Research Report: Comparative Goaltending Efficacy (2021-22 Stanley Cup Playoffs)
Inclusion Criteria
Restricted to goaltenders with a minimum of 5 Games Played during the 2021-22 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Primary Findings: The Postseason’s Elite
The following table represents all qualifying goaltenders for the 2021-22 Stanley Cup Playoffs, ranked by their average standing across all five pillars.
| Rank | Player | Team | GP | Composite Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pavel Francouz | COL | 7 | 3.0 |
| 2 | Jordan Binnington | STL | 6 | 4.2 |
| 3 | Antti Raanta | CAR | 13 | 6.0 |
| 4 | Andrei Vasilevskiy | TBL | 23 | 6.0 |
| 5 | Darcy Kuemper | COL | 16 | 6.2 |
| 6 | Mike Smith | EDM | 16 | 6.4 |
| 7 | Jake Oettinger | DAL | 7 | 6.5 |
| 8 | Igor Shesterkin | NYR | 20 | 8.0 |
| 9 | Jeremy Swayman | BOS | 5 | 8.1 |
| 10 | Jonathan Quick | LAK | 7 | 10.2 |
| 11 | Jack Campbell | TOR | 7 | 10.7 |
| 12 | Jacob Markstrom | CGY | 12 | 11.7 |
| 13 | Louis Domingue | PIT | 6 | 12.0 |
| 14 | Sergei Bobrovsky | FLA | 10 | 12.5 |
| 15 | Ville Husso | STL | 7 | 13.6 |
| 16 | Marc-Andre Fleury | MIN | 5 | 13.7 |
| 17 | Ilya Samsonov | WSH | 5 | 14.2 |
Detailed Logical Analysis
1. The Cup-Winning Tandem
Colorado, the Stanley Cup champion, produces two of the postseason’s top five Composite finishes — Pavel Francouz at #1 (3.0) and Darcy Kuemper at #5 (6.2). Francouz’s profile is built on a perfect 6-0 record across 7 games (Win Rate #1, Loss Suppression #1) plus a top-tier Shutout Rate (#1). Kuemper’s profile is more balanced (#3 WinRate, #5 Svs/GA, #3 LossRate). The two profiles reflect the season-long Colorado tandem signal at scale: when both goaltenders are deployed during a championship run, the team-system component of the Composite produces parallel elite results.
2. Vasilevskiy’s Workload Achievement
Andrei Vasilevskiy carries the highest postseason workload — 23 GP — and finishes #4 with a Composite of 6.0, statistically tied with Raanta. His profile (#4 WinRate, #5 Svs/GA, #6 LossRate, #5 GA/W) holds up across nearly four full series. In a small-sample playoff field where 5–7 game samples can produce extreme rankings (Francouz, Binnington), Vasilevskiy’s Composite represents the era’s first clear case of high-volume, deep-run efficiency.
3. The Sample-Size Reality
Of the seventeen qualifying goaltenders, eight played fewer than 10 games. Francouz (#1, 7 GP) and Binnington (#2, 6 GP) post the postseason’s lowest Composites on samples too small to draw multi-series conclusions from. The methodology applies the same model to playoff data as regular-season data, but the playoff sample sizes change the reliability calculus — single rounds produce extreme rankings, multi-round runs produce more durable ones. The 5-GP inclusion threshold preserves the data; interpretation requires the GP column.
Conclusions
The 2021-22 postseason produces three structural findings the Composite captures: a Cup-winning dual-goaltender system (Colorado), a workload-overcoming run by the era’s premier playoff workhorse (Vasilevskiy), and a structural reminder that playoff samples behave differently from regular-season ones. The methodology’s value in the postseason is not predictive of outcome but descriptive of efficiency once the games have been played.
Thesis: The Playoff Composite as Descriptive, Not Predictive
The Cup-Tandem Confirmation
Colorado’s #1 and #5 placements during a Cup-winning playoff run mirror the same team-tandem signal the regular-season Composite identified. The postseason data does not contradict the team-system finding from the year’s regular-season analysis — it reinforces it. The playoff Composite functions as a checksum on the regular-season conclusions.
The Volume-Validation Apex
Vasilevskiy’s 23-GP, top-five Composite is the playoff equivalent of the workload-tax counterexample. Where the regular season tends to penalize 60+ GP volume goaltenders (the workload tax), the playoff Composite rewards goaltenders who maintain efficiency across a full run. The volume signal inverts in the postseason because deep playoff GP is itself a marker of effectiveness.
The Sample-Size Caveat
The playoff sample size is the methodology’s natural limit. Five-game samples produce extreme Composites (Francouz #1, Binnington #2) that the model cannot distinguish from sustained excellence. The 5-GP threshold preserves the data but the interpretation must remain literal: the model reports what happened in the games played, not what the goaltender’s true level was.
Final Conclusion
The 2021-22 postseason produces a Composite that confirms a Cup tandem (Colorado), surfaces a volume-validation outlier (Vasilevskiy), and exposes the playoff sample-size limit. Read alongside the regular-season report, the postseason analysis is the descriptive complement — what the goaltenders produced once the games actually mattered.