The Hockey PDOcast - The Strengths and Weaknesses of Goalies in Round 2

Episode Date: May 9, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to break down the strengths and weaknesses of the remaining goalies in the NHL postseason, and the ways their round 2 opponents can try to exploit them offensively. 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.

Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dmitri Filipovich and joining me to close out the week in style, my good buddy, Kevin Woodley. Woodley, what's going on, man? Not much, not much. You know, you would think that things get less busy when the local team's not playing, but I find that things have been busier. So I guess it's because it's all this good playoff hockey we've been watching.

Yes, and that's what we're going to do here today. I wanted to have you on. It's been a while since we chatted. We haven't gone to do this yet in the playoffs. And one of my favorite things to do with you is to get into the nitty gritty of goalie tendencies. I think there's a lot of unfounded claims on a lot of these broadcasts and certainly online. And when you see a goalie struggle in a particular way, the narrative takes shape and then people run with it. You're actually one of the few people I trust that's qualified to break this stuff down in an intelligent manner.

And so what I want to do with you today is go through the relative strengths and weaknesses. from every round two perspective. Kind of looking at offense versus defense, where the goalies involved are most vulnerable, almost conduct a little bit of a pre-scout of our own. Obviously, we've gotten to see one and two games of every matchup so far and round one, of course. But I want to get into all these guys

that are playing such prominent roles in the postseason and discuss what you're seeing, what teams should be trying to target, where they can exploit them, all that good stuff. Do you want to start out west and get into Hellebuck v. Saundjer because it feels like Connor Hellebuck for mostly bad reasons has dominated a lot of the conversation this postseason. And I really want to get into all that with you and break it all down step by step. Yeah, sure.

All right, let's do it. So, Connor Halebuck, the book in round one was his difficulties with screens, tips, traffic, kind of dealing with everything. The Blues were thrown at him. Chaos, essentially, right? Because he's such a technically. sound goalie. He's almost made in a lab from that perspective of like if you can see the shot and get to it, he's going to do it. Once you start adding all these variables that are very prevalent in the playoffs of lateral movement east-west because the teams just get so much more

efficient offensively as you get later into the postseason. And then obviously all the net front traffic and chaos with teams just throw in the puck of the net hoping they get one of those classic bounces to go their way. We saw the Blues do that a lot of him, his save percentage, I believe, was 830 in that series. He got pulled in all three games that they played in St. Louis. It looked like it was really going to culminate in disaster in Game 7 in Winnipeg last weekend. And then he bounces back. Obviously, the Jets themselves score those incredible two goals at the end of regulation to give them a chance to do so. But I thought, and Drans and I recorded right after the final buzzer, and my lasting impression was I thought he did a

remarkable job of stabilizing himself, especially in that overtime. The Blues only had a handful of shots, but all of them were essentially really good looks from dangerous areas with shooters that should be able to beat a goalie cleanly, and he just stared them down and stopped them and gave the Jets a chance to win. And so now, especially as we get into this Star series that pose different threats from offensively, I want to talk to you a little bit about kind of what they can do to replicate that and whether they're poised to do so or whether this might be a series where he actually can get back to the same percentage levels that I think we've become accustomed to from Conner

Hella. Okay, so there's so many different layers we can peel there. Let's go to the overtime. What did all those looks have in common? All the saves were he stabilized himself. What did they have in common? You could see them. And they were straight lines. Right.

And so interestingly enough, I thought the broadcasts missed kind of a key point in that they talked about him taking ice and how confident he was. And the truth is, at his most confident, he doesn't even need to take that ice to make those saves. there was a certain element of, and Mark Andre Fleury was like this, I'm just going to get out and get closer to it because more I cut down that angle, the more likely it hits me. Now, it wasn't as pure as that, because clearly he controlled rebounds on those.

But Hellebockhead is absolute best, doesn't need to come that far out on those clean looks. And I know other people, other goalie people on social media pointed out in the overtime, like, wow, like if I'm the blues here, I'm passing out of those because he's stranded. And so it was interesting to sort of see the narrative and then see where he got praised with that sort of not really an understanding or maybe not willing to recognize it, that that's not,

that's not Hellebuck rediscovering his form and what makes him great. In that moment, that was him finding a way to get through it using his size and straight line attacks. He might be the best goalie in the world. I've argued this for years. In straight lines, there's nobody better. So in some ways, those chances play. into his strengths and he actually came out of his usual self, usual form to make those saves. But he found a way. To rewind it back to what plagued him in that series, you talk about technical

and all those elements for sure. There's a, there's a, he's got the size and there are a lot of elements to his game that are sort of how to manuals. But what separates him during the regular season is his ability to process the game. And I've used this line with you before. It's one of my favorites, and people have probably heard it a lot over the last little while because Conner's been in focus. Dominic Hasch had a brain like a computer and a body like a slinky,

and Helibuck has the brain like a computer. I've had the pleasure of sitting down and doing video with him. I've talked to Wade Flaherty, their goaltending coach, about the things he recognizes and how early he recognizes them in video. Eric Comrie, same thing. Like, he anticipates and picks cues up as to what's coming next like nobody else in the game today. And so how do you take that away from him?

That's with chaos. That's with screens. You basically take away his single biggest asset. I shouldn't say single biggest, but maybe the separator, right? Other than size. Now, is it just the opponent taking it away? Or does his team play a role in that? And I think you can make a fair argument without taking any of the blame off him

because he wasn't good. Like, he did better against screens and broken plays in the regular season than he did in the playoffs. Like, he struggled more with those types of chances. Now, I think you could probably start to break down all the film on every type of chance he, like every screen and every broken play he faced in the regular season versus the playoffs. And there's an intensity level that's achieved when teams target that in the playoffs that we don't see in the regular season. nobody is completely changing their game plan and going to the net with the level of determination we saw in the Blues on a Wednesday night in Winnipeg.

It's just one of 82, right? So there's an element there. But within that, teammates have to do what they're supposed to do as well. And I think we saw, and I'm going to, this is not to call out Brandon Tannaf, but I think a lot of people saw it on the broadcast because the broadcast called him out for going out to the point

and not blocking a shot on what. ultimately ended up being a screen goal. I will rewind that a step further. I don't want to blame him for not blocking a shot. It happens. But he doesn't even go out in the right lane. And you and I have talked about screens. So if I'm a goalie and screens are, you know, we know teams are trying to target my screens, there are rules within my system and within the system in front of me. I have short side on a stationary screen. I will take the short side. That's my sight line. For multiple reasons we've talked about before, the puck can get into the net on the short side, faster they can get in in the middle. There are more bodies in the middle of the ice. It's more likely to hit people there. It's sort of like a, if I have to pick a side to cheat on, I'm cheating short side.

That means my players need to be in the, part of that is other players being in the other lane. And so if you look at that play, for example, Tanaf, like, yeah, he doesn't block the shot. And that was a good, you know, he got called out for it on a national broadcast. But I don't even think he goes out in the right lane. And so when you start to add those elements up, and don't discount what the blue did, the pace with which they created that chaos. I think these things all kind of snowballed on him a little bit. And the book is written. Maybe it gets written in the playoffs more than any other time. Seelovs, comma, Artur's for the Vancouver Canucks last year, and the success he had and how it got attacked by the end of the second round and how now he's, you know, by the end of this year,

he wasn't even an NHL goalie in the regular season because teams had identified that. And hella buckets to the nth degree. We can get into some specifics on why that is and what your goal should be beyond just create chaos, like where his mental gifts and physical limitations cross and what you should be trying to do to target that and whether the stars can. But if you're a Winnipeg Jets fan listening to this right now and you're like, oh, my goodness, this sounds like a cavalcade of bad news, I actually thought he was really clean in game one. I know you lost to the stars. Yeah.

But I thought he was clean and I thought they kept the game cleaner in front of him. and allowed him to get back to the reeds and the execution that make him so special. That make him a first ballot Hall of Fame. Like, we're there already. Second straight, Vesna, third Vesna trophy overall. Like, he's going straight into the Hall of Fame. Like, we're there, and he's halfway through his career, right? And so part of this is him figuring this out.

Part of this is the team figuring out how to play in front of him. And doing the things they did in the regular season, box out, clear out, let him see Pucks in the playoffs too. because I thought the other thing by the end of that series is gap control off rush chances. And again, the blues attack off the rush and counter off the rush as well as anyone, so maybe a bad opponent that way. But the gap control got soft. And with that, guys, rather than letting him see some of those open looks,

there was that, oh, I got to help my goalie out here, I better reach him with the stick. And now the stick, even if it doesn't deflect the puck, is taking away his eyes from the release. And if you take his eyes off the stick blade and don't allow him to see a release, you are again taking away from one of the things make him so special.

Well, it's funny because you and I have spoken a lot about how the landscape in the NHL has been trending towards this nightmarish scenario for goalies where teams are just getting smart. Obviously, there's the prevalence of skills coaching and everything we've documented and everyone coming into the league just so much more apt at shooting and shooting off the pass and all this stuff that offensive players are looking for. But in particular, like, we've seen volume go down across the league as teams start wasting fewer shots and trying to be more deliberate about where they're getting the puck

and then the types of shots that are coming from that we've seen that raised to the end degree this postseason where shots are all the way down to about 26 shots per hour on average by team that's down from like it was 31 two years ago now down to 30 28 in the regular season now all the way down to 26 and we're seeing there's been some of these games where you look in the third period and shots are 17 to 14 halfway through the third and you're like man this is a pretty tricky spot for a goalie because not only are they getting fewer looks here, but as you get later into the postseason, the teams are just generally better offensively as well in terms of the personnel they have. And so you look at that matchup for

hell about against the blues. And I know people don't typically associate the blues as being this powerhouse offensively, but they've for years now under multiple coaches been a team that is lower volume, lower quantity, but higher quality in terms of East West stuff, especially with their top guys when Kyru and Thomas are out there, they're passing up potential shot opportunities for a good look into a great look all the time, all the counter stuff and rush, as you mentioned, and then you add the screen element,

and not to make excuses, but it was almost a compounding of all these factors that would make it a clean environment, more chaotic or more tricky, and then lumping them all together in that spot. Yeah, and the real challenge here right now is sort of, especially, you know, we talked about this during the regular season, like teams don't weigh shots,

and to your point, it's to the nth degree now, and then those that are taking them, you know, if you're at this point down to the last eight teams, chances are there's more guys with the ability to execute and finish them that are actually taking the ones that are dangerous. So it gets harder and harder. So the challenge is to look at the statistics in this small sample and sort of know how much to make out of it. I will give you this, though. We talked about Connor Hellebock, Andre Vasselowski, Calvin Pickard, having three of the highest expected say percentages in the regular season by Clearside Analytics. So by definition, at least statistically, the easiest environments.

Well, Hella Bucks dropped by 15 points in the playoffs. Now, did he outperform or sorry, underperform that to an even, you know, more significant level? Yes. But the environment did erode in front of him from a quality perspective as well. All right, enough foreplay. Let's get into what the stars do. I want to get into some of their trademark plays that we've seen early this postseason

and then how that relates to Hellebuck and maybe how they can counteract that. The first one, and I thought the broadcast on Thursday night, because they were, we'll talk more about Pickard later, but he got beaten a couple times where the Golden Knights would work the puck down low on the power play, essentially get it to the goal line, the stone at the right side of the net, and then he would send this cross-ice pass to Oliveson at the right circle, and they were wondering whether it's a defense's job who's covering the slot to also prevent that pass or whether Pickard himself needs to get the paddle down and try to prevent that lane from being there. Within the context of that conversation, they were highlighting what

the stars did to McKenzie Blackwood. And they were kind of, Elliot Freeman was noting that when the puck's on his glove side, Blackwood, his tendency is to use his paddle to kind of block five-hole, and he likes to keep it there, instead of actually making it more available to prevent a pass along the ice. And so the stars were executing this really nifty play. They scored ultimately the series winning goal by Wyatt Johnston in Game 7 late on the power play. And that one, they executed a couple other times if you go back earlier on in that series where Matt D'Shaun would be sort of the net front screener right and he would be deep enough in the crease or right on the edge of it to push blackwood back pretty much up against his goal line and then in a one motion he would essentially pop out to the

side of the net get a pass down low from Randinen and immediately within that motion send it along the ice between the goalie and the last defenseman back for a one-timer for Wyatt Johnston and I'm curious for your take on how that sort of translates into this series, whether that's something, obviously these teams are doing a lot of tape in terms of what work for teams and what did it and what they can expect, but sort of the expectation for the stars using that particular set play on the power play against Connor Hellibuck and this Jets team. Well, I'll start by saying that if you can go low lateral, like, it's funny because like one of the things you said there were like that Duchesne pushes him down to his goal line. The reality, if the puck is anywhere,

probably dots down, certainly down below, down near the bottom of the circle, I mean, where else is a goal going to be? He's going to have a skate on a post, right? Unless that guy is squared up and their system is, let's let him have that shot, they might overlap the post and square up on that guy. But chances are you've got him in his net play system anyways. And I'll play devil's advocate on the given take of cutting that pass off because we've seen other goleys and it's been in my NHL.com pre-scouts.

the guys that are more active with their stick in terms of cutting that pass off tend to reach. So as soon as I reach one way with my stick or have to have my stick out there, it prevents me or delays me from getting across if the pass succeeds. So maybe you force them to pass it over the stick,

but either way, if they execute that pass and I'm reaching to block that pass, I am not getting at all to the other side. And so sometimes, so sometimes, and there were different results on that. Like there were times where I thought the push off the post and the execution there wasn't clean. And so come out rather than post to post.

And as soon as you push out, you lose your short side seal. You don't get across like that. It's more of a push and out rather than a bump across. And again, there are a lot of different factors. Maybe you're anticipating that pass out to DeShane. So you're thinking about getting out on him. So your weight shifts forward and now you're not clean to your backside. Quite often the inside edge that you use.

to sort of activate a reverse is also your rudder for where you move out of a reverse to go. So there's a lot of different things. And to the broadcast point, the goalie coaches will break down every element of this, right? And so if the stick is in tight, we know we can have that pass, but it also means the goalie's probably going to get there. So the guy on the other end of that pass has to make sure it's a one-timer elevate and short-side high because he's going to get a pad there. I think there were times where neither one happened for the goaltender.

So to get it back to Hellebuck, it all goes back to the read. And so I actually thought they executed. There's one they executed, and I don't know that it was the same play, but there was a backdoor to the right side early in that game and game one of the second round where he stayed within his net play system

and just made a simple shift post-to-post and got it with a blocker on him. It made a great A scoring chance to look like a really easy save. And so to me, when I talk about his ability to move and his ability to read, a lot of it is predicated

and a lot of it is higher in the zone off trying to get him off his skates he actually moves I don't think he gets enough credit for how well he moves on his skates there's an efficiency to it if he makes the read you know and he's not committed to something else he gets across really efficiently

once you get him on his knees in a butterfly there are physical limitations that almost echo not quite to the same, but like Stuart Skinner, we've talked about the narrow butterfly. Like Connor Hallowick doesn't have a super wide natural butterfly, which means to go east-west from his knees,

to go laterally from his knees once you get him down there, there are delays. It is not as smooth. There's not as much coverage along the ice. And the play you're describing, unless you get him to push out to the pop pass, so you would have to, I would almost waste one off that pop pass if I'm disdain,

early to make sure he's honoring and committing to it. If you keep him on his, if he can stay on his post in those moments, even if he's using post-execution that puts him on his knees, as opposed to into a traditional butterfly and then recovery, I think that benefits him in terms of being able to sort of stay over his knees and balance and upright is once you get him on his knees and more of a reactionary butterfly that some of those physical limitations can be exploited.

It's actually kind of remarkable that this guy is headed to the Hall of Fame and had the success he has. And I've had this discussion with people that work with him given all those physical limitations. And again, that part of that is his ability to read and anticipate. So if this play you're talking about in particular with Deshain sort of coming down low and flexing out as a bumper becomes in any way predictable. And I guarantee you Winnipeg's pre-scouted at two and you can allow him to stay controlled behind it, I don't know that it benefits you as much as defensemen who can throw sifters from the point with multiple layers of traffic and then win the battles in front of the net for second chances, much like St. Louis did. And again, that gets back to the Jets, not doing that in the playoffs as well as they did in the first round. Well, and the stars can throw so many looks at you on the power play one.

And it really all hinges on, I mean, Harley's ability to get shots through is very key. And he's done such a good job of quarterbacking that, assuming Miro Haskin's role of the other that unlocks it is just how poised. Wyatt Johnson is within that chaos and the one play I'm looking for particular is that sort of teed up slap slap pass into the high tip where Wyatt Johnson cooks in the middle of the ice as well on the power play we saw them do that a couple times against the abs as well now you bring in Jason Robertson both guys sort of went to the school of Joe Pavelski over the past couple years and so they execute that really well we got to move on though because I was in real quick high tip for him again as long as his reads are there because he's so patient on his skates if he can build that

confidence because I do think we saw some of the confidence erode to the point where there uncharacteristic moments in the blues series where that line between anticipation and guessing got crossed and he was moving one way as the guy was cutting back the other where his read was off and he went early if he can get back to and I saw more signs of it in game one against Dallas that patient sort of hold your edges approach his game normally sets up very well especially with his size to react and not over commit on a high tip We've got to keep moving. We promoted this as covering as many goalies as we can.

It's not just the Connor Hellebug show, although I think there's so many moving parts there. On the other side. He's a fascinating case study. Very fascinating. That's why we started off with the Jake O'Doninger on the other side. Has a 9-14 percentage in these eight games. I'd argue he's played even better than that

because you go back, go by goal in that Ave series. At least three or four times, it was this outrageous series of events with a bicycle kick, shots off off defenders, stuff that he just had no control over, some backdoor tips as well, and then a few just kind of Nathan McKinnon from the left flank beating him one-on-one. I thought he was remarkable in that series. I thought it was an important one for him as well to get under his belt because you and I have spoken about Audinger in the past in terms of reputation based off of that series he had against

Calgary in seven games, particularly that game seven overtime a couple years ago, and then how his performance or maybe efficiency has started to overreesome. road or slip a little bit as some of these post seasons have gone on with the stars playing into the West Final seemingly every year. I'm curious to see kind of how this continues, whether he can keep playing that well. Do you have any takes or observations on what you've seen from Auditor and kind of whether he's answered some of the questions you've had? Because I think you and I have had some spirited debates over the years now, really, we've been doing this together for a long time, where I keep putting them into that elite tier. You've always given me a little bit of a pushback,

partly environment driven as well. We saw what Casey the Smith did there when he was called upon this season as well. It's obviously undoubtedly been a good spot for goalies. But what are you seeing from Jake Onger so far this postseason? One, I'd just like to add the caveat that it's not, it is when I, my pushback is not at all based on what he's capable of. No. I mean, he's a pro-tipal. Yeah, no, it's just what the numbers tell you.

And they don't, the eye test looks spectacular at times. I mean, he's got the frame, he's got the, like, he's just got the perfect package. yet the results relative to environment just haven't always matched what public perspective is. So that's why we give it to you. And this might be one of those cases. Like right now he's expected is 905, one of the highest ones in the playoffs. He's outperformed it by 0.2, which kind of puts you in the 10 range of guys that have played in the postseason, although a handful of those guys only got so, handful of those guys

only got a few, you know, like relief appearances. So he's six amongst guys that have started. That seems a bit high for me based on how that round one. in series transpired. I know the stars did a phenomenal job, especially from games two to seven, of tightening down and being very disciplined positionally and limiting the Azrush opportunities. I would just think based on what we saw in games four and six alone, that it would be much lower than that because I feel like the quality of those was insane. He got better as a series went on. And I haven't gone game by game on this to see how the high danger chances stack up.

But this, I mean, it can seem as high as it wants. This is objective, right? Like there's no subjectivity to this. Those are what the numbers are for the first round. And I think what I saw and what the numbers looked at like he got, he did get better. Like early in that series, he was underperforming that environment. The environment got tougher. That's the interesting, like, it looked

like the environment got tougher and he had more of those saves. Like his numbers overall in high danger stuff are actually below expected. But towards the tail end of that series if we were to split them, that's where you get these big moments and these big saves. We'll get to Calvin Pickard in a minute. Like Calvin Pickard, high danger stuff, is one of

best in the league right now. That's what's separating him right now. And we saw it last night in game one, in game two. So, um, again, it's a tiny sample. I think he's played better than that. I would agree completely with that. And, and yet the math is the math, right? Like, what do you, what's your one reservation in terms of if you were the jets? Is there anything specifically beyond just the usual sort of boxes you're looking to check that you would be trying to target where you see a potential either physical or technical limitation that you would be like, all right, this is one area where you can maybe go after it? It's not, I don't see limit.

There's not many limitations in Jake Godinger's game. For him, it's more tendencies and trends and can you exploit them. He used to play, he used not have a lot of rotation in his game. And so on rush retreats, he would flatten out and you could beat him clean on the far side. I actually think when I looked at the video this year, he's improved that a lot. And his retreats, he stays on angle a lot better through his retreats. And so it's actually, there's not a ton there. the two tendencies I would try to exploit would be when he goes from a mid high to mid stance

or high or mid stance so as you're moving around you don't want to be too locked low and wide when he gets into his safe stance it can be distinct at times like a real widening out of the feet underneath him and a sitting down into a lower stance and so he has patience out of it So he lowers and he widens, and you might think there might be more space up top because of that. But he actually, with the way he holds his glove and when he's on, his patience there, like he just kind of bates you to shoot it right into you or right into that coverage. The truth is, once he widens out, that's when you need to move it laterally. Because as soon as you widen out into that dug-in safe stance,

and because that motion for him is a little more distinct to the eye, I'd be trying to hold and then that's when I try and make my plays, because it's harder for him to move laterally out of it. That's one. And then the other thing off screens and tips and deflections is a tendency from that stance to rather than shift laterally to slide. And that's where you see him get out of his net. And that's where you see him once he's outside of his posts.

You can almost go around him, susceptible to wraps on those things, bank shots, because he doesn't play inside his post online. He doesn't automatically recover inside. his pose. And for a guy as big as he is, as well as he executes postplay, you know, I almost wonder if there might be times where that would be a better default option for him rather than the scrambles that result from him getting caught. Kind of losing his net is an oversimplification, but in a way it looks like, it kind of looks like losing his net. And so that's, that's one of the thing, I mean, again, that's one of the things you can try to go after how you generate offense and

whether you come outside of what you do best to try and generate that, you know, becomes the question. But some of the tells that used to be there or some of the obvious ones that used to be there in terms of like far side off the rush and things like that, I actually think he's kind of evolved a little bit and does a much better job on those. All right, let's take our break here. When we come back, we'll jump right back into it.

We're going to speed round the rest of the goalies. You're listening to the Hockey Pee-Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the HockeyPediocast, joined by Kevin Woodley. Kevin, let's get into Pickard v. Aden Hill. I'm fascinated by this one, and I want to get your takes on it.

Let's start with Hill. Because something I was just obsessed with in round one against the Kings was the Oilers' ability or their approach to getting the puck into the net front and then crashing and turning it into a scrum and scramble and then their ability to come out of that chaos with efficient offensive plans. Now, I think a lot of that was enabled by the fact that Darcy Kemper seemed to forget how to use his glove in that series. and you go back and watch it, and there were a number of either dump-ins or kind of like shots that had no intentions of actually scoring that otherwise you'd like to see them

just hold on to, freeze, live to fight another day, get a face off, and instead it would drop in front of them and then it would just ensue. And we already saw in game one, it was a bit of a different circumstance, kind of a challenging one, but I forget who it was in the Oilers,

but they kind of like, a puck gets floated into the air, inhale reaches up to go to grab it, it tips off his glove, Leon Dre Seidel circles around the net, Eden Hills trying to scramble to get to his post, laterally, and dry Cytle, niftily banks it off his pad and in. There have been a couple other examples in round two

where a shot that I thought probably could have been frozen was all of a sudden turned into this scrambly scenario for him. And so I'm curious if you have any takes on that, both from a Kemper and Hillfront or what the Oilers are doing there or whether that's someone to watch for moving forward. Because, I mean, the Oilers are so good at getting these second, third opportunities

off these rebounds. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm trying to think of the examples, like, because these guys can all catch, like, uh, I just feel like some of these, like, maybe it's being a bit unfair. From my perspective, I know you're a huge Darcy Kemper guy and he was phenomenal. Oh, it deserves the best, and not, 100%. Like, at the end of the day, we talk about numbers and everything and narratives. The reality is Darcy Kemper's goal saved above expected was actually better than

Connor Hellebuck and Andre Basilevsky's this year. He was phenomenal in the regular season. I feel like with him and Hill, one of their limitations, and the strengths are very obvious. They're massive individuals, and they take up a lot of the net, is in some of these spots where the puck's kind of down low and they're needing to stabilize the situation, they can be a bit clunky or clumsy because of their size,

and I wonder if that's an area the Oilers are exploding. I think, you know, hails a bit of a different conversation because I thought he struggled in round one against Minnesota. The public... Statistically, he struggled in, yeah, throughout. Well, the public numbers really don't even paint it in the proper life, because I think like evolving hockey, I reference this on a recent show with Harmon, have him at about like negative two and a half or so goals he above expected.

Sport logic has him all the way down at negative nine through eight games. And he had the two really bad ones off the rush against Port Coles and Nurse, which he should have. They're very straight line rush shots. They kind of just leak through him. Yeah, those are low danger chances that shouldn't go in. But even in that Minnesota series, there were a couple where there was some wraparounds. There was ones where he was asked to move laterally.

I know that one area of concern you've expressed with his game in the past was for all the talk of the golden nights packing the house and preventing slot shots, those down low ones, right? Whether it's kind of coming out from behind the goal line or below the dots and then lateral stuff off of that and how that relates to his game. And we've seen that exploited a couple times more so in round one than we have so far because a lot of the Oilers goals in this series through two games have just been kind of clean rush shots that either had a pass preceding it or just straight in. and through... Well, I mean, so what's the common denominator from a lot of those clean rush shots? And we talked about this during the cup run. They're into the middle of the ice

and higher in the zone where you can sort of really go after the hands. He is typically good on East West down low. That's where he's at his best and that's what they would give up during the cup run. But they didn't give up the high stuff in the zone and they are in this series so far and in the playoffs so far

and that's been a struggle. Like, it's funny because you talk about, you know, pop passes and lateral plays, like I would, if I was trying to give plays that score on any goalie, moving them off their post vertically up the ice and then making a lateral pass, especially if it's got a down element to it in terms of making them come up, off their post up to the top of the crease, and then rotate back to the far post, especially off a one touch pass. That would be how I would draw it up on every guy, because it

gets you out of post play. If you just go straight across the middle and it's supposed to post shift and a reverse, every goalie in the NHL should be able to do it. Although interestingly enough, I wouldn't list post-play and integration as a strength necessarily for either Hill or Pickard. There's times where it gets sloppy. So those are scoring chances that I think are just tough on anyone. If you can get a goalie moving up and then shift it back down the other way. So, I mean, I've talked to this with goalie coaches about this a lot over the last. And that's sort of your low high pop pass on a lateral.

Like just add that to any goalies mix and they're probably going to struggle. the degree to which probably depends on the guy. In terms of the way they're targeting Hill, like right now, I'm honest with you, there was a couple points in the playoffs where I'm like, I wonder if we see Akirish Mid here. Like it just hasn't been, it hasn't looked the same, it hasn't felt the same.

There were moments, actually, I thought, ironically, on a night where they lose in overtime where I thought he got better, the five on three in overtime, you know, playing deep, tracking, moving into shots without over committing, staying over his knees. Like that's the Aden Hill that I remember winning a Stanley Cup.

And I think whether it's them doing stuff or him just doing it to himself, he's gotten outside of that control more often. And this just might be the dynamic nature of the Oilers than we're used to seeing. And Minnesota, like Caprizoff and Boldie, like they can do that to you too. And he's been, you know, get him off,

get him off balance is kind of a cute we talked about Hella Bucker what like they're all get him off balance and make it harder that way whether it's them or him he's been off balance more through two rounds of the playoffs than he was in the 2023 run for sure

and if he doesn't find that again like Akir Schmidt just hangs out on the goal line and is massive and has decent hands I wonder if they might change it up at some point I'll let you cook here on Calvin Pickard I thought he was excellent in game two. You know, the same percentage,

sub-900, I think it was 875 for the game. But then you watch some of the stops in particular. 11-9-9-danger. In the second period alone, I mean, he really kept them in it when it was down 1-0. I thought he was phenomenal. A couple early in overtime as well. Almost, it never doesn't look pretty, at least to my eye, but it's almost one of those throw the technique out and just get in front of the puck and find a way to keep it out of the net.

And he did that. I do wonder if we'll see, I thought to me, my eye, you know, he gives up the petrangelo point shot through layers of traffic, but it came right after Tomas Sherto comes through the crease kind of rolls up awkwardly around him. He looked sort of ginger getting up. And then after the breakaway or kind of partial break and rebound that he stopped in overtime, I thought to my eye he looked very tentative, getting back on his feet after that as well. I wonder with a day off and travel, once your body tightens up a little bit, it will see some potential repercussions physically from that. But I'm curious for your take,

in particular, because I think one area this Golden Knights team excels offensively beyond the power play stuff we saw and that stuff is lethal. There's not much you can really do there if those passes get through for Michael and Stone is when they're countering off the rush, they're probably the best team in the league right up there with Winnipeg and maybe Washington, in my opinion, at the quick sort of completely wide pass off entry to really space you out and then working their way back into the middle of the ice with the rush opportunity.

and I would have thought if it had been Skinner and net for the Oilers, that's one of his sort of documented weaknesses, those sort of lateral stuff quickly coming into the zone, and then the rush shots off of that. Do you think the Pickard is just better suited for this particular matchup with that relative strength of the Golden Knights offensively? He's been better on high danger chances.

He's actually one of the best goals in the playoffs on the high danger stuff. They've been a lot better up until last night and the final game against, like, so he's played what, six games now? Yeah, you came in game three. And in four of them, they've looked like the Oilers that went to the Cup final last year defensively. Like at the end of the day, the first two games, Skinner's expected say percentage was 8.72. He saw 19 high danger chances and he gave up nine goals. And so the narrative around it was like, well, they're giving up way too much.

In the first game of the playoffs, they gave up more high danger chances than expected goals against than they did in any single game on the way to the Cup final last year. but also the second part, and I'll admit this as a goal even if they take away the union card, is you're allowed to stop the tough ones too. And he didn't. He was nine goals on 19 high danger chances. In the next three games, Pickard saw 19 high danger chances, same amount as Skinner did in two. Only gave up three goals. Pickard's expected save percentage in those three games was 914.

So you got a 42 point difference in expected save percentage. but also a guy who's stopping more of the tough ones. And what's happened since then is the expected has come down around 900 because of those two games. Last night in particular, 11 high danger. And then that last game against the Kings, they went back to playing Lucy Goosey. And real technical term by me.

But he still made the really tough saves. Now his overall numbers are still underwater in a tiny sample relative to expected. He's still negative because he's still giving up low danger goals and medium danger goals. but at key moments, and Noblock has alluded to this, in key moments he's making really tough saves. And maybe this is, like, this is why I said in small samples, I don't know how to evaluate some of this stuff.

Calvin Pickert's been incredible. He's won six straight games. His numbers say he's below expected. But he's got the best high danger stuff or one of the best high danger stuff of all playoff goalies. So is it about moments? Is it about, you know, big saves and big moments? He's delivering.

that. He's delivering it at a level. And if you want to really break it down, like you said, he's delivering it on lateral plays that we've documented are a struggle for Stuart Skinner. Like that's, you know, relative strengths and weaknesses, move at east west, skating wise. And even if it doesn't look as pretty when Pickard's doing it, the results are there because he's getting there, right? And he battles. And so there's two parts to this equation to me. the Oilers defend better, despite those two games I just noted. Overall, they find their game. Like, they have looked in four of the six games he's started,

they've looked defensively like the team that went to the cup final. And they did not look like that team nearly enough this season, especially when Stuart Skinner was in that. So whatever reason, a Knoblock alluded to it between game three and four, they defend better for Calvin Pickard. Part of that is the saves he's making, like some of them. The one in game six against L.L. the back, like it, where they were the comeback that never happened, never should have even

come close, but the wild scrambles as it got closer. Like that right pad save was remarkable. Pure athleticism and pure battle. He battles for them and they battle for him. And as long as those two things stay the same, like, I don't see any reason they can't keep going this way. They need to have fewer of what they had last night. For sure.

Where they're, you know, 11 high danger and close to 4 against. Like, he still finishes that game slightly by the way. 0.03 of a goal under-expected. And that's what low-danger goals do to you. And he gave one up. And that's what mid-danger goals do to you. But you can't argue

with the momentum generated from the tough saves he's making. Like, it's remarkable. And so how you weigh that, I think the sample size is too small to just look at his expected save percentage and say, ah, he's still below expected because he's making the big saves

and the big moments that have them believing. I feel like that's kind of assuming they keep playing this way, and you mentioned that turnaround, that's kind of what they need in a way, though, because first off, they've been much more committed defensively, as you noted, but also they're just controlling the puck so much more often. Their five-on-five numbers have been ridiculous, and so you're going to get to these spots where the volume is going to be very low, but it's the oilers. And so, as well as they've been playing defensively, there's going to be comical breakdowns where the goalie's

going to be asked to just make a high-danger save. And as soon as you're, as long as you're getting those, I feel like you can throw the other stuff out because you're just not going to be asked to stop 25 point shots over the course of any one of these games. Yeah, and the interesting thing is, and this is, it's kind of hard to explain. Like, you talk about the screen goal on Petrangelo. Like, Pickard's screen numbers are some of the worst in the NHL. Like, that's actually, like, how you should be trying to score on them, according to the numbers.

But if you're the Vegas Golden Knights, are you going to be like, okay, let's just get it to the point and get a bunch of bodies there? You're going to keep trying to feed low laterals from Jack Eichel to, you know, to Olofson for one-timers. Like, statistically, that's a higher danger play. Yeah. But guess what? The other one goes in more on this guy.

So you're going to change how you play. You're just going to keep trying to create high danger and hope that at some point his ability to make those saves runs out or you're able to generate so many of those chances and not give up as many. And your guy starts to say, like at the end of the day, we talk about low danger stuff. One of the reasons nobody thinks about the low danger one that goes in on Pickard in game two is because Aiden Hill gave up two low danger chances himself. Yeah.

And it's a different game if that doesn't happen. I mean, I agree with you. Those screen numbers are interesting. As I've said for years now, Calvin Pickard and Connor Ellibuck are pretty much the same goalie. All right, let's end with this. Let's end with Florida, Florida, Toronto and talk Bobrovsky on one end, and now Joseph Wolk coming in for Anthony Stollars on the other. I was talking about this after game two of that series. The broadcast spent a lot of time kind of doing one of those breakdowns of where the goals against have gone in for Bobrovsky this season. I believe only four of them so far, and he's given up 19. through two games of round two, have come down low, none via five, all of it has been up top after Matthew Nye scored his breakaway goal to seal game one. He was talking in the press conference about the work the Leafs did in preparing for this and the emphasis on going high on Bobrovsky. None of this is necessarily groundbreaking material because we know how athletic and dominant

he is with his pads down low. Goleys typically, if you pick your spot up high, it's going to have a higher likelihood of going in, we all get that. Are you seeing anything from that? Either what the Leafs are doing, obviously they've been getting, because of the Panthers Forecheck, some of these, you know, break opportunities off the rush, overcommitment in the neutral zone, and then a two on one breakaway, three on two, so on and so forth. Those are going to be difficult shots for Brovowski. But whether it's that or the Marner goal in game two kind of rifles it in from essentially the wall above his blocker, I believe, anything you're seeing from there, or do you think there's

anything to it or is it just kind of a convenient thing where shooters are beating? Listen, it's convenient, but it's all based on the types of scoring chances. Like, it's funny when I do breakdowns, I don't look at where all the goals go in and be like, oh, that's where you got to shoot on this guy because chances are almost none of them are clean. Like you see these numbers over the glove and it's like you're thinking, oh, if you get a clean look, shoot it there or the blocker. Like are Bob's numbers high, lower? Yeah, because he plays low and wide.

But you better create plays that get him low and wide. in order to take advantage of it and then you have to finish high. I'll go back to Hellebuck. Hella Buc's high glove save percentage in the first round was 257. They scored 11 goals on 15 shots. Maybe my math is wrong on 2.

Maybe I'm misremembering, but it's in the twos. 11 goals on 15 shots. So if you're Dallas and you're like, oh, let's just rip them high glove on everything and you're coming down the wall and you think you're going to shoot high glove you know off a rush chance from the top of the circle and beat them, not happening. Like it's not happening.

statistically his high glove say percentage is 862 which may sound low to people but is way above the league average and the league average on high glove is around 800 you want to know why because most of those plays are not but they're it's usually they're taught to finish there yeah let's not clean down the rush if I go and tick the clean box like clean looks high glove like it's it's not going to be 800 it's going to be way higher because if you make a goalie move chances are like hellabuck holds his glove up or around his shoulder when he's in his set stance. Most goalies have gone to a little bit relative a higher glove position to take it away from shooters visually

or to just sort of hold it there on shots. You make the move, Pickard, for example, make a move east-west, a tendency is to drop the glove while they're moving, right? So if you get Bob working east-west out of that low stance, absolutely there's going to be more net up top. But you have to make the first part happen and then you have to execute.

I could argue if I bet you if I go and look back at the nine out of 11 that Calvin Pickard made on the high danger chances last night by Vegas, we could reverse engineer this and say, how many times did Vegas hit the top third of the net with those backdoor one timers? It's actually quite low. And so they're giving him a chance to get there, even if it's in scramble mode and the bottom's going to be taken away. And so, you know, the book would be the same on anyone, make them move,

and then hit the top corners. I think when you get a goalie like Bob with the playoff pedigree he has and the amount of book that's built on him because of all his time in the league, you just know this is what you have to do. And so good teams are more likely to execute on it. And listen to it.

On the Leaf side. So heading into that series, I expressed, not concerned, but I was like, I'm bookmarking this for later because Anthony Stollars is getting into the 40s now in terms of games played between the regular season and playoffs this year. He hasn't done that in his career since 2016, I believe, in the AHL.

Now, obviously, the freak accident with taking the puck off the helmet, off the rush shot, and then Sam Bennett coming through the crease and getting him in the head as well. And so he gets hurt. Joseph Wool comes into the series. I think last time I had you on, it was towards the end of the regular season. And you were giving me a stat about how all the tall performers at the position in the league were guys who essentially were fresh because they either didn't compete in four nations or they had a bunch of time off.

And so that kind of ties into workload. Now you look at Joseph Wool, I believe he's played 14 games between the start of February, February 1st, and his appearance in relief in game one of this round two series. I'm curious for your take on whether just that lack of workload is a positive in his favor in terms of freshness, especially against a Panthers team that you saw that in game two, it's going to be an absolute circus around the net. you're going to have to fight as a goalie to both the volume but also all the kind of havoc they're throwing in front of you with bodies and backdoor stuff and everything.

Whether that's going to be in his favor here, as I assume he's going to play at least games three and four for the Leafs in Florida with Stollars not traveling with a team. What are you seeing from Woolsofar? How does that stack up to what we were seeing from Stolars earlier in the postseason? Interestingly enough, like the Leifes are kind of like the Oilers. They have defended so well in these playoffs. despite the narrative of the team. I think we've talked with.

They've defended for years. I think part of that was Ottawa. Part of that was Ottawa is 5-on-5 offense. Yeah, they did nothing. Yeah. But they've defended very well. And so as long as that continues, that gives you a chance. I thought Wohl was thrown into a tough spot.

And there's sort of been some rigidity in his game that I've seen this year that I worried a little bit about, like almost like too much structure. as much as that is not anything I would normally say. But in the game two in the start, I just saw such a perfect balance. Like, you know I'm a Joseph Wolfe, and I think he's going to be there long-term number one. And this year it made sense to me to start Stollers because he was so good at the start of the season. He looked at coming off the knee surgery,

like he was really inconsistent, and then the final two weeks of the regular season, he looked like he found that early season form. And at the end of the day, that early season form, the ceiling of it was higher than anything we've seen from Joseph Wohl. I think they both have really high floors, right? And so what I saw in game two, Woll's high floor allows him to be in position

and over his knees and balanced and not take himself out of those plays around the net. But what I saw was a reactive element to his game and a little more flow and relaxed nature where he blended the two better than I've seen, I think, in a while. and if you can get that guy, then I don't know that there is much, if any, drop-off. The only drop-off I was worried about was that ceiling.

The Stolars had hit these levels, and he's just so massive and he moved so well. But if Wohl's got that blend in him right now, you get his floor technically, but you're getting some of that react. I mean, the stuff on the back door. Yeah, the C-1-1-Samevich getting across his pad. Yeah, that's the one.

Not sticking in my technique and holding my butterfly, but recognizing it's okay to pitch forward and get a little more extension in that leg. The two-on-one where the pass went back against the grain. All my structure gets me and I'm set and oh, crap, the puck's going the other way, abandon it and just make a reactionary save. I think he's got a really nice blend right now. I've never doubted his mental strength. We saw it in the playoffs last year when he came in and was so good and then got hurt.

So this is the best of both worlds. You got a team defending exceptionally well. Expect an onslaught tonight, I guess, in game three down in Florida. can he handle it? I know he can handle it mentally. Can he hold up to it physically? And then we might get to a point where we go, huh, as long as Anthony Stollers is okay

and to just to quickly rewind, I don't want to say guaranteed because his mask looks like a novelty mask sometimes it looks so small in his head. But I've lost teeth to shots, yet to be concussed by one, but have thrown up on the ice at least half a dozen times

after getting clipped in the side of the head with somebody cutting through as you're in a butterfly. That's the one that tends to lead to that result, not the shot. That's really rare. So you hope Stollars is okay. And if he is and he comes back,

given Barubei was really hesitant to ever go away from him, he just wanted one guy in the playoffs. Maybe this becomes the blessing in disguise for the Maple Leafs because it forced him to use both. All right, Kevin, we got to get out of here. This was really fine apologies to Logan Thompson and Freddie Anderson.

spend a lot of time. Go back into the archives on Thompson this year. We'll have you back in when we have more time and revisit that as the postseason goes long. Everyone check out Kevin is in goal in goal magazine. Give us five stars wherever you listen to the show. Join us in the PDCast Discord. That's all for today. That's all for this week as well. I enjoy the games this weekend. We'll be back Sunday night with the Sunday special with Thomas Trans to cover it all. Thank you for listening to the Hockeypediocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.