Embiid
On early summer vacay
Avascular necrosis is not something that needs to be reinjured. The issue with Emery's hip is not that he had some trauma to it three years ago and it has since healed and been reaggrivated. He has a degenerative bone issue in his hips. I've had injuries and tried to finish out a season or a play-offs on an injured hip before. I know what a goalie's movement looks like when he is trying to nurse one or two bad hips along. Emery's hips hurt him after and likely during every game he plays. I'd bet a lot on it.
Look at him get up next time he plays. If a puck is in your zone as a goalie, usually you're keeping your hands up and ready and your torso upright and aimed at the play while your legs move fairly independantly to get you back into the shot lane. If the puck is to your left and you're down in the butterfly, you plant your right skate and in one motion begin your stride towards the puck and lifting yourself up off the ice. Varlamov, Schneider and Jack Campbell for the Stars all execute this recovery super smooth and efficient. So they flow like water from the butterfly to their ready stance. Mason's pretty good about it too. During Emery's recovery from the butterfly he is bent over (not upright), he plants his foot down with his shin straight up in front of him (with no rotation, abduction or adduction of the hip joint). He then puts his blocker or his glove on the top of the upright pad and pushes his torso up as he stands. Once this motion is done and he is fully upright, he moves to the shot lane.
There are a couple explanations why a goalie would do this. If they didn't know better technique they might, but Emery surely does know better. If they're just lazy, which again I don't think is the case for Emery. Or if their legs and core are too weak to get up and over at the same time. This is possibly true if you're a heavy goalie (Emery isn't) or if your legs are weak from not being able to lift/run/train, which might be the case for him due to managing hip workload, but I really doubt that. My guess is that it isn't any of those. I think he has the leg and core strength to execute that technique, but loading the hip joint up with that much force while it's in the awkward position that recovery requires causes him a lot of pain. You can see, just from how he's moving, that he his hips are on the way out. Barring some really impressive feats of medecine, I don't know how this can get any better.
Any team that can shoot at his feet and crash the net for a rebound consistently, or move a puck east to west and quickly put a shot on goal is going to feast on Emery (I'm not talking a Stamkos one-timer either, I mean a simple wobbling wrist shot somewhere in the appropriate third of the net). In addition, if they get set up behind the net Emey struggles badly with this as well, since you need to be able to react and quickly get a foot against the post the puck carrier chooses to attack and seal the ice with your pad. He can't get wide enough or low enough to deal with this situation effectively, which is why you saw Carcillo score the way he did.
I am a bit of a student of goal tending technique and look for it during games, but I feel extremely confident that if I'm seeing this **** from my couch at home, then Jeff Reese is seeing it too. Yet these issues are getting worse and not better, and it's because you can't coach someone who isn't healthy enough to execute the techniques. The guy is done as a solid contributor in the NHL. He may get another team to carry him for one year after this one but his career is about over. No shame in it, he had a pretty amazing run considering his physical limitations.
Love detailed arguments like this.....it is definitely clear that Razor is compensating when he is in net.
