The Hockey PDOcast - Early Season Adjustments for Goalies, Shesterkin’s Worth, and Ullmark in Ottawa

Episode Date: October 11, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to talk about early season adjustments for goalies, how much Shesterkin is worth to the Rangers, and what Ullmark can do for the Senators. 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 HockeyPedio cast. My name is Dmitra Filippovich and joining me here in studio. This is my good buddy Kevin Woodley, Kevin. What's going on, man? I am excited to be back for the hockey season and excited to see you again. It's been too long.

We took a little break, you know, summer hiatus. New faces, new places, all those things we talked about. We get to see what it looks like for real now. Very exciting. listen, I'm a man of principal. And so I could not, in good conscience, finish the first week of the NHL season without getting you back on as our goalie expert here. Because goalies in particular are always interesting because I feel like myself, other analysts, people who listen to the show are constantly trying to figure them out. You provide some insight into that, some very unique

expertise in particular. They've been dominating the headlines for a variety of reasons, right, with contract extensions, potential contract extensions, their play in general. So there's a lot for us to dive into and I'm happy that we can close out week one of the NHL season here with you in studio setting us into the long weekend here in Canada. I'm happy that we're doing this in the first week of the season because I can just scream sample size for anything that it looks like I got wrong already. Yeah, let's agree not to preface stuff with it's early in the season. I think everyone knows that by now. We've got a fun list of topics here that we're going to cover today. Let's start with a Discord question. And I posted in the other day that you were coming on the show

as soon as I booked you, and people were, as you'd expect, very excited about it. If you want to, this is a good opportunity for us to plug the PDOCast Discord here right off the top. A lot of big Kevin Woodley fans in there. I gotta get, I gotta get, you know, I'm the old. It's going to inflate your ego if you get in there. People are always talking very highly about it. My wife, there's no way. It's not, she's not going to put up with that.

She says my head barely fits through the door as is after I come on with you. This is just a good opportunity to remind our listeners. It's your best way. way to get involved with the show. I've also found it's honestly such a good companion for just watching the games in the evening. Like, I've totally changed my way of view. I used to be, have the Twitter, the tweet deck opened up, following the tweets, seeing what people were saying how's watching games, see what's, if anyone notices something I haven't. Now I'm just in the pediocast discord. People are posting in there all sorts of great observations,

conversations going on. So it's the number one resource for keeping up with everything. Get in there. It's free. The invite link is in the show notes. Join us and have a great time. Here's the first question. and I thought this was a good sort of entryway into not only this show today here with you, but also the season. It essentially brings up the point that I feel like early in the year, and we've only had a couple days of games, right? But it feels like there's an inordinate amount of, I'd say, shaky goal tending, just in terms of the aesthetics of some of the pucks that are going in in a particular,

and I'm sure you're going to have a rebuttal for this, but the goals against are very high, right? I believe league-wide percentage right now is about 885 with that caveat of a small sample size. But it feels like pucks are leaking through, goalies are having trouble. Now, I would say that anecdotally, and you might have someone to back this up, this is kind of like an annual trend, right? It feels like early in the season, teams are a bit looser defensively, kind of ironing things out, giving coaches ammunition to get into the video sessions and hammer them in practices.

And so we're going to see some sloppy play along the way as teams kind of round into form. Now, it's ironic because it felt like this was the longest NHL preseason ever, right? And teams got so many reps to sort of prep. But I don't think you can simulate that real NHL game setting. And maybe that's what we're seeing there, right? But I think it's probably more that than anything about like the goalies individually sort of struggling. Yeah, no, I think we are seeing a little bit of that in terms of it's not just like the length of the pre-ed. Like, I felt like the games were for a lot of teams, they were bunched together.

I thought some teams left their kids in longer, didn't play their vets. At the end of the day, preseason hockey just felt more like watching lower level hockey where it was a game of mistakes and it was hard for goalies to maybe build that rhythm and timing. And one thing that never suffers early in a season is the pace and the skill. and so I think that's never been faster. We've got more young skilled players in the league here in Vancouver. We're going to look at a couple of them tonight. Obviously, Matt Faye Mitchkoff at the top of that.

And these are the types of players that are, this is the reason it's never been harder to be a goalie is those types of players. And I feel like they have more opportunities early in seasons. Now, traditionally it does tighten up sort of second half and after the all-star break and the goalies numbers improve. I didn't look up last year's. Weirdly enough, a couple years ago, it went the other way. So even within that, that was an annual trend you could count on.

And a couple of years ago, even that got bucked. And so I think it just goes to show you the volatility around the position right now. Yeah, it seems like, I mean, I think you make a great point there. That sort of disorganization or maybe kind of more free-flowing atmosphere is going to obviously benefit offense, right? Because players are just going to have more room to skate, their talent's going to shine through, whereas defense is much more built around. X's and O's and structure and attention to detail and those are things that you imagine are going to get ironed out and tighten up as the season goes along.

Now, do you think there's anything to goalies just like needing more time to get into whatever rhythm or comfort zone? Obviously, it's on a case-by-case basis, right? Now you could argue that being fresher in the season would theoretically benefit a goalie, but you could also say like, all right, well, they just need to see a few more pucks

before they really kind of get into whatever zone they're going to be in. Someone told me that Stuart Skinner, and I didn't hear this interview myself, but after his first rough outing that he didn't feel like he was up to NHL speed. And so I would ask why not, right? Like, okay, I don't know how many preseason games he played and maybe the preseason games he played were disjointed messes.

But to me, that's on coaching staffs too. Like, if your goalie isn't up to speed, as much as there's no way to mimic game speed, especially traffic, I'm not sure it's ever been harder because I'm not sure that traffic's ever worked more purposely, more purposefully to make life difficult, like the amount of detail that goes into, it's not just go to the front of the net anymore.

And I feel like that's a big part of the struggles for some of these goalies early. But I feel like, you know, that's something that you have to take responsibility for as a goaltender, as a coaching staff. And I would just be in the goalie coach. I mean, as the staff, like so if your practice is not presented them with enough of those opportunities,

like that one to me was a bit of a head scratcher. I'd love to have the opportunity to sort of pick his brain further. and sort of dig into exactly what he meant there. But it goes to the pace, right? The pace has never been better. And so if you're behind the pace at all in today's game, you're going to struggle.

And this is where a lot of goalie coaches over the last, I'd say it's the last three years I've heard this more and more and more. And then as I say, guys come into town and say, I heard you say that and like, you're right. Like, this is true. There is no, you cannot get away with the B game anymore, right? And so if you aren't laser focused and sharp as a goal tenter, whereas guys like for Jetta, like Roberto Luonga used to talk about managing games where he didn't feel great.

And these 70 game starters would have off games, but they learned how to sort of manage those performances and still get away with it. Now those are the nights you end up with a crooked seven on the board, right? So it's, that's all sort of part of this. Again, why goalies don't feel 100% out of the gate? that's a question I need to start asking around, but if you don't, you're going to get exposed in a hurry at this level. I'd argue there's no tighter group than the goal union,

the way you guys look after each other. And you've stepped across that invisible line a few times here in the show and gotten yourself in a little trouble, and we've heard sort of knocking on the door and you're looking over your shoulder. Yeah, can I have my union card back? But it was hilarious. Watching the first game, right,

it was the opener in Pittsburgh, the Rangers are up for nothing, and you got Brian Bouchet on the call and he's like, wow, ever since Tristan Jerry gave up that fourth goal, goal. He's really tightened things up here. It's like, all right. Well, yeah, they're down for nothing. I really hope that, you know, there's not four more coming. And then obviously he gives up a few more after that. But, okay, so here, I, full disclosure, did not have the opportunity to watch that game. I kind of wish, obviously I wish I did. And I wish I'd known that Brian was on the call because I saw him at the rink this morning. He's here for the Flyers broadcast. I would

ask him what he thought. When Stephen Valichette tweeted, because he does, he sends out on Twitter X. After Rangers games, we get the sort of numbers. And I heard a lot of the narrative like, oh, Tristan Jari, here we go again. And I'd heard that Tristan had a really good summer from a number of different people working on different things that I think will translate for him. But then it was like, oh, here we go again. And then I saw the numbers the next day that when Stephen tweeted them, Valcette tweeted him like, holy crap, he was actually positive goals saved above expected on a night.

A lot of high chances, yeah. I think it was 16. Yeah. The expected goals for New York in that game was, over seven. It was like 7.3 or 7.23 or something like that. Like at the end of the day, that's not me just having the goal of union card. That's like recognizing that there are nights where it ain't on you. Yeah. And yeah, you'd like maybe one or two of them back. But when you get to that degree of mid-teens, high teens, high danger chances, good luck to you, sir. Okay, there are a few things

I've noticed in watching these early games that I wanted to run by you as an explanation for, I mean, I think everyone knows by now, offense is up across the board, right? And we've already kind of hammered out why there's so much talent. Teams aren't really wasting minutes on guys you can't even score anymore. All of these things that are happening is the league sort of shifting towards a higher scoring environment. Players actually work on skills in the summer instead of bigger,

stronger, faster. Guys like Darrell Belfrey are arming them with knowledge on how to be goaltenders at a level we've never seen before. They've all the things that goalies used to do to work on their craft, players are now doing to the endth degree. Maybe not all of them, but more of them is certainly the high-end skills guys with skills coaches like Darrell

and they've passed us. Again, I'm going to get a knock at the door or union card, but they've passed the goalies. It's time for the goalies to catch up. One of these is I think more of a tactical thing the teams are doing and kind of trying to hunt and exploit and the other is that skills component that you're talking about. They go hand in hand.

But the first one that I'd say is I've noticed an increased utilization of that goal line pass in particular. I know you've spoken about goalies like, I think Aidan Hill you've referenced in the past in terms of it's not, just slot line plays, but particularly ones kind of below the hash marks down low in tight, right? We've seen teams now, and it's not necessarily a new sort of tactic, but it feels like it's

one that's increasing in popularity and utilization across the board is like teams, instead of just having their goal line guy kind of just standing in front of the goalie taking up space, right? We've talked about how they're moving more, they're kind of using flash screens instead and trying to be more dynamic in their play. In particular, teams are almost using like a setter at the goal line. Think of Matthew Kuchuk, who I think does it better than anyone, where sometimes he's standing off to the side of the goalie. And even when he gets the puck, I mean, sometimes he'll try to quickly sort of push the puck in or catch the goalie if they're not leaning against the post. But for the most part, that player is there to almost bump the puck over to the guy on the

opposite post, right? And we, I think a great example is, I think it was the HAB's first goal in, in the first game against the Leafs, where they used a really nice play with Slavkovsky, who's a big body, and he's kind of standing there, and you think he's a traditional net front guy. And instead, he's using that exact talent that we're now seeing every player have to bump the puck across to Cole Cawfield. And he's able to, with the goalie out of position, get the puck into the net, right? And we're seeing teams, I think, utilize that more. And that must be a nightmare for goalies, right? Because it's not only the- It's a low-slot line, but it's a double slot line.

It's going back and forth across twice, and that's one of your highest degrees of difficulty. You're decreasing the distance of the pass, which means that the goalie now has even less time to get across and get set, right? so you're almost at the mercy of either, I guess, the defenseman blocking that pass or the shooter just not necessarily picking his spot. But when you have a guy like Cole Coffield, he probably will convert on that. And we're seeing, I think, teams really hammer on that. I guess the impetus is going to be on,

because you can't really expect the goalie to do anything better other than give his best sort of push across and try to get there. It's going to be the defenseman trying to get in the way of the pass. If he doesn't, you're almost, it's done for you at that point, right? And I think that's what we're seeing. I think that's going to be an interesting thing to sort of note and watch moving forward as that becomes more incorporated into everyone's not only power play,

but I think even 5-on-5 play now if you're moving the puck around and using that five-man unit, I think that's going to be an interesting thing to watch. Well, it's a slot-line double, so it goes across both times. Low slot-line adds to it in the first case. You pull that off, and we typically think of a slot-line double as maybe a two-on-one where it gets passed across twice, but you're right.

Teams are looking for other ways to create it now, especially in tight down low where the goal it has less time to react. That's a puck that goes in historically 49%. of the time. Like if you make that play happen, you score on half your looks if you hit the net. Like that's a pretty high. Which is a remarkable. Yeah. It's like, yeah. That's a really, really, really high percentage. Playing the other one that I think we've seen increasingly is similar situation down low, but not necessarily just like a passing place, great, because you can script it. But getting a rebound in that position, and then instead of just funneling it back

at the goal tender, unless it's a bad rebound that's come across and he's out of position, looking to make a pass off of those plays. Pass off rebound is a 55% scoring rate in the National Hockey League. So two types of plays that are very high efficiency and not surprised that as teams get access to numbers like that and figure that out, they're going to try more of them. Yeah, I mean, you just... Anytime you get a goalie movie, right, like this entire system that Stephen Valleket built and flushed out numbers. wise was on the premise of I know it's not the same chance if I have to go across from one side to the other. And now you're finding ways to get goalies still moving to the first side and you're

already funneling the puck the other way. The second thing that I wanted to bring up to you is just the shooting mechanics. And now this is obviously, I think, more of a Darylifery conversation, certainly, but he's like an evil genius against us, goaltenders. The example, I mean, you look at that overtime goal, Dylan Gunther scored last night against Farlamov. And I think, I think if you're an Islander's fan, you're probably looking at that and you're being like, all right, I wish Farlamov was a bit more aggressive in coming out to sort of take away an angle, because if you look back, he's like pretty much pinned up against his post. Like he's so far back in his crease.

Now, Logan Cool, he's doing a net drive to essentially push him back. And it's like, all right, well, you can stand there and try to take a charge, but we'll see what happens. And I'm going to just willingly take a massive hit. So he's pushed back, and then Gunther essentially steps into a wrist shot. And just watching that play, I mean, Gunther is uniquely suited to convert on that because already, like, his release is top five in the leads of scene. Like there's no wind up, there's no load, it's just on and all.

You know what reminds me of? That's what makes Daniel Sprung so deadly as a shooter. Talk to goalies about it. And he got one here the other night. That is similarly, I think a lot of people look at it from the outside and they're like, oh, like that shouldn't go on. It was late in a power play second unit out. But that was a screen.

Like that was a, you know, a defenseman sort of pushed a guy into a moving screen and goalie never sees it. And so you combine the fact. that he doesn't have eyes on the release with a release that has no tell. Yeah. Like there's no wind up. There's no loading of the wrist. It's just gone.

And Gunther's that, it feels like to the end degree. Like it's yet another step with deadly accuracy and some pace. That is tough. For those of us charged with stopping it. Certainly what makes it so unfair is you go back and even watch maybe five, 10 years ago, even the best shooters in the league, there's, it almost feels like an eternity now compared to today's game

where they're loading it up and it's starting off on their back heel essentially and then by the time it makes it to their front toe it's like all right the goal he can sort of tell a shot is coming at some point here I don't know where it's going to go

but at least I can prepare myself accordingly in this case Gunther receives the pass and the puck's already in front of them and from there he just with a flick of the wrist and obviously I think the stick technology and the flex and all of that certainly goes into this but he's just able to pick

top corner with remarkable slap shot almost like velocity from that standing position, which, you know, looks kind of awkward and static, but he's able to essentially make it look like one of the most dynamic plays you're going to see in a game. And as I said, he might be in the top tier of guys already who can be expected to do that and the goal is at his mercy. But more and more guys are incorporating that as well, right? We've talked about obviously Austin Matthews, Philip Horsberg, some of the top players at that particular skill. I assume that's going to be a thing now you're more where you're almost removing the tell of like a MLB pitcher where it's like, all right, I can kind of see it coming

out of his hand as a batter or what pitch it's going to be. I can sort of, I don't know where it's going to go, but I can start to swing at it because I know what it's going to look like. And in this case, you don't even, you remove that from the equation for goalies and it's purely a guessing game. Well, I mean, look at the Reinhardt goal that a lot of people were all over Corpusallo for. And maybe he overplayed it on the outside because Reinhardt kind of holds it, you know, away from him like he's going to sort of bring it to the net on the backhand. and then all in one motion pulls it to the forehand

and snaps it far side over the shoulder. And so it looks like Corporal is off his angle from the release and he is because he was set up on where the puck was. And that angle change from that range for a guy to be holding it out in the backhand to shooting it from inside his feet. Like what is that? Three and a half feet?

Like that's a significant angle change and it's a tough adjustment for a goal. Especially if you've gotten yourself low and wide in your side, stance and dug in a little bit, which kind of immobilizes you. Like, if you're setting up on that as a shot and it changes that quickly. And that's why, you know, again, among the lessons and the evolution on the goaltending side, you're starting to hear guys talk about like, if a guy's holding it out there, especially if you know he's got to pull and drag, like so many of them

are developing, I can't set up on the puck because he might pull it into his feet and that's too big an angle change. So they're setting up on the hands rather than the puck or halfway, splitting the distance, basically having a hedge between the two because they know they can't go and set up on the feet because most of the guys that can pull it into their feet in a split second to shoot it can also, like Gunther, shoot it from out there and get a lot on it.

So like it's, I don't say a guessing game, but your reeds as a goaltender have never been more difficult because of, you know, the skill level involved and the understanding of those skilled players what works and how, like what to look for in a goaltender, which option you've got him committed to and therefore which which way you need to go to exploit that.

Yep. Okay. Damn, shooters. It's not fair. Okay, here's a question from Justin. Is Ewar Shasturkin worth $11 million over eight years? Now, obviously, that is in reference to Kevin Weeks' report earlier this week, that that's what the Rangers offered his camp and he turned that down.

I think there's so much nuance and interesting context of this conversation. from a statistical perspective, from a business perspective, certainly, but just purely from a goalie evaluation perspective and devoting that sort of percentage of your cap and available resources to a position. And people have made the argument, and you and I have spoken about this as well.

What complicates it even further is, in our understanding of sort of optimizing goalie production, it's come with, all right, well, we need to manage their workload more. They should play less. and now all of a sudden you're devoting that resource to a player who theoretically will only play 50-55 out of the 82 games to begin with,

assuming for help. He plays every minute. He plays every minute, yes. It's not like the tough play forwards in the league are playing 60 minutes. That's true. Someone pointed that out to me. I don't even know if it's apples and oranges.

I don't even know it's a legit argument. Because I've made this point like, hey, like there is going to be a decreased likelihood of general managers wanting to spend big money on goalies when they spend a third of the year on the bench, to which somebody replied, well, Connor McDavid spends half of every game on the bench. He doesn't get paid less.

He's the best player in the world. So I think the Gully Union card requires me to just blanket say yes, you should pay him. Certainly he's maintained a high to elite level every season with the Rangers. He has never quite gotten back to the same levels that he was during that, you know, arguable heart season. And that was like a once every 40 years campaign. so asking him to would be would be a stretch but then again he's asking for 30% more than the next highest guy right so

you know this is a bit of a tough one for me because I know you know and I've heard the reporting that the argument is he's your best player and it's hard to argue unequivocally is so there you go so it's hard to argue with that and yet is that the comparison or is the comparison what everyone else is doing with their goaltending because he's the best player but last year he was from an adjusted save point, save percentage standpoint among starters, you know, the seventh best starting goaltender in the league. Now, not many guys have been consistently in the top 10 the way he is. Like he's never sort of doesn't dip outside of that.

And that availability, reliability, consistency has some value. But do you leapfrog everyone when the gap in the numbers isn't there every year? That's where, like, in his two-thirds of the games he plays, does he dominate like McDavid? There's probably a war-type number out there that I should be able to generate, plug-in, clear-sight into it. But right now, I find it very tough to make those comparisons. It's what the market will bear, and I think the Rangers have a very tough decision to make, because I actually really like Dylan Garand, who's coming up as their three, but to think that he's going to be eager or Schistairken

and to think that he could be there right away like that's obviously an unrealistic ask so what are your options like there are very few it's only a handful we keep saying how much thinner that elite class is if you have one it's really hard to walk away from one and they have one well you're going to love this

I'm working it's a theory I'm still workshopping it's in the garage I'm still not ready to to really bring it out and take it for a spin. But I'm going to pitch you on it here because I do think that just reference the conversation we just had before this, right? How like across the board teams are getting so much smarter at optimizing offense, right? Both from like incorporating young players, them all being more well suited to it,

all the tactics in terms of offensive zone deployment and what types of shots you're trying to get. It feels like finding an edge there is going to become difficult because almost everyone is pushing towards this precipice of max. maximum efficiency, right? I don't think we're there yet. Certainly, I think goal scoring will keep going up until we reach a certain point, and then we'll see what happens with the rules if they kind of try to push it the other way. But it's really tough to find kind of edges there. I wonder if the result of that then is going to be a pendulum swing the other way, where if you feel confident that you have one of the four or five truly bankable difference makers of the goalie position that can

help counteract that a little bit, and I would argue that despite the fact that these numbers haven't been there the past couple years overall, although I thought Justirkin was amazing in the second half of last year and then into the playoffs right after kind of a slow start where people were like, oh, is Jonathan Quick actually they're starting? It's like, no, let's take a bit of a breath here.

Just the cumulative work that he's put in the past three years or so, I would argue he fails in that category with Hella Buck and Soros when he's healthy, and I guess Anders kind of pushing towards it and Demko when he's healthy. There's very few select names there, right? Obviously, Vasilevsky as well. So if you have one of those guys, then it's almost an immeasurable value to your team to have them

because it actually gives you a fighting chance to differentiate yourself from the 31 other teams that don't have that player and are still doing all the other same stuff offensively, if you know what I mean, right? Yeah, see, and I actually think, like, I'm just trying to remember all the names you just listed off. Like, I think Schistairkin's actually at a level above a lot of them. and I just, as we were talking, I looked it up. I obviously talked about last year that he was seventh. But now go to all the years he's been in the league prior.

And he is number one with a significant lead over number two, Ilya Sorokin, in terms of what he's done cumulatively since he arrived in the league, adjusted, say, percentage-wise. Better than even Vasilevsky, almost by a full percentage point. Better than Soros by a percentage point. better than Demko by a percentage point. And so if I was, I mean, if I'm his agents, I'm looking at these numbers and I'm like, yeah, absolutely my guy's worth this much.

And I look at them right now, having not done that exercise until we just talked about it, like just sort of getting a cumulative amidst all the volatility over the five years combined, where is he? He's significantly ahead of everyone else on that list. And that consistency is such a key because I think there's two goalie conversations. There's sort of peak performance or what you're capable of. of when you're on your game. And we know that he's got that.

Exactly. We've seen that, especially in the postseason. And then he's got the consistency as well. This tells me we've underrated the consistency a little bit. And a lot of our goalie conversations are through the lens or the prism of, well, it's a very, very volatile position. We don't know what it's going to happen from year to year. And I guess we're saying, I still don't feel as confident as Connor McDavid having a league leading scoring season. Every year he's still healthy.

I still don't feel that way for any goalie, regardless of how good they've been. But if there's one to bring on it to you. It's different than your average sort of goalie that's had a good year or two. Yeah. And the other part here is the other adjustment I think you'll see teams make. Maybe you're right. Maybe they pay for the elite guys. We've seen this already, right?

Like we're seeing with Boston committing dissuayment at eight and a half. Like that number used to be five, right? Demko five times five. Merzlickens five times five. Like all these guys that got that contract, Cal Peterson five times five. So you've got to be careful which ones you give it to. Like that's the new standard. The bar has been raised on those guys.

And I categorize both of those smaller sample versus women. Both those guys are just brushing up against that Shish Jericho tier. Not too far below, but if he's in a class by his own, they're right there behind him. What's kind of interesting to me is that I think teams are going to go the other way too. The other hedge is let's build a department. Let's make sure. Like the Panthers did. Ironically, they just won a cup with Bob.

But they built out the department. And so the next time they were in that position where they needed a number one goal tender, they were the team that had three or four guys coming. They felt comfortable in rather than being the one that had to pay $10 million for Bob. Now, it worked out, obviously. But I think making sure you have more league average or better with upside options coming is the other thing teams are dumping resources into. Like that's one thing where you can sort of find, you know, inefficiencies,

where if you think you can get ahead in that. that regard. You take a look at, you know, obviously because he's been topical and in the news here in Vancouver, I took a look at Ian Clark's track record, because I know he was heavily involved in scouting as well in Columbus. And like six of the seven guys that they drafted under him made it to the NHL. We saw, as much as there are still questions about what he'll be long term, the value of having an archer she loves in the minors working his way up and all of a sudden get to the playoffs and he's got more upside than your backup and you play him. What is the value of that? Well, the value is $40 million because that's what getting to the second round and four home playoff dates against the Evanthinoe has literally made your franchise.

So if that's the payoff, why not invest in the type of people that can deliver it for you? And I think there's two parts to that. There's one, there's investing and spending money and building out your department. And then there's two, knowing which guys who amidst all the questions about voodoo and everything, who can actually go and find you those guys. and will they find guys that fit on any team or guys that fit just their system of what they teach? And so those are questions. Also, as a side note, a little surprise that Ian Clark hasn't been snapped up by somebody already with that exact same thing in mind because of that track card.

I think it'll happen sooner rather than later. I think so as well. All right. I've got a few more notes on Shisterkin. I do think we should take our break here. And then we come back. We'll finish up on the Shastrican conversation. We'll talk a bit about Swayman, Almarc, a few other goalie topic.

while we have you here to close out the week, you're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sports Net Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the HockeyPedio cast with Kevin Woodley to close out the week. Kevin, before we went to break, we were talking about Igor Sturkin, the sort of situation the Rangers find themselves in, how valuable he is to them. I think ultimately at the end of the day, just from a business perspective, the Rangers find themselves in a very, I think, not necessarily unique situation,

but clearly defined competitive window here, right? They've made the conference final in two of the past three years. The Zegoli, who has had a 928, say, percentage during those three playoff runs. I think everyone's sort of acknowledged what he means to this team, how the backbone he essentially provides for them. And ultimately, at the end of the day, you've got this sort of nucleus of Zabinajad, Panarin, Kreider, Trochech, Fox. obviously Fox is a bit on the younger side there turning 27 this season, but the other guys are all in their early 30s now.

And so I get it. It's a lot easier for us to be like, all right, well, at some point you have to draw the line and say, well, this is too much money. We can't justify it based on the amount of cap space we have available and how tight it's going to be otherwise because you've already committed so much this group. I think from your perspective, I want to hear your take on this because he's going to be 30, I think, two or three months into the start of whatever his next deal is, right? and so I assume that if that comes with an eight-year term now you're talking all of a sudden going into your mid to late 30s

we know that goalies age differently certainly than skaters and I think it's fair to acknowledge that all right well maybe this could look different when he's 35 36 for a team like the rangers though I'd argue almost that while it's not ideal certainly to be like all right well we're just going to commit this and not care what it's going to look like six years from now it's easier for them to justify, I think, because there's such a deep pocket organization as well that we've seen with teams like the Leafs, for example, depending on what the scenario is like in those years, I think there's ways to eat money to get out of it or even if you have to pay some money while a guy's on LTIR or whatever have you. Not that, you know, that's the worst case scenario, I think, down the road. But it is also, I think, not necessarily as risky of an option, I guess, I'd say.

as it might be for another team where it's like, all right, we're going to sign this guy. We're going to promise him $90 million over the next seven, eight years, and we're going to be on the hook for that. I think the Rangers are probably, I guess, more open to that realistic possibility than maybe a few other organizations would be. And I think that's an important piece of context here as well. Yeah, I mean, the one thing that, you know, one of the statements I've made a few times over the past couple of years that gets me in trouble with the union is if there's one thing I'd avoid if I was a general manager. and again, the caveat is, if I'm not dealing with one of these handful of elite guys, is to avoid term, right? So you might be keeping a really close eye on what Andre Vasselowski does this year

coming off the back surgery last year. And really arguably the first down season statistically, or at least down to league average, that he's ever had. So maybe you pay a little more attention to that, but I'm with you. I think you're just investing in what he gives you in the short term. And the other thing he gives you in the short term is continuity at a time when you've lost that in your goaltending department,

to a degree. with the retirement, at least from a nice perspective, of Benoit Lair. Now, Aller is staying in a director role, at least in the short term, and he's brought along two guys, one in Jeff Malcolm, who replaces him with the Rangers, and then Brandon Burke, Sean Burke's son, comes in from Portland, from the WHL to the HL, but a guy who understands the system and style that Benoit preaches, because, of course, that's what Sean Burke used to change around his career,

and a big part of what he does as an elite goaltending coach himself. And obviously there's a knowledge passed on there. So he's kind of kept the style within the organization, but there's only one Ben-Wallaire. And so having him move on and off the ice and not be involved as much, you know, as you go through that transition, having the anchor that is Igor Shisterken there, the consistency and the foundation that he provides probably not a, not something most people think of when you're making that business decision. but I think it may be even more important in the short term as those other guys sort of get their feet under them in new positions, not having to also have new goalies to deal with trying to fill in the shoes of a guy who, as I just said,

since he arrived in the league is the best. The other kind of last component to this that's interesting for our purposes here, and I think, I believe Elliot Freeman did note this in his most recent 32 thoughts, but just to kind of hammer at home, we saw this happen in the NBA a handful of years ago where there were these kind of like increases dramatic ones in the cap space available and kind of the contracts that resulted from it right and I think what Cisterkin is pretty clearly aware of here is that all right the cap right now this year jumped up to 88 it's projected to be 92 the next summer next year and then potentially get up to the hundred range in 2728 right and so all of these contracts that we're going to see over the next couple years I think we need to change our framework of judging them from the actual dollar amount to the percentage cap they represent, right? And so because I've seen carry prices 10.5 million A.AV thrown out, right? Obviously, Bobrovsky's 10, Vasilevsky's 9.5.

Well, price when he signed that for the first year of that deal, that represented 13% of the cap, right? Bobrovskis was 12.3. Vasilevsky's was 11.6. And so if you start being like, all right, well, 13% of 92 million, all of a sudden you start getting into a stratosphere where, yes, this will be the most, highly paid goalie, and that should happen, I think, based on the fact that it's just an entirely different economic landscape that we're talking about here. And it's going to take some time for people to, I think, wrap their heads around that and just to not have like initial sticker shock

when they see some of these prices. But it makes sense, right? When you're at the top of your position like this, like a guy like Shastirkin is, and we know about his sort of camaraderie and relationships with not only his teammate Panarin, but Bobrovsky, Vasilevsky, some of the other like top Russian goalies, these are the peers that you judge yourself against, right? And I think that for any skater that's going to be signing a massively lucrative deal over these next couple of years, something you have to keep in mind is you sign that deal and then the cap keeps going up and you lock yourself into this figure. And then every summer you start seeing players that you might think that you're superior to and you think of yourself as, all right, I'm better than this guy. And

all of a sudden now he's making more money than me. It becomes like a very interesting sort of dynamic, I think, between the players and the league itself. And listen, it's complicated, but I think that's also a great thing because that just means that there's more money available. All of a sudden, there's much more intrigue in all of this stuff, especially compared to the past couple years where it's like, all right, well, the cap is just flat and no one has money to spend. And so we're going to get the most boring deals possible.

All of a sudden, I know it's kind of very drama-filled, but I think that is also a very beneficial thing for the NHL moving forward. And if you're going to spend it, you might as well spend it on one of the best goal is arguably the best goalie in the world as opposed to uh overpaying for a middle six winger with upside right like like if i'm spending it again the argument that he spends a third of the season on the bench to me is moot like he's just at a level that i'm spending on that guy all right next question because i think we hit all of the main talking points versus strike and at least now with all the information we have is woodley an

allmark is a good fit in ottawa guy everyone seems to be pretty skeptical of his continued success because of the system change going from the Bruins to the senators. Now, an additional kind of question that we can lump onto this is Adili asks, can't wait to hear, or says, can't wait to hear Woodley's high-level answer to why Corpusalo won't be as bad as I think he'll be in Boston. We can talk about Allmark, Corpusallo, Swamen here, certainly lump them all together. Let's start with Allmark, though, because we've seen one game of them now in Ottawa. It was a very successful run, right?

It stops 30 of 31 against the defending champion Panthers, in particular in the third period, I thought shine, got tested much more, held the door, closed out that game for them. They win, I think, very encouraging before that game, of course, they signed him to a four-year extension that'll kick in next year to make sure that this wasn't just a one-year thing kind of hanging over their head of all right, well, is this another player who's just going to leave after one year? So acknowledging all of that and kind of all of those little bits of context, let's talk about Allmark, the fit. in Ottawa and kind of how you see that playing out and whether he's going to be the answer to the seemingly never-ending question of them chasing their tail trying to find a goalie they can rely on and spending a bunch of money along the way in doing so and constantly being disappointed. Well, what was the final score in that Florida game?

I think it was 2-1. They went up 2-0. Well, 3-1 with the empty netter that Shlitz I had at the end. But it was a 2-1 game for the majority of the third period, and so he had very little margin for error. and obviously got the job done. Okay, so I think for, and, you know, from a high danger percentage in that game, I know there were a lot of shots, but only for high danger.

Yeah, it was a lot of predator based on. Again, part of this question is, are the Ottawa senators finally ready to take a step? Travis Green is a great coach. Travis Green, the message that he preached here in Vancouver isn't all that different from what Rick Tocke preached in terms of what he wanted his players to do and the level of improved commitment defensively he needed from them. They just weren't ready as a young group to deliver it. He brings that similar message, although I'm sure it's evolved, to Ottawa to a group that kind of reminds me of the Canucks a little bit in terms of a lot of really good elite young, talented, offensive players, but they've never been willing to do the work or commit themselves system-wise to taking care of the else. other end of the ring. I think that message will be well received and I think this team is not going to be as bad defensively as they have in the past. They weren't terrible last year, but

we talked about there were some areas where they were amongst the worst in the league defensively and certainly bottom third and that makes it tough on goalies. I have no, I believe in Linus Almark in Ottawa in part because I think it doesn't matter. Like you want them to improve defensively. He will benefit in terms of how everyone sees how he plays, how it reflects publicly in the public numbers and your average things like save percentage. But he can play it both ways. He showed it, like, there's a reason Boston went and got him. Because his numbers and his underlying numbers in Buffalo, where it was harder to see,

they were there too. Like, he can play it both ways behind a bad defensive team, behind a good defensive team. Boston last year was not the same team they were the year before. And his adjusted say percentage was actually a hair better than Jeremy Swayman's during the season. They were both excellent. So, yes, I believe that Lena's. Almark will be a fit with the Ottawa senators because I think he's a goalie

that can have success. Again, how it looks to the public will not be the same, but he can't have success behind both types of teams. I think there's a maturity he brings to that locker room that maybe wasn't there early in his career in Buffalo, but spend time in Boston, see how they do it,

understand the commitment required, understand the commitment that guys like Bergeron brought to that organization and be a voice for those young guys. I like to fit in so many different ways. Given the history in Ottawa, do I understand why they maybe could have waited a little bit to get this done?

Sure. But if he's happy there and motivated and they're going to continue to take strides defensively, like I said, he can play it either way, you'll get the most out of them if they're better, you get the most out of any goalie if they're better defensively. I have a good feeling. And I was a guy that amidst all the Ottawa

and make the playoffs hype last year didn't see it and said I didn't see it, even with Corpusel. I didn't see him struggling that badly, but still didn't see that commitment. I feel like they're finally maybe ready to take that step and all marks a perfect goalie for it. And I think you'll get better out of Forsberg because you're not asking so much for him.

Although, again, the injury he's coming off brings a lot of questions and probably, in fairness, a recovery timeline that would have had him not really the same goal even last season. So Sport Logic had all mark at plus 20 goals able to I've expected in each of the past two seasons. Now, what I find interesting is if you look at sort of his profile, I guess, as a goalie, I'd say one of his biggest strengths is not really, I mean, first off, not really given up bad goals

and being just very reliable, but second one, especially from kind of those like tiki-tack ones from the distance being able to sort of get his eyes on the puck and present a big body and actually stop them. Now, ironically, the one goal he gave up to Florida was a shot from distance that Foresling ripped and it kind of went through a bunch of bodies and beat him. But you mentioned that sort of, I guess, professionalism. I would say almost like stability is the biggest selling point for me here. Because if you look at the past couple of years for the senators, and this is a concept

that you and I have spoken about a bunch over the years, is just sort of, the value of having a goalie that you can kind of rely on to make the saves they need to and how sort of adversely it can go for your skaters and your young skaters at that when that's not the case, right? Because then all of a sudden you have this kind of disintegration of trust between the two. You have the skaters forming bad habits because there's just sort of like psychological defeat almost that stems from those bad goals. All of a sudden now bad habits start creeping into their game because they're trying to compensate for it. And that's where I think a young team can really go off the rails.

And so in this case, for me, the biggest selling point, not that he's necessarily going to be some sort of highlight real machine that's making a bunch of crazy acrobatic saves, if he just makes the saves that he's supposed to and doesn't let them down in that capacity, I think that's enough of a win for me here for them to take at least whatever logical next step they can as an organization that we've been waiting for a couple of years right now.

Obviously very different environment, I'd say, going from Boston to Ottawa, the one thing he had going for him in Boston. And it's really tricky because I know the clear site numbers were different than the sporadic ones and the public ones for sort of what was going on in Boston. How much of it was goalies? How much of it was that goalie infrastructure you've talked about with Bob Ess and saw how much of it was the defensive structure they had.

One thing that I thought they did really well there as a team was giving the goalies a level of predictability for where shots were going to come from so that even when they were high danger, they at least could brace themselves for it and expect it, as opposed to just being completely blindsided for it, that's going to be a challenge for a younger team that doesn't have that sort of year-over-year continuity, but so far is so good. And I see the draw, right?

Because I just think a certain level of stability of that position would go such a long way beyond just making the saves himself and the actual production, but what it'll mean for the other players in front of them as well. Yeah, no, and I think it can be made as a blanket statement, like good goaltending, sometimes that's bailing you out or not. If you make a mistake that leads to a high danger chance

and the goalie makes those spectacular saves that can give a defenseman or a forward confidence to make plays and not worry about a mistake because you know the guy's going to bail you out. In this case, Lina certainly has that capability and he reads the game so well, he'll make the high danger saves as well, but it's also just not the bad ones.

And I think there's a style element there. Like he's a very technically sound goaltender. he is not going to beat himself very often. He's going to make you beat him. And so it's kind of the two sides of that equation. One, do we make mistakes that leads to high danger? But as we're trying to become a team that doesn't give up high danger, do we have a goalie that on a night against Florida is going to take care of the outside stuff, right?

Like, do we have a guy that we don't have to worry about that? Because the worst thing I think that can happen is when the trust breaks down between a team, the players and the goaltender, and everything. Everybody starts trying to do too much. Yeah. Whether it's a goalie not trusting somebody to take away the back door, so he starts cheating or a player not trusting a goaltender to make routine saves from the outside. So he starts charging out there out of position to block shots that he should just get out of the way of and let the goalie handle, right?

And so a goaltender that gives you confidence, you don't need to worry about that. I mean, that's an extreme example. It takes a while for that relationship to deteriorate to that extent. But on the flip side, just having a guy who's never out of position reads the game. and well always puts himself in a good position where, you know, to get hit a lot of the time. So he's still a reactive element and how he shifts and moves into bucks and all those things. But there's a there's just a really steady, reliable, solid foundation to how he plays. He can be an acrobat, but he doesn't need to be an acrobat.

And he doesn't put himself in a situation often where he has to be an acrobat. And that, I think you can get confidence off of that. He just, he makes it look easy some things. And it does take a long time for that to materialize. I'd argue, though, obviously he's only been there for a very short period of time. But this has been something that's kind of been bubbling to the surface for years in Ottawa with various other goleys, right? And we've spoken in the past about how it might not necessarily be fair to attribute it to actual individuals themselves. There's obviously something deeper rooted there within the organization in terms of what they're doing with goalies, what the plan is and all that.

Because whenever you see a guy struggle in one place and then it goes somewhere else and all of a sudden look, entirely different and have success is I think and you get enough of those in a row, it's fair to wonder how much of it is a coincidence and how much of it is something that is kind of, you know, you got to check but beneath the hood, I guess, and what's going on. And so I think that's where it's a very interesting comparison between the two organizations, All Marks bridging here as well, because you could argue he's going from one that has an amazing track record of doing this year over a year with various goalies along the way to one that's almost been the polar opposite of that. And so how that fits is almost just as interesting

as the actual sort of like on ice defensive system itself. And that's where the track record comes in, right? That's where and where you're probably more confident if you're Ottawa to make that investment, despite sort of being bit by an early commitment the year prior, this isn't just a blip. Like I said, Linus has done it both ways. And Buffalo and Boston behinds two very different teams

in terms of how they defend. He had a historically good season two years ago, despite it maybe not being in a full 60 game sample. Like outside of games, played, there are very few questions left on his resume. And so I would think he brings that. Ottawa saw the act. They saw what he was two years ago, how good he was for that team.

And like I said, there was no, I know the games played weren't there, but everything else, like the boxes he checked in that Vesni or that, like I said, it was one for the ages. It was an incredible season. And so I think that brings a certain amount of cachet and confidence and into the locker room and onto the ice that you feel you know you've got that guy back there it's not a oh this guy was really good in this place for six months we think we've got something it's this guy's been good everywhere and for a lot of years and the other win i'd say for them is that obviously i think when when

you see the 8.25 for any goal you're going to be like wow that's you know that's quite a bit of a commitment especially not having had this guy play a single game for you after the commitment you made the corpus all the last year another big selling point though is like obviously it kicks in next year but it's only four years as well, right? Now, four years years is a long time when things aren't going well, but it's much more palatable for me saying, all right, these are age 32 to 35 seasons, as opposed to staring down the barrel of seven, eight years and being like, all right, it's age 30 to 38 or whatever we were just talking about, which is jerkin, obviously, two very different conversations. But I do think that four years also is much more manageable from that

perspective as well. So, yeah, I'm very curious to see how this year plays out for them, obviously off to a great start. And I just think just having that consistency in place there for however many games he plays is going to be such a big driver of success for everyone in front of them and actually finally provide a bit of stability at one of the most unstable positions in the league. All right, Kevin, we should get out of here. We've covered almost everything I wanted to get to. I want to talk about Connor Ingram with you because two games so far, I know the actual numbers themselves don't look amazing. I watch both of those.

I don't know what was going on, but it felt like every shot he faced was a miraculous save that he made a lot. the way and I thought he gave Utah a chance to win both those games. They did. So that's something I'll certainly be tracking because he's a player we've been very high on for a couple years now. We finally played 50 games last year. I think expectations should be through the roof there. Maybe next time I have you in in a couple weeks, we can revisit that and talk about him and a few other sort of upstart goleys, I guess, that we've got our eyes on. I'll let you plug some stuff. What do you want to direct people do? Oh, so he caught me off guard. I was looking up the numbers for the Utah games. I was so intrigued

by that now I'll have to do some film work before next time. How much of it is the team, what they were given up, and is there a chance? Because sometimes goalies can get caught being aggressive one way and they make it look tougher, right? Like as much as I usually say like, hey, that was especially like you mentioned the Elmark goal. That was from distance. Well, it was through a layered screen. So it actually was a mid-danger chance. It goes the other way too.

There are times where I'll watch a TV and I'll hear the announcer say, goli didn't have a chance on that one. I'm like, again, they're going to take away my union car, but I'm like, did he give himself a chance on that one? That's the question I asked. So I look forward to breaking that down. Me, honestly, it's always the same. NHL.com, fantastic bosses who let me do extra writing on goalies every couple of weeks, unmasked column. Should have our first one next week, get to dig into the minutiae of goaltending

and hopefully bridge some gap in some of the geekiness I bring here to bring it to sort of a mainstream audience. So I appreciate my bosses at nnhL.com. Let me do that in addition to covering the Canucks for them. And then everything else is at ingolemag.com. in goal magazine, including weekly breakdowns with NHL goaltenders. We watch film together. They explain how they read the game, what they're looking for. If you're not a goalie, you can probably learn something.

If you are a goalie, we'll make you a better goalie. We bring you sort of into how NHL goalies work on the ice in the video room and let them share with you the things they lean on to make decisions on depth and save selection, all those things that go into being a goalie. Last one, I'd say, goalie parents. Big growing audience for us. We're realizing how hard it is to be a goalie parent. And a lot of the stuff that we bring as tools for young goalies,

there's also a lot of resources for parents that are new to the position, how to manage it, whether it's helping them on the ice, helping them manage how they practice, or the mindset that goes into both being a parent and helping your goalie become mentally stronger. We've got everything on ingolmag.com for that. Awesome, buddy. We'll keep up the great work.

Already looking forward to having you back in here soon. Thank you to everyone for listening to us. Hopefully you enjoyed the first week of the PDOCAS here with the regular season starting. We'll be back early next week with plenty more here of the Hockey PEOCast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.