It was a strange season for Joonas Korpisalo. The former 3rd round pick (62nd overall in 2012) started off the year fourth on the Blue Jackets depth chart, finding himself behind Anton Forsberg in Lake Erie. He finished the year on the Monsters bench, as Forsberg led the Lake Erie squad to a championship. In between, Korpisalo found himself starting significant minutes in the NHL, and doing so at an extremely high level. Quite a lot to process for a guy who didn’t turn 22 until April. To illustrate how strange this year was, let’s turn to the most basic stat for goalies: Korpisalo had a .920 save percentage in the NHL, a .913 save percentage in the AHL regular season, and a terrible .898 in the AHL playoffs.
Eye Test
Korpisalo has athleticsim for days, and is a very confident goalie to boot. That is a pretty good combination, one that can lead to some spectacular saves from time to time. Like this stop on Alex Killorn from his very first NHL game:
[protected-iframe id=”6cc849ae3e198df7cafa7d7b0177a8db-114320562-70843398″ info=”https://www.nhl.com/video/embed/korpisalo-turns-away-killorn/t-277437100/c-40610003?q=joonas+korpisalo?autostart=false” width=”540″ height=”360″]He also showed the capability to play with sound fundamentals. It’s currently the weak point in his game, but here he is making a game-winning save look easy against one of the better scorers in recent NHL history:
[protected-iframe id=”cfb1dea3eb2784ff0bac63d8693444d7-114320562-70843398″ info=”https://www.nhl.com/video/embed/korpisalos-game-winning-save/t-277437100/c-41208003?q=joonas+korpisalo?autostart=false” width=”540″ height=”360″]Greg Balloch from InGoal Magazine spoke to our own Alison Lukan over at BlueJackets.com regarding Korpisalo: “(Korpisalo) has some of the best hands I’ve seen on a goalie recently,” Balloch said. “The Finns love to teach ‘active hands’, which is keeping your hands out in front – it’s great because it helps cut the puck off before it has a chance to rise on you.
“I’ve seen him make next to impossible saves just because of how disciplined his hands are.”
Let’s see those great hands in action, this time on ex-CBJ Derick Brassard:
[protected-iframe id=”a0094b81a1db4b47b4f32ab6d6e48a67-114320562-70843398″ info=”https://www.nhl.com/video/embed/korpisalos-sprawling-save/t-277437100/c-41987203?q=joonas+korpisalo?autostart=false” width=”540″ height=”360″]Stats
The stats for Korpisalo in the NHL were impressive. Of the 49 goalies who played 1000 minutes this season, Joonas ranked an impressive 10th in even strength save percentage at 93.39% (compare to Sergei Bobrovsky’s 41st rank). This is of great importance, as save percentage at even strength tends to be more repeatable, and a better marker of a goalie’s talent than total save percentage. Obviously, sample size is an issue, as he only played 31 games. However, he was quite busy in those games as he finished 3rd in shots against per 60, facing more shots than Bobrovsky at 23rd.
It gets better the further you dig, as he finished an excellent 11th in high danger save percentage, much better than the 38th ranked Bob. Nearly across the board, Joonas topped Bob. The one notable exception was at shorthanded, where of the 55 Goalies with 100 minutes shorthanded, Korpisalo was only 37th at 85.71%, whereas Bob was 28th. All things considered, Joonas was arguably a top ten goalie in the NHL this season, on a per play basis. Which makes his poor numbers (.913 regular season SV%, .898 playoffs) in the AHL perplexing.
Grade
It was a huge season for the guy ranked as the 17th best Blue Jackets prospect last August, behind such luminaries as Nick Moutrey, Michael Chaput, Michael Paliotta, and Austin Madaisky. He finished the year being named to numerous Buckeye State Hockey Awards lists: Cornerstrone Player by the Artist formerly known as RedditCBJ, Best Prospect by noted goalie hater Matt Souva, and even Most Valuable Player by Brett Ireland.
The goalie situation moving forward is very interesting. Sergei Bobrovsky is a star when healthy (and not being terrible). Anton Forsberg started and finished the year ahead of Korpisalo on the depth chart. Curtis McElhinney is still under contract for some reason. So for Korpisalo, it remains to be seen. How able/ready/available/motivated is he to be a back-up everyday?
As for last season, his play in the NHL was an A+. He was a fourth string goalie, and getting top ten caliber play for 31 games from the guy in that spot is fantastic. However, Korpisalo was not able to really move up the CBJ depth chart in spite of this, and despite his brilliant play with Columbus, he’s still fighting tooth and nail with Forsberg for the future of the CBJ crease.
Grade: B+
Stats from Puckalytics and Corsica.hockey
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