Research Report: Comparative Goaltending Efficacy (2022-23 Stanley Cup Playoffs)

Inclusion Criteria

Restricted to goaltenders with a minimum of 5 Games Played during the 2022-23 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Primary Findings: The Postseason’s Elite

The following table represents all qualifying goaltenders for the 2022-23 Stanley Cup Playoffs, ranked by their average standing across all five pillars.

Detailed Logical Analysis

1. Adin Hill’s Cup-Winning Profile

Adin Hill’s Composite Score of 1.4 is the most dominant single-postseason finish in any of our datasets. He ranks #1 in Win Rate, #2 in Shutout Rate, #1 in Save Efficiency Ratio, #2 in Loss Suppression, and #1 in Victory Efficiency — four pillars at #1 or #2 across 16 GP during a Stanley Cup victory. His pillar profile is the postseason equivalent of the regular-season Wedgewood/Andersen outliers: cross-pillar dominance produced during the games that mattered most.

2. The Vegas Tandem at #1 and #5

Vegas, the Stanley Cup champion, produces two of the postseason’s top five Composite finishes — Hill at #1 (1.4) and Laurent Brossoit at #5 (7.0). Both finished above #5 across at least three of the five pillars. The dual-tandem pattern that the regular-season Composite has surfaced repeatedly (Boston, Carolina, Colorado) appears in the postseason cut as well — a championship run, in this case, was supported by parallel efficiency from both depth charts.

3. The Bobrovsky Workload Run

Sergei Bobrovsky carries the highest postseason workload — 19 GP through Florida’s run to the Stanley Cup Final — and finishes #2 with a Composite of 3.8. His profile (#2 WinRate, #3 SO Rate, #7 Svs/GA, #3.5 LossRate, #3.5 GA/W) holds elite-tier consistency across the Cinderella run. The result begins what becomes a multi-year Bobrovsky playoff thesis: he is the era’s most reliable high-volume postseason goaltender, regardless of his regular-season Composite tier.

Conclusions

The 2022-23 postseason produces three structural findings: a near-perfect Cup-winning Composite (Hill at 1.4), a championship dual-tandem (Vegas), and the first installment of the Bobrovsky playoff workload thesis. The methodology produces a #1 finish that aligns with the actual Stanley Cup result while also exposing the depth-chart contribution that the trophy itself does not measure.

Thesis: The Postseason’s First Outlier

The Cup-Champion Floor

Hill’s 1.4 Composite is the postseason’s mathematical analogue to Andersen’s 1.0 in the 2023-24 regular season — a goaltender who finishes near the top of every pillar simultaneously during a championship run. The methodology produces a result that matches the season’s actual outcome (the Cup) while also identifying him by a measure independent of any single statistic.

The Vegas System Effect

Vegas’s #1 and #5 placements parallel the team-tandem patterns documented in the regular season. The system signal — that championship-quality teams produce parallel elite Composites from both goaltenders — appears in the postseason data with the same structure as the regular season.

The Bobrovsky Inversion

Bobrovsky’s #2 Composite on 19 postseason GP is the playoff data’s clearest workload-inversion case. In the regular season, his 2022-23 Composite ranked outside the top 30. In the playoffs, he produces a top-2 finish. The Composite captures what the postseason rewards differently from the regular season: durable cross-pillar performance under the highest single-elimination pressure.

Final Conclusion

The 2022-23 postseason produces a near-perfect Composite for the Cup winner (Hill), confirms the team-tandem signal at the championship level (Vegas), and begins what becomes the multi-year Bobrovsky playoff thesis. Read alongside the regular-season analyses, the postseason cut shows the methodology aligning with the actual Cup result while surfacing the depth-chart contribution.