The Hockey PDOcast - You’re Only as Good as Your Goalie

Episode Date: November 28, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Kevin Woodley to discuss how Minnesota’s inability to prevent goals against cost Dean Evason his job, breakout goalies to keep an eye on, and how netminders are trying to keep up with league’s change in offensive philosophy.If you'd like to participate 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/a2QGRpJc84This podcast is produced by Dominic SramatyThe 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.

since 2015. It's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pee-O-Cast. My name is Dimitra Filippovich and joining me is my good buddy, Kevin Woodley. Kevin, what's going on, man? Not much. It's just good to be back here. I will say that parking at this time of year, it must be almost December because all of a sudden, from no problems to running in here like my tails on fire because I can find a spot. So I'm blaming it on the Christmas shoppers. Bah, humbug. Yeah, the P&Ped-O cast. for parking and we're going to do a deep dive of the Vancouver parking scene here today. No, we're not going to do that. A genuine treat as always to have the director of our

Department of Goaltending Excellence here live in the flesh joining us in studio. Kevin, the people, we started this Discord channel for the PDO cast where our listeners have been congregating and chatting and, you know, talking every night, observations during the games, posting mailbag questions. And the one consensus that unites everyone is they've been clamoring for the return of Kevin Woodley on the PEOCast. There's a lot of goalie questions in there, people wanting. I've been doing these deep dives every week with Darrell Belfrey where we go through the tape for players and look at what they're doing, how they're doing it.

People want me to do goalie ones with you. He's so good. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if there's enough material there for me to be talking about what goalies are doing on tape. But people want you on the show and we're out. We always give the people what they want here in the PEDAOCast. So there's a local Discord for like local Canucks coverage.

I've heard about this one, yeah. I was asked to join this one and my apologies to Wyatt the stanchion that I haven't yet. It's because I'm one of the old and technology gives me trouble, so I haven't quite figured out what this whole Discord thing is. But if I'm going to get a tire pump on yours, maybe I am going to have to get on this. On this Discord. I think people have been using it for a while. It's pretty new for me.

I think it's been around for a while. It's big in the gaming community, but it's been great. I've been really enjoying it for PDOC's purposes now. Don't worry. Stuff like Discord and TikTok. makes me feel like a boomer too. So I, uh, the extent of my social media goes Twitter, Instagram, and that's about it. So I'm right there with you. Welcome to the old. Yes. Okay. We've got a series of topics here. We're going to get into some of those mailback questions I referenced from the discord.

But let's first talk with the Minnesota while. We're recording this. Speaking of the olds. Speaking of the old, we are chatting. Uh, this is a Tuesday afternoon now on a Monday afternoon. Uh, they fire their coach Dean Evans and who remarkably, I look this up was at the time of his firing, the ninth longest 10-yeared coach in the league, which seems remarkable. Speaks to the life cycle of NHL coaches, but also feels like yesterday that they made that change to begin with and brought him on. Now, on the one hand, I get it.

They're 5, 10, and 4. They have a minus 19 goal differential, and they've trailed for about 50% of their total game time so far this season. That's a stat we keep referencing. We're going to come back to that later in this conversation. But on the other hand, I think some context and in terms of assigning blame is necessary. here. Like, they're not getting anything from their goalies. And we're going to talk about that,

obviously, with you here in studio. Their penalty kill has been a league worst. Their top player, Kilcroprizov has six five-on-five points in nearly three hundred five-on-five minutes this season. They've only gone six games out of Jared Spurgeon, who's not only their captain, but last year was just absolutely phenomenal, one of his best, if not his best season in his NHL career. And so you put all that together. And I think what you keep coming back to is, as an nature head coach you're really only as good as your goalies are yeah and this is an interesting one because you know i'll be honest i haven't i haven't done a lot of minnesota wild watching um this year and the goalies were a really good story last year and so as you sent me the topics as i

saw that evison was let go yesterday i looked up their numbers and like they're not great don't get me wrong they're certainly not where they were last year but they're just ever so slightly below Like 0.2% below expected. Now that's, again, like that's 49th out of 76 goalies that have qualified for this this year. They're tied, actually. It's not what you got last year, especially at Augustivson, who basically was the only goalie to approach Lina Slemark in terms of adjusted say percentage. But they're expected numbers in terms of the environment, like the bottom's falling out. Mark Andre Fleury's expected say percentage this year is 866.

Holy most. So I know the raw numbers are going to look really bad, but when you're expected is 866, yeah. Like that's kind of what happens. Gustafson is down at 875. Again, like league average this year is 888 in terms of expected. So the bottom has sort of fallen out a little bit. And, you know, along with that, they're not performing like they did last year. Fleury ended last year at plus 1%.

And as I said, Gustafin was plus 2.7. So that's a big difference. But the environment is worse. When I look at where they are defensively, 25th overall, five on five, they were 13th last year, 22nd off the rush, they were six last year. PK, especially high danger chances against, 31st in the National Hockey League, 21st last year. Like, they're giving up a lot more than they used to as a quote, unquote, defensive team. And their goalies aren't able to sort of hold water the way they were last season,

behind what is in an increasingly difficult environment. I wonder how much of that, it's kind of chicken or the egg, right? Because the reason why I referenced that stat off the top of this conversation about them trailing for about half of their game times so far this year, which is the worst in the league, is because we know that typically if you're pushing and you're trailing, right, you're going to generate more of the volume because you're just like frantically because of score effects trying to get back in the game. But that leaves you very susceptible then to the counter off the rush.

and generally, you know, the teams who are leading and protecting a lead have fewer shots, but they're more efficient because when they do take those shots, they're going to be more high dangers. And that's probably what's happening here. Yeah, and I mean, to me, that's a watch the game thing too. Like, you have to sort of watch more to see if, but when you tell me they're trailing that much, and I look at where they are off the rush this year, you know, as I said, 22nd overall, 20th in terms of high danger, they were six in both those categories last year, like to fall that far. and not to pin it on the coach

but yeah when you're like there are two things I guess when you fall behind and part of that's usually goal-tending as well but when you're behind and you're chasing that's when you make mistakes and part of the coaching message that can be hard to get across is to not chase outside of structure

is to not take chances well-playing catch-up and it's when you do that you start to you know what we hear it a lot these days the easy goals like you can't just give away the freebies and it feels anecdotally and when I look at the numbers like they're giving up more freebies than they did in the past and listen your goal is got to make some of those safes too and this

is a team that got a lot of them last year they need even more this year based on what they're giving up and they just haven't been able to get as many yeah the gusterson one is a real conundrum for me right because as you mentioned really the only thing holding him back in that vesna conversation I mean, regardless, Olmark probably would have won it just because his numbers were so preposterous and the Bruins had won so many games. But on a per game basis, right? He played the 38 games.

They were all any adjustment you put towards them. Like, they were right there. He was just a hair behind Elmark in the ones that I pay the most attention to. And like I said, the only thing that sort of kept him out of a conversation that otherwise was basically Elmark and Soros was the fact that he just played on the playoff.

Yeah. Yeah, the 38 games. And then they give him the three-year contract. And obviously, even when you, apply the context of slightly different environment this year. I think his performance hasn't necessarily been what we got last year, right? And so, no,

for him, for him to be below expected, given, you were counting on, that's a big drop from where he was last year, even behind a tougher environment. So, yeah,

he hasn't, he hasn't given you what, what you were sort of counting on when he gave him that contract. Yeah. And when you start, when you're getting the saves, things are good. When you're not getting the saves,

the coach is the blame. Yeah, but I mean, again, like, we shouldn't use expected as like, that's good. Right.

Right. But he's not that far below. Like, these guys are not, they have not bottomed out. No. This is not the worst goaltending in the league. And I've heard a lot of discussions about Dean Everson losing his job because the goaltending is amongst the worst in the league. But when Mark Andre Fleury hasn't expected of 866, like I think there's only six goalies

with lower that, you know, that have seen more than 100 shots. Like that is a, that's a tough way to go through a year. We should ask Eric Comer because he's one of the goalies, again, for a second straight year that has this abysmal. Yes. expected say a percent. Well, you know this. we just generally us in the community of not analyzing goaltending the way you do generally just look at goals against and if it's high it's the goalie's fault right and and i think

that's happening here because the wilder's certainly giving up a ton of goals against and so i think people are just a tribute to their goaltending but i think the change of environment is an important thing to note anything else on the wild here or do you want to move on to a more optimistic question from a listener that i think is going to lead us down a a bit more fun street filled with sunshines and rainbows. Let's go positive. We've got to put the goal of union card in the wall. Okay. Paul S.

Ask who is the next Aden Hill that I can scoop up for my fantasy team? Now, there was a lot of responses to this question in the Discord being like, if I know Kevin, it's going to be either Kevin Lankin or Connor Ingraham, two goleys that we have spoken about quite a bit here whenever you come on. Particularly we've referenced last year, our final show of the season before we went on summer hiatus.

There was all these moves, all these signings of goalies and everything, and then at the end, we sprinkled in a little nugget talking about Connor Ingram being like, this is a name to watch heading into next season because down the stretch, his performance was phenomenal. He really seems to have put it together. And lo and behold, as much as we love Karel the Threl Vovamilke here, he struggled a little bit, and they've been alternating those two guys this season in that Arizona crease.

And I think lately Ingram's making a real push to, at least while Vomelmaa figures it out, to take on more of that burden, right? And so I'm really curious to see how that goes if that really is the case for them. Well, and I get like, going to go right back to the Discord and tire pump myself here, because that was my,

that was like, he was one of the guys and I'm like, last year, if your team that needs a goalie and Nashville's got him on waivers, this is the guy I get. And I remember speaking with the Arizona reporters about like,

like, this is the guy I would target because they were missed, they were short of goalie. And sure enough, he's panned out. Now, it took a little while, right? And this is the challenge. I get this question a lot about the Oilers, right?

Like, who do they need to get. Well, the reality is even for these guys that that were hits, so to speak, like, it didn't happen to December for Connor Ingraham. Like, so you can't go get a guy and expect it to happen to Radoe. There's an adjustment period. But from December on, last year, he was really good. He's been really good this season. So I don't even know if I could pick him because I sort already there. He's not, he's not going to break out. He already has. And I'll give you the lanket in one too, because he's right now, and UC Soros is traditionally a slow starter. So you got a grain of salt. That Soros has been elite for two straight years. Like, I think he's done it long

enough that I have him in that category. So I expect his start to sort of start to turn around here soon. But yeah, Lankinin plus 1.8% adjusted save percentage early in the year. Like, he's a guy that, because I think they only signed him to a one year contract, I'd be looking for. I'll give you another name, though. And I think a lot of people are going to think I'm going to this because the question was Aiden Hill comparison and he comes from the same team. But I think there's actually some physical tools that are similar. And like McKenzie Blackwood, like this is a guy who a couple of years ago

we were talking about potentially being the next guy up in Canada's crease in a best-on-best situation. The physical tools are still there. Talking to people around San Jose and actually even talking to David Quinn after a game recently, like, you know, he threw it out there.

Like he's just an elite goaltender. Like he is an elite guy and we know that here. I don't know that enough. Other people know that. I think in the goalie world, there's a consensus that he has all the tools, and if he can stay healthy, like there are other guys, Carter Hart, Jordan Minnington, but I would not be shocked at all. If by the time we get to this next best on best in 2025, with some of the structure he's putting into his game, a healthy McKenzie Blackwood is right back in that mix.

Now, in terms of going and getting him, like Vegas did Aden Hill, it might not be as easy because I think the sharks recognize that too. Right. I'm with you on that. I think he's looked phenomenal and certainly the games they won have been almost entirely because he has been the best player on the ice for them, right?

I guess my concern, if you were going from, all right, this is a good story of a guy rebuilding his career and getting back on track and kind of showing all the physical tools that he did early in his career in New Jersey

is I don't know if this situation he's in this environment is like applicable to me to any other team that would, potentially acquire them. You know what I mean? Like the physical tools are certainly one thing, but I think sometimes we can get into trouble as saying, all right, well, this goalie is performing in this situation in one way. And all of a sudden, if we take them and then pop them into our

environment, we should expect the same. And I think a lot of people would think, well, look at his adjusted save percentage, look at the saves he's making, put him behind a better team. And all of a sudden, you're going to be cooking with something. But I think there is something to be said about Not every goalie is great behind a better defensive team. I don't want to get psychoanize. There's no pressure. There's no like any of a sudden. No, that's what I was going to say. The other thing is you can go out there every night. It's like Beer League.

Not to equate the NHL to Beer League, but the best games you have as a beer league goaltiner when you go in and you see like eight guys on the bench and the other team's the best in the league and they get a full lineup and you're like, we're going to get absolutely pumped tonight. And you're just like, so what the hell? Just go out there and like throw it all to the wind

and stand. And there's a little bit of that in San Jose, I guess. But to me, so I guess those questions have to be asked. And I actually think we can. it's too small a sample in San Jose right now. But I think we can sort through some of that information. We look at what do his numbers do when the score is close. Like is he making all these saves after they're down two or three to nothing,

like when it doesn't really matter? I think you could ask the same question of goalies sometimes when they get a big lead on great teams. Like you can drill down in the numbers, and I didn't today. I didn't do the prep work for that. But now that I've been asked the question and pointed to McKenzie Blackwood as one of my answers, And I think history and talking guys like Eddie Lack who were with him all those years ago in New Jersey

and were just like eyes as wide as saucers at the potential here. And again, back to the physical tools. I think we can, you can't see inside their mind for how they handle pressure, but you can look at certain numbers that are at least indicators of how they perform under pressure.

Do they crater when the score is close? David Ritch had a lot of that. Big Save Dave, as much as he was great on high danger chances in scores close situations sometimes at beginning and end of periods we can drill right down to all those elements his numbers fell off a cliff right and so we can perform that same exercise with mackenzie blackwood so i'm not saying we can come up with a definitive answer yes but we can certainly take what i see as a potential next aden hill and at least try to measure some of those

other elements of how he manages pressure because i think in new jersey he was just never never healthy. Like, to the point, he had what we call a Bauer bump, and probably not fair to Bauer that they get the nickname, but it's essentially basically like a bone spur caused by rubbing on the skate. Gotcha. His was so bad, they literally cut the heel, the hard plastic carbon fiber heel out of his skate,

put black tape over it so people wouldn't realize he was essentially playing with his heel exposed to the natural air and elements. And he played through that. He told me that story, I think, last year or the year before, and I was just shocked. Like, so sometimes we judge guys based on how they're performing without all the information about what they're trying to perform through. And I think there was at least some element of that with a Kenzie Blackwood in New Jersey. Yeah. No, and I didn't, to be clear, I didn't mean to make it like a, oh, well, he's playing free and easy because there's no pressure and he would fold in a different environment.

I meant more so, like, I just don't know. This Sharks team is such an outlier and an aberration compared to the other 30. It's a totally fair question. Where it's like, I just don't know if it's applicable, whatever anyone's doing in that environment to what it would look like on another actual NHL team that's competing, right? Like it's like, all right, we're going to go out there. We might lose 10-1 today.

You're probably going to face 40 shots, 20 of them are going to come from the inner slot. Good luck. And then you make a bunch of those saves. All right, well, what does that really mean to me? Now, if you watch a tape, you're like, all right, he's healthy. His technique is great. You see the tools.

He's applying them. He's making all that stuff. He's built like a line back. That would make me much more confident about like, all right, there's something here to work with. But I just, I'm a bit wary always. Just assuming, I guess, that A equals B in this case, right? Like, it's, it's totally fair. So that's why we try and find other ways of measuring some of those questions that come up in a situation.

Like I, you know, and I think the other thing is like, as much as we saw the potential years ago, McKenzie Blackwood in New Jersey, with Aden Hill, we had a little more proof of concept. Like, he'd spent some time in Arizona and had, you know, relative to team. you know, some levels of success. As a matter of fact, he also had some exposure because he was in Arizona to some of the ways you would be asked to play positionally under Sean Burke with the Vegas Golden Knights.

And so, you know, we've talked about how Aidan Hill's strengths fit what Vegas gives up and how it looks like they tailor to his strengths, including the high danger chances they give up. We talked about that, how he's so good in tight because his pass are so short because he plays so deep. So they'll give up a slot. line play, a low slot line play, but they don't give up high slot line plays that expose

sort of his, some of, I don't say deficiencies, but relative weaknesses in his reactive game. Like, there's a really good fit there. And by the way, like, not to turn this into the Aden Hill show, but at the end of the year, last year we talked about how good he was in the playoffs. Like, yes, they're a great team. But he was performing in the playoffs. Like, if he did that for a full season, his adjusted save percentage would be at a VASNA level. Yeah.

Guess where it is right now. Atavisna level. At avesna level plus 3.4%. The only guy who is a regular starter ahead of him right now is Thatcher Demko. So it's translating again. This isn't just a lot of people want to say it's all the team and all the system.

And they complement each other beautifully, for sure. But Aiden Hill deserves to be in that conversation right now. Right. If you've passed through the Arizona environment, I'm going to be higher on you as a goalie. I think that's one of, I know there's not a lot of rules to apply to goal. and it can be very volatile and unpredictable

and all that good stuff. I think for me, I'm at this point where if you have any connection to it, I'm in. I think I've done this before, but I think we need to tire pump Corey Schwab, the goalie coach there has been down there for years and sort of not as highly terrible. Because I think for a while they've obviously,

like they've been big on the frame, right? Like it seems like they've been like very attached to big goalies who are athletic and trying to kind of mold that and make it work. But Connor Ingram's an exception of that. right like i'm just thinking of like connor incoam outside of his head and hill he looks like a beer leger at tops right like he'll tell like he'll tell you that so um yeah it's you know what's a good question uh as much as i've tire pump swabby here he's not a guy who's been really yeah not that he's like hidden from me we know he's

doing we just don't know what he's doing yeah exactly like he hasn't shared a lot of these secret secret sauce a matter of fact i was at one point supposed to um i guess mediate uh his a presentation of his with for hockey Canada goalie coaches this summer I was asked to. And then I wasn't not asked to, but all of a sudden, I never heard back about it. And I'm kind of wondering, like, did he not want me to ask the questions? Because he doesn't want me to know the idea. But whatever he's doing, he's doing a great job. I hear good things from other goalie coaches about the work he does.

Interestingly enough, like he's a guy who has exposure in the past to both sort of a more rhythm-based flow-and-feel style teaching. Like he came up like San Jose in the system there in the one. Warren Streelo and a lot of the, for lack of a better term, old school teachings, but then also spent some time with some modern technicians while he was still playing, sort of more technical goal of coaches. And whatever he's doing, when I watch his goalies play, I just see a real nice balance between those two worlds.

Like, and that sliding scale, his goalies tend not to be over to one side or the other. And I think the fact he's working with such different type of goal is they all hold their feet really well. They're all really patient. but with different frames and different strengths and weaknesses, I think it says something about him that he's not, he doesn't seem like he, there's something that he must be doing to bring out their strengths

and there's probably a common threat I haven't found yet. But it doesn't feel like he's trying to change everybody into the same thing. And that's, you know, that's something that isn't necessarily true around the league. And when it is, you usually hear about it because it's a credit to the guy for not trying to force everyone into that same, you know every whatever round square peg round hole whatever not trying to make everyone the same yeah well while we're on this ingram 920 say percentage we i think we spoke about as the start of the year though

he had that one where he got pulled after 12 games and it was sort of this like outlier performance where he just gave up a couple goals they just made the goalie change if you take that one out and it's always risky you know removing stuff from the sample when it's still such a small sample he's got like a 920 7 7 7 percentage and all the other games like he's been so rock solid a couple games coming up here against Tampa Bay and Colorado offenses. I'm very curious to see whether they give him a bigger share of these starts and how he does in them. But regardless, like...

Found money either way. Having him in Vamalka at $4.7 million combined for this year and next is how you do it. That's a tidy piece of business for them. And like, listen, I am not going to pretend to have seen a bunch of style or way he plays elements in Connor Ingraham that led me to the conclusion last year. purely numbers. Like when I said somebody needs to go get him off off of the waiver wire when Nashville, or if and when Nashville sends him down last year, it was basically on small sample. Like I remember there's a game in Edmonton where I think he even got pulled where he was up for

just a few with Nashville and he went in there. I like the, I thought he made a lot of really tough saves. I liked the way he played. But it was the underlying numbers in small samples that said he was outperforming the environment. Like there's, there's a goalie there. So this isn't like any magical eye test or I'm like I'm good Lord I'm not that I'm not that smart but the numbers don't lie and when I look at clear sight and we see some of these things um you know like they tend to add up they do yeah he had that game for Nashville remember it was when they got absolutely walloped by Colorado and their Stanley Cup year two years ago now I guess and UC Soros got injured at the end of the year and so initially I was like all right David Ruddick's going to be the goalie and then that

quickly we found out that was not going to be the case in that series and conneringham comes in for that game two, I believe, and wound up losing it overtime, but had nearly 50 saves and it was just like, you just put on a show and you could tell that the Colorado shooters were just getting increasingly agitated than nothing they were trying was working. There's a lot of old school in them too. Like, there's some reactive saves there rather than again being over-reliant. Like, to me, technique can breed consistency. Like having that foundation where you do the same things, the same way, enough that there's a sort of a floor, a foundation. But not everybody's willing to go outside the box he is he makes some saves that you know may not be technically perfect

or stylistically pretty all the time but they're they're tough saves and he makes them and like again there might be goalie coaches that looked at that and be like ah it's not repeatable but the numbers say he's making enough of them that he's you know on the tough chances that again there's a goalie there's a goalie there right and that's that's all i was relying on and i think it's another man like I got to say, like, some of the mistakes that get made, too, like, I'm like, why are, why are, why are GMs not looking at the same numbers I'm looking at? Because I could have saved you this mistake in a hurry. And it's not because I'm smart. It's because the numbers don't lie. And they've, in a couple of cases, they've kind of panned out that way. Well, the reason why I included Lanken in here was because

I think a lot of this, I think we, we both believe that he's a good goalie. The issue is opportunity, right? Because we know that Soros is just going to start. Probably lead the league in starts, if not close to it. Now, he's been really good in his five games, right? He's got 920, 3.5 goals he'll expected by my count, but he's a UFA this summer, and they have Ascroft playing really well in the AHL. I think they have Sorrows for one more year.

It seems like everything, all the reporting we've seen is that they're very invested in keeping Soros long term. Right. And then I will see, there's all those rumors they were looking to trade Ascarov at the draft. We'll see what happens there. But regardless, I don't think Kevin Lankin will necessarily be UC Soros' backup for that much longer.

And so I'm very curious, especially if Nashville takes a bit of a step back towards the trade deadline, if he becomes a name that we keep talking a lot about. And so that'll be a fun topic to circle back to then. But just in terms of if you're thinking, like, all right, who's a goalie who could easily fall into some more starts here on a potentially better team? Well, he was my, again, we had Corpus out of last year. He was the next guy on my list for the same reason, because he's, was a UFA last year and then they reupped him they gave him an extra year i'm with you now listen again

this goes down to are there things he does and that they do in nashville um a little bit differently under ben van der lark uh we talked a lot about um linas ulmark and jeremy swamon and that little bit of recoil to have in the game and that became a hot term in the goaltending world and i wrote a story and in some cases it was well received in other cases it was like this is nothing new the way the Bruins do it, that little bit of backwards drift, even on an open look, I think is different, or it's at least different to how most coaches do it. And Nashville does a little bit of the same. And Soros has a little bit of that in his game, too. They call it a teeter, just a little bit of a sort of set yourself backwards ever so slightly so that that momentum, if a puck

goes off a leg, or you make a save, but it goes to the back door, you're already headed in the right direction as opposed to pushing out on it or dropping forward and taking yourself away from those second opportunities. And so Lankin's been working on that. And I, I, I I've watched him in VanderClock work on it, and it's really kind of cool to see, frankly, as a goalie geek, but then to see him have success with it. So if you're a team that's looking at him, you have to include that.

Is your goalie coach going to be like, no, no, no, no, we're no more of this. Because I think that's part of the growth process he's undergone in Nashville. So if you're acquiring him, you might want to, and I wish more teams actually checked with the guy who was going to be working with the goalies before making that deal, but make sure that guy's still going to be willing to have a little bit of that

in his game. I'm going to reinforce it. I was going to ask you, because I think people are very interested in this idea of that sort of chain of command or line of communication in this regard of not only the scouting, but also the application of this, where we generally just attribute all these moves to the GM, right, or maybe the head coach in terms of preferences. In some case, they ask for. And then how much of it is actually the person who's going to be directly working with this player, whether they think it's a right fit and whether it makes sense for what they're trying to accomplish at that position. varies from team to team. In some cases, the goalie coach gets very limited input. I'm not going to cite examples because then the question would be,

how do I know? And that means somebody's talked and that's not a good thing. There are teams that make decisions on goaltending with barely consulting their goal at coach. Increasingly, that's less common, which is a good thing. But it happens. It happens a lot more than I think a lot of people understand. And this is why I love the teams that build out a department. because now you have somebody that's overseeing everyone

so that not just your amateur scouts but your pro scouts understand the concepts that I just talked about in terms of what recoil is, what a teeter is, how to look for it, does it fit with how we play as our goalie coach can allow our guy to have it? What does our goalie coach want in a goalie?

And I think when you have, and here in Vancouver, for example, Ian Clark is also the director of goaltending. And I know he has a manual on scouting goalies that is like it's evidently pretty thick. and there are details and specifics that they look for. You think of things like length instead of size. Like if a goal is really tall, but he doesn't have length and reach, it's kind of useless height, right?

So I think organizations that have that top bottom, top down or group think approach on the position. Collaborative. Collaborative. Thank you. That's where you're going to have your most success. But the reality is, well, for a lot of these organizations, we're only a couple of years into everybody having a coach. in the American Hockey League that's a goalie coach. So I think top of my head, we're talking what, like five or six teams that have an actual goalie

department that sort of looks at it through that lens? Yeah, I think the Panthers, the Predators, the PDO cast, a few others. The Islanders, the Calgary Flames, the Los Angeles Kings now that Billy Ranford's moved up into that. And like, you know, like I know, because we had Bill on the Ingle podcast recently, you know, him coming on to that, into that position, first time direct. as the longtime goalie coach, like they're building out common language on how scouts look at things. And not just, hey, this is how we do it in the goaltending department.

Here's our language. Here's what we want you to look for. But making sure and verifying that all what they think applies as positives, like checking it, checking the numbers, like does this translate? Is this going to translate long term? And, you know, it's quite an extensive process that I think they've gone through. And, you know, so when they need to a, acquire a goal. Like, it's no coincidence in my mind, even though Billy wasn't in the role last year,

that Corpusala fit there. Right. Right, the camp talbot's having the success he's having. Okay, I want to talk about that with you. It pains me, but we have to pay the bills. We've got to take a break here because we're just free-flowing right now. We're riffing. I'm loving the the rhythm of this moment. We got to take our break. And then when we come back, we'll keep chatting with Kevin Woodley about goalies. You're listening to the Hockey Pee-Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the HockeyPedio-Cast, joined by Kevin Woodley, we are chatting goalies. So Kevin, we were talking about this organizational approach to scouting and goalie coaches

and conversations, collaborative efforts. Got a question about the Oilers sending Jack Campbell down to the AHL and just sort of how that works in terms of it's, on the one hand, it's, you want to get that goalie kind of lower pressure reps, right? If you want to get them back on track, iron stuff out in their game, whether it's technical, whether it's mental, just kind of get them away, reset, and allow them to figure stuff out, right? That's kind of the logic.

Now, I would say the HL environment in terms of what you're facing is so wildly different to the NHL that I'm not sure. It's game of mistakes, unpredictable, even more so unpredictable than the NHL. Yeah, I'd imagine the shooting talent is quite significantly worse as well. The teams are, you know, I would just say probably, um, playing differently in terms of the shots they're trying to, trying to get, right? Like it's like it's just totally different.

It's almost apples to oranges. And so on the one hand, it could be an individual thing where it's, it's up to you to make the most out of that experience and get whatever you need out of it. But on the other, it also seems like if you're actually trying to get back on track in the NHL, it might not be the best place. Yeah. It's funny, we had Rick Talkett talking this morning about how he thinks certain guys are better in the NHL than the HL, because there is more structure and more predictability.

And it's less a game of mistakes. I think he was talking about Cole McWard, the defense. but I've certainly heard that from goalies over the years. They're always careful, very careful not to say that the NHL is easier, but then if you get them talking a little bit, they sort of imply that it is. Like, yes, the shots are better, the skill is incredible. And increasingly in the last five years,

the opportunities those players get with a little time and a little space to execute at that level, has made the game. I had one goalie tell me it's never been harder. Now, I happen to talk to a goalie from the 90s today who said, yeah, it used to hurt. So it's definitely been harder. It doesn't hurt anymore. But the amount of skill out there is just insane.

So everyone's sort of hesitant to say that. But the AHL is a game of mistakes. And the NHL, there is more control, more structure in front of you. And I think for goalies, especially a goalie that relies on reads. And I think Jack's a reed goalie for the most part. Maybe I'm wrong on that, but just what I've seen, a guy who reads the game pretty well. I'm not sure that a ton of HL time is going to help.

That said, I think, and you know, someone in Bakersfield told me this because I was there after he got sent down. They started in Abbotsford. I went to the first game. I asked some of the questions that you've seen on all the clips after that tough first. Were you there for the one that bounced in?

Yes, and asked about it afterwards and just hated to even have to do it. But then I went back to practice the next day, and I watched him work and we had a really good one-on-one conversation afterwards about, you know, what this is like. I had someone else in the organization say that they kind of wished that they were home, that this didn't happen as they were, you know, had to in Abbotsford, had to in Calgary the week

after that they could just get him away. I think so as much as I agree with everything you're saying about, I'm not sure the HL is the best place for him to find his game, it might be the best place for him to get away in Bakersfield, at least, from the spotlight of the game that was so glad, you know, shining sort of so brightly on him up here. And the funny thing to me is, like right up until his last start against Nashville. And we talked about,

there were a couple things he wished he had done differently in that start against Nashville, execution-wise, save selection-wise. I think Philip Forsberg, who, last I checked was a pretty damn good offensive player, got him on a rap after sort of faking, coming off the wall. And that's a tough play as a goal,

because if you suck back into your net anticipating the rap and he doesn't fake, you're giving up a ton of net, especially at Jack's side, short side. So Jack squares up on him, and now he fakes him to his knees and a butterfly, and he's basically facing the left boards, and he's got to get his body and turn around into that right. Like, it's a tougher play than I think most people realize, and he admits he should have handled it differently and read it differently.

So he saw some errors in execution and reads there. But heading into that game, his adjusted say percentage, don't forget, that was his last game in the NHL this season. His adjusted save percentage before that game for all the criticism, going on in Oilersland was exactly where it was in the two years he was with Toronto.

This was not all on Jack Campbell. And so it dipped below expected after that game. But I feel like he wasn't like as bad as the raw numbers indicated. We talked about how terrible

they were defensively. And by the way, all those defensive underlying metrics have improved significantly since the coaching change from dead last in rush, dead last, with a bullet in high danger

rush chances against at the time of the coaching change. They've crept up to 30th, but in the two weeks, that shows you how bad it was. Right. That they only crept up to 30th because in those two weeks,

they've been 10th in the NHL in terms of what they give off the rush. So I don't have a lot of answers on Jack. Like, you know, everybody's searching for them. Surprised, I mean, he's bringing in his sort of off-season goalie coach into Bakersfield, which is something we, I think there are a lot more consultants that work with guys in the season than we know about,

but it's odd, you know, it's not an odd. it's less normal to see them on the ice with the team. But yeah, it's, I don't know that he was that bad. Like, I don't know that, you know, given everything else going around, he sort of became the scapegoat, I think, for a lot of their defensive, woes, almost like, we're going to send a message by sending this guy down. Well, the reason why I brought this up was more so, like,

not to rehash the conversation of Oilers, defense versus goalies. So I probably should have asked why you were asking this before I went on a 10-minute rant? No, no, no, no. But I think it's a really interesting conversation, particularly through the lens of, I think the NHL product is becoming so much more specialized these days. Like, it's always been the best hockey players in the world, right? The amount of talent is just phenomenal. But we spend so much time having this conversation through the perspective of team defense, right?

It's been such a point of conversation this year of, like, this whole zone defense, box in one, like trying to pack the house, replicate what Vegas did, right? And by the way, in their own end, they were fine. Yes. They're like top 10 throughout that whole stretch in terms of what they gave up in zone. It was all about what they were giving up off the rush. And that switch in the neutral zone defense seemed to be what was costing him. And crappy decisions on the other end of the rank that led to turnovers.

They were. But that also exactly reflects this sort of paradigm shift in the NHL as a whole, which is why it's becoming so specialized where teams are so actively seeking out very specific shots these days, right? I think everyone understands that all things being equal, you need to get pucks through the slot and into that home plate area or attack off the rush. Like other than the Carolina Hurricanes, for the most part, I was going to say, not everybody.

Most teams have gotten the memo that a good goalie or a good defense system will just eat you up if you allow them to keep you to the outside and have those very predictable shots from a few locations in the offensive zone. And so we're seeing both on an, individual and on a team level, everyone trying to almost replicate the exact same formula in terms of what you want to accomplish.

And then you get into that struggle of offense versus defense, right? Where the defense knows that they're trying to take that away. Now it's up to you as an offensive talent to figure out how to create that anyways. But we never really think about it from the perspective of the goalie where now your workload or what you should expect to face on a day-to-day basis is becoming so like, it's just shrinking down into this point where it's becoming so concentrated where you're probably on average going to face less in terms of volume, but each of those shots are going to be significantly harder.

I can't remember if we have this discussion. I don't think we have. Okay. So I had this discussion with a couple of goalies at the start of the year. That was where sort of the genesis of the game's never been harder for us conversation began. And like I said, the 80s and 90s goal tenders that basically were felt as chess protectors. Yeah, they actually have equipment these days. Like, you know, every time you took a shot off the mask, it broke your nose.

It's like they would disagree about the game being harder, physically at least. But it's in part because of that. Casey DeSmith, he told me, he's like, I used to get like 32 shots in there before five grade A's. Now I might get 20 and nine of them are great days. Like that percentage of tough chances. So naturally, that's why I think that's why we're seeing say percentage continue to decrease. The current rate, we can end up under 900, if not this year by next year, as a league average. And I was like, oh, the goalies are getting worse.

And I'm not going to say the goalies are getting worse, but this was also planted with me by a goalie coach this year, an NHL goalie coach for the first time we're seeing that the NHL is a development league for goalies in some situations. Guys that would have been left in the American Hockey League longer are getting opportunities up here, in part because of the mass retirement of guys that used to play 70 a game for the last five or six years, right? So we've had that discussion. But Casey's like, I'm not seeing as many shots, but the ones I do see are a lot tougher.

So my save percentage is going to go down. And you can't compare if I'm at 903 this year versus 903 three years ago, like because league average is just that much harder. And so I think that understood, like, we, they know that, they feel that, they sense that's coming. There's not much that they can do about it. How do you prepare for it? And teams are certainly, like we know this, right?

Like they're, I've watched a game with an NHL goalie coach and guy takes a shot from what looks like. frankly, in some models, would be considered high danger purely on location. And he's sitting there next to me going, that's a turnover, unless we win the next draw, that's a turnover.

Not only does the goalie save it, but he controls that save. So, yeah, all those elements, it's never been tougher that way. What we've lost for goalies is the feeler. The, you know, where literally like two-thirds of your shots were low danger.

You knew you were making the save 99% of the time. Pat the stats feel the puck. Helped you feel good. That confidence boosting. feeler shot and man like teams seem to that's why I used to hate it they would change a goalie like

or a goalie would get hurt and the guy would come off the bench and the announcers would be like oh I need to make sure you get shots just like any shots at the goal I'm like no don't just throw it from the like why are you going to just take a shot because he's fresh into the game because the 99% or the ones that they stop all the time that's just going to

help them feel the puck and feel good make them sit there for five minutes and then deliver a grade A and see how he deals with it I think that mentality to varying degrees has crept not creptin it's it's it's all over the league right now and it makes it that much harder for goalies it is i mean there's so much involved in the calculus here right but it's like seeking out specific shots the fact i i think too much in terms of the public models i think we have spoken about this in the past is uh attributed to proximity to the net where the closer you are

obviously it's treated as more high danger because you're more likely in theory to score from there But I think we know now also that you reach a bit of a point of diminishing returns where if you get too in tight, it can almost make life a bit easier than the goalie because you're almost cutting down your own angle to actually shoot. I mean, if the goalie's in position and it's right in front of him and you're banging away, it's like, we talk about padding the stats. It's like Christian Leitner missing his own putback so he can grab another rebound, right? Like it's, that's all you're doing.

But if you create that same shot close to that after a lateral play across the crease and you're forcing the goalie to go east-west, like now all he's going to be lucky to do is get a pad there at best, right? So I do think there's that understanding. I do think that, and again, I want to stress because I think the people that are in charge of those models are freaking brilliant.

Of course. They're just limited in the data they have. And I think as we get more data, we have a better understanding where I think it shows up because I always hear the argument in large samples, it all sort of evens out. But we're not dealing with large samples for most of one hockey season, right?

We're dealing with smaller samples. And that's where if 10 are, you know, at the edge of the crease, but the goalie's sitting there already. And the other goalie, nine of his 10 are at the edge of the crease, but they're after cross-ice passes. I know who I like to make more saves, you know, just based on those different elements. And I think we're seeing that get measured. The other one that almost no one measures is traffic. Like screens, layered, like layered screens are a 40% chance. Yes.

You've got multiple layers. And we just don't see that even in a lot of the proprietary stuff. And when I, you know, I've had people. like, oh, you just got to find a puck around traffic. And I look and I'm like, I'm surprised when I look at ClearSight and see how high danger or chance layered screens are. Now, is it easy to get that puck on net and get it through a layered screen? Is your percentage go down because a lot of them don't make it to the net?

100%. But when I have these conversations with goalies and now with players about what they're trying to do, working in concert with teammates to, it's not about just go to net and take away the goalie's eyes. It's about, okay, this goalie, like actually probably most of the league, is going to look short side around a screen. So if the puck's at the top of the circle, or it's headed at the top of the circle and say a low high pop pass and you're in the middle net as a screener and that goal is looking around your, say, let's say it's at the left circle. So the goal is looking over your right shoulder on the right side of his net for

the short side. As that puck's about to be caught, you need to start taking your screen and pushing it more and more to the short side. And so the goalie has a choice now. He either has to keep coming with you to the short side, which is a really uncomfortable thing to do because you're giving away the other side on the net. And yes, the math says there's more bodies and it's more likely to hit something on the way in there. And yes, my flexing forward should be blocking that lane, not the short side lane.

But it's a really tough thing to do. And if you pull them far enough to the short side, you basically will pull him out of the net or what happens is he has to make a decision and give up his vision on the puck and switch sides as you drift that screen. And I've watched Besser and J.T. Miller and I've had conversations with Besser and J.T. Miller

about how they're doing it this year, especially J.T. And they're having a ton of success with it. There was one against Toronto where they had a perfect replay from behind the net so I cite it because everybody can go back and find it. Like Brock drifts right, Samsonoff has to shift

and the timing is, is so perfect because as he's changing the side, he's looking around the screen, the puck's off JT stick. That on that downhill wrist around the powerplay? Yeah, and you can't see it. And you talk to every goal in the league. They get all their information off the release.

If they can't see the release, there's an element to guessing. Ottinger made some brilliant saves here. Jake Ottinger of the stars against Queen Hughes, and Quinn couldn't believe that he got a couple of them. But Jake was so patient holding vision and then reacting around the screen. So he stayed short side,

saw the release, In his words, if I see the release, I know where it's going, I can get there across the screen, across the body. But not every guy feels that way, so you get them guessing. And the amount of interplay right now, especially on power plays, with forwards trying to do specific things to goaltenders that make their life miserable, even if Besser pulls right and that goalie comes off that short side early into the middle, there's a play there where J.T. can basically shoot at Besser, and Brock's got to get out of the way. And now all of a sudden the goalie's moving into the middle and the puck's head back short side. Like there is so much dynamic element to what teams are trying to do to goaltenders and how goaltenders are trying to manage. Like I do the pro reeds with the goalies where they're explaining to me how they're trying

to figure this out in real time. And they all, for the past few years, continue to talk about like, man, like teams are figuring this out and they are working so hard to make our lives miserable. The old adage of get to the net is so much more complicated than just actually being it. You can't just get there. You have to work effectively when you're there. Well, and especially most players now are told, like, we're losing the net front screen as a stationary, like, just get the biggest guy in the team to stand in front of the net and try to take the goalie's eyes. A lot of teams are doing these actions now.

Lightning really brought this into prominence during their peak years with Alex Coloren, where it's like you just have the guy kind of at the goal line or behind the net, and then he comes out and he tries to time it so that he's streaking through that. that lane as the puck is coming so that he's taking... Flash screen. Flash green is one of the toughest one for a goalie. I can see the puck. Oh, all of a sudden, I lost it for a second and that's when... If you time the taking away the eyes, whether it's Brock Bester drifting across the vision as a pop pass up is being taken and shot back to the net by J.T. Miller or Alex Goulorne flashing across the goalie's eyes as Kuturoff's getting the puck for a 1T, if you remove the vision on the release, like that is the job.

And every goalie will tell you, like you wouldn't believe the amount of informational goaltender gets off an NHL release. That's why we started pro reeds. It's staggering. Some of these guys can't even explain it. They're just like, I can't even tell you

exactly what it is here, but I've seen it so many times, hand angle, shoulder angle, hip angle, where the feet are placed, what the blade looks like. I know this puck is going high glove. You take away the ability to gather that information and interpret it, like you can't react once the puck's halfway there. It's already, like,

it's too late, right? Especially at the velocities guys are shooting these days. So the amount of work that teams do to take that vision away now is to me just, it's never, we've never seen anything like it before. And that's another reason I think, you know, with all due respect to the guys who wore bruises and broken noses because of the equipment back in the day, the game is never harder for goal tenors than it is right now. Well, you might not get this reference, but I grew up watching Dragon Ball Z and they have these like little screens that are basically in their glasses that allow them to like sense the power and all this biometric data on on on on whoever they're coming across right and we almost need that for goalies just so I could we

could quantify what percentage of the shots they're seeing oh there is what percentage they're saving on it versus ones where they're screened or their eyes got taken away and what happens with the efficiency of those shots because that, what I think would open up with all the answers we're looking for. There is not quite to the degree of what was that Dragon Ball Z?

Come on, come on, Kevin. Hey, listen, listen, listen, you're clearly on Discord. That feels like it's got to be a game. That's a Discord reference, yeah. There was, and I'm going to screw this up, so I'm not even going to try to remember which coach it was.

There's a coach in the Swedish hockey league, the SEL, or S-HL now, the old elite league, that basically had his goalies wearing glasses, so the glasses had cameras out. So they saw what the goalie was like they saw where the gaze was of the goaltender based on where the glasses were pointed under the mask. But then it also had cameras pointing in at their eyeballs. And so somehow it was able to sort of track where the eyes were looking.

Like the head would be one place and where the eyes were looking. So basically to try and quantify some of those things. And the data was fast. fascinating and they've since applied it in other ways. And actually, I think at the world, I don't know if he's doing a presentation because Sweden's hosting a goalie coaching conference as part of the world juniors,

which is, again, another just absolute feather in the cap to the way they manage the teaching of the position, like just kudos to Thomas Magnuson and his crew, and they're bringing over and they'll have presentations from NHL goalie coaches. And if you're able to get to Sweden for this as a goalie person, you should. I don't know if this guy's presenting at this one,

but I was at one in Nashville where he presented on the data and the stuff they were finding. Like that's the degree we're looking at as goalies. We're trying to find this stuff. That's the future. That's what I need to know. Kevin, we've got to get out of here. We're out of time. Everyone check out, Kevin is Ingoal on Twitter, in Goal magazine.

We're going to have you back on in a couple weeks again, and we'll pick this back up because I think this was my favorite conversation we ever had with you on here. Thank you to everyone for listening. If you like what you heard, leave us a review. Also, join the Discord. We kept referencing on this show where you can get part of this conversation and figure it out. We'll get Kevin on there as well at some point. The invite link to the community is in the show notes,

and we'll be back with plenty more of the HockeyPedio cast, as always streaming on the SportsNed Radio Network.