The Curious Case of the Vezina Trophy

In previous years, the goaltending duels in the National Hockey League have lead to some interesting playoff runs, but also equally interesting races for the Vezina Trophy, awarded annually to the goaltender deemed best at his position during the regular season by the general managers of the thirty clubs in the NHL. The winning player is usually the result of a combination of high rankings in the four vital stats that reflect a goaltenders performance; games won, goals against average, save percentage and shut-outs. Who are the contenders this year and who will bring it home?


Now that we are roughly sixty games into the 2008-09 regular season, the leading candidates for this years Vezina trophy have emerged and left the rest of the pack behind. Generally, there are three final candidates nominated for the award. Common sense and some extrapolated statistics would dictate that the three finalists this year will be Tim Thomas, an American playing for the Boston Bruins, Miikka Kiprusoff, the Finnish ice man who previously won the award in 2006 and rookie phenom Steve Mason, a young Canadian manning the net for the Columbus Blue Jackets (when he isn’t stricken with an untimely case of mono of course.)

Now, this is far from unusual. In years past, the candidates for most of the NHLs individual awards have begun to surface at this point in the season. The names are thrown around with much fanfare and hours are lost pouring over every statistic known to man as the case is made for each player or made against another. I should know, I’ve been privy to many a heated argument on the steps of a school or crowded around the tables in the employee break room. I may have even suffered the occasional black eye or arrest when these discussions got particularly interesting. Of course, my lawyer has advised me to deny these allegations.

This season, however, has thrown us an interesting twist, of which I will begin to explain as I explained it to myself while listening to the talking heads and digging up the numbers.

When examining the candidates, we find that we have three very different cases on our hands. Mason, only 20 years old, has found himself leading the charge towards a Blue Jackets’ inaugural post-season berth. His main statistic to keep an eye on is his shut-out total. In just 36 starts, Mason has denied his opponents a red light seven times, leading the league in that category and on pace for a nine, ten or even eleven shut-out season.

Thomas, on the other hand, has only three shut-outs in his 36 games for the league’s best Bruins. What is note worthy is that his unorthodox style of never giving up on a save has earned him a league best save percentage of 0.931 and a second best goals against average of 2.12, trailing only Mason’s mark of 2.06. So you ask, “Well, isn’t that just another tick in Mason’s column?” Perhaps. But Mason is fourth in save percentage and first in GAA and shutouts. Thomas is intriguing because he manages to be at or near the top in save percentage and GAA while being 14 years older than Mason, exhibiting a goaltending style one could only describe as ice pack approved. Of course, the Bruins are the best team in the NHL, and their goal differential is the highest in the league at plus 62. This certainly contributes to Thomas’ numbers, and he is widely thought to be the recipient of the excellent play of a defensive group lead by captain Zdeno Chara.

Kiprusoff is the potential enigma. He leads the league with 33 wins, and has played the most games of any goaltender along side Dallas’ Marty Turco with 52. The record for most wins in a regular season by a goaltender was set in the 2006-07 season by the Devils’ Martin Brodeur with 48, a year in which he won the Vezina. Looking at Kiprusoff’s numbers, he is on pace for exactly the same amount of wins. One could easily think that he may break that record when the Flames begin the final stretch leading into the post-season and Kiprusoff turns his game up another notch to steal a few games that his team has no business winning, as is his penchant. He is largely shrugged off by many members of the media because he has a GAA of 2.80 for 27th best in the league, tied with Jose Theodore and a save percentage of 0.906, putting him 32nd in the midst of company like floundering goaltenders J-S Giguere and Carey Price or backups like Curtis Sanford. Given his win total, he should secure a nomination, despite those horrid stats.

Now this is where it can get truly head scratching, to the point that you may never again get a haircut without the assistance of novocaine and a team of trained medical professionals. In 2006, when Kiprusoff won his only Vezina trophy, he led the other candidates, Martin Brodeur and Henrik Lundqvist, in games played, save percentage, GAA and shutouts by mostly large margins. Martin Brodeur had one more win in one less game, giving him a win percentage of 0.589 compared to Miikka’s 0.568, hardly enough to wrest the crown from the rightful victor.

In 2007, when Martin Brodeur won his first of back-to-back Vezinas, he led the other candidates in wins, games played, GAA, save percentage and shut-outs in rather convincing fashion, with a win percentage of 0.615, second only to Roberto Luongo’s 0.618. Again, the seemingly worthy man wins the award.

The next season, Brodeur won again, despite only leading his opponents Henrik Lundqvist and Evgeni Nabokov in games played and save percentage. Nabokov had the most wins, the same amount of games played as Martin, a better GAA and six shut-outs, second to Lundqvist’s mark of ten. Statistically speaking, Nabokov should have won the trophy. During that season, Brodeur, a guaranteed hall-of-famer, candidate for the best goaltender of all time with Patrick Roy and Terry Sawchuck and a favorite of many people in the league, became just the second goalie in history to win 500 games, a terrific achievement. Later, in the playoffs against the New York Rangers, he was involved in numerous altercations with the most hated player in the league, the Rangers’ Sean Avery and was furious when his team lost the series, refusing to shake Avery’s hand. Could a sympathy vote or votes based on his 500 wins have swayed the overall tally for the Vezina? Many would, and still, make that argument.

Based on this evidence, it makes the choice between the three supposed candidates this season a very difficult one indeed. Because Mason and Thomas are mostly a wash statistically, and with Mason all but assured to win the Calder Trophy as the outstanding rookie, some of his votes could be swayed Thomas’ way, even with his incredible rookie numbers. If Kiprusoff manages to tie Brodeur’s record, or even break it, you could imagine that some votes will be put under his name because of that momentous feat from a true workhorse of a goaltender who could easily be judged most valuable of the three to his team. If I had to give a prediction, I would say that the latest example would prove to be the one that prevails.

These are all estimations and hypothesis, but this is easily shaping up to be the best Vezina race in recent memory, and whoever wins, you can be guaranteed that there are going to be more than a handful of people who are not satisfied with the decision. This race may best determine how the general managers actually vote for the award, so that future awards may be predicted even more easily, and hey, doesn’t that just make a whole lot of jobs for a whole lot of hockey writers a whole lot easier? I can find nothing wrong with that.

mitch.hart@gmail.com