The Goalie Report : Risers and Fallers

In this week's column, we'll take a look at goalie performances over the past month, highlighting some goalies who are playing a key role in their team's success over that period, while a few more are at least covering team deficiencies. Others have faltered and are highlighted for their substandard play.

Trending Up

Andrei Vasilevskiy, Lightning (1.88 GAA, .941 SV%)

Nobody has moved the needle for their team more than Vasilevskiy in the past month. He's been outstanding in registering seven wins in his last eight starts and is the key reason for their ability to turn the top of the Atlantic Division into a close three-way race, as the Lightning have reeled in the Leafs and Panthers. He's already appeared in 45 of Tampa's 57 games, and it's unlikely that this pace will be reduced because finishing first in the division is a big prize, which will lead to a much easier first-round opponent. Failure to reach that goal will result in a difficult first-round matchup against one of the other teams in the same quest.     

Mackenzie Blackwood, Avalanche (2.18 GAA, .917 SV%)

As the Avs had hoped, Blackwood has steadied himself after a brief downturn a few weeks ago. He's turned in five outstanding starts in his last six appearances. To show what the impact of a deeper, more talented team in front of him has meant to his time with Colorado, we can now point to a 15-game sample where his goals against average is 0.83 lower than his stint in San Jose at the start of this season. In fact, his 2.17 goals against average with Colorado this season represents the best stretch of his seven years in the NHL. 

Jake Allen, Devils (2.34 GAA, .926 SV%)

Since he took over the role as presumptive starter, following the injury to Jacob Markstrom one month ago, Allen has been solid, racking up seven quality outings out of his eight appearances, which includes three shutouts. His efforts have been significant in keeping the Devils in the race for home ice advantage during the opening round of the playoffs in a very competitive Metropolitan Division race. There aren't many teams that could have survived the loss of their top goalie the way that the Devils have done.  Allen will be tasked with a continuation of this heavy workload for another couple of weeks before Markstrom is scheduled to return to action.   

Samuel Ersson, Flyers (2.59 GAA, .914 SV%)

Ersson has clearly distanced himself from the other two goalies on the Flyers roster. He's in his third year with the club and is trying to establish himself as the first dependable netminder in a decades-long search by the Flyers brass. He's checking a lot of boxes with a sub-3.00 goals average (2.76) and a solid win percentage over his 31 decisions this season (.629). Those numbers are impressive enough on their own, but even more so when you realize this is a non-playoff team and the stats of his tandem partners are not even close to these marks.   

Joey Daccord, Kraken (3.06 GAA, .904 SV%)

Daccord is in a similar boat with the Kraken, as he has shown a clear superiority when we measure his stats against those of Philipp Grubauer. Daccord has duplicated the role and performance that he carved out last season, when he shed the cloak of a seldom-used goalie over the first four seasons of his NHL career. He has proved again that he can post impressive totals, despite the fact that this year's edition of the Kraken is nowhere near a playoff contender. His stats are a little higher than last season,  but his performance should be viewed as an improvement because the team in front of him isn't as good this year.

Lukas Dostal, Ducks (2.93 GAA, .911 SV%)

Dostal is in a similar situation in Anaheim, as he is making the case to be the successor to longtime fixture John Gibson, with a second consecutive solid campaign in Southern California. The Ducks are a young team looking to put solid pieces in place to move their rebuild forward.  Dostal will finish with more than 40 appearances, so we know he can handle a significant workload. The best news is that he's putting up the best stats line of his four-year tenure with the Ducks during this season.       

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Stuart Skinner, Oilers (3.72 GAA, .878 SV%)

At a time when contending teams are gearing up for a strong finish to the regular season, they want to have players performing near the top of their game. Skinner is nowhere near that level over the past month. As his backup, Calvin Pickard, has only been marginally better in that same period, there are serious goalie concerns with the Oilers right now. They've lost three games coming out of the 4 Nations break in the schedule and they've slipped from the top rung in the Pacific Division. The catcalls around Skinner are getting pretty loud right now.

Connor Ingram, Utah (3.02 GAA, .887 SV%)

It seems as though Ingram has lost significant ground in the goalie share situation in Utah. He ended last season as the clear number one option, with 50 appearances and a career-best 2.91 goals against average and .907 save percentage. This season his numbers have ballooned to 3.27 and .882 respectively. In that time, the Utah club has actually become a better team and a key factor in that improvement is the stellar play of his goalie partner Karel Vejmelka. That doesn't bode well for Ingram.

Jeremy Swayman, Bruins (3.44 GAA, .889 SV%)

It has been difficult to make a fair evaluation of Swayman this season. It's clear that the roster in front of him isn't as deep as it has been in recent seasons. Throw in the fact that they've been missing their top two defensemen to injury (Hampus Lindholm is now lost for the season and Charlie McAvoy is not expected to return for at least two weeks) and the Bruins' playoff prospects are bleak right now. All of this has happened in the first season where Swayman was expected to take on a decidedly large share of goalie starts for the first time in his career. He certainly has to wear those poorer stats from this campaign, but it's hard to say how much of the blame should be assigned to him over his circumstances.