Do NHL goalies get hot in the playoffs? A multilevel logistic regression analysis

Abstract

The hot-hand theory posits that an athlete who has performed well in the recent past will perform better in the present. We use multilevel logistic regression to test this theory for National Hockey League playoff goaltenders, controlling for a variety of shot-related and gamerelated characteristics. Our data consists of 48,431 shots for 93 goaltenders in the 2008-2016 playoffs. Using a wide range of shot-based and time-based windows to quantify recent save performance, we consistently find that good recent save performance has a negative effect on the next-shot save probability, which contradicts the hot-hand theory.