The Hockey PDOcast - Shooters Changing The Game, and Markstrom’s Season

Episode Date: February 16, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to talk about how elite shooters are forcing goalies to adjust with their new approach to beating them, the season Jacob Markstrom is having, and the best fits for a team like the Devils ahead of the deadline. 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.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Kevin Woodley, Kevin. What's going on, man? I'm having a day, Dimitri, but you know, to be honest with you, I'm here with you, everything's looking up, sunshine and rainbows. It's all good, see, like right there, didn't have it on. Do not disturb.

Just rookie move by me. That's okay. We're going to try to cheer you up here over the next 50 minutes. It's going to go uphill. We're like, it's going to get better. It's a good day because it's a Kevin. Woodley on the PDO cast day. If this show had any production value, I was thinking, we'd get some sort of general special audio for you to kind of help lead us in.

It wouldn't be apropos to do like a horn, right? Because we're talking about goalies here. We're trying to prevent goal horns. I was just going to say like an endless stream of like, oh, and that beats him and oh, and that goes in. That wouldn't just make me feel like I'm on the ice. It'll be more like Pox hitting the post or something. Something lucky. Maybe just a mashup of Jim Houston saying, save Luongo over and over again or something. We'll see. We'll try to work something over the next couple weeks until the next time we have you on. But here's a plan for today. Okay. There really isn't one. Awesome. And the reason why I say that is because generally I try to have a rundown of kind of topics or

directions I want to take conversations in. The beauty of having you in here is I've got a general list of a few things I want us to hit. But in reality, I know we probably won't get to a lot of it. We'll see how much we can get through over the next 50 minutes. We always get sidetracked and that's good because I think our best conversations come from me springing you with half-baked ideas that I haven't given you a heads up on and then seeing where that takes us, we embark on all sorts of different tangents and journeys and side roads and stuff. And so I think people really enjoy that. So that's what we're going to do here today.

People know I'm all about the tangents. So there we go. Okay. Here's one for you. So let's talk shooters versus goalies. And I want to build on a conversation that I had with our pal, Daryl, yesterday. And it was about Leon Dreisheadle. And we were essentially talking about.

how we're getting to this place now where there's so much conversation, of course, about reverse VH, right, and the implementation and the usage of it. Yep. And shooters, how they're sort of exploiting that or targeting it. You and I have spoken quite a few times about Jack Hughes in particular, right? How he's victimized goals a few times. He did it to our pal, Joey DeCourt, a few days ago, most recently. And I'm just fascinated about this topic, right?

Because it came up with Joyce Seidel because he's one of these players that is shooting now much more frequent. from these very, you know, typically thought of as low percentage angles, kind of a weird peripheries and borders of the offensive zone. But he's turned that into a bit of an art form. And he's really capitalized on catching goalies and opposing defenses out of position. So I kind of want to talk to you about that and sort of this trickle down, I guess, where we've seen shooters make this adjustment, right, where the technique has improved so much, the shot form, of course, like being able to shoot from different areas in different ways.

and I think the natural reaction to that that is going to be how goalies adjust to that. Yes. And the challenges are different for the Jack Hughes goal line shot off the side of the mask. And actually, you know, you can stick with an oilers theme when you talk about dry saddle. McDavid's doing it on the regular too, right?

Like that down near at or sometimes even below the goal line, short side off the mask and in. that is a different challenge than the one dry sidle presents with the sharp angle one timer which is just man his ability to pick spots from there is uncanny so let me just present it to you in terms of the problem it creates for a goaltender dry sidles if you're going to push down into that post in a way hitting the post works against you sealing the post if that makes sense because if we think of a butterfly or and a reverse VH is basically a butterfly on the short side post right that that side of a goaltender's body is in a butterfly knee down on the ice

the skate or ideally the gap between the skate and the bottom of the pad what we call the toe box that's your ideal sort of seal into the net hitting that and this gets harder if you hit the skate um so it's like one of those catch-22s it's harder to hit the toebox gap because there's no margin for error. But if you hit the skate, it's harder to seal the post because it creates a bigger gap. In other words, the length of your leg, the width of your butterfly is working against you because you go into

that post as soon as your skate or whatever part hits it, it almost, like, you can't just continue to come over top of that leg with your body, which is required to seal it. Right. So you basically hit the post and it stops your body from coming over or at least delays it.

And that's all, it's a one timer. That's what separates dry siddle. He hits it on the so you don't have that time to sort of absorb the blow and lean your body over top of that lead leg. That's a challenge. The solutions, I think if you're a goaltender, you know it's dry sidel, are you either go inside the post to what we call shin on post.

Tuka Rask was excellent at this, and one of the guys who went away from it at a period in his career and then went back to it because it's less wear and tear on the body, and it's funny because, you know, we said tangents. Bob ascends as the goalie coach of the Boston Bruins and, you know, Vezna Trophies and all these things, whether it's Tim Thomas, Tuka, Rask, and now Lina Salmark and Jeremy Swam,

and like I think, low-key, one of the top goalie coaches in the game, and he would get asked in the summers why Tuka was doing this. Like other goalie coaches would be, why do you change that? Why do you let him do this? But in that case, it would allow him to get his whole body up against the post

and again, have a shoulder right up to the top of it because you're not losing the high, height by leaning over top of that leg. So there's one answer. Go shin on post. Now most goalies aren't comfortable with that. The other answer is slide outside the post into an overlap. But there you have to, you have the risk of sliding right through your coverage.

And in order to stop that slide, what do you have to do? You have to anchor the lead leg, which involves lifting your need to stop. And that creates a short side low gap. So he's created a problem to which there are solutions as a goalie. but none of them are easy. All of them require work to integrate into your game. And so as a goalie, if I am playing the Edmonton Oilers in the playoffs,

I'm figuring this out because I know that's a challenge. Right. If I'm playing the Edmonton Oilers, you know, even if you're in the Pacific five times a year, am I changing my game just for that? You know, it's a tool in the toolbox that probably for a lot of guys takes a lot of work to get comfortable with. So there's the challenge, there's the answer.

not everybody has the answer in their toolbox. Hughes is different. And we are seeing goalies around the league. I think we even talked about this last time. I mentioned the panda. Yeah, you did. Okay. So basically it's a short side overlap.

That overlap I just talked about with dry sidle. Yeah. Where the difference between those two are, on dry settles you're sliding into the post. On the Hughes shot or the McDavid shot from below the goal line, you have a chance to preset and prepare you. You see it coming in theory and you're preparing for it. And if you go inside the post reverse VH,

and unless you're one of the guys that are either a monster or really is good at driving that short side coverage by using your back skate leg, you've got exposure if you go in early. What some guys, more guys are doing is planting that lead leg outside the post below the goal line for their short side low coverage, and that gives them, they're cutting off more vertical angle because they're actually sealing the post outside of it

instead of tucking inside of it, so you're just automatically cutting off a little more vertical angle. angle. Right. And they're flattening out their inside leg in case a McDavid or a Hughes fakes and goes around behind the net on a wrap because if you don't preset that inside leg and flatten it out, it's a massive push, a really hard move. I know you've talked about it before the devils and can they get across laterally. Really tough move if you're squared up on that guy. So again, goalies in the last few years have developed a tool specific to that. It was developed by Dustin Wolf and the goalie coach at the time in Calgary, Thomas Spear.

They called it the panda because the goalie's butt sort of rubs against the post and one of their, I think it was Jordan Sigelette and their goalie department said it looks like a panda rubbing its ass against bamboo. And that's how they came up with the name. But it's specifically for that type of chance off the rush in particular. There's just a lot of goalies that either haven't adopted it or goalie coaches that don't believe in it because you do, again, give and take a goaltending. What happens if I go outside the post with that lead leg?

my push probably isn't as strong coming across and my net coverage is definitely decreased because now I'm placing part of my body outside the post. Whereas the beauty of your reverse VH is if that puck funnels into the middle of the crease all my coverage is already in the net. Essentially by overlapping,

we're placing some of our coverage out of the net if that puck gets routed through the low slot line through the crease and increasingly what we've seen in the last five years that type of offense is up 41%. So I think I just killed the whole show answering one question, but we're good. No. Well, I'm really interested by this, like, we've got the Catamouse game or chess match.

Exactly. It's like shot selection versus safe selection, right? I think in this case, what's interesting to me about it is you've got this situation where I think a lot of goaltending comes down to, it's like, I equated to triage, right? It's like, okay, what's the biggest imminent threat and what's the malignant threat and what's the the most likely outcome, and then I'm going to try to cover that exposure, right? Whether it's like where the shots coming from or what type of situation you're going to be in. And to a certain extent, reverse VH became really popular because it covered a lot of the problems

they were, goalies were encountering it. It sort of answered all the questions to a degree. Now, the questions are changing a little bit, but these are also the top 1%, right? Like dry-sidal hues. These are very, these are exceptions to the rule still. Everyone's getting more talented, but these are still guys who are in rarefied air in that regard, right. I'm just wondering the natural fallout of this in years to come, what's going to happen when young players who are watching these guys do this now are going to start training these techniques

at a younger age and are becoming into the league and being able to sort of exploit this stuff more when that becomes now your greatest exposure for a goalie and how you have to adjust to that. Well, I actually think that's already happening, right? Like I think the entire next generation that's coming up has seen what a reverse VH is and how it can be exposed. I think that's where you get Jack Hughes trying that on the regular. Like they can, you know, especially with time and space. Like if you're coming off the wall with time and space, as much as that looks like a tough shot, if there's no stick on you, there's no coverage, guys can pick that.

Guys can bounce it off the side of a goalie's mask on purpose. Like that's actually a, if you think about it, the space between a well-executed reverse VH, and I'll give you a Thatcher-Demke was a great example. It really drives that short-side coverage. And then he almost got beat the other day on a, I think, was against Chicago backhand that went off the bar. Again, because he went into his post and missed his post and didn't get that leverage. It's such a fine line.

But I would argue the gap between a well-executed, say, 6'3-goly and the crossbar post, a well-executed RVH is actually smaller than the target you have banking it off a goalie's head for a guy who doesn't execute it well and leaves himself exposed in that manner. And we're not picking on Joey to court here because the irony, is, I want to say like two weeks ago, I watched him, and I cannot remember who the opponent was, but he used essentially a panda flattened out overlap on a net drive off his glove side and used it really effectively. And the guy wrapped, and he had a little bit of a slip on the push, but you could see where he had coverage. And then he gets beat the other night by Hughes. And I'm like, I almost

wondered, I'm like, okay, is this just a bad read? Like, he didn't read the need to do it this time, whereas he did the other time, or is he maybe not comfortable on his blocker versus his glove? I bring that up not to dig into the minutia like I always like to do. That's what you do. That's what you do. That's what you do. That's what you do. That by the time you get into the playoffs, the opponents know.

They will know whether you're comfortable on one side versus the other and they will attack it differently. Like that's the degree we've hit with this cat and mouse game. And I think in playoffs, you are going to see some goalies who are excelling right now who have some very definitive markers in their game as to when they do so. certain things, it's exploitable. I think we may see some of that in playoffs. And then the question becomes, can they change those things, change the timing,

change the reads and the initiation sequence on some of those things in short notice if they do get picked apart? I mean, it's so fascinating. I guess another challenge is, right, for a goalie, especially in season. You're talking about, like, willingness to implement some of this stuff. There's also, like, for a skater, for example, if you're trying something new in your game, you can do it in a game or in a shift or whatever. And if it doesn't work out, the likelihood, especially for a forward,

it's like, all right, you might have flubbed a shot or might not have worked out the way you want. You get off the ice. You come back. You can try it again. Or you can, like, the sort of the risk reward is very in favor of reward. Whereas for a goalie, there's no real safety net, right? If you try a technique and you get burned by it doesn't work out, it's one goal in the grand scheme of things. But ultimately, you can also sort of see, like, as that game went along and someone on Discord, I think,

noted this as well, like, because it happened early in the game, right? I think it was in the first period where Jack Hughes beat, beat decor that way. And then there were a few instances later on when the puck was kind of going towards the goal line. And you could almost see, like, I'm not trying to like psychoanalysis too much, but like you could see it was into the back of his head, like he was a little spooked by what had happened previously in the game. And I don't necessarily. If I know, it won't be spooked. It'll be that he's, he's recognized. Right. And it's thinking about different solutions that may not be yet innate in his game on that side of the ice. Like, he's such a smart goalie.

But that might also, like, we've spoken about the interplay between, like, a goalie and a D. In this case, it's goalie with himself. But in terms of, like, overcompensating for things that have happened previously, right? Where it's like, oh, I don't trust my defenseman to cover the back post. So now I'm going to cheat for that a little bit. In this case, you also don't want goalies getting that position where they're sort of putting the card before the horrors. Okay, this is like, this is the reason I'm having Venom painted on my next mask because the internal dialogue from that movie. He matches what goes on in our head as goalies,

at least in my sorry state of Beer League Affairs. For sure. Now, the interesting part about finding those solutions and getting comfortable with them in game is the one thing goalies do have as a benefit is practice time, specific to the position with a goalie coach where you're just working on wrapping out something like that.

The catch is. And we've seen this. We saw this when reverse VH came in. And I would point to one of the best goalies in the world right now and Connor Hellebuck is an example. he came into the league using a traditional VH where the lead pad against the post goes straight up and down and the backside leg goes along the ice.

That's basically that's why it's called reverse VH. It's the opposite. And when he added the reverse or reverse VH to his game, there were times early on where whether it was timing, execution, or using it at the wrong times, he was getting beat and exploited. And I sort of had to point out that this was part of the process because when you work on something that much and rep it out as often as you need to do to make it comfortable,

there are going to be moments where it just becomes innate in a bad way where you default to it because you've been doing it so much in practice and that read has to change. And that's where I think the biggest advantage in my mind of using an overlap on plays like McDavid along the goal line or Hughes. That's in particular. is that it allows you to not commit as early as a reverse. Reverse is like a preload. Like once they get to a certain spot, I'm going into it. Whereas a overlap, you can almost hold that edge and sort of keep it off the ice like you would a butterfly,

longer, knowing that if they try and shoot it along the ice, the reaction time required to snap that pad down is, like, you have. the time to wait on that so you're reacting more to the shot as opposed to preloading into what inevitably is more of a blocking technique with a reverse but again not every goalie coach is going to agree with how I just stated it there's a lot to disagree and you'll see it in their goalies because they don't use it I just think the more of those types of goals we see the more goalie coaches are going to have to at least consider it as an option not all the time

because there's a reason we have reverse there's a reason it's so prominent. It solves a lot of the questions, but there are times now when the question is being changed on us and we need to adapt. And as I said, many are already. This is like Pandas a couple of years old. Right. Canada won a world junior championship with Milich in Net. I remember talking to him about after and he's like, yeah, kid you not, this is like shameless plug, backpadding time. But he's like, yeah, yeah, like I started putting in that game in my game after reading about it on Ingole magazine, courtesy of Dustin Wolf sharing it with us. So, The evolution continues.

It is a constant game of cat and mouse. And that's just one example where, you know, I'm not sure enough. Goleys are sort of looking for a solution to a problem that specific. Right. And once again, these are, this is the exception to the rule, right? But I just wondering, because think about how much we've evolved in the past, let's say, 10 years, right? Like the incidents of these types of shots being attempted and also being able to be executed. It's just a night and day.

There was a while ago where I was like, oh, I can't even. imagine this would happen right and now it's like you don't really think twice about it when you see jack hughes do it there is going to come a time i don't know how soon it'll be but when this is just becomes the norm right because we're always i think going to be in hockey more limited offensively because of the restrictions of like the offensive zone and the blue line and also like how difficult it is to beat goalies from very far out right or you're not going to necessarily beat them like from the corner behind the net because unless you bank it in but for the most part whereas like i always think there's always there's going to be a push to not only be able to score from different areas of

the ice but also just like keep expanding in that way right and so the question then becomes is that like the goalies will have to find a solution but if they can't if it becomes too dynamic a problem or enough of them don't right do we start to see that area of the ice something that you work because that the reality is defensively you're almost backing off looking to defend a pass when a guy gets down into that area near the goal line. You're not stick on puck. You're not challenging to the degree. And again, part of this is used.

Part of this is McDavid, and they create that space naturally. Right. But the areas we try and take away in terms of screens and traffic and blocking shots, like that's not one of them. That's one of the few spots on the ice where guys actually have time to look up, pick a spot, and see if they can hit it. Well, when I was Santa Daryl was like, those dry-sidal shots from that angle, don't register as scoring chances.

But I guarantee you that they should, well, see views it as a scoring chance. And I bet the opposing team is like, I don't want him shooting from there. I guarantee it, depending on where the original pass comes from, it registers as a scoring chance on ClearSyke. Because a lot of those feeds are coming across ice.

For sure. Or even downhill off the same side. But I mean, some of these shots, Kevin, are like coming from like, oh, no. Believe me, I get in. Actually, and so here's the question. We're approaching this from a goalie perspective. Right.

and in the Hughes McDavid example, you said, like there's an entire generation of shooters coming up looking for this spot. Dude, I can tell you from first-hand example because the skate I take part in weekly was guys that played junior in college. They used to be all older guys. Right.

Now a bunch of them are younger guys. And let's just say there's black marks on the side of my ear and my mask because they're looking for that spot at that. Like, you know, they're coming up at that generation. So I don't think we're getting there. I think that whole generation knows how to hit. So my question is, why aren't more of them trying to figure out the dry siddle shot?

Because I don't see others are replicating the goal line, but not on the one-timer on a power play. I think that's also what makes him Lee on Dry Cidal. I mean, right. He's a unicorn in very many senses. Two and agree, but I don't see anyone else even trying that. Right. Yeah, I mean, it's difficult, certainly. And I think we're also just so, like, speaking about it from the goalie perspective or for a defense perspective in terms of like,

you have this idea traditionally of where you want to keep the other team, right? And it's like, all right, we can live with them being out here. I think it also works offensively where you're almost so accustomed to or trained from a young age to get into the, to get inside, to be in specific areas where if you're on the power play and you're an average NHFEL or even if you're playing on a second unit power play and you just go by design and start standing where Leon Dre is idle standing, your coach is probably going to be like, what do you, what are you doing? Why are you standing up? I'm asking the question. It's the same question I'm asking. Like I think of here in Vancouver, like Elias Pedersen, with enough time and practice from down at the bottom of the circle,

can probably hit that spot. Yeah. And he's got a one timer that's got plenty of velocity on it. Like, I think the rarity of that one, and as much as we say because it's Leon Dryside, well, we could probably say the same thing about the other goal because it's been Hughes and McDavid are the two most prominent ones, although more lower tier guys try it.

but like why haven't we seen more guys like if your shots constantly getting blocked at the top of the circle why hasn't the bottom of the circle at least been something you experiment with it I think to your point part of it is because analytically by a lot of measurements it's not a quality scoring chance so why would I work on it but when you rewind it and break it down like we have and to give him actually more credit like he did to generate this discussion belfry it does give goalies fits because of the sharp angle nature of it and the fact you don't give them time to load and set into that post. So, you know, like, will we see more teams try this in the near future? I'd be curious because, you know, Dry Seidel's amazing, obviously, one of the best players in the world. Yeah. But I still think if you had other players working on a one-timer from there and then recognizing they would get space to take it, they can hit maybe not as precisely as often as Leon Drysidal, but I'm pretty sure you could coach him up to hit that spot. You're really asking to have your goalie union card removed now, just giving on the players ideas.

I know. I feel like somebody should just shut me up now. You're just providing inside. Listen, as a goalie, I desperately don't want to see you doing this. Please don't do it. But you should. Give me back the goalie card. We're here to collect. The union card. Done. Gone. All right, Kevin. Let's take a break here, maybe a bit earlier than we usually do. But I don't want to get into another topic and then I have to cut us short. So we're going to pop into a break here. And then when we come back, we'll pick things right back up with Kevin Woodley. You're listening to the Hockeyediocast streaming on the SportsNair Radio Network.

All right, we're back here in the Hockeypediodiodcast, joined by Kevin. Kevin Woodley, Kevin. Let's keep the conversation going. We spent the full first, first block of the show on just the one topic, which is good because I knew two shots at least. We got two scoring chance types. We did, yes. Okay. Here's a question for you. Actually, let's do, let's play a little matchmaker because this might be the last time before we get very busy before the trade deadline. And I'm not sure if we're going to be able to have you on. So let's do a little matchmaker between, I think, the most obvious names or the biggest names at the goal dening position and the teams most likely.

with Stanley Cap Aspirations that could use an improvement in it or at least another body to play meaningful games. I got a lot of questions in the Discord from our listeners, and we're going to mention it a bunch here, but if you're not in there, Involving is in the show notes. Get in there, you can get future questions for Kevin Woodley shows in there and participate in the conversation with us.

A lot of questions in there about UC Soros, Jacob Markstrom. I'll even throw Elvis Merz Likins in there, particular in relation to not where they would go necessarily, but it feels like a lot of Devils fans in particular that keep popping up asking these questions. And I get it. They just got a couple nice games in a row from Nico Dawes, right,

on a back-to-back in particular. Got a couple wins, played well. I think they played really well in front of them in those games. But I understand why, because last week you could watch that game where the flames come into town and it was almost like an audition where Jacob Markson was like,

here's what I'm capable of doing. And he played remarkably well. the goals he gave up didn't have much with chance on a completely outduled Vitech Vannichick and the other side of the ice and I can see why devil's watching that game. It's become very frustrating and a recurring theme for them where, man, our baseline for what we need, given how good we are offensively at full health, is so low. We need league average. We need someone who can just not give the game away for us.

And too often this season, they haven't even be able to get that. So I get why devil's fans keep talking about this. And there was that report last week as well, right, that at least entertained the idea of Markstrom. I don't know how far talks got into that. But it's very interesting. So do you want to talk a little bit about the devil's side of this? Markstrom, we can toss sorrows in here because he's having a fascinating season.

No, I think you start with Markstrom, right? Because he's the fact that he may be available and obviously with everything that's going on in Calgary. I used to for a while there I've been sort of beating the Markstrom should be in the Vesna conversation drum for what six weeks now right because the numbers were there the underlying numbers were there the raw numbers weren't but like he was catching the guys at the top of the goal save list for a while and I've sort of been talking about this but I didn't expect him to get that now he absolutely has to be not only in the conversation

but if this guy isn't a finalist we need to read visit voting. He has 10 goals clear of the next highest guy on the list at this point. 10. Yeah. He's at 26. Demko's at 16. Like that's remarkable. This is not

like Jacob Markstrom is playing chess and everybody else is playing checkers. That's how good he's been. So if you have a chance to add that guy and interestingly enough there are probably some teams that may not get the most out of that investment. We've talked about the Kings, how well they defend and how what Markstrom's doing, part of what makes it remarkable and part of why he's

racking up, you know, these incredible numbers. He's doing it behind a team that's giving up a lot. Like, his expected say percentage is 878. So, you know, again, some perspective there, right? Like, it's not going to be the same. On the devils, they're not that team defensively. And that's why could I guarantee a fit? No.

But in the areas where they leak the most chances and are sort of having the worst results in terms of what their goaltenders are giving them, breakaways, the 31st in the National Hockey League in terms of what they give up. Now, don't forget breakaways by. this, they're like partial breakaways, in-zone turnovers that lead to one-on-one chances that could be like even hash marks down or tighter. Those are all called breakways. There's six different

categories. If you really want to do it, you break it down beyond that. They're 31st in the league, and their goalies are underperforming it by like almost four goals. Take a look at Jacob Markstrom's numbers. Listen, Markstrom's numbers on everything are good right now. But breakaways, he's only given up seven goals on 50 chances. Like, that's more than five better than expected.

Like, you're getting eight goals right there. Now, are all breakaways the same? No, again, we can go further. But there's an example of where that team struggles and gives up really high danger chances. The goal thinning they have is not bailing them out. Markstrom, at least behind the Calgary team, has. Some of the areas where they're really low, slot line plays. They're actually, their goalies aren't killing them on slot line plays on East West.

They're above expected on those, but compared to Markstrom. Markstrom's 11 goals above expected on East West plays this year on slot line plays. Right. So again, when you look at the areas that are plaguing them the most, one-timers, there are three goals below expected on the season. And that may not sound like much. But when you look at Jacob Markstrom's numbers on one-timers, like he's above expected there too.

Like you're saving, like in each of these categories, if it was a, and it's not as simple as just slot it in and it happens. But when you actually break down the categories they struggle the most with where he succeeds, like we're quickly at like 12 goals. Yeah. That's big. Yeah. I feel like I'm also, I'm coming down more critically on Vanichick in particular than maybe you are by the numbers.

I feel like there's just such a demoralizing element of, and I don't even necessarily care whether the devils are winning or losing these games, although I think they have a very fun, exciting young team, and I'd like to see them competing, right, the way they did last year. Like, you watch that Flames game, and there was the one goal where I forget who shoots it, but it was from, it was from the slot, right? It was like a quick one-timer, and it was certainly a scoring chance, and he stops it. And the puck just dribbles past him, and he doesn't. Like, you could tell he thought he had it secured. I see. And then the puck just rolls back, and then someone comes and taps it in. And from my perspective, that's been happening far too often this season.

I'm not entirely sure. Like, it's almost like he's gotten the yips because I wasn't necessarily very high on him previously in Washington or even last year, but I thought he could be a serviceable league average goalie. And I always said I always said it like fantasy football terms Yeah A high floor I wasn't sure if the ceiling was high We've seen the floor shrink like out of 91 goalies You know for this year that have played

He's 83rd in goals saved above expected He's minus seven right now Watch him it just feels like he doesn't like he just doesn't know Either where the puck is or he can't feel it I don't know what if there's a technical thing behind it But like you can see it off the rebound control You can just like it's he's not in control of what's happening.

I haven't watched enough to give you a diagnosis. I'll be perfectly honest. I don't like to talk out of my... I know I don't like to talk to my posterior on this stuff. I want to do the research. But when you've got Jack Hughes coming out, you know, after whatever game it was and saying, you know, like, how much easier it is when you get a save,

like that's a tough luck, right? So I think it's really tough because once that snowball starts rolling downhill and the guys don't have complete faith in what's going on behind them, then they try and do too much. Right? And then the goalie's trying to weed off what they're supposed to do, but they're trying to actually make saves too. Like they're trying to, everybody's trying to do everybody's hard and nobody's, pretty soon everybody's trying to do everybody else's job and nobody's doing their own.

And I'm not going to put all the blame on Vanichek here. I'm sure some of it is shared. Whoever, whatever the reason, it feels like that snowball is rolling to the point where at least this season, you're not going to be able to stop it. And so if you want a solution, it's either one of your two young kids and Schmidt, who we saw in the playoffs last year, have some success. or Nico Dawes, who's a goalie I really like, like a lot of his approach.

We've had him on the podcast that didn't go before and just really like the way he thought the game. Or given the amount of talent you have, and depending on how you assess windows and availability, do you go all in for a guy who, like I said, two-thirds of the way through this season, absolutely should be your Vesna of Trophy Frontrunner and Jacob Marstrom.

I don't know how that all fits, but it sure feels like a roll of the dice I might be willing to take at this point, just because the level that Jacob is playing at. And if you're going to roll those dice, you damn well better do it soon. Because we've seen historically what happens when you bring a guy in right at the deadline. There's just not enough runway to get comfortable behind all those little nuances of the players in front of you and knowing, not just knowing what they're supposed to do,

but trusting that they will do it and recognizing how and when they do it and what that looks like in front of you so you can trust it. Well, I think there's something to like the devil's clearly part of it is because of injuries, right? have not played as well defensively in front of their goalies as they did last year. Like it's been a tougher environment. What I'll say to that, though, is talking about the psychological impact or whatever of, oh, it's a lot nicer, like when you know you can get a save or you feel confident in that the devils need to be better defensively, but also for them to be at their best or most capable,

they're also going to need to give up some of those opportunities because I want them pushing offensively. Like I need them attacking off the rush, sending their defensemen up to join it, getting deep in the offensive zone, and sometimes that's going to result in breaks going the other way. And if you have a goalie playing as well as Markstrom is now, and you

feel confident that he'll be able to bail you out and make those saves and not instantly be fishing it out of your net, I think that's huge. Beyond just the save itself, it allows you to actually play offensively the way you need to, I think. And this is why it seems like such a fit. Now again, like getting him comfortable. It's not a snap the fingers.

He's going to go into New Jersey and play as comfortably behind them as he does in Calgary. But when I look at Calgary's underlying defensive profile, like five on five, 27th, and high danger expected against, off the rush, 27th, D-Zone, 28th, penalty kill, 16th. Like, that's a tough defensive environment. New Jersey is in the bottom half of the league in all those categories as well. But 20th, 21st, 17th, the only one where they're, the only stat where they're actually worse than Calgary when it comes to the high danger chances is the penalty kill. Other than that, they're a better team defensively. So he's actually going to a team that should, in theory, be better.

And as we went down the scoring chance types, like a lot of those sort of matched his strengths with what they give up the most. Does that mean you continued to be the second worst team in the NHL at giving up breakaways? Ideally not. No. But maybe... But you have to acknowledge that you will give up probably more than your fair share because of how you want to play. And it's probably not a bad thing to have a good thing to have a goal.

goalie who statistically at least is one of the best in the league at that particular chance. Although I was thinking of you and I was laughing about this the other day. He played remarkably well. He played well in New Jersey and then against the Islanders and against the Rangers as well. But the game against the Islanders, they wound up winning it. But I was laughing because he played so well through the first like 56 minutes. And then the Islanders pulled the goalie and then he started going behind the net, trying to play the puck, trying to shoot it himself, giving it away. and then all of a sudden you get these like yakety sack sequences where he's flying around scrambling, trying to make crazy saves.

And I'm like, oh, Jacob, we need to do what we did the first 56. You got to rein it in a little bit. He may have chased the goal, but he did it with a three-goal cushion. Of course. Notice how he didn't try after it got down to two. And by the way, before the puck going in that first, that yakety sack sequence was like, not technically how we dried up. There's a lot of goalie 9-1-1 going on out there.

and that's the thing though like he'll scramble and he'll battle and there's something about that that you know like you can look at a guy who's technically sound and is not going to go into that mode as early as Jacob does and I don't think he goes into it prematurely

but there are times and I don't think it's correct but I know for a fact like management and even players on the same like teammates look at the guy who makes the saves look easy and when it's going well

it's all like it's so calm like there's a little bit of this in price right like but then when it doesn't it's like the technical guys aren't battling enough they need to try harder like you never have to worry about that with Jacob Markstrom he's got a good technical foundation but that guy will battle his ass off sometimes quite literally

I think it might fall off in the crease along with every other part that's flailing around yeah and the thing is like he makes what he's 6 million for the next two years And that's the thing you get runway here. So even if he doesn't quite get comfortable enough for this playoff run. Well, it is runway for his age 35 and 36 seasons, which isn't. And there has been a bit of a, for lack of a better term, Craig Anderson effect. Remember, he would go one great, one average, one great season?

Yeah, I imagine it's suffered to maintain the consistency when you get into your later years. I would also imagine that the amount he's playing and as well as he's playing right now takes a physical toll that might run into your summer and cost you training time. Yeah, it's interesting because they are, while six million is a lot with the way their teams are operating right now, the devils are spending $6.25 million on the goalie position this year. Now, that includes Corey Schneider's buyout, which is the final year of that, but it's not unprecedented for them, right, as it is essentially what they're paying for their goalies right now. Let's strip away everything, though, in terms of like price, age, everything, just in a vacuum. You prefer Markstrom for a team like the devils to UC Soros?

Ooh, that's a tough one. Right now? Because obviously his performance this year has exceeded it certainly. Okay, so here's the thing. The answer is yes. And this is not a slight on UC Soros. But in addition to having an incredible season right now for Jacob, and Saros is well below expected right now,

not just expected in terms of the high expectations he created by being one of the top three goalies in the last two years. Should have been a finalist for the Vezna last year. But just literally below expected based on shock quality. Like his numbers are as low as I've seen him. I think he's 40th in the NHL and expected say percentage right now. Like not where we're used to seeing UC Soros. But actually maybe more to the other side of this coin.

Yes, he's younger and yes, I believe in the upside and he'll, I believe he'll get back there. But at what cost against your cap? Because Markstrom's six for the next two years. Right. And Soros's camp is talking about Hellebuck type numbers or Sorocan type numbers. You're into that eight and a half range. So, you know, like at some point here, if those numbers continue to go up as the next generation hits UFA,

and when does Schoesterkin hit it? Because that's interesting, because his numbers have fluctuated this year too significantly. These guys that are all locked up at what I thought was going to be the new standard, five or six million dollars, might increasingly start to look like a bargain. And I think the fact that Halebuck's having the year he's having after signing that ticket is going to mean that guys that are in that stratosphere

or perceive themselves in that stratosphere. And that's a pretty rarefied error with Connor Hellibuck right now. as good as he's been, are going to be looking for commensurate compensation. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe I'm living in the past too much, but I still, I'm willing to overlook the first 50 games in my Soros evaluations, especially even in this conversation against Markstrom, because I believe in UC Saras.

Man, you even watch, like, he got an audition front row seat against the Devils in the most recent game, and the Predators wound up losing that when he gave up a few goals. but I think he had like 20 high danger saves in that one. Like he was everywhere. And so I'm very intrigued by that. And you mentioned the cap thing. An issue is like what, five years younger and five million for next years. But amidst all this volatility.

Yeah. Are you taking the guy that you know is locked in at a friendly rate for two more years? Or are you willing to invest on a year where I just said he was 40th in adjusted save percentages? And I'm with you. I believe in the goaltender. Yeah. But where the numbers say something else, at least for this season, are you going to go long term at eight and a half?

No, I'm certainly worried about the extension, right? It'll be in his 30s. It's nothing against sorrows. Like I said, I believe in the goalie. I just, are you, at this point, are you going long term on any of them? No, of course. Again, like, we're here to take your goal of union card, Mr. Woodley, but like, the volatility, I've never seen it like this.

Like, it's just wild swings on guys. ESPN had its top 10 list. Today, right? Came out today. Five of the guys on the top 10 list are not even in the top 30 in adjusted say percentage for this season. Yeah. And I wouldn't argue against having them on my top 10 list either.

But that's the reality. Jake Ottinger is having a down here. Maybe it's injury. UC Soros is having it down here. The predators aren't as good. But then even when I look at their underlying defensive profile, it's not terrible. You know?

Like, so again, I don't want to say goaltending is voodoo. But man, like some of these answers I can't find. Like I can't find when I watch this. video. Like, I can't explain why a guy who's so good one year is not the next. There's just so many factors that go into it. I'm avoiding term. Markstrom allows me to avoid term in New Jersey. I'm certainly awarding term, but I'm just saying for the rest of this season, which, and I understand like next year and the year after, obviously factors into whatever decisions, particularly in terms of acquisition cost and budgeting. But I just think while Markstrom has clearly

outperforming sorrows by any measure in the first 50 games, I don't think that necessarily means anything for the next 30 games. I take the underlying profile match in terms of his strengths and what they gave up and the fact that he's not only outperforming everyone. At a rate that even if it is just hot hand for the rest of this season, I don't want to cash that. What do we talk about all the time about what with Markstrom? Once the workload gets into a certain range, I start becoming, and that's why I brought

up that Islander's thing because it's very reminiscent. I understand that was sort of situational where they were up by a few goals and he was just cheekily trying to score a goal because they're cool and I'm all for goalies always trying to score goals. Yeah, don't be like taking the goals. I'm definitely not trying to take away. Go for it every time, please. Even in one goal games, I don't care if we wind up giving away.

But once you start getting later into the season and the start getting up there. It gets up there, right? Yeah, I mean. Easily in the final 20 games, if the performance falls off, I could see a scenario where you're like, oh, well, yeah, you know, he's fatigued and the performance isn't as good, whereas I think the stats would bear this out. Zoros has traditionally ended seasons very well. Well, except for a couple years ago where we didn't end it at all because of the workload.

Right. But I don't know. I think it's interesting. Listen, I think both would be represent such a pass about plans. Martians outside the top 10 in terms of chances against. Right. So I haven't looked at, I don't have the starts in front of me because I just don't have traditional stats in front of me.

But, you know, like he's 300 shots fewer than Sorokin and 250 fewer than Georgiev and oh, 250 fewer than Soros and Demko too. So, like, I know what you're saying about him in particular when the workload gets hard or gets too burdensome, but honestly compared to some of those guys, he's actually played less this year. True. Okay. Do you want to end on Ucopeka-Lukin? Oh, you just want to, like, call out my mistakes, right?

Like, just... Well, no. No. I want to show a good performance. I'll happily end on UPL because I got this one wrong. I was with you as well, because I think last year he was not very very... good even when you adjusted for the circumstances. Nope. And there was a period of time there, right, where the Sabres were carrying three

goalies because they didn't want to risk sending him down and exposing him on waivers. And it was like, man, I don't understand why they're concerned about this because they have other options. And honestly, he is, I understand he was a top prospect before, but he has not performed up to that. And it's okay to move on. And he has rewarded him for that because he's played remarkably well in a season where there's been very few bright spots in Buffalo. He has clearly been one of them. And so I just wanted to end the show with a positive note shouting out his performance. Yeah, he's a full 1% above expected.

Again, I don't have the raw numbers in front of me. So they may paint a rosier picture. That's 22nd in the NHL, you know, amongst goalies. Well, if you filter, actually filtered out a little bit more. And, you know, grades out inside the top 20 for a young goaltender behind a team that gives up a fair amount. Now, they played better defensively in front of them. his expected say percentage is slightly below league average, where some of the other guys are absurdly below.

But he's been good. Are there still things when you watch him play that you're like, is that going to, like, are you going to be able to get away with that forever? Or at your size, do you need to be that low and wide and things like? Like, there are fair questions when you analyze his play. But at the end of the day, a lot of this conversation today has been based on the numbers. And he has been really good for them. Not just statistically, but in tough games, in big moments.

like there's been a lot to like there. And so much like John McQuick with the New York Rangers, I didn't think that was going to work. I thought that was like that had red flags written all over it because they'd gotten so much out of Yaroslav Halak the second half of last season and just seeing what had happened to Quick, even in Vegas. So you're happy, right?

You're happy that it worked out for Quick. You're happy to be wrong. And I would say the same at UPL. And I don't know Ukeke-Lukh-Lukin much. Like I haven't built much of relationship with him through Ingole magazine, but I do know, you know, their goalie coach and their goalie development coach, Seamus Codick.

And what I should have known is that if Seamus believed in this guy and in the path and the process, that I shouldn't have doubted it because they've done a nice job there and there are certain principles in place. And it doesn't always look. That's the thing. It doesn't always look the way we think a big goalie should look or maybe I, through the stereotypical eye,

think a big goalie should look. and yet he's getting it done. And there are times when it doesn't look good and then Pugs go in and you want to scream, I told you so. But honestly, when you look at the way he's performing, again, the underlying numbers, everything, it's been really impressive.

And we've got to remember he's still really young. Like there's still more outside yet to come. So excited for the Sabres, excited for him. Still think it's criminal that Eric Comrie got tossed with an expected 854, say, percentage. Like just, you know, and maybe that's where some of my biases, not biases, but some of my sort of thoughts come on it.

I think too, like quietly, he's not even with the team right now, but sort of through different stretches and just looking at sort of something, trying to filter this a little bit. You know, say mid-December, where Uklepec and looking in since then, UPL's like flirting with top 10 in the league, so he's come on as the seasons got on. Devin Levi is also in a smaller sample played above expected, against a much lower expected say percentage than UPL has had in tougher starts in other words.

So the future, as much as we wanted to rip on their goaltending or it's been easy to target and critique their goaltending, as these guys get more reps behind a team that it seems is getting a little easier to play for, still not great, but a little easier than it was in the past, all of their goaltenders are making strides. And so is it going to be enough this year? Probably not, I guess.

I haven't even looked at the standings, but it bodes well for the future, the investment they've made here. And you know, you think about these growing pains have to exist sometimes. Think about Dustin Wolf and Calgary. Like the question now is when do you give them an opportunity to learn on the job? Increasingly, goalies are learning on the job in the NHL. Wink, wink, wink. I think it's, I think he's starting tonight to be honest with you.

And yes, on the Marshall stuff too. But yeah, like at some point, you have to give these guys a chance to, and increasingly, you know, like I did an article last week at NHL.com, like that whole generation that just retired in the last five years, say from Luong, go on. I think it was like 13, like, workhorse number one goalies in the NHL for more than a decade that retired in a five-year span. That's a lot of minutes.

That whole generation, they averaged like, I think it was almost 160 or 170 games they averaged in the American Hockey League before they got their first start in the NHL. This generation is like half of that. And so you are learning on the fly in the NHL. You have to have some patience with that process. The NHL is a development.

for some goalies now and it never was before. And so with that is going to come, some of the volatility we're seeing, some of the wild swings, some of the up and downs. But we're seeing as this season goes on, the Buffalo Sabres being rewarded through the play of UPL by giving him that opportunity. And I believe you'll see the same thing from Devin Levi

as he gets a chance to get his feet back under him as well. Love that. All right, Kevin. We'll have you on again soon. It was a blast as always. Everyone go follow. Kevin is in goal. Check out Ingole magazine.

My plugs are, go check out the Hockeyotechast YouTube channel. You can watch the episode with Daryl Belprey that I did about Leon Dricidal if you want to hear more. I want to want to want to talk about. I think it's really fascinating. He talks a lot in particular about how, because he's worked personally with Austin Matthews. And when they rebuilt his shot a couple years ago, they focused on dry sidle's technique and strategy quite a bit. And so very insightful stuff.

And then go, go join the Discord server as well, which we keep shouting out every time Kevin's on here. He's a favorite of the PDOCast Discord. Every time you're on, people get very excited and send in questions there. So if you want to get involved in future mailbags with Kevin and provide us with topics, get in there. Invite link is in the show notes. That's all for today. Thank you for listening to us. And we'll be back with one more episode of the HockeyPedio cast to close out the week here on the Sportsnet Radio Network.