Vesa Toskala: Does he really suck this much?
by Hawerchuk on Oct 13, 2009 5:26 PM EDT
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Vesa Toskala is a mystery to me. He's generally seen as a terrible goalie. But at even-strength, he's performed like a league-average goalie. If you believe in shot quality, he's faced tougher than average shots at 5-on-5 since he joined the Leafs, and he's stopped about as many as you might expect. He hasn't been very good a man down (890 SVPCT vs 907 league-wide), which has cost the Leafs about three wins over two seasons provided their awful defense didn't just give up a lot of shots from 10 feet out (I should check). Given that they're missed the playoffs by 14 and 11 points the last two years, Toskala's poor play on the PK is not their main problem.
But Toskala's been absolutely excruciatingly awful in four games this year. The Leafs are dead last in 5-on-5 save percentage and second-last at 4-on-5, ahead of only Dallas (take that, Marty Turco.) It's only been four games, but come on! An 812 save percentage? That usually gets you sent to the minors!
Let's look a little closer at what's happened. The typical shooting percentage at even-strength is 6.1% (remember, this includes all shots, including ones that miss the net.) Running through the location of the 114 even-strength shots Toskala has faced, I estimate that the expected shooting percentage against him should have been 6.97%, or approximately eight goals against. In reality, he gave up 11.
So if we assume that Toskala is a league-average goaltender, what are the odds that he gave up 11 goals instead of the expected 8 just by luck? 16.7%. In other words, if six league-average goaltenders faced the same shots as Toskala, one of them would have done as badly as he has. This doesn't mean he's league-average, but it's not really an indication that he's any worse than we thought he was two weeks ago.
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wait
I’m confused. We’ve been discussing this for what seems like forever at PPP and this is the first time anyone has come up with ANYTHING that says Vesa is even league average… what’s going on??
"The only way out is in a body bag. Go Leafs Go." - Blinky
by Karina on Oct 13, 2009 5:32 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
His even-strength save percentage over the last four seasons is 941 vs 940 expected and 939 league average. His 5-on-5 save percentage adjusted for shot quality since he joined the Leafs is one point above-average.
He was awful at 4-on-5 last year, which dragged down his overall SVPCT. But at evens, he’s average.
Overall, he’s -1.5 wins below average per season (due to the PK.)
by Hawerchuk on Oct 13, 2009 5:40 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
hmm
but doesn’t the fact that his his save % drops so much when it’s 5 on 4 give credit to that extra player on the ice for making Toskala better, rather than saying that Toskala is better than his PK save % says?
"The only way out is in a body bag. Go Leafs Go." - Blinky
by Karina on Oct 13, 2009 5:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Vesa Toskala: Does he really suck this much?
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Oh hellz yeah
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by clrkaitken on Oct 13, 2009 5:41 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I think...
he is a league average goaltender.
He just happens to play on a team that can’t play defence to save its life, and is awful when down a man. His confidence is also just about all gone. It’s the perfect storm.
Toskala proved he could do a decent job in San Jose. Since arriving in Toronto, his workload has increased, and his numbers have suffered. Is there a relationship there? I think so.
Toskala hasn’t been able to get it done in Toronto. He might be able to do the job somewhere else, but the Toronto chapter of this career has been a failure, and he’ll no longer be a Leaf after this season, and maybe before the season is out.
In the end, he’s just another goalie that Toronto ate up. I only hope we can’t say the same thing about Jonas Gustavsson.
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by eyebleaf on Oct 13, 2009 5:44 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
Good call, eyebleaf. Some players just don’t work out with certain teams. Doesn’t mean that player is always going to be that bad, but some situations just don’t work out.
by koopa kid on Oct 14, 2009 1:38 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
To put it nicely....
He’s average.
In Toronto, he’s sucked, but the onus shouldn’t be on him mainly. The defence (especially for this season thus far) has royally screwed Toskala over by being craptacular.
I see his time in T.O. ending before the deadline if he doesn’t get his act together. Perhaps his time has already passed.
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by Kavel Pubina on Oct 13, 2009 6:04 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
His average over the last four seasons
has been slightly better than the league average?
could it be after a few hip surgeries and a heavier than he can handle workload, he’s finished?
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by blurr1974 on Oct 13, 2009 6:04 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
So, chicken-and-egg question: is Toskala the reason the Leafs’ PK is so bad, or is the Leafs’ PK the reason Toskala’s PK SV% is so different from his EV SV%? I’m betting the real answer is closer to the latter than the former.
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by Jonathan Willis on Oct 13, 2009 6:32 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I’ll bet you’re right. I’ll check it out…
by Hawerchuk on Oct 13, 2009 7:15 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Sorry for the dumb-guy question, but is this data counting all shots – even those that miss the net? If so, I’d love to know if/how the numbers change when addressing only those shots that Toskala could/should save.
If the data is just shots on goal, I’m totally stumped by these numbers. Toskala has looked absolutely terrible this year and I find it really hard to believe another goalie could look so consistently horrible and be beaten by such routine shots.
Bitter Leaf Fan: a life-long Toronto Maple Leafs fan comments on the team, the media and the exasperation...
by mf37 on Oct 13, 2009 6:38 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
It includes all shots. I think the general consensus is that every shot taken needs to be included in the analysis, like we do automatically with shootouts. I’d include blocked shots too, but we don’t know where the shot originated from.
If you use just shots on goal, Toskala’s performance is a little more unlikely, but still 1-in-10 or 1-in-12 for a league-average goalie.
by Hawerchuk on Oct 13, 2009 7:14 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Thanks for the update.
Why include all shots directed at the net? Wouldn’t that have a huge levelling effect on goalie performance? They all “stop” the shots that miss.
Bitter Leaf Fan: a life-long Toronto Maple Leafs fan comments on the team, the media and the exasperation...
by mf37 on Oct 14, 2009 11:10 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Goaltenders impact shots missing the net. Plus we want to evaluate players (ie – Corsi number), teams and goaltenders using the same stats.
by Hawerchuk on Oct 14, 2009 11:53 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I’d love to know how many shots miss the net due to goaltending (or if such a thing could ever be measured with any accuracy). For every goalie cutting down an angle and forcing a player wide, there’s a Lee Stempniak missing a wide-open cage and Ian White shooting wide from the point.
Bitter Leaf Fan: a life-long Toronto Maple Leafs fan comments on the team, the media and the exasperation...
by mf37 on Oct 14, 2009 3:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
Average? Really?
Gabe,
I don’t know if you read Ken Krzywicki’s recent essay on Adjusted Shot Quality (http://www.hockeyanalytics.com/Research_files/SQ-DistAdj-RS0809-Krzywicki.pdf), but he shows the Leafs’ team defensive shot quality allowed as having affected their team SV% by -.005 last season.
I.e. – average SV% was .909, but the Leafs’ predicted SV% with an average goalie would be .904. Toskala’s actual SV% was .891, which is quite a bit below that mark.
I’m fairly skeptical of all the SQ models at this point, with regards to their predictive value, perhaps due to the amount of noise they are capturing (which is perhaps due to observer bias, errors in assumptions about shot distance → goal probability, etc.), but I will say that Ken’s numbers do seem fairly reasonable to me numerically in terms of shot quality’s actual effect on team SV%. (By his measures, the spread in SV% difference due to shot quality from the worst team to the best team is .011, which doesn’t strike me as unreasonable.)
Toskala’s ES SV% over the past three seasons is .912 on 3295 shots. Overall, I’m not sure how comfortable I’d be betting on him being an average goalie. (Note: all the numbers in this post pertain to SOG only – no missed shots included.)
IMO, while many in Leafs-land are looking for answers along the lines of “what’s wrong with this team? bad defense? no heart? no motivation? poor coaching? blah blah blah”, if they had just signed Roloson/Biron/Craig Anderson/etc, i.e. – if they put a decent goalie in net (as well as get a tad fewer bad bounces) – it’ll be amazing how their team is suddenly playing with “heart.” :)
by sunnymehta.com on Oct 14, 2009 6:36 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs
I did this a couple of different ways:
1. 2007-08 and 2008-09: 5-on-5 save percentage, just goals and shots, not adjusted for arena bias. I get Leafs opponent shot quality at 902 vs league average 909. Toskala is 901 over the course of two years – 07-08 he was +5, 08-09 he was -6.
2. 2005-06 through 2008-09: Even-strength save percentage, goals/shots/misses, adjusted for arena bias overall. I get Leafs opponent shot quality of 939 over the last seasons, and Toskala with a 936 or so.
3. 2007-08 and 2008-09: 4-on-5 Leafs opponent shot data. In particular, their worst-in-the-league performance last year, both in shot volume and shot length, which really pulled down his Save Pct.
Ken is working just from shot distance and not the x-y data, so he gets a different model to begin with, and he doesn’t differentiate between 4-on-5 and 3-on-5, where the Leafs had a 615 save percentage last year. These two situations need to be broken out separately, but unfortunately, there isn’t even historical data at 3-on-5 to generate a reliable model for it.
by Hawerchuk on Oct 14, 2009 9:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
ah, interesting. that’s pretty cool that you’ve been as exhaustive as basically possible with the data resources we have at this point.
question: on number 2 in your post above (Leafs at 939 including misses), what’s league average?
is there any place on BTN where i can look at Sv% Including Missed Shots both by team and by goaltender?
by sunnymehta.com on Oct 14, 2009 9:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
939 is the league average. That’s what makes this data so hazy. Ken doesn’t include misses (I don’t believe.) So you can get so many different results – like fielding in baseball. But they’d have to agree (like with Backstrom) to draw a real conclusion.
by Hawerchuk on Oct 14, 2009 11:42 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs
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