Happy summer, Blackhawks fans. How happy are we that the Stanley Cup has come back to Chicago for the third time in 5 years, or 6 Seasons? Elated, I would hope. I know I am. There is a slight problem, however. Some people, lets call them meatballs because fans is not a correct term, are still not happy with their team's goalie. I'm not going to point out which team...
OK, well maybe I am going to point out this thankless group of meatballs. It shouldn't surprise me, or anyone for that matter, that Chicago sports fans completely overlook a player's success for fairy tales and conspiracy theories. I want to keep this strictly to a stats/salary driven piece, because everyone knows I'm a Crawford apologist.
First of all, Corey Crawford is the 7th highest goalie cap hit in the NHL. Five of the top seven have never won a cup. Two of these players have two Stanley Cups, Corey Crawford and Jonathan Quick. Quick's cap hit is $200,000 less than Crawford, but he makes $500,000 more in real dollars.
Second of all, Corey Crawford is the 9th highest goalie salary in the NHL. Six of the top nine have never won a cup. Again, two of these players have two Stanley Cups, Crawford and Quick.
Below, is a list compiled of all Stanley Cup winning goalies since 2007-08. Playoff stats, and regular season Save Percentage are listed, as well as some advanced stats. The advanced stats are as follows:
Quality Starts (QS) : When the goalie achieves at least the mean save percentage (for the season) in a game.
Quality Start Percentage (QS%) : simply the number of Quality Starts / Games Started. This gives you a sense of how often the goalie has a Quality Start. A good rule of thumb for this stat is that anything less than 50% is bad, anything over 60% is among the league leaders, and the league average for an NHL regular is about 53.4%
Really Bad Starts (RBS) : Awarded whenever a goalie has a save percentage in a game less than 85%
GA Pct (GA%) : Goals allowed % relative to league goals allowed. Lower is better, 100 is exactly average, 0 means you have saved 100% of shots faced. Min. 4 shots faced per team game needed to qualify.
Goals Saved Above Average (GSAA) : Goals this goalie prevented given his save percentage and shots faced vs. the league average save percentage on the same number of shots. Min. 4 shots faced per team game needed to qualify.
I did not create these, I am simply passing on the information. This is a list that has been mixed up for the sport of it. Feel free to tell me which two are the terrible over paid Corey Crawford, by looking at these stats:
If you don't like Corey Crawford, that is your right, but there is no statistical evidence to damn him, or his salary, for that matter. Saying he is overpaid is false based on his accomplishments, and saying he has not earned his status is also false, based on the stats.
If you compare him to Antti Niemi on 2010, the comparison falls short, statistically, as well. Of the three recent Blackhawks Stanley Cup wins, Niemi played the worst. In fact, you could make the argument that he was statistically the worst goalie in the last eight seasons to win a Stanley Cup, along with Marc-Andre Fleury. Black and white folks. Below are the initials and the year filled in:
