Logan Thompson is having an awesome season in his first year in Washington. The soon to be 28-year-old has come in and essentially taken the starters job from Charlie Lindgren. While the Washington Capitals do seem to be employing a tandem system this season with the two, if you had a must win game right now it would be shocking if it wasn't Thompson between the pipes.
Thompson has played in thirty games for the Caps this season and he has lost two...2 games in regulation. He has lost a total of six games with four coming in overtime or a shootout. He currently has a 2.18 goals against average with a .923 save percentage. He also has put together two shutout performances this season so far.
Since we talked about him, and to compare, Charlie Lindgren is 12-9-3, with a 2.63 GAA and a save percentage of .902%. He has one shutout this season.
Thompson is having a great season. He is putting up numbers that warrant award recognition. That award of course being the Vezina Trophy as leagues top goaltender. When you look around, Thompson's name is in fact towards the top in these rankings.
With that beng the case I thought it would be interesting to compare Thompson's numbers to his fellow Vezina capable goaltenders this season. This way we can see how much of a chance the Capitals goalie has at maybe bringing home the award in June.
We've already pointed out some of Thompson's numbers, so we have just a couple of others to point out. Right now, something that holds Thompson back is the fact that he is a tandem goalie. Meaning he has played in less games. Thompson has played in thirty games. The other guys in the Vezina discussion have played more. Connor Hellebuyck has played 42 games. Filip Gustavsson has played 36 games and MacKenzie Blackwood has played in 40 games.
If you want this in minutes played it look like this. Hellebuyck is over 2,526 minutes played. Gustavsson is over 2,111 minutes. Blackwood has played over 2,267 minutes. While Thompson is over 1,792 minutes.
Well start by talking more about Hellebuyck. In most of if not all of the things I have seen he is your favorite right now, and maybe not just for the Vezina, but maybe league MVP. When you look at the numbers that is for good reason.
Hellebuyck is 33-7-2 in his 42 games played this season. In those games he has a 2.04 goals against average and has a .925 save percentage. He has 6 shutouts this season.
This season he ranks number one in high danger save percentage at .858%. That is first among goalies who have played in 1,700 minutes or more. 27 goalies have that many minutes or more. All of the Vezina candidates have played at least that many minutes.
Hellebuyck has faced 268 high danger shots, meaning he faces about 6.3 high danger shots a game.
The Winnipeg Jets netminder also leads the league in Goals Saved Above Average at 26.88. No one is really close to that number either. Andrei Vasilevskiy is second at 18.04. Hellebuyck has a High Danger Goals Saved Above Average of 12.68, also number one in the league.
Bottom line, when you look at Connor Hellebuyck's numbers he is the favorite to win the Vezina Trophy for good reason.
Filip Gustavsson of the Minnesota Wild is another candidate. When you look at his numbers he has had a pretty good season. He is currently 21-11-3, he has a GAA of 2.61 and a .915 save percentage. Solid numbers.
He ranks 9th in high danger save percentage with a percentage of .827%. He's faced 255 high danger shots, or about seven per game.
His GSAA is 14.02 which is 5th. His HDGSAA is 4.22 which is also 9th in the NHL.
He has some good numbers, but it gets better, and it is obviously not the season Hellebuyck is having.
We can then move on to MacKenzie Blackwood. Blackwood is a bit of a more interesting case because he has split his season between two teams. One bad team (SJ) one good (his current COL team). He has played in 40 games. He is 19-15-5 this season, he's 13-6-2 with Colorado.
This season he has a GAA of 2.49 and a save percentage of .917%. Again, for some context, he has a 2.03 GAA and a save percentage of .926% with Colorado. But the stats count as a whole don't they.
His HD save percentage is .851%, that ranks 3rd in the league. He has faced a total of 282 high danger shots, or about seven a game.
He has a GSAA of 17.02, that is 4th, and his HDGSAA is 11.33 which is 3rd best.
He has good numbers, but does it get better? Most of the rankings I've seen has Thompson as second to Hellebuyck.
We've already shown some of Thompson's numbers, here are the others. He has a HD save percentage of .845%, that is tied for 5th. He has faced 226 high danger shots this season, meaning he faces about 7.5 a game.
Thompson has a GSAA of 17.82 which ranks 3rd, and his HDGSAA is 7.74 which is 6th this season so far.
When it comes to Thompson and Blackwood it's kind of up and down. Thompson is better in GSAA, but Blackwood betters him in HD save percentage and High Danger Goals Saved Above Average.
When you look at these numbers I think things are pretty clear right now. Gustavsson is probably fourth. Thompson and Blackood are going back and forth for 2nd. Then there is Hellebuyck who is running away with the award for now.
For the Capitals Logan Thompson has been incredible. He has been a big part in the Capitals success this season. His great play has helped land a contract extension with the team. He no doubt deserves to be in the discussion for best goalie in the NHL this season.
We still have a ways to go. We have about two months left in the NHL season. We still have nearly 30 games left to play in the season as well. Lots can still change. Right now, if you're wanting Thompson to win this award you are going to need Hellebuyck to go into a late season slump.