The Hockey PDOcast - Senators Goalies, Extreme Defensive Environments, and Goalie Rotations Heading Into The Playoffs This Year

Episode Date: March 12, 2026

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to talk about Senators goalies, their struggles in net this year, and the pros and cons of Ottawa’s defensive approach in front of them. Then we break down all of the goalie rotations we’re seeing teams around the league using more regularly this year, and the questions it raises about how that usage will play out in the postseason. 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 Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyPEDEOCast. My name is Demetri Filippovich and joining me here in studio, my good buddy, Kevin Woodley. Kevin, what's going on, man? We missed the month, buddy. It's been too long. We did.

We had the Olympics. We had the trade deadline. I feel like the schedule was just completely out of whack. And unfortunately, we put you to the back burner. But not any longer because we got you back on. And I generally try to get you on at least once a month. If I had my way, I'd be every day, honestly, because I love speaking with you, but also I need your help in deciphering what's going on with goalies.

And so we're going to play catch-up. Today, I've got a fun list of topics for us. Let's start with this, because I was watching Habs v. Sends. On Wednesday night, it was one of only two games on the schedule. And there's been a lot of discussion this year, certainly, about Ottawa and comparing their defensive environment, defensive metrics versus the output in terms of goals against because of the goaltending they've been receiving. and it was another really tough loss for them.

They'd been playing better. They were just coming off a shutout here in Vancouver with James Reimer and that. They gave up the game winning goal with about seven-ish minutes left in regulation. And the reason why it was such a tough loss was I was looking at this. If they had won that game against the Habs, their playoff odds would have shot all the way up to 58% probability with the loss. It dropped them back down to 39%. They've got 18 games left here.

11 of them are home. They're five points back of the Bruins. I really want to talk about Linus, Mark and the goal attending for you because on the one hand since coming back from his leap of absence, Allmark had played pretty well, I thought. Like he'd given up two goals against or less in I believe six of his last seven games heading into this one against the Habs. Now, I'm including the one against the Cracken in Seattle where he technically gave up four,

but two of them were late and a seven to score line. And he'd been doing enough to get them back in this playoff race. And early on in that game against Montreal, I thought he started off pretty well. I mean, he gives up a goal on the first shot he faces, but they're short-handed, which has been an issue for him all year. It's really like off-a-broken play, a two-on-o, where Demidov sends into the Cof-C backdoor,

and there's nothing you can do about it. After that, settles in, make some nice saves. They're up to one late in the second, and this kind of harmless-looking shot from the perimeter, I think there was traffic in front of them, but it beats them cleanly. It rings off the iron, and I'm like, oh, I'm very curious to see how he responds to this.

And then I believe it was the next shift. The puck works its way behind the next. net, he kind of loses his post sliding across or doesn't really block it off well enough. And Alex Texier, I believe, gets it by him. And then in the third period, the backbreaking rebound off of a rush shot where I think he thought he had control of it, but it kind of just tucks in under him and Demadov sneaks in and winds up scoring the eventual game winning goal. And it was, I thought, a perfect representation of what's gone on in Ottawa this year,

because I thought they certainly played well enough to at least get a point and send it to overtime, if not win the game at home outright. And a couple of plays here or there in a game where they otherwise outshot the HABs and played well enough to win, they have nothing to show for it. So let's get into a conversation about Allmark and the senators and in general, you know, you've got access to all these clear site stats that I think paint a clearer picture than some of the public stuff we have or even the sport logic data that I typically use. Is it as extreme a split as it would look like on paper and based on all the numbers we have access to? It's one of those.

There's two sort of parts to this that I'm trying to figure out. And we can talk a little bit about some of the theories that have emerged from the Olympics, as we've seen goalies have success in a best-on-best tournament that they're not having with their team. And what that tells us about environment. Well, I will say, sorry to cut you off, but as soon as you brought the Olympics, they were much more loosey-goosey in terms of the tracking. in that one. In fact, I don't think they are really like

revisiting or vetting any of the shots and pretty much anything that was vaguely in the direction of the goalie was counting as a shot on goal and a save for them. And so I think some of those numbers were a little bit inflamed. I'm not even looking at the numbers. Right. I'm just looking at guys who, you know, are being called out for really bad seasons

with their teams ending up in metal rounds at the Olympics. And I frankly don't pay, didn't pay any attention to the numbers. I just mean like you can watch those games and measure how many cross-seam passes and we get into a discussion about Hellebuck

and what this all means and whether it cements, philosophies, or raises questions. There are some, there are no absolutes in goaltending, I say that all the time, but it's sort of firmed up some things for me. And yet at the same time, there remain exceptions to these rules, and the Ottawa senators are in some ways one of them.

And that's that, like, there's all these different things we can measure. And there are a lot of different things we can point to that explain why Connor Hallibuck can be the guy he was at the Olympics in the gold medal and not when he gets back to Winnipeg that explain how Jordan Pennington could go into the Olympics with an 864 percentage and get candidate to a gold medal game and, you know, into overtime. Yeah. Like, but then there are harder to explain things, things that are a little more touchy feet. and a little more goalie specific. And some people will hear this and they'll hear it as an excuse. It's not meant that way.

It's meant to try and understand. Carolina is at the extreme of this and Ottawa's got a little bit of it in them. They don't give up much. You're right. The defensive environment is excellent. When they do, like it's the challenge of being able to be at your best when the team in front of you is so good defensively that they don't give up anything that lets you feel.

like you're into a game. And the pressures that come with that and it's hard to know or measure what goalies are going to have success within that environment. We've talked about Brandon Bussie and one of the things I think is most

remarkable at the seasons he's had in Carolina is that he's able to do that. You know, they had a game recently in Seattle where they outshot the crack in 3515. And I know even within their coaches office, it's like, what the? Like, how do we lose that game two to one?

And when I looked at the numbers the next morning, Seattle had 15 chances, five high danger. Carolina had 35 chances and three high danger. The expected goals were almost identical. And so when one third of your chances, even though it's a good environment, you don't give up, but when one third of them are difficult or high danger, and you're having to wait long stretches and then the next game they had was here in Vancouver and I'm watching them play the Canucks

and paper them in their own end just walk them all over the ice for the first half the shots are 12 to 1 the first 10 minutes and then the goalie's been watching this happen and all of a sudden he's facing rush chances when they do give stuff up. It's an extreme example. Ottawa isn't to that extreme

and I don't know that there's an answer for it but there is a level of difficulty that comes with not seeing pucks on a regular basis and then seeing some quality chances. Now, I know it was, it's really easy to look at that rebound goal that led to the winner for Montreal and be like, it's like, it's a low danger chance by the analytics. It's going to say that. As a goalie, I think we've all been there. I mean, obviously I'm not saying these types. We've all been there where you feel it hit your shoulder. You think you've got it cradled in your blocker and it bounces out. Like that puck, you don't get to see that. If you think about a mask,

a goalie mask, trying to tuck your chin into a chest protector, you don't see that hit your shoulder. Like, it's physically impossible to see a puck all the way into contact on your shoulder like that. And so quite often you'll feel it, you'll feel like it's either under your arm or it's slipped into the cuff of your blocker. And when you think you've got it in that split second where it's bounced away, like it's almost, I just feel like I've, and I did a bunch of, and I talked Ottawa, they were just through town and spent some time with their goalies and talked about this. And it feels like everyone knows bounces this year has just gone the other way. And so I get it.

I understand the criticism. And yet I'm like, man, like stuff like that's just going to happen every once in a while. And it seems like it's happening to their goalies a lot. And you could be like, hey, they're not good goalies. I don't believe that to be true. I think there are some specific challenges within that environment that they've at times struggled to sort of live up to. I mean, the expected is right around league out. average. Like that's the thing. They're a top 10 defensive team in terms of what they give up by

the overall metrics, you know, total expected goals against. And yet I look at their expected say percentage and it's right league average. Carolina is the opposite. They're like near the bottom. Like the three goalies that have played the most are in the bottom seven this year in terms of environments. We're not quite to that degree with Ottawa. But it's just, again, it's not an excuse. It's just it's part of the unique challenge of playing behind the senators. And I think since he's come back for the most part, Linus has done a really good job behind that and the numbers sort of bear that out. It's all about the start for him that sort of flushes his overall numbers lower than you'd like to see them. And I just think sometimes it's real easy in that moment to be like,

oh, here we go again, when everything up to that point for the last couple of weeks has been pretty good. Well, we've talked a lot about Carolina and some of the difficulties of that extreme defense environment and their issues clearly, they're so aggressive in the offensive zone that if you're able to get it past that first wave of defense, you're going to get an odd man rush opportunity against them. And they're, if not the worst, one of the worst teams defending the rush as a result of that because when they give up a transition opportunity, it's typically a breakaway or a two-on-a-one or a three-on-two or something extremely dangerous their goalie has to face.

I don't think that's the case for Ottawa, partly because they're not as aggressive. For them, it feels like, and this was probably a good representation of that, these broken plays. And you could chalk some of that up to just kind of the season from hell where it's seemingly every one of them in a high leverage moment is going against you because I think they're actually better at getting back defensively and certainly when Jake's Anderson's available he covers up a lot

of those mistakes. He's been out recently. Massive loss for that. Yes. But there's shot totals against and I've been tracking this over the past couple weeks and months are bordering on like Marty Broder New Jersey Devils from the early 2000s territory. But that's kind of what my point.

Like not every, like and the example I go to it, it's not really fair because he's a goalie I think should actually be in the Hockey Hall of Fame. But Curtis Joseph just became the poster boy for this, and there's varying degrees to it. But like, give him 70 shots in a playoff game behind the Edmonton Oilers playing fire wagon hockey,

and you couldn't beat him. Put him behind the Hall of Famers in Detroit, where he was supposed to win a cup and give him 20, and he wasn't the same guy. And the environments, and Lottagullies are struggling with this right now, is the shot totals go down and teams pass up on anything that's not a good look, like that trend of not taking low percentage chances,

and even bothering to shoot them anymore, getting into Marty Breder territory is territory where it took a special goalie to be able to manage that. And so I think that's part of the equation here. Again, it's not an excuse, it's just the reality, and I think there's been a bit of a learning curve

in terms of them trying to figure that out. Although, again, like you say they don't get much off the rush, and, like I said, they're a top 10 defensive team on the rush. They're ninth, five-on-five, odd man rushes, they're 10th, so those are all good, but overall they're like top five and then rush their tenth that goal last night off the rebound that's that's a rush chance with with a defenseman who has a gap and that's eh meh and then ends up that puck being shot

sort of threw him off him high and it creates a rebound I just I think there's a lot of people that have taken that moment last night and made it like I read stories where it became like a complete condemnation of Lina Sallmark based on that one moment. And I'm like, I just don't see that in his play over the past couple of weeks and those bounces are going to happen and I'm not sure I'd be throwing the baby out

with the bathwater to the degree others have. I think there's a little bit of a chicken and egg involved. Obviously, knowing what I know and what we know about Travis Green, part of it is by design in terms of how he wants his team to play. I do wonder though, like, when you start the year as poorly dated as dated in terms of everything seemingly

going in against you, I think there's a natural inclination to like, well, if we don't trust our goaltending, one of the best ways that we can control that is to just limit how much we give up against and that's holding on to the puck and, you know, Sport Logic has them top five to seven in both amount of time they spend with possession in the offensive zone

and then the least amount of time they spend in their own zone and so clearly part of it is tactical by design. I'm not taking anything away from, like, I had this conversation with Travis Green after the media left, Post came here in Vancouver and he understands it. Like being a great defensive team the way they are right now in the possession

is not easy on the goaltender. Yes. Like it just creates a very unique, and it's one of those challenges that's really hard to flush it. Like Carolina is so extreme that the numbers bear it out and it's obvious.

But it's one of those ones that's really hard to define. It's one of those ones that leads to goalies are voodoo. Like this is the type of situation that leads to so many people going, well, why isn't it working? Well, and I think there are other factors,

Levi, Merrillane, and struggling to the degree he did at the beginning of the season after being so good last year, heaped a crap ton of pressure onto Lena Solmark, who's been in a job share pretty much up to this point in his career, and all of a sudden he was the guy. Like, I think that contributed probably to him needing some time off as well.

Well, the situation got so dire to the point where they pretty much pulled a 38-year-old off his couch and were like, please help us and bring it at James Reimer. And honestly, I think if they'd pulled them off the couch a little sooner, and I may have sent a note their way about doing that a little sooner, Because, you know, again, you know, Travis called it here against the Canucks. Like, that's a really professional game. And if you look at that game that James Reimer played here against, like, they absolutely shelled them on the shot clock, right?

The Canucks had, what was it, 4-16 at the end? Yeah, it was in the teens for sure. Right. I mean, they've done that, like, 12 with the past 25 games or something. Right. And as you said, been, like, top five in the other end, holding on the puck. But within moments of that game, like Max Sasson,

assassin in a loan from the hash mark in a one-nothing game. And you could argue it shouldn't have even been a one-nothing game based on how ever you want to interpret the hand pass off the, I mean, it was clearly self-defense, but the rules, whatever. Like that's a lot of pressure. Like, man, I've only seen like seven shots all night and oh crap, here comes a breakaway. And if I don't stop it, we're now losing one-nothing or we're tied one-one one. There were a couple odd man rushes in there that were Rimer made,

I think Liam Ogren on a two-on-one, Rimer made a really good save. Again, there are saves you want your goals in and make those saves. Like, that's what they're paid to do to come up in big moments and make big saves. I just think people struggle to understand how much more difficult that can be sometimes between the years when you, you know, versus the other guy who's had 20 and been warmed up and, you know, they create quality too. But, I mean, like, it's just such a, well, I almost said it.

It's such a tough thing on the mind. Well, that's kind of the question I'm trying to pose to you because I think we're in agreement that in an ideal world, you'd give your goalie somewhere between 10 to 12, low danger looks where like clear sight from perimeter, get around to a field of puck, stop it, get into a rhythm. The old days where you'd have 33 shots and five weeks. would be high danger.

Now it's 21 shots and eight are high danger. Yes, I knew that would be ideal. But I guess the trick is like how to sort of thread that needle when, A, if there's an element of not really trusting your goal, you don't want to risk it to begin with because it could lead to a rebound or something crazy happening. So you're just trying to hold on to the pocket. I don't think you try and thread the needle.

Like I'm not saying they, believe me, this is not an, this is not me giving any indictment of the way they play at all. It's more just trying to say recognize there are some meaning challenges. come with it, yeah. Rather than just screaming at the goal that goes in 3-2 and saying the goaltending sucks, it's not good enough. I feel like there's a lack of understanding a little bit about the unique challenges of that environment and that is not me being critical to the environment. Like, they're a great, they're a really good team. I agree the goaltending can be better and if it is, we've seen it. Like they had points in what? 10 of 11 leading into that

game or 10 of 12, I should know this having covered them here and having to write that stat the other night and the goaltending was a part of that and the goaltending is adjusting and as as tough as those moments are like having max sasson come in and have like a clear cut breakaway from the hash mark and going against the grain to the glove you know rhymer's job is to not sell out and be able to sort of stay over his knees and have that glove in position and leave max sasson sort of like nodding that was a hell of a safe like that's the job i'm just trying to say it's not quite as easy. Just because the environment is good defensively doesn't mean it doesn't come with some unique challenges. And this is one of the ones that I think for most people are just like

15. It's the Carolina Seattle thing. We'll shot them 3515. How do we not win that game? Well, it does pose the question then to circle back to a topic you and I have discussed quite a few times throughout your appearances over the years. If that's the case and we both agree Ottawa's good and should be a playoff team in the east. Oh, I don't have answers. What's the point then of paying a goalie $8.25 million as the fifth highest paid goalie in the league this season, if they're not going to be able to make the saves when they are called upon?

Because I am completely in agreement with you that it's accounting for this context. It's more difficult than it may seem based on pure volume. Yet if your top five of your position, you should be able to then come. cover up those mistakes when they arise as opposed to defaulting to the environment and just stopping what you should stop. And in Boston, he did that. Yes. Right?

And so you look at, and I still, my hunch is he gets back to doing that here, right, as he gets comfortable in this environment. And I think, again, like, I think in the last couple of weeks, we've seen a lot of really good signs of that. I'm not going to argue with you. At the expense of, like, the, and somebody coming in and pulling my goalie union. card right out of my wallet while we're sitting here. Like I'm looking at the top guys in adjusted save percentage this year.

And I'm looking at Devin Cooley and Logan Thompson and Jacob Fowler, a rookie, and Alex Lyon and Nikita Tolapilo and Philip Grubauer, who does get paid, Brandon Bussie. And I'm like, I'm kind of with you. Like those guys that I just lifted off are all in the top 10 in adjusted save percentage. Yeah. So the volatility is there. And I think what I'm trying to wrap my head around is explaining the volatility. And I guess that's what I'm trying to.

I'm not saying I have an answer because it's really hard within the numbers to figure out, you know, who's going to be Brandon Bussie that can manage that environment and just keep focusing on the next shot and not get wrapped up in the fact he hasn't seen one for 20 minutes. Who can be Marty Breder and who needs to be Curtis Joseph? Who needs to be busy? are probably elements within the environment specific to the goalie and their strengths and weaknesses that can help us dig in on that a little bit. Like, hey, rush chances are one. Again, not saying Ottawa gives up a ton, not like Carolina does, but like that's part of the equation. If, you know, if you've got a team that is not going to keep you busy, but that's going to give up a rush chance, like you better find goalies that can manage the rush. You better find goalies that

sort of are comfortable in that environment. Linas Hallmarks, I mean, Boston was a good to offensive team, but the environment wasn't 22 shots a night or 21 a night. It was closer to 30, in part because the league was different then. Um, Linus Allmark in Buffalo was used to seeing just tons and tons of shots, right? So again, I'm not making excuses. I'm, I'm just trying to figure it out, honestly, like almost like, almost figure it out for myself here a little bit. Yeah, of course. So now how do we find and how do you know who can handle that or not? I, and I, I, I, not sure there are any easy answers. And part of it may just be a learning curve.

And with time, you will see him get. And there's a lot of other things that have gone on for him this year, obviously. And I just think we're seeing signs of him getting comfortable with it in the last couple of weeks. And with his game within that environment, and I just, I'm not sure I'd be in the same rush that others seem to be to defer right back to what happened at the beginning of the year. I mean, I generally really despise, like,

defaulting to this sort of like lowest common denominator analysis that I think you see elsewhere in terms of like well the goal is not making saves and that fully explains this because I think there's a lot of nuance and layers to it and we're unpacking some of them here but even when we look through the underlying numbers

like they're a good defensive team overall right like they are and the goaltending hasn't played up to that level that's a fair and accurate thing I'm just trying to find some of the reasons the offense is good enough because I feel like sometimes you get another layer of the conversation for goalies at times is the margin for error if you know that your team is really going to score one or two

goals every night, maybe a third one if you're fortunate. And so you're not getting that run support and you're like, all right, well, my margin for error is so low here. I cannot afford to give up any goals. And then that has its own additional factors that play into your performance. The senators are top 10 offensive team across the board as well. And so there is a level of run support that you don't typically associate with these defensive teams that kind of try to grind out low-scoring games and this is still happening. And the reason why I say sort of how big of a deal this is

league average say percentage is down to 896 this year, which is the lowest it's been forever. I'm going to be in the fetal position in the corner in a minute. And yet if the senators were just able to have league average goaltending this year, just purely through say percentage, they'd have given up 33 fewer goals against this

year and would go from 21st in the league and goals against to second behind just Colorado. I mean, they're a pretty extreme example. For sure. But again, how much of that is that in the last two weeks and how much of that's the beginning of the season? Early for sure.

Yeah. How much of that is like, well, you know, again, like he's a guy that was on when I talked to goalie coaches and directors around the league. He made the top 10 list for, you know, top goalies under 25 based largely of one he'd already done in the National Hockey League, you know, was pretty hard to foresee Levi Merillane and falling as hard from his performance last year as he did this year. Like when I look up numbers and you're talking about the senator's total team numbers, Linus is a little below expected.

Amar, or Marileneon is way, way below. And interesting, too, when we start to dig into, you know, the further, the more granular you get, as good as Ottawa is in a lot of categories defensively, one of the only ones were their bottom third of the league in high danger chances, expected goals against, is taking care of the front of their net, net front defense. and when we look, and this just happens to be the scoring chance that went in last night, on Lena Salt, like the two things that have killed Lena Solmark this year statistically, for as good as everything is overall as a team,

the two things that are killing him statistically are screens and rebounds. So, you know, you talked about a shot through traffic that went off the post. I don't have it at a top of head. I don't have the video in front of me to be able to look at and see what, you know, is that the other team doing a good job of creating that? those traffic and taking away his eyes, is that his guy standing in the wrong lane. And again, so there might be something to that.

When I see that, it jumps out, the team is 23rd. They're, like, flirting with top 10 in every other category, and all of a sudden they're 23rd in this one. And here are the two things that your goalie struggles the most with this year are screens and rebounds. You know, is that part of the equation? Because the goal we're all screaming about last night is a rebound. On a rush chance that he didn't get a clean look.

because you were in that lane but didn't get the puck. Again, not blaming them, but I'm just saying there's usually more context. No, and I think that's a common theme for when goalie struggle in today's game with the emphasis teams are placing on it. And then I think that circles us back to the idea that if that's something your team is struggling with, maybe you should be investing your cap dollars into players who can create a better environment that's giving up fewer rebounds to clean up for the other team. But as long as it's not at the expense of all the other things

are doing well and that's what that's what makes us so hard. Yeah. Um, okay, let's take a break here real quick. Can we come back? We just have to show on. I mean, I think it's from a goaltending perspective, probably the most interesting thing happening in the league right now. Um, so I have no issues with that. We're going to take our break, come back and jump right back in with Kevin Woodley. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O. guest streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right. We're back here in the Hockey Ptodiacs run by Kevin Woodley. Kevin. We're talking about that Senator's Habs game. I think the other end of the ice is just as interesting for me because the habs are playing a second leg of.

back to back. They call up Jacob Fowler from a Val who had not played in the NHL since January 15th. I believe he stops 32 of 34, including at the end. Just a flurry. Four or five, like scrambling saves the one off the rebound off the end wall where he kicks his pad out to stop a Giroux shot. A couple rebound opportunities against Dylan Cousins at the buzzer. A phenomenal end of the game and showing for him. And, you know, something I really want to talk to you about some of these goalie rotations we're seeing around the league, especially as we start thinking about the playoffs and goalie usage and who's going to be in net

for these teams that are competing in the postseason and the halves are at the forefront of that, right? Because I think we've seen coming out of the Olympic break, they've given the majority of the starts to Jakobovish. He started, what, four out of six games for them heading into this one. They gave a couple to Samo and Tobol, including one in a back-to-back situation. Fowler gets this one. And I'm very curious to see kind of how they approach it and how they navigate. I think they've pretty clearly shown their hand, at least. for the time being that Doebesh is going to be getting the first crack at it,

and I think deservedly so, his numbers are better. Underlying stuff, I mean, the same percentage is significantly higher. The team's performance, how much you want to attribute that to the goalie and how much you want to attribute that to the team in front of them. I think with Dobesh and that they're like a 122 point team in terms of point pace, whereas when Mondabo's in there, it's down at 89. Do you have any notes on Fowler or any of these guys for the habs, or do you want to just jump right into a conversation

about this league-wide trend of goalie rotations and how that's going to manifest itself in the playoffs? Well, the one thing I'll say about, especially considering it was against Montreal last night, the one thing, comparison between those two teams that I think stands out to me, and clearly it's been a struggle for San Montembow this season. Like, there's no way getting around that.

But when I look at, the environment like it is nothing like what we just talked about with ottawa these are you know sam montebobos expected is 880 yakob dolbush is expected is 879 fallers is 881 like that's low right like that's that's well below league average as low as league average is gotten it's not as far as it used to be below league average but it's well they're all consistently below league average when i look at them especially in the defensive zone the amount of east west stuff you saw it i mean it's six on five at the end there. So there's an extra guy out there,

but 27th in the NHL when it comes to giving up laterals across the middle of the ice, 19th in odd man rushes against. Like that is not 28th on the penalty kill, expected goals against. That is not the profile of a team

that's going to have success in the playoffs. And I think they're aware of that. Based on how they're acting at the deadline. And I think it's totally fine. Yeah. Because when you're the youngest team in the league and you're just having fun and try to outscore your problems

and run and gun and allow your young skaters to develop, I think that's fine as long as you approach your team building from that perspective with that in mind and the fact that they have makes me feel much more bullish about it than if they'd been one of these teams.

I was like, you know what, we're going to acquire a bunch of rentals and spend all our futures to try and win a cup of this year when obviously that's not going to happen. And so I think it's totally fine and also part of the charm, I think, as well. Maybe not for the goalies,

but for me as a viewer and for people watching this team and following them this year, it certainly is part of kind of the package of what you're getting and why their games have been so entertaining. And that's exactly right. But understand that for all the focus, and they'll always be focused on goaltending in Montreal, like this is not necessarily a goalie-friendly environment.

And, you know, one of the things that I've sort of come around to or believe now is that looser, poorer, defensive environments have a cumulative effect. like we see that you know we can go to the Olympic examples like Connor Hellabuck comes back from the Olympics where he's brilliant and returns to Winnipeg and I think the temptation maybe even internally it's like if we can get that guy for the last 25 games

we're going to make the playoffs but you're not going to get that guy for 25 games in the gold medal game Canada generated two backdoor chances yeah maybe if you got the other 18 skaters that were in front of them as well they make playoffs Like two backdoor chances and he made a one in ten miraculous paddle save on one and Nathan McKinnon missed the net on the other. Now you come back to Winnipeg and it's not just the fact that he's probably going to see

six or seven of those backdoor chances a game instead of one or two. It's that he can't be as confident when he squares up on the short side on the puck carrier because of all the uncertainty of how much more gets through. right like it's so you don't get the same guy on either end of those passes like that's sort of where some of these that's the part that's a little harder to define that's i used to talk about it with the oilers back in the days where they were giving up tons of goals and then giving away goalies who would go on to success elsewhere it was a super oversimplification but if you have a guy responsible for taking away the back door pass and the first nine times it gets through as a goalie on that 10th one. you're going to lean, you're going to cheat, you're not going to trust other people to do their job. And as soon as you do that in this league, that's where you get ripped short side, right?

It is an oversimplification, but I do think environments like that are very tough. And so Montembow has struggled all season. Dolbisch has been very ups and down. There's a ton of potential there. I really like his game when he stays within the framework of his net. When he starts to chase outside of it, it's just a big body not filling up any space.

Fowler, who I was actually kind of happy they sent him down to the American League because they got to go watch him out here in Abbotsford and then catch up with them and have them on our podcast and like, wow, like delightful kid. You can see where the confidence comes from, very unique path, very unique approach and thought process on the game and I love all of it. Again, like you see the skill set. He's got Seroquen in him. Like off open releases, his patience, you talked about the spectacular saves down the stretch,

but how much did he have to move to make them? Like even that one off the end wall and then the left pad, it was just a rotation in a seal. It wasn't a sprawl. Like there was not a lot of, there's a lot of holding the feet, there's a lot of holding the edges, there's a lot of clean hand movement into shots.

Like there's a lot to love about that kid's game. And the narratives, just as they spilled out on the other end on Lena Selmark last night, they were just 100% all in. Like, I was waiting for somebody to write a next carry price column. And he's got some of that in them, for sure.

But in that environment, it's going to be very difficult to maintain consistency and stay above it if you're playing behind that unpredictable a space. He can. He's clearly showing he's capable doing it night in and night out when there's that much volatility in front of you. I think that's where we see a lot of the volatility in the goaltending. Well, I think the most interesting component of it is not necessarily who starts and who gets the lion's share of games for them this postseason, but what happens in the offseason?

Because we've spoken a lot about just how barren the UFA market is for goalies this year because teams have pretty much just locked up their current goalies over the past two years, essentially. And with that in mind, Montembo, I think, has 3.15 million left for next year, and then he's a free agent. The HAVs would theoretically be able to just go with a Fowler-Dobish tandem for under 1.9 million combined

and there's any number of teams that are certainly going to be looking for a goalie option as part of a tandem at least this offseason. I'm curious to see what happens with Montembo and whether there's a second act here or who that team is because I imagine there will be interest.

Yeah, you know, it's, I mean, it's been a pretty tough year, right? Like, I got 76 qualified goalies at a minimum 100 chances this year and he ranked 69. Nice. That was well done. You know, so I just don't know.

You're right. Like, I think there's enough track record beforehand that a team will be. I mean... Well, the actual salary is like $2.4 million. Like, it's for one year that's nothing. Right. And at the same time, he does come with some experience. And we've seen him to sheer this level.

Yeah, we just finished talking about the Ottawa senators and going all in on a really promising-looking young goalie coming off a great season last year. and in Levi-Marelan and how much, like, I still believe in him as a goalie, but he wasn't, you know, we saw the Canucks do it two years ago with Archer Shilovs. And so maybe the lesson isn't shop Montembow, maybe the lesson. And again, I think there's something about Fowler being able, like, mindset-wise that he'll be able to handle this, even if it does get tough for a stretch because of everything going on around him. But you have to, like, sometimes if you've got time and your guy doesn't need waivers,

use it. use it. And again, I'm not pretending to have the answers here, but like we're seeing that a lot too, right? Like the Canucks were trying to make the playoffs last year. Archer Shilov struggled. So this year, as a team that thought they were going to make, he had to clear waivers, they got rid of them. And now they're in the exact same situation with Nikita Tolopilo for next year. And they locked in on two guys. And so these young guys that are pushing up and have a chance to

maybe be a lot cheaper options and give you similar results, especially if you're not going to improve the, I guess at the end of the day, it comes back to the old thing I've said many times before. And a lot of goalie coaches have said, you can have an elite number one, three great centers or a great top four on D. And I'm taking the centers of the D every time

and telling you I can build you a goalie or find you a goalie. All right, let's get into this, because I was doing a little prep knowing you're coming in today. The league leaders in games played at the position. Coralva Melka has 50 games so far out of the 65 Utah's play That's a 63 game pace U.C. Soros is also a 63 game pace

Dustin Wolf 59 games And then Logan Thompson 56 Now I think the Predators are very live As a Wildcar 2 team With the stretch they've been on Even after trading a lot of their veterans

At the deadline for picks They just promoted a lot of their young players From Milwaukee And I think look even better than they did previously and they're right there at this point so that'll be interesting to track and Soros obviously played a handful of games

of the Olympics for Finland as well so his total is maybe higher than the NHL total. Interestingly enough, he's a guy that thrives on that. Yeah and historically it's been him and Halibuck who are always amongst the league leaders. And interestingly enough, so he's a guy that I'd be like

if for example Ottawa got the opportunity to go get UC Saros I would look at it and be like UC Soros is a fantastic goaltender but I would have have serious questions about whether he would fit in that low-shot environment. Not whether he'd fit, he'd figure out a way, but whether you'd get the best out of him in that environment.

That's fair. You know, Vamelko we saw last year with Conneringram unavailable to the team and then kind of still hanging around the wildcard race. He just played like 25 straight or whatever. They played the wheels off. And obviously that took its toll. He's leading the league again in games. The reason why I bring that up is because Utah is pretty much locked in to wildcard

one for the most part. They're not going to catch the three central teams ahead of them, and they have a six-point cushion on a wildcard two, and I feel like they're pretty locked into that spot. And I think they do well to give Yit Vanichick more games than just back-to-backs down the stretch to preserve Vomelka. But if Nashville doesn't make it, what you'll notice for those goalies I just listed is Vomelka is currently the only goalie in the league that's on pace to play more than 55 games this year. That's going to still be playing in the playoffs. And Part of that is the Olympic schedule with how compressed it's been and every team having like 15 plus back-to-backs sprinkled throughout the season.

Part of it is a natural evolution of everything we've been seeing the past five, six years of more tandems, kind of trying to manage workload for goalies. But an interesting angle to it is that I've got eight teams that are either in a playoff spot or fighting for one where it's pretty unclear who's going to be actually playing for them in the playoffs. And I don't ever really recall that being a scenario either where typically even if the starts are pretty evenly balanced, we have a good feel for who the team is going to rely on and who's going to be the guy when the games matter most. And for a lot of these teams, we can go through them one at a time if you want. Sure.

I'm not as certain. Yeah. No, it's... And it starts right at the top with Colorado. It's interesting because we've been headed this way for the longest time. Yeah. and I think there are some teams that are all heading into the playoffs. We could go through the list,

but I think there are some teams. I'll just pull out an example, Carolina's one, where I know it hasn't been this season that Freddie wanted, but he's been so good when healthy for the previous two. And I think I see signs. Like I like where his game is when I've watched at the last couple of games. And again,

sometimes you have to talk to them to sort of get a sense of what it is that's clicking or why. And I liked what I heard when I talked to him when he came through debt. Like, I think he's going to be a better, I know it hasn't been the year that he wanted or that people wanted for him overall, but I think he's going to be a very good option for them in the playoffs. And the unique thing about him versus Brandon Bussie is there are two totally different looks in terms of how they play the game. One is very much conservative and passive.

And the other one, while not being all over the place by any stretch of the imagination, will make decisions towards aggression in key moments that I think catches teams and shooters off guard. And so the idea that, hey, we might need two anyways, we have in the past, but we could actually really screw up a pre-scout. And then again, I've got other teams

that are telling me that it doesn't matter anymore because nobody's really trying to dial in on the strengths and weakness of a goalie. They're just trying to get to the things they do well. Right. And they figure if we can get to the things we do well, it won't matter what the other guy's doing. So we can run through them.

I can even include Carolina. list because I think Renabussi's clearly the game on starter. There you go. Colorado, nine games post-Olympic break. Five for McKenzie Blackwood. One of them he got pulled in Dallas. Four for Scott Wedgwood. Now, Blackwood obviously missed the start of the year.

I think his performance has been more up or down, although it's been pretty solid behind the best team in the league throughout. I wonder if managing the starts this way and them clearly trying to give, you know, a 60-40 split potentially down the stretch to Blackwood, not. only to see where he's at and get him going and wrapping him up is managing Scott Wedgwood as well, considering he's turning 34. And he's about to set a new personal record for appearances in a season at the NHL level. He's been so good. Trying to get him, you know, if he's going to play 50-plus games this year, which he would have if they didn't start doing this more recently, I'd have some

concerns about what that looks like when you get into game 55, game 64 him later in the postseason. So I do wonder if part of it is just as simple as. that and it will be Scott Wedgwood in game one. Still some runaway to see how they each perform down the stretch. But it's interesting that the number one team in the league is also a team that you can lump into this conversation. Yeah. And interestingly enough, when you give their, I know their raw numbers won't be the same,

but their adjusted save percentage is like they are tied for 12th and basically 14. So they're tied. Like they're one above each other with the almost the identical numbers plus 1.1%. Like they're performing at a very same. similar level. And again, much like the conversation we just had with Carolina, doing it different ways. Like Wedgewood is more aggressive than Blackwood. Blackwood's huge, powerful, but plays a pretty contained game. Wedgewood's out around the edge of his crease. Like he'll put himself in situations where he needs to be acrobatic and then delivered the acrobatics. Again, like two totally

different looks and I'm curious, I don't have the answers because we've seen coaches for years not want to go back and forth in the playoffs. Nobody wants to get, like, can you imagine, like, switching goalies after a win, right? Like, that's absurd. Nobody will do it. And so we get these hot hand scenarios. And I, like, whatever split works for both guys in the play.

Like, why can't that work in the playoffs if it worked all season, whether it's 60, 40 or whatever it is? And especially when you've got both them, essentially identical numbers. The only thing I could choose between them is, if we went through their sheet and we're like, okay, because of those style differences, this guy's more vulnerable here, that guy's more vulnerable there.

What do we think we're going to give up against this team, whether it's because of the way we defend against them or specifically what they try and generate? Is there actually a style, a horses for courses, to use a golf term style fit between one of these goalies and our opponent more than the other? I don't know that anybody's thinking, I think the abs are.

To that degree. Good, then great. Because I, you know I've been, you know I've been like just jonesing for back and forth to them in the playoffs for years. Well, I think we're going to get it this year with all these teams that I'm going to go through. The Buffalo Sabres, who since their December 9th turnaround, have pretty much evenly, I think 17 games for Alex Lyon, who is a 922 say percentage in that time, has been outlandish.

and then 16 games for Ukleke Lukanin, whose numbers are also good took a bit of a hit in that wild 8-7 game against the Lightning, but otherwise has been really solid. And then there's six games mixed in there for Goldnellis who after he got his concussion early in that stretch has kind of taken a backseat to those two

after they're rotating the three essentially for a certain portion of the season. You have any thoughts on Lion versus Uklekeleukin? It doesn't even matter because the Sabres is such a wagon that they're going to do it regardless. Honestly, what you're... The thoughts that are going through my head, and my apologies to your audience, I'm a little sleep deprived today, so I've been a little all over the place.

You see that every time, and yet I feel like you deliver your A game regardless. Maybe sleep time. Maybe it's probably not a healthy thing at my age to be sleep deprived this often. But as you start, like this is another example where, like, you could not have more different goaltenders. Like UPL, again, massive, still, he skates really well for a big guy and he's got a lot of, he does have, he can put flow in his. game but like lion's a different goal tenor so um cerebral in the way he thinks it he's not aggressive despite being smaller like he's not hyper aggressive but he goes off reeds so much he's such a smart

goaltender like one of the like one of the best pro reeds guys we've ever had the way he thinks everything right down his equipment and he's on like an absolute like his numbers this year and we start talking about things like vezna conversation at this point like he's worked his way into the top five and goal saved above expected by ClearSites metrics, like top five. And that's well in a job share. We know this is a cumulative number. So he's had to accumulate that

well-facing close to 300 fewer chances than an Ilius Sorokin or a Logan Thompson. Right? So his like per shot metrics are better than both. Not Sorokan, sorry, but they're up there. Again, they're up their top five in the league. They're, you know, they're, it's really impressive. And so which way they lean again.

like I want to be a fly on the wall for that conversation in terms of the why and how far you get into the specifics and how willing and what will determine whether you switch like will it be wins and losses at the end of the day or could your goal play really well and you lose in the playoffs and you're like no man like he was good we need to go back to him like it's we've never had this this is all really new so your your questioning has me thinking that you could make decisions

for very unique reasons. You can dig in the numbers and find them depending on opponents and strengths and weaknesses because we're three g-tendums in and they all play very like different styles than each other one from the other. I'm also looking at this right now because for my NHL.com annual

sort of goaltending playoff preview, I'm starting to wrap my head around. It might be impossible to do the first round because if you want to see me sleep You can have to go through 32 goalies. Yeah, I don't think, I don't think that's even humanly possible to do all the charting on that. And to your point, like, you know, like a lot of these teams, it's going to be hard to pick the guy. Well, I had the haves on here, and we discussed them already.

The Penguins, who since the Stewart-Skinner trade, 17 games for Stuart Skinner, 17 games for Artur Shulovs. They've been very disciplined about the 1A, 1B. And, you know, we're not going to have time to go through a lot of the Discord questions, although we got some fun ones from our listeners as you expect. One of them, though, was, you know, pointing out the no goalies were traded at the deadline this year and which teams made the biggest mistake by not trying to upgrade at the position. And everyone's going to point to the Oilers, although they obviously sort of made their bet when they made the Tristan Jari trade. Previously, the senators who we talked about, and then them choosing instead go and bring James Reimer in when they did.

And then the Golden Knights, who I have a thought on in a second, would be the teams I would think about. the thing that I love about Stuart Skinner for the purposes of this question is that, you know, your idea of like expected team save percentage and what a goalie should do based on the team in front of them, if it's an 860, you're going to get an 890 from Stuart Skinner. If it's a 920, you're going to get an 890 from Stuart Skinner. And that might not sound great, but in today's landscape, and especially for a couple of these teams where they would do anything to get an 890 regularly from their goalie, that's actually a massive asset.

And it might not sound like it, but it certainly is. And Vegas, I definitely think that's the case because they're lucky if they're getting an 860 these days from Aden Hill. So that would be my answer to that. But again, like, it's interesting. Like Skinner's been really good since he got there since the trade.

His expected's 875, and he's above that by significant margin. But Shilov's by the number has, like, even since the trade, has been, like, not just better, but like, flirting with top 10. numbers in the entire national hockey league. Well, and no shootouts in the playoffs. Yeah, that's been, and that's, you want to know the crazy thing? I've been asked that question.

Like, I've got, I think I asked you that on a show earlier this year. Their breakaway numbers are fine. Yeah. Like, put a back check pressure and a little bit of pace on it, and they're just fine. It's just, for whatever reason, without that, they're, and in his case, I think, a tendency to get a little deep and sort of not time the retreat. But, man, like, it's kind of, I've been looking at these numbers, and I'm like, because we're here in the Vancouver market as we record and I'm just like I'm looking at she loves

numbers for the year and I'm like man like fourth round pick what are we doing here um but yeah like I'm curious which way they go because Archer's has playoff success in a different level right like he got them got Vancouver past Nashville after Demko got hurt he got to a you want to call their cup last year both guys are proven playoff performers whether you like it or not yeah and again like man like Skinner is spot to spot big body plays a little bit bit of hit me, and that's not a critique, whereas Shilov's is, you know, explosive and athletic has figured out screens to a degree, but if you get into a playoff

style game in the NHL where everything is like seeing through a massive humanity in front of you, would I maybe lean towards Stuart Skinner, who's got better numbers in those regards? Like, it's going to be fascinating to see not just the game one starting decisions, but where they go from there and how many teams are willing to go back and forth, even if they're having success. Yeah, I had the blue jackets here because it's been an even split.

In fact, even slightly in Elvis's favor since the coaching change, not in terms of performance, I mean purely in terms of usage. That surprises me having not paid super close attention to the splits. 12 starts for Elvis and 10 for our boy Jet under Rick bonus. Yeah, and Jets had a great start, but actually they've both got sort of very similar numbers, at least adjusted, sort of since. mid-December, I guess bonus took over a lot later than that.

I do wonder if I just played too much towards the end of Deanna since tenure because he was starting pretty much every night. And he's never done it at this level before. Exactly. And that's a learning curve, right? Like, doesn't mean he can't at all. Like, that's not what you're saying. But it's different.

Like, it's different. And this is where this is where, I've made this mistake plenty of times. I did it in terms of forecasting the senators and Allmark Merri-Layn in tandem this year. I got that one wrong. I thought everything we saw from real name meant they'd have one of the best tannums in the league. And he really struggled. And I think part of this lesson here is small sample success without expectation when

you first come into the league, assuming that development, like development is not linear, assuming that automatically translates and the environment might even stay the same. But the pressure shifts, right? The expectation shift. Like there are so many different things. We are fickle creatures as goaltenders. And this is why I point to all these different things that can, get into our heads and make it much more difficult.

Yeah, you're a strange breed. No doubt about that. Yeah. And then like, but like honestly like Levi Merlinen didn't forget how to play goal. Right? Like this there were different pressures and different. We've seen it.

Jet Greaves playing a lot. You know, in the, in the, there are different factors beyond just environment as much as I'm, we're always in here. I'm always talking about defensive environment and expected this and expected that we can, I can look at the environment. at the Olympics with Winnipeg for Connor Hellebuck compared to Team USA or Bennington compared to St. Louis.

And we can learn some things from that. But there are some things that just are factors that go beyond what the numbers tell us. And that's the part that's sort of hard to figure out. And ultimately, maybe even if we can figure it out in retrospect, as I think we've tried to on this show, really hard to forecast. Yeah, no doubt. But it's fun to talk about. we try to do here and so hopefully the listeners enjoyed it.

I also had the Golden Knights on my list. We didn't have time to get into it because. Aiden Hill has really strong. I expect their game on starter to be Kevin Woodley sitting here beside me because I think that would be an upgrade based on what they've got this season. Has a team actually tanked in the playoffs before? That would be me. That would be putting me in it.

If the past couple months have played a net for them or any indication, it can't get worse. It has been like we're talking, I think it got missed. Like bottom of the league, four goals on every hundred chances is how far he had been below. Has an 8.51 Zabres percentage since coming back from injury. Yeah, and they're much like we talked about Ottawa being a really good defensive team. They are by the metrics, a really good defensive team. I haven't dug into them the way I did Ottawa. But I will say this, because he's done it before.

I've watched the last couple, and there are some signs statistically. And what I saw, like, he looks a little more comfortable than the last couple games. Maybe there's a chance to come out of this. You're an optimistic guy. I'll leave it at that. Well, and the other part, last one. Because you're right, the environment, but when everybody's, when it's the same across, like I wonder if there's something in the water there

that we're not seeing in the numbers. Because whether it's Carter Hart or Akira Schmidt who had great numbers or Aden Hill, they're all well below expected. So is there something in that environment like we talked about with Ottawa that we're just, I'm just not picking up on, right? Yeah.

Everyone check out Kevin is In Goal on Twitter, In Goal magazine as well. You know the plugs from all the times Kevin's been on. We're going to have you back on at the start of the postseason. And even if you don't wind up writing it up because there's so many goalies to chart, we're going to do it on the show here. We're going to do a bit of a primer, a James primer, if you will, breaking down what to expect with tendencies, strengths and weaknesses, all that.

Thank you for listening today's show. Give us a five-star review wherever you listen. Subscribe to the PDOCs Patreon. We've got a Sabres deep dive on there for plenty more on our Buffalo Sabres. That is all for today. We'll be back on Sunday with Drans for the Sunday special. Thank you for listening to the Hockey, P.D.O.cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.