When it comes to shootouts, Kevin Lankinen is a god.

Lankinen’s reputation with the Vancouver Canucks this year might be based on his struggles in regulation and overtime, but if a game goes to a shootout and Lankinen’s in goal, walking away with a win is a near guarantee. And on Saturday against the Boston Bruins, he turned in his magnum opus; seven Boston shooters stared him down, and Lankinen stopped them all to give the Canucks a 5-4 win.

In three shootouts this year, he’s yet to allow a single goal. In fact, in his entire career, only six shooters have found the back of the net against him.

So what lends your game so well to the shootout? That’s what we’re here to find out.

Lankinen starts by staying in his net until the player crosses the blue line, allowing him to pinpoint where the player is skating into the zone from. Challenging out after the player crosses prevents Lankinen from wasting additional energy by making adjustments all the way from centre ice in.

On this attempt, you can see him charge out as soon as Marat Khusnutdinov crosses the blue line.

Lankinen really likes to get low in his stance as players close in, and that makes sense. Most players won’t shoot from distance in a shootout, so they have two options: shoot in close or deke.

Here, Mikey Eyssimont chose shot. He chose poorly.

By crouching low and taking away the bottom of the net, Lankinen closes off most of the available space right away. And with his aggressive push far into the white ice, he’s fast enough on his feet to run players out of real estate as fast as they close in.

The toughest part is matching the player’s speed as they skate in. Move back into your net too slowly, and they have time to deke around you. Move back too fast, and you open up more net to shoot at.

David Pastrnak nearly found the Achilles heel when he froze Lankinen at the hash marks just long enough to lose his rhythm, but Kevin held his ground long enough to swipe at Pasta and force him to hit the crossbar.

If the player decides to deke, Lankinen has a split second to guess a direction, and if he guesses wrong, he needs to be fast enough to correct it. Kevin’s overreactiveness might cause some regulation problems, but in a 1v1 situation, he’s able to lock in much more clearly.

On this late deke by Elias Lindholm, Lankinen is able to read that the former Canuck is going back to the right, stops up immediately on his outside foot and pushes back to his glove side to get the pad down.

From experience as a goalie, in most cases, your best option as a shooter is to cut in from a corner, force the goalie to cut down an angle, and shoot without a deke. Morgan Geekie knows that, based on the route he took on Boston’s final attempt.

But with Kevin Lankinen in net, that’s a lot easier said than done.

This very specific skill in Lankinen’s toolkit might not be one that can help a team in the playoffs. But there’s no getting around the fact that he is very, very good at shootouts. And in a league full of snipers, that’s a unique and impressive skill for a goalie to have.