The Hockey PDOcast - Vasilevskiy’s Return to Form, and Hot Goalies Heading into Playoffs

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to breakdown Andrei Vasilevskiy’s return to form this season, the most difficult types of shots for goalies to face and the science behind them, and hot netminders that could steal series for their teams this postseason. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Demetri Filippovich and joining me here in studio, my good buddy, Kevin Woodley. Kevin, what's going on in? Not much. Not much. Nice to be back in the studio. You're in a bit of a quiet mood today. I mean, usually you come in and then I pride myself on working you up over the next 50 minutes, but I feel like my work's cut out for me today. No, I'll be good. I'll be good. I'll bounce back. just a, you know, first morning back at the

rank after the team had been away for a couple of weeks. So, you know, that whole half to go back to work thing can get a little frustrating sometimes. Yeah. Well, this is technically work for us here, but it's also more so fun. No, this is not work. We've got it. This is the good stuff. You know what, though? We have lofty standards to hit today, because last time I had you on, and we have

you on about once a month or so, the March episode, you were absolutely on fire. You did like a big, deep dive of all the intricacies of Stuart Skinner's butterfly, which the listeners really enjoyed. So, you know, we always, get dirty about it. They wrote articles off that in Edmonton.

They do, yeah. That's a aggregating going. Yeah. It was awesome. Although Oilers fans really liked it because I feel like you was so eloquently articulated everything they've been seeing. We're going to get into some fun stuff today. Let's get into some listener questions.

I put out the bat signal that we were having you on. The listeners and the PDOCS Discord came through with some fun stuff. We're going to bounce around and get through as much of it as we can today. Here's the first one. Would love for Woodley to talk about Vasilevsky being back to his old self this year and how much of a problem. problem that could be for the rest of the league. Now, no one, I'd argue, is more well equipped to get into this particular topic because it is PDO cast established canon that the two of

your close personal friends. Sources say you might even be vacationing together at some point this summer. We've got to dial this back. Just because I dropped his name and having a good conversation with him the last time he's in town. Because now someone's going to like relay this to him as if I'm actually pretending like we're buddies. Listen, I really enjoy it. He's a guy that I haven't had a chance to really get to know. Mostly because Tampa only comes through a couple times. But each of the past couple of times, he's been really open and engaged on goalie topics. And so I was maybe a little happy about the fact that we'd had this great conversation.

I'm not pretending. I don't have his private number. It's just I liked geeking out on goaltending with him the last time he was in town. I'm hoping to get to do more of it in the future. I'm fascinated. He's a thinker of the game. He's an athletic freak. He's so good athletically.

But I think one of the big difference in his game this year to bring it back to the question, is the work he did engaged in the offseason. We talked about Skinner and Stuart Skinner trains with somebody I know up in Colonna named Adam Francilia. And the biomechanics we discussed last time sort of, you know, how the body works and how some of the counterbalances that leave Stewart sort of pitch forward sometimes when he extends the leg. A lot of that biomechanic work and trying to get goalies moving in one piece and optimally is what Adam focuses on. and one of the goalies that reached out to him last summer after seeing Skinner talk about their work together on his way to the cup

was Andre Vaselowski. And so Vaselowski to me is a fascinating case study because so much of his excellence, like obviously he reads the anticipation, there's so much he does well. He's elite. And we talk about all those little subcategories that go into making a good goalie and he's elite and so many of them. He relied somewhat on the athleticism.

And I know goalie coaches in Ottawa that used to work with him, like his agent would bring him into town as a teenager. And they used to tell me about how he had access to power at extended ranges. So where other goalies are compromised physically once they get wide in a butterfly or with Skinner, if he sticks his leg out, you know, there's not as much range in the hips. So the torso needs to pitch forward. Like that's the counterbalance. Right. can not only stick his leg out and have like full almost splits, but then at near full extension,

he can grab an edge and still have access to power. Like his access to power and powerful movements at end range of movement is uncharted and it's been a part of his story since he was a teen. Rewind to last summer and he actively sought out somebody to help him maybe become more efficient and less reliant. on some of those extended athletic saves. We still see them, but if you don't have to rely on,

especially on a year where you're coming off a back surgery, you're putting yourself, you're getting older, you're trying to maybe tighten things up. And so it's not something, it's something that we reveal that Ingle in the summer that Adam was comfortable talking about and had permission to talk about

that they work together. Vassie wants to wait till the end of the season before he gets into it. But there are times in his game. I saw it early this year where he reminded me of Connor Helle, in the patience, in the posture and the stance and how it was allowing him to sort of stay in a more neutral, less extended position longer in sequences.

And it was like, you had this guy who's one of the best goals he's in the world because of this just crazy athleticism. And now he's figured out that, hey, maybe I can actually also be like, Helibuck's the opposite way, right? The reeds and everything is controlled. You combine those two with Vassian. And like, I'm excited to see this experiment unfold. there are times where I see it playing out in real time and I'm like, hey, I recognize that.

Because of course, Helibuck's probably Francily's most famous client. And they started working together the year that Helibuck really took off in Winnipeg. And so seeing this and hoping to have a conversation with him down the road when the season's over, when he's more comfortable talking about it, how it's worked, maybe what's worked, what hasn't worked, is really exciting to me. And I do see it in some of the numbers. At the end of the day, what does it mean in the playoffs? We'll have to wait and see.

I can't tell you, but chances are durability will be up. He'll be less fatigued. Because he's not putting himself in a position to rely so much on that crazy athleticism, and frankly, the team isn't either. The environment is very friendly. Well, first off, I want to make it clear that I'm just giving you a hard time about the name drop. I actually really love specifically in this case hearing about the personal sort of human, an element side from Vasilevsky because for years I was just led to believe that he was a cyborg

specifically created in a lab to stopbox. He still might be because he's so good. Although I'm also perpetuating a lot of these myths as well because I want in the Discord, because you were mentioning like Keprosoff at one point when we were talking about Dustin Wolf and workloads earlier. And then a listener was like, how does Woodley know Keprosoff? And I'm like, oh, those guys have smoked a lot of darts together in their day. And so I'm definitely not doing any favors here in terms of perpetuating a lot of these stories

and sort of legends. The timeline for Vasilevsky, to what you were saying there about... Have we ever... Before we go to... Have we ever dropped the Vasilevsky should catch with the other hand story? No. What's that?

This was something that he told us at Engel a few years ago. Like I said, like I think that reputation of how he approaches the media and stuff, like when you ask goalie specific questions, I see him unlock in ways, and that's why it's exciting to me because I think he's a guy who is passionate about the position. He actually is left-handed

and should be catching full... right so he should catch with his right hand despite the fact his dad was a professional goalie in russia growing up and is now a goalie coached there coaches some excellent goalies there despite having a dad who's a professional goalie at that point in russia he could not access a glove for his right hand and that is why he catches left-handed because they basically just could not get him the key that a necessity wow yeah he told us that one year and it was like one of those cool little anecdotes that i love to drop her once in here you're not name drop and i'm an anecdote drop. I love that. And here you talk about and describe sort of some of the shifts and

sort of the compactness, I guess, in the approach. I was actually thinking that I was watching they were playing at the Islanders on Wednesday night. And early in the first period, Beau Horv had this breakaway and he's coming down the left wing. He kind of shifts right. And Vasselowski in the broadcast did a really good job of highlighting this. And the replay was like so, I mean, his lateral movement is obviously obscene, but it was just in such a controlled manner. Like he stuck with him every step of the way and was just essentially just like bearing down on it waiting to glove it. It was phenomenal.

He's so good. The timeline for me is really interesting, right? If we go back a couple years, the 20-23 postseason against the Leaves we spoke about at the time where he really struggled in that series, gave up 23 goals and six games, had an 875, say, percentage was getting beaten consistently by those like point shots and layered screens and tips. And the Leafs said clearly found something and they were exploiting and going back to that well time and time again. Then he has the back surgery that following off season, right? and really close to the start of the season. He misses the first two months. His safe percentage last year dropped to 900 in his 52 appearances, the regular season.

That was the first time it had dropped below 915 as a starter in the NHL for pretty much a decade or so. Just speaking to his kind of consistency and that cyborg nature to his game, I think there was some understandable concern kind of putting all that stuff together for me because he's 30 now. Now the calculus of age and sort of declined for goalies is much different than it is for their skater counterparts, but he has so many miles on him, right? Because he played nearly a hundred extra playoff games in like a five-year stretch and they were just leaning on him. Him and Nusisaros and Helva, like they're the last great workhorses in the league.

They really were. And so I was very curious to see how he'd bounce back this year. So that's why it's kind of cool hearing you talk about like going back to the well and sort of like redesigning himself a little bit. Not just relying on what he used to do, recognize it. Especially as you get later into your career, kind of having to change your approach a little bit. let me give you some numbers from this season and you can chime in with some of the CSA stuff if you have it. 922 state percentage, six shutouts. According to Sporologic, nearly 30 goals say about expected. The workload, speaking of that rare breed, he's played 58 of 74 games.

He leads the league in time on ice. He's two minutes ahead of Connor Hallibuck at this point. Tampa Bay doesn't have a single back-to-back left on their schedule in those eight remaining games. And they're one point out of the lead for the Atlantic. and we've talked about what a big deal that is for all three of those teams there between them, the Leafs and the Panthers of getting out of that round one matchup, earning home ice, creating or carving out a more neat path for you through the first two rounds. And so if he plays all eight of those games, and I imagine he probably will if they have a chance to win a division,

he's going to set a career high in appearances this regular season. Now, I think what helps here, and when I mentioned the goals he above I expected, you did a bit of an eyebrow raise there. Tampa-based defensive environment has been significantly better this year. From top to bottom all year long, they've been top 10 across the board and expected goals against amount of time they spend their zone, inner slot shots allowed, all of that. They've been quite good there to go along with everything they do offensively. But we have seen, and I'm curious whether early on it took him a bit of time to integrate some of this stuff into a game setting,

because since the Christmas break, he's on a heater. He's played 32 games, 9.30, say percentage. 940 at 5-1-5. He's given up 63 goals in 32 games. You don't need to be an analytics whiz to know that that's less than two goals against per game. And on a team that's second in the league in scoring, that's going to generate a lot of wins for you. Out of those 32 games, he's given up one goal or less, 19 times, or 14 times, over three goals against just three times. Like, it's one or two, and that's it that he's holding other teams to.

This is a 32-game stretch now. this is a significant sample. And so I think the the basis for this question is very fair. Like his numbers this season for me are pretty comparable to his one lone Vesna win to the year in what, 2021, when he won the Kahn-Smith for the Lightning.

Like he's playing about as well by every single measure as he ever has in his career, which is remarkable. And that's why I illustrated that timeline of kind of how he got to this point because it has been a bit of a journey to get here. Yeah, no, I don't want to say whether

there was an adjustment. I would expect there was an adjustment. When they came through town, we talked briefly about it. But again, respecting his preference to sort of wait till the end of the season, because it was new to him. So the fact that he was sort of still feeling his way through, it tells me that, yes, there was probably adjustment. That's my read on it.

That's not him telling me that. And I'd sort of want to just sort of respectfully wait until when he's comfortable talking about this a little more and dig into it with him. but certainly the numbers I have from ClearSight, well, a little different from what you have at Sport Logic overall because of the defensive environment, his expected say percentage is one of the highest in the leagues for starters.

It's him, Hellebuck, and interestingly enough, Calvin Pickard, with the Edmonton Oilers, have three of the highest expected set percentages. Three of the greatest goalies in the league. In the NHL this year. And so that is inevitably going to bump down your goal saved above expected because part of it is the environment. You're expected to make those saves. But to your point,

since, especially since the New Year and since the Four Nations break, like he's outperformed it throughout, but since then, at a level that's, you know, not just top of the league, but at a level that's, you know, like in that historically good to your point about his best seasons. Like he just, he looks comfortable with everything in his game. They defend well in front of them. And interestingly enough, because, you know, again, Hella Buck and him were both in that conversation with highest,

some of the highest expected. So it's not fair to say quote-unquote easiest environments because that's not, especially when you play as much as they do. I think sometimes we need to give the goalies credit for the role they play in that. And I know that seems like a weird thing to do, but I don't think they should be punished for playing behind. Like, again, recognize what the environment is,

but like if you don't think that the belief that the Winnipeg Jets players and coaches and the Tampa Bay Lightning players and coaches have in the guy behind them plays a role in their willingness to go to the wall defensively, in their trust that if we do this, he will take care of everything else and we will win. Like I think that sometimes I can come on and talk about environments and performances relative to it, and we don't give the goalies enough credit for the role they play in creating that environment. And these are two of the all-time greats, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the buy-in around them

is on the defensive side of the puck. Okay, well here's a stat for you. So slot shots A percentage. Last year, 823, this year up to 860, inner slot shots A percentage from 767 all the way up to 824. So that's something. Now, here's my question on follow-up to that to you, because I think, you know, I mentioned that Leaf series

and some of the struggles he had with that. I think you kind of made the point that that was something that sort of historically, if there was one relative weakness to his game, it was kind of working through crowds and the long distance shots because we know like how big and how agile and how much net he takes up and how quick he is post to post. He's actually unbelievably good, relatively speaking, at stopping the high danger stuff.

Do you think that this adjustment or tweak to his game that he put into the offseason is going to help him with that part of things in a postseason setting? Do you think, because we have a question later coming up about prepping for opponents, do you think someone's going to still be trying to target that or hunt that in a round one, round two match up against them? I'm sure they are because those narratives and those pre-scouts sort of live on

but if you pay closer attention and I would like to look at more film, but at least statistically, screens aren't a problem for him this year. He's above expected and the changes he's made in terms of how he holds his stance and moves into play should allow him to close on pucks. The end of the day

the biggest challenge is finding them and finding the release. But if you you move quite often the way screens are set up in the NHL. They're trying to force a goaltender to shift from one side to the other and around behind traffic. And at some point you have to give up vision. So there are two elements. Finding the pocket and seeing the release and he certainly has enough experience and enough height to look over a lot of those screens. But in the past, he would move in a way where his body would almost come apart.

If say he had to shift across a screen to the other side, there was sort of a, and we've sort of seen it where his head's pointing up and he's looking down through the bottom of his cage and everything would kind of like the body would open up to move and a lot of the

structure he plays with in his stance and his setup now should facilitate and from what I've seen has you know this ability to move as one piece and so if even if I still have to shift across behind a screen

and slide across into a block, I'm more likely to do it with that massive frame in a controlled, tight, nothing squeezes through me manner. And anecdotally, that should help him manage the screens better. Statistically, his numbers on screens are better this season than they have been in the past. At the end of the day, how he feels about all these things and whether it all comes together at playoff time, we'll have to wait and see. But that should help, in theory.

Okay, here's a question for you. And I thought this was a really interesting thought exercise. What is it about rush shots specifically that makes them so dangerous for goalies? And is there an element to them that can be recreated by teams in other offensive scenarios? Now, we're less than three weeks away from the postseason, right? I think everyone knows that come the postseason, opportunities to get out in transition, fraud, man, rushes, and breakaways are going to become limited. Everyone plays so much more conservative defensively.

It's why the teams that don't give them up in the regular season historically win in the playoffs. Yeah. And so I think this is a Because I think everyone just generally agrees Is a rule of thumb that rush shots are inherently more dangerous now It might be a bit of a chicken or the egg thing Because I would argue that the players on the other side of those rush shots

The ones taking them are generally The players who are more likely to score for their respective teams It's like the top players who have the skill And also are sometimes cheating for a bit offensively To ply the zone get out for those opportunities To manufacture goals and so You see clear you see fewer clear-cut breakaways and two-on-ones from the fourth line.

Yes. And so it's like, all right, well, you score more goals off rush shots. Well, yeah, because the players shooting them are probably more likely to actually convert those opportunities to begin with. But when we get to the postseason, we talk a lot about how more difficult it becomes creating scoring opportunities and actually creating goals. And so I love this question because it not only gets at that element of it, but also trying to find some sort of a work about offensively to in said situation

we've seen it in that's creating more goals we've seen it in an end zone play look at the power plays look at you know I saw it we saw it here in Vancouver for while J.T. Miller was here like the idea being able to get him coming off the left boards catching a pass and coming downhill

like we hear teams attacking downhill off the power play that's essentially trying to create the same things right some some momentum in a rush type environment a lot of what makes rush chances more dangerous statistically, like the most dangerous rush chances are when there's an odd man and there's a chance

to move it laterally. So we've seen teams try and take that into the end zone and move plays laterally. It's a little different than rush. But again, having defensemen that, you know, I mean, there's more offensive defensemen than ever. Obviously, I get to see on a regular basis, arguably the best in the world in Quinn Hughes and look at how many times he uses his skating to come down the left side because it a does things to a goaltender which we can get into why um but also it just opens up the defense the way you do in a rush and it allows for opportunities to filter pucks through the middle of the ice and into the slot and into more dangerous areas now why is a rush chance more likely to be dangerous for a goaltender because and this is changing a little bit and it's

not the same for every goalie you will see more and more goalies now playing rush chances from a static position, a more conservative initial depth. Most will take a little bit of flow. In other words, they'll come out and they will drift and they will try and time the backwards movement that they have with the speed of the attack so that they are arriving at it, whether it's a breakaway or an odd man rush, they want to be arriving at a certain point of the crease depth-wise at the same time as a play gets into a certain dangerous area. Now, the difficulty is if you're too aggressive initially,

especially if there's an odd man, teams figured out, and there were a number of cases. I'm trying to think of who I did this on a pre-scout with. Like, if you had an odd man rush against this guy, you should definitely pass as soon as you get over the blue line because he was so aggressive and he came out so far and had to retreat so much that if you passed it, most people try and create those passes closer to the net.

Yeah. But if you passed it high in the zone, he had so much space to cover across. You could actually beat him with a quick one timer above the, top of the circles because he'd taken so much ice. So we've seen goalies not take as much ice. But essentially what happens when you do take ice and flow backwards, what are you doing? You're adding an element of rhythm and timing.

Those are both things that sort of require a lot more feel. They're a little less precise than in zone where it's puck goes here. I move there. I know my angles. You're constantly changing the angle on the goaltender. You're forcing him to move backwards. A couple of things can happen when you move backwards. one, if you're using sort of like little reverse C cuts, think about this.

I'm shifting my weight as I move back and forth from my left skate to my right scale. If you happen to pass to my right when my weight is on my right skate, even subtly, then before I can move to my right, I have to shift my weight back to my left because that's the edge I'm pushing with. So if I get caught with my weight on the wrong skate, my timing is off on this, the pass moves, when I've got my balance in the wrong area, I'm automatically delayed moving to my right in this example. Or my only reaction from my right skate is to dive head first. That's all I've got.

I can't push right really off my right skate without sort of lunging. Again, that's a little more of an old school thing when guys used to really come out and skate backwards. A little more C-Cats. Now you'll see guys come out. They'll get a quick push and they'll glide backwards. So even if we're gliding backwards, as we move in a straight line,

towards our goal line in reverse. The further we get back, the further that play comes, say down the wing off the rush, the less square I am to the shooter. I'm starting to give away far side net because I'm drifting in a straight line parallel to my goal line.

And what I need to do is be sort of constantly turning so that my inside shoulder is keeping me square and on angle. Now you have a lot of goal attenders. You can see it with Demko. You can see it with other guys. They will use short little shuffles

down the side of the crease to try and stay on angle as they move backwards. Because for the longest time, goalies as they move backwards lost angle. And I see it in the junior level. I still see it. Used to be something that was on the pre-scout against Marty Turco. He did it a lot, like really straight back. Well, just shoot far side.

And you're essentially opening the net as you get flat along the goal line on deeper angles. It just adds so many. That's pretty complicated. In simplest terms, if I'm moving, I've got more moving. parts. Yeah. I'm less likely to be square and set on a shooter because I'm having to move to keep pace with his rush chance, the pace that he has, the way he's changing angle is he comes down the winger across the middle. You are adding moving parts to a goaltender who in a perfect situation wants to be set and square on every shot. Rush chance makes it more difficult to

say set, stay square, and stay centered on everything because it's constantly moving. So I guess, I mean, that's fascinating. So the summary is the reason why, like what you're trying to re- You're essentially making us move more. What you're trying to recreate is the lateral movement, the downhill element as well, because it can force the goal to kind of either move back or a lot of the guys are kind of reluctant to,

I remember when we were talking about Spencer night last time and early on in Chicago, what he was doing so well to my eye was like holding his ground on a lot of rush shots. And I think it's human nature, right? If someone, especially like Nathan McKinnon, is coming at you full speed, you're sort of retreating and backing up to compensate for that. Because if he's able to come all the way in and you're caught flat foot, he's just going to walk around. Yes.

So there's that and then, yeah, the lateral stuff. So here's a question I was thinking about in watching this because it's not necessarily a novel concept, although it feels like now that the shooters are getting so much more deliberate and skilled. And when they have the time and space to pick their spot, everyone's going for that like little triangle just above the pad below either your block or your glove essentially, right? Right. Is there anything, let's say it's just shooter versus goalie one-on-one and you're actually able to square it up? It really does feel like, especially for the top shooters in the game, if they're able to hit their mark, it's probably going to beat the goalie regardless of what they do. Is there anything that you can actually do to compensate for that?

On the goal of the pad, low blocker side, I mean, short of hedging to the blocker side or, I mean, it's just, there are times you should be, you can still, like it's not like it's an impossible save, but it's a much more difficult save. On the glove, I would actually say, and this is in pre-scouts, once you get to the playoffs and teams start paying attention to them, it depends on where the goalie holds it. So if a goalie holds his glove in a more neutral, as we would call a handshake position, so think of it in terms of just being, you know, sort of straight out at the hip, kind of hand held out, like you're shaking somebody's hand or like it's parallel to the ice. That's a lot easier to get that glove down just over that pad. But what you're seeing a lot of goalies, they're going to what we call fingers up. so the fingers are sort of pointing at the sky, presenting big, Lundquist did this really well, take away visually what a shooter sees in the top corner

and try and encourage them to shoot lower. But that's a much bigger transition if you think about my fingers being up to having, you have to rotate that hand almost, you know, not quite a full 180 degrees down, but it's a fair bit of rotation and a fair bit of drop to get it just over the pad and get that coverage. And that's why I think shooters, if they see fingers up,

they're now looking just over the pad. if they see handshake, they're looking to them more traditional, let's get them by the ear, let's get them by the shoulder with a high shot. So the amount of interplay in that is fascinating. And you can get into a goal he said, right? Like beat him a couple times low, especially as we get into a Best of Seven series. And I guarantee you there are coaches looking to see if he's starting to, you know, shift where he's wholly, I'll do it. I mean, obviously nowhere near the same thing.

But playing against guys that are way better than me, if they rip me a couple times high, I know for sure that I'll start just holding that glove up around my shoulder to sort of take it away visually. And essentially, if they think they've got me and they keep shooting there, and I don't move it, they're shooting right into my coverage. But again, eventually they figure out like, oh, let's waste a couple low and now I'm a mess. I'm a mess most of the time. I love that interplay, especially as we get into the playoffs and start thinking about this so you can prepare for specific opponents. And in this case, like, if it's a goalie who's played, whatever we just said, Valsalski's going to play 65 games this year.

you have enough of a sample already of what his tendencies are this year to try and exploit it. Now obviously the goalie itself can also adjust as well as the series goes on. But that sort of pre-scouting element, I know you and I have spoken about it. We talked about Flurry back in the day as well for kind of preparing for him and how sometimes noisy his lateral movement can be. Remember when Nico, not Nico does, pardon me, Akir Schmidt came in for the New Jersey Devils. Yeah, and the Rangers and then Hurricanes series. Yeah, he had a great run. And they were talking about his glove hand.

and it was very different. He was very much fingers up. So straight line attack, open release, you wanted to go low glove. But if you had him moving east-west or sliding, the hands came down and now you need to shoot high glove. Like it changed depending on the type of situation. And it's the case for most goaltenders, but his was somewhat extreme because the hand really dropped as he moved. And the Rangers kept going the opposite. Like when they had him straight up, they would shoot right into his glove coverage.

and then when they had him moving, they would try and shoot low. And I was like, like, it's the other way guys. And the announcers kept talking about the glove hand and he was having a lot of success and good for him. But I was like, they kept playing into his coverage rather than understanding that his coverage on that side changed depending on the situation. And I think good teams should be able to, good coaching staff should be able to get that message across to enough guys that, hey, when you do get a look and you know it's off across Ice Pass, now's not the time to try it just over the pad. But if you're coming at them in a straight line, you see that glove up near the crossbar,

that's when you shoot low, because that can be the difference between, you know, a goal or two, a game or every second game, and that can be the difference in a series. Good stuff. All right, Kevin, let's take our break here, and then we come back. We'll jump right back into it.

You're listening to the HockeyPEDEO cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the Hockey PEOCast, joined by Kevin Woodley. Let's keep it going. We've got some more fun questions to get through. Here's one. Which goalie has the best chance to steal a series for their team in round one?

There's also a part two to this, which you're not going to like. Which goalie is the highest chance of letting their team down in round one. I think part one is more interesting in terms of, especially now that we're getting a little bit of clarity on matchups. There's already been a few that have been sort of locked in in terms of prospective opponents. I've got four interesting candidates here for you. Do you want me to run through them, and then you can tell me your thoughts on each one? I'll give you my guy. I don't know that they're getting in.

Probably not, but my guy for like the Steelers series. And this is only because I actually did some work in their market recently and was asked, like, sort of like a, it wasn't quite a what's wrong with so-and-so question, but it was along those lines. And my answer was kind of a stun nothing because the environment was so bad. Right. Like if you want a goalie who's going to steal a series because he's had to do this. And it hasn't happened throughout. But like, I think we are missing how good Igor Shisterak and. has been at times for the New York Rangers.

And overall, like, his goal saved above expected for this season is third behind Philip Gustafson and Darcy Kemper. Like, that's, and barely behind Darcy Kemper. So I think his raw numbers don't look nearly as flattering because they are just that bad defensively. But if you want to, you know, like to quote Elaine Vigno when he was coaching Roberto Luongo, what's your philosophy? Let's go, Lou.

Yeah. Like Schishteriken is a guy who could steal a series that the Rangers have no business being in because frankly they are very bad defensive. They certainly are. No, I think that's undoubtedly a good pick. You mentioned Darcy Kemper there. He was at top my list. He's been excellent, and we've been talking about it all year,

and you were pretty high on that fit, going to L.A. from Washington this offseason as well. You know what the difference is? It was easy to be high on guys going into the King's system because the system was so good. Yes. His expected say percentage is right around league average. He is outperforming it by a significant margin.

No, he's been good. corner support logic the only goalie with a better inner slot shot save percentage than him has been Connor hellabuck he has a 920 save percentage for the year now now speaking of that environment here's the shot totals he's faced by game since march first 18 30 20 34 21 24 21 17 13 13 21 23 19 now he's giving up 16 goals against in those 12 games but a lot of games in the teens um and And he had another one against Winnipeg on Wednesday, I believe, below 20. The reason why I picked him here, and we've been highlighting this for a while now, they're going to have a fourth straight rematch against the Oilers this year, right?

And certainly on the power play with how Dreis Eidl's been playing and McDavid coming back, that's going to pose its own set of challenges. But this Oilers team is 26th in the league this year in 5-1-5-safe percentage. And that's in large part because they're much slower. they're less skilled than they've been in the past and there's a lot of dead spots in the lineup especially in the bottom six where you're just not feasibly going to create a lot of scoring chances

and goals themselves and so it looks like a scary matchup on paper because of those top guys but they've been a largely inefficient team this year and Kemper's been playing really well and I keep trying to almost talk myself into reasons why this could be a different year and one of them is home ice certainly for the Kings and how good they've been there other one is this

byfield fiala line it's been playing really well because Manco's been a nice addition to the top line since the trade deadline as well. But I feel like Kemper against a lot of those shooting woes could be an interesting thing to track in this series as well. The one part that would be worrisome is the only sort of defensive metric where the Kings aren't near the top is penalty kill. And we've seen what that Oilers power play. Especially in the short series where it's like a couple goals here there make the difference. Yeah. And the King's power play on the other hand stocks. We've seen them do it.

We've seen the Oilers do it to the Kings with special teams. So that's the only worrisome thing. But I wouldn't be worried about Darcy Kemper. And you talked about that environment. You know, fourth best team when it comes to not giving up high danger off the rush. And that tends to be a real strong indicator. That was one of the underlying numbers that had me bullish on the Edmonton Oilers last year. And they are no longer that team.

They give up way more off the rush than they used to. So that would tip the sort of underlying defensive. scales towards the Kings even more, probably more than people realize it would have been tipped the other way last year. And I, like, low-shot environments are tough, right? Like, not being busy. We've talked about it. Like, yeah, hey, like, as a coach, you can't be like, hey, like, make sure you give up 30

tonight so the goalie feels good. Like, that's just not how it works. But Darcy's been around. He knows how to have success in that. He's added some technical components in Washington, maybe got a little rid of it. in his game. They've relaxed them. They've loosened them up while still having that technical foundation. He's healthy for the first time or healthier than he has been in a little while. He was like right up until getting hurt, ironically during the run to the cup with Colorado.

Yeah, when he had the injury. He was consistently at this level. He had one year there in Washington and then it kind of fell off, but he's back to that level. He's a consistent like plus one and a half, plus two percent above expected say percentage, which, you know, is top 10 in the national hockey league. And right now, with some of the numbers dropping around the league, you know, he's higher than that. He's second in adjusted say percentage. Only Casey DeSmith, an exception worth noting,

is better than him right now. And, you know, again, I think a lot of that is fit. But that doesn't mean, as you said, great defensive metrics, but still right around league average for expected say percentage, outperforming it by a significant margin. like this isn't just the kings as goalie friendly as they are this is Darcy Kemper outplaying that environment

by a more significant margin than the guys that they went into the playoffs in the last couple of seasons have outperformed it you mentioned DeSmith there now I'd be pretty surprised something would have to happen to Jake O'Donger I think in a playoff setting for them to actually

go that route so that's why I had Audinger slash DeSmith on this just as a tandem 24 games since the Miro Hayes an injury. The stars have a plus 31 goal differential in that time, despite being outshot by 156 shots on goal. Since the four nations break, 19 games, the stars have a 921 team save percentage between those two. DeSmith's been outrageous. He had that game in Calgary where he faced 107 shot attempts and shut the door. Had a really good game the other day. In Seattle as well,

they're going to be going up against the a Vs, most likely in round one, and we know how they can just create endless waves of attack. So I feel like they're going to need to face a lot of volume and a lot of high dangerous stuff and hold up against that environment. I guess the interesting thing, you've spoken about Audinger and sort of as the stars have gotten into these long playoff runs once you start getting into May and how hot it is in Texas and sort of the physical toll that's had on on Ardanger, maybe that's less of a consideration in a round one series.

And so maybe that's a bit of advantage there. but I mean the workload's going to be intense. It's going to be really hard to do. Yeah. And this is not a, so this is not at all a shot at Jake Onger in any way, shape, or form, because I believe in the talent there. His season has been closer to league average than we're used to seeing. But he's still the guy.

I get that. What I wouldn't hesitate to do, and again, most coaches don't want to, because if you're up in a series of the other team can rally around it as bull bulletin board material about disrespect and if you're down in a series and you lose with your quote unquote backup in that, boy, is there a lot of second guessing? I don't know, this just applies to him

though. When I look at the top performances in the league since the Four Nations, it's the fresh guys. It is all the fresh guys. And it is led by Casey to submit. He's on a heater of heaters. This is a small sample. So games like he had in Calgary and Seattle, he's like plus 5%. Like that wins

you heart trophy. The reality is Casey's done this in the backup role before. We saw it here in Vancouver, exceptional in the backup role, Demko goes down, struggle to maintain it as the starter. So flipping it on its ear and saying he's our guy going into the playoffs would be extreme. But to ignore how well he's played and not make him a part of this so that you can keep the other guy fresh as well, you know, again, real easy for me to say here, a lot harder for somebody with their job on the line to do in Dallas with Stanley Cup aspirations. But I think there's real value there. You know, it's funny though.

Wedgwood gone on a heater. He's in the top 10 since. Jake Allen, I imagine. Freddie Anderson. Jake Allen's been really good all year. Freddie Anderson, who didn't play much because of injuries. So his minutes are down. Since the Four Nations, he's fourth.

Philip Grubauer, since coming back from the American Hockey again, actually getting to play. I think he's really struggled earlier in the year when he wasn't playing. We talked about how tough it can be in the backup role. Philip Grubauer's like second. Anton Forsberg, 6. Thatcher Demko, who missed. so much time. He's in the top 10. James Reimer's

on a heater. He's in the top 10. And then you get into guys who have been consistent. Vaseleski, Gustafson, Kemper, Joel Hofer's done a really nice job, which has allowed Jordan Bittington to get his legs back under him. Binnington was below expected up until his last couple of starts

coming out of the Four Nations, and you saw what he did in those starts. We all know what he's capable of and he's back to that guy his last couple of starts out. But why? Because they didn't have to overplan because they had Joel Hofer. And so it's been really interesting to see that the top of this list is dominated by guys who haven't played as much given where we are in the season and given all the talk about rest. And I don't know what that means for the playoffs. I genuinely don't because I realize

it's really easy for me to say it here on the PDO cast and a lot harder for a coach to pull the trigger on it. But I think when you see splits this wide, not finding a way to get the hot hand involved if you are also seeing signs or recognizing that too many minutes is giving you diminishing returns with the other guy just feels like a mistake even though coaches may see the risk of going to a backup as the kind of mistake they're not willing to make. The reason why I mentioned Alan is because I had the devil's goalies on my list. Now Jacob Marks from coming back from injury after the Four Nations break, it's been a struggle for him obviously. I'll give you this though

and I was on the air here in Vancouver a couple of weeks ago because they went in there and Calgary actually they went in there and I said that playing against their old friend Jacob Martian for the Flames was good for them at this point because he was since coming back from the injury his numbers were the worst in the entire NHL

said the same thing going in the Canucks game and he was really good in that game and it looks like he's found it and we talk about Vasi missing the time we talk about Demko missing the time you miss a couple months of the season it's really hard hard to come back. I think Markstrom's founded of late, but in the meantime, Jake Allen, to me,

has made himself probably the number one target in the offseason in free agency, because he's been good for them all year and really good in the second half. Yeah, I was going to say Markstrom has an 863 say percentage in the 10 games since he's come back. The most recent ones, a couple games against this version of the Minnesota Wild will do wonders for building up a goalie's confidence, and I'd say the Canucks and Flames as well. That's probably fair. The Flames, I think, they did. Yeah, they played. Oh, it was all in the third period. Yeah. They had a tremendous has come back. The reason why I have them here, though, is because they're going to play the Hurricanes in Round 1. And the Hurricanes are 19th and shooting percentage again. We've been down

this road for many years. I think they're well aware of it themselves internally. They've tried to do stuff to work around that, but I think those questions will linger. I'm not sure it'll be enough in a round one setting because without Hughes and Hamilton and Seagenthaler and all the injuries the Devils have had, it's a really tough matchup for them against the Hurricanes team with home ice they can just sort of hone in on one line or so and just make life miserable for you. But whether it's Allen or Markstrom, if we get into that series,

and there's a couple games where they've stopped 37 out of 39 shots, and everyone's like, wow, this is so unlucky. I can't believe this is happening again. I just wanted to flag that as an interesting consideration for this. Well, Jake Allen's had a great season, first of all. You know, on the year as a whole, if you filter out some of the smaller samples, Like he's top five in a just say percentage on the year.

As much as we know that Markstrom hasn't been himself coming off the injury, there have been signs of it. And to your point about the teams he's been playing, Carolina might be one of those teams that just fits Jake, because Jacob Arksdham at his best is busy. A lot of volume, man. When he gets a lot of shots, then that's when he's at his best. And that's the one thing that Carolina continues to do is keep goalies busy.

So it'd be interesting to see which way they go. in New Jersey, but again, even if you start with Marksham and he gets on a heater, as soon as you see signs of perhaps wear and tear, and we saw that when he was here in Vancouver, the game would diminish. The way Jake Allen has played, I don't know why you should, much like the DeSmith conversation, hesitate to give him one. Here's another question for you. Are goals scored off rebounds generally the goalie's fault or the team's fault?

I can guess that you as a card carrying member of the goalie union, which way you're going to go on this? No, because it's, so you've got to separate broken plays and rebounds. Right. So broken plays that hit somebody in front, those are the toughest ones because you don't get to feel it. If it's a rebound, that means it hit me as a goaltender. Now, sometimes it's coming through traffic and screens and, frankly, with some of the equipment they wear, like, if it hits you in the leg pad through a screen, you probably don't feel it, right?

Like, there aren't a lot of guys left that still wear leg pads thin enough that they actually feel it on their shins. Berta are used to. I'm trying to remember who the last one was that said he actually. used to feel pucks. So sometimes it's tough through traffic. If it just hits you, it's technically a rebound. You have no idea where it's going.

But generally speaking, if you are making a save or if you are feeling the puck hit you, you should know where it's headed. And rebound control is a real thing. It's an important factor. And so there are good rebounds and there are bad rebounds. And so if you score off a bad rebound, that's my fault for giving up a bad rebound. Yeah. If you score off a good rebound that I've kept in front of me, either I'm tipping my cap or maybe my defense could have done a better job, or, I mean, we've talked about this before.

The Oilers do it so well in the power play. What's one of the number one scoring chances in the NHL? Pass off rebound, right? So if I, if you get a great A and I get a piece of it and it's right in front of me and you pass it left and the guy taps it in, that's not on the goal. Yeah, that's team coverage for. I spill that rebound to the guy in the back door and it's not even a great A like it's a mid-danger chance

that's a bad rebound and for the most part ClearSight classifies good and bad rebounds strong and weak rebounds based on whether the goalie keeps it on the same side or in front of him or spills it off to the side and so if it's a bad rebound and it gets tapped in 100% that's on the goaltender last time I had you on we talked about

the changing goalie market and teams re-upping the guys they already have been taking more and more goalies off the market and how barren it's been. We're down. And I think since then, Aiden Hill got a hefty contract from Vegas as well. And hey,

by the way, Aden Hill is another one of those guys that they did a good job, they've done a really good job managing his rest and practices in Vegas. They're really proactive with that. And coming off the Four Nations, even though he didn't play,

I think there's a lot of, there's a lot of mental toll on those guys, even if they didn't get any games. And his numbers, he's not quite in the top 10, like he's not one of those rested guys because he plays more. But when I talked about the guys that are, he is creeping into that territory. He's been really good sort of, I feel like, again, top of my head since roughly December,

and he's continued that here since the Four Nations. I was looking at this on Pocoppedia after taking him off the board. There are, and it includes Mark Andre Fleury, who's expected to retire, and Robin Leonard's expiring contract, and he's obviously done. There's 12 total goalies who are unrestricted free agents. Oh, my gosh. Is that what we're down to? It used to be every year was the game of

Goaltending Musical Chairs This is going to be the first year without We're down at 12 And there's two out of those 12 That will not be 30 years old or older At some point next season Who are the two? Dan Vladar

And Aden Hills backup, Ilya Sampsonov Vlodar's gotten some Giving the Flame some really good minutes this year The numbers overall Awesome in Colorado this week I know and you know what If you look at how they've handled him quite often

they've saved Wolf for the games they think they can win and given Vladar the starts against teams where it's like they're just overmatched and you combine that with less work

like Dan Vladar the numbers even the adjusted numbers aren't as flattering as the raw stuff but Dan Vlodar has had a really good job in a really tough situation

No I've got him not even accounting for what you said there in terms of opponents and matchups as a positive and goal sale of expected despite a sub-9-900 percentage and I imagine Dan Milstein right now is just rubbing his hands together triumphantly

because of that stat I just said that the list of under 30 UFA goalies this summer is so incredibly low and that's quite a bit of leverage I imagine because we will we'll see the trade market but I imagine there's going to be a number of teams at least that are looking for someone because you get telling you I said it already Jake Allen's going to be at the top of that like he should be at the top of well you got Alan and Freddie Anderson you got Vlodar you got Ridditch you got Anton Forsberg who I think is interesting. Alex Lyon, who we mentioned. And then you get into like, if you want to go Georgia, Vanichek reclamation project.

But you're not bringing in James Reimer at 37 to be like a 1B, right? Rimer's quietly had a really good season. And again, sort of thrown to the wolves often, like, again, save your young guy and throw in the backup. he's now up to plus 0.9% adjusted save percentage. He's 19th in the NHL in adjusted save percentage right now. So if he wants to keep playing, he was on waivers at the beginning of the year, went to Anaheim, he can still play.

He can still play. And his numbers, you know, again, like there are some names that would probably surprise you are below him on this list right now. Of course. But if you're a team in somewhere and you're like, man, I need to bring in 35 to 45 to 45 starts. But that's what everybody should be looking for out of their backup.

Yeah, but that's what to make us. so difficult because there's so few options. Well, I would have Rimer a lot higher on my list than it sounds like you would and a lot higher than I think probably a lot of people's list, again, and the numbers back that up. It'll be interesting to see. We had a question about Trey Augustine as well. We don't have time to get into it. Maybe we'll save it.

We could talk about one in the off season because he's going back for a third year at Michigan State. He's a, he's, yeah, that surprised me a little bit. Obviously, there's probably many different reasons I'm not aware of. that kid's like a passionate goalie guy. Like he's a great kid to talk to. Alex Lyon actually told us that he wishes he had his head for the game and the access to information and the professional approach. Because they were together at World Championships.

He was blown away by the things that Trey Augustine does at his age. Approach-wise and talent-wise, like the Red Wings have a good one. I'd be curious to be able to dig into why he did that. Well, they do have Talbot and Marzic signed for 6.75 next year. And it's been a- Costa still. They just keep stacking goalies. And so if you're Augustine and you're wondering where you fit in that,

I think it's a fair thing to ask. It's been a weird year there because Talbot was playing really well. And they obviously don't trust Lion for a variety of reasons. So they rode Talbot and he's, what, 38 years old this summer. Now he had an awesome game on Wednesday night in St. Louis. He made so many and then at the end, but he did everything he could. But it's just been strange from like a usage distribution perspective. They brought him RASIC.

They wrote him until he got hurt. They've got a lot of stuff to figure out there. All right, well, we've got to get out of here. Do you want to plug some stuff? The playoffs are starting in a couple weeks. Are you going to be with no potentially no Pacific Northwest representation? Are you going to be doing some scouting reports? I have to talk to the bosses or at NHL.com, but typically, just because the site's so full of stuff

when there's 16 teams in the first round, we don't do it till the second round. So also, I'm from my sanity, I think breaking down eight goalies in the second round is a lot easier than all 16. So it probably start with the second round. I will plug this really quickly. Ingole magazine, we just launched

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in the summer. a new voice, some new tools in the toolbox. We've created a resource that every goalie and every goalie parent should check out. Go to Colonna. Hang out with Andreabasolevsky, Stuart Skinner. I don't know if he's coming to Colon. Kevin Woodley. Like if they're in Colonna, I'm going to try and like, I'm going to like, I don't know,

maybe hide out near where they work out and pretend to be buddies just so I can get like I'll get a picture for you. You're never going to be delegations if we get a picture of you and Andrea Vasilevsky in the summer chopping it up. It's going to be tough to refue. Listen, I'm going to say it again. These are all just jokes. I'm not pretending to be close to.

I have never pretended to be, but I will say this. I would love to just keep getting opportunities to talk about goaltending with that man because he's brilliant at it. And the way he thinks about it is just, there's a passion there that, as a goalie guy, it's exciting. And you learn every time you talk about. Well, you're the best in the business. I have no doubt those opportunities are going to continue.

As will your appearances here on the PDO cast, I look forward to getting into the playoffs and breaking down what we're seeing from the goalies with you then. Join us in the Discord. We took the questions from there today. You can get in there for future editions of the mailbag. Give us the five stars wherever you listen to the show. And that is all for today.

We'll be back Friday with two new episodes to close out the week. Thank you for listening to the Hockey, Piedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.