32 Thoughts: The Podcast - 32 Goalie Thoughts – Part 1

Episode Date: November 12, 2021

If you like goalies, this episode is for you! Jeff is joined by “The Goalie Whisperer” from In Goal Magazine, Kevin Woodley. They cover off a lot from between the pipes like how goaltenders have had to adapt to new shooting styles (44:00) to the rise of elite Russian goaltenders (11:15) over the last few years. The guys also discuss different goaltending styles around the league and highlight some amazing performances so far this season — Igor Shesterkin (19:30), Andrei Vasilevskiy (7:30), Thatcher Demko (26:00), Robin Lehner (32:00), Jack Campbell (35:00) and Craig Anderson (40:00). PLUS, THE THOUGHT LINE IS HERE! Leave your thoughts, comments, suggestions and questions after the beep. Call toll-free 1-833-311-3232 Also, email the podcast at [e-mail] Music Outro: Darling Congress – Your Dog Don’t Like You Listen to the full single by Darling Congress on Spotify This podcast is produced and mixed by Amil Delic, and hosted by Jeff Marek and guest hosted by Kevin Woodley. Audio Credits: 104.5 The Team ESPN Radio and Sportsnet 650 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Sports & Media or any affiliates.

32 goalie thoughts. Okay, welcome to the program. Elliot Friedman off for a couple of days. Want to welcome you to 32 Thoughts, the podcast. And since Elliot isn't here, we're going to change things up a little bit. The podcast is still brought to you by the all-new GMC AT4 lineup. That doesn't change.

But it's not exactly the 32 Thoughts podcast. Today, it's the 32 Goalie Thoughts Podcast. And when you're talking about goalies, you bring in the goalie whisperer. Kevin Woodley is a leading expert in all things involving, as we call them, the tools of ignorance, the goalie equipment, and the people who wear it.

He's a managing partner for InGoal Magazine, a Vancouver correspondent for NHL.com, and he's your friend and mine and he's here to tell us why andre vasilevsky should actually catch with his right hand and not his left he's the one and only kevin woodley and he joins us on the podcast kevin how are you today buddy i'm blushing a little bit at that introduction i think it was elliot that tagged me the goalie whisper and i think uh like i gotta send him some money for that, A. But B, my beer league team gets a kick out of it because the only whispering they ever see me do

is to myself after the puck goes in and it's more of a mutter than a whisper. The goalie mutterer. Everyone's a goalie mutterer when you play beer league hockey or a beer league screamer as you yell at your defense. As they yell back at you, does every tipped shot have to go in? That is a common refrain amongst a beer league defenseman, of which I count myself one.

So when your defense, this is a quick aside to start. When your defense, anyone on your blue line says, Kevin, does every tipped shot have to go in? What do you say? Stop tipping them. Just get out of the way or block them. Take your pick, one or the other. That's right. Just get out of the way, boys.. Take your pick, one or the other. That's right. Just get out of the way, boys.

You're not normally in my own end anyways. I usually see my defensemen when we get changed before the game and then after during handshakes. That's about it. So that's the life of a beer league goalie, right? You know, there's a wonderful story about there was a player from the Western Hockey League who ended up playing in Germany, a guy by the name of David Cooper.

And David Cooper shows up like halfway through the season. This German team is in need of something. Playoffs are very much in jeopardy. So they bring Cooper in as a ringer. And the first day he's introduced to the team, you know, the coach asked him to stand up and introduce himself on the ice. And he introduces himself. And the coach points, and he's got this heavy German accent, points at his shin pads and says you know what are you wearing and he says shin pads and he says too small go see the

trainer and get bigger shin pads he says get bigger shin pads what am i going to get bigger shin pads for he says for blocking shots and looks around without missing a beat and says why you don't have a goalie on this team or something. That's actually the line I use. Not quite as good a story, but the line I use on my guys, anytime they do get in the way and end up wincing, like you see all this really big, expensive equipment that I'm wearing. That's my job. We'd all like to go to work in the morning, boys. I'm the one wearing the stuff that prevents me from, you know, keeling over after getting in the way of shots. So let me handle it. Hey, real quick, is fear still a thing for goaltenders? Like once upon a time, fear was a real thing. And that's why, you know, a lot of goaltenders were spectacular

and famous drinkers as well. That was to help calm the nerves in a very scary position. There were only, you know, six goaltending jobs available in the NHL. The equipment was pretty modest. Now, the shots weren't as hard, mind you, but there were no face masks. But the pucks really hurt when they hit you. And fear was very much a thing for a goalie. Does fear still exist for goaltenders? to the extent it used to. I've had this conversation with guys like Sean Burke over the years. So I think that kind of generation was, that was when the fear factor kind of started to disappear out of goaltending. And it actually changed the game. A big part of it was chest protectors.

Oh, big time. Yeah, some of the models that used to be worn. And there was such limited protection that, of course, goalies caught with you know their glove or steered it away with their blocker like they didn't want to use their body to make a save because it hurt so you had a lot of goalies who played their whole lives kicking at pucks and reaching for pucks and it wasn't until the chest protectors actually became protective that the idea of hey if I get my body behind it and it hits me in the chest, it doesn't hurt. And also, guess what? It's pretty hard to miss with your chest. I can miss with a waving glove. I can be

off. It can get deflected. But if I put my chest behind it, there's no miss there, right? It's not going through that. There's no holes there it can go through. And that just wasn't possible for an entire generation of goaltenders because putting your chest behind the puck meant, you know, contusions. So the fear factor is largely gone now. Although I will say, I don't know how many people realize this listening. If you're not a goalie, if you are, you know this. If you've played at any, like even half decent level. But if you're not, this may be news to you.

When we get hit in the mask or sometimes even on the shoulder nowadays by what we would call a heavy shot, a shot with spin, it actually creates a burning rubber smell to the point where I probably had it five or six times. Burning rubber smell? Really? Picture, go back to high school. Dude, ask NHL goalies. They will tell you they encounter this like five, six times a practice, some guys.

Some guys, it's a little less frequent. Literally, like being in a high school and your buddy's got like the 80s fire chicken with bald tires and he's just doing the smoke show, lighting up the tires. It is distinct. It is clear. It is that burning rubber in the back of your buddy's car smell and as soon as you take one and you smell it you know exactly what's happened that shot had a lot of spin on it and it's caught you in a way that's actually left part of the puck behind as

it made contact with your mask or sometimes even with your jersey up high around the shoulders and it's left that rubber behind and it's created that burning rubber smell alex all told me actually when he was with the montreal canadians the trainer showed him the next day one of his jerseys that had actually burned a hole in it from the puck catching it at just the right angle with just the right spin that's incredible you know we know a lot now about you know spin rate for baseballs but is that does the puck spin now on shots more so than ever i don't know if it does more so but i think the goalies that i talked to will tell me that when we hear about the quote unquote heavy shot that's what they um attributed to guys with more spin and if you think about heavy shots

being harder to control that makes sense because it's you know especially out of a glove right it's a little harder to sort of have it stick in that pocket cleanly if it's hitting your glove hand or hitting that pocket even with a lot of spin on it. So a lot of goalies will tell you that the heavy shot is the one with more spin, and that's certainly the one that, you know, it leaves the black marks behind on the jersey. And like I said, if that happens to be high enough or off the mask,

and especially a lot of goalies now are going with the matte look for their mask paint job. They're going with matte instead of gloss. And some of them believe that more likely to leave that both the black mark and the smell of the burning rubber behind off a matte mask than off a glossy finish. That's wild. I want to get into a whole bunch of stuff like this here on the podcast today. But up first, I mentioned it off the top. Why should Andrei Vasilevsky catch with his right hand and not his left?

He's actually left-handed. And he wanted to, when he started playing in Russia, catch with the other hand. But he couldn't get the equipment. Even though the fact his dad was a professional goaltender over there, and that's how he got into the position, he just could not get that full right glove or catching with the right-handed glove and so he had to go the other way and so a legend was born when you see some of the moves you make you kind of you know it's probably because there's a

level of you know ambidextrousness to andre vasilevsky and and the supreme athleticism that he has and part of that might be that he should be catching with the other hand naturally. And there's probably a whole generation of goalies like that too. I think it's easier now everywhere to get that right catching glove. But if you think about guys that start for the first time, especially back in the day with the association sets, those old brown leather association sets, well, chances are you were lucky to get one that fit.

Chances are getting one with the right-handed catching glove, forget about it, right? So for Andre Vasilevsky, that's why he catches with his left hand instead of his right hand now. That is so fascinating. Oh, by the way, just speaking of catching, just as an aside, before we get into Russian netminders here, I remember a conversation I had with Felix Potfan. This is years ago. And I said, you know, what do you see the main difference now between goaltenders today and goaltenders when you played even just growing up? And he said, nobody knows how to catch.

Everybody knows how to put their glove in front of a puck, but nobody actually knows how to catch a puck. And that's because all they do is play net. Nobody plays baseball anymore. And he said, you can tell a goaltender that's played baseball by the way he or she catches a puck. He said it's profoundly different. Does Felix Potvin have a point, Kevin Woodley, that goalies know how to get their glove in front of a puck, but very few know how to actually catch it properly? Well, certainly not all of them, but we do see some of this. As a matter of fact, I had this conversation recently with Sudarshan Maharaj, the goaltending coach of the Anaheim Ducks. I had this conversation recently with Sudarshan Maharaj, the goaltending coach of the Anaheim Ducks. And he was telling me that for some of the European prospects that they'd brought over, especially that hadn't played baseball growing up.

And it's not just baseball. It's other sports, like physical literacy. We talk about that all the time. And professional goalies talk about playing other sports growing up. And it doesn't seem to matter. The current generation, in a lot of cases, they're goalies and they're goalies only and not only do they not play other sports they don't play other positions and we can get into whether it's braden holtby you know swearing that the only reason he made it is because his dad wouldn't let him just be a goalie until he was 12 or 13 and a lot of goalies i talked to say the same ben bishop recently had a conversation where

he's talking about all the other sports he played and And when he was a player, it wasn't just a goalie. So he learned the patterns of the game and to read the game as a forward. And that helped him once he became a full-time goalie. Same is kind of true for catching pucks and catching anything. So Sudsy Sureshwar Maharaj from the Ducks, he actually bought baseball gloves and at one point footballs as well i believe and he was out like out in the development camps with some of these goaltenders playing like 500 up with them no way yeah trying to build that and playing catch with a football and things like that and just you know trying to build that physical literacy beyond the sort of mechanics of catching

a puck as a goaltender because they can at times become a little pre-programmed a little less feel a little more just get that hand in front of the puck versus you know being able to receive it and sort of cushion it and the difference between you know maybe retaining a few more of those that don't hit you right in the pocket but you're still able to absorb it a little better just because you've got that natural feel of like i said not just catching it not just getting in the way but cushioning it as you catch it. Okay. Let's talk about the Russian goalie phenomenon right now. It seems as if the goalie factory went from Quebec to Helsinki and is now in Moscow.

What gives with the Russian goaltenders and how did it get to this place? I got interrupted because there was a stop in Sweden as well. We can't miss what happened in Sweden. And I think that's fair in part because some of the manuals that were generated in Sweden at the time, and we'd see a lot of reverse VH in the game today. And that was actually a technique that originated in Sweden as well. But some of the Swedish goaltending manuals that they built actually ended up in Russia and being used for coaching there now. I think what you're seeing is, A, you've got a hockey-mad country where hockey is a popular sport and there's a big population.

And part of this is the same with Quebec and Patrick Gua and Marty Berder, the same with Finland and Mika Kiprasov, the same with Sweden and Henrik Lundqvist. With Bobrovsky winning the Vezina trophies, you've got a larger percentage of that hockey playing population, as big as it already was, wanting to be goaltenders. So that's a start, right? You get your best athletes wanting to play the position that makes a difference. The other thing that we've seen there and i know you know ian clark for example here in vancouver the goal-tending coach has built some very strong relationships over there he went over with sergey bobroski when he was with the columbus blue jackets

together to do camps over there and you know introduced me and i've gotten to meet a lot of different coaches from over there and get a lot of different input on this. UC Parkella, who is the goaltending coach of the Colorado Avalanche, was in the KHL as this trend developed. And so I've talked to a lot of these different people about it. And there's a lot of different reasons. One is more goalies playing. The other one is they're not overcoached. And I got to be careful when I say overcoached because a lot of people, there's a lot of different ways to interpret it. But at the end end of the day especially for the generation that's just now arriving in the nhl and maybe the early arrivers a lot of the instruction at a young age was very fundamental foundational and at times for a lot of them old school alexander georgiev uh who's a bella russian but uh you know

played for russia and grew up there talked about skating. Like not even getting to stop a puck, but doing these old school, almost Tretiak-like skating drills for two hours. Just all movement, movement, movement. And a lot of these goalies growing up, it was all about fundamentals. They weren't doing necessarily proper butterfly mechanics or reverse VH at the age of eight or nine. And then as the position has progressed, they've started to add a lot of technical goaltending coaches with influences from Finland, from Sweden, as well as Russian goalie coaches.

And so you've got this current crop that grew up really not being forced into the butterfly box, but really sort of just developing raw skills and learning how to play the game on their own. And then adding the technical elements in their teens and later on. As opposed to from the age of eight or nine being able to maybe just out-technique their opponents. And that's kind of, you could argue that's happened a little bit here where we coach them up at such a young age that they survive on technique as soon as they start. And you could argue that you lose that innate ability to read a game because you never had to just sort of go out and figure it out on your own. And we can get a little technical and a little robotics and overstatement. We can lean towards that scale. And this generation of goalies from Russia hasn't.

The question, Jeff, is does it continue? Or as we see the position become more popular over there and more and more goalie coaches emerge, do they start to overcoach and start to introduce things that this generation learned at 13, 14, 15? Do they start introducing at seven, eight, nine? And five years from now, do we view that as a bad thing? Here's what I wonder about that.

And we've seen this in Canada, which was once a goalie crazy country. I wonder if they stop sharing information like has happened in Canada. And we see the death of the goaltender in Canada now where it's these little pockets of goaltending instructors where no information is shared. It's the opposite of top-down. And you've talked about this before in a couple of different places, Kevin. It's the top-down model of information

being spread all over that allows goaltenders to flourish when all that information is shared. When something becomes popular, it becomes monetized. And once it's monetized, everybody wants to keep a little piece of that action, thank you very much, and they don't want to share it. That would be my concern. And doesn't history tell us that that is sort of the story of goaltending in various countries, the rise, and for the sake of this conversation, the fall of it. Certainly to an extent. In Canada, it's a private industry, right? Like it really is. If you look at Sweden and Finland,

Finland to me is the model that sort of started this and it's gone to Sweden, been copied there and now into Russia where, and part of this, Jeff, is because they have club-based systems, right? Like the Vancouver Canucks or the Vancouver Canucks, they got a farm team in Abbotsford, but they have no influence trickle down to the minor hockey leagues.

If you go to a city in Sweden, whether it's Modo or Lulea, like literally the pro team and then the junior team and then right down into the minor hockey programs, they're all affiliated, right? And so what they tried to do, and this started in Finland, was instead of, they basically had a top goaltending coach and in each region, and then they would teach the goaltending coaches beneath them. And then they would all meet once a year, compare ideas, compare notes.

They didn't have to take away, like there was no sort of, you must do it this way. As a matter of fact, one of the coolest things about Finnish goaltenders is you could usually identify what region a guy was from based on some of the characteristics of how he moved or how he played or how he caught a puck. In Sweden, same type of thing. Their idea was, let's not just have a couple of coaches creating a bunch of goaltenders. Let's create a whole bunch of goaltender coaches right down to the volunteer level and we'll get better goaltenders because we have better coaches. And so that's an ideal model here in North America. Although USA Hockey is working towards those types of things and those types of certification

and Hockey Canada does have a certification program, although it's not widely known or widely taught yet, it really is a private industry. And you're right, there's a little more element of competition. And I've been a part of it, seen elements of it where it goes sideways, where the private school also does the evaluation for the goaltenders for minor hockey. And naturally, the kids that go to their school are the ones that they pick for the rep teams. And I quit doing evaluation actually once because one year I identified a kid who frankly didn't look like a goalie, didn't dress like a goalie, didn't have matching equipment, clearly had never been to a goalie school and yet the instincts and raw potential there were

way higher than a whole bunch of kids who looked like really good goalie school goalies but this kid just had off the charts instincts and when i pointed it out he ended up being the first cut and that was the last time i dealt with minor hockey evaluations because he got punted down the house and he'll never see a goalie coach and he was right at that age where if you could identify some of those instinctual elements and the way he moved and some of the length components he had physically, you're like, this kid's got potential. They just wanted the finished product rather than seeing someone who might benefit from the coaching they would have got if they'd stayed at that higher level.

So it can be a little frustrating. I'm not going to pretend it doesn't happen in other countries too, but certainly the way they've structured that top-down approach and trying to build more goalie coaches rather than trying to just build up a handful of goalie coaches, I think lends to some of the success that we've seen them have as smaller nations with great goaltending. Let's drill down on a couple of goaltenders specifically, and let's start by staying in Russia. At the beginning of the season, we all tend to call it the bane of our existence,

the predictions for the year, both for a team and for individual. My Vesna Trophy prediction was Igor Shcherkin of the New York Rangers. Am I on base, off base, smart, or dumb? Your thoughts on Shcherkin. You're on base and definitely smart. My biggest question about

Igor was going to be whether the Rangers were good enough to support a Vesna candidacy for him. And in some ways, they're not. But in the same sentence, because they're not, especially defensively, we're getting to see just how brilliant he is. It's really hard not to watch Shusterkin now and kind of feel like you're seeing Henrik Lundqvist, not from a style standpoint, certainly, but from a, oh my God, they're really just going to try to win every game because of this guy. They bleed chances and he bails them out. When I look at the numbers from ClearSight Analytics, and you'll hear me cite them a lot, thanks to Stephen Vallecat, I do have access behind the scenes and under the hood at some of these numbers. And I think they're the best, especially from a goaltending perspective in terms of measuring shot quality and how a goalie performs

relative to shot quality. And Igor Shcherkin right now is number one in the NHL, despite a couple blowout losses, both against the Calgary Flames, coincidentally. He still tops in the National Hockey League. He's already saved almost 12 goals above expected just this far into the season. And that's on pace to smash what Marc-Andre Fleury did last year as the leader in that category. The one thing about Shusterkin that I've really admired since I first saw him in the National Hockey League is I don't know that I've seen a goaltender in the league that can anticipate a shot or anticipate a play better than Shishturkin. It's almost as if he knows half a second before the puck leaves the blade

where it's going. Is that accurate? You know, it's funny because it's a tough thing to read, but he's ahead on a lot of stuff. And it's funny because as complicated as the goaltending position can get, a lot of goalie coaches sort of dug back in during the pandemic. And the one thing they all ended up coming back to, and this is a conversation we had with Bill Ranford a few times because he really dug back in during the pandemic. And the one thing they all ended up coming back to, and this is a conversation we had with Bill Ranford a few times,

because he really dug back in. He was looking at everything from virtual reality to reaching out to old goalies. He really re-immersed himself in the position and how it was evolving. And it all came down to being in your spot, being set, being square, and being on angle early. And that fuels everything else if you can

get to that spot ahead of everything you're set you're square you're able to read that release you're able to see and maintain visual connection through that release and you're able to anticipate what's next because you are already ahead of what happened if that makes sense and so to me Igor you're right has that ability but what fuels it is the movement. His movement on his skates, his up mobility is exceptional. It's powerful, it's crisp, it's controlled. His movement once he's down on his knees is hands down, in my opinion, the best in the National Hockey League right now.

Got a great quote. I actually wrote about it last week for NHL.com. We're doing Unmasked every two weeks, the column there. And Ian Clark said he's an absolute hovercraft on the ice. And so once he's on his knees, and this is where the game has really changed too, the ability to move around his crease, and in his case, some unique features in the way he does it, and stay connected. Because think about it, when you make a push, right, you have to extend your leg. If you're on your knees as a goalie, if I want to go to my left, I'm on my knees in a butterfly.

To move to my left, I have to lift my right knee until I engage the edge of my right skate and then push with it. And by pushing it, I extend, I open a hole, and then I've got to regather it and close it. Usually when you lift your knee, most goalies, you'll see them, their upper body, and this is something we're trying to train them away from now. In the past three or four years, this has become a new thing as head trajectory and proper tracking. But most goalies will sort of swing. If I lift my right knee, I want to sort of swing my hands the other way, right? To sort of build momentum for that push. My blocker and my glove will swing out to the right, even though I want

to move left. So it's called counter rotation. my upper body is moving to the right even though i want to move to my left and that's to get that plant leg those are a lot of moving parts that's why i'm describing that hopefully nobody's listening in their car do not try this at home or while you're driving but there's a lot of i just described a lot of parts, and that's just to go back and forth. Shcherkin is able to sort of carve edges almost like he's skating when he's on his knees, and he still makes that traditional butterfly push, but the way he moves in and off his post with like sort of just like a, almost like a skull, he stays on the ice with that leg and sort of uses the edge to cut himself out, and then with a quick flick of the skate blade, boom, he's gained rotation,

he's back to the other post. It was a move the Rangers highlighted on Twitter recently, and we kind of, we put it up on our Instagram account. And then he made a save two nights later doing it. saved two nights later doing it....with a blast, it's blocked in front. Shisterkin dives on the rebound, another couple of pokes, and a huge save by Shisterkin, and keeps it tied.

And literally, Jeff, within days, we were getting images from other goalies all over the place trying this move. So his ability to move on the ice is exceptional. It's next level. It may even be somewhat revolutionary in terms of he's doing it in a way that a lot of goalies can. I've seen other NHL goalies make that same move when they do their warm-ups as part of their, you know, just where they skate around the half boards, sort of getting their legs and their edges going.

But not in a game and not executed like that. The way it keeps his hands out in front of him, his torso upright, everything is connected. It's just another level. And to me, that's a big thing that makes a difference in his game. And it's something that other young goalies are now already copying. And I think you're going to have a whole nother generation that are going to be like, they're going to be arriving in the NHL with that level of movement. It's the position constantly evolving. And why I get so excited about Shusterkin is he's literally doing it right in front of our eyes. So we're already getting a Shusterkin effect then, even though he's only been in the NHL for

about five minutes, kids are already copying him. I want to dovetail into another discussion about another goaltender, someone that you see on a consistent basis in Vancouver, and that's Thatcher Demko. Now, the knock, correct me if I'm wrong here, on Thatcher Demko was that his play in the crease wasn't at NHL speed, was a little bit slow, whether it's post to post, in anything in the crease, his speed wasn't there. His quickness wasn't there. That's not the case anymore. And he's, listen, asked Jamie Benn the other night how he feels about Thatcher Demko

after that spectacular save. Haskin and again to the near corner for Lindell. Up the board, Sagan couldn't deflect it out. Now Lindell stretches to center for Radulov. Here's a two-on-one. Radulov down the right wing. Deeks to the backhand in front for Jamie Benn. Oh my goodness!

Are you kidding me? Game of the year. What a stop by Demko with the stick as he reached out to his right and held it out. And there's still no score in this game. This guy is not human. Save of the year, Brandon, right there. That was unbelievable. There's no way anybody else beats that one. And the fans rise to their feet at Rogers Arena in recognition as play continues. What do you make of the evolution now of Thatcher Demko?

And was the knock early that he wasn't quick enough in the crease? Yeah, I'm trying to think of whether that was a knock. I got to be honest with you, Jeff. I'm not sure I remember that criticism specifically. I can tell you it's sure not anymore. Like, his pace is incredible. And again, it's all like like this is what i love about the position and why i could ramble on endlessly about it with apologies to the people listening

no one way there is no absolute i can talk about the way igor shishderkin moves around the crease thatcher yumko does it differently and yet with such power and precision that he is almost never behind on a play like his pace moving around his crease right now he is always beating plays to position he was always arriving ahead and then in the odd times where the play just gets too dynamic to keep up he's got the ability to go head first and pull a paddle save or when things get crazy and he loses the blocker, he's doing what has to be the highest, by an elevation standpoint, that scorpion save he made against Panarin and the Rangers. Now it's just five on four for another minute and 15 seconds for the Rangers, looking for the go-ahead goal.

Panarin trying to pass through the middle. Zabinijad missed it. Myers can't clear. Strom holds in. In front for Panarin going to the goal. Fan to the shot. They create it on the near side. Send it wide of the net as two Canuck defenders go back to the

crease, then Demko makes another great save, Rangers with the puck, another save on the goal line, this time by JT Miller, Demko yelling at the referee, he's got no blocker, he doesn't have his blocker, the Rangers still have it in the zone, Panarin with a one-timer, and Demko stops him again with the right pad, finally the officials blow the whistle, and the roof is about to come Oh yeah, like when he came down, you saw he had so much momentum. He kicked up so high. And watch his eyes before that. He looks at the puck. That is not a blind kick.

He watches the release, kicks his heels up. He comes down with so much momentum. I've been joking that his body almost starts to sort of, it hits the ice and I expected him to sort of start doing the worm across the ice. He kicked his leg so high in that. So there's a ton of all that athletic skill. But what's fueled his game going to another level,

and I know the Canucks were terrible last year, but his adjusted numbers were third in the NHL behind only Marc-Andre Fleury and Andre Vasileski. That's how good he was and he's not quite there right now but he's still top 10 in the National Hockey League this season. It's movement, it's precision, it's power. You watch a play come down the wing

or you watch him, if anybody ever has a chance to go to a game early and watch him do his warm-up movements when he gets into the net at the start of a skate. Top of the crease, shuffles, in terms of like a play was coming down the wall, you see him make short, quick shuffles in a high, narrow stance. Then bang, into the post, RVH, cross to the other post, both legs on the post in what Ian Clark calls reverse tracking. So if that plays behind the net, we saw that goal the other night that Minnesota scored on Arizona where they went back and forth behind the net and the poor goalie's going back and forth and back and forth. That Shredemko would just be sitting on his knees

with a skate on each post and just waiting, looking over one shoulder, looking over the other, waiting for them to make their mind up. And then even if they pass to the top, he would explode across to that post and up to the top so he goes play down the wall it's like shuffle shuffle shuffle bang into the post both skates on the post bang into the other post bang up to the top like his movement his power his precision and it's a lot more violent than Igor Shcherkin there's a buttery smoothness to Shcherkin

Thatcher hits that post so hard, it comes right off its moorings every time. You'll see it pop up like a couple of inches. Like there is an absolute raw power there and an almost violence to his movements, but he is never behind on a play. He is always ahead. And that allows him to have early eyes

and make a read, right? If I get there and I see it, now I know I'm not behind, I'm not panicked. Plays in front of me. I can make a read. I can anticipate what's next. And then I beat that and I do it all over again, right? So he's never behind on anything. It's fun to watch. It's been fun to watch the evolution. First year under Ian Clark, he wasn't capable of a lot of these things. Jacob Markstrom too. They couldn't get in and out of their posts the way they do now. And I'll never forget that first year with Markstrom. He had a great numbers and sat down with him late in the year and he says

i'm so excited for next year and i was like why he's like because i'm going to be able to train all summer i have to train my body differently to be able to do some of the things that ian wants me to do thatcher same thing he went pails and rails on it changed how he trained a lot of where he's in full extension and holding these poses tried to get a little more movement and mobility Chesterkin and Demko are profoundly different. Where do you put a goalie like Robin Leonard? Again, the beauty of it, everything's a sliding scale, right? Difference between reactive and technical based. Does a goalie move a lot or are they more stationary? Robin, to me, moves better than he gets credit for. And quite often than he likes to give himself credit for. He's a little self-deprecating in terms of how he moves and things,

or at least he can be at times. I think he still moves and has excellent technique, but he slides towards that scale of a guy who relies more on reads, right? Who anticipates play and has a lot of patience, like incredible patience. He will make saves. How many times does see robin laner not down on both knees when he makes a save like almost that lundquist style sort of half butterfly one knee down glove up on the other side and you know robin will tell you that's that's a skill he

learned a little bit from craig anderson craig might be one of the best readers of releases in the game and robin's talked about how much he learned from him there and i think there's that element to him there's a little more old school and I mean that in a positive way on the sliding scale between just tracking pucks and anticipating what's happening and being able to read and maybe even dictate a little bit by your positioning try and show them something and then take it away or force them to do something by the way you position themselves Robbins got a little more of that type of element in his game and then you, you know, on laterals and plays where you just have to be in the spot and plays in tight,

you know, you'll see him retreat and play a little bit deeper. I love how he reads the game. So when he needs to challenge a guy one-on-one, he will come out and make that challenge. But when there are lateral elements, he's really good at putting himself in a position where he can get that big body across and give himself a chance to make a save, a controlled save.

He's second in the league right now in terms of, by Clearsight Analytics, expected goals and goal differential. He's saved almost 10 goals for the Vegas Golden Knights. I know they're scuffling, so he might not get the spotlight, but he's been incredible early this season. He's been sort of keeping that team relevant. And in terms of high danger chances, nobody's faced more in the NHL than Robin Lehner this year,

and he's really holding water there. So what I love about Robin is he can play it any way. Send him to the New York Islanders where they barely give up anything, and he succeeds. Send him to Chicago the next year where they were way more wide open. He changed elements of how he was playing to adapt to the shots he was seeing and he still succeeds. That's what I've always loved about him. Put him behind any type of team and he thinks the game well enough that he can adjust not just his mindset and his approach, but actually adjust

elements of his style to still have success. And he's doing it again behind a depleted Vegas team this year. Always curious about goaltenders that were drafted high and then take a while to pan out. And Jack Campbell was a first round draft pick of the Dallas Stars, then into the Los Angeles Kings organization. And now with the Toronto Maple Leafs, by the end of the season, he grabbed the number one spot away from Freddie Anderson. And now Jack Campbell's had a real good start to this season. And I know that many are whispering Cal Peterson deal for Jack Campbell. And if Cal Dubas is listening to this right now, he's screaming at me. But your thoughts on Jack Campbell and how he's performed so far this season?

Well, I think one of the reasons we see guys sometimes take a little longer is sometimes it takes a little while for the right voice to come along, right? that he went through some tough times, you know, in terms of really establishing his identity around being this high draft pick and then it not working in Dallas. And, you know, Dusty Emu really doing a nice job of helping him feel good about his game and sort of rediscovering some of that love for the game when he was with the Kings. I also think that in terms of technically and style, like I think Steve Breer in Toronto has done a really nice job of sort of maybe tightening up

some of the flow that Jack likes to play with without completely eliminating it right like goalies that play a little more outside in so they come out early and they retreat with the play whereas Henrik Lundqvist was always inside out he played deep and then he stepped out when he needed to a little more contained and controlled goalies that tend to flow more play a little more they move more. In order to do that, in order to move around the crease, you've got to move more. And when you move more, you're more reliant on making sure you move at the right time. You can't get caught in a backwards C-cut glide with your weight on your left skate when a puck gets past to your left, because now you've got to transfer your weight to your right skate before you can move. Those are the things that force you

to be really on with your reads and you're a little more reliant on rhythm and timing. And so I think they've done a nice job at Toronto of sort of balancing the flow he plays with. I think he plays with a lot less flow, frankly, and I think his consistency has shown it's improved, I think in part because of the technical changes on top of all the changes

he went through early in his career with the Kings, both technically and in terms of mindset. Last year, I'll be honest with you, they were one of the best defensive teams in the NHL. And when I looked at his adjusted numbers last year, at the end of the season, as good as his raw numbers were, his adjusted numbers were a little more middle of the pack. They were still good, but a lot of that was hard enough to look at last season and go, hey, a lot of this, let's not lose sight here, a lot of this is good team defense. He ranked 33rd in the NHL in adjusted save percentage,

whereas his raw numbers would have had him near the top. And so I think you had to weight that. This season, at least so so far they're giving up more and he's been great like he's top 10 plus 2.9 which would have had him top three last year by the end of the season and whereas last year it was a lot about the environment or at least that's what the numbers told us jack's out playing that environment right now and he's giving them a chance they're giving up more great a's they're giving up some looks and he's bailing them out maybe more than he had to last year and that's not his fault he played behind what he was given and he was just fine but the adjusted stuff was sort of like i said it was like 33rd not top

now the adjusted stuff's top two as well as the raw numbers and so he's full value for it the other thing i'd say about jack that you know it's not always easy to play there. Forget the media attention and everything. Not every goalie can play behind a team that is good defensively, that doesn't give up a lot of shots. And usually it's goalies who are more timing and rhythm based that like to play out and come and retreat back and things like that, that struggle in low shot environments. That's the one thing I'm not sure ever got appreciated enough for Jack Campbell last year. They were a great defensive team, but that doesn't always mean easy to play behind for every goaltender.

And he played really well behind them. Some guys struggle with low shots, right? And so he's shown, again, like Lehner is the example. Lehner being able to do that on Long Island behind a Barry Trotz team and then go to Chicago and get absolutely drilled with shots and still have success. Jack last year deserved credit for having success behind a team that didn't give up a lot.

And this year, as they're giving up more, he's showing he can be that goalie as well. And like I said, top 10 in adjusted save percentage, having a heck of a start so far and really, you know, maybe even a bigger part of the equation this year than he was last. You mentioned Craig Anderson a couple of seconds ago, and I want to go back there. Right now he's injured, but, you know, started the season as,

you know, I remember when they signed Craig Anderson. I mean, there weren't a whole lot of goaltenders to choose from on the market at that point. There was Anderson, there was Devin Dubnik and they ended up going with Craig Anderson ultimately, obviously. You know, you've referenced, you know, how Leonard feels about Craig Anderson, what he taught him, et cetera. What is it about Craig Anderson that other goalies like so much? It's the way he reads the game. I give him credit. Like he's still got a little old school in his style. And there were times when he was in Ottawa where you could see like his post play maybe

had fallen behind. Certain elements had fallen behind a little bit. You know, we talk about reverse VH and some of the modern elements. And, you know, when I would track goalies for playoff breakdowns, you know, there was no coincidence that he gave up a lot of goals on plays from below the goal line and sharp angle attacks and stuff.

But I gave him a ton of credit because he kept working at that, like working with Pierre Grew, who was the goaltending coach there while he was there. I used to watch them come into town here in practice. There was a ton of effort to get better at that. And there was also a body that wasn't used to getting, we talked about Markstrom and Demko having to change the way they trained to do some of these things and move into some of these positions. Like Craig couldn't get into all

of them comfortably. And so they had to find solutions that were a little unique to him. So I give him credit for the sort of old dog new tricks he kept trying. But at the root of his success is his ability to read the game. And that's what other goalies admire. Robin Lehner talks about it. Chris Dreger, who spent time with him, says he's the best in the NHL at reading releases, reading plays and how they're forming. But in particular, reading releases and being able to anticipate a shot and where it's going before it's actually off the stick. How do you do that? How do you do that? I feel this thing is like, okay, I get it, but how do you do that? There's so much different sort of cues and clues,

you know, stick blade angle, where the hands are positioned, where they're looking. And these are all elements, by the way, Jeff, that I can't do, right? Like I didn't start playing goal till my mid thirties. So these are things you learn at a young age and they become innate. I didn't start playing goal to my mid thirties. I'm very technical and track the puck and, you know, head trajectory. And can I see that release longer? The things that these guys pick up on is very, it's incredible. And to me, best part is craig shared with us how he learned this and it was by not watching the puck and so for young goalies and goalie coaches and everyone listening to this the caveat craig throws on it is make sure the coach knows what you are doing but he would at various times in practice or after or before practice he would take shots

where he literally was not watching the stick blade or the puck. He would try and make staves without watching the release. A lot of guys are really good at reading pucks off the stick and reading stick blades and stick angles. Chris Mason had an exceptional career. Mitch Korn always told me that was the thing that set him apart, that ability. Craig's not even watching the stick play he would take shots and all he would look at was hand position eyes shoulders hips all those other pieces of information that I don't know you could ever write any of this down but eventually all the synapses line up and it becomes innate like when you see it you know where it's going and so it was something that he

encouraged other goalies to maybe try and a lot of other goalies are like, I just can't do that. And a lot of goalies that have played with him just admire the heck out of his ability to do it. And I think when you look at the Sabres and, you know, at least early on, you know, they were making teams earn it defensively. If you give Craig Anderson a predictable environment where he can get to spots and read a release clean, he's going to have success because that ability, that innate ability he's developed, maybe the reaction time dips. It's sort of counteracted by this ability to anticipate what's happening before it ever does. That's fascinating. The whole time you're talking about that, I'm trying to equate it to something that a player has told me about shooting.

I'm trying to equate it to something that a player has told me about shooting. And the thing that I keep coming back to is Tanner Pearson. And when Tanner Pearson was playing with the Barry Colts, his coach was Dale Howarchuk. And Dale would do either blindfold shooting or closed-eye shooting. He said, listen, in junior, you're going to have a lot of time to get your shot off. It's a really good shot. You're going to score a ton of goals, but you have to understand you're not

going to have that time anymore. When you get to the NHL, you're just going to have to get the puck on your blade and fire it as fast as you can. And you're going to need to know where it's going to go instinctively. And so he would, you know, feed passes out from the corner to Tanner Pearson and he'd instruct them. As soon as you get the pass, close your eyes and then just shoot and train your body to be able to pick corners, go bar down inside the post, all of that without being able to see what you're doing, you know, blindfold yourself. And, you know, I was talking to Dale's son not too long ago about that. I want to check on the story.

He said, oh yeah, that's true. He said, as a matter of fact, when Dale was young, his parents would, you know, see him out in the driveway, you know, firing shots and he'd either be blindfolded or he'd have his eyes closed. And he could tell, this is Dale Howard's, like, this is like next level stuff, Kevin. Like this isn't for, you know, for guys like you and me, this is like the elite of the elite, right? 1500 points, hall of fame or all of it.

Guys like you and me, this is like the elite of the elite, right? 1,500 points, Hall of Famer, all of it. Dale maintained that he could tell just by the sound the post made whether the puck hit the post and went over the net or hit the post and went in. He said there's a distinctive sound between both. And by trading himself by not watching the puck, he trained his ears a lot more to be sensitive about how things sounded and where they ended up

that he could tell the difference between a puck that went in and a puck that went out off the bar. Stuff like that, Kev, freaks me out. What about you? I love the idea of closing your eyes. I mean, the truth is that's how I play most of my games as a goalie anyways.

But Ovi used to do that as well. Like we all know the one-timer, The truth is that's how I play most of my games as a goalie anyways. Ovi used to do that as well. We all know the one-timer, but he was good at getting to the top of the circle and not even looking at the net and just letting one go and always being able to not just hit the net but hit a specific spot. This is the one thing in the constant back and forth between goaltenders and players. I think that's the biggest difference in the past you know whatever five years forever players would spend the summers getting bigger stronger faster and maybe lowering their handicap while goalies were always working on position specific technique now we got skills coaches get your strength back don't worry about

your game yeah just get lift buddy just lift you're so right you're so right about that captain and goalies were ahead because we were working on technique right like always working on technique and efficiency and biomechanics and breaking down the position like a golf swing like the same type of like it's not just one thing to get there fast it's how do we get there efficiently and how we move our head and our shoulders and our hands and all these things that we would refine in the off season. Well, I think that's starting to catch up. You've got these skills coaches now, guys like Daryl Belfry that are working with guys in the off season to, you know, Hey, goalies move like this. If we show them this release and get them to move like that and then deliver it a different way, guess what? They've opened up

this hole. Like that understanding. I don't think it's a coincidence that he's a former junior goaltender, I believe. I think that that's where the dynamic is shifting and players are catching up on offense. Plus, we have analytics that tell us, hey, remember that old pass off pads? It's good every once in a while, or the point shots in traffic. Yeah, those have their place, but you really want to create offense. Let's get pucks laterally across the slot let's funnel pucks out of the corner into dangerous areas like you know i look at the numbers from clear sight that's one that's really gone up over the past couple of years like it's not about trying to score from dead angles it's about trying to force chaos in the middle of the net on pucks that funnel out of the corners from dead angles and goalies we think

of post play as just about guarding that short side and not getting scored on from a dead angle but it's as much about being able to move in and out of your posts and recover whether it's a pass to the point or those pucks that go into a bunch of legs in front of you from a dead angle do you have net coverage are you able to get across and seal are you able to balance and take away those types of chances as well? So as much as post-play for goalies used to be about, you know, not getting sniped on the short side high over the year, now it's about being able to get off and into the middle and taking away those chances because that's what teams are trying to generate out of. I'm glad you got us to this area because, you know, there was that time where there

was a hue and cry about the goaltending equipment and they need to shrink the pads and they're too big. And I remember it was Alain Vigneault specifically. He just sort of waved it off and said, stop. Stop all this whining about goalie equipment. He said, if you want to score more goals, you train yourself to shoot better. I'm paraphrasing Vigneault here, but essentially that's what he was saying. You want to score more goals, shoot better. Don't worry about making the goaltenders weaker.

Make yourself better. Make yourself a better shooter. And now everybody has shooting coaches. I have two boys that play AAA. They both have shooting coaches. Like it's become like you have your skating coach and you have your shooting coach. Everybody does that now. And it was so simple.

Elaine just shrugging it off saying, stop. Stop with this idea of shrinking pads. You want to score more goals? Shoot better. Pretty simple, right? But even within there, I'm sure your boys and you have experience in this. When we say shoot better now, it's not just shoot harder and hit the corner every time. It's deceptive tactics. It's things that are specifically designed to create one reaction from a goaltender that opens up a specific hole or show them one thing and deliver another like much like the training

it's no longer just bigger stronger faster it's deception it's things that screw us up the things that us goalies hate you guys have finally figured it out damn it you know they work with john mcfarland who's now an assistant coach of the Kingston front and acts of the OHL, who just has a blistering shot. Anybody that, you know, played minor hockey with them and, uh,

or in the GTHL or played in the OHL or American league with them knows how this guy shoots. And one of his big things, he's got the kids doing, and it adds that split second that doesn't allow the goaltender to set up. They don't dust the puck anymore. My kids don't dust it. They get it. They shoot it. they shoot it it took a while that's to get that out of their game but they just grab it and rip it now there's no dusting at all no we're watching the canucks

right now and their power play has been abysmal and one of the things i keep getting asked by local anis is what do you see i'm like one of the things i'd like to see elias petterson just unload that one t a little more often and i I know that, you know, that can be a confidence thing and teams aren't giving it to him, but every time he catches it and dusts it off and then tries to, and then he's quite often, he's ended up sort of sitting and waiting and then he sees an opportunity. He shoots a wrist shot and goalies are saving. And it's like, people are like, Oh, I used to score on that shot.

I'm like, not if he dusts it off. Like he dusts it. No, all the analytics we got from clear side, you know, those lateral plays, like they measure frame rate, right? When they're studying the film to come up with these numbers for the site, like when they break down each shot, they're using frame rates to measure how long it's on a stick and off.

And if it's more than half a second, that's a clear sighted shot. You've given the goalie a chance to square and set. That's no longer a one-timer. That's no longer a dangerous chance, even sometimes when it's in the slot because the goalie is set and square and as soon as you allow that to happen you've lost your advantage and so a lot of these goalie analytics they definitely go the other way like when i look at the player models on clear sight as well they tell the same story about who's truly generating dangerous chances.

And a lot of it, as you said, Jeff, is like, do not dust it off. Get rid of it right away. Okay, so as you can tell, there's a lot of goalie issues to talk to Kevin Woodley about, and he's the right guy to discuss all of them. This was a long interview. So to save your time, your attention span, your ears, and value that there's much more going on in your life than this podcast, we're going to break it up into two parts. That was part one. Part two, we'll release in a couple of days where we'll talk about how virtual reality is changing the

goaltending game. We'll talk about how a future Hall of Fame netminder has revolutionized the equipment that you see in just about every game in the NHL and also why you should know the name Linda Blomquist. That's coming up in the second part of our interview, our sit down with Kevin Woodley of In Goal Magazine and NHL.com. Okay, taking us out today is a band called Darling Congress that was formed through serendipitous circumstances. And what began as a reclusive solo project from Teenage Kicks founder Peter Van Velvert quickly grew into a collaboration amongst friends and

trusted allies in the strangest of times. The band came together at Summer's End with the help of Keegan Powell, Brent Wirth, producer Brett Emmons of the Glorious Sons, and engineer Matt Snell to bring us their first single. Here's Darling Congress with Your Dog Don't Like You on 32 Thoughts, the podcast. Hope you enjoy it today. Your dog don't like you based on virtue. Life got busy, don't mean to hurt you.

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