Silovs vs. Skinner goalie matchup in Western 2nd Round

Goaltending is an integral part of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. To better understand the strengths and weaknesses of each goaltender, the last 100 goals allowed for each goaltender in the regular season and every goal in the playoffs were charted to see what patterns emerge.

The Western Conference Second Round between the Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers features no shortage of compelling goalie storylines. 

The Canucks became the first team since the 1972 Chicago Blackhawks to win a series with three different goalies all getting wins when they used No. 1 Thatcher Demko, backup Casey DeSmith and third stringer Arturs Silovs to defeat the Nashville Predators in six games in the first round.

Silovs is the presumptive Game 1 starter against Edmonton after a 1-0 Game 6 shutout to eliminate the Predators, but DeSmith, who won Game 3 before giving way because of an injury, defeated the Oilers twice in the regular season. And the timeline remains uncertain for Demko, who is listed as week to week after getting injured late in Game 1, but resumed skating on Thursday, three days after he was named a Vezina Trophy finalist. 

At the other end is Stuart Skinner, who overcame a rough start in his second season as a starter to finish strong and posted a .910 save percentage while eliminating the Los Angeles Kings in five games after a disappointing .883 in 12 games during last year’s playoffs. 

The Canucks already know Skinner well after four appearances -- and an .830 save percentage -- against them this season, but the Oilers might have some work to do on their pre-scout, at least when it comes to Silovs, ahead of Game 1 on Tuesday.

Stuart Skinner

Edmonton Oilers

Skinner was excellent after the Oilers replaced coach Jay Woodcroft and assistant Dave Manson with Kris Knoblauch and Hall of Fame defenseman Paul Coffey on Nov. 12, and a big part of that was the team finally limiting the high-quality rush chances they were giving up far too often at the start of the season. Those types of plays go against Skinner’s biggest strengths, and opponents, including Vancouver, took advantage, but if they’re not there in the second round for the Canucks, they will have to find other tendencies to target.

Early passes off the rush, down low in-zone: Skinner has done a great job narrowing his stance to make it easier to keep up with increasingly lateral attacks in the NHL, but getting that 6-foot-4 frame square and set isn’t as easy as it might be for smaller goalies. Add in a narrower butterfly than many of his peers, which adds inherent delays to lateral recoveries from the knees, and it’s no surprise his goal chart includes more passes and plays across the middle (28 percent in the regular season, above the 22.1 average) and quick shots (47 percent, well above the 37.2 average). Where to make those passes depends on the type of play, however. On rush plays, lateral passes are more effective higher in the zone, which may seem counterintuitive, but there’s a tendency to either slide or pitch forward and get off balance coming across on these. On in-zone play, passes through the middle are more effective below the hash marks, especially if he squares up on the passers at or even outside his posts, creating a big lateral rotation that sometimes leaves him stuck.

Shoot where he’s coming from: Against-the-grain shots, which catch a goalie moving one way by shooting in the opposite direction, were a factor in 25 percent of the regular season goals on Skinner, and 4-of-14 in the first round. More than half of those came on the rush chances that plagued him this season, with low-blocker shots while skating down the right wing and high glove when skating down the left the two most popular spots.

High glove: Skinner’s goal chart is remarkably well balanced from the glove to blocker side, which shouldn’t be a surprise for such a technically sound goalie who uses conservative positioning, especially on in-zone play. The fact that he gave up the most goals this season over his glove doesn’t tell us enough because it’s not a save percentage, but dating back to last season’s tracking there were signs it might be a preferred target for shooters based on clean looks and against-the-grain-attempts when there is time and space. If nothing else, it’s worth watching against the Canucks after the Kings split their high shots -- and goals -- evenly between the blocker and glove in the first round.

Rebounds: Skinner’s numbers notably improved on rebounds this season, with just 12 goals as a result, slightly above the tracked average of 11.7. Some of that may be how fast and hard pucks are bouncing off the new CCM AXIS XF pads that he was the only NHL regular to use this season. Designed to create more active rebounds, it means hunting for second chances, especially on pass-off-pad plays, are harder to come by.

Arturs Silovs

Vancouver Canucks

Silovs only played four games in the regular season, giving up 10 goals while going 3-0-1 despite a .881 save percentage. The 23-year-old is no stranger to the big stage as the MVP of the 2023 IIHF World Championships after helping Latvia win bronze, its first medal ever at the event, but there’s not a lot of NHL goals to break down.

Low-to-high: As tempting as it might be to jump to conclusions about the four high-blocker goals, the most telling was the first, which came on a sharp-angle rush shot from distance that caught Silovs transitioning into a reverse-VH on his post. Silovs moves into and off his posts using a system similar to Demko, though he’s not in the reverse-VH, in which the goalie drops his post-side knee to the ice with that skate against the post and uses the back leg to drive up into that coverage and pivot off it, in part because he doesn’t seal up to the cross bar as easily as his Canucks counterpart. The next goal Silovs gave up, he overlapped his short-side post with his outside skate instead on a sharp angle rush chance, and the delay getting across post-to-post made it hard to recover back the other way in time on a lateral pass out. It’s a tough play regardless, and Silovs appears sound tactically in his post play, but sharp angle chances and low-high passes resulted in three of his 10 regular season goals, a trend at least worth noting.

Traffic: Screens played a role in 3-of-10 regular-season goals and 2-of-5 in the playoffs, as well as several near misses on point shots he didn’t appear to see in Game 5. Managing traffic isn’t easy, especially with so much more of it in the playoffs, but Silovs got caught sitting behind screens rather than finding a sightline to the side of it and was moving at the wrong time on a moving screen on another goal.

Outside paint off rush: Silovs holds his position on rush chances and shows good patience, trusting his defense to prevent lateral passes. But it can leave him at risk of getting stranded if those passes get across, and on second chances like the third goal in Game 4, when a rebound was passed backdoor between him and the post.

Casey DeSmith

Vancouver Canucks

DeSmith has a slightly bigger sample size to work with, but still not the full 100 goals, so we tracked all 79 he gave up while going 12-9-6 with an .896 save percentage this season, including wins against the Oilers in the second game of the season and third to last.

Get to the net front: In addition to screens making life difficult for any 6-foot goalie (DeSmith gave up 11 screened goals in the regular season for 13.9 percent, slightly below the tracked average of 15.1 percent, and 1-of-4 in the playoffs), winning battles in front of the Vancouver net can lead to rebound and scramble opportunities. DeSmith only gave up eight rebound goals (10.1 percent) in the regular season, which is again slightly below the tracked average of 11.7 percent, and one of four in the first round, but there are usually more loose pucks in front of him than then other two Vancouver goalies.

Lateral with loose pucks: DeSmith does a good job keeping most of those rebounds in front of him, and the Canucks defense takes care of the front of the net well, but funneling loose pucks to players at the side can lead to tap ins on scrambles and broken plays, which accounted for 16 regular season goals (20.3 percent), above the 14 percent average, and most of the 20 goals scored along the ice (13 on the blocker side, 7 to the glove).

East-west: Some of those second chances off rebounds also account for 19 goals (24.1 percent) DeSmith gave up on passes across the middle of the ice, which is again slightly above average. Much like Skinner, passes higher in the zone were more effective against DeSmith off the rush, while lateral plays below the hash marks worked best in-zone.

Dead angles and wraps: Even more than Silovs, the smaller DeSmith can’t seal short side high on sharp angles as easily as Demko and will often overlap his post and square up on rush chances down low, which makes lateral pushes on wraparounds harder and can leave him behind if there is a pass on the other side of the net. When he does tuck inside his post in a reverse-VH, there is inherently space between his shoulder and cross bar.