The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 120: A Timely Podcast about Goaltending

Episode Date: December 7, 2016

Nick Mercadante joins the show to discuss the legitimacy of Devan Dubnyk's early success, why no team seems willing to give Andrew Hammond another chance, and how Vegas should approach accumulating goaltending talent this summer. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 1:00 Who's the real Devan Dubnyk? 12:45 Is Jimmy Howard back? 19:00 Jhonas Enroth and what teams look for in back-ups 25:40 Andrew Hammond not getting a fair shake 33:30 The silly concept of timely saves 43:00 Pekka Rinne vs. Juuse Saros 51:30 Building Vegas' goaltending unit Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher and can also be streamed straight from this website. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews of the show are also greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 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.

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And joining me as our goalie guy. Nick Mercodonte, Nick, what's going on, man? Hey, Dimitri, how are you? I'm good, good. I'm excited to chat. We've been planning this for a while. You've been busy with work and traveling and American Thanksgiving and all that sort of stuff. So finally got a few minutes to come chat about goalies with me.

Yeah, I try not to let too much get in the way of my Thanksgiving. I actually had, I think, three Thanksgivings because we had relatives and just went a little overboard. So I don't know how they do it in Canada, but it's a pretty festive affair here. Yeah, I believe it. All right. Let's get right into it because it's been a while since we chatted. I feel like the last time we did a show together, we did our top 10 lists for goalies, and that was right around the start of the season.

So it's been a while. I think the interesting sort of guy that we didn't really talk about when we did that top 10, but is at the top of pretty much every list right now in terms of performance is, is Devon Dubnick. Are you sold on Dubnick or are you kind of skeptical? I thought you were going to make a joke and say Steve Mason. Well, he's been playing better. We can get to Steve Mason later, but I feel like...

All right, all right. Save it for a bit. Yeah, yeah, I get it. So, yeah, we didn't talk about Devin Dubnick. Is it Dubnick or Dubnick? I never know. Let's go Dubnick. I think it's Dubnick, right?

All right, we're going with Dubnick. So, yeah, he's, you know, he's interesting because he obviously had this kind of coming out party a couple years ago. And people started, he put himself on the map because of his performance later in his tenure with Arizona. And then his trade to Minnesota where he really just kind of hit the ground running and, and, and kept that performance going for a sustained period of time. And he definitely, I think a couple years ago, put himself in, at least in the discussion as a top 10 to top 15 NHL goalie, but nobody was sure if it was just smoking mirrors, like a hot run,

or if it was something sustainable. Last year, he took a little bit of a step back, and I said, okay, this is probably more of what he actually is. I guess to say that the fanfare a couple years ago, you know, it may have just been that he hit a hot streak and it was kind of the peak of what he can be, but his truer self was certainly not the lows that he experienced, you know, towards the end of his tenure in Edmonton and then when he got traded around, but probably before that in Edmonton when he was certainly a capable goalie but not a, you know, a world-class goaltender.

Last year, I thought, kind of confirmed that. But now, I don't know, because here we are, you know, about 25 games in the season. And he's kind of putting distance between himself and every goalie not named Kerry Price in terms of his performance. So I don't know. You know, it's interesting. Well, I think Dubeck's a fascinating case because I might be misremor. but I feel like he's like one of the first guys that really kind of sold me on looking at five on five performance for goalies as being like more predictive of future uh individual

performance because I remember like during those years in Edmonton people would always bash him obviously there'd be like the wins crowd and they'd be like oh he's not even winning any games and he had like a high goals against but if you like looked a little deeper at the same percentage especially at five on five I remember he always used to be like slightly above league average maybe even a little bit better. And that sort of, you know, suggested that he was probably just kind of being a little bit unlucky with sort of the circumstance and everything going on around him. And I remember that, you know, they kept trying to make, like, Nikolai Hobby Bullen be a thing. And they'd, like, split starts all the time and never really committed to him.

And then he went to Arizona. I mean, actually, he was traded first. I feel like to, like, Nashville. And he played for the H.L. system or Montreal's H. H.L. system or something like that. And didn't even really do really well. And had to sort of sign a prove-it contract with Arizona. just as sort of a flyer that they took on him and it paid off.

And, you know, like, he's interesting just because if you look at his career as a whole, like he's constantly been somewhere around that like 915 to 920 range, which is really solid. Obviously, obviously that sample that he had of just under 40 games when he went to Minnesota in the second half and was pretty much just like posting shutouts every night. No, I don't think anyone, I don't think even Demiudik himself would say that, you know, he was expecting that to continue and that's his like true talent. But I mean, even if he settles into that sort of 918 range, 920,

which he was last year, like it's pretty good. And I think that from Minnesota, there got a bit fortunate with him, right? Because I remember he was due for a new contract after that crazy hot run. And I was like just cringing, thinking about what he'd get paid.

And they gave him six years, which isn't optimal for any goalie, really. But I mean, it's only like, it's like a $4.3 million dollar capet or something like that. So, I mean, basically if he performs like this,

it's going to wind up being a pretty reasonable bargain for them. And I don't, he hasn't really shown any reason for us to suspect that, you know, he's going to completely fall off, regardless of what people might say about his performance in Edmonton. Yeah. And I actually, I actually thought that that was kind of an eminently reasonable contract for him. Even though the term was long, you, you look at the, you know, the annual salary. And you go, well, you know, so, so what?

So on the back end of it, you might not be getting your $4.3 million worth. That's not the end of the world in terms of what teams are paying goalies and especially starting goalies who are either in their prime or theirabouts or even starting goaltenders who have fallen out of their prime. You look at how many numerous contracts where you're giving a goalie that at least that AV. and whether they're in their prime or not. So I saw that contract and I said, okay, that's fine. I certainly, I think it was even more reasonable because it could have been easy to fall completely in love with that stretch that he had when he first came to Minnesota and say, oh my God, it's kind of like the lightning kind of fell in love with Bishop a little bit too much. that sort of thing. But I don't,

I, you know, I think they gave him a reasonable deal, um, considering everything. You know, what, the thing that really did work against Dupnik,

um, in that, that, um, in, in signing that contract is that, the perception of him prior to getting to Minnesota was all out of whack. And you're right.

A lot of it had to do with in Edmonton, he just didn't get a fair shake. And if you really looked at the underlying five on five numbers, he was, pretty darn good. And it's not like, you know, he certainly had that dip right towards the end, and they panicked and moved him, right? And then in Nashville, he was terrible, but, you know, he didn't really get a, I mean, how many games do you play for Nashville? Yeah, exactly. So, you know, throw that away. And then he kind of got himself back on track in Arizona and set

himself up for, for that trade to Minnesota and the rest of history. But, you know, it worked against him that Edmonton kind of ruined the perception of him. Because when he came up, before he even played a game for Edmonton, he was very highly touted. And there was a lot of belief that he was going to be a true all-star goal tender. I don't know that it never materialized because of him or never materialized because of the circumstances in Edmonton and, you know, A, that he was getting caved in every night,

but B, that he was kind of getting jerked around in terms of playing time. and his role with the club or the confidence they had in him. So he is an interesting case. I think he, you know, he's certainly a very good goaltender. I wouldn't put him in that elite top 10 category, although here we are, like I said, you know, a quarter of the way through the season, and he's really been lights out.

So yeah. I mean, 946 8% of nearly 20 games now. And it's like he's banked those good performances. Like it's funny how sort of perception and timing work though, because let's say that, you know, he just constantly was just stopping like 92% of the shots he faced pretty much every night. People would be like, you know, just disgusting. Like you'd never like really say anything like overly glowing about him or you'd never, you know, be like, oh, this guy's a clear regression candidate. Like it's just one of those things where you just kind of just like wouldn't even take notice of it. But now that he started off super hot, just sort of like the lob averages and how this stuff generally tends to work, like he's probably going to have a rough stretch where he doesn't look very good. And then there's inevitably going to be people that come out of the woodwork and be like, aha, I knew it. Devon Dumenik actually isn't that good. It's like, you know,

sometimes this is just how it works. Like I think that, you know, I'm sure that he's not complaining right now. I'm sure he's like, yeah, okay, whatever. Like I'll bank the 946 right now and we'll see what happens the next 20 games. But it's just funny. Like the timing of it can really skew the sort of the narrative regarding how a player is playing. Yeah, it'll be interesting to see also. I mean, look, Minnesota is not going to run away with the division or anything like that. But if you remember last year, Holbe did the same sort of thing. He started off incredibly hot.

You know, through probably the end of November, going into December, if my memory is accurate, he was performing at an insanely high level. and then he he tiled off but nobody noticed because the capitals had banked all those wins and they were you know kind of a shoe in in terms of what they were going to be in the standings and everybody said well hope he is the Vesina candidate you know and he just rode that hot start all the way through the finish even though he had a he had a real dip in the quality of his performance through December, January, and February at least, and then he kind of picked it back up in March.

So I don't know if Dubnick's going to be the same sort of thing. He's certainly in this kind of rarefied air that it's hard to maintain that type of performance. But it'll be interesting to see. I mean, he has, I was just looking, he's got 10, so almost over half, Half of his qualifying starts, he has over a 0.6 Mercad, which is, if you know anything about how the stat goes, nobody finishes over 0.5 for the season. And he's average, now he's in that range. He's at 0.55. And so going back almost 10 years now, nobody's finished really over that threshold, except for Tim Thomas one season.

So that's the type of, you know, that's the type of start he's had. I don't think he's going to maintain it. Just like I don't think Kerry Price is going to maintain where he's at. But that doesn't mean that they might be the two guys. They might be the two Vesina candidates, you know what I mean? And both of them come back down to Earth, but they're still so far ahead. And they banked so many good starts that you kind of can't ignore them for those type of accolades. Yeah.

Yeah. Now the bottom would really have to fall off on those guys for them to like come back to to those averages that we'd expect heading into the year just because of how well they've been playing. But like, it's interesting because you look at the list of a 5-on-5, say, percentage leaders. And there's like a handful of guys, at least like above a league average, that I feel like we should quickly touch on just because like I haven't been too kind to them in the past like year or two, especially like during the time I've been doing this podcast.

And I don't want to be one of those people that like, you know, gloats when I get something right and then just like pretend nothing ever happened when I get it wrong. And like, listen, like a guy like Jimmy Howard, for example, obviously now he's out with injury. And I think that regardless of how the first month or so played out this season, like I think both of us are still bigger fans of Petter and Marzik than Howard. But like, I thought he was pretty cooked last year. He did not look very good.

And Marzik justifiably stole that job from him. But he's looked amazing this year. Now the big question with him is this is a pretty growing. list of lower body injuries and soft tissue stuff that he's had. So, you know, if I was like Vegas, for example, and I was looking and thinking about maybe claiming him as the guy to be my goalie next season, like I'd be scared off by that, but we should give his early season performance some love. Yeah, oh, for sure.

I think he's, you know, he's shown very well early in the season, and that's a great thing. And I've read some stuff and heard some stuff from some goalie coaches that I've talked to. that he worked really hard in the off season to get himself prepared for this kind of new role that he's in where he's not a starter. He's, you know, probably, you know, would be considered the backup or at best in a, you know, in a true timeshare type of thing. So he's shown well in that. And that's not easy for goalies to do, especially ones that, you know, earlier in the career we're used to having a starter's gig. But he's been able to do it at least early in the season.

That's good. But you've got to keep in mind, it's a small sample size. We're talking, you know, I think 11 appearances, nine starts, something like that, nine or 10 starts. So, you know, all things consider that can change fast. That's just the life of a goalie. But he certainly, he's been. the better of the two goalies early in the season.

Morazik's starting to pick it up now. And I'm wondering if being unencumbered from direct competition is helping Marazic focus mentally. I don't know the answer to that, but it certainly helps a lot of goalies. Like I mentioned, Steve Mason, having some goalies just don't deal well with the competition and the fear of a timeshare, you know, not knowing that. their schedule, whatever it may be. So maybe Marazik was one of those guys. He's certainly starting to pick it up now, and it's interesting timing.

Right. I'm like, listen, it's one of those things where I hate kind of speculating on stuff like this because we just like, it's impossible to really quantify it. And I generally try to restrict my analysis to stuff that I can sort of visualize or actually see and be like, okay, that makes sense. Like there's a reason why this is happening. And like all this sort of intangible stuff gets thrown around way too frequently. people who just don't have a better answer.

And rather than, you know, no one wants to hear, like, read an article or turn on their TV and hear someone who's supposed to be, quote, unquote, the expert of the craft, be like, I have no idea what's going on here. It's like, that's not a very satisfying thing to, to hear from someone. But, like, it definitely makes sense that just from a human element, you know, it must be kind of jarring for some guys. So, like, if you are sort of in a time share with another goalie and, like, you know that every time you give up a goal.

have a bad game. You're just looking over thinking whether you just blew your chance and you might not start for the next five games. I imagine that it definitely plays into it for some guys. Totally, totally. You know, I've coached goalies and I've talked to goalies. I am a goalie. So it's one of those things that I've kind of gleaned out of all those experiences

is, look, I've said it a million times. Goleys are snowflakes. They come with all different types of persons. personalities and things that motivate them or, you know, cause issues with their motivation or their confidence or whatever it may be. I think certain goaltenders are built for certain types of roles. And, you know, maybe with some guy, yeah, it's, you know, it's always risky to speculate, okay, you know, maybe Marazek is this guy who he's going to do great with, or he's going to do better. with 65 starts than he's going to do with 40 starts or whatever the case may be.

You want to base your decisions on data, but ultimately the people that are close to the goaltenders, you know, the goalie coach, the coaching staff, the front office, they do have to do some kind of due diligence on these guys to see, you know, to at least try to get a read on it because you don't have time to play that out. You know, you could run the risk. You could try to play that out for a whole season, blow your season because you think that a guy is just going to get it together given, you know, a starter's role and you give him a starter's role and he doesn't get it together. So it is worth analyzing and it's probably worth analyzing in more of a scientific sort of way. I do, I'm always interested in seeing teams where

they actually do bring in the sports psychologists and things like that to, you know, try to get a read on these guys or to try to give these guys an opportunity to get a read on themselves. I think that's, you know, kind of an interesting social science area that's, you know, probably hasn't been tapped into the way it could be. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's an interesting point in terms of what you brought up about how, like, you can't really sometimes just afford to sit back and just wait for things to even out.

I think we're seeing that play out in Toronto with the guy like Jonah Zenroth, for example, right? Where it's like coming into this year, I was, I thought it was a smart move. Like he's shown that he's a very capable backup in the NHO where he can play 20 to 30 games for you if need be and not totally melt down and, you know, ruin everything for everyone else around him. And there's, that's a valuable commodity. there's definitely teams using backup goalies who do not fit that description. And so I thought it was a perfectly fine move. And he has an 8.72 save percentage in four starts this year.

And now it sounds like they're, you know, they waived them. They're probably going to give that role to Karri Ramo, who I'm very skeptical is a legitimate NHL goalie. But like it's one of those things where it's easy for us to be like, well, I'm pretty sure if you start Jonas Enroth four more times, he will not have an 872 save percentage. But if you're like the team and you're part of it and you, seen how bad he's played in those games.

Like it's really tough to, with any confidence, just keep trotting him out there, right? Especially like there is some sort of like accountability. I imagine like, you know, the other guys on the team must be like, oh man, like this guy's starting again. Like we better score like five or six goals tonight or we're not going to win.

And it's like all of this stuff factors into it. And generally on the show, we don't really acknowledge those sorts of things because they are sort of those intangible qualities that we can't really quantify. But it is worth mentioning. Well, it's, you know, there's, there's so many things that play with the goalies, with Babcock's goalies. First of all, I think it's worth mentioning, you know, if Enroth is in a true backup role, you figure he's going to get, let's call it 20 starts, right?

You know, maybe a little bit more, maybe a little bit less, I don't know, 20, 25 starts. So he's gone through four and he's been terrible. do you want to give him another four or five more sporadic starts and see if he figures that out? I don't know, but what I do know is that when he was in, when he was in L.A. in a true backup role, he did great. He did phenomenal. Well, I mean, they're like resuscitating like Peter Boudai right now. So I mean, like I wouldn't, I feel like L.A. is like up to some, up to some wild stuff there. I know. And yeah. And well, he's not, he's not being resuscitated. He's performing like the best Peter Boudai, Peter Boudai can be. I didn't even know, like, Peter Boudai wasn't like even on my mind six weeks ago.

And then now he's, you know, I guess he is a 909th representative. It's not like he's lighting the world on fire. But like he's a work. He's a worker starter, Demetri. Exactly. All the guy does is win. That's right. Well, so like, okay.

So like a guy like Peter Boudai, you know that they're front. office, or we can assume that their front office is saying, look, just don't kill us and we'll do the rest, right? And so he's pretty much done that. So if you use my loss threshold percentage stat, which I'm not going to get into it with an huge explanation, but it basically measures consistency of performance. He's at 32%. The league average this year is 34%. So he's, if you're under that, lower is better in that stat. He's not killing them. On a night to night basis, he's pretty consistently, me, okay, right?

He's not winning games for them, but he's not killing them. So I think he's given them what they want. With Enroth, it's a different type of situation because he's a backup, and they probably all, again, they want the same thing out of them. They just don't want to get killed by him in that backup role, but it's a different sort of team. Toronto can't afford to give away a bunch of wins. I mean, if they truly want to be competitive and be a playoff team, which it seems like they're

trying to be that? I mean, it's Babcock. I can't imagine he's not trying to be that, right? Yeah, but Nick, I mean, if you're a front office and you're looking for consistency from your starting goalie, are you really giving Jonathan Quick a 10-year extension? Well, they, that's, but that's, that's a different issue. Yes. Evaluation, you know, their evaluation is off, not, you know, their heart's in the right place. I think they just don't know what they're, you know, what they're looking at. But, So in Toronto, though, really what they're looking for out of a backup goalie is they're looking for the same thing that they're looking out of Boudai as a starter. But in the backup role, they're just looking for a guy who's not going to kill them when they throw them in there and they give Anderson some rest. The problem is that Enroth started off with four real bad ones right in a row.

And Babcock is really fickle with his goalie. So I think he basically said, well, that's enough. I've seen enough. find me somebody who's not going to lose a game for me when I throw him in there. Now is Ramo going to be that guy? I don't know. I'm pretty skeptical. I mean, it's funny because I think people forget that he was in the NHL for a cup of coffee.

And then he went to the KHL and he posted good numbers. And he came back and people, I remember people were excited about him in Calgary. And it just like never materialized. Like he was like a sub 9, 10, say a percentage guy. And I just like, I don't know. He hasn't really shown us any reason to believe that he's something to be that. that guy at this point, right? He's funny too because he's another one of those guys where when you, so somebody today

was like, well, what is Karama like 25 or 26? And I was like, you might want to check his Wikipedia. Nobody realizes he's 30 years old. Like, he's not, this isn't like some kid who's been kicking around and he's just waiting for a shot or something like that. Like he's gotten his chances. Now what I'll say about Ramo, so over the past three seasons, his ceiling is extremely low. His ceiling is one of the lowest of a guy who's gotten a threshold number of starts in the past three seasons.

So he's certainly not a high-end goalie. But over that span of time, he's done okay in terms of just performing slightly below league average. He doesn't bomb out all the time. He certainly doesn't perform above league average, hardly at all. So you kind of know what you're going to get? I don't know how else to describe it. He's going to come in and he's going to be, he won't absolutely kill you, but he certainly isn't going to help you.

So I don't know if you really, I mean, there's got to be a better option, especially and he's coming off injury too. man this is uh you're really teeing this one up for me in terms of a better option let's uh let's talk about Andrew Hammond yeah thank you yes he really set that one up um listen i i think hammond is worth discussing just because um he just like we were talking about with dubnik he had a crazy hot run towards the end of a season uh it was even shorter i think it was like 24 games or so and I don't think that anyone really expected him to be that guy in terms of his true talent. But I mean, even last year, he was a pretty respectable goalie.

And I think he was like a 9-14 guy in the same number of games. And for whatever reason, he got waived and no one picked him up. And I find that curious just because I think it ties into this belief that I have that there's just like this confirmation bias when it comes to prospects and players in the league where like it can't necessarily be that surprising that this. same people who initially decided that Hammond wasn't worthy of being drafted or wasn't worthy of being given a chance in the NHL until he was 27 years old are now still skeptical about him, right? Because kind of admitting that, you know, buying in on him would just basically be admitting that you were kind of wrong the entire time. And while that's generally a good way to do business, you don't, you got to understand how like opportunity costs and some costs work. Like,

a lot of these guys that are making the decisions are just like very reluctant to sort of, uh, admit that they were wrong and think that way. So I guess it's not that surprising that he's kind of just sitting out there. Yeah, yeah, I think that's exactly right. And, you know, there are very, very few examples of, I mean, no doubt goalies get drafted later than forwards on the whole, or forwards and defensemen. And they don't come in, they don't necessarily come in with fanfare and they don't necessarily come in with these lofty expectations.

But you usually know pretty early on in their development as professionals, whether they're going to be a goalie that's going to get a real shot in the system and is starting to have some kind of reputation as a potential future starting goalie, or if they're not. Teams don't really make, you know, or teams, I should say teams kind of make that known. Hammond was never that. Hammond was like a throwaway goalie who's just there to caddy other goalies. And he got his shot by circumstance.

And quite frankly, he just ran with it. Like that's all that really happened. But, you know, there does come a certain point in time where you've got to put at least some stock in the results. And the fact that he was able to do it with sporadic NHL time over the course of two seasons, Now, granted, of course, other goalies have done this too. Cam Talbot did it in New York, where he was way overshooting what he actually is in New York. Now he's kind of settled in as a league average goalie. You know, it would have been surprising if he went to Edmonton and he just kept that level of play up.

It would have meant he's an elite goalie, right? I don't think anybody's I hope that nobody's saying look Andrew Hammond is this elite starter in disguise that we haven't you know been able that we haven't given the shot and you know I don't think that he's Tim Thomas yeah maybe he is I don't know but he certainly isn't a guy that should be waived out of the NHL and not given it another opportunity and so it really blew my mind when nobody's took a flyer on him when he got waived he just seems like the perfect guy to say hey you know what let's throw him into the backup role and see how he does especially for teams that were short on

gold-tending like the kings um you know like now Toronto well how about the team that waved him traded a draft pick to get Mike Condon like yeah that's just that's just bad evaluation right yeah yeah or something bizarre is going on I mean I don't I'm not a conspiracy theory theorists but holy shit I just don't understand maybe there's big guys of comment jokes maybe sometimes as simple as that

yeah I just like it might be that simple it's it's weird because like obviously you know Hammond is frustrating because whenever you sort uh go his dads by like over the past couple years or whatever he's like at the top of every list he's always at the top and just like it's like oh

carry price Tuka and Andrew Hammond. You sort of have to either like really raise the cut off in terms of like sample size or you just got to always provide like the sort of context. Like listen, I'm not saying Andrew Hammond is in the discussion with these guys, but he's on this list and it would be disingenuous of me not to include him. So it's funny. I mean,

so in this stat that I've been kicking around, this wind threshold stat, which is a, it's really what it is measuring your distribution of your starts. that meet a certain level of performance that basically steals your team a game. And over the past three years, the highest is Lungquist at 46% of his starts, which is incredible. So 46% of the time he's stealing games for his team, which is incredible, but if you look at the body of his performance, it kind of makes sense. Number two, Andrew Hammond at 43%.

and then distant behind them, just to put it in perspective. I mean, I say distant, but, you know, several percentage points behind them at 40% is Carrie Price. So Andrew, Kerry Price, Henrik Lungwist, Andrew Hammond. Right. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, obviously him having like 50 starts in that sample explains why. Of course.

It's still one of those things where like you can't, it's just weird that there isn't anyone out there that is like, I'm willing to, you know, just take a flyer on this to see if there really is something there. Like, that seems like there are a bunch of teams, as you mentioned, that are in a position, whether it's because of injuries or just because of their talent, that should be making that sort of calculated risk. I mean, why not? If you're L.A., why not? Why the hell not? You know, is he going to, what you should be, the way you should be looking at it is, is he going to be any worse than the options that we already have? And I think the easy answer for a team like LA is, is, no, of course he's not going to be worse than those options.

And if you're looking at him as a backup, well, look, he's proven over, you know, two seasons that he can carry a backup role and perform well in it. So, you know, is, okay, yeah, it's a small sample size, but throw him in as your backup and see if he can keep it going. Why not? And if he can't, then move on to the next backup goal. which you can find within your system or wherever else. And he's not going to kill the on-CAP space or anything else.

It's certainly worth what little risks there is. So I'm really surprised that no teams have done it. But that the team that he played for was willing to spend a draft pick on Mike frigging Condon, who you're laughing because Condon, aren't you? I'm just, no, I'm laughing at the entire debacle. It just makes no sense. sense to me. I mean, if anything, Condon's proven that he can't, he certainly can't carry a starter's role. He hasn't proven anything as a backup. So I don't know. I don't know.

Anyways, I'm glad we had that discussion. Let's talk a little bit of timely saves. I think the first time I had you on the show was like around the playoffs and we got into it sort of just like ripping apart the sort of talking head lingo of just like, like, you know, praising, oh, timely saves, oh, Jonathan Quick, like all these clutch saves. It's like every save is, in theory, timely because it's like, you know, you're not giving up a goal. And that's the objective of the position. And there's no, like, I find it hard to believe that any of these guys are like, you know, bearing down and trying a lot harder.

And that's why they're succeeding in these pressure moments. It's like, I feel like they're trying to stop the puck at all times because, you know, they're competitive professionals, but also they're paid to do so. But like, then it got me thinking, what isn't the timely save? And then I got to thinking about the, uh, the 2014-15 Buffalo Sabres when they traded away Michael Neubert because he was playing too well and replaced him with Chad Johnson, which is pretty funny. And also even funnier that it turns out Chad Johnson's actually pretty good now.

But, um, yeah, but yeah. And then it kind of got me thinking even further. And I was like, wow, this is exactly what's going on in, uh, in Arizona right now. Because last week, Mike Smith had, had two games where he stopped 40 or 42 against the sharks and then 58 of 60 against the Blue Jackets. And, you know, I guess you could say that he won the Coyotes two points there because they forced both games into overtime and won up losing. But I'd argue he cost the Coyote's two points in those games.

He did. Yeah, yeah, he is not on board with Team Tank. He missed a memo. Let's put it that way. Yeah, and I don't think, and, you know, Doming hasn't really had a great start to his season, but, you know, he hasn't been absolutely. deplorable either. I think, I don't think he's, uh, he's on team tank either. So, it's time to bring back Anders Lindback, man. He's got an 870% in the age.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's the guy you want. It's really funny though, because, uh, like, listen, I don't even pretend to, like, know a lot about goalie evaluation. I look at sort of like the superficial stuff and try not to focus on, on wins and goals against and try to focus on maybe some more predictable stuff, but like, that's pretty much the extent of my goalie analysis. So I remember when when Arizona actually brought in Lynn back, what was it last year in the summer or something like that. I was like, you know what? I'm perfectly okay with this as like a high upside move, purely because he's, you know, this really tall goalie and they've had success with Mike, doing it with Mike Smith and doing it with Devin Dubrick. And then it just wound up not working out at all and kind of showed that

maybe lazy analysis of that sort probably isn't the way to go. But it does speak to the concept of like you should like, they didn't really pay anything for limb back. Like why not just take a chance? He wound up not doing anything and they just cut ties with them for nothing. And they're going to keep kind of recycling these sorts of guys.

So that's the way you should be approaching your backup goalie, especially if you're a team that's not really going anywhere anytime soon. Yeah. I mean, look, there are actually a lot of goalie analysts that like, like or liked Linback for a long time. I'm pretty proud to say that I'm not one of them.

Maybe I got a bias because I'm a short guy, but I just always kind of felt like his game was not even close to suited for the NHL. But with that said, you know, you're right. When you're a team that's not really going anywhere and, I mean, hey, take a flyer on a, you know, a tools type, you know, I wouldn't call him a prospect, but a tools type guy,

see if... Well, he's still younger than Carri Ramo at this point, so... No, that's right. Carri Ramo is, you know, an aging veteran now. But, you know, you take a flyer with that type of guy. Maybe you get him with the right coach and things turn around from. I don't know. But certainly, you know, in Arizona, they can afford to screw around with that stuff

because I don't think they want to win those games anyway. So, you know, Mike Smith did that. this at the end of last season too he came back um from his injury and he had like seven starts or whatever it was and he was lights out in every single one which is he's just not uh not on board with with the tank i guess yeah it's it's crazy i mean they're like a there are 44% coursey team this year 37% scoring chances and uh mike smith is just like rocking a cool 935 save percentage and just like it's funny i'm curious to see if he just goes on the i r with mysterious lower body injury

coming up sometimes. They just send him on like a vacation like all expenses pay. Just go have some drinks in the sun, Mike. Just hang out. We'll call you when we need you. There was the same conspiracy theory going around about the Cam Ward signing that they

were like, well, they're stealth tanking. And Cam Ward has had like an unbelievable month and he's actually playing himself into you know, being, you know, at least in the early going he's he hasn't been a top

10 goalie but he's in that conversation top 10 to 15 so far just based on the past month or so of performance so that's not going so well for the stealth tank I don't know maybe they need to maybe some of these teams

need to just start you know reaching down into the ECHL and you know call up some future Andrew Hammond to yeah It is funny. I mean, I was definitely a big believer in that being why they brought back Camber.

Like, obviously there is a little bit of like loyalty and familiarity and all that sort of stuff. But it did seem just weird just based on the fact that they were a franchise that seems to sort of have their head on straight and be looking at the right things. And then they just brought back this guy who was like pretty much single-handedly submarining everything in front of him. And this year, he's actually been really good. Like, it's funny. Their team safe percentage still isn't that good just because Eddie Lack's been. a disaster, but Ward himself has actually been really good lately, and it's, it's kind of upsetting because I generally like to make fun of Cam Ward and for his bad performances. So

I've, uh, I've been, I've got to be pretty quiet on that front, um, in the past month or so. Yeah, I mean, he's still being Cam Ward, like, he's always been very unreliable and inconsistent, but he's been able to kind of toss out a stretch of, of really high-end starts. which I think is screwing any chance of them actually tanking, but making them a halfway, a pretty competitive team. Is it going to last? No, it's not going to last. There have been a few people that said,

I don't know, you know, he had a kick at the end of last season, maybe he figured something out. No. Look, if I'm wrong on this, please, at the end of this season or whatever it is, you can tell me I'm wrong, and I will take it like a champ but I am not a believer in Cam Ward

based on this little sample of of him being solid Yeah we've got years of him Not being good at all And then 15 to 20 games of him being good So I'm gonna go with the A couple years later

Yeah no he figured it all out Dimitri he's yeah I mean come on Those stories are the best I feel like we don't typically get as many of them is in hockey as we do in like baseball or football but like you get all those like oh he had the best summer of his life he's he's in the best shape of his career and and yeah those are always really funny and then it's always after it's always after they perform really well that then you know they go oh well you you know he made this big change he started watching the puck you know it's like

these ridiculous stories that come out um yeah it's kind of annoying because you'd like to you know I would definitely like to believe that there are instances where, you know, there is some sort of foundational change in whether it's like technique or or preparation or what have you that can improve someone's performance later in their career just because they're approaching their craft differently. But it's like we hear so many of these stories that it just sort of like dilutes it all where there's like for everyone that's actually true. There's like three or four that are just completely bogus. So and then I can just purely like hindsight conjecture. So it's like you just never really know what to believe. Yeah, and I think if you're going to find one of those stories and it's going to be a true type of story, you would find it with goalies because there are so many kind of different facets of how you can improve performance as a goaltender, not least to which is mental. But even with that being said, look, these guys are professionals.

They got to this point, they didn't get to this point just blind luck. they got to this point with intense preparation and, you know, working on their craft constantly. So, you know, to get that far into your career and then all of a sudden the light switch goes on, you know, it would intuitively make less sense than, you know, a guy who just gradually and continually improves and sees his greatest improvement when he's younger and still kind of in the formative stage of his career as opposed to, you know, when he's a seasoned veteran. I wanted to pick your brain on Peca Rennie because I was very skeptical of him heading into this season just because despite his hometown All-Star nod last year, he wasn't very good.

In fact, he was probably one of Nashville's worst regulars. and listen, he's been really good this year, especially at the start of the year where there wasn't much going right on that team. And everyone was sort of, you know, doing their best, like, I don't know what's wrong with this team. Is it potentially chemistry issues or what, like, what's going on? And for whatever reason, I still haven't quite figured out. They just weren't playing that well, whether it was like, you know, injuries or

I remember they had like stomach flu running through the team and maybe it just took a while for everything to come together or what. But Renee was sort of holding it all together at the start. and he's come back down Earth a little bit, but his overall numbers for the year are still pretty good. And I'm just kind of wondering, like, is there anything there? Or is it just purely one of those things, kind of like we just discussed with Ward,

where it's like he's put together some nice outings, but once we kind of have this discussion again at the end of the year, we'll be glad for not fully buying in. Yeah, it's that. So, yeah, he had a nice start. He's starting to come back down to Earth. It's interesting that it coincides with Nashville playing better, but I don't think there's any correlation between the two in that, you know, I've heard these stories that Pecorina is a guy who thrives on getting more shots, so he's at his best when Nashville is at their worst. But, you know, I looked at that last season. I looked at it actually for his entire career, and that didn't bear out at all.

He actually wasn't any better when he was getting more or more difficult shots than he was when he was getting, you know, less or less difficult shots. So that's just not true from a statistical standpoint. I think what is true is that Peckerene is certainly in what is a very normal decline for a lot of goalies, which is, you know, kind of the steep drop-off decline. And that started midway through the season two seasons ago. And then last season, you know, it looked like he kind of cratered last season at one point. I don't think he really is as bad as his bottom was. But with that being said, he's,

he's certainly not as good as his start to this season. He'll probably end up being a below-league average goalie by the end of the year. It would really surprise me if, you know, if he wasn't, I think the only way he would be is if, you know, he was decent enough to kind of, you know, so that his overall numbers are at least bowied by this hot star. But it's not, look, he, you know, he's 34, right? He's 34 years old. People seem to forget that. Yeah, he didn't just kind of figure it out again.

And there was a lot of years there where, you know, either the predators weren't really that good, so they weren't on people's minds a lot or what. he was playing a lot of games and, you know, shoulder on a pretty heavy workload. So it's like not one of those things also where it's like, you know, he's like he's fresh and he's got a lot left. Like he's,

he's definitely got some mileage on him. So sort of that. Oh, yeah. Tons of injuries. Yeah. Yeah, he had some real bad injuries. So, you know. The thing that, you know,

just kind of spinning it forward, like for the Predators, who pretty clearly fancy themselves as a Stanley Cup contender. And with reason, they have a really good roster. You know, there's very few deficiencies both on up front and on the blue line. But like, I think what will do them in if something does them in will be the goaltending. And I just think like, I wonder if, you know, if he came out struggling this year and really kind of followed up faltering last year as well with another really bad performance early on, whether they'd be more likely to give a larger share of starts to a guy like UC Soros.

And now that he's played well, they might kind of convince themselves into thinking that he really has fixed whatever. is wrong and like I think that's just a bad way to approach it because I do think that you know the ceiling for this team will be with u.sies soros and that just purely based on like not that I've scouted him a lot or anything but I mean you just look at his player page and he's great he's basically been really really good everywhere he's played and that's like that's why I was high on petermrazik even aside from you know how delightful he was to watch at the world junior tournament it's like if this guy's been really good at every place he's played I'm I don't see no reason why he's not going to be really good at this next one as well.

So I think, like, they'd be well served to see what they have in Soros this year and give him some more run. I know they've sort of, like, been yo-yoing back and forth and bringing him up for the occasional spot start, but, like, I think that this team could win a cup, but they're going to need a good goalie to do that. And I feel like Soros is a much better bet at this point than Renee is. Yeah, you know, we can always kind of throw out, we, it makes sense to always, you know, throughout the caveat that past professional or past junior performance doesn't necessarily correlate

to NHL success, blah, blah, blah, blah. But with that said, I am more than willing to take stock in when a guy, you know, like a Marazek, who he had some, you know, something crazy like he'd never been below 0.920 or something like that overall save percentage at any stop in his entire career, that's impressive. And so, you know, if he's on that trajectory of becoming an NHL starter and you look at that, you go, hey, I do want to take some stock in the fact that this guy has just been able to compete at a very high level anywhere you put him. So let's see if he can do that at the NHL level because that's his next stop. I think the same goes for Soros. He has been ultra competitive, if not elite, at every single stop that he's been on.

He's risen through the ranks just like he should. You know, he did it in the AHL last year. So, you know, now I think is the time to start giving him more starts at the NHL level and see if he can continue to do it. Now, they're not really taking that approach with him. They're taking the approach of let's continue to season him, I guess, in the AHL and let's not, you know, push him at the NHL level. I think you've got to start giving him more of a share of starts at the NHL

level in drawing back on the number of starts that Renee is getting because you're absolutely right. We kind of know now at this point that Renee is definitely on the decline. If you're looking at this season, I would say that Soros has at least as high of a ceiling as Renee currently has, if not higher. I think beyond that is an unknown, but at the very least you're preparing a guy to become the starter in a season or two. You're certainly not going to do him justice by giving him, you know, what's he got? And I think two or three start so far the season, or two or three appearances so far the season, get him in there a little bit more, you know, give him some time and see if

towards the end of the year, maybe he's there, Matt Murray, you know, I don't know. But you got to at least give him a shot. Yeah, I think that's fair. All right, one final thing before we get out of here, I thought it would be kind of a fun exercise to put ourselves in the shoes of George McPhee and the team that's going to be putting together the Vegas Golden Knights and sort of how we'd approach the situation in it, because they're going to have a lot of options just based on how the protection rules are going to go, and they can go a number of different ways where they can go with some younger options, some

higher upside guys, and maybe see if they can hit a home run and build their team that way, or there's going to be a bunch of these guys available, whether it's Howard like we talked about or Ben Bishop or Mark Andre Fleury or who have you. that are sort of, we know what they are, and they're probably going to be at least decent. And they're also kind of brand names. So I don't know that necessarily, you know, anyone's going to be, and anyone in Vegas is going to be like,

well, I'm getting season tickets because I really want to watch Mark Andre Fleury this year, but it is sort of, you know, a name brand player. So I'm kind of curious, like, if you're building Vegas, which way are you going? Are you kind of maybe thinking, you know, you get one of these reliable guys to potentially be your starter early on and then take an upside flyer on a guy like Eunice Corpusallo or whatever, or like which way are you doing it? Yeah, that's, you know, it's a tough question because I think you're,

just everything coming out of Las Vegas right now makes me think that they're going to take a name brand guy if they can, you know, down to like they were talking about who's going to be, you know, who's going to be coaching, who's going to be doing this. And they've come right out and said, like, no, we're getting a guy that has lots of experience. Like we're not screwing around with something new or different. I think that they would take the same approach with a starting goaltender. I could definitely see a Mark Andre Fleury being the guy. I don't know who else is out there that would fit that bill.

I guess, you know, I mean, I don't know. I mean, like a guy like Bishop. Yeah, Bishop would fit that bill. Yeah, Jerry, yeah, Jerry. Like there's, there's, there's horrible. I feel like a lot of these teams, especially the ones, I mean, you know, Razzick and, and Vasselowski, like, they have guys that they like more that are coming up on their way. So they would, they would gladly, obviously, Bishop's an impending free agent, so he doesn't

necessarily fit the bill, but like, yeah, he doesn't, yeah, like sort of like get that contract off their books anyways, since that guy's probably not in their future plans. So it makes sense that it would kind of be a mutually beneficial thing. So I'm kind of curious. Yeah, it definitely feels like they are going to go sort of trend. older. So Jimmy Howard's got, he's got another two seasons on his contract. I could see him, especially if he, I mean, if he can, well, we'll see, you know,

with injuries or whatever, but I could see a Jimmy Howard being a candidate there as a starter. I could definitely, obviously I think Mark Andre Fleury is a candidate, if not the favorite, to be the starter. I would love to see them take, you know, not so much a flyer, but. but a smart pick on an unprotected prospect that maybe another team is undervaluing. You mentioned Corpusallo. I think that's a great candidate, but I don't know that they're going to let him necessarily get away. Columbus, although I don't know internally what they think of him.

I think things have changed with Tororella in place. You know, you've seen Bobrovsky is certainly, you know, taking the load. and they haven't moved Corpusel out of their plans, but they've moved him back into, you know, getting seasoning, which I think he's beyond that point. I think last year proved he can play at the NHL level, and he should be playing at the NHL level. But he'd be an interesting candidate.

There's some other guys out there like that. It would be interesting to see if they get protected or not. You know, or they could take some goofball, you know, like a Hutchinson or something being like, oh no, he'd make a great backup. He's taking a starter's role in the past, not realizing that he was total crap as a, you know, as a starter or even splitting time. You know, I never, I never want to, you know, underestimate silliness when it comes to how you determine what goalie you should use when you're in front office because it seems like there's a lot of it.

Yeah. Well, they're bringing Peter Boudai because he has that winning mentality. There you go. Peter Boudai kept the L.A. Kings afloat until Quick came back. So now he deserves a chance to, you know, play in Vegas. Yeah. And that's what we call bringing things full circle, my man. That's one of my broadcasting professional here.

Nick, plug some stuff, man. Where can people find you online? What are you working on, all that jazz? So you can find me on Twitter at N-M-M-K-A-R-C-A-E-A. D. I am working on a whole slew of goalie stuff that I really, really got to write about. And I know it's a broken record at this point, but I do stuff with the Hockey Grass folks. And I also did want to plug. I want to plug a couple other things.

First, I just wanted to give a plug to Carolyn Wilkie. She's everywhere. She's on Twitter, Hockey Gras, today's Slapshot. but she puts out great work and great graphs and visualizations and things like that so i like to give her a shout out she's a good follow and then also um mike fail what's mike's last real last name does he not want people to know it or is it actually fail i hope it's actually failed everyone knows mike everyone i feel like everyone is in this knows mike everybody knows mike he's the internet's number one good content boy he uh he is he is doing a fundraiser for

the ASPCA. He's putting together a bunch of shirts and different merchandise. He may be doing it for a number of other charities as well. But he comes up with some really cool designs and stuff. So if you're interested, his Twitter handles Mike Fowell. And I think he's eventually going to put a link up, but you can find his stuff on Twitter. Yeah, I got to get me one of those good computer boys.

Yes. Yes. It's on brand. No, I definitely agree. with both those recommendations. And I feel like you come in on this show and mentioning articles that you're having the works is like one of those sitcoms where it's like

there's a character that never actually appears on screen and they just keep mentioning it, like just referencing it, but it's never actually shown who that is. I feel like that's your articles. Yeah, some people have gotten on my case and said, well, you know, with the amount of time that you spend on podcasts, like Dimitri's podcast,

you could have written a few articles by now. But I have a lot more fun, you know, talking hockey than I do actually sitting down and writing about it. I feel like that's work. Yeah. I mean, this is basically an audio book. There you go. That's it.

All right, Nick. It was a blast man. We'll get you back on soon. And yeah, thanks for coming on the chat. All right. Thank you. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.

At soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.