March 4, 2008

Meet Craig Anderson

On March 2, Craig Anderson accomplished a major feat: he stopped all 53 shots he saw in the 1-0 win in New York. The previous high shot shutout in the last 3 or 4 seasons was 46 shots performed by Johnson in a 1-0 win against Ottawa.

This got me wondering, how many greater than 40 shot shutouts there are in a regular season?

Since I've been collecting data there's been less than 10. What's interesting is the goalies who have done it aren't what most would consider the top 10 goalies in the NHL (Anderson is just a backup).

2003 - 2004
Aubin: 4-0 W vs. Dallas [45 Shots]
Luongo: 1-0 W vs. Columbus [42 shots]
2005 - 2006
Johnson: 1-0 W vs. Ottawa [46 shots]
Luongo: 5-0 W vs. Washington [44 Shots]
Thomas: 5-0 W vs. Ottawa [44 Shots]
2006 - 2007
Thomas: 3-0 W vs. Toronto [44 Shots]
Norrena: 3-0 W vs. Colorado [42 Shots]
Mason: 1-0 W vs. Colorado [42 Shots]
2007 - 2008
Anderson [53 Shots]

Anderson stopped 53 shots in a 1-0 victory over the Islanders on Sunday, the most in a shutout since shots on goal started being kept in the 1955-56 season.

Since 1989-90, it's the most saves in consecutive shutouts; current Wing Dominik Hasek made 75 saves for Buffalo in December 1997, according to STATS LLC.

- freep.com -


Anderson was drafted in the third round and not expected to be much more than a backup. However, in his short stint in the NHL [73 games]. His .894 is decent for such a young goalie. And it's worth noting that in his bad year with Chicago (29 games: 0.886 Save%) he wasn't as bad as his statistics suggest as Chicago isn't exactly the most defensively responsible team.

Anderson has now stopped 133 of last 134 shots he's faced in the last three games.

3 comments:

T.C. said...

Just so I'm clear: the examples listed does this include all-time performances or for a sample period?

T.C. said...

And oh, nice to meet you Craig. Move over Luongo! ;<)

Bruce said...

Quite the feat by Mr. Anderson, back-to-back 1-0 shutouts of 53 and 40 saves. I heard that Elias Sports Bureau identified the Islanders game as the largest number of saves in a shutout VICTORY, which would include most but not quite all shutouts. I do recall watching Curtis Joseph making 52 stops in a 65-minute scoreless tie, Edmonton at Detroit, about ten years ago. And when I was growing up there was a legend of Terry Sawchuk having a 51-save shutout which supposedly was the NHL record. I suspect that would be Anderson's record now. 93 saves in consecutive shutouts almost certainly would be a record as well if they tracked such a thing.

A spectacular performance.