How many goalies are drafted in the first round?
I read an article the other day about the consensus first-round NHL draft picks for 2012. Sadly, there were no goalies on the list. That led me to wonder: how often are goalies drafted in the first round? I posed the question on reddit but didn’t get a very satisfying answer.
Fortunately, the NHL offers an easy way to explore all of the draft results going back to 1963.
I looked at the data for the past 30 years (1982-2011) and found that in those three decades, 47 goalies have been taken in the first round. Two even went as the overall #1 picks: DiPietro in 2000 and Fleury in 2003.
Here’s the distribution by year:
Number of goalies in first round of NHL draft by year
Keep in mind that the total number of first-round draft picks has increased over the years. Thus, it might be more informative to see what percentage of first-round picks were goalies:
Percentage of first-round NHL draftees who were goalies, by year
One thing to notice is that some years were really good for goalies, but other years were really bad for goalies. In fact, 9 out of those 30 years saw no goalies get selected in the first round.
What “should” the number of goalies be? If we observe that the NHL maximum roster size is 23 men with 2 being goalies, and we assume that the same ratio should hold in the first-round draft picks, we’d expect to see 8.6% of the first-round picks used for goalies. Instead, we see an average of 5.8% of picks used for goalies. (Yes, in case you’re wondering, that’s a statistically significant difference; p<0.001)
The question becomes, why aren’t more goalies selected in the first round? Maybe they’re considered higher risk, and so not worth the “expense” of an early pick. Maybe the fall-off in goalie quality through the rounds is less extreme than for the other positions, so it is easier to get a quality goalie in a later round than, say, getting a quality forward in an early round. Not sure.
Idea for future study: where do goalie picks tend to fall in fantasy hockey drafts?
Jeff:
I’ve got one other theory and one theory-question. If there is a longstanding pattern of fewer goalies going in the first round, then the pressure is relieved on all teams to select goalies in the first round since a good goalie is more likely to be available in the second round. And the question-theory: the most famous players I know are not goalies, so could it be that the players out on the ice bring in greater revenue than goalies?
Greg
@Greg Hicks Interesting angles.
For the first:
If teams expect the best goalies to continue to be available in the second round, wouldn’t that provide some incentive for an individual team to go against the conventional wisdom?
For the second:
I’ve never thought about the question of revenue attribution to individual players. I did some digging for that data, but as far as I can tell, it has never been researched.
If we assume that a player’s salary cap impact is a reasonable proxy of his value, then we can look at the percentage of the salary cap allocated to goalies. CapGeek.com has that data, and it looks like NHL teams usually spend between 5% and 10% of their cap space on goalies.
The salary disparity is surprising. Teams will often spend twice as much on a single forward as they do for all of their goalies. However, the goalies will have an outsized impact on the team’s success. To quote former Team USA coach David Peterson, “They should call the game ‘goalie’ because of the impact that one position has on the game.”
Perhaps salary cap hits are not good indicators for the importance of goalies. There are only 30 starting-goalie jobs in the NHL, and only 60 total slots if you count the backups. There are lots of goalies vying to be in The Show, so perhaps they’re willing to accept relatively low salaries. That could be particularly true for the backups: backup goalies tend to be among the lowest-paid members of the team.
And a new possible explanation:
Maybe the teams simply don’t need any more goalies in particular years. It’s not like a goalie is going to “expire” after playing for a year.
@Jeff
In answer to the first, yes it would make absolute sense to break the pattern and pick up that exceptional goalie in the first round, and I bet that has been the case with some of the goalies selected in the first round.
In response to the second, I would bet Wayne Gretzky or Bobby Hull or Gordie Howe filled more seats and sold more popcorn than the series of goalies behind them. It’s not about reality it’s about perception and spectators get more of a rush out of a forward on a breakaway than the fraction of a second save by a goalie. It’s unfortunate, but I think true.
On the third and new explanation, I played goalie once or twice and I “expired’ quite readily with fear and loathing, and a few really bad bruises.