The Hockey PDOcast - A Ducks deep dive with Felix Sicard

Episode Date: November 28, 2022

Dimitri is joined by Felix Sicard from  The Fourth Period for an Anaheim Ducks deep dive. This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Villeppovich. And joining him, he's my good buddy. Felix Sigurd. Felix, what's going on, man? It's going well, Dimitri. I'm glad to be here and talk about one of the most exciting teams in the NHL.

Yes, the Anaheim Ducks. We're doing the Anaheim Ducks deep dive officially. I mean, I've got a lot of negative thoughts that I probably, that you're going to echo as well and that we can unpack. I felt like it would be, you know, let's start with the glass half full approach and focus on what I think has been one of the real bright lights in this otherwise weak, dark, cold environment that has been anaheim ducks hockey, getting back to last year, but especially picking up this year and sort of building on what he did last year, it's Troy Terry, who I think

it was reasonable to be a bit surprised or taken aback. I think we point to Tage Thompson as someone who, kind of just burst onto the scene last year out of nowhere after a couple of NHL seasons of relatively underwhelming production. And then, you know, he got that big contract. We're wondering how he's going to follow it up. And he's certainly proving that he's the real deal this season. We don't talk about Terry as much in that regard. But, you know, in his first three seasons in the NHL, he played 129 games. He had 15 goals, 48 points. And then he just breaks out last year. He scores 37 goals. He's got the 67 points.

And so far this year, he's on pace for 34 goals, 86 points. points, all of the numbers have actually, from what I've seen, improved his performance has certainly looks like the real deal. So let's talk a little bit of Troy Terry and kind of what makes him special and how he's been able to have this sort of career glow up at the age of 24. Yeah, I mean, it's a fascinating topic because I know that you've had the likes of Daryl Belfrey on your show, skills coaching. And I think really for him, he's always had that ability to carry the puck, you know, through the neutral zone. Like the tracking data always showed that from Corey Schneider and he was able to you know work it off the half wall and work it down low.

But the last season, you really saw him completely change his approach when he's entering that offensive zone, attacking the middle, attacking defenders, attacking there's, you know, that triangle, their stick and their skates and just looking for his shot so much more. And it's just like a fundamental shift in how he's approached the game. And if you listen to, you know, Terry and Aiken's and people around him talk, they talk. about confidence and his confidence and mindset shifting. I don't really, I mean, I'm sure he's more confident now that he scored 37 goals, but I think the confidence comes from, hey, I'm attacking constantly and creating chances for my team. So he always kind of had it in him, but now he's just

taking it to a completely, you know, different level. Yeah, I mean, clearly what sticks out to him is just how crafty he is, right? Like when you see him, as you're mentioning, go kind of maneuvering through the neutral zone, the way he's able to make defenders uncomfortable by basically either utilizing that attacking triangle by either putting it under the stick or putting in their skates, you see it manifested in a number of different ways, right? One, last year he was amongst the league leaders and penalties drawn, and he's followed that up again this year, and I think that's proven to be a real skill. And two, and this is an interesting departure where last year I felt like he was really catching

people off guard by sort of doing that old Ovechkin move, right, where he comes down the wing and he uses a defender as a screen before ripping it through their legs and beating a goalie that way. And this year, I think he did it the one time recently against the Rangers where he kind of did it to Giondre Miller and he beat Yarlalak with that move.

But for the most part, he's been trying to do it and he just, the puck hasn't been going in for him when he's been doing it. And I don't think it's for a lack of effort. Like, I think the executions has been fine, not that the league is caught up to him by any means. I think that's kind of, you're going to have shooting percentage of variants

when you're dealing with shots from further out, but he still found ways to produce offensively and create regardless. And so once those start going in more for him as well, I actually think it's reasonable to expect that he's going to start producing even more goals this season than he has already so far. Yeah, like I think that one of the big things last year kind of working off that with his high shooting percentage is that his on ice shooting percentage wasn't

even really like that high. Wasn't that crazy. And he had 30 assists, which isn't much compared to those 37 goals. So this year, he's still getting that production because that's gone up a bit. he's finding teammates. And yeah, to your point, his shot, he still hasn't really had,

like those crazy kind of, like shooting streaks like he had last year. And they might not come. I mean, he's shooting 12%, but he's just looking as aggressive as ever. And I mean, I just think this is like the new normal for him.

Like he's going to be an elite kind of top line winger for years to come at this point. Like there's just, there's no indication that this is ever going to stop. It is. Yeah, I believe it's not updated because this was a, few days ago, but Sport Logic had him as leading the league and rush chances about a week or so.

And yeah, he hasn't really even converted on a lot of them yet. I think the way he has been able to produce on what I wanted to talk about and what I think has really changed for him dating back to last year is how much stronger he is on the puck. And I think in hindsight, it's really easy to do the hindsight game, right? Not that I saw this coming, heading into last year by any means, but it would make sense in theory that a 24, 25 year old is kind of entering their physical prime and is getting stronger and he's putting in the work in the off season and he shows up and then all of a sudden you see now where he's not scoring on those shots coming down the wing anymore but what he is doing is instead of just being a one-dimensional kind of one-trick pony where he's just

waiting for it to happen he's sort of trying to create in different ways and and make his own luck and so what he's done is he's basically taking the puck often from that kind of goal line area off the wall and just bullrushing it to the net and putting his shoulder down and taking it and we saw him score a goal like that against the Seattle Crackett in their most recent game. He's produced a bunch both for himself and for his teammates that way. And that's something he didn't really have in his bag when he first came into the NHL. Like you could see the puck skills in space. But whenever someone would come near him, it's like a gust of wind would blow and he would just go flying off the puck.

And he's certainly gotten so much stronger in terms of being able to protect it and also actually take it into traffic. And so I think that has kind of been a development that makes you think that, okay, he's really kind of putting it all together. And the skill is meeting the physical prime as well. Yeah, absolutely. And I think, yeah, to your point, you could always see that in his game, that he had that ability to control the puck. And he was always so good along the wall. And I think the difference now is that he's added that dimension off the rush, like you talked about with the sport logic data. And I think it really is just a testament to the power of skills development. Because a lot of this stuff, yeah, he's gotten stronger and he's talked about that. Dallas Aikins has talked about that. But I think it's just the way he's approaching the game, the skills that he's using, that he's, he's worked on. This is stuff that he's that he's developed over time. And that's not something

that we really saw in his game. So it's been a joy to watch. And I am very curious now, because he is, he is due for a new contract at the end of the season. And I'm very curious to see how exactly that will shake out what that will look like. Yeah. Well, it's certainly well. I've got some other stats for you. He's, he's tied with Austin Matthews for six most high danger chances in which I think speaks to where he's taking the puck. to the net. And, you know, we're going to talk about Dallas Aiken's job he's done. And I think I'm going to be the tenor of it is going to be generally pretty critical because I think the adjustments have not been there. One thing that I think this coaching staff, whether it's Akins

or whether it's whoever's run the power plate, has done well, is this recent change they've made where now they're all of a sudden, instead of having Terry on the flank, which makes sense, like he's got a good shot and you want to work that cross-flank magic with him and Zegras. They've him on the goal line where he's all of a sudden able to both kind of create as a facilitator getting it out front for tap-ins in the slot, but also if the space is open and he's not getting that respect, take the puck to the net himself. And that's in turn, the trickle-down effect is it's created this beautiful passing window for Zegris to McTavish on the one-timer as well. And so for all the things that haven't worked and the fact that they just keep kind of just trying to jam a

square peg into a round hole, this is one place where in terms of their power play formation, you've actually seen it pay dividends in recent games. Yeah, they've tinkered with it a lot. I mean, if you go back to the start of the season, they had Trevor Zegris on that right flank. And he scored a few goals off his one-timer. But I just don't really think Trevor Zegris's peak, I guess, look in the NHL and the power play is going to be as a one-time.

I think it's just a dual threat on his strong side. And you're seeing that now. He's on the left flank. He's always on his forehand. And he's able to make that cross-size pass so much more. easily. And yeah, they, they tried Troy Terry on that left flank, you know, across from Zegrois. And Troy, Terry's not really a one time. He just doesn't really have that in his bag yet, could add in. But, but, yeah, that bumper

spot is just so much more natural for him. And, you know, they shift around quite a bit. And then Mason McTavish is just, I mean, he's showing a little bit of what we saw last year, junior as well from that, that right face off circle. Well, they've also embraced finally just having Terry and Zegris together at 5-1-5, right? Like that was last year where, like, you'd see it in doses and you'd be like, all right, this is cool. Like, it makes sense that two very skilled players would riff off of each other. And then I believe they played like, I've got it down as 203, 5-on-5 minutes last year in their

68 games together. And this year in 22 games, they've already talked to total. And their offense, really, a 5-on-5 is those two guys out there creating because I think the rest of the team without them in three times as many minutes has created basically the same number of goals. And it makes sense from a talent perspective, but it's cool that like we're getting to see these two guys at least when they're on the ice, at least like you have that to hold on to as a reason to watch and a reason I care about this team. Yeah, I think it made sense to start the year to kind of try to spread the wealth. You know, they had Zegrois with Petrono and trying to really make

that work. And it just didn't, it didn't work. And I mean, this goes back even two seasons in the pandemic season where at the end of the year, you know, nothing left to play for. Uh, Aiken's put Zegris with Terry, and you could already see that it was, that there was something there and, you know, talked about it going into last season saying, well, you know, defensively, that might not necessarily be the look that they want. But it's just become undeniable. And especially this year, like you said, where the ducks just get nothing going when those two aren't together. It's just, you got to get some kind of offense and trying to spread the wealth is, it's just taking away from your team's ability to succeed at the end of the day.

Yeah. Well, I'm glad we were able to talk about Terry here because I've built my platform on talking Troy Terry. When I put this podcast, I'll do a mixtape on him as well because he's been so cool to watch. So is there any other stuff on Terry, kind of his development over the past couple years or you want to tie that into Zegris as well that we talk about in terms of like the positive stuff before we get into unpacking pretty much everything else? Yeah, I think this may have popped up in some of your mixtapes that you've put out. but he's also, I think the thing with Terry is that he's just so good without the puck. He's so good at stripping the puck from defenders or guys carrying the puck. And that really feeds into his offensive game. He's always had that ability to suppress offense.

He's so active without the puck. And yeah, he's just really a two-way monster. Like I just, he might, I know that there's something you joke about a lot, but he might actually be the most underrated player in the league. Because I think a lot of people know he's good, but they just don't quite grasp how good he really is. I think that's fair because I think if you pull. most people the majority answer

would be Trevor Zegroes as this team's best player and I think maybe he could get there in terms of like he's still younger right he's got more runway in terms of development and the raw skills

are so extraordinary that he could conceivably in two or three years when he gets to this age get there but right now it's like it's clear his day that Terry is the bus driver and he's like their most

they're most valuable and also they're just their pure best player at this point yeah i think i think honestly Troy terry is a first liner on just about any team like it's not just a product of oh you know he's on a bad team and he's getting all these opportunities he's we've seen an in anaheim guy like good players you know struggle not look as good and then go to other teams and and magically kind of refined their game and i think with terry he's doing it in this environment so you could

put him on any team in the league and i think he would still he would still look this good and yeah to your point if you pulled people they would probably think of trevor zeggeris and People still know that Troy Terry is good, but he's just, he's doing something special right now for sure. Troy Terry is very good. Okay. Let's get to the bad stuff. So through 22 games, I'm going to give you like a stats dump here just for the listeners. I'm sure you're familiar with all this, but just for the listeners, so we're on the whole on the same page.

615 and one record. One regulation win. Everyone else has at least four. The devils are up to 15 regulation wins and the same number of games played already. I believe they were at zero until their 19th game of the season, so it happened fairly recently. Negative 37 goal differential. Their 30th and goals for. They're 31st and goals against.

They've held a lead for 153 total minutes, which is about 11% of their game time. They've trailed for 47% of their game time or so. And I think the big thing that you keep coming back to here is defensively because while the offense has, not been scoring, the defense is catastrophically bad. I mean, they're averaging about 3.75 expected goals against per 60, which would be the most porous team single season record that we've seen since 2007 since we have data access to. And you look at the heat map on like on Michael McCurdy's website of where they're conceding the highest volume of shots.

And it's basically just one big red blob that's condensed in front of the net and then kind of like extends up towards the tops of the circles, which is basically the main area you want to prevent shots from. And that's where they concede the highest volume of shots in the league from. And I was watching their game last night against the Cracken, and then you and I were chatting in preparation for the show. And I kind of posed to you the question of, do we know what this team's current defensive zone coverage scheme they're running is? Because I was watching a few plays. And I was like, okay, well, to my eye, it kind of looks like they're running a man-to-man because certainly doesn't seem like a zone.

Like it looks like everyone's kind of responsible for someone and they're moving around in that capacity. But then it's such a scattered mess at other times that the right answer is probably there is no plan because it doesn't really seem like anyone is really on the same page. It's just, it's such a mess. And so I know like they're a rebuilding team. They've got young players.

I think a lot of that gets excused. But the thing that I keep going back to is actually a lot of the players who are like the most egregious offense here are culprits are actually veteran players who should be at least trained to not make these mistakes. And that's where you will get into, okay, how much of this is coaching? How much is this environment? How much of this is talent? Because I'm sure it's some combination of the three, but I don't think we can just hand wave this as, oh, well, this is a bad team because there's a difference between being bad and being like this bad defensively. Yeah, I think it's such an

interesting conversation. And, you know, you look at like the projection models before the year. and it seems like a lot of people had this team kind of in that 80 point range, like low 80s, which is not a good team, but it's not this. It's not this just awful mess in the defensive zone. And yeah, I think a lot of it,

like, you know, it might be harsh, but I think a lot of it is coaching because this isn't really new from a Dallas Aiken's coach team, a team that looks kind of disorganized in its defensive zone. I do think a lot of it, though, comes back to,

you know, first off like up front, you know, looking at the forward. You just have guys like Ryan Strom, for example, you talked about the veterans who, yeah, he's a veteran leader and he's supposed to kind of be that responsible defensively. But looking back on his career, played a lot with Artemi Panarin. And it turns out that life away from Artemian is pretty difficult.

So I think a lot of their defensive issues are just the fact that up front, their lines haven't really jelled and aren't able to really defend adequately. and that's just making life harder in the defensive zone. So it's just this crazy combination of things, but I do think that this roster, this collection of talent should be better than this, shouldn't be this catastrophically bad. And that does kind of like that does lead back to coaching.

It's hard to get away from it. Yeah, I think on a recent podcast, I was talking with our pal Thomas strands, I believe, and I voiced like my disappointment in this team because I didn't think they'd be good, but I had hopes for like them being like a fun, frisky team that at least like if you caught them on a run on the right night similar to the devils

last year where they were really bad defensively and they had these blow up these blow up games where they would just they'd give up so many bad goals against that they lost more than they won but if you caught them on the right night you'd see the skill and you'd see like things coming together and you and you could talk yourself into okay maybe in a year or two if they make the right couple pull the right couple strings here all of a sudden it could really come together and instead it's just regressed so much more in the opposite direction. And at the time, I was like, they look so unprepared that it almost gives me the vibe of like a collection of guys who have like a nine to five office job. And then they get together on a weeknight and just play a game and have some beers after.

But they're not actually like practicing or, you know, discussing what they're going to do. It's really just like everyone going for a skate, getting some cardio in, having a good time. And I've changed my mind. It's not that. You know what it reminds me of? it's a cat with a laser pointer because you watch in the defensive zone and it's like the puck is that moving red dot, right? It's everyone just immediately drops what they're doing.

It's like a defenseman is bodying someone in front of their own net and trying to clear the crease. And then all of a sudden they see the puck out of the corner of their eye and they just leave their guy to go try to play that. And in the most recent game against Seattle, you saw a number of times where with these very simple offensive motions the Cracken were running where they would basically just cycle it from one side, move it to the other, and get it around the net. And then all of a sudden, the defenseman would just leave his spot in front to go to try to play the puck. And they would just leave this exposed area in front where the Cracken could basically step into whatever glorious scoring chance

they wanted. I mean, that goal Vince Dunn scored was like inexcusable at the NHL level. I don't care who your personnel is. You could call up a list of a group of NHL players. And they should not be giving up that type of a look where it's basically at 5-1-5 off of a regular sequence, a clean runway for the other team's defensemen to basically skate into a great shot. Like, that just can't happen. And I don't know how much of that is coaching, but it keeps happening. So the fact that they're not making adjustments makes me think that they're at least partly to blame. Yeah.

Well, I think that it's funny because today, Pap Rubeke did a, they have a podcast where he comes on, like the team does a podcast. And he kind of talk as a podcast? Well, it's called the Beaker, actually. not a sponsor or whatever, but they do a podcast. And it was interesting because he kind of touched on that a little bit where he said that you have guys out there who look like they don't trust the next guy to do his job. So you're trying to do that guy's job.

And then you end up not doing your own job. And that sounds like a man-to-man kind of issue. So it's interesting that you bring that up. But I do think, yes, you know, the blue line looks catastrophic. And it is a lot of that is on coaching. But I do think part of it, like a part of it is personnel defensively. because John Klingberg is not good defensively. Like if there's one thing we know about him,

it's that he's not good. That's just not an area of strength for him, but he's made up for it in the past on the other end. And Demetri Kolkhov is fine, but he's just kind of a middle pairing guy. And Cam Fowler. He's to do too much. Yeah.

Yeah, exactly. And Cam Fowler, I think, is, you know, he's the best of the bunch here, but he kind of needs a solid guy next to him, or at least a solid-ish guy. And then Jamie Drysdale's been out who, you know, we thought he might take a step this year. But really, to me, it's that third pairing, which you can say about a lot of teams probably.

But like the fact that this team went out and got Nathan Bolio as one of the worst defenses been in the NHL over the last few years, like just a known bad commodity, the fact that he's out there playing real minutes, playing on the penalty kill. And then you have Kevin Chattankirk who looks like his best days might be behind him. Like that that's something that that's like an unforced error. They didn't have to go on get Nathan Bolio. And now they're playing him, which, you know, that's at the coaching level. But there's a lot going on there that it's just made for that group to not really gel altogether.

Well, that's what makes it so much less palatable or tougher to justify. If it's young players, if it's a rookie or if it's like a player who's like 20 years old and they're just learning the ropes and you just out of necessity, throw them into the deep end and you're like, all right, you're going to develop here. You're going to make a lot of mistakes. It's going to be ugly some nights, but we'll deal with it. It's fine. We're not trying to win this year anyways. You can like talk yourself into that. Okay, that's fine.

But then when it's like Shattonkirk and Bull You and even up front, right? Like I think the most egregious defensive players they've had have been Ryan Strom and Frank Fitzgernaud and Jacob Silberberg and these are guys who have been around long enough who are making like real dollars who shouldn't be making these like very rudimentary mistakes where it's almost like it's like their first time playing in the league even though they've been around for so long. And so that's what's that's almost frustrating, right? It's it's the veterans who are making mistakes.

So you can't really chalk this up as being, all right, well, this is part of rebuilding other than the fact that I guess, you know, these guys won't hopefully be around and playing for the ducks in these roles by the time this team's good again. But it's not like there's a reason to believe that these players who are in place are going to get better. It's almost going to have to be like a situation where you just cycle them out and bring you guys in who hopefully can do the job. Yeah, I mean, Pavar Beeks said today on the Beaker that he saw this team as being at or near 500 at this point in the same. season, which to me sounds about right for what's wrong. Honestly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So I think that that's like a realistic expectation. And yeah, the fact, it is startling the fact that Ryan Strom in particular has just been so bad defensively because that's a guy who they brought in specifically for that role.

You know, Ryan Getslap retired. And Ryan Getslap, even in his final seasons, was solid defensively, like still good in that end. And Strom was kind of brought in to stabilize that little bit. and yeah, just making crazy mistakes. And Frank Vitrono again, like he's not really a guy that you should probably be depending on defensively. Like I think it's probably time to break up the X Rangers line at some point. But still, like the fact that they're playing this poorly, I don't think that these guys became bad players overnight either.

And so that's why I think there's a lot of blame to go around, especially on the coaching end. All right, Felix. Well, I've got a lot of thoughts to Biggie, back off of that. Well, let's take a break here in the conversation. And then when we come back, we're going to keep talking about the Ducks and getting into all of it.

You are listening to the Hockeypedo cast here on the Sports Night Radio Network. We're back here. More of the Hockeyedogesat, Dimitra Belpovich, my guest, Felix, Segar. Felix, we're talking about the coaching. We're talking about the expectations for this team. I think this is a good segue into, you know, you mentioned what Pat Rebeek was saying on, what is it, the beaker? The beaker.

The beaker is getting a lot of a lot of shoutouts on today's show. what he's saying about his expectations for the team in terms of the record. And I don't necessarily want to say that the results don't matter, right? Because it's a competitive sport. You're going to get judged on wins and losses. So it matters to some degree, no matter what your expectations are. But I think for this team, it's clear that, you know, if you can enter the season, you're rebuilding, you have some young players, you're playing the long game.

You're not necessarily going to, you know, live or die with each loss or each result any given night. You want to see development, progression, kind of like good habits being built and a good playing environment or a successful one being steadily built upon, right? That's much more important to me than seeing whether they won or lost on a random Tuesday night or whatever. I guess for me, the trick here is that it becomes really difficult when a team is this bad, and we gave all those stats about how much they're losing, how often they're trailing, how bad defensively they are. The one complication is it becomes really difficult to properly evaluate players.

And you hinted at this earlier where we've seen players who all of a sudden their underlying numbers is just completely plummeted on the ducks. And they reach that age where it's like, all right, their late 20s, is this a physical thing? Are they just not what they used to be anymore? And then they go to a team. You see at Hampus Lindholm, go to Boston Bruins. And he all of a sudden becomes an elite shutdown to a one-on-one defender again, right? Exactly what you're wasn't his prime. That makes sense. I think that what was shocking to me was seeing Josh Manson go to Colorado because the Allen's clearly have a great team and a surplus of talent. But at that point of his career, I really didn't see the offensive involvement he showed in his game, especially

in the postseason run where he's like aggressively pinching in the offensive zone. He's jumping in into the rush and all of a sudden turning a two on two into a three on two and just playing this downhill style where you're like, where has this been? Like this guy just looks like a entirely different player. And yeah, when you play with better players, you're going to wind up looking better. But I think that's the thing that they, issue, they bump into here where there's a few players there, right? There's Zegris, Terry, there's McTavish, where their talent is so good individually that we know what they are and they're going to shine through regardless. But then you have this whole swath of other guys who are kind of stuck in the middle. And if they can't distinguish themselves,

it's almost impossible to know whether they're part of the solution for the future or whether they should be discarded or what you have in them. And that's a really tricky place as an organization because you're kind of left just basically in the dark almost. Right. It is very tricky. And I think that it's, I don't know if there's really a right or wrong answer. You know, it's like a chicken or the egg situation where, yeah, of course, Hamas Linholm goes to the Bruins, like one of the best ecosystems for a defenseman there can be and looks better. But when you look that much better and like you said, Josh Manson,

the way he's looking in, in Colorado, it's not just that he's playing well, but it's the way in which he's doing it. I think you do have to ask yourself, why wasn't that coming out at all with the ducks? Like not even remotely so. And,

you know, back to the beaker here again, but they asked him about it today. You asked him, what's going on with the coaching staff. And he said that, basically said not making any changes for the foreseeable future or what have you.

So it doesn't sound like that's going to change. But I do think you, run into this issue where what do you have in these guys? Like I look at, for example, Isaac Lindstrom, who scored 16 goals last year and you heard all about it, at least around the ducks about how how well he looked and, you know, this burgeoning kind of shut down player, what have you. And this year, it's been a little hit or miss. And even last year, the underlying numbers weren't great. And you just want to see what these potential talents have in a better kind of environment. And I mean, I look at like, to me, the shining example for this is what the Canadians have done.

the season where yeah, they're winning games and it's probably not good for the Bedard sweepstakes, but you can tell that they're finding out things about their young players. They're doing it in this kind of good environment in a winning culture, what have you, even if the wins might not necessarily keep coming. And the ducks just, it just doesn't feel like that's, that's what's happening. And, you know, they've talked about how, oh, well, look at what Dallas Jenkins did for Troy Terry and how he's allowed him to get that confidence. And that may be true. I think Dallas Jenkins is a really good motivator, but Dallas Dickens was also the one scratching him. a few years ago and not letting him play.

So I don't know exactly how much the development happened there. And Trevor Zegris, I mean, last year and the year before was getting bench left and right, you know, like game situations, not allowed to take faceoffs. So I just don't really know how much of a boost these guys are getting just at their baseline. And that's, that's really tricky. Like you said, a lot of these guys are so good that it's probably not going to end up mattering.

But you would like to see a better environment for that growth. Yeah. It reminds me a little bit of Jeff Blaschell and, in Detroit last year where it's very clear that and maybe if you're a pat for B coming from Detroit, it's like, all right, well, we're just going to play the string out. He's clearly not going to be here when we have

intentions of at least competing, but it doesn't really, it's not worth our time almost to make this move now. We're just going to play out the rest of the year. And that's obviously like a very tricky situation to navigate for everyone involved, clearly. I don't necessarily feel bad for Dallas Aikins because

he's the sixth longest tenured coach in the league right now, which is a remarkable sentence to say out loud and says as much about the NHL environment for coaches and how difficult it is to stick around as much as anything he's done. But it's the frustration for me is, you know, I mentioned how it's like the veterans who are kind of sometimes struggling here and not the young players. If you're going to be bad, that's one thing. That's totally fine. But I want to see some like experimentation and like, you know, trying to take risks and see what you have instead of just sort of the status quo, right? Like if you're going to lose,

you may as well go down swinging anyways. And a lot of these times it's mentioned some of the tinkering here and there and some of the good adjustments they've done. But for the most part, it's been like a relatively unambitious experience, I want to say. Like you think that's fair to say? Like, it's not like, you wouldn't go out and be like, wow, this team is really trying to trying to change the game here. It's like, no, they're just losing.

Like, that's kind of what they're doing. I don't know. Well, yeah, I mean, you pointed out to me on Twitter last night. But yeah, Derek Grant is on the second line right now. And maybe that's a product of injuries. But yeah, if Derek Grant's on your second line, you're probably just not really trying to do stuff that much. I mean, to me, what this, I think the example for all of this is the fact that Mason McTavish is driving a line right now comprised of himself, Max Jones, and Brett Leeson. And I'm going to be perfectly honest.

I didn't know who Brett Leeson was before this season. And I feel like I paid a decent amount of attention to hockey. And they picked him up off the waiver wire. and that's actually been a good five-on-five line for them. Mason McTavish is able to drive a line. And for one period, I think it was last week, we saw Mason McTavish at center, along with Ryan Strach and Frank Petrano, which is something that I've been kind of advocating for because it's clear that Ryan Strom and both both Ryan Stroh and Frank Petrono need a guy who's

able to carry the puck up ice and create for them. So they actually tried it. They tried McTavish at Center on the second line. And I thought, oh, wow, this is. it's happening. And then it lasted one period. They got two shifts or three shifts, whatever, look great. But because the ducks were losing, they broke it up.

And that's really the disappointment is that there's still money on the table here that you could try to find stuff out about your team and you're just not doing it. And it's same thing with like Max Contois, who's injured now. But clearly an offensive player in for a lot of the season, he was kind of settled in bottom six duties. So it just doesn't really make a whole lot of sense. I can't believe you don't, you'd never heard of Brett Lison. Yeah, same on me. Shame on me, I guess.

Well, Brett Leeson, I remember this very specifically because he was like an overager in the CHL and he just like randomly exploded for a big year when he was like 20 years old. And it was a classic like, maybe we shouldn't overreact to this because he's just like literally a grown man playing against children basically. And the Capitals made him a second round pick. And so I remember that very fondly. But yeah, I mean, it's telling because I was actually looking at the numbers and I couldn't believe. I was like, wow, McTavish playing with Stroman Vitrono has been a disaster.

And then it's been great playing with Max Jones and Brett Lise. It's like, wow, that's that tells me a lot about everyone involved. Right. Well, so the thing is to start the year, McTavish was on the way with Stroman Vitrano. And he's a center. And he just didn't, he just didn't like, he's a guy who needs the puck on his stick. He's good at that. He's good at creating offense.

You know, he's a good play connector. And on the wing, he's just kind of stifled. Then the one shot they gave him a center between those guys, it lasted all of one period. So yeah, but shout out to Brett Lison. I mean, he's on a good line right now. So clearly there's something going on there. Well, the other thing that I post to you in our chat was I wonder what John Klainberg is thinking right now. Because he signs that one year, $7 million deal this summer, right?

It basically didn't have any better offers available. I assume the logic was. I was like, all right, well, you know, I'm going to get a reasonable one-year payday here, go to a situation where I'm going to be able to at least play a lot, especially in scoring situations, maybe get a good individual, you know, season in terms of production going and then get traded whenever I want to because he's got the built-in trade production of they essentially can't trade him without his permission until January 1st, and then after that it's a 10-team deal, right?

And he comes into the year, and these are his, these are his totals so far. He's been outscored 23 to 11 at 5-15. High danger chances with him on the ice are 116 to 63 for the opposition. He's got the one goal and seven assists, only four of those points that come at 5-15. And we mentioned Dmitri Kulikov, who has been his most regular partner so far this season, the two of them of a sub-30 expected goal share on the ice together. And so, you know, he's certainly not to blame by any means because a lot of these issues we've been talking about are certainly things that have played John

Glingberg for a lot of his career. But at the same time, I imagine when he was like mapping out how this year I was going to go for him and how he was going to use it to get a bigger payday when the cap rose a little bit and other teams potentially had spending cash, it's about as badly as he could have misplayed a hand, I think.

And it's not, he's not blameless, but also it's kind of like a bit out of his control as well because I think we all expected this Ducks team to be at least a bit more competent that they've shown. Yeah, and I think John Klingberg is definitely not a guy that you put onto a team that's still building out. It's infrastructure just doesn't have a solid foundation that's expect him to succeed. And that's where I go back to coaching. But really with him, it's just defensively, it's, I mean, you talked about the numbers like sub 30 is just rare.

It's hard to do. Yeah. It's hard to do. And it just seems like there's just no, he doesn't have that balance of knowing, you know, when to get involved offensively and where to be defensively. It's just been a bit of a mess. And yeah, like going to the season, the idea was he was going to be this, you know, power play play his points there, play some solid minutes.

And if the team was bad, at least like you said, he's going to have some good individual numbers, be able to get flipped to a contender. And that's going to help him go get that contract. And hey, if it went well, then he maybe gets extended with the ducks or who knows. But that was that was always the plan. And this year, I mean, he's on pace for, I think, like, less than 35 points, which is, you know, lower than his last few totals. So I just, it's not working out in pretty much any direction.

I think there's still a chance that, you know, that the ducks could maybe get a little more competitive. They've shown that a bit lately, but it's just, I don't know. He just doesn't seem to fit whatever it is that they're trying to do. Well, I don't blame them for it because I think what they're trying to do very clearly is, oh, this is a free asset for us. We're going to play him for 40-ish games and then get a pick up. or maybe multiple picks for him.

And I think that regardless of what his numbers are, just based on the name brand value, they still will be able to do so. Maybe not as much as they had ideally hoped for if it was a true home run signing, but still something. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that the signing is still a really good one.

I mean, the ducks had to hit the cap floor. Just like they were like 18 million below the cap floor going to the off season. And yeah, like that's a good use of cap space. It's still a good move by Power Beak. There's still, if he does eventually get traded, which it's looking pretty likely at this at this juncture they're still going to get something for him it's it's like free free assets so and i feel the same way about the signings they made for strome and butrano like those are not deals that are going to be prohibitive um they're guys that even as they

age like it's still going to be reasonable value for them so it's just i don't want to have that revisionist history which a lot of people have had where so this is a disastrous off season terrible team building like no this was always kind of like a year where they weren't quite yet going to be amazing or anything like that but you would at least hope for some competitive movement yeah i i certainly i i think the klingberg one is totally fine in the right move i have no issue with the betrano one i think the strome one i push back a little bit on just purely because of the term right like i just think there's no reason and yeah by 2025 or whatever hopefully the cap will have gone up pretty significantly and it won't necessarily be a big deal but it's just it's kind of like a almost

like a needless risk for my perspective because whatever value you'd glean from whatever Ryan's, you think Ryan's Strom is at this point is not worth the even minuscule percent chance that that five million that you have tied up in them in like 2025, 2026 can prevent you from doing something creative instead. You know what I mean? So there's always ways to get out of these deals. It's nitpicking, certainly. But that's one where I just didn't love it because this team really shouldn't be giving anyone

more than like three years at this point other than the young stars. No, that's completely fair. And that's definitely like the most objectionable deal that they signed. And I think that with him, I think it was just a matter of trying to fill this kind of role with Getslaff, leaving it and whatnot. But yeah, to your point,

like that could just be Mason McTavish planning second line center. And then you can just fill out the rest however you want. Like I think that would be much more interesting. And like $5 million, it's not as if you can't go get that $5 million somewhere else to get to the cap floor. So yeah, it's not looking like a. great signing, but like we were talking about earlier, and it wasn't, didn't look awesome at the

time either. I think it was fair value for just what he is. Like, I think market value, that's like a fair deal for him. But to what we were talking about earlier, though, like, it's hard to say how good or bad he's truly been because we're still not sure about this environment that these guys are playing in either. So it's, it's just a very difficult kind of problem to solve right now for everybody involved. Yeah, so how do you feel about that then? Do you feel like, the objective for these final whatever 60 games they have on the schedule should be like at least trying to make a concerted effort to be able to better evaluate these players or do you think it's like all right we're going to be the worst even the league and hopefully have the best odds of landing conor

bernard and that is worth it because i certainly see a lot of that from ducks fans and i get it like if you have any even if it increases 1% like you go for it because that could legitimately make such a difference for your franchise moving forward But I do think it might be underselling a little bit, sort of this like how deep rooted and insidious of a negative impact this situation can have for everyone just because it's like it's so tough to know what you got. Yeah. And I think what's tricky with this Ducks team is yes, they are rebuilding.

But when Pabberbeak was brought on, he said that this was not a team with like the ground floor. It was a seem kind of in the middle of a rebuild. And I don't feel like they're kind of at that stage where you want to just be horrendous and tanking to get, I mean, of course, Conrad or whoever really in that top three or four would be great. But they're not really at that stage where it's like, these guys are so, so young that you just, you can totally burn it down. Like they have a lot of really good prospects already. And I think that they're not so far away from taking good steps.

So for the final 60 games, I think that the goal, I mean, it doesn't sound like Dallas against is going anywhere. I think the goal is just to maybe, you know, instead of playing some veterans or sticking with the same guys and depth roles, you know, call up a Jacob Perra, call up a Braden Tracy, give Pavl Ragan to a more runway, and just let this kind of youth movement actually take hold because it's clear that like a Derek Grant or, I mean, even a Max Jones, who's 24, but like we've kind of, we kind of know what he is at this point, right, at least and even, like, let's just kind of see this next wave and give them more of a shot. I think that would probably be the best use of these last 60 games.

And hey, that might even make the team better. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah, well, I love the way they handled last deadline, right? Like, I think I know it's tough to see all these guys that we just mentioned, like Lynn Holman Manson go on and thrive and look great in other situations. But what, they came away from it with a 2022 first, 2022 second, two, 22, 23 seconds, a 2023 third and a 2024 second.

and a couple prospects as well. And now you look ahead. And I think part of the logic of a lot of what they did was, well, you've got Klingberg, you got Shattankirk, you've got Kulikov, who they got for nothing, got Grant, who now is in a starring second line role. And hopefully is a little bit of a feature opportunity for him. Even Anthony Stollars is like a backup goalie. I assume pretty much everyone here is going to be available for whatever draft capital

they can recoup. And they also are fortunate to have three salary retentions available to them because they haven't tied up any of them moving forward. So they can facilitate a lot of deals in a very tricky financial environment where teams are going to desperately be willing to pay extra for anyone that can fit under their cap. And so they're going to be a pretty good spot in terms of doing similar. They don't have necessarily the big names that they had last summer in terms of impending UFAs. But I assume that's going to be sort of the motivation again here at the deadline. And in a way, you're right.

I think that could almost be like a positive on two fronts because one, they get the draft capital. and two, they might actually be more fun to watch and better after they make some of these deals. Right, exactly. And I think going back to last deadline, I think there's a lot of people right now who are thinking, well, you know, Josh Manson and Hamphus Linholm would look pretty good on this team right now, would really round out this blue line. And I really just think that even if you can say that maybe Lindholm and Manson were better than they showed, for a team that is still rebuilding, even if it's maybe in the later stages, you don't sign these kind of, you know, older 20 somethings to an eight year deal or what have you. Like those just weren't smart decisions that for Pavarbeek to make. So I think that those decisions still hold up.

And yeah, like you said, they got a pretty good haul for them. And going into this deadline, there's still a lot of fat to trim on this roster. Like you can still, I think as bad as Kevin Shattonkirk has looked for a lot of his Anaheim tenure, there's probably still a team out there that's saying,

oh, Kevin Shattankirk, he was good with New York, right? You know, we can go get him. Same thing with John Klinger. is still a name. We'll see what they do with, with Anthony Stolars, because I think he's been really good as a backup.

But there's still a lot of wiggle room here. The ducks can still come out of the season. Like, this season can still be a win. They can still amass a lot at the deadline. They can still find out what they have in some of these players. And like, it looks rough right now. It looks about as rough as it ever has. But this team is still very well positioned moving forward with their prospects,

with their cap space, they've that they have on the roster, the younger players. It's like this is still a team that I think will be competing like probably within the next couple years. It's not going to take that long, I don't think. No, I, I, I commend him. I guess like, you know, he had the benefit of coming in with a relatively clean slate and like not being emotionally attached at all.

And so he could kind of pull the trigger on a lot of these moves. But I think people forget that around this time last year, like, what was the Ducks record? Like, they were, they were, they were the team that we, that I thought they might be again this year where they come out, they like capture your attention. attention a little bit. You're at least excited about what's happening. They're winning more games than you probably expected. And there was a big question of what are they going to do with all these players. And I think there's no doubt that it was the right long term move. Forget even

the extensions just to get as many assets as they could for all these guys. And not to mention, like, what have we been talking about this entire time? I saw what Josh Manson and Hampus Linholm looked on this team. And it was not what they are right now. And so there's no reason to believe that they would have replicated that form this season. I think it would have been a lot more of the same. And we'd be like, oh, man, they really should have gotten, gotten out from these guys because they're way past their prime. When in reality, it's probably just because it was a really tough situation of playing.

Right. Absolutely. I mean, Pavarbeak really hammered home that he didn't want to take on these big term contracts, which you could say, well, what's going on with that Ryan's Struth deal? But yeah, for Hampus Linholm, I mean, he was going to, he was wanting that eight-year deal from the ducks. And I think Josh Manson, he got a. a solid deal from the from the abs it those just warrant smart contracts for this team to sign now

it's definitely not a guarantee that if bob murray had still been the GM that those guys would have been traded because as obvious as moves as i think those were you know bob murray showed a pretty uh pretty strong willingness to resign veterans that are not in their prime anymore i mean look at the silverberg and henrique deals that are still on this team's books like those are just not deals that are going to help this team adam henrique has actually had a The resurgence. Yeah, he's been great. But, you know, well, let's, let's, let's pump the brakes on great.

I think he's been good. He's there, I mean, listen, they would, they would have given away for anything. Last year. The contract off, off their hands last year. Now he might actually become an asset heading into next season. Yeah, I should probably, I should probably pump the breaks there. But, you know, when this is the only team you watch, you kind of like your. Yeah, you've got Anaheim Ducks grain.

You're like, oh, yeah, he's great compared to everything else. Your sense of what a good player is is kind of distorted. But his underlying numbers were solid in last year, though. I don't know about this year. as much. But with Silverberg, I mean, it's it's kind of hard to watch because he was such a solid player in his prime. And now, you know, he's had a blood clot issue last year. And it's just, yeah, that's the risk you take when you sign these deals. So I think for Pavarbeak, it was, it was absolutely the right move to trade those guys. And I thought that they were going to be able to fill up that

that whole bit better with Klingberg and Kulikov, like on paper, it looked like it was feasible. Hasn't happened. But that's okay. Like these are just no risk moves at the end of the day. Well, and let's end on a positive note. I think this upcoming summer is a really big one for this organization, right? Because they've got Troy Terry up for a new deal, Trevor Zegris up for a new deal, J.B. Drysdale up for a new deal. They enter the draft. They have six picks right now in the top 100.

I assume they're going to probably add at least a couple more if they're second or third rounders or whatever for some of those players we listed. So they're going to go into the draft armed. we'll see what their first overall first round pick might be. It might be first overall based on the way they're trending. And I think it's easy to talk yourself into being back in on this group, depending on how they handle this summer. And I think I'm going to be there because as disappointed as I've been so far, I just can't quit this team for some reason.

Give me the case for why I should be optimistic about what they're going to do this summer. Well, I think that the case for optimism is one guy that we've talked. about a lot already, which is Troy Terry. I think that he's, I don't know exactly what his next contract is going to look like, you know, evolving hockey isn't projected at four years by a 5.5 million. That seems, even that seems like a bargain. So I don't know. But the case for this team is that almost no matter what they do, they have guys on their roster who are going to be either as good or we're going to take big steps. Like I think we haven't seen the best yet of Trevor Zegris. We have not certainly seen the best yet of Mason McTavish. Olen Zellweger is going to be on this team at

some point. So just that alone is already going to lift this, this team up. And then, you know, from there, I think that there's just going to be so much flexibility to kind of tinker with the, with the bottom six. I think that, you know, Derek Grant may be gone. Who knows? Like, there's just, there's going to be some shuffling around in that bottom six, which has been an issue for this team. And maybe the, like, I hate to keep bagging on the guy, but maybe having a new coach will also help a lot. Like, I just, I don't really see how Dallas-Aikins justifiably comes back next season. So whatever they do, if maybe it'll be an Andrew Brunette, who knows,

that's going to help this team out a lot as well. So I'm still like, I'm still here. I'm still going to beat the drum. It's, it's, it's getting pretty lonely. I mean, it seems like you're still on the island, but it's a, I still think that there's, there's a very bright future for this team. Yeah, I'm on the island for hate watching them the rest of this season,

but, but being excited about about Outlook moving forward because you're right, like Zegris and Terry and some of the, young blue liners. You can talk yourself into it. I think it'll be a big summer. I think there's a reason for optimism. It's cute that you think that Derek Grant will be gone. Derek Grant will never be out of your life. He will always be on the second line, sometimes the first line for the rest of our lives on this duck team. So rest assured with that. But yeah, no, I'm a, listen, like I, when we did our watchability rankings at the start of the season, I, like, on my first

draft, I had them as, like, fourth or something. And then I eventually, like, Cam Sharon and Thomas trans talked me off the ledge a little bit and and bump me down to like I don't know where I had him. I think like eighth or 10th or something and which was still in hindsight way too high, but that's how excited I was about this group from a watchability perspective. And I've been, I've been slowly disappointed. So honestly, this, this chat was as much for me as the listeners because I needed like a, I needed a 50 minute therapy session with you to just kind of talk, or talk my feelings through this. I'm glad. I'm glad I can help. It's, it's, it's been really rough. I mean, they're still watchable. If you're a fan of the other team, like you could still get something

out of whatever the other team's got going on it. I just love that last night against Seattle that Daniel Sprong did the like ear to the hand to the ear to the crowd thing. Yeah. Because like I Kirby docked. I'm just not convinced that many people in the crowd actually even knew that Daniel Sprong ever played for the ducks. Yeah.

The 47 people still still in their seats at that time where we're kind of like indifferent on it. Big revenge move by Daniel Sprong. Yeah. Yeah, well, it was really funny because it was like he didn't even make a move. but Kevin Shandek just went absolutely barreling into his own goalie and knocked him out of the play. And it was an empty netter really. But yeah, you know, it is what it is.

Daniel Sprung certainly is not short on confidence in Swagger. And so I'll give them that much. All right, man. Well, this was a blast. I'm glad we finally got to do this. I'm a big fan of your podcast. I'll let you plug it here. And you better not shout out the Beaker anymore because both myself and the listeners can't take any more beaker shoutouts.

but I will let you plug your own podcast. Yeah, if you want to check out the podcast I do with my good buddy, Jake Rudolph, it's Crash the Pond. We have a podcast up every week. We're also writing now at the Sporting Tribune covering the Anaheim Ducks there. So just check me on Twitter, Felix Sikard, search for me. And yeah, if you need your Ducks fix and Derek Grant complaints, we've got you covered. I want to give a shout out to your pal, Jake, and my pales, well.

One of the nicest guys in the industry. So I wanted to make sure that he be in the show. I'm up in the show. Yeah. Love Jake. All right, man. Well, this is a blast. I'm really glad we got to do this.

Certainly have you back on. I think maybe we should aim again for closer. Actually, we'll see at the deadline if this team gets involved in some of these trades. But certainly as we get into the offseason, because I think there are going to be some fireworks coming out of the ducks. Yeah, can't wait. All right. Cheers, pal. You are listening to the Hockey P.D.O.

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