Podcast Segment for Goalie Parents – Episode 274

Slide over to our parent segment brought to you by Stop It Goaltending U the app. We're starting the first of a three part series, Hutch.

We are. We're gonna talk a little bit to the people that love to take stats in their kids games, and I got a long lot of stuff to talk about. But before I do, Woody should probably tell us a little bit about Stop It You.

Well, I mean, I could say the best part about Stop It Goaltending U is the fact that you get ingoalmag.com, but that would be not doing good service to how good Stop It Goaltending the app is. So, yes, you do get full access to an InGoal premium subscription when you subscribe to Stop It Goaltending U. The app, that's the best of both worlds, but you also get their weekly updates. Five every week daily primers, quick one minute videos that will help you become a better goaltender, help you sort of dial in your focus on what you're working on that week. Last week's was personal integrity.

You get quick videos. It could be anything on technical, how to place your pads and stick to steer a rebound into the corner a couple weeks ago, a glove break in, how to make sure your pocket we talked about all the glove fit, how to make sure your pocket's snagging pucks based on how you store your glove between skates. And then here's one. Did Joey Daccord a couple weeks ago that talked about journaling and using a journal? I know we He did.

We've had a lot of goalies talk about it. Well, they've got a journaling program at Stop It Goaltending U, the app, where you can download because a lot of us say, hey. Journal, but we don't really know how. It helps bring focus to the things you're looking at and recording on a daily basis. You can download the PDF off the Stop It Goaltending U app and participate in a very I say rigid, not too structured, but it helps guide your your journaling practice, and you'll become a better goaltender from it.

So Stop It Goaltending U, the app. It'll help you become a better goaltender in so many different ways. And now you get InGoal Magazine, ingoalmag.com premium subscription with it, the best of both worlds in goaltender.

Love it. Daren, if a goaltender faces five shots in a period and one of them goes in, does it mean he had a bad period?

Depends on the goal.

If he faced 20 shots in a game and one went in, that's a nine fifty save percentage. Is that automatically a good game?

That's a good automatically a good game. Well, not really.

Depends on the Right? What if three went in, then it's an .850. Is that a bad game?

Yeah. Well, the the stats say you're below average.

Do you believe that? No. Okay. Okay. Now No.

Let me give you another one. There's a goalie at one end of the ice, and I'm keeping the numbers small and easy to calculate because Woody wants to keep up with the math here. If a goalie at one end of the ice faces eight shots and one of them gets by him, that's just an .875. But but what if he was great with his rebound control? Maybe one went to the gut and he trapped it perfectly.

Maybe a couple of them hit him right in the pocket of the glove, nice and clean, stopped the play. Now there's a guy at the other end

That never happened.

Never happened, by the way.

But just keep it keep up with my math here, Woody. Now there's a guy at the other end, and maybe he faces almost the exact same shots, but he doesn't catch him cleanly. Couple of rebounds pop out. One on the chest bounces out. So he's faced the same number of shots before the rebounds.

And look, good goaltender makes the saves on the rebounds, and now he stopped nine out of 10 instead of seven out of eight. He's got a 900. Is he having a better game?

Well, the stats would say yes, but in reality, the eye test would say no.

Yeah. It's the old eye test. Right? It's Yeah. It's not telling the whole story, and it's not telling you about your game and and how it went.

And and, you know, it could even be some of those rebounds. Maybe the team just cleared them. You know, lots of things. Like, every game is not the same, and and the reason I'm talking about this today is more and more things popping up beginning of season, parents asking online, what's a good app to use to track shots on goal for my son or daughter? And I just wanted to point out as soon as I hear that, I think of these scenarios that illustrate how imperfect save percentage is as a stat.

And I know we've talked about it before, but we're gonna go a little bit of a different direction here and and maybe take it a little further over the next couple of weeks. It's just limited information that that you're being given. You know, in in the first example, I think we can agree four out of five versus five out of five. We can't categorize that as a good period because as you said, Daren, it depends on what are the chances like. So so if they don't tell us too much for a period, what's magical about a game that lets save percentage tell you whether it was a good game or a bad game?

Why is one period versus three period change things? I I think they're all too short for those numbers to tell us very much. And I I'd like you to ask yourself as a parent, why are you taking those stats? You want to be involved. You want to help your kid.

I understand it. But today, we've got John Stevenson, on the show. He is a performance coach, but he's also a sports psychologist, for a lot of kids. And it got me thinking, if you're reporting to your child shots on goal and goals against average, save percentage, what is it you're focusing on? I think John and every other expert we've had in the field talking would tell you we want them to focus on the process and not on the results.

A save percentage, especially one that's out of context is all results. It's just giving your kid results without giving them information and getting them to focus on just different results than than the actual score. Now you you may be doing it because you wanna say to your kids, look, the results on the scoreboard don't tell the whole story. You gave up a lot of goals, but your save percentage was good. Okay.

But as we said, those things don't always tell the whole story. And and while save percentage might be better than goals, I don't know that it is much better than goals as as we said because of those scenarios. And look, I still think about it. That magical 900 save percentage is still in the back of my mind when I'm watching a game because it's so ingrained in us. But, but I don't know that those results are real.

So the other question I have for you is, what are you gonna do with that information when you get it? Hey, Johnny, nine fifty save percentage. Great game. Okay. We all like to hear that.

That's great. But other than helping his confidence, what are you achieving by telling him that? Or Jimmy, eight fifty save percentage today. Not not a good game. Are you gonna deliver that info to your child and tell them it wasn't a good game?

How did that eight fifty save percentage help them as a goaltender? More importantly, how does that help them this week in practice? What are they gonna do with that nine fifty or eight fifty when they go into practice this week and help them become a better goaltender? Is Johnny gonna sit back and relax because he had a nine fifty? Is Jimmy gonna be all frustrated and and worried in practice, or is he magically gonna work harder because it was an an eight fifty?

Now a lot of us used to say to our kids, okay. You lost, but you gave up six, but look at your save percentage. It's really good. Fair enough. But I think there's better ways to deliver that information that they had a good game and to help them develop as a goaltender and a person more than just giving them those numbers.

You're just teaching them to focus on the result, and how does that help? So leave aside the fact that we should probably let the coaches do their job. I recognize that many of our kids don't have goalie coaching support, and as a parent, you really wanna help them. And a nice easy way it would seem is to start counting shots and tell them these stats. And we do want to raise healthy, happy young goaltenders who learn from their games and grow as a result of of being a goaltender.

But rather than make this, you know, into a 30 parent segment, I'm gonna leave that part of it, how we can help our kids after a game. I did say today that I'm not a fan of tracking shots on goal. I'm not a big fan of goalie stats as we see them. Next week, let's go a little deeper into it guys and I'm gonna talk about how you can reflect with your child or a goaltender that you coach after a game to help them improve in a way that's more significant than stats. And then after the week, after a week later, we're going to talk about some stats that maybe you can take, some tools you can use that will help your child in a more significant way after a game if you really do want to track things during a game.

But before we finish, I'm gonna give you a little bit of homework parents, maybe even Woody and Daren. Watch a couple of games this week. Ask yourself about save percentage. And are you seeing anything on the ice that isn't telling the same story that you that maybe that save percentage is telling? Find one thing as well this week on your child or another goalie if you don't have any games to watch yet in the season.

Find one thing that they did well in a game and one thing that they can improve on. Even if it didn't result in a goal. Something that maybe could be worked on. Two things, a little bit of homework for you. If you want to share your homework with me or if you wanna tell me that, you disagree with anything or agree with anything I've said, hit me up parents@ingoalmag.com.

I have a question that I would like to ask you your honest opinion about when it comes to save percentage. It seemed that that's a major foundation of of taking stats and evaluating each individual game. Personally, I don't think save percentages should be reported on individual games. I agree. It's become a trend in the National Hockey League.

Different outlets are are putting it out, and it's it's a new presentation. How many shots or what what's the minimum number of opportunities against your child or a goaltender where save percentage becomes appropriate? Oh. One item is too small. Is two games enough to start looking at it?

Is is three games for like, where you know how a lot of stats say minimum five games played, minimum 20 games played to qualify for a certain stat bracket. Where does where does save percentage become relevant or or become a large enough sample size?

Okay. So I think this is two separate questions. I've had it posited to me in terms of evaluating, like, as an outsider at the National Hockey League level looking at numbers that you can't really tell you need 20 games before the numbers start to normalize him. 20. 20, Daren.

But that's irrelevant. Than I thought. Yeah. That doesn't help a parent. That's not you know what I mean?

Like, because if you're like, oh, let's just wait till 20 games before we look at your numbers. Like, think like, we're talking about two different things here. Analyzing an outsider, like, like, I think that and that's once you hit 20 games, they somewhat normalize. You'd have to go in extremes the other way to move them significantly.

Yeah. It's almost set at 20 games.

So here's how it helps a parent though. Because your kid might not get 20 games in a season.

There you

go. It doesn't mean anything or it means something but not nearly what most of us like to to put on it. Look, people were looking for something better than goals against average and they came up with this, but it's so imperfect that look. You especially the further you get down, maybe the National Hockey League level where there's a relative amount of parity, any team could win on any night. As you get lower down, you know, junior hockey, there's more disparity between the teams that are rebuilding and the teams that are loading up for a run.

As you get down into minor hockey, now you've got teams that are absolutely dominant. The environment that two goaltenders are facing are completely different the further you go down. And so to say that they normalize even at 20 games, you know, I I would disagree absolutely. And again, we can talk about this as we get into a little further in the next couple weeks, but but, know, little Johnny comes across on a two on one to make a save on a one timer on the backdoor and it's from a guy who's ready to move up to major junior and he fires it at him at 80 miles an hour. And then down at the other end of the ice, the best shot this kid might face might be 50 or 60.

Like, it's they're completely different and they won't normalize because those teams are so different. And the way they play and some have structure and some don't have structure. I but but I do love, Daren, that you're at least getting into this concept of minimum number of games and and when do they mean something. But I I think the lower you get down in hockey, the less they mean.

Well, sample size. And here's the thing. I don't. I stopped including goals against average in my nhl.com article, at times to the chagrin of my editors who have to put it back in a long time ago. But as an analyst outside of that environment where I have to use the the numbers that are published, where I can refer to clear sight and adjusted numbers and somewhat account for, and I would argue the best accounting for, although nothing is perfect, the quality that they are facing.

I don't look at save percentage. I've been asked about guys on the radio, and I don't even know what their save percentage is. I just know what their adjusted number is. I mean, Eric Comrie is a prime example. People were were done with him because of what he did last year.

I think his save percentage ended up around eight eighty last year. Well, as expected, was eight fifty eight. And if you look at his performance relative to environment, he was in the top half of the league, not the basement. And so it's interesting that we say, like, it can differ from one team to another. There was a 40 difference between him and the other guys in the Buffalo Sabres.

Like, that's on the same team. So it can depend what opportunities, who you play against, what your team plays like in front of you. There's just so much that goes into it. And to your point, you know, I'm sure we're gonna get into some of the tools you can use at the minor hockey league level to quantify for some of those things in the future segments. But right now, like, I don't need you know, anybody worth a lick of salt at the National Hockey League level isn't using save percentage either.

They're using adjusted numbers.

And and the the one thing that

But if you don't have access to adjusted numbers. Say again? That that that's the only, option you have is save percentage.

It is. And and some parents may be listening to this thinking, hang on. The reason I'm doing this is because the person counting shots in our league is doing a horrible job. And that happens everywhere. I'm not blaming those people because they're usually standing in the timekeeper's box and they can't see half the play and they're just doing their best.

I definitely know of a number of people who speak quite loudly on the internet saying we have to do a better job of counting shots because people are using these save percentages. And so a parent who wants to see them counted properly, I I understand you wanting to do that, but I still question whether it means anything and whether it's helping your kid. It does make you feel a little bit better because you hate to see people talking about your kid's save percentage, and you know it should be better. But at the end of the day, we're trying to help them become a better goaltender. We shouldn't be worried about that outside noise.

And so let's talk as we move forward about some some ways of helping them better.

I don't think I got an answer there. How many games?

What? And and for me, it's infinite. It doesn't I I just say, especially since I'm looking more at the parental level, I don't think it means anything. I don't care how many games. It's not gonna normalize, especially at the minor hockey level.

Yep. That's that's my answer to it. If you're not looking at shot quality, if you're not looking at situations, you're you're not getting something. I don't believe that they equal out. Maybe at the National Hockey League level.

In which case, I like Woody's 20 game answer. I think that's great.

That's fascinating. I I love it. And, again, that's not the answer I was expecting, really. And I understand the save percentage of question, when it comes to the validity of it. But if you're looking for a stat to track and get some idea of where things are, I thought there would be a number there, but it doesn't appear that there is based on your expert opinions.

I mean, look. It's gonna be better than goals against average, but but but maybe barely.

You can say, hey. He's had a good five game stretch. He's had a good 10 game stretch. But, like, I don't think they normalize for the season until you're at that 20 game mark. And then it becomes very you have to go on an absolute heater or go the other direction hard to really make those numbers move.

Maybe that's a good thing too that you keep it in in in segments. Five, ten, and then at the end of the year, you

But again, I'll go back to what what's that information do for you? How does it help you become a better goaltender?

Yeah. Which is what this conversation for parents is all about. Different again, and that's why I said different for me trying to evaluate an NHL goaltender or other people trying to evaluate an NHL goaltender than it is for a how do I, as a parent, use these numbers in an effective way?

Need a sports psychologist to get through all this, just as a parent, never mind a goaltender trying to decipher this. But we've got a sports performance, specialist standing by on the mental training side, John Stevenson. He's stepped into the room as we bring you the feature interview brought brought to you by NHL Sense Arena, which continues to make ads to their program.

Yeah. We love NHL Sense Arena as a great tool for helping you as a goaltender. Incidentally, based on that last conversation, we may come back to Sense Arena in a future parent segment because they do give you some statistical information that does have some validity and usefulness and how you can become a better goaltender. But we'll get into that another day. The thing I screwed up last week when we talked about our friends at Sense Arena was the code.

Don't forget folks as we're talking here, the code IGM 50. If you go to, sensearena.com and you'd like to give it a try, use that code and you will save even more money than the great deals that they have on now. But we do want to mention that NHL Sense Arena 25 is now out and it's one of the biggest updates they've ever had. If you are a subscriber already to Sense Arena, it'll be downloaded. It'll be available automatically.

All the updates are always included. One of the cool things that they now have is they've got these experience points that goes along with some guidance in the app to help you through your training. And it adds a whole new, dimension to how you're training. So now you get these experience points for every drill, every game, everything you do daily, weekly, monthly challenges. They all target specific skills to help you become more engaged throughout the season.

And those experience points help you progress through different levels. There's a 100 of them taking you from NHL prospect all the way up to NHL legend, and you unlock these cool trophies, badges, all sorts of stuff along the way. And, yeah, we said before that it's about process and not results, but some of these results of trophies, badges, and achievements are gonna incentivize you to keep going, to keep working hard. Mom and dad, you know that your child that you bought this for, is gonna be excited about it and they're gonna use it because they'll be able to go into the new trophy room in the headset and check out all their achievements and see them there on the wall. So go to sensearena.com.

Please use the code IGM 50 so you save a little bit more. And, maybe in a future week, we'll talk a little bit about some of those stats.

Experience points. I like that.

That's because we finally found a stat you and us old guys can lead in.

Yeah. Exactly. If only we had them younger.