Goaltending 2024-25. How well must the Sabres goalies play for the Sabres to make the playoffs?

[GASabresIUFAN]

Despite what felt like a slow start by the Sabres goaltending last season, UPL ended up having a great season.  All his metrics improved dramatically.  His GAA improved from 3.61 in 2022/23 to 2.57 in 23/24.  His save % improve from a terrible .891 to .910.  EV save % improved from .899 to .915 and his save % when on the PK increase dramatically from .829 to .892.   

However the stat the really got my attention was the vast improvement in quality starts (QS).  In 51 starts UPL had 34 QS for a QS% of 67%.  That is an elite number.  In 2022/23 UPL had a QS% of 41%.  To put in perspective Vezina winner Hellebuyck also had QS% of 67%, Swayman at 63%, Oettinger only 55%.

The Sabres had 13 additional QS from Levi (10 - QS% 48%) and Comrie (3 - QS% 30%).  For the season the Sabres had a QS% for 57%.  

I think an important key to making the playoffs next season is getting that 57% closer to 65% for the year.  That would have given the Sabres another 5 wins last season and it would of placed us squarely in the playoff race.  The key then is Levi.  Reimer's QS% the last couple of years in about 45%.  We need Levi to take the next step in his development and like UPL, go from a QS% in the 40s to a % in the 60s.  

FYI:

Sports-reference.com defines QS as:  https://www.sports-reference.com/blog/2014/12/games-started-quality-starts-on-hockey-reference-com/

Quote

 

Quality Starts and Quality Start Percentage were developed by Rob Vollman, and are described in his Hockey Abstract. Here is a brief description, but we encourage you to pick up a copy of his book for additional discussion of this statistic (and many others):

A Quality Start (QS) is when the goalie achieves at least the mean save percentage (for the season) in a game. For the 2013-2014 season that percentage is 91.5%. So, if Tuukka Rask allows only 2 goals on 28 shots (a 92.9% save percentage), that is considered a Quality Start. There is an additional criteria for low shooting games: if a goalie faces 20 or fewer shots, he only needs to get an 88.5% save percentage. The relationship between save percentage and winning percentage (and hence the definition of Quality Start) is shown here (prior to 2009-2010):

Save %Win %

0.913 or better - 0.777

0.900 to 0.912 - 0.536

0.885 to 0.899 - 0.503

0.884 or worse - 0.246

Quality Start Percentage (QS%) is 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%. Also, according to Vollman: "Based on the average of every goalie with fewer than ten starts in a season, the average for replacement -level goalies is 42.8% but, in fairness, there is some selection bias involved in this since playing that poorly will generally limit you to ten start in the first place."¹

 

 

[Taro T]

Still say the big key THIS year is does UPL finally believe in himself even when there is credible competition on the roster.

IF he finally does, and what he did from January until Levi was back in B&G full time, is the real UPL then the GTing will be quite good enough.

He pushed through some serious mental hurdles last year as we saw him get to a point he trusts the hips enough to go post to post aggressively and still keep himself rather large.  So, he's shown an ability to push through hurdles in the past few seasons and especially last season when he was horrible in camp but started playing larger & doing a 1/2 crease slide under control when he finally got an opportunity to play in the fall.

It's the 1 test he still hasn't fully passed.  If he passes that test this year, the Sabres might've gone in just over 2 seasons from arguably the worst goaltending in the league to a top 5 situation and arguably even better than that as they can be looking at having a tandem with both goalies in the conversation of who are the top 10-15 goalies in the league by the time playoffs are rolling around.

Obviously, am really pulling for him to finally get all the ghosts that entered the machine w/ the double hip surgeries out of it.

Not sure if that's the most important question to be answered or how big of an effect will Ruff have on this team; but get them both to fully break our way and the Sabres should be playoff bound.

Edited September 3 by Taro T

[PerreaultForever]

Situational play is the key for them and the team as a whole. Can they shut the door under pressure if we are up a goal late or even down a goal and you can't have another for a chance. Will the team build off a confidence that that will happen. Otherwise, GA is fine where it is if we get back to scoring more and more goals at key moments. Fix that PP. 

[PromoTheRobot]

[DarthEbriate]

If the Sabres as a team can get .904 sv% or higher, that ought to do it unless the offense is atrocious.

They were .899 last season, but Comrie's disastrous .874 in 10 games dug their hole deeper than Luukkonen's great second half could elevate them.

[LGR4GM]

The goalies will need to be above NHL average and consistently be in the top half of gs expected. 

[mjd1001]

Depends on the style of play.

As a team get to a +10 goal differential, you are just about assured to be in the playoffs.  Allow 270 goals, but score 280...doesn't matter you are probably in.

As a team get to +30/+40 and you are in and likely viewed as a serious threat to advance.  Score 280, allow 240.....score 250 and allow 210...doesn't matter much.

Its hard to put numbers on how the goalie(s) will play without knowing the style of play in front of them.