Here are a few tables to get you going this year, whether or not Randy Carlyle improves a team’s goaltenders. I used the same methods as I did for my similar pieces on Ken Hitchcock’s and Dave Tippett’s goaltenders, which found that goalies who played in those systems could expect a small increase in save percentages.

So I did the same thing for Randy Carlyle and here are the results. Basically, I looked at how goalies since 1998 through 2012 fared at even strength with Carlyle behind the bench and without Carlyle behind the bench. Given that Carlyle wasn’t working with a full deck last season in Toronto, I excluded Toronto goalies from the study, but his Anaheim goalies from last season are included.

Here are the goalies Randy Carlyle has had in his short career who have spent significant time elsewhere. Another exclusion was Sebastien Caron, who faced 22 shots one year, and it simply wasn’t worth the trouble of splitting the season:



Goalie Faced Saves EV SV% Curtis McElhinney 614 559 0.910 Dan Ellis 369 342 0.927 Ilya Bryzgalov 1124 1028 0.915 Jean-Sebastien Giguere 4751 4403 0.927 Jonas Hiller 4417 4095 0.927 Ray Emery 215 201 0.935 TOTAL 11490 10628 0.925



(Numbers via NHL.com)

And here are the same goalies without Carlyle:



Goalie Faced Saves EV SV% Curtis McElhinney 594 534 0.899 Dan Ellis 3013 2764 0.917 Ilya Bryzgalov 8837 8207 0.929 Jean-Sebastien Giguere 7579 6989 0.922 Jonas Hiller 1194 1102 0.923 Ray Emery 4034 3703 0.918 TOTAL 25251 23299 0.923



You’ll notice without Carlyle the goalies have a slightly higher EV SV%, or even strength save percentage. However, since the average goaltender save percentage has risen practically ever year since 1998, we need to adjust it to the realities of the league.

In every year since 1998, I’ve calculated for every goalie who played in the NHL the number of saves an average goaltender would make in that season. By tallying those up, I’ve created an estimated combined save percentage for all goalies within the league year. It just so happens that the combined save percentage for goalies when they were “with” Carlyle is .91862. The combined number for goalies “without” Carlyle is .91914, therefore, due to whatever factors (it could be more timid offences, there was a lot of that last season) goalies could expect a higher save percentage.

EV SV%+ is an era-adjusted rate. A .900 EV SV%+ is the league combined average over the span.

So here’s that for goalies with:



Goalie Faced Saves EV SV% NHL EVSV% EVSV%+ Exp SV Curtis McElhinney 614 559 0.910 0.920 0.889 565.0 Dan Ellis 369 342 0.927 0.921 0.907 339.8 Ilya Bryzgalov 1124 1028 0.915 0.916 0.898 1029.8 Jean-Sebastien Giguere 4751 4403 0.927 0.918 0.910 4359.5 Jonas Hiller 4417 4095 0.927 0.920 0.908 4062.9 Ray Emery 215 201 0.935 0.921 0.915 198.0 TOTAL 11490 10628 0.925 0.919 0.907 10554.9



And without:



Goalie Faced Saves EV SV% NHL EVSV% EVSV%+ Exp SV Curtis McElhinney 594 534 0.899 0.920 0.877 546.3 Dan Ellis 3013 2764 0.917 0.920 0.898 2770.9 Ilya Bryzgalov 8837 8207 0.929 0.920 0.910 8128.6 Jean-Sebastien Giguere 7579 6989 0.922 0.918 0.904 6961.1 Jonas Hiller 1194 1102 0.923 0.921 0.902 1099.4 Ray Emery 4034 3703 0.918 0.918 0.900 3702.9 TOTAL 25251 23299 0.923 0.919 0.904 23209.3



Curtis McElhinney, Dan Ellis, Jean-Sebastien Giguere, Jonas Hiller and Ray Emery all did much better under Carlyle than another coach. The exception is Ilya Bryzgalov, who spent a good portion of his career under either Carlyle or Dave Tippett.

Combine those together, here’s what you get:



Faced Saves EV SV% NHL EVSV% EVSV%+ Exp SV With Carlyle 11490 10628 0.925 0.91862 0.907 10554.9 Without Carlyle 25251 23299 0.923 0.91914 0.904 23209.3



That changes things around, but since Carlyle hasn’t been around too long, I’m not willing to make the bold pronouncement that Carlyle’s system is better for goalies based on 11490 shots, even though the EV SV%+ of his goalies is .003 higher. There aren’t enough shots available that would mean variance could cover the difference, particularly since Carlyle has been working with very, very good goalies throughout his career. Hitchcock and Tippett were raising average goalies to play at a slightly higher level. It will be fun to see what Carlyle can manage now that a star like Giguere, Hiller or Bryzgalov will be the regular starter for him.

A more appropriate title for the post would be “Randy Carlyle’s goalies’ effect on his coaching system”.

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