After taking down the Columbus Blue Jackets and spoiling Johnny Gaudreau’s return to the Saddledome, the Calgary Flames sat fifth in the Pacific Division and had the second wild card spot. Their team record was 23–16–9, good for 55 points and a .573 points percentage.
Vladar now a part of Flames history
Their win also marked Dan Vladar‘s 10th win of the season, where he himself had a personal record of 10–4–4. More impressively, his win put him in some nice company in the franchise, becoming the fifth goalie in Flames history to record a 12-game point streak.
From November 29 up to his latest game, Vladar hasn’t walked down the tunnel at game’s end without recording at least one point in the standings. In fact, his record in his last 12 is a stellar 9–0–3.
NHL goalie point streaks
This begs the question of just how impressive this streak is relative to all other NHL goalies this season. To answer it, I took a look at all goalies who have played at least 600 minutes i.e. a total of 12 games (yes, there may be some goalies with partial games but all goalies listed had at least 12 games played).
At the conclusion of all games played on January 23, here’s how all goalie point streaks looked in the NHL this season. A point streak for goalies in this case is defined as goalies being award the decision at game’s end. Streaks can span past games where a goalie made an appearance but wasn’t credited with neither the win nor loss. Some goalies including Vladar are currently building on these streaks, but as mentioned, these are the results as of January 23.
Without further ado, here’s a lengthy table of all 66 goalies who meet the criteria and their respective streaks. Flames goalies are in bold. Streak data from hockey-reference.com and all goalie ice time cutoffs from NaturalStatTrick.com. Streaks are denoted by W’s for wins and O’s for overtime losses.
| Goalie | Team | GP | Streak | Point Streak | Points Earned |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Linus Ullmark | BOS | 30 | WWWWWWWWWOWWWWW | 15 | 29 |
| Tristan Jarry | PIT | 27 | OWWWWOWWWWWWW | 13 | 24 |
| Dan Vladar | CGY | 18 | WWWWOOWOWWWW | 12 | 21 |
| Pyotr Kochetkov | CAR | 19 | OWWWOWWWWW | 10 | 18 |
| Martin Jones | SEA | 33 | WWOWWWWWWW | 10 | 19 |
| Darcy Kuemper | WSH | 31 | WWWOWWOOWW | 10 | 17 |
| Antti Raanta | CAR | 16 | OWWWWWWWO | 9 | 16 |
| Vitek Vanecek | NJD | 30 | WWWWWWWWW | 9 | 18 |
| Matt Murray | TOR | 19 | WOWWWWOWW | 9 | 16 |
| Jeremy Swayman | BOS | 19 | WWOOWWWW | 8 | 14 |
| Igor Shesterkin | NYR | 35 | WWWOOWWW | 8 | 14 |
| Carter Hart | PHI | 34 | WWWWWOOW | 8 | 14 |
| Jake Oettinger | DAL | 36 | WOWOWOW | 7 | 11 |
| Pheonix Copley | LAK | 17 | WWWWWWW | 7 | 14 |
| Juuse Saros | NSH | 35 | WWWOWWW | 7 | 13 |
| Jordan Binnington | STL | 36 | OWWWOOW | 7 | 11 |
| Brian Elliott | TBL | 12 | WWWWWWW | 7 | 14 |
| Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen | BUF | 18 | WWWWWW | 6 | 12 |
| Spencer Knight | FLA | 19 | OWOOWW | 6 | 9 |
| Filip Gustavsson | MIN | 19 | WWWWWW | 6 | 12 |
| Marc-Andre Fleury | MIN | 28 | WOWWWW | 6 | 11 |
| Logan Thompson | VGK | 33 | WWWWWW | 6 | 12 |
| Connor Hellebuyck | WPG | 36 | WWWWWW | 6 | 12 |
| Karel Vejmelka | ARI | 34 | OWWWW | 5 | 9 |
| Alexandar Georgiev | COL | 32 | WWOWW | 5 | 9 |
| Ville Husso | DET | 32 | OWWWW | 5 | 9 |
| Jack Campbell | EDM | 24 | WWWWW | 5 | 10 |
| Jonathan Quick | LAK | 26 | WOWWW | 5 | 9 |
| Ilya Sorokin | NYI | 37 | WWWWW | 5 | 10 |
| Semyon Varlamov | NYI | 14 | WWWOW | 5 | 9 |
| James Reimer | SJS | 26 | OOWWW | 5 | 8 |
| Ilya Samsonov | TOR | 21 | WWWWW | 5 | 10 |
| Adin Hill | VGK | 17 | WWWWW | 5 | 10 |
| Charlie Lindgren | WSH | 21 | WWWWW | 5 | 10 |
| Craig Anderson | BUF | 17 | WOWW | 4 | 7 |
| Frederik Andersen | CAR | 12 | WWWW | 4 | 8 |
| Joonas Korpisalo | CBJ | 20 | WOWW | 4 | 7 |
| Jacob Markstrom | CGY | 32 | WWWW | 4 | 8 |
| Scott Wedgewood | DAL | 16 | WOWO | 4 | 6 |
| Sam Montembeault | MTL | 20 | WWOW | 4 | 7 |
| Jaroslav Halak | NYR | 12 | WWWW | 4 | 8 |
| Cam Talbot | OTT | 27 | WWWW | 4 | 8 |
| Kaapo Kahkonen | SJS | 19 | OWOW | 4 | 6 |
| Andrei Vasilevskiy | TBL | 33 | WWWW | 4 | 8 |
| Spencer Martin | VAN | 26 | OWWW | 4 | 7 |
| John Gibson | ANA | 32 | OOW | 3 | 4 |
| Alex Stalock | CHI | 14 | WWW | 3 | 6 |
| Petr Mrazek | CHI | 19 | WWW | 3 | 6 |
| Pavel Francouz | COL | 13 | WWW | 3 | 6 |
| Stuart Skinner | EDM | 27 | WWW | 3 | 6 |
| Sergei Bobrovsky | FLA | 30 | WWO | 3 | 5 |
| Mackenzie Blackwood | NJD | 13 | WWW | 3 | 6 |
| Kevin Lankinen | NSH | 11 | OWW | 3 | 5 |
| Anton Forsberg | OTT | 23 | WWW | 3 | 6 |
| Thomas Greiss | STL | 14 | WWW | 3 | 6 |
| David Rittich | WPG | 12 | WWW | 3 | 6 |
| Anthony Stolarz | ANA | 17 | WW | 2 | 4 |
| Eric Comrie | BUF | 12 | WW | 2 | 4 |
| Daniil Tarasov | CBJ | 13 | WO | 2 | 3 |
| Elvis Merzlikins | CBJ | 20 | WW | 2 | 4 |
| Jake Allen | MTL | 27 | WW | 2 | 4 |
| Casey DeSmith | PIT | 19 | WW | 2 | 4 |
| Philipp Grubauer | SEA | 16 | WW | 2 | 4 |
| Connor Ingram | ARI | 14 | W | 1 | 2 |
| Arvid Soderblom | CHI | 15 | W | 1 | 2 |
| Thatcher Demko | VAN | 15 | W | 1 | 2 |
As seen above, Vladar has the third longest point streak this season. Only Linus Ullmark and Tristan Jarry have had longer streaks so far. The three of them make up the only three goalies with point streaks that have earned at least 20 standings points for their team.
Evidenced by the table, putting together point streaks as a goalie is quite difficult. A total of 43 goaltenders have point streaks of five games or fewer, and Jacob Markstrom is a part of said 43 with a season-long streak of just four games.
Of the remaining 23 goalies with streaks of at least six games, only six of them have reached double digits. It’s exceedingly difficult to put together these types of streaks as a regulation loss is all it takes to reset.
The Flames can be thankful that Vladar has earned points in so many of his starts.
On the other side, some goalies—despite playing in many games—have yet to see two consecutive games collecting points. The trio of Thatcher Demko, Arvid Soderblom, and Connor Ingram all have “streaks” of just one game, if you can even call that a streak. In other words, every time any of these goalies have won a game so far, their next performance resulted in a regulation loss. Not good.
Providing stability
Of course, streaks like these are fun with little prognostic power on how a team will fare now and in the future. In ways, it shows a goalie’s hot hand, and right now Vladar is hot, hot, hot.
It’s one of those stats that essentially zero goalies will pay attention to, but the reality of it is that the Flames have earned a whole lot of points every time they’ve opted to go with Vladar, and their place in the standings is definitely something everyone will hae an eye on.
Photo by Brett Holmes/Icon Sportswire
