The Hockey PDOcast - Success of Next Gen Goalies, and Logan Thompson’s Remarkable Season

Episode Date: February 5, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to break down what we’ve seen this year from the next generation of young goalies, and how Logan Thompson has been able to catapult his game into a tier where he earned a 6-year extension. 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 P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey P.D.O.cast. My name's Demetri Filippovich and joining me here in studio, my good buddy, Kevin, what's going on, man? It's almost feels like back-to-back games. Like it's been only a couple weeks. Usually it's like a full month in between, but we're squeezing it in. I'm excited about this. Yeah, this is probably the quickest turnaround we have. We try to have you on once a month. Technically, we're still sticking to that because your last appearance was in January.

January, but it was only a couple weeks ago. But I wanted to get you back because I feel like last time not only was it a bang or a show and everyone loved it, but we left so much meat on the bone because we got deep on like two or three or three or three or four left over on my to-do list that we didn't have time before. So we're going to circle back and get into them today. Here's what I just want to start with. I want to talk a little bit about this kind of quote unquote next gen of goalies.

Now it's obviously young goalies we've already seen in limited sample size in the NHL, but we have enough to kind of talk about both their numbers and also what we're seeing from them on tape. They're typically goalies who are in that sort of 23, 24-year-old range, let's say. And I've got a few that I'm pretty excited about in terms of what we're seeing, especially recently. And I wanted to pick your brain about her, I guess, and hear what you have to say. So let's start with Spencer Knight. Seven appearances in Florida's last 16 games since the start of the new year. He's got a 939 state percentage in those 11 total goals against.

now it includes this cluster of backups, or back-to-back, sorry, that the Panthers have had here in the month of January. Now, what's interesting, and it seems like Paul Maurice just goes with Bobrovsky in the first game of the back-to-back, and then Knight in the second. So that's kind of playing into this, but how I wound up working out was that if you look at the match-ups in particular, Bob got Philadelphia, Anaheim, San Jose, and Chicago in those four back-to-backs, and Spencer Knight got the devils, the kings, the Golden Knights, and then the Islanders most recently. So he got objectively, I think, the tougher of the matchups there. I don't want to spend too much time talking about Bobrovsky here, because I think we've done so already over the years. His numbers in the aggregate look okay this year.

I think certainly Boyd recently, especially by those four cupcake matchups, I just said, like where he kind of cleaned up against teams like the Blackhawks and the sharks, to my eye, he hasn't looked particularly good. Lately, especially, like, playing very deep in his crease, a lot of softies. Knight, to my eyes, look quite impressive. And I want to talk to you about what we've seen kind of from Knight and sort of this journey, I guess he's been on now, where especially they have, what, 28 games left in the season. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him play nearly half of those, probably around 10 to 15 or so.

And then that's going to get his season total into the 30. So like legitimate sample size there to work with this season. where are we at right now with Spencer Knight? What are you seeing from him? How do you feel about the year he's had, obviously, everything he went through and not really playing a role on this team before this season? Yeah, I mean, can't really speak to what he went through because I haven't asked him about it, right?

I've had a chance to talk to him this year when they came through town. I feel like I need to throw a caveat out there when it comes to Spencer Knight. I'm a huge fan of the person of the person of the overall. approach. I like sort of everything. There's a lot I like about his game, but I just, I've had that opportunity dating back to his

draft year and heading into his draft. I think going into the draft, we spent like an hour for the Ingoal radio podcast. And then of course the drafts here in Vancouver. I've just, there's so much I like about his approach. And even now, talking to him this year, the things he's learned from Bob

and the importance of that and sort of continuing this evolution, the tools have always been there. The mental and personal approach to improvement has always been there. Like he's one of those no stone on turn guys. And I think part of it's been learning when to just leave well enough alone and stick to your foundations as opposed to looking for new things without ever sort of losing that curious mind.

Right. Like he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's and I say this with the utmost affection, he's a goalie geek, right? Like he, he really gets it. into that stuff. And maybe it sounds like a little bit in talking to him this year, like he's maybe learned to let some of that go and not be obsessed by it or consumed by it.

But the numbers sort of match. Like, even on the season as a whole, like well above expected. You mentioned for the past month, like since we got to 2025, like, you know, the goalies that have seen at least 100 chances. And as you said, he's plain enough to be in that range. Like, Darcy

Kemper's the only guy with a better adjusted say percentage than Spencer Knight since January 1st. Yeah. Like that's remarkable. And on the season as a whole, he's into the top 25. Like, he's had a really good year, a slow start. And he's just, it feels like he's just building. And it feels like he's building towards the guy that most of us in the goalie world always knew was there, if that makes sense. And so maybe there's a little bit of sort of bias that comes from that expectation and that belief early on.

But it looks like it's all coming together for him and you're happy for him when you see that. The reason why I wanted to start talking about him beyond just like in watching over the past month in these games and kind of how he's popped off the screen to me in terms of how he looks is he's still only 23 years old. He's turning 24 here in the spring. And the reason why I bring that up is he's already went through this whole journey, right, where we saw him drafted where he was and then pretty much coming into the league right away, which is very rare for goalies, even today's age. and everything he's been through to get to this point this season, most goalies that are kind of at this relative point of their career where they're 23 years old, Spencer Knight is right now,

we haven't even gotten to see falter or struggle at this level because they haven't even been given the opportunity to actually play meaningful reps in the NHL, right? Like you're often seeing this 23-year-old putting up good promising numbers of the AHL. We're talking about how he could be the next star. This is when they normally first get there. Of course.

I was talking to McKenzie Blackwood today with the Colorado. Like I remember Blackwood sort of getting that opportunity around this age, and that was sort of after Carter Hart got the opportunity at an early age. And then here in Vancouver, I know for a fact, like those two guys and Blackwood in particular, that's when the Demko camp went to Vancouver. It was like, hey, like our guy is having success. And all these other goalies are getting this shot. Our guy's ready for a shot.

And so you're right. that was actually a newer trend. To even get that shot at 23, now to look at where he is at that age, like, again, it's not, it's rare that it's always, is linear, but to have had so much up and down already

and had to come through the other side of it and now see the positives building, it's exciting. Like, you see a future for him, and I'm not sure, matter of fact, someone in the organization may have texted me when they drafted him so high

and said, why are we signing? why are we doing this if we're signing Bob forever? Yeah. But you can see the future where he's the number one goaltender there. Certainly. And the reason why I bring that up is because I don't think we're going to include him in our conversation of goalies because he's only played, what, like seven, eight games so far.

But I was thinking about like Jacob Dobesh, for example, for the Habs, where he kind of comes up, becomes this great story, has a 927, say, percentage. He has wins over Florida, Colorado, Washington, Dallas, the Rangers. Like, he gives them sort of this spark in net, right? it's an amazing it's like oh found money this guy kind of came out of nowhere and then i looked and he's like he's one month younger than spencer night and it feels like spencer night has been in our lives forever now right and so that's kind of what i was bringing up where well spencer was what pretty much straight out of the ncdbara into the national hockey league right because that's how high the pedigree was

yes so some people might argue that that was too quick and maybe that's why there had to be a step back but to arrive where he is now regardless of how it happens and is exciting for the Panthers, I'm sure. It's exciting for me as a goalie person to get to watch this kid play more. Still a kid, play more and have so much growth already under, you know, sort of on his resume. And that's why I'm very curious to see, assuming this kind of continues what the Panthers approaches in terms of the usage

and kind of how they handle this development. I said they have 28 games left. They're competing for first in the Atlantic. They're also competing with some of the metro teams for potential home ice in playoff matchups further on into the postseason. And so that obviously matters. It works out well for them because even if you still view Bobrovsky as the guy come the postseason and his importance to them, if anything, it benefits him, I think, similar to what we saw maybe two years ago before that playoff run that he had where Alex Lyon came in, right, took the majority of the starts down the stretch. And then all of a sudden, Bobrovsky was pretty fresh heading in. So it benefits them there.

But I think it also sets up a very interesting conversation not to get too ahead of ourselves. But this offseason, right, where Bobrovsky all of a sudden, his contract becomes expiring with only one year left. The actual salary drops to a point where the $10 million, or $10 million A.V for the final year isn't even that prohibitive in theory because the cap's going up. But the salary is pretty low at $5 million. So for a lot of teams in the league that might actually present like an interesting asset for them, where it's like we don't actually want to spend that much. money this year, but this guy is going to help us get to a cap floor and also as a veteran goalie and all that reputation. And maybe we have a young guy, he can kind of mentor the way. I was just going to say, don't underestimate the importance of that. I know a lot of goalie

coaches around the league, they'll get a young guy in and not have that veteran. Yep. And it's a problem. It is. It is. Obviously, relative, right? I think it's a nice, it's a nice thing to have at $10 million. It's less, it's a bit of a luxury item. Totally, totally fair. But like, And even in talking to Spencer there, like the things that, like, write down to the way he tapes and has his stick cut, right? Like, it's Bob Ask. And, you know, and then another young guy in Dustin Wolf who changed things in his game early in his career based on his time with Spencer Knight. Like, that's the thing. Like, this is a remarkable thing.

You got Spencer sort of like, here are some things that I learned from Bob. And then you've got Dustin Wolf who's like, here's some things that I learned from Spencer. Because that's how highly regarded Spencer was when they were together, you know, in the world juniors. It is. Okay. Do you have any other notes on? on night or do you want to move on to the next goalie? We can move on to the next goalie.

I think that might be a first for you. I feel like usually when I ask you that, you're like, oh, here, hold on. There's three more things I got to say, and then we wind up finishing the full segment. We're going to get through a lot of names here because here's the thing. Some of these guys, some of these younger guys, I know well. There's a bunch here that I haven't had a chance to dig on. And the one thing you've heard me say this before, like, I am not going to talk out of my butt. So I kept the numbers in front of me.

I can take a look at that. But if I haven't really broken down their next games, I'm not going to make it up on the fly. And there's a handful of these guys that, you know, they're sample small. I didn't track them in the American League. And so outside of the numbers and what the math says, I'm not going to have a deep dive answer for you. And that's why I love you and that's what makes you such a rare breed here in this hockey media landscape. Yaroslav Asgrove. Is he one of those goleys that you have done your work on?

Because obviously he's been in front of mine for a while now. Yeah, I know he's been front line for a while. You know, I know I talk to a lot of people whose opinions I really value who, you know, weren't sold. And he's impressed them to a certain degree. I had no idea you were speaking with Barry Trots. No.

But like, you know, again, like the number's sort of overall they're around expected, but there's been some performances in there that are really bad. And I think what you're seeing is, like, he came in, was like he's so good on when he's on his knees like he skates from his knees so to speak like that shishderkin like hovercraft like there are a few guys that are as explosive sort of in a recovery mode once they're down in the butterfly as a scare off the questions were hands and a lot

of people hear that and they think catching pucks um to me it was more controlling pucks and that includes with the blocker and not from a blocker save standpoint but in terms of the stick right everything was off the pads when he came into the league or when he when he was overseas and you can get away with that to a certain degree in Russia that you can't over here like there's everything's just to the net and if you create second chances in and around you and he's got such a like I'm so jealous of the width of his butterfly flare like his athleticism but but a wide butterfly on shots off though like it tends to put bucks back into the middle whereas like having a some guys will have it on purpose a narrow butterfly that puts it in the corner right like that sort of more of a V shape when you drop in

goes off to the corner, whereas if it's wide like a wall, you spit it right back out in the middle. And I just, I saw a lot of puck said at this level in the National Hockey League need to be steered with a stick off the glass and into the stands to get a face off whistle rather than kick back into play where your defenseman can't see what's behind them. And I see a lot of development there. You add that into the obvious skill set and the obvious talent and the incredible sort of athleticism and movement from after he's down.

Like there's a ton there. And so really interesting to see how they decided to go because there was a, you know, there were some, there's some really good trends and some really good games in the National hockey league level. Now that, you know,

everybody's healthy and he's back in the American League. Like, how much do you weigh what they are as a team after making some trades and maybe more coming? And do you want him behind that? Like I'm curious to see which way they go. You saw an NHHA. shell goalie there, but there's still some things that can be worked on. So, you know,

not to sit on the fence too much, I'm more confident in his future than I was early on. And yet, you know, I'm not sure it's going to be quite as immediate as a lot of people would like to see it, even though in the short term, he impressed me a lot. Yeah. Give me, give me all the stock. I'm fully buying that he's going to be an absolute star. Maybe part of it is just that he's so intoxicatingly fun. Like even you watch the clip from over the weekend at the HL All-Star event and that breakaway challenge or whatever they have

and he just like makes like five or six remarkable saves in a row. And if anything kind of displays I think exactly what you're saying there. It's not only the athleticism but the fact that that allows him to access pretty much like any save type that he wants in any situation. Obviously

in terms of pure technique and kind of refining that, there's still work to do there. But it's just you look at that package and kind of the tools, I guess, in terms of what he has available to him. And it's tough not to think that if you harness that in the right way, especially at this age, there could be something special there. In his 13 games, I've got him at plus seven goals he'll expected according to Sportologic. Georgiev and Vannev and there are 27 or minus seven for the sharks. And I think we got a question here from Shin Kicker asks thoughts on Askorev's time with the sharks. Now that he's back

in the HL, is it better that he's down there and not too big of a part of this remaining tank this season and I think that goes hand in hand, right? I think the sharks certainly want him to work on his game and have a front row view of it, but considering where they're at this season, I don't think they want him playing too well for their main team because I think they still want to maintain their draft status. Obviously, I'm curious for your take on this, because he's clearly way too good for the AHL level. Like he's played 14 games there this year. He's a 9.38, say, percentage. When you see something like that, do you worry, because we talk about it. We talk about about it more for skaters when it comes to like young guys, for example, especially generational

talents that are maybe stuck in major junior because they can't either play in the HL or they're not drafted for the NHL yet. And you worry that when you've reached a certain level of production and dominance in that league, whether there's anything that you can really use that time for to like improve your game meaningfully rather than being in the HL and maybe taking your lumps and learning through trial and error for a goalie, it seems like you'd probably feel like there probably is value in just getting a bunch of reps in at the AHL to work on some of these areas of weakness relatively they were talking about, even though he's still stopping like 94% of the shots he's facing there.

Yeah, honestly, like, there's a big part of me, and I understand the question. And it's interesting, because I think the defensive environment in San Jose is going to change. We talked about this with McKenzie Blackwood, right? Like how as much as you assume it's, you know, you're just, the goalies out there stopping bullets in his teeth, Like the reality is they also really good job under that coaching staff and I wonder how much of this is the focus of teams coming in against them.

But like for whatever reason, their goal is see more low danger than a lot of teams give up. You know, at a time when teams don't take low danger shots, their goal is see a lot of them. And I feel like the lessons that need to be learned, you know, when to take whistle, controlling play,

managing traffic at the National Hockey League level. I'd a column recently at NHL.com about that. And like, guys are telling me that it has never been harder. Like, it's not just other teams saying, go to the net, take away his eyes. It's how purposeful they are in doing it and trying to execute and trying to get you to basically move around back there and specifically taking you out of certain lanes at certain time. Like, it's never been harder. And I don't get the impression that it's that.

focused at the American League. Doesn't mean that it's not chaotic and there's lots of traffic, but the way it's done. And so I don't know what San Jose looks like defensively moving forward. I mean, obviously, C-C's gone. Yep. You know, Granlan's a good defensive forward as well. Like how much worse does it get?

But there is a big part of me that the way they've been to date, I'd rather see him up there and learning those lessons against a style of play that is what he's going to feel. face long term than in the American League where a lot of it is more mistake driven and a little more chaotic and a little less controlled. And frankly, you could make the argument his athleticism might serve him better in the American League and all those other refinement things that he's still working on. He might not need them as much to have the success at the American League.

So I personally, I'd like to see him playing the game and the style that he's going to to face in the NHL more understanding that the challenge is how many starts you're going to get him up there so he needs to play that's first and foremost if you've got time use it when it comes to waivers that said I think there are elements um of his development that would better served in an NHL environment than the American league especially this one given the the circumstances because in hearing you talk about it I think it ties in very nicely to what you're saying about the amount of and volume of kind of like low percentage stuff tying into his relative weakness

at this stage of his career of handling that and either limiting the damage that ensues off of it especially with like some of the padwork and stuff right because I feel pretty confident that he's right up there with any goalie in the league already at this point in terms of if there's going to be a high danger opportunity

where he's just going to have to make a reactionary ridiculous athletic save he's probably going to have a good chance at doing so I actually would like to see see him in this situation where it's like you're going to face 35 shots from bad angles and the point today and let's see how few of those you can kick out for dangerous rebounds that follow so well and and the numbers at clear sight analytics aren't quite as flattering as the numbers you have they actually have him slightly below expected um so certainly not seven goals saved above

but just right around just a hair below expected but when you get into the sort of smaller categories. Oh, what do you know? All those things we talk about athleticism, slot area, slot line plays, broken plays, all well above expected. The areas that are issues, clear-sighted shots. Five already in a small sample is five too many. Right? Like that's got a change. Oh, rebounds, screens, deflections, all below expected. So I don't know that you're getting the same type of intensity from a traffic perspective in the American. And I'm not dismissing the American League at all. Like it's a great development

league. I just think that in talking to guys who have been in both leagues late, especially about the traffic and how purposeful it is in the NHL and maybe they're wrong, but their take on it as goaltenders, it is that much more purposeful and harder to manage

and more systems based almost in terms of how you have to approach it, as opposed to the American League. It's just like desperation, find the puck. There's a lot more sort of a tactical and game planning element to it that you have to learn and understand to have success in the National Hockey League. And, you know, so just to go back to the same point, I look at the numbers more and I'm like,

hey, I find a way to get this guy in the show as long as the environment in the show is not deteriorating too badly down the stretch. Yeah, get him more reps working on what he actually needs to work on at this stage of his career. We got a, I love, like, your eyes lit up. I wish the listeners could have seen it when you started talking about those like subcategories breaking down Ascarovs. Well, it's funny because your eye test and what we would expect, and then you take a look at the numbers.

And it backs it up. And even though our numbers at ClearSight are a little different than what you cite, at the end of the day, the microstuffs, the microstats, absolutely matches what we talk about. So it's kind of exciting when the eye test matches the numbers to a degree. It is. Well, the reason why I bring that up is I posted, I knew you were coming in today and I posted in the PDOCast Discord, which is a very pro Kevin Woodley community that you were coming in. And I was like, does anyone have any specific questions for them? And we got a few more we're going to get to you today. but one of them was just ask as many questions as possible

that would lead to leak as many clear sight nuggets as he can. So we're off to a good start there with you getting into Askaroff stuff. Let's quickly talk about Levy Merlinen on the Ottawa Senators. This is going to be a shorter one for me, just giving you the heads up. I haven't had a chance to dig in. That's totally fair. Let me give you a few numbers here, and then I'll let you jump in. So we haven't seen Allmark since December 22nd

after he aggravated or reagravated his back injury. I think everyone at that time, because Almark was on this massive heater where he started playing remarkably well and was winning them a bunch of games to really kind of jumpstart their season. Everyone was worried like, oh, after this injury, are the Sands going to come back down Earth?

What's going to happen? Are they going to falter? Since then, they've gone 11, 6, and 2 to not only jump up the standings and jump out of the wild card, but they're third in the Atlantic. There's suddenly just five points out of first right there with both the Leafs and the Panthers.

and they have the fourth best team say percentage in that time. Now, Marilinen has started 10 of those games. He's won seven of them, a 938 say percentage in there. He's given up one goal or less in six of those 10 starts. I saw a stat I was watching. The Senators' Predators game was the only game on the NHL schedule. On Monday night, it was on Amazon Prime broadcast, and they had the stat where the last nine Senators' losses,

they've only scored one goal or less or been shut out in them, like pretty much when they're losing, their offense is just giving them nothing. And as soon as they muster any sort of team offense, their goalies have been more than good enough to get them wins in those games. I think we've spoken about this so far, but it was kind of starting last year. I think it's really rounded into shape this year for a variety of reasons.

One is Jake Sanderson continuing to get better. They brought in Nick Jensen, and he really gave them a nice defense pair to stabilize Thomas Shabbat. Travis Green has done a really good job as a coach there. the defensive environment has... Not surprised by that. Defensive environment has improved quite a bit. They're, by my numbers, at least, on Sport Logic,

up to sixth and goals, expected goals against, top 10 in slot shots allowed, inner slot shots allowed, offensive zone time allowed, all that good stuff. If anything, the 515 offense has been a bit of a limiting trait for them as a team. So the environment has been much better than I think it's been in years past,

but I think it's very uplifting, I think, to see a young goalie, thrive for the Ottawa Senators after the sort of what's gone on there historically over the past, I don't know what you want to say, four or five years where there's been a bunch of turmoil. They've had a bunch of guys come through. I think we've listed at one point in time,

like just the number of goalies that have played for them the past three years and what a long list it is, and they've been looking for answers. They obviously went out and got Allmark this summer to try to address it, but all of a sudden, I don't think they were planning on it because while Elmark was playing, he was going to get a lion's share of the starts. He gets hurt.

All of a sudden it opens his door from Maryland, and I think he's like 22 or something. He's still at this point, and he's played really well in this stretch. So I wanted to shout him out as part of this sort of next gen of goalies, because I think his play has certainly warranted it. Yeah, and not a guy. I have a ton of, like I said, no deep dive yet on him.

Haven't had a chance, Amazon Prime game. Last night I didn't have a chance to actually watch at myself because I had some family stuff, but I'll tell you with the numbers. The numbers have him tied with some guy named Dustin Wolf for fifth in adjusted save percentage right now. Like the name's ahead of them on that list. It's a short one.

Logan Thompson, Anthony Stollers, Darcy Kemper, and Igor Shastairkin. Like that's some pretty rarefied air. Now, in terms of defensive environment, I find it interesting that his expected save percentage at 896 is like 10 points above the league average. That speaks to how well they're defending for him. All marks is 895. So again, team playing really well defensively. And then Anton Forsberg, 883.

So that can be just getting tougher starts. you know, if it continues and you're not getting the, you know, like back, you talked earlier about back to backs and getting the second end. All those things can play a role in two guys on the same team having like a 13 point swing and expected say percentage. But also if it keeps up for a while and it's not all the start quality, then you start to say, hey, like, is this team playing differently for a guy? Is this team sometimes it's trying too hard?

Like I know Anton Forsberg is a really popular teammate. Sometimes you can try too hard to help them out. and sort of try to do his job, and pretty soon nobody's doing their own job. Like, who knows exactly what's happening here? It's still a pretty small sample. So he's a guy that I here get a lot of heat in there, and he's the only one that hasn't expected that's below the league average. So a tougher environment for him, but I don't know what you say about Levi.

Is it Levy or Levi? Levy. This is how bad I am at this. I highly encourage going on his elite prospects page, and then they have that function where you can get the pronunciation, of the names. It's so fun hearing it set out. It's like, Levy Merri Leyen.

Not giving up bad goals. That's one of the biggest things. Only one clear-sided shot all season. Whereas we saw a real swing in Escaroff's underlying profile. Certain things he was just excellent at and other things he was underwater.

Everything is really balanced here for Levy. It's, you know, just slightly above expected and everything. Nothing jumping off the page. as tougher numbers. Looks like he's got a really well-balanced game. By the time I talk to you in March, when we reconvene after the Four Nations,

I promised to have done a little bit of video and homework to see if the eye test matches the numbers. But that's what you see in the underlying profiles. A guy who probably doesn't play to extremes, probably has a conservative depth. I mean, I've watched him play. He started here in Vancouver, right? And I just find sometimes when you're covering games.

To me, he just looks. looked like a really well-balanced structured, tactical, technical, neutral, not aggressive, not hyper. Like, he just looked like a really well-balanced goalie. He kind of looks like your quote-unquote modern goaltender as much as I hate, you know, to use that phrase, you know, I think I said last time that Darcy Kemper just looks like a goalie. Like, it's that picture of a guy that I would take the silhouette and put on a t-shirt.

That's what a goalie. That's what a good goalie looks like. And there's a little bit of that in Levy's game already. All right, Kevin, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll jump right back into it. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O. cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockeyedio cast. Join by Kevin Woodley. Kevin, we were talking before we went to break about some of these young goleys we're seeing and the success they're having.

I want to quickly take this question from Eric Schumacher, our resident Blue Jackets fan and also Beat Reporter. If those of you that are in the Discord, highly recommend checking out the watching the spreadsheets channel, Eric just posts breakdowns after every Blue Jackets game that are better than anything you're going to find from anyone else out there. So if you're interested in this Blue Jack's team that's been incredibly exciting, check that out. He's got this question about Jet Grieves says, I've noticed Greaves taking some faking some glass and out rims before making breakout passes to his forwards. Is this the future of puck moving from goalies or it wouldly just poisoned the young goalie with these delusions of grandeur? Oh my goodness.

So send me the clips so that I can highlight that. Would I be surprised by it? No. We led this by me acknowledging that I'm a massive fan of Spencer Knight. I just like the young man as a person and his approach. Like double me down on that for Jetgreaves, right? Like we've had a chance to spend some time with him. He too is a goalie geek.

And I say that in like with praise, right? Like looking for things seems to have a really nice balance of sort of looking for new ideas, new approaches, but understands what makes him successful in his foundation, open-minded, engaging. And every time he's in the NHL, it just feels like he has success. Talk about tough environments, his expected say percentage in his limited appearances with the Blue Jackets this year is 869. I repeat, 869. and he's outperforming it at a clip that is actually, like it's not,

he hasn't got enough sort of shots to qualify at the same level, but if we were to erase sample size, he's actually the only guy in the league that's outperforming Logan Thompson. So when he's up and I found, like you're going to have ups and downs and there's been a couple games maybe, but like almost every time he gets an opportunity,

he's ready for it and he looks and excels in it. So, I mean, this puck handling stuff, yeah, we saw what Ned, did with the empty net degree of difficulty on that by the way like we've seen a bunch of empty netters but like having to go behind it like these these kids can all chuck it you're going to see

more goals and the more important thing is what they can do to help teams get out of their own end and certainly buying yourself time I haven't seen the fake a hard rim and then make a pass but a lot of the best have talked about body

language looks off just like a defenseman you know looking off a guy and then passing the other way. Anything you can do to create more time and space for yourself as a goal tender, but also for your players to get out of their zone cleanly. Jet would be a part by the sounds of it of this next generation that, you know, I think it's just going to become increasingly important. You're going to have to be a hell of a puck stopper.

Yep. To be completely illiterate as a puck handler and get opportunities in the NHL in the next five to 10 years. Like there are guys who got here and everything's changed and they've just tried to get better as they go because they'd already established themselves. But I mean, if you don't have some of this in your toolbox and you're not working on it as a young goaltender,

I think you just, you know, it's something, it's a box that doesn't get checked for you that get checked for so many other guys that it's that much harder to keep climbing. That's why I really wanted. I'm sure you saw that clip speaking of Blue Jackets' goalies. It was a couple weeks ago now. But when Elvis took away Austin Matthews

a stick and then Austin Matthews picked up Elvis's stick and started playing with it and then the refs blew it down for using illegal equipment and giving them both penalties. But I just, I wanted to see him score a goal with a goalie stick. That would have been anything. Yeah, that would have been good. Unbelievable. On Greaves quickly and then we can move on. So they've sprinkled in 15 appearances for him over the past three years, right? And it's been kind of like spot starts. If they've had injuries, they call him up. It hasn't obviously been a regular run of games, he's faced 36.6 shots per 60 minutes have played in that time. The only goalie with five or more games played in these three years with more than that is Devin Cooley. And he was

on last year's Sharks team and that workload made him say that nothing matters because we're all going to die anyways. So that kind of tells you in terms of what Jetgreaves has had to face and the limited opportunity he's got and he's obviously done really well. So I think everyone is rooting for him, to wrap up this conversation on the young goalies, then we can kind of talk about the market and I want to talk to you more about Logan Thompson, especially because he obviously got that extension since the last time we spoke.

We've done a lot on Dostal already, so that's why I didn't include him on this. Dustin Wolf as well. I know you kind of brought him up in passing. I mean, we were talking too much more to add, but. You know, the one thing I want to talk about with Dustin Wolf is just, you know, I've mentioned this before, so it's not new to this audience, but watch and play.

I had a team come in here recently, after, I mean, a lot of times we have teams come through Alberta and then come into Vancouver afterwards. And I didn't ask for permission so I won't share the team or the coach, but like literally said he was talking with his goalies after about like, what is it that makes him so unique and so special? And one of the things, like his pace, his power, his ability to hold edges and get everywhere on his feet, as much as there's a skill set that's remarkable and it's tied to efficiency and tracking and biomechanics and all these things.

At the end of the day, he's a six-footer who almost never plays outside the blue ice. Like his depth management, and we can transition that to Logan Thompson, because I think it's one of the things that's changed in his game over the past, you know, late last season into this season. That's, to me, all the stereotypes about small goalies needing to be more aggressive, Dustin Wolf is destroying them right now. Not just by being a good six-footer, but by how he's having success. And he's also, I mean, his success has had such a transformational impact.

impact on that organization that they quite literally made a trade where they sent out a second round pick this year to bring in two roster players to help them. Now they were like, it was a unique circumstance because those guys were available because their team was kind of just done with them because of their relationship with the coach. They're in their mid-20s. So it wasn't necessarily a prototypical like trade a pick for a rental to help us the rest of the season. It's deeper than that. But if you told me at the start of the year that the flames were going to be in that position to begin with and not the other way around where they were selling off their veterans for futures, I'd probably would have said, wow, Dustin Wolf is having an insane season because that was the only path to success, and that's

exactly what's happened. So the fact that he's done it already from day one. There are lessons in how he's doing it. I'm curious to see how long it takes for other teams and other goalie departments to sort of pick up on this, because it ties into a couple of different guys we're going to talk to, we're going to talk about. Well, let's do Logan Thompson because since the last time, and we've spoken about him pretty much, I think, every time you've been on this year because he's just been on such a remarkable stretch. He gets this six-year extension, 5.85 per, which, first off, on a human note, is incredibly cool because he had the distinction of playing for less than the league minimum this year. The combination of him and Charlie Lindgren, another goalie that's

near and dear to our hearts that we spent a lot of time talking about last year gives them the best handom in the league for an incredibly efficient price. And that's very cool because we like both guys, but also we spend so much time talking about the value of having, like, alternating starts and optimizing performances when you use them. What do you got on Thompson? I'm going to let you cook here. Well, honestly, like, it's not, you know, it's not deep. As a matter of fact, and talking to the beat reporters that follow that team, he's talked about it with them before. Bailey mentioned this when she was in town with the capitals that he's mentioned this before.

but when we had him on the on the ingle radio podcast you know he talked about how much deeper he's playing and he said to us like hey like that's a sean burke thing and it was interesting i'm paraphrasing here i don't have the exact words but he basically said like yeah like if sean listens to this interview it'll be the first time he's heard me sort of like say that like i think there was some pushback on playing deeper in his net when he was in Vegas and now he sees he's It was late last year, he said that he started to buy into it and talking to, you know, Scott Murray, the goalie coach in Washington, you know, about that change because it was noticeable.

He was playing way, you know, way further back. Like a play will come down the wing on the wall and get to the hash marks. If it's an outside play and there's no net driver, he'll be on it. Like, he'll just sit there on his post. Like, he's not out and flowing. And there's a real sort of Sean Burke, philosophy and Scotty murray was saying that yeah like that that's where it comes from like he owes him like big thanks for that but the interesting part is I don't think he would necessarily

play I know he didn't play that way for large chunks of his time with Vegas so this is one of those ones that I think his underlying numbers have always been good there were times they were great obviously like we're talking shishderkin for heart trophy numbers right now that's how good his underlying numbers are because the environment's tough there um but I don't know if this is one where You could just look at the numbers and be like, oh, yeah, they said this was coming. You know, they were always good, but not this good. This is one of those goalies are voodoo things because there's a change that he makes that he didn't. For the first bunch of years, he was with the guy who normally makes his change in all his goalies.

And the relationship with Scott Murray, who had him in South Carolina with Washington in their ECHL franchise. Like all of these bonds and these relationships go in. into the success he's having in Washington, even their room and the way their sort of room has embraced him, but also I was in there. They're chirping them, right? Like, so happy for him to get the extension, but chirping them at the same time. Like, there's sort of, everything fits really well there. And I think the one thing that I took away from their visit here, beyond the technical and

the tactical adjustments that go back to the time in Vegas is that, you know, Scott Murray's really managing the person as opposed to just coaching the athlete, not trying to put everybody in the same box there. And Logan got a chip on a shoulder a little bit. I saw Bailey had a great sort of story about that that I read just the other day and really enjoyed. And it's just, I don't know that, I don't know that that chip works in every room for every team.

But it works there. It works with this relationship with this goalie coach. And if they can continue to get this performance out of him, that contract is going to an absolute bargain for the Washington Capitals for a long time. Well, it sounds like they're also any day now, a Charlie Lingren extension could be coming as well. I know they were worried. I know they were worried about announcing one ahead of the other.

And again, they practiced here after the game in Vancouver two days later. The day the contract was announced and I was there. And the first thing Ovechkin said, because you go to the captain to get a reaction for my NHL.com work. And the first thing he said was like very happy for him. and in the next breath, now I hope we get Chucky done because he's really important to the chemistry of that relationship in our locker room.

They see that in Washington. And I was really curious to see what those numbers would look like. If Kevin Weeks reporting is accurate, three and a half to four range, you're talking about resetting the market for 1Bs that have the ability, as Charlie has shown, to play a starter's role or workload at times. Like, those guys were two and a half before.

And I know the caps going up, But to see Kevin Lankin go from not being able to get a contract because he wanted, how many of the teams that said you're not worth $2 million last year would now sign him long term for two per. And that list is going to increase because I think Charlie Lindgren's contract could very well reset the market for his role. I think it already has. I mean, I think obviously I think the goalies who signed at the start, like in the offseason and the start of this year that we spoke a lot about, certainly entered the year in a higher status in terms of what they'd already accomplished in the league, but we already saw teams committing especially long years in terms of how far out those contract

extensions are to those guys. And then now seeing Thompson for as good as he's been get that six-year extension, I think teams are, I mean, I think part of it is looking at like acknowledging, looking at the market and kind of what's becoming available. And then with the cap going up, I think a lot of these teams are valuing, having security in terms of like budgeting so that you have those guys in place and you're not dealing with an open market where the bidding could get crazy on these guys, especially if their performances can continue. In hearing you bring that up, and this isn't meant to take away from how good Thompson's been and also Lingren as well, I've seen, I think there's something worth unpacking

with the environment they're playing in because I've seen the heat maps and the charts on the publicly available data, which skews much more in favor of, like, when Thompson's in net, they're just like, you're going to have to make a bunch of hard saves, and it's just red blobs everywhere, and then Lingrens has been much different. You and I were speaking during break in preparation for this, that the clear site portrays it differently where both guys have a pretty tough environments. I didn't pull up the heat map, but in terms of tough environments, they're both, you know, 884 expected for Logan and 880 for Charlie, so both below league average. And I think Logan's

actually is upticked here. little bit like around you know like a week ago i remember them both being like 880 881 range yeah i wonder part of this might be my eyes deceiving me because especially in hearing you talk about the adjustments or tinkering that thompson's done to his game he's making it all look so easy in terms of his positioning and everything that it's like it's making you think there was a much more harmless shot than it actually was because of his reaction to it well and and so so yeah like we used to hear but like the goalies that make it look easy because they're already there, they're already set, they're already square as the shot,

even on a quick shot after a pass, well, what does playing deeper do for you? And listen, we talk about depth and we think of depth as being relative to the goal line. So north-south. It's an east-west thing too. Like that's a big thing for Wolf. Like always sort of having something within the post

and not having to go, the game has never been more dynamic. What do they keep telling us? And it's all about laterals. So why are we playing the game the way we did five to six years ago as a goal tenor before this happened where we're making those positions we have to gain, the movements we have to undertake to catch up to those laterals further than they need to be.

And so, yeah, he would make it look easier. Now, the other element of Logan Thompson's game that needs to sort of be called out here, you can get caught too deep too. But Logan has such, like his ability to read releases and be reactive with his hands. and make saves look easier from deeper positions. Like, if you don't have great hands, it's not, and he does. And so that's the other, like, so yes, he puts himself in a position to always be in position, but then he's also got a really nice reactive game.

That's always been a sort of part of his package. It doesn't always look pretty. Maybe it's the catch right thing, but his ability to sort of react to open looks and read pucks off sticks that in, that we talk about. Hellenobach having an innate ability to know what's coming. Like Logan seems to have a lot of that. And he makes saves because of that. And now he's in a position to see those shots and use those skills with more time, more often.

The only addition that I have to this, and it's just kind of an anecdotal thing, I guess. And part of it is it's a chicken or the egg thing. It reminds me a lot of the conversation we were having about Thatcher, Demko, last year and the Canucks in the year they were having and what a charmed run it was for everyone involved. The top two teams this year in terms of time spent leading as a proportion of their game are the Winnipeg Jets and the Washington Capitals. Now you can make an argument that, I mean, those are, I mean, those are clearly the top two goalies in the league this year in terms of the Vesna market, and I'm sure the voting that will accompany it in Thompson and Hellebuck. So having a great goalie allows you to typically spend more time winning because you're not giving up bad goals early on. it gives your offense a chance to score.

But I feel like it's also this kind of like feedback loop or accumulating effect where once you're leading, I feel like your environment changes quite a bit as well, especially as you get later into games where you get to settle in. Generally, your team's playing back defensively, a bit more in the Capitals, especially are such a countering team where they like to sit back. And then as soon as you make a mistake, they counter off the rush. And so it's a great environment for a goalie that's playing as well as he is, already where you just get to sit back, you know where the shots are coming from,

and I wonder that's why I feel like the environment hasn't been as dangerous as maybe the expected save percentage you're citing. Because in watching the games, I wouldn't say that the Capitals are, you know, the L.A. Kings defensively, for example, but I also wouldn't be like. But they give up quality. Yeah. At least that's what the numbers say. Oh, it's interesting.

And a lot of times that's difficult, right? That's where, again, the other intangible, like the voodoo stuff. Yeah, like the Flyers goalies, you're mentioned. last time where it's like they don't face any shots but once they do it's... They're all high danger right, yeah, like some of the lowest expecteds in the league, I think last time I was in there's like four of the lowest six were flyers goalies and yet I hear

people ripping on the flyers goalies. I'm like, those two things don't add up. You're right though. There's anecdotal to this and that's where sometimes it's tough to figure out because not every goalie can handle the environment where they're not busy, right? We talked about that with Blackwood. One of his biggest adjustments. Talked

him a little bit about it. You know, like, that was a tough one for him, not being busy. But then when you still have to make the grade A, hey, you get six grade A's a night. You got to stop or eight grade A's a night. It's a lot easier if you also have 20 easy shots that get you into the game, whereas versus Colorado, you get maybe five because they're at the other end dominating for long stretches. Oh, man, I wish we weren't out of time. That's a common refrain from me, especially every time you're on.

But we had this question about, like, handedness for goalies and how that's influenced. I'll be quick. All right, Adam asks, is there any data that suggests that goalies are weaker at dealing with one-timers on their glove side versus their blocker side? The only reason why I bring this, especially on the power play, the reason why I bring this up is because obviously the two caps goalies have the distinction of catching with the opposite hand compared to pretty much every single one of their peers in the league. I'm curious because I feel like most one-times on the power play are coming from the left circle off of a right shot. and as the goal is moving from their left to their right, whether that creates some sort of a dynamic in terms of likelihood of where the puck's going to go

and then how you can react to it with your glove versus your blocker and whether, I don't know, is your experience as a goalie whether you find one more challenging than the other? As a goalie, personally, I find them all challenges. This whole puck being shot at me as a challenge. I don't have the data back in up, so I'll start with that. But anecdotally, most goalies have a side they move to better. And for most, it's they move for their glove better than their blocker.

Now, that said, even if you move better to that side, if you get caught moving, like in a power play situation where that one-timer is, everything's been set up to, and we talk about traffic, quite often the traffic isn't just about the shot, it's about hiding a pass so that you're late getting across for that one-timer. The tendency for a goaltender is to lose their hands a little bit as they move. And it's more likely because of the stick, for a goalie to sort of drop their glove down by their hip

into more of a blocking mode as they move to their glove side, whereas the nature of the stick keeps the blocker a little higher, even if you're dropping and sliding. And so maybe you maintain a little more upper reactive, even though you don't necessarily move as well to your blocker as you do to your glove. I think those differences with this younger generation are less pronounced. Right.

For sure in the past, I used to do scouting breakdowns and to be like, this guy clearly, like there's no rotation in his game to his right but he moves to his left great like there were real obvious discrepancies for a lot of guys we don't see that as much anymore but there is a little more tendency as you move especially as you slide to maybe lose your glove as opposed to keeping your blocker up as part of that for a lot of guys so i think mostly like so if you're going to your glove side and it's a short side shot that absolutely can be a tendency you can there there's i'm not going to say the goalie but But there was a goalie that got a late run in the playoffs a few years ago,

and he had a lot of success. And as often happens in the playoffs, everybody tries to build a scout, like, where do you shoot? Like high glove, little. And literally, if he was set and stationary, you should have been shooting low glove all day. And the data backed it up and the eye test backed it up. But if he was sliding or moving, he would drop that glove.

And that's when you needed to route the puck high. and the team kept doing the opposite. They'd get open looks and they'd try and beat him high glove and essentially shoot right to where he was holding it. It didn't even have to move it. And then when they got him sliding and moving, they were shooting low glove. And he was making all these saves.

And I'm like, I couldn't figure out whether it was a really bad scouting report or whether the team just wasn't executing. But everyone in the sort of media market was like, or the analysis was like, oh my God, this glove hand's unbelievable. I'm like, yeah, because you keep freaking shooting right at it. But like it can get that in. depth, right? Like what side he moves to, it's not just about high glove, low glove, quite often, it's the situation. Is he moving? Is he set? And the scouting group report can be different based

on whether you've got a guy moving or set. And honestly, short of playoffs, I don't think anybody ever pay enough attention to it to exploit that. But those are, that just goes to show you how in-depth teams are looking at these things. And obviously, goalies, as soon as they hear these things, are trying to figure them out and counter them. I love that. All right, Kevin, we got to get out of here. We ran out of time. I could go for another 50 minutes with you. you, we're going to have you on after the Four Nations, uh, and we'll revisit. I've still got other topics and I'm sure by then we'll have plenty more to add to it. Everyone check out Kevin is in goal online, Ingole magazine as well, all your work at NHL.com.

Thank you for listening to us. If you want to join the Pidiogas Discord, which as I said is a very pro Kevin Woodley community, hopefully he'll join us there one day as well. Invite link is in the show notes to join us and you can get in questions for the next time we have them in studio. That's all for today. We'll be back Friday with a couple more shows to close out the week. Thank you for listening to the Hockey P.Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.