A Tale Of Two Tendies: Try To Wrap Your Head Around Utah Hockey Club’s Strange Goalie Stats

In hockey, statistics are a great tool, but they don't always tell the full story. Sometimes, they make absolutely no sense, and that's what hockey fans are noticing about the numbers being put up by the Utah Hockey Club's goalies.

Utah has fallen off a little bit as the season has progressed and is currently in 6th place in the Central Division with a 7-9-3 record.

But what has caught everyone's attention is the bizarre stats posted by the team's goalie tandem of Connor Ingram and Karel Vejmelka.

A Reddit user with the handle U/Jet_Stream82 noticed that there was something weird about the two goalies' stats.

When you talk about goalies, the two go-to stats are goals against average and save percentage. They're fairly simple metrics and you'd think that any time a goalie has a lower GAA and a higher save percentage than his teammate, that would mean he's got a better record.

But Utah's goaltending duo proves that isn't necessarily the case.

Ingram is the defacto starter and has started 13 games this season. In them, he has a 6-4-3 record with a .3.61 GAA and a .871 save percentage. Those are not Vezina-winning numbers. Those aren't even numbers you'd usually see from a team's No. 1 goalie, but he's got a winning record.

Now things get weird when you look at Vejmelka's numbers. He played in 8 games and started 6, posting a 1-5-0 record. However, his GAA is 2.37 and his save percentage is a very respectable .922.

For reference, the NHL leader in save percentage is Toronto's Anthony Stolarz at .927.

What is happening?! 

Utah's Connor Ingram (left) has a much better record than his fellow netminder Karel Vejmelka (right), but oddly enough, Vejmelka's stats are way better. (Getty Images)

You can get good numbers like this if one goalie is working with a smaller body of work, but Ingram and Vejmelka have seen enough playing time for these to be reliable numbers.

It just seems that — for whatever reason — if Vejmelka is in the net, Utah just has trouble scoring but plays tight enough defensively to keep scoring to a minimum too (hint: take a look at the under if Vejmelka is in net).

It's just a bizarre statistical anomaly, but hopefully, Vejmelka gets a few more Ws befitting of those solid numbers.