Newsletter February 2025

Tracking and Anticipation - A comment

A comment on The Athletics’ article

Tracking the puck has and will always be one of the most critical abilities for goalies. More than anything, it is the ability that will allow goalies to feel in control. If you don't see the puck well, and your mechanics for saving it are backward, you'll have difficulty making it to the big league. Goalie coaches often refer to box control - saving the puck further in front of you. This movement coordination would cut the angle of the puck, stopping it from reaching the top part of the net: the better box control, the better chance of saving it. A good example of a goalie with great box control in the NHL is Juuse Saros, the only goaltender under 6 feet to play in the 2024-2025 season. Saros' joint mobility (especially hip and ankle in this case) allows him to have a wide stance when the player is close to him, facilitating his ability to project his glove further in front - blocking the angle of the puck. More than tracking, joint mobility affects your response to the shot. Puck reaction is more complex that you might think of. NHL goalies look flawless when reacting to a shot. Digging for what makes them look this natural gives us a better appreciation of how extraordinary they are as athletes. 

Anticipation is also a variable of tracking. We can even recognize it as a sub-skill of tracking. Anticipation is what most people call "hockey sense" in goaltending. It has been presented in the Athletics article as making the first move. But anticipation comes as a double-edge knife. You can be a hero by recognizing the situation perfectly or a zero by moving too early and seeing the puck passing the goal line. In the latter case, it is what we call cheating. Goalies cheat a lot, and it is part of the game. Cheating happens when you cannot return to a good position after anticipating badly, exposing yourself to bad goals. It is improved by facing a demanding level of play. At a lower level, you may not improve anticipation as much. Your lack of progress may stem from not facing enough challenges when it comes to recognizing complex information. The ability to anticipate and recognize information improves with the right level of demand—not too overwhelming. This demand is generated by players who are skilled enough to effectively challenge your reactions.

Good anticipation is done from a good read of pattern that allows unpredictability to become predictable. What's unique about anticipation is that it must remain unconscious during performance. Being conscious about anticipation when playing would only make you rely too much on randomness instead of skill. Only when you have enough confidence in your practice that your unconscious mind will guide you in foreseeing the play well. It is pattern recognition after all. If you have seen a lot of the players' deception attempts, you might surprise yourself knowing what the player in front of you might do - more that they know. To get better at this, expose yourself to high demand and let your practice take over you. 

Review the MVP Machine - New York Times Best seller by Ben Lindbergh & Travis Sawchick

Thank you, Cal Newport Podcast, for the recommendation of this book. Beyond being a book for baseball nerds, it brings an interesting perspective on where sports are going with technological advancement. I never realized how much data could be used to improve athletes' performance. I can't imagine where sports development will be in 10 years. Coaches and even athletes from different sports can use this book for their interest. I wouldn't be surprised if it generates interest in statistics in competitive sports.

The MVP Machine mentions the mentality shift in organization post Moneyball era to a player-development revolution breakthrough. MLB teams prioritize talent development within the organization rather than gathering veterans. If you have seen the movie Moneyball with Brad Pitt, you know the story of the A's of Oakland, which built their 2002 team with the smallest budget in the MLB. Although they did not win the World Series that year, they proved that using advanced metrics (statistics) can be advantageous. But in today's baseball era, instead of gathering players with interesting statistics, they develop them in the system, causing breakthroughs in numerous players. This player-development revolution era extends some players' careers by questioning their ways of doing things. The authors, Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik, two journalists involved in the baseball world, tell essentially the story of Trevos Bauer's pitching self-development and the personalized player development of the Astros that led to a controversial championship title in 2017 and 2022. 

Technologies from advanced cameras through computer science software help MLB and minor baseball teams gather information on how players throw and hit the ball. The high-tech camera information and performance data show players precise feedback on what they need to do to optimize their swing and pitch. Just like any other sport, Baseball players cannot be trained in a one-size-fits-all manner. The Astros took advantage of this personalized training early. They were the first to try it, which gave their team an edge compared to the other teams. A player in the Astros organization knew what they needed to practice and what exercises would help them be successful in the big league. Even though it took an excessive amount of resources, the Astros were given individualized training programs for each of the players.

Baseball pitchers have a unique position within a team sport, just like goaltending in hockey. Baseball requires players to make a lot of adjustments on their own—the plain old trial-and-error. One aspect I greatly respect in baseball players is their ability to develop through making mistakes and learning from trial and error. I feel that hockey players don't emphasize this enough. There are also strong beliefs and biases in the baseball community that hold pitchers' potential. For example, it was believed that breaking balls was causing the most stress on the arms, while recent research shows that fastballs do. Pitchers who had a unique breaking ball in their artillery were under-using it for injury prevention, but it only limited them from pitching at a higher level. A pitcher's success largely depends on how often they can execute their best pitch. Historically, many pitchers did not prioritize using their best pitch due to concerns about injury prevention. I wonder how many baseball pitchers have missed their opportunity to reach the major leagues because of this.

I do not expect other sports to follow Baseball in this player-development revolution breakthrough soon. At the same time, other sports can learn from the practices of the baseball community. Advanced data analytics are starting to be utilized across all major sports, and I'm eager to see how this can be taken to the next level, especially for player development. Baseball is questioning its player's development, requiring organizational openness and boldness to do so. Like the Astros did, they changed the developmental culture within the sports, even causing older franchises to follow this trend. Baseball uses sabermetrics to analyze how pitchers and batters move, allowing teams to optimize their performance. I'm curious how we can implement high-tech cameras to analyze and improve goaltenders' movements, similar to how major league baseball has helped pitchers revamp their careers.

 The decrease in goaltender’s NHL save percentage - a generational shift

A comment on the Goalie Mag’s article 

An interesting shift is taking place in the NHL. This may be explained by the new generations of players coming into the NHL, as numerous goaltenders are observing the shift. The current NHL save % range is around .900, the lowest since the 95-96 season, at 898. The two-time Stanley Cup champion, Andrei Vasilevskiy, may know why this low save percentage is below the average of previous years. As he explained, players are looking for the perfect play before taking a shot. 'Nowadays, guys don't waste shots.' Vasilevskiy commented. Puck possession is crucial in hockey. Holding onto the puck makes it very hard for the other team to score. That mentality shift may have occurred because of the 2015-2016 season - when the NHL went to 3-on-3 OT. At first, the team scored very fast, and the OTs were brief as numerous breakaways and outnumbered rushes occurred. After nearly 10 years of implementation, the 3-on-3 OT has a new dynamic. We see players holding onto the puck and recovering in their zone when they are unsatisfied with the rushes. They no longer rush the attack; they wait for a defensive breach. 

This quality over quantity type of mindset has been named the New Age Mindset by Jordan Binnington, the St-Louis Blues goaltender who was picked as the number one goaltender for the 4 Nations 2025 tournament. Binnington explained how next-generation players are the cause of this shooting trend. From Clear Sight Analytics, a data-driven company that built understanding around the quality of scoring chances, multiple shooting trends have been produced since the 2019-2020 season. Here are two of them that are interesting to complement our case:

• Unscreened shots from the top of the zone have decreased by 27,9%;

• While unscreened shots from outside the slot have decreased by 24,9%  

  
  

Players are smart and know they won't score a goal without a tip or traffic when shooting from afar. Again, players hold on to the puck, waiting for a better scoring opportunity. And I think there are a few reasons behind this New Age Mindset:

• Like Baseball, this increase in advanced analytics lets players know what works on goalies. They know better how to create scoring opportunities;

• The Next-gen players brought a new range of skills that dictated the trendy Michigan move, faster lateral transition and an increase in overall skills; 

• The ongoing advancements in gear technology, particularly in hockey sticks, are noteworthy.

  
  

This New Age Mindset brings further challenges to the goalies. A goalie with a busier game with more shots feels much more confident and controlled than a game when facing a shot every 3 minutes. 'You stay, waiting for something to happen,' Vasilevskiy said. 'You have a lot of energy and thoughts, and that's not the perfect scenario.' As a goaltender, I cannot finish this post without arguing this trend made by this New Age Mindset. The next generation of goaltenders needs to adapt. Goaltenders have always been good at adjusting throughout hockey history, and I expect to do the same. I can see the next generation of youth goalies being unfazed by this decreased amount of shots and higher rates of scoring chances. Growing up with this shot's tendency, young goalies will develop being used to it. This quality may be indispensable for the new generation of goaltending. We are aware of this change and foreseeing this new demand is the first step in being prepared to face this new demand.