The Hockey PDOcast - Developing Goalies and How Teams Do It

Episode Date: March 13, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to talk about the importance of goalies playing the puck, AHL netminders to keep an eye on moving forward, and why some teams just seem to keep finding talent at the position so much more often than others.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Demetri Filippovich and joining me in studio on this sunny Wednesday afternoon is my good buddy, Kevin Woodley, Kevin, what's going on in? It is, it's gorgeous. It is beautiful. Like it's so overdue.

I shouldn't complain because we did have a gorgeous fall, but it's like, dude, it's going to hit like almost 20 this weekend. Like golf clubs are coming out and for a change, not for the local hockey team. That's kind of nice. That's right. You're going to have to put that on the back burner for at least a couple extra weeks this season by the looks of it. It's a good day on the PDOCast. The listeners are rejoicing because Kevin Woodley's on and we always have fun when we have you in studio here.

I've been preparing for this. We've got a bunch of listener questions from the PEDOcast Discord where the listeners have come through with topics. They want me to run by you and stuff first to discuss. And we're going to do the usual, right? Just throw a bunch of random topics at you and then just step back and let you cook for 50 minutes at a time. So we should get three questions in the next hour. That's the recipe. Three is generous.

We'll see if we can get to two for sure, and then we'll go into the rest later. I've got a couple here that I sandwiched together, and I'm going to throw them at you at the same time, and they're kind of good, not softball questions, but good sort of ease into conversation questions here. They're sort of more like philosophical goalie technique stuff as opposed to actual evaluation of specific goalies. Okay. So here's the first question. Next time Woodley's on, I'd like to hear his take on if he thinks there's an over-reliance on hand-saves with goalies in today's game. The elite goalies seem to separate themselves and I watch them by being able to get their body behind pox and kill more plays.

And a follow-up question to that on the Discord is I'd like to tack this on as well. As someone who has never played, I'm curious about goalie positioning on muffins from the point. I was watching a game recently where teams were just firing dumpins directly at the goalie who, instead of shifting his body position so he could catch the puck, was blockering it into the corner without any foreject pressure to deal with. Do you think this is the correct standard for what a goalie should do? Or do you think they should try to catch it and lay it off to a defenseman so they can push it quickly in the breakout? Okay, so hold on. Like, I'm going to go to the second one first. Both just in relation to sort of practice is for what.

Like blockering, like a controlled blocker save into the corner on a shot from the point. If you read that you can get possession off of that is definitely much preferred to trying to catch a puck with your glove if it's been shot to your blocker side. I'm going to go a little old school on this one in terms of examples why that's not a good idea and just mentioned the name Patrick Lillin. I think there was a playoff series against Toronto where he tried to catch a puck that was on his blocker side does not tend to end well. So listen, like on point shots,

this is one of the things where we've seen the philosophies and some of it still exists for some teams in the NHL that get pucks to the net mentality. If you don't have things like layered traffic or flash screens or net drive, with disruptions, even if you have net drive and the goal, you can see the original shot cleanly. At this level, if it's on the ice, they should have the ability with their stick to put it out of bounds and get a face off if that benefits them or kick it out and steer it to their guy. Or in this case with a high shot, control it to where they want.

I know some people that would say high blocker save. If it's controllable, you should be able to steer that blocker, especially now, like the new tech in like say like a Bauer blocker. We talk a lot about their pads are designed to create longer active rebounds. material does the same thing with the blocker. Guys can shoot that into, you know, like the 15th row. Right. So if a whistle and your team's good on faceoffs in the defensive zone is a good thing, that's what you should be after.

It's all about control. In terms of an over-reliance on, like, good hands is important. Well, can I stick with that one first before I move on? Yeah, because I have a point on that. So it's kind of funny because on the one hand, I think the puck handling of a goalie is one of the most overrated subjects amongst both fans and also like broadcasts when you go to first intermission of a playoff game and if there's a blunder certainly you talk about it or if uh back in the mike smith days it would be

like glorifies at a point where you just be like running highlight reels during intermissions and after games of hitting the puck up the ice and obviously whenever he was just turk and throws a breakout pass off the wall and it's brings a break yeah it's like it looks cool right and it certainly helps the team i think that like the relevance of that considering how infrequently it happens is not that big of a deal. I think what's underrated though, especially in a playoff setting, is a goalie being able to stop a puck cleanly to improve the conditions for their defense minute play it. Because a lot of these top teams right now, like by design, they're taking the long view of, all right, we've got seven games here. Like Vegas last year against Dallas,

I always talk about this, but new Miro Haskinen was going to have to play for 27 to 30 minutes in each of those games. And they're like, we have seven games here to dump it into the corner. and he's playing with Ryan Suter, who certainly won't be able to do this, so he's going to have to do it, and we're just going to tee off on him. And eventually he's going to start hearing footsteps, he's going to get tired, he's going to get banged up, and he's going to make mistakes. And that's such an easy way to manufacture easy offense. And so having a goalie who can prevent Miro Hayskinin from having to turn his back

and take a hit 12 to 15 times in a game is a massive luxury. And so I think that's kind of what this is hinting. And obviously you don't want to make an unforced arrow shooting yourself in the foot by trying to catch a puck you can't and take into your own net. I mean, controlled pucks, controlled saves are what you want, whether it's eating it, holding it for a face off, or putting it out of play along the ice with a stick save or blockering it out of play, that's preferred.

Because at the end of the day, anything that's a rebound that's contested, the team that's attacking is facing you and seeing where it's going and your team has their back to you defending and can't see it and there's a disadvantage. So controlled is optimal, and control can be out of play or just, eating it, even on the blocker side.

That's always better. But I'll take the corner. If you can't get it out of bounds and you can't control it, and obviously blockers are tougher to sort of eat on the blocker side. Just you obviously can't close it. You know, I'll take corner versus back into sort of the quote unquote field of play where the next chance might be direct. At least you can give your defense a chance to sort of turn, have a look and reset.

Now, on the puck handling, real quick. Real quick on buck handling. Because, you know, Mike Smith became sort of the target for this. And I remember being at a goaltending conference in Nashville where he was in Calgary at the time. And Jordan Sigelette, now the director of goaltending with the flames, was presenting. And he presented all these Mike Smith touches. And you're right. Some of the home run passes that are pretty that get the attention, including when he makes a mistake,

those were all over the highlight reels. But they had his numbers for all different situations. A leave, which is where you said, we just go back, get it and leave it for your defenseman. an over, which is just one side or the other, short pass below the goal line or an up. That's, you know, now you're moving it up in the zone. And for sure, his numbers decreased on ups, but they were really high on leaves and overs as well. And I think those short little plays that he made because he got to so much behind the net often got overlooked because when he got aggressive, it ended up one way or the other.

But he was also excellent in those other two departments. And I don't remember the numbers now, but Sigelette presented. on basically how many hits. They'd done the math on how many hits and contact that and saved their defensemen. It was like anyone trying to argue that he was in that negative in their mind that was an absurd argument. And yet you needed to look at all the different plays he made, not just the ones that ended up on highlight rails for good or for bad.

Now to catching pucks, again, that goes to control. Like, I have a better ability to control a puck that I catch, especially on the glove side. at the end of the day, reaching limbs miss or are more susceptible to deflections, whereas if I get my chest behind it, when was the last time you saw a puck go through a chest? Hopefully never. Hopefully I don't see that.

For some reason, I thought about it, then I was like, I can't visualize it. It would be graphic and dramatic, and I think a lot of people would never be goalies again. But that's the point. You want to get yourself in a position where you can make body saves, but even then, like a good body save is

hands cradling in front and controlling it off the body. At the end of the day, yeah, maybe it's a really tough one to answer because each save is unique. You want to get most of your body behind it regardless, but in today's NHL, if you don't have somewhat active hands, like you can't survive as a blocker. Do the best guys get into position and put themselves in a place where they can be hit? Absolutely. Do the very best control those saves, whether it's with a slightly extended hand or shifting a shoulder in and then having it hit their shoulder and fall into their glove? Yes, but you just can't

survive at the highest level unless you have a little bit of both. So the point of catching, obviously, just logically, it's more difficult to execute because there's more guys on the ice in 515. In general, you're going to have bodies around you. But in this example of like, someone's dumping it in from the red line, essentially, and there's no four checkers in front of you, when we see in three on three, when the goalie catches it and then instantly just flicks it to a defenseman and they're moving back up the ice. Like I think that'll be a tough one to replicate, I guess, during regular five-on-five play. But also it's something that I can't, speaking of like, visualizing, I also don't really recall too many times. Doesn't happen very often. Where I've seen. And that's because people

generally shooting-in- We have a goal that shouldn't account it recently where they never blew the whistle in the Montreal game. Yes. Listen, there's too much chaos at five-on-five. It's a much harder play. And I think just, like I said, mitigating risk and sort of the control element of freezing it and having a face off in your own zone versus throwing it to an unsuspecting defenseman five feet away and not seeing that there was a forechecker coming around behind the net that is instantly on top of them.

There's just too much noise around you as a goalie to play that as often at five on five. Well, I know that Corey Schneider has done a great job tracking this in the past, particularly for playoff settings, but I'd be fascinated to see like puck touches for goalie stats as a publicly available metric in terms of how many times they actually go back, stop it.

And then it would be obviously very difficult to to then quantify what happens after that, but whether it's like successful or unsuccessful ones in terms of actually accomplishing what they're trying to do. Yeah, no, and I think his numbers are actually shown that like the puck handling is not a good thing. Right, right? Well, because I think it's a catch-22

because it gets you into trouble, right? We've talked about those with Markstrom. I think Mike Smith certainly towards the end of his career and applied where you get this level of confidence in your ability to do so, and then it's going to put you in positions where you're like, you're not seeking the thrill of it, but I think you're maybe overstepping your bounds

a little bit in terms of, It's the defenseman who handles the puck most and his elite offensively also has the most turnovers. Except this guy's using a big paddle that has much less control and is probably not as effective. So, yeah, it's a tricky, slippery slope. Okay. Listen, and so much of it depends on, like, so many times there's a goal that results off a goalie play, playing the puck, and everybody screams at the goalie.

And what you find out in talking to the goalie and the defenseman afterwards is the defenseman went to the wrong spot or screamed out the wrong call. Like, it's not always just the goalie. they go back there, sometimes a little blind, they want to get eyes up ice early, but if they don't in a bang, bang, play, they're relying on certain calls. And so they put it where the defenseman screams for them to,

and if that person isn't there, or if there's a misread, quite often those are the ones that end up being a disaster. And I'm not taking the goalies, he's not completely blameless, but oftentimes it's more than just him. Now, this idea of kind of killing the play and stopping it, as opposed to maybe coughing up rebounds in particular, do you think it's kind of a chicken or the egg thing

where, like, you're probably going to be more likely to give up rebounds that lead to further trouble if you're either not at the top of your game or you're not seeing or feeling the puck well but then also if you do so then it's gonna have a trickle down effect of making your stats look worse because you're gonna be in a harm's way

of giving up rebound goals against well there's such a thing as a good rebound too like and good needs to have like quote unquote beside it like you know what clear site they sort of try to categorize good and bad bad or weak they call it is rebounds that go to the other side of the net that because now you've got to do what cross the slot line the royal road or whatever to recover to that play if you keep it in front

of you this is like the numbers on you know like the most dangerous chance being the closest to the net but if i'm already in my butterfly at the edge of my crease and the guy's bank like there's nowhere to go for that puck to go it just can't go through me like almost never does but if there's a lateral play so if you keep a rebound in front of you you could actually go the other way on your stats you could be like christian layton missing the putbacks but then getting another rebound right and get like three rebounds on his own misputbacks, and next thing you know he's a rebound legend. You could actually...

You're describing the Carolina Hurricane's entire offensive model. You could... If you keep it on the same side, you keep it in front of it and you keep it tight, there's nowhere for it to go. So yes, you create more chaos, but you can end up with decent numbers as a result. I will give you an example of that this year.

Early in the season, Casey Smith was giving up a lot of rebounds here in Vancouver. Now, some of them were quality, really good quality chances where you're like, hey, I'm just happy he made to say. That's all I'm asking for. if there's a loose puck, that's fine. But I had to sort of make this point. There's a lot of chaos in front of him.

They did a great job. They've much improved in sort of boxing out and taking care of net front, especially when he's playing. But he was also not giving up. A lot of them weren't weak. They were all same side. He was keeping it in front of him

and he's really good at moving from his knees and not breaking seal for too long. It's one of his strengths. And so it created chaos. He created what looked like dangerous situations. But because he kept it in front of him, they weren't really. I mean, yes, it's a,

contested puck and anything could happen to get chipped to the other side, for example. Right. But he did a good job of keeping it in front of them. They were good rebounds. Do you want, would you prefer a totally controlled save? Yeah, probably. But if you're going to give out of a rebound, there's a big difference between the one that goes to the back door empty net and one that's right in front of you where the guy essentially has to, you know, go back

to the old thing about you ever seen a puck go through a chest, basically put it back through you. I can tell that those CSA stats you referenced there were not NHLPA approved ones on, on the NHL website because I don't think the goalie union would ever approve of weak rebounds as a terminology. I don't think that they would approve of most clear-set analytics stats because inevitably the numbers look worse because of the amount of overcounting of shots. Yeah. Okay. It happens at the NHL level.

Let's keep it moving. We want a good pace here. That was brisk. 15 minutes for us is a win. Next question. A common theme of the Kevin Woodley episodes between the two of you has been the arms race between shooters and goalies. Shooters are shooting for weak spots more accurately than ever before, and goalie's personal skills coaching in the summer has lost some of its edge. Is there any skill

or shot type that this recent paradigm shift can allow for goalies to deprioritize moving forward? So if shooters have shifted their focus somewhere particularly, does that then mean that goalies can sort of afford to, and he says, relatively speaking, neglect their attention to certain either areas of the ice or particular shot types that have kind of become a dying breed. I wanted to throw this one in because I feel like these sort of philosophical questions that you and I have lead to the best rabbit holes and kind of tangents. Last time we spoke about the Leon Dreis Idol shot from that kind of dead angle, the Jack Hughes one trying to bank it off near the goal line and kind of this prevalence of it,

whether it's more easily adoptable for other players that aren't on the level of those two guys, what that means for goalies from a safe selection perspective. I find this stuff endlessly fascinating. So I wanted to talk about that with you because I do think of when I think of goal tending and this has been, I think developed after all the times I've spent talking to you, I think of it as sort of this like safe selection triage from a goalie's perspective where you essentially are trying to identify what your highest percentage of exposure is and what the most imminent threat is and then you try to do something to kind of prevent that from being the goal against.

Now you're never going to be perfect. So that's going to open up other. problems elsewhere, but like as a goalie here, viewing the landscape of what's happening offensively in the league where we know shots are being funneled to certain locations, what does that mean for your goalie brethren in terms of kind of diverting attention or I guess like, I guess prioritizing is a good word, like channeling your energy into the most valuable spots on the ice. Okay, so yeah, I was going to say, I don't know that it, like I really like the question,

but I don't know that it's so much a case of deep. prioritizing things as prioritizing other things. And I guess actually inevitably you're you're working less on for example a one timer at the point on a point to point pass because that's not the most dangerous threat not to the point where you could ignore it because there are things like traffic and tips that can make that point shot still you know a difficult say but certainly slap shots one timers like in terms of reading releases compared to some of the dynamic shooting skills that we're seeing you know, skill. skill players develop in terms of hiding releases and white ice techniques and things that will

sort of make a goalie think one thing is coming and then deliver another yeah you're probably not working on the sloppers and the one t's as much as a goalie i do think in terms of what they have prioritized comparatively that's why you see them spend so much time on the post integration on moving in and out of the post because whether it's dry sidle from the bottom of the circles sort of opening up a new paradigm by shooting from there or, you know, Jack Hughes or Connor McDavid on the rush getting down below the circles and picking a spot from a dead angle or the guys that will fake that shot and then wrap on you if you commit to them. Like those are the skills that we're seeing goalies get exploited on.

So that's why goalies work so much. The irony is five, six years, we've seen the increase in low slot line plays. So pucks through the middle across the slot line, across the Royal Road. below the hash marks. Like that's the biggest increase in offense in the NHL over the past five years. It's like a 41% increase from those plays. So what's your answer? Your reverse VH is your answer because it puts you in the net while protecting the

short side and the ability to shift to the middle or have your body in the net if that pass hits a bunch of things and creates a broken play chance, right? All the things that spin off of that. The expense, ironically, is the exposure to these other types of plays, whether it's dry saddle with the one T because he can't get that post sealed or you don't have the coverage to the. top of the net off the rush. And so we see a lot,

the irony is we see a lot of goalies trying to figure out those, the dry sidle and the, uh, Jack Hughes and the McDavid chances. Um, but one of the reasons those exist is because they spent so much time trying to figure out how to counter the 42% increase through the middle. And so in some ways,

we're looking for the next answer now. But like in short, that's the answer. The answer is you have seen them prioritize. post play at first because of the increase in low slot line plays and now having to find different spins on it to counteract the solution shooters have come up with that exploit the holes in them solving the low slot line play. So at the end of the day, whether it's deprioritizing other things, I don't know if that's a right term, but they have definitely prioritized stuff on sharp angles

below the goal because that's where a lot of offense is being funneled from in the NHL now. Well, thinking about this from the perspective of like expected goals models and obviously I think that's something that, you know, you and I have spoken about the sort of blind spots, I guess, or the issues with it, particularly with the publicly available ones the past couple years. It's still obviously a superior sort of way to quantify a goalie's impact than just certainly like Ross A percentage, which I think, and no doubt goals against average, which are stats that were used more previously. In thinking about this, though, and I was speaking with someone about this last week,

the offensive zone is kind of becoming like a bell curve from an expected goal. perspective, right? Where, like, anything near the point is such a low value shot right now, and I'll obviously acknowledging, like, tips and screens and all that. But it's just in terms of, like, a pure shot in terms of getting rid of all other factors, just the shots coming from this location. A point shot. Unless I'm in net, an unscreen point shot ain't going in. Of course. No, no, I believe in you. I mean, you can at least talk a big game, so I'm willing to, I'm willing to believe you could stop it. My beer league team doesn't, but I'm glad you do, Dimitri. Those are low, low value shots, right?

Right. Then once you get kind of in that area around like between the hash marks in particular in the middle of the ice kind of halfway through the offensive zone between the blue line and the net, that's the highest value. That's the peak. And then as you start getting closer to the net, it's a diminishing value in my opinion where especially you're cutting off the angle essentially and we know that like we just talked about rebounds and stuff. I think to clarify that conversation, when I'm talking about dangerous rebounds, I mean ones that are kicked out into the slot. not ones that are stuck to a goalie's pad, and then you have a Carolina Hurricanes forward, jamming at it 14 times and getting credit for seven high-danger scoring chances along the way to gain the system. So I think there is a diminishing value there. Now there's a sort of selection bias

where these shots we're talking about that are like dead-angle ones from kind of in-tight and low and in the corners and stuff, those actually are kind of high-danger shots because the players attempting them are the guys who kind of know they can actually score, gore on them, right? You're not really seeing fourth liners for the most

part trying, not trick shots, but these shots that are like high degree of difficulty ones, even though you think, oh, just get the puck on net, they're more likely to sort of work it below the goal line and then try to sort of jam it in on a wrap around or something like that, right? And so

it's an interesting spot where trying to kind of quantify what those shots are worth, they seem low danger, but in fact, they actually are very high danger because the guy's tempting them are just so much more likely to score on them. He was a McDavid have time and space. It's a high danger. Yes.

And they're moving downhill. It's a high danger chance. Actually, I'll give you a Patterson on Raps this year. Like his wraparound attempts have gone through the roof. But if you'll notice, he's had success too. But if you really dial in on why, it's because he's not trying to beat the goalie to the post. He's not trying to jam it in off his skate. He's getting enough extension as he comes around, knowing that the goalie is probably going to get a skate and that short side post down, like that pat on the short side post down along.

the ice, where's your exposure as you move into that post as a goal tender? Get that pad, get the toe of the pad up against the post. You're pushing. So you get that there, but you've probably had to open up in that push to do so. So your exposure is at the top of that short side pad between that and your backside pad because a lot of guys, they either, if they come across, sometimes with that pad up to anchor into a reverse or they're late with the stick or they just can't get the thing sealed. Not everybody is thatcher DEMCO can sit with a skate on each post and just sit there.

A lot of goalies do. A lot of goalies can't. You can actually by taking the wrap and not trying to just beat the guy to the post, but extending it getting his hands and the puck out further and trying to wrap it back through the five hole, he's created a bunch of goals that way. So again, but if that's somebody else that doesn't recognize that inefficiency and isn't trying to exploit it, you know, unless you've got speed coming down the wing and you strand the goalie at the other side, that reparounds probably doing nothing but bouncing off the short side

pat. Now you score on that type of play two or three times and then all of a sudden, the next step is once you're coming down, you actually shoot that puck like McDavid does or like Jack Hughes does because the goalie is thinking, are, I have to get ready to get across. You know, and not to repeat our last conversation, but this is where we've seen goalies adapt now, some not all, use an overlap or what they call the, some called the panda flatten out that overlap. so that you've got additional coverage short side high, but you can still push easily to the far post. That's where, you know, sort of maybe as they solve that,

what's the next wrinkle for the players to come up with? Maybe they're looking to pass that more. You know, I do see a lot of people talk about overlap and just holding your edges. And then Peter Marazik, who does overlap and does hold his edges, and I can't remember who did it to him. It was an elite player, but didn't use a reverse, stayed outside his post, went into an overlap,

should have had short side high coverage, and the guy just tickled the bar and put it right over his shoulder and right. At the end of the day, sometimes, I think some of those bad angle goals, because of where they come from on the ice, and because it's usually with a goalie in reverse, we go, oh, that's a terrible goal.

But there's a guy that essentially just had depth and butterflyed in the same situation was not stuck up against this post, and it still went in because that spot's just a really good spot. It really is. Okay, Kevin, let's take our break here When we come back, we'll pick things right back up with you, keep taking listener questions.

You are listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Catch up on what happened in Vancouver Sports with Halford and Brough in the morning. Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back here on the Hockey Padio cast, joined by Kevin Woodley today, Kevin. I'm going to sneak in a question from myself here. Okay. Into the listener questions. I'm going to cheat a little bit.

You know, I talked to someone in charge, and I got this question in, so I'm going to sneak in. hopefully get you to answer. It pays to know people. It's topical after what we saw last night. And you actually mentioned Petter Marzick and that got me thinking. When is the next time? We're not next time. When are we finally going to see John Gibson get the throw down in a goalie fight?

Because we've seen him. Okay. We've seen him tease us a couple of times last year. You're going to have to update me because I saw something about it came getting tossed. But full disclosure, I was actually in Abbotsford because I wanted to watch Jack Campbell play for the Bakersfield Condor. So I didn't see this one live. So maybe for the listeners. That's so on, brand.

for you. Sorry, I didn't see this. I was actually watching. I was doing the work. Okay, well, we're going to talk to HL in the second age. That's good. There was, it was like a six-two game in the third period. There was a skirmish behind the Blackhawks net. Gibson made his way down the ice, took his helmet off, essentially came towards Marazik, got intercepted by officials. They started still mixing it up. He like pulled his jersey over his head and Marzick's head disappeared and it was good. And you could tell that Gibson was really enjoying himself. A situation he has not been in too many times in terms of enjoying himself, both this year and in recent seasons based on the state of the ducks.

As I've said in many years, are the ducks trying to kill John Gibson? Yes, so he is understandably ordinary and looking to let off some steam. Now, last year, a similar incident with Phoenix Copley didn't escalate to that point because I believe, like, he was waiting for him at Center Ice and then the officials got in the way. By the way, I tweeted this, but I really believe it. There's a special place in hell for officials who get in the way of a goalie fight. just let us give it to us because here's a thing. I'm not even a big fan of fighting in hockey anymore.

I understand all the issues with head injuries and everything related to that. And also generally, especially these sort of scripted fights between fourth liners, which are a dying breed, is like, that's not really hockey. In this case, though, there's something about a goalie fight. Flurry Bennington last year, right? Like that getting, both of them being willing and the officials not letting it happen. But also the visual of like there's so much equipment and padding. and it's almost like two like sumo wrestlers

trying to like just bump into each other and it's always hilarious and we'd never really get to see it because officials are always and I'm going to be honest to you like I gotta give I gotta defend the officials here because I hadn't thought of this but now that we've had yet another example

where clearly the mandate appears to be do not let these guys go I do wonder in an era where fighters aren't allowed to take off their helmets their goalies have to sort of to chuck. And I wonder from a liability perspective of that, like, if we've made a rule where you can't

take off your helmet, but goalies inevitably do in order to have a fight, is this just a complete mandate? You do not let those two go because we've got a liability issue. I'd be honest, I never thought of it just popped into my head. You know, again, there's probably a reason the officials are doing what they're doing, because I'm sure deep down, even though they're not supposed to, they're like us. They all wanted to see Mark Andre Fleury and Jordan Bennington have a go. Well, whether it's a goalie goal or a goalie fight, I mean, not.

Nothing really gets... I'm in. Nothing gets hockey Twitter going, like, those instances. Okay. You mentioned the AHL there. We got a question. Are there any AHLers beyond the big guns like Wolf, Walsh, Walsh, Ascro, Dev and Levi, that Kevin thinks are worth familiarizing ourselves with whether, and not necessarily

for the stretch run this year, but just in terms of the future, like what's like a goal who you could see playing some sort of a role at the start of next year where all of a sudden they're either in a backup spot or they're getting meaningful run for their NHLT. based on the performances we've seen this year rather than just being like, well, just pick a name out of a hat. Like someone who's actually given you proof to believe they're capable of it.

So caveat here. And the caveat is as much as I tried to pump my own tires by saying I went down to the American League to watch Jack Campbell. I just don't have enough time to watch enough American Hockey League games. I do like to watch them in person in Abbotsford, but I don't, it's not like I'm on the app. I'm not watching HL live all the time.

So I don't have the eye test that I'd like to have. And you know I don't like to talk out of my ass. I like to have seen guys. Secondly, I don't have numbers. Clearside is NHL only. So they don't have analytics on a lot of these guys. So, you know, again, I don't want to. You have conversations.

There are guys you get to know. And sometimes I got to, I got to wonder because I do talk to a lot of guys. And you got to be careful not to fall in love with the person and the approach versus their ability to actually stop the puck. And there's some approaches recently that I've just been like, man, I love everything about the way this guy handles himself and the way he talks about the game. Eric Portillo. He's also having a good, like this is first year pro with a 925, and then you hear the mindset, then you hear the approach, and some of the things he's figured out,

and some of the things he admits he's still trying to figure out. I'd have my eyes on him. Clay Stevenson, a guy that I've spent time on the ice with in Colonna, in the summers, works with Adam Bruncelia, the trainer. You hear me reference a lot as a client of Ray Petcoe and his Alpha Sports Agency, so we know him through there. A cool 930 this season for Clay Stevenson. Topps in the American,

Hoculi. Again, we've had him on the podcast. We've spent an hour with him. I've watched him develop. This is a kid who was a college free agent signing that had other teams roll out red carpets. And I mean like lunch with future Hall of Famer, you know, red carpets and say, you'll be in the American League this year for us. And he chose the capitals because of the plan they laid out.

And that included starting in the ECHL for a full. season. So I just, again, does this mean he can stop a puck in the NHL? I can't say. The numbers look good and the mindset is something I like. Thomas Suhannik, who or Sukhanak, depending on how you say it, what he's doing as a rookie is impressive. I remember watching him in the dub and being, like you saw the upside, but you also saw

inconsistencies, but you can't deny the results he's having in the American League. I know, for example, Boston is really big on Brandon Busy. great first year pro season another guy sort of late bloomer overlooked and again had him on the podcast the approach the mindset they're not all like this but you have that conversation

you like it then you like like we forget it's never linear right like look at Michael DiPiatra like having a great year in that organization as well after sort of being forgotten here in Vancouver so there's a lot of young guys like I like Dylan Garand I like his mindset his game

Jet Greaves I got to know over the summer got to watch him work with Devon Levi in Manchester Montreal for a week. We had him on pro reeds. He broke down his first game against the Maple Leafs. And just again, there's a skill set there that I've seen.

There's a mindset there, an approach to development that I like. And so those are some of the guys that jump out at me. I'm probably missing some. But those are the ones I love. The thing with Greaves that I noticed compared to like Busy and Stevenson, and I'm glad you brought both up. And there are both on my list as well is I believe he's like three years younger than both those guys, right?

And so I do think there's a bit of runway here. Now maybe that also affects his proximity to the league. Because I think, like, in Boussey's case, he's done this in the HL for a couple years now or last year he also had really good numbers. He would have to be exposed to waivers next season. We all know that Linus Allmark was almost traded at the deadline. You look at read the tea leaves. We'll almost certainly be traded somewhere this summer to make room for Swayman's extension,

which is the worst kept secret in the league at this point. And so not spending any money on your backup seems like the way the Bruins are going to have to go. And I imagine we'll hear his name. quite a bit when that happens. With Greaves, though, what's interesting is he's got the four games of NHL experience over the past two years. As is it, even after the last one.

Like the first three were record setting. The last one on this back end of back-to-back was a tougher start. His adjusted numbers are still excellent. Well, 49, 43, 33, 31 shots facing those. The last one you mentioned is the 31 one, I believe, against the penguins. And he gave up a few goals. Now, anyone that either follows me on Twitter

or watch that game knows the one of them was Erica Branson winding up as hard as he could and shooting it into his own net on the penalty kill which was one of the most bizarre like, with almost shot selection there

one of the most bizarre plays I've ever seen is I want to try to execute so I'm not going to hold that against Greaves I think the unfortunate reality is that with the state of that team and their defensive metrics this season if you were to play a role next season it would probably be more of that

not necessarily as defensive and shooting it as an own net but a lot of high volume games where he's exposed to very different situations, but we'll see what happens with Elvis. I imagine they probably wouldn't want to run him and Terrasov as a tandem, regardless of what happens, because we know the teams operate, they'd probably want to bring in, like they did with Spencer Martin. They'd probably want to bring in another veteran to soak up some starts.

But there's value, too, as much as a guy, a kid like Greaves probably wants to be in the NHL and might feel like he said, like the first three starts were unreal and his adjusted numbers, even after a fourth start is still really, really good. There's value in time down there. I think we talked last time about the article I wrote about how like basically HL development time for Gultang has been cut in half and there's this expectation they need to be ready in one or two years not three or four and yet you look at some of the guys that have come through that are that are having success and yeah sure you get every Jeremy Swamen that just right into the NHL pretty much like Joseph Wall spent a few years down there and like I believe he's the future for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the numbers say even now coming off the injury with a couple rough starts in a pretty bad environment still the adjusted number

are good. Like I believe in Joseph Wall. So sometimes you need that little bit of extra time to sort of put all those pieces together. Even Stuart Skinner, look at, you know, in Edmonton, right? Again, several years down there without, you know, there's no need to rush, I guess. As much as I know the goalies themselves would like to be rushed and, you know, fly first class and stay at the five diamond hotels on the road. You know, there is value to getting those minutes in that experience and getting those reps in the American League. Well, when you mentioned Stevenson there, finally the Washington Capitals organization gets a quality goalie to look forward to after only what two decades now of just having one after another of developing strong goalie choices

and obviously bringing in external ones like a like a Charlie Lindgren here's a question kind of tied to this then from a listener why don't more teams emulate what the rangers and the predators to historically good teams at developing goalies do is it a question of resources personnel scouting, et cetera, or something else. I was thinking about this hearing you talk about Vegas recently and how they spend more money outside of player contracts than other teams and how that's how they use their financial advantage. And that's something we've been talking about more here where everyone's so hell bent on focusing

on the LTIR and how like you look at the contract shenanigans there. But something that I think they do deserve credit for and other teams do as well is like you're limited to how much money you can spend against the cash. You are not limited to how much money you can spend on a practice facility, on first class, everything, on making sure you have all the best resources. And there are teams that do not prioritize that because it's expensive. And I think the results generally over a long period of time reflect that. Now, I'm curious for your take here. I know that you could just basically, your summation of New York could just be been a while there.

And that's it. This is the interesting thing. Because in that case, Benny has for years resisted. having help at the American hockey league level. He's wanted to do it himself. Now there was a period and I'd actually have to look it up to be honest now. There was a period where they brought in a guy

but then that guy was I believe let go and actually now he's the Montreal Canadian's goaltending coach Eric Raymond. And I think the last I checked I thought Benny was doing it himself like that's why he's not on the road with this guy. So at a time where we talk all about like all these resources and goalie coaching

like it kind of sucks for me because I haven't seen Benny come through New York in like three years now with the Rangers. And so those guys are on their own. It appears, or at least on them, maybe it's just the West Coast trip, but when they're like, they're taking care of their own development, Jonathan Quick and Igor Schocherkin, I don't know how much of that is Benny being down in the American hockey league. But, you know, we're at this point where you think all those resources and I think

sometimes it's about the right people. And there's an example where what the Rangers have done is largely Ben Waller. I think Bob Essence often gets overlooked in this conversation with what he's done with Boston and I think for a while they were in the same boat where he wanted his hands on both. They've now got helping the American hockey league. So yeah, it is a little bit of both. Nashville, you know, obviously you had Mitch Korn and then from there built out with Ben Vanderclot coming in who had worked with him.

And now their American League coach actually took over in Anaheim with our friend Sudashem Maharaj fighting cancer right now. He took over there. And so they allowed Ben to bring in and hired somebody that Ben had worked. with at lower levels as well. So there's a continuity in philosophy there. I don't know that there's a right way to do this. I don't know that just throwing resources at it is necessary the answer. It needs to be the right resources and the right people. So I guess what I'm saying is I don't have a one size fits all answer. I do think that teams that are building out departments and having more

educated voices that are willing to have back and forth where it's not just same thing where there's dissenting and let's find different ways to do this. You're inevitably, you should be able to find more market inefficiencies there and create, you know, even if it's making sure that so often you'll get these college kids, they get signed, they end up in the ECHL to start. Well, where's the one spot in an NHL organization where there's no goalie coach. It's usually the American hot, or the ECHL, sorry. And so making sure you have support for them at that level.

I know here in Vancouver, Ian Clark carries a director title as well as NHL goalie coach, Marco Teranius, who they brought in from Finland. Also a great idea. Hey, let's bring in more guys from countries where they excel at teaching, goaltending and letting them work in the NHL. When the AHL team goes on the road, he either goes to visit prospects or I believe he'll even spend time. If they've got a prospect in the EACHL, he's free to go do that.

So he's not just working. The other kids have touches with NHL level coaching and advice. Everyone is so preoccupied with wondering, all right, which goalie are the devil is going acquire. Was it going to be Hellebuck in the summer? Is it going to be Gibson? Is it going to be Saros? Is it going to be Marks? Is it going to be Mark? Is it going to be someone else? What we should be talking about is they should really just make Corey Schwab the highest paid executive in the National Hockey League and just give him a blank check to come and totally redeveloping. Listen, you're not going to find a bigger fan of Schwabby than me. He's been though he does not

like to be in the spotlight. And he's obviously done great things with the Arizona Coyotes. And I think I mentioned this last time, but I want to plug it again. Because in some of my other conversations at different places when discussing Connor Ingram and some of their ability to find guys, I forget that they also have a dedicated goalie scout, Clay Adams, who I think is a big part of this equation as well. So I always want to make sure I add that in. I know that devil's goalies take a lot of heat and I get it. We've talked about where they are as a team defensively. It's not good enough, but you can still have good goaltending behind that. I know just as, it's funny, I had this conversation recently with Wade Flaherty, who was under similar heat before Connor

Hellebuck came along. And by the way, Wade Flaherty and Helley will tell you this, played a big role in his development. But nobody wanted to have patience. There were moments early in Hellebuck's career where Pucks were going in because they were trying to fix things. And people were screaming for Wade Flaherty's job. Nobody's screaming for a job anymore.

So if you're making those calls, it went through in Edmonton with us in Schwartz, right? If you're making those calls right now, like this is, Schwabby's awesome. But I don't believe Dave Ruggleski is the problem. He's the goaltending coach in New Jersey. I believe that Scott Clemanson, who's sort of running that department, is an incredibly smart person as well. I know Berger's got touches on that department. I don't believe that this is a coaching problem. And I say that because I know a lot of guys that Rogalski has worked with as he climbed the ranks.

Whether it was in St. Louis is their American League. There was a time there with you basically were looking for Minnesota goaltenders. Just go look for guys that had worked with Dave Rogalski coming up in high school and summers and things like that. Like, his guy can coach. So sometimes I think it's really easy from the outside to just sort of focus in on that. I know what happened in Edmonton early this season with Dustin Schwartz. And hey, look, they learned how to defend. And nobody's asking those questions about Stuart Skinner and Schwartz anymore.

Flaherty, Hellebuck, all these examples. And I just think, I know that's not necessarily what you were doing, but by implying Schwabby, I just want to make sure the other group doesn't get thrown under the bus. No, no, no. What I was sort of hinting at was, first off, I don't think it's, a coincidence that the coyotes just seemingly every year have at least one of the goalie that they found for cheap that's doing really well. And also it's not like a situation where there certainly were years there under Tippet

and then under Ticket where they were a stingy defensive team that was making life easy for their goalies. I wouldn't say that's really been the case recently. And yet still, Connor Ingram, who we're both high on looks amazing. And I think that's a testament to the work they've done with them. In fairness, I don't know what numbers they're using. I mean, the Vanichick one didn't make sense to me at the time, right? Like, because he was, to me, he was always sort of a, you know, fantasy football terms,

high floor, not necessarily. Like, I didn't know if you wanted to put him behind a team that needed an acrobat, so to speak. And, um, and I think they have some really pro, like, I think Nico Daw's, like, his number's actually been good. You just ask him to do too much. Yeah, just not playing everything. And Schmid will get there. Like, I think there's a good goalie there.

I think it were just asked to do too much too soon, uh, in part because the Vanekek bet didn't work and McKenzie Blackwood moved on after not being able to stay healthy there. So, you know, it is hard for me to not, and I don't know the ins and outs behind the scenes. And maybe those guys who were a lot smarter than me saw something about Markstrom not fitting. Or maybe it was just a matter not being able to get the deal done and not being able to come to. At the end of the day, the math, and it's never as simple as plug one in A into B and it works. But even when you sort of broke down some of the nuances of what they struggled with defensively and what he excels at as a goaltender, it just seemed to be such a pit.

Like simple math, you're talking about 42 goals. Like a goalie who's plus 27 and a goaltending group that was minus 17. Yeah. Never quite that simple. But it's not like Markstrom was doing it behind, you know, the 95 devils or even two years ago, flames. Yeah. Like he was doing it behind one of the, you know, fifth worst defensive teams in hockey underlying numbers. So he actually, for him, New Jersey would have been an upgrade defensively.

No, they would have. And the reason why I think it's interesting is, and part of it is because, like, Like these are, Schwab's a good example of this because it's someone we never hear from and it's never going to publicize themselves. So it's a lot of the work is being done quite literally behind the scenes where like you're just, you're not, even a casual fan might not be familiar with the name, right? It's like, who is this person's goalie coach or who runs their goalie department, unless they're either like a Roberto Longgo where it's like a former star player.

Right. And it's been publicized or a very specific example for the most part. Well, Larry and Clark guys that have gotten traction around. kind of the elite few and then otherwise it's a bunch of names that for the people who aren't doing the work you're doing could all just kind of blend together and you wouldn't be able to pick them out of a lineup yet we all agree it's the most valuable position and is going to play the biggest role in determining whether you are successful as a team regardless of what else you do now there's ways to with the environment in front of them and how much like the goal support

to make life easier for them and certainly but also we're so preoccupied with the names themselves in terms of the goalies, and I don't think we give nearly enough thought to... The personnel that... The departments, because there's... There are, the listeners, right. The Rangers, the Predators, I'd throw the coyotes, a few teams in there. The Capitol, certainly, that just seemingly keep churning out, regardless of who the head coaches, regardless of who the GM is. You know what?

There's a common thread between a couple of those. What's that? Nashville and Washington, both departments that were... Right. Well, I mean, in Washington's case, head up, and the first sort of... well, not the first, but one of the first sort of, you know, goalie departments headed up by Mitch Corn in Nashville, where there was sort of a continuity from Mitch Corn moving on. So somebody should check into, I haven't.

I don't know. Well, it's Lou Lamarillo, so everything's top secret. I don't know what his contract terms are in New Jersey, but I know he's a lot less active there than he used to be. So if he's looking to get back and be more active, somebody hire Mitch Corn, it'll be fine. Yeah, I was going to say, good luck finding out from Lou. Okay. I had a bunch of other stuff about the Vesna, now the Demico's going to miss a few weeks. I had a question about the senators.

I'm going to say that... Do we have time for them? No, we have four minutes left. Can I give you one, Vezna? Like, he's not going to win it, but he's in the... Should be in the conversation. And I've already done the Markstrom thing, and I think with Hannafin and Tanav gone,

like those numbers are going to come down. Is it still leading? Chuck Elingren? No. Jordan Binnington has passed Demko and Hellebuck, and is now second to Jacob Markstrom and goals saved above expected by Claire Sight Analytics. Yeah, I mean, he's the only reason

the blues are hanging around the playoff spot, but also I don't think they will make the playoffs. I'm just saying if they do, do not, like the role he's played in it, again, just like the Calgary's not going to make the playoffs either, but what Markstrom has done, especially up until his trades, is remarkable and should be worthy of Vesna trophy consideration. And Bennington, if he were to keep this heater up, would be in that conversation as well. I think pretty much everyone's Vesna ballot has already been filled out with Hempco. Helibok 1, Demko 2, especially with Demko missing some time now. And then third is very up for grabs. And I think there's four names you could very reasonably make. Igor's just Terrkins out of here right now. I mean, yeah.

One last name that's not going to be in the Vesna conversation, but I like to throw this out there because I got this one wrong. Sixth in the NHL and goals saved above expected as of March 13th. Uco, Peca, Lukinen. Well, we brought him to last night. Well, hey, this is me like, you know, we pump my tires on going in the American League. This is me being self-deprecating. I got this one wrong.

I didn't see this level coming. Good for him, good for the sabers, for the patients they had with him in the minors and it's now paying off. Okay. I'm going to, so we're going to keep, we're going to keep the vet. We'll do have a full Vesnal conversation. I also really want to talk about the senators because I've got some questions about them. We'll talk about them, a few other random stuff.

We'll have you back on one more time before we get into the playoff sprint sometime early April, I think. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out here. What do you want to, what do you want to direct the listeners towards? Well, we should just have, we just, we should just say Steve Stales, give me a call. Not because you're going to hire me, but I'll tell you who to hire to fix all this stuff. Right. He may have also been an employee of the Ottawa senators in the past. and they never should have let them go, so we'll leave it at that.

I'm plugging Ingole magazine, Inglemag.com. That's where basically all this stuff we're talking about we get into, but in a way that helps goaltenders. You hear me talk about the conversations I have with these guys. That's where I have them, whether it's on the Ingole radio podcast or for feature interviews for features on the site, or the best feature we have at ingolmag.com is ProReads, where we sit down every week with NHL goalies, watch video,

and they explain their safe selections. a lot of cases they'll tell us what they did wrong so you can learn from that too um there's no better way to learn how to read the game at an elite level than to hear how nchl goalies process it in real time and we're the only place in the world we can do that i love that are you going to be doing um for playoff previews are you going to be doing any breakdowns of uh goalie strengths and weaknesses uh nashl dot com has done that every year the past couple we haven't started to the second round there's just with 16 teams there's just so much on the site that I don't know that it makes sense for the first round for the NHL to invest in that.

And I got to be honest, Ametia, I'm getting a little too old. The first time I did that, I literally had no more than a two-hour nap for six straight days. I don't think I can do that anymore. Nor should you. But maybe we'll have you on as a little like playoff preview. I'd be happy to do that. We'll talk about it because it's less, it's less definitive. Also, I can't use clear site analytics when I write at NHL.com.

So for you and me, I can pull it up and I don't have to go sleepless for 10 days to figure. To be fair, though, usually you don't use them on this show either because you're buffering the internet here trying to load it up while talking. Yeah, but like the producer extraordinaire for 32 thoughts, Dom has me on his Wi-Fi, so we're golden now. It's true. It's a game changer. All right, Kevin, this is a blast. We'll have you on again a couple weeks. Thank you to our listeners for listening to us.

Only plug is we mentioned the questions we were taken from the Discord server. Invite link is in the show notes. Hop in there. And you can submit future questions for next time we have Kevin on. And that's going to be it for today. Thank you for listening to the Hockey PEOCast. We'll be back soon with plenty more here on the Sportsnet Radio next.