The Hockey PDOcast - Skinner’s Struggles, Wolf’s Awards Chances, and This Summer’s Goalie Market

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to breakdown Stuart Skinner’s struggles, Dustin Wolf’s chances in the awards races, and how Karel Vejmelka’s recent extension makes this summer’s goalie market even weirder. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitra Filippovich and joining me in studio. My good buddy, Kevin Woodley. Kevin, what's going on, man? Not much, just excited to be back, you know, a little bit of break during the Four Nations. Interesting to see how some of the guys coming off that, like, how mentally and emotionally drained they are. And not just the guys that played and played prognation.

prominent roles. Like even, you know, I know a goaltender that didn't play a minute and needed practices off coming back to his team because the mental drain of being focused and attentive and the stress and emotion of it was just, it was a lot for guys. So fortunately for us, it was a chance to rest. So we're, we're wearing to go. We are. And then we're coming off the, it's always great to have you in here in studio. Oh, the listeners always love it. When you're on the show, we're coming off a particularly fun night for goalies.

It wasn't too many games in the NHL, but we saw. Linus Almark face an absolute Blount barrage. That was fun. Stopped 40 to 49, got Ottawa two huge regulation points there against Detroit. We saw Scott Wedgwood. Oh, highlight reels. Pitch a shutout against the Blackhawks with at least by my account

three or four, like high, high, high degree of difficulty. Saves now on the other side of the net, Spencer Knight took the L, but we're going to get more into that because I saw some really encouraging stuff from him as he continues to stack together these performances with our questions of what it's going to look like going from one of the best defensive environments to all of a sudden one where you're going to face a lot. He's looked really good.

So you got a little twinkle in your eye. I'll circle back to that. I'm a Spencer night guy, and I got numbers to back it up. And we also had a freshly paid Karel Vemalka, who I want to talk to you about later, made this absurd paddle save in the third period to get you to at least one point against the Leafs. It feels like we've needed a lot of absurd sides because the other thing coming out of the break, I feel like, especially for that first week. Yeah, it feels like the first week of the regular season.

Everyone's kind of ramping up. Yeah, like, whoa, his goalies, it was like, it was a little bit of nice. nightmare fuel. Last night may have been good, but the week leading up to that, all I keep seen is big crooked numbers on the board. So I'm not goalie-friendly coming out of the break. No, it isn't. Now, one of the goalies that I didn't mention there, as you might have noticed, from last night's games, was Stuart Skinner, who was not one of the standouts. Another shaky showing in Buffalo, I don't want to talk to you a little bit here with you because I've got these numbers. Since February 1st, he's played 10 games. 33 goals against in that time. He's been

over an 8-90-sa percentage, just two times. in those 10 appearances. In the last 22 games for the Oilers as a team since January 13th, so essentially spanning two months with the Four Nations break mixed in there, they've given up 71 goals against in the past 22 games. So that's some quick math here,

over three goals against. Not good. Per game. And they most notably didn't really do anything to address the goalies or provide any sort of insulation at the trade deadline just as a fallback option in case Stewart's Giner continues

to struggle, it becomes a bit untenable, especially heading into the postseason in a playoff series. Not that the market was necessarily very flush with options, right? We saw John Gibson get banged up in pretty much his last game here in Vancouver before the trade deadline. Tough collision, but I'm told it wasn't a head injury.

No. I actually tweak something, turned something as he was going down in that collision. So, yeah, there weren't a lot of options. Crowell and got re-uped like three or four days before him. The Pipe Dream of Bennington was, I mean, the St. Louis is right in this. Yeah. And he's their backbone. So there weren't a ton of options.

If I'm going to be critical, it would be of not upgrading the backup position in the summer with a Kevin Lankin in type. And I know Cap, you know, was a concern and the Cadux got him at 875. And I just think there were options there

to sort of emboldened your tandem to take some of the pressure off Stuart Skinner, even not to replace him, but just to have... Just to have a plan B. A plan B. And I understand sticking with Calvin Pickard and how good he was in the room and how good he was last year. You know, but those numbers are down this year as well and you haven't really,

there's a league where you need a plan C. And by not adding a plan B in the off season, you know, I think Pickard's a guy that probably gets through waivers and gets to the American League. And then you have three guys you can use. And as much as he probably deserves to be in the NHL for what he did last year, this is pro sports. I would have preferred a little more insulation. I think especially problematic for the Oilers is you look kind of,

And we talk often about environments and sort of like defensive strengths and weaknesses related to the goalie and kind of whether they align and sync up or whether they can expose potential problems. And you look at the Oilers team, they generally, I think the abs when they're humming are right up there. But like no team really has the puck as often in the offensive zone as them because they, you know, they got those horses. They like to cycle the puck. They are top three pretty much every single offensive category. Yeah, they lead most of the clear side analytics offensive categories for high danger chances. rush end zone, all of it. And so it's not necessarily a huge volume you're going to face in terms of actual in zone time

defensively or even shot volume coming at you, but because of their roster composition and we spend so much time talking about their blue line and everything. I do think the Jake Waldman edition was great for actually helping them quite a bit and giving them a few more solutions in terms of how they divvy up the minutes, but wouldn't necessarily be relied upon as sort of your traditional stay-at-home crease-clearing defensemen. And so when they do give up stuff, I think to the, it looks like it's either breakdowns or kind of like very high level stuff in terms of what you're going to face. It's not going to be what we talked about with the sharks when McKenzie Blackwood was

there where you're just getting kind of peppered with these perimeter shots as teams just sort of play with their food. And that's an issue for me because to my eye, and you can speak more about this, certainly from a technical level, we've spoken about how Stuart Skinner's main issues in the past have been the lateral movement off the rush, right, and kind of getting across. I think we saw that last night. We saw that last night. I'd say all three of the goals were very sort of reflective of his biggest weaknesses as a goalie, which is incredibly tragic.

The first one kind of mishandles a Tage Thompson, Rister, coughs up a big juicy rebound out front. And it gets tapped in. The second one, it's this rush play where I don't know if he was cheating on the play. But it looked like he was off his angle and was like, look pretty off. It looked really awkward, but I think if you look at it, because I did take a look at that one, who scored it, who caught the puck and tuck. It was Alex tuck that ultimately caught it. But if you look at that lateral pass, Jason Zucker's backing off, and it looks like, at quick glance,

I think he read that was going to Zucker, and Zucker's retreating off to the side, and that's why he overplays the short side angle because he read that pass was going to Zucker, who was on his strong side. So he was on a 1T option, tuck catches in the middle, drags it the other way and shoots, and it looks really awkward, and I think that's, to me, that's more of a read. The read was it's going to Zucker. Zucker's retreating. I need to get into that angle, and it cost him.

But I'm not excusing the read, but that's one that I think was more dangerous. Not very often you have a puck going right to a guy's stick and somebody steps in front of it and takes it. And also a more difficult, more dynamic read. And he made the wrong read. Again, I'm not trying to be like making an excuse for making the wrong read. I just think the nature of that play made it. look worse than ultimately what it was. At the end of the day, their high danger chances off the rush,

and that has been, East-West, off-the-rush remains an issue. And they, you know, you talked about since I just pulled up January 1st for them. Don't forget, top three defensive team in all the categories last year on the way to the cup final, since January 1st, and the metrics for the most part this season have been good. But since January 1st, 15th in the NHL and high-danger expected goals against, 26th in the NHL in high danger, expected goals against off the rush, 25th on the PK.

So, again, it's not me saying, letting Skinner off the hook for all of it, but it's like the environment with which he succeeded is not the one that we're in right now. And I don't know if he's at a stage, and we've got to remember, stage of his career, because he's only a couple of years in as a starter. Yep.

He's making 2.A. So everybody wants the performance of a $6 million established number one, and he's not there yet. And you happen to be giving up the chances that are his biggest relative weakness when you look at his strengths and weaknesses. And you're giving them up in bunches right now. And he is not a guy to this point that has shown he is going to be able to consistently bail you out if you need Superman. If you play really well defensively, he can be really good behind you from the coaching change on last year. top 15 in the league behind them. But all those structural things that were happening defensively aren't happening anymore,

and he's not holding water behind it. Yeah, one of the big issues has been, Matthias Echolum, who's been out here recently, but even before that, he was struggling quite a bit, and that top bear had sort of dropped off. As a result of that, I think that game in Buffalo is very emblematic of sort of, like, the tragedy of Stewart Skinner, whereas, like, obviously, you know, sub-900, say percentage

and three goals against on whatever, under 25 shots, is obviously not ideal, but I think the optics of how each of those goals look like also makes it feel so much worse, right? And I think the third one, which was, you know, Evan Bouchard gets pressured, kind of turns the puck over, it gets a knocked away, and then Tage Thompson shows up like a brilliant hand in tight, which he often does. But I feel like at this point you could make a very sad coffee table book, just composed entirely off Stuart Skinner lying on.

his stomach because he for whatever reason i don't know how you explain this i will but the belly flops yeah i think i think and you know you can do a quick little uh twitter search and i'm sure you'll find plenty of instances of him like levitating before his belly's about to hit the ice while the puck's going past them and so maybe that ties into some of those lateral concerns and kind of and kind of just like trying to get over there and just throwing technique out the window and just trying to make the play and it gets burned anyways but man it just looks horrible. And that one as well,

like he's clumsily falling down as Tage Thompson's working his way around him, and I don't think that does him any favors in terms of our sort of perception of what he is as a goalie. And I think it's, you know, if I can get into the mechanics of it, Stuart has a narrow butterfly.

So when we think of butterfly width for you're following along at home, it's sort of how far out to the side when you drop to your knees your skates are. And so, you know, the further they are out, the more they're sort of out to the side, the more you build a wider wall. That's a wide butterfly. There are guys in the league that like it looks like it's Kevin Lincoln in here.

I watch him stretch. And the pads basically form a straight line across. And so you have this massive flare, a lot of net coverage. And versus somebody who has a narrow butterfly. Now your feet are behind you more when you drop to the butterfly. And so you don't have that coverage side to side. But in terms of mobility, if you think about it, if I need to move to my left from my knees in a butterfly, I have to lift my right knee to get a right skate edge and push,

whether I'm sliding or getting to my feet. Like that's how you establish the push mechanism. If my skate is out to the side, like a lankanin, and I'll just, there are guys with that wide butterfly, they can lift that knee like two inches off the ice. Look at Schistairken, and they've got their edge in the ice to their skate and they can push across in a slide. If my knee is behind me in a narrow butterfly, I have to lift it up significantly higher, pull that skate out from behind me to grab an edge and reestablish angle the push.

Like there's just a lot more moving parts. There's a lot more delays. And so the counterbalance on a lot of this, if you get caught in a rush and moving, is to pitch forward because you're not able to get everything. underneath you, your inner rush, you end up lunging more. You see the forward flop sometimes when guys have the narrow butterfly and they're going east-west and they need to extend. Actually, there was a point where it was taught because if I drop to my knees in a butterfly

and a guy sort of pushes around me, like he's got the leverage to get to the post, and I stick my leg out as far as I can in a butterfly, and he's still got a couple inches. If you allow your torso to pitch forward to the ice, it allows you to straighten that leg And you can get another three for these big guys. I can get another three, four inches of net coverage along the ice. So it was actually taught as a save mechanism. And I think for narrow guys, you're more likely to get to that spot.

And it's sort of, it's biomechanics. It's the body he has and the hip mobility he has. I know he's worked hard to improve it and widen it. I actually thought I saw some improvements lately. But just the reality of that is you're going to have more moments where you end up pitched forward. We used to see it, we used to call it the looflop here in Vancouver. Roberta Luongo, who's in the Hall of Fame, used to do it a lot of the time, sometimes on purpose to get that extension. Yeah. But sometimes because just the nature of the butterfly with put him in a

position where you sort of had to lunge because it didn't look as smooth as some of these guys who are just so blessed with wide butterflies and easy access to edges. It's interesting because I think that if you map it out ahead, it looks like we're headed towards a fourth straight round one matchup against the Kings. And there, as we've spoken about, I haven't really seen anything different, although I will say Quinn Byfield finally

kind of playing like the version he was last year helps in this regard a little bit, especially in that combination with him and Fiala, but it's still a pretty straight line team in terms of this stuff. Might be a perfect matchup. Round two, we'll see.

I mean, we're probably going to get I guess it would probably be Vegas because it seems like they'll probably play Minnesota in round one. And I do think that's a bit more tricky. There are very north-south team, but also like some of their, especially with the top line, some of their east-west passing off the rush is pretty incredible. And just to that point, I just pulled up the Kings metrics since January 1st and offensively high-danger goal, goals, expecting goals for high danger, 31st off the rush and 32nd overall. East-west in the offensive zone, dead last in the league. In other words,

if there's a team out there that's going to allow the Oilers to sort of find that defensive identity that lets Stewart Skinner build some confidence. Offensively, it's the Kings. It is. Now, after that, it gets a lot trickier. And I do wonder, like, I get the complications of why John Gibson wouldn't have been a consideration because of how tight up they were up against the cap and also like the 6.4 commitment. All of a sudden this summer, though, let's say things go really off the rails with the

goaltending the rest of the season into the playoffs. 6.4 for two more years becomes much more doable, I think. And in just talking about it, this all, like, for all of his flaws, and I do think there are some that aren't always acknowledged just because we chalk it up to being on a bad ducks team for however many years now. One thing we have seen from John Gibson is his ability to cover for mistakes with high-level acrobatic saves is certainly there. Oh, my shoulder's still out of its socket from the one he made on the back was absolutely

preposterous. And so this Oilers team has really struggled at 5-1-5 in terms of their efficiency this year and some of it has been they've really kind of devolved or regressed back into taking a lot of point shots, but I do wonder like when there's this, and we talk about the psychological

effect of not trusting your goal-tending or feeling like every time you mess up you're going to get burned for it. Sometimes you really kind of like dumb down your game offensively or don't take as many risks because of that fear factor. And for this Oilers team, to be at their best, I do feel like they just like, like when they become a buzz saw offensively,

like they were in the first whatever period, a half or two periods on Saturday night against Dallas, they're still absolutely frightening, but they haven't really tapped into that sort of downhill snowball effect offensively for a lot of this year now. And I'm not excusing it purely as are. It's just the goalie's fault. And so they're playing a different way and more conservatively. But I feel like having some sort of a solution back there that you trust a little bit more would probably go a long way towards opening things up for them.

even strength. And so I do wonder about that. It's obviously a conversation for another day. I'm sure Oilers fans at this point are sick of sort of talking about John Gibson, although I am still surprised, despite all the cap complications, that that wasn't more strongly considered leading up to the deadline. Yeah. And, you know, the one that I think everybody, there's no way to argue it. And I think Stephen Vallicott actually on Kippen-Born, and obviously when I talk, you know, I should probably give credit to where all these numbers I'm spitting out come from. That's ClearSight Analytics and his company. You know, he did the math where you can sort of put Gollier into Team X and see what it looks like.

And he had Bennington in that environment at like 17 goals better than what the Oilers were getting to Skinner and Pickard. So, but again, the guy's got to be available, right? And with Gibson, Rush is a strength compared to Skinner. but when I did the, I didn't quite do the full, every single type of chance, breakdown of him in Edmonton's system, but there were some other ones where it went the other way.

Like low slot line plays and broken plays, his numbers were actually worse. Now apples, it's not quite apples to apples because, you know, backdoor tapins are different, you know, low slot line plays are different. If all the low slot line plays he faces with the ducks are like that

better chance that he made the miraculous save on, then obviously that's, you can't can't compare them. But at least by the numbers, the difference wasn't staggering and it didn't match the difference in salary cap allocation or the assets that, as I understand it, Anaheim is still demanding for John Gibson, not insignificant. It didn't, I kind of almost agree, it didn't make a ton of sense that way. But there are other things like team having confidence at a guy knowing that's even off the rush, if they make a mistake offensively, this guy can handle a two-on-one if the pass gets across maybe a little better.

There are some things on the Reed side, more experience that Gibson has. I mean, he was an elite goaltender for years. He's posting well above expected numbers again this season. And I've kind of always said, as much as the math didn't justify that move this year, I see the other intangible stuff. And at the end of the day, whether it's Edmonton or elsewhere, I just really want to see that guy in a good team because I have a hunch based on some of the things I have seen that it'll be successful.

Now there's still going to be, there's still going to be highs and lows with him. Yep. And the reliance on rhythm and feel and timing means there is more risk. So to me, that was always, that was always a summer move anyways. And it's easy to say now because we're past the deadline, but I said it on some of my shows in Eminton before. I've kind of developed a checklist for whether goalies are going to succeed moving from one team to another. And a couple of the key points are, have they ever been traded before?

no check there for John Gibson. Do they play with a little more flow and rhythm and timing? In other words, are they an outside in backwards flow goaltender who inherently, by the nature of that extra movement, relies more on rhythm and timing than a spot-to-spot guy? John Gibson is. Like a lot of the things that sort of made it so Ryan Miller didn't work in St. Louis, which were more than 10 years removed from that, but it's still the one that people look at that's like,

last time we had a bona fide number one going to put a team over a top trade at the deadline. A lot of the boxes that 10 years later of talking to goalies about what makes for a smooth transition, like Gibson sort of fits more than all of Miller. And so I think he's a guy that you're better to make that move in the offseason. If you were going to make it in season, you needed to make it long before the deadline. Yeah, I was going to say, and I think that Miller example is great because we talked about Blackwood, where you bring him in whatever December and you actually give a more runway to get acclimated to a different system. Like if we had done this at the trade deadline, I don't know if it would have worked because there's so much more pressure.

Do you want to talk Spencer Knight quickly before we go to break? Because I'm kind of sad after that whole conversation. This is a much more uplifting one. So three starts for Spencer Knight in Chicago since the trade, 95 saves on 101 shots. That's a 941 save percentage. Going back to his last 12 appearances, including the Panthers games, 938 save percentage since the new year for him. I feel like in watching him, just my eye test, the exact opposite of everything I said. And I was watching the Hawks broadcast, and they've got Darren Pang on it, a former goalie, of course.

Love Darren Pay. Doing the color commentary. And I thought he did a really good job in that broadcast of highlighting, because there were a bunch of like abs coming in off the rush, Nathan McKinnon with a full head of steam, challenging him one-on-one, essentially, maybe sometimes a defender back, but really it's shooter versus goalie. and in watching it how like comes up to the top of the crease and even with that speed coming down on them not panicking and like moving back and getting small

like just holding his ground challenging the shooter one-on-one and being like all right you're not excessively you're not excessively you have to move yeah just standing there and just making himself big and soaking shots up and I thought he looked awesome despite the loss he has for a while now I think even before the trade you and I did a big thing on sort of his turnaround this season and how he had actually, to our eyes, and I think by a lot of numbers, outperformed,

Bobrovsky and his limited sample. And so it's really nice to see him because it is such a dramatic environment shift, both in terms of all human quality you're going to be facing, going from the Panthers D to this Blackhawks one. And so seeing him, albeit in just three starts, is incredibly encouraging that he looks as, like, just dialed in and still as effective as he was previously. Well, I mean, since January 1, he's got the number one, say, percentage different.

in the national hockey league a plus 4%. If you go full sample size for the full season, and you know, I was talking about this when the trade was made, he is top 10 in the league amongst goalies that have seen at least 250 shots

with an adjusted say percentage of plus 1.3%. That is just slightly better than some guy named Connor Hallibuck on the season. Now he's not playing as much and it's harder when you play more and there's going to be an adjustment period here. Not just to the type of defense, but when you're playing all the time or more. And it's important, I think,

as good as Soderblum has been, and we talked about that the last time I was on as well. Like, don't lose this guy in this because he, you know, pleasant surprise. You didn't plan on using him this year. The Bersois injury necessitated it, and he outplayed Morazic. He's, he's, there's a lot of goalie there. He's made some significant adjustments to his depth. He's not overplaying things. There's a really good goalie there. So now, as much as you're going to keep playing him, There is value in giving Spencer Knight the experience of what it's like to be a number one. And there's an adjustment. You no longer have the time to work on your game and practice.

You're just focused on your body and your rest. And for a guy who is as efficient and he's a pure goalie guy, use the term goalie geek affectionately. Like Spencer likes to get into the weeds on it. I love that about him. But he's also learned to disconnect from it, I think, better too. And sort of know where to place it, you know, hockey in life and things like that. but I'm obviously a huge Spencer Knight fan.

The numbers are top 10 in the league on the season. Like I said, since January 1st, number one in the NHL and adjusted say percentage. It's just a matter of having some patience, letting him grow into this role, and hopefully putting better people around him. But I firmly believe that Chicago Blackhawks got a number one goal tender out of this deal. And whether we see it immediately like we seem to have or it takes a little longer, like that's what he is. And I hesitate.

I've been thinking about whether to use this. or not, but it came up in conversation yesterday when I was at the rink because I was at the rink and Carrie Price was there. You chatting with your good buddy, Carrie Price? He was watching the Habsgate and we had a chance to catch up a little bit. We obviously go back a little bit with, you know, not just coverage in the NHL,

but we used to spend a day every summer with him up at the Eli Wilson goalie camps with young kids and watching him coach young kids, which was pretty cool, mic'd up and everything. We have that up at Ingle. But it's unfair to compare anyone to him style-wise, But we were talking to some other goalie people after sort of that.

And like Spencer Knight might be the closest thing. Like there's a calmness to his game. There's a technical precision, but also a relaxed nature to it. He might be a little more technical, a little more sort of spot to spot. I don't like a little more jerky's the wrong word, but a little more. Whereas Kerry had a lot of flow to his game. But there's a comparison there. And there aren't many I make that with anymore.

And, you know, like that that's obviously. pretty high praise because there aren't many guys that I regard as highly as Kerry, both as a goaltender and his ability to read and process the game and technically. I love it. You talk about that checklist. Obviously, mine is a bit more abstract than yours is, but certainly checking a lot of the boxes that I look for. All right, Kevin, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll jump right back. I'll finish up with a few other fun topics. You're listening to the HockeyPediocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the Hockey PEOCast, joined by Kevin Woodley today. Kevin, let's keep it going. I want to talk to

Dustin Wolf with you because I know that you're never going to pass up an opportunity to talk about Dustin Wolf. You and I have spoken about quite glowingly this year. His most recent start over the weekend was a particularly fun goalie duel. Not too many goals scored. You talk about some of the crooked numbers. It was a good old-fashioned throwback one-nothing game between the habs and the flames. But we got to see a 23-year-old Dustin Wolf against a 23-year-old Jacob Dobesh. And it was quite fun.

They made each a handful of really high-level saves. well for the year I've got him at 38 starts 915 save percentage plus 17 goals save above expected a corner sport logic and this flames team at the time of recording is still sitting in a playoff spot holding down the wildcard two with less than 20 games to go despite the fact that they're all the way down to 30 second in the league out of 32 available teams in goal score this season and I mean we could just spend the rest of the time praising his game and everything he's done And it's cool to see in particular, you know, when you start off really well in a small sample for a young goalie, it's obviously better than the alternative. But you're kind of waiting for the other shoe to drop when the starts start picking up.

And it's like, all right, we're reaching sort of unfamiliar territory in terms of workload and just repetition and just having to do it as you get into the later stages of the season. They have, what, 19 games left. I imagine, although Vladar has totally been fine and usable, but considering how low the margin for error is both in terms of seating in the West and also the fact. that you're probably only going to get one or two goals on any given night from the offense. I imagine we're going to see a lot of Dustin Wolf the rest of the way. I mean, I was talking about him in the Calder context before we went on. And then you just said, you blew me out of the water.

You're like, let's start talking to Vezna instead. Now obviously, Halibuck has had it locked up since, like, November pretty much. But, man, Wolf is working his way up there in terms of not just rookies, but like all of his peers league wide regardless of age. Second in the entire league in goal saved above expected by ClearSight Analytics. I think you said they were Sports Logic Run. Sportz plus 17, yeah. Clearside has them at 18.22.

Logan Thompson leads the league at 19.1 4. Connor Hellibucks down to 4th at 15.85. So Dustin Wolf on a, you know, comparing based on shot quality, defensive environment. It's not Connor Hellibuck's fault that the Jets are a wagon defensively. So you don't really want to punish. And I'm not in any way diminution. his candidacy for the Vezna at all. I'm just trying to show you how good Dustin.

Yeah, in terms of the raw numbers, yeah. And he's doing it with no run support, which you mentioned. And that is so hard. I don't think people realize how stressful it is as a goaltender when you go into every game, knowing in the back of your mind that one or two is one or two too many. Yeah. And in case of the other night, one would have been too many.

Yep. You know, so. Well, how often do we talk about, like, and they do this on broadcast a lot, where like a goalie gives up three goals or something, right? And it's teams down. But then they make a couple big saves and the team works its way back. And then they're like doing the montage after of the saves he made.

And it's like, he did a really good job shutting the door and allowing his team back into it. On most nights if Dustin Wolf goes down three nothing, there is no shutting the door to let his team back into it. And so I think it's just an entirely different in terms of degree of difficult. Mentally, it's so hard. And you know, ironically, it's Calgary that started this conversation for me back in the Kippersoft days with Daryl Sutter. And they were wagging defensively. like they shut things down as well as anybody in the league, but they didn't score. And so I'd start asking guys around the league, what would you rather have?

Would you rather have, that was sort of the first time I sort of came to this question and then ultimately what I think is a consensus answer on it. Do you want to be behind an elite defensive team, but you know they're only going to score one or two a night? Or would you rather give up more chances, be asked to do more, but you know your team can score four and bail you out every once in a while? and every goalie I asked, except Kipper, wanted, and he's not going to throw his team under the bus, every guy wanted the latter.

Nobody wanted the no margin for error. We're one mistake and you're worried because it just wreaks mental havoc. We talked about Gibson. We were talking to Ryan Miller about how much pressure was in Anaheim because they went through a stretch where they couldn't score either and how much extra, how hard that was mentally as a goaltender. He had a 23-year-old rookie who was not only. on a per shot basis outperforming everyone in the league except Logan Thompson, but he's doing it with no margin for error.

And kudos to the flames. I think there are times even in that Calgary market, because I do a weekly hit there on SportsNet 960 with Pat Steinberg, where there have been some questions about, hey, like, why is Dan Vlodar starting this game? We've got this guy who's playing like this. I think they've done a nice job of not overdoing, being cognizant and cautious about those things I talked about with Spencer Knight. The process of becoming

a number one. He's been a number one in the American League, but it's a weekend league. You've got all a week to work on your game every week. You're not playing every second night. It's a very different process in the NHL, and I think the Flames Goalie Department has managed this smartly in terms of making sure they continue to work Vladar in, even

in a market that when they do, they sometimes question. And as you said, he's given them serviceable around league average goaltending, the juxtaposition to what Dustin Wolf gives them, means more people want to see more of them, but they recognize that there's a threshold where it becomes diminishing returns, and they've managed that well. So, you know, that's the grain of salt in the Vez in a discussion. He hasn't seen as many shots as Hellebuck or Schiarchen, who's between the two of them on the goals

saved above expected. He's, you know, he's even behind by a little more than almost 150 shots, Philip Gustafson. I imagine Vasselowski's up there as well, considering he's starting pretty much every game. Yeah, Vassi is definitely... You're a good buddy, Andre Vasilovsky. Up there. A little further down on the adjusted numbers, to be honest. Because I think people are missing how good a defensive environment that is as well.

But at the end of the day, like the numbers say Wolf should be a Vezna Trophy finalist right now. And I think the narrative should actually make that even more so. I'm not saying wins it, but he should be in this conversation. And anybody that's just leaving it at the calder at this point of the year, Again, he has to continue it for another six weeks, and that's not easy. But anybody who's just talking Calder for him right now is missing on how good he's been in Calvert. It's going to be hilarious when he finishes higher in the Vesna voting than he does in the Calder. Because you look at the market right now, and I was reading like NHL.com, put out a poll of their writers.

And I think they had 16 voters. Only three of them voted for him first. Lane Hudson was at top the list. And then he was second. And I think Salabrini and Mitch Kov, if you look at the betting market, though, which I think think is much more reflective of where things stand in terms of like reading the wins and trying to figure it out. Celebrini is like a 75% implied probability is a very heavy favorite. And then you go Hudson, Mitch Cove pretty close. And Dustin Wolf, you can still get him at 18 to 1 to win the

Calder. Now, if he get like, here's what I'll say about that. Do the playoffs matter? I know that but if you, like nobody else in that list is getting into the playoffs, maybe Montreal still has a And that's what I was going to say. Now, historically, this award has not been very kind to goalies. I believe Steve Mason was the last goalie to win this in what, 2009. And then before that, it was like Andrew Raycroft and then you get into like getting to Bachov. Like there's been very few instances of this. Maybe part of it is because we very rarely see an under 25 rookie goalie come in and play this big of an outsized role for their team. It's generally like sort of you get, you become ineligible because you start in a certain number of games, but you're getting sort of spoon fed like 20, 25. five games at a time as you work your way up. This is a very, this is a peer rookie. This is an exception. And I do think a lot of these awards are very narrative driven, right? And you can't help because generally the voters are pro hockey rights associated guys.

We're trying to tell a story and write articles about it. And so we'll see how these final nine teams go. But let's say Dustin Wolf starts 13 of them plays really well. Calgary makes the playoffs as the only one of these guys' teams making it with a 30-second ranked offense. I think it's a pretty neat story there to tell and to convince people on in terms of why you you sided with him for the Calder. And again, there'll probably be some ups and downs yet because this is the reality of doing this for the first time.

But if the ups outweigh the downs, then he continues to climb on this goal saved above expected list. Like the pace he's on right now, he could lead the league by time, you know, I'm going to say by the time we talk next, you know, maybe by next week, right? Like that game he had against Montreal, sort of, he was right there with Halauck and Shisterak, can he pass them for now. They could play leapfrog for the rest of the year.

But the reality is this guy with all those other narrative circumstances is top three in the league right now. And it's been for a while sort of top five, top six. And now at a time when he's supposed to wilt, he's getting better. And he's fun to watch. So fun to watch. Let's end with this. We got about 15 minutes left here while I got you.

I want to talk about Carole of Malcolm, both in terms of him individually. He catches out the wrong hand just so he knows. So he signs, takes him off the market, right? because I think a lot of teams that we were kind of pencilling is, all right, they could improve a net. This guy's at a very reasonable salary. It was like in the twos on his previous deal. Impending UFA would be an interesting option as at least a 1B.

They take him off the market, right? They sign him to a five-year extension, 4.75 per. And he's had an awesome bounce back. I thought he was very sort of just like loose and maybe overaggressive for whatever reason last year. I've been much more calm to my eye this year. And now they're, you know, they're in the thick of this playoff race. He's their number one. He's playing quite well.

So I think that's a cool story. But also spinning it around to kind of take in a look at the league as a whole in terms of some of these contracts you've seen recently, right? Because there's been a clear, I think, philosophical shift for teams. I wonder how much of it is with the cap set to explode over the next three years, teams sort of valuing the cost certainty of going like, all right, let's sort of whether this by not having to worry about it and potentially pay more on the back half. so we're going to lock some of these guys in during these next three years because we've seen, I mean, obviously at the start of the year, you had the elites, right? You had Ander, you had Swamen, Shasturkin, after that, all getting eight years. But even now this tier of Amalka five years, Lankan in five years, Logan Thompson, six years,

Blackwood five years, Joey DeCord previously five years, right? Allmark a bit older, but he got four. Charlie Lingren as the backup or the one beat of Logan Thompson, got a nice little three-year payday as well. And so all of a sudden, now you look ahead and I wanted to ask you about this year's UFA class in terms of available goalies, because I think your track record is absolutely dynamite on this podcast, right? You had Charlie Lindgren a couple years ago when he was coming from the Blues. You had Kevin Lankin in for years, but especially this past off season.

You had Anthony Stolars based on what we saw from him in the Spencer Knight Roll behind Bobrovsky last year. All those have been phenomenal bang for your buck signings for those teams. Ingram Off Waivers. For Arizona. Ingram Off Waivers. all of a sudden you look and you know we have we have guys like aiden hill um you know david ridditch a few others i'm not going to get into everyone but all of a sudden a lot of the potentially

available goalies and maybe at the start of the year you looked and you're like all right there's going to be some options for at least kind of a split workload all of a sudden now it's dried up pretty quick and maybe that plays into this as well where teams are kind of looking around and being like all right well we don't want to get the july first and have to give our plan d um two extra million dollars just because there's so many so few guys available so we're just going to keep our guy that we like that's certainly i think playing into the decision making but yeah but melka just add him to the list of of one less option i think for uh for buying teams this summer yeah it's going to be interesting i don't have a list of the ufas in front of me so well i've got it for you it's a very short

hill aden hill jake allen george evan vannichick freddy anderson anthony ton forsburg dan vladar ilias simsonov david redmond ditch and I think my favorite bang for your buck guy, Alex Lyon. It's a matter of finding the right roles for each guy because there's obviously different sort of upside. Like sneakily, Jake Allen is having a top four, five adjusted say percentage run. And he's a guy that could bring stability to a crease. I think he gets overlooked a lot.

He's really, you know, with Markstrom out. He's a guy that would be high on that list, especially if you need, oh, I don't know, if you were Edmonton and you needed a really strong mentorship profile to go alongside your still young. People forget up-and-coming goal tender. That's one I would consider. Aidan Hill is interesting. I think it's got to be the right fit. We've talked about his relative strengths and being important and how I think Vegas at their peak and when they won the cup did a really nice job of sort of giving up dangerous chances,

but the dangerous chances that he was best at and not giving up the ones that he wasn't. But obviously he's had some success on one of the other names on that list. I don't know that I have a guy that jumps off the sheet from a statistical profile that's like the next sort of one on that list to pop because Jake Allen is the first one that comes to mine

and the numbers back it, but he's been around. So that's not like a Charlie Lindgren out of nowhere made big changes to his game. I would not hesitate to buy an Alex Lion. I am... I think bang for your buck, right? Because after the Florida stint, which showed us already a little bit,

we saw what the market was for him, and it was 900K for two years to come and be even potentially the third goalie because Detroit's just had this like endless carousel of available options. I mean, adding Petter-Mrazik to it as well and his contract just absolutely wild with Sebastian Kosa, obviously,

I think up to like 75 games in the HL at this point. And it looks like he's having success in the American League last I checked, and yet you start to hear whispers that they've soured, and they might, you know, I wonder if he's a guy that teams start to target because they just keep, continue to load up a depth chart in front of him. Well, and you look like, you know, Cam Talbot had a really nice run there

after the coaching change, and I think he's a good goalie, but he's 37, and Detroit has played him in like nine of the past 13 games or something like that. There was a two-week break in between, but still, like, leaning on them to the point where now you're getting some diminishing results while you have all these other available options. I know that they're kind of a desperation mode with this losing streak and trying to get back into the playoffs for the first time and forever. But it's kind of a bit of a head scratcher in terms of everything that's happened there.

And so, yeah, I mean, you talk about Jake Allen. I would love to be Jake Allen's agent this summer because you look at the list in the season he's having. And all of a sudden, the asking price, especially if he's going to take a two-year deal or something. I think that AAV gets to a pretty, pretty high range on the open market. Charlie Lindgren range? Oh, I think even higher. I mean, I mean, I think we're talking about fours maybe. It kind of reset the bar a little bit, right?

Like last year, the top backups were Brasois and Stolars, and they both got five times two. I guess Camp Talbot, too, although he was more projected as a starter. He got five times two. Lingren at three times three. I mean, but like, to me, it's really hard. Like, it's, if I compared the lingering contract and what he's, you know, he's done for the past two years, statistically, but also being a number one. Obviously, that job will now probably be Thompson's, but he's shown he can be a number one.

Like, his profile kind of matches Kevin Lankan's, but he's done it a little longer, a guy who can be a backup, but who can also give you number one minutes for an extended period of time. And when he did, his adjusted numbers were actually slightly better than what Kevin's been able to do this year. And yet he goes three times three and Kevin gets five times four and a half. and Lankinen has saved the Canucks season and is full value for that money here. He's obviously somebody they feel they need and they paid for it. But I think to that point, we've gone away from having this massive deep long list of goalie carousel every July 1st to a much shorter list.

And harder, I guess it's going to be harder on me, which means it's harder on the teams. It's going to be harder to find that next Charlie Lindgren, Connor Ingram, Anthony Stollers, Kevin Lankin in for 875 when the teams that find value in them are locking them up at much higher numbers for much longer term. There's just less selection if you're one of those teams that's

like, we're not going to invest in it. We're just going to find secret guys here and there to fill in. The other guy on the list that deserves a mention but comes with an asterisk because of an inability to stay healthy and because he's aging.

Freddie. Freddie, when he's in there, has been just fine. As a matter of fact, being really good for the Carolina Hurricanes when he's healthy. But with Kochetkoff climbing the list with adjusted numbers that are sort of ranging into flirt with the top 10, you know, how much longer they need Freddie. I thought they made a mistake last year, and I said this. Freddie was unreal coming off of that injury. And I thought once it came to playoff time, they abandoned the rotation that they had going, went with the hot hand, and ultimately ended up with diminishing returns because he hadn't played that much at any point in the season, and now you asked him to in the most pressure-packed part of it,

and the seam started to get pulled apart a little bit. Well, adding another layer to you talk about sort of the importance of some of these teams, identifying some of these guys before they have their glow-up and getting them at sub-1 million. There's also a number of teams, like I mentioned both goalies for Vegas that are UFAs. Now, between now and July 1st, they might just wind up keeping Aden Hill, but they, as up right now, do not have an NHL goalie on the roster. the hurricanes have Cachekhov at 2 million or whatever, but if Freddie Anderson hits the market, all of a sudden.

That's a bargain, Coachette Cough, the way he's playing right now. He's, and just, sorry, I mentioned those numbers. His adjusted state percentage on this season is up to plus 1.3%, which is 10th in the league, just slightly behind Connor Hellebuck and slightly ahead of Philip Gustafson. So that's for a guy who had a lot of, we always knew the potential, but a lot of sort of, you know, extra energy and at times too much and tried to do too much and a lot of extra moving parts,

He's really reined, not, reined in him without losing that identity. And he's producing top 10 numbers alongside a couple of names that, you know, I think people probably think of, you know, in general terms as being quote unquote ahead of him on any rankings list. And he's right there, you know, with some pretty impressive names ahead of Amelka, ahead of Blackwood, ahead of Asselowski on adjusted save percentage. Behind a team in Carolina that I think is giving up more, his expected say percentage is only 880, which is 11 points below the league average. Like he's seeing tough chances and he's performing.

Yeah, I imagine Hurricanes Brass the entire time they're watching it. They're like at home or at the rink wearing helmets of their own and like strapped in with seatbelts just because they're getting whiplash themselves. He's a, you know, like we see the, and we've started to see this in minor hockey a little bit. And I'm kind of curious to see if anybody adopts it for practices in the NHL. My hunch is no. But you know the giant foam, you know, helmets that some football players, like the The guardian caps, there you go.

I believe there's a now. Either it's modified or there actually is a version for goalie helmets. Like, he's the guy that needs that, right? Like, let's get Coach Edkopf in a guardian helmet. Not because of getting hit by pox or guys coming in the crease, but because he's lunging out there all the time and getting caught sort of trying to make poke checks and plays on guys in dangerous positions. I want to see a guardian cap.

I had a great question in the Discord here about Marcus Hogberg made this. save over the weekend. I'm not sure if you saw it where Trevor Zegris actually executed a perfect Michigan attempt and he came around behind the net and he was labeling it right under the bar in a Hogberg who's like whatever 6-5 or something one of these giant

robots that occupy the crease these days in the NHL was able to come across and he had sealed everything down low like his pad was completely on the ice but also is just so massive that his shoulder gave Zegris nothing to really

actually target the puck at and was just able to kind of like knock it away, shrug it away with his shoulder. I'd love to see a goalie like wearing some massive outsized guardian cap just like throwing his head around trying to stop to stop. We've seen like memes where guys like basically put like a fish bowl over there. So basically it's like an extension of their shoulders that goes up to the top of their head and covers everything. I don't think the league's going to sign off on that one.

Hey, I know he hasn't played that much. And so I'm hesitant in a sample this tiny to mention it. But you brought him up. and I'm curious to see if the sample increases, and I'd like to take a look at the video I haven't, but in that tiny 160 chance sample, regardless of that save you just mentioned, Marcus Hogueberg has a plus 3.7% percentage differential.

So, yeah, pretty high expected, so obviously getting into favorable starts, but right now when he does get in there, he's giving them really quality minutes. There's something happening with the Islanders. Not that anyone really cares, because I think people are not going out of the way to watch Islanders games. But in terms of the public versus private metrics,

their defensive stuff is just all over the map. And it's happened for a while now, right? Because I think people were very critical of Avelia Sorokin last year, and he kind of lost his job under Paddywa to Semion Varlamov down the stretch. And the public metrics weren't very favorable. The same percentage wasn't great necessarily. But I remember SporeLogic at the time had him as still one of the best goalies in the league because I think everyone associates the islanders with being really strong.

strong defensively and that just hadn't really been the case in his workload. So I'm not surprised to hear you say that. Well, here's the thing that people need to understand. Well, just quick aside, and I'll be quick with this. There's no way you're going to be quick with this. Even within the same team, you can have massive variances between the expected and say percentage and the environment of two goalies. And in this case, I'll give you the example of three goalies on the same team. Based on the starts they get, the opponents they face, how the team is feeling, how they're playing certain times of the year. We always used to mention Eric Comrie with the 858 expected in Buffalo, which was absurdly low.

Now he's in a better environment, a great environment in Winnipeg and performing right around expected, giving them everything you need out of a backup. Hogueberg, I mentioned 894 expected. Ilya Seroquen, 891 expected, which is just slightly above the league average. Semi Envara-Lamoff behind the same team this year. Again, small sample, 232 chances, 878. Right. expected. So 13 points below

Sorokin and a lot more 14 points I guess below what Hogberg's face. So like it can be apples to oranges even on the same team and I think that was pretty quick to meet you. That's as fast as I go for example. That was great. I'm very impressed. I do wonder we'll have time as we get into the summer to talk about this but I think the trade market for goalies might be more interesting whether it's Gibson or Elvis or

whatever in terms of guys we're making a bit more. more. That's your Demko here in Vancouver. That's your Demko. We had a question about Demko. We'll save it for next time. You know what? I'm not sure that the Hawks, because he's probably going to be cheap and you don't necessarily want Spencer Knight starting a crazy amount of games, although I think if you're giving him the lion's share, it's a bit easier to bring in like a veteran sort of backup that can sort of stabilize when need be. But you mentioned Arvid Suterblum, who's going to be a 26-year-old RFA. Obviously, the surface numbers aren't great. Like, he's only one-eight. of whatever 25 games he started, goals against over three, the save percentage is 905, which in today's climate, especially on a really bad team, is actually quite workable.

But I've got him at plus five goals able by expected 862 slot shot save percentage, which is behind only Hellebuck, Thompson, and Stolars in terms of goalies who have played 20 games on my account. Not surprised because he's a big boy who plays a way more controlled

and conservative game this year than he did last year. I've got him right around expected for the year with an environment that's not as bad people think, but I think within that, it can kind of be like the San Jose thing where teams don't focus. So you see a ton of great A so you get a lead and then teams just take, like not take it easy, but they're not pressing. Yeah, when it's 6-1, you're not getting the- Yeah, they're settling for the outside shots a little bit. So I think that inflates it in an unfair manner, actually.

All right, Kevin, we've got to get out of here. This is fine. I'm going to let you plug whatever you want. It's the usual. Kevin is in goal, in-gole magazine. Ingolemag.com. That's what I'll plug. Nice. In Goal magazine where I do a lot of my work as well as NHL.com, probably not for you if you're not a goalie, but if you are a goalie, we'll make you a better goalie.

If you're a goalie parent, will make you a more knowledgeable and more helpful goalie parent. If you're a goalie coach and you're not subscribing, I would ask what's wrong with you because most of the NHL does because we're sharing tips, drills, and insights from NHL goalies, from NHL goalie coaches, from the best minds in the game on the ice, off the ice when it comes to the position of goal attending.

It's $50 a year, Canadian, which is like two cups of coffee in the States these days. So check it out in goldmagg.com and grab a subscription. All right, buddy. Well, this is a blast. I'm already looking forward to your next appearance on the show in April. Thank you for coming on. Thank you to everyone for listening to us. We're going to be back

I believe on Thursday with another show. So until then, thank you for listening to the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.