Goalie Analytics: Why they matter most in the playoffs

Playoff lacrosse is here. In less than a month, a new champion will be crowned. Six teams remain, and each has a chance to immortalize itself. There are a million reasons why each team could win it all, but I’m going to explore probably the most important one: goaltending.

Three of the PLL’s six Championship Game MVPs have been goalies. Five of the six champions led the playoffs in save percentage, with the only exception being the 2022 Waterdogs, who were second to Blaze Riorden’s runner-up Chaos. No team has ever won a PLL championship with a save percentage below 58% throughout the playoffs.

No individual position in lacrosse can take over a game quite like goalies can. Sure, an attackman scoring five-plus goals or a faceoff specialist dominating the stripe can make a big difference, but when you face a goalie saving over 60%, you’re going to have a really hard time winning – especially in the playoffs.

All it takes now is two or three great games from your goalie, and you’re champions. Saving at over 60% compared to under 50% increases win percentage from 12% to 85% in the playoffs. Maximizing those big-time performances is massive in the playoffs.

Which goalies boom (60% or better) more than others, and which avoid busts (50% or less)?

Riorden has gone over 60% in 47.3% of his career starts. The only player in PLL history with a better mark is Logan McNaney, who has played about nine times fewer games than Blaze. McNaney, Riorden, Emmet Carroll and Liam Entenmann have shown they can string these games together better than anyone else in the league. This will be huge in the playoffs. If any one of these goalies can boom, their team is likely winning regardless of the rest of their teammates’ performance. But a bust could sink their team’s entire season in an instant.

I’m sure every offensive player is grateful that they won’t have to see Brett Dobson in the playoffs this year. The Utah Archers goalie’s first three seasons as a starter have been historically good.

In Dobson’s four career playoff games, he’s gone 78%, 58%, 95% and 71%, with a perfect 4-0 record and two championship MVPs. He’s been fantastic in the regular season, too, going above 57% in each of his first three seasons as a full-time starter. The only other players to go 57% in three straight regular seasons at any point in their career are Riorden the last three years and Brian Dougherty, who did it for four straight years from 2005 to 2008 on the Philadelphia Barrage.

People always say Riorden is consistently so good that his accomplishments go unnoticed. Let’s rattle off some crazy Blaze stats to appreciate his greatness.

He just posted another regular season saving more than 57% of shots, the sixth of his career. No other player in PLL/MLL history has more than three. His 1,095 career PLL saves lead the league. Second place, Kyle Bernlohr, has less than half that (547). He’s accounted for 15.1% of all saves made in league history. His 13 career points account for 46.4% of all goalie points in league history. He is responsible for nine of the 21 20-plus save games in PLL history. No other player has more than two.

Three hundred seventy-eight players have taken a shot on goal in PLL history. One hundred ninety-one of these players have been saved by Blaze Riorden. That’s over 50%. So, if you’ve recorded a shot on goal in the PLL since its existence, it’s more likely than not that Blaze has saved one of your shots

Riorden led the Chaos to three straight championship appearances from 2020 to 2022, winning one in 2021. Those Chaos teams ranked last (8.0), second-to-last (10.7) and last (10.1) in scores per game, respectively. This season, Carolina is second-to-last in scoring average once again (11.0). But all they need is for Blaze to catch flames for three games, and a championship can be theirs.

Entenmann is another goalie on an all-time great trajectory. When he’s hot, the New York Atlas and their stellar offense are damn near unstoppable.

When Entenmann goes 60% or better, New York is 6-1, with the only loss coming to Denver in overtime two weeks ago. His strong suit is saving shots inside. Since entering the league, his save percentage from 10 yards or less is 51.9%, which ranks first in the league and is well above the league average of 45.8%.

McNaney, meanwhile, has had a remarkable rookie campaign. Since he took over as the Outlaws starter in Week 3, they’ve been the most efficient defense in the PLL, only allowing a goal on 21.9% of possessions. McNaney’s won seven of his eight starts and set some records in the process. He tied Jack Kelly’s 2016 Outlaws rookie record for saves in a regular season with 109 and fell just 12 saves short of breaking Tim Troutner’s PLL rookie record in two fewer games.

The most impressive part of McNaney’s regular season was his ability to save shots cleanly. That stat has only been tracked since 2022, but McNaney broke just about every record this season.

60.6% of McNaney’s saves this season were clean, shattering the previous record of 45.6% (Riorden, 2022). He recorded 66 clean saves, the most in a regular season on record. These clean saves created quick transition opportunities for the Outlaws, who were second in the league with 23 fast-break goals this season. They cleared the ball in less than ten seconds 63.8% of the time, the second-highest rate on record.

McNaney finished with the fourth-best save percentage by a rookie in PLL/MLL regular-season history.

Carroll is also on this chart, and he doesn’t get nearly the same hype as McNaney. His stellar rookie campaign has gone far under the radar.

One part of Carroll’s game that particularly sticks out is his ability to stop outside shots. His save percentage against assisted shots from 10 or more yards away is 74.3%, which leads the league by far and is way ahead of the league average of 58.1%. He’s also only allowed one two-point goal all year, saving 95.5% of the 22 two-pointers he’s faced.

Carroll hasn’t gone under 50% in a game since his first career start. Since then, he’s gone over 60% in half of his starts. In his three games over 60%, the Maryland Whipsnakes are undefeated, but in his four games under, they haven’t won. Look out for the streaky Whipsnakes to get hot alongside Carroll and make yet another deep playoff run.

When a new champion is crowned on Sept. 14, it will almost certainly be because of a goalie’s heroic performance. And in a league spoiled with great goalies, the race will be as competitive as ever.