Throughout this season I will be evaluating all the goals scored on the Jets, breaking down the situations they are scored in, why they go in, and how. It’s another piece of the puzzle in answering whether Pavelec is a quality goaltender let down by the team in front of him, or truly an individual problem. The ratings still contain some subjectivity, but over the course of the season will paint a more detailed picture than our foggy memories.

Here is an update after the Jets first eight games of the season.

Through the first eight games of the season, Ondrej Pavelec has faced the majority of the workload as expected. Playing in seven of the games, Pav is currently sitting at his career average save percentage of .907, while Al Montoya was able to muster his second shut out as a Jet in his only appearance. Ondrej is currently sitting fifth in the league with 225 shots faced, and his save percentage has him ranked 37th.

**For clarification purposes, an “average play” includes any basic breakout, faceoff loss, controlled zone entry, dump-in, etc. and a “skilled” play is any play that was created due to a highly skilled move that created an opening

Situationally, there have been a fair amount of goals as a direct result of poor play from the Jets as a whole. Only 19% of the goals scored against Pavelec thus far have come from average plays where we might expect a stop, while 23.8% have come from sustained pressure in the Jets end. This should come as a surprise to nobody, as the Jets have been a very poor puck possession team thus far. It has been the main reason why Pavelec has received praise this season for letting the Jets hang in contests.

If you were to look only at the situations, Pavelec would get close to full marks.

**“Bad breaks” include deflections, high volumes of traffic in front, etc.

Things stop looking so peachy for Pavelec when we look at why the puck is beating him. Rebound control is something Pavelec has clearly struggled with, and it has resulted in almost 24% of the goals that have beaten him. Add in the same number that have simply beaten him clean (and I determined he was at fault), and you have almost half of the goals scored as somewhat preventable.

I was somewhat surprised to see only 14.3% of goals being due to Pavelec being out of position, but as I went back and reviewed a lot of his “big saves” I noticed that plenty were due to a slow reaction time or because of his positioning. This is a good note towards the high level of athleticism that Pavelec has which allows him to bounce back, but it also leaves me wondering how much better he could be if he stopped putting himself in those situations in the first place.

The following is a perfect example:

Following the shot by Frattin, you see Pavelec push himself below the goal line while he is tracking the puck. This may be an extreme example, but it is something that Pav does quite often, leaving wide portions of the net open and requiring those diving saves to recover.

You see him do the same thing here following the shot by Matt Cooke. He over-slides laterally when the shot goes wide, which allows the normally harmless shot by Fontaine to become very dangerous.

Judging by the volume of shots Pavelec has faced throughout the first 8 games of the year, I don’t see how his constant high-energy, athletic goaltending can be maintained. I believe this is why we see him struggle so much in back-to-back games (he is simply too tired to keep up that style of play), and why the team needs to use Montoya more often as the season progresses.

You see Pavelec’s athleticism and strong legs highlighted again here. He clearly hasn’t been affected by the reduction in pad size, and is actually pretty good at baiting shooters into trying to go five-hole.  Still, you can clearly see where players have been shooting successfully on Pav this season.

To be fair, Pavelec has been a big reason for the Jets going 4-4 through eight games this year. Sadly though, I also think there have been games that he could have been a lot better. Sitting at his meager career average for save percentage already, I have little faith that he will be able to play much better. This means the Jets are going to have to find a way to improve their puck possession abilities soon, or things could get away from them very quickly.