Special teams - when your goalie counts

Muppet doesn't like facts. Specifically, he doesn't like the fact that Craig Anderson's SV% and GAA are superior to James Reimer's despite being on a team further down the standings with only three functional veterans. Well, let's look at data set that will give us more information on how the goalies and their respective teams fared following the switch to these two starters.

Here's the data for the power play and penalty kill pre and post All-star game (ASG). Data courtesy of yahoo sports.

Team	PP% pre-ASG	Rank	PP% post-ASG	Rank	PK% pre-ASG	Rank	PK% post-ASG	Rank
Ottawa	16.8	20	18.6	11	80.6	20	88.7	2
Toronto	17.5	18	13.6	26	77.8	27	76.9	27

PP% doesn't rely too heavily on goaltending (we could look at SHs if need be). However, PK is a goalie-centric measure. We have the benefit of viewing the numbers very close to the all-star game around which James Reimer became the starter for Toronto and Craig Anderson became the starter in Ottawa.

However, PP success can indicate the confidence a team has in its own end - the D men can play off the boards, can take part in a PP forecheck and generally be more creative. Ottawa improved an astonishing 8 spots from 20th to 11th following Anderson's arrival. Toronto tanked their powerplay dropping 6 positions to 26th. Recall that Phaneuf was in charge for this part of the season..... But there's less of a link to goaltending than with PK% so let's get to it.

Prior to the ASG, with Brian Elliott in net, Ottawa was a below average team letting in goals on 20% of their kills, ranked 20th. Toronto was even worse at 27th spot allowing almost one goal for every penalty they took.

After the ASG, Craig Anderson arrived and took control of the ice on the PK. An unreal 18 position increase to 2nd in the league, rising from 80.6 to 88.7%. For the last 18 games, Ottawa was better than 90% (according to Greg Carvel) for top spot in the league on the kill.

How about the Reimer backstopped Toronto PK? Recall they were in 27th at 77.8% before the ASG. Reimer changed everything, right?

Um.... no, actually. Things got worse. Well, sort of. They kept 27th spot but saw a slight decline. One thing is definite: Ottawa's special teams became far, far superior with Anderson and Toronto got worse with Reimer. Who loves facts?

Hm.... maybe this indicates a coaching issue. (seguaaaaaaay......)

UPDATE:
In the prior article Muppet challenged the omission of Colorado's numbers from Anderson's personal stats, so here are the numbers for Colorado's special teams pre and post ASG.

PP% Pre-ASG	Rank	PP% post-ASG	Rank	PK% pre-ASG	Rank	PK% post-ASG	Rank
20.8	8	14.1	23	77.7	28	73.5	30