Like I said above, the people that are commenting on his poor positioning are more than likely not watching him play. He positions himself quite well. At times he could tone down the aggressiveness in the way he approaches the shooter, but it's also part of the style he uses, which catches a lot of players off guard.
Anyone that thinks he'll fall flat in the NHL, I can guarantee has either watched him very sparingly or is not a fan of his style, which differs from most goalies out there. It sets him apart from other goalies, is difficult to game plan against, and should actually fit Nashville's tight defensive system quite well.
I'm quite honestly going from the comments - I agree that different styles/techniques are often frowned upon (look at Hasek's).
What I get from this is, I'll have to watch some AHL games next year
Seems like quite a few excellent goalie prospects coming!
Yeah, Wolf played for good teams only. Everett was always strong when he was there and so is AHL Stockton/Calgary. Now you can say that it was him making the team better but that's only true to a certain extent. Wolf played on good teams in leagues with no relegation and a certain lack of depth which means that many games just aren't competitive. Now such games sometimes can be tricky for goalies as well and it's not Wolf's fault he played for good to overpowered teams only. Still, it's important to understand his stats.
Also, I never said that I like Askarov better than Wolf. For me, just Wallstedt is a few tiers above the rest in this poll. I just said that Askarov has higher upside than Wolf. That doesn't mean Wolf can't have a nice NHL career or can't turn out to be better than Askarov.
Having said that, the one thing you can't teach is size. I believe in today's NHL if you wanna be a franchise goalie for years, at 6'0 that's tough to impossible to do. Those days are over now that you have 6'4 or bigger guys like Andrei Vasilevskiy or Spencer Knight moving just as well and being just as explosive as 5'10 Juuse Saros. That doesn't mean smaller guys can still be starter in the NHL because obviously what happens between the ears is at least as important as size, movement and technique but big guys like Askarov moving so well does give them a clear advantage and as a smaller guy you have to work way harder not to get figured out. You also have to find other ways to set yourself apart from the bigger guys now that the big guys are such athletes. Much like for example Shesterkin, Wolf does that. Nowadays, smaller goalies have to be active puck movers and they have to better between the ears which includes mental strenght, consistency, keeping track of pucks etc.
Askarov (and Wallstedt to a lesser extent) from what I see actually have better explosiveness and mobility than Wolf. Askarov obviously has other issues we already discussed but I disagree it isn't teachable (learnable). It's gonna be tough for Askarov because lately, little to no progress is visible but sometimes that's just how it goes with goalies. My countryman Akira Schmid was hyped as the next big thing and I liked him a lot as a kid. Internationally he was always brutal though and at club level he seemed to stagnate for years as well but all of a sudden, when the goalie depth in the Devils organization was put to the test, Schmid was there standing on his head and hasn't looked back since. Goalies are voodoo. You never know what you got until they played a couple of NHL seasons at the very least and even the most shaky and inconsistent goalie can suddenly put it all together.
Definitely agree, can't teach size. I played goalie as a kid and was always on the shorter side (I'm 5'9 as an adult, but even then I got a few inches between 18 and 21 so I was really small for a goalie at 16-17). Pictures of me playing are almost laughable when you compare to guys like Price or Vasilevskiy who cover so much of the net in butterfly.
And I also agree that you can teach positioning and reading the play, but they're more esoteric attributes than technique, hence more difficult to teach and learn, but that's just my opinion. Again imo, I'd rather select a goalie for which we need to work on explosiveness and more fluid movements than working on reading the game.
I'm really looking forward to see them progress in the NHL, I hope they all succeed and become the next big thing with goalies. Just need these teams to trade Saros, Markstrom (and Gustavsson?)
*** Also I'm far from a scout lol, I'm discussing these for fun and to confirm my own biases
It wouldn't "shock" me if someone who's relatively under the radar right now ends up the better goalie in 5 years. That under the radar guy might be big, have solid positioning and explosiveness, but might have played on really bad teams and have been drafted late. Patrick Roy played for one of the worst junior team ever - you'd not think he would have an NHL career by looking at junior stats alone
