For the second straight year, Vitek Vanecek put up an almost fine regular season and an atrocious playoffs, and he threatens to do the same next season unless someone does something.

Visualization by HockeyViz

About this visualization: This series of charts made by Micah Blake McCurdy of hockeyviz.com shows lots of information for the player over the season. A short description of each chart:

• Ice time per game, split up by game state
• 5-on-5 adjusted shot attempts by the team (black) and opponents (red)
• 5-on-5 adjusted shooting percentage by the team (black) and opponents (red)

Fan Happiness Survey

About this visualization: At three times during the season, RMNB shared an open survey with fans, asking the following question for each player:

On a scale from 1 to 5, how HAPPY are you to have this player on the team?

1 means VERY UNHAPPY TO HAVE THEM ON THE TEAM
2 means UNHAPPY
3 means NEITHER HAPPY NOR UNHAPPY
4 means HAPPY
5 means VERY HAPPY TO HAVE THEM ON THE TEAM

The numbers above show the average score for the player in each survey period.

Peter’s Take

Just like with Samsonov, let’s begin at the end. For the second consecutive year, Vitek Vanecek had a positively deadly postseason. He let in seven goals against 3.6 expected goals, which is unplayably bad. That’s an unfortunate capstone on a season that was maybe more stable than his competitor’s, but not really laudable either.

On aggregate, Vanecek was only slightly below expected (103 actual goals allowed on 99.1 expected goals). JP made this point in February but I’ll revisit it now: the aggregate numbers kinda mask how many bad games Vanecek put up.

The median Vanecek hockey game is pretty underwhelming, with him allowing in maybe one extra goal than expected. Here’s a histogram of the same data. Each block represents one appearance; left are bad games; right are good games. I’ve labeled.

I think that states it plainly. Vanecek puts up mostly “meh” performances, asking his offense to offset what he lacks. And they’re plenty good at doing so, but it sure would be nice to have a goalie whose average performance was, ya know, a little closer to average.

Vanecek is a restricted free agent, so again it’s more likely than not that he comes back, and our “modal outcome” or whatever megadweebs would call it, is a third year of the Samsonov vs Vanecek dance, a circumstance I ardently would like to avoid. Unlike last summer though, the front office might agree with me this time.

According to Orson Welles

VV on RMNB

• No way I’m gonna link every time VV and Samsonov traded off number-one spot, but for the record Vanecek started the rego season as the starter.
• Then he lost the spot as Laviolette negged him: “We’re looking for great goaltending.”
• In early November, Vanecek was nursing a minor injury. That lasted about ten days.
• Seattle’s tribute video for Vanecek, for whom he “played” for like five days.

welcome back to a true kraken legend. pic.twitter.com/EsGC5mudGX

— Seattle Kraken (@SeattleKraken) November 22, 2021

• In January, Vanecek missed some time due to a non-COVID illness. (The flu or something like it ravaged the team after the holiday.)
• In February, Vanecek got injured from slamming the back of his head against the goal frame. He missed most of the month.
• MacLellan on Vanecek going into the playoffs: “I think he deserves opportunity to take the team into the playoffs. He had a real good stretch, got injured there, came back, and still played well. I think we’ve got a certain comfort level with how he’s played and the way he’s maintained it.”
• Then Vanecek played bad in two games and it was back to a toss-up. Then Samsonov played terribly and it swung back to Vanecek. Don’t worry though; this storyline ends terribly.
• Vanecek nabbed the starting slot, and then frankly he sucked.
• Figuring out the goalie position is the team’s number-one priority this summer.

Your Turn

Are you psyched for Samsonov vs. Vanecek round three?! Let’s effing gooooooooo.

Read more: Japers Rink