The Hockey PDOcast - Listener questions with Kevin Woodley

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

Kevin Woodley joins Dimitri on today's edition of The PDOcast. The guys answer your questions about NHL goaltending.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.

Lessing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pee-Ocast. My name is Demetri Fulipovich, and joining me in studio is my good buddy. Kevin Woodley, Kevin, what's going on, man? Not much. I love the vibe of the music and everything. Like, I feel like I'm mellow as soon as I come in to join you for an hour, and it's just like,

it's really chill, which is nice because I'm going to be honest with you, I come back off vacation. I was very mellow. I come right back into the Canucks. tire fire and nothing is mellow around this team. Everything is hot button topic. So like let's just chill and talk goaltending and avoid Canucks for an hour. Well, we can definitely do that.

That was one of my only requests when I came when I brought the PioCast over to Sportsnet. The intro music has to come with me because it's become a staple of the show. So all right, Kevin, we're going to do some listener questions. Open up the floor. I know fans are always excited. Listeners are always excited when we have you on. So I kind of wanted to give them a platform. to get involved in the conversation as well.

And I'll start with this. So Jim asks, how do goalies adjust to increasingly sharper angle shots shooters are taking these days while trying to bounce the puck either off the goalie's shoulder or the helmet and into the net? Now, this isn't anything new. We've seen this, I think, increasing prevalence over the past couple years. One that I think of very recently that really sticks in my mind was Jack Hughes against Charlie Lingren in a game a couple of weeks.

ago an hour maybe even a month ago where he takes the puck kind of down the left wall gets all the way to the goal line but he's pretty far out and intentionally slings it off poor charlie lingran's helmet and in and embarrasses him in the process and now i saw part of there were basically two responses to it right one was well another classic failing of a reverse vh and two hold on hold it was nice reverse v h reference right on the first question and and dmitri nails the proper technique on the post. Well, okay. That was one.

Part two was, oh, wow. Like, that was a lucky bounce. And here's the thing. No, no, no, no. I can pull you five or six clips from this season alone of Jack Hughes. Not scoring that type of goal because it's obviously not going to be 100% success rate. That's the only one he scored on so far. But come dangerously close to scoring on each of them, hit the iron a couple times.

It's clearly like, it's by design. It's not just throwing the puck on net and seeing what happens. Yeah, no, guys are, guys are looking for it. Guys are looking for that spot. And so what's the answer? And, geez, I guess we can unravel this in so many ways. First off, the answer is not just stand up. Although, interestingly enough, there are a couple of guys who will stand up,

straight up old style of Jenny Nabokov pads together right against the post on dead angle plays. Not all the time, but sometimes. One is Mark Andre Fleury. less and less in recent years, but he'll still do it. He'll just stand straight up old school. And I've actually had a goalie coach from another team reach out

because I wrote a story on it and I went through and I tracked every shot from sort of that zone. One of the beauties, like, and I'll must just get this out of the way. And my beer league teammates every time I mention it, feel like there should be like a ding that goes off.

One of the beauties of being able to sort of access under the hood at ClearSight Analytics is not only do you see all the numbers, but you can sort the video by all the different zones that shots come from. So it's quite easy to just look at every shot Mark Andre Fleury has seen for the last three or four years from that dead angle that you would normally see a guy go into a reverse VH and sort of track and measure how many times he just stands up and puts the pad straight together, how many times he overlaps, which is basically a butterfly.

But you have to go outside of the post. Like if everybody says just square up on that shot, what people need to realize, if I stand against the post, square up on Hughes there and drop to the ice. The very nature of my skate being against the post means that when I drop into a butterfly, it's going to push my shoulder away from the post and expose that same hole that Hughes is looking for on that shot.

That short side opens up just because a butterfly has width to it so as you drop, you're actually pulling yourself away from the post. So you have to overlap and put your skate outside the post so that when you drop, your shoulder still seals it, even though you're sort of outside and past it. So those are the different techniques you can use. Flurry is one of the guys that will still stand up. Craig Anderson will still stand up on that post.

As a matter of fact, we saw one here early in the season. He did it on J.T. Miller on a dead angle shot. And in the TV timeout, you could see J.T. go up to Craig Anderson and be like, what the, what the was that? Yeah. Like, what was that? And Anderson talked to Anderson after the game, and he's like, yeah, you should talk to him. Ask him what he was thinking there. Because he actually literally both pads against the post and kicked the rebound out actively.

to start a break the other way and then talking to J.T. the next day, what he was looking for, and this speaks to what Hughes is looking for. He was looking for Anderson. He was expecting Anderson to drop into a reverse VH. And he wasn't trying to score on him, but he was trying to angle a shot off where he expected that pad to be because he had, and I think it might have been Boa at the time, driving middle lane, and he was trying to create a rebound, specifically looking for a specific technique in a specific situation, putting the puck in a specific spot to create a specific rebound. And when Anderson showed him a different luck,

it threw him, especially when he just stood up, like, again, like of Jenny Nabokoff. Because I think that's the image I always see. All the old goals used to do it, but NABby with the pads together, squeezed tight. So that's one of the answers, okay?

You can give shooters different looks. And I think unpredictability would help goaltenders in the situation, not always defaulting to a reverse VH. I will defend Lindgren on that one because I believe, I don't know, the way he came across, he started, he was sort of middle top crease

as that play comes down low. And I don't know if it's on a pass or a rebound, but he's sliding into the post. So if that's a rebound that went to Hughes, of course you have to slide into that. Like, it's not like he was set on his goal line and could square up on Hughes. He had to get to his post.

And he, for whatever reason, again, I don't remember the sequence itself, for whatever reason he was coming across on his knees anyways. So that kind of makes it a bit of a tougher play. So the other part of this is when you choose reverse VH, as a goaltender, as a save selection, in that circumstance.

A lot of times people, as you said, RVH fail, reverse VH fail. That's the hashtag that flies everywhere. I actually look at it, and I've talked to a lot of goalies and goalie coaches about this, and the phrase I've come up with is it's actually a failed RVH. Sometimes it's the wrong save execution. The technique didn't fail you. Choosing it at the wrong time, choosing it too often, that can fail you,

but also not executing it properly. that will fail you. Demko said this to me the other day. We were doing a video review for pro reeds. We're walking through plays and he goes into an RVH. And he's like, he basically said like when people say it's RVH fail and it's all about the technique, that would be like saying that, you know, the butterfly failed you hear so you better never do it again. Right.

Like the RVH, the reverse VH is so important to goaltenders because it's not about that shot that Hughes hits one out of five so far, you know, by your counting. Which is still a really good success rate. Yeah, it's a good success rate, especially from that angle. It's probably one of those goals that's labeled 0.1% there. But most of the plays, and we've talked about this before, how much more offense has been created in the last five years by funneling pucks to the net or across the middle of the crease from those low angles. And so if I stand up on my post and square up on Jack Hughes as he's near the goal line,

or if I overlap and that puck instead of shooting, is funneled to the middle, is throw into the back door, and it's not about it making it all the way for the back door tapping, it's about all the skates and sticks and crap it can hit along the way. If I'm on the post, I'm not in the net. If I'm overlapped outside the post, I'm not in the net. What the reverse VH allows you to do, when executed properly with a back leg drive to drive that shoulder up to the corner,

it allows you to short side seal, and if the puck goes into the middle, you're already in the net. This has been well thought out. I wish I should find the quote from Ian Clark about like it's the first position that allows goaltenders to sort of integrate into their posts in another post seamlessly covering it and covering the net. We used to have the VH, the original, which is what the reverse is the reverse of. The other pad was up against the post. Remember Loongo used to do it a lot and get burned on it.

You know, the short side pad up against the post and the back pad along the ice. It was the horizontal pad. And it covered some of the net. you're in the net a little bit, but your body, the bulk of you, was up against the post. You're not in the net. RVH allows you to connect so many moments, and that's why goal is use it so much, sometimes too much, sometimes improperly, sometimes they get burnt, absolutely. But again, the clips we were running with Demko and they'll be up at ingomag.com in the coming

weeks. We spent like an hour while he was out here going over video. A couple of backdoor saves against the Rangers where it's like Crider on the back door and he gets across and makes his save somewhat easily on a pass, like, say, Hugh's throwing it across ice instead of shooting there. And it was funny because I paused it and I'm like, if you square up on this or if you stand on the post like everyone suggests, you have no chance of making the save.

He's like, there's no way I get there. And both saves are a direct result of properly choosing and properly using the reverse VH. So there ends my RVH rent. Well, I knew that I was going to be the perfect icebreaker and conversation startup for us here today because the reason why I used the, the Hughes example in particular was that one really stuck out to me as it wasn't necessarily sort of a a broken play last resort like I remember the play to stink my mind it was a very deliberate action on his part where he took the puck basically down the wall and sought that

shot out right and I'm really increasingly interested in this so I'd be curious why Lindgren was so late and why he slid into that post why he's not beating that on his feet whether he came through traffic or something I'll have to look at it honestly think it was a matter of he was caught off guard I think he just wasn't expecting him to do so and it might have just been a matter of not not being prepared for that particular shot, right? Like it's becoming more increasingly seen in the game and especially if you watch all of Jack Hughes's shots this season,

you'll see it much more. But I totally understand why he was caught off guard in that moment. Now, and it was a perfectly executed shot, we should say, oh, Jack Hughes's part clearly. Sometimes you've got to hit the hat. But I'm becoming increasingly interested in this idea of shot selection, versus safe selection in terms of what the goalie chooses to give the shooter and then how the

shooter acts accordingly, right? In most scenarios, you're probably as a goalie not going to be able to take away everything. Like there's going to be instances where you cut off the angle and you could just basically all they see is your chest protector. But for the most part, you kind of need to be like, okay, if he makes this shot, kudos to him, I'll tip my cap, but that's at the end of the day, that's all I can do. Give and take. Of course.

Give and take to everything in goaltending. That's the beauty, right? Like an aggressive goaltender, you know, comes way out of his crease, and then the back door pass goes in and gets tapped in, and everyone's like, I didn't have a chance on that. And I'm like, oh, no, or did you not give himself a chance? Because he's so aggressive. The guy that's sitting back on the goal, like,

there is a give and take to every decision a goaltender makes. Well, and so that's, I was interested in your perspective from the goalie side of things, because I asked Dale Bellfrey about this exact question on a while back on a recent podcast. Did you ask him if he's a former goal? I still haven't asked. I don't think he's going to give me the right answer. I'm pretty sure he was a goalie at some. point. I think this is one of my favorite recurring PDOCAS bits where we wonder whether

Gerald Belfrey was a goalie or not. Let's just start that rumor. But I asked him about it. And he actually framed it in a totally different way than I was expecting. I asked him at the time, I believe it was like a Hurricanes Predators playoff series in that shortened season. And the Hurricanes shooters were going out of their way to do this to UC Soros, who is one of the shorter goleys in the league, right? And would theoretically give up more space in terms of that top part of the net. You're not beating UC Sorrows down low. going to get to it. And I asked him about it, and I was expecting him to kind of riff with me on that. And instead, he was saying that it's probably not even a matter of the shooter, of anything the goal he's

doing, it's more a reflective of the defensive environment. Like, the shooter is doing it as a reaction to where the defensive sticks are for the most part. And they feel like that's kind of their best bet to actually get a good shot on net going for that. Even if it decreases the odds of, going in because they have to pick such a specific spot on the net. He felt that it was a matter of defensive sticks influencing the shot angle and the shooters reacting accordingly as opposed to it being a strategy of them going in. And so that was a bit upsetting to me because I would have liked to think that it was a much more like the deliberate choice on a sniper's part to go into the shot doing that.

But he said, no, it's probably a matter of like, you know, that Catamouse game of the defense giving you something and then you taking it accordingly. Well, yeah, so much like, you know, throwing it against the goal. goalies pads from the point we've established probably doesn't do anything you know throwing it into a whole bunch of sticks the chances of completing that pass would be a similar you know if those lanes are all cut off so I can see that and from the flip side of things you know we talked about that that pro reed session we had where we did video with demko for ingle mag and we do those with goalies all around the league the one thing that has jumped out to me uh in running those sessions and we run them so that young

goalies can the idea is we called it pro reads and the idea being give goalies all over the world young goalies and this is a conversation we talk about in terms of goalie development in Canada um give them an opportunity to see how nchl goleys read the game understand the information they process in real time because we hear a lot about quote unquote goalie school goalies they move really well i mean talk to a lot of nchl guys like i can go to the rink and watch a 13 year old he moves better than me but you put them in a game and he can't stop the fun because he can't read the game so the idea of pro reads is showing that you know that's them how to read the game. And I always, like I expected the, you know, hand placement, right

handed, left handed, when do I look off the puck, how am I processing all these 10 players around me? I always expected the focus to be the offensive players, but much to your point about what the defense gives you on the same, you know, from the goalie's perspective, so many of their decisions in terms of depth choices, save selections are not about what the shooter's doing. I mean, yes, for sure, they have to be cognizant of it. But it's that in relation to what their defense is doing. And reading off being able to trust that their D is like, hey, I don't need to worry about this because my guys got it. So my focus is now this pocket on the ice because that's the one that he has to leave open in order to take care of that pocket on the ice or that player.

And so, you know, in a similar vein, that was surprising to me, like to see how much of that decision is influenced by your own team as opposed to purely reading off what the opposition is. going to do and much like it sounds like those decisions would have been surprising to have Belfry say that to you. I've been caught off guard a few times by how much is it, how much of these decisions are what my team is doing, not what the opposition is trying to do. Well, let's tie this together then. Let's, let's want to talk a bit about kind of the Canadian infrastructure in terms of the goalies are developing and the next way of goalies because it seems like this is a topic we rehash every world juniors basically. And, and understandably so when you look at the landscape in the NHL in particular, where if you compare maybe 10 to 50,

especially 20 years ago, the list of Canadian star goalies compared to right now and how it feels like Canada is being lapped in this one particular field by many European nations at this point. I went back and I read James Myrtle had this piece in the Globe and Mail back in 2013, so this was ages ago now. Yeah, we've been having this conversation for a long time. Every year, right? Yeah. But it ties it to what you were kind of saying there where he was speaking with the Swedish developmental program

in terms of what they were doing in terms of tracking and training their goalies. Thomas Magnuson, yeah. And he was focusing on, there was a quote in there about how they were focusing on what basically the puck sees in terms of from the puck's perspective,

like when you're looking at what the goalie did and what their job was, what they're giving up. And it was like very framed that way as opposed to, you know, worrying about physical traits or like a funnism or this and that. It was much more technically based, it felt like. Yeah, the sweets certainly have a strong type.

Like there have been other nations that would criticize now, and actually, Linus Elmark said the same thing to me recently on a podcast that he felt like maybe it had become too technical in terms of their approach. And some of the things that you get away with, especially playing over in the Swedish league, like guys on their knees as soon as the puck's below the hash mark and never get up. And that's probably an exaggeration.

But, you know, they move so well and everything is about those angles. The phrase they put on in terms of puck perspective that they sort of, you know, coin. Yeah, would be box control. And so the concept of, and listen, like, in some ways it's not new, but presenting it to goleys the way they have and making it such a foundation of what they teach is new. And like I can go back to, I think it was Pete Peters as a goalie coach with the Edmonton Oilers. You used to get a fishing rod out and like have like lines attached to the four posts. And the idea being at the time, it was kind of like you could move that fishing rod. Mitch Corne uses

almost like a retractable dog leash right? You can attach, I think they actually make one. I think Sweden actually has one where it's like it is a dog leech and it will go to all four corners and you can attach the other end to a stick blade and so you can move that stick blade around the ice to all these different spots and essentially what it creates is these four lines into the corner of the net

and in the old days I think like the Pete Peters it was about being an angle right? Like as we move this this this fishing rod around the ice to different spots, you see where you have to be to be on angle. And what the Swedes did that I think was somewhat unique. And then again, I've worked with a goalie coach up in Colonna who,

you know, it's been a long time, kind of around the same time I heard the term box control. He used to use, and he still uses posts in front of his goalies with lines drawn on to demonstrate the same concept. And that concept is, in order for the, we always worry about this giant six by four behind us.

And trust me, when you're as bad as me, it feels like a soccer net back there. but you don't need to. If you take those four lines and trace them to the puck, in order to get into that six by four behind you, it has to pass through a very small box in front of you. And that's where the box control comes from. And so if goalies start to think about,

all I need to do, as long as I'm set square and on angle, all I need to do is shut down this much smaller box in front of me, rather than this giant six by four behind me, like it feels a lot easier, right? And like you can think about it. Like you see like the old school glove hand used to sort of move up and away to catch pox. And actually if we look at it from a box control perspective, like perspective,

like yeah, hey man, if you've got really good hands and you can trace that angle of the glove to the angle of the puck and you intersect it at the perfect point, great. But really all you're doing is opening your shoulder and actually opening the net and exposing net. And these are some of the concepts that, you know, have sort of come from this concept of box control that if I understand this net is so small in front of me, all I have to do is shift into this space. I don't have to open big holes with big dramatic movements.

Quite often the movements I need to make are like they're tiny. And you've taken away the whole net. Soros does it as well as anyone, right? It barely has to move. And we've seen now to take it to another step, we work at the company called Senserina, which is virtual reality. And I can put on a headset. And not only do I have professional shooters, now NHL shooters, They've just recently had an NHL shooters, video overlay shooting at me as a goaltender with the paddles in my hands or attached to the gloves in this headset. But I can overlay the box.

They will actually built in a box control sort of dynamic and diagram. So I can see how small that area is out in front of me and that I don't have to make these big dramatic movements. And then after the pucks are shot at me and Eric Comrie's a guy with the Sabres who uses this a lot, he will not even move. He'll just sit there and watch and then he'll go. You can replay each shot from the puck perspective and see how close it was to hitting you or whether it hit you. See how big you are in the net. And so that's one of the concepts that they've adopted.

And I think they've done a better job than anyone is sort of teaching at the grassroots level. But that's not why they've, I wouldn't say lapped. I think Canada used to lap everyone in a goal-tending perspective and they've just lost that. Like we don't have that edge anymore. That's not why the Swedes are ahead of us. why they had it was because they don't because their whole national program

so when that article came out from Myrtle and we'd written similar things I mean hockey Canada hockey Canada was sending people to Sweden to find out what they were doing well do you want to know what Thomas Magnuson told them why don't you guys ask Ian Clark because a whole bunch of the manual

that you guys want to read the Swedish goalie manual it's loaded with images from the old Ian Clark's old goalie news magazine Remember Marcus Naslin hired him to work for Modo. Right. Like he didn't have an active role in that, but he had a secondary role because a lot of stuff came from him. And of course, Ian Clark used to work for Hockey Canada. You know what the response was from the people from Hockey Canada that went over there when that was suggested to him?

He's too technical. So the real reason that some of these other countries have passed us from a goalie development model is that their models, and they actually have one on a national scale, we still don't. When Mertl wrote that article, Hockey Canada, was going to come up with one. They sort of have it, but it's so poorly implemented that I know minor hockey coaches that want to learn about goaltending

that actually take the American goalie coach development program online rather than the Canadian one because it's that much more accessible. In Sweden and Finland, they develop the program not to build better goalies. They developed a program specifically, especially the Swedes, to build better goalie coach.

is right down to the volunteer level. If you build volunteer goalie coaches that understand the position, they can affect dozens of goalies as opposed to just focusing on, I think hockey Canada, what they too often do is focus on the elite, and that's it. And quite often at an early age, who's elite at that early age, and then they just keep bringing them up rather than looking for the kids that might develop a little. Like, there's so much wrong with it.

But to me, that's at the grassroots. We don't really have a national development program to speak of at all. We have a goalie certification program. but damned if you can find where to take it half the time. Like I said, I know coaches that are taking the one based out of USA hockey instead because it's that much easier to access. Meanwhile, in Sweden, they've got like certification programs. They've created so many goalie coaches right down to the volunteer levels.

All the other theories about the lack of coaching, and it's very much a private model here, they can all be solved by just educating. I mean, we make minor hockey coaches go through all, jump through all these hoops and all these qualification programs and certification programs, certify a few of them on goaltending for crying out loud. Give parents that are out there volunteering with little Jimmy and little Susie

at the seven and eight year old level, even the most like rudimentary basic level to make sure they're not lost at the other end, just getting lit up because nobody's actually helping them and knows how to help them. That's what the other country's at the base level. That's what they do better than us. Way better than us.

I love it. I love the energy, Kevin. You're fired up. We can talk about other things. Well, this whole thing started. Okay, this whole thing started because hockey Canada picked the wrong guy to start. Right. Like Thomas Millich looks fine, right?

Yep. They picked the guy, what was the same percentage? Like, this is not against Ben Goodro, but didn't he come into the tournament with an 865 in the OHL, I think I read? Yeah. So I don't know why they picked them. I've been in those conversations. Be careful how much I say here. I've been at Hockey Canada POE camps where goalies who would go on to win gold or get to the

gold medal game and be the stars of the team for Canada were not even invited to the identification camps and it took kicking and screaming once by me to even have those names like the guys that ended up winning gold weren't even part of the camps the summer before they won gold right I think at times there is a the problem isn't goalie development because we still develop a lot of goalies um through through the private model but at times in these tournaments, it's goalie identification. And sometimes that is political. And sometimes it's people that are picking the whole team, not having goalie-specific

expertise and not listening to the people who do. Kevin, I have a follow-up that I really am excited to run by here. But before we open that, I think we should take a quick break here. And we'll do that when we come back. Let me calm down. You are listening to the HockeyPedio guest streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. On the Hockey-Pedocat. Here with Kevin Woodley, Kevin, before we move on to other topics that I had planned for us,

Before we went to break, you were mentioning something about VR and training and the video aspect of it. I think something that I think listeners are really interested in. I am myself because I'll freely admit, I generally judge how a goalie's doing. I mean, certainly I go big volume, big picture. I'm not grading them on one game or another. But one thing that I'm really interested in is when you watch tape of a goalie, if you're seeing all the shots are facing, what are you looking for in terms of, indicators maybe from from save selection or from how and where they're stopping the puck

on their equipment is that something you're looking at in terms of okay if a goalie's squaring up shots well and it's basically hitting them straight in the logo every time is that an indicator to you that the goalie's like reading the play well and getting in position well or is that more of a that can come and go or it might just be a bad shot by the shooter so some of the elements you look at you look at post play yeah right like because we sort of We talked about reverse VH and, you know, how crucial that is to a goalie. Like, how do they use it? Do they use it effectively at the right times?

Do they sit in it too long? When they do use it as a safe selection or a dead angle shot, have they got that inside leg anchored as both a pivot point to swivel around the post, but also as a way to push up and into the post? Or does they just sit in it as a blocking position and leave some of the exposure that we've seen players capitalize on? Like, that's one thing I look at. Another thing you look at is, and there's no right or wrong on this one, it's just different styles. Do they play inside out or outside in?

So outside in would be say in a rush chance you're out quite a ways and you drift back. You're trying to time your retreat with a play. Inside out, your prototypical inside out goal tender would be Mike Smith, Hennrick Lundquist. And actually maybe Lundquist more than Smith because Smith just basically was inside and stayed there. Although he did add a little more depth later in his career. but Henrik would take ice. He still played deeper than most, but you take ice, but everything started from the goal line.

It was a goal line-out approach. So especially off rushes, Lundquist would come out on breakaways and take ice and retreat. You're trying to match, again, match your retreat to the speed of the attack. On breakaways, you want to be at the top of your crease, ideally. And for some guys, it'll be heels out, so the heels of their skate on the edge of the crease. Some guys, it'll be toes in,

so the toes on the edge of the crease as the player hits the hash mark, trying to force a deed. Because the deep can go left and right, a shock can go anywhere. for a lot of goalies, the game plan is to sort of create a deke because it's it's a little easier to manage as skilled as these guys are than a shot that could go high blocker, low blocker, five hole, high, low glove, mid, like left or right? That's the way a deke goes. So are they a guy that plays outside in? Do they play inside out? Or do they just sort of play

more stationary? You'll see guys off the rush where they're just basically just barely above the edge of their crease. And as that play comes down the wall, rather than sort of drifting back in a straight line, which takes you off angle, they'll use short shuffles to keep up with the play, push the guy downhill. Like those are some of the varying elements in how a goal tender plays. And again, not right or wrong, but within that give and take, there are things that you can attack more if he does it one way or the other. And I think there's some consistency things that come with playing things one way or another.

Look for save selections. The biggest one is plays move around. are they set and square? As the game has gotten increasingly fast, that old principle that goes back to like the beginning of time for goaltending, like set and square stops pox. If you can get set and B square,

that's half the battle. It's funny, Billy Ranford during the pandemic, really dug into, re-dug into goaltending. Went back and talked to a whole bunch of his old pupils, caught up with guys like Bernier that had been with him in L.A., attended pretty much every Zoom imaginable. Like if there was an online conference on goaltending, Billy Radford was there.

Like he really dug in on his craft during the pandemic. And it's funny with talking to him sort of coming out of that. One of the things that came back was like that it did go back to that foundation, set and square. Now, having said that, you look at is he there? Is he set? Is he square? That's one part. And then you try and figure out why.

Is it because of his depth management? Is he getting set and square? But is he deep and so shortening his path? Or can he do it from a more aggressive standpoint because he's got good feet? is there efficiency in his movement we understand goal-tending movement like we never have before it's broken down biomechanically

like you would a golf swing on video like I can see so does the guy have to open and close to get there or is there more of a top-down movement where the shoulders sort of rotate rotation is a big part of movement now is there proper rotation or does he push get there and then have to make himself square

then have to build his set or does he build with proper rotation into his push so when he arrives he's already set in square because that to me the other guys they're both getting their set in square but the guy who does it more efficiently doesn't matter how much the speed of the play increases he's more likely to still be able to do that so I mean you can break down so many factors and at the end of the day all those things which I think can check different boxes for you and evaluating goal goaltender everybody's got a different mix I think Ian Clark does I think the seven seven keys to elite

goaltending or seven different parts of elite goaltending and everybody's got a different formula right like it's like this you know like the guys on the board over there managing all the dials right like you could combine them in so many different ways and still get elite goaltending well this is why I asked you this because I wanted to get into a lead

into a combination of like 10 minute answers to set me up into something else I like this John Gibson so I was watching last night John Gibson plays with a lot of movement and a lot of flow he pitches a 35 save shot out against the stars right watching that, I would say 32 of those 35 were about as clean of a save as you're going to see, where he just was absorbing the puck right into the middle of his body.

And if I honestly watched that game, and the stars, unlike past years, have been highly explosive offensively this year. They're dynamic. Tirely different team. So it's not a matter of, oh, well, it's the course of Dallas Stars. I felt like they could have played that game for five hours and given them another 100 shots. They were not scoring last night. feel like if I was a goalie for the Anaheim Ducks, every game would play five hours.

I'm sure John Gibson feels like that most nights. There were a few where you see kind of that, like athleticism. There was one, like a broken play. Rupa Hintz kind of got it. And then Gibson just sticks out his leg and toe save. And it's like, wow, that was athletic brilliance. But for the most part, it was about as like compact and clean a performance as I've seen. And I just cannot quit John Gibson.

I'm sure people listening to this are like, why are you guys? I feel like I've had you on seven times. You asked me a John Gibson question. Six of those seven times is a John Gibson question. just can't I can't quit it because I see the numbers. I understand, right? He has a 902 say percentages here, which actually isn't that bad when you compare it to league average and especially when you contextualize for his environment. But that marks the fourth straight year now where it's been under 905. His goals save above expected according to public models is actually break even

in the positive by like 0.08 or 0.8 or something. He's just a hair below that in the private which represents much better than the past couple years where he was like a not nothing negative in the public models. And this comes off like a three or four year span from 2016 to 2019 where it was about as good as you're going to see. And I just, I know he's turning 30 this summer, I believe.

He still has what, four years, six point four million per. So this is a question that I'm sure a lot of people are asking themselves. And I think that's why I keep coming back to it because it's not a matter of, is John Gibson still really good? Because it ultimately like for this season on the ducks doesn't really matter for their purposes.

But if I was in another team, team that was like, man, for 6.4 for four more years for a 30-year-old goalie is not that bad if you think you're getting... Except the price of number one goaltenders. Like, I don't... No, of course. Right, it's being driven down. Like, we're seeing, like, top guys are five millions a number.

Yeah. Maybe six if you're a U.S.A. like Jacob Mark. I don't know. I don't know why I can't quit. John Gibson is on the back of my mind. It's a riddle. He's still a good goaltender. I'm sorry.

I just think that that... And listen, he's a guy that, you know, I've talked about this before. Like, are there things in his game that are some more technical people might argue are loose or looser. Like, he, on that sliding scale of technique and sort of skill and feel, he's more towards the skill feel guy. Like, it's not that he has bad technique. It's that he just doesn't, like, he's not as, he's not as spot to spot. He's got a little more flow to his game.

And that's not a bad thing. Yes, it might lead to a little more ups and downs. but the high end is still there. And I just think he's been beat down by that environment. I think I've always said it becomes cumulative. Like bad environments become cumulative. It doesn't. And the other part that doesn't get measured,

even in the private models, is time and space. We're seeing it here in Vancouver. You know, right now the Canucks defensively against the rush or the second worst team in the NHL in terms of five-on-five expected goals. And I don't think that even captures what's going on. Because when they give up chances, yeah, they contain all those elements that lead to high expected goal rates and high shooting percentage, like lateral plays and cross ice and all those elements. But what never gets calculated is time and space, if you watch an NHO practice where the guys are doing the rush drills at the beginning, I don't care if you are a seventh D or a 13th forward, you walk into the hash marks with your head up and nobody checking you, you tickle the bar as it goes in.

Like everybody in this league at this point can shoot. And I think some of these teams are giving up, not just are they giving up grade A's, but it's the plus plus of the guy on the receiving end of the cross-ice pass. We saw it here the other night with Atu Ratu. Like not only did he catch the cross-ice two on one, but he had time to catch it, look up, wait for Spencer Martin to drift through the save spot in a slide,

and then go just over blocker against the grain the other way because there was no pressure. There was no one on him. That time and space element matters. and I think Gibson's been behind a team if you watch the games like there's just nights where he has to stand on his head

for them to even have a chance and there's nights where so if you have anything other than an A game there you're giving up a bunch because the chances are just like there's just too many of them and I want to see him on a better team

because I still think he's a big goal I think that's why I keep on back to it because I selfishly want to see that and I think the results like there's a lot of people and listen I was you know and again I can be sometimes about the technical side I do think he plays a

style and plays a way that might have more ebbs and flows and more ups and downs and inconsistency. But the high end to me again is still elite. The talent is still elite. I know he gets hammered a little bit from other goalie coaches, but you put him on a good team and I, well, I'd be willing to bet good things happen. Well, the volume of high danger chances that are not being contested, as you said, in terms of time and space being taken away and the lack of margin of error where I think they're also like 30 or 30 first in terms of goal score themselves.

Look what happened at the beginning of last year when the time and the time. they started to score a little bit. Like, we've seen that, you know, the, what, three years previous they were in the bottom of the league as well. Like the pressure that puts on a goaltender, you know, to know as you go into the game that one or two is one or two too many, that's so tough to play behind. I used to ask this question. It was around the time Kippersoft was dominating with the flames.

And they were a great defensive team under Daryl Sutter back then, too, obviously. But they didn't score much. And so the question I used to ask around the league of goalies was, would you rather be behind this great defense, but you know that one or two might be too many because you're not going to score. Or do you rather playing a team that maybe gives up some more, but you know they can bail you out? And almost to a guy, every goalie chose, give me the team that can bail me out but may not be as tight defensively. You would think as goalies we would automatically want, like, hey, we're going have better numbers if we're playing behind a better defense, more predictable environment, I can make

better reads, I can trust what's in front of me. My life is a lot easier. But I think the fact so many answer the other way speaks to the pressure that comes with not having any margin for error. And John Gibson hasn't had any margin for error for what? Like four of the past five seasons because they just don't score. Even with some of the great talent they have in the last two seasons, they just don't score. Start the last season, the first half they did. And I think his results also improved. Yeah, I mean, natural statics right now has him down for facing 309 high-danger shots in his 26 games.

And I imagine that, you're right, that doesn't even. paint an accurate picture because how many more ones that maybe weren't from dangerous areas on the ice so they don't qualify as high danger chances actually were because the shooter was able to step into whatever they wanted to do. I got him as facing 202 by Clearside Analytics, high danger chances this year. The only one that has faced more is Carl Vamilka. Corral the Thrill. Yeah, in Arizona. He's at 204 and tied at 202 is UC Saro. So the other guys in that list. This might,

you know, Jake Allen probably doesn't surprise anyone to see he's real high on that list in terms of numbers face. And don't forget he doesn't play as much as Gibson or Sorrow of Amalka. Right.

And Jordan Binnington, again, back to that narrative we talked about. The Blues are not a great defensive team and have not been since they won the Cup. Yeah. All right. Well, that's all I, Hannah Gibson.

I just, I, when you watch them on nights like that, the athleticism still there, the technique, the battle is still there. Everything that I would want to see from my goalie is there.

And I think the technique is actually tightened up. Like, it's not as loose as it was. But then you watch a game against the Flyers before that, and it's like, Morgan Frost just coming down the way and you just beat some short side, and it's like, John, what were you doing?

And, and I, listen, mental, I didn't see that game, so I can't come into the goal, but mental exhaustion too. Yeah, like, it's just going to be. I am tired as a goalie just watching Anaheim Ducks games. Yeah? They're exhausting.

Exhausting. Well, it's a cumulative effect, though. Yeah. There's no way to quantify this. Do you think there's a point where you just, it goes too far? Yeah, I do think there is a... I used to say this about the Evanton Oilers goalies, right?

Like when they were burning through goalies that would then go elsewhere and have some success. It's like bad defensive environments to me have always been cumulative. Like if you can't trust guys to be where they're supposed to be, that's a real hard way to play goal. There's no such thing in today's NHL, as dynamic as the offense is, as east-west as it is, is a completely predictable.

I know what's going to happen environment. But there are scales of predictability. and if you get behind a team where you can't trust and so you don't know where it's coming from, I mean, there are teams that give up high danger chances, but their goalies have an idea which ones they're going to give up, where on the ice it's coming from. So they don't have to worry about the other three high danger opportunities

that might exist or the three other players that are getting to dangerous spots. They can focus on one. That's what I mean by predictability. Even when you give up the high danger stuff, you at least know it's one or two that's coming and not one or two with three more pass options. And I just think that Gibson's environment has been more the latter for so long.

You can't help but change the way you play after a period of time. Yeah. What do you mean you mean you used to say this about Oilers, goalies, and bad defensive environments? It's kind of backed that way, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Here's one more question for you before we had out of here.

Kevin Linker asks. Say your percentage is at the lowest it's been since. 2006, 2007, and has notably declined through the CHL as well. I have, in fact, checked that, but I'm just going to take it as a fact. Because he's a listener of ours, and I'm sure he wouldn't leave us so straight. Is this a result of goaltending stagnating or a player is becoming that much better? I mean, I'm teeing you up for this one because obviously you're not going to go against the goalies here. I know, because I think goaltending's never been better, right?

Like the depth of it, right? Like, I don't know if the ceilings are as high, although I say that. And I think of how well, hell he's playing. You know, Saro Scho-Sisterkin, Seroken, Seroken. What do you mean by the ceilings aren't as high, though? Because I feel like I feel like the amount of dominant number one goal tenders that we have in the league, the night-in, night out guys that you know are going to give you their fastball every night. Yeah.

You know, I feel like there's more depth, like more 1A, 1B options than I ever before. But that list, I mean, I just rattled it off. But didn't it feel like it used to be deeper? I think that's just a reflection of it's a totally different game with an entirely different environment, though, right? in terms of well I mean the quality that we're seeing I think a you listen the reason save percentage is going down because teams no longer throw 99%

yeah it's purely shot selection offensive approach for sure yeah and we've seen I threw this number at you last time got it from Steve Valicat in the last five years the number of goals and offense created on low slot line plays not just across the middle of the ice but below the hash marks and you think about what that does to a goalie

if I'm squared up on one faceoff dot and the play goes down to my back door in my post like that's one of the biggest rotations we can have. You can't just move there. You have to rotate like almost a full, you know, 180 degrees before you make that push and you've got to get your eyes across and your shoulders across and your hips across and your knee down and you've got to make that push. And it's not easy to do. That's got up 41% in five years. The amount of offense created in one of the most difficult sort of style of plays that a goalie can face, they face 41 more

percent league-wide in the last five years. That's why say percentage is gone. Now, I will throw a caveat. I don't know if we did this last time. I haven't checked say percentage where it's at right now. It's 905 league out. Wasn't everybody talking about it being at a historic low of 903 at the quarter pole? Yeah. It's gone up a little bit. So it's going to go up every year except last year, which was an anomaly caused by COVID and 119 goal he's playing in the league. Most of them after the midway point when we started to see the cases go up. Every other year, safe percentage rises as the season goes on. And so that's, I did take some, not a fence, but it, maybe I did. It pissed me off a little bit. Everybody kept referring to the quarter point, say percentage of 903 is the lowest in

whatever, 20 some odd years. And I don't think you can measure it at the quarter point. Because three years ago, four years ago, I had the numbers in front of me last month and I was looking, the quarter point was actually lower. It was 901. And it ended up around 910, 909. Like, yes, say percentage continues to go because teams are not throwing 99% at the net. I've sat through NHL games with NHL goalie coaches who have a role and a voice in offense and the way teams attack and the way they select their shots and watch them see guys take shots even off odd man rushes and be like, that's a turnover. Like we understand now how many of the shots we take have value

and we don't throw pucks at the net that have no value anymore, or at least it's a lot less common. So say percentage is going to go down because shot quality is going to, up because nobody's wasting them anymore. And we understand how to be goaltenders, how to attack. So yeah, save percentage is coming down. But anybody that judges it on the quarter pole,

wait until the season's done. I wouldn't be surprised if it's kind of maybe drops, but like we're talking like a point or two, not a historical. Well, at the quarter pole, people were wondering what was wrong with Andre Vasselowski this season, and then he had a 950 save percentage in December. And now he's fine.

I no longer wonder ever, I wouldn't worry about him. Okay, here's a question to end on. Maybe we can save this for next time, but I'm just going to vote out to this. Man, the tower goes fast. You think that, so young players, like 10, 11, 12-year-olds right now, aspiring young hockey players are coming up and they're watching the way Austin Matthew shoots the puck. We've heard about how Connor Mard is modeling that drag shot that he's just terrorizing goalies with right now.

Young players are coming up and watching that and practicing that on their own and trying to incorporate that into their game. Don't you feel like the advancements for shooters are going to be higher in that regard? in terms of that copycat and the incorporation of those skills, then for young goalies who are coming up. And I guess, like, you could watch what Andre Basilewski does and say, oh, that looks cool. But how do you incorporate that? I recently asked goalies around the league for my annual Christmas call,

and we usually have fun with gear because every goalie had a moment where they got something under the tree that inspired them to become a goal. It feels like every guy did. But this year I asked them, what skill I wanted to change it up? I said, what skill if you could take one skill from another goalie around the league, you know, what would it be? Having under the train in your game by Christmas night. And most of them, a lot of guys still, but it used to be Price's movement was the thing.

But Kerry didn't count this year because he's not playing. So I made them sort of pick a new one. And it was a lot of it was Vasilevsky's power and athleticism. But then Jake Allen pointed to Schoerkinist instead. So this is just to go to your point about Vaselowski. Because in his mind, the things that Shishdirken did to move around the crease were something that's applied. more to him. Like there were something that could maybe theoretically be achieved.

Would have had to start at a real early age to get that type of ability. But what Vasalesky does is just like raw athleticism. He's a freak. He's a freak. Yeah. Like he's just like an athletic freak. Yeah. I mean, this is a guy that's actually supposed to catch with the other hand, by the way. The only reason he catches with his left hand is because they couldn't find any right-handed gloves in Russia as a kid. There's a story for you. So, but to your point about the kids mimicking, like I think that's the other, this goes back to the YSA percentage going down

in the CHL and in the NHL from the previous listeners question. Part of it is the fact that for the first time in however long these shooters are

growing up with skills coaches and they're dedicating themselves to the skills of the game. The goalies have been doing that in the off season in the summer

for 30 years back to Francois Lair sort of being the first one in Quebec you know, talking to guys that were part of that original generation of Quebec goalies

like Frankie and Benoit Alire in having these camps and putting up newspapers around the glass so that outsiders couldn't see what they were working on because they were ahead of the curve. And it took shooters like 25 years to realize that because they, all the players used to do bigger, faster, stronger. That was their offseason. They didn't work on skills. The odd guy did.

Zach Parize used to go to his brother Jordan and his brother Jordan, Prise's goalie school that he was attending and be a shooter to try and work on these things. I understand what goalies are doing so that he could. counter it. And there were a handful here and there, but it's only in the last what, like five, six years, the guys like Belfry are reinventing the wheel in terms of skill and shooting and deception off the release. And so that's why say percentage is going. It's another part of why say percentage is going down. And you're right. More and more and more kids are going to try and mimic that shot, where they're changing the angle on the release, different shot techniques,

white ice, ways to sort of have goalies think that one thing is coming or coming from a certain spot and then deliver another. Our goal is going to fall behind. Is the same percentage going to decrease? Possibly. But I do think we've already sort of seen in the last number of years. You talk about patience and staying on the skates, the biomechanics, to go to that term, of how we see pucks and how we watch pucks and understanding that the way we move and set up

and move off a release, you either move in a way that allows you to see that puck longer through the release, which gives you a chance to adjust to it, or you move before the release and you open up holes and you open up space. And I think we're already as goaltenders starting on that curve more and more. I think it's why you're seeing a lot of kids out of the Western Hockey League have success, not just at the World Juniors, but with Hockey Canada, off those releases. And so we're already starting to figure out how to watch the puck longer into a release through VR and through things.

We will catch up. Do not worry about us, goaltenders. All right. We'll be just fine. I know the clock's like, I can see it. Yeah, we got to sign out of here. Kevin, this was a blast. So much more to chat about it.

We'll save it for next time. I've got a couple of other notes that I want to get to you with. You are listening to the HockeyPedocast on the SportsAradio Network.