The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 312: Barrage of Constant Rubber

Episode Date: September 26, 2019

Kevin Woodley joins the show to talk goaltending, how the way we view it is changing, the future of the position, and the Top 10 netminders heading into the season.3:00 Consistency at the goalie position6:30 Separating the goalie from their defensive system13:00 Robin Lehner going from Islanders to Blackhawks19:00 Teams going to 50-50 splits in net27:00 Goalies going the way of running backs36:00 The Top 5 goalies45:00 Ben Bishop and his durability49:30 Tuukka Rask's workload and environment52:00 Braden Holtby's future57:30 The Russian goalie factory1:03:00 Goalies with things to prove this seasonSee 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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Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich. and joining me for a return appearance. Last time you were on, everyone loved it. I feel like all the goalie nerds came out of the woodworks and we're excited about how deep into the minutia of the position we were getting. It's my good buddy, Kevin Woodley. Kevin, let's go on.

Fool them again, eh? Fool them again, all right. I know. So I'm excited to do this. As part of my annual sort of preview slash preseason series, we're going to rank the goalies together. and I'm excited to have someone who actually knows what he's talking about at the position come here, because for me, it's a lot of just like a little bit of eye test,

but usually when I watch these games, I don't even know what I'm looking for from the goalie. So it's mostly like, oh, how did this goalie perform in terms of goals saved above average, which is obviously not the best way by any means to measure a goalie's value, a goalie's worth, but it's basically the best thing I have going for me as a complete layman when it comes to the point. I actually won't disagree with it. I mean, at the end of the day, I like those numbers. I think some of the publicly available ones are missing some context that I try to add whenever I can through companies like CSA analytics that incorporate things like traffic and screens. But we can get into that.

I may not have all the answers. Again, I think it kind of echoes what we talked about last time. I don't know that there is a perfect number out there. The more information you add to a statistics, the more context you add, the better. I just feel like most of the numbers out there. there are still missing valuable layers of context. Well, and the listeners should know, I mean, you've got way more numbers in front of you right now.

You've got a full booklet. Yeah, this is like, this is NHL number, so they're almost used. Let's just raw save percentage. As you noticed, though, that I did click over to save percentage versus goals against on my little sheet of preseason numbers. I mainly have this in front of me just so that I don't miss anyone. I've got all the names in front of me. I think I got in trouble last time.

I think did I, this is where I said that I don't even use goals against in my articles. I'm okay with that. And that the editors have to add it. But that's the part that I purposely leave it out. Might not have gone over so well. I'm okay with that. It's a useless team-based statistic. I don't think I've ever referenced that or goalie wins.

I'm right there with you. I mean, when I was doing my rankings here, I mean, get into some of the methodology or thought process before we actually get into names, it's really tough because, for example, when I'm doing my forward rankings or I'm discussing a player's effectiveness, I usually try to take like a two, at least two, maybe three-year window to sort of see,

because I feel like, you know, sometimes players have a hot or cold season or they're battling injury or you never know what's going on. I feel like a three-year sample, especially for a person who's been in the league for a while, gives us a better viewpoint of their true talent level. For these goalies, though, it's really tricky with the volatility because we see time and time again that, for example, if you look at Darcy Kemper's three-year sample, it's going to look way different than if you look at just what he did last year where he had this career season that kind of came out of nowhere and caught people by surprise. You can go through Robin Leonard or so on and so over.

It felt like last year, especially with teams shifting more to that 50-50 split that we've been talking about, there are a lot of goalies that just had mind-bendingly good numbers in like a 35 to 45 game sample that we'd never really see them do before. So it's like how much do I weigh that against a guy like Frederick Anderson who might not have that upside? But, you know, he's kind of reminds you like Ryan Miller in his prime where it's like, I know exactly what I'm going to get from Freddie Anderson. It'll probably be like 918 since he does it every year. And the highs and lows won't vary too much. And I think at a position with so much volatility and so much unpredictability, there's like something a little reassuring about that. And that's, that's probably different than I would feel about skaters where I'm usually going for more of an upside than a consistency approach.

Consistency matters and goal, right? Like more so than maybe any other position. I mean, take a look at Roberta Lohongo in the career he had and just how consistent he was right up until last season. When, you know, the bottom, I think, fell out of a lot of goaltenders in Florida in terms of what was going on in front of them and the injury troubles that he was playing through. I mean, the guy was just, you could just count on him to be steady 9-18 and he maintained that for a long time. Like, consistency matters in this position because when you're counted on, you can't, I mean, you can't have a massive dip. Like, you can't just fall off and have a bad year because they're not going to count. on you. Unless you have a track record of 10 good ones,

pretty quick they're not going to be counting on you for the year following. So it's tough. There is a lot of volatility. You know, I feel like it's really hard until you've played that number one role and started 60 games or it used to be 65 plus until you've done it. You haven't done it. We take a look at Grubauer. There's a guy who's shown an ability to get on second half hot streaks and look as good as anyone in the league. Does that mean he can do it for a full year?

well, I watch, when I watch him play when he's playing well, and I'm like, yeah, I mean, the strengths and the weaknesses are all there, even when he's playing well. Right. I don't have the answer for why he can't do that in the first half. And because he hasn't done it, as much as when I watch him, it's like, well, he should be able to do this from October through November or December as well. Right. But until you do, you haven't.

So, and then there's the question of numbers. Like, yeah, Freddy's a workhorse. but do we can we not just the guy that play 35 and it's like well that was only 35 well god like number one's now 50 right like there aren't many guys playing 60 anymore so do you even need that factor well and the other thing that kind of complicates matters for us here is um i remember when i had you on the show last time where it was kind of like during the playoff preview slash like year round up vezna talk and we were getting into martin jones and his struggles and sort of how people viewed him as a liability for the sharks in terms of their cup contending status.

And we were talking about sort of how, while he certainly was struggling, a lot of it could be chalked up to the fact that the team in front of him was hanging him out to dry sometimes, particularly with backdoor stuff and the lanes they were opening up and sort of how they were playing. Rush is odd, man, a lot of lateral plays. I think, did we talk, now you refresh my memory. When we talked last time, had I done my playoff preview to that? I don't think you hadn't published it, but I feel like you had like

started going through the numbers and you were sort of crunching. Because Jones was one where it was just, I started watching the goals. And so I'm charting every goal he gives up so that I can, you know, look for tendencies and match them to, well, look for trends and match them to tendencies. So is he giving up goals from a certain area? Is he giving up goals in a certain area, you know, like the Miko Koskin and High Glove thing? Right. And what types of plays are leading to him?

I just like, especially midway through the season, it was just like, you know, odd man rush, backdoor pass through a seam, one-timer, you know, like not much. You honestly, I never say no chance. Right. Because how the goal he plays it will determine whether he gave himself a chance quite often. Is he super aggressive on the shooter and doesn't give himself a chance to get across, things like that? But man, there are a lot that were checked off in the box where it's like would have been a hell of a save if he made it.

and I just felt like I was constantly looking at those types of chances. Now, what happens there, so A, those are tough goals and they hurt his numbers, but you face enough of them and it starts to bleed into other areas of your game. When you see enough quality, you start to anticipate that seam pass. You know, that defenseman is supposed to take away that pass on the two-on-one? Well, you stop trusting that he's going to and you start leaning and you start cheating. And that's when the guy coming down the wing, short side sees it and beats you on the short side and everybody goes, oh, I know that was a two-on-one,

but that was a terrible goal. I mean, it's like, I feel like I'm describing playing goal for the Edmonton Oilers for the past four or five years, but there was a lot of that when I watched Jones's game. Like the environment in front of him mattered. What was interesting is two years ago, when I looked at the numbers from Clearside Analytics, that environment was already there.

That had already started to take hold in San Jose. I mean, I think it's tied in part to defensemen who are exceptional in terms of generating offense, but it comes at the cost sometimes of odd man rushes the other way. And Jones's adjusted numbers factoring for that were still in the top 10, I think even flirting with top five of the league. And his raw numbers, like you look at his raw numbers and people say,

well, this started two years ago. And I look at the adjusted numbers. I'm like, actually two years ago, he managed to compete in a crappy and tough environment really well. But then last year it's like he couldn't keep it up. And it makes me again think of Edmund. Like I think it's cumulative. Again, when I talk about that trust factor,

if those plays that aren't supposed to get through or that guy's supposed to be there or you're only supposed to worry about this and nobody else takes care of that often enough, it's really hard to sort of trust that environment and trust guys to be where they're supposed to be. It bleeds into your game. It becomes cumulative. And again, you know, if there's a, it's, we talk Stockholm syndrome. I call that oiler syndrome. And again, that's probably not fair to where the oilers are at right now.

They've made some changes. But like for so long, we saw goalies leave there and perform better. well, in part because the environment was better. Well, then look at just, I feel like the best test case scenario for this is everything that happened with the Islanders last year, where it's like the year before, both Grice and Halak had like league worst numbers. Dude, all-star game. They was like playing, and it was fun to watch as a fan, right?

Like even the goalie and me cringe, but it was just a track meet back and forth. How many goals get squads? Like I say this all the time, right, golly's got to get smaller. Goleys are too good. I'm like, you ever watch an all-star game? You open it up and play a track meet. Pucks are going to go in the net. The Islanders two years ago played that way.

Well, then they went the opposite way, and they end up with the Vesna finalist, and Thomas Grice playing in a similar number of games wasn't far behind statistically. What got Robin Lainer a nod for the Veson. Truby funny, Craig Anderson's in town right now. We're here in Vancouver, and the senators are in for a preseason game. I had lunch with Craig the other day, and we sat down and did a big, long interview for the Ingole radio podcast. And one of the things he talked about, and Craig's a guy who's pure reaction guy, like more instinct than technique and one of the best. And really when he talks about reading shooters, reading visual cues, not just tracking the puck,

how the ham pitches and changes, the eyes, the hips, knowing where a shot is going before it's off the stick blade kind of thing. And he just flat out said, if you give today's NHL players a chance to walk down the slot and tee up their shot from the hash marks down, they are going to score unless they miss their shot. If they hit their shot, they are scoring almost every time. That's just the reality of it.

So how many times you give up, those looks are going to affect your goalies numbers. Robin Lainer last year. Look at the numbers he had. When he was in town, we had a long chat about how that environment improved. And there are lots of different ways. Mitch Korn and his work with Barry Trott is not just about getting the goalies to play a certain way. It's about getting the goalies on the same page as the defense. Knowing Robin Lainer, knowing that on a play coming off the half wall or walking into the circle, that everything is funneled toward a certain area. So I have to pick aside on the screen in front to me, I pick short side because I know that there's bodies clogging that lane in the middle.

If I have to choose between one and the other to find the puck, I'm picking short side because I know somebody else is taking care of the middle. I know if my defenseman blocks a shot, he's not just randomly popping in front of it. He's taking away the far side lane and the short side is mine. That level of detail and communication and guys executing on it so that you can trust it to happen, that's huge. The other thing Lainter point he made to me, odd man rushes.

We just talked about Jones and odd man rushes. Robin Lainer said, in Buffalo, I would see three or four odd man rushes a game. Even if I'm playing well, if those passes are getting through and they're really good chances, odd man rushes,

I'm probably still letting one in. If I'm having an off night, maybe two in. I see one odd man rush every second game here with the New York Islanders. Like that's a difference over two games. Maybe he's exaggerating, but there's a difference between six to eight chances in Buffalo and won every two games. And those are high quality chances.

And Lainer's like, so there's a grain of salt for Robin Lanner in Chicago. He can play absolutely as well as he did with the Islanders this year. Right. And his numbers will not be the same, especially if they continue to play defensively like they did the past couple of years. And he's not any worse. Is he a worst goaltender this year?

No, the environment changes. Yeah. And I would say that that's a really funny example because I'd say I compare the 2018-19 Blackhawks to those 2017-18 Islanders you're just talking about in terms of like people point to the defensive liabilities on their in terms of their blue line and that's certainly one thing I think you can only do so much without a certain amount of talent I'd say the other element is they just had no plan in terms of guys just chasing the puck no one had a man no one had their sticks down

no one was breaking stuff up and that's a nightmare to play in as a goalie I'm sure as we're just talking about right now and so I think with adding Calvin Dahan and olimata and kind of giving Jeremy Cawton a full season and not having him take over midseason from Joel Quenville, I'm sure that'll help. But going from the situation he was in last gender, Barry Trots in that system to this Black Hawk situation, even if they do improve, that's night and day. And I'm really fascinated to see what his numbers look like,

how he holds up, what the narrative is there, because I think the range of outcomes is pretty much endless in that case. Yeah, and to me the fascinating part is like I'm watching for the same thing. things, right? I'm watching Semmel. Like, Semien Varlamov has an incredible amount of talent. Right. Now, the way he moves, and Mitch Cornell fix this up a little bit, as much as he can in a short period of time. But the way he moves is a lot of open and close in his movement. And it puts a lot of stress on his body. And so injuries have been a part of his life. I think since he had the hip surgery, it's probably been better. But incredible skill level, if he can rein it in, like,

I wouldn't be surprised if Samin Varlamov, who should already have a Veznautro. trophy. Right. 2014, all due respect to Tuka Rask, Varlamov was the best goalie in the league. I mean, what's he going to be like in that environment? Like, he could be a Vezna finalist right behind Robin Lanner. But here's the one caveat. Not every, and this is why even if we have the best numbers, even if we could break

down scoring chances accurately, and like I said, I'm biased towards CSA, ClearSide Analytics, because in part, like, I've seen, I like the sport logic and the way they funneled things. What they're missing to me is screens and traffic, and they don't account for that, at least as far as I've seen. So that's why, that's the one extra element that I like there. Even with those level of numbers, who's to say that Varlamov, his peak performances don't come when he's busy. And this is one that I know drives people crazy, but the idea that it can be harder to play goal when you don't see a lot of shots. I mean, it's absurd. Who wants to see more shots, that's ridiculous. And it's a skill, it's a talent that has to sometimes be developed to be able

to play your game and not come outside of your element, to be able to focus when you're not busy, when you're not feeling pucks, when you're not feeling shots. The reality is not every goalie handles it very well. So that may be an adjustment that his environment's going to get easier. No question than it was in Colorado. Right. But is he the best goalie behind that environment? I don't have the answer. Hunches, yes, he'll have better numbers. But there are other factors like that that can play into it. And we can't always know how it's going to affect. Curtis Joseph is the prime example.

And I know I'm going back, but look at how dominant he was behind sort of loose teams. Right. And look how much he struggled when he was seeing almost no rubber with the red wings. Like that was, that surprised a lot of people. But it showed you that sometimes there's a mentality,

there's a mental skill set even that suits one style or one level of play and maybe doesn't translate as well for every guy behind a different system or a different style of. play. Well, do you think there's a sort of a psychological element to, like, let's say you're a goalie who's prone to how you're talking about Leonard, like, he's kind of like, if you have a mental lapse or you have an off night where you just misread a player or a shot beats you, it happens all the time. If you're facing 22 shots and you're prone to making that one mistake, your numbers are going to look a lot worse than if you're facing 35 shots and you're still as locked in. Like, I feel like

there's an element there as well where like facing more shots, assuming you are a certain caliber goalie probably gives you more wiggle room to do your thing and show what you're capable. Right. And in some ways, too, like being on a bad team, like there's no pressure too, right? Like margin for error, right? Like how a guy handles that. I always call it the Mika Kippersoft test because I used to ask this question back when Kipper was playing behind the Daryl Sutter coach teams where defense was at a premium.

But it came at the expensive offense, right? Like they really focused on their own end, but you didn't have a lot of run support. And so I used to ask goalies all the time around that era. They'd come through town and be like, which would you rather have? A team that gives up more but can score or a team where you know they're going to be like airtight. And Calgary was the example. But your margin for error is almost nothing because if you do give one up, it's going to be a struggle to score two to win. And almost every guy, and maybe I need to find another example and pull the whole league again.

But almost every guy back then suggested that they would rather be behind a team that, yeah, they don't, they don't want firewagon hockey, they don't want an all-star game. They quite frankly don't want the islanders of two years ago defensively. But yeah, like the pressure of playing behind a team that can't score can affect guys in a negative way. Most of them, I thought it was curious,

almost all of them actually, said they would rather have a team that gives up more chances, keeps them in the game, but has a little margin for air because you know they can score their way out of a mistake, the added pressure of knowing you have to be perfect. Some guys struggle with that. So I feel like as we move this conversation along, sometimes with...

I'm kind of meandering on you. My fault. No, no, no, no. I love this. I love this. We have all day to do this. I feel like sometimes with certain storylines or certain kind of cute narratives or trends in the league, sometimes we can make too much of them or overblow them or if everyone's

talking about it all the time, it kind of becomes a bit overrated. But something we've been talking about for the past couple of years is teams realizing that you probably don't want to play your starting goalie 65, 70 times in a year if you have playoff aspirations. and moving towards his 50-50 split. And I thought last year was a really interesting test case for that where the sharks with Martin Jones starting 62 times and the Blue Jackets with Sergey Mabrovsky starting 61 times

were the only two teams who won a playoff round with their goalie starting more than 45 times. And that might be a bit of an aberration next year. We could very easily see four or five teams with a goalie starting 60 times, have success. But I do think it's interesting that... Well, I don't even know we're going to see four or five teams the goalie starting 60 times.

Well, let's get into that then. I mean, what are the teams that kind of jump to you in terms of like the most successful, surprising goalie storylines? It's like Dallas with Ben Bishop and Hudobin, Boston with Halak and Rask, and the Islanders, I'd say, with Robin Leonard and Grice. And those are like legitimately like down the middle 50-50 splits.

And if it is a copycat league and if teams are paying attention around the league, wouldn't that make the argument that, like if you're a team that has, obviously if you're paying Sir Gibboroski $10 million a year, maybe you're incentivized to play him more to kind of get your bang for your buck. But for most teams, if you have, let's say, a 1A, 1B approach and you're comfortable with both guys, I feel like at least 50 to 32 or something like that is pretty much a lock for most teams.

I mean, we used to see the, we'd hear a lot about nothing more than 60. Now it's kind of more, I think the ideal is probably 55 as a max, even for a workhorse. The reality is how you get their matters. We've seen teams where the guy stays under 60, I think of Toronto, where, yeah, Freddie, but he was hurt for a stretch. So if you play him at a 75 game pace for the last two and a half months of the season, because he missed time in October or November, I don't have it in front of me. But that's just an example. But then you play him at a 75 game pace for the last two and a half months if you really manage his workload. We saw that with Vasilevsky a couple years ago where he admitted he was worn out.

But then last year I felt like they arrested him down the stretch at the expense maybe of his tempo and his timing. Like you have to find that balance. And there are no absolutes. That's the one thing I love about goal tending. There are no absolutes. There's no one way to play the position. There are no one keys that are definitive for every single guy. But there are absolutely trends that tend to hold up.

A goalie who is more active tends to be less consistent. consistent, a goalie who plays a more technical, found, technically sound foundational base, probably have more consistency. There'll be less highs and lows. The start thing, it's interesting to me, this is just a trend now. Like, because, dude, go back and do the math,

like, I think it's 0405. Yeah. Like, this should not be a new trend. Like, it was number of goalies over 60 that win a cup or even get to the, like, this is, the writing has been on the wall here for a long time. We're just seeing more teams pay attention to it. in part because there's more talent at the backup position.

Despite the fact some teams can't find a backup, there is more talent, you know, top to bottom. And we're seeing more teams give young guys a shot at those opportunities than in the past. So I can't remember what the question is because I'm really wandering. But I think in terms of teams that are just going to ride a guy into the ground, I worry about San Jose because they seem to, despite saying all the right things in the preseason, and they seem to down the stretch last year lose a little faith in Arentel.

Yeah. I worry about Toronto because they just seem to not listen to themselves on this one on an annual basis with Frederick. Which is interesting because you'd argue they're probably like one of the most sort of forward thinking slash like they constantly cite like that aside. At the end of the day though, I mean the coach.

I did. Yeah. They're seen. I mean, I don't know. you'd probably know better than me even what advice is being given and how far they stray from what they think the ideal is from a sports science

and model level. But at the end of the day, if the coach doesn't trust the back. If he doesn't trust the backup, you know, he gives the quotes all the time, right? The other guy's got to earn those stories. He's got to be, you know, he's got to be able to play, right? I did think they mismanaged their goalie situation last year. If

you want to keep a guy and get him through waivers and send him to the minors, you do it early. Like how many guys have gotten through waivers early because teams haven't run into problems? I know it was probably bad luck that they sent two down and both got claimed. But by waiting until the end of the preseason, if Sparks was your guy the whole way,

make that decision early and you're getting through waivers. By waiting, you just allowed other teams to run into injury problems. And that's more likely to occur with goaltending the further along we get into a preseason. So I worry about them. I worry about Florida. Yeah. Bob's capable. I know there are some people out there that sounded the alarm bell about Sergei's injury history when he was given that contract. And obviously there is a long history of groin injuries. But we had a story by Catherine Silverman at Ingole magazine that kind of took a look at this. And the reality is, and a lot of people wrote about it three years ago. up until three years ago,

I think it was over 62 games missed over a three-season span because of lower body slash groin injuries. Since three years ago, not a single game missed because of lower body or groin injuries. What changed? He lost 17 pounds of muscle. He changed the way he trained in the off season and the story we had from Catherine Silverman.

In addition to documenting that he hasn't missed a single game, why are you guys stressing about it? Right. outline the work, some of the work, but mostly the two guys he started working with that summer, a couple of Finnish guys, one a goalie coach and one an off-season trainer with a little, some martial arts foundations in there. Bob found a formula that works. It's like the whole goalies don't evolve thing. Right. Bob evolved, I mean, Bob evolved in Columbus immensely.

You go look at footage of him in Philly and look at footage in Columbus, like his stance, his mechanics, the biomechanics, the way he moves, everything changed. Well, he also evolved his off-season and he hasn't made. to game since. So I'm not worried about injuries, but just from a workload management, I look at that depth chart, and I look, and I see Sam Montembo, and I see Chris Dreger, and I feel like their team that should maybe looking at a little more experience in the backup position, just because Samuel Montembo doesn't require waivers. That was a model that I thought was established nicely in the last couple of years. The Rangers did it with Georgiev. The Predators did it with Soros.

I think Columbus was actually doing it with Columbus is doing it with Corpie for a couple of years there And there's one other one that I'm missing But the idea being, if you don't require, Like you can be our backup. Yep. But if we don't, you're still young enough that you don't need waivers, we're still going to send you to the A.

Like if our number one gets on a two-week role And you haven't played in two weeks And we know he's going to play a game on, say, Saturday night Then we call up the third stringer from the A. He sits on the bench while our starter plays on a Saturday night. You go down on the minor leagues and get two games in, you know, three nights. And I just don't know that Florida's left themselves that window. I don't know that sitting and watching Bob is the best thing for Montembo's development. And even if Montembo's

ready, like I just think you use that year where you don't require waivers and you have a, the other reality is, I think seven teams, last time I did the math on it, I think there were only seven teams out of 31 last year that didn't need three goalies. Chances are you're going to need three. And so I'd want to have a depth chart that goes three deep, even if I trust Bob's I remember the Red Wings used to do with Mrazik a bit too, like when he was on his way up with, when Howard was handling most of the starts. So the parallel for me here, and I'm not the first person to make this, but, you know, like this movement in the NFL, in over the past however many years of like how much our running backs really worth, if we can just plug and play them,

why should we pay a certain guy? You're going to get me in trouble here. Derek. Well, so hang with me here for a second. And we've seen like the contracts are down for them, the investments for them are down. And maybe this is the wrong year to be. bringing it up after the Panthers just signed a goalie to 70 million and spent a first round pick on a guy. So maybe they're trying to zig while other teams are zagging. But when I was doing research for this podcast, what I'd noticed on Cap Friendly, which was really interesting to me was there's only 18 goalies in the league right now that are on contracts of four years or more, or at the time they signed them. So in terms of that length,

only nine of those guys still have more than two years left on their deal. And so what we're seeing a lot of is most teams have sort of not necessarily wise up to it, but have kind of taken stock of the fact that maybe signing a goalie to a five-year deal, six-year deal, when we're not sure what he's going to look like three years later and whether we can find a cheaper replacement for half the price is the smartest thing to do. Do you think we're going to keep trending in that direction? Do you think there's going to be a kind of a pushback? Like we've seen in the NFL, I feel like it's still like a raging argument and the running backs themselves are furious and Todd Gray.

About Melvin Gordon, right? Yeah, exactly. Do you think we're going to see some of that with goalies and some of this, like, whether it's going to go too far and then the goalies are going to start holding out or asking for more? Or do you think, like, the NHL is just an entirely different animal? The one thing is that all it takes is one. Yeah. And Florida had a need, and they were that one this year.

Yeah. At the risk of losing my goalie union membership card, is why I joke that you're going to get me in trouble. You've probably heard me say it. And, you know, locally here on Sports Talk Radio, have weekly hits there. There are two things. I've had goalie coaches some of the best in the league tell me off the record, again, because they don't want to lose their card. They won't put their name on it.

Yeah. If they were given a choice between the team that they're the goalie coach, their team can have one, two, three down the middle, three great centers. Yeah. a really solid top four on D or a superstar goaltender. They're taking the top four on D every time. Yeah. And they'll build the goaltender that can play behind it. Right.

So when it comes to spending big, if you have a good team, you don't necessarily need to. Now, in terms of term, I've said that for years. Like, term is the one thing that scares me with goaltending. And it's not because I didn't, like, I recognize there's volatility within the position. and that's what makes the prices and the Luongos and the Bobroski so valuable because of their ability, not just to play at a high level, but their ability, you know,

when you see some of the advanced numbers, to play above their environment, to outperform their environment for any length of time and consistently. That's why they warrant those things long ago, a 12-year contract. Right. But even among the good ones, even if you are counting on that goalie and you just believe absolutely in your heart,

everything he does, the way he trains everything, this guy's not going to falter on me? Yeah. The game changes. Yeah. We're at the mercy of like rule changes, penalties or one. Like look at how goal interference has gone the last couple of years. Right.

Jonathan Quick has changed the way he plays because of goalie interference calls. He has less aggressive because they can't get that call outside of the blue ice anymore. So they've backed off his positioning because if he gets in, like, A, you run into injury risks if you're in contact with other guys out there you're sort of you're getting beat up a lot more it's physically more demanding you're not getting that call anymore yeah used to be remember tim thomas famously in the 2011 if i get there first it's my ice and by the rule book it was yes we're not calling it that way anymore so that's just one small example equipment changes the speed of the game laterly now you have to be a skater who can hold your edges well there are guys who were

signed to contracts that that that may have had success playing a different way that if that contract lasts through an evolution like that offensively, I don't know that they're going to have success. And so the way the game changes, as much as maybe even as much of or more so than goaltending volatility is why I would be very wary of term. That said, when you find a guy, I get it. Like Winnipeg and Hellebuck. After all those years and all the struggles and Pavlik and everything that went on, they had their guy. And guys believed him in the room.

They thought he could be that guy. They think he can be that guy. So they locked him in. Well, we'll see now that Neil Pionk and Tucker Pullman are the defensemen in front of them. We'll see how they're feeling about that investment. Interestingly enough, the year he was a Vesna finalist. We talked about this. Again, the advanced numbers,

they did a very good job as a team of funneling everything in straight lines. and the lateral plays he just didn't face as many as most, right? And so that fed into those numbers. The adjusted numbers that year for him based on CSA, when you added factors like that in, he dropped closer to 16th. 17th was a guy named Jacob Markstrom.

Yeah. Right? So when I just read something today where someone said like, I think the write-up was that Markstrom was a 9-12 last year and the 9-12 the year before, like he looks better, but nothing changed.

And I'm like, CSA's got him at top five in goals saved above average when you adjust for shock quality. Something did change. The environment went to crap, and he still performed in a 9-12. Like, whether it's eye test

or digging into the numbers, Jacob Martyrum was better last year than the year before. Right. And all the raw numbers that are presented publicly look identical. I don't know,

a single, pro-goly coaches in the elevator out of the press box whispering to me last year, he looks like a completely different. in goal. And he is. He made all these technical changes. Now, I live and work in this market, so I've been asked, can he keep it up? I'm not sure. The whole defense has changed. And like I said, they should be better defensively on paper. But again, but there's more variables. Right. Some

goalies are just, sometimes there, and I'm not saying Jacob. Yeah. I'm not saying that at all. But there's such a thing as a good, bad team goalie. Yeah. And when the environment changes or the shots get less, they struggle to adjust. I don't think that's going to be him. But, I mean, I mean, if the value of my thoughts on something were worth anything, you know, I'd be making a lot more money than I do, right? All right, Kevin, let's take a quick break here to hear from a sponsor, and then we're going to do our rankings on the other end of things. Sponsoring today's episode of the HockeyPedio guest is Seatkeek.

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Someone's tuning in and they're like, I can't wait to find out about the top 10. Hopefully you've stuck around. We're going to do it now. Kevin, since you're the guest, I'll allow you to guide the start of this conversation. Who, are there any names that you want to put in this list that you can't because you want to see more of it?

We were talking during the break about Antiranta, Henrik Lundquist. There's some names where it's like you probably can't squeeze. them into this top 10, but, uh, especially with Rantam, maybe this time next year he could be in this list. Yeah, hey, like part of the job is actually being able to show up for work. Just look at Michael Newberth and the, and the Toronto Maple Leafs and that PTO ending. I mean, Newverth has talent. He just can't stay healthy. The ability to be in the net is part of the job description. There's a reason it took me half an hour or half an hour plus here to get to the ranks because I

hate rankings. Um, but to me, any ranking, uh, still has to start. Um, or at least in the top two, because I think Vasaleski's in the conversation now as the best goaltender in the world, but Price is right there with him. And I know a lot of the rankings have him lower, quite a bit lower. Again, when I look at the adjusted numbers last year,

there was only one guy that, based on shot quality, as analyzed by CSA, saved more goals for his team than Andre Vaselowski, and that was Kerry Price. And that's despite trying to play through an injury early, in the season and not playing well at all for the first month of the season before taking some time off, like down the stretch he was good. And I know they didn't get him in the playoffs and I know they're not a good team, but I like to me, he's still in there. There's a reason that players on those

player polls answer carry, you know, the one goalie that they can't beat or they wouldn't least want to face. There's still a lot to love about his game. Yeah. And I think if you dig deeper into the numbers, there's still a lot to love about his performance behind a team that frankly, would probably be fighting for top five picks without him. Yeah, his final, like, 30 or so odd games were incredible last year. Yeah. And I think that was, I'm sure Mark Bergerzian was breathing a sigh of relief because I believe either last year was the first year or this year is the first year,

I forget, of that mega extension kicking in. And when you're, like, staring at whatever, seven or eight years down the barrel and you're viewing this recent injury history and the numbers plummeting, like the fact that he looked like care. Perry Price again of old is very encouraging for not only him but just the Canadians outlook this year and moving forward because you say they're not a good team. I think they're actually really solid. I mean, clearly like their power play last year was an abomination. Too much Shia Weber. I don't know what the plan was there. But five on five, they're great. And if you're telling me

they're going to get a vintage carry price season or something resembling it, I would feel much better about them fighting for that kind of fourth place in Atlantic slash wildcard out east. And the only thing I can't account for is health, right? Because I do. Do you think that was a big part of having spent some time with him this summer? That was a big part of the slow start last year was health and playing through some things and the pressure of trying to play through those things when you have that contract and those expectations and you are the guy and they didn't, you know, talk about teams that didn't have a safety valve behind them. For sure, that was one last year.

I'm a little nervous about the safety valve they have now in Keith Kincaid. So I thought that was an interesting decision. and yet some time with Steph Waite, and it'll be interesting to see what kind of year he has behind Cary Price under that pressure. That's one he does seem to deal with very well. I don't see Keith Kincaid folding at all or being affected by the environment,

and that matters in Montreal. But back to the ranking. So we agree that Vasaleski and I've got price probably higher than anybody else would, but to me those are number one and two. I've got Gibson and number one. Okay. Tell me why I'm wrong. Speaking of you've got to actually be able to,

be in the game and playing the game. I've got probably Bob in the conversation. Where do you have Gibson? You know what? He's probably right around in that five range for me. I think we're talking, we spent a lot of the first 30 minutes on sort of the psychological element of it. And I imagine, especially on these Randy Carlisle Ducks teams, I'm very curious to see how it works under Dallas Aiken's moving forward.

But I imagine he was entering those games being like, I have to make like 38 saves today on high quality shots, just to give this team a chance. And for the first like four or five weeks of the season, he was doing it. And he was just out of this world. Like he was on pace to break every single goal saved above average record. We have. Cumulative, right?

Things accumulate. Eventually you get worn down. And then he just fell apart both physically, mentally, I'm sure, combination of that. And so his overall numbers don't look as great. But it's like, it was such a mess in front of them that I imagine I'm giving him a bit of sort of slack there. And the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. He's probably not as great as he looked at the start of the year.

But yeah, he's, listen, he's a top five guy. Yeah. I would have him in that conversation right behind my top tier of Price Vasilevsky, Berberovsky. Yeah. He has all the skill in the world. There's a looseness in his game that has gotten better over the past couple of years. And yet if you're, if you're the goalie coach down there,

Soudre Shah Maharaj, very conscious of not part of the, like, there's a looseness technically that you, that you don't want. want to, there's elements of it. You don't want to tighten them up too much. Right. Because that's part of what makes them special. And that's a real tough thing for a goalie coach too. Well, to me, last year I think the inability to stay healthy.

There were more fluke injuries and more just like you said, he just got worn down by the barrage of constant rubber. Up until that point, though, I wasn't surprised that he got hurt. Because when you watch him move, there are just elements where for lack of a better way of describing it, he pulls his body apart when moving and when making saves. He does not move in one piece

as well as he could at times and he opens and reaches in ways that put stress on his body that had me not surprised that he had injuries. But I also understand he's revamped the way he trains as well. Like I don't see that as an absolute

can't fix thing. Like his skill set is it's off the charts. I mean, he has the ability to make saves that just second chances and things like that that, you know, is elite. He also tracks Pucks very well in certain situations. And in other situations, like I said, body parts are going in completely different directions and you don't know how he does it, but he does it.

So I'm less, like I see the analytic evidence of how good he was early last year. I do think, you know, like I said, we talked about Newworth. We talked about Rant. Right. Being able to play the game. It's key, yeah. It is a big part of the position, especially if you're going to be a number one guy.

And so I guess I just need to see him make it through a season healthy, and it will be nice to see him on a decent team, because you're right. That environment has been really tough on him. I'm probably also just sticking to my guns a little bit because I said Anaheim traded the wrong goalie. I like Freddie Anderson better. So Gibson's just playing so well makes me look bad,

so I'm just back on myself here. I've got both guys in my top five. So that's, I mean, that was clearly a good problem from the have. But you know what's interesting to me, And it was almost like sort of talent evaluators at the position and GMs and GMs vote for the Vesna. He, in 2016, he tied Martin Jones for seventh place in the Vesna voting. That's the best finish he's ever had, which is kind of comical to me, considering I think anyone you talk to would probably agree with us that he should be somewhere in that top five, even if you don't have a number one. Where did Price finish in the Vesna voting this year?

Oh, I don't know. I mean, I could pull it up there. Should have been a finalist, just based on the, you know, same kind of. kind of the conversation, right? And the numbers I have, like the numbers I saw had him, like I said, one of the few guys ahead of us. Well, especially when you look at the workload, like in terms of how much he faced and how much he played compared to some of the other guys with 40-ish starts. Yeah. So on that, this is, I mean, the Vesna, the Vesna has almost become, it's really tough because, you know, for the longest time, they wouldn't give it to a goalie

whose team didn't make the playoffs. And then, you know, Roberto should have won at no four, frankly, like, hands down. Then they do it with Bob. So now that's no longer a prerequisite. Now we're talking about, you know, the sort of, what's the standard, what's the minimum number of starts to win that trophy. And that's coming down significantly. Just a couple of years ago, there are guys who had great seasons, but all they didn't play enough, that a year from now, that they might have, you know, like flurry.

Yeah. Not last year, but the year before. Oh, but he didn't play enough. Well, two years from now, that threshold may have changed where that should have been enough games. So I worry less about the Vezna. So just to go back to the list, yeah, I'd have Gibson in that conversation. I have Freddie Anderson.

Yep. in that conversation with Vasileleski, with Price, with Bob, you know, at the top of the league, with Ben Bishop as well. So those first are my top five and then I had Bishop at six. Yeah, that actually, that kind of works for me. You're okay with that? We talk about environment. Yep.

And Ben Bishop played behind a favorable one in Dallas last year. You can't deny that. Play behind a food opens numbers. Exactly. Like that's one of the things. It's not fair to always look at the difference between a starter and a backup as an absolute because sometimes you have a good backup. Right.

But the reality is, much like Lainer and Grice, the numbers weren't all that different. That's why, to me, with Dallas, I mean, as an aside, I just love the foresight they had as a team. Anton Hu Dobin's perfect there. Anton Hu Dobin might not be the best goalie to play every two weeks. Right. But if you need him for two straight weeks, he can play at a high-end number one level. And when Ben Bishop's your number one... you're going to need a guy for two straight weeks. You know, you're going to need a guy for two straight weeks at some time.

And again, the interesting thing here with Bish is when I talk about Gibson and the way he moves and the way, counter-rotation is an element reaching, legs moving one way, torso moving the other, hands moving opposite of legs in movement. That's the thing I mean by counter-rotation. Those are all elements that sort of pull you apart through the core. and there's a lot of that in Bishop's game. And so again, plus he's so long. He's got such great reach and size. And length is something in goaltending that. Ian Clark talks a lot about that here in Vancouver. It's not just about height.

It's about length. And the ability to sort of reach and extend and stay compact, not open up to do so. That's a lot of pressure on the joints, both because of his length and because of how tall he is, but also because of the way he moves. So are we surprised at this point that Ben Bishop's, going to miss time. No, we shouldn't be. But great job by the Dallas stars to find a guy

because, you know, there are some guys who are great every two weeks and some guys who can be great for two straight weeks. Houdoman's not at his best every two weeks, but he can still be a good enough. And if you need him for two weeks or even a month, absolutely, he showed it last year. So at the end of the day, Bishop also, too, is a guy who I feel like if you were evaluating him technically, I've done minor hockey goalie evaluations. And I've, actually, I used to. I don't do it anymore because I remember saying one year, this kid looks the least like a goalie, but he has the most instinct and raw skill of any of them. If you give him a little help, he'll pass them all. And he's always the first kid cut to house. That's an exaggeration to say

that that's been bishop, but there are elements in Bishop's game that, you know, they're not what you would pick from a technical aspect or from a, you know, this is how you want to do it aspect, but he gets it done. There are other parts of his skill set beyond just his size too, because everybody thinks it's just his size, beyond his size. You ever seen him hit a baseball? There's a raw skill there in athleticism, not sprawling, not diving, I mean instinct and reading and having good hands that allows him to continuously be in these conversations near the top of the league, despite all the evidence that, you know, if he were playing out as a 12-year-old, we might be the, he might be, like I said, the first one cut to house.

And I don't mean to make light of it that way. Certainly nobody's cutting Ben Bishop. But technically, that's not his strength. And yet he's continuously near the top of the league in those other aspects. I mean, on the one hand, like 37, 51, and 45 are his games played over the past three years. On the other hand, we just talked about how the league's going, trending towards a 50-50 split. And at some point, if that's the case and you're telling me I'm going to get 45 great games of Ben Bishop, that is especially if you do have an Anton Hood open that's like enough for me I don't think

in the current goalie landscape in NHL um if we were having this conversation five years ago and like all the other candidates were playing 20 more games than him maybe I dock him in this list but if you're going to get if I'm going to have 45 games resembling anything close to what we saw last year he needs to be somewhere in this five six seven range he just gets it done yeah right he just absolutely gets it done okay so I really struggle after uh like I felt pretty good about this top six of uh gipson vasselovsky bobrowski anderson bishop uh price in some order after that like what do you what do you do you do here like it's tough this is where it gets a little murky right like um there's a mix of names tuka's a name that gets in there based on consistency

longevity hasn't doesn't always play at a high level i think he's a guy who is perfectly suited to less workload. That hasn't always been the case earlier in his career. You saw it with Hudobin and now with Yarrow. Again, great investment by the Bruins to recognize that they'll get more wins because they've got a backup that can win, but they'll get more out of Rask playing less. I call it it it diminishing returns, right? We saw it with Markstrom here.

You could see as he made changes in his game as they started to become more instinctual and innate, he got better. But the longer he played, the more he played, the more he played. without a break, they would slip. And so what I credit the Canucks goalie coaching and their coaching staff for supporting last year, even at a time when Nilsson was here and wasn't winning, hadn't won in like months, they would start him because they recognize that if you keep going back to Markstrom, you're going to get increasingly diminishing returns, give him two days off, give him some time

with a goalie coach, let's reset some of those technical elements that had slipped, and let's give him up, that's get him back out there at 100% rather than seeing 80, 75, 70, if we give him the next restarts. To me, there's an element to that in Tuka. He's better suited in more of a job share running him out there too often. He was brilliant in the playoffs last year. But that defense in front of them, like I was key in on them quite a bit. I mean, the work that they did is going back to the whole Martin Jones thing in terms of their end zone coverage and stopping east-west passes and blocking that lane. Like, I imagine as a goalie being able to just be a bit more aggressive and square up a shooter knowing that there's someone behind you.

you covering you and you're not going to wind up looking foolish? Like that must help quite a bit, at least psychologically. Yeah, absolutely. But then when they did have a breakdown and you haven't been busy, the ability to be locked in, because there was still quite a few. Especially in that Columbus series, I thought he was, he stole a couple games there for them. Exactly. So I know there's a lot of Tuka haters out there.

I know the numbers might not favor him, but I'd probably have him in that next group. Mark Andre Fleury as well. I probably have Hopi higher up on that group. Really? You're not worried about the past two years? I worry about a little bit about last year. A little less so the year before. There's an interesting one.

He's got a year left on his deal. Yeah. And I imagine they want Ilya Samsonov at some point to play some games for them considering the investment they made in him. Yeah, that one's even more interesting. And... Well, they've also got, I think, Vanichek, right? Yeah, Vanek's more long-term project.

Yeah. But I mean, in terms of... the HL situation like they were pretty good there. It's just this Samsonoff, I mean, I can't remember the numbers he posted in the KHL, they were ridiculous, right? Like just off the charts and so everybody assumes he's ready, right? So

Washington brought in a consultant last year who does some things a little differently that actually, I worked at Hockey Canada this summer, Scott Murray came in and did a presentation. Scott Murray, the goalie coach of the Washington Capitals, and he walked us through how some of these new elements he applied to

Holpe's game, and it was a fascinating. Like I wish I could share this with the world. It was about a 20 minute presentation. Not just here's the changes we made, but here are the exact types of situations, the types of plays, the types of chances that were leading to goals. And here's his say percentage on those types of chances before we made the changes. Now, and here's some video evidence. Here's examples of what it looked like. Now here's the, here's us making the changes with video. Now here are his numbers in the playoffs on those types of chances. And by the way, some of the biggest moments of the playoffs are him making saves on those types of chances.

And you can see where he's arriving in control, whereas in the past he just stick a leg out and that's all he had. So you could sort of see that. It was really fascinating. Anyway, so the same consultant was in last year. And I had to do some prep video on Samsonoff for him. And how do I put this? It was ugly. Right.

It was really ugly. Like, to meet you. It's ugly. It's ugly. It was, I've done some of this prep video in the past. So the consultant goes in and knows what he's looking at, right? Like, what do we have to change here? And I'm not going to name a name, but there's probably only one other one that I was like,

oh my God. Like, how is this guy? And the other guy was an NHL goalie already. I'm like, how is he playing in the NHL? There was so much wasted movement. There was so much inefficiency. And I saw that in Samsonoff. And so I say that just because I think the process may be a little longer.

Now, the amazing thing is he was able to translate what he learned, despite having to translate it literally language-wise, and have a really good second half. Plus, you've read the stories about him getting comfortable down there. Both things seem to happen at the same time. I don't know. I can't tell you how much of it was the technical changes and how much of it was, you know, being able to, you know, go home at night and be comfortable in your own, you know, sort of this new country and all and the language and all those things. But I guess what I'm saying is there might be a curve there. and it may still take time. But also, at a time when we've got some other big Russian names coming over this year

and great things expected of them, listen, like, it doesn't, like, you don't have to be great over there to post great numbers on a great team. And Samsonoff is, there's raw skill there. Yeah. But the degree, the amount of raw that was still in his game, surprised the hell out of me, frankly. And I guess that's a good thing. Yeah.

Because what's the upside once you correct that? Yeah. But it's a sort of caveat in that you can't really count on that to be an overnight process. So I'm really curious to watch him this year. As far as how it affects Holpey, yeah, I mean, because if he can't and UFA and salary-kept situation. And expansion draft looming eventually. Like I feel like Colby was like a popular name, I guess because it was like, because of the whole Mark Andre Fleury thing of like Seattle's going to take him and he'll be there like veteran presence.

I had, I had prices, my Seattle guy with ties to the northwest. I'll throw that one out there. So Braden has an exceptional, when we talk about the different elements that make a goaltender great, Braden's vision is off the charts. Braden's peripherals are quite literally off the charts. I was told they had a lady come in

that tests pro athletes all over the place for their visual acuity and does all his tests. And he just, like, set new standards. His ability to play out of his peripheral is uncanny. What do you do? He's got a balance, though, is that sometimes playing out of your peripheral means opening and reaching versus your head leads your movement. It leads your rotation through your torso. It puts you on angle early.

And there are a lot of elements in that game that weren't there. So I think he has made strides. I was surprised at the inconsistency last year, but I do think a lot of that can be just, I mean, it's not easy coming off a cup. Yeah. You lose your defense-focused head coach. Use a little bit of the structure that was in front of. some personnel. Like, this is a big year for him, obviously.

My hunch is based on where, obviously, where you saw me rank him inside that top 10 still is that he'll make that adjustment. And not just because he's up for a contract because I think his ability, his physical tools, his visual ability and his ability to take something new and actually do it and translate it. His body control is like nothing I've ever seen. I was on the ice with him two summers ago, and he changed, like, movement, post-save and blocker execution in, like, three days, like, nothing I've ever seen. Now, he went away from it once

his season started and then built back elements, but his ability to do these things is uncanny. Like, he's elite-level skill, and I still think they're adding elements, and I expect to see continued growth out of him this season. Have you had a chance to watch Ascarov? I haven't as much as I'd like. I see what all the hype about. I get it. I've seen little snippets, but I haven't dug in enough to see whether this is, I think I talked about this last hour. Like rush is the next frontier. Yeah, yeah. And interestingly enough, it's because they, it'll be interesting to see how long it lasts. Let's put it that way. It's, it's less structured at a young age for these kids. So they don't get put into a box. They

don't get overtought technique at a young age. They learn how to read the game. Learn how to play the game. Their physical literacy develops because they play other sports. I've talked to a lot of these guys coming over and they talk about those elements, some old school elements in their training, and then they add the technique later. So I haven't talked to Ascroft. I don't know where he fits in, but there's a reason you're seeing late bloomer's like the kid that Carolina took this year. I was very much the same.

I really liked him in the draft this year. Loved him at the World Juniors. I mean, he outplayed Daniel Terrace off to earn that job. And you talk about teams that are deep in goal with prospects. Look at Columbus, with Merzleckins, with the Finnish kid that they've got over. And then also with Teresov. Like Teresov is a guy who, you know, I've had goalie coaches say he's Pecker-Rene, but with more structure at this stage than Peca had even late in his career.

And he didn't even get to start in the world juniors. You know, he wasn't the number one guy because this other guy comes out of nowhere. And it was like, oh, he's a late bloomer. He wasn't even on the draft list the year before. Like, everybody ignored him. And yeah, because sometimes when you're raw, you don't get those opportunities. Your numbers aren't great. but then you can still, let's put it this way.

For decades now, goalie coaches have told me, give me the raw skilled kid and I can add the technique versus the technical kid. It's like towards quote about Merz-Lakens. It's kind of the goalie coaching equivalent. Like you'd rather have a kid that's up the wall and you've got to pull him down rather than when you've got to kick his ass up the wall to get him going kind of thing.

That's, give me the one with the raw skill. I can refine that. The one that already has all the technique, which we see a lot more here in North America, sometimes you coach a bit of that skill out of them. Sometimes they just never had it in the first place, but because they were ahead, technically, they were able to succeed.

Those, that's not enough. I think King Clark said this to me. Again, we did a podcast with him recently, seven key elements of elite goaltending. And at the end of the day, I can't remember all seven off the top of my head. I haven't written down, but at the end of the day...

You're not having tattooed on yourself? I'm working on it. Technique just isn't enough on its own. You have to have an... other layer to succeed at the NHL level. And we saw it with guys who, out of the Kim and out of the Canadian programs that had success at World Junior 10 years ago that would get drafted,

then just couldn't translate as pros because the foundation of their success behind better teams at World Juniors and behind powerhouse teams in junior hockey was just based on sort of that technical foundation. It was enough there. It's not enough here anymore. It's not enough at the pro level. So I've got a couple quick rapid fire questions. We'll breeze through them before we get out of here.

get through top 10? I mean, so... Sixes Bishop, what did I have? I had. Flurry, Rask. Let's throw Pek-A in there. Really? Yeah, it's throwing me in the top ten,

just to piss people off. Okay. I'm down with that. I mean, I honestly had like a bunch of question marks here. If you wanted to tell me Robin Lennar, I'd be down. I thought, obviously, system aside, just the physical tools. But I mean... And again, we talk about refining physical tools later in your career.

Yeah. There's a guy who just, you know, there wasn't a lot of technical instruction earlier in his career. There were things in his game that needed to change that didn't. I think there were stages where it was because nobody was telling him or in a way that worked for him, but also he's his other, you know, some of the challenges he's had with mental health and with addiction earlier on.

Like, I don't know that he was ready to be willing to listen to all those changes. So it's not like I'm blaming goalie coaches here. But, yeah, I'd certainly have that argument for Lanner. I throw Rennie in there just because he can be such a polarizing figure. Well, and two years ago, to his credit, I was a critic of him for a while during that Stanley Cup final run, but he was legitimately took his game to another level. Yeah, and so funny, again, he made some biomechanical changes in stance that bled into other parts of his game in a positive manner. Didn't really try.

I think Rene's down turn there for years, and I know the analytics community was all over him, and fairly so. The numbers are the numbers, right? Like, I'm not going to argue them. But I do think a lot of it was the hip. He plays such an athletic style. It took him a while. Actually, it took UC Soros to sort of tone down some of that reliance on it.

If this kid who's 5 foot 10 can succeed by moving less, why am I at 6 foot 5 moving more? Am I moving out of the way? Things like that. But I also do think, again, he feels good when he's active, whether it's out handling the puck to keep himself involved in a low shot game. I mean, that guy takes hard rims off the glass and, like, he makes saves behind his net to saw puck. He's so aggressive. For him, that's a mindset. He needs to feel aggressive, and I think the hip surgery took that

out of him for a couple of years. I mean, there's a lot of guys here that complicate this list where it's like anti-Ranta. Big time prove it years. Ranta, I'm going to throw a letter in there to prove the last year it was legit. Markstrom in his second half. We talked about Bennington

under a full year. Mrazik, who's going in as a clear-cut starter for Carolina now, I think, although the primer could complicate that. That one's going to be Grubauer. I mean, there's so many

these guys who end and the crazy thing is a lot of these guys that I mentioned, especially like Grubauer, Marzick, Binnington, their own teams that fancy themselves

with a chance to win a cup. And Binnington obviously just won a cup, but like the fact that I don't feel confident in that for these teams is so interesting to me where it's like,

I feel confident in everything about Antirond to accept his ability to stay healthy. I feel calm. Which is like, if we said, that matters. For Bishop times a thousand.

Yeah, it matters. I feel confident in Jordan Bennington's game. I said it when he first got called up. And admittedly, I reached out to some people that worked with him in the summer. So it's not hindsight after he's won a cup. I said it like after a month and the year. There are elements of his game that changed that led to this,

that provided a foundation that will be sustainable at the NHL level. I'm not saying he's going to be whenever it was 925 for the second half of a season forever. And I think when we talk about team environments, that environment he played behind last year will be challenging to repeat as a team coming off a Stanley Cup and getting the guys to do the things defensively that they did. But his game, I don't think it's an aberration. I don't think it's a blip.

I think he's here to stay. Will it be at the same level? We'll see. What was the other name we had in there? Ranta Bennington. Gruberra, we've already talked about him a little bit in terms of consistency. Markstrom, too.

Yep. So there's a lot of those guys. Then there's like the young guys, the next wave, right? Carter Hart. We've got Carter Hart. We've got the Columbus guys. Oh, Jonas Corpus Sallo. Like, you know who we haven't talked about? Oh, my God. We haven't talked about Hunter Glunquist. Well, we haven't. Well, we talked about a bit off the air, but I guess not part of this recorded conversation.

I know his performance over the last couple of years. Everybody say he cannot be in your top 10. And I'm not going to argue. But I'm telling you, I could see him in my top 10 by the end of the year. Because when that team had a chance last year, for the first couple months of the this season, I saw old Hennerk-Lunquist. That guy, the strength of his game is the edge he plays with, and people think of him as passive because of how deep he plays, but he is aggressively passive. Right. Like the patience on the edges, the way he explodes into pushes, the patience it takes to be able to hold that edge long enough to then explode across and not just fall down, like flop. I still like his game. I still saw enough signs of it in the first two, two and a half

months in the season that he is absolutely capable of it. And I thought it was interesting. What I saw from a distance and when he came through town here in Vancouver late in the year was a guy who just couldn't hold on to that razor's edge long enough because everything crumbled around him. And how do you fight as hard as he fights for every puck when your franchise is a sentence, they've already, like when the whole franchise throws in the towel, how are you the guy battling every night? And I think that was a challenge for him mentally. if they're a better team and they can hold on to it longer and yes he's aging you have to manage his workload

and Georgiev gives you the opportunity to do that I would not be surprised in the least if Hander Glunquist is back in these conversations by next year I still believe that he has that in him there's a competitiveness there that because it's such a big part of it of his game having to deal with a team that just basically throws in the towel and starts dropping some of it and friends

at that. Like, that's just, it's tough to maintain that edge when nobody else has one. But I, hey, a couple months from now, I could look like absolutely egg on my face, but I would not bet against 10. I mean, 920 over the first two months, my only concern is I think there's no doubt the Rangers are going to be better. They're going to be incredibly watchable. They're a very sexy team.

But they might not be good. New shiny toys, especially with that blue line, though. Like, I think adding Truba and Fox certainly helps still a lot of questionable pieces that are going be playing minutes for them and and their forwards are all young and type of defenders that you know and this is right high risk out do they help a goaltender yeah they're better you know we had did we talk about this last time with brayden holpey talking about how um uh carl ulzner yeah is one of his favorite defenseman to play behind but carolzner can't even play in the league anymore he doesn't get an opportunity and teams don't draft carl alzner anymore like from a goalie standpoint that shift

has made it harder in a lot of guys. Those defensemen don't defend the same way that they used to. Those guys can't have success. And so you draft defensemen that do a lot of other things well, but defend ain't always one of them.

Well, on that note, I mean, like, you're going to see a lot of Mark Stahl on the ice next year, which is not great, but probably speaks, I'm sure if you're asking around because he probably enjoys seeing Marksall. Now, maybe that's why he's not a GM

and a talent evaluator and he should focus playing goal but I mean you can't help what uh what you like psychologically I mean listen it's uh and then there's all these other guys too like I think Calgary's gonna be really good again I'm a David Ridditch fan rich fan what would you put the odds at of Cam Talbot stealing that job low low low I think Talbot will be better yeah better structure in front of him right um and I so that's not a slight I say low and I and people because you're a British fan yeah I'm a rich fan he's taking a step every year. I think Pavel Frank Coos in Colorado is going to follow the same type of projection

where it comes from the K, a year to get in the A, to get used to North American hockey. But I think people write off worry about Colorado's depth chart. I mean, Frank Coos is the backup. People are like, oh my God, they might need to pick a guy off waivers. I didn't even mention them. I have faith in him being able to do the job. He's produced everywhere he's playing. And Riddick is kind of, like I think Riddick has taken similar steps. I think it's a better fit with Talbot. uh, Mike Smith admitted to me late last season. There were two things that surured his season.

One was a chess protector and his inability to adjust to it. Totally changed his hand position. Cannot be a passive goaltender with his hands when you're passive with your positioning. And he became that. And two was he handled David Ridditch's ascension poorly. And if he admits to me that he handled it poorly himself, some of that had to lead over to pressure on Ridge or the way Ridditch. You know, when you're,

I think he's going to have more of a partnership this year. And I like his game. and I think he's continued to evolve and I think he'll take another step. I've always said, I'm not going to judge Calgary goal tenor statistically. I don't think that Bill Peters' teams are the easiest to play behind.

They take away a lot of the easy shots. It's not a fault. Bill Peters has said this to me when I asked him about it. What are we going to do? Let those shots through so our goalies can have easy saves? Like, no. Right. It's a successful system.

It's just one that is harder to put a go-s-say percentage behind because you don't get the 99-percenters. The question is, as a goalie, living without the easy saves to pad your stats is one thing. Living without the easy touches and feels that get you into a game can be a different thing mentally. Ridditch has got a whole year of that under his belt. I think that was an adjustment for Mike Smith as well.

One, he's not going to have to worry about it in Edmonton because there's going to be no shortage of rubber there. Oh, yeah, he'll have a good time out there. Well, listen, on that note, on no shortage of rubber out there, Kevin, plug some stuff. Where can people find you? Where can they check out your work and where else can they hear? your dulcet tones. Well, not to troll your podcast for the benefit of our podcast, but Ingo Radio has,

we've been doing a podcast. We've got like 30, episode 36, so 36 weeks in this week. This week will be Craig Anderson. Nice. If you're not a goalie, I'm honestly, I'm going to be honest, I'm not sure it's for you, but. Subscribe, download. Yeah, if you're, yeah, if you're goalie, or if you know a goalie, like just, we really just get into the sort of passions for the position, what binds guys, what NHL guys look for in shooters, how they reach shots, how defense, like sort of, we geek out pretty good on the goalie side there. So you can check that out. You can follow me at Kevin is Ingoal on Twitter, IngoMag on Twitter, on Instagram and ingolmag.com.

Well, a blast as always. Thanks for taking the time. They're in this busy preseason schedule of ours. And we'll have you back on to kind of review some of this stuff as the year gets going. I look forward to coming back on and admitting all my air is today. The Hockey PEDEOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypediocast.