Oh, a “trade Tuukka Rask” post? It must be hockey season.
The Bruins have played three hockey games and during those three hockey games they have won one and lost two. This has already caused the Finding Nemo-like seagulls to pop up on social media with “Trade Rask”. Here’s my favorite:
Start Dobby… I know it’s not soley Rask’s fault, but come on. Dob played with passion in the 3rd period that rask hasn’t shown yet.
Woof.
So let’s play a game. The Boston Bruins trade Tuukka Rask tomorrow for a foward, draft picks and some prospects. Here’s your NHL goalie tandem:
Anton Khudobin as the starter.
Zane McIntyre as the backup.
To some, they might be down with this. To other, they may survive with it. To most, this should terrify you.
Anton Khudobin as never proven that he can handle a full season load. Think what you will about Tuukka Rask, but he’s played 58+ games for four season’s straight. Let’s look over Khudobin’s numbers when he was given somewhat of a chance to be a full time goaltender:
2013-2014: 36 games played in Carolina. Khudobin had a 2.30 GAA and a SV% of .926. Those numbers are good enough to be a #1 goaltender. Here’s the problem. After that it becomes a nightmare.
2014-2015: 34 games played for Carolina, .900 SV% and a 2.72 GAA.
2015-2016: 9 games played for Anaheim, .909 SV% and a 2.75 GAA.
2016-2017: 16 games played for Boston, .904 SV% and a 2.64 GAA.
Nothing there tells me that Anton Khudobin can play at a decent level for 50-70 games. When you’re numbers look like that for three years, the good year seems more of an anomaly. If you wanted, we can predict the kind of numbers Khudobin would have had last season.
Get ready because here I go.
WARNING: This is all math. Seriously. This is a lot of math. All of this is done “in a perfect world” and variables do not come into play here. Please keep that in mind.
Khudobin saw 405 shots over 16 games which equates to 25.3 shots faced per game. If we take the 25.3 shots faced per game and multiply them by 65 (# of games Tuukka Rask played), Khudobin would have faced 1,645 shots on the season.
His goals against were 39 in 16 games, which averages to 2.43 goals allowed per game. If you multiply 2.43 by 65, you get 158 goals allowed on the season.
We’re going to assume that he plays 60 minutes per game. No overtime. No penalties (lol). No getting pulled. This would mean over 65 games, Khudobin would see 3,900 minutes of ice time.
Taking the total number of goals (158) divided by the total minutes played (3,900) and multiplied by 60: You get a GAA of 2.43. This would have ranked Khudobin 21st overall among goalies you have played more than 20 games.
However, there was only one goalie who played more than 3,800 minutes last season. If you used Tuukka’s TOI, Khudobin’s GAA is 2.57. That would rank him 27th between Brian Elliot and Chad Johnson.
Now the save percentage. We know that Khudobin would have faced 1,645.3 shots on the season. Since he allowed 158 goals over the season, we know that he made 1,487 saves (Total number of shots subtracted by number of goals). Knowing this, we can calculate his SV% to be .903 on the season.
So here’s how it breaks down with Anton Khudobin as the starting goaltender last season: 2.43 GAA (2.57 if you go by Rask TOI) and a .903 SV%.
Not great you guys.
Should I do the same for Zane McIntyre?
22 goals against in 8 games played = 2.75 goals against. Multiply that by Khudobin’s 16 and you get 44 goals allowed as the backup.
Let’s assume that McIntyre plays all 60 minutes per game like we did with Khudobin. We will then look at Khudobin’s actual minutes to calculate a different goals against average. In a perfect world, McIntyre was on the ice for 960 minutes in those 16 games played. Taking his total number of goals (44) divided by the total number of minutes played (960) and multipled by 60: You get a GAA of 2.75.
Using Khudobin’s minutes last season, McIntyre’s GAA is 2.98. Yup, 2.98.
Now the save percentage. McIntyre faced 19.3 shots per game (155 shots against divided by 8 games) which comes out to 308 shots faced in the 16 games as the backup. Taking the total number of goals allowed (44) and the number of shots he faced (308), he would have saved 264 of those shots. Taking his number of saves (264) and divide it by the number of shots he faced (308) – his save percentage is .857.
McIntyre’s line: 2.75 GAA (2.98 using Khudobin’s TOI) and a .857 SV%.
Let’s look at it from a cap space prospective. If you trade Tuukka Rask, you’ll save yourself $7,000,000 per season. This would make a lot of Bruins fans happy because they can go out and spend that money. They’ll be able to go into free agency and grab a goaltender who will man the pipes for the next couple of years while McIntyre (hopefully) matures into the stud he’s been in the AHL.
Here’s the 2018-2019 goaltender free agents:
Click the image for a larger resolution .png but to save you the trouble here are some star studded names:
Kari Lehtonen, Jaroslav Halak, Robin Lener, Petr Mrazek, Cam Ward, Jonathan Bernier, Eddie Lack and Chad Johnson. Mrazek, Lehner, Grubauer and Hellebuyck (btw) are all restriced free agents.
There isn’t shit on the market for the Bruins to get with that money. So now you have a real issue. Your current goaltender, based on last year’s numbers, isn’t going to get you into the playoffs. He has a GAA and SV% that’s in the bottom half of the league and you have a young backup that seemingly can’t stop a cold.
This is why you don’t trade Tuukka Rask.
Stability in net is one of the most important things in the NHL and Rask has proved that he is a stable goaltender. Those wishing to see him play somewhere else don’t seem to be aware of the repercussions this could bring upon the Bruins for years – literally years – to come.
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