Trading goaltenders in fantasy hockey is tricky. There can be so much variance even season to season, let alone within season, that it’s never a sure thing when trading away/trading for a goalie.
The breadth and availability of sports information has made trade profiting a bit more difficult, but it is still fairly common. A couple quick notes about buying/selling goaltenders on the fantasy trade market:
• People have depth until they don’t. A fantasy owner could have four top-25 goalies, but they are one fantasy trade and one injury away from having no depth at all. Be sure that a goalie can be spared before trading.
• There are indicators to look for in buy low/sell high goaltenders. In the context of in-season trades, save percentage on the penalty kill and team PDO (shooting and save percentages combined at 5 on 5) are two important ones.
Remember: Many fantasy leagues are won and lost by the thinnest of margins. Even small upgrades can prove to be critical.
Here are some goalies to buy low/sell high.
Sell high
Jimmy Howard (Detroit Red Wings)
There were 24 goalies last year who started at least 41 games last year, or half a season. The highest save percentage on the penalty kill was Cory Schneider at .919 (in just 43 starts), and the next highest mark was Marc-Andre Fleury at .911. Of the other 22 goalies, none of them finished above .900. So far this year, Jimmy Howard is sitting at .924.
The San Jose Sharks blog Fear The Fin did great work with figuring out predictive values relating to special teams last year. They found that the best predictors for future penalty kill success are goalie save percentage, and shot attempt differential per 60 minutes. In that regard, Detroit is 21st in the NHL (via War On Ice) despite having the second-best penalty kill by percentage.
If Howard were to maintain his current pace, he would probably allow just 13 more goals on the penalty kill this year (assuming a constant pace of shots faced per game, and 65 starts this year). If his penalty kill save percentage were to be just .900 from here on out, though, with the same shot and starts pace, he would allow 17 goals. If it were really to crater – somewhere around .870 – it would be about 22 goals.
It might not sound like a lot, but that’s an extra goal every four games or so. If Howard can be traded as a top-5 goalie right now, it might not be a bad idea to explore those options.
The latest sets of matchups were released today on Sportsnet.ca for Sportnet’s Pick ‘n Play. This is a fantasy game were players that are facing off the upcoming Saturday are pitted against each other in head-to-head contest. Jakub Voracek was set up against Tyler Bozak in anticipation of Saturday’s game between Philadelphia and Toronto. That’s a matchup that seems to favour Voracek quite a bit.
Jhonas Enroth (Buffalo Sabres)
This one may be a little obvious, but the magic of the Buffalo Sabres is starting to run out.
From November 15th through December 14th, the Sabres went 9-3, shooting 10.9 per cent as a team. Their goaltending over that stretch was at a .942 save percentage. Over that span (again from War On Ice), Buffalo also had a league-worst 37.7 per cent possession rate as measured by shot attempts. That all indicates that the team will come crashing to Earth, and it may have already started with their blowout in Winnipeg.
From ESPN, Jhonas Enroth is the number-2 goalie in a rotisserie league over the last 30 days. It’s not possible that he stays at that level much longer. Just remember how bad Buffalo, and by extension, Enroth, was before this recent run: Despite being the number-2 goalie over the last 30 days, he’s still just the 40th-ranked goalie on the season, which has been 70 days in length so far.
There is almost no chance that Enroth is a top-24 goalie for the rest of the season. If he can be traded as a top-24 goalie, that trade has to be made. His team is not good enough to sustain a usable goaltender, and that means he’s empty depth.
Buy low
Ryan Miller (Vancouver Canucks)
From ESPN, Ryan Miller is barely a top-36 goalie on the season, and that means a fringe third goalie in a 12-team fantasy league. That’s not very good for a guy that was the backbone of the Sabres for years, and has multiple Olympic appearances.
The Vancouver Canucks are ranked 27th in the NHL by PDO this year (via Hockey Analysis). A big chunk of that is the fact that the Canucks are ranked 28th in the NHL in 5 on 5 save percentage, nestled between Dallas and Edmonton. Ryan Miller is at a .902 save percentage at 5 on 5 this year, good for 27th out of 28 goalies with at least 750 minutes.
There has to be a turnaround coming for Ryan Miller. Last year, he was a .920 save percentage goalie at 5 on 5. The year before that, Miller was .924, and .927 the year before that. Even assuming his career is sliding, he should be at least a .915 goalie for the rest of the season. Miller can be had for very little right now, and likely will improve as the season wears on.
Be sure to check out Sportsnet’s Fantasy Hockey Pool. Picks are made, and prizes are given, every week in this salary cap-style game here on Sportsnet.ca.
*Some stats courtesy of Hockey Reference, Hockey Analysis, ESPN, and NHL.com. Also a thanks to Fear The Fin for their excellent work.
