What's Behind the NHL's Dip in Save Percentage?

Seeing Sergei Bobrovsky hoist the Stanley Cup was a comforting image for fans of the NHL's bygone days.

For years, it was understood that teams needed an elite starting goaltender to contend for the Stanley Cup, and Bobrovsky fits that bill. He's a two-time Vezina Trophy winner who's second in wins among active goalies. He's also paid like a star with that $10-million cap hit.

Bobrovsky is cut from the same cloth as recent Cup champs, such as Andrei Vasilevskiy in Tampa Bay and Braden Holtby in Washington.

His win with the Florida Panthers reverses the trend of the last two years. In 2023, the Vegas Golden Knights were able to win with journeyman Adin Hill between the pipes. In 2022, Darcy Kuemper's minus-4.2 goals saved above expected wasn't exactly the kind of stat that championships are usually made of.

With cap space as tight as it has been lately, GMs started latching onto the idea that they could chase a championship without spending big on an elite starter.

Or maybe it's more than just money that's forcing this shift in thinking. 

The NHL's average save percentage has been on the decline for nearly a decade and dropped again last season, from .904 to .903. 

But the lower standard doesn't mean a team can just slot in a Michael Hutchinson and be done with it. Today's .903 is a far cry from a .903 from 2015-16.

Smaller modern goalie equipment was explicitly designed to help increase scoring. A dry development pipeline in Canada also isn't producing high-end stoppers at the same rate that we saw in the past, especially not out of Quebec. And today's ultra-skilled skaters could probably put goalies from any era at their mercy as they log gaudy point totals at '90s-era levels. 

It has been a sudden switch. If you take a look at the highest average save percentages in NHL history, eight of the top 10 seasons came between 2010-11 and 2017-18, when average save percentages ranged between .912 and .915.

Bobrovsky broke into the league in 2010. He won his first Vezina with a .932 save percentage in the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season.

Other top workhorses from that era included Henrik Lundqvist, Roberto Luongo, Tuukka Rask, Carey Price and Pekka Rinne. All six maintained average save percentages of .920 or .921 within that eight-year span of Peak Goalie. And during that time, it wasn't unusual to see a couple of goalies a year produce 40 wins for their teams.

In the 2010s, 15 goalies logged a single season with more than 4,000 minutes of action, playing between 68 and 73 games.

Averaging 4,155 minutes a year, their average save percentage was just under .920 — between five and 10 points better than the league averages through that decade.

The 2015-16 season was the peak, with a .915 average save percentage. That year, 23 netminders were at or above the league average while making at least 40 appearances — in what was then still a 30-team league. John Gibson and Frederik Andersen both cleared that bar with Anaheim, while Brian Elliott and Jake Allen did so with St. Louis, so that left just nine teams without an identifiable and reliable No. 1.

Last year, only 21 goalies maintained a save percentage of .903 or better while appearing in at least 40 games. Boston had two of them, Jeremy Swayman and Linus Ullmark. In the 32-team league, that left 12 teams without a clear top choice. And it was Alexandar Georgiev in Colorado, with his .897 save percentage, who led the NHL with 38 wins after logging 40 the season prior.

Per Natural Stat Trick, only nine squads finished the year with a team save percentage of .903 or better in 2023-24.

At the bottom of the list, 19 clubs finished with team save percentages below .900. That's more than half the NHL, and that includes six playoff teams: the Carolina Hurricanes, Washington Capitals, Edmonton Oilers, Colorado Avalanche, Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning. 

Not surprisingly, the Winnipeg Jets led the way with a highly impressive .919, behind Vezina winner Connor Hellebuyck and a .927 year by backup Laurent Brossoit. Winnipeg was a perfect example of a team that had a great chance to win on any given night, no matter who was between the pipes.

The other teams that exceeded the league average, in descending order, were Florida, Boston and the Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers, St. Louis Blues, Vancouver Canucks, New York Islanders and Seattle Kraken. All were similarly balanced in net, although some were doing it deliberately while others navigated successfully through choppy injury waters.

The Kings are the most intriguing name on that list. On a shoestring budget, they got 54 games from Cam Talbot (.913), 24 from David Rittich (.921) and eight from Pheonix Copley (.870). But after another first-round playoff exit, they're hoping Darcy Kuemper will be an upgrade and a proper No. 1 next season.

Today's top goalies don't play nearly as much as 10 years ago. No one has played more than 4,000 minutes in a season since Talbot did it in 2016-17, when he was with Edmonton.

Since 2017-18, the 15 busiest seasons for a goalie average 3,822 minutes a year — about five fewer games than the high-end workhorses played a decade ago. 

Those unplayed games are often filled by a backup who is not at the same level as the elite starter, which further drives down overall save percentages. 

And even with that extra rest, the average save percentage from those 15 busiest seasons is .917. That's a little lower than the .920 from the Peak Goalie crew. But because the average save percentage has dropped so much, those 15 performances range from five to 12 points better than the averages. 

So the overall decline in save percentage has affected goalies across the board. And for the most part, the top goalies are still performing significantly better than their peers. There aren't quite as many top guys, and they don't seize the spotlight as dramatically because they don't play as much, but it's all about being better than the goalie at the other end of the ice on any given night. 

Those top goalies may not deliver extra value to their teams in the regular season even though they're more rested, but the Panthers would argue that their payoff came at playoff time.

With Anthony Stolarz capably delivering a .925 save percentage over 27 games in a backup role, Bobrovsky bumped his save percentage back to .915 over 58 regular-season games — his best number since 2017-18. More importantly, he was fresh enough to start all 24 of Florida's playoff games, and outduel Stuart Skinner in Game 7 of the final.

Mission accomplished.