I've looked at even strength save percentage for all goalies from 1998-2010. The data for 1997-1998 for special teams on the NHL.com web site is flawed, so I have omitted it.
Unweighted
A first look at the relationship comes from unweighted data. Each goalie is one data point, whether he played 1 game or 80. Here is the scatter plot:
Model Summary
|
|
R |
R Square |
Adjusted R Square |
Std. Error of the Estimate |
|
|
.04 |
.00 |
.00 |
.04 |
|
|
|
Sum of Squares |
df |
Mean Square |
F |
Significance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Regression |
.00 |
1 |
.00 |
1.23 |
.27 |
|
|
Residual |
1.22 |
960 |
.00 |
|
|
|
|
Total |
1.22 |
961 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
B |
Std. Error |
Beta |
t |
Significance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
(Constant) |
.90 |
.01 |
.00 |
129.87 |
.00 |
|
|
Age |
.00 |
.00 |
.04 |
1.11 |
.27 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
So, the slope of save percentage over age isn't just close to 0.0, it is 0.0.
Weighted
We can rerun the regression, using shots faced as a weighting factor. The scatter plot does not look any more promising:
Model Summary
|
|
R |
R Square |
Adjusted R Square |
Std. Error of the Estimate |
|
|
.11 |
.01 |
.01 |
.00 |
|
|
|
Sum of Squares |
df |
Mean Square |
F |
Significance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Regression |
.00 |
1 |
.00 |
.26 |
.61 |
|
|
Residual |
.00 |
21 |
.00 |
|
|
|
|
Total |
.00 |
22 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
B |
Std. Error |
Beta |
t |
Significance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
(Constant) |
.91 |
.00 |
.00 |
261.15 |
.00 |
|
|
Age |
.00 |
.00 |
.11 |
.51 |
.61 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
And, indeed, it is not any better.
Serial Measures
One last way to look for a relationship would be to look at each goalie relative to himself as he ages. For this analysis, I have restricted the analysis to goalies with at least 3 seasons. For each goalie, I computed his personal slope. We can then look at the average of these slopes. The null hypothesis is that the average slope is 0.0.
DISTRIBUTION PARAMETER ESTIMATES
========================================================
Slope (N = 140) Mean = -0.001 Variance = 0.000 Std.Dev. = 0.011
0.950 Confidence Interval for mean : -0.003 to 0.001
Once again, the slope is not significantly different from 0.0.
Conclusion
Analyzing the data every way I can think up, there is no evidence whatsoever of any relationship between goalie age and even strength save percentage.
There are 23 Comments. Load Now.
Shortcuts to mastering the comment thread. Use wisely.
C - Next Comment
X - Mark as Read
R - Reply
Z - Mark Read & Next
Shift + C - Previous
Shift + A - Mark All Read
Comment Settings
Live comment alert: Hide it!
Comments for this post are closed.