By: Owen Kewell

On Thursday night, two third period goals scored in quick succession proved to be all that the Washington Capitals needed to defeat the Vegas Golden Knights. In doing so, they became champions, and the core built around Alex Ovechkin finally earned the right to lift the Cup after years of bitter playoff disappointment.

At some point in the Cup Final, I recall reading that both Braden Holtby and Marc-Andre Fleury played relatively few regular season games compared to most starting goalies. I looked it up, and it’s true. Holtby ranked 18th among goalies in TOI this past season, while Fleury came in at 25th.

The two goalies who made it furthest in the 2018 playoffs had a relatively light regular season workload. Could this be more than coincidence? Could a lighter workload directly translate into improved playoff performance? My first thought on the matter was that a goalie who played fewer regular season games would experience less fatigue, and so would be better suited for a long and grueling playoff run. Intuitively, this theory is pleasantly logical, but does it hold any merit?

The Data

To tackle this question systematically, I examined the number of regular season games played by starting goalies of all playoff teams dating back to the 2007-08 season. I defined a playoff run’s starting goalie as the goalie who played the most minutes for that team in that playoff run. I grouped the goalies by the number of series that their teams won, thus separating goalies by degree of playoff success. I then looked at the number of regular season games played by the goalies in each group.