The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 200: Top 10 Goalies

Episode Date: October 19, 2017

Nick Mercadante joins this milestone episode of the PDOcast to help rank the top 10 goalies in the league this season.  2:30 Methodology for the rankings 9:45 Honourable Mentions 22:00 Why John Gibson should be in the Top 10 28:15 Jake Allen's two seasons and Ben Bishop's concerns 35:30 Why Devan Dubnyk shouldn't be in the Top 10 39:50 Marc-Andre Fleury vs. Matt Murray 45:15 Freddie Andersen's consistency 52:25 Craig Anderson constantly being underrated 55:00 Corey Crawford's sneaky greatness 1:02:30 The Top 10 1:12:45 Who wins the Vezina this season? Sponsoring today's show is Harry's Razors. If you sign up with them today using the promo code PDO, they'll send you a trial shave set free of charge that includes: 1) weight ergonomic razor handle, 2) 5 precision-engineered blades with a lubricating strip and trimmer blade, 3) rich lathering shave gel and 4) a travel blade cover. All you have to do is cover the shipping cost and that starter kit will be dropped at your door for free. Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. 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 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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With Dimitri Filipovich and special guest. Nick Mercadante Welcome to the Hockey PDOCast. My name is Demetri Filipovich And joining me is my good buddy, Nick Mercadante. Nick, it's been a while. What's going on, man? It has been, yeah, we're already into the season here.

So I think we're behind schedule for goalie chatter. Yes, we are. It's well-do. And the reason why we have you on, amongst other things, is we're going to do our... We started this last year, so it kind of feels weird calling it an annual thing because it's only happened once before,

but hopefully we'll be able to do it for many years to come, and it's going to be our top 10 goalie rankings. Yeah, I think if we do it a second time here, then it becomes a tradition. Yes. Yeah, it's an annual tradition, unlike any other. Before we get into the show, though, I don't know if you can you do this,

but this is the 200th episode of the PDO guests. I don't know how many of them you've been on, but I feel like you're right up there with like Chris Johnson and Jonathan Willis in terms of probably the most commonly recurring guests on the show. Wow. Wow. I'm honored. That's great. Congratulations. Thanks, buddy. I mean, I obviously couldn't do it without

people like yourself who've taken the time to come on the show and everyone that's listened. So I just wanted to get that out there. It's a pretty nice little milestone. Hopefully we have at least 200 more here down the road. So let's start with this goalie ranking talk. And I think before we get into the actual numbers themselves and who we have where, maybe we should do a little bit of sort of kind of big picture methodology discussion in terms of sort of what we're looking for, you know, what we value more than other things and sort of how we put together our rankings before anything else. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So what goes into it for you? Like when you were sitting down and I told you, okay, we're going to do these top ten rankings. I'm sure you had in your head an idea of what it

would look like and which guys you like more than others, but then when you actually started thinking about it a little bit, like what did the first things that come to your mind? Well, so, I do a little bit of kind of hard math analysis, and you had told me a couple weeks ago that we were going to do this. And I was kind of preparing ahead of time and ran some of my own numbers that I've kept in the background and shared with a couple agents and folks like that. But basically, I try to look at statistical evidence from the past three seasons. I don't really go back further than that. and I put a bigger weight on the last season's performance. I try to isolate for five-on-five to the extent possible,

but I do, you know, I look at everything and do give consideration to somebody who's just like maybe a historically a really bad performer on the PK or a really great performer. And I do give consideration to that because it is such a valuable, you know, part of performance for any team. I mean, especially a team that struggles, you know, with maybe their discipline to have one or the other is going to matter. So I look at that. I wait the most recent season, the heaviest. And then I create a predictive model. And it's something that I presented, oh gosh, two or three years ago now at the RIT hockey conference,

which is actually coming up here. and basically it's a it's a it takes Bayesian mathematics to try to get to a predictive Marcel measure of what a goalie's performance will be and I'm not going to get into explanations of what those things are they don't make for great podcasting material no no no no all I all I all I'll say is that I take as many shots as the goalie has and then I predict out based on what their performance is over those shots. Right. And then I apply basically a degree of certainty. So if somebody has fewer shots, I'm less certain. If somebody has more shots, I'm more certain of what their performance might look like.

So I take all that. I apply some of my metrics, which we've talked about in the past, Mercad, and then also win threshold and loss threshold. And then also some of the stuff off Corsica, so expected goals. And then I kind of slap it all together and come up with a ranking. And then I do what a lot of people do, which is I do when I test. And I say, does this make sense to me? And that's, of course, all relative, and that's not always the best way to do things.

But I do think that I've looked at goalies and studied them enough to kind of of know when something looks totally crazy. And then I try to give some consideration for, you know, other variables. What's the age? You know, what's the, maybe the tandem situation? Is this guy under pressure to perform in a contract and all those kind of things? And I apply some subjective weight to that. And that's where I came out with my top 10 for better or worse. Yeah, I like it. Let's just get into it then and then we'll see where we disagree, where we agree, and what the notable names are. I mean, I definitely agree with you in, like, when I was putting this together,

I was mostly looking at performance over the past three years, so dating back to 2014. And, you know, there's certain guys, like, there's a Scott Darling, for example, where I think there's, it's possible that he could be in the discussion for this, and his number certainly have warranted, you know, praising him for it so far. But this is also, you know, the first year that he's really going to be the number one where he's going to have to sort of clear that hurdle that Cam Talbot cleared over the past two years where, you know, you're doing really well in a small sample in the perfect situation, but then all of a sudden can you actually do it when you're being relied upon to start 50, 60 games? So it's going to be

fascinating to see this is kind of a, not a make or break a year for him, but if he really can keep up some, you know, some level of play that he has so far, then all of a sudden he's going to shoot up these rankings. And then, you know, there's young guys. Like, I think Andre Vasselowski is a top 10 goalie talent in the league. But similarly, the sample is so small still to date that I feel uncomfortable putting him among some of these other names. Sure, yeah.

And he really struggled last year when he had a little bit more leash and playing time. So yeah, you know, and so that's kind of the subjective stuff that I was talking about. You can't ignore that. And I think, you know, I come from kind of the analytics mindset. You do as well. But we have to be reasonable here. We just don't know enough about goalies to rely strictly on the numbers. And we don't have enough predictive measures.

Even, you know, some of the stuff that I was babbling about before slapping together to create a predictive model, you know, the level of predictivity is very, low, to be honest. So we don't know enough, and I think we have to, because of that, we have to consider, we have to use as many tools as we have to, you know, to rank these guys. And, you know, look, it becomes even more difficult because what we do know is that the window for goaltending performance is very small and it can close very fast, usually based on age or just wear and tear and injuries. And on top of it, you know, there's only one goalie in the net. And any more over the past few years, there's a lot of musical chairs. There's a lot of goal, you know, Elliot goes to Philly, Mason goes to the jets, Smith goes to Calgary, Ranta goes, I mean, you know, you could go

across half the league and they have new goalies. Right. In new situations with maybe new mindsets or new coaches. You know, Darling goes from being a backup who got relied upon when Crawford was injured and really performing well to now he's the guy. And, you know, I've said this before on a couple other podcasts. I may have even said it on yours. They've got him in a great situation. They put him with Mike Bells, who he's had experience with before coming up.

And I think that that will give him some comfort. Those are all subjective things. You point to that and you say, hey, you know, this could be set up for this guy to be successful. we kind of just don't know for sure. Yes, we kind of need to see it before we can believe it really, right? Right, right. Okay, let's do the honorable mentions first. Are there a couple guys that you wanted to put into your top 10 that we haven't mentioned yet

that you ultimately didn't or guys that, you know, just missed the cut but are sort of in that like 11 to 15 range if you were, if you're extending it? Yeah, yeah. There's a whole kind of glut of guys. You could call it even the 11 to 20 range where they're almost interchangeable in terms of year over year performance. Some of them actually, they appear in the top 10 in terms of performance one year, and then they slide all the way down to, you know, 25th. So I would throw, and I wouldn't, this isn't throwing him at 10 or 11 right now, trust me. I'm not that in love with Steve Mason.

I'm reasonable and rational, but Steve Mason's a great example. So he had really three, caught four great seasons with Philadelphia where he was kind of an analytics darling. And he performed really, really well under tough circumstances. Last year he started a slide. A lot of people, myself included, pointed at the situation that he was getting jerked around. He wasn't getting routine playing time. But he had an up and down season. And he started off very, very bad this year.

So, you know, a guy like that, you could throw him in the 11 to 20 range and say, okay, maybe this guy will figure it out and he'll, you know, start heading back towards the top 10. Or maybe he won't and it'll fall to the bottom of the league. And right now that's certainly where he's sitting. So I have a question about Steve Mason because he's a good example for this. So, you know, you and I, when we evaluate goalies, we typically tend to prioritize five on and five save percentages you mentioned as opposed to overall because there you know there tends to be a lot of noise in the in the power in the penalty kill data excuse me it's team effects yeah it's you know it's you can see it across starters and backups that you know goleys tend to perform starters and backups tend to

perform similarly on the pk for for teams so that just shows the variable so i think the you know the question for a guy like mason was for years there in philly um his 5-1-5 down was tremendous. He was constantly, you know, surprisingly, um, up near the top of the rankings alongside guys like Kerry Price. And I think people would have been surprised by that because his overall say percentage was dragged down by, uh, really poor numbers whenever the fires were on the penalty kill. And so I, I wonder like, is there beyond those team effects? Are there certain, uh, you know, goaly types or, uh, techniques that would lend themselves to being better at killing

penalties then so they'd be like kind of more more so five on five specialist goalies or is it purely just a team effects thing yeah i mean look if if any you know goalie coaches or people that work with goalies or follow goalies or write about them or listening they would kill me if i didn't say that there's not there's there's there's many different ways to skin the you know the pk i mean it's not it's not like one prototype fits for success on the pk not by any means i think a lot has to do with how your team sets up in front of you and, you know, do they watch the back, are you a goalie, let's say, who is aggressive on the first shot, and your team's watching the back door? Well, then you might have some success on the PK, because they're not getting

to that backdoor shot and they're focusing on maybe point-to-point passing and trying to get a guy in the slot for a one-timer, and the aggressive goalie gets across and eats it up. So that would be one way to do it, and I don't think that that, but that prototype might not work if your team is asleep at the switch on the back door or they're allowing plays to develop from down low, you know, where the goalie is kind of strapped to his post, and then he has to, when he's stepping out, he's not getting to his comfort zone in terms of his depth. Right.

So the same goal he could get crushed, you know, when another team is involved. But I think, you know, looking at Steve, a guy like Steve Mason. So Mason is not the fastest goalie. side to side and where he gets chewed up a lot on the PK is on those um you know kind of offside post maybe 10 feet out a guy um ready to snap a a one timer he just he's just not going to get those unless it hits them and that's a blocking save that's you and usually you notice like when he makes those saves he's looking for the puck and he's kind of scrambling around and that's because he's just making a blocking save. He's just not good at those in terms of his movement, in terms of

tracking, for whatever reason. And the same goes in five on five. He struggles with it in five on five, and you've seen early in the season with the Jets, they're letting a ton happen around the back door and around the front of the net, and they're just dragging Mason out of position, and then he can't recover, and you see him kind of like flailing as somebody wraps it around him. I think, like, you know, Felino had one of those where he just walked around him until Mason fell down. and that was the end of it. So, you know, that's a very, like, that's an important skill for a penalty kill, is to be able to move side to side and track those and try to get square to the one-timer

before it's released, which is hard to do. You've got to be fast. Yeah, I mean, you know, this is true of, uh, of every position in hockey. Like, for, you know, for skaters, it's the taller, lanky here guys sometimes get knocked for looking like they're not, you know, trying hard enough. But actually they are just the way they move. you kind of think that, right? And it's an unfair way to evaluate them.

And I feel like with goalies definitely or also sometimes, you know, you can have personal biases because a guy just might not look pretty stopping the puck. But ultimately, I mean, it doesn't really matter. Like I always, I wonder with, you know, a guy like Mike Smith, and he's having a great start so far in Calgary

and has been one of the big reasons why they've stayed afloat, even though they've been really bad defensively so far. And, you know, with a guy like him for years, there's been this massive divide, between how people talk about him. Like it was fascinating this summer listening to a certain analysts just go on and on about how he was like going to be the final piece

that Calgary was looking for in that. And I understand that there was, you know, a certain team component you had to factor into what he was going through in Arizona and sort of the, you know, the shot volume and the shot quality that they were giving up in front of him. But at the same time, like there wasn't, I just always found that a bit confusing because there wasn't necessarily. necessarily anything in the numbers that led me to believe that he was this goalie, that he was

hyped up to me. But, you know, then you watch him and he's just, you know, he's a big imposing presence and he plays the puck well. And sometimes you catch him on the right night. Like, he's as good as anyone at seemingly at having that, like, remarkable 45 safe shutout where he stands on his head. And I feel like that sort of people overreact to that a little bit too much. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's, I think that's exactly it. There was a comfort level, I think, before they signed Smith, I think Brad Trilliving had a comfort level there because he had experience with him

when he was an assistant, he was an assistant GM, right? Yes. I think under Maloney for Phoenix. And I think that that was right around the time where Smith was coming up. And so, you know, there was some comfort level there. He thinks highly of him,

thinks highly of his work ethic. he kind of came out and said all those sorts of flowery things about him. Mike Smith is, I wouldn't say he's a bad goalie. I would say that he is kind of a confounding goalie because he's very up and down. And so it makes it hard. He could, you know, as hot as he's been, he could go on a cold streak very fast. He's also relatively injury prone. Right.

So, you know, you have to take that good with the bad. I mean, if you think you're going to get a goalie, in Mike Smith that you're going to ride out for 65 games and he's going to put up the type of performance that he put up during, I think it was the lockout year where he was phenomenal. I forget what it was the year before. It was 2011-2012. Yeah, yeah. You're probably, you know, you're probably making a bad bet.

But, you know, could you get a guy who plays, I don't know, call it 50 games? And in those 50 games, he goes on a hot run and he gives you 20 games that are just, just out of this world, yeah, he's totally capable of that. He's done that in spurts throughout his career. He did it, actually he did it for a little bit last year. He did it even more so at the end of the season prior, the 2015-16 season. He was really hot to finish the year. So, yes, he could give you that.

And I've talked about this before. I think we both have, like, do you want the goalie who can get hot at the right time and carry your team? you know, maybe into the playoffs or beyond. Yeah, that's a great thing to have when they're hot, but boy, when they're not, it could sink your season. So that's kind of, that's Mike Smith in a nutshell, you know. Yes.

Well, yeah, I mean, that 2011-2012 season he had was just absolutely insane. I feel like there's going to be like an ESPN 30-for-30 documentary on that at some point. But, yeah, that is an interesting from a team-building philosophy perspective. I imagine that if you were really confident in the skaters that you had and you felt like you had a really deep just, you know, loaded, talented team, maybe you'd want a guy who's steadier and might not necessarily have that higher ceiling, but just you know that you can sort of rely on him and he's not going to necessarily cost you a lot of games. Whereas maybe if you're more of a middle of the pack team and you need something magical to happen to really put you over the hump beyond just a bunch of. of injuries to the teams ahead of you, then all of a sudden maybe a guy like, a goalie like that might be a bit more intriguing because you can, you have enough talent in front of him, but then if you envision, okay, he has this amazing 20 game sprint, which is what the playoffs

really ultimately are, then all of a sudden you could be kind of cooking there. Yeah, yeah. And so I was surprised that they went in and got Eddie Lack because, you know, for, and maybe it's just that they don't identify Smith the way I do. But if you have a goalie like that, it was very high ceiling. a low floor, whatever you want to call it. You want a backup that you can plug in play where you kind of know what you're going to get.

And Eddie Lack is not that. At least not for the past few seasons, not since he kind of got screwed up over his time in Carolina. So unless they were very confident that they could figure out Eddie Lack's problems, which it's mostly that he's off balance and became too aggressive in Carolina. If they figured that out and they think they can fix it, well, then great.

You know, maybe they have a decent backup. But I think for a goalie like Mike Smith, you really need a pretty solid, experienced backup that you can plug in there because he's going to miss games. And if he's not going to miss games, he's going to go cold for, you know, a 10 or 15 game clip. And you've got to be able to identify that first and say, okay, time to, you know, have a short leash on Smith. And then secondly, you've got to have somebody that you can play. plug in behind him because otherwise, you know, you're going to run out of options fast and suddenly it's going to be, you know, the goaltending is sinking the flames, which, you know, would be

unfortunate, I think, given the trajectory of their team right now, more or less, so that their defense is kind of... Yeah, yeah, St. Mo Smith's kind of shown the great part of it, but I'm sure that, you know, as good as he's been in these first six games, there's probably a six-game stretch coming where it's going to be the polar opposite of that. But I guess you could say that for almost every goalie in the league. So, yeah. Okay, so in terms of my honorable mentions,

I had a couple guys that I really deliberated long and hard over and wanted to put in there, but ultimately didn't. And I think the guy that I wanted to put in there the most that I didn't was John Gibson. Interesting. All right. Did you have in your top 10? I do. Yeah.

man the bottom three there for uh you know nine 10 and then the honorable mentions were so tight for me and gipson's been amazing so far and if you look at his cumulative package in the nchel the problem is he still hasn't had that season where they've really just relied on him to do everything for them have they like it's you know obviously he was splitting time with freddie anderson but even last year there was a lot of jonathan bernier thrown in there and he's he struggled with injuries a little bit and for whatever reason I guess he's still super young right like he has a full career ahead of him but the ducks have treated him like a bit with kid gloves where they haven't just completely unleashed him so that's the only knock you can really find on him and that's ultimately why i like

my top 10 they're all going to be sort of those workhorse number ones that can play a lot i know sometimes i can get overrated a little bit but i do think that there is a certain skill involved in being able to actually keep up with the marathon that is the NHL season and not have your performance just completely deteriorate. Sure, yeah, absolutely. No, I think it's reasonable to have him just on the outside. I think you're right. You know, he hasn't, he probably hasn't put it all together for full season, but he's right

there. And his, if you want to talk about a high ceiling, I don't know if there's a higher ceiling in the NHL than Gibson's, at least in terms of guys that are. now starters. You know, there are some other, obviously, there are some other prospects and backups that have very high ceilings and they're going to, their day's going to come, but I think Gibson's time is now. It has to be now. And if it's not, then I'll be wrong. But if it is, then I think, you know, so not to jump ahead, but I had him ranked eighth in my top 10. And I think that if he does what he's capable of, he could be a top five goalie. But I didn't, yeah, obviously, I don't think

it's, you know, ranking him next year as a top five goalie after great performance this year would be more reasonable. So, yeah, so I stuck him at eighth. I mean, yeah, he did. He just earned 24, so he's still super young. And he did start 52 games during the regular season last year, which is slightly higher than I remembered it being. So, you know, he's definitely on the trajectory there, and he's already started, I think, all six of their games this year, maybe six of their first seven. So it seems like, you know, Ryan Miller's out right now and their Rito Bear is their backup. So it seems like they're probably going to,

this is going to be the year they really just fully hand over the keys to him in that. Yeah, yeah, I think so. And, uh, yeah. So I'd like to hear some of your other guys that are right on the cusp and I'll trade mine. Okay. Um, I had Robin Lennar here. Interesting. He was, he was, I don't know if he was,

if sneaky is the right word. I feel like, I don't know how people thought about his performance last year, but he was pretty good for a team that didn't really have much else going for it. And once again, this year, looks like it's not going anywhere anytime soon. But, yeah, he was, I couldn't really. I don't have Leonard that high. Yeah, that's fair.

I'm not super high on him. I mean, he was on this list for me, and I like him, and I thought he was good last year. But Gibson, Gibson, I thought, was much higher, even though they're sort of in the same honorable mentions here. Okay, fair enough. John Quick, your boy. John Quick, I have him in that 11 to 15 range.

Yes. Tukarask, who I was looking back last year at our, because we, as I mentioned, we did this last year and you can go back and people can go back and listen to it and see what we talked about and maybe if we were horribly wrong in some instances, but we did have, I remember, a very spirited Tuka Rast debate about being in the top 10. Yeah, yeah. And I feel like you were down on him and I guess you were proven. a bit right? I mean, he was decent last year. He wasn't necessarily bad by any means, but I don't think

he was top 10. No, I think he's just kind of in the twilight of his career here. And again, the goalie window is small. People were kind of surprised that, you know, he took such a dip. But he had four, you know, really five really good seasons, which is longer than most goalies have. And then he started to decline a little bit, and then a little more. And then he kind of fell off a cliff for a bit. and really was pinned down to injuries. You know, last year he was okay and serviceable, and that's how I treat him this year. He's probably about an NHL average goalie,

so I put him more in my 15 to 20 range, really. I'll put it this way. If Tuka Rass was my starting goalie every night, I wouldn't be, like, hitting the panic button, but I'd be mining the prospect pool and trying to get that next guy ready. Yeah. Martin Jones, Jake Allen, I had both those guys here. Yeah, Jake Allen is in the mix for me.

I've dropped Martin Jones quite a bit. I actually think, I don't even think you should be a starting goalie anymore. I'm just not a Martin Jones fan. he's another guy you know kind of like Smith he's all over the place in terms of his performance and it's kind of I would be you know as a coach

he's more infuriating because it seems like it's game to game and and that's really tough yeah yeah for a starter yeah Jake Allen though I think Jake Allen's more interesting to talk about here because I mean if you

if you split his season last year into two yeah speaking of that that high low. It's like two different guys. It was amazing hearing sort of the hindsight explanations for why that was happening. It's always one of those things where no one is ever saying like, oh, just watch. This guy's made these adjustments. He's about to blow up.

It's always three weeks after he's had four shotouts in six games where it's like, ah, well, it's because of all this work he was doing with a goal coach. It's like, oh, thanks for telling me that. Yeah. Look, I've never been, I think for people that follow. me and what I talk about. I've never been a huge fan of Jake Allen. He frustrates me often because he just seems like he's aggressive at all the wrong times.

And sometimes he just gets, he loses the puck. And I don't know how to describe it in a way that maybe anybody, but people that watch the blues religiously would understand. But pucks will get in and around the kind of the net front and crease area. And he's just like, he'll just like plop down. and sit there and be looking around for it. And I'm like, would you just cover the damn puck? It's right there.

Just cover the puck. And he won't do it. And I don't know how to describe it. But as a defenseman, I would feel like that would just be a nightmare. Because you can kind of just play Plinko in front of the net and hope that it bounces funny. And he saves himself because he's very athletic. But he infuriates me.

So he's one of those guys, like, begrudgingly. I know he's not a bad goalie. and I think it would be fair to rate him in the top 15 right now. But, you know, at the same time, I'm like, oh, gosh. What about Ben Bishop? Ben Bishop, I have outside because I just think he's just too much of an injury risk. Yeah. And I think he's just on the other side of it.

Look, he's, you know, Mike Babcock's favorite type of goalie, right? Giant goalie who takes up all the net. he's that type of goalie and so he's certainly capable of having good enough performances. Here's a good thing for Dallas Stars and their fans. Whenever you say that you're worried about a guy's injury risk, then he's on the wrong side of it. That's definitely a guy you want to be in the first year of a six-year contract.

Yeah, yeah, right. And what I hear from a lot of Dallas fans is, well, he's not Nemi and he's not letting it. And I'm like, yeah, but you're an injury away from Latin in time. And you've got a long road ahead of you with that big aging frame, you know, to get through it all. So we'll see. There's a, that's a pretty low bar to clear. He's not in the NBA Lettman.

There's like 20 goalies in the HL that you could say that about. Yeah, there's a few beerly goalies, too, I think. Yeah, Nick Mercadante, even. I'll call them down. Yeah, let's, before we get into our top 10, or were you going to say something? I just want to throw out the two names that I had that you didn't mention that are in my 11 to 15 were, I had, I had Darling in there. And I actually had Howard kind of at the end of that. He is a guy who has made very noticeable adjustments to his game, and he's found health.

and he's been really, really good. He was really good last year, and he's been decent so far this year, pretty good this year. So I actually think that that's going to continue. I think the window is short, but I think he deserves some recognition for that. Yeah.

Well, he did just, right before we started recording this, the Maple Leafs kind of bawled on him a little bit. Oh, did they do that to everyone, so don't worry about it. This is what happens when I talk about goalies. Okay. Again, Nick, before we get into the top 10, Do you want to do a little live read here with me? I always generally record these and then put them in myself.

But I figured you'd be the best person to do this with because I feel like you're a bit of a facial hair connoisseur yourself. And you seem to be into the men's grooming component of things. I am. I do have a beard. Actually, a lot of people think that I'm actually Dave Babbage and I have that wonderful mustache, but I'm not. I just have a big, full, bushy beard. Yes. Well, no, I wouldn't say it's, it's bushy. I mean, it's groomed. It is. It is. I was going to say, I mean, I've had the pleasure of hanging out with you in person on a number of occasions so far. And in those times, I've seen you with a few different looks. I've seen the beard. I've seen the goatee. Yeah. But regardless of what style you've been rocking, it's, I can tell you've been putting in a time and effort to make sure it's, it's well kept.

I do care about, about my grooming. So here's the thing. As I don't know, as I don't know, people know this, but I made a big change this summer. I finally got rid of the beard. I had it for about, I say, a solid three years. I saw you on Instagram. Yes. And I was like, oh, yeah, I had to. You know what? It was time. It was, we shared good memories, me and that beard. It was one of the longest relationships I've ever been able to maintain. And I'm going to miss it. I think we'll get back together down the road, so I'm not too worried about it. But, So the reason why we're talking about facial hair right now is because Harry's Razors is a new sponsor of the PDO cast. And, you know, now that I'm going with a bit of a more clean, professional look,

in the hopes that all the execs at TV at Sportsnet will take notice and get me on TV a little bit more often, I need to make sure I'm taking care of my face and using the best products possible. And, you know, I'm getting into a routine that I can actually follow and sustain and do on a regular basis because shaving can be very annoying and that's one of the perks of having a beard. And Harry's is perfect for that. You know, their model is that they're basically a great shave at a fair price. And they're so confident in that that, you know, they've already had three million some odd people sign up with them. And they're confident that you're going to become one of those converts yourself.

So they're actually sending my listeners, their shave set for free when they sign up at harries.com slash PDO. and that includes a weight ergonomic razor handle, which comes in a couple of different colors. I'm actually personally using this silky smooth olive green, but they have an orange one and a blue one and whatever your personal preference is. Five precision engineered blades with a lubricating strip and trimmer blade, rich lathering shave gel and a travel blade cover. And all you have to do to get that is cover the shipping costs,

then the starter kit's going to be your door for free. So that sounds like a pretty good deal to me. I don't know. What do you think about that, Nick? That sounds pretty sweet. And they've got a bunch, I know they've got a bunch of skin care products. So if you want your skin to look just baby soft, like my man, Dimitri, you might want to look into some of this stuff from Harry's.

So yeah, to get in on that action and get your free trial offer from Harry's today, all you have to do is go to harries.com slash PDO, sign up, and they're going to send you all the goods. That's harries.com slash PDO. And now, Nick, let's get into this top 10. I love how we're 35 minutes into the show, and it's being dubbed as the top 10 goalie rankings, and 35 minutes in, we're about to get into the top 10, baby. Perfect.

So number 10 here, I had Devin Dubnick. Ooh. Wow. Yeah. Oh, man. Okay. Now I'm intrigued on what's next. So I don't have Devin Dubnick anywhere near it.

I have Devin Dubnick ranked like ranked like 17th Oh man you're a Devin Dubnick hater I am I am Yeah it's see this is this is the trick here I think he's on his way down That's all that's that's I just think he's on the other side That's all

Yeah I mean what happened with him towards the end of last year Was disappointing to say the least Because I thought that wild team was actually very good And he really kind of spiral downwards there as the year went along into the playoffs, and that's become a bit of a trend with him over his career. But, see, this is the, when we talk about sort of the numbers versus the subjective stuff,

and there is a bit of a sort of a gut analytics here, as Mike Babcock would call it, where it's like a gut feel and sort of what you're comfortable with and what you're seeing with your eyes. And I completely agree, like, I understand what Devin Dubedick gives people pause and people haven't bought into him throughout his career. But the numbers have been,

so good that I just felt like it would have been disingenuous not to have him on this list. I don't know. So according to my numbers, he's not been as good. But he's had his ups, but he's also had his down. So it's kind of, you know, it's kind of what, going back to what we were talking about earlier, we've got guys that have inconsistent performance. His inconsistent performance just so happens to be of the longer stretch variety. boy when he gets hot he's really really hot

but he I don't know if it's I don't know if I guess maybe at this point we could start calling it fatigue but he really does have a knack for blowing it down the stretch which is a tough thing for teams that are all kind of vying for for playoff spots

here's my big thing with Devin Dubnick he's 31 right A lot of people still think that he's, you know, kind of this like up-and-coming guy. He is not. He's gone through, he's played a lot. He's had a lot of experience in the league, ups and downs and everything else, and he's 31. And what we know about goalies is that if 26 through 29 is their prime, and I think more people are settling on that, that's always been my, you know, my range from what I've looked at.

26 to 29 is the prime. 30 is when the decline should start for most kind of normal goalies. So we're already another year past that. He's logged some miles. He'll continue to log miles. I think that just more of a breakdown is imminent. And we're probably going to see the type of decline that you see with like the, well, we were just talking about Tuka Rask, where no, he's not going to crush you.

If he's in your net, you'll be like, okay. okay, this is a starting NHL goalie, but I just don't think that he's, I don't think he's going to put up anything better than maybe a top 15 performance. You make good points, and now I really wish I had John Gibson there instead so that we didn't have to go through this whole thing.

Well, Gibson's more exciting, so I applaud your, your, I don't know, going out on a limb, I think, with Dubnick as opposed to like, oh, the exciting guy, because, you know, half of the rankings outside of our rankings have like murray as like the number one goalie in the NHL so just wait till we get to my uh top three which is eunus corpusis oh jesus christ you see saros and uh and conor halleboik's uh oh i see i had my new blood ranking and i i those are those three guys are in there corpusallo is my number one yes and uh vaseleski's my number two saros is my number

three yep yeah yeah i like anyways um so you want to hear my number 10 yes go for it or do you want to keep going through years. No, let's go, let's do yours. Okay. Give me your 10 and give me your 9 as well. Okay. My number 10 is Mark Andre Fleury. My number nine is Matt Murray.

Did you do that just for convenient narrative storyline purposes? No, I was, I knew, obviously I knew you were going to say that. No, I, so I went kind of back and forth with having Murray. I knew he was going to be in my top 10. but I just don't have the confidence to have him very high in the top 10, like a lot of other people. Yes, he won two Stanley Cups, but he only played portions of getting the team there. And the team last year rode Flurry most of, you know, a lot of the way. And then I think just played better hockey in front of Murray.

I think Murray has great peripherals. I think he's going to become an elite goaltender. I really do. I just don't think he's there yet. There are some massive holes in his game. I've talked about him at length, his issues with his glove side. Some of his issues with sealing off posts.

He gets beat a lot from, you know, plays developing behind the net and kind of coming around the front. He'll lose his post. Those are things like a young goalie has to get through those, and he's still very young. You know, this is a guy who he's already starting, and he's already won two Stanley Cups at a very young age. So there's time for him to become that elite goalie.

I don't think we need to put him there yet. I think it's very fair to have him at nine. Yeah. I mean, I have him at eight, so I'm right there with you. I definitely agree that I might might not be common. I feel like people would generally have him higher because of all the success he found so far. I'm right there with you. I mean, he still has under 100 NHL starts, even if you include his playoff runs. So there's definitely more to prove there and for him to mature as a I think he's going to do it. I mean, he's clearly on the right path.

So if we do this list again next year, as his annual tradition, I think that he could very well be in that top five range. Yeah, or he might be eight or nine again, you know, just because he's so young, he's got to work through this stuff. And you need games. Any goalie, any goalie coach will tell you, you need games and you need reps to work through it. And as long as he's getting good goaltending coaching,

you know, which I don't know, he's had his struggle this year, and Bells isn't there anymore. I think is a phenomenal goalie coach. But, you know, if he identifies where his weaknesses are and he gets the reps and he kind of works it into his muscle memory through playing time, he'll get better and better. And he's certainly on one of those trajectories to just be an absolutely elite goalie for a really long time.

And those guys are rare. So, you know, I think ranking him at eight or nine right now is fair. Yeah, he's going to, I think he's going to get there. you know, he's going to get to that top five. Yeah, and you know, with Mark Andre Fleury, best wishes to him in recovering from this latest head injury and hopefully he's back on the ice

because his early season performance was pretty badass. I mean, and honestly, and what he did last year in the playoffs, I mean, I feel like people forget that he was the person that beat the capitals, which was, and pretty much like the main, well, he definitely was the main reason why,

like without him playing the way he did. I wonder how different our thoughts on a bunch of different players would be right now because the Capitals very well could be champions, right? I think the whole complexion of the Capitol's roster might be different. I think a lot of Domino's fell because Flurry performed so well in that series, and I think really kind of won that or at least catapulted them towards winning through his performance. Flurry is just – he just doesn't get really. respect and part of it is because he has had, he had in his past about a bad playoff performances

small samples. He also has a huge long track record of really, really consistent top 10 to top 15 goal-tending performance and people just overlook it. Maybe it's because he's surrounded by other superstars or whatever it is, but I mean, the guy has just been a workhorse's entire career and he's consistent and that's a to me a big deal and something that's underrated we've talked about the high ceiling low floor guys this is a guy who has you know a mildly high ceiling but he's all you know he never is in the basement and um or very rarely so um that's that's something that i value and that's why i have them in my top 10 yes and this obviously doesn't factor into their rankings and i don't want to be one of those guys that's talking about all these random intangibles and stuff that we can't actually

quantifier proved, but just as an anecdote or a side note, I guess, the way he handled everything this summer with the expansion stuff. And it's just, he's one of my favorite people in the league. Oh, easily. Yeah, and has great facial hair, in my opinion. Yes. Very unique. I bet he uses hairies to make sure it's looking, looking crisp. Okay, before we move past here, can we just put John Gibson at 10 on my list and bump Deb I'm doing it out of it. It's actually an agony right now, and I feel dirty, and I can't go on until we do it. I'll accept it.

So we went through your 10 and 9. So my 9 was Cam Talbot, which this might be the wrong time. Like, if we were having this discussion a week ago or 10 days ago, it would look better. Obviously, he's really struggled early this season, but I think he'll bounce back. I mean, I definitely think that he should not be starting 70 plus regular season games and then another 20 playoff games. That just seems like malpractice on the Oilers part. Yeah, that's just asking for trouble. Talbot's great.

You know, we'll get to him on my list, but I think he'll be fine. You know, goalies go through. Look, how many games he played four? You know, so people flip out over early season results and everybody's got to remember. And I think any NHL player gives an honest answer, which, which quite a few don't, but players that give an honest answer will tell you that the first 10 games of the season is still preseason.

They're still feeling things out. They're still getting used to their lines. Goleys are still working on things in some cases or they're just getting back into game condition. These guys, yes, they do work year-round and they're constantly doing whatever they're doing. But it's a lot different for a goalie when he's working on reps on practice ice with some shooters

to getting in games and, you know, having your defense absolutely blow up in front of you like the Oilers have had lately. So, you know, Talbot's going to be all right. I think he's going to be more than all right. I think he's going to be, well, you know, we'll talk about where I have him, but I think he's going to be exceptional. I thought you were going to spoil it there. I was going to be like, how all right? Do you think he's going to be the fourth best goalie in the league all right or the seventh best? We'll get there.

look at the um so so i had mad marie eight and we just discussed him obviously who was your eighth guy uh that was uh it was gibson oh that's right so i get gibson eight we've already talked my tenth goalie obviously i mean we've talked about my tenth goalie john gibson quite a bit so far um who is your who do you have at seven freddie anderson whoa now see i didn't even consider like i didn't even have him on my honorable mention list that's how uh so on on your page I was with Fred Anderson. So I kind of slip something in with Flurry about how much I value consistency. And that comes out in that, I've mentioned these stats before, win threshold and lost threshold.

Lost threshold is just measuring how often a goalie is absolutely killing you, meaning they're essentially losing you the game. Yes. And Freddie Anderson shows incredibly well in that stat. I know last year he had those early season struggles. I chalked that entirely up to, you know, the narrative that eventually came out, which was that he was trying to be more aggressive, probably at the behest of Babcock, who likes aggressive goleys, and he just got way off his game. Anderson is a very conservative goalie. You know, next to Lundquist, one of the more conservative goleys in the NHL.

He's not big. So sometimes you look at him and you don't see an imposing goaltender by any means. but the performance is there night in and night out it's consistent it's never elite but it's almost always pretty darn good

um he has what you know some people call a quiet game where he makes things he doesn't make a lot of crazy dramatic saves he makes things kind of look easy and so I think he you know his performance sometimes gets overlooked

in that regard um shows well in Manney's war stat and shows well in my stats, which help, you know, kind of my narrative on them. So if you were, let's say we're doing a draft of sorts and just for this year you were trying to win the Stanley Cup, you are saying you would have, you would, you would pick Freddie Anderson's seventh? Yeah, I think I would.

Yeah. and I like his contract. Right. But we'll try not factoring into this. I know. I know. But yeah, I would. I would have him.

It's not an exciting pick, but I would feel pretty good putting him out there every single night. I like a goalie that I know what I'm going to get. And that's what he's been, his entire career, aside from that one blip early in the season last year with Toronto. He has just been very, very steady. consistent with the ducks as well. And I think that the fact that the ducks gave him more of the net than Gibson, basically they stole the net from Hiller, and Hiller was playing great that season. And then he didn't relinquish it for Gibson, even though Gibson was clearly the heir apparent.

I think that speaks volumes to just a guy where it's like you can't get him out of the net because every time you put him in the net, he plays pretty darn well. So it's like, what do you know, no, he's not pitching. shutouts every game, but he's getting the job done. And that, for a lot of coaching staffs, that's very, very valuable. Not sexy.

But, you know, I'm not, I'm not here for sexy picks. No, no. Well, sometimes. Well, your facial hair guided by Harry's razor begs to differ. Yeah, no, he's definitely consistent. I mean, he's basically been hovering

like slightly above league average pretty much for his entire career and I agree he has those every goalie's going to have their swings and performance he seems to limit them quite a bit I just

and when we're going to get to my next couple guys I mean they're the reason why I have them that high is because they do have that consistency and I would rely on them to be my number one goalie but I don't know with Freddie Anderson it just it seems a bit high for me to be honest well and here's another thing about

Freddie Anderson he's 28. He just turned 28. So he's right kind of smack in his prime. So if he's going to have his best seasons, it's probably going to be, you know, what we saw towards the end, middle to end of last season where he was very, very good in this season and maybe next season is really going to be his highest peak performance. So if up to that point he's been slightly above average and now we're kind of in his prime, I think it's reasonable to expect that he can put up top 10 goaling numbers this year.

And with him, it's a bit trickier to evaluate based on the numbers just because while the Leafs are good and are scoring a ton of goals, they're pretty bad defensively to see the list, right? So sometimes they're going to leave him out, you know, hanging a little bit. But yeah, so I guess maybe in that regard, he's the perfect goalie for that team where they definitely have the talent up front and they just don't need, they just want the goalie to be a bit of a steadying presence back there and he seems to be that. Yep.

See, I have another Anderson at 7th. You like that symmetry there? I do. Craig Anderson is my 7th goalie, Nick. Well, I don't have any inherent problem with him being in the top 10. I think 7's a little rich, though. Listen, I understand. Are you concerned about the fact that he's 36?

Yep. Yeah, I mean, he doesn't really seem to be showing any signs that declined right now, though, right? No, so, yeah, he's kind of... He's one of these guys who's just like destroying the aging curve because, you know, he's never been... Getting better. Well, he's never been elite, but he's never, you know, he's never really been terrible. But he did, you know, early in his career, he wasn't a great performer. And he got kind of steadily better and better.

And now he's like, you know, it's almost like Tim Thomas where, not to that degree, obviously, in terms of his performance. But he's really hitting his, he's hit his prime in his mid to late 30. in terms of his peak performance. I think he probably had never really been better than the past three seasons. And he's a guy who gets overlooked a lot, just like Freddie Anderson, actually, has, again, kind of a quiet, simple game, but he makes the saves. And he was great in the playoffs last year, which, you know, raised the – obviously, I think, raised the profile a little bit.

I have him just outside the top 10. You know, yeah, seven. All right. Well, it's a little rich, but... Yeah, no, I mean, and he definitely, like last year, obviously, they were extenuating circumstances for why he played only 40 games, but he obviously did remarkably well in them, and that was awesome to see from him,

and he looks really good so far this year, and we'll see. But, you know, it is a bit crazy to me that, like, Craig Custin does those annual, you know, goalie rankings or tiers every year where he talks to people around the game and it just reaffirmed we were talking about about him being undervalued and overlooked because I think NHL people quote unquote had him like 17th or 18th in the league which just definitely seemed way too low I think no yeah that's crazy a bit too high like I'd say definitely and at like 11 to 13 or so range NHL people tend to go for sexy yeah that's why you go for john quick and you know they they I don't it's crazy to me that the that the people inside the game are

you know, swayed by the wow factor. Yeah. More than maybe people outside the game. Yes. Well, listen, we both, for seven, we went with consistent, reliable guys named Anderson. They just happen to be different guys. That's okay. Who do you have at six before we get into his top five?

Corey Crawford. See, I had Cory Crawford third. Wow. I don't have a problem with that, though. I'm huge on Crawford. I love Crawford, too. I just, um... I have, well, so now I'll give away my number five is Talbot.

And I was having this kind of like internal dilemma. Like, do I want, I kind of want to have like one year where I get a Vezna candidate picked correctly. And I was like, well, Connor McDavid is great. And Edmonton's going places. And Talbot has been phenomenal and he'll continue to be phenomenal. maybe he'll just kind of ride Connor McDavid to Evasina, which of course, Avesena is just based on wins, right?

Right, pretty much. So I plugged, I moved Talbot one spot ahead of Crawford, but I could easily flip-flop that and have Corey Crawford in my top five, easily. And I have no problem with him being, you said number three? Yeah, I'm third. I have no problem with that, really. He's great. You know what's funny with Crawford?

Remember when it was the year that they beat the Bruins, in the cup final and there was all the stuff about how he was so beatable glove side or whatever. And then they gave him the six year, $36 million extension. And everyone's like, oh, my God, what a disaster. Like, this is going to do in the Blackhawks. And there's an argument to be made that he's been their best player, or definitely the most valuable player they've had over the length of that contract so far. Oh, yeah.

So has a couple years left on it, obviously. But he's been remarkably good. and it is, you know, you and I have discussed this on the show before, but it's one of those unforgiving things sort of like with Mark Andre Fleury, where when the Blackhawks win, it's Taves and Kane that are going to get all the glory and all the love, but when they lose, it'll be, you know, Cory Crawford gave up some goals and let them down. And it's really sort of a, it's a bit of a shitty position,

and a lot of goalies are in that way, where it's just, you sort of take it for granted and you expect them to do a certain thing. And they're just expected to do it. and if they don't do it, then it's their fault while you lost. So I don't know, I wanted to give Crawford a bit of love and I had him third. But, I mean, you have six, it's totally fine.

It's not, we're in that tier of goalies. It's kind of like, it's funny because, and look, I mean, this is nothing to diminish guys like Price and Lunkwist and what they've done in their careers and everything else. But sometimes guys like that, like Lungwis has been notoriously saddled with a bad defense. Price has been notoriously saddled. with just a kind of a shit show of a team. And both guys have had sparkling careers in spite of it.

So they get all of the notoriety for that. Because they're standouts on their team. They are the face of their team, right? They're the name that everybody associates with their team for the most part. Corey Crawford, because he's on this cup-winning team, and he's riding in the back seat to Taze and Cain and all these other. Duncan Keith and all these big names, you don't really, you know, you don't throw them into that

category just by virtue of the fact that you don't think that a team like the Blackhawks even needs a great goalie. But they have needed a great goalie. And like every team needs great goalie performances. And he's been that, and he's been consistently that. I loved that stuff about him and his glove side because, yeah, he struggled, especially earlier in his career on his glove side. But guess what?

like 95% of NHL goalies struggle on their glove side and it gets magnified in the playoffs when a team starts picking it apart you know every single game he you know since then he's gotten better and better and better and you know he's he's going to start to decline here I mean he's getting older but for now I put him right in that you know that upper echelon of top five or six and I've had him there for for the past three years so that's that's kind of how I

see him. Yeah. Um, so we did your six and then we did your five. You just spoiled it. My six was Henrik Lundquist. Wow. Okay. Do you think that's too high or too low? Well, I'll say this. I move Lundquist down in my rankings too, but I moved him to fourth. Yeah. So, so you moved him a little bit further than me and you moved him to sixth. I don't, don't take a big issue with that. I think we all have to kind of come to grips with the fact that myself included that, you know, guys get older and even the best get worse. You know, neither of us have mentioned Luongo today at all. So in Luongo as recently as maybe a season ago was a top 10-tish goalie. So look, these guys are going to eventually either they're going to decline like Tuka

Rask or they're going to fall off a cliff. I don't think Lunga. Quist is falling off a cliff. I think that that narrative last year was way overblown. And down the stretch, he played great. I think that he is in decline, though. And I think it's reasonable to say he's still a top 10 goalie, but the days of him just being otherworldly, best goal in the world are probably over at this point.

Yeah. Yeah, it's concerning at the same time. I mean, he did show last year in the playoffs that he can still ramp it up a little bit, but maybe over the long haul, like, he won't be able to do it as consistently as he did before, but I believe the talent's still there. And I think that it's a bit too early to bury him just yet. Well, in the Rangers have been such a mess in terms of almost everything, but mostly in the defensive zone.

I mean, I think the rank like 29th in terms of, expected goals against right now. So they're not making it easy for, you know, for a goalie in his late 30s to come out and just know that you're just going to get dumped all over for 60 minutes. So that's hopefully, you know, for my sake, as a Rangers fan, they'll turn it around. But boy, their team defense has been really sloppy and it's just making life tough for Lundquist.

And there's some things that I've noticed. He is starting to have some issues with tracking the puck. And, you know, for the type of goal he is where he relies on his reaction time, it's, you know, you get older and you react a little slower. Trust me. Trust me on this. I wouldn't know anything about that. Yeah, you're young and spry, but you get older and you move a little slower. You know, you're not as quick.

You don't recover as quick and all those things. And it will catch up with you. For as conservative as he is, you know, it is worrying. So, so how, what do we have left on your list? I feel like only the top three? Have we done? You're five and four? Yeah.

So Talbot and Lundquist were my five and four. Yeah. I was going to get really controversial and put Talbot ahead of Lundquist, but I couldn't do it. Yeah. I couldn't do it. I, uh, so here's my top. I'll give you my top five and then you can give me your top three.

see if we disappeared. So I have I have Bobrovsky 5th. Wow. All right. Keep going. I don't know this is a good question. I don't know this is a controversial one,

but I have a, I have Corey Schneider fourth. Interesting. Corey Crawford third, as we said. And then I have Hold being priced two and one. Okay. How do you feel about that? So I don't think Corey Schneider should be anywhere near the top 10 or

even the top 20. at this point. Whoa. Okay. That is a bit bold. Corey Schneider, there's something wrong. Corey Schneider.

He does not look fine to me when I'm watching. He's not passing your eye test? Oh, no, no, no. There's something, there's an injury thing going on with him. And I wish, you know, I wish I could talk to him

or, you know, have him talk about it. But there's something going on that's impacting his ability to recover and it's really, really sloppy. And his performance last year was kind of a nightmare. So I think that you're seeing that they're going to use Kincaid a little bit more already. And that's probably because they know that there's some wear and tear on Schneider.

And he's another guy who, like Dubnick, is a little bit older than you think. He's 31. I think he's 31 going on 32. Um, so I, I dropped him way down. It's like Steve Mason. They used to be two of my favorites, and I've just dropped them, uh, way, way down the ladder. So that's a big, that's, that's one. Let's, let's see how that plays out.

And then if, if he, if he ends up being like a top five goalie, and you can, uh, we'll see this is, you can take your rifle place as the, uh, goalie guru. This is why, uh, you're the right guy to have on here because, you know, I've, I've, I've watched him this year, but admittedly, I don't really know what I'm watching. Like I'm watching to see if he's stopping the puck or not, and he's bounced back a little bit, not back to his full form,

but it looks like he's stopping the puck more frequently this year than he did last year. So that's all I'm really looking at and seeing I'm not actually, you know, the technique and potential injuries and stuff like that. I'm not picking that up. So I guess that's why we have you on here. That's why you're the Hockey Pedioka's goalie guru. Well, I think the story for the past year has been,

every time you try to get updates on what's going on, it's always this, maybe he's got a lower body injury. He's going to miss four games or whatever, and they don't give any details, but it's all around the groin and the hips. So those are the things if you're trying to analyze goalies and you're trying to figure out what's going to impact their performance, you look for groin and hip injuries, and that's the beginning of the end. And most goalies who get the groin and hip injuries, they just don't get. they don't come back or not quite the same. And knee would be the other one. And we've got another guy that we haven't mentioned yet in Carrie Price, big body, bad knee.

That contract's not going to look pretty here in several years. So what you're saying is if you were running the devils, you would hope to God that he's able to get over that. enough to just string together a decent performance here and then you trade him while you still can. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, that seems smart. So, yeah, that's the thing, right? Like, the reason why I had him so high is I'm betting on the track record and obviously

if there's something fundamentally wrong with him, then you have to change that and change your expectations, of course. I didn't really factor that in. I was just more so thinking that last year was an aberration. He'd bounce back and before that he'd been the definition of consistent. at that position, so that's why I was valuing him. But, I mean... Well, it's an interesting thing.

I think that goalies in hockey are maybe... They're like 10 to 15 years behind pitchers in baseball, where, you know, pitchers in baseball now, it's like, well, the guy's got something wrong with his elbow. So let's just get the Tommy John surgery and get it over with. And then he's going to come back better. And they figured out all those mechanical glitches that, you know, that create wear and tear, and they take care of them, either medically or whatever it may be.

Hockey is a different type of game. We all know this. You know, players play hurt, right? And they don't talk about it. And they don't want to sit-out games. They don't even want to miss a shift. And goalies are no different. Most goalies I know, they hide groin injuries. They hide knee injuries. They hide hip pain. But it's severe. Any goalie I know has severe is just living with chronic pain related to just beating the hell of their body in ways you're not supposed to. And so NHL goalies are no different. And I bet if you go around the league, every single goalie of a certain age is going to say, yeah, I've got a bad groin.

No, I'm not going to miss any games because of it. No, nobody really even knows the extent of it or the extent of the pain. So, you know, I put Schneider in that category, Tuka Rask is like that, Bishop is like that. All these guys, a lot of them, they played through or they play, and then they miss like four or five games, and they come back, and nobody really knows. You know, I think Schneider is that guy, and it's growing in hip, and it's just going to get worse.

Yeah, that's fair. So which of these guys should we talk about next? I guess we haven't really talked about Bobrovsky, who I had just before Schneider, and then we've talked about Crawford, and then Holpey Price, or were the pretty clear one, too, for me. Fair enough. So I had, we talked about Talbot and Lundquist. I had Holpey at three, Price at two, and Bobrovsky at one. Bobrovsky, he's back on the force.

Yeah, I mean, listen, he was insanely good last year. I mean, he really, he won the Vezna, the Jack Adams, the heart. I mean, he was really, he was the best coach, the best player, the most valuable player. He did it all, and he has looked even better this year. So, yeah. I want more than anything. honestly just for him to have a badass postseason so that we can put that narrative that he can't do it in the playoffs to rest. Right. Yeah, that was, I mean, that was obviously rough for his rep, but, you know, look, he was extraordinary last year.

And he's another guy who he's probably made some adjustments, but most of it's really been health for him. And in the past, I've always had him kind of hovering in the top 10, but not sure where exactly to put him. I've always pointed out, like, look, he could be what he was several seasons ago, but I don't expect him to be because I have concerns about health, and I have concerns about him kind of doing things like he had this tendency to overplay shooters and take himself out of position, almost like Pavlach. He's gotten way away from that. He's so clean now.

It's almost like watching Kerry Price in terms of, you know, how he spots up shots and how he attacks a shooter. He's gone from Pallich to Price. Well, it's, in Price went through that kind of dramatic change in his own game as well. Price was pretty wild and then kind of learned how to bear down on shots and, and come out to meet shooters better and use his frame to the advantage. And most of it came out of changing his stance. And Bobrowski, I wouldn't, I definitely wouldn't say he's.

change his stance. I don't think he has, but he's gotten a little bit more control over his game, and he's so, boy, I mean, you just can't beat him on the first shot. It's just not possible most of the time. And he's right in that age prime. You know, he had good health last year and everything was working in reform. And so far this year, it's been more the same. So I see no reason for that to stop. I think he's the odds on kind of top guy now with what I said before about price, which is I think we're going to start to see

a little bit of his decline coming. Don't get me wrong, I have price at number two, so it's not like... Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, and then Holtby, I mean, there's not that much to say. His performance last postseason was bizarre, but give him a free pass just based on how remarkably good he's been at every other step of the way.

Yeah, Holpee, I hate to compare him to Steve Mason, but might as well, a little bit of the, you know, I don't know, not a head case, but he kind of got inside himself a little bit in the playoffs and we saw it unravel. You know, and so maybe that's, I guess, a little bit of an Achilles heel, but at the same time, he's also known to be a great competitor. So I think as much as that could have been the issue in the playoffs. offs. You know, he has the ability to really, really turn it on. And he's another guy. He's right in his age prime. He's had a couple really, really good seasons under his belt.

Not Vezinaworthy, even though he won it. But so, you know, he's right in that mix. And I would have no problem with him being number one or number two or number three. Yeah, cool. Man, I think we did it. We did. Yeah, I feel pretty good about it, especially now that I had John Gibson inside my top 10. Can I ask you one question?

Yeah, go for it. Who do you think? Okay, knowing what we know, which is how the Vesna voting works, who do you think will win the Vesna this season? Oh, that's a good question. So this is what's going to have to happen. Who's going to be the best goal? Right. It's going to be a goalie who wins a lot of games, and it's going to be not necessarily someone out of nowhere, but it's going to be a trendy pick.

it's not going to be Bobrovsky again unless he has like a 940 say percentage right um so it's so sad that that that's that really is the criteria it is yeah it's like we're not talking about who we think is going to be the best goalie we're trying to get inside the mind it's like the guy where everybody's like oh holy shit wow this guy was great and you won a ton of games yeah um that's a good question i'm trying to think here like do you think Freddie Anderson maybe I mean the leaves are 6 and 1

like what if he what if he wins like a bunch of games what if he wins like 40 games and I think what's going to work against him is that he doesn't have that wow factor you know of like he's not going to get a ton of shutouts he's he's not going to win games on the strength

of their offense yeah and he's going to do he's going to play his role to keep keep things from you know turning into 6 5 track meets. So in that respect, he's going to be very, very solid. I wouldn't be surprised if he got consideration, if they won a ton of games. But I don't think he'll be able to win it because I just don't think, I think the league-wide rep will be like, ah, he's, that's just Freddie Anderson. Right. Okay, what about John Gibson? I think Gibson would be a great pick.

And Andre de Vasselowski, because I think the Lightning are going to win a lot of games. Yeah. He can keep it together. He could get some love. I could see that for sure. Yeah, I actually, my two were Talbot and Vasilevsky. So I think we're on the same page there. All right, Nick, well, what do you up to these days? I know fatherhood's kind of taken a lot of your time to go online off your plate. Yeah, I'm just trying to get 2035 draft eligible Sam Mercanté.

into skates. You know, he's two months old, so he hasn't yet worn shoes, but we'll fashion him some skates here for the winter pretty soon. Beyond that, no, I've been doing my normal stuff on Twitter at N-M-M-R-C-A-D. I still am, I like to say, affiliated with hockey graphs. Right. And that's about it. Other than that, I just like spending time with you on the Hockey PDOCast.

And we love having you, and I'm sure we'll have you on many more times the season as the year gets going. So, Nick, just get chatting with you, and we'll talk soon. Thanks. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filippovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.