Updated Value Goalie Rankings: Discrepencies, Hot/Cold, Predictions

Hello Everyone! I will be again be diving into an update on my Value Goalie Rankings. You can find an explanation of the rankings and related constructs (Quality Weeks, Really Bad Weeks, and Star Weeks) here. And the previous update here. The TL;DR version is that the conventional rankings for goalies in categories leagues are broken. My rankings account for the true value that goalies have contributed to your fantasy teams. These rankings are strictly for categories leagues, and mainly for leagues that count these four Cats (W, GAA, SV%, SO).

I will be providing an update every month; where I will be highlighting some goalies with discrepancies in their perceived value, taking a look at the hottest and coldest goalies over the last month, and providing some insight to do the fool’s job of predicting future goalie performance.

So, let’s dive in! Here are the current top 20 goalies through Week 18 (excludes this week’s games):

The full rankings can be found here: (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1URlVd2ryeYvdHGzoBzqrg2UY6-aNjcGH-_WbK9JmbAw/edit?usp=sharing)

Discrepancies

I’d like to again point out the biggest differences in my value rankings to Yahoo’s current rankings. These goalies’ perceived value may be very different to their true value because of the discrepancy:

Alexandar Georgiev has been the 5th best goalie this season, better than his current ranking of 11 in Yahoo. He has only had two Really Bad Weeks, and has consistently provided Quality Weeks (78%) to his fantasy owners. His 6 Star Weeks are very respectable as well. Even without stellar cumulative stats (2.72 GAA, 917 sv%, and 2 SOs; the reason he’s low in Yahoo’s rankings), he provides consistent value to his fantasy teams.

Ilya Sorokin is still SLIGHTLY overvalued in Yahoo’s rankings due to his great cumulative stats and shutout numbers (2.43, .924, 5). He is the 4th best goalie according to Yahoo. He should be in the running for the Vezina putting up those numbers on a subpar team, but we are looking for value in H2H cats leagues, not real life. I won’t dive too deep into him as I have in my previous articles, but he’s just overvalued.

Sergei Bobrovsky has been the 24th best goalie; his Yahoo ranking is 53. His bad stretches (his 4 Really Bad Weeks) have been extremely bad, hurting his cumulative stats immensely. But he still has an acceptable rate of Quality Weeks (53%) as well as a healthy rate of Star Weeks (27%), providing positive value overall so far. He seemed to have found his game again, as have the Panthers. Don’t let those cumulative stats scare you away. This is a great candidate where his true value doesn’t match Yahoo’s rankings BUY LOW.

Frederik Andersen even only playing in nine fantasy weeks has been the 21st best goalie; his Yahoo ranking is 27. If we look at his per week Value Stats, he is right up with Vasilevskiy in the top 10. I would expect more of the same moving forward on a dominant Carolina team. We’ll see if he can stay off the IR.

Jacob Markstrom has been the 42nd best goalie; his Yahoo ranking is 70. He’s been bad and has provided net negative value to his fantasy teams so far, but has still shown a pretty solid 61% rate of Quality weeks. It is the ZERO star weeks that are really hurting his value. Even his Really Bad Week rate isn’t bad (22%); better than Ilya Sorokin, lol. I would trust him to regress to the mean slightly and provide positive value to fantasy teams moving forward.

A few other discrepancies:
Martin Jones has been the 33rd best goalie; his Yahoo ranking is 22.
Jaroslav Halak has been the 16th best goalie; his Yahoo ranking is 40.
Alex Stalock has been the 38th best goalie; his Yahoo ranking is 25.

These rankings are descriptive of these goalies’ performances thus far (through week 18) and not predictive of future performance. But you may be able to exploit the perceived values of the goalies mentioned above in a trade if you think they’ll keep up what they’ve done so far.

Hottest and Coldest Goalies

Linus Ullmark (5-2-0, 1.86, .937, 0) has finally faltered! He ruined his perfect season by only putting up two Quality Weeks in his last three fantasy weeks. Still elite value, not posting a Really Bad Week and showing up for 2 Star Weeks.

Vitek Vanecek (7-0-1, 2.16, .925, 0) has been absolutely dominant and has put up 3 straight Quality weeks, two of them being Star Weeks.

Philipp Grubauer (4-2-2, 1.84, 0.928, 2) has really stepped up this last month and has shown some promise. Overall he has provided negative value (52nd ranked) to his fantasy owners this season, but I am intrigued at him being a top 25 option moving forward.

Pheonix Copley (5-1-1, 2.92, .904, 1) is having an amazing season for LA. He had three straight Quality Weeks and put up his first Star Week of the season. He is the Kings bona fide starter and has only 1 Really Bad Week this season (10%). He’s been a top 20 fantasy goalie since getting called up and has been consistently average. I’d be happy to have that on my fantasy team.

Jaroslav Halak (4-0-1, 2.18, 0.928, 0) has outshined Igor Shesterkin the last month providing top 15 value for anyone rostering him. He won’t be pulling too many starts from Shesterkin, but he is worth those spot streams as he is getting a start once a week. Speaking of Igor Shesterkin (5-1-1, 3.13, .895, 0). He has been swiss cheese lately. Still getting the support for those wins, but he has really let poolies down with only 1 out of three quality weeks. At least he hasn’t had a Really Bad Week though.

A few highly owned goalies have absolutely punished fantasy owners the last month. These include Spencer Knight, Stuart Skinner, Marc-Andre Fleury, and Jordan Binnington. The only big surprise there is Spencer Knight. I think he can turn that around moving forward. The rest of the guys I would steer clear.

Predictions

Let’s check in on last month’s predictions. I would like to point out that I did not look ahead to that two-week fantasy week over the All-Star break, so I will be pro-rating my 4-week predictions down to the 3 fantasy weeks.

Igor Shesterkin will have 4 Quality Weeks WRONG.

Pyotr Kochetkov AND Anti Raanta will both have 4 Quality Weeks splitting starts if Freddy Andersen battles the injury bug all month (injured last night). HALF RIGHT. Turns out Andersen didn’t miss time, but Raanta came through with 3/3 Quality Weeks.

Linus Ullmark will have finally falter showing up for only 3 Quality Weeks out of 4. Meanwhile Jeremy Swayman will have 4 Quality Weeks and 3 Star Weeks pushing Ullmark for that 1A job.
HALF RIGHT! Ullmark no longer has a 100% Quality Week rate. Swayman has played well, but not to the extend I predicted.

After a great month, Vitek Vanecek will fall down the rankings with only 2 Quality weeks out of the next 4, also having 1 Really Bad Week. Mackenzie Blackwood will earn more starts and provide positive value to fantasy teams who grab him. HALF WRONG. Very wrong on Vanecek as he was the top goalie this past month with 2/3 Star Weeks and 3/3 Quality Weeks. Though, I was right about Blackwood. He was a top 25 goalie this past month netting positive value to those who owned him.

Andrei Vasilevskiy will continue his strong play, moving up the rankings with 4 Quality weeks and 2+ star Weeks. RIGHT. Vasi was tied as the top goalie with 2/3 Star Weeks and 3/3 Quality Weeks.

I’ll call that a record of 1-1-3. Not terrible playing the fools game of predicting goalie. Let’s see if I can improve below:

I’m doubling down… Igor Shesterkin will have 4 Quality Weeks. (even with a bad start to week 19). He will also have 2 Star Weeks and re-enter the conversation as the league’s best goalie.

Ilya Sorokin will continue his up and down play, posting 3 Quality Weeks, 2 of them being Star Weeks, but also 1 Really Bad Week.

Frederik Andersen will post 4 Quality Weeks, but Anti Raanta will continue to get a start a week and show up for 3 Quality Weeks and no Really Bad Weeks.

After posting his first Star Week, Pheonix Copley will find a groove and post at least one more, while having no Really Bad Weeks and 3 Quality Weeks.

Philipp Grubauer will continue his strong play lately and post top 10 value with 4 Quality Weeks, 1 Star Week, and no Really Bad Weeks. He’ll take the majority of starts away from Martin Jones.

With 4 Back-to-backs over the next 4 weeks. Marc-Andre Fleury will still get starts and he will turn it around after watching his backup outplay him. Gustavsson will get more starts, but Fleury will have 3 Quality Weeks, 1 Star Week, and 1 Really Bad Week, still top 20 value.

These are new Quality constructs aimed to help show past value in H2H category leagues (that utilize W, SV%, GAA, SO). They could be altered to better fit leagues that use a different combination of categories, but this is a good start.

That’s all for this month! I would love to hear some feedback and answer any questions you may have, hit me up on Twitter @fantasycheddar

I post an update to these rankings every week on Twitter. See you next month!

• Ryan Brudner from Top Cheddar Fantasy