Ice Hockey Save Percentage Calculator
Ice Hockey Save Percentage Calculator
Saves divided by shots on goal, for an ice hockey goaltender. The NHL publishes the definition of both halves of that fraction, which the FIH does not — so a field hockey page cannot quote a governing body here and this one can.
Goaltender save percentage
Saves ÷ shots on goal1,425 shots on goal faced, 1,299 saved — Igor Shesterkin’s 2025-26 NHL regular season
Formula
- Sv% = SV / SA
- the NHL’s own formula, printed in its statistics glossary. Its words for the quantity: “Save percentage is the percentage of shots on goal that a goalie prevents from going in his team’s net”. The league has tracked it since 1955-56. Box scores print it as a three-decimal proportion (.912) rather than a percentage, which is why this page gives both
- shots on goal
- “Shots are the number of shots on goal taken by a player or team”, and “Attempts blocked and missed shots are not included”. The glossary is explicit about why: “a goaltender does not need to defend against attempts that are blocked by his teammates or attempts that miss the goal frame”
- the post and the crossbar
- “Hitting the post or the crossbar of the goal does not count as a shot on goal, but as a missed shot (MsS)”. A puck that beats the goaltender and hits iron is therefore invisible to this statistic, which is a real and deliberate convention rather than an oversight
- saves
- “Saves are the number of shots against (SA) that are stopped by a goalie.” The glossary adds the identity “Opponent shots minus saves equals goals against, or SA – SV = GA”, which is why the two inputs here are not independent
- what it is not
- it is not shot quality adjusted, and it is not the field hockey statistic of the same name. The FIH publishes no definition of a shot on goal and no shot totals at all, so a field hockey save percentage and an ice hockey one are not comparable however alike the arithmetic looks
- bounds
- between 0 and 100 by construction, because every shot on goal is either saved or a goal. More saves than shots is an impossible entry and returns no value
Worked example
1,425 shots on goal faced, 1,299 saved — Igor Shesterkin's 2025-26 NHL regular season
100 × 1,299 ÷ 1,425 = 91.2%, or .912 in the form a box score prints
The NHL publishes 0.91157 for this goaltender in 2025-26, and 1,299 ÷ 1,425 = 0.9115789. The league's figure is TRUNCATED to five places rather than rounded, which is worth knowing before deciding a published number disagrees with your arithmetic
126 shots on goal scored, which is 8.8% — and SA - SV = 1,425 - 1,299 = 126 is exactly the goals against the NHL publishes for him
Double both numbers — 2,598 saves from 2,850 shots — and the answer is still 91.2%. Halving the shots to 712 with 1,299 saves is refused, because saves cannot exceed shots; the halving test belongs on the complement, where holding 126 goals and halving the shots to 712 takes the scoring share from 8.8% to 17.7%
Enter 1,500 saves from 1,425 shots and the calculator returns no value. 105.3% is not a near miss — it is evidence that the two figures were counted under different definitions
Enter 0 shots and the calculator returns no value: a goaltender who faced nothing has no save percentage, and 0% would read as having saved none of them
The better save percentage is not always the better goals-against average
| Goaltender, 2025-26 NHL regular season | Shots on goal faced | Saves | Save % | Shots faced per 60 min | Goals-against average |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Spencer Knight | 1,583 | 1,428 | 90.2 | 28.84 | 2.82 |
| Linus Ullmark | 1,198 | 1,067 | 89.1 | 24.93 | 2.73 |
What the NHL counts as a shot on goal, and what it does not
| The event | Shot on goal? | The NHL’s own category |
|---|---|---|
| Shot the goaltender stops | Yes | a shot on goal and a save (SV) |
| Shot that scores | Yes | a shot on goal and a goal against (GA) |
| Shot that hits the post or the crossbar | No | a missed shot (MsS) — the glossary says so explicitly |
| Shot that goes wide or over the net | No | a missed shot (MsS) |
| Shot a teammate of the goaltender blocks | No | a blocked shot (BkS); “a blocked shot occurs when an opponent’s shot attempt is blocked by a skater, with his stick or body” |
A simple sum, with a denominator somebody actually defined
This page is about ice hockey — the game played with a puck on an ice rink, whose international rules are the IIHF’s and whose North American professional rules are the NHL’s own. It is not about field hockey, the eleven-a-side game on a turf pitch governed by the FIH, whose periods, set pieces and statistical definitions are different; this site keeps the two sports in separate sections for that reason.
Ice hockey is unusually well served here. The NHL publishes its own statistical glossary, and it defines the denominator this page needs: “Shots are the number of shots on goal taken by a player or team”, with “Attempts blocked and missed shots are not included” and “Shots are also called shots on goal, or SOG”. Field hockey has no such sentence from the FIH at all, which is why this site’s two hockey sections do not share a page.
Save percentage is saves divided by shots on goal, and the NHL gives the formula as well as the words: Sv% = SV / SA. The two inputs are not independent. The same glossary states SA – SV = GA, so every shot on goal ends as a save or a goal, the percentage is bounded between 0 and 100 by construction, and an entry with more saves than shots is refused rather than printed. Checking that identity against the league’s own 2025-26 goaltender totals, it holds for most goaltenders and not quite all: a handful publish one more goal against than shots-minus-saves accounts for. This page therefore takes saves and shots from you and derives neither from the other.
Save percentage and goals-against average measure different things, and neither measures the goaltender alone. Goals-against average depends heavily on how many shots the team in front of the goaltender allows, so a goaltender behind a strong defence can post a good average on a mediocre save percentage. That is why save percentage is generally the preferred of the two — it is at least a rate per shot faced rather than a rate per minute of someone else’s defending. The clearest way to see it is a real pair. In 2025-26 Spencer Knight stopped 90.2% of the shots on goal he faced and Linus Ullmark stopped 89.1%, and Ullmark’s goals-against average was the better of the two — 2.73 against 2.82 — because Knight faced about 28.8 shots per 60 minutes and Ullmark about 24.9. Neither number is wrong and they disagree about who had the better season. The goals-against average page works the same pair from the other end.
What the statistic cannot see is more interesting than what it can, and almost all of it lives in the three events the NHL deliberately keeps out of the denominator. A shot blocked by a defender never reaches the goaltender and never reaches the fraction, so a side that blocks heavily does not improve its goaltender’s percentage — it just reduces the number of chances the goaltender has to be credited. A shot that hits the crossbar is a missed shot, which means a puck that beat the goaltender entirely can leave the percentage untouched. And a shot from the slot and a shot from the point count the same. Corsi and Fenwick exist precisely to count the attempts this page throws away, and PDO exists to ask what happens when a save percentage and a shooting percentage are read together.
One last caution about comparing across competitions. The NHL publishes the definition; other leagues publish figures without always publishing theirs, and a women’s, junior or European league may count a blocked attempt or a post differently. Where the figure matters, find the competition’s own statistics guide before comparing, and if there is none, say so beside the number rather than treating it as the same measurand.
Frequently asked questions
How do you calculate save percentage in ice hockey?
Saves divided by shots on goal faced. The NHL gives the formula as Sv% = SV / SA. 1,299 saves from 1,425 shots on goal is 0.912, printed as .912 on a box score and as 91.2% in prose. The complement, 8.8%, is the share of shots on goal that scored, and the two always add to 100.
Does a blocked shot count against a goaltender’s save percentage?
No. The NHL’s glossary says attempts blocked and missed shots are not included in shots on goal, because “a goaltender does not need to defend against attempts that are blocked by his teammates or attempts that miss the goal frame”. So a blocked shot is absent from both the numerator and the denominator, and a team that blocks well does not raise its goaltender’s percentage.
Does hitting the post count as a shot on goal?
No, and the NHL says so in as many words: “Hitting the post or the crossbar of the goal does not count as a shot on goal, but as a missed shot.” A puck that beats the goaltender and strikes iron therefore leaves the save percentage unchanged.
Which is better, save percentage or goals-against average?
Save percentage, for most purposes, because it is a rate per shot faced rather than a rate per minute of the whole team’s defending. The two can disagree outright. In 2025-26 Spencer Knight had the better save percentage of the pair — 90.2% against Linus Ullmark’s 89.1% — and the worse goals-against average, 2.82 against 2.73, because he faced about four more shots per 60 minutes.
Is this the same as a field hockey save percentage?
The arithmetic is identical and the measurand is not. Ice hockey has a published definition of a shot on goal and field hockey has none from the FIH, which publishes no shot or save totals at all. Field hockey also funnels a large share of its shooting through the penalty corner, a set piece ice hockey does not have. The two figures should not be compared.
What is a good save percentage?
This page gives no band, because nobody publishes one. The NHL publishes a save percentage for every goaltender and no verdict on any of them, so a threshold printed here would be one season’s spread presented as a standard. Compare within a league and a season, and prefer the same source for both figures.
Why does the calculator refuse more saves than shots?
Because the NHL’s own identity SA – SV = GA makes saves a subset of shots faced. A percentage above 100 is not a large number, it is a sign that the two figures came from different counting conventions, and returning no value makes that visible instead of printing something plausible.
Related calculators
References
- National Hockey League. NHL Stats Glossary, served as JSON at api.nhle.com/stats/rest/en/glossary (read 12 Oct 2026; 103,774 characters). The league’s own definitions and formulas, quoted verbatim wherever this site states one. nhl.com itself is robots-disallowed, and edge.nhl.com/en/glossary redirects to a page with no definitions on it.
- National Hockey League. Goaltender season summaries, 2025-26 regular season, as JSON at api.nhle.com/stats/rest/en/goalie/summary (read 12 Oct 2026). Time on ice is published in seconds. Both formulas were reproduced from the raw counts for 29 goaltenders of 40 or more games. Note that savePct is published TRUNCATED to five decimal places, not rounded.
- International Ice Hockey Federation. IIHF Rule Book 2026/27. Zurich: IIHF; 2026. Served article by article at test.rulebook.iihf.com (read 12 Oct 2026; rulebook.iihf.com is robots-disallowed). Rules 1.1, 1.2, 1.5, 77.1 to 77.3 and 84.1 to 84.6. Rule 1.2’s dimensions are in the rule text, not only in the Appendix VI infographic, which was checked.