Early-season goalie numbers are already stirring up a little Canadian intrigue, and the first few weeks have put three names in the spotlight: Ottawa’s Linus Ullmark, Winnipeg’s Stuart Skinner, and Vancouver’s Leevi Meriläinen.
Ullmark has jumped near the top of the Goals Saved Above Expected leaderboard, Skinner is right in the mix, and Meriläinen is turning heads in Vancouver after being claimed off waivers from Ottawa in September. The 24-year-old has gotten a chance with Thatcher Demko out because of a hip injury, and he’s handled the assignment well enough to make people take notice.
That was on display in Vancouver’s October 16 game against Florida, when Meriläinen stopped 36 shots and still ended up on the wrong side of a 3-2 overtime loss. It was a strong individual effort that didn’t change the final result, which is exactly why goalie numbers can get tricky if you judge them by the team record alone.
Goals Saved Above Expected is built to do a better job than wins and losses at telling that story. It measures how many goals a goalie has stopped compared with what he would have been expected to allow based on the shots he faced. It gives a clearer read on performance, especially when the team in front of him isn’t doing much to help.
On the October 18 leaderboard, Ullmark was at +6.8 and Skinner sat at +2.3. Meriläinen checked in just outside the top 15 at +2.5 on the latest available board, a promising start for a goalie who wasn’t the attention-grabber when Vancouver picked him up. Bobrovsky also showed positive numbers in Toronto, even though he wasn’t in the original top-15 snapshot.
It’s still very early, and these numbers can shift fast over the course of a season. But for now, Ullmark is giving Ottawa plenty to like, Skinner remains part of the picture in Winnipeg, and Meriläinen is making that waiver claim look like a worthwhile gamble. Vancouver may not be stacking wins, but its goalie is giving fans something worth watching.
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