The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 87: Age is Just a Number

Episode Date: May 20, 2016

Nick Mercadante joins the show to discuss how much seasoning goalies should ideally get in the minors, the upper limit for how many games a goalie should start in the regular season, and the next frontier for evaluating goalie performance quantitatively. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 1:51 Giving goalies time to mature in the AHL 5:20 The human element of the position 7:54 Squeezing more value out of ELCs 15:22 Vasilevskiy's strange path this season 17:15 Ideal workload over the course of a season 21:13 This year's crop of available goalies 26:30 Using bad goalies to subtly tank 29:40 Plans this summer to create new tools Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher and can also be streamed right here on the website. Make sure to not only subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new shows as they’re released, but also take a minute to leave a glowing review. 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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Welcome to the HockeyPEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich, and joining me by popular demand. appearance on the show was such a hit that people have been asking you when we're going to get it back on. So it's finally time that we get Nick Mercadante back on. Nick, what's going on, man? Hey, Dimitri, how are you? Yeah, I got some good feedback. It wasn't all good, though. Some people got angry with my goalie takes, but that's all right. You know what's really funny? The WordPress account that I had that I post the podcast on HockeyPedioCast.com It shows me where like sources of traffic where people are kind of finding the podcast and clicking on it from.

And it took me to this weird like Rangers message board thread. And there was like a bunch of people just teeing off on us about the Kevin Hayes stuff. And then I checked back like a day later. And then some people who were on the same page with those defending Kevin Hayes jumped in there. And it was just like it was a blood bath, man. I was just like, I just took a step back, just ate some popcorn and just enjoy the show. Yeah, the Rangers fans, I mean, all fan bases are passionate, but it just seems like Rangers fans, it's like one side versus the other. And it's infighting. It's pretty hilarious. And again, that probably happens with a lot of fan bases. I know that happens. I've seen how Vancouver fans invite. And it's funny, but Rangers fans, man, they go at it. And I get caught in the middle. That's great.

Okay, well, we can talk about the Rangers later, but I think that a good place for us to start this discussion is in the Eastern Conference because we're currently seeing, because of injuries, two 21-year-old goalies going head to head. And it looks like it's going to be that matchup for the foreseeable future, at least until one of them either just totally falls apart or I guess if maybe Ben Bishop finally gets healthy, John Cooper might go back to him. But this is, I guess it's noeworthy because all the television broadcasts have been telling me that the last time we saw two goalies this young going up against each other in the playoffs involved Tom Barrasso in the 80s or something like that. Really? Yeah, I remember I heard something on one of the broadcasts. That's pretty amazing. Yeah. So it's definitely something that we don't see too frequently.

And I guess there's a debate to be had about whether it's because these guys generally can't handle this. of a situation and work a lot of this young of age or just because the conservative nature of the sport where you really want to see guys mature before they're finally mentally ready to handle it. But I don't know, where do you stand on that? Like, what's the ideal sort of regimen you'd want to see your goalie

if you were in charge of these guys put on to prepare themselves for this sort of a stage? See, you almost have to like step back to should a goalie even get that opportunity at an age like 20, 21, 22, and should teams just basically pad themselves with veteran backup types to put in that situation? But hey, look at the performance. I mean, Murray, for the most part, has been good. I know there's been a lot of talk about that he's got tells,

and there are certain things that I think Tampa has probably had some time to pick up on with him, especially involving his glove side, and also the way he doesn't really use his stick on low shot, so he gives up a lot of direct rebounds off his pad. So they're picking him apart, and he's a young goalie, and he's probably not accustomed to that. So he may not know his own strengths and weaknesses, or he may not be prepared to adapt that way. And I think that that's probably one of the things that I would start on. If I were talking to a young goalie and trying to prepare him for a stage like this,

I would say, look, this team is preparing just for you. They don't have another team they're going to be facing tomorrow night. They're not looking at a schedule of a bunch of different goalies. They're preparing just for you. So they're going to find your. flaws and you're 21 years old and we don't expect you to, you know, know how to fix everything overnight or with, you know, a day off between games. So you just got to go out and play your game and let the chips fall where they may. And, you know, I would talk them through, hey, you know,

you're, you know, when you're moving to your left, your glove is dropping down on your pad and then you have to readjust it and that's why they're finding room up high. But with goalies, I think any goalie, it's such a delicate balance, right? You don't want to make them think too much because they're going to get lost in it and then something else is going to go off. And they're going to end up like John Bernier this season where he works on head tracking and then suddenly he can't stop pucks from the blue line. Right.

I mean, we definitely seen countless examples of guys that sort of just get the yips, right? where it's like out of nowhere, just completely fall apart and you see these sort of routine saves that they would have otherwise been making just kind of go through them and you're wondering what happened. It's one of those situations

where we don't really, analytically speaking, try to delve into it too much because it's sort of this, I don't know, intangible, kind of psychological framework stuff that we can't really quantify,

but it's definitely, I mean, there is a human element to it, particularly at this position, right? There's hugely, human element. And I talk a lot with Kevin Woodley, who is an NHL writer and he writes for In Goal magazine. And I talk with Dan Stewart, who's a goalie coach working in juniors in Canada. And we're kind of all in the same, we're cut from the same cloth where we think that goalies really do

need handlers of sorts, one-on-one handlers that are involved in development. And they don't have to be, you know, the former pro who can tell you, hey, this is how I did it when I was in the league or whatever it may be. They kind of have to be guys to get how you tick, and they have to be good goalie coaches, obviously, as well. And they have to understand what your psychology is and what your mental makeup is and be able to, you know, help you as a goalie find whatever mental state will help you perform the best. So there's a huge intangible psychological element to goaltending, and I really believe that.

And, you know, I think it gets magnified when you're looking at a playoff series where so much is riding on it. Everybody's watching. And you're playing the same team over and over again, and they are looking for your flaws, and it's harder, I think it's harder for a goalie to adapt to what a team is doing than it is, for the team to, you know, find something that a goalie is doing and pick it apart in a single game or in a series. So it's really, really, really hard, and it's really hard to quantify.

And, you know, I look at a young goalie, like a 21-year-old, and I go, well, maybe they're, you know, maybe you're telling them don't think too much. And maybe that's an advantage that they might have over somebody who's had some more experiences in the league. I don't know. But, you know. The question that I have sort of circling back to my idea of the nurturing and when these guys are going to be ready is we've definitely seen the NHL as a whole has progressively gotten younger and younger as teams try to realize that at least for skaters, their prime is probably younger, a few years earlier than we would have thought before.

It's usually generally in the sort of mid to late 20s as opposed to late 20s, early 30s. and teams are trying to squeeze more value out of them on the cheap while they have all those RFA years. And I don't know, I have to admit, I haven't necessarily looked at the breakdown by age over the years for the goaltending position. But I feel like it hasn't been as pronounced of a change in that. I could be wrong, but that's at least the way I sort of anecdotally feel. And I'm just wondering whether, you know, teams would be wiser to give some of these guys right off the bat rather than keeping them kind of of toiling away in the HL for three, four years, giving them 25, 30, 30, 35 starts during the regular season as a backup at the NHL level

and squeezing value out of them that way as opposed to waiting a few years down the road. Yeah, you know, I think traditionally goalies have kind of been, they've been treated a little bit like catchers in baseball, where just there's this general assumption that because, you know, a catcher in baseball, they've got to learn all the calls and they've got to learn all their pitchers and there's assumed kind of requisite maturity level that comes with that, I guess. And I think goalies have been treated the same way to a certain extent. And I don't want to put my foot in my mouth and say for certain that goalies having gone younger,

just like what you said. But I think you're right. I don't think there's been this huge push to get goalies up into the league at a younger age. and I don't know if there should be. You know, some of the research that folks have done. So, Garrick, who's a hockey grass writer, he did a really great study a few years ago using Marcells. And Marcells are basically, it's essentially a way to regress performance

and then create a simple prediction model. And he did that with goalies. he used regular save percentage. You know, obviously now, a few years later, we've come further with adjusted save percentage and goal saved above average and all those different things that I'm doing and other folks are doing.

But he ran that study, and he came out to that the prime for a goalie is really about 25 years old, which is probably younger than what people would assume the prime would be or historically have treated goalies like because not many goalies get into the least, and they're established at 25.

So it begs the question, should they? Now, the work that I've done with adjusted goal save above average per 60, it's coming out to more like 27, 28, which is historically what I think most people are shooting for. When most front offices are shooting for, when they say, look, let's get the best years of our goalie. they're looking at 27, 28, 29. So it's unsettled. I don't think we've quite figured out if we should push goalies a little bit earlier

or leave them in the HL to get seasoned. I don't think we figured out if, you know, getting them into the league early and giving them, like you said, 25, 30 games is going to somehow be a detriment to their development or it's going to be a boon to their development. I don't think we know for sure. And maybe it's, maybe, you know, it's truly a case-by-case basis.

And, you know, it's completely variable to the individual. Well, the thing that I wonder is like, so a good example for me is a guy like Cory Schneider, right? Where he, the Canucks really took their time with him. They gave him, after a few years in college, they gave him a few years in Manitoba and the H.L. And eventually, slowly, they kind of dipped his toes in the water. I remember one year they gave him like five or six. games and then the next year a bit more.

And then finally, he was like 25 years old by the time they gave him 25 games as a backup behind Luongo. And while a lot of people were proclaiming that the Canucks did a great job being patient with him and letting him season the HL. And that's a reason why he's such a mature, ready goal for the NHL as soon as he showed up. I just think that it's tough not to look at that and be like, okay, but maybe he would have been ready when he was 21. and now they just wasted four really cheap RFA years that they could have used out of him,

especially for a contending team that could have spent that money elsewhere, and instead they were letting them stay in the H.L. So I just wonder, it is probably a case-by-case basis, and it's tough to just pinpoint what else like that. You know, the issue always with goalies is getting enough data to really determine if something is, you know, if there's any correlation with one decision or another. I mean, it's true with just getting enough data to analyze a goalie's performance and getting enough shots. Everything is kind of a small sample.

So when you're looking at young goalies, there's just countless examples on both sides of the coin. You know, you've got just in recent memory, you've got a goalie like Gibson where, boy, he's been all over the place as a young goalie. You see the potential. I think anybody, even an untrained eye, would say, this guy is a supreme athlete who could be a great goalie, but they throw him into the fire and he struggles. And his short playoff experience, he's been terrible. And then you look at a goalie like Matt Murray, and it's the opposite.

You look at Vasilevsky and it's the opposite. It's really hard to say if, you know, a goalie like a Schneider, if he came up, let's say at 22 years old or 23 years old, whatever it is, if he would have ended up like a Steve Mason, where essentially, you know, Mason came in and was lights out but raw. The league figured him out. He struggled, struggled for a while, and he didn't get the goalie coaching. And then he kind of, in his, you know, when he hit about 24, 25,

he started to resurrect his career in Philadelphia, and now he's really at the top of the league. So, you know, I'd say Mason is a perfect example of a goalie where I think they rushed him, they pushed him too quickly. He didn't get the attention he needed, and he really fell flat. He could have been out of the league before he ever realized his potential. And who knows with a goalie like Schneider,

if waiting was just the right thing, or like you said, if they could have gotten more out of him, it's just so hard to say. impressed that you waited 15 minutes before mentioning Steve Mason. A lot of people had the under on that. Yeah, I know. Folks, you're drinking game at home. You're all sober. Sorry. Yeah, no, Vasilewski, I mean, it might honestly be a type of thing where he's just such a freak that he's going to bust any sort of, you know, past strategic ideas we might have had about the position, right? Because it's like he's had such a weird year and it might have even been the past couple years now where they've been like sending

them back and forth between the hl and the n hl just to get some starts and bringing up good left kids to take his place and it's been all over the place and you would you know you would think that if there was ever an opportunity for a young guy's head to get all out of whack and his performance to slip because of being misused he'd be the perfect candidate for that but it hasn't it hasn't worked at all it's it's so bizarre i mean look yeah and i may have probably i'd probably even misspoke a few minutes ago. Like, yeah, I should clarify. Vasilesky this year really had a tough season when he played.

He was well below average. And then he comes in for the playoffs, and what's he been in? He's been in four games so far, right? 935 save percentage, yeah. 935 save percentage. His adjusted GSA per 60 is Mercad is is positive 0.846. just to put it in perspective,

an elite goalie on a seasonal average is anywhere between, let's say, 0.35 and 0.5, and he's right now at 0.846. I mean, he's just like blowing it out of the water. In four games. In four games. In four games, right, of course. But the point is, in four games in the playoffs,

in a short series, that's pretty amazing. And he could make a difference for them. So, yeah, there you go. How do you judge where his mental state is at? Who knows? It sure seems like he's been pretty solid here. We're in agreement that generally speaking, you want to prevent your starter during the regular season from accumulating too many miles.

What would an ideal split for you be in a vacuum? It would be like 55 games, 60 games for your starter, and then the rest for the backup? Do that sound like a recent number? Yeah, I think so. I think really what you're trying to do is you're trying to avoid taxing a guy. Here's where I think, you know, age and relative peak comes into play. You know, if you've got a goalie who's probably passed their performance peak, chances are once you get past your performance peak as a goalie,

the odds are that you're a game away from injury. And that really starts, I mean, it could start any time for a goalie. Look at Kerry Price. but it really starts in earnest for goleys when they're hitting 29, 30 years old. You start to see the groin injuries and the hip injuries and the knee injuries of all that impact on the ice, especially the big goalies, right? So I think you're looking at the age. You're looking at the makeup of the goalie physically,

and you're probably saying, okay, I've got away, you know, the mileage for a big goalie. let's say Bishop, for example, a big goalie who's, he's 29 going on 30, I believe, off the top of my head. You probably don't want to tax him with back-to-backs. You probably don't want to tax him with, you know, three games and six or seven nights. So right there, you're cutting into his total by, let's call it, 20-some-odd games. And then maybe cutting it down a little bit more, giving him 50 to 55. max is probably what you're shooting for. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm just looking at it right now.

And of the goalies still alive, Martin Jones is pacing them with 65 starts this year. And even I feel like those 65 aren't necessarily indicative of the workload he had because James Reimer was starting a lot of those games down the stretch. So I feel like he probably got a nice little opportunity there to recharge and get healthier and more arrested and become more available for these playoffs. So yeah, I mean, I've been beating this drum for a while that like the blues, I feel like did it perfectly. And some of it was because of injuries. So they had to mix it up.

But like they were going for that like 41, 41 split between Elliott and NJ. Gallen, it felt like. And I think that is really, if you can do that, like I understand you got to massage those egos. And I'm sure that each of these guys would love to, you know, play 70 games and try to chase that wins record like Holpe did this year and all that sort of stuff. but if you can manage them and keep those games down, it could really benefit you late in the season. Of course. Yeah, look at a goalie like Ryan Miller.

If you ask Ryan Miller, he wants to be in every single game. You know, he's such a competitor. And most goalies are that way. If you asked me when I was playing, I want to play every damn game. It doesn't matter. Most goalies are going to say I want to be in the net. They're not going to say, well, I'm feeling a little tired. My knees swollen.

You know, I should probably take a night off. but the reality is is that a guy like a Ryan Miller he got helped by playing a little bit less he had a great season and he went back to playing his aggressive style which is a style that is tiring especially for a guy his age

but they didn't overtax him he missed a little bit of time with injury but most of the time they were just spelling him and he had a really, really solid season. So it makes you say, well, maybe, you know, there's something to a timeshare more than most goalies are willing to give it credence. Maybe they should just do it and just split goalies that way.

Yeah. I'm looking at the list of goalies that will be available this summer in free agency. It's a pretty rough list. James Rhymer is obviously a very intriguing guy, and I'm very curious to see whether, a team brings him in to give him a fair shot at a starting gig or whether he's relegated to more of a backup role. Maybe he just stays in San Jose and likes it there. We'll see. But other than that, it's pretty rough, man. You want to know my sneaking suspicion? I think he's going to go back to Toronto. That would be interesting. I think he might go back to Toronto. He was, hey, he was great this year. So if he can keep that bottled up, I know he did a ton of work last.

off season to fix his game and it seems like it paid off. He was really great. And it's not like when he got traded to San Jose. It stopped. I think he was just as good, if not better. The thing that blows my mind is like, what? So the sharks got him for a fourth rounder at the deadline. And I guess you could argue it might have just been one kind of big deal because they also

did the Polack and Spalling trade for two second round pick. So maybe you just throw both those trades in there and just say that they were kind of a package deal. But I just like the stars. I understand that you don't want to mess with things too much and bringing a third guy. And it brings up a lot of questions and awkwardness in the dressing room and all that jazz. But like we had this discussion last time you came on the show where Antini Emmy where when he's good, he's really good. And when he's bad, he's really bad. And he had an 865 save percentage in these playoffs. So I think that, uh, he was, he was atrocious. Yes. And it just It's close my mind that James Reimer, like, he definitely could have helped that team.

So it just like, I just wonder why a team like the stars didn't try to address that. Because it's been something we've been talking about for not even just this full year, really since the start of last year, that this team is really good and they can score as many goals as anyone in the league. But can they stop enough? Dimitri, could it possibly be that they don't know how to evaluate goalies? Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Honestly, I really do think, I think that that's the case with the stars. I don't think they really knew what they were doing in the offseason

when they decided to, you know, commit so much money to their tandem. I think they had an idea in their head like, well, we've got two experienced goalies. We can do a timeshare. You know, both of them will be healthier and will ride the hot hand. I think that's what they had in theory. But they didn't do a good job of analyzing what they're. actually had in Lettonin, and what he had left in the tank. And they probably didn't know enough about Niemi's game to understand that I think he's a

goalie that you just want to leave him in and catch him on and, you know, take the really good starts with the bad ones and then it equals out. But in the playoffs, that could be an absolute nightmare of guesswork. So, yeah, I think they screwed up. And it'll be interesting to see what they do in the offseason, especially because it's Slim Pickens as far as the free agents. Freddie Anderson's an interesting guy that's out there. I think there's there are rumors that Calgary is going to be interested in him.

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, hey, that's, Freddie Anderson is, he's fairly steady. He's, he, you know, he's pretty consistently good, you know, and not great. but just league after the past two seasons. If you let him play, I think he could be a decent goalie for you. It'll be a lot better than the tire fire they had this year. Yeah. Yeah, I'm looking at the list of, on general fanager,

the list of free agents sorted by goalies, and it obviously goes from top down based on cap hit, and Cam Ward's the first guy, and then it's Hiller and Romo, and Hiller's obviously already signed overseas. So Calgary is definitely going to need someone to eat up some of those starts, and I feel like the baseline is pretty low for what would be considered an improvement from this season. So I feel like Anderson, even if you're not as high on him as some people are,

like if you just say he's a league average guy, that would be a dramatic improvement for them next year. Yeah, yeah, I think so. And I think he's one of those goalies that benefits from not getting jerked around too much, where, you know, he kind of, he's, his demeanor strikes me that way. But more than anything, it's the way he plays. Um, he has a ton of repetitive motion in his game. So like, if you just say, like, look, you're going to play these games. Be ready for them. I think he's ready to go and, and he'll just do what he does. Um, so I, I, I, if I was, if I was in the front office of Calgary, I'd say, look, let's just get some stability in net after this past season. and they've got the young guys coming up.

So I think he'd be a nice pick up for them. I mean, what are the other options? What are your thoughts on Cam Ward? Oh my God. Jesus Christ. I'm convinced that, okay, this is my theory, and it's not substantive. Like, I haven't talked to anyone within the organization,

so I can't verify it. But I just feel like, Carolina, we know that there's, front office is smart and they know what they're doing. And I think they'd realize that they weren't necessarily ready to make any sort of tangible noise this year. But their skaters were good enough. They were a good possession team and they were in their Bill Peters had them really playing the right way in terms of controlling the puck and controlling the pace of the game where they could do all these things and sort of set up the framework for what their team's going to look like in years to come, but make sure they also get another high pick in this year's

draft because their goalies would just give up enough goals that it would sort of submarine the rest of the process. So I think it was like, because they were playing Cam Ward on like the second of a back to back a handful of times. And it's like, okay, this team like has to, something's up here, just not passing the sniff test. Yeah, yeah. That is the old, you know, intentional tank. Yes.

Conspiracy. But I sort of like that because I think the coyotes were doing something similar. not necessarily, their hands were sort of tied by the fact that they have this Albatross Mike Smith contract and there's very little they could really do with it. Otherwise, I guess they could buy them out, but they're not going to throw around that much money needlessly. But you know what's funny this year, Smith was actually awesome. He was actually really solid this year.

He was up, he was point three, three eight. He was amazing. Yeah, he was. And then he got injured and he was out for a while. He came back and he was fine. I think that's exactly right what you're saying. I don't think they expected to get the goal tending they got. I know they couldn't have expected it out of Louis Deming.

I mean, so if that was their intention, it would have been interesting if they dug a little deeper and went really deep into the system to find somebody who would let them tank. Well, the best was I remember, Because Smith did get off to that amazing start, and he had a bunch of, like, 40 save shutouts. And then he went out with injury. And it was at the time when the coyotes were still riding a little bit of that PDO bender and Domi and Duclair were putting up a bunch of points.

And people were like, oh, the coyotes are so fun to watch. And then they were actually winning some games. And people were like, do you think the coyotes should try and address this hole in net now and bring in someone else? And I was like, no. I think they're perfectly content with this Anders Lindbach poo platter of 880. an 880 save percentage, kind of just ruining everything else that's going on because they're going to keep playing five, four games that are going to be exciting and they're going to help develop their young skater talent, but they're not going to ruin their draft position

this year. Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I mean, you know, hey, if I was in the front office, I'd probably do it. Yeah, I mean, smart. Who cares? All right, let's look kind of big picture. Do you have any sort of plans this summer? for stuff you are going to look into?

Or are you just going to be refining the Mercad? Or what are your plans this summer? Well, so, yeah, I do have some plans. I've had some plans for a while, but I just never write them. Sounds very mysterious. I've got some plans. No, so the stuff that I talked about at the Vancouver Analytics Conference, which was refining Mercad.

So really getting this data-ad-ad-ad-assed goal saved. version of Mercad, which is basically the same thing where we're adjusting for shot location, adjusting against the league average in each shot location. But then doing it for each score situation. So basically what I found was, and through other people's work like Matt Kane from hockey graphs, I found that goalies performed differently in different score situations, and it's consistent across seasons and across the league. So it's refining Mercad,

and we're going to release myself and Micah Blake McCurdy are starting to work together to possibly release some stuff on hockey viz, which is his website. So we haven't quite completely fleshed it out, but we'll probably do some articles and then he'll do some of his Viz Magic with that stat. And then I'll also do some follow-up articles on hockey graphs. The big thing that I really want to dig into is this win threshold concept

and how it actually impacts winning and losing. I really feel like we're never really going to continue. convince hockey people that we shouldn't analyze goalies by whether they win games or not. I'm just being a realist, you know, like, I just think that, you know, at the end of the day... Do you really think that? Because I feel like in baseball, I feel like people have generally come to grips with the fact that, like, pitcher wins, for example, aren't as big of a thing as they were, say, even five years ago, but definitely, like, 10 years ago.

That gives me a little bit of optimism, but that's true. I get what you're saying, where there's always going to be this segment of the crowd that just like, nope, trust me, there's this internal battle that the goalie has to win to wind up pulling this game out, right? And that, you know, the goalie just has this ability to give up one less goal than the other team, you know, gives up. It's a timely saves, man. That's the timely saves, as opposed to the untimely saves. Yes. Yeah, you know, I just, it's kind of, it's not me giving up. I just want to make it clear.

I do, but I do want to, it's, I think it's that what it could unlock is truly how much a goalie contributes to winning. That's, that's really what I'm going for. So I'm not, you know, folks that I talk to know that I'm not a huge fan of the war type stats, the wins above replacement type stats, the all-inclusive stats, but I think that this win-threshold percentage will at least give us a better sense of the true contribution of a goalie to winning, independent of whether their team can score goals or not.

So I'm going to be working on that. I'm going to be refining it using the data adjusted goal saved, especially looking at, I guess, the situations that matter to winning, which is the one-goal situations, to see if there are certain goalies that, you know, who knows? Maybe they do perform drastically differently when a game could be decided by a goal. So that's kind of what I want to dig more into,

and there's just so much to look at in that area and so much that's kind of untapped. We're still firmly in goalies or voodoo world. so just trying to bring it out whenever I have conversations either whether it's like on radio or if someone's kind of privately asking me and trying to pick my brain like all right like what's the next thing

we're looking at for goalies or what's one stat you look at I'm just like I don't know just go follow and Merck at on Twitter because I have no idea what the hell I'm talking about like I was I was telling people even a few months ago that I'm skeptical of Brian Elliott and he's looking

mighty good in these playoffs so what do I know about this position really yeah you know the the fun thing uh so i've got a couple other you know goalie people or whatever you want to call them uh i think they're called weirdos yeah they're i was a joke i apologize to everyone listening please don't don't get upset with me you was a joke yeah that's that's the thing if you if you cross them they will come after you trustful yeah um well so anyways it's it's funny because i do get that a lot. I get a lot of people that just kind of throw their hands up and they go,

I don't know, ask Nick. I have no idea what this goalie's doing. And so I try. I try to subjectively analyze goalies and what they're actually physically doing out there and whether it's right or wrong or whatever it may be. And then I try to objectively do it with the stats. And it's been really

interesting because goalie people will call me on it. Either way, whether it's subjective or objective. And I think out of that, Sometimes it's frustrating as all hell because I just don't, you know, there's only so many disagreements I can handle on Twitter before I lose my mind. But other times it's really good because you start to kind of tease out these different concepts that maybe we can dig into and get some objective data on to proof it.

You know, the most important thing is going to be unlocking more data, whether it's through manual tracking or chip tracking or whatever it may be. That's the most important thing to propel us forward. But I really do like this kind of growing niche of people that are willing to look at goaly stuff and try to figure it out. So it's been fun. Well, I mean, it's remarkable that it's taken this long. I understand that it's such a complex subject and there's so many different factors and variable. It makes sense that it's the thing we know the least about right now, but like thinking about just like how much of the cap is devoted to that one position and and ultimately how much of it like if you're not getting adequate performance regardless of what the other guys are doing as we just saw with the stars, that one position can really ultimately dictate the fate of your team. So I feel like getting to know as much as possible and trying to kind of avoid some of these landmines and figure out how to optimize.

performance at the position is something that is going to really propel the game a long way in the years to come. Yeah, I think at the end of the day, really what we're trying to do is figure out how much we should be paying goalies, specific goalies, and then just goalies in general, based on their general performance level. That's really what it's about in this, you know, cap-constricted world. So, you know, some of what I'm doing, you know, the objective data work that I'm doing. We're putting it through the prism of that with Carolyn Wilkie's salary bans and trying to figure it out, trying to figure out. Our goalies on the whole, underpaid, overpaid, our elite goalies paid what they should be paid. Does a $10 million, 10-year contract make sense

for the best goalie in the world? And, you know, does it make sense to low ball other goalies and just kind of ride it out with whatever you get, average goalies. I think there's probably a lot of inequity in how goalies are paid, and there's a lot of opportunity for smart front office people to take advantage of that and sign a guy like a Freddie Anderson to not a low-ball contract, but an inexpensive contract comparatively, and probably get pretty good goal-tending out of them. So that's, I think, really what it's all about.

I mean, look, goalies, we're always like, at least I was. Maybe I was a weirdo, I don't know. But we're always like the, you know, you're the kid playing by himself over on the other side of the ice, like the kid by himself in the sandbox. And, you know, you didn't get the coaching when you were in youth hockey. and you just are left to your own devices and they just say, hey, stop the puck. So it's almost not even that surprising

that it's taken so long for people to dig into goalies because it's just, you know, it's a tradition of hockey. They just kind of get ignored and everybody goes, I don't know, that's the goalies. Yeah. There's this mystique behind it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, man, well, I'm looking forward to seeing

what kind of work you do this summer and I'm sure we'll get you back on to work our way through it and talk it out because there's a, as I mentioned, there's a lot of great stuff here for us to still unpack. And worst case, I mean, we can get you back on after Kevin Hayes's RFA rights are traded for a second round pick to some team. Yeah, yeah, I can see if I can work up to death threat status on Twitter.

Excellent. And people can follow you on Twitter at N Merckad and check out all of your fine written work at Hockey Graphs, right? Yep, that's right. Yeah, I promise, I promise to my Hockey Graph people, I'm going to write up a bunch of stuff. But, you know, until then, I'll just talk about it with you. Excellent. Okay, man.

We'll chat soon. All right, thanks. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypediocast.