Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
I can't remember a goaltender who was so good in the regular season, struggle so much in the playoffs like Hellebuyck. There have been other goaltenders that struggle in the playoffs but this is the most extreme I can remember. He basically goes from best goaltender in the league to below average starter the moment the season transitions from regular season to playoffs. It has to be mental or something as for whatever reason he's just not the same guy.
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Putting on my beer league goaltending equipment on, here's my going theory:
Hellebuyck is objectively one of the most technically proficient goalies in the league. To do this, he maximizes his size, play reading and nearly perfect positioning, but also requires a level of predictability in play to do it.
A lot of this predictability goes out the window in the playoffs with opposing players more likely to screen, crash the net, create scrambles, desperately shoot from weird angles, do nearly anything for an opportunity, etc... a lot of scenarios you can't necessarily plan for in practice.
Notably, guys like Luongo, Markstrom really struggle with this. They can't seem to find the puck when the play looks so different than the regular season.
Other goalies like Binnington and Kiprusoff (and Wolf?) seem to weirdly thrive off unpredictability. Maybe it's because they've never had that size to consistently rely on and were able to develop their puck tracking ability beyond that of Hellebuyck.