The Hockey PDOcast - How Teams Are Creating Goals in the Playoffs

Episode Date: April 21, 2023

Kevin Woodley joins Dimitri to talk about how teams are scoring in the playoffs, what’s working and what isn’t, and how individual goalies are performing so far.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. 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. 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.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPediocast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich, and joining me here in studio on this Friday is my good buddy, Kevin Woodley. Kevin, what's going on, man? Playoffs are going on, man. That's right. It's the best time of year.

There we go. We have another chance to talk about this. Did you your prep before the playoffs started on goalie's tendencies and where they can be beaten? Yeah, you know what? A little bit of a miscommunication. It started. I got in pretty deep. Who'd you do the most work on?

That I found out that we weren't going to run in in the first round because it's just too much volume and it gets lost on the site. So we're going to start in the second round, which honestly, I don't think I can do all that work between the first and the second round. So it's a good thing I got the head start.

So deepest dives. I'm just trying to think of the guys I got completely through. Both goalies in the Tampa Toronto series, Vassi and Samsonoff, Shestirkin and Vanichek Got through Georgiev in Colorado A couple other guys

I'm trying to talk about all those guys We'll take them one by one We'll have through about seven or eight guys To start here though I'm going to give you this I was telling this right before we started In preparation for today's show I always try to try to at least bring some sort of nuggets

so that I can hang with you for a little bit before you just you blow past me when you started talking about techniques and the way you're hanging against the post. You just basically use a bunch of phrases that nobody else understands. I'm like, all right, this sounds really cool and technical. I'm going to take Kevin's word for it. But I'm going to start us off here and at least move us in the right direction.

All right. So there's been 99 goals so far in the first week of NHL postseason this year, scored on goalies, not including empty netters. 27 of those goals, the most have been scored off the rush or on shots in alone one-on-one. Like there's an example that I count. in that statistic where Florida got like kind of like a little forecheck and I think it was Sam Bennett was in a loan against Allmark and it was basically a one-on-one. It was like a, it was like a half-court breakaway as opposed to like a proper rush one. But there was no defense in front of them.

It's already in zone and it's one of them. It's already in zone, but it was like a breakdown where he was just by himself. Okay. And interestingly enough like that that's a separate category for breakways for clear sight. Yeah. That's still counted as a breakaway in that situation, but it's actually a separate category from say blue line in off the road. Would you expect that to have a lesser chance of being resulting in a goal than a rush breakaway where the goalie has a longer time to prepare for it or how

would you in terms of like the difficulty of a safe or a goalie obviously the level of shooter and there's various other factors to go into it but in terms of the preparation time where you see a guy coming in from center ice and you're like all right it's just going to be me versus him versus a breakdown and obviously there's other factors like how

tight does he catch that puck right um does the opportunity like is there a pass that leads to it that forces me to go one way first and he has the opportunity to sort of go against the grain on me and cut back the other way. So things like that. But without being able to pull the numbers up in this sort of quick notice, my hunch is those end zone breakaways are tougher because there is less time to set up for sure pair as opposed to seeing what's coming at you and being able to anticipate and read that. Well, I would think that as well. And I'll circle back to in a second.

21 of the goals, next highest volume, is off rebounds. 19 off deflections, tip-ins, or redirections. 18 off of pre-shot movement shots, mostly one-timers, where I counted those as either lateral ones, east-west, most typically, like across the zone. Think of the basically, like, the first one that was scored in the postseason where Brent Burns fires at cross-ice to Sebastian Ajo gets Sorokin moving, beats them that way.

four ones from behind the net, um, typically on the power player where you're setting up and you're trying to get it into a bumper. Only 14 so far I counted as clean shots that I'd say that were just 14?

14 out of the 99 where and and clean in the sense like there was, I counted the one where, um, Ryan Puyallock scored on Ranta and, and I counted as clean because there was like, no screen, no tip,

but it took a kind of a weird bounce and I don't even I've watched it 10 times and I still don't understand how it went through Ranta. but the point I'm trying to illustrate here is it's what we've been talking about all season you and I. Yeah, the offense, like, mistakes happen. You beat goalies clean every once in a while. It's almost possible.

But nine times out of ten, or probably closer to like 96 out of 100 or actually probably 98, 99 of 100, clear-sided shots are a turn open. Well, the other thing there is, I think you can count on one hand the number of goals that have been scored so far where it came from like sustained offensive zone pressure where the team had the puck for longer than five seconds, even if they were passing it around and having movement. Like it's the amount that comes from off the for a quick chance that way or off the rush or like broken plays where the puck's balancing

and all of a sudden you can't prepare for it. Like that's almost accounts for the entirety of goals. Like the number of times and I think being a good cycle team and generating chances and getting the puck below the goal line and operating from there certainly can pay dividends and you can create chances that way. But for the most part, it almost feels like you need to have that quick attack element of surprise where everyone is unable to sort of get set in a defensive position. Otherwise, it's been almost impossible to score.

Well, it's, I mean, when you talk about everyone getting set in a defensive posture, like it's the same thing for a goal tent. Right? If you allow a goaltender to get set in square and have clear sight on the puck, and especially if there is no other threat, like if they can isolate on a shooter as opposed to having to worry about. a guy in the back door or, you know, trusting their defense that they don't have to worry about that guy in the back door. I mean, it's night and day, right? Like, it's night and day. And that's why all these different things, my low slot line plays, goals off and attempts at,

have gone up by over 40% over the past five years because teams recognize that the old ways of scoring goals just typically aren't going to result in as many goals as you think. Certainly. I mean, and the remarkable thing is half of those clean shots I counted are accounted for by Vasilevsky and Vanichick, just two guys. Like Jake Godendry, I don't think in the first two games has allowed a single one. It's been all off the rush where they literally had breakaways or like a Caprizov tip in on the power play. Rebounds off the rush. Like it's been the wild have had a tough time of beating him cleanly.

And this is this is doing nothing to like help. slow down my love for Jake Odinger. I feel like last time we were talking about goalies that are reliable and ones we trust in these types of settings and predictability of their performance. I added Jake Onger Mine, you were like, ho, ho, ho, I need to see more. And you gave me the cautionary tale of Thatcher Demko and how we thought about him a year ago compared to now and how things can change quickly in the NHL landscape.

But watching Jake O'Donger play, it's done nothing to dissuade me from putting him in that tier. I'm a huge fan of Jake Otenger. I think he's a legit number one. And at such a young age to establish yourself as the number one goaltender is really impressive. I'm still, even on the adjusted numbers on the season as a whole, like we're not into the stratosphere. Even in a down year of Schochnikin, like we're a full half, half a point below that. So I think that's a pretty good environment too. Has been, was when he arrived, has maintained to this point under DeBoer.

I talked about that, you know, like as much as they freed them up offensively, they still have that in their DNA, the understanding of what it takes to defend. I think you're seeing that in the playoffs as well. And I'm really kind of curious to see, and I'm sure we're going to get into it, how Jake plays here, the rest of this series coming off that five-overtime monster in game one,

and sort of juxtaposing it to, especially tonight in game three. Yeah, with Gustafin getting that night off. And also, I mean, at the end of the day, it won't matter if the wild play. It won't matter if the wild play. Like the wild, like as good as Gustafson was in game one, like his goal, like he's saved a goal and a half. Yeah, relative.

Like they're, they gave up in five periods, three and a half expected goals. In two periods in front of Flurry, they were well over four. Well, yeah, I mean, and yeah, they did not show up for game two. And they didn't have Hartman, they didn't have Eric's exact for sure. And I wonder how much of that decision was, you know, our guy saw, saw 52, five periods and one of the toughest buildings. to play in as a goal tender in terms of heat and ice quality. And this is what we've got in front of them. And we want him fresh in three as opposed to

does the other team end up with diminishing returns. Yeah. I will say that, you know, a lot of the, it's tough to blame Flurry for the loss, certainly, and the seven goals they gave up. The two low percentage goals hurt. The two low percentage goals hurt. And also, I don't think, like,

the way he played them does any, does him any favors, you know what I mean? Like, even though... The poachic always looks terrible when it's. The poachic looks terrible. The rush goal on the power play that Jamie Ben scored where Rupahins comes in with speed and gives it to him. And he just like, may as well have been shooting on a shooter, tutor, right?

It was like, just slide it through there. He didn't even react to it. I think that grades out as a high danger chance because it's like a rush shot from the circle, basically. But at the same time where it looks, it's like, that's probably one where you could have played that better, I think, or at least gave a better. effort on it. But I'm curious for your take on the Gusus and thing because you and I have spoken

plenty about goalie rotations, wanting to see it when it matters most, talking about how the Kings did it towards the end of the regular season. We've talked specifically about last year towards the end of the year, how the wild handled Flurry and Talbot. You know, Dean Everson got a lot of flack, I think, for the decision to do so in game two in playing Flurry. I yesterday gave a tepid defense of him. I rarely defend coaching decisions on this show.

But I just thought the logic made sense. Like I think they probably watched the tape after game one and saw what was happening in the game, the direction it was headed, probably found out Hartman wasn't going to play. And they were like, you know what, let's live to fight another day. And I think that had more so to do with just strictly

having some sort of a rotation where I don't, no matter what happens in game three, I would expect Gustafson to play game four again. There's two parts of this, especially because Flurry struggled in game two. But the other part to remember, like Gustafson, and I've talked about this since November, Gustafson, his adjusted numbers

have been off the chart all season. It's the only guy in the league with an adjusted save percentage that is not quite, like it's, you've got to go a couple decimal points down before there's separation, but it's essentially the same as Linus Holmark, he's the only guy in the league. But like since mid-December,

when I round those numbers, Flurry's right there with him. Like, Flurry was really good down the stretch. You didn't get that in game two, but this wasn't, like, right up till like a late season start and I don't know what they had in the roster. Like Fleury had a real bad hiccup at the end of the year.

So unless you thought that was a sign of things to come, everything over the past two months, they've been equal. And so, and listen, like five periods. I know a goaltender this season, and he told me this, and I haven't had a chance to check with him on whether it was supposed to be on the record or off, so I'm going to leave a name out of it. But I know a goaltender this season who played three periods, a five-minute overtime, and a shootout.

in Los Angeles in the spring and lost 19 pounds of fluid. 19 pounds. Five periods in Dallas? Like it's, what does that do to you? And Dallas is a worst rink in terms of heat and humidity and what it does to gold hunters. I had this discussion with many over the years. So the wild aren't going to say that that's why.

We probably won't find out until after. Yeah. I have some inclinations based on some messages exchange that that was a part of it. but like it makes a ton of sense. And here's the funny, it's really easy to pile on this decision right now. And the interesting juxtaposition here is because they're going away from Flurry. I can make arguments in each of the past two seasons that tandoms involving Flurry

where they stuck with him rather than continuing a rotation cost a team in the playoff, including Minnesota last year, not going to Talbot until game six because it's not just like, oh, it's the pressure of an elimination game by the time you get to him. He hasn't played in two weeks. That's the problem. It was the same with Robin Lainer and Mark Andre Fleury in Vegas. I think if you gave the board truth serum, even though they got past, ironically, Minnesota in that series, largely because of Flurries playing the first four games, he was done.

His play rapidly fell off. You had to give away a game against Colorado by playing Lainer because Lainer hadn't played in two weeks and he was average, and the team wasn't good either. they were tired but like there are reasons this makes sense there are reasons it never happens because of the reaction we're seeing right now everybody points out that it failed nobody points out the times it failed the other way because you didn't use it i think it also just the fact that gustavson has such a remarkable regular season when he played right he only played the 38 games or whatever but as you mentioned how much of that how much of that is in part because he only played 38 years no of course but

what I'm saying is that also like when a guy has those types of numbers and then when you see Flurry kind of flopping around and things going bad in game two, I think from the optical perspective. Of course. That's why it also. But understand that wasn't how Mark Andre Fleury played for two and a half months. Yeah. He matched or was just below those adjusted numbers, basically from mid-December on. Here's my question for you, though, because I don't think we've heard from Dean Evesant,

I think said that they kind of told both guys in the day, in the day between games, right, that they were going to do that. Right. I don't, even though they all trained to throughout the regular season, I imagine the way games. game one transpired how long it took the workload played into the decision. I think if it was an easier game one, I don't think they would have stuck to a rotation. I think they would have just gone back to Gustafson. Fair.

He saved whatever 50 plus shots. He faced 114 shot attempts in that game. And you and I have also spoken about like that is almost a bigger indicator of fatigue or workload than the number of shots that actually hit you because you have to prepare yourself for each one of those times when the other team winds up to shoot. And the question I have for you is if they did go back and watch the tape after game one, do you think there's an element of like watching especially the overtimes and potentially seeing little indicators in technique or in performance or in the saves even though he did stop all the shots that would be like all right we were potentially worried about whether it's injury because of workload or whether it is efficiency dipping because of the workload that made that decision for them or do you think it was purely like all right he played five periods that's too much back at the end of the day i don't know like i like i like I will find out after.

Nobody's going to talk right now. Yeah. And like I said, I've got some indications on some of these things. But it's also history too, right? Like, you know, like how he's handled higher workloads to this point. Again, like nothing, like five periods. Like you said, Jay Gottinger hasn't been beaten on clean shots. But relative to expected, Jake Gottinger's numbers in game two dropped off a cliff

compared to the first game in terms of say percentage and they were good chances but like he was he was subbed by a goal and a half in that game. So coming off of a five period game so let's see what happens over the rest of this series. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm going to watch for I don't I wouldn't blame him for any of those. See and listen I'm biased right like this is hey this was my pet project for years. Right. So obviously I'm like I'm 100% going to like be like I totally support this still. Right. Um, because I do think it can work. And I've had a conversation. It's funny because some people laugh at the possibility.

I come back to the Vancouver one, right? Like, they go into Boston in 2011 and get steamrolled for two games and Luongo isn't himself. Yeah. Come back in game five and he pitches a shutout. And nobody's going to suggest at that point coming off a shutout victory in game five that you do anything other than play Roberto Luongo in game six. In hindsight, was that the right decision? What was your thinking on it at the time? This is long before I was dingy into this at this level.

I was the same as everyone else. Yeah, you're like, I was the same as ever. Hot hand. I was the same as there. Hot hand. Forget about fatigue. Forget about anything. Like, it's just hot hand. Like, let's not take a longer term view of this. And at the end of the day, at the end of the day, much like this Minnesota game,

if your team gets outplayed by that wide a margin because you're missing a Hartman and an act, then, you know, if I, if I juxtapose. Gustafs, even if he maintains the same level he had in game one, plug that into what Flurry faced in game two, they still lose that game five, three. Okay, here's my question for you, because I think every single pro athlete and every single player that's made it to the NHL

is going to want to play as much as possible, right? Like if you leave it to the player, if you leave it to any goalie, they're going to be like, yeah, I'm good, like put me back out there, right? But I think that part of the reason why I think people say that, Oh, you can't kind of tinker with goalies in this way with a rotation when it matters most because, you know, you're messing with their confidence. Like, it's just like you're messing with the rhythm. You're throwing that off.

I would argue, though, if you have like clear communication and you have a plan and you're executing that plan, I think I don't understand why that would mess with confidence. Right. If you're heading into it and you're like, all right, listen, this is our plan. This is how we're going to use you guys. You're going to play this night. You can prepare for it accordingly. I think if anything, that would put a goalie in a better headspace to perform. for him when he's given that opportunity.

Yeah, I would think so. I mean, at the end of the day, um, do we know, like you said, they told them the day before. That's what, that's what Dean Evanston said.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know. So, well, and you would, again, like,

you would think if there's one guy that has the experience to manage it and handle it, it would be flour. And yet he, honestly, look like he was trying too hard. And so maybe this situation, maybe,

maybe rather than work the way it's supposed to work, which is to remove all the extra pressure, because you're in a rotation, it doesn't matter what you do, you're going back in at two nights, maybe he didn't approach it that way. Because he looked like a goalie to me. Like, and Flowers had moments like this throughout his career where he just, he just tries to do too much.

And he becomes tense. You see that you can, you can see the tension in his game on the way he reacts on certain plays. And, you know, that combination with the team being way looser than they typically are missing the personnel they were. Like, it just went downhill the wrong way, pretty quick. Yeah. All right.

All right. Well, then the king, juxtaposing it with the Kings, right? because they similarly had that rotation towards the end of the year. Yeah, and that's one where... I think Corpsolla was going to start every game for them. And we talked about this before. Like, you know, again, when I look at Flurrie's numbers, as good as Gustafin was,

and talked about it for a long time, Flurry's numbers down the stretch right up to that last game, were sort of right there with them. So it wasn't as big a gap. With the Kings, I always thought it would be Corpicella because as much as Copley kept winning, the underlying numbers, the gap between the two, like Corpacalo was top in the league,

and Copley was doing what he was doing, with numbers that were just slightly below expected. And Corpies playing at a top 10 level. Like there was a bigger gap there. I did not expect that to be a rotation that continued. The one that would have been fascinating, really fascinating, would have been Toronto if Matt Murray was healthy, but we'll never know the answer to that question.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Corpus all, to be fair, has been, I think, fantastic in these two games. I think the last cost and shot, I imagine he would probably like to have back. I haven't seen if it was tipped or anything by a defender. No, good shot. It's a clear shot off the rush. It's, I mean, it's more if you look at it's not clear to his eyes.

Right. But I mean in terms of like not changing directions. You can't see the release. Yeah. Like I said, Georgie of last night. I think the shorthandigal looks awkward because he's standing up and it goes by his glove. Right. Now obviously you're standing up and you're staying patient because as soon as that guy drops to block the shot, you know it can't go low.

Like it's not going through him, right? And he slid into that shot blocking lane. So it's not going along the ice so you know you have time to stay up and stay patient. But as soon as you can't see a release. Like so much of what a goaltender process is, I've talked to goalies at the NHL level over the years on this. Like it is, there's an element of tracking and just straight watching the puck. But there's also an element of anticipation. And as Ryan Miller once told me, like, if you don't know where it's headed before it's off the blade at certain ranges, you're done.

Like you've got to be reacting before it leaves a blade. So if you remove the ability, whether it's Georgiev on that shot last night, on the shorthanded goal, like Brandon Tannib. or Corpus Aleph. You remove the ability to see the release. You've removed so much information that a goaltender relies on to know where that puck is going. Well, In Gorgia Gereg's defense on that one, I think he had no chance because the hockey gods willed that puck

in the net because they knew that Brandon Tanna had that celebration lined up and it was about the blow a kiss. And so I think that one was destined to happen. I did not see the blow kiss. I did not see. I was so focused on the, I was trying to, actually, I was rewining and so focused on the shot block to see, why he handled it the way he handled it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah. No, he went up against the boards and then. I'm not about the celebrations, but I'm just about the goalies. Yeah, you're just trying to see what's happening. He'll be taunting us with, with kiss blowing. Yeah.

Okay, so do you want to, we should talk about Vasilevsky after he gave up, what, seven goals last night. I was texting you about it during the game. Certainly, I think it was going to be an uphill battle with a defense square they were using and you could sort of see that, I think part of what's made Vasilevsky so, successful, particularly in these postseason settings, you know, all the stats of in elimination games and when it's crunch time and in a playoff series, how he locks it down.

I think not to discredit him in any way because I think he's like the most remarkable goal I've seen since Hasek in terms of just what he can do physically and his athleticism and the saves he can make. His combination of athleticism and size in unison with Tampa Bay's defensive system and the way they play in those settings where they contest shots so aggressively and they really limit with their stick work, your time and space to release.

It makes it almost impossible as a shooter to cleanly actually pick a spot or do something productive with that shot, even when you get in a high danger area because you're getting it, someone's on you quickly, especially during the days of it was like McDonough Chernak and Hedman, one of those guys is always on you

and then you just try to throw it on net and all of a sudden you have the biggest goalie just blocking it. You watch last night the Leafs had significantly more space, especially off the cycle and in the offensive zone. But I was noting when you watch the replays, like, he, like, he was not even seeing the puck. In my, in my sort of, uh, opinion here as a goalie analyst, when you watch the plays, like, even on the saves he made, there was a flurry in the second period where he kept it at three nothing and kept him up a ban it for a while. After the saves, you track his eyes and it was like,

he was almost surprised, like it would hit him, and then he would react a half second later. and then look for the rebound and didn't even know where it was. And that was very bizarre. And I've seen that from him every once in a while. And then he usually bounces back and plays remarkably well and stops everything. So I'm not panicking in that regard, especially if they are going to get a bit healthier on the blue line. But I just thought it was notable seeing that because he looked like he didn't know where the puck was at any point in game two. Yeah, no, I mean, I don't know if I'm going that far.

But he's, I mean, there are sliding scales on goalies that rely on. different things and and you know from visual every goal he relies on visuals but like on that sliding scale of visual to physical in terms of where the foundation is like the foundation of vasselowski is more more physical than visual um i wouldn't call him a pure puck tracker frankly um but like it's not like he doesn't track the puck like like don't confuse the two right well we've all seen pictures where all face-offs his eyes are just like bulging and yeah but even in the way he does that like there there are like i mean your best vision isn't out of the bottom me your eyes, right?

Like, it's binocular. It's through the center. And so, you know, listen, like, last night was just, I thought they did a really good job of just creating a ton of dynamic stuff in spots where, you know, I mean, the one play from behind the net where they're banking it, trying to bank it off him. Like, he looked like, you're right, he didn't see it, but he felt it. Like, you knew, like, there's a... I know, but he was, like, sort of like, it was a tough spot for him, but he was also, like,

you can't totally rotate. He was, kind of like, when you wake up in the middle of the night and you're looking for the light switch, and that was kind of, like, hit the way he was reacting to it. Like, I think that a lot of goalies would have come out the way the Leafs press and what Tampa had in the back end and been, you know, more like the goalie from slap shot when you come into the room and he's just throwing the equipment. You know, like, oh, like it's...

And the pressure was relentless. Like, no, I'm not blaming him by any means. I'm just saying, like, I think if he had been seeing it... That's a goalie in the world, full stop period. Easy. Easy. Yeah? Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah.

Over's what he's done? Oh, man, that's... You know what? Because once again, he's... Again, by the end of the season this year, Vasileski was right there. Yeah, he was. Like, and it's that consistency, right? And, like, I think Shishdurkin gets there, but I think there were lessons he learned this season

and we can get into him in the playoffs. Like, um, I actually think the, and I've had this conversation with people in New York that watch him. Like, I think actually you can measure, literally measure on the ice, mechanically and technically what expectations did to Igor Shishdarkin's season through the first three quarters. Now, the beauty is he figured it out in the last quarter. Last 15 games are pretty good. Beast mode, historical season, Shisterkin,

which is why that was one of the series where all the numbers, defensive metrics line, even defensive metrics, lined up for New Jersey. And there's no way I was touching New Jersey on that one. Okay, let's, I want to talk more about Chesterkin in that series. Let's take a break here. And then when we come back, we'll talk about that and plenty of other stuff.

You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Catch up on what happened in Vancouver Sports with Halford and Brough in the morning. Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're talking about goalies as you'd expect. Let's keep talking about Chasturkin. And the series in particular, because he's obviously been phenomenal again.

He's given up two goals and two games, one in each of them. One was a Jack Hughes penalty shot at the end of the game when I think they were up for nothing already. The other was a power play goal by the Devils in Game 2. They kind of snuck through him and then Eric Hala tapped it in, rebound, net front. But other than that, he's locked it down. Now, I will say the devil so far in these two games have generated 51 shots, five expected goals total according to Natural Statrick, and have scored zero of those goals at five-on-five.

Significantly well below their season averages, and the remarkable thing is the Rangers have held the lead for, I believe, 85 of those 120 minutes so far. And the reason I'm citing that is because I think you typically expect that, all right, if a team like the Rangers is up for a significant portion of time, they're going to be playing back with the lead, playing conservatively. The devil should at least in theory be able to rack up a bunch of empty calorie shots and make the totals look nicer than they have been, and they haven't even been able to do that.

And I have a lot of issues with what Lindy Ruff's done with their lineup, especially in game two. I think it's kind of a cautionary tale of panicking to, quote, unquote, playoff hockey and trying to overcorrect when you didn't necessarily need to. But it's clear that to Gerard, glance credit and the Rangers, they had a very clear and informed game plan heading into this series of how they wanted to defend the devils of what they needed to take away from them. And so far, to my eye, the devils have had no real answer for how to break through that,

how to carry, how to get the puck in, get it into dangerous areas, and actually Tessus Tirkens. So for as good as he's been and it's been a carryover of the end of his regular season, it's also not like he's really been, you know, he hasn't been thrown into the fire here and been tested and been like standing on his head stopping a million jack hughes and jesper bratt high danger chances it's it's it's been a pretty nice workload for well and i haven't i haven't had a chance to sort of to be honest uh watch that one like it's a series i've just because of other work in it happening at the same time haven't been able to watch as much um i think shishderkin's expected say percentage tells you uh how how how easy this workload has been what's it what's it been through two games

yeah guess you the only one who well okay the the other one that's highersville Gustafson, by the way, at 19. Just for the record, they're just throwing that out there. Well, and I said this yet, I did a 25-minute thing or whatever on yesterday's show about this series. But in game one, the stars took like 30 point shots at 5-1-5. And then in game two, it went down to like five. And they were like much more clear in their attack. Yeah, like that environment changed.

So like, listen, I am not excusing, like I said, two low danger goals on Flurry. We've been over it. Yes. But that environment was very friendly in game one, right through five. It was a different. The only environment that's friendlier so far in the playoffs, frankly, is Stuart Skinner's, but we can get to that later. Yes.

Schisturkin's at 9-11, way, way above what you'd expect. League average was 8.89 on the season. So, yeah, that speaks to your point about their inability to create. When I did, when I broke down Schederkin, one of the things that surprised me, and I focused even on his hot stretch, because really, like, if you're pre-scouting, what's the point of looking at when he was at his worst? Do you want to find if there's still holes when he's at his best? And when I looked at the last 50 goals, he gave up this.

season like I was alarmed at how many were off low high place so work below the goal line move it out doesn't even have to be high in the zone even little pop passes to the bottom of the circle tendency to leave the backside behind when he rotates out of reverse getting caught moving forward and drifting a little bit on on low high plays higher in the zone like at the end of the day it was it there were there were a couple little indicators things he could still easily clean up but it was a trend yeah and I don't I didn't watch this series enough to see how many times the devils have tried it but I looked at the way the devil's generate offense,

and I'm like, I don't know if typically this is going to be how they score or how they attack. And if this is one of the few sort of statistical weakness trends we can find in a dominant goalie, you know, does that match the way the team that's trying to beat him would typically score and can they make that adjustment? So like I said, I haven't watched enough to see how many they've attempted. But, yeah, that's playing from below the goal line

was one of the few things that seemed to generate offense when he was on a heater and I don't know that that suits the devil's strength or their tendencies. Wow. I don't think you need to rewatch the games to get a, I think you've got a pretty good gist of what's happening and so far. It matches. Yeah, I mean, I don't have any faith in right now New Jersey's ability to diagnose the problem or prescribe whatever medicine or cure would help that. Like you look.

When you get dominated, you get dominated. Well, no, but they lose game one. and it's clear that the Rangers are defending them in a certain way, right? But you just played 82 games where even if it's a bad stylistic matchup because of the way they're defending you. Stay with your strike. It made you so special. You were one of the best most dominant teams in the regular season.

After one game, they take out their top pair defensemen to bring in Brendan Smith, who takes a bunch of penalties. Of course, he takes one early in game two. They promote Miles Wood up the lineup, even though he's done nothing. He takes another dumb penalty that leads to a power play goal against. I mean, this Ranger's power. the way they're operating right now. Like that's something where I would go back.

And it's a point of view and to go back and see how they're just picking them apart. The play with Fox doing the shot pass to the tip by Crider is just like unbelievable. And it's just it's got VTeg Vanichick right now, just just tapping out. But yeah, so you watch the devil's play and it's like, all right, we just played 82 games of one way. After one game, we're going to try to change this now and play play off hockey and get more physical. And it's like, yeah, well, that's not going to help. your offense and so sure enough although it is interesting that you note that the low to high play in that way would be something to potentially look for it probably becomes more of something to

focus on assuming the Rangers move on and that there are you know the adjustments don't go back and don't work against teams that that can and typically do create more that way I mean what 10 you had the numbers early like rush chances yeah to me those tend to go away the most in the playoffs by eye test and I haven't vetted this by the numbers but I would assume as things grind on like teams just aren't as willing to I mean you're not going to see as many careless mistakes that lead to rush chances against and teams are more likely to even although I'm watching Seattle Colorado is one I've watched the most and like the like the pace of that series is unbelievable and if you're going to be that aggressive and that assertive

offensively you're going to open your up to yourself up to exposure the other way well but the surprising thing to me there is it goes against what I, the point I was going to make was in that situation, the Cracken were actually up to nothing early, right? And you would think that would be a situation where you could sort of sit back. Not, well, and they're not, they're not programmed to sit back the way they play, right? So yeah, so that exposes them a little bit. But you'd think, like, taking fewer chances because as we keep bringing this back to the gustus and flurry thing and how the game environment changed from game one and game two, the stars go up early, right? And they have a couple goal lead and then you could see that the wild were like pushing for offense really trying to to get out

on the move a little bit and of course that backfires and the stars get a bunch of great rush opportunities themselves i mean the the goal that i think the donov scored or whoever it was like a three on one right and flurry makes the great first save and then off the rebound it's like that's an impossible situation for a goalie and that's because of the way the wild were playing it which was wildly wildly different from what they did in in game one um so with the crack and aft series though it was surprising to see that in game two the abs were able to break through it maybe that's just a testament to like the star power they have and also the overwhelming if they lock in that way the gear they can hit is still almost unparalleled their ability to

keep doing that and replicating it is a different question though that i was just going to say yeah because one thing i i i think as we're both going to be in the building for game three yeah i think we can agree on like the one thing that won't be difficult to replicate because this is what they've done all year like seattle's going to keep doing it right and like so you have to like they're not going to change how they play as you noted they didn't change how they were playing even up to after after the first period in game to like that's the identity and their depth and their speed allows them to just keep bringing that and bringing that and it can work for a while but man like like you can't breathe you can't take a breath you can't

relax for a second on the other end of that or you're going to give up chances to it and the reality is Abel got a lot of good finishers right throughout the lineup. Like the Tovinen's of the world, you know, his goal to open this series for Seattle Cracken playoff goal in history. I think what get lost, like the forecheck pressure forces the turnover by Taves

and Tollvin and pounces on the rebound. But holy crap, that first saved by Georgiev was, that was a thing of beauty on that blocker. And the puck just bounces right, Tovvvvind and he picks it out of the air off the bounce. Like, you're going to, that's a team that finishes, right? And so I'm fascinated to see how this one goes in three and four.

We also can't be, like, it can't be hypocritical because I always get mad when I see teams change the way they're playing if they're up and then, you know, it's safe. We're plotting. Of course. No, no, what I'm saying is it's like safe as death. All of a sudden you change the way you play. It's like, no, this is why you went up to do nothing in the first place. You need to keep playing that way. I'm just saying that rush chances do.

I think there's going to be an unfortunate takeaway of this ring. Danger's Devils series, which is like, aha, see, this devil's way of playing in the regular season doesn't work in the playoffs. And I disagree with that because they play a very similar way to the way we just saw Colorado win a Stanley Cup doing. It just the difference is Colorado was ahead of the curve in terms of, you know, their players being in their primes and just having a slightly better team and being able to do it that way. I don't think this is a sign that you can't play as a rush team in the regular season because you're still going to get opportunities. The problem for the devil's is

they've been playing from behind for the most of this series and the Rangers have, it's been perfect for the Rangers the way they want to play it, right? Yeah, don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Yeah,

that's what you're saying. Exactly. So I just wanted to sort of differentiate between those two things. Do you want to talk a little bit about, we gotta get back to goaltending? Well, do you Allmark and, and the Bruins?

Because I think it's very jarring to see what happened in game two because it had happened so infrequently throughout the regular season, right? I will say, Sport Logic has Florida with 17 inner slot shots through two games that Allmark's faced all of. Jake O'Donger's faced 20 so far in his two games. He played like two extra periods in that game one.

No one else has more than like 14 or 15 so far. And obviously not having Patrice Bergeron is certainly a big factor in that, right? But you also watch at some of the defensive zone turnovers and the positions they've put Allmark and it's been very uncharacteristic to the play the way they play in the regular season and credit to Florida's pressure and forecheck, which we anticipated heading in. But beyond the two Montour goals, which were like two of the rare clean shots that I mentioned earlier where it was like kind of like a point shot that really should have been stopped. It didn't change direction.

You could probably see it. It wasn't. I don't think the first one you could see off the release. All right. But I think for the most part, like that's some, that's the VESNA winner should probably stop that from distance, right? second. Of course.

Again, we talk about releases and eyes and interestingly enough on the Allmark thing. Like, you know, we talked about this recoil and this slight drip that he has in his game on purpose. And like in both those cases, like literally, because as soon as I wrote about that, like, and now every time a goal goes in because he's got a little drip, I get goalie coaches, I see, this doesn't work. I'm like 938, say percentage in the regular season. It might.

Yeah. So in both those cases, maybe there's a little. Actually, I think throughout and maybe this is because of the quality they were generated, there almost seemed to be, you know, that drift for him on those types of point shots is normally very subtle. And it felt like it was more of a retreat than a recoil at times. And the blocker one missed by fractions of inches where I think, you know, goalie coaches around the league would argue if he's holding his ground, it hits the blocker. And on the glove side one, he ends up reaching.

So, I mean, that will be something that's going to be really interesting to watch because of a very specific trend with this goaltender and how he plays and all the success he's had. there's going to be a lot of people lining up to say, hey, look, it's not working. They're targeting it and having success. And in the case of at least one of those Montour goals, I would not disagree. So, you know, from a goaltending standpoint,

this one's fascinating. At the same time, as you said, like Florida is creating chaos and chances in front of him that he hasn't seen all year. And to the point where, despite how these two games are, because the one thing that I think gets overlooked, is he was really good in the first game.

He was, yeah. really good in the first game. Florida had opportunities for sure. They did and the irony to me is a lot of the elements we just talked about in terms of the way he plays, there were there were chances there that I thought he got to, you could argue whether they were the degree of difficulty, but he got to the more, whether he doesn't get to them the other way or not, but he got to them more easily because of this, this little bit of recoil in his game. So despite giving up all those goals in game too, he's still just a slight hair below expected by Clearside Analytics. So, So, again, the Vesna winner, like, you're expecting him to be well above, but, like, other teams, other goalies that have had games where that many goals have gone in are, like, way below expected.

He's not right now, which I think tells you matches what you're talking about in terms of just how much Florida generated in game two. And probably how much they generated in game one and got overlooked his performance. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Both of all you, both the quantity and the quality, I should say. And on the other end, Alex Lyons went good beyond the one sort of Brad Marchand, really. during game one that... That was an equipment failure. Was it?

It was an equipment failure. It was, honestly, honestly God, like, it's funny. Like, I sent a screen cap to a couple of guys and, like, literally, now listen, you're in the National Hockey League, it's the top of the circles, catch it perfectly in the middle of the pocket.

It hits his glove, and essentially the pocket collapses, and it goes right through. I've got a screen cap where it looks like it's heading right into the edge of the glove. It hits the edge, and instead of that edge holding, the whole pocket of that glove

collapses and it trickles into the net. Like literally I have a picture with the puck looks like it's going through the glove because that webbing isn't reinforced. And often a lot of goalies like it because if they have that webbing soft at the top the top edge of the pocket, you can get it reinforced,

but goalies feel like they can't open it as wide and present it as big that way. You know, this is one of the reasons Jack Campbell's on his third different brand of gloves this year because the first two, he had this happen to him a couple times, both the blonde and the Brian's glove. It happened to him, and he ended up switching to a bower

late in the season and like so yeah like part of me is like hey catch it in the middle of the pocket it's a clean shot from from the top of the face off circle but part of me is also like like your equipment gives you a margin for error his didn't give him one there and he was not off by as bad as that looked literally have a screen cap of that thing looking like it's going right through the glove we should we should do it good man he's his like we should do like a video series of me finding goals where people would say oh the goal he should have had that one and then and then you giving us a reason as a as a card carrying member of the goalie. Yeah, that's right.

It's like, actually this. Couldn't let them down. Yeah, this was the manufacturer's fault. No, but I hear what you're saying. Amazingly enough, it wasn't the freakyest goal he's given up from a freak occurrence perspective because the one right after sitting on his pad. And then not only that, but then I think it was Jake DeBrus coming in and cleanly knocking it off the pad while diving.

Like, because if he pushes the pad or something and then there might be a conversation, about going to brief. You mean like Tampa did in the first game but it was just absolutely clean right off the pad and I'm like wow I don't think I've ever seen that before. No that's that's tough luck. He's been really good like Alex Lyon is like I think you're seeing why he's playing ahead of a $10 million

starter like he got them into the playoffs he's played real. It's funny because his numbers to get them into the playoffs weren't crazy which you could look at that just two ways. It's like okay this isn't this isn't this isn't as nuts this run

he's on as maybe the raw number suggests, but also maybe it's not as unsustainable. Right. You know what I mean? Because you're not having the, like, he's not like plus four percent down the stretch to get them in the playoffs. He's under one. Right. And so that also tells you that, you know, like he just needs to continue doing what he's

doing. He doesn't have to play out of his mind. He's made some saves on two on ones. Well, his lateral movement has been fantastic. And he's way aggressive, too. Like he's well outside the blue when he makes that initial push and he's just got the edge control to get there. But you know what all the,

pretty much every single one of those two and ones that he saved, and there was like a number of them back to back to back in game one. The fact that the Bruins were looking past the entire way and never once sold shot with eyes or hands? Well, no, I was going to say it made me think of your point about every single one of those shots was basically like shot right into the middle of the net. And so just being there stopped it. Well, and you don't expect the goalie to get there like that.

Like, hey, listen, at least they're not along the ice. Right. But a lot of guys think, hey, he's not going to get there. I'm going to hammer this along the ice. Yeah. all goalies get at least, you have to be pretty stranded not to get a pat across. And when I look at his positioning and his depth, I'd be like, yeah, I wonder if he can, you like, the further out you are on the initial guy, the further you have to go to get to the

other guy. And I'm like, I would look at that and I'd be like, we are passing 100% of the time on two-on-ones, look at this aggression, he's not going to be able to get across. And he does. Like, that's a credit to him. But also, every time I looked at, it's like, when we talk about reads, I'm like, can you guys, like, telegraph this a little less? I'm like, that's a pass.

Pass is coming. Like not looking up at where he is. Like looking, like just not selling shot at all. Yeah. And again, like deception matters as much as I talk about cross-ice. But at the same time, like, oh, crap. Like, let's give him credit here. Those are some five alarmers.

Yeah. No, they were. He's been really good. Yeah, two of the clean goals that I have so far, the ones we talked about earlier in the season, one Ryan, and it was two defensive defensemen and Ryan Lingren and Jacob Slavin scoring from the goal line

shooting a banquet off the goalie's head. Yeah, so I'm trying to think of the two. One's on Sorokin. Yep. And that one, I don't mind reverse because he's actually below the goal line. Lindgren's like he's below the goal line when he used that. He was Slavin.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was Slavin on Sorokin. On Sorokin. That one was below the goal line. Yeah. The Lingran was a bit higher in the zone. And so. Yeah, it was a great shot.

That one's not picking the wrong save selection. That one's just a poor execution of the save selection. Like the whole point of reverse in that situation is you're in the net. Yeah. So if a pass gets through, you're taking up the net. Like you're not giving away the net. We saw actually, you know, Elliot Friedman on the hockey night broadcast talked about him, Samson up being out of the net.

And he is a lot. Being in a reverse allows you to have most of your body in the net. So if that play does get through on a low slot line pass from below the goal line, like you've got coverage, you've got coverage built in, you've got the bottom of the ice seal the way you've got, you're loaded on the post to push across to take away a back door. I don't understand, I guess I do, like he drops the blocker to get his stick on the ice,

probably to cut off a path. But in doing so, he exposes himself to that bank shot. And I just think that your priority there is to seal the short side pose and you create exposure there and trying to take away a pass when the whole reverse VH decision is to equip yourself to handle that pass if it gets through. Right. And so by dropping that blocker to the ice, you pull your body outside and forward to the net and give yourself an opportunity to be exposed on a bank shot. And I just, to me, I want to seal short side there.

And that sort of paddle down technique takes that away. Well, don't you think the part of the problem is that in theory, the save selection should be predicated on the, probability of what the most likely shot selection or play selection will be from the person with the puck. Well, it feels like this shot is becoming more common though, right? Well, but yeah, and in that case, like, the most likely play, I feel like you should be playing for that.

But in the most likely play, probably when you're talking about a defensive defense. Yeah, that's true. Like, what have we talked about? What's gone up the most? What creates the most offense now? It's funneling that through the, from low angles, through the low slot area. And if I'm not mistaken, because the freeze frame, you see. sent me. It was hard to tell, but it looks like there's a backside net drive.

Like somebody's headed to the net, either middle or backside. So I understand the idea of cutting off the pass. I just, I just think it's a redundancy in this case for Sorokin that leaves them exposed to something else. Like, is a defensive defenseman picking that spot? Or is he probably funneling that through the middle. If I'm going on probability, he's probably trying to funnel that out front. And that's what Soroken was trying to cut off. But at the end of the day, like I'm not defending. I'm, reverses a reverse VH is a fine decision. there. It was just a poor execution in my mind.

I think Jacob Slavin won the all-star, all-star event like accuracy competition once upon a time. Oh, that should be in the preschool. Maybe, yeah, there we go. Now it's on tape. So act accordingly. All right, Kevin, this was a blast. I'll let you, before we sign out here,

let the listeners know where they can check you out, what you go working on. Are you going to do the round two previews? You're saying you don't have enough time or you will? I think the plan is to do them. I may be doing them from the hotel room in Seattle if some of these series start to end and if Seattle extends it to six.

So that was sort of the catch here is now I'm helping with NHL.com coverage in Seattle. So that leaves even less time in a project. It takes a lot of time, but I think I'm far enough ahead that we'll have them. So NHL.com, I think you can be able to check that out starting the second round. We'll take a look at exactly how goals go in on goalies

and some of the trends that you might be able to look for moving forward, how to attack certain guys. This project we used to do from round one. but like I said, it's a massive undertaking. It also, it's one of those things where when you do it from round one and there's 16 goalies broken down, especially when like how many series, I actually think I had right who was going to start in every single one. But there were questions, right? Like, so you can't do all the goalies.

And like if you think of bandwidth, even though it's the internet, like people aren't reading like all 16 goalies in a two-day stretch between the end of the season and the start of the end of the season and the start of the playoffs. Well, just wait until everyone's doing goalie rotations and then you're going to have to preview 32 goalies. Yeah, it would pretty much be the end of that. because I get paid by the story, not by how many goalies I track. That's right. And at Kevin is Ingole. At Kevin is in goal. And then obviously if you're a goalie, Ingolemag.com, you heard us talking about recoil.

Got a couple articles out with actually Linus Allmark reviewing video of some of his saves and some of the reads that go into it. We've got Thatcher Demko on there explaining actually funny enough. I feel like I've got to post a new Thatcher Demko Pro reads at Ingoomag.com right away because of all these questions that the failed reverse. has generated and one of the discussions we had when him and I sat down to do video this year were all these saves that he makes only because he's using a reverse, even in situations where some people might argue he should be back up to his feet, and then that low slot line play funnels through. And he's like, I don't get there if I'm not executing in a reverse here.

And so, listen, there are times it fails and it needs to be called out. There's times when it's used poorly. Everybody says reverse VH fail. I say failed reverse VH quite often. and understanding the difference between the two matters. If you're a goalie, we have actual NHL goleys explaining when and how and why and how best to use it. Awesome.

Well, looking forward to that. If you do the round two preview, we're going to have you back on to deep dive it here on the PDOCast. We do it on the car on the way back from Seattle. You're going to be down there too, right? Yeah, we could. We could. Well, we'll talk about it.

Thank you to everyone for listening to the show. If you enjoy what you heard, go smash that five-star button wherever you listen to the podcast. And we'll be back Monday with plenty more of the hockey PDO cast here on the Sports Night Radio Network.