Goalies are voodoo. It’s always fun to make that statement when we’re talking about the randomness associated with the position, but the truth is, we’re not very good at predicting future performance of the men between the pipes. This becomes a problem when you have to make an important roster decision at the league’s most important (and volatile) position.



The Toronto Maple Leafs find themselves in this situation right now, with the backup goalie spot available and three waiver-eligible candidates: Curtis McElhinney, Garret Sparks and Calvin Pickard. All three have interesting resumes, contrasting styles, and extremely polarized fans, which has led to quite the contentious debate online.



In my attempt to analyze this objectively, I’m going to make a case both for and against each goaltender winning the backup role. Before we get started, I wanted to quickly explain the best metric we have to measure goaltending performance.



How...