Fans across the NHL were well aware of the nightly struggles of the trio of Pittsburgh Penguins goalies, Tristan Jarry, Alex Nedeljkovic, and Joel Blomqvist.
For the first time in 20 years, all three netminders finished the campaign with sub- .900 SV% totals, with Nedeljkovic leading the pack at .894, followed by Jarry (.892) and Blomqvist (.885).
Collectively, the trio gave the Penguins a total .891 SV%, the lowest total since captain Sidney Crosby’s rookie season, 2005-06, when Marc-Andre Fleury (.898), Sebastian Caron (.881), Jocelyn Thibault (.876), and Dany Sabourin (.714) combined for a .888 SV%.
The 2024-25 season marked the fourth consecutive campaign that the Pittsburgh goalies witnessed a drop in SV% totals. In 2022, the last year the Penguins qualified for the playoffs, their goalies produced a .919 save percentage, which dropped to .907 in 2023 and further to .903 last year.
Moreover, in the three seasons since their last pursuit of the Stanley Cup, the netminders have averaged a .903 SV%, which is ten points lower than their average during their 16-year playoff streak, during which they had averaged .913 annually.
Interestingly, the deeper we dig into the numbers, there’s another demographic to look at, which is the 13-season tenure of Fleury, who patrolled the crease from 2003-04 to 2016-17
In Fleury’s rookie season, he played 21 games and registered a .896 SV%, while the team combined for a .893 SV%, which was still two percentage points better than the 2024-25 squad.
Anyways, things got worse in Fleury’s second season, Crosby’s first, when the team set the century’s lowest SV% totals with a .888 season, the only time in 25 years the team had a sub-.890 total.
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However, the Penguins became competitive immediately after, as evidenced by their 16-year playoff run, which resulted in three Stanley Cup titles in four Final appearances.
Fleury was a significant part of that run, skating in the first 11 seasons. During his time with the Penguins, the team averaged a .910 SV% from 2004 to 2017. Meanwhile, in the eight seasons since his departure, the team’s annual save percentage has dropped to .907%.
Of course, there’s an argument that the difference is only 0.0023 points, but those few extra saves are the difference between a win and a loss, which equals a playoff spot or a lottery draft pick.
Ultimately, general manager Kyle Dubas has some decisions to make in the upcoming offseason, and one of them is to assemble a goalie tandem that can recapture the success the Penguins had at stopping more than 90% of the shots they face, something they enjoyed annually for over 15 years.
Inside The Numbers: Penguins’ Record In Season FinalesThe Pittsburgh Penguins just finished their 57th season with a 34-36-12 record, missing the Stanley Cup playoffs for the third consecutive campaign.
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