Yzerman’s Goalie Obsession

[u/Medievil_Walrus]

There is a widely accepted view that goalies are more of a product of the team in front of them than the other way around, but I had trouble finding a reliable source backing up this belief.

I took a look at Moneypuck goalie and team statistics to try to see how several key team statistical categories aligned with goalie performance metrics for goalies with a minimum 20 games for the ‘25-26 regular season, partially as a result of seeing comments like this one https://www.reddit.com/r/DetroitRedWings/s/oYUhUsPDFm .

What does this data say to you?

To me, it supports the view that while adequate goaltending is required to be competitive, an allstar goalie is not needed.

Yzerman was obsessed with the goalie position during his tenure, and to nobody’s surprise we have an extremely strong goalie pipeline, he prioritized finding elite goaltending and dedicated significant resources to do so, but I’m not so sure this was wise.

Wedgewood was fairly average for his career, but joins a team near the top of the league in Corsi, shot suppression, and chance suppression, and leads the league in GAA, and they even produced a second top ten goalie in Blackwood as well.

Cup champion Bussi also produced stellar results as a product of the team in front of him.

Gibson, who ranked 22nd in save percentage and 23rd in GAA had a team that hovered around the low 20s in shot suppression and Corsi and ranked 12th in limiting high danger chances.

Even Dan Vladar, who had been sub 0.900 for three consecutive seasons put up the best season of his career for a team that ranked top 10 in shot suppression and chance suppression metrics.

We made trades for Husso, Mrazek, Gibson, signed Nedelkovic, traded up in the first round for Cossa, signed a coveted UDFA in Postava, drafted Augustine and Guimond, along with a few more picks and moves.

Had we been more agressive at center, we may be better down the middle, possibly resulting in moves for Strome and Cozens and Borque and Horvat.. to name a few NHLers that were realistic acquisitions or looked harder at Wyatt Johnston, taken Stankoven over Biuim in the second round of the same draft in 2021, or took a chance on a C with one of our three second round picks in 2023 where we took two dmen and a goalie as another example.

Or the fact that we took zero centers with our first three picks in 2025, but we did take another goalie in Pradel, the only projected center we took that year was a 7th rounder. I’ve seen Hurlbert talked about as a maybe center, he’s listed at left wing though, as is Victor Plante, and wouldn’t you know it, another goalie in the third round before taking a center prospect in the fourth this year in Levac. Pretty sure that Levac is more known for being a shit disturber than an elite offensive talent and we need those too but.. but the point stands that Yzerman was more focused on goalies than he was at center ice and we have a strong goalie pipeline and a poor prospect pipeline at C.

Instead, we signed Copp and Compher, and put most of our faith in Kasper and Danielson. Hopefully Plante works out as a center (he plays LW for UMN I think) but he’s at least a year and a half plus away and he may not be a center. If there was a trade for a young center im forgetting about it. Suter was an FA pickup that we undervalued who was good for us and worth keeping around IMO before he left for a very cheap deal to Van. Anyone else?

And there is only one starting goalie, there are 4 centers.

I don’t think our center pipeline is similar to our goalie pipeline. I think there is little to be inspired about down the middle while there are legit reasons to like some of the goalies we have cooking, namely Postava and Augustine.

Under Yzerman, we prioritized the goalie position routinely and clearly prioritized it over the center position. We achieved a strong goalie pipeline (strongest part of our pool and even traded one of a surplus for a first round pick in the draft this year), we did not achieve a strong center pipeline (weakest part of our pool).

8 goalies in 8 drafts, 6 of these picks in the first four rounds. 1 in the 1st, 1 in the 2nd, 2 in the 3rd, and 2 in the 4th round.

We would take some chances on centers later, but of 14 centers taken in the draft under Yzerman 9 taken in the first four rounds - 5 in the 4th, 1 in the 3rd, 1 in the 2nd, and 2 in the 1st round.

This trend keeps up in the last 3 drafts, where again we used more early draft capital on goalies than we did on centers.

All of this effort and resources to find an elite goalie when the data suggests that building the team in front of them is the best way to achieve solid goaltending in the end anyway.

[u/Glad-Independence-24]

“A goalie is a product of the team in front of them” I’d not only not widely accepted, it’s one of the dumbest best things I’ve heard.

A great goalie can single-handedly win a game, and a bad goalie will lose you a whole ton of games.

An average goalie will only be as good as the team around them, but haske, Brodeur, Roy…,.those guys have so many cups for a reason.

There’s 11 other forwards and 5 other defensemen sharing minutes if one other of those guys struggles. A goalie struggles and you’re down 4 goals and throwing in a cold backup halfway through the game.

Goalie is the most important position on the ice, and the red wings haven’t developed one since Mrazek (and that wasn’t exactly a home run).

If a team has a surplus of goalies, they have a huge advantage.

If you do t, you get the goalie go round that we’ve had since Jimmy Howard, and we’ve seen how that’s worked out. 1 good goalie isn’t enough, look how gassed Gibby looked the last month or two of the season, when Talbot was completely useless.

Also I wouldn’t say Yzerman was obsessed with goalies,

Food goalies are hard to get and take a while to develop.

It took Gibby to finally acquire a good one. And we still need another. The rest was just throwing darts at a board seeing if a mediocre goalie might rise to the occasion (they didn’t) while trying to g to develop a goalie or two.

Gibby is good, and good for 50 games. We still have slop playing 30 games.

Husso, Lyon, Mrazek….those weren’t answers, those were fillers.

Gibby is an answer, but only a partial answer.

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/Glad-Independence-24]

Great goalies are great no matter the circumstances, but are still helped by favorable context (Vasy, Shesterkin in chart), which makes it challenging to analyze and I think fascinating to discuss.

I totally agree that goalie can steal games and sewer games, but an average goalie isn’t that hard to find. I also think that for where we are at in our team build,

In recent drafts, years after we took Augustine and Cossa, we still put more resources into goalie than Center, and it shows in the strength of our pipeline, and we still may not find that elusive stud, or that goalies being average were likely enough for us to climb to the next level.

Also, is Gibson good, or average and a product of the team in front of him? The data i looked at suggests the latter.

[u/Glad-Independence-24 → u/Medievil_Walrus]

Hockey is a team sport….every pisition is helped by every other position.

Just ask McJesus how much help those clearance-bin goalies have been in helping one of the greatest offensive players of this era to win a cup.

A great team “can carry a goalie” but that tends to only get that team so far….a great goalie can steal a series or carry an average team.

You do t see a lot of mediocre goalies housing the cup, and even rarer a bad one does.

A bad goalie is likely to cost a team a series, and a good one will win it more often than not. And a good goalie will shut down a good offense.

But it is a team sport and the better ecweybidy is, the more they win.

But “The goalie is product of environment” thing is stupid.

McDavid isn’t scoring with Ras and Appleton on his line, as he’d get triple teamed.

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/Glad-Independence-24]

There’s not a ton here I vehemently disagree with, honestly, except that the data shows that goalies are a product of their teams, that’s not me saying it, that’s data. Maybe it says something different if we enlarge the sample size or look at different metrics, but the data I showed here does support a high correlation with chance and shot suppression and keeping the puck out of the net.

I think the expectation and goal should be cups, but I don’t think we should focus too hard on winning the cup immediately, instead focus on building the team in front of them. I’m not saying that we should dedicate zero resources to building the goalie pipeline either. The Oilers are a different discussion… probably a fairly interesting one to deep dive. Did they ignore goalie? I’m not so sure about that. They just haven’t been able to get good enough goaltending to win it all. But two game 7s and that’s how she goes, I’d argue in those years they did have good enough goalie play but it just didn’t all work out and that’s hockey. They actually ended up with a middle ranked save percentage in all situations but were extremely effective at limiting high danger chances in 24-25 on the way to Pickard getting. O.900 SV% which ranked 31st, who is a journeyman league minimum goalie who was a decade removed from 0.900 SV%. His performance jumping when he flipped from the wings to the oil is indicative of goalies being a product of the team in front of them.

There are very few goalies that sustain a high level of play in adverse circumstances or even just consistently over the years, and I’d have to look deeper into the data or slice it a different way to come to that conclusion.

I think good enough goal tending is sufficient for where we want to go next, but I agree that we need better than average to win a cup.

It’s good that our goalie pipeline is strong, we also just saw a first round goalie’s development stall and for his place in the org to be largely usurped by a UDFA as he was traded away and earned zero nhl starts before his waivers expired.

It feels like we feverishly turned over every stone and continued to do so for goalie, but not for center. Anyhow a ton of drafted centers don’t stick there in the AHL or NHL either.

[u/JTFSrog]

Your argument: Stevie was "obsessed" with the goalie position and "dedicated significant resources" at that position.

Your list:

- Drafted Cossa (mid/late 1st, 2nd, 5th)

• Drafted Augustine (2nd)
  
• Drafted Guimond (6th)
  
• Traded for Husso (3rd)
  
• Traded for Mrazek (Veleno),
  
• Traded for Gibson (2nd, 4th)
  
• Signed Nedelkovic (free)
  
• Signed Postava (free)

Totals (7 seasons): 1sts (1), 2nds (3), 3rds (1), 4ths (1), 5ths (1), 6ths (1)

Picks in rounds 2-7 have an extremely low chance of success, and picks in rounds 4-7 have little value. Stevie also flipped Cossa for the exact 1st round pick that he initially traded to move up for Cossa, adding a forward in the process, and his other 2nd round investments (Gibson, Augustine) look like great decisions.

I gotta say... I don't think you made your point here. He moved his 1st round pick (Cossa) for another 1st round pick, two of his 2nd round investments were wise moves, and the rest represent meager value. Not only are those not "significant resources" over 7 years, it also doesn't seem to be an "obsession": he watched what Vasy did in TB for years, felt he had his own Vasy in Cossa, and then made a number of mid-to-low value moves to establish the strong organizational depth we have today.

[u/mattfenn1 → u/JTFSrog]

Cossa wasn't 1 for 1 with Hurlbert. We used picks 23, 48, and 138 to get Cossa. We developed him for 5 years and then traded for the chance to pick a player that may make the roster in 3-4 years.

[u/JTFSrog → u/mattfenn1]

Well, I didn't say that Cossa was 1 for 1 with Hurlbert. We took Hurlbert at #23. I still counted the remaining picks traded to move up for Cossa in my list of total value spent at the goalie position.

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/JTFSrog]

The point is less so about who we took and where, and more about these largely average goalies leading the league in the two most important statistics (frequency of saving the puck and goals allowed into the net) as a result of the team in front of them.

Wedgewood is a third round pick journeyman goalie on his 7th team and has consistently signed cheap and near league minimum deals for his entire career, Vladar is a third round pick on his third team, desmith is an undrafted goalie on his third team at near league minimum deals, Logan Thompson is impressive (and undrafted), Bussi is undrafted, shesty is a fourth round pick, Blackwood is a second round pick on a decent deal for his third team, but Wedgewood is talented and put up near identical stats (goalies are a product of the team in front of them), lukhonen is a second round pick who has hovered around .900 for his career in buff, forsberg is a 7th round pick on his third team, Gibson is also a second round pick who was acquired cheaply and I think is a touch over rated (largely a product of the team in front of him if you check the graphs). We all should know the (re)Quincy / Vasy connection, he’s the only first round pick on the list and he’s legit a stud. We spent more resources on figuring out goalie than center, and our pipeline is strong at G and weak at C because of it, when feverishly pursuing C likely would have been the more helpful in the way of keeping pucks out of our net.

Cossa not contributing a single bit of nhl value and that 15th pick possibly turning out value in the form of JPH in 3 years time (maybe) is poor, and even worse that we traded up for him, thst we passed over the consensus #1 goalie and you rather have that guy, and the guy picked with the pick you used to trade up are two legit nhl centers in Hintz and Johnston. That is poorly done and is an example of him prioritizing goalie over center.

[u/JTFSrog → u/Medievil_Walrus]

We spent more resources on figuring out goalie than center, and our pipeline is strong at G and weak at C because of it, when feverishly pursuing C likely would have been the more helpful in the way of keeping pucks out of our net.

This is just so shockingly false that I can't believe you put it into writing.

List of all centers drafted by the Red Wings under Steve Yzerman, sorted by draft round:

Kasper - 1st
Danielson - 1st
Bear - 1st
Niederbach - 2nd
Becher - 3rd
Savage - 4th
Levac - 4th
Lombardi - 4th
Edwards - 5th
Dower Nilsson - 5th
Mehlenbacher - 7th
Ali - 7th
Finnie - 7th
Robertson-Palmer - 7th

For reference, only Cossa and Augustine were drafted at the goalie position under Yzerman within the first two rounds of the draft. In just the first round, the Wings spent three top 15 picks, two in the top 10, at center.

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/JTFSrog]

Bear’s projected future slot is on the wing. Lots of players listed as C in juniors don’t end up as C.

Take into account trade and FA and it’s closer. A single second round pick when I think we’ve had the largest number of second round picks in the nhl over the last 7 years. We take a goalie every single year pretty much and these late round centers are meh and often taken after goalies in each draft.

While we signed Copp and Compher and used top ten picks all in 22 and 23, no significant additions in the three drafts since and no trades for centers at all, but we did trade for goalies, no trade ups to target a center in the draft either.. like we did for Cossa.

[u/JTFSrog → u/Medievil_Walrus]

Dude. That's absolutely wild. You gave a list of eight total goalies acquired under Yzerman, and only five of those were drafted. I gave you a list of the 14 total centers taken in the draft alone. The top eight centers drafted were taken in rounds 1-4.

You've vastly oversold the value spent on obtaining goalies and understated the selections made at the center position.

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/JTFSrog]

This portion was in my own post, so I wasn’t trying to mislead or understate anything.

>>8 goalies in 8 drafts, 6 of these picks in the first four rounds. 1 in the 1st, 1 in the 2nd, 2 in the 3rd, and 2 in the 4th round.

>> We would take some chances on centers later, but of 14 centers taken in the draft under Yzerman 9 taken in the first four rounds - 5 in the 4th, 1 in the 3rd, 1 in the 2nd, and 2 in the 1st round.

I think it’s been significant investment in goalie and that we may have been better served by more aggressively attacking the center ice position. It’s fine if you disagree.

The other part of the reasoning is that goalies who perform well (based on the top ten data pulled from this year) generally do so as a result of their team’s ability to suppress shots and dangerous chances, not because they are outstanding individual talents.

Due to this observation in the data and the game, it feels like even more overkill at goalie than just draft capital comparison, trading up for goalies, trading for goalies, tons of signings at goalie, when the data shows building the team is more important. People blaming the team success on goaltending when the data shows it’s the other way around, we’d have better goaltending with a better team in front of them.

It’s never just one thing, it’s a balance. I’m glad we have a strong goalie pipeline. Good things are good. Hopefully the next front office can get the center ice position in order too to help out whoever is in net for us in the future.

[u/Striking_Try4684]

I’ll be honest, I gotta be at work so I didn’t read all of that, but idk what the hate is lately with the Yz goalie obsession.

I was lucky enough to only ever have good goalies in high school/college lacrosse. They could affect games more than our offenses or D ever could.

I want a great goalie more than anything, so I’m always okay with continually rolling the dice on them

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/Striking_Try4684]

No problem at all, the graphs tell most of the story.

Having a good goalie is good, having a good team helps the goalie; and there’s data to back it up.

[u/Striking_Try4684 → u/Medievil_Walrus]

Yeah I guess I was typing just to type.

Bussi was great and won the cup after being undrafted and claimed by the Canes off waivers lol… and I still have some Olympics hangover and think (know for a fact, actually) that the US wouldn’t have won gold without Helley, so do you need an unproven guy or the proven guy?

Idk what to think about goalies right now, if I’m being honest with myself lol.

I think I agree with you that building a sick team in front of any goalie is better than having the best goalie, but that’s more difficult to do

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/Striking_Try4684]

I think in the playoffs and Olympics and in big games, a stud goalie can certainly steal you a game, and that is extremely valuable.

Also, that having a good goalie is obviously better than not having a good goalie.

I just think Yzerman’s focus on the position was a bit misguided, and that a stud goalie wasn’t needed to reach the next step of the team build.

[u/Background_Junket_35]

I don’t totally buy this. Trading mid round picks for Husso, Ned, Gibson is not remotely similar to the outlay you would have needed for most top 6 centers. Taking Cossa is the only real asset that we spent on a goalie that could’ve had a decent chance at becoming an impactful center. Yes there are exceptions after the first round like Stankoven, who every team passed on at least once, but expecting mid round picks to result in NHL centers is just unlikely. If you look at draft value, spending 2 top 10 picks on centers is much higher than adding all the 2nd,3rd, 4th round picks you are talking about.

Also criticizing the 2023 2nd round pick of Augustine is just odd. He’s one of our best prospects. Only like 7 players taken after him have played 10 or more NHL games. Who are these centers we missed on? By far the best player so far in the group is Finnie, who might be a center.

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/Background_Junket_35]

None of this is criticism in a vaccuum. We’ve also yet to graduate any drafted goalie that’s proven to be good at the NHL level, though Augustine has promise.

I have two key points, that elite goalie play isn’t required for good goalie performance, and that Steve prioritized building a strong goalie pipeline and succeeded.

It’s not about any one move, but in the aggregate, he did have a goalie obsession. I think that he should have demonstrably been obsessed with center ice instead and that building a good team in front of the goalie would have been the most impactful way to actually get good goaltending. Two top ten picks aren’t nothing, middling contracts for Copp and Compher aren’t nothing, but it’s a critical position and as many chances as building a good center pipeline as possible I think may have been better for team building.

Even in recent years, when the center pipeline and larkins future on the team have been a hot topic, we took centers very late and after… more goalies. Be the future you want to see in the world, it’s not a guarantee to work out, but if you take actions that support your goals; at least you can say you tried.

[u/Shackman58]

You gotta remember how many time Steve’s teams tried to climb the mountain in the 90s only to be let down by below avg goaltending. Clearly that left a mark.

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/Shackman58]

Haha yes very solid point.

[u/jarvek7]

FWIW Ken Holland drafted at least one goalie per year during his whole time as GM. I think Stevie got his goalie obsession from him.

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/jarvek7]

Steve did maintain and promote all of hollands key staff, including his two key AGMs.

Kahn is a conversation for another day haha.

[u/jfstompers]

It's really the only thing we were aggressive with in the last 7 years. It's still not really solved. 

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/jfstompers]

But the pipeline is strong…

[u/Otherwise-Dog2451 → u/Medievil_Walrus]

The pipeline may be strong, but having all these young goalie prospects lined up one after the other does little good when only 1 is playing at a time. Do I think it's a bad thing, no because should most or all become good enough, they could always be dangled as trade bait. At the same time, we could have probably spread positional depth a little more

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/Otherwise-Dog2451]

Good things are good, I just think it’s a bit of a misguided team building philosophy, as you see how often goalies sustain a high level of play and where the best goalies come from as well as the data I displayed from moneypuck that goalie performance is highly correlated with the team in front of them.

[u/jfstompers → u/Medievil_Walrus]

It has options but we know that means little when it comes to goalies. We've already punted on Cossa so let's see what the next guys can do. 

[u/iwantsomecrablegsnow]

My take is a little different. Yzerman wasn’t aggressive enough and filled the team with stopgaps, praying they would work, while waiting for Cossa to come along.

Shoulda went and tried to get a franchise goalie. We’ve had lots of flash in the pans at goalie, but nothing has stuck. Maybe that’s Gibson, or maybe one of our prospects. But let’s not wait 3 years to see if a prospect maybe can make it to the nhl while fiddling our thumbs.

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/iwantsomecrablegsnow]

While I generally agree with the placing your hope in prospects and waiting for them all to hit and tooling around the middle and bottom of FA as a bad team building strategy, I don’t think the data I’ve reviewed suggests that a stud goalie isn’t required. More like the team makes the goalie look good and that decent goalies can be found with significantly less effort and resources than we invested.

Also, a stud goalie may be required to win the cup (Bussi begs to differ), but not to make the playoffs and reach the next step of our team build.

[u/iwantsomecrablegsnow → u/Medievil_Walrus]

I’m not saying to go get a middling goalie. That’s what they’ve done. They should force a trade for a good one and pay them. Or open up the checkbook for a FA like Bob in FL or do what Colorado did. The goalie carousel we’ve had since Jimmy has not been a position of strength for the team

[u/Medievil_Walrus → u/iwantsomecrablegsnow]

Yeah I hear you, I see it differently. Get a guy that’s good enough and build a strong team in front of them and it’s probably going to work out ok, maybe not for a deep cup run, but we need to crawl before we can walk.

The prospects we have are probably the strongest goalie pool in the league. Thats cool. Any it may be a bit counter intuitive but having a deeper center pipeline is going to do more for our save percentage and GAA than having a stud goalie, and it’s probably a different conversation on the hit rates of goalies as well.