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Tim Williams - AccuScore Analyst
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The Boston Bruins’ goalie situation is one that any team in the NHL would gladly take.  Tim Thomas and Manny Fernandez have split the goaltending duties in Boston this year, and in the process, both players have put up numbers ranking them amongst the best goalies in the league.  The success of the Bruins goalies has propelled Boston to the top of the Eastern Conference, with a 32-7-4 record, and 68 points, which ranks second in the NHL to the San Jose Sharks.

Boston may have a problem down the line in deciding which goalie to go with as a full time starter.  Both players are free agents at the end of the year, and both will probably receive starting goaltender offers, making it unlikely that the Bruins would be able to keep both goalies past the 2008-09 season.  AccuScore simulated the remainder of the Bruins season with both Thomas and Fernandez as full time starters.  The simulations not only compare the two goalies for next season, but also show which goalie gives the Bruins a better chance at winning if one of Thomas or Fernandez was lost to an injury.

In AccuScore projections with Thomas as the full time starter, the Bruins are finishing with 124 points on the season, and winning the division in 98.5 percent of simulations.  With Fernandez in net full time, the Bruins are finishing with half a point less on average, and winning the division in 97.7 percent of simulations.  Thomas provides a minor upgrade over Fernandez, but both goalies are about equal, making the Bruins a near lock to win the Northeast division and make the playoffs.

While the performance by Thomas and Fernandez leads to team success, it does not do much for the individual players.  Tim Thomas is currently ranked second in Goals Against Average and save percentage amongst qualifying goalies for the 2008-09 season.  His 18 wins rank sixth in the NHL, and his 18-4-3 record gives him a better winning percentage than four of the top five winning goalies in the NHL, with Evgeni Nabokov being the only goalie with more wins and a better winning percentage.  However, because Thomas has only started 25 of his team’s 43 games, he may not qualify for the Vezina trophy at the end of the year.

Last year we saw a similar situation in Detroit with Dominik Hasek and Chris Osgood.  Osgood finished first in the NHL in Goals Against Average, while Hasek finished third.  However, the two goalies split time evenly in Detroit, with neither starting more than 40 games.  The Vezina trophy went to Martin Brodeur, who ranked fifth in Goals Against Average, but started 37 more games than Hasek and Osgood.  That precedent may appear to hurt Tim Thomas this season, despite his incredible numbers.

Thomas has only played in 58.14 percent of his team’s games, which is slightly more than Hasek and Osgood last year in Detroit, but nowhere close to the 93.90 percent of games Brodeur played in for the Devils last season.  In an argument for Thomas, the 2008-09 season is shaping up to be much different than the previous years in regards to goalies splitting time in net.  This year only two of the top 15 qualifying Goals Against Average leaders this season have played in more than 70 percent of their team’s games.  Those players are Niklas Backstrom and Evgeni Nabokov.  By comparison, last year nine players out of the top 15 qualifying Goals Against Average leaders played in more than 70 percent of their team’s games.  Last year wasn’t a fluke, as the 2006-07 season saw seven out of the top 15 play in more than 70 percent of their team’s games, and the 2005-06 season saw six out of the top 15 play in more than 70 percent of their team’s games.

It appears that the majority of NHL teams have shifted to a goaltender-by-committee system, rather than going with one Martin Brodeur-type goalie as the full time starter.  If the season were to end today, and you were to disqualify all of the goalies like Tim Thomas who were splitting time in net, the Vezina trophy would come down to a race between Niklas Backstrom, who ranks sixth in Goals Against Average and eighth in save percentage, and Evgeni Nabokov, who ranks 13^th in Goals Against Average and 22^nd in save percentage.  That would make Backstrom the heavy favorite for the award, despite the fact that Thomas ranks second in the NHL in both Goals Against Average and save percentage.

In order to determine who is the better goalie, AccuScore simulated the remainder of the Bruins season with Tim Thomas as the full time starter, and with Niklas Backstrom as the full time starter.

In the majority of simulations, Thomas gives the Bruins one more win over the remainder of the season, and a little more than two points in the average simulation.  He also gives Boston close to a two percent increase in their chances of winning the Northeast division.  Not only has Thomas put up better numbers this season than Backstrom, but AccuScore simulations confirm that he is the slightly better goalie.  The only thing potentially holding him back from winning the Vezina trophy is the fact that he splits time with another top goalie, while Backstrom has played in 83.33 percent of Minnesota’s games.  That shouldn’t hold Thomas back when considering how common it has been for teams to use a goaltender-by-committee system in the 2008-09 season.