Summary
The Goalie Science CurseThey praised Devin Cooley. He got hurt. They called Stuart Skinner a lock. Winnipeg lost nine in a row and Skinner gave up seven on roughly 20 shots. The curse is real. Connor Hellebuyck is the next victim. He has actually looked solid coming off a bad Colorado loss, so we will see.Jacob Fowler and the Billy Ryan War Room ClipThe clip going viral shows Billy Ryan arguing for taking Fowler in the Montreal draft room. The argument: he is not the biggest, not the most skilled on paper, but he has won at every single level he has played. Jamies takeaway is that hockey IQ is always a more transferable skill than any technical move. Fowler knew the shot tendencies of every college hockey player he faced. That is pattern recognition and positional awareness at an elite level.What Jamie sees watching Fowlers film: extreme efficiency of movement. He does not over-push. He does not over-commit. He hits his mark and stays there. That is the template he shows to undersized goalies who are being coached to be fast at the expense of being precise.Carey Price said in a recent interview that Fowler is the one NHL goalie he watches and sees himself at the same age. That is a significant endorsement from the goalie who changed how the position is coached.The eye test problem: scouts saying he looks like a goalie is one of the most frustrating things in goaltending evaluation. Most scouts are not goalies. A kid has to pass the non-goalie eye test before the goalie specialist even gets to watch him. Gear fit matters. Vertical gear graphics make goalies look taller. Fowler looks smaller on TV than he is in person.The funniest story of the episode: a dad hired a 6'6 stranger to attend his sons games and pretend to be the grandfather so scouts would see the family height potential.Askarov and ConsistencyNashville could not get the Hellebuyck deal done and ended up with Askarov. The read is that Winnipeg did not want Askarov as part of the return. He has shown he can come in and have good games but has not proven he can string it together. What the NHL needs from a starting goalie is not perfection, it is consistency.Devin Cooley InjuryLower body. Looks like it may be a knee based on the clip. Jamie points to his Shurkin video as the last time he tried to diagnose a goalie injury on camera and got it completely wrong when a new angle came out showing it was an ankle that was obliterated. He is staying cautious this time.Semyon Varlamov Double Knee ReplacementPartial knee replacements on both knees, roughly a 24-month rehab. Jamies breakdown: the miraculous part is not the surgery itself, it is that after 15 years in the NHL and that much pain, he chose to come back at all. Quality of life after knee replacement typically improves dramatically. The hard part is the loss of strength and the relearning of motor patterns, not the knees themselves. He probably feels better out there than he has in years.FAI Surgery as a Future Performance EnhancerThe question Buj raises: baseball parents already pay for pre-emptive Tommy John surgery on teenagers. Will hockey parents start paying for FAI surgery to open up hip mobility in goalies who do not need it yet?Jamies answer: yes, probably. The difference is that FAI shaving is a bone structure issue and doing it on a still-growing athlete carries unknowns that Tommy John does not. If a kid genuinely has FAI and is in pain, getting it done strategically at the right time makes complete sense. Using it as a mobility enhancement on a kid who does not need it is a different conversation. Some parents will do it anyway.Side note: genetics matter. People of Eastern European and Asian descent tend to have more open hip sockets, which is part of why certain countries produce more naturally flexible goalies.Osgood-Schlatter in Young GoaliesBuj raises it because he sees it constantly in developing goalies. Jamies breakdown: it is not the knee growing too fast, it is the patellar tendon pulling on the tibial tuberosity as the bone grows faster than the tendon length can keep up. It causes the characteristic bump on the front of the knee and discomfort that peaks around ages 11 to 15 in active athletes.What helps: isometrics and eccentric loading to strengthen the muscles and take load off the tendon, not just stretching. Seeing a physio is worth it. It will not go away instantly regardless of how good the program is, but a good strength program can mitigate severity. Roughly 20 to 30 percent of athletes get it versus around 10 percent of non-athletes, which tracks with activity levels being the main driver.For Weston at age 11: Jamies recommendation is to start a proper youth strength program this summer, three to four times a week, full range of motion. Prevention is easier than treatment.PWHL Roster ExpansionThe league just expanded from 21 rostered players with 4 low-paid reserves to 25 fully contracted players paid at league minimum. Tia Chan helped explain the details. It is a step in the right direction. The bigger structural gap is still the absence of a farm system: if you are the 24th player on a PWHL roster and not getting game time, there is nowhere to develop. On the mens side you go to the AHL or ECHL. On the womens side, you go to Europe or senior A. The long-term fix is probably using NCAA as the de facto development system while the league drafts younger and waits.ShoutoutsCharlotte Payne: 40-save shutout, 1-0 win over Syracuse for Delaware. If Buj is a PWHL team, he is making a call.Gabby Brazil: D3 womens program at Roger Williams University, first ever program win in a 2-1 shootout with 40-plus saves. She trained at Ghost for half the summer. Buj notes her baby blue gear is unbelievably sick. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.