The Hockey PDOcast - Alexis Lafrenière’s Improvement, and the Importance of Environment

Episode Date: April 17, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Darryl Belfry to break down the jump Alexis Lafrenière made this season, why his first couple of years in the NHL were so challenging, and how playing with Artemi Panarin has stylistically changed the way they both play to great effect.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. 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 Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Daryl, Belfrey, Daryl. What's going on, man? I'm a little sad that this is our last one of the regular season. I mean, this has been quite a run this year.

I didn't know what to expect at the beginning of the year when we first started doing these. And it just seems to have taken off. And I have really look forward to each week to coming on and tackling another player. It really has been fun. This is, as you mentioned, our regular season finale for these player deep dive series we've been doing every week. We're going to end with a flourish, though, because we are today going to break down the growth we've seen in Alexei Lafranierrez game this season. And the beautiful dynamic, he's established playing with Artemi Panarin on our president's trophy winning New York Rangers. And Darrow, I think this is a very fitting episode.

because one of my favorite ones we've done this season came sort of near the beginning when we got into Quentin Byfield, right? And his tape and sort of the strides he made early on this season. And so this makes for a nice little bookend, right? Because these two guys are always going to be linked together. I haven't gone first and second in that 2020 draft class. And when you lump in someone like, let's say,

Lucas Raymond, who we've also spoken about on the show this season, that 2020 class has really kind of come into its own this year and it's made for a great story. and I think we're going to have quite a bit of fun here getting into Lafranier's tape because I think he's been quite exciting to watch this season. Oh, yeah. I'm excited to get into him as well. I've studied him because I'm always fascinated with the dynamics of players entering the league and the challenges that go with that. And LaFrenier, he offers a lot of, you know, kind of indirect insight into the,

mental challenges of being a highly touted pick, like in this case, number one overall, going to a team that's, you know, trying to win and then also, you know, trying to, you know,

establish his game amongst the giant players that they have there and trying to figure out how to be, how to, how to navigate that. And it's been quite a challenge for him. And I'm fascinated to get into some of them, the things that I see in terms of like the mental side, which I think is a is the most in my mind one of the more interesting parts of of his deep dive.

Well, let's get let's start with that then because I think that's a natural starting point for us here because you almost can't have this conversation without acknowledging that context, right? Certainly as you mentioned, I think we have sort of preset expectations for what a player who goes first overall looks like and kind of the immediate impact they should make as a talent. And not only did he have to deal with that, but I think as you alluded to there, he had sort of a double whammy in the sense that it was a unique circumstance of him coming to a team that was already competing, right? Generally a team who wins the lottery is one who's still deep into their rebuild or early on in their rebuild, still has a long ways to go before they even are thinking about competing and playing meaningful regular season hockey.

And so players come in, they have time to sort of develop stuff, make mistakes, play premium roles in particular. on the top unit power play in the top line, essentially get as many reps as they can before they enter their mid-20s. And in Lafranier's case, he really didn't get afforded that luxury, right? He comes on a team that's loaded at his position on left wing with Artemian and Chris Kreider. He's not playing top unit power play. He's kind of playing essentially secondary, even tertiary, even strength minutes. And he's playing on a team that never really has the puck that often, right? Especially under Gerard Glant, they played a very counter-heavy game where they would defend a lot, they wouldn't have the puck a ton, and then they would try to sort of opportunistically counter with rush chances themselves.

And you put all that together, and that's a pretty rough entry point for a young, talented player who in Major Junior are playing in the queue, you going back and watch his tape, he always had the puck, right? He was constantly creating, being dynamic, setting the table for others and just making high level, high skill creative plays. And he comes into the spot where he essentially gets told, all right, you can't do any of those things. And so essentially to fit in, he has to oversimplify his game, really dumb everything down. And that essentially strips away everything that made him the first overall pick and such a highly touted prospect. Yeah, I mean, what happens also in that situation for him is that the coaching, the heavy coaching comes sooner. And heavy coaching means defensive responsibility and defensive, you know, you have to be in a certain place at a certain time with a stick in the spot and everything. The details that you have to play with are a lot different

and because of the state of where the team is at and the expectations. But more so than that, as you talked about, when you watch when he played junior, he's not unlike any other star player when they're playing junior. A guy is going to go first overall. He's got the puck literally the whole night. And he's making plays and doing all this stuff. And he can kind of do whatever he wants.

Plus, his reputation precedes him. And so he's afforded a little bit more time and space. because people are naturally scared to engage with him, especially with a guy with that kind of speed. He's not a small player. He's very big. And so junior, coming from junior to come in, and now you have to play off the puck.

And the other thing with the Rangers is they have a lot of guys who like the puck on their stick a lot. And they have their high, high possession guys. They either have it or they're expecting to get it. So you're a guy that. it's got it you hold on to it you you know you're carrying the puck you're taking on people one on one this is what's going on it's one highlight after another and now they come they're like get it and move it get it and move it and and then you have to do all the work off the puck and that is a very

difficult thing to learn on the fly and then of course the points don't come because you're playing different spots in the lineup in different places with different places with different different people that are, and then you're not getting the puck as often. And the thing that I think is so important to understand with a player like this is most of his offense when he was young came from rhythm and timing. He's in rhythm because he's getting the puck so often. He's puck's on his stick all the time. So he's in rhythm.

He's touching the puck. He's handling it. Everything's great. And then he's on time. So he knows how to get it back. he gets on time. And when he went to the NHL, the first thing that I noticed is one, he's not getting the puck nearly enough as what he was before. So right away, he's out of rhythm. And then he's now out of timing because now he's got to do all this stuff now off the puck to try

to find a way to get it. It's just credit. It's the whole thing flips. So imagine, you know, you know, a kid here who has done things a certain way to be really good. And then you say, those things are now less important and you're going to use them at a lower percentage. And all these other things that you really didn't have to do, they are now of utmost importance. And you have to do it under the bright lights of New York. And by the way, we're trying to win. And please don't make a mistake. It's really fascinating to see the mental part of that. Well, not only that, but when you watch this play the first couple of years, and it's a testament to him that he still was able to kind of carve out a productive 5-1-5 role

as a finisher, but so much of his game essentially revolved around just going and standing either in front of the net or at the slot and kind of waiting for someone to get him the puck so that he could tap it in or so he could get a high-danger opportunity there. And he wasn't really empowered or given the opportunity to do any of the creating himself, right? And so he was sort of put into this box. And you and I, a theme we've covered a lot this season is sort of the value of kind of this idea of kinetic energy, right? Like the movement, how moving the puck around, all of a sudden everyone gets much more involved, they're more active. And that's certainly, especially for a young player, going to get the best out of them when all of a sudden now they're

tapping into everything that got them to this point in the first place. So, you know, obviously you're going to have to change your game and adapt coming from Major Junior, particularly a league like the queue, which is just so wide open and not near. as structured as even some of the other major junior leagues into the NHL. So that's going to be an adjustment for everyone. But this was just such a massive sort of environmental departure, I think, for him. And so it was almost impossible to really fairly evaluate him in that case. And that's what I think makes him such a perfect case study for us here today,

because we're going to get into all the video and talk about all the stuff that's changed for him this season. But it's neat how you can sort of trace like a fundamental change, I guess, in his circumstances or his environment this year in terms of the position he's been put into. and then how that has sort of come with an accompanying change in playing style approach and how that's unlocked this potential in production from him, right? It's very neat to sort of see that linear trajectory of all those things kind of coming into place for him.

And it's obviously awesome that it happened at this point in his fourth season when even the team, I think, wasn't necessarily sure what to make of them because you look at the two-year bridge deal they gave him this summer. And part of that is because of their financial restrictions and how tight up against the cap they were. but also it was like, all right, let's kind of see what he is over the next couple years before deciding how much to commit it to him as a core piece. And I think he's proved this year that obviously he's in a great spot playing and riding in shotgun with our Temi Panarin. But man, he has done so much more with the puck this season this year alone than he had in his entire NHL career combined previously. And I think that's kind of the main story here.

It is the main story. Like, look, I don't like it when there's construction on a major street that I normally go. down and I have to veer off and go do different different things. Like that's difficult for me. And now you're talking about a kid who's 18 years old coming in with high expectations, who's going on a Ranger team that has a lot of weapons, offensive weapons. And now he has to completely change his game to do it. What I find fascinating with him is he,

there is a clear loss of confidence and he clearly loses his way. And then this year is this whole, this whole like rebirth of sorts where a lot of the work and the adjustments that he's made, they start to work for him. And he starts to rebuild that confidence. And then you start to see these flashes of who he once was prior to coming into the league. And you start to see this type of thing. And he's now, you see him. He's on time. He's in rhythm, but it's different.

He's not carrying the puck from one end to the other. He picks his spots now when he takes people on one-on-one. But his play off the puck is absolutely phenomenal. And the goals that he's scored and the contributions that he's made of being a great player off the puck has been tremendous. One other side part to that, if you're going to play with Arturi Pinaran, one of the big problems that you have is he does not want your support. close to him. He doesn't want you anywhere near him.

He wants you on the other side of the ice. He wants you away. So if you think of a kid like Lefrenier, he's had to, like most of the time he just go get it, right? Go get it. He's around the puck. He's near the puck. And now he's had to make this adjustment where it's like, no, you need to be like, find your support away from the puck.

And then you have like Adam Fox, who's another player who's like, I don't really want you around me. I'm going to make my best place to people on the weak side of the ice. So if you want this pocket, you want it a dangerous place, go the weak side. And I just found it fascinating when we went through his goals and his tape to see the number of times in which this guy is laying in the weeds with perfect timing, slides into the perfect spot. And he catches a dot dot to dot pass from Panarin. And just to see that, that's a reflection of not a. only is growth, but it's a reflection of a much more sophisticated approach to understanding

what real offense is. And when you play with a genius like Panarin, he will drag you into sophistication because he plays the level at a high, high level. And that's where you see this Lefrenier, his growth. That's why the mental side, the layers are just incredible to go through. Well, okay, he had a couple changes this season and then we're going to get into the tape here where Peter Leveolette replaces Jarragland as coach, right? And he immediately makes three changes that I think put Lafran in position to have the season that he's having right now. One, he moves Lafranier to his off wing, right? As a left shot, he puts him on the right side.

And I think that immediately addresses an organizational weakness, because as I said, you've already got Panarin and Crider occupying the left wing in pretty much every single top situation. And so that allows him to all of a sudden play full time with Panarin. And it's almost amazing to look back in hindsight. Now I know there was Rangers fans at the time that were sort of lamenting it even in real time. But the fact that in this guy's first three NHL seasons, he plays a grand total of 264 5-on-5 minutes over three years with our Temi-Panaran. And this year, we see the two of them play over a thousand together. They dominate a 5-15.

They control 55% of the shots, 55% of the high danger chances. And I think most importantly, for all of this Rangers team's success, something, they have struggled with this season has been creating consistent five-on-five offense. And this line and this duo in particular was really their only consistent outlet to accomplish that, where they were creating so many looks and so many goals for them, whereas even Sabinajet and Crider were kind of struggling and doing much more of their damage on special teams. And the third change here, and I think all of this ties together, is Labielette, even though he's kind of known more so as kind of being like a defensive coach, he realized that with the personnel

they had, they needed to modernize their approach and attack more directly off the rush. Because previously it was like, all right, we're going to only do it when the opportunity presents itself off the counter. Now all of a sudden, they're making a point of attacking more themselves. And so you put all that together. And suddenly you've got this landscape for a guy like Lafranier where it's like, all right, this is something I can work with. And I think that's what you've seen this season from him. Yeah, you know, the other interesting dynamic here, and I'm always get a little irritated because this guy never gets his flowers and that's trochec. Trochec was a major driver also in Carolina with, I thought, the growth and development of

Shvetnikov and also the work he did with Natchez. And then he comes here and he just finds a way to work with elite players. And LaFrenier is obviously a world-class talent. He is elite. even when he came in the league, he had elite skill. He has every skill you could possibly want. That's why he goes number one. And then, of course, Panarin, you don't have to say anything about him. He speaks for himself. But to play and kind of be in the middle of all that is not really an easy thing.

Like it sounds easy like the old phrase like, okay, like, you know, just keep your stick on the ice. Like, yeah, okay, fair enough. But not everybody's able to do that. And I think Trochak is one of those like unsung heroes here in. the process of not only Lafrenier's growth, but also the growth of the Rangers. And like to your point, I think, I think LaVuilette did a great job of creating some conditions, but then the players then take it from there. And it's just been phenomenal to see that I think is another one of those pieces that I think

goes, goes a little bit under the radar. But when you look at Trochev's history, he has a history of being able to really do well with these types of players, even though he isn't what you would consider to be a front line, you know, top line center, but he does a lot of things that facilitate this type of play. So I'm not,

I'm curious if you noticed this as well in watching it, but I think what really stood out to me and just going through all of Lafranier's tape this season and kind of seeing the strides he's made is what really popped off the screen for me was just, and I know you noted kind of how he's filled in some of the gaps playing with Panarin, which you obviously have to,

because he's just going to command a certain amount of attention and puck possession himself. So you need to get the spots. And he's done a good job of attacking the net and dragging defenders with him to create space for Panarin and sort of getting the timing down to hit the dot accordingly and be open for passes. But just in transition in particular, it's not necessarily taking the puck coast to coast from his end to the other like he did a Major Junior. But when he does get a quick pass from a Panarin or a Fox in the neutral zone, his sort of willingness and maybe this space, speaks to that at confidence you're talking about, his willingness to all of a sudden embrace being a playmaker and a creator off the rush, which is just something we didn't really get to see much

from him the past couple years. And I think that's reflected in the fact that Corey Schneider's tracking this season at 5-1-5 on a permanent basis, has Loughamner, top 10 in the league in high-danger passes, shots off high-danger passes, and in particular, what's a note to me, entries leading to scoring chances. And so you see that here for this Rangers team, how it all ties together, where all of a sudden now he's playing with more pace, he's more involved in the play, and he's not as static as he was previously. And so just being on the move now and getting more of these puck touches, playing with Panarin, I think, is a big reason why he's been able to be so much more involved and productive, right? Rather than just kind of standing there and waiting for someone to pass him

the puck, all of a sudden now he's actually getting to initiate some of these actions. And I think that sort of goes hand in hand with that confidence you're talking about. Yeah, I think one of the major, well, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, one of the, major indicators of a guy who's going to be able to perform at that level is you have to be able to make high danger offensive players plays sorry in front of the defenders so that has to be a piece of what you're doing because it's so difficult to rely on always having to try to get in behind people so when we spoke about like mckinan last week uh or the week before that i guess it was the whole idea about his development was not feeling like he had to always use his speed to get in behind and learn how to create in front.

That's what I think Lefremier has done really well is he catches like a pass from Panarin in the neutral zone. He gets the entry and instead of feeling like he's got to drive and get in behind, he's able to use his, he's got great skating ability, especially lateral movement where he will then, he's on his off wing. So now he goes to the middle of the ice and the puck is in the middle of the ice, which then opens up every option. And I think is what has been a major part of his ability to perform at that level, has been the combination of being on the off wing and threatening the space in front of the defenseman, which is what a Panarin, like I said, when I said he drags you into sophisticated ways of generating offense because of how he thinks, this is the kind of thing that he does.

because Panarin's a pull-up genius. He also uses that space and goes dot to dot all the time. So he's going to pull you into that. And this Lefrenier has figured this out and has been able to leverage his skills, which he has tremendous skating ability, like I said, moving laterally. He's now got the puck in the middle of the ice. All of a sudden is all those passes are now coming on the forehand.

And he's making all these seam passes. Plus he's shooting from that distance. That is a major part of that. that whole line of discussion that you just brought up, to me, the driver of that is his willingness to play and create offense in front of the defenders, which is very difficult to do. Well, and in particular in the second half of the season, I think you've seen, and that's just I think, you know, he's had success, he's feeling good, he's getting the puck more, and so all of a sudden now he's emboldened to try more stuff, but I think you've seen the aggression ramped up

even more. And I'm glad you noted that about him sort of challenging defenders, right? Not necessarily just trying to kind of skate behind them and then get open and lost in the weeds. He's sort of directly going at guys. And you can see that on the tape, certainly, where he's like making high, high level stick handling plays in defenders' feet and trying to attack them purposefully that way. I think he's drawn 25 penalties this season and his previous, I had been 14 or 15. So that kind of just

shows you that he's on the puck more. He's trying to create and push the envelope and defenders are having to be put in compromised positions and take penalties to stop him and slow him down. And you're just seeing that like he's being able to showcase all this stuff so much more. Right. And I just think that's that's so incredible because it actually runs a big counter. Generally you'd say, all right, well, playing with Panarin in the offensive zone, I think you're going to get more puck touches. But we just know like how involved he is in a lot of the heavy lifting and transition and carrying the puck and trying to dance and weave in and out of traffic but he's actually i think allowed panera allowed lafranier to take on a bit more of that load and

sort of distributed a bit more evenly between them and that's at a very mutually beneficial relationship between the two of them right i talk a lot more later with you about paneran's shot volume and how his own approach has changed playing with lafranier this season but i think all this stuff kind of ties together and part of that is just allowing lafranier to be more on puck than he ever had been previously yeah it is and you know the other side to that is that Lefrenier will also drive the net off the rush on the back side, particularly in odd man situations. You'll see him sprinting to the back post.

Like he can fly. Lefrenier can really skate. And in the odd man situations off the rush, he does do a great job of getting him behind. So it's not to say he never does. He just does it better and he does it off the puck. And that's what I mean about the growth and development of him. him off the puck offensively is so much better because now rather than feeling like he needs to carry the puck from in front of the defender and then go through the defender and end up

with the puck behind him, now he's like, I'm going to get it, move it, keep going, get him behind and do that. Like that's an aspect that has led to a lot of goals and a lot of points between the two of them. He is a great passer. and one of the things that I really appreciate about him is I mentioned when he comes to the middle of the ice, he's on his forehand, kind of lets things play out. But there's also times where he'll get there and then he'll make like another move to go down to kind of pull the defenseman or force a defenseman to a pivot. And I've seen some just tremendous plays from him using his backhand.

And that's the kind of plays that gets a player. like Panarin's attention and then he starts to earn confidence in you. So one of the, I think, side aspects of the mental side as it relates to LaFrenier is so now you haven't really, you know, really got your game going to the place where you really love it. And then they say, okay, now you're going to play with Panarin. And like, so now, like that's, that's daunting task for anybody. And over the course of the year, what I think in what I've watched is Panarin has increasingly become way more comfortable and trust LaFrenier, which is basically like a transfer of belief into LaFrenier, which then drives that confidence in this kid who that's kind of what he needed. He needed that confirmation. He needed that.

And, you know, the game will teach you one way or the other, right? It'll either tell you like no or yes. And when you're with a guy like Panarin and he all of a sudden starts to use you, he starts to trust you, he starts to pass it to you and then move to space to get it back. And then you make a really good pass. It allows him to hit it off the pass because Panarin is one of the best one-time guys in the league, especially off the rush. I mean, that is another guy.

growth area to be able to earn Panarin's trust and confidence, there's no way that that did not have a magnifying or compounding effect on Lafrenia. I think one of my favorite concepts of yours as well is just the value of Pock touches and kind of tracking those and finding ways for high-scale players to increase those either organically or like going out of your way to manufacture additional ones where you can over the course of a game and over the course of a season, right? And I think there is that kind of cumulative effect as well where you can't necessarily view this stuff in a vacuum

where if you're just going to know you're going to touch the puck once every however many minutes, particularly for a young player, I think you're going to be much more inclined to try stuff knowing that you're going to, if it doesn't work, all right, I'm not necessarily going to get benched. I'm going to get the puck again next time. And then I can do something different or try it again and have better results. Whereas if it's like, all right, every five minutes, I'm going to touch the puck once,

you're generally not only are you kind of cold and you're static and you're not necessarily in rhythm, but all of a sudden your creativity gets buried because you're much more likely to try to make this most safest kind of conservative player. I was going to dump the puck in and then go to my sort of spot where I'm expected to be on the ice and just keep doing that. And now all of a sudden you're seeing with him like he's just trying stuff that I think he obviously always was able to do and had done at a previous level. But once he got to the NHL, he kind of got that beaten out. of him because he just never really got the opportunity to play like this. And then all of a sudden now you're seeing it, it's a snowball effect. We're just getting increasing more and more with that confidence and aggression and good

stuff's coming from it. And it's really fun to watch. Like it's him attacking defenders the way he has like this has really opened my eyes a little bit. Well, I bet you if you went back and you watched his junior games, I bet he was touching the puck 50 times a night in that neighborhood, if not more. Then he comes to the NHL, his first couple of years, he's probably touching it even strength, 15 to 20 times. 20 would be high.

Now he's touching it a lot more, right? So he's probably somewhere around 30 puck touches a night even strength, which is a great window for an elite player to be with. Now also, Panarin is going to touch the puck as well. They're spending a lot more time in the offensive zone. So now what happens is that he's also getting it multiple times in the sequence, which is, what puts you in rhythm. So if you go down, this is one of the reasons why one and duns are no good offensively. One, because of the natural idea of you just spent a millisecond in the offensive zone, and now they're out. So that notwithstanding, the other idea is that you went down there, you had one

puck touch, and now you've got to go back and try to get it and then try to manufacture the next sequence. It's just heavy lifting, and you're trying to do that over, you know, 40 or 50 seconds in a shift. now you're touching the puck maybe once or less than once a shift, which pulls you right out of rhythm, which is, I think, what happened to him largely. And that's what shakes your confidence. I can't get the puck. I can't get the puck. So what you were mentioning about a guy who, you know, he hasn't touched it in five minutes or so,

and now he gets it and he's going to play conservative, a lot of times a kid like this is like, no, like when I get it, I have to do something spectacular, especially the mind of an 18, 19 year old. He's like, I got to get off this line. I got to go, I got to get more opportunity. I got to play with better players. I got to show them what I can do. So then you start reverting to these one-on-one game. You start overcooking it.

You're not using the people around you. And that's what then drives you deeper into a lack of confidence because it's not working. The things that you did before were not working. work like that used to work now or not. You have to find this find your way. And I think that that's a really fascinating aspect to this type of discussion with him is that, you know, like one of the other parts of it too is not just the puck touches, but the shots.

So one of the things I did when we were talking about him is I went to see how many shots he had this year because I know he has nearly 30 goals. And it's fascinating. he's at like 217 shots, which is a lower percentage of actual goal scoring that he had previously in his career. But his career high up until this year was like 130 shots. So he goes from 130 shots to now he's almost at 230. So call it over 100 shots more.

He's shooting more this year than he was last year. For sure, won a game. At least call it one a game more shots. a lower percentage. So what we're talking about is it's still when no matter how you break down offense, it's still a race to a hundred. It's a race to a hundred shots. And you need the possessions, you need multiple possessions, and you need to get that race to 100 shots because your shooting percentage no matter what is probably going to settle in somewhere. If you're a world class guy, what is it, 12, 14%, maybe 15 on a good, sometimes you're going to have a year that, you

know is a little bit outrageous, but for the most part, over a career, it's what, 12% for a world-class guy? Okay. So that's 12 goals every 100 shots. That's hard. That's really, really hard. And so you have to keep going. So for him to balloon up to 217 shots and then all of a sudden now he's, you know, he's almost

read there to break the 30 goal mark. It shows you kind of where he's at. But I also don't even view him necessarily as the shooter on this line. And he has 200 shots. Like what's Panarin shots? Do you know what I mean? So that's the kind of thing you got to factor in. It's like these guys are getting a lot of opportunity to generate shooting, high danger,

shooting opportunities and dangerous shots. But it's still a race to 100 no matter what, no matter which way you slice it. Yeah, we're in sync here because that's the perfect segue for what I want to talk about next, which is Panarin's shooting. So one of my favorite storylines this season has been him as a 32-year-old essentially entirely statistically changing his offensive approach. Now, he still certainly has a ton of assists and has created a bunch for others as well, no doubt about it. But he's fifth in the season in goals with 49. He's fifth in shot attempts Panarin is with 651, and he's eighth in shots on goal with 300. So those are the numbers you were looking for there.

His previous career high-in-shot attempts in a full NHL season was 470. So he took 180 more attempts this season than he ever had in an already illustrious, highly successful and productive NHL career since he came over. And I think that to me reflects part of that sort of what you mentioned there earlier, which was him progressively trusting Lafranier more and deferring a little bit more to him to allow him to play with the puck, and then reaping the rewards of it of being much more aggressive shooting off the pass than he has been previously, right? Because you think about when he came into the league

when he was playing with Kane in Chicago and then he goes to Columbus, what I thought was initially a perk at the time and I think was, was his willingness to hold onto the puck longer than we'd become accustomed to seeing most NHLers hold on to it, right? Like the game is taught so much to don't make a mistake, if you don't have a play,

either move it into space or dump it into the zone, or just get rid of it and then hope to get it back. And Panarin would hold onto the puck. He'd weave in and out of traffic. He'd probe. He'd kind of like Steve Nash keeping his dribble alive, right, looking for plays to make. And then when nothing else was available, he'd sort of worked himself into this bad angle. And then he'd be like, all right, well, my last recourse here is to shoot.

So I'll shoot the puck. And of course, he's not going to score that off and off that, even with the shooting talent he has. Now all of a sudden, he's decisively and deliberately decided to shoot when he gets it early in these sequences, in particular off the pass, where he's one-timing it or at least quickly settling it and firing it before the goal he can recover. And so it's not a surprise that he scored more. But I think that idea of when he's shooting it over the course of a game is just as important as the actual raw volume of shots, which have obviously increased themselves as well.

Yeah, and there's a couple factors that way into that. So one of the reasons why he would be willing to shoot the puck more, we talked about, which is his confidence in the players he's playing with, that they can make plays that he'll get the puck back. So now he's getting the puck in the second or third, two or three times inside of a sequence. The other underrated aspect of that is he's clearly comfortable that the Rangers are going to recover the shot.

So they're much more aggressive in terms of their shot recovery. Their D are aggressive in being able to shut down the walls as the puck gets shot, he rebounds off the goalie or he misses the net, whatever the case may be. Well, they're recovering these pucks and sustaining offensive zone time. One of the things that I've noticed with Pinaran, because obviously I've tracked him for many, many years, one of the things that I noticed with him is he is so much more active

in puck recovery and shot recovery, both for his own shot and for others. And I think that it's the whole idea of this ability to sustain the time in the offensive zone. to mention just how much more aggressive he is off the rush to generate shot chances. To your point earlier, the Rangers have been a team that have done way better off the rush. And one of the challenges with Panarin is he has been a world-class pull-up guy, one of the best pull-up delay guys that we've seen in recent years.

And you see him now willing to attack much more both for himself and to keep the speed of the rush going, where many times before he would pull up. One of the things he's adopted more so this year than I've seen in any other year is the backing into the zone. So he'll get it, get across the blue line, and then he'll turn and he'll be skating backwards, but still moving towards the goal line. So he's still advancing the play.

And that's not something that we've seen much of. He would usually stop or pull up or turn or a little stop turn. And now he's finding ways to continue the speed of the rush. Yeah, it's been really fun seeing them play off of each other and how they've both benefited from it, but in different ways and kind of how it's unlocked stuff they had in their game, obviously, but just weren't able to really execute as frequently previously. One thing I want to talk to you about is sort of whether it's the challenges or the benefits of shooting off the pass as often as the Rangers like to, right? because I think they're first in the league this season in cross-slot passes.

Historically, they've sort of been a team that's like confounded people who are just looking at analytical models because they constantly outperform their expected totals with their actual goal scoring, partly because their power play is so good and they're just so efficient, but also because they move the puck into high danger areas and shoot off of those passes much more often than some teams that sort of carry it into the zone and shoot that way where it's much, easier to track and predict and stop. And so for a player like, like Panarin has certainly embraced it quite a bit, right? You see he has such a phenomenal release. He can sort of like any great player, you can't really throw him a bad pass. He's able to catch it all sorts of like his catch radius

is ridiculous and he's able to still get a quality look off of it regardless of where you give it to him. But for a player like Lafranier, I think that is a bit of an adjustment for him and maybe partly why his efficiency has come down a little bit because not only is he shooting more on Puck himself now, but also all of a sudden now, he's not a player who you see very frequently, you know, ripping that one-timer or sort of, he likes to much more slowly settle the puck and then, you know, wrist it or flick it off himself. So I'm kind of curious for your take on how all of that ties together and sort of for a player like that adjusting to this extreme environment where they're clearly trying to, you know, attack you in a very specific way.

Yeah, again, it goes back to the ability to make plays in front. of the defenders. And I think you can't have this conversation of shooting off the pass without incorporating like their defense and players like Fox who make excellent passes from the top cross seam on diagonals into high danger scoring areas on the backside or ability to use the slot from the point. They have, you know, they have some great opportunities to do that. So the ability, I think Lefrenier, Before he got to the NHL was obviously an on-stick guy, an on-stick shooter, which in the NHL is the most difficult way to score.

It's a very difficult to score that way. And so if you want to score, you will have to incorporate some aspect of shooting off the pass. And he's fortunate because he plays with enough guys that they do. But, you know, it's the whole idea of also then you have to change how you support the play and where you move and, you know, the ability to have. your stick open and free and and you know sliding into space and sliding off the heels of defenders rather than attacking always in behind so there's a real patience to shooting off

the pass that's different and and that's what I think you see is it's it's aggressive but it's patient yeah which is what he's clearly trying to adjust to I think I think he still prefers to shoot on stick but you've seen him having to incorporate just because playing with Panera and like you're going to have to make those quick decisions and quick shots accordingly. Yeah, I think he's been incredibly productive, right? Like you mentioned nearly 30 goals. He's got the 28 goals. Lefrenier does 29 assists, 20 of which have been primary.

I think also contextually like 42 of those points he scored out of the 57 have come at 5 on 5. on 5. He's tied for 35 most with Barras Allen Shifley, who have had phenomenal seasons themselves. And he's doing so much of it because he doesn't get to play on that top unit power play. Imagine what his production would be like if he, if he was. on it, considering how effective they are as a unit. So he's having to get his production this way, and he's clearly found an amazing role, and it's been an awesome success story, and I can't wait to watch more of it.

We still have a bit of time here. Did you have any other notes on Lafranierre or even Panarin and kind of how it all ties together in terms of like stuff you've seen from the season or even kind of relating it to a bigger picture of conversation about young players and their development and how this stuff comes along in this process in the NHL? Yeah, so let's start. I have one more note, which is the offensive zone and his ability to attack down, which is another factor in shooting off the pass is coming from higher in the zone and attacking down.

So winning a puck in the back on the back wall, walking up the wall, and then, you know, sending it to the other side of the ice and then coming down onto the net. You see him, many of his goals are in the little bit in the high slot. he is a phenomenal shooter. And he loves that to get into that range and be able to shoot it. But it's coming down onto the net, which in the offensive zone, it sounds like it's an easy thing to do, but it's actually not offensively.

Usually the guys that are attacking down would be defensemen. Most of the other, you know, you would get it low, go up high, and then the puck would be coming down from there. The better offensive teams are work the puck to the high ice in an effort to come down. so that their best shooters are coming downhill when they shoot it. I think that's an important point as it relates to LaFrenier. But in terms of young players, I think that LaFrenier is a great lesson.

When you compare, contrast him with other first round, or first overall picks, you know, there's a lot of feeling out process that goes along with getting into the NHL and trying to figure out what works and what doesn't work. And it's unlikely you're going to be. able to carry all of what you brought to this point to get into the NHL and that all that's going to work. You're going to need to make adjustments no matter how good you are.

And being able to deal with that and persevere and have the mental toughness to go through the inconsistencies, the lack of confidence and be able to find other ways because eventually you're going to have to adapt. And I think you saw that with Slavovsky this year in Montreal, all where they kind of just left them on that top line. And I didn't think he was very good to start the year at all. And then he just gradually just kind of got going and got going. And he's had to make many, many adjustments to his game. And I think that it's not uncommon for that.

And I also think it's much more difficult as a winger in the NHL to come up and try to kind of light the world on fire. I think it's much easier as a center for some reason, And just because you have just more room to go and things are kind of more tailored to you where when you're a winger, there's always more concernable. You've got to play with the right guys in some context, which is different than being a center. So a guy like Bedard, for example, is not an easier time, but he has more rope. And then, of course, the state of the Blackhawks makes it a lot easier versus what the situation was in New York for LaFrenier.

I think that he's a great, in my opinion, he's a success story because it could have gone either way. And having a situation where, you know, Lavillette was clearly the right coach who decided to invest in this kid. Say, hey, we need more out of them. We're going to invest in him. We're going to give him some opportunity. And then he's clearly found his way. But great success story to this point. Yeah, not only have they enabled him and kind of encouraged all of these.

concept we talked about, but they've been rewarded for it. And so that's been a really fun develop. And I think that's spot on there because I think generally people do think what's interesting here is the point you make about how like, I think not only on a bad team like let's say Badar right now in Chicago, part of the challenges is there's just not that much skill around him. So he's having to do so much of the heavy lifting and creation himself. But also that's kind of a benefit for it because there's no expectations for the team. They're going to lose a lot regardless. He's going to have the puck every single time he's out there. And so he'll get to trial by error, figure this stuff out, what works, what doesn't this level, and he'll be

better offward in the future. Being a winger who's used to playing with the puck and then coming to a team that's already contending with a bunch of star players that kind of put you down the lineup, that's pretty much a nightmare scenario for development. So it's awesome to see he's been able to overcome it finally and then put in a position to succeed. Any parting shots here, whether it's on a lot from year or stuff you want to plug on the way out here? Because I think that's about all I've got on the subject. Yeah, no, I think the development of, like I also think that it's important to note that regardless of how good you are, you will have to make adjustments and you're going to have to develop. And the development can come in a variety of different ways. And I think a lot of times we

think of it as just skill development or when it's a lot of times it's mental. And that's what I love about this Lefrenia discussion because there's just so many different mental resilience. of it that has come for this kid and it's been a real testament to him and to do it at the age that he is is really impressive. Like I said, it's really difficult to do in a big market and to see him doing what he's doing and not have the same like, hey kid, go out and make all your mistakes. Don't worry, we're going to lose anyways. So just go do your thing. And him having to learn on the fly, I think is incredibly impressive. And I don't think he, gets enough credit for it.

And I think his season's good, but he's been through a lot. Like, there's been a lot of chatter about him potentially being a bust and, you know, there's been some discussion of maybe we should get rid of him. And now you see him just, you know, come into his own. It's really interesting. And I think that he's an awesome lesson for any player at any stage in their development. that there's a lot of pieces that go into this and sometimes just sticking with it and being willing to adjust your game in some way, I think is the pathway to success. Well, and I know this is going to kind of sound as Captain obvious because this is a 22-year-old player, right?

So you would expect him to still keep getting better as he kind of enters his prime here. But I think because of this feedback loop, we've sort of illustrated, just playing this way and being successful, I think is going to like encourage him to not to just keep doing this. and keep expanding what he's already had success with. So I think there's reason to have really high hopes that this is kind of just the tip of the iceberg of what we can expect. Not only this postseason, but obviously heading into the future years as well. Okay, Darrell, my plug here is to go check out the HockeyPedio guest YouTube channel. You and I have done 23 of these player deep dives now, including this one this season. You can find them all there with all the video you can handle.

There's about 30 minutes of clips this season from every player we've discussed. I highly recommend watching along with us and then seeing it for yourself because I think that's going to be a good way to kind of complement or supplement all the stuff we've talked about. As you mentioned, off the top, it's been, I just wanted to say it's been a pleasure doing these every week with you. It's not only something I look forward to it, but I just think it's something different that isn't really out there in the hockey sphere in terms of analysis. And I think listeners have really latched onto it and enjoyed it as well.

So I echo your sentiments from the top. But I did want to say, even though this is our regular season finale, I'm not ready to be done with you quite just yet. So I think what I'm going to hope to do is after every round this postseason, maybe you and I can sort of pick a standout player or someone whose performance has caught our eye. And then we can go back and watch their clips from the series they just played and break it all down. What do you think about that? I think that that's phenomenal. And now I'm dying for the first round to be over because I want to get into this type of discussion. And I've, like I said, I look forward to it.

I agree with you. I think it's very different. And, and, and, and I, it's just been fun to be able to share some of these, some of these aspects of, of, of, of not only player development, but player performance. And it's been great discussion. Awesome, buddy. Well, thank you for coming and joining us. We'll see you soon.

Thank you to the listeners for hopping on with us and, uh, and taking the ride with us as well. Next time you see a PDOC guest. We'll be talking playoffs. So looking forward to that. And, uh, you'll have plenty more from us coming later this. week here on the Sports Night Radio Network.