Calculated Reactions: Some beware the Badger Clause, others try to thwart Knox

The goaltender rankings have been updated with the women's results (the men's will follow shortly). For an explanation of these, see the post on last year's results; the only difference here is that I've included playoff results for 2010-11, and inserted a couple of convoluted puns in the headline.

A quick rundown of the top 10:


  1. Mel Dodd-Moher, Queen's (+2.4 wins vs. average): Nowhere to be found in the OUA awards -- cue "SOUA" jokes -- Dodd-Moher was nonetheless near the top of both Ontario and the country in these rankings. She's not that far ahead of the two OUA all-star goalies, though, and they all had save percentages at or above .940, so it's not a huge snub. We can't get through this without mentioning this game again, so there you go. Last year, she finished third in these rankings.

  2. Beth Clause, Brock (+2.3 wins vs. average): Clause is just a half-goal out of first, so her CIS all-star status (second-team) is well-deserved. Not bad for someone who didn't play hockey until around age 12 (make sure you click on that, it's a great read). She also did not let in a goal in four games at the Universiade. (Plus: differently-coloured pads! How can you go wrong?) Clause was 9th last year.

  3. Charline Labonté, McGill (+2.0): Here's your CIS goalie of the year (even if they don't say that in the release, she was the first-team goaltender, so...). I think it's fair to say Labonté is the only one on this list who used to play major junior. Oh, and she was on the national team too, I hear. She had a save percentage of .960 but loses ground in our rankings because, to some extent, the average goalie can be successful playing behind that defence. According to the very nearly navigable McGill athletics website, she has had a .949 save percentage all-time with the Martlets, and looks up to Marc-André Fleury despite being two years older than him.

  4. Liz Knox, Laurier (+1.9): If you've read this far, do you really need to be told who Liz Knox is? She went along with Clause to the Universiade and they appear to have split the playing time equally. (Given how opposing OUA teams treat WLU, that must have been an interesting couple of weeks.) Knox is basically the only player on this list I've ever seen play, and she provides yet another data point in favour of Waterloo students blowing off Warriors games and making the walk over to WLU instead. She was ranked second last year.

  5. Audrey Doyon-Lessard, Concordia (+1.9): I'm going to be the difficult one here and ask why Doyon-Lessard, the RSEQ player of the year (not goaltender, player), was not a first-team RSEQ all-star. Were there not already enough Martlets on the first team? Doyon-Lessard, who was ranked 10th in 2009-10, is the first of the goalies we've been over so far who did not benefit from an above-league-average penalty kill unit in front of her.

  6. Mackenzie Rizos, Saskatchewan (+1.9): Rizos, previously with the Pronghorns and profiled here, wasn't a first- or second-team all-star in Canada West this year, which kind of proves the purpose of these rankings. (She was nearly a win better than those who were so named.)

  7. Nicole Kesteris, Toronto (+1.7): Kesteris is one of many athletes whose nicknames are just the various syllables of her name. Despite that, she had quite the rookie year: she made both the CIS and OUA all-rookie teams (as we've learned, making the former doesn't imply you made the latter), and now she gets to put "Ranked 7th in the cisblog.ca goalie rankings" on her resume. Not bad for someone who isn't yet 19.

  8. Leitte Klassen, Manitoba (+1.2): This one needs a bit of explanation, no offence intended to Ms. Klassen. She only played 448 minutes this year, yet in that small amount of playing time, managed to post a .962 and 0.80 -- certainly outstanding numbers regardless of the level of hockey. But, since our rankings also account for playing time, we don't have a cutoff for qualifying players. If Klassen is worth eight additional goals in 448 minutes, then that's what she was worth. (These are meant to be descriptive, not predictive rankings.)

  9. Julia Sharun, St. Thomas (+1.2): Our first AUS goaltender, Sharun was a second-team all-star in the Atlantic conference this year. In 2008-09, she was the AUS rookie of the year, and last year she came in 31st in these rankings (and was profiled in the local paper).

  10. Kathy Desjardins, Moncton (+1.1): There are not many worse ways her season could have ended than how it did: a 9-2 shellacking in a game that, if won, would have sent les Aigles Bleues to nationals. (After the goals at 38:51 and 39:21, I would have skated to the bench on my own and refused to return to the crease; one of many reasons I'm not a hockey player.) This is probably a good time as any to point out that these rankings don't count AUS playoff stats because the AUS has apparently not been introduced to LeagueStat and there's only so much manual entry I'm going to do. Desjardins was 4th last year in these rankings.
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