solovsfett
Registered User
Yes! Was listening on the varsity app.
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Wisconsin Hockey 25-26 Hastings Year 3 - Turning the Corner?
- Thread starter WiscTJK
- Start date
solovsfett
Registered User
Agreed! The team REALLY missed Zelenov when he was out. He’s very creative.
WisconsinWildcard
The plural of anecdote is not data
I do not think you will find any badger fans on here who think our team has played well this season as a whole. We have glimpses of a great team, but significant inconsistency with losses that have been as bad as any I can remember.
However, if you think this was anywhere near an evenly played game I seriously question your ability to analyze a hockey game.
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Red Hockey
Member
Dartmouth was dominated the majority of the game and looked very disorganized much of the time. Wisconsin did a good job outmuscling and outskating them and the one goal against was off a neutral zone transition rather than sustained offensive pressure. As I said in my previous post, Dartmouth is not a good skating team and it showed this game. That said, MSU is a much better team and the Saturday game should not be nearly as unbalanced.
DartmouthIndian
New member
well that sucked- but better team won. Congrats. It's a big jump to compete and win at the final 16 level. If the sophomores come back, they might have something (only 2 seniors). and this game might give pro signers hesitation - they all need more strength - Stavroff in particular is a sniper that needs to be fed, but not a single handed generator - he will get crushed at next level - yes announcers on epsn were crazy biased - wtf - but as a Dartmouth guy, I cant explain why a Harvard gal and Boston guy favor Dartmouth. I think in general the "deep state" of hockey is trying to be supportive of the ecac - my one complaint would be the double shifting for the Cleaves line - i think coach wore them out. Weird year with BC, BU, ME down, Cornell and Q a bit off and NPI now more important. Best of luck guys.
con1977
Easily distracted by shiny things
So here is my perspective (and that perspective is that of someone who coaches youth goalies and has been trained with other goalie coaches by the people at USA hockey that have brought us people like Jake Oettinger and Connor Hellebuyck and there is a whole army of kids coming behind those guys being taught by all of us that will win USA medals in future olympics):
He may have overslid slightly, but it wasnt by much. In that 3v2ish (which was not well played by the back checkers btw, their job is to simplify the play for your goalie, and they did not), but when that puck moved between the players, he has to change directions and position enough, that it is easy to be slightly off. That shot came from fairly close in, and there is no real adjustment, he is either in exactly the right spot or not, but the fact that he had to get to the right spot and not just square up to the one guy while the back checkers seal off the passes is the failure on that play.
Additionally, at a goalie camp I have helped on the ice for the last 4 or so years, there is a 14 year NHL vet with olympic experience as well. This past summer, a kid asked in a Q and A how do you track shots in the NHL (college isnt the NHL, but bear with me on this). His answer was simple: You dont. You train the fundamentals to recognize the situation so you hopefully get to the right spot and hopefully the puck hits you, and if it does, hopefully you wrap it up or you follow it to seal an angle off. So my point with this is Hauser, or any other goalie for that matter, is just performing a series of calculations of probability and tendency/observation and trying to get to where he hopes is the right spot. You dont always slide perfectly, but you put your stuff up and hope its where it needs to be. So him missing it with his glove is presuming he was able to fully track that puck to be able to perfectly meet glove to puck for a catch, and its just not that simple. These guys, at least some of them, are off to the pros in the near future, and those that arent, by virtue of being on a D1 college team, and a good one at that, are VERY, VERY good, so its not just as simple as you should have that puck in your glove. These goalies are remarkably amazing at their craft and make it look very easy on stopping pucks, but it is in fact not that easy. In that moment for the one goal he gave up (just the one, remember), he has to put himself in a position that both allows himself to stop an imminent shot, but also able to react to any other change of the play that makes what he is doing irrelevant, and this isnt remotely simple.
Finally, it being the second shot is not irrelevant. The hardest games for a goalie or stretches of games is when they dont see action and then its there. You get in a flow as a goalie, get loosened up, whatever it is for each goalie that happens with a little action here and there. The goalie getting shelled in many ways has it easier cause he finds a rhythm and flow and his body is staying very loose. Yes, they tend to give up more goals too, but its in many ways easier to give up 3 on 40 SOG than it is to get a 9 save shutout.
Also, again, lets remember that Hauser gave up 1 goal and made a bunch of very good and excellent saves. I did not see us making a claim on here about how Finley was soft when he missed the net and hit the pipe instead of scoring a goal, so why are we holding goalies to a completely different standard. If Hauser was off, he wasnt off by much in that play, and his being off was on the same plane as Finley being just a little off when he hit a pipe instead of scoring a goal. Lets cut our goalies a little slack, at least the same slack we cut the skaters. His mechanics are fine and they will be better as he plays here for more seasons. There is an adjustment being a first year, as with any change of league/bump up. Trey Augustine wasnt perfect in all of his mechanics in his first season at MSU either, Hauser is a very good goalie that we can build a team in front of and maybe find our way to a frozen four or a natty.
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con1977
Easily distracted by shiny things
Not sure how much Ill post, but someone texted me and asked if I thought the one goal Hauser gave up was soft and I do not, so figured id pop in and read and maybe post. As I said above, I coach youth goalies and my 13 year old kid is a goalie, which is why I went down this path in the first place. Ive always gravitated to goalies anyway, so when the kid took the interest, I was already most of the way down that road.
Basically life ate any time I had to post, but things have been good and ive been around, even if not on here.
Looking forward to watching Saturday, hopefully the good version of this team shows up and we give Sparty hell, win or lose. But at the end of the day, we won the first game and its a step in the right direction and something to build on regardless of how Saturday goes.
Timothy A
Let's go RED!
Your perspective is amazing. I would love your thoughts on 2 things that have been discussed about Hauser; his lack of size and he seems to duck at high shots.
Appreciate all this even if I see some of it differently.
One thing... I'm not someone who reflexively blames the goalie. I generally see things that led to the opponent's opportunity and can see when it's not actually on the goalie. That said, the play in question last night wasn't exactly a back door tap in on an odd man rush.
A goalie in a playoff game needs to be ready from the drop of the puck, not by the 5th or 6th shot.
In addition, goalies need to make the vast majority of the saves that are actually savable. Good to great goalies will also make some saves that they shouldn't... the spectacular ones.
That goal last night wouldn't have been a spectacular one. It would have been a save that you expect a good D1 goalie to make.
I was commenting on the one goal, not Hauser's complete game. I guarantee you that even Hauser would say he should have had that and that he was out of position. Bet Hastings would say the same thing if he was being honest.
Had he been in the proper position, the puck would have hit him in the area where the elbow and chest come together and he could have smothered it. He wasn't in the correct spot and still could have flashed the glove. He did neither.
As you allude to - being in the correct position is most of the battle for goaltending. Be there and simply allow the puck to hit you is how we always started with the young kids we coached. Rebound control came later.
The other thing we had to break many kids of is the reflexive nature to go down on every shot. Wasn't an issue on the goal in question last night but Hauser goes down prior to most shots. He sees an opponent teeing up and down he goes.
Hauser is a work in progress for sure. His mechanics are iffy and we've been seeing it for most of the season with quite a few head scratching goals. He often loses his net and ends up having to scramble around. More than a few goals let in have been because he was off his angle(s).
Proof's in the pudding. His save % is under .900.
At the start of the season, I was convinced and excited that we had a young goalie that we could build around and develop. I'm less bullish on him after seeing the second half of the season. I know there's been some talk of injuries, but it's the mechanics and style of play that have me more concerned. Often looks to be flailing around back there.
You said that I "couldn't be more wrong."
I disagree.
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solovsfett
Registered User
Thanks Con1977 and Gurth 2.0 for the discussion. In about 20 years of posting on thia board I’ve never had a lot to say about goaltending because I’m far from an expert and generally, UW goalie play has been good.
Having said that, to my eyes, both Haiser and Pulver have cost the UW some wins and let in what I would call soft goals.
The reason I say that is, irrespective of whether the defense hangs you out to dry you need to make plays sometimes. Big time plays.
Brian Elliott did this often. Mike Valley and Kirk Daubenspeck also saved the team’s bacon On numerous occasions when put in a bad position. Duane Derksen did the same. Now, of course, as a fan of Badger hockey we’re all spoiled because of the rich goalie history. And, no, I’m not a hockey coach but at some point you expect your goalie to win a game for you and make some saves that alter the game. I haven’t seen that from Pulver and Hauser.
To my eyes, they look like they need a lot of work this off season…like…they need a “Howie Fix”
Having said that, to my eyes, both Haiser and Pulver have cost the UW some wins and let in what I would call soft goals.
The reason I say that is, irrespective of whether the defense hangs you out to dry you need to make plays sometimes. Big time plays.
Brian Elliott did this often. Mike Valley and Kirk Daubenspeck also saved the team’s bacon On numerous occasions when put in a bad position. Duane Derksen did the same. Now, of course, as a fan of Badger hockey we’re all spoiled because of the rich goalie history. And, no, I’m not a hockey coach but at some point you expect your goalie to win a game for you and make some saves that alter the game. I haven’t seen that from Pulver and Hauser.
To my eyes, they look like they need a lot of work this off season…like…they need a “Howie Fix”
Sent my kid to Howie's camp one time.
He called the house about something and spoke to my wife. She still mentions it every once in a long while when we're talking about the Wisconsin goaltending... how intimidating he was even though he was nice as could be on the phone haha.
He used to come to a bank I was managing way back in like the late 90s and he'd come through the drive thru with this ridiculous little white dog on his lap and he'd be sweet talking it and it would get a treat. Just didn't jive with the curmudgeon that his persona was.
Man... that guy could coach goalies.
Thankfully, goaltending did not stick with my kid.
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solovsfett
Registered User
Awesome story!Sent my kid to Howie's camp one time.
He called the house about something and spoke to my wife. She still mentions it every once in a long while when we're talking about the Wisconsin goaltending... how intimidating he was even though he was nice as could be on the phone haha.
He used to come to a bank I was managing way back in like the late 90s and he'd come through the drive thru with this ridiculous little white dog on his lap and he'd be sweet talking it and it would get a treat. Just didn't jive with the curmudgeon that his persona was.
Man... that guy could coach goalies.
Thankfully... goaltending did not stick with my kid.
I used to watch the old PBS replays and it was funny how sometimes Howie would find a positive to talk about while we knew he had a reputation of being a curmudgeon.
One instance I recall was UW down 4-0 midway through the second period to rodentsota at the DCC on a Saturday night in like 1995 maybe 96.
I was at the game but raced home to record what I could of the replay because the comeback was incredible.
When you UW finally scored to make it 1-4 Howie said something like “okay, get one more, get to two going into the third and you’ve got a game” or something similar and sure as hell. UW scored again IIRC to end period two down 4-2. And wound up winning 7-4. Scott Sanderson and I think Joey Bianchi also had goals.
Anyway…back to goaltending. It’s incredible but I recall reading that Mike Richter, Curtis Joseph and Jim Carey would come to Madison in off-seasons from NHL to get their “Howie fix”.
Howie was the Yoda of goalie coaches!
con1977
Easily distracted by shiny things
I havent seen the ducking, but Ill keep an eye out. If by ducking you are referring to him going down in the butterfly, yeah, he tends to do that a lot, but that is more of a comment on the way the position is coached than Hauser necessarily. For college and pro level goalies they tend to love having the guys go down on every single shot and relying on that body and angle to be enough to block it. They also teach the RVH has a habit and not a tool, which Im with Lundqvist, I do not like the RVH as a habit. It makes a big goalie small when you do both of these things. I personally hate this goalie goes down all the time style of coaching because it essentially locks a goalie into a spot since movement is so much harder once you are on the ice than when standing, certainly at the speed of the game at the college and pro level.
Size isnt everything, just means a goalie has come out and challenge more, which does make them more vulnerable to back door plays, as they will have to turn their entire upper body to make that move, but Hauser does seem to excel at the scramble play. Hauser is undersized when you look at his peers (5'11"). Most goalies are over 6 foot, which is the norm now, but I also feel that is the system picking kids at a way too young age because they are tall rather than worry about trying to develop their skills. I see that a lot with how kids are placed at the youth club level. Often the taller kid gets placed on a better team regardless of if his skills are good, and I see a lot of times where if you had swapped goalies between your A and B or B and C teams you would have had much different results. When I evaluate, Im looking at skill and compete, and I do not care about size at all. Younger ages is where you should be rewarding hard work and skill development, but when you pass over a shorter kid because the tall kid absorbs more pucks you take an opportunity away from a shorter, more skilled kid to develop into someone extraordinary. I personally think Hauser will work out quite well for UW as he progresses through his time here.
WiscTJK
Well-known member
He's really been great since coming back from injury. One of the reasons they have been better after the big losing streak.
It all started with you saying Dartmouth would be the worst team in the Big Ten. Based on one game. Basically calling the ECAC and Dartmouth's season a fraud. It's classic "our conference is much better than every other conference" arrogance that I felt like commenting on. That's all.
The Badgers outplayed 'em. Just like UConn outplayed MSU. UConn got goalied, the Badgers banged in a few late goals. That's hockey.
Good luck the rest of the way.
If it makes you feel any better I picked an all Big Ten Final in my bracket. (I won't tell you who the two teams are to avoid more wrath.)
I'm not the one who said that. I wouldn't agree with that as this is the first game I saw of Dartmouth, so I wouldn't know.
You made a comment about the score being 1-1 late into the game, implying that it was a closely contested. True that it was 1-1 and hockey can be that way but the 1-1 score did not in any way reflect the play on the ice. Wisconsin dominated that game.
I'm good on this if you are.
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