The Great Coyote Goalie Debate: Dubnyk Vs. Smith

Dec 27, 2014; Glendale, AZ, USA; Arizona Coyotes goalie Devan Dubnyk in the first period against the Anaheim Ducks at Gila River Arena. The Coyotes defeated the Ducks 2-1 in an overtime shootout. Mandatory Credit: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

The Arizona Coyotes goalie situation has been a very hot topic among fans this season — should the desert dogs go with $34 million man Mike Smith, or award a higher start percentage to the one-year signee in Devan Dubnyk?

Recently, it would seem that Dubnyk is the answer. The team has rallied behind the backup throughout 2014, with the team finishing the year winning three straight contests with him between the pipes. Dubnyk won his ninth game on Monday, putting him four wins ahead of Smith on seven fewer starts.

The stats all lean towards Dubnyk being the better option this season:

Dubnyk- 2.49 .925 SV% 9-3-2

Smith-3.48 .884 SV% 5-15-2

Dubnyk does indeed have the edge in pretty much every category over Mike Smith — but where do Dubnyk’s numbers rank league wide?

Goalie charts can get messy, so I’ve taken away thirty-six of the qualifying netminders from the chart. This is just Smith, Dubnyk, and the league leaders — and as you can see, Dubnyk actually matches up well with two of the league’s best goalies this season. In both Adjusted SV% and Unadjusted SV%, Dubnyk is closer to Jonathan Quick and Corey Crawford than he is to his team’s own starter. I included Pekka Rinne on this chart, because he is probably having the best season of any goalie in the NHL — and since Smith is second to last in qualifying goaltender stats, this gives you an idea of where Dubnyk falls on the chart.

It’s clear that Dubnyk ranks closer to the best netminder than to the worse — he’s second among these players in SV%, and is neck and neck with Quick in AD SV%. The only thing he lacks is ice time -has played in about half the minutes of both Quick and Rinne. Regardless of his actual TOI though Dubnyk still faces more shots per 60 minutes than anyone else on the chart.

Dec 29, 2014; Glendale, AZ, USA; Arizona Coyotes goalie Devan Dubnyk (40) makes a save during the first period against the Philadelphia Flyers at Gila River Arena. Mandatory Credit: Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports

Basically, this chart shows what we already knew — that Devan Dubnyk is having a pretty solid season for the Arizona Coyotes.

Predlines

This comes as little surprise, though — what many are concerned about is the sustainability of his play. Is it on par with what he has done in the past?

Surprisingly, the answer is yes. The 2014-2015 season is actually pretty close to Dubnyk’s career stats.

Prior to signing in Arizona, Dubnyk spent a season split between the Edmonton Oilers and the Nashville Predators — and Preds fans are the first ones cautioning the Coyotes not to expect Dubnyk’s success to last. Last season was his worst season on record since 2009-2010, when he entered the league as a rookie.

Over the 2013-2014 season, Dubnyk posted a .891 SV% and a GAA of 3.43 — but interestingly, those numbers were a big regression from most of his time in Edmonton. Over five seasons with the Oilers, “Doobs” posted a SV% of .910 and a GAA of 2.88.

Maybe his 2013-2014 season placed an unfair set of expectations on Dubnyk, and this season gives him a chance to finally right his career. His defense has been stellar in front of him, and he admitted that being shipped off to Nashville while his wife stayed behind in Edmonton with their new baby put extra strain on him; both of these factors could being having a huge impact on his performance, which would account for the rise in production of his career numbers.

Below, you can see that this season isn’t too far removed from some of his better seasons in Edmonton. In fact, this season his AD SV% is only his third best season in that category. If this truly was a “statistically magical” season like a lot of people want to believe, than his adjusted save percentage should show that — but it doesn’t.

Is Dubnyk just being faced with easier saves?

This is another huge argument that many have had regarding Dubnyk’s elevated stats — so I took a look at his Hextally over the course of this season compared to his career. (Hextally, for those who don’t know, measures a goalie’s save percentage for shots taken from various spots on the ice).

For Devan Dubnyk, this season has seen him perform better than league average in holding his opponents to low shooting percentages from the area known as the slot. This is actually something he has done throughout his career, though, so once again — we shouldn’t be surprised he’s doing well this season, and we shouldn’t expect those numbers to drastically regress any time soon.

On a Hextally chart, deeper red represents a worse save percentage when faced with shots in that particular area. Green is league average, and blue is better than the norm.

Keeping that in mind, here is Dubnyk’s Hextally from just this season:

Now, here is the same chart — but instead of just looking at this season, it shows Dubnyk’s Hextally over his entire career (through the 2013-2014 season).

The biggest difference this season for Dubnyk is that he is making the saves he is supposed to make — the shots coming from outside the slot area, and from back near the blueline.

All of this shows that Dubnyk is actually playing to the expectations his prior stats have set, showing that we actually shouldn’t be too surprised by what he is doing. Combine this with a defense that sure as heck has a lot more talent than the Edmonton Oilers, and you should expect Dubnyk’s numbers to increase — which they have — and stay there.

NEXT: The curious case of Mike Smith

Dec 22, 2014; Vancouver, British Columbia, CAN; Arizona Coyotes goaltender Mike Smith (41) enters the ice for the start of the first period against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena. Mandatory Credit: Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports

I don’t have to tell you that Mike Smith has struggled this season.

He is having the worst statistical season of his career — literally. You can graph it. In the very first graph I shared with you, you may not have even noticed Mike Smith– he was the furthest away from relevance you can be in that particular graph, hiding in the far bottom left corner. His SV% and AD SV% are among the league’s worst for goalies that have played the type of minutes Smith has played this season.

However, not unlike Dubnyk’s 2013-2014 season, this season is an anomaly for Mike Smith. For the most part, he has been near league average — with the exception of his iconic playoff run, Smith has been somewhat unremarkable.

(Told you this season was bad.)

If you subscribe to the idea that over the course of time, statistics will regress to the mean (in this case, expecting Mike Smith to regress in a positive direction, back to near league average), then you can argue that at some point this season something has to give — and Smith will return to form. For Devan Dubnyk, though, that never happened last season — he needed both a new season and a new team to regain his form.

Coyotes fans — and for that matter the front office and on ice personnel — of course can’t afford to assume Smith needs the same change of pace. Smith signed a six year, $34 million deal prior to last season — meaning he won’t become a free agent until 2020.

Why not trade him then?

Well, he has a no move clause in his contract through next season… and a limited no trade clause through the end of the contract. Mike Smith is here to stay — even if he waived his NMC, his cap hit is far higher than most teams would be willing to take on. We have to hope he regresses back to the mean on his own.

With that said, though, what exactly is going wrong for Mike Smith this season?

Many have argued that the defense in front of Smitty has been less than stellar — especially in comparison to the kind of defense Devan Dubnyk has been getting — but simply put, Smith is not making the saves that Dubnyk has.

Much like earlier with Dubnyk, here is the Hextally data from Mike Smith this season.

Makes it pretty easy to see why he is struggling this season — based on his Hextally chart, it appears that the league is feasting upon Mike Smith in the good scoring areas. This could be the consequence of bad defending in front of him, which would explain his lowered SV% –but not to the point at which Mike Smith has fallen to this season. If he was performing at the league average, like he has shown in the past, than those red dots should look a little lighter than they are this season.

Case in point is how Smith has done in these areas in previous seasons.

That, my friends, is exactly what a league average goaltender looks like — and at some point this season, I would expect Mike Smith begins to look more like this and less like the former graph.

Why do I say this is what league average looks like, though?

Check out what War On Ice has as it’s league average Hextally Chart.

Looks familiar, doesn’t it?

It’s hard to accept, particularly for Coyotes fans, but this is what Mike Smith is as a goaltender. I know it sucks to hear it, because we all have those memories from the run to the Conference Finals. Mike Smith was a top-5 goaltender in the league in the 2011-2012 season (still should have been nominated for the Vezina) but over his career, that’s as unsustainable as his poor play this fall. We have to realize that Mike Smith is league average, and will be for the rest of his career — assuming he hasn’t permanently declined for some reason or another.

(In case you want to see what an elite goaltender looks like, here is the same hextally graph for the career of Tukka Rask. As you can see, his league-leading save percentages cover a larger area for shots taken. Mike Smith has one season with these numbers — Rask has multiple.)

NEXT: Conclusions