The Hockey PDOcast - Expectations for Goalies in 2026, Gibson in Detroit, Sorokin’s Dominance, and Other Goalie Topics

Episode Date: January 13, 2026

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to talk about a variety of goalie topics around the league. We get into John Gibson's performance since the start of December, Brandon Bussi's play within the context of Carolina's extreme defensive environment, the struggles the Ducks have had keeping pucks out of their own net, just how impressive Ilya Sorokin's dominance is this year, how much Markstrom is to blame for New Jersey's recent results, and some notes on Joseph Woll and Connor Ingram.  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.

since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Demetri Filippovich and joining me as my good buddy Kevin Woodley. Kevin, what's going on, Ben? Not much, man, not much. Connects are on the road. So when I say I'm living the dream, that really is the dream. Well, we got a fun topic, a show ahead of us today, a lot of good topics. We're going to see how many we can get through. It's you and I talking about goalies, So probably less than I'd like because you're certainly going to go along on the first couple of these. But that's okay. That's what we're here for.

The listeners always enjoy it. It's going to be a great time. Let's start with John Gibson, our old pal. I was reflecting on all the conversations the two of us have had over the years. And I've been fortunate enough to have you on for, what, like seven or eight years now of this show. And we generally try to catch up every month or so. So we've done a bunch of these. And I feel like Gibson, out of all the goalies we talked about in that time, cumulatively,

We probably talk more about him than any other one. Now a lot of those conversations were framed around the idea of him as a trade target at the time because everyone wanted to see him go to a competitive situation where he was playing on a team that was winning and back in the playoffs and the ducks certainly weren't at that stage of their cycle at that point. He gets traded finally to Detroit at the draft this past off season and it starts slow. For the Red Wings, October, November 13 starts. He gets pulled a couple times, 44 goals against 865, say a percentage. just four, seven, and one record. They were kind of splitting the starts pretty evenly between

him and Camp Talbot at the time because Talbot was outplaying him. But since December 1st, 15 starts and just six for Talbot in that time, 31 goals against, 9.30 say a percentage, 13 and two record, three shutouts, the two losses. He got just a couple goals of run supports. They weren't necessarily even his fault. And he's been phenomenal. I'm not sure I'd say he looks like vintage John Gibson because I romanticized that image of what he was in prime, but he's been darn good and he's winning a ton of games and he's giving the Red Wings good goaltending and it's been really fun to watch. Has it been everything that you were hoping for during all those years when we were kind of at the nadir with him in terms of the same percentage plummeting,

people wondering how much gas he had left in the tank? Yeah, no, it's, I thought I was going to have to eat a lot of crow after those first couple of months because the bet was that you put him on a good team and gave him another opportunity. He still had this in him. And obviously it didn't start well. And I think that should have been somewhat expected. I think we even talked about this in the summer or leading into this season. Like when you go down

and over the years I've kind of done this around the trade deadline, a checklist of certain experiences or qualities that are going to allow a goalie to go from one team to another relatively easily. Gibson didn't check any of those boxes, which is why he never made sense as a deadline acquisition because there just wouldn't have been enough time to get him to where he is now.

And it's a, you know, when you, when you've only, if you've never been traded, that's one of the the things you look for. Has this guy done this before, gone to a different team, a different system? Obviously, he's played for different coaches and different styles and systems. Well, he was with the ducks. But to do it, you know, in a different environment, your family, all the things that come with changing teams, he's never done this before. And I haven't had a chance to really sit down and deep dive this at all. with him. But one of the games during this sort of turnaround was here in Vancouver. And I asked at the end of the sort of scrum, like about the adjustment. I mean, he always comes into Vancouver

and shuts out the Canucks. His first start was a shutout against the Canucks. He owns them. But asking him at the end, and he talked about how tough it was. And I think one of the things with that adjustment that doesn't get discussed much is the tendency to try too hard. You want this to happen. And so you, like, goaltending is not a position that you can just work harder at in a game. You have to let it come to you, which is really easy to say on my couch watching it and really hard to do in real time, especially when you're trying to make an impression. And one of the things that we see in goalies that are trying too hard is a tendency to widen out their stance and to sort of dig in and feel like you almost have to be like spring loaded and you dig into your edges and you want to explode at everything.

And Gibson's game has always looked at its best like he's not even trying. Like it's super calm and patient and he just lets it come to him. And I think early in the season, if you take a look at his stance and how wide it had gotten and if you go look at him now and like you could probably, I don't know if you can do it off a TV, but if there's tools out there, and I know goalie coaches have them, some of the analysts have it, that can measure the width of his stance

at the start of the season and now in Detroit, I think you would see a noticeable change. And since he's gone back to looking more like the Gibson of Anaheim from a stance perspective, you rattled off some of those numbers. Let me give you a few more from ClearSight Analytics. Since December 1st, he's six in the NHL and adjusted say percentage.

plus 2.2. So he's saving them like over two goals every 100 shots is essentially what that means. Third in the NHL and goals saved above expected around 8. Now it's worth noting that this is coming off a relatively high expected say percentage, 904, which is, you know, quote unquote easier environment. Detroit's defending right now for him. But B is he has been everything they've asked him more since giving himself a chance to sort of settle in and getting back to the game he played in Anaheim.

And it's, I said, I think for those of us that believed in the talent amidst a lot of naysaying, it's been nice to see. And I think if you ever had a chance to get to know him as quiet as he is, you're kind of happy for a guy who went through some pretty tough years there in Anaheim. Well, that's what I was going to ask you in terms of the adjustment of going from Anaheim the past couple years to this wing's team under Todd McClellan because Sportologic has him 13th, unexpected goals against seventh in inner-slot shot. The volume in general is much lower.

Now it's lower across the league. As we talked about, undocumented teams are choosing for higher danger opportunities and passing up some of those easier looks. And so shots are down across the board. But in a lot of these performances, it hasn't necessarily been sort of him standing and needing to stand on his head or this high volume environment.

And so how he kind of fares in that and what it looks like. I'm curious about one thing they do still struggle at a little bit is they spend a lot of time in their own zone. They're 28th in the league. in defensive zone time in terms of how much possession they surrendered to opponents. And so you see that sometimes where they can get caught out for these long shifts. And there's sequences where there's maybe four or five looks that he has to face in that shift. And you saw that certainly on Monday night against the hurricanes.

So we can talk about that from both ends with the Keynes goalies as well later on. But what do you think about that adjustment for a guy like him in terms of we know the athleticism, obviously, and the highlight real saves that he's authored over the years. but now playing on a team that I think is going to theoretically at least ask less of him and what that does for his efficiency as a goalie. Well, even in the D zone, as much as they're getting killed from a possession standpoint, they're still mid-pack in terms of expected goals against off high danger. So they're not giving up, like it's not great.

You don't want to be mid-packed. Their overall, five-on-five expected goals against is 11th. They're fourth off the rush and eighth on the PK. So this is their worst defensive metric, what they give up in the defensive. zone to sort of matches your stats, but it's still just 15th. It's not, you know, it's not bottom of the league, which is what he faced in Anaheim and what the Ducks goalies. I know we're going to talk about them later, what they're facing right now. Like, when you look at that 904 expected say percentage since December 1st, that's 30 points higher than

what the two Anaheim goalies have faced in the same time. Like, they're in the 874 range and he's in 904. So anytime, you know, you've got a more favorable environment defensively, it does a couple of things. Obviously, your numbers are going to be better. But also, like, I think Gibson reads the game at a really high level. And so when we talk about sort of sitting back and letting it come, that that's a little easier to do

when you've got a predictable environment. And like, I just see his game as being really patient. And as much as we think of him for those athletic moments and he still has that in him, like he's making a lot of just simple positional saves right now. He's making the game

look really calm and easy at times. And I think that's when he's at his best. As much as he can sort of end up on the highlight reels and the chaos moments, he's not facing as many of those. And it allows him to sort of use all that experience and that processor, which I think is at a really high level in terms of, like I said, how he reads the game and anticipates and just put himself in a position.

He's also conserving energy. So they can be in the D zone for long stretches. and while you don't want that, we talked about his stance. Like when you're in a low, wide stance, it takes so much more energy to move around your crease. You have to sort of, I talked about digging in those edges and locking in the edges.

Well, you've got to unlock them to move east-west. And so the way he's playing now back to a little narrower, he's just beating those plays and doesn't look like he's under duress very often. Well, listen, I'm not qualified like you are to be breaking down the mechanics of his stance and how wide or narrow it is, but I am qualified to spend a full show

talking about how sweet that that glove of this is. And he had another one of those saves against the hurricanes. It just makes it look not only so effortless, but so cool as well. Just when he's on his game, the swag he's using is just incredible. And the importance of this as well for the Red Wings, right?

I said how he's 13 and 2 during the stretch since December 1st. What's going on in the Atlantic right now? Where last 20 games in that time, the Red Wings are 14, 4, and 2. The Sabres are 15 and 5. The Leaves are 12, 4 and 4. The Habs are 12, 5, and 3. and the lightning are 13, 6, and 1.

And the reason why I note that is those five Atlantic teams are, I think, five of the top six teams in the league in point percentage in that time. And so they've needed this from him certainly, and he's lived up to, I think, everything they were expecting when they acquired him this summer. And now the caveat, though, as good as he's been, the temptation will be to keep running him out there.

And you have to monitor how often you do that in a condensed schedule that's only going to get more intense here through January into the Olympic break and then coming out of it, right? because keeping him healthy through the end of the season is obviously an important part of surviving that race if you're the Detroit Red Wings. And so it can be tough sometimes when you got a guy going, you want to just keep going back to him.

But as back-to-backs, I haven't looked at their schedule specifically, but around the league as these back-to-backs pile up, you've got to be smart with how you manage it. And that's where, you know, as much as Talbot hasn't matched what Gibson has done, he still got a good veteran goaltender that, you know, can hopefully allow you not to overplay the other guy. And I imagine Talbot's going to benefit with that as well, right? We talked about how they

just ran him into the ground down the stretch last year out of necessity. And so him having played only, what, six games since the start of December, I imagine that'll get more efficiency out of him as well moving forward. And maybe that'll make it easier to make that call for them, especially with Gibson's history history, right? It feels like the past couple of years, there's been just so many

stops and starts where he finally gets rolling and then he tweaks a hammy or something on one of those lateral plays. And it's like, all right, well, we're not going to see him for two weeks. And he got to start from scratch. You got anything else? on the Red Wings goalies or do you want to go to the other side of the ice from that Monday game and talk about the Hurricanes a little bit? Well, I'll just say one last one on the Red Wings goalies.

You're right about the injury history and you can't ignore it. And yet at the same time, we saw what he was being asked to do in Anaheim for a lot of those years. And, you know, I go back to the Rick Talkett line because we heard it a lot here in Vancouver when he was coaching the Canucks, only have, you know, letting your goalies play one half of the net. And the Red Wings are doing a much better job of that compared to what he would have been facing in Anaheim So in other words, the need to go side to side and explode and extend and put yourself in positions where you're pulling your body apart

and adding stress to the joints is far less so far in Detroit than what he was facing with the Anaheim Ducks. So part of this is game script from Monday night because the Red Wings went up 3-0 and the hurricanes kind of went into full press mode to try to come back and they did. They squeezed the point out of that game, send it to overtime, scoring three goals in the third. but shot attempts in that game, 82 to 39 for the Keynes.

As you'd expect, shots on goal 34 to 18 out. Natural Static had high danger chances in that one, pretty much a virtual heat, 15 to 14. And I think it's a great encapsulation of the conversation we had last time. I think we spoke about Brandon Bussie, but I wanted to blow that out even further here in relation to Freddie Anderson and the Keynes in general and the difficulty of that environment because there's just,

you watch these games and obviously the volume is always going to be low because they pressure so much and they do such a good job of knocking bucks away and blocking stuff before it even reaches the goalie. But you essentially have these long periods of inactivity followed by an immediate two-on-one or breakaway. And that's exactly what happened on Monday

where the Red Wings just didn't have the puck for like six straight minutes. And then all of a sudden Larkin and Rasmus Center in two-on-one or there's a breakaway and the goalie is going to have to make a say while they're relatively out of rhythm, I guess. And part of that is a byproduct. of their system, right?

Like in the offensive zone, they pass it up so much to the point that's going to lead to potential bibles or knockaways that lead to odd man rushes against. They pressure so far up the ice that if you get it past the first guy, all of a sudden there's so much ice for you to skate into. And that's what we see here. I'm curious for your take on, in watching Freddie Anderson this year and then looking at his numbers, how much of it is as simple as that and how much of it is he's just not the goalie he was previously because of all the injuries because of his age at this point.

and they're either going to have to lean on Bussie even further than they have already, or they're going to have to address this between now and the trade of the line, because this is a team that's once again atop the standing, sitting atop the metro. And I think looking around the east, as good as the Atlantic has been this past two months, should still feel like they're in a poll position in that conference to represent the East and the Stanley Cup final.

They're going to need more reliable goaltending, I think, than they've gotten so far. Yeah, it's rush, right? Like high danger chances off the run. you talked about it. The eye test matches what the numbers say. They are 24th overall, five on five, high danger chances against because they are dead last in rush chances, high danger chances off the rush, the entire national hockey league, 32 out of 32.

Third in their own zone, but 32 out of 32 off the Russian. And you look at that and you'd be like, oh, well, like third defensive zone and 32 off the rush, how does that add up to 24th? because the most dangerous chances are coming off the rush. Like those are the ones that are sort of the, you know, this is where you're giving, giving away goals and they do a lot of it. Odd man rush is 28th in the National Hockey League

in terms of, you know, expected goals against high danger chances. Like it's, it's a tough defensive environment. Like I don't know any other way to put it. And I felt like they got away from that for a while. Like they had balanced that out a little better, but they're kind of,

this is kind of right back to that stereotype. I think they create more at the other. and it's not just pucks on net all the time. Like there is a more purposeful nature to it, but they're still giving after long periods of possession, giving up odd man rushes the other way for goalies that haven't seen a lot. And so the shot totals aren't there, but when you look at expected save percentage in the NHL,

so what the average goalie would be expected to stop, given the quality of shots faced, the Carolina hurricane, have three of the four worst defensive environments in the entire league by goalie so far. Freddie Anderson has an 863 expected. That is the lowest in the NHL. Piotr Kochetkov, before he got hurt, was at 870.

And Brandon Boosie is at 871. The only other goalie in the NHL that's in that mix of four is Carl Lindbaum with the Vegas Golden Knights in limited minutes. So it makes what Boosie is doing, and I'm probably saying, is it Bussy or Bousie? I can't believe I'm... I'm going to go with Bussie, but listen, you're the goalie guy. Well, no, but I've literally had him on the podcast for Ingoal radio,

and I'm brain cramping. Too many pucks off the head, Dimitri. But, like, what Bussie's doing right now, you know, fifth in the NHL and adjusted save percentage, six in goals saved above expected, behind an environment that is the fourth worst in the league, it makes it all that more impressive. Now, here's the thing about bad environments,

or tough environments, I think they tend to be cumulative. And so the longer it goes on, the harder it is to sort of keep up. Like you talk about the odd man rushes. Like obviously there's a system within that. You don't want to give them up when you do. There are plans and tendencies and things that goalies read off and trust. Like, hey, this guy's not going to give up the pass or this guy might or we're always going to be in this spot and try and force a pass at this point of a rush.

like Blue Line or top of the circles or hash marks. And being able to read off your defensive tendencies is a big part of sort of surviving those types of high danger chances. It's interesting. I just did a video that we put up this weekend in goal for our pro reeds. And it was Matt Murray on a two on one. And as much as I think we often look at those types of scoring chances and you think, okay, shooter tendencies is his pass option.

In this case, it was against the capitals. And the pass option was Tom Wilson. and the shooter was Connor McMichael, you're thinking, oh, like, that's a pass. You're probably looking for Tom Wilson if you're McMichael in this spot every time, even if he's not on his one T-side drive in the back door on the net. And Matt Murray basically read that it was a shot, not a pass

from the time it was above the hash marks. Shot didn't come to below the dot, but he read it the whole way, and it was based on how his defenseman played the pass. And so the challenge is, as you give up more and more of this quality, if there are some things that start happening that aren't within the system or aren't within the tendencies,

how long do you keep trusting it? Like, the example I used to give, and it was Oprah simplified, but it was from the Edmonton Oilers in the sort of Devin Dubnick era, it's like, hey, like, if the guy's not taking away the backdoor pass the way he's supposed to be, like nine in a row, on the 10th one, you're going to cheat to it. And when you cheat in this league,

that's when they rip you short side high. And so this is the challenge in an environment that is this difficult. And obviously, Freddie Anderson at his age, you know, given how long he's been around, like asking him to play in the worst defensive environment in the league and stop bullets in his teeth. Like, that's a tough ask right now. And for the first time in several years, because he kept posting these incredible adjusted say percentages, this is the first time in several years where he just hasn't been able to keep up to it. It's also the worst the environment's been, but he just hasn't been able to sort of keep up to it.

He's out of, out of, you know, the 89 goalies that have played this year, you know, he ranks into the 60s and minus 1.5%. So there's sort of a two-sided coin there. We know what the environment is. It's difficult. And yet, Piotr Kochecov before he got hurt and Brandon Boosie right now are outperforming it by a significant margin and Freddie isn't. And this, that's a new trend, right? Like I said, the last couple of years, it's just been about can he stay healthy because he's played at a really high level when he

has been. This is the first year we've sort of seen this go to this degree. What do you say Freddie's expected say percentage was, 863? 863, man. That is like, I remember, you remember the Eric Comrie conversation when he was in Buffalo and I was like, he's not an NHL goalie? I'm like, no, he's got an 858 expected say percentage. It was the lowest I'd ever seen. 863 is where Freddy's at and there's a lot of guys down in the low 870s this year. I don't think I've ever seen this many totals this

far down from an expected and it speaks to the you know again the changing in well it doesn't really speak to the changing in how they count shots because ClearSight has always had in its numbers that the NHL badly over count shots but it does speak to

teams you know just focusing on quality over quantity that's hilarious considering his actual Ross A percentage is 863. So he's been right in line with the expectations, unfortunately. Those expectations at this point are rather hideous. I think accentuating this is the fact that we've seen just seven games for Jacob Slavin so far this season.

And even when he's played, they're kind of managing his minutes and easing him back in. And he's not playing his usual workload. They use 10 different defensemen. I think Sean Walker's been the only guy in that blue line to play every single game. But at the same time, Freddie's 610 and 3 in terms of record. he's posted a 900 say percentage in a game just three times in his 19 appearances and give it up less than three goals against just three times as well. And you look at what Bussie's doing. And I'm very curious for your take on kind of scaling this out, right?

Because it's such a relative unknown for the most part. Like I think everyone was really high on him when he was posting those numbers in Providence a couple years ago. And I know the Bruins were very reluctant to expose him to waivers and were. trying to, trying to manage that. Eventually, he signs with Florida this past off season with, you know, I think I had an opportunity to finally play in the NHL. They bring in Terrace off. So he gets exposed on waivers.

The canes pick him up. Kachekhov gets hurt. And now he has this opportunity. And he's so different than pretty much every other goalie, an already incredibly small list of goalies, but guys who are going to be available as UFAs this summer, or at least that don't have current contracts for next season, because it's generally a list of what you'd expect of guys who have been around the block have already played in a couple different teams we have a good sample size with them they're like 33 to 35 years old and the upside is pretty

low because of that especially from a workload perspective he's 28 in june he's massive he's athletic he's making a lot of these high danger saves he's not quite as bad of an environment as the one you portrayed for freddie but still not an ideal one and he's performing much better within it and so I guess I'm curious to see the second half of the seasons can be very telling for this and maybe it'll ultimately decide which direction this goes but kind of how much the hurricanes use him, whether they bring anyone else in or just rely on these two guys. And then based on that how that goes, what his next contract looks like because he's just such a different commodity, I guess, compared to every other option on the free agent market this summer. The lesson here is if the

Florida Panthers are interested in a goalie, you should be interested too. Because you're right. Like they signed him and the only reason he doesn't get an opportunity is because they land Terrace off who has been really, really good as well in his first year in Florida after struggling in part because the injuries that didn't allow him to get enough minutes. The talent's always been there when he was in Columbus and then just sort of not really getting a chance to sort of get up to speed in the league. He's gotten that chance in Florida and he's excelled with it. So I'm as curious as anyone, right?

Like great story. I remember when we had Brandon on our podcast, a couple years ago, it was during that Providence year you mentioned. Like just the way he approached everything was really refreshing. He's had to earn everything along the way. And so regardless of how this plays out, you know,

you know he's going to handle it the right way. He's not afraid of the work. He's put it in. He's got that massive frame. He catches with the wrong hand, so to speak. And I just want to wonder, not so much is it sustainable. It is a small sample size. Like you see the skill there. It's just, is it sustainable for anyone at this level behind that environment from a difficulty

standpoint? The one thing that we can do, like we can, like there's times where he's aggressive, like, he will, he does not hesitate to attack the puck and attack players once he reads shot and at times that has him painting outside the lines outside of his crease and get a little scrambling if the first save isn't clean and you're relying on your defense to clean it up. But there's, you know, there's we can see the technical and we can look at all those elements. But what we can't see is sort of between the ears like the mental and the mindset stuff. Like quite often you can't see that component of it. And you look for signposts along the road and like everyone on him, whether it's from conversations or the weight.

he's managed certain situations difficult at times, the time he had in Providence, and then getting passed by Michael DiPietro the next season. Just the way he's managed everything and handled everything, I'd be willing to place a bet on him, absolutely. But we've certainly seen small sample bets get placed at too big a scale and then end up not cashing out in the past. All right, Kevin, let's take our break here.

And then when we come back, we'll jump right back in and go through the rest of our topics. For today, you're listening to the Hockey, Ocas Dream. on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey Teogacist, run by Kevin Woodley. Kevin, you know, we were talking about Gibson earlier to start the show, and I think that natural segue is for us to talk

about the Ducks goalies a little bit, because the wheels have certainly come off defensively for this group, maybe unsurprisingly so, based on this high wire act they were playing with early in the year, where it was just so exhilarating in terms of how much they were generating and how their young players were performing, but still acknowledging that they were giving back a ton coming the other way

and their goalies in particular Lucas Dostal at the time was covering up a lot of those flaws. They've lost nine straight here, 11 of the last 12. They've given up 60 goals against in those 12 games. You don't need to be that well-versed in analytics to know that's not good and that's five goals against per game,

which won't win you a lot of those. Dostal had a 904 save percentage in his first 17 games. Then he gets that upper body injury, misses nearly a month of time. And since he's come back, he's played 12 games, has an 855, safe percentage in that time.

Now, I don't think it's necessarily related to him, you know, being rusty or still not 100 percent because I think a lot of the flaws are in front of him and apply to all these goalies. But it's been really bad and I'm curious for your take on kind of what you're seeing from that and what you're seeing from Dostal in particular because obviously we're all very excited about him. All the early signs that led to the five-year extension he got this offseason were very promising and the ducks were clearly, I mean, they had already. even with John Gibson there last year, like I think telegraphed their intent because he played 54 games last year. And so they were very comfortable with making him the guy and kind of patching it

together behind him with a couple cheaper veteran options. And it has not worked out so far. What are you seeing from Dostal and kind of how do we break this down? Yeah, no, like I just see, I don't know how much of it's the injury because you'd be surprised to meet you how many times a guy comes back even after an extended absence. And you think it's enough time for them to be 100%. And they play and then everything falls off a cliff. And you find out after the fact that they were playing through something or trying to manage something. And it's just this is a really hard league.

And it's an even harder league when you don't feel 100%. I would suggest it's an even harder. Harder league if that's the case. And I'm not saying it is I don't know. But you add that to an environment that is just completely eroded. you know, when he left, his expected say percentage was close to league average. And he was outperforming it by a good margin. Now it's, you know, we talked about where the canes were.

It's, it's in that territory. Since December 1st, Billy Huso's got an 873 expected and Dostles got an 874. Right. So, you know, not quite, not quite Freddie Anderson's 863, but a significant drop from where they were to start the season. And it just feels like as much as the canes are about giving. up odd man rushes and those are somewhat unpredictable. It just feels like the ducks as a team defensively.

Like there's not a lot of predictability in their game. It's not easy to read off of what's going on in front of these goaltenders. 29th in the NHL, five on five, high danger chances. 27th off the rush. 26 defensive zone. 14th on the P.K. Like there are a lot of things that have, and that's after a good start. those numbers were all respectable at the beginning.

Odd man rushes, 29th in the NHL, even worse than the Carolina Hurricanes when it comes to giving up odd man rushes. Net front, what net front? They're 27th in the NHL in terms of giving up chances right in front of their goalies. Dots down in the defensive zone,

they're dead last in the league. Like it just feels like as much as the focus was on the offense early in the year, and maybe some of this is just having the puck more at the other end of the rink, the environment wasn't terrible. And it's, you know, I mean, the only word for it really is it's cratered. And since I don't think it's a coincidence that the goaltenders have kind of fallen off with it.

And, you know, I mean, it's not a real complicated breakdown. And you take a look at some of the specific areas where Dostal has struggled, you know, from a, you know, expected like his performance relative to the chances. as he's facing, like, slot line plays. So East West plays. Like, he's almost five goals below expected. Like, that's his sort of worst number, that in one timers. And this is a guy whose game is built on speed and arriving, set and on angle and

holding his edges, patience. Like, the strengths of his game are there. And you see it in video when you watch him. Like, it's not just, hey, this is what makes him good, but other goalies watch him do these things. And they're like, damn, like, I'd like to, I'd like to, I'd like, like to be that good at those elements. And right now, those are not holding water, I think in part because the degree of difficulty and the unpredictability and the environment is playing a big role in it.

And so, you know, you're right. They telegraph that this is where they were going. And yet the expectations that come with a new contract and being the guy and doing it night in, night out in this type of, like, it's just hard. Like there's going to be some ups and downs. I am not in any way, shape or form ready to sell on Lucas Doste. Like I believe in that talent. And I think as things in front of him get a little steadier, you'll see a better chance. There'll be a better chance we'll see that guy more often.

But right now it feels like a combination of things. I don't know how much of it is injury. But for sure, for sure, since he's come back, it's almost like he came back to a different team defensively in terms of what they're giving up. And, you know, I haven't had a chance to talk to him to ask how much is, you know, how much of this is that or not, but the numbers sort of bear it out, both in terms of his environment and the specific areas where he's struggling

behind that environment. They, they don't match his strengths typically. Well, the 31st and expected goals against the corner sport logic and certainly just watching the tape. It's kind of this eclectic combination of like young guys who are predictably careless at times in terms of like getting back defensively or reading to defensive assignments and knowing who to pick up in time and then older guys they brought in who are better at that

but are slower at this point of their career and can't really get there in time and so they're not really getting the best out of either of those two archetypes right now and I guess the puzzling thing and this is partly hindsight because I didn't necessarily mind the trade at the time I felt like you know

this had been dragging on for so long that it was like clean slate get a resolution to it, get a couple picks, move on. You've got Dostal in place after that extension and figure it out in the other 25, 30 games he doesn't play. Yet they're paying Razzick and Huso pretty much an identical amount of money to what they would have been paying Gibson this year. And part of it might just be as well. Gibson clearly wanted to go somewhere where he would either be the starter or like a firm 1A, 1B kind of equal split. And that wasn't going to happen. in Anaheim, they'd already moved in Doe's direction, but comparing what they're getting out of

those two guys for the same figure compared to what Kipson's doing in a wildly different environment, certainly. But that would be a tough one, especially for a team that had the cap space. So that wasn't necessarily consideration. And speaking of telegraphing stuff, like went out and was very purposeful about bringing in veteran players and changing the coach and trying to become a playoff team this year and then kind of costing themselves a couple of very valuable points here. the way. Well, I mean, you know, you can't, you can't assume that they, like, I don't think you can

assume that you get the Gibson you're getting in Detroit if he's stayed in Anaheim, not with this environment, not the way it's eroded, not when we talk about Gibson having a nine, you know, like 30 point difference from December 1st till now in the expected say percentage of Lucas Dostal and John Gibson. Like, you would literally have to take Lucas Dostel's raw say percentage and add 30 points to it to make. To make. get a fair comparison. So that, like, that's a significant swing. And, you know, Huso's actually like, by the numbers, you know, in a small sample actually held up okay. He's close to expected, whereas Dosh Dahl's fallen off. And, you know, the, the really

tough bet there, because I think the hope was that if you rehabbed him or got him playing like he has at times in the past, he maybe even became an asset for you. Peter Mrazik is just, again, tough environment for him too. But overall on this season his expected for the year is 887, his performance is minus like he is costing them four and a half goals for every hundred shots, you know, relative

to your average goaltender. His adjusted save percentage is actually dead last in the NHL right now amongst goalies that have seen at least 150 chances. The last time you and I spoke, we did a big section on Ilyos Roken and the goalie coach

change they made early in the season and the results they'd gotten from it at the time. I noted how the market for the Vesna odds was not in line with what was going on and what we were watching because he was far down the list despite the fact that he had been the best goalie in the league for like two straight months. And now he is the Vesna favorite. In fact, him and Logan Thompson are just an entirely different stratosphere compared to everyone else on the leaderboard. And honestly, while that's totally deserved, I think there's a very,

valid argument to make that you could go even further than that and say that Sorokin is a top five heart trophy guy right now as well. Certainly the skaters with McKinnon, McDavid, Cellebrini and Kucharov in the run he's been on in this 10 game running street for the lightning are probably the top four. But I feel like he's got as compelling a case as anyone to be the fifth guy on that list because he's just been so dominant. And it's been amusing. I was texting you about this watching the Alasbara on a couple national broadcast this past week. They had that 9-0 win against the devils where Syroken had a shutout. And then they went to Nashville and I think lost in a shootout,

but played a very close game there. I go to Minnesota and win that one in overtime. And these broadcasts are tripping over themselves, trying to talk about how the islanders are your classic New York Islanders of the past. They're so good defensively. They're third in goals against this season. Only Colorado and Tampa Big have fewer goals. And that's technically true as a stat,

but that is more of a Ilya Sorokin and David Riddick's stat, as opposed to in Yurik Islanders stat at this point because they've been one of, if not the worst defensive teams in terms of just aggregate performance this season. And part of that is by design, like they've opened up their offense. They're really catering to the strengths of their two best players, Matthew Schaefer and Matthew Barzell, and getting great results out of those guys, their top 10 in points percentage. Like I think it's a net positive.

They're certainly much more entertaining to watch. I think everyone should be excited about their future. But in the meantime, they've been relying on their goalies to such a great extent. And these guys are just time and time again, giving them unbelievable performances. And so I wanted to shout out Sorokin again, because I'm not sure if it's getting enough attention, just how good he's been so far this year. Yeah, he's like hands down. You're right.

Logan Thompson's in the conversation. But I guess people should have listened when you said the betting markets were off on him the last time we talked because they could have got in early. He would be my Vesna. Like, there's a half a season to go and anything could happen. But if he keeps up what he's doing right now, he's not only winning the Vesna, you could make an argument. And it's going to be hard because the last thing anybody wants to do

outside of the goalie union is start handing out hard trophies to goalies every year. Well, we gave Hallibuck one. I think we have like a five-year grace period now. We don't have to do this again. But Serochen in half a season has made. matched goals saved above expected of Connor Hellebuck for the entire season last year. And that speaks to the defensive environment. Hellebuck was amazing last year.

But behind a team that defended really well. And look what's happened this year is that defense has fallen off a cliff in Winnipeg. What Sorokan's doing right now, like for large portion, and I will give you this, the islanders are I'll give the TV people that are falling all over themselves to talk about Islanders defending. I'll give them this. Of late, sort of mid-December on, the defending has gotten better. And Ilya's expected say percentage is 879.

Still like almost 10 points below league average, but he's getting up there. For a large chunk of this season, it was 870. And much like Brandon Bossy, he was outperforming it by the type of margin that does get you the heart trophy. Like way above what Hellebuck did last year, the last time we saw a goalie even flirt with these numbers

was Igor Shashterkin the year. he was a finalist and arguably should have won it. Like, Sorokin has been the best goalie in the league hands down. Again, doesn't diminish what Thompson is doing in Washington, but Thompson's at just under 16 goals saved above expected. Sorokin's over 20 in a smaller sample. And then third on the list is Philip Gruber at under nine. Igor Shashteriken, under nine.

Dustin Wolf, eight and a half. Brandon Bussie, as we said, 8.2. like Seroquins lapping the field with Thompson the only one that's sort of drafting in behind him and keeping touch with him. So again, guys can get on heaters. Somebody could come out of nowhere in the second half that's had already a good first half like a Thompson,

like a wolf, well probably not wolf, but like a Blackwood, just because Wolf's on a team that's not going to get into that conversation, not him specifically. but he's he's a favorite he's a heavy favorite if this continues if he were to get the 40 goals saved above expected it would be really hard not to hand him the heart trophy if he doubles the guy they got the heart trophy last year I don't expect it like you said a ton of great offensive players there's no way they give it to a goalie back to back but again if this continues for the second half of the season and these numbers are doubled by then

my goodness, it's going to be, it's going to look really awkward not to hand it to him at the end of the year. Well, Sport Logic has him with an 889 save percentage on just inner slot shots alone in a league where the league average say percentage on all shots is 897. And he's faced the second highest volume of them behind just UC Soros. And UC Saros has faced 12 more of them in nine extra starts. So on a per start basis, it's not even close. And I did want to shout out David Riddick as well, who I think is. been excellent when they've called upon him and Sorok and missed a bit of time around the holidays. And he stepped up and, you know, he had a couple, like two or three stinkers along the way,

but for the most part, has been very solid. And he's a guy who they got for one million for one year and is going to join Bussie on that very short list of D.OPA goleys. So that'll be interesting as well. Let's talk Jacob Markstrom a little bit because he's a goalie that you're certainly very familiar with. And it feels like an understatement saying that the devil's desperately needed that win. on Monday in Minnesota to stop the bleeding a little bit.

He gives up two goals against only on 23 shots. And the second one was garbage time power play goal for the wild. I thought, you know, early on, I was like, oh, no, here we go again, watching that game. Because the wild got like five or six in the just point blank looks in the first half of the game and just missed the net on all of them, including a couple of just empty net ones with a yawning cage. And then the devils kind of got their act together, scored a couple goals, and it wound up winning that game. I'm curious for your take on sort of what's going on with Markstrom and the Devils right now as well, especially in light of the two-year extension they gave him around Halloween and kind of how that bet is going to look and sort of how he fits in this scheme.

I imagine part of the logic for them beyond obviously being high on him internally is they looked around and looked at who's going to be available and being like, all right, well, we don't want to risk him going to market because there's going to be no one else to replace him. and so we've got this tandem with him and Jake Allen, but just roll over this $6 million cap figure for two more years. But based on the way the performances for him and the team have gone since then, I think people are understandably panicking a little bit about it. Okay, so it's fair. You know, his adjusted say percentage for the season ranks, you know,

he's below expected 0.7%, which I think a lot of people might think is, you know, that it would be worse out of the goalies to say, just filtering it for 150 chances to get rid of the guys that have really seen, you know, very little action. That ranks 46 out of 71 goalies. And so obviously not the type of performance that you're paying that kind of money to, especially when Jake Allen's at plus 1% 19th out of those same 71 goalies and making a whole lot less.

Now, interestingly enough, and stop me if you've heard this before, but Jacob Markstrom's expected is 874. Jake Allen's is 889. and people, like, I know people struggle to believe this, but like, hey, it's like the same, we can compare apples to apples when it's a goalie on the same team. But, you know, I did this exercise to help somebody in Philadelphia this week. Like Dan Vladar to Sam Erson,

they're not playing behind the same environment because they're getting different starts. And for whatever reason, Markstrom, part of it is that game, the 9-0 game. You know, but again, there were goals. It wasn't all environment there. they gave up a lot of quality, but they also gave up some shots that he should, he'll tell you he did say afterwards that he should stop. But 874, like again,

like I think defensive environments that poor are really tough to overcome in the long haul. From December 1st, up until right before the 9-0 game, he had actually trended. I watched his game and I didn't see any signs of any big changes, but performance-wise, he had trended up. Like he was 11th,

in the NHL. He was plus 2.1%, which again, like if you're like, what does that mean? It means on every 100 chances, he was saving the devil's two goals. So if 100 chances is three games, four games, you're saving them half a goal a game, basically, from December 1st until that 9-0 cratering. The thing that stands out, and this has always been a little bit of a thing with Jacob, as worrisome is the low percentage goals, the quote-unquote bad goals, the ones that, ones that, you know, he'll tell you in that 9-0-0 game, shouldn't go in, but throughout the season, he's got 13 of them. He's tied for the second most in the NHL. And so shots from distance, clean looks from outside the slot area, Pucks that just shouldn't go in and typically don't go in,

have gone in more on him throughout his career a little bit, but even more so this season. That said, again, that window, and I realize I'm cherry-picking a five-week sample, but from December 1st to right before that 9-0. He looked like things were starting to trend in the right direction. So he has the bad game. He bounces back against Minnesota. You know, what's more true? The 9-0-0 night or the trend that we saw from December 1st on as he was starting to climb

out of a hole at the start of the season. And I think climbing out of that hole will get a lot easier, you know, when his environment is an 8-74 expected. And I know this is a theme we keep coming back to. but when you look at the raw numbers and judge these guys, environment matters. Like, goaltending does not exist in a vacuum.

You cannot compare a guy with an 874 expected to a guy with an 890 expected and look at their raw numbers and say, this guy's worse than that guy. Like quality matters. And once again, for Jacob Markstrom, it's a tale of both things. He's seen a lot of quality,

and his environment is difficult, but the part you can fairly criticize him for, is the stuff that isn't quality that's going in, that becomes a little, especially if you have playoff ambitions and you think you can make a run, bad goals, kill teams.

I don't know that they've updated this number at ClearSight in a while, but when your goalie gives up a low percentage goal and the guy at the other end doesn't, I think the last, this is a few years old, but it's like your team loses 87% of those games. So 13 low percentage goals is the number that jumps out as most troublesome for him,

but I think overall over the past, past couple of months. Erased that 9-0-0 game and things have looked overall fairly positive. Well, I think, you know, speaking of that 9-0 game and it was obviously embarrassing and ugly for everyone involved on the devil's side, but I saw a lot of, you know, after that game online, talk about how that was like the worst individual goalie performance ever in terms of goals able to have expected and all these stats. And I'm not sure I buy that purely because you look at that and I think five of those nine were like, I don't know. contested looks off the rush. One of them was after an extended sequence where Barzal goes cross

seam laterally to do Claire some beautiful shots along the way. Now you could argue, A, the devil's spent this premium in terms of trading the first and Kevin Ball and then assigning him to this two-year extension because he had graded out as one of the better goalies in terms of defending the rush. And that's why they identified him and valued him so highly. And then two, to your point about the bad goals, you cannot evaluate any of these metrics in a vacuum in terms of like not each shot you face is isolated from the rest, right? Especially when you're facing Sorokin on the other end and he doesn't give up anything. As soon as you give up a goal or two and you're like, oh, here we go again and you know you're not going to get any run support from your team in front of you,

I think the wheels can come off and kind of influence everything involved in the operation. And I imagine that's what went into that game for the devils. Yeah, it's funny. And, you know, at the other end of the ice, like I think a lot of people looked at that game and said, oh, like the focus was on Markstrom, understandably so. Four high danger goals on six chances, four mid-danger goals on nine chances, and one low-danger goal on seven chances.

At the other end of the rank, you know, people forgot about how good Sorokin was. I think it was 44 shots was the final total or Clearside had it at 42. 30 of those were low danger. Like look at that difference, and those are the ones that get you into a game. And the one thing I will say about Markstrom off the rush,

and teams will have maybe they figured this out, like look at the number of times off the rush, and those are a lot of those mid-danger chances. They look, you know, the rush element gives them, grades them up to mid-danger, not necessarily high danger. They're clean and they're from distance. And sometimes you have to tip your hat to great shooters, but that's sort of always been the asterisk that goes beside his game,

is that sort of shots from outside a little bit are an area where he gets beat clean more than most goalies and certainly more than, you know, almost any goalie that we put in that high end, you know, maybe not quite elite anymore at this age, but like in that category, he gives up more of those than than that group typically does. Well, in his last seven losses, the Devils have scored 0-0-1-0 and 4 goals in that time. And the 4 was, they were down 6-2 and they scored a couple late. in the third. I do think...

But there you go. Look at like 42 shots and everyone's like, oh, the devil's actually outplayed them. I'm like, like barely, only because of the cumulative effect of 30 low danger chances, which most goalies are going to tell you. All right, good job warming up the other guy.

Well, and, you know, I've been talking about this a little bit, but I don't know if it's attributed to the fact that they've been struggling so much in terms of scoring 5-1-5 goals or missing out on Quinn Hughes and whether I did the locker room and then maybe tuning the coach out a little bit.

But the effort, especially from the top six, getting back defensively at times, has been so poor in terms of just picking guys up. And this is a team that a couple of years ago, when they were such a prolific offensive team, what made them so good at that time was how they used that speed actually to snuff stuff out defensively and help their goalies. And so I think all this stuff is intertwined.

I will say, though, when you keep bringing up all these expected goals or expected save percentages, maybe we need to do a full show and really get into, to a big picture conversation about this because it's getting so low, comically so, to a point where I think like we need to revisit what's going on in the league right now. Yeah. Kind of what that means for goalie values in particular because on the one hand I can point

out all this stuff, but it's like you trade a couple premium assets and pay a goalie $6 million. I feel like at that point you're kind of betting on that either exceeding whatever that environment is or actually being a meaningful difference. Whereas for the most part, it seems like it's pretty kind of linear. for a lot of these teams right now in terms of what the expectation is, and it's just so much more below what it was in previous years. Well, you know what? Interestingly enough, and so maybe this does necessitate that type of conversation

the next time we reconvene, and I can dig into a little bit more, at least conversationally and anecdotally with guys around the league. Because I had a goalie coach say to me earlier this season, and this is a guy who really well thought of in the league, has a lot of experience in the league and a lot of success in the league, including a Stanley Cup as a goalie coach, that he believed that relationship, so the relationship between environment and outcome

had never been more closely tied than it is right now when it comes to goalies. Like in other words, the amount of guys that are able to consistently outperform that environment is so small. The environment matters more than anything. And we're seeing these extremes. And so like Brandon Bussie doing what he's doing this year is remarkable. Does that mean you can count on it?

And flip flip flip it. Like if he goes into a great defense environment, are you getting the same thing? Like there's just so many variables here, even from team to team from year to year. It kind of goes back to my old, you know, and somebody's going to knock on the door and take away my goal of union card.

As soon as I say this, I'm waiting for that little knock. But it's why if I was a general manager, not that anybody would be stupid enough to put me. me in that position, but the one thing I would avoid if I can is term, right? Because this is all changing really fast. And like even if you think you have a high end goalie, like what they're good at might not matter three years from now because what they're seeing is changing and evolving so quickly. So when we look at a brand in Bussie, I think what we need to do and I need to do,

and I need to do a better job of it coming into shows like this, is identify what it is, what are the common denominators that allowing some goalies to have success in these difficult environments? I thought one of the ones last year was depth. I looked at Wolf.

I looked at these guys that were playing a more contained game. And as much as we think about, oh, open looks and all the skill, you've got to challenge these shooters, the reality was with all the East West plays and side to side the teams are trying to create, it's the guys who played contained

within their crease, not just north-south, but side-to-side east-west within the post. That was the common denominator amongst all the guys that had success last year. But even that's evolving. because teams figure out, okay, he's succeeding this way, but there is an exposure.

So now we got to get to that. And then the goalies, you know, in Wolf's case in Calgary, he has to adjust if his team starts giving up looks, high slot, middle of the ice. And so that constant back and forth, I just think at the end of the day, you can't sort of do it one way and have success year after year. You have to constantly be adjusting to a certain degree. And that adds volatility to our ability to predict a lot of these things, except for Philip Grubauer, which I called quite nicely in the summer.

Thank you very much patting myself on the back. And ironically, I think we've seen teams operate in the exact opposite way recently over the past calendar year or so, right? I think there was a period where we saw teams very reluctant to commit to the team to goalies. And then now partly because there's so few available and partly because I think teams are using it as a way to keep the cap hit down so that they can spend in the short term elsewhere on their roster in terms of skaters.

We've seen some really long-term commitments to goalies, a lot of them more in prime years range and of the more elite variety at the moment, but still certainly not the short-term approach that you just highlighted there. So I think that's going to be interesting to see to see how that unfolds. You want to close out quickly. We only got a couple minutes left, but I wanted to get into Connor Ingram and then Joseph Wohl with you. You got any notes on either of those guys?

I mean, just Joseph Woll, you know, since coming back like overall on the season, right back where we expect him. eye test wise. I thought there were times last year I know he made some adjustments in terms of how he sort of prepared and took care of his body and sort of some of the focal points there.

I thought there were times last year where he lost a little bit of the instinctual stuff like he didn't look as fluid but he found a way to play that allowed him to stay healthier. I think we're seeing a better balance in his game right now. The results are similar. Like he's just flirting with top 10 in the National Hockey League and adjusted, say, percentage.

Somewhat favorable environment, 900 expected. Dennis Hildeby just slightly above him off an 893 expected. So both guys, you know, playing really well and decent, better than league average environments. But for Wohl, I think all the changes he made last year look more instinctual and look more innate. And it looks like he's thinking less. Like there's a little more reactive element on top of it. He looks, it's funny, he looks still looks like the guy from last year. but he's having slightly more success,

and I think that's because there are times where I still see the goal from a couple years ago. And so that balance between that guy not being able to stay healthy and adding some things now that'll allow him to, like he's found a really nice balance. Quickly on Connor Ingram, he's right there with Joseph Woll so far this season. Tiny sample, obviously, but plus 1.2%.

That grades out 14th in the National Hockey League, slightly ahead of Jesper Walshsted right now, slightly ahead of Spencer Knight, some guys who started well ahead and have sort of come back. Really curious to see what Edmonton does here. Played last night, had a good game. They've got another back-to-back coming up this weekend, Vancouver,

and then I can't remember who they play in the second half. And that, assuming he plays midweek on Thursday against the Islanders, ironically, would get him to nine. And Tristan Jari's close to coming back. So he's at nine games. Ten means he's got to clear waivers. They can make a decision where they just send Connor Ingram down. and decide to keep like, hey, we like what you did.

You've played really well. You might be our higher upside option as a backup, or if we need a starter, should Jari get hurt again. But we can't carry three and we can't afford to risk losing you on waivers or risk losing Calvin Pickard on waivers. And, you know, the other thing I will say here, because we talked earlier this year about Pickard having like, last year he had this incredible environment and how hard they played for him.

This year at the beginning of the year is one of the worst in the NHL. since the trade, he's had a more stable defensive environment, and he's actually played really well since they traded Stuart Skinner. So on the whole for the season, Ingram's numbers grade out way ahead of his. Since the trade, they've both been really good. And so they face an interesting decision here. Do they roll with three and go the way Montreal and Seattle have? Make sure they can use that to rest up their number one in Jari.

Make sure you get them to the finish line. or do they send Ingram as good as he's been? Do they send him back to the minor league? The risk there is, yes, you maintain the asset. You don't risk losing anyone on waivers. But the risk is you lose his game and the comfort level he's shown in Edmonton. Because I said this going into this experiment, you would not get the best out of him in the American Hockey League.

The game's different. He's an elite reader of the game, and you can't survive the same way in the American League because the game's so broken down there. It's a game of mistakes. do you lose that comfort level if you send him back down? And will it take him a couple of weeks if you need him, you know, again, closer to the playoffs to get back up to speed?

And so I'm curious to see which way they go on this. There are risks either way. The one with the least risk is three goalies, but nobody likes that system. I still think there's things you can do to use it to your advantage. But I don't know that they have a, you know, given some of the LTIR with Adam Henrique, I think that would leave them stuck with at 12 forward,

it's not even able to carry 13. So, um, so big decisions coming ahead in the next week for the Edmonton Oilers in their goal tending situation. Yeah, it's only seven games for Ingram in Edmonton, four two and a one,

a 904 say percentage over. Right. But if he plays on Thursday and then one of the two back to backs that gets him to nine on the weekend. Yep. And, uh, no, I was going to say he has a 900 Zay percentage at least in six of seven.

And I think that just highlights what the Oilers have needed from their goalies in terms. of just like a reliable baseline even just so it's not costing you because the offense, especially in the power play, is going to be enough to give you at least a couple goals every night. And so that might be all you need. Now, you mentioned like the game upcoming against the Canucks and in some of their schedule. The games he's played have been the Black Oxwell, Bred, L.A., Nashville, Boston, although they scored 10 goals last weekend. So maybe I should include them here, the flames twice, and then Vegas without Eichel and Shay Theater. So it's been pretty favorable in

terms of easing him in here, but especially considering he's a 28-year-old UFA this summer and the upside. I think you and I both have thought very highly of them previously. I'd like to see this given more runway as a high upside option in case Jerry gets hurt again or you need to turn to him at some point in a high leverage moment in the playoffs as opposed to knowing what you're going to get from Pickard, even if it has been better recently. And on wall, I just wanted to note, I think he's been phenomenal. and you highlighted a couple of the stats there,

especially the degree of difficulty of missing the start of the year, coming back November 15th, stole ours out and relying on them and the defensive environment's gotten better the past couple weeks. But I was watching the game on Monday against the abs, and they put up this graphic of like, he's like a 9-31, see a percentage or something in first periods in particular, and it was in light of this first period against the abs

where they were teeing off with grade A after grade A, and he was just standing in there and he gave them a chance to ultimately win that one. And so I think he's been great, and it's awesome to see him come back and perform this way. All right, Kevin, that's all the time we have for today. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out. What do you want to listen to know about? Just ingolmag.com is where you can find our stuff at Ingoal magazine.

I referred to the pro reads we do a couple of times. Listen, if you're not a goalie, it's probably not for you. If you are a goalie, whether you're a youth goalie, a teen goalie, a junior goalie. We have subscribers in the National Hockey League. Golly coaches right up to the NHL that subscribe to Ingoal magazine because we bring you, you know, pro-reads is NHL goalies breaking down their saves and explaining to you the whys of their decision-making process, like why they choose a certain depth, a certain save situation, what they're looking for for reads. There is, in the words of a couple of goalie coaches over the years, no better way to learn how to read and anticipate the game than through Ingoal magazine's pro-read.

So I highly suggest if you're a goalie, you check them out. Ingolemag.com is where you can find it. and yeah, that's, that's, if you're a goalie, beer league, regardless, we'll make you better. All right, buddy. Good stuff. We'll already look forward to our next chat. If Philip Rubauer keeps this up, we're going to have to devote a good section next time to him because I was going to ask you about some of your under the radar favorite performances so

far, and I imagine he would have been right up there. Well, he is, but let me tease you with one other, fun with small samples, especially after a rough start. I mean, we know Soros gets all the attention and he's turned things around, but you just Annen in, I think, just four starts since December 1st, is the only goalie in the entire league that's pushing up against Dilius Serochon's numbers since then. A tiny, you know, fun with small samples, Dimitri, but that one stands out a little bit in part because when Colorado traded him, he had some really good adjusted numbers in sheltered

minutes, still somewhat sheltered in Nashville, but performing in that role really admirably for the predators. Big juice. I love it. Juice and big juice in Nashville. All right. Give us a five-star review where you listen. Join the PDCast Discord where you can get questions in for future episodes with Kevin and we'll get into more of those. Then subscribe to the PDCast Patreon as well. I put out a newsletter piece this week on Matthew Schaefer breaking down kind of how he's changed the way the Islanders played.

We talked about that a little bit in the Sorokan section. I've got Arpen Basu on tomorrow for a chat about the HABs. So get all your extra content there. And that is all for today. We're going to get out of here now. Thank you for listening to the Hockey PEDYOcast stream. on the Sports Night Radio Network.