I wonder if the effect that you describe for Sergei is not a malady of goalies generally. By that I mean that a larger than realized deviation in annual performance belies any perception of sustained excellence at the position beyond relatively short periods i.e. the "hot goalie." For example, Vasilevskiy I believe had a down year this year after two mediocre ones following a period where he gained a reputation as the best goalie in the business. He's only 29 but paid a ton for what alarmingly seems now looks like past excellence.
Humans are driven to find patterns in nature and can often be misled into believing that short term effects are lasting ones. This is a particular risk at Stanley Cup time when fans are hyper-focused and ready to anoint a new great goalie who later turns out to be "not so much." A contributing factor is that front offices are on the clock so to speak and have to make decisions - they can't wait for the data to accumulate.
Several years ago, I looked at soccer goalkeepers and the variation year-over-year was significant. To the point that you could argue that beyond a certain base level of competence at the level of play (e.g. high school v. college v. pro) there was no material long term difference in who you had out there. Great one year, awful the next. It seemed an inherent limitation of the position where focusing on the floor and paying for that was superior to overpaying for a dream about an illusory ceiling.
Furthermore, when I checked, soccer goalkeepers contracts were not expensive relative to other positions - suggesting that the front offices as a wisdom of crowds exercise sort of figured this out and didn't over pay for the position. At least, that is what I recall.
Football Outsiders several years ago reached a similar conclusion with regard to field goal kicker accuracy. Now, it is quite possible that the talent curve for these positions is a highly skewed one, where 95% or so of the performers are essentially identical over a long term simply by surviving the selection rigors of playing at that level. Still, perhaps 5% or so might truly be separated from the rest over time. See Justin Tucker.
Again, my look at soccer was a long time ago and those observations admittedly might not apply to hockey goalies. But I would be interested in looking at some form of a "sustainability index" (if it exists) by position to see which positions are worthy of being paid long term and which are not. Might be insightful.
I wonder if the effect that you describe for Sergei is not a malady of goalies generally. By that I mean that a larger than realized deviation in annual performance belies any perception of sustained excellence at the position beyond relatively short periods i.e. the "hot goalie." For example, Vasilevskiy I believe had a down year this year after two mediocre ones following a period where he gained a reputation as the best goalie in the business. He's only 29 but paid a ton for what alarmingly seems now looks like past excellence.
Humans are driven to find patterns in nature and can often be misled into believing that short term effects are lasting ones. This is a particular risk at Stanley Cup time when fans are hyper-focused and ready to anoint a new great goalie who later turns out to be "not so much." A contributing factor is that front offices are on the clock so to speak and have to make decisions - they can't wait for the data to accumulate.
Several years ago, I looked at soccer goalkeepers and the variation year-over-year was significant. To the point that you could argue that beyond a certain base level of competence at the level of play (e.g. high school v. college v. pro) there was no material long term difference in who you had out there. Great one year, awful the next. It seemed an inherent limitation of the position where focusing on the floor and paying for that was superior to overpaying for a dream about an illusory ceiling.
Furthermore, when I checked, soccer goalkeepers contracts were not expensive relative to other positions - suggesting that the front offices as a wisdom of crowds exercise sort of figured this out and didn't over pay for the position. At least, that is what I recall.
Football Outsiders several years ago reached a similar conclusion with regard to field goal kicker accuracy. Now, it is quite possible that the talent curve for these positions is a highly skewed one, where 95% or so of the performers are essentially identical over a long term simply by surviving the selection rigors of playing at that level. Still, perhaps 5% or so might truly be separated from the rest over time. See Justin Tucker.
Again, my look at soccer was a long time ago and those observations admittedly might not apply to hockey goalies. But I would be interested in looking at some form of a "sustainability index" (if it exists) by position to see which positions are worthy of being paid long term and which are not. Might be insightful.