Lehner vs. Khudobin goalie matchup in Western Conference Final

Goaltending is an integral part of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. We've charted the last 50 goals allowed by each goalie in the regular season and every goal in the postseason, with the help of Apex Video Analysis and Save Review System from Upper Hand Inc., to see what patterns emerge.

The Western Conference Final features two goalies who pride themselves on unpredictability: Robin Lehner of the Vegas Golden Knights and Anton Khudobin of the Dallas Stars.
Each relies on an ability to anticipate plays and read shot releases better than many of their peers, and each reacts with a variety of save selections instead of defaulting to their knees in a butterfly. Their unique approaches can make it tough to find exploitable patterns heading into Game 1 of the best-of-7 series at Rogers Place in Edmonton, the hub city for the conference finals and Stanley Cup Final, on Sunday (8 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS).
That said, there are still some trends worth a closer look.
RELATED: [Complete Golden Knights vs. Stars series coverage

Robin Lehner, Vegas Golden Knights

Lehner has been one of the best goalies in the NHL the past two seasons, playing for the New York Islanders, Chicago Blackhawks and Golden Knights. He was acquired Feb. 24 in a trade with the Toronto Maple Leafs after Chicago traded him to Toronto earlier that day, and has supplanted Marc-Andre Fleury as the Vegas starter in the postseason.
Lehner, who is 8-4-0 with a 1.99 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage this postseason, was dominant against the Vancouver Canucks in the Western Conference Second Round, allowing nine goals in six games. He had three shutouts, including one in Game 7 on Friday when he made 14 saves in a 3-0 win.
Relative to Khudobin, Lehner plays a more conservative positional style, but he will take more ice against the rush and challenge beyond the crease when he reads an open shot.

GOAL TRENDS

Attack from below the goal line: Lehner is exceptional at reading the play, something he has talked about during the postseason, so it makes sense to attack him from sharp angles that force him to turn his head and take his eyes off what is happening in front of him. The Canucks scored twice that way in a Game 2 win, and he was above the tracked average (17.2 percent) in the regular season (20.3 percent) and playoffs (20.8 percent) in allowing those types of goals. It's not much, but for a goalie who excels in almost every statistical area, any relative weakness is worth targeting.
Rebounds: Lehner was significantly above the tracked average for rebound goals (21 percent) in the regular season (29.7 percent) and last season (25 percent). Though that number has come down to 16.6 percent so far in the postseason, there were a lot of pucks off his pads that ended up loose in the slot area against the Canucks. If the Stars can do a better job getting to those second chances, which come as a result of Lehner sometimes using his pads instead of his stick to steer low shots, they may be able to exploit that trend.
Breakaways: Shootouts have plagued Lehner, and while he's better one-on-one in a game, when shooters don't have time to slow down and make multiple moves, his numbers on breakaways remain below average. The key is stretching Lehner out laterally, like Vancouver forward Elias Pettersson did in tight on a breakaway in Game 2. Attack in straight lines with shots, and Lehner will make easy work of it, something several Canucks found out in that series.
Attack left to right: Almost every goalie moves better to one side than the other, and Lehner is like most in moving better to his glove than his blocker. It shows up in the higher number of goals along the ice on the blocker side (21.6 percent), well above the average (11.5 percent), and double his glove side (10.8 percent) because he is more likely to reach and open up when moving in this direction rather than pushing his body across in one piece.

Anton Khudobin, Dallas Stars

Khudobin, who took over the starting job from Ben Bishop, who has played three games this postseason, is notably more active than the larger Lehner (6-foot-4, 240 pounds), making up for his smaller size (5-foot-11, 195) by using quick feet to get to the top of his crease, and beyond, on a more consistent basis. It's a style that has fit well behind the Dallas defense during the past two seasons. Khudobin had an NHL-best .930 save percentage (minimum 30 games) during the regular season. In the postseason, he is 8-5-0 with a .909 save percentage in 14 games (13 starts). A closer look at some of the goal-scoring trends so far might provide areas to target for Vegas.

GOAL TRENDS

Traffic, tips and chaos: Khudobin is a skilled, experienced play reader who relies on that ability to guide his more aggressive positioning decisions. Introducing elements of play that make reading a play more difficult has likely coincided with worsening statistics in the postseason. He was already above the tracked averages for screens (20.6 percent) and deflections (20.3 percent) in the regular season, with 28.6 percent of his goals involving screens, and 25.2 percent on deflections. Those numbers have increased significantly in the postseason, to 48.8 percent for screens and 31.7 percent with deflections. Increased traffic around the crease forces Khudobin to play deeper than he prefers and he struggles for sightlines because he can't look over the screens in front of him. When confronted with multiple layers of traffic, he tends to drop passively in a butterfly, stretching his arms toward the upper corners of the net, trying to take away as much area as possible. He's been caught multiple times this postseason looking around a screen to one side while a shot is directed to the other, something Vegas can look to exploit.
Rebounds: Second chances are another area Khudobin's numbers (21.9 percent) were slightly worse than the average (20 percent) in the regular season and have taken a further hit in the postseason (24.4 percent). Increased traffic plays a role here too. When pucks don't make it through to him, he doesn't have the feel of the puck on his pads to react to, forcing him to scramble blindly. Those types of broken-play scrambles around the net have accounted for nine postseason goals (21.9 percent) against him.
Against the grain: Given the extra movement in Khudobin's aggressive positioning, it's not surprising to see him give up more goals (28.6 percent) than the average (17.7 percent) on shots and plays that catch him moving in the opposite direction of the puck. That number is way up (36.6 percent) in the postseason. Some of those goals have come on deflections that catch him sliding into the initial shot, but he's also been beaten clean a few times with against-the-grain shots, a trend the Golden Knights' skilled forwards can target.
Early passes off the rush: Though most players like to wait to pass on odd-man rushes, it's better to move the puck laterally early on Khudobin because he moves so far outside his crease to counter these attacks, leaving himself more distance to cover for one-time shots off the pass.
Glove side: It's hard to ignore that 48.7 percent of postseason goals against Khudobin have gone in on the glove side above the pad, well above the 29.5 percent average, but these aren't save percentages and it doesn't indicate a weakness, especially because 13 of the 20 involved a screen.