The Hockey PDOcast - Save % This Season, Goalies Changing Teams, and the Vezina

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to talk about this year’s dip in save % and all of the reasons behind it, goalies that have changed teams having success this season, the challenges of being a netminder for the Hurricanes, and the Vezina market. 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.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PDOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PTO cast. My name is Dmitri Filipovich and joining me in studio for the first time in 2025 is my good buddy, Kevin Woodley, Kevin. What's going on, man? You're going to get punched drunk, Woody, today, a little bit tired. Had to drive back from Eugene Oregon yesterday, which was one shot, like start to finish all the way back. got in late and straight to the rink this morning and now straight to hang out with you.

So this is once again, this is your test to make me happy because I'm a little sort of out of sorts. Well, you told me yesterday when we were prepping for this, I'm like, Woodley, come in studio on this Tuesday, you said you're going to be pretty tired from everything you just documented. And I said, I'm going to take that as a personal challenge like last time to pump you up

and by the end, make sure we've had a good time. So you normally I would have thrown back a Red Bull before we got going, but I knew that your energy was all I needed. No, it's going to be a fun one. I mean, we're going to get through my notes here today, probably only a fraction of them, but I'm excited about all the topics. We've got big shoes to fill, though, because I thought, listen, we're working with a pretty big catalog at this point of me and you getting together and doing these shows over the past couple years with regular frequency. I really felt like last time was probably one of our best ever for a variety of reasons.

And towards the end of that episode, and that's kind of what I want to pick up where we left off, we sort of teased an article that you were working on for njl.com at the time about this trend we're seeing in the league with save percentage dropping and i wanted to we've spoken about her a bunch in various shows throughout this year but i wanted to use the start of today's show to fully dive into it i think it's a very insightful topic um in terms of really kind of describing what's happening in today's game i know i get a lot of questions about it from listeners because they're watching some of these games and i think people still are kind of getting a bit of sticker shock looking at the score bug and seeing that it's like halfway through the second period and the shots are 10 to 6 or something and you're like, that's weird, what's going on? And that seems like it's a recurring theme across the league. And I think what we're going to talk about today is going to help sort of shed light on that and explain a lot of what's going on. In that piece, you also got to chat with your close personal friend, Andre Basilevsky. Oh, don't I wish. Don't I wish he was a close personal friend,

but he is a great guy to talk goaltending with. And his working theory explaining dynamic was essentially the biggest change in the way the game's being played offensively right now is the teams are generally eliminating that low percentage, long-distance shot attempt out of their arsenal or out of their playbook that would previously not only, I think,

inflate the goalie's save percentage at the end of the day, but also get them in rhythm early in games, feel uncomfortable, feel in the puck, and then allowing them to probably have a higher likelihood of actually stopping the difficult ones later on. Now, the league average say percentage is down to 901 this year. And that continues a year-over-year drop. It peaked 915 in the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.

And since then, it's been basically dropping by a couple percentage points to this point. Let's get into that. I want to get into your conversation with Vasilevsky about her. I know you've spoken with various goalies as they kind of circle through town here about that. What's your take on not only that theory, but also what you're seeing, watching these games every night in terms of the difficulties it's placing on goalies and how teams are sort of trying to, I guess, optimize their offensive approach? Well, Vassie summed that up perfectly.

I feel like guys don't waste shots anymore, quote, unquote. And it's something I'd gotten into with a couple of guys towards the end of last year. And Casey to Smith had some great sort of points on it. The analogy is that, like, when he came in it, the league, he felt like he'd have, you know, seven or eight tough chances out of 32 shots. And now it might be 22 shots and there's 10 or 11 tough chances. And so, you know, in simple terms, if you're facing less of the shots that you stop, I always called them the 99 percenters.

They were the feelers, the good shots. If you're facing less of those and we reached out to Clearside Analytics and they confirmed that yes, indeed, like the clear-sighted open look down-the-wing shots are down significantly, 30%. So if you're facing less of those as a goaltender and more tougher chances, like if I face less chances that I stop 99% of the time and more that go in 20 to 40% of the time, my save percentage is going down whether I'm playing well or not or whether I'm playing the same as I was five years ago or not. So essentially, that is the root, maybe not the entirety, but that's one of the biggest reasons we see say percentage drops.

Not necessarily because goaltenders are worse. I've had some people push back on that. But at the end of the day, fewer those easy shots, they do two things. One, just the math is going to math. It's harder. But two, man, if you're a goalie that, especially if you played a little rhythm, a little flow,

a little movement in your game that requires timing, that makes it that much tougher to sort of find those moments if you're not getting the shots that a lot of guys used to rely on to varying degree. to feel good about themselves and their game. And obviously, hey, that's on you. You've got to figure out a way to do it.

But it's just the reality for a lot of these guys. And every guy sort of approaches it and deals with it differently. And it's funny, Vassie talked about Pecorinae when he went to that low-shot environment with Peter Lavillette, handling the puck more. And so some of the guys have sort of shared some of the keys and some of the tips that they use to manage that mentally. So at a time when the shots are harder,

there's less easy shots. There's also a mental battle. that is changing rapidly in the NHL. And I think a lot of it is analytics. Teams understand that a lot of the times they were taking shots that were essentially giving away possession for a whistle, which even if you've got a great best-in-the-league face-off guy, you're giving away possession for a chance to win it back,

what, at best, 60% of the time. Yeah, the raw volume, so last year teams averaged pretty much 30 shots on goal per 60 minutes of play on the dot. this year it's down to 28 so that's about two fewer that are actually making it on target per game and so I think that's part of it I think that stat you had in that piece we referenced

blew me away about how like over the past six seasons or whatever there's been a 28% decrease in these shots that are being labeled unscreened or clear sighted shots right and they are essentially I know the teams have sort of progressively adopted it

as a general philosophy in defining them as as turnover right those like not only is it a 99% or for the goalie but i think even worse for the team is the two most likely outcomes are either off a defender's shin pads and out of the zone or the goalie just easily gloving it down and then allowing the defense to get fresh bodies out there and reset and we know especially now like i think one of the coolest things that uh our palest Valacette and Clear Sides done is really putting a number to what makes sense intuitively is that one of the most dangerous plays, if not the most dangerous play to score on for a team,

is the quick pass off of a rebound, right? Because everyone is just scrambling all of a sudden people aren't where they're supposed to be not only for the goalie, but for the defensive structure itself, and it's just pure chaos, right? Yeah, it's like a 65% scoring chance. Watch the Oilers on the power play. They park a guy, you know, like rather than just taking that pocket, if the goalie's in position, and banging it into great coverage. They've always parked a guy over if they can filter it over to the backside.

And Leon's quite often that guy, and it doesn't matter what the angle is because he's so good at scoring from dead angles. It's, you know, all of those things add up. I would say anecdotally to the things that, and we've probably talked about them before you mentioned. Like, I've had a chance to watch a game with an NHL goalie coach whose team subscribes to that and watch him, guys go down the wing and take a shot and then just mutter. That's a turnover.

And then the other part sort of, you know, anecdotally is, you know, the effect this has on goaltenders, how they have to change their game. And I just think it makes sense. Like when you see this, like it just sort of gives us some numbers and some very real reasons as opposed to, wow, the goalies are just getting worse. And the shooters are getting better. There's a lot more to it in that. And then the other anecdote story that I forgot there was Carolina, right, for years. And I'm not saying they're this way now to the same extent, but their goalies used to tell me quietly,

and they're all retired now so I can talk about this, but they would say, like, I'd just watch us go out there and warm up the other guy. Like, we're just literally warming up the other goaltender. It's why every time a goalie comes in cold to a game and the TV announcers, all due respect guys, when they do that, don't just say, oh, you just got to get pucks on that, this guy's cold.

Why would you just throw, like, shots from the outside on a guy coming in cold? You're basically warming them up. You're giving them the warm up he didn't get. So I think more and more through analytics teams understand that and they're not doing it. I think there's certainly an element that I've gotten. There was a conversation about this in the PDCADS Discord this past weekend. And so that's kind of why I wanted to really expand on it here.

It's a great platform to do so, especially with you. Teams are certainly, I mean, it's undoubtedly, have gotten more efficient because I think we've also seen great examples at both ends of the ice of what works and doesn't come the postseason when the games matter most and where a lot of these teams. are working their way towards. And so they're using the regular season as prepped for that essentially, right? The Golden Knights from a couple years ago, defensively, how they were just conceding everything to the outside as long as they could either block the shots

or pack the paint and make life easier for their goalies. And they rode that all the way to the Stanley Cup. And then the hurricanes, which you mentioned, the difficulties they've had scoring goals in the postseason as they progressed later, obviously played some really good goalies along the way. But I think, as we've discussed in the past, haven't really helped themselves in terms of making life

easier for them as well. You see that, right? Like, especially with a lot of the better defensemen in today's game, how what previously would have been, you cycle the puck up to the point, and then it's a one-timer, and it's probably not going to go in. Now a lot of them are holding on to that puck, and then just kind of cycling it back down and allowing their forwards to re-engage and waiting for something in the slot to open up. The shot selection conversation, though, is an interesting one, because while undoubtedly, as you had the stats, those far out ones have decreased. I wonder how much of that, though, is being replaced by a lot of these bad angle shots that we've also spoken about.

Now, we've commended someone like Jack Hughes in the past where he's kind of, especially a couple years ago, was catching goalies off guard by working his way down on the goal line, exploiting one of the potential limitations or misuses of the reverse VH and banking it off their helmets or looking for that window up high near their ears. after initial success, I wouldn't say that the goalies have adjusted because you can just turn on any game and you'll probably see an example where there is a bit of a window still there to shoot for. But someone like Jack Hughes, and I'm just picking on him because I think we've spoken about him at length in the past, he had some success with that and now you watch a devil's game. And he's like, all right, well, I worked once or I work twice.

So now I'm just going to keep doing it. And there's a lot of shots where you're like, all right, that probably wasn't the optimal play where you're almost trying to chase that drag and you're trying to relive. that fun time that you once had. And so the proximity to the net has shrunk and teams are just generally shooting closer in. But I do still think if you're just having a pure shot selection, teams are optimizing

their offensive approach. I see the way you're looking at me. You're probably going to argue that those are still trickier shots for their goalies and they probably are, especially from that quality of shooter. But a pass into the slot, even if it doesn't result in a shot, gets intercepted, whatever thing can happen,

is probably still a more, a more positive EV play than that actual shot itself. Of course it is. And here's the part that I think, and this was not in the NHL.com piece about this, because I'm sort of limited a little bit and how much clear-side analytics data I use in NHL.com pieces. You know, I can kind of use it if it's referenced by a source,

you know, talking about their data as opposed to just making a list. And interestingly enough, in the Ingole magazine version, which is behind a paywall, so not everyone would have been able to see that. I apologize, but got to make a living. You know, the perimeter stuff, clear-sighted, unscreen shots from the perimeter, down 27.9%.

Outside the slot, down 20.9%. Sharp angle or net play shots are down almost 25%. So this is actually an eye-opener for the goalies because they spend so much time working on these. So, yes, anecdotally, is Jack Hughes taking those, looks because he's had success.

Are there some guys that are looking for that? For sure. But what most guys and most teams are looking for instead is to your point, what is inherently a more dangerous play? Yeah, the pass. Is a lateral play below the hash marks. And slot line plays above the hash are up 36.5%. Below the hash marks are up 26.6%.

So overall, you're right, there are some guys, but overall 25% fewer shots from dead angles and almost 27% more plays across the slot, across the middle, in front of the net. So teams are recognized that. Again, it's one of those things where you get caught in those moments and certain guys and you see it, and you're right, because it's not a dangerous shot.

And goalies work so much on it. Now, this is where the reverse VH gets a little bit interesting because, yes, it's designed to protect you from that short side high, but it also inherently connects you to that post short side but puts your body in the net, whereas some of the previous techniques used to manage those shots, if you're in an overlap, you're squared up to a shooter

and you don't have any, you know, have very little body inside the net. A VH, you're up against your post and you only have the pad covering the net. So a reverse VH still protects you on a lot of the slotline plays. And again, we talked about this last time, slot line plays down low. It's not just that you're trying to connect with that backdoor tap in. It's that all the times you don't connect, that hits something, whether it's a rebound

or a broken play chance off a skate or a leg, it's chaos. And this is what teams are trying to create. And funny enough, there's a great article. I think it was Mark Lazarus wrote it, and I apologize, I read it, and now I can't remember, but I think it was him in the athletic, sort of about what life is like in that chaos.

And so I've started asking goalies about what their life is like in that chaos for sort of their side of it. And also the screens, right? Like, yeah, we have shots from the point. But as you and I've talked about, like the screens, I've started asking that question of goalies, not just for Ingoal, but for an more general. And they're like, they have never been more purposeful. So even when the pucks are coming in from the point, the degree to which the forwards are working to specifically take away goalie's eyes is like nothing the goalies have ever seen before. Now, it's interesting. And to be fair, in that piece, you did say that Vasselowski acknowledge all of the other things we talk.

about like giving credit to the forwards and skill and the training and everything and this new generation so i'm not down playing that but i will say though in just as speaking anecdotally watching these games and this is fresh on my mind because i was watching that game monday night with connor hellabuck playing in utah and it was a rare off night for him where there was even a couple where there was some like lateral plays off the rush and he was a bit scrambly and there were probably a few easier goals that utahs scored that we just haven't really seen hell about giving up at all this year but Logan Cooley got one on him, and it was a two-on-one where he's a left shot. He's coming down the right wing, and he's faking pass the entire time to the point where he's

staring down whoever it was that was hit the second guy on the two-on-one with him. And the defender actually did a pretty good job of blocking that pass and allowing, as you're trained, Connor Hallibuck, you're just going to take the shooter here. And with Hellebuck in particular, that's the way to play. Exactly. And yet still, you're watching it. And like mid-stick handle, coolly coming in with speed while looking off the goalie. So giving no tell in terms of timing or intent in terms of where he's going to shoot what he's going to do goes high glove and just perfect spot.

Now obviously it was just a brilliant shot. I think there was quite a bit of space there as well relative to most Hela-Buck save opportunities. But I was watching it and I was like, man, this is just such an unfair situation for a goalie to be in. I feel like that's also going to be an increasing theme, like Cooley, a 20-year-old, obviously, with a men's skill. But I think that's going to become more commonplace. And I was watching it. And I was like, all right, well, in that case, part of it is playing the percentages. Part of it is positioning and giving yourself a chance because without any tell in terms of where the shot's coming from or where it's going and when it's going to come, the human body just can't really like the reaction time is not going to be there to stop that shot if the guy hits his mark.

you're going to have to essentially either cheat a little bit and guess that it's going there or just be in the right spot and hope it hits you because you're kind of at their mercy and I think that's exactly what we're seeing. I think there's a lot more of that in goaltending than people realize. Right. It's not a cheat. It's an educated guess and nobody and I don't even, actually with Hellebock, I wouldn't even use the word guess.

His anticipatory skills, his ability to process all that information in terms of where guys likely to go and obviously coolly hit it very well. But it's just at such another level. Like that's, I've had a piece up at NHL.com. We gave him the quote-unquote unmassed goalie of the year at the end of the year, sort of the calendar year at 2024, and he basically lapped the field. And for me, I get to choose who gets. It's not like it's a voted thing.

It's just my pet project, right? So it was easy to pick him because he was killing everyone, but also it allowed me to dig into why and have conversations with. And because I've gotten the chance for Ingle to sit down and do video with him and Wade Flaherty, their goalie coach sort of reaffirmed it. Like his ability to anticipate based on, you know, the eyes, the hips, the shoulders. the hands, not just how the puck is coming off the blade, but all those things, is just at a Haschick-like level. You know, Haschik was the brain like a computer body like a slinky. Well, hell he has the brain like a computer.

He just doesn't use his body like a slinky to take it away. And so I think, though, when you get into it with any goalie, once they get into a certain range, Dimitri, like the human body like eye hand, like just doesn't react. And so there has to be that level of anticipation to take something away to either move before that puck is off the stick, which is, you know, you don't really want to be doing that. It's patience, patience, patience, or position yourself in a way where there's just nothing there.

And even then when these kids now are hitting, like, you know, you give them, you give them basically like the thickness of a puck over your shoulder under the crossbar by your ear, and they'll hit it. Not every time, but they'll hit it enough. So there's a lot of times where guys will tell us, that it's not only is it an educated guess and anticipation, but there's a hedge. Alex Lyons been really good about being open about this.

Like there are times where you're going to hedge short side because you can't get beat by that shot short side. You better take that away. That's the one that lands you on the bench or out of the league, whereas you know you think he's going to pass on a two-on-one, but you've got to make sure you stay home. because if that guy rips it through you, that's one the coach might not like.

But if the guy on the other end, your defenseman doesn't do his job and he backdoor taps it in, that's not your fault. And it's not, nobody plays the game strictly based on that, but the psychology of that, and sometimes the psychology of it is, we've done one with Lyon where it's OVie was the pass option on the two-on-one.

And so we hedged that way. Not because, you know, again, it goes against the, I better not get beat short side here, so I'm going to hedge to the pass. But the psychology there is, if you got a two-on-one with Alex Ovechkin, you better not be the guy going back to the bench that missed short-side high or took the shot. I think Daniel Strong has been the only guy that I've actually seen, actually pull that off. And he scored on it.

Well, there you go, but that's the thing. So again, like, I probably shouldn't give away too many of these things because teams are going to figure it out. Like, oh, fake the pass to Ovi, and the guy's going to be, like, in the corner sliding, waiting for the one-tie, and I can just pump it in the empty net. But, like, that's the reality of the position. We would like to think of goaltending as these, like, super human reactive game. But it's the ability to connect these patterns and process it and stay ahead of those guys. That is what separates the elite.

And if you are just trying to sit there and react to every shot, the reality is you can't, like, we've got the science on, you know, the eyes and the hands and how long it takes for a puck to leave a stick and get to the net. And a lot of these chances, you know, they're not blocking goalies because we've gotten away from the period. quote unquote blocking goalie, but a lot of the safe situations require you just to, in that sort of educated guest fashion, put your body in a space where it's most likely to get hit. Now, the interesting thing, and this might be counterintuitive, but we talk a lot about, say, percentage being the lowest it's been in whatever 19 years or whatever it is now at 901, as I said off the top, goals being scored on a permanent basis, or per hour, I should say, have dropped below three as a league average, which is the first.

time that's happened since 2020. So goals are actually down compared to last year, the year prior. Which tells you that they're not shooting as much. They're not shooting as much, but they're also not scoring as often. But maybe they're holding, maybe they're holding too much, right? Like, maybe they're holding for the high danger and not taking the mids. There's probably an element of that. I'd say the goalies are probably just the best they've also ever been.

That's the thing. In terms of like physical ability and it's a great point. And sort of, I think like there's the great goalies. But I think the floor on everyone in the league has raised significantly. We used to see the gap between the starter and the backup was so huge. And I know now we don't have any workhorse goalies. Part of that is because there are so few helibucks that just dominate at such a high level. But the other part of it is like, A, if you play that guy too much, you get diminishing returns.

But B, your option, the other guy has never been better. The option from one to two for most teams, like that gap has shrunk. The floor has raised. and so we're going to see, you know, more and more of those guys in the net. And you're right. It has gotten better. And that's ultimately what led me to this conversation. I remember last year I wrote a similar version of this, but not without, not to the degree we went into the numbers this time.

But the goalies were like, yeah, like the game's never been harder for us. And yeah, numbers are going down, but goaltending's never been better. So you're like, how can say percentage be at a, you know, 30 year low or headed towards maybe even lower? Now, how could we be headed towards a 900 or lower as league average? and in the next breath say goaltending's never been better. Well, there are reasons, and we've dug into some of them here today. The most interesting part, not the most interesting, but an interesting follow-up, I guess, to this,

a logical one for me would be, I think I mentioned this to you last time we spoke. I'm sure the clear-side analytics numbers are different as well, but I've got access to the support logic ones, for example, and I like to use those a bit more than the public ones, just because I feel like it gives you a bit more nuance and breakdown and context and all that good stuff. all of their goalie numbers, every single goalie across the board,

their save percentage is at least three to four points higher than the listed NHL.com one, to the point where they've got Jacob Marksstrom, for example, at 920 this year, whereas his official one's 912, Jake O'Donjur, 922, and it's listed at 914. So here's the thing, ClearSight's actually the other way, and ClearSight has been the other way, dramatically for a number of years

because the NHL overcounted shots, and I think we talked about this last time with gambling. That's no longer the case. But every shot is like the point it releases, lines drawn to the post on the crossbar was this on net. Like, and goalies will hate it because their numbers are actually lower, but there's still a certain. They also don't count dump-ins and things like that. So there's an element of like, hey, that's not a real scoring chance. We want to wash that out of the data because the one from center ice goes in one of a, you know,

one in how many thousand times, it hops over a guy's stick and they end up on the highlight reel's poor Vestatostasala kind of thing. But so, I mean, there's reasons for these discrepancies, but interesting to note that one is above and this is, they're actually below, I think, for the most part. That's good to know. Yeah, because I was curious because it makes sense and we've spoken about this that with the prevalence of people betting on like individual shot totals, for example,

it's human nature to bet on overs because you cheer for fun events, right? And everyone enters it very optimistically. Beyond the gambling, though, but like this is the conversation that needs to happen next. Like, we want scoring chances. Yes. which, but if it's at the expense of, you know, like, here in Vancouver, we've got some real low event hockey. Right. It's not entertaining on a lot of nights.

Yeah, I wonder, I mean, they're an extreme example. Maybe that's just because I'm seeing an extreme example. That's the one I see. I think that might be a personnel talent deficiency as opposed, and then it's being portrayed. So, you're telling me league wide, despite the discrepancy or the decrease in shots, it's not. as boring as what we're watching on a night-to-night basis here. I mean, I think people generally would rather watch, I mean, certainly high danger chances, right? Especially ones off the rush, kind of more dangerous stuff leads to either highlight real saves or rebounds off of it or goals.

So they're kind of more memorable events to watch. I don't think even if it results in a goal, anyone gets that excited, obviously, if it's your favorite team and you're at the rink and you're having a beer, you're going to cheer for it. but a point shot that goes in and it's like, all right, well, that wasn't necessarily a very exciting play that I just got to watch. It depends on the screens, as we've said.

Yes. You know what, but the one thing, like the guy bussing down the wing and letting the clapper go. Like, that's got, like, you know,

you can, the rise and the building, the anticipation in a crowd. And that's one of the ones that, like, we know for the most part is a low danger chance and a turnover. But so, you know,

there's a balance there. There is what I'm saying. And I'm curious to see where we go with this. I think, that's a very fair point about whether we've over-corrected or the pendulum swung too wide because I was watching this devil's flyers game on Saturday. I believe it was a maddenay game and I wish it was like the only game on so I was watching it I wish I hadn't I probably would have spent my morning doing something better maybe going outside going for a walk

in nature or something because the shots at that one were like 17 to 13 or something by the end and it was just a miserable slog and you are seeing definitely a higher incidence of those for sure. Like neither team's doing anything. That's, I mean, I would have been curious to watch that game, although mercifully I did not. Because I would have been curious to see what the quality of those low shots were,

especially against the flyers. My God. Does that team give up quality? Their goalies, their expected save percentages are the lowest because I know I've seen a lot of stuff, I haven't really weighed in on this very much. I have seen a lot of sort of very, very pointed criticism of the goaltenders in Philadelphia this year.

Their expected save percentages are Alexei Kolesoff, 861, lowest in the national hockey league. He's underperformed it, but only slightly. Like, his adjusted numbers are better than a handful of guys that one of them has a multiple Vezna, multiple Veznas and a Stanley Cup last year. Like, his adjusted save percentage is better than Sergey Virovsky's. when you're operating from an 861 expected, good luck telling anyone you've been okay. Sam Erison, 864, third lowest in the league. Ivan Fedotov, 873, sixth lowest in the national hockey league.

Now, Erson's actually above expected and Fedotov's below, but like at the end of the day, if all of your goalies are living in an environment that bad, that's kind of, hey, but, you know, one of the guys who's in that neighborhood right now and is outperforming it by a significant margin is Alex Ndelkevich with the Pittsburgh Penguins, 870 expected above that, you know, and a top 30 goalie in the National Hockey League right now. Jet Grieves, much smaller sample. He hasn't had to live it on a night-to-night basis, 869 and he's plus 3.3%. So, you know, you cannot play a bad environment, but I would suggest when all three of your

goalies have, you know, three of the six worst environments in the entire National Hockey League, it's going to be hard to do that for any long period of time. This is me bailing out the Flyers goalies, by the way. That's the thing Ned has going for him is he's tied for first and goal scoring at the position as well. So he's also chipped in a lot of offensive. I was hoping we get there because I've had articles about that as well. Like this is the first time. I'm glad because when Gus scored earlier this year, it set us very up.

It set us up nicely. It's the first time we'd had three straight seasons where a goalie had actually shot a puck into the net. There were three years in the past where they got credited but never shot. Right. And because it was so early in the year, I'm like, we're getting a second goal this season. And we've never had two in a season. So Ned set that record.

And one of the voices I had in the story after Gus scored was Ned because he's got two in the AHL. He's got one in the ECHL. He throws it as well as anyone. And so I used his voice because I've always believed really deeply believed

that he was getting one before his career ended and the degree of difficulty on his because the other three all had something in common. Oh, he took a hit to make a play. But behind the net, like the degree of, all the other ones were mistakes on dumpins. They dumped it right to Gustafson, no problem. Allmark wasn't, it was a deflected dumping.

It wasn't a mistake so much as it allowed him to be aggressive and get it out above the goal line. Jari's above the goal line. For Ned to go behind the net around the net and chuck it like that, easily the hardest of those four. And I guess part of a trend, as much as that's not what we're here to talk about, the skill of these goaltenders handling the puck has never been higher. So I expect this as special as it has been because of the rarity. And I've gotten to see two of them in person and covering all marks just still brings a smile to my face covering it.

But their ability to chuck it over, everyone landed at like the far hash marks and skip it in. It's never been higher. And so I do believe you combine that with teams being more likely to pull a goal early. I don't want to take away from the specialness of it. No, it's going to be going to see more of these. Yeah, I mean, we haven't even got one from Decord, Igor, or... Oh, they're all... I mean, we almost had three.

Like, Igor, I mean, he chucked it wide, but he wasn't far off. Like, he's going to get one. All right, we missed the mark for our break because we kept talking. You open the order to goalie goals, so that gets me excited. That's fair. I don't regret a single thing. Let's take our break here now, though, while we still can. And then when we come back, we'll pick it back up with Kevin Woodley.

You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the SportsNet Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey PEOCast joined by Kevin Woodley today. Kevin, we were talking about the league environment and everything off the top. I thought we can circle back to it at a later date. I did just in thinking about it more since you brought it up, just the idea of whether it's a net positive from like a fan viewership entertainment value perspective in terms of fewer events with them being more like specific and curated towards being high danger is an interesting one. I think it doesn't ultimately matter because the talent on display and the speed at which everything is being done is obviously greater than it's ever been.

So even if the product itself isn't being played most efficiently from like a bang for your buck, I'm enjoying this game perspective. The players themselves individually I think make up for it. So it doesn't ultimately matter. But a very interesting topic. All right, I want to talk about goalies changing teams. Yes, sir. Because another article you wrote for NHL.com. We're just plugging the hell out of my NHL.com.

I love this. plugs here along the way rather than waiting until the end when no one's listening anymore. We've spoken about the difficulty of addressing the goalie position by the time you get to the deadline, right? There's so many moving parts, there's different defensive assignments, how you play certain situations. It's just a logistical nightmare to integrate a goalie within a team scheme when there's 10 to 15 starts realistically for them to work with. And generally, if it's a contender, they're high leverage ones where you probably need to win as well. it just extends so much beyond what you'd think superficially of like plug and play just stand there

make the save right we look a lot beyond that i was looking at the venez market right now and obviously it's connor hellabuck and then everyone else playing for second place essentially like he's minus 4,000 right now what that means is i believe the implied probability of him winning the vzna is like 98% right now um and deservedly so yeah because I'll give you a few numbers which blew my mind. So 24 games played so far over as the West, 9-39 say percentage. In those 15 games in division against central teams,

five shutouts at a 9-53, and that includes giving up whatever four goals he did to Utah on Monday night, which brought his totals all the way down to 9-53 for the year. So he's first, and then here's the list after that. Second Logan Thompson. And we can talk about these all individually as we go, but I'm just going to list it off for you.

second Logan Thompson, third McKenzie Blackwood, fourth Philip Gustafson, fifth Jacob Markstrom, six Lucas Doe style, seven Linus O'Mark. Now I would argue that if I were constructing this list, I'd have Dustin Wolfe within my top five because not only does he have a 927% this year, but like I was looking at his 16 wins, he's given up 25 goals total in those 16 games,

like the margin of error for him on a team that doesn't really score. I think they're 28th in offense this year. And let's not forget that the GM's vote on the vestness. So narrative matters here. It does. But excluding him because he's not actually in that top seven, by my count, four of those seven are goalies that are on new teams this season.

Now, obviously, Bikensy Blackwood is the only one of the four that got traded in season. The others were off-season acquisitions, so they had more time to integrate. But I thought that was an interesting anecdote in looking at this and kind of the turnover at the position and also how everything's fit because it's changed so much, right? I just told you what the market thinks the seven best goalies this season, four of them were on different teams at this time last year.

Right, I was going to say it's not just about trades in season. I mean, take a look at Logan Thompson, who, by the way, on a goal saved above expected basis, you know, sort of your cumulative performance stat is not quite a full goal, but ahead of Connor Hellebuck on the Clearside Analytics. list. So he leads, and he's doing it, again, cumulative stat, he's doing it with a lot fewer chances against. So on a per shot basis, the margin is actually significant more. Now that is not me arguing for him to win the Vesna head of like what Hellebuck does, what he brings to the team,

the six shutouts, the confidence, their ability to play the way they play because they know he's back there, the way he's improved his puck handling just by making simple plays. Like, there's so much. He's full value for his third base. Bezina this year and I would not bet against them and as the betting market you should you nor should I unless I go on a massive campaign and start deep diving these numbers and shuttling them off to all the goalie coaches I know so that they can get the ear of their general managers which is not what I do but he's right there right like Logan Thompson is up there with Connor Hellbach change teams I think the interesting thing and Blackwood's about like six

goals behind both of them right now in terms of goals saved but obviously charging fast The one thing, again, on expected, say, percentage sort of environment, like Helibux, they're one of the top defensive teams in hockey. And again, a big part of that is him and their belief in him. But his 897 expected, the only starter with a number that high is Arvid Soderbloom. Like Logan Thompson is 17 points lower, like 880 expected versus 897. So again, environment matters. And Helibux, again, it doesn't discount how good he's been. but Hellebucks has been a lot more favorable.

But look at the list. Thompson, adjusted say percentage first, change teams. Anthony Stollers, he's third, change teams. Darcy Kemper's fourth at plus 2.4% change teams. And then there's Hellebuck, Dustin Wolf, first year is a starter. So listen, I think most of those, they obviously change teams. And in Kemper's case, I talked to him about this recently, going back to a city you played in, there's a certain familiarity.

And again, I had an article. on this too is it's not just about the fit, but it's about all the other stuff that goes into. I mean, we are creatures of habit as goaltending, routine matters, things like that. Lena Selmark talked to me about, you know, figuring out when you got to leave for the rank. Like Darcy going back to L.A., he knows, hey, I'm good. I get from here to here and practice day.

Like, those little things matter, you know, in terms of comfort level of a goaltender. In terms of doing it mid-season, I love what the abs have done. Like giving Blackwood a chance to get adjusted. and he talked about that in the article. The biggest adjustment for him, and this goes back to the, you know, no wasted shots is he went from being very busy in San Jose and a lot of low danger shots

that helped him feel good about his game to almost nothing in Colorado where the team's at the other end for long stretches and he has to stay focused. He said that was the biggest adjustment. The end of the day, it's probably easier to adjust to the Colorado Avalanche, a top three defensive team in the league

than it would be going somewhere else, and that's what Corpus Sala told me too. his adjustment in LA was easier because of the one three one and knowing even down to puck handling always knowing he had the guy was going to be the first guy back all i got to do is go back and leave it for him so systems matter and as much as i love blackwood getting an opportunity to adjust early in the season and he admitted that having to do this at the deadline would be harder mentally because you're conscious of having a small runway to make those adjustments even though the fact he's made them so quickly makes you want to go oh well he would have been fine because look how quickly

And he admitted in his own mind It would have been much tougher to do this Knowing Whereas now it's like You can play with house money a little bit Right? Like it's not a there's no stress So I can just relax my way into it

It's easier when you're going to a team like Colorado Or you're going to a team like Los Angeles That are elite defensively Certainly You know on the Thompson point Before I forget this I obviously I tweeted it over the weekend But he has 25 starts

That's 50 possible points That the Capitals could have accrued in that time They've gotten 44 of 50, which is a team stat, certainly, like obviously goal he wins, but man, like I said, the numbers say he's a big part of that. And what it's interesting is that

Charlie Ingrin got banged up, but he has been available, certainly is now, I think, has been for a bit, and this is still I think they're playing tonight in Edmonton, he's still making his fifth straight start, which obviously before Charlie Lindgren's injury, they were splitting it as 50-50, as you humanly could,

quite literally alternating every single start back and forth. And since then, I'm curious, like, he's obviously taking on a big role. I don't think that's something they want in the second half because they saw first hand what can happen when you just play your guy too much like they did with Lingren. Yeah. I assume we'll play the wheels off them,

but I think there might be an element of, let's see what we got. Like, because at the end of the day, come playoff time, unless you are going to go straight rotation, and you know very well that I cheer for that on an annual basis for a team to actually rotate in the playoffs. But if you're not going to, and very few teams do historically, you better know if this guy's good to go every second.

and night. What does this game look like? Does it change? Does it deteriorate? Because inevitably, as soon as you're playing every game, you lose that ability to sort of have that practice time to work on the details. Can you still stay on top of your details while paying more attention to your rest? The March 7th trade deadline is just over six weeks away. And essentially two of those weeks are blocked off, not that there's a roster freeze, but there won't be scheduled team games for the four nations halfway through. February. So the hurricanes, I want to talk a little bit about them with you. Because I was thinking about this, obviously, the black would trade. I was thinking, okay, next logical step of which team

would be in the market, who would be interested, what is that conversation going to be? The hurricanes, I think, are the obvious team on everyone's mind. Now we just got Freddie Anderson playing his first game in Chicago on Monday night since October. How did they, again, I was in a car from Eugene. They won overtime. He gave up three goals on about 25 shots. I thought he looked a little bit rusty, but ultimately they were playing the black ops and they were able to look rusty to win but he's 35 years old obviously with a laundry list of various ailments and injuries and his contract is expiring this offseason they've got pieter kutchecoff signed for the next two years at two million per is coming like he there's inconsistencies there that i used to talk about and i wasn't a total

like he's up there top 15 in the league adjusted numbers adjusted say percentage like he's taken a step Also, if I were planning for a long Playoff run, I'd like to have a second reliable option because in any of those games he might challenge a forechecker and fly out and get decapitated. And so it's incredibly entertaining to watch but I also wouldn't want to stake my entire season

on him being available. So we're agreed here. You're looking at a three though because like Freddie Anderson when he's been in there, listen, I know the injury history and the questions and they're fair, but dude, when he, and again, I didn't watch the other night, but at the beginning of the season, I loved his game. Yeah.

I've talked to him about where his game is at. It's just a matter or not, you have to understand it can't be every night. And we talked about this. I felt like they went to him a little too much in the playoffs last year, and he might not agree with that. But there was sort of diminishing returns, and this, which makes this all very fascinating, but healthy, keep him healthy. And, like, his game is on point right now. I really, even coming back off the blood clots last year, he was so good until they overplayed him.

And so I think what we're both saying here is we're not necessarily looking for a new number one. Are we just looking for an insurance policy? I'm looking for a 1-1-A slash 1B. I think because I'm fine them, I'm trying to prepare for playing 25 playoff games as opposed to the, what, 12 to 14 that they've been playing? It's tough unless you're going to move on, Freddie. Like, honestly, like, it's a tough decision because they're both good.

There's very few guys on the list of, you know, just based on how they're performing, that would be an upgrade on how these guys have played so far this year. Again, the caveat small sample for Anderson. Yeah, five games, yeah. You know, one of the guys who's right there, though. What was it? Just to say percentage-wise, at least. John Gibson.

Yeah. John Gibson is having a hell of a season. He has had a really nice. season in Anaheim so far. Yeah. Now there's one catch and it's the same catch that's been there all along. There is one stat that more goals going more than they should against him. And I think if you're the acquiring team, you can't look at it like we can fix this.

We're going to change how we plays these. Right. You have to work around it. You have to understand we better not give these up. Yeah. And that's the low slot line plays. And it's been a bugaboo statistically for a while. Now everything else is so good that you don't, you can live with it now, but it remains, you know,

reminds me of the Stuart Skinner conversation about rush chances. And by the way, Stuart this year, he's playing rushes differently and is starting to put up really good rush numbers after years and years of not. And so, years and years, he says, what's third year starter? Barely. So, um, but, but he's turned a weakness into a strength by adjusting tactically. I don't know given how long that Gibson has been in the game that he's adjusting tactically. And if you force him to adjust tactically, again, especially if it's a trade deadline thing and a short notice, there's going to be like he's such a reed guy

and they're so elite with those reeds that you're going to change them all so that's the catch. Now can you, while I give you a couple numbers, can you pull up where the hurricanes rank in that statistic in terms of the frequency of those they give up? You've heard of speed dating.

This is Kevin's speed typing into Clearside. I'll buy time for you here. All right. Rag the puck. So the environment, as you'd expect, they give up the fewest shot attempts allowed on a permanent basis averaging under 50 shot attempts per 60 minutes played. Only the

Kings goalies face fewer actual shots on goal than Hurricanes goalies do. Their 25th, according to spore logic, in inner slot shots allowed. The only teams that give up more inner slot shots than the Carolina Hurricanes,

the Montreal Canadiens, the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Pittsburgh Penguins, the New York Islanders, man, this just sounds like the Eastern Conference Wildcard race. The sharks Rangers and Ducks. Those are the only teams that give up more interslot shots and then they're also top five in most breakaways loud. Now that's not new because

of how aggressively you play in the offensive zone, tracking every puck down, competing for everything, trying to knock stuff away and keep it in the zone. You get caught deep. There's a lot of breakaways against. I'm very fascinated to hear if you've been able to pull up where they rank in that specific stat that John Gibson has struggled in

because I just said they give up quite a few interslot shot ones. As you point out, not each one is created equal. Some are much more dangerous than others and some are more specific skill set-wise. But that would be an incredibly interesting fit. Now, I'm sure you've heard the same stuff I have. I think they went pretty far down the road entertaining the possibility as recently as this past off season for whatever reason they wound up choosing not to go that route in terms of acquiring John Gibson. I think it's possible that that's changed or will change by the trade deadline, but that's at least where they were at last summer.

And Gibson himself, as I said, he's turning 32. He's got $6.4 million for two more years. So it is an organization that doesn't really like to commit assets to the position. We did say that for a long time about the Colorado Avalanche as well. And then they signed Mackenzie Blackwood after four games long term and kind of changed their direction in doing so. So we could see that here with the hurricanes. So low slot line plays, they're actually 25th in the NHL.

Now, what would be interesting here, I need a little more time to sort of filter. or for, you know, how much of this is rush and how much of this is in zone? Because there's a really, really interesting juxtaposition in the Carolina hurricane's underlying profile in terms of what they give up off the rush versus in zone. And, you know, the first thing, my first thing was looking at Coachetkoff's, excuse, we talked about environment and expected say percentage and where guys like Hellebuck rank, Like he's at 876 expected.

And Freddie in a tiny sample is 881. Those are pretty low numbers. They have not been in a defensive team they were in previous years. League average is 886. So their guys are facing some tough chances. You know, and then when I look at this, like 28th in the NHL in high danger chances off the rush five on five. Not what we think of.

They used to be a team that dominated possession and then they give up a rush chance. But not a lot. And then first in defensive zone, high danger five. So when they get into the defensive zone and settle play, high danger chances against, they're first in the league. In terms of fewest. In terms of fewest. That makes sense.

I mean, they have such active sticks. Like they like once they get set, they can knock it away, but they're really stretched in with space. So I think you need to filter it even further and start to look like, hey, we know, you know, and again, this is on me to do this in real time. and this is user error folks. ClearSight does all this really fast. Don't worry about. I'm just not the brightest guy.

I think that's an interesting taster for people. But I need to actually take it and say, okay, like, so we talked about Gibson and slot line plays. I mean, at the end of the day, if you're making this deal, you're doing the video. And I know Carolinas, goalie people, and Paul Schoenfeld, there's an incredibly bright guy. He'll have done the video.

And for me, it's a matter of like, how much of that is rush, how much of that is in zone? Because if it's in zone, we're not giving it up in zone for the Carolina hurt game. If it's off the rush, we've got a problem here. Maybe this isn't a match.

So, again, and don't want to give all the answers away. So, you know, we've got to, you know, the tease, as they call it in the industry, we'll get to that one. But, you know, more to the point. And also, I've got to be careful giving up too much data here, too. They're nice to let me look under the hood. It's not for me to give away everything down to the nth degree on every goalie and team in the league. But I think it paints a really good picture of just how granular. you can get.

And, well, I don't know that you can make every decision based on these things. You know, we talked about educated guesses for goalies on reads. You'd like to make an educated decision on some of these things. And this allows you to get more granular. And I think in the perfect world, once I get to that, like, I can click on slotline plays, click a button and watch every goal he's given up on these plays and start to look for trends in how he plays it and trends in what they give up. And if I'm Carolina, I know whether that matches what we give up or not.

Well, I think that's a perfect bookend. to today's conversation because in speaking about the changing of the environment, no team probably exemplifies that more, I think, this year, than low volume but high degree of difficulty on the shots that do come, especially off the rush, as you said there. And so I thought that's why they'd be an interesting one. And I think it's a bit more of a challenging gig, I think, than certainly has been in the past,

and maybe they've acknowledged as an organization in terms of how they allocate resources. I want to talk to you about Spencer Knight as well. We're out of time, though. There's a couple young goalies, him, Jacob Dobesh, Levi, Merilinen, a couple I've really been intrigued by. So maybe let's give them a bit more of a sample here to work with. Let's give them more of a sample, but let's not miss a young guy who is full value. You mentioned his name. Well, Grieves for sure.

I'm a big fan of his game. But, like, Dustin Wolf is, like, this is not just a guy proving himself as a starter. This is a guy with, you know, adjusted, say, percentage. that, you know, ranks, you know, just filtering it for sort of get rid of all the guys that have barely played. Like, he's sixth in the NHL. His adjusted save percentage is, like, a fraction of a, you know, percentage point behind Connor Hellebock. It's ahead of Philip Gustafson. Like, Dustin Wolf is having an – not just a good first season as a pro.

He's having an incredible season and another guy on that young and a smaller sample even. But quietly Yaroslav Ascaro. off is having a hell of a start. Speaking of a guys that are going to score goals before they're done. So yeah, well, yeah, let's have that for February. Look at the Four Nations. When we come back February, we're going to have a full young goalies in what they're doing and breaking down their games.

Kevin, everyone go follow you. Kevin is in goal on the social media, Ingole magazine, your work at NHL.com as well, which we promoted at least 45 times today. Thank you for coming on. It's a blast as always. You've certainly got a pep to your step now after today's show, much more than you had coming in to the studio. No red bill required, my friend. No red bill required. Job well done. Thank you to everyone for listening. We'll be back soon with

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