The Hockey PDOcast - What’s More Spooky Than Talking About Goalies

Episode Date: October 31, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to talk about goaltending in the first month of the season. Topics include Arizona’s underrated tandem, the Bruins continuing to get it done without missing a beat, Jake Oettinger’s workload, a potential changing of the guard in Toronto’s crease, and who’s to blame for Edmonton’s struggles.This podcast was produced by Dominic Sramaty.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. 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.

mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovic. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich and joining me. He's my good buddy Kevin Woodley. Kevin, what's going on, man? I mean, the hockey season's going on. That's right. It's been a while since we connected. It's nice to be back with you. Looking forward to this being the first of hopefully many. And while you're going to hear me say things like tiny sample size a lot today, it's exciting just to be sort of watching these guys. play again and trying to see what narratives are true and what sort is backed up by the numbers and what's not

and watching for adjustments league wide and looking at all the numbers league wide first column of the year was on the decline of say percentage in the national hockey league and actually had a goalie come up to me. Actually I won't say when because then it would tell you who it is but thanking me for shedding some light in my first column on an intel.com about how like

you know if we seen things like oh, this goal is coming off the worst say percentage of his career. Right. And they're like, yeah, but say percentage in general is down to the point where if you look at my numbers compared to a couple of years ago, like it's the same. Right. It's just so, yeah, we get a new environment and all that kind of stuff. It's been fun.

I'm glad to be. How do you view the early season stuff? Because obviously it'll be very dependent, especially on if the team has that sort of continuity, right? If there's a bunch of new moving parts, whether it's a new goalie or a new system they're trying to implement or obviously new defensemen in particular, there might be a bit of a learning period, right? And you might see them trying to iron it out on the fly. Whereas if it's a team, like, we're going to talk about the Bruins, even though they did have a few guys retire, for the most part, you're kind of rolling it over and everyone knows exactly what they need to do to be

successful and they can implement that again. How do you view that this early stretch, let's say the first month or so, though, whether it's good for goalies or bad in terms of like the environment itself? Like, do you think they have a bit of a leg up or do you think that because the team in of them defensively is trying to figure some stuff out, it can be a bit sloppier. It's a good question. And I think it all depends. Like you mentioned sort of familiarity as a factor. And I think that matters. So much of the game for goaltenders is reads and the ability to read the game. And we've talked about this before. Like one of the coolest projects we have at Ingole magazine, we started a number of years ago, was called Pro Reads. And so NHL goalies have

been so kind to actually sit down and do video with us and go over their saves. And the concept is to share the insight with young goalies in terms of what they're looking for, how they're reading, how they're processing the game. Because a lot of times we hear, and I don't love the phrase, but I hear it a lot in North America, the quote unquote goalie school goalie. And a lot of kids that will go to summer camps and go to goalie schools and they move exceptionally well. You'll have NHL goalies.

Watch these kids. I've had this. We're like, you know, we're at a camp, a pro camp, and they're like 12 and 13 year olds out there after. And you'll have NHL guys being like, that kid moves better than I do. But at the end of the day, can he stop the puck?

And so much of that is read base. And so the big takeaway for me, like they share insights that are like, I remember the first one we did carry price, like mushroom clouds going off of my head, the details he was picking up in real time that factored into where he was on the ice in terms of depth, what's the save selection he was making,

whether he was hedging towards a back door or whether he was focused solely on the shooter or even overplaying the short side on a shooter, all these factors in split seconds, many of which I expected in terms of offensive players, like what you're looking for. But the speed and the amount of detail was incredible. But over now three years of doing that

and close to 200 of them online, the one factor that keeps coming back is how important the defense is to those reads. Not in terms of whether it's a good defensive play or a bad defensive play, but in terms of them reading off their expectations, not just within the system of the defensemen in front of them, but the individual tendencies and what one guy tends to do. And so to get back to your question, because hey, I'm good at long-winded,

but to get right back to the question, what was my question again? The structure that we see, say if you've got a team that's trying to initiate or crack down on a defensive structure, is that good for goalies, yes. but that usually means defensemen, if you change a system, are trying to make adjustments too. And if they're making mistakes within that in terms of their reads and the goalies are trying to read off what they're supposed to do versus what they're going to do,

that can take a while to get used to. Same thing with a goalie going to a new team. Learning the individual tendencies of guys takes time. And so you might see a slower start for teams that are trying to make changes. is it absolute? No. Look at Nashville, who's here in Vancouver tonight, right? Like, UCSarros, maybe the raw numbers actually haven't looked because I barely look at them anymore. I think his raw numbers might be a little below what we expect for UC Saros, but his adjusted numbers are actually just fine, thank you very much, and he's always been a slow starter. Well, here's a team making

a bunch of changes in terms of how they play and- And also personnel, right? They brought in so many you guys. A bunch of different things. And UC's numbers are actually better. Again, they may not be where we expect them as a guy who should have been a Vezna finalist last year. We could get into that later. But they're actually better than where he typically is at the start of the season. He's always been a slow starter. And so I think at the end of the day, much like a lot of gold, there's so many factors that there is no absolute one answer. But in general, whether it's systems or personnel, the more changes you're making, the longer it's going to take a goal tender to adjust. Yeah, no, that's a good point.

I guess it is very on a case-by-case basis, right? I guess the reason why I was asking that, I think typically you think that maybe there's more offense early in the season, and then once we start getting into the second half, the playoffs are on the horizon, teams kind of tighten the screws. You start seeing games slow down as we get more into that mindset. I think that's kind of the general belief. And for years, say percentage was always higher at the quarter pole.

Right. Or, sorry, lower at the quarter pole and it would get higher as the season went on. That wasn't the case two years ago. I actually put my foot way in my mouth because save percentage was up a quarter of the way. And I'm like, man, imagine where it's going to end up. We finally buck the trend and it ended up coming down again. So again, even trends that we've looked at for 20 years, it feels like even those defensively are getting turned on their ear in the past couple of seasons. Yeah.

Well, I think part of that as well also is every year the league kind of starts a fresh new season with this sort of mandate to really crack down on stuff. Right. We're not going to let anything go. We're going to set the tempo here. we're going to call every little infraction just so you know you can't get away with it. There's a ton of power plays. Gole's worst enemy, a lot of easy power play goals. And then once we get closer to the playoffs, it gets back to, all right, well, now we've got to play play

playoff hockey. Everything goes. It's a free for all, right? So I think that's part of it as well. Part of my logic behind that question, I was just thinking, you know, watching guys, like, not that Adreder Demko played that many games last year, but it was obviously such a miserable year for him for a variety of reasons. But then a guy like Jake Odinger, who I think the last time you and I said,

spoke, we were coming off of that playoff run of his, right, where he got into the 80s in terms of games played, combining the regular season and playoffs. It was pretty clear that it had started to take its toll. And then now you watch them early this year, Dallas has had the benefit of playing, I believe, the fewest games in the league. They kind of really got to ease into the season. He's gotten to play a handful, get it under his belt. And he looks like Jake Godinger again. So that's what I was kind of thinking of, like, is it better for a goalie in terms of just being fresh and at peak performance, or is it going to take some adjustment? period for also themselves to

kind of get into that rhythm of exactly like how far out you want to be on certain shots and really getting that formula down to a team. I think once guys are established, like they know what their game is and it's more about riding a bicycle, right? Yeah, and for a guy like Jake Ottinger, like, you know, correct me if I'm wrong. I mean, there's been personnel change in Dallas, but

no, it's about as much as you can roll it over for one year or another next year. Yeah, so and in Ottinger's case, like I think unbeknownst to any of us, I think it was Sad Yusuf who had the story this week, which I really enjoyed, like, there was an ankle injury that he played through all last season and required surgery. And so he was forced to shut it down in the summer.

And this is another trend that I think we're starting to see. A lot of these younger goalies have always sort of wanted to be on the ice a lot in the summer. And we've talked a lot, you know, one of the things we talked about, or I talked about in my piece on NHL.com, the first unmask column of the season about this decline and say percentage was how players have finally started to approach the offseason like goalies used to in terms of working on their skills. Like for the last 20 years, goalies went to goalie school

and they worked on their technique and their skill and players were going bigger, stronger, faster. Well, now in the last, I would argue, five to 10, somewhere probably in that seven, eight year window, skaters are going to school on skills in the summer. They're doing these pep camps. They're working on finding ways to score

more goals to generate offense. And I think, you know, that's part of why save percentage is going down. On the flip side of that, we're starting to see some of these goalies kind of go carry price on it like price was famous he would the gear was gone like it was a way in the garage like unseen untouched till august first and then he would start to ramp it up and i mean there's only one carry price but ottinger in part because of the injury and some of the guys around the league

that i've talked to mostly off the records i don't want to share names yet i'm hoping they'll open up a little more and let me use this in a column right are kind of taking that approach as well like we have worked so hard on our game for so long at some point we have to trust that this stuff all instinctual and maybe make sure that we get more of that mental rest as well as physical rest at a time when, you know, number ones are now being asked. I mean, you see Soros being the exception. He'd played every game so far or started every game so far from Nashville heading into tonight. But that sort of optimal window, remember, like when it came down to 65 from 70 plus and then 60 and now, like teams are like, like you said, like Scott Wedgwood's played a bunch already.

Casey DeSmith has played a bunch already more than I think a lot of people would have expected here in Vancouver I think teams are targeting 55 and so as goalies do we have to make adjustments especially the young elite guys to what we do in the summer to make sure there's something left in the tank

like yes we still work on our skills but maybe don't start in June and July wait until August like Kerry did so that you can be refreshed and be fresher for longer once the season gets going so if you're handling this let's say because you are our, as we know, our director of our goalie excellence department,

but let's play this out and say that we actually have a team. We're running a goalie tandem. You're starting a fresh month. So let's say, especially at the start of the season, you know, okay, we've got 12 games in October, or let's say, however amount, in a regular month. Are you mapping it out that far in advance where you're like, all right,

these seven games are starters going, these other five, you already know as the backup you're going to be playing them. Now, obviously, if something comes up along the way with an injury or what have you, you kind of adjust on the fly, but you're actually mapping it out that far in advance. And the reason why I bring that up is I was thinking of like this story we heard that last week with Leo Carlson, right, where the ducks have sort of mapped out already which games they

want him playing in the first half of the season and he kind of knows already which games he's going to have off to manage his body in his rookie season. I'm wondering if that's kind of the approach you would take with goalies to give them that time to actually prepare like, all right, two weeks from now, I know that I'm going to be playing on Tuesday night. Yeah, it's an interesting one, and I've talked to a few different goalie coaches about this, and I think in general terms, it is loosely mapped out in that regard for a lot of these teams, for a lot of these goalies, for a lot of these goalie coaches and the head coach.

You have to be willing to adjust, not just based on injuries, but how bodies feel at certain points, you know, how a goalie reacts to playing, say if that map includes three in a row. And those three happen to be nights where you get absolutely shelled and spend the whole night in your own end, and there's more fatigue there than you expected you have to be willing to sort of of make adjustments as you go. For me, you know, to look at, to me, that's maybe something that's always been there.

Like, I don't know. Maybe the mix in terms of how often you go to the other guy has changed over the years, but that type of sort of pre-planning has existed for a while. To me, where we find, because I know you like to look for inefficiencies, for me where we find inefficiencies in terms of resting goal tenders is in part practice. And funny enough, I was having this conversation with Andrew Burnett this morning from the National Predators in regards to UCSaur. his workload and hey like do you guys have a practice goalie and the answer was no but it's something

he's been considering um because there are large portions of practice that aren't necessarily you could like they're definitely not beneficial for your goaltender you could and i've argued in the past and goleys have said yeah thanks for saying it um there you could argue they're detrimental there are times in practice where the nature of the drills just isn't doing the goalie any good And that doesn't mean that is like a lot of goalies will hear that and they'll be like, yeah, I hate those parts of practice. And if you're a young goalie, I got to like rewind here and say, no, find a way to use that to get better. Like, like identify something you can work on within those times because it's not an excuse to just check out.

You can pick things and get better at. So there's my little goalie PSA. But at the NHL level, you know, why are we putting guys through that? Why, if we had a practice goalie, why couldn't we just have our number one go out with the goalie coach, focus on a couple things they've identified maybe through video or recent performances that they need to iron out, improve on or just tighten up, and then let them get off the ice

so that those first six drills in practice that are endless rushes, you know, if guys buzz in the tower from the hash marks and shots with time and space, that they won't get the rest of the season, you know, like maybe not in their careers and they're getting one after the other, like that's not good.

Why are we wasting reps? Why are we wasting the energy? the strain on the hips of a butterfly drop every time one after the other after the other. I think that's where a practice goalie can come in handy. And we have seen teams. You know, the Canucks haven't used him much, but they have one here in Vancouver.

His name's Roman Bazaran. He's a, I think he'd be a second year pro. I think he played in the ECHL last season. I have to double check that apologies, Roman, if I'm not up to date on the hockey DB. But he's a guy who, you know, like highly touted. He had a good career. He was in the dub, and he's a really good goalie and still could play pro,

and I think still hopes to have some injury issues. But I think there's a plan here to use him, at least at home, in practice. There's another team that I heard actually traveled, and nobody wants to really talk about it, but actually traveled a practice goalie with them last year. There are teams that have staff members that play goal, and they'll use them when we all know about Carolina Hurricanes, with Yorgia Alves, who got into a game, actually, for them as an eBug. He'll go out there, used to call him Little Wardo. Washington, Brett, is it Lienert or Linerd that has this?

the video coach who also used to play, he'll go out and practice, find those efficiencies. And then one more, because I know we've got to get a break here, but there is one more way. And this is the one that if your starter's not playing that night

and you have no intention of playing him because he's played three or four or five in a row. And this probably isn't relevant right now early in the season. But you have no intention of putting that guy out there. You know the nights where the backup gets shelled and the announcer's saying,

well, he's got to stay in there, that's the job. Right. Bite the bullet. Why is the thing? starter even on the bench. He has to go an entire pregame routine. He has to go through all his mental preparation, his regular naps, do his ball warmups or visualization. There's a lot of mental energy expended. Now, I've talked to a bunch of guys that would absolutely love that night off,

but because of the nature of team and how that's perceived, they don't dare ask for it, but they believe there would be a fundamental benefit to their rest rate and how refreshed they are the next time they play and potentially into the playoffs, if teams would to start exercising that. The only team I've seen do it so far this season, and I didn't check into the details as to why. I know there was a night where Phillies carrying three. Carter didn't start, Hart, and didn't back up either.

To me, I applaud that for a guy who's going to play a whole bunch. I think that's a refreshing approach, and what I would encourage the teams that have the resources and the cap space to have a third goalie round, maybe did a little more often. Well, I think we talked about this last year. I mean, I completely agree. if you were able to figure it out from like a cap and financial perspective.

Like if I'm the stars, I think there's 25 times out of 82 this year. Jake Onders should just stay home. Play some video games, hang out, do whatever you want to do. There's no reason for you to be sitting on the bench wearing a baseball hat with your gear on. I don't buy that sitting down there will let you see the game from even in the press box, like seeing it from a different angle. like, no, you know, as you said, you already got it down to a science. You know what you need to do.

Instead, I want you to actually recharge because there's a physical tool, but obviously there's a psychological one as well, right? And having to go through all those reps as if you are preparing to potentially play, it just seems silly. You're putting added workload for no reason on them. Yeah, and I would say, like, some of the guys I've had this conversation with, and again, everybody's really careful in this one because nobody wants to, like, they'll say it to me that they see a benefit here.

Yeah. But they don't want to put their name on the record for them all. part because again it's that whole like it kind of sounds as whining but also b it doesn't really go to like the team element right it's like i want to isolate myself from my teammates obviously no one's actually going to want to say exactly and so it's probably going to have to be taken out of their hands right like it's going to have to be somebody else making that decision and you know i think you know like in anything all it's going to take we we've seen teams win cups with guys that play less and vassie is obviously the exception right um but it's going to take somebody doing this

continuously, continuously over the course of a season, and then having a goalie go on a heater in the playoffs that he says, yeah, I feel, yeah, I played this many games. But man, I feel way more rested because I got these moments and these opportunities. That's what it's going to take for everybody. And like you said, cap space as well because not everybody has room to, you know, you're not going to put your goalie on IR for a week to give them one night off. Like you need the space on the roster to give them a night off.

But, you know, it is something. And you never do it in an ebug situation. and that's integrity to be game stuff. But I think there's an opportunity there. I think there is an inefficiency that has been, you know, yet to be exploited properly at a time when we're taking number one goalies and playing them less than ever before in a lot of cases. Are we actually giving them the benefit of a full night off?

And the answer is no. Well, the Golden Knights are probably the team to do this. The problem is they're always so tight up against it from a numbers perspective. But, I mean, you look at the success they obviously had last year with how little Aiden Hill actually had to play throughout the season and how they, because of injuries, but also because of how many guys they had with Logan Thompson and then training for Jonathan Quick, they were able to sort of ease the workload for him. They're also so ruthless to his degree and also try to explore all these little quirks that they can. So they would seem like

they are a team that has an extra goalie around for practice. Now, it's the host of the Ingle radio podcast, Aaron Millard, who still puts on the pads and goes out there and kicks with the guys and if they've got if they need a goalie for injured player skates and stuff like that and a little bit of practice time at least they take advantage of that resource as opposed to just being like hey let's get the backup to do it um okay we got to go to break in a couple minutes here but we still got a bit of time i don't want to fully dive into the big categories we were we're going to talk about let's give a shout out to the coyote's tan this is the first time that i'm having you on the show this season right first of hopefully many the last time we were together talking hockey was my last show

of last season before we went off for summer break. And I remember at the time we were talking about some of the moves we saw in offseason, player movement, goalies switching teams. And then at the end, we gave a little shout out to potential under the radar sleepers for the season or situations that we liked and we wanted to watch heading into this year. And sure enough, you look at the coyotes. And now they're much tighter defensively than they were last year, certainly. And I think just the fact that they improved their roster so much helps, right?

They brought in so many actual NHL players and are actually meaningfully trying to compete this year, so that helps. But both, Vemako's been obviously fantastic. I think Ingram's year-long numbers so far, which is funny to say after three or four games, don't look good. And then you actually look under the hood a little bit and it's like, oh, he got pulled after 12 minutes in one game where he gave up a couple goals. But otherwise, his three other starts were all fantastic, where he had like a 957 percentage. And so both those guys, Ingram and Vomelko, what I love about it is not only do I like them individually, but I believe making like 4.6 million combined for the next two years. And they're both, what, 27 years old?

Like, it's almost the perfect situation. I just love it. I mean, listen, like, Vomelka is just legit. Yeah, like, I think we can say that at this point. I'm partial to Connor Ingram because he was kind of one of those, you know, I don't get a lot right here. It's still a very unpredictable position. If I was as smart as I pretend to be on this show, you know, I'd have a job that pays a lot more than radio, frankly. But Connor Ingram was one that I got right.

The underlying numbers when I looked at ClearSight, you know, I remember when I got a call from beat reporters in Arizona, sort of asking about who they should target. Like he was the guy I said because even when the raw numbers didn't look great in Nashville, the underlying in small samples was really good. And there was just there there. And you're right. The adjusted say percentage already this year. And you're also right in that, you know, with only a couple, three, four games, like one. One mediocre outings just going to sewer your numbers. he's still, you know, well above expected adjusted, say, percentage.

Like, he's, you know, he's legit. And I think one of the parts that gets missed there is the job that Corey Schwab does for the Arizona Coyotes. And I kind of had a tweet about this earlier this season because up until a couple of higher event games where some pucks went in on both these guys, like they were the number one tandem through like the first, heading into that first Tuesday. So I guess a week ago, that ESPN all 16 teams. The frozen frenzy. Frozen frenzy. there you go. They were the number one tandem in the NHL,

and they played at a really high level. And if you watched the second half of last season, because for Ingram, again, we talk about adjustments. There was an adjustment for him early last year, and it was kind of like there was a point about a third of the way, maybe a little after that through the season where he really started to take off. And everything statistically,

and when you watched his game, really looked good from that point on. And he's just kind of picked it up. So, like, the fact he's just continuing, it's really not a surprise. You know, and I think there are other examples around the league that we can find. We might see one tonight in Kevin Lankton where if another team's looking, I said this last year too, like if Corpusallo was 1A on the wish list for teams in terms of, you know, a guy who could come into the deadline and help you, I think Kevin Lankton would have been number two for me.

Flying under the radar in part because UC pays so much in Nashville, I think the predators are really wise to lock him up. And again, that's a lot of pressure to heap on a guy heading into his first start of the season tonight. He's lived up to it when he's gotten the opportunity. And if I'm another team, I can't remember if they got him one or two years. Like he's a guy I'd have my eye on for the deadline because he's really has, there's a pedigree there. There's been some ups and downs in the NHLs. He learns in different places behind some pretty bad teams in Chicago. But with a more stable environment and some of the adjustments with Ben Vanderclok that he's made in his game,

another goalie coach who probably doesn't get enough love in Nashville moving in there after Mitch Korn left. you know he's another guy that like I said if he continues to have success a lot of people be like oh hey what's this and I would be like no not a surprise at all like this guy's showing some really good underlying numbers for for a season in a bit here yes let's put a pin in the kevin lankin because we are going to circle back to that and i want to bring you up a situation that i like for him moving forward not to take him away from the national predators before he's even played a game for him in the season but just as something to keep in mind moving forward Kevin, let's quickly sneak in our break here

before we really start diving into it and then we come back. We'll keep talking goalies. You're listening to the Hockey P.Docast streaming on the SportsNet Radio Network. The most comprehensive Canucks coverage in the city. Canucks Central with Dan Ritio and Satyar Shah. Be sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

All right, we're back here on the SportsNet Radio Network, the HockeyPedocast, Kevin. Here's a few situations that I want to talk about with you while I got you here after the first couple weeks of the season. Let's start with the Leafs goalies because they were clearly reluctant to commit to Ilya Smsonov after the year he had last year, right? They went through with arbitration. He was rewarded the one year, a $3.55 million deal, I believe, to come back to them next this year. And you know, on the surface, you look at all the

numbers, right, 42 games, 919, say a percentage. The public models had him as a top 10 goalie based on goals, say, what I have expected. You and I kept talking throughout the year, though, that the least were clearly a better defensive team than a lot of the public models were indicating, and that had been the case for a few years, despite sort of the belief publicly in terms of what team they, what kind of team they actually were defensively.

And sure enough, Spore Logic had him at plus 4.5 goals, Cielabot expected last year, which is good, but paled highly in comparison to the 21 or whatever he was by the public models. And, clear, I just, you know, like just a hair under 11. So, you know, still really respectable, like 13th in the national hockey league on their numbers. But again, you know, it's kind of this is the, I feel like we're having the Jack Campbell conversation, not to the same degree. But the public or the sort of the raw NHL.com, so to speak, numbers valued him a lot higher than that.

Well, this is the one I'm bringing him up because I think it's beyond just that this specific situation. It provides an interesting segue for us to talk like philosophically about one particular area of goaltending. and that's this idea of high danger, say, percentage, or like how you do on shots from, let's say, the inner slot, right? Because that is something that spore logic tracks. Now you obviously, with ClearSight, got access to a whole other slew of stats. But something that Ilya Sampsona really was good at last year was I believe he led the league in inner slot, save percentage,

according to sport logic. And that's something that I know that historically he hadn't necessarily excel at despite being very athletic and big and all those sorts of physical checkpoints that you would expect from a goalie in that category. This year, it's just five games. He's 591 in terms of the same percentage from interslot shots, which is the league worst out of any goalie that's played multiple games. And I guess my question for you is how much stock we put into that as an actual transferable skill set, whether it is purely just kind of a volatile one-year thing or whether it is an actual skill. How do we sort of frame that and how do we view it as if a player shows us that one year,

should we necessarily expect it moving forward or is it purely a thing that could change depending on the situation? Well, I think adding context to it is important. So if I were to search just slot area high danger, Ily Samsonoff comes out quite high. This year. Last year. Yeah, it's awesome. Okay.

Yeah, no, no, he was, best in the numbers. Yeah, best in the league. But what if I add slot line plays to high danger? Okay. What if that puck goes east-west? And you and I talked about this. I talked about the narrow butterfly. Yeah.

I talked about how, you know, this was sort of a physiological difference that I saw between Ilya Samsonoff and say an Ilya Sorokin or an Igor Shisterkin, two guys, you know, I mean, unfairly, but those are some of the guys he was compared to as the next young Russian. and goal tenter. When I watch that narrow butterfly and I see sort of the pinball flippers going in there, he's kicking out pucks a lot more actively than those guys who have that wider butterfly, their feet are way out to the side of them. Those pucks are just hitting their pads. They don't have to kick at them. The delays that that brings into Ilya's game when he has to move east west,

because now if I've got a narrow butterfly, my feet are behind me. So in order to get an edge to say, if I need to push to my left from my knees, in order to get that right skate, planted to make that push and get good rotation. I've got to pull it out from behind me. Whereas if I have this nice wide butterfly like these other guys, I just lift my knee like nowadays with equipment like a guy like Schistierkin. Like it's like he barely lifts his knee. He's got an edge and he's moving laterally.

Like there are I guess measurable. I've never taken a stopwatch to it, but like clear delays in those lateral plays for a guy like Samsonoff that aren't there for the other guys. And so we talk about slot area and I talk about the need to add context. Well, as soon as I had slot line plays, Ilya Samsonoff last year is at minus 4.4%. And in slot area on its own,

he was, as you know, to your point, he was still, he was still quite high. Like he was still doing quite well. Sorry, I lost the number here in front of me. But that added piece of context. So what are the Leafs giving up more of right now? Like they're not as good defensive as they were last year on the overall numbers.

And I'm willing to bet, again, we don't have the best internet connection in here, so it's a little slow. But I'm willing to bet one of the things that's down as part of that in his starts will be the lateral play. And so, you know, I think it's important to sort of grain assault all numbers, including the numbers I have in front of me, right? But like adding that context, which is why I think slot line plays matter so much, they make such a difference. Man, like you intact in straight lines and there are times when the closer you are to the net, if I don't have to worry about going east-west, And I trust my feet and I trust my edges and I can hold my position. And that's a piece of cake stuff for a lot. Not a lot because it requires a certain skill set.

And not everybody has that patience. And Samsonoff clearly has it. But make me go east west. Connor Hellebach, the best in the game if it's straight lines. But make these guys go east west and the numbers change a little bit. Not that they're bad goaltenders, but again, so did the least do a really good job of playing to his strengths last year? and those types of chances, yes. And what we're seeing now, part of what we're seeing now

is numbers that were not good last year, not being good again this year, except in his starts, he's seeing more of them. And clearly, there are other elements. It is not just this one thing. I'm just pointing that out as an example of where some of the numbers can sort of fail you when we say, why doesn't this transfer from one year to the next?

Now, does it, like if we go that microstat, does every goalie, is every goalie the same from year to year? No, like these aren't perfect, right? Like subtle little things can change and change a goalie's number. I don't know that I've found something that is ironclad predictable stays from one year to the next. But I think when you drill into these more, the trends tend to continue at least a little more consistently than they do without that added context. Well, here's a thing. Samsona has five games so far, 851% percentage, minus 6.5 goals the above expected.

Joseph, Brickwall, four games, 962, plus 10.5 league leading goals, the oboe have expected a corner sport logic. And I'm really curious to see how they play this because you look ahead to their November schedule and I believe they play only 12 games in the entire month. And so how they divvy up that workload and whether they actually start slanting this more in Wall's direction. Obviously, I think that might be dependent on if he keeps performing this way and then you obviously feel more comfortable giving them more starts. But I'm really curious to see that, right? Because there's been, while you apply all that context,

there's been a pretty clear delineation in performance between the two. And so how much that shakes out moving forward will be fascinating to watch for me. Well, and that's, and again, like, like, I just wanted to, I added all that context to the, to sort of illustrate the point of, like, you know, what Samsonov succeeded with last year and comparing it to this year. And why is it different? Well, because I don't think there's enough context. And when you drill down further, you see, and actually I'm looking right now, like, on slotline plays, he's, he's just as bad as he was last year.

Like that was there already. He just wasn't seeing as many of them. Yes. In terms of comparing the two, there is no comparison right now. Like, and it's funny enough, I, I'm trying to remember what show I was on in Toronto last year. I want to say like March or something like that where they're talking about how they manage the minutes of the guys. And one of the things I said was down the stretch, if I was the Maple Leaf, I remember this very clearly, I would find a way to get Joe. WAL into games.

Brick Wall. Sorry, Joseph. That's his legal name. Brick Wall. I would find a way to get him into games too because obviously we had the question marks about Matt Murray's health and Samsonoff sort of playoff pedigree or lack thereof. And there's just always been something of like, you know, in the goalie community, like Joseph Wall has been somebody that a lot of people have liked for a while now.

And we've seen that progression. He's taking steps at different levels. And so, you know, I think he ended up in the playoffs. Anyways, last year, I would have been a little more keen to get him in more games down the stretch and maybe even have him in, I mean, hey, they got through a round, but I still, like, he would have been an option, like, to me, this isn't, like performing at the level he's performing. I'm not going to pretend I called that by any stretch, but I think, I don't think it's just a shock that Joseph Wall, if given the opportunity, can take over the number one job in Toronto.

Now, the question is, for every goalie, until you've done it, you've never done it. doing it over the course of a whole year is a different animal. And if you look at his annual games played, it's quite low. It's like in the 30s because of the situation. He's rested. Well, I had to turn my computer off, reboot it, restarted, unplug it, like five times just to make sure I was getting this right. He's somehow only 17 months younger than Nilea Simsonov, which I just, I understand like goalies develop at a later age, right? And it generally takes them a while to actually make an appearance in the league and make their presence known.

And also Simpsons up was here right away. And so we've gotten to see a lot of those growing pains, I guess, or like blemishes early in his career. And they've been in front and center. But yeah, that's remarkable because it feels like he's been in our lives for a million years now. And I'm like, oh, wow, they're pretty much peers. So perspective is important. And sometimes I think the more we see a guy, it's like the playoffs, right?

Like nothing, nothing will break your game down faster than a long playoff run. Like every little tendency, every little potential war, or something that a team can target. By the time you get to the end of the playoffs, not only has every team seen it, every goalie coach, every scout, but whether it's through analysis or whispers to the media, like it's sort of you get exposed, sometimes inaccurately and unfairly.

I can think of some of the conversations about Cory Crawford over the years and the glove hand and things like that. But, you know, Samsonov's been in the spotlight longer. And so with that comes a tension that is negative as well. And people maybe, listen, he'll be the first to tell you this isn't the start he wanted. He played pretty damn well for them last year. He did. Like at the end of the day, break down the numbers all you want.

He was still really solid for them at a really manageable number, which is what they needed. Okay, I'll give you the choice here because I don't think we'll be able to get through all of them today, but I do want to get as much as we can. Bruins, Oilers, Kings. Which one of the situations you want to start off with first? You're making me think. Let's go happy times. I was going to say it is Halloween

and what's spookier than talking about the Oilers goaltending situation. But we can go happy times if you want. Let's go happy times. Let's go Bruins. This will be a quick one because I don't want to necessarily anything super insightful to say because it's like they're good. They're good. Their situation's good.

So the synergy of those two leads to good results. But I did want to note that through nine games, I believe they've gotten by definition, a quality start in every single one of them in the sense that their goalies, goals save above expected was a net positive compared to like the how many goals they gave up compared to the workload. Now the team defense isn't necessarily

what it was previously. I think they're giving up more volume. As you saw in the game against Florida last night where I believe they gave up like the 37 shots or whatever, which they weren't necessarily doing that often last year. But it still feels like for the goalies and I think you would agree with this, it feels

like they generally know where those shots are going to come from and that's a really nice spot to be in as a goalie. And when you combined that with guys who are obviously very talented in their own right in Allmark and Swayman, that's how you get these types of results. Now, they've given up 14 goals against in the first nine games combined, which is obviously just comical. Maybe we shouldn't be surprised. But yeah, both guys' numbers are off the charts any way you adjust them. And I don't know, do you have any notes on what they're doing? They're both significantly outperforming their environment. Yeah.

That environment remains at five on five when it comes to the most dangerous chances, the high danger chances, the fourth best in the NHL. They give up a little more in the PK. That has been, you know, I'm probably not surprised considering they lost Bergeron. Yeah. And that's where the goalies are leaned on the heaviest to this point.

But that's just, it's your perfect situation. Right. You got a Vezna Trophy winner who is genuinely, sincerely happy when the other guy succeeds and vice versa. There is nothing put on about that

relationship, having talked to both of them about it, on and off the record. And so in an era where, you know, we're talking about job shares and guys playing less and the need for that, you have two, you know, high-end elite level goaltenders that continue to push each other

but without doing anything but wishing the best for each other at the same time. It's just, it's your perfect situation. And guess what? Boston's got guys coming. Like there's guys coming still And I think it's just You know I maybe this is because they don't get any love anywhere else

And this will be an advance I won't talk to you again Before the Hall of Fame Inductions and great to see three goaltenders going in Highlighted by Henrik Lundquist But could we get a freaking goalie coach in there So this is why I always have to plug them Right

Bob Asenza just the job he continues to do there In that organization I think is You know a lot of people talk about the system And yes when you are anchored Patrice Berser on setting your standards defensively for this long, that's good for everyone defensively, including the goaltenders. But the job Asenza has done with different goleys and identifying different talents and making sure they would fit within some of the unique things he does in terms of

asking his guys to maybe get out and recoil, come back ever so slightly and drift a little bit at a time when every other goalie coach, for the most part, just wants set and square, you know, recognizing that in an East-West game, that little bit of momentum can work to your advantage if you've got the right skill set and then finding those goleys and getting them comfortable with it. Like, you know, hats off because he deserves a lot of this credit as well. Who's the last goalie they used that had a bad say percentage? It was like a regular goalie. This obviously speaks to an environment, right?

They've been. Yeah, I mean, you look at the, you look at the number standard. Look at what Yarrow Halak did there too. No, but I'm even thinking like Anton Hudobin, Chad Johnson, Yarrow Halak. Like, like, they were just whoever has been through there. Yeah. No, it's, it's remarkable. And again, you've lost, and this would be the interesting thing, maintaining it over time,

because you've lost the standard bearer, right? Like Patrice was the guy that demanded everyone else pay attention to the same level of detail and sort of held everybody to account. You know, after you lose that, how long can you maintain it? And it's probably a credit to the impact he had that, you know, kind of like when teams switch away from a defensive coach, but they still have that in their DNA. Like this is still in the DNA of a lot of these players.

And so again, like I said, I've already given you the numbers on the defensive environment. But there are also two excellent goaltenders, an excellent goaltending coach, and obviously an excellent goaltending. I don't know that they have a director or a department. And I'm totally brain cramping on who's in the American League for them right now. But everybody deserves a pat on the back because of the job that's being done there right through to the farm. Well, speaking of good goalie situations, Edmonton Oilers. So they're giving up four goals against per game so far, 32 goals against and eight games.

Now, they're middle of the pack in pretty much every sort of shot and chance volume category that you can find, right? Yeah. I've got them a lot lower than middle of the pack. Really? Yeah. Well, I was going to say, I was going to say just by the public numbers, they're 17th and shots against, 10th and high danger chances, 14th and expected goals against. Now they're 31st and deepsay percentage. You know, just in watching these games, a lot's been made of sort of this new defensive environment in terms of the structure they're trying to play in.

of them, right, trying to adopt that Vegas model. And the reason why I brought up the volume point was it feels like in totality or I guess in the aggregate of a game, it hasn't seemed that bad. But it seems like when there have been breakdowns, they've been particularly glaring. And for the most part, they're winding up in the back of the net. And so that's how you get back to this game of sort of finger pointing of who's to blame, where things go wrong, right? Because if it's sustained over the course of a game and you're just,

stuck in your own zone and you're bleeding chances against, it's like, all right, this is a very easy thing to define. Whereas in this case, it's kind of more isolated or not as frequent, but when it happens, it's like, wow, there was a guy just wide open in the slot or off a rebound, no one tied him up and the goalie had no chance. But then if it happens four or five times a game, all of a sudden, you get into a situation where someone has to be to blame. Yeah, and it's, so it's interesting because to me, that sort of speaks to where these chances are coming from, right? And I had the same questions.

When I heard they were switching to, you know, I heard it by now, the box plus one. It's been a hot topic. And I think you've had them, have you had, you've had Jack, on. Not this season yet. But you've had them on in the past. I've listened to him out here, like a huge fan of what he does. And I thought he did a really good job breaking this down.

And I love when people do that because, like, I'm, I'm supposed to be around the game and paying attention to things, and he sees things in a way that open my eyes when I read his stuff on Twitter. And so to me, he's a must-follow folks, and I learned something, which is kind of what I hope to do sometimes when I talk about goaltending. I don't achieve the level he does, but I'm trying to. And he sort of showed the examples of it, and interestingly enough, it matches with the numbers.

Like, for all the focus, and I have the question, like, they were a really good defensive team last year. Why would you switch away from this? Especially down the stretch after they acquired at home. We talked about this last year. were better in terms of the amount of high danger chances they gave up before they got at home than they were after. They gave up more lateral stuff once he got into that lineup, which was interesting.

They went from like a top four or five team to still inside the top 10, but there was a drop off there, which is, you know, I had it in the back of my mind. We talked about it and it's worth noting and at least keeping an eye on because it doesn't make any, it didn't make any sense to what we were seeing and the overall numbers. Anyways, let's fast forward to this year. So all the focus is on the system. what if I told you their expected goals against high danger chances, five on five in zone, once it's settled in the defensive zone, they were first in the NHL right now.

That's where it ranks. Right. What if I told you that overall in the NHL? Is that what you're telling me? That's what I'm telling you. You're phrasing it as a hypothetical. They are. So in other words, a lot of the focuses on the wrong things.

Right. And this is where I wanted to refer to Jack because when he did his Twitter feed, like he, He pointed to things in the neutral zone, things on the forecheck that weren't happening, and how that was preventing them from establishing sort of their game offensively and allowing teams to sort of counter out of their own end cleanly and come at them off the rush. They are so bad in expected goals against high danger off the rush,

32nd in the national hockey. Again, this is early sample, so it can only take a few bad games to kill you on this. They are so bad. So they're first defensive zone in 30 seconds. off the rush. It is so bad off the rush that overall, those things don't add up to 15th,

they add up to 30th. That's how much expected the goals. They are high danger chances they are giving up off the rush. PK is also 22nd. That environment is nothing like what it was last year.

Jack Campbell, remarkably, despite limited minutes and seeing almost as many slot line plays this season as, Mackenzie Blackwood in San Jose, Jacob Mark, Sherman, Calgary,

like places, you know, where we expect a lot of dangerous chances against, has actually held up. Like, he's right around expected. The stumble has statistically has been Skinner. Yes. And he's been off to a tough start. But we talked about this too.

Like rookie, top rookie team, was he the rookie year? Last year, I don't remember. No, no, no, he wasn't. But he was a finalist. He was a finalist for the Calder. Right, it was Maddie Baneers. Sorry, brain cramp.

We'll blame it on the conkey. There's no way a goal he won an award. Come on. We should win all the awards. I mean, again, don't get me started on who votes for the Vesna. But we talked about his numbers, too. Yeah.

Like they were, he deserved a ton of credit for what he did last year. First year pro on a team with Stanley Cup aspirations. And I love his approach. He was always trying to get better, always trying to learn. There's a lot to love about Stuart Skinner. But when you look strictly at the numbers, what we saw in, you know, again, I call them the NHL.com, the counting numbers that everyone sees. that influence all-star votes and things like that,

I think it was a 9-15. Like a lot of that was team environment. And that team environment has cratered so far this season. And he stumbled early. And he had some tough moments where it wasn't necessarily on him either. I think he's kind of corrected some things in his game and looks a lot better these last couple of starts. But if you keep bleeding, this goes back to the Samsonoff thing,

you keep bleeding east-west slot line plays on him. There is some lateral limitations that these not, numbers will continue to not be what people expect based on last year if this team doesn't clean that up. And can changing your defensive zone system, as they did in Calgary, maybe it creates a confidence in how they're playing overall that basically manifests itself with a better forecheck, with better neutral zone play, just because they're playing more confidently, maybe. But the reality early on is the numbers don't say the defensive zone play has been the problem. It's been what they're giving up off the rush. And a lot of that, as Jack pointed out in his excellent

Twitter thread starts with how they're forechecking in the other end and how they're playing through the neutral zone. Yeah, obviously the season opening and the Vince Canucks when they gave up the eight goals comes to mind. But I think where things really went off the rails was that game in Minnesota, they gave up seven. The seventh was an empty netter, I believe. But the first six, you go back and watch those.

And I think a couple of those were exactly what you're talking about, where it was just a completely uncontested rush chance that essentially turned into a one-on-one breakaway, a few others where no one got tied up like right in front of the net on a broken and play. And it's remarkable because I'm looking at Jack Campbell's numbers. He has an 886 raw save percentage, right? And he's above expected. Above expected. He's above expected right now. And so he's just a hair above expected. No, but for an 886% percentage is remarkable. And Stuart Skinner is only three and a half, I mean, three and a half goals in a limited number starts is not where you want to be, but he was like nine goals. Like he's pulled himself up.

Like I think a lot of people would see where they are a raw say percentage and be like, oh, this is all on the goal, well, I don't think people think it's all in the goaltending, but I think there's a disproportionate amount of blame on the goal tending. And I think they'd be surprised to see that Skinner has pulled himself up close towards expected. Campbell's actually playing above it. And I think more to the point, their goaltending situation, in the way they're built, like, they're not, they're not built to have their goalie stop bullets in their teeth. That's not where they're going to have their success and they need to get back to what they were last season if they're going to have success. This is not ill.

Seroquan, Andre Vasselfti, UC Soros between the pipes for them. It's not to diminish what they've got or what they're capable of, but it requires more structure. And frankly, if you're 32nd against the rush in high danger chances against, I'll go back to the Robin Lanner analogy.

When he was in Buffalo, I remember this, and I'm paraphrasing, but the conversation was, when I was in Buffalo, we would give up four or five odd man rushes a game. I got to New York, we would give up two or three every two games. When I'm on my game and playing well and we give up four or five,

one, two, maybe three could still go in if the other team executes, even if I'm playing well. So when you are 32nd in high danger rush chances and shots against, your goaltending is going to suffer for it. Your numbers overall are going to suffer for it. You're probably not going to have success as a team.

Yeah, which is strange to see because after they made the coaching change a year and a half ago and Woodcroft took over, that was like a distinct point of emphasis. And that was a big reason for why their results improved so much because they were so much more aggressive in the neutral zone defending and that's all kind of gone to the wayside right and I guess the issue is when you're these two guys are making 7.6 million combined which is top five

in terms of cap hits allocated to goalies in the league and so it's not necessarily that top tier of some of those goalies you mentioned where they're paid as superstars and they're asked to clean up a lot of the mess in front of them but it is still quite a large amount and so when you say all right well they're not the type of goalies that can do that it's like well then why are you paying well jack hamill's jack hamill's in the mid 30s right now yeah Just its A percentage. Guess where Jack Campbell was both his years in Toronto and justice A percentage right in the mid-30s. So, like, he is giving them what he gave to the least.

It is not his fault that they gave him $25 million. No. No. If anyone wants to get us $25 million, it also won't be our fault. I take it 25,000. Yeah, we'll take it. All right, Kevin, this is a blast. We're going to have to put the Kings on the side for now.

I have a feeling this is going to be a thing that I'm going to want to talk about as we, the season gets gone. So next time we have you on, we'll start off with that, I promise, because there's a lot of us. things for us to get into there. You know who did a really nice piece? I want to give plugs here. Greg Wischinski did a really good piece on ESPN about the Kings and their goaltending situation

and how their approach against sort of based on on Vegas. And I actually just read that this morning and really enjoyed it. So go read his. Okay. And then we'll see how it goes in the next month. And I'll come back and talk on it.

We'll talk. Okay, looking forward to everyone, go follow Kevin. Kevin is in goal on the social media. Kevin is in goal, is the social media. He's no long. He's not in goal right. now unfortunately a little on the i r but he is in goal kevin is in goal on the twitters um is this

here tonight demetri yes as we're talking here so this is so folks if you're listening in the vancouver market i'm going to plug something here i'll be really quick uh canox autism network i don't know if i'm going to get to play this weekend because of the iR situation but i'm still doing the fundraising we gave away a demco jersey autograph we gave away a peterson jersey autograph check out my twitter because tomorrow wednesday our final jersey is a quin hughes black skate jersey all donations. Anyone who donates is automatically entered

for a chance to win that and it's a great cause that people involved that Kanox Autism Network do great work for the community and for families and kids who are on the spectrum

and so it's a cause I love to support and so if you could support my efforts to do so, you'll find it on my Twitter. I co-sign that. That's a lovely way to end the show, Kevin. Thank you for that. Thanks for coming on. Thank you to the listeners

for listening to us. We'll be back with plenty more of the Hockeypedia guest later this week streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.