Updated Value Goalie Rankings: Discrepancies, Hot/Cold Goalies, Predictions

Hello Everyone! Welcome to my first article for GoaliePost. I will be diving into an update on my Value Goalie Rankings. You can find an explanation of the rankings and related constructs (Quality Weeks, Really Bad Weeks, and Star Weeks) here. The TL;DR version is that the conventional rankings for goalies in categories leagues are broken. My rankings account for the true value that goalies have contributed to your fantasy teams. These rankings are strictly for categories leagues, and mainly for leagues that count these four Cats (W, GAA, SV%, SO).

I will be providing an update every month; where I will be highlighting some goalies with discrepancies in their perceived value, taking a look at the hottest and coldest goalies over the last month, and doing the fool’s job of predicting future goalie performance.

So, let’s dive in! Here are the current top 20 goalies through Week 15 (excludes this week’s games):

The full rankings can be found here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1URlVd2ryeYvdHGzoBzqrg2UY6-aNjcGH-_WbK9JmbAw/edit?usp=sharing

Discrepancies

I’d like to again point out the biggest differences in my value rankings to Yahoo’s current rankings. These goalies’ perceived value may be very different to their true value because of the discrepancy:

Logan Thompson has been the 5th best goalie this season, much better than his current ranking of 14 in Yahoo. He has still had ZERO Really Bad Weeks, a feat only Linus Ullmark has pulled off. He has had a quality week in 13 of the 15 fantasy weeks (86.7%). His 2 Star Weeks aren’t amazing, but he has been CONSISTENT week-in week-out. It is rare to find a fantasy goalie this consistent. His cumulative stats are not impressive, but in a given fantasy week, he is providing value to your goalie cats. Give me the consistent goalie over the inconsistent flashy goalie.

Speaking of inconsistent, flashy goalies, I’d like to again talk about Ilya Sorokin. He is the 5th best goalie according to Yahoo. His cumulative stats are impressive as are his real-life stats (20.61 GSAA), but we are looking for value in H2H cats leagues, not rotisserie leagues, and not real life. Even with some stellar play the past month, he still finds himself at 10th using these constructs. He is simply inconsistent. He has many Star Weeks where he is one of the best goalies (46.7%), but he is also leading the top 20 in Really Bad Weeks (33%). A top 5 fantasy goalie does not hurt your goalie cats a third of the time.

A few other discrepancies:
Alexander Georgiev has been the 4th best goalie; his Yahoo ranking is 10.
Jeremy Swayman has been the 8th best goalie; his Yahoo ranking is 13.
Marc-Andre Fleury has been the 19th best goalie; his Yahoo ranking is 42.
Jacob Markstrom has been the 23rd best goalie; his Yahoo ranking is 60.
Martin Jones has been the 28th best goalie; his Yahoo ranking is 18.

These rankings are descriptive of these goalies’ performances thus far (through week 15) and not predictive of future performance. But you may be able to exploit the perceived values of the goalies mentioned above in a trade if you think they’ll keep up what they’ve done so far.

Hottest and Coldest Goalies

Linus Ullmark (6-1-0, 1.45, 0.945, 0) continues put up elite value, even when conceding some starts to Swayman lately, who himself is putting up great numbers with his timeshare (4-0-2, 1.62, 0.944, 1). I would be very happy to own either of these goalies going forward.

Jake Oettinger (7-2-1, 1.60, 0.945, 2) has really stepped up this last month and is challenging Ullmark for that top spot.

Juuse Saros (6-4-0, 2.62, 0.929, 0) and Andrei Vasilevsky (7-3-0, 2.60, 0.915, 0) are finally providing the value that those who drafted them were hoping for… Took long enough.

A few low rostered and net negative value goalies have really stepped it up this month and provided some value to those still rostering them. I will be keeping a close eye on Samuel Ersson (if he gets recalled for the AHL), Dan Vladar, Jack Campbell, and John Gibson moving forward.

I also would not hesitate to stream a spot start from David Rittich, Jaroslav Halak, and Pavel Francouz going forward if the matchup is favourable.

Meanwhile, Ville Huuso (3-5-0, 3.94, 0.869, 0) has fallen off a cliff this last month with 3 Really Bad Weeks.

Elvis Merzlikins continues to be the worst fantasy goaltender in the league.

After a strong start, Matt Murray (3-3-0, 3.48, 0.882, 0) has provided negative value this last month with 2 Really Bad Weeks and 2 Quality Weeks. He's lost starts to the hot Ilya Samsonov lately. We might see some more ups and downs from the Toronto Maple Leafs goalies.

Another valuable spot starter in the first third of the season, Semyon Varlamov has punished those who have streamed him this last month, with two Really Bad Starts contributing to 2 Really Bad Weeks (… he did have a Quality Start against the Sens last night though!).

Igor Shesterkin (3-3-2, 2.48, 0.920, 0), even with those nice looking cumulative stats has had a poor month as well with only 2 Quality Weeks and 1 Really Bad Week (It looks like he’s putting together a Quality Week, maybe even a Star Week for week 16 though).

Predictions

Here I go playing the fool’s game of predicting goaltender performances. I will check in on these predictions in my next article a month from now and we’ll see how I do.

Igor Shesterkin will have 4 Quality Weeks, regaining the top 10 in the rankings. Even with his poor last month, he has had 0 Really Bad Starts and a 70% Quality Start percentage. He just seemed to not put it together in two of the last 4 weeks. The Rangers are a strong defensive team (7th in xGA), but have been worse than that this past month (20th in xGA) making it hard for Shesterkin. They should improve and so will Shesterkin.

Pyotr Kochetkov AND Anti Raanta will both have 4 Quality Weeks splitting starts if Freddy Andersen battles the injury bug all month (injured last night). Carolina is the best defensive team in the NHL (1st in xGA). The goalies will feast.

Linus Ullmark will have finally falter showing up for only 3 Quality Weeks out of 4. Meanwhile Jeremy Swayman will have 4 Quality Weeks and 3 Star Weeks pushing Ullmark for that 1A job. Ullmark has to regress from his Vezina worthy stats, and Swayman has really found his game and is trending up.

After a great month, Vitek Vanecek will fall down the rankings with only 2 Quality weeks out of the next 4, also having 1 Really Bad Week. He’s been great, but has a history of Really Bad Starts (19% this season, 16% last season, and 18% the season prior). The Devils have been great defensively this season (5th in xGA), but have not been great in the last month (26th in xGA). Mackenzie Blackwood will earn some more starts and provide positive value to fantasy teams who grab him.

Andrei Vasilevskiy will continue his strong play, moving up the rankings with 4 Quality weeks and 2+ star Weeks.

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That’s all for this month! I would love to hear some feedback and answer any questions you may have, hit me up on Twitter @fantasycheddar.

I post an update to these rankings every week on Twitter. See you next month!

-Ryan Brudner from Top Cheddar Fantasy