Why goaltenders are approaching first-round extinction

Everyone knows you need a good goalie in order to win games. But what you may not know is that many of today’s star goaltenders weren’t always the cat’s pajamas. In fact, many of them came from relative obscurity.

In the 5-year period from 1997-2001, 14 goalies were drafted in the first round. Apparently this number satisfied some type of equilibrium, because it stayed exactly the same from 2002-2006. Then suddenly things changed. In 2007, not a single goalie was taken in the first round – the first time this had occurred since 1992. Then it happened again in 2009, and again this past year. Collectively, only 4 goalies were drafted in the first round between 2007-2011. Why?

It turns out that this trend coincides fairly directly with the rise of free agent goalie signings out of Europe. Since 2006, a tremendous number of undrafted goalies have come from the European leagues, including starters like Niklas Backstrom, Jonas Hiller, and Antti Niemi, as well as capable backups Sergei Bobrovsky, Alexander Salak, Jonas Gustavsson, and Henrik Karlsson. There’s one very common attribute that most of these European imports share: advanced age. Backstrom was 28 when first he came to the NHL; Karlsson was 27; Hiller, Gustavsson, and Niemi were 25, while Salak is just starting his rookie year at age 24. Bobrovsky is the youngest of them all, beginning last year at just 22. In a league where we expect many players to jump into the league in their early 20’s, most goalies are barely getting their toes wet till well into their mid 20’s.

Goalies Develop by Sundial

The average NHL goalie is 29 years of age. That means that a goalie drafted today likely won’t be ready to play for 11 years, or until the year 2022. Former first-round picks like Cam Ward and Carey Price may buck this trend by playing at a high level in their early 20’s, but they are extreme cases. Furthermore, there’s very little assurance that a goalie who’s selected in the 1^st round pick will be better than his draft lagging peers. Here are the 4 goalies who have won the last 6 Vezina Trophies, along with their draft position:

2006                           Kiprusoff                   5^th round

2007, 2008                Brodeur                     1^st round

2010                            Miller                         5^th round

2009, 2011                 Thomas                      9^th round

And here are the only other goalies to finish in the top-3 in Vezina voting since ‘06:

2006, 2007, 2008      Lundqvist                  7^th round

2007, 2011                  Luongo                       1^st round

2008                            Nabokov                     9^th round

2009                            Backstrom                  Undrafted

2009                            S. Mason                     3^rd round

2010                            Bryzgalov                    2^nd round

2011                            Rinne                           8^th round

Notice how only two of these goalies were drafted in the first round? In fact, of the 11 listed, 7 of them were drafted after the 5^th round (or not at all). In my opinion, the three best goalies in the league today are Tim Thomas, Ryan Miller, and Henrik Lundqvist, and none of them were drafted in the top 100 picks of the draft. And of the top-20 or so goalies in the league, only 5 of them were drafted in the first round. (See appendix for complete list).

Based on all this evidence, it’s no wonder that NHL General Managers aren’t using their prized early picks to select goaltenders. As I mentioned in this post last week, of the top-20 goal scorers in the NHL last year, only one was selected outside of the first round. If you can potentially acquire an excellent goaltender in the 5^th round or later, but can only get a great forward in the first round of the draft, then you’ll learn quickly that forwards are of far greater value at the draft since goaltenders can be easily acquired with later (historically less valuable) picks. In the world of finance, they call this ‘opportunity cost’ – i.e, if you pay $10 for something, that’s $10 you don’t have to spend somewhere else. Similarly, if you use a first round pick on a goalie, that’s a first round pick you can’t use on a forward.

Taking this even further, if you can acquire a solid #1 goalie like Tomas Vokoun in free agency for 1 year at $1.5M, (somewhat unique circumstances, but it did happen) while an *average, 31-year-old 1^st line centre like Brad Richards gets a mammoth 9 year, $60M contract in unrestricted free agency, this will further entice you to draft a forward early. This underpayment for a quality NHL goaltender and subsequent overpayment, albeit for a quality NHL centre, suggests that the supply of capable goaltenders exceeds demand, while the demand for highly skilled forwards exceeds supply. As is usually the case, supply and demand rules. NHL GM’s adjust accordingly.

(*To call Richards an average centre iceman is no disrespect, it is only to say that when compared to the other 30 ‘first-line centres’ in the league, it’s hard to argue that he’s in the top-10 with guys like Crosby, Datsyuk, Thornton, Toews, Staal, Getzlaf,  etc. If falling outside the top-10, he is by default, average.)

So what of defencemen? Well that’s another post. For now, suffice to say that the only players to win the Norris Trophy since the lockout (aside from Nick Lidstrom – himself a 3^rd round pick) are Duncan Keith (2^nd round pick) and Zdeno Chara (3^rd round pick).

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Appendix

Here is a complete list of the 64 goalies – 60 of whom are expected to play in the NHL this year, and 4 other veteran goalies who are currently without a team (Nabokov, Turco, Emery, Conklin). There are no hard rankings per se, but Vezina voting results and cup wins/appearances were taken into consideration when ordering them.