Photo Credit; Perry Nelson/USA TODAY Sports

Ostensible Vancouver Canucks backup goaltender Jacob Markstrom, 25, is still nursing a hamstring injury sustained immediately prior to the start of the 2015-16 campaign. Markstrom could still be a couple of weeks away from a return to action, according to News 1130 Sports: 

Even once Markstrom is cleared, News 1130 Sports suggests that he’ll likely get a game or two at the AHL level to work out the kinks that inevitably set in when a goaltender has had a month off. 

So far the Canucks haven’t suffered for Markstrom’s absence. Ryan Miller has started every game the Canucks have played so far, including one set of back-to-back contests already, and he’s gotten off to a spectacular start to his second campaign in Vancouver. 

The workload is about to pick up, though, which can probably serve as a partial explanation for why Miller was given a ‘maintenance day’ on Monday.

Over the next 13 days, the Canucks will play two sets of back-to-back contests and both of them will come on the road. The first set happens this weekend when the club faces the Dallas Stars on Thursday and then the Arizona Coyotes on Friday. The second set will occur on the East Coast a week later, when the Canucks take on the Buffalo Sabres followed by the New Jersey Devils on Nov. 6 and Nov. 7. 

Simple statistical analysis has convincingly shown that goaltender save percentage drops precipitously in the second of back-to-back contests, and in recent years we’ve seen NHL bench bosses become increasingly vigilant about protecting their starters in those circumstances. Though the Canucks prioritized adding a solid third-string netminder this summer, signing long-time Stars farmhand Richard Bachman on the first day of free agency, they opted ride Miller when they played a set to back-to-back road contests earlier this season. 

That was several weeks ago though. As the rigours of carrying an every-game workload begin to set in, surely the 36-year-old Miller will have to rest at some point. The concern with Bachman is precisely the opposite, seeing as how the veteran goaltender hasn’t played in quite a while:

It’ll be interesting to see how the Canucks elect to proceed in the expected event that Markstrom isn’t available over the next two weeks. Do you roll with Miller, a bona fide NHL starter, who is likely to be impacted by fatigue; or give Bachman, a bona fide replacement level netminder, a chance? 

In terms of which netminder is the better bet in one game, it’s probably about even. 

Miller has managed a .916 save percentage since the beginning of the 2013-14 campaign while facing over 3300 shots. Basically, Miller’s value is derived from his ability to give you an average save percentage while being mostly durable and holding down a workhorse’s workload. Bachmann’s career sample of NHL performance is significantly smaller, which on its own tells you something, and he’s managed a .904 save percentage while facing just over 1000 shots in his NHL career.

Several years ago when current Carolina Hurricanes front-office employee Eric Tulsky pulled the numbers on what starting back-to-back contests does to goaltender save percentage, he found that rested netminder’s outperformed their more tried brethren by .011 save percentage points during the 2011-12 and 2013 seasons. Amusingly the fatigue gap is roughly the difference between Miller’s save percentage since 2013-14 and Bachmann’s for his NHL career.

So you’d be justified, I think, in describing this as a coin flip decision for the Canucks. And if the difference in expected puck-stopping performance between a fresh but rusty Bachmann and a tired Miller is minimal, I’d suggest that the Canucks would be better off resting the goaltender with significantly more long-term influence on the club’s ultimate success or failure.