Thompson vs. Andersen goalie matchup in Eastern 2nd Round

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

The Eastern Conference Second Round between the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes features the unique challenge of solving Washington’s Logan Thompson and a couple of very different options in goal for Carolina in Frederik Andersen and Pyotr Kochetkov.

Logan Thompson

Washington Capitals

Thompson enjoyed a breakthrough first season in Washington after being acquired in an offseason trade from the Vegas Golden Knights and credits a lot of it to finally adopting the deeper positional philosophies of Vegas goaltending coach Sean Burke. That has shortened his routes on lateral movements, allowing him to be set more, which fuels an impressive reactive game with his hands even from a compacted stance that can sometimes make him look smaller than 6-foot-4.

Traffic and tips: The give-and-take downside of playing deeper in the crease and in a lower stance with active hands is the reliance on seeing the shot release to react and giving up more net when forced into blocking saves behind traffic. So it shouldn’t be a shock that screens played a direct role in 21 percent of tracked goals in the regular season, above the 15 percent average for the more than 8,500 goals tracked for this project since 2017. With Thompson typically at half to three-quarter depth in his crease rather than out near the edge, there is space high if shooters can get pucks up and on net through traffic, and holes for tips (19 goals) when he shifts or reaches.

Lateral and back: It should also be no surprise, given Thompson’s positioning and how it puts him in a better position to beat cross-ice passes, that his performance on plays across the slot line -- an imaginary demarcation dividing the ice, from the goal line to the top of the face-off circles -- is well above the tracked NHL average. He’s likely to get across even on one-timers, making it important to elevate above the pads to have a chance to score. But there is exposure created by his neutral approach to depth from a tendency to come across a bit flat with those movements and not always get the backside hip and shoulder squared. This leaves more room for shots back against the grain, which were a factor in 21 of the tracked goals.

Shoot high? Maybe not: Don’t be fooled by the highest numbers on the goal chart being in the top corners. Every shot is not tracked for this project, just the goals, so those aren’t indicative of a save percentage. Thompson’s good at keeping his hands active and his glove up, even with side-to-side movement, but that can lead to exposure above the leg pads and off the hips.

Dead-angle corners: It only cost him on a couple of goals during the season, but a tendency to sometimes leave his back leg drifting below the goal line when he uses a reverse-VH post integration can make it harder to push up to the crossbar on sharp-angle shots, and that can leave a small area above the short-side shoulder for a well-placed shot.

Win the scrambles: Thompson managed tough bounces in front of him well during the regular season with 18 percent of goals off broken plays, and that makes sense because where and how he plays means he rarely takes himself out of position, even in a scramble. But four of 11 (36.4 percent) playoff goals have come from those types of plays, and his depth can leave him a bit exposed high when those bounces end up on the sticks of unchecked opponents in tight.

Frederik Andersen

Carolina Hurricanes

The regular-season sample for Andersen is smaller because he missed almost three months recovering from knee injury that required surgery, and his exit after a crease collision with New Jersey Devils forward Timo Meier in Game 4 of the first round means there are questions about whether he’ll be ready to start against the Capitals. But playing 517 NHL games during 12 seasons means there shouldn’t be any questions about the tendencies within Andersen’s well-balanced game.

High and clean off rush: The numbers aren’t as lopsided as two seasons ago, when 64 percent of tracked goals came off rush chances, but for a second straight season more than 40 percent (41.8) were scored off the rush, well above the 35-percent average. That includes six of seven clean-shot goals that went in high, and Andersen tends to hold his blocker a bit lower than his glove, accounting for some of the discrepancy in the high goal totals between high blocker and high glove.

Against the grain: Shooting back the other way was a factor in 19 of 55 goals in the regular season and three of six in the playoffs, but the other factors on those goals varied. Off the rush, Andersen now does a better job of shuffling to stay on angle more often but can still get a little flat with his backward flow, which leaves the back shoulder and hip off angle as shooters get deeper into the zone. Waiting until he drops from his narrow, upright shuffle stance into a lower, wider save-execution stance before shooting can exacerbate this slightly and open holes. On point shots with traffic, Andersen’s conservative depth back in the crease can leave more space for other-direction deflections, especially if he’s also moving into the initial shot.

Wide then lateral: Those same shuffles down to the post on plays down the wing closer to the boards can also get Andersen outside his posts and facing the boards as the puck carrier gets below the outside hash marks, including the occasional use of an overlap on his post, and that creates extra distance and a bigger rotation before pushing on cross-ice passes that can follow.

Left to right in tight: Every goalie has a side toward which they move better, and for most it’s the glove side. Andersen is no different, with a tendency to lunge out and get overextended more often when pushing to his right, especially on lateral plays below the hash marks, which can cause him to lose his net or end up prone on second chances, even if he makes the initial save.

Pyotr Kochetkov

Carolina Hurricanes

Kochetkov, who played six periods’ worth of hockey after Andersen was injured, plays a more active and at times aggressive style than Andersen and has the explosive athleticism to pull it off, but those tendencies create different kinds of exposure that opponents can try to target.

Beware of the poke check: There’s a reason they sell “Poke-chetkov” T-shirts in Carolina: Kochetkov is as active with his stick as any goalie, going so far as to try a poke check (unsuccessfully) on a clear-cut breakaway for Minnesota Wild forward Matt Boldy in January. He does a good job cutting off passes from below the goal line and through the crease, but if you can get pucks through, that tendency to reach in one direction delays his movements the other way.

Get him moving, shoot the other way: Plays across the middle of the ice were a factor in 35 percent of the tracked regular-season goals, and though that was close to the average, the number of against-the-grain goals (29 percent) was well above the 18.4 percent average. Kochetkov moves very well and can make momentum-changing saves on those lateral plays if you don’t shoot quickly (29 percent of the goals came off one-timers and quick releases), but he also moves more than many of his peers because of his tendency toward aggressiveness, and you can catch him moving with shots back in the direction from which he is coming.

Create chaos: Kochetkov’s rebound goals (seven) were below the average, but pucks off sticks and legs that led to scrambles in front of him were a factor on 23 percent of the regular-season goals, well above the 14-percent average. That same tendency to play near the edge of the crease and be more active plays a role, with five-hole exposure as he loads up a lateral push from the butterfly by lifting the knee to grab a skate edge with the push leg.

High glove, low blocker: The goal totals may suggest shooting high on both sides, but they do not represent a save percentage, and a lot of the clean-look goals (13) and goals on breakaways (14) scored off shots rather than dekes were directed over the pad on the blocker side instead. On the glove side, his high hand position makes it tempting to shoot low, but the results are better over the glove, especially if he’s moving as he tends to get set down lower in his stance.

Go around him: High totals outside the pads are often an indication of backdoor tap-ins on which the goalie had no chance, and though that was certainly true for several of the goals charted on Kochetkov, there were also times his positional aggressiveness left him stranded outside his posts, allowing patient opponents to go around and tuck the puck in behind him.