Who's the better goaltender? Ryan Miller vs Roberto Luongo
by Hawerchuk on Feb 27, 2010 9:33 PM EST
47 comments
I was talking to a friend of mine last night about the gold medal game, and he said he'd rather have Ryan Miller in goal than Roberto Luongo. Why? Miller has a 930 save percentage this season; Luongo is just 919. Not only that, Miller has "looked better" so far in the Olympics. I tried to convince him that 50 or so starts (let alone 4) were too small a sample size to establish a goaltender's true talent, and that we should look at a number of seasons (various people have previously found that four seasons is about right.) He was unconvinced - so I thought we should look a little deeper.
First, let's pick some arbitrary lengths of time to compare Luongo and Miller over - first, overall save percentage:
| Luongo | Miller | |
| Last Two Months | 923 | 922 |
| 2009-10 | 919 | 930 |
| 2005-10 | 919 | 915 |
So Luongo and Miller have put up the same numbers over the last two months, and Luongo has been better over the last five seasons (and four and three...) But Miller was better during the first two and a half months of this season. Does cutting off our performance measure at the beginning of the year give us a better estimate of their relative abilities than longer or shorter periods? Well, let's say you're still not convinced - let's eliminate bias caused by having to kill penalties and look at their even-strength save percentage over the last five seasons:
| ES SV% | Miller | Luongo |
| 2009-10 | 932 | 934 |
| 2008-09 | 927 | 936 |
| 2007-08 | 915 | 929 |
| 2006-07 | 928 | 928 |
| 2005-06 | 919 | 926 |
| 2005-10 | 924 | 930 |
Over the course of a full season, Miller has never bested Luongo at even-strength. Luongo was better in the playoffs too:
| ES SV% | Miller | Luongo |
| 2008-09 | 930 | |
| 2006-07 | 938 | 941 |
| 2005-06 | 926 | |
| 2005-10 | 932 | 936 |
Over the last five seasons, Luongo was also more likely to limit his opponent to between 0 and 2 goals:
| SHUTOUT | 1 or 2 G | >2 GOALS | |
| Luongo | 29 | 159 | 162 |
| Miller | 19 | 154 | 159 |
I don't think there's a whole lot of evidence to suggest that Ryan Miller is better than Roberto Luongo. If a high save percentage in two and a half months out of one season was all you needed to be the best goaltender in the world, then Scott Clemmensen would be someone's starting goaltender; if all you needed was a handful of good games, then the Ottawa Senators wouldn't have sent Mike Brodeur to the minors.
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Has anybody done any autocorrelation work on Goalie stats. It seems somewhat intuitive that there would be some autocorrelation.
Please describe further. I know autocorrelation in a signal processing context, but not in regression.
I’ve used it in time series and spatial analysis. I view it as modeling the error term. It often ends up as just adding an Autoregressive model to your regression.
by Mogen_david on Feb 28, 2010 12:12 PM EST up reply actions
If a high save percentage in two and a half months out of one season was all you needed to be the best goaltender in the world, then Scott Clemmensen would be someone’s starting goaltender; if all you needed was a handful of good games, then the Ottawa Senators wouldn’t have sent Mike Brodeur to the minors.
I reckon the idea is that Miller has been getting better and better, and probably behind a Sabres defense that isn’t as stalwart as the Canucks’ D, while Luongo had already established himself behind a defensively-oriented Florida team and then behind a very good Canucks squad. That, quite frankly, is enough for me. I’ve also always felt Luongo gets more credit than he should, especially during his time in Florida—I never saw anything special from him, basically knowing which saves he could and could not make beforehand. Not the same with Miller, I feel.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
I’m not sure what you mean by “defensively-oriented Florida”, but it sounds an awful like “oriented towards keeping the puck in the defensive zone”, considering how regularly they were among the very worst teams in the league for conceding shots against.
Luongo was routinely shelled while playing in Florida and routinely kept that team afloat. He established himself as an elite goalie by salvaging a terrible defense.
Seemed to me like Florida at least did a decent job limiting the very-good quality chances against. Maybe that was only against Washington though.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 11:40 AM EST up reply actions
See:
http://www.behindthenethockey.com/2009/10/10/1079378/even-strength-goaltender-shot
A team that limited quality chances as a percentage of all opportunities would have a higher expected save percentage. Florida’s is 938 with Vokoun (approx league average). Luongo has seen 942; Miller 941. Jacques Lemaire’s teams can do this, but the effect is tiny.
Don’t be insulted, but what you’ve written here is complete lunacy. Miller was crowned the starter because he had an extremely high save percentage during October, November and part of December 2009. Luongo’s demonstrably the better goalie, but Miller is still pretty good. The gap between them is small enough that you won’t necessarily see it over the course of a season, but it does show up over 200 games.
The impression I'm getting
is that you wouldn’t have considered Drew Doughty a lock (as far as that definition goes) for the Canadian team. I did, 2nd behind Chris Pronger. In the same vein, that’s why I buy that Miller is better than Luongo. Miller hasn’t shown to have peaked yet, according to the stats, and therefore we can’t judge if he’ll continue to get better or not. Luongo seems to be playing at his top form and doesn’t seem like he’ll get better, and they’re roughly the same now.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 11:42 AM EST up reply actions
Canada’s #1 and #2 defensemen are Niedermayer and Weber. Pronger’s #6 and has been benched frequently in the Olympics.
Over the last five years, Ryan Miller has never had a higher even-strength save percentage than Roberto Luongo. They’ve played for roughly equivalent teams (if anything, Buffalo was better) and neither benefited from a Lemaire-style defensive scheme.
I don’t know where you get this notion of “peaking” from, but there’s no evidence for it. You can’t tell the difference between Luongo and Miller just by watching a handful (or even a few dozen) games.
Canada’s #1 and #2 defensemen are Niedermayer and Weber. Pronger’s #6 and has been benched frequently in the Olympics.
Whenever I was thinking about who I’d choose for Canada’s blueline, I went Pronger, Keith, Doughty (in that order; forgot about Keith before). That was my analogy.
My point: Seems to me like Luongo is trending sideways or even slightly down, Miller trending up. That could very well be due to the fact that Miller is a year or two younger (and thus a year or two behind, one would expect). They are roughly over the course of this season, but in Luongo’s case, that I would think is a result of him being super consistent, whereas with Miller getting better and better (and honestly, Miller started hot, got cold (relatively), then has been playing better and better since). That’s what I meant.
I know you’re one for the numbers. I’m not as much. The trends is the only approaching-numerical evidence I have.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 12:44 PM EST up reply actions
It just doesn’t work that way. Observed performance fluctuates quite a bit over short samples (see Kiprusoff, Miika vs CZE and USA) while true talent stays relatively constant over several years.
I think you’re fitting your opinions to the data after the fact. If I’d told you that Miller had a better save percentage than Luongo this season, you’d say Miller was trending up. But I tell you that Miller was better in October and November and worse the last two months, and you say, well, Miller was up, then down, now he’s back up again…And that Luongo’s problem is that he’s too consistent. How do we know Ryan Miller isn’t going to hit his decline phase at noon today as soon as he gets on the ice?
I view it more as nitpicking tiny trends in data that may end up meaning nothing, but fair enough.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 2:44 PM EST up reply actions
Err Difference....
Doughty is in his 2nd year, was thought to be a super Defensive Prospect, and his numbers have greatly improved. We are expecting his improvements to be real.
(In addition, there’s an extra long-term advantage of bringing a younger D man to the team to get him used to playing with these players, as you expect him to make future teams).
We expect Doughty’s true talent level to be closer to his recent performance than his performance last year.
With Miller, he’s 29! We expect him to be where he was, not to improve dramatically.
For Example, take TIM THOMAS. Last year he was the best goalie….but he was THIRTY FOUR. OF COURSE HE WAS GOING TO REGRESS.
Thus we’re better off looking at the last couple years of data for miller than taking this year’s small sample.
Goalies progress differently
Henrik Lundqvist I think is still improving. Heck, Tomas Vokoun has been improving (and not as if he’s played on a great team, minus one or two Nashville teams). Goalies probably peak latest of any skater—Martin Brodeur wins record anyone? I think it’s quite fathomable that Miller is still improving. Luongo, not improving as much, I’d think he’s playing at his best right now—about equal to Miller, who, as far as we know, continues to get better.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 12:46 PM EST up reply actions
Wins doesn’t particularly mean anything other than the goalie has started for a long time. Brodeur’s greatness has been questioned in recent years.
And yes goalies might age differently…but the difference is not comparable at age 28-29 as Doughty in ages 19 to age 20!
Improvement in later ages, even goalies, requires a sustained improvement over a long period for us to believe it to be real. We don’t have that with Miller, as seen above. And while i haven’t done the math, i think Gabe could easily show that a true talent .915 goalie could achieve a .930 in 60 games..and that this wouldn’t be an improbable result.
Like i said look at Tim Thomas:
3 years ago: .905
2 years ago: .920
Last Year : .933
This Year : .910
Was he really a true talent .933 last year? Almost certainly not.
How about Vokuon?
4 years ago: .919
3 years ago: .920
2 years ago: .919
Last Year: .926
This Year: .930
What does this tell us? Nothing. We expect his True SV% to be something like .920; having a stretch of 60 games that’s a .926 wouldn’t be surprising, nor would a stretch of 50 games with a .930. He could easily have a .915 or .910 next year.
Same with Miller.
By the numbers above, I see, considering how good Buffalo was in the couple of seasons post-lockout, a 4-5 year improvement for Miller. Luongo got better too, but even though VAN is much improved from last year IMO, his ES sv% is down. They’re so close in age that the margin, as expected, is pretty thin, but I see a regressing Buffalo team having a goalie with improving numbers while an improving VAN team having a goalie with not-improving-nor-decreasing numbers.
Miller may very well be a “translation,” if you will, of Luongo, shifted a couple of seasons into the future, or he may not be too. Can’t tell before next season.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 1:08 PM EST up reply actions
Another thing that may play into this: no definitive numbers on me, but the superior defensive teams are in the West, the better offensive teams in the East. Makes Miller’s numbers all the more impressive.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 1:11 PM EST up reply actions
Miller’s ES SV% progression since 2005-06:
919 → 928 → 915 → 927 → 932
That is not a 4-year or 5-year improvement. Miller’s the same guy he was when he became a starter after the lockout.
But pts for the Sabres over that span:
110 (05-06)
113
90
91 (08-09)
May mean nothing, but his team hasn’t been as good (granted, there’s probably more parity now).
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 2:46 PM EST up reply actions
You're right
Those sample sizes are too small. But then I go with my eyes. Super impressed with Miller, with Luongo…not so much.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 1:09 PM EST up reply actions
The wins record I meant was the single-season record, 48 or whatever. Thought I should point that out. Sorry for the ambiguity.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 1:14 PM EST up reply actions
Gabe,
are missed shots included in your above numbers? if not, can you show the SV% numbers to us with missed and/or blocked shots included?
also, I found it kind of interesting that
a) a couple olympic squads chose their starting goaltender on merits other than historical save percentage, and their choices likely disagreed with many people around these parts of the internet. (i would’ve taken Bryzgalov over Nabokov, and Backstrom over Kipper).
b) one team (i.e. Canada) chose “incorrectly” at first, but then changed their mind on the basis of one bad game. kind of ironic that a bit of sheisty reasoning led to a correct decision.
I think Miller, Kiprusoff and Nabokov were all “hot” this season, which accounts for their starting roles. Kipper might still be better than Backstrom once you adjust for Lemaire. Brodeur, I can’t explain. I suppose he’s the 2nd-best Canadian goalie.
For 2005-09 save pct w/ missed shots, see: http://www.behindthenethockey.com/2009/10/10/1079378/even-strength-goaltender-shot
Hiller: 952
Vokoun: 950
Backstrom: 950
Luongo: 949
Thomas: 947
Kiprusoff: 947
Brodeur: 946
Halak: 945
Miller: 945
Bryzgalov: 945
Nabokov: 941
Brodeur has been picked ahead of Luongo for years because he is MARTIN BRODEUR, the Greatest Goaltender in History™!
While that last title is highly debatable, it especially misses the crucial difference between “Greatest” and “Best”, and especially the more important one between “Greatest in History” and “Best Right Now”. Luongo has been the latter for a few years, IMO, at least as far as Canada is concerned, but Brodeur kept passing him on the depth chart based almost entirely on his aura and reputation.
FWIW
There’s a big difference in Washington between when Theodore plays and when Varlamov plays (at least, there was last season). The team was so much more confident in front of Varlamov and that showed in the game and in the results. I don’t know how confident the Canadian Olympians are in front of Luongo versus Brodeur, but if I were there, I’d sure feel more comfortable with Brodeur back there.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 1:18 PM EST up reply actions
Consistency, confidence, trending up and down…You should write down your predictions and then look back a year later at how they turned out. I think you’ll find a heavy dose of luck and regression to the mean.
Admittedly, I’m nitpicking, and I’m trying to predict what will happen. I see it as Luongo is super consistent, Miller isn’t, but Miller is on an upswing and a little while ago they were the same, hence now Miller is slightly better. In a couple of seasons Luongo may very well be back on top of Miller.
But really? Luongo’s sv pct goes down while GAA also goes down, Miller stays above .925 but his GAA goes up. I don’t think that’s too irrational.
I also simply can’t buy that confidence isn’t a factor. In the Olympics, it’s too short to know, and probably plays a minimal role if any, but no one can really know aside from the players, and they’re surely not going to tell anyone. And surely to support MathMan’s point, then, the players can’t escape the knowledge of what Brodeur has done (and what Luongo hasn’t), and even if they try to ignore that, I highly doubt they can forget about all that history.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 3:05 PM EST up reply actions
After Brodeur’s game against the US, I’m not sure why that would be. Besides Luongo has been the superior goalie to Brodeur for years now, and he’s actually used to playing behind teams that hang him out to dry, unlike Brodeur who’s spent his whole career behind the Devils’ justly reknowned defensive system.
Frankly, I think that the whole “team plays with more confidence” angle is considerably overvalued. There’s a lot of observer confirmation bias in those observations, I bet. Watching various Habs fans try to come up with all kinds of different reasons to pin Halak’s superior goal support relative to Price on the goaltenders convinced me of that.
Definitely that USA game messes it up, and it’s so close—better phrasing would be not too confident in any of them. But that’s just me.
Confidence shows in the record, for one, with little difference in the goalie stats. Varlamov doesn’t have super-terrific-outstanding numbers, but he’s winning close to 80% of his regular season starts so far. I don’t know how else to explain it.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Feb 28, 2010 2:53 PM EST up reply actions
I explain it by Washington scoring up the wazoo. That’s why Varlamov “wins” so many games.
Goaltender wins is the most useless stat in hockey. It’s taking what’s a team stat and ascribing it to one player — an important player, but one who has only control over a small portion of the game. Every time an analyst starts making a goalie analysis based on wins, I cringe. The sooner people come to their senses and eject that from their psyche, the better.
If it's anything like baseball...
getting goalie wins out of the announcer/“analyst” lexicon is going to take decades. Sabermetric-oriented folks have been arguing against “pitcher wins” for years yet you still see writers point to a guys wins (losses) as a stat that proves how great (bad) a pitcher’s season/career is/has been (see Bert Blyleven).
Yes and no. Hockey announcers talk about scoring chances, and as Vic Ferrari (and others) have shown, they’re the most important thing in the game.
I wonder if anyone ever considered that as a goalie stat — chances prevented and chances saved?
You’d include missed shots and the like in the first, and stick to actual saves in the second. I’m not sure which one would be most meaningful, I’m actually guessing the first.
I suppose until they start tracking scoring chances as an actual published stat, though, rather than as something teams count internally, we won’t get something like that…
I explain it by Washington scoring up the wazoo. That’s why Varlamov "wins" so many games.
He started off 12-1-2 in regular season games—a winning pct I find hard to believe can be solely attributed to the Caps scoring a ton when Varlamov has a poor game, out of pure luck.
There was a stretch in the 3rd of the gold-medal game in which Canada really did tighten up (or the US got their legs)—both are probably indicative to an extent of how penetrable the teams though Luongo was.
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Mar 1, 2010 9:26 AM EST up reply actions
12-1-2 is a team stat. The goalie factors in, obviously, but you don’t get to be 12-1-2 solely because of amazing goaltending. Especially in the case of the Capitals.
The Caps score 3.92 goals a game, which is 0.73 more than the second highest-scoring team in the league. Their 2.81 goals against is perfectly pedestrian (19th in the league) but their insane scoring level still means
Washington wins based on the strength of its scoring, NOT on the strength of its defense and goaltending. Those two are quite average. Varlamov’s “record” is 12-2-2 despite a “pretty good” .916 save percentage because the Caps score almost 4 goals a game, which is unheard of.
Canada “tightening up” is more a factor of being up late in a period than any thought of how “penetrable” a goalie on his way to a .944 save percentage was. Most teams do it when they are up late and the other team start pressing.
To fix my too-quick post, “Their 2.81 goals against is perfectly pedestrian (19th in the league) but their insane scoring level still means they have over a goal-a-game of differential”.
But then how does one explain Theodore and Neuvirth’s records? The numbers for all three goalies aren’t drastically different, yet one wins way more of his starts than the others. I attribute that mostly to confidence (though this season the effect is less).
Ovechkin = Green Backs
by red army line on Mar 2, 2010 9:57 AM EST up reply actions
That’s just silly. Every time someone has attributed a goalie’s better record to his team’s “confidence”, he has played poorly afterwards.
Given enough games, two goalies with the same talent who play on the same team will have the same record – unless one plays more often on the road or in the second game of a back-to-back series, in which case, his team is more likely to lose regardless of who he is.
I’m not a stats enabled fan, so I rely on you smart fellers for that. But what I do know is that Luongo has not enjoyed good defense from the Canucks this year consistently – they have had numerous defencemen injured, including at one point their top 4 I believe.
Complete inconsistency and pairing changes. Bieksa and Mitchell in particular. Erhoff is not a defensive specialist , and it gets thin after him.
When Luongo was injured, they couldn’t win.
That makes Luongo’s numbers impressive, his impact on the team enormous. I am not sure about who Miller has had right in front of him, but if Buffalo has not been hit with defence injuries this year, I would have to say Luongo’s numbers show his superior ability to play at a high level regardless of the team’s circumstances.
His Florida years also back this up. I don’t know of any goalie that has equaled his play over time with the same varying team support. Brodeur is great but his numbers wouldn’t be as good on a less defense oriented team, and particularly without his Devil’s obstruction era minimal rebound years.
All good NHL goalies make the saves, usually, that they are expected to. What makes the special ones is an ability to make a save that might not be expected. The game changing save, not letting in a goal when it is most important.
I am not sure if it is possible, but I would be fascinated to see outcomes if someone was able to derive stats for the unexpected, game or momentum changing save. That is what separates the great from the good for me.
All good NHL goalies make the saves, usually, that they are expected to. What makes the special ones is an ability to make a save that might not be expected. The game changing save, not letting in a goal when it is most important.
Yeah! Momentum! Big saves!
Screw random variations over short periods of time! Screw true talent over long periods of time!
The biggest surprise to me is that a Luongo fan would buy that. Luongo has a mixed record in his big games, not really his fault (no more his fault than any other random sample of 10 games or less from his career) but all the same I would think the Luongo lovers would be all over the career value. For all the wrong reasons of course.
by R O on Mar 2, 2010 6:35 PM EST up reply actions
I think this would be a VERY difficult stat to derive. Especially when you have to consider that some saves that look spectacular are a result of the goalie being out of position, and some saves that look easy are only that way because the goalie was able to read the play and get into a good position.
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