Calvin Pickard was recalled on November 8 and has made 14 appearances since. Here’s how each appearance has broken down.
Pickard got off to a bad start in Florida against a strong Panthers team, but has been relatively consistent since. He currently sits at a cumulative +2 standings point impact, but that comes on the heels of the model giving him a stolen win in Pittsburgh despite only two high danger scoring chances against despite a lot of volume.
Pickard has been consitent and not really affected outcomes either way, which is solid from a back up. Question marks start to come up when he plays higher competition, and may be an issue if Skinner stumbles again come playoff time, but for a guy who started the year as the organizational #3, it’s been a successful campaign for Pickard.
The goalies are mostly doing their part
By and large, the Oilers record has been a product of the play of their skaters so far this season, with the goalies playing to roughly expected. Campbell was somewhat of a non-factor before the organization grew tired of his underperformance relative to his contract. Pickard has largely been a solid back up in a sheltered role since he’s been recalled. Skinner started off slow, but has showed real promise as a legitimate option on a contender since the Oilers made their coaching change.
