Goalies Taken By Round Historically

Ask any NHL team and they would probably agree, getting a top end goalie is a hard thing to do.  That might be especially so in a hockey pool draft, when top end goalies are just as good as those top end forwards we're always chiming on about.

When forwards (and defense) are getting a point for every goal and assist they get, not to mention having the ability to play in all 82 games, finding a evening out point for goaltenders wasn't all that difficult, when the true number one goalies, in a healthy season, are playing 60-70 games in a season and certainly, they're not capitalizing every night on the 2 points for a win and another 2 points for a shutout.  Still, there is a school of thought at the draft, that you need at least one good goalie, if you're going to win this pool and if you can get two, you might be able to make up for the lack of top end forwards late.

In recent years, this has created a bum's rush for goaltending at the draft, as illustrated by the table down below.  What we see here is goalies taken by round over the last nine drafts, thankfully, the structure of the pool hasn't changed, so this does become a pretty good exercise in statistics.

Last year's draft saw a record-high in goalies taken in the 1st round, topping out at 19 keepers in a 25-team draft, not leaving a lot for the rest of the pool.  That rush wasn't quite as significant as the 2015 draft, where 38 of 54 goalies were gone by the end of the 2nd round.

Year	Teams	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14
2017	25	19	8	1	3	3	4	0	2	3	0	3	1	1	2
2016	25	18	7	5	5	2	1	0	2	0	3	3	2	0	2
2015	27	18	20	1	0	0	0	0	1	1	2	3	1	4	3
2014	23	7	16	8	1	1	2	4	1	0	0	3	1	1	1
2013	24	6	15	2	3	2	4	5	3	0	1	1	1	1	4
2012	17	7	11	8	4	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	2
2011	22	10	11	6	3	5	3	2	0	1	0	1	1	0	1
2010	20	8	13	3	2	0	1	4	2	2	0	0	1	1	3
2009	17	7	7	2	6	5	3	0	0	1	0	1	0	0	2

Does it really pay off in the end?  Stuart, last year's winner, didn't take his first goalie until the 3rd round and his second goalie until the 13th round, opting to exchange Louis Domingue for Keith Kinkaid at the opening Waiver Draft and then the rest was history.  Having a little bit of luck at the one-third point of the season certainly helps.

Of the top 25 players in hockey pool scoring last year, only six of them were goalies, five of them were taken in the 1st round, while Connor Hellebuyck of the Jets, wasn't taken until the 5th round.

How much help was Hellebuyck as such a good bargain pick?  Not much.  Neil, who ended up with the pick, finished 18th.

I think everyone certainly feels more comfortable with at least one starting goaltender that they can hang their hat on after the draft, but it is a long season and lots of things can certainly happen.  If you can identify the teams that you think will be at the top of the overall standings at the end of the year, pick out their number one goalie, then you might have a pretty good case for a 1st round pick, but if you're hoping that Cam Talbot, Mike Smith and/or Carey Price are going to turn around their clubs in the coming year, enough so to be a 1st round pick, you're taking a huge gamble and could be better off with Evgeni Malkin, Steven Stamkos or an Alex Ovechkin, all three players going in the 2nd round last year.

Don't let me disrupt your strategy though... I mainly did this post out of my own curiosity.