{"id":549720,"date":"2026-03-20T20:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/549720\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T20:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T20:25:07","slug":"lightning-have-the-single-biggest-advantage-of-any-projected-2025-26-playoff-team","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/549720\/","title":{"rendered":"Lightning have the single biggest advantage of any projected 2025-26 playoff team"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to part 3 of Daily Faceoff Stanley Cup Ingredients 2025-26. To catch you up: I\u2019ve crafted a formula consisting of seven common ingredients among recent Stanley Cup champions, using the previous 10 seasons as the sample.\u00a0You can click here for a more detailed breakdown<\/a>\u00a0of the formula and how accurately it has predicted teams going deep in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, we commenced the annual series by exploring\u00a0the (fading!) correlation between team weight and championships<\/a>. Next, we assessed how important point-per-game scorers<\/a> are to capturing the Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n

Next, we examine whether elite goaltending remains as important as ever in the spring.<\/p>\n

Stanley Cup Ingredient #3: TOP-10 GOALTENDER<\/p>\n

How many times have we seen dominant teams choke in the postseason because their goaltending lets them down and\/or they run into opponents whose goaltending gets hot? Goalies\u2019 impact on playoff success is disproportionate compared to the regular season because of the smaller sample sizes. The Presidents\u2019 Trophy winning Winnipeg Jets<\/a> barely survived Round 1 and bowed out in Round 2 last postseason because their Hart and Vezina Trophy winning puck-stopper, Connor Hellebuyck, kept imploding on the road.<\/p>\n

Last season contradicted the idea that the goalies with great regular-season numbers can be trusted in the postseason. But that was a one-spring sample. How strong has the correlation between a top-10 regular-season goalie and winning a Cup typically been if we look at the past 10 seasons?<\/p>\n

We define a top-10 goalie as one who played at least half his team\u2019s games (or would have in a full season) and posted a top-10 save percentage in that sample. We go with regular-season numbers as it\u2019s the best sample size you can ask for if you\u2019re a contending team hoping for sustained success in the spring. And even though save percentage is more of a team stat than goals saved above expected, we\u00a0want\u00a0the team stat factored in here, as we\u2019re measuring how well an elite goalie works in conjunction with an elite team.<\/p>\n

SeasonChampionTop-10 Goaltender?2015-16PittsburghYes (Fleury, .921)2016-17PittsburghYes (Murray, .923)2017-18WashingtonNo2018-19St. LouisYes (Binnington, .927)2019-20Tampa BayYes (Vasilevskiy, .917)2020-21Tampa BayYes (Vasilevskiy, .925)2021-22ColoradoYes (Kuemper, .921)2022-23VegasNo2023-24FloridaYes (Bobrovsky, .915)2024-25FloridaNo<\/p>\n

Stanley Cup correlation:\u00a0Strong<\/p>\n

Seven of the past 10 and give of the past seven champions had a top-10 goalie in save percentage, and while last season goes down as a \u201cno,\u201d Bobrovsky had the 14th-best SV% among goalies who played half their teams\u2019 games, and he graded out above-average in goals saved above expected per 60. He was still a rock for his Florida Panthers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What does the leaderboard look like this season in terms of elite goaltenders? Which top contenders have one through March 18\u2019s action?<\/p>\n

2025-26 NHL leaders, save percentage (min. half team\u2019s games played)<\/p>\n

1. Scott Wedgewood, Colorado Avalanche, .916
2. Ilya Sorokin, New York Islanders, .914
3. Logan Thompson, Washington Capitals, .914
4. Andrei Vasilevskiy, Tampa Bay Lightning, .914
5. Igor Shesterkin, New York Rangers, .913
6. Filip Gustavsson, Minnesota Wild, .911
7. Jet Greaves, Columbus Blue Jackets, .909
8. Joel Hofer, St. Louis Blues, .909
9. Spencer Knight, Chicago Blackhawks, .907
10. Dan Vladar, Philadelphia Flyers, 907<\/p>\n

Some fascinating revelations here. One: given Andrei Vasilevskiy\u2019s incredible playoff history, which includes two Stanley Cups, a Conn Smythe Trophy and a run of elimination-game invincibility, he arguably gives the Tampa Bay Lightning<\/a> the biggest single advantage any team in the playoff field has over its opponents this spring. The Colorado Avalanche<\/a> are advantageously positioned as well, as Wedgewood leads in save percentage and Mackenzie Blackwood was great this season before his post-Olympic swoon. We see goalies on underdog bubble-grade playoff teams who could lead upset runs in Sorokin and Greaves. At 11th, just off the board, is Jeremy Swayman, who posted an NHL-best .933 SV% across 12 starts during the 2023-24 playoffs, his Boston Bruins\u2019<\/a> last appearance at the big dance.<\/p>\n

But what really stands out: only four of the top 10 tend the crease for teams in playoff positions. Not represented in the top 10: most of the contenders. Cup hopefuls such as the Carolina Hurricanes<\/a>, Dallas Stars<\/a>, Edmonton Oilers<\/a> and Vegas Golden Knights<\/a> haven\u2019t received good enough goaltending this season. Will they get the saves required to play deep into June? <\/p>\n

And that further highlights the edge Vasilevskiy gives the Bolts over the field.<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Previous instalments of Stanley Cup Ingredients 2026<\/p>\n

Team Weight<\/a>
Point-per-game Players<\/a><\/p>\n

Next up: Expected goal differential<\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

POST SPONSORED BY bet365<\/p>\n

_____<\/p>\n

Recently by Matt Larkin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to part 3 of Daily Faceoff Stanley Cup Ingredients 2025-26. To catch you up: I\u2019ve crafted a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":549721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-549720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/549721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}