Save percentage told you how many shots a goaltender stopped. It never told you how hard they were.
For most of the sport’s modern history, goaltenders were evaluated with a number that ignored the most important variable: where the shot came from. A netminder behind a defence that concedes only perimeter chances will post an excellent save percentage without doing anything remarkable, and the reverse is equally true.
What save percentage missed
Shot-quality models have changed the evaluation, and the change has been fast. Teams now grade every attempt by location, pre-shot movement and whether the goaltender was screened, producing a measure of goals saved above expectation. On that measure, several consistently well-regarded netminders are merely average, and a handful of unglamorous ones are elite.
The market is slow
The market has been slow to adjust, which is an opportunity. The clearest inefficiency is the goaltender who has spent three seasons behind a poor defensive structure: their raw numbers suppress their valuation, and the teams with the best models have been quietly acquiring exactly those players.
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