The Vancouver Canucks are scoring goals at a higher rate this season than they were in their 2010-11 Presidents’ Trophy winning year. The reason they sit at a horrific 5-9-3 record despite their robust offensive output is because of how often the puck ends up in their own net. Vancouver has surrendered at least three goals in 16 out of 17 games this season. They’re one of only three teams averaging at least four goals against per game.
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It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Thatcher Demko, finally established as an elite goaltender, was a popular preseason dark horse pick for the Vezina Trophy. It’s one thing for the Canucks to struggle as a team — nobody had them as a lock for the playoffs — but Demko faltering wasn’t on anybody’s bingo card. And yet here we are, with the star 26-year-old netminder leading the Canucks to just one win in 11 starts. Demko’s .874 save percentage ranks 55th out of 59 goalies who’ve appeared in at least five games.
Backup Spencer Martin earned three of the five starts on the club’s last road trip.
What’s wrong with Demko? How can the Canucks help him get back on track?
I watched every single one of the 44 goals Demko’s surrendered this season. Right off the bat, it was fascinating that 16 of them (36 percent) were preceded by a cross-seam pass, the most dangerous passing play in hockey. An additional six goals came off rebounds he didn’t have much of a chance on. That means half of all the goals he’s allowed were either preceded by an east-west seam pass or directly off a rebound where his defenders didn’t adequately box out or clear the puck.
Here are a few examples of the cross-seam goals.
The defensive structure in front of Demko can be viciously carved through by a butter knife. But that alone can’t excuse his performance.
“He has one of the lowest expected save percentages in the league (according to Clear Sight Analytics) which is an indication of environment and how tough these chances are,” said InGoal Magazine’s Vancouver-based goalie expert Kevin Woodley. “And yet some of the other guys that are down there with him, like you can still outperform that environment. (Andrei) Vasilevskiy’s in a similar neighbourhood as far as expected save percentage, so is Jake Allen and they’re both well above expected. Even Juuse Saros who’s struggled this year has a slightly lower expected save percentage (than Demko), but he’s actually performing slightly above it. Marc-Andre Fleury is lower (by expected save percentage than Demko) and performing above it.”
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Going back to the odd-man rush goals, Woodley had an interesting observation.
“I don’t think it’s all the two-on-ones but there’s been a couple where he’s been well outside his crease and it’s real easy to say ‘Hey goalie didn’t have a chance on that one because the pass goes through’ but I’m thinking he’s so far outside his crease on that one.”
He gave an example from the Devils game, albeit a difficult one, where Demko was out pretty aggressively from his crease.
“I’m like, did the goalie have no chance or did the goalie give himself no chance?” said Woodley. “But even then, so you’re telling me he should back off and cheat (to anticipate the pass). Do you want your goalies cheating for the pass to get through when the system says it shouldn’t? It’s really tough.”
Where is Demko getting burned the most?
Clear Sight Analytics’ data can account for passes, screens and other important factors that public expected goal models can’t. They break scoring chances down into various categories and there’s one area that Demko’s really underperforming in.
“He’s got 13 goals on 26 chances on broken plays and expected would be like seven or eight (goals against),” said Woodley. “Some of that’s the bounces on broken plays, they can be tough, there’s a lot of unpredictability and uncertainty there. That’s stuff that goes off bodies, sticks and legs anywhere but it tends to be in the slot area. It’s a puck that hits something and then goes somewhere unexpected, off in a different direction.”
These plays are really difficult because they catch a goalie off guard but Demko’s still surrendered five-to-six goals more than expected on these types of scoring chances. Some of them he hasn’t had a realistic chance on. On others, he has though. Let’s go through three broken play examples from the Canucks’ home opener against the Sabres.
This is a Rasmus Dahlin point shot, for example, which deflected off Elias Pettersson’s leg and went in five-hole.
The broken play below is a centring pass which pinballs around some skates. You can see based on how the entire right side of the net is exposed that Demko was late in reacting.
Finally, the play below was a prolonged puck battle in the slot which ended up on Alex Tuch’s stick for a goal.
I can’t diagnose why so many of these broken plays have gone in, but it’s been the most glaring red flag in Demko’s statistical profile.
Is there a quick fix?
When Demko’s at his best he isn’t just a robot following a technique but making movements and saves based off his natural instincts as well. From what Woodley sees, it’s not the technique that’s an issue right now but perhaps how he’s seeing plays develop and making decisions on how to react.
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“This isn’t mistakes in execution of shuffles or T-pushes or post entries or post exits. It seems to be more reads and decision-making a little bit,” said Woodley. “I’ve actually had a couple of goalie coaches from other (NHL) teams say he looks a little bit like he’s trying to technique the game instead of play the game (off his instincts).”
Let’s go through some examples where the reads could have been sharper. On this point shot goal from Tony DeAngelo, pay close attention to the waving sticks trying to get a tip. Demko reacts pretty late, presumably because he was anticipating a redirection.
“If you sort of move up toward that shot and those sticks hit it, you look silly. But that’s what you have to do, you can’t play what might happen, you have to play what is happening and that’s what it kinda looked like there,” said Woodley. “He’s caught a little bit between anticipation and tracking right now and it looks like sometimes he’s anticipating instead of tracking. And his anticipation when it’s off, every time he’s a little off or he anticipates incorrectly he’s just paying for it more than you would expect.”
With everything going against him, it doesn’t seem like Demko can trust his own reads. Here’s a telling sequence from the Minnesota game.
“Kaprizov comes down the wall, he gets near the hash marks and starts to go into a reverse, a post integration into his right, I would argue a little earlier,” said Woodley. “You’ll see that as the puck is being passed to (Sam) Steel on Demko’s left, he’s going the wrong way, so he got caught going just a hair early into the post and he’s caught moving the wrong way.”
After going into his post too early on that goal, Demko then appeared to overcorrect and go into his post a split second too late on the next goal.
“There are other elements here — I’m not 100 percent sure he saw the pass down to (Mats) Zuccarello right away because he had his own player screening him a little bit, but to me that’s normally a play where when he’s on his game, as soon as that puck moves down to that sharp angle, he just bangs into that post,” said Woodley.
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“Maybe you’re a little hesitant like ‘I got burned going in just a hair early last time, I’m just going to hold a little bit, not go quite as early, quite as forcefully’ and Zuccarello makes a hell of a player just over the pad on the one touch redirect. I can’t help but wonder as an observer if he doesn’t get caught going early on the first one, is he already in the post with that blocker over the pad on the second one?
“Those are the types of things where every time one decision is a little off, you do it a little differently than you would have next time. I’ve talked to goalies around the league who’ve been through that and sometimes the hardest thing is to reset and not chase change and just stick with your game when every bounce goes away from you, to trust it.”
Rather than one glaring technical flaw, it’s as if Demko is a little bit off in almost every part of his game.
“I don’t have definitive answers on this (slow start),” said Woodley. “I believe in this guy’s talent and it just feels like whether it’s a combination of just not trusting his reads and the decisions he’s making or just being a hair off in some of those decisions and being burned every time or probably a combination of the two. Everything seems to be going against him right now.
“I know we’ve talked a lot in the past about goalies getting a reset when their game starts to slip and doing all of that extra technical work with Ian (Clark). But it’s not like I see a whole bunch of glaring issues in his technique or movement … I don’t know that that (more practice time) fixes it, to be honest with you. He knows how to move, it’s almost pre-programmed. At this point, he just needs to play.”
Demko’s so talented and hardworking that a turnaround is inevitable. There’s nothing major to worry about long-term. But in the short term, with the Canucks’ playoff hopes already rapidly fading, there’s a ton of pressure on Demko to find his game as quickly as possible.
All video courtesy Sportsnet
(Photo: Minas Panagiotakis / Getty Images)
