My case Against a second goalie slot

One idea that was raised at the AGMM this year was to add a second starting goalie slot, bringing our total starting roster to 15 players.  I don't like this idea, and feel strongly (as strongly as people feel about fantasy hockey) that it will change the balance of the positions considerably, as well as the balance of scoring week-to-week.  I understand there to be a few specific reasons to add this slot, so I will address each as I understand them.  Please feel free to point out my mistakes, respond, critique, etc.  Let's get this conversation going.

1) Anyone can get a good goalie so there is no scarcity

I get that we don't plumb the depths of the goalie market as much as we do players. This year, only 5 goalies were kept by teams.  Another 14 were taken in the draft. But we are expanding, so next year we can reasonably expect to take 2-4 more goalies.  More importantly, we already have a substantial spread in the quality of goalies taken and started, which is strong evidence that scarcity is already at work.

By pure subtraction, 11 starting goalies are on the waiver wire.  In actual fact, I only see 6 true starters (and 5 platoon situations). These are for Toronto, Dallas, Winnipeg, Columbus, Florida and the New York Islanders. Only one of those scored more than 100 fantasy points last year and he can reasonably be expected to do worse this year (Kari Lehtonen).  There are flyers, sure, as Dubnyk or Mike Smith might start.  But as it stands, we have left the very worst goalies on the pile and still have a spread from Tim Thomas's 2.9 pts per game last year to Kiprusoff's 1.6.  In a three game week, that's a 4 pt per week spread in fantasy output - larger than even the difference between Ovechkin (1.9) and Steve Sullivan (0.8) last year.  And Steve Sullivan was once called the 'worst player on any team in the whole league' by Jason Bay.

As well, Tim Thomas led all players with his 2.9 per game average, and was only second to Daniel Sedin in total points (a Hart Trophy finalist on the President's Trophy winning team).  Goalies are valuable.  They have absolute value in the league as the highest scoring position and they have relative value to each other in that the top goalies score way more than the bottom goalies.  It already pays to have a good goalie, and some teams don't have one. That is the consequence of scarcity we desire.  It's hard to win with a crappy goalie, just as it's hard to win with a crappy LW core, or crappy D.

2) Maybe the worst goalies are bad, but the top 12 are roughly equal, so scarcity is still not working

Okay, lets just consider starters and ignore the outliers.  If we take Thomas out (because his season was record setting), and go from Luongo and Rinne (2.4) down to the 13th best goalie (a four way split at 1.9), we have a difference of 0.5 per game (or 1.5 per 3 game week).  If we go from Stamkos (second best C) to the 37th best C, we have a difference of 0.6 (or 1.8 per 3 game week).  Same if we go from the 2nd best D to the 49th best D - we come out with a 0.6 difference in per game average.  That's remarkable balance in starters.  Starters are just better than bench players, whether they are at Centre or Defence or Goalie.  LW and RW both have more outliers and so break the mould a little. If we remove the 4 guys at the top who are markedly better than the rest, the difference is again 0.6.  Some funny math, maybe, but just as Thomas skews the numbers for goalies, Hart nominees skew things for players.  Plus, that's why those 2 positions are so valuable.  We all know it.

The point is, this scoring system is remarkably balanced.  I dare say that it's the most balanced system I've played under in fantasy hockey.  If we add a goalie slot, goalies become much more important than they currently are, and honestly, I think much more important than any but the top 6-8 wingers plus Crosby.  I don't want the difference between a Vokoun-Miller pairing and a Backstrom-Montoya pairing having more sway on a week than how your other 13 player match up.  

3) Even the very best goalies are not the difference makers we expect. We can tweak the point scoring system.

I sort of heard this rumbling today and I was surprised.  The top 4 Vezina finalists from last year are the top 4 point getters by per game average.  We are accurately accounting for the best individual goalies, independent of team performance.  Isn't that what we want?  Goalies aren't solely responsible for Wins (a frequent problem in goalie scoring), and their job is to make saves, not make a better % of saves than a goalie he's not even playing against in real life.  Our scoring system is doing very well for goalies.

When I set up the league, one of the things I worked hardest to avoid is over valuing goalies.  This is one of the most common attributes of other fantasy hockey leagues: goalies are king, and goalies from good teams are better than goalies from bad teams.  In our league, this isn't currently true and I like that.


I feel like adding a goalie slot doesn't make more ways to win the league, it makes fewer.  I accept that some teams have a vested interest in generating greater value of goalies as they have invested heavily, but I don't think letting different teams win is the same as affording more teams the chance to win.

I officially vote against adding another starting goalie, and suggest that we consider other ways to create more scarcity at the position if that is desired.  Expansion is a start.