For a Calgary Flames team that has not performed very well this season, a bright spot has been the play of several key organizational rookies. Up front, Connor Zary, Matt Coronato, and Martin Pospisil have been solid to start the season, and on the blueline Ilya Solovyov has shown he is ready to play in the NHL.
Most interesting is between the pipes, however. Top prospect Dustin Wolf has now gotten into four NHL games this season, skating out from the tunnel to a chorus of “Awoooos” from the Saddledome faithful each and every game. He’s a fan favourite just five games into his NHL career, and for a player with the underdog story that Wolf has, it makes sense.
Though he’s beloved by all, how has he actually performed on the ice? Let’s take a look.
Wolf’s NHL record
Through four games this season, Wolf has a 1–2–0 record. In a Flames loss against the Minnesota Wild on December 5, Dan Vladar was given the loss as he was in goal for the game-winner, and Wolf entered the game in relief.
It’s not a sparkling record by any means, but Wolf has faced the Ottawa Senators, Carolina Hurricanes, and New Jersey Devils, all talented and high-scoring teams.
Through these five games, Wolf has a 3.04 GAA and .900 SV%, which rank second and first on the team respectively.
| Goalie | GP | GS | SV% | GAA | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dustin Wolf | 4 | 3 | 0.900 | 3.04 | 0 |
| Jacob Markstrom | 16 | 16 | 0.896 | 2.94 | 0 |
| Dan Vladar | 8 | 8 | 0.877 | 3.45 | 0 |
Taking out his relief effort against the Wild and only looking at games Wolf started in goal, his GAA improves to 3.03 and his SV% improves to .907.
Though four games this season, there is a real argument to be made that Wolf has performed just as well as the six-million-dollar-man, Jacob Markstrom, and significantly better than Vladar.
Wolf’s results with advanced stats
Digging deeper into the advanced stats helps add context to Wolf’s rather impressive counting stats so far. These stats are from NaturalStatTrick and Hockey-Reference. This first table is at all strengths. Keep in mind that these are cumulative totals, so players with more minutes will see higher totals in general.
| Goalie | GSAx | GSAA | QS | QS% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dustin Wolf | -2.03 | 0.97 | 1 | .333 |
| Jacob Markstrom | 5.39 | 1.96 | 8 | .500 |
| Dan Vladar | -6.27 | -2.93 | 2 | .250 |
At all strengths, Wolf is outperforming Vladar by a wide margin. He’s stopped -2.03 goals above expected, which is underwater, and lower than Markstrom’s, but still significantly better than Vladar. Wolf is also positive in goals saved above average with 0.97, lower than Markstrom but much higher than Vladar once again. Markstrom is the only goalie in the positives for both of these key stats, but Vladar is negative in both.
Looking at quality starts which are all performances with a save percentage higher than the average save percentage for the year, Wolf has just one out of his three starts, whereas Markstrom has eight on 16 total starts. Vladar has not put forward many quality starts this year, just two on eight total starts.
Looking at 5v5 numbers strictly, Wolf performs a bit worse, but still quite good, especially for a rookie goaltender. Again, these are cumulative totals.
| Goalie | GSAx | GSAA |
|---|---|---|
| Dustin Wolf | -4.04 | -0.24 |
| Jacob Markstrom | -0.19 | 1.84 |
| Dan Vladar | -4.95 | -1.59 |
Wolf sees his goals saved above expected dip quite low, and with just four games this has the potential to be much worse than Vladar once Wolf hits a similar number of games. However, goals like the wonky one against the Devils likely won’t happen again, so there is also some positive corrections that we can expect to happen.
Regardless, for both GSAx and GSAA, Wolf is the second-best goalie this season next to Markstrom.
Next steps for Wolf
At the end of the day, Wolf is the future between the pipes in Calgary, and he’s performing well enough that Vladar is expendable. The next best thing for Wolf’s development appears to be more games in the NHL, something he has earned over Vladar with his play so far.
When Markstrom returns from his injury, the easy decision would be to send Wolf to the AHL since he’s doesn’t need to pass through waivers. However, the right decision, at least right now, would be to do everything possible to keep Wolf in the NHL.
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Photo by Brett Holmes/Icon Sportswire
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