After an ugly Game 3 loss, a lot of the discussion around the St. Louis Blues – despite being held scoreless in consecutive games – was whether or not they needed to make a change in net.

Head coach Ken Hitchcock did make that decision, opting to roll with Jake Allen over Brian Elliott in Game 4. Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, St. Louis exploded for six goals in a rousing victory. The Blues were then blitzed by the Sharks 6-3 in Game 5, with Allen stopping just 84 per cent of the shots he faced (more on this in a moment).

Now, like me, you might have found it a bit curious that a team’s answer to a struggling offence was to switch goaltenders. It’s doubly curious when you consider that the primary focus for a goaltender is to stop shots, something Elliott has done very well in both the regular season and the postseason.    

We do have some sense of what Hitchcock’s thought process was as he made the decision. Kevin Woodley of NHL.com had a piece about the different skill sets between the two Blues netminders, with Hitchcock specifically noting that his defencemen play a bit differently with Allen in net.

“Jake is more active in net; Brian is more conservative, both with the puck and in playing. Brian plays closer to the goal line. Jake plays closer to the edge…” suggested Hitchcock, per Woodley.

  It does [make an impact] on the exits. One guy we have flexibility, he can go either way, and the other guy, we have some automatics that we call. It is different, but our defence knows going in what we are going to do on exits depending on the goalie.”

Cat Silverman at InGoalMag theorized that this is more or less why St. Louis made the change – Allen’s puck-moving ability can alleviate some of the burden on the breakout group, which is important when you consider the competency of the San Jose forecheck.  

But, even if we concede that Allen is superior to Elliott in assisting the breakout, we still have two very reasonable questions. Does Allen’s particular skill set materially change the way Blues skaters play in front of him? Even if that’s true, is it enough to offset the fact that Elliott’s the superior puck stopper?

To answer the first question, we can look at how the Blues performed in front of both goaltenders over the last two years. Let’s look at both goal-scoring rates (for and against) and shot rates (for and against) since 2014.

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I’m left struggling to find much of anything in the numbers. Even if you wanted to grasp at statistically significant changes (while also subscribing to the theory that goaltenders can influence skater performance, which is another point of contention), you’d have to reconcile the differences between St. Louis’ shot metrics (which favour Allen) against St. Louis’ goal metrics (which favour Elliott).

The goal differentials here are important for two reasons. One, the team was searching for offence. If we buy the hypothesis that goaltenders can drive goal differentials, would Elliott not be the better choice based on the historical data? Two, Hitchcock has mentioned alleviation of breakout burden as an explicit differentiator between the two. If Allen really assisted the team on this front, why doesn’t it show in the goals-against column?

There are two possible answers, and they aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s quite possible that goaltender impact on breakout effectiveness is overstated to the end that it can significantly change skater performance. It’s also possible that it just doesn’t matter. In the end, a goaltender’s primary job is to stop shots, something that Elliott’s done well when compared to both league norms and Allen.

Ultimately, I think that’s why you see that the one metric of the four that goaltenders likely have an influence on – goals-against per 60 minutes – favouring Elliott over Allen. That makes the decision to change goaltenders mid-series a curious one for a Blues team still in the thick of things out West.

The Takeaway

St. Louis responded in a big way against San Jose in Game 4, but I’d be hesitant to chalk any of that up to a goaltender change. In fact, I’d argue it’s more likely that St. Louis has actively hurt their chances by downgrading at the goaltender position. We might very well have a “won the battle, lost the war” type of decision here.