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Tampa Bay Lightning: Top 4 areas they need to improve in

By Kyle Pereira

TAMPA, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 12: Steven Stamkos #91 of the Tampa Bay Lightning celebrates a goal during a game against the Boston Bruins at Amalie Arena on December 12, 2019 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images)
TAMPA, FLORIDA - DECEMBER 12: Steven Stamkos #91 of the Tampa Bay Lightning celebrates a goal during a game against the Boston Bruins at Amalie Arena on December 12, 2019 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Mike Ehrmann/Getty Images) /
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The dangers Vasilevskiy faces

For your second point, you brought up the high-danger chances that Vasilevskiy has faced has remained the same as last year, but with more goals getting scored through them. This is where I can disagree. NaturalStatTrick calculates a ton of different statistics, including the amount of, what they qualify as, high-danger opportunities. Another site, CorsicaHockey, also looks at low-danger and mid-danger opportunities. But first, as mentioned, let’s look at the high-danger shots first.

Last season, Vasy faced the 16th most high-danger shots in the league with 427, with a high-danger save percentage (HDSV%) of .822%.

This season, he’s on pace for 59 starts. So far, he’s faced 161 high-danger shots, putting him on pace for roughly 475 high-danger shots. So Vasy is actually facing more high-danger shots this year, while currently holding a better HDSV% of .826%.

In that observation, you’re not exactly right. Not only is the amount of high-danger shots on pace to beat the amount he had last season, but he is also doing a better job of keeping the pucks out of the net. However, I did a little bit more research. Based on his current pace, Vasy could give up 83 goals against high-danger shots. That being said, he will technically allow more goals than last season (76), however, while facing a significant amount of shots less.

Meanwhile, according to CorsicaHockey, Vasilevskiy ranks 3rd in the league, among goalies with over 1,000 minutes of playing time, in low-danger save percentage (LDSV%), with a .988%. Vasy does struggle mightily in the mid-danger scoring opportunities area. He ranks 21st out of 24 goalies with at least 1,000 minutes in mid-danger save percentage (MDSV%), with a .875%. Unfortunately, Corsica does not calculate the amount of low or mid-danger shots a goalie faces, but that MDSV% is really poor.

Last season, Vasy had a .979 LDSV%, which ranked 9th among goalies with at least 2,000 minutes of ice time. He also had a .929 MDSV%, which ranked 4th in the league among those same qualified goalies. So while you’re not entirely right about Vasilevskiy giving up more high-danger shots, it is true that he is struggling when facing shots deemed somewhere between a bad scoring chance and a great one. He needs to improve in that area, especially since we all know he can play much better.

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