The Hockey PDOcast - All-NHL Teams

Episode Date: April 10, 2023

John Matisz from The Score joins Dimitri to put together this year's All-NHL teams.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.

Lessing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey-O-Cast. My name is Demetri Filippovich, and joining me is my good buddy, John Maz. John, what's going on, man? Not a whole lot, man. Just sitting here with a couple of days left in the regular season and fired up for the playoffs.

We'll see, as we were talking about off-air, what the Boston Bruins do to their first-round opponent. that's kind of top of mind after they break that record for most wins in a season. But yeah, it's that point of the year where we're overlapping with the regular season and playoffs. And it's nice to see a bow get put on certain seasons, but also your mind's kind of going towards the playoffs. It is. It's the final week of the regular season. We're going to have a series of shows here before we get into the playoff content.

And I thought it would be a fun exercise for us to do a bit of a different spin on, the usual sort of awards ballot we do. There's a couple days left in the regular season, but I think for the most part, you know, especially this year, it feels like a lot of these, like,

major individual awards have already been pretty like unanimously decided for the most part for weeks, if not months now. So I don't think that is especially interesting. I think what we could do and what we've planned for today is to do our all NHL teams. And so it's like a collection, I guess,

celebrating the best individual performances this season. We're going to keep the criteria pretty simple and straightforward, so it's easier to follow. It's going to be three teams, so first team, second, team, third team, one center, two wingers, two defensemen, and one goalie for each team. We decided we're not going to be too picky about wing designations,

right? It doesn't really matter if it's a left or right wing or where they primarily play. As long as they play on the wing, they can slip slot into one of the wing slots. And that's it. And I guess we should note as well that this is purely for like commemorating performance this season and how they played, right? It's not who we think are the best players or, you know, what's going to happen moving forward. It's purely trying to get like a time capsule for what the 2022, 2022, 2023 regular season was like.

Yeah, totally. And I mentioned this on a podcast with you months ago where I think that it's a little undercover, underrecovered, underappreciated this all NHL team because at the end of the season writers do vote on this but it gets very little play and if you reference

to that with what happens in the NBA, the all NBA is a huge talking point. It's a huge data point for legacy and for guys going to the Hall of Fame and just it's in a lot of ways I don't say it's not better than the awards obviously but it gives

certain guys who aren't aren't, you know, going to challenge McDavid for the heart, for example, that sort of recognition and that bullet point on their resume. So I think it's a fun little exercise. So excited to get after it. Yeah, there's a number of players where they're having just downright phenomenal seasons and maybe in some sort of other universe, they'd actually have a chance at the MVP,

but just because of what the magnitude of what McDavid's done, it's silly to even entertain a conversation of whether someone else could win it. But that doesn't mean that these players didn't have phenomenal seasons their own right and can't be celebrated. And so I think especially like if you get on the first team all in HL, that should be a big accomplishment. And then at the end of your career, when you look back and it's like this player was first team all NHL 12 times or something, like that should matter. But I couldn't tell you how many times any player has been on any of these teams because we don't seem to care about it at all. So let's change that today. Let's put together our lists.

Hopefully we'll have some good fun conversation. And obviously as we go along, we can kind of maybe touch on individual awards as well in terms of like we're talking about a player if we think that they're going to slot in somewhere. So I'll give you the floor here first. Let's go first team all in HL. Do you want to go? Let's go from the top. So let's go with the forwards. Give me, give me the center and give me the two wingers. So the center is obviously Conner McDavid. I mean all time season with his 64 goals and 151 points and 80 games. It's basically him, Gretzky and Lemieux that have put up these types of seasons. And there's been no sort of old to poke in it.

He's not, you know, necessarily dining out just on power play points. I mean, obviously they have a historic power play out in Edmonton, but still. Which he's largely responsible for, we should say. Yes, exactly. So anyways, I don't know if we need to talk about McDavid too much to be honest. Well, let me give you a few notes on McDavid. Just so we don't breeze totally past it. So seven games this season out of the 80 that you mentioned, he's been held off the score.

sheet. 10 times he's had at least four points. So there's that. If you remove every single secondary assist he has this year, his primary points alone would be one behind Leon Dreisaito's total of 124 overall and 12 more than any non-oiler has total points. And I just think at the end of the season,

we're going to get the ballots. Anyone that votes for anyone other than Connor McDavid, number one for the heart needs to immediately have their voting rights stripped. They need to be publicly shamed. And we need to kick them out of the pro hockey writers association. And I'm saying that partly tongue in cheek, but also I actually do feel that way because you're just trying to like get too cute or cause some sort of conversation that does not need to be happening because he's been so clearly the best player in the world

for a long time now. But like this year, it's very emphatically so. Yeah, I mean, I'm a great proponent of letting people vote for however they want. Like if someone puts a guy fifth on the heart ballot that I didn't even have in my top 10, but they have a good reason for it. It's like, okay, cool, like, good for you. And as long as you have rationale or, hey, this person I love for the Norris and it's not Eric Carlson, well, okay, if you have good rationale, that that's cool with me. But in this case, I think you're totally right.

There's just no realm. There's no way you can talk yourself into a non-McDavid play. player winning the heart. And it's honestly, it's, you know, I didn't do the research to this degree, but it's got to be close to like a top 10 season of all time as far as just one guy lapping the field, whether it's point totals or value to his team. It's, it's truly incredible. It is.

He's, he's operating in his own sort of playing field and old world in that regard. And so it needs to be acknowledged as such. Okay, give me your wingers because this is where it gets interesting. I think there's a handful of names that I would, you're talking about like rationale and like reasonable arguments. I think I like the two that I settled on. I'll tell you them after you go, but there's a handful that I really like strongly deliberated.

Yeah, I had six guys that I'm like, I think they all deserve to get a mention here. And then the difficult part was finding that like order that satisfied me. And I move guys up and down. and around. But I think David Pasternak is probably the safest in terms of a first team winger. You know, 60 goals, which is just behind McDavid, 12 of them game winners, which obviously shows some serious value to what he's providing to such a juggernaut of a team. And then his 109 points are 46 clear of Brad Marchand. Like he legitimately, David Pasternak,

is running that offense. He's the engine. He's doing it all in a lot of ways. And he's not bad defensively, right? That's always been the thing with both Marchand and Pasternac. Yes, they're held up by Bergeron when they all played together, but they also, they do their own. And that's just incredible to think when you've got Pastornak setting the league on fire in so many different ways. Well, I like the diversity in the ways he creates his offense, right?

He's first in cycle chances in the league. He's third and rush chances. He's seventh in chances off the forecheck, which kind of just speaks to the number. different ways the Bruins can beat you and he's the facilitator a lot of that four shots away so he's got two games left i'm curious to see now that they've already got that 63rd win how they use their players if they sit some of these guys they already have been you know sitting bergeron and maca boy here and there to get them ready for the playoffs he needs four shots to get to on goal to get to

400 for the season since 2000 only alex ovechkin has done that a couple of times and obviously not necessarily the most, you know, prestigious statistic there. But I still think, you know, for me, it's pretty cool. It's a nice round number. It's very hard to do. Speaks to both health and also just consistent shot generation, which is why he's been able to score 60 goals. And I think that's an important part of this, right?

And leads the league in 515 goals tied with Miko Ranton for the league and even strength goals. He's done it, as you mentioned, with the game on the line in different game states, through different ways of doing it. It's just cool to see it all kind of come together for him. him in a contract year, which he wound up getting paid for quite handsomely as well. And so it's quite a season for pasto. Yeah, hell of a season. And to give you my second winger, again, I looked at, you know, how much this guy was

ahead of his teammates as far as points and driving offense. And Matthew Kachuk was 31 points clear of Barkov. And Florida's really turned it on of late and not solidified a playoff spot, but They've gotten there. And I just think that Kachuk is far in a way, their MVP, their, you know, what's it called? Straw that stirs the drink down there. It's pretty incredible. You know, obviously everyone loves the agitation, which I think is, you know, something we should throw in the mix here as far as how he affects the game in that manner.

Again, like Pasternak, he's good defensively. he's actually Kachuk only behind Connor McDavid in goals above replacement and wins above replacement on evolving hockey so like he kind of does it all and all with the sort of context of the the trade in the summer where hey Jonathan Huberto hasn't really gone too well for him in Calgary and then you've got Kachuk really you know seamlessly transitioning to his his panthers tenure. And like maybe that's unfair to Hubert O or maybe that's unfair in terms of that being a factor. But I think it's part of his story. Like it could have went sideways in some way or another joining this team playing under Paul Maurice. But really, he's just

solidified himself even more as this arguably or maybe not arguably because it's obvious, but as the premier power forward in the league. Well, and part of the rationale for the trade, I mean, you know, they clearly were very wary and I think astutely of committing long term to John Iben Uberto, the type of deal that Calgary wound up giving him. Mackenzie Uighur was also an impending UFA with one year left on his deal. And so part of that was a rationale for the trade. And then a player of Matthew Kichuk's caliber becoming available enlisting them as one of the few places he'd be willing to sign long term, certainly played into this. But I think they pretty clearly telegraphed their intentions of like wanting to change the way they play.

and not necessarily being like a full-on rush team the way they were last year and having just that be their sole primary source of offense and kind of bumping into the limitations of that. They wanted to change it. Now we've seen they've had a much tougher go of it this year for a variety of reasons, right? And sometimes if you make those sort of changes tinkering, you can wind up straying further away from what made you special in the first place. And I think they've had to kind of reconcile with that as well.

But he's clearly come in and just like immediately changed the way they play. and put his fingerprints all over it in terms of how he creates offense, how he dominates from basically the net front and goal line out. And, you know, fifth in the league in five and five points, 58 of them. 11th and goals with 40, 68 assists, which is fifth, 108 points, which is fifth, just a monster around the net. Fourth and league in high danger chances generated first and rebounds created. With him on the ice, this is one of my favorite stats at 515.

They're up 89 to 50. Without him, they're down 104 to 98. So that means that they're generating with him on the ice at 515. They're generating 4.9 goals per 60. Without him, they're generating 2.2 goals per 60. He has had as profound. I actually probably just purely, if you're looking at 515, he has had the biggest impact on his team out of any player in the league this season.

And that's why he was actually my number one winger on my list. I had him slightly ahead of past her neck. I didn't necessarily rank the guys in that way. If I got him on a first team or second team, that's all the matters. but he just had such an unbelievable season that the impacts he's had across the board have been through the roof and similar way we were saying with Pashtenac

been very clutch you see in the past you know a week or so with their season on the line he's scoring that goal in the final minute against the habs or I don't know what's anything against the habs I forget who it was the other end oh against the capitals I believe to give them the regulation win coming through time and time again had the hatcher against the habs earlier like he's he's been dominating

when it's mattered most and so I thought it was pretty clear for him to be on the first team here and quite a season because I was a bit skeptical that he'd be able to replicate the type of offense he had last year but he's done that and then some so yeah no gudrow no linholm and uh I was gonna I was gonna say only 25% of his 5-on-5 minutes have been with sasha barko and if you you told me heading into the season I would have thought oh well those two you know they're gonna be carrying everything for this team and instead they've split them up and it's he still had the season which which is notable so no absolutely and I mean I'm he's gonna be on my

heart bout. I'm not entirely sure where. Does it go second, third, fourth, I'm not sure. But like, yeah, Kachuk's been just absolutely invaluable to the Panthers. And it was, it wasn't super hard for me. Like I said, I had the six wingers that I thought you're all in contention, you all have a good case. But I found the first team not super difficult to decide on because you had Pasternak and Kachuk there. Well, the beauty of this as we keep going with our first team, the beauty of constructing our list this way is that we get to put two defensemen on the first team. And I don't envy people who are going to have to pick between these two guys for who wins the Norris. So I got to just have them both on this list. And it's a bit of a cop-out, but that's what we're going to do here.

I've got Eric Carlson and Adam Fox as my two defensemen on the first team. Did you, did you flirt? Did you flirt with having anyone else on there? Or was it as pretty sort of cut and dry for you as it was for me? Not really. I mean, I thought about Quinn Hughes, Rasmusman, Dahlene. They're in my and tear there. But I just think, no spoilers. We're not on the second team yet. You got to stick with the first team here. Don't be looking ahead. We're going to have to cut that. That's, that's, that's looking too far down the line. Let's let's focus on what we're doing right now. Oh, man. Yeah. It like, okay, well, just to touch on Carlson quickly, like, it's just extraordinary what he's done with 98 points on this terrible team. His 75 points would lead all defensemen in total

points. Like, that's how much he's. Or 75 assists. You mean? Sorry, sorry. Yes. He has 75 assists. And if you take, so if you take away all his goals, he would still lead defensemen and points, a bit of a Gretzky-esque stat there. And 65 of his points have been primary. So that's like he's, he's just controlling their offense. I know you did a deep dive on him earlier in the season and just how involved he is in anything relating to the puck and the San Jose Sharks is incredible.

Obviously, he has his defensive deficiencies. Hence why you hinted at the decision between Adam Fox and Eric Carlson, which I'm still batting around. I'm not, if I were to pick a Norris today, Norris number one slot, I'd probably put Carlson in there, but that's without really like sitting down and thinking about it, you know, deeply. Because the actual definition of the awards is defensemen with best all around ability, something to that degree. Like it says all around.

And that's Fox, right? I mean, you can see it in his on and off numbers. The Rangers are pretty completely different team with him on the ice versus when he's off at five on five. And although I like Ryan Lingren and, you know, he's played with Mikula as well, they're just, they're not top pair defensemen as far as, you know, meeting, meeting Adam Fox with the level of talent. They're fine. And Fox also contributes points, too. Like, it's not like this guy's a defensive stall war. and that's it because in today's NHL, the way that the defensive position is played and the

role that they assume, offense certainly does matter. And I think that factors into this conversation. But yeah, no, Carlson and Fox every day of the week for first team All-Star. Yeah, yeah, you summarized that well for me. I think with Carlson, you know, with him on the ice at 5-15, the sharks are actually up by five goals. So every time you see his minus 19 in terms of plus minus cited for the season. I think that's an important thing to remember. Like the accomplishment of being a net positive at 5-1-5 on this caliber of team that he's done is remarkable. And part of that is because he leads the entire league in 5-on-5 scoring, which is also pretty notable. Without him on the ice at 5-15, they've scored 70 goals in 2200 minutes, which is just deplorably bad. And I think

people, it's interesting. I actually have, I didn't look at the technical description of what the Norris entails. It's interesting when you've mentioned the all-around component of it. I think that's an important part of this conversation and maybe that would push you more towards Fox. Where I come at it from, though, is it entails the best defenseman. Now, defense is in the title of the position, but that doesn't necessarily mean that your value needs to be derived from goal suppression or from all-around play. It's you're playing that position, who's the best or most impactful player at that position regardless of the way they're doing it, Right. And so clearly, like, you watch the most recent game against the Oilers.

Part of it is like they're down 5-1 or whatever at that point. That clip made the rounds of him just not giving in any effort. He makes a turnover. It just doesn't skate back. They wind up giving up a goal against. It looks terrible. There's been many instances of the season. I think part of it is certainly motivation playing on the 29th rank team or something.

Right. There's that. The caliber of players around him, he's even when he's going right and he's playing at his absolute maximum capacity, he's still not. going to be the caliber of defender that a lot of other, you know, peers of his in this conversation will be. But that's fine because he's just such a generational creator in terms of what he can do with a puck on a stick. And as long as the team is coming out as a positive, which they have with him on the ice in those minutes, that's all I ultimately really care about, right? I understand that

it may be easier to accrue some of these points when you're, when you're cheating a little bit offensively and you're going deeper in the offensive zone or you're not really caring about having to go back and all that. I totally get that. But I just think, you know, some context and nuance here is important in terms of what he's done and the magnitude of it and looking beyond just some of these clips where he's not trying defensively because even though it is an award for a top defenseman, it just means that the player at that position who's playing at the highest level and he's been absolutely mind-blowingly good offensively this season.

Well, and I think it's, it matters how mind-blowingly good he's been, right? Like, let's just say, for example, Dmiti, that Carlson had, you know, 77 points right now and had a big lead in defenseman scoring. You know, I think that his case would be lessened pretty significantly. But what he's doing with challenging 100 points, he'll probably hit it. He has enough time here. It just takes it to a next level. Like, it doesn't, obviously, you don't ignore what he's doing defensively, but that value that he creates with that extra offensive. of umph makes up for at least some of the defensive uh pitfalls so you know he's doing something

that's that's just so incredible at one end of the ice that it makes up for some shortcomings elsewhere and you know this happens sometimes with the selki where it becomes a bit of a two-way award because you know and i subscribe to it to an extent that if you have the puck and you're an offensive star, that's also good defense because you're taking the puck away from the other team. And obviously, there's sort of different degrees of that. Like, you know, if you're a Selky candidate and you're like right down the middle 50-50, you know, defense offense guy, then it's like, okay, you know, maybe not. But if you're more like a 60-40 guy who leans more defensively and is, you know, an absolute stud in that department and you can add some offense, I think that's just a nice boost

to your case because you're not just a specialist. You can do it all. And I see a little bit of that in the Carlson case here where it's like, like just being so elite in one area raises your case, raises your, I guess, value to your team and thus makes you just a more impressive player on the season. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

And I think, yeah, like team quality as well, right? If he was playing on a better team, not that a lot of the, defensive metrics looking so poor and those impacts being bad and them giving up a lot of goals of them on the ice is his own doing to some capacity certainly. But if he was in a better environment where there's players covering him for a more and there's better infrastructure and better goaltending behind them, I'm sure some of these numbers would look better and it wouldn't be nearly as big of an issue. But the fact that he's doing it is. And I don't think it's, you know, you mentioned like the magnitude of how many points he has and how far clear he is of everyone in his position. and also the fact that a lot of it is like stuff he's single-handedly manufacturing and creating himself, right? It's not a matter of him just racking up 40, 50 power play, secondary assist, where he's just passing it to other superstars and they're doing it all themselves.

It's like he's the one that's creating this as well. So I think that's an important part of this. But Fox has clearly had the best two-way performance of the position. And all of his underlying numbers in production is right in line with, if not better than when he won the Norris two years ago. And I think that's notable as well here, right? Like he's had a phenomenal season. He does so much heavy lifting for that team in transition in helping create from the blue line. And so he's right there.

And honestly, it comes down to personal preference. And I'm totally fine with either. But luckily for us, both guys get to be on the first team here. Yeah. Let's close it out before we go to break in a couple minutes with the goalie to close this list out. It's got to be Linus Almark, right? That's who I've got. Yeah.

And I have time for cases for other guys. I won't mention who they are. I won't spoil it like I did with the defenseman. But with Allmark, I mean, it's okay. So the argument against him, I guess, might be, okay, he's playing on this historic team with a good defensive system, you know, a ton of help. He has only played 48 games. We'll probably get to 49 because him and Swayman are going back and forth, which are fair arguments. that 48 games, for example,

ties him for 17th in the league. So it's not like he's, you know, 30th in the league. And it's like, oh, he's barely a starter. It's like, no, he's a starter. That's just the way the position is gone. You should dock him a little bit, but not a ton for that. And then being on a historic team, well, guess what, the goal is also part of that.

And I think you see that in his goal saved above expected numbers. Sport Logic has him first in the league on a per 60 basis. I think first overall now. I think he's plus 25.9, which is actually past UC Soros for Tops in the League. There you go. So he's, you know, per 60 and just total, which is impressive. He's got a really high quality start percentage. Again, Topston League, 74.5. That's notable because it's showing the consistency. It's showing that he's not letting his team down really ever.

And I mean, if you want to go to simple, say, percentage, he's got a 939, which is really impressive. So a part of me is like you're overthinking it if you go with someone other than Allmark. But I can also see where people are coming from, where they start looking at the team that he's playing with and drift towards goalies that are leading either French playoff teams or goalies that are on teams out of the playoffs. I think I've come around on it. I think last time like halfway through the year, whatever you and I talked. and I prefer the cases for guys like Soros and Sorokin, not to spoil who I'm going to have on my future teams here, just because I felt like the degree of difficulty

of what they were doing in their defensive environments, respectively, was more impressive to me. I think as the season's gone along, I've gained a deeper appreciation for how good all marks been, and I think the defensive play in front of them has not deteriorated, but like come back down to earth a little bit as the year's gone along, partly because they've had such a big lead. They've won so many banks, so many games early on that you don't necessarily need to play with the same intensity throughout.

And so I think part of that and still the goal suppression numbers have been there. He has a 938 save percentage, as you mentioned, in a year where league average is down to 904, which is the lowest it's been since that crazy power play season in 2005, 2006. 927 save percentage in November and nine games he played was the only month this season where he dropped below 930, which I think is important in terms of consistency. right, the position is so volatile. You don't blame a goalie if they go four or five games in a row where they're just not seeing the puck or whatever or they're getting a couple unlucky bounces and the puck goes in past them and they give up goals against.

It happens to everyone. It hasn't really happened to Allmark this season. He just hasn't had an extended period of time where he struggled at all. In 48 games he's played, giving up one goal against or fewer 20 times, which is just remarkable. Yeah.

Obviously, 139 games. games, right, 39, six and one, the season scored a goal as well. And not only that, not in it being really cool, but it was also in a one goal game, shooting it over the other team's players, like the degree of difficulty. It was actually quite high, uh, as all goalie goals are, but this one especially. So I just think has been, has had the coolest, most impressive goalie season for me. And, and yes, he's doing it in, uh, in an easier defensive environment in front of him, but even when you contextualize for that and account for it, the gap to which he's exceeded his, whatever the expected performance is for him has exceeded that of any other goalie,

even when you account for tougher environments, right? So he's just been phenomenal. And I, I think it's also an interesting conversation. Maybe we can save it for when we talk about some of other goalies, but in terms of like the differences between public and private goals, save above expected numbers this season and what a gap it is, right? Because I think people listening to this, We're not expecting us to say that Linus Al Bark leads the entire league and goals they'll have expected, but he does. So there's that. He's been otherworldly and he's on both of our lists.

Okay, John, let's take a break here. We've done our first team. We're going to have to rattle through the second and third teams on the second half of the show. So let's take our break here. And we'll do that afterwards. You're listening to the HockeyPedio cast as always streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Breaking down the top stories in the NHL every day.

The Jazz Marrick Show. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back here on the HockeyedioCast. John and I have our work cut out for us. We did the first team all NHL group in 28 minutes. We've got about 21, 22 minutes or so here to rattle through. the second and third teams. John,

I'll give you the floor here. I don't know. You can do one at a time. You can do forwards first, whatever you want. Just give me your list for second team. Second team. Okay.

So I really struggled with second team center because I think Jack Hughes is my pick, but I had a few other names that were really tight in there. Part of the rationale with Hughes is, you know, he's similar to Kachuk, where he's, he's the engine there on a team that's just taking a huge step this year. And one thing that really sticks out to me in the sport logic data is that Hughes is both top 10 in slot shots per game and slot passes per game, which is super rare, like only, I don't know, a handful at most. Actually, it's probably two or three guys like McDavid, Drysiddle and him, end up in the top 10 in both those categories.

and that tells me that he's just absolutely peppering the most dangerous areas of the ice and it's resulted in 96 points, 76 games and just the game-breaking ability that puts him really high up there. The other guy who I'll leave for third team unless you want to touch on him for center just didn't play quite as much.

So you want to chime in? Jack Hughes is my third team center. So just quickly, the notes you hit on him were exactly on points. 76 primary points in 76 games played as well. And the shot and chance generation that he has been responsible for this season is like, I think in my opinion, only behind McDavid, right? On a per game basis when you watch him play, his ability to just out of nowhere create a chance either for himself or someone else.

even the other night you're watching and they're playing the Bruins who are good defensively regardless of who he's going up against he just needs like a little sliver of an opening and he'll just burst through there and make something incredibly dangerous happen and it's been really cool to see him come and his own

especially as a shooter right and becoming just so much more dominant in that way over the past calendar year or so compared to what I thought he was going to be which was like the best playmaker in the league as a passer and he certainly has that as well but I didn't really think that he had this in his bag in terms of goal scoring and shot volume himself. Also, I believe behind only

McDavid and rush chances created as well this season and the gap between him and Pastor Nack, who's third or so, I believe is like is massive. It really is like him and McDavid in their own tier in that regard. Drawing 21 penalties taken just three as well, which kind of helps illustrate what a problem he is for other teams when he has the puck on his stick as well. And so yeah, he's been he's been phenomenal. And this is going to come up, right? Like when we talk about or Rosmiston Dalian as well. I think you don't want to get too into the narratives. I think both you and I are going to focus much more on,

on like stone cold facts in terms of like production and stats, whether it's counting stats offensively or underlying numbers or impact. But I think just watching these guys play on a night-to-night basis and the story of like when you remember this season, what you're going to remember. It's the devil's kind of taking this massive leap. It's going to be the sabers becoming this like incredibly fun team, even if they don't make the playoffs, right?

Like I think these parts of like the narrative, the story of what this season was do matter, especially from a tie-breaking perspective. And if we're using this as an exercise to serve as like a time capsule for the season, then I do think it is important to acknowledge that as well. Yeah, Hughes just embodies what the devils are trying to do, right? They're such a tremendous rush team. And, you know, is he behind McDavid? Is he the best rush player in the league? I mean, maybe there's a few others you could toss in there. but there's something about Hughes and the step he's taken in unison with the team that that just was undeniable.

Yeah. I struggle with this one. I want to bumping him down to third. I think it's very fair to have him second. My second team center was Nathan McKinnon. Yeah, that was my third. Yeah. He did play only 68 games.

I guess he's got a couple more left here, so he'll probably get the 70-ish, right? But 73 even strength points in 68 games, which is just ridiculous. He's one behind Pastor Neck and McDavid. who have not missed time this season for the league lead. His 82 game pace, 47 goals, 82 assists, 422 shots on goal I mentioned earlier, how Pasternak is flirting with becoming the first guy since Lvechkin to do 400. McKinnon is shattering that on a per game basis. Since January 1st, 44 games, 31 goals, 42 assists.

I guess part of it, you know, being available and on the ice and playing games is certainly important. And so if you want to dog guys slightly when there's other options, for missing 10, 15 games, I'm totally here for that argument. I just think, like, especially since he came back, basically since January 1st, the Aves for all of their issues this season

and injuries and wondering, oh my God, like, what's going on with them? They have a real shot of finishing the regular season as the number one team in the Western Conference, and they've rattled off a bunch of wins here, and the level McKinnon and Ranton are playing at is a big part of that. And I just think what he's done when he's been available,

has been, it was just like too dominant and too difficult for me to overlook. And that gave me a slight boost here to put him on my second team. Totally fair. Yeah, I mean, he's third and points per game behind only McDavid and Drysidal, who are way above everyone else and just straight points. So I think that says it right there. 107 and 67 games, that's wild. And as you mentioned, even strength points,

he's first in even strength points per game. Like he's been that, he's just been a battering ram out there with the shots on goal and the attempts and just converting and it's just been the the the app stars have been quite incredible this year with all the injuries that they've had and i know mckinan you know was part of that and mccarr uh the slew of injuries but when they've been available they've been just disgustingly good and i will say um just watching him lately i think the level at which he's like started pursuing the puck especially in the offensive zone for some of these rebound opportunities and just going and just basically like manhandling an opposing defender to just win a 50-50 pocket and create an extra opportunity for his team has been so impressive to me as well. It's not something that's necessarily new to his game because he's always been like a very fierce competitor. But I just think he's taking it to another level. So I had him there. For my second team wing, I had a really tough time here because as you mentioned at the start, there was like six guys would you consider it for the first team.

I felt pretty good about going past Renegg and Kachuk there. But here I struggled a little bit. I wound up settling on Jason Roberts and Amico Rantanin, but I'm willing to hear arguments for other Wingers. That's what I went with too. Okay. Well, that's not very entertaining podcasting then. If we seem to be agreeing a lot on this.

Yeah, totally. Yeah, with Rantanin, like, I thought about maybe bumping him up to first team, but I was like, eh, I originally actually had him on the third. team, but I just kept like kind of like it was sort of picking my brain. It was it was nagging at me. Like, no, what he's doing is pretty

incredible. I mean, so Lannisog has been out all year. As I mentioned before, McKinnon, McCar, Natushkin, out for, you know, somewhat significant time, all three of those guys. And yet Ranton's put up 54 goals and 102 points. 90

of his points are primary, which is third in the league. And he's been playing 22 minutes throughout the season. And there's been moments this season when he scored a Hattrick when his other superstar teammates were sidelined. Like it hasn't been, he's only collecting it when they happen to be in the lineup. It's like, no, when they were out, he actually either played better or to par with his season. So he was definitely a second team guy for me.

And then Robertson is kind of this all around player at this point, 60% expected goals for percentage. I find that the stars go as he goes and 103 points. It's crazy that there's already nine guys with a hundred or more points. I know. And I believe four guys with with 50 or more goals. And there's going to be other names added to those lists. It's pretty crazy, which made this whole winger discussion difficult. Yeah, the thing with Ranton and as well, 42 of his goals at even strength were just tied for first with David Pasternak. Out of Aves players that didn't miss at least multiple games. It's him, J.T. Comfer, Alex Newhook, and Logan O'Connor, which tells you about what that team has gone through this season. Pretty much every important player for them

has missed at least like 10 games or so. There was that stretch, a 25 game stretch between mid-November and January when McKinnon came back, where he was playing 24 minutes and eight seconds per game on average and was just carrying them single-handedly on a night-to-night basis offensively, right? And I think that's an important thing here. He kept them afloat during that time. gave them this chance with McKinnon coming back now to potentially finish as high as they are in the standings. I don't know if you've noticed this. It's like a very sort of niche thing that would require just focusing on a ton of these games,

but he's had a very weird relationship with officials this year. I don't know why. For a superstar player who's, you know, going to flirt with 60 goals is the way he has, it's weird. He's drawn some penalties, but he's also, like, gotten a bunch of calls against him and just seems to like consistently be in some sort of dispute with officials. And I think a lot of the times unfairly so for him. I don't know what's going on.

I don't know what he did to the officials this season or in the past to warrant this sort of, this sort of judgment. But for whatever reason, I've just noticed it's going to have been kind of weird. So not to that effect is ranking at all, but I think it is a kind of a wrinkle to his season. Yeah. And similarly, like for Rasmus Dali, we'll talk about it. as well, but I think he gets officiated quite unfairly. But one last note on Robertson here.

So you had 45 goals, 103 points. As you said, for a lot of these players, I was like writing down their stats. And I'm like, oh, cool, this guy's got over 100 points. And then I rolled it down enough times. And I'm like, all right, this, I don't know if this even means anything anymore, right? Like, it's still, it's still an impressive accomplishment, no doubt. But it's, I think the context has changed a little bit this season. But with him on the ice at 515, the stars are up 68 to 37, high danger chances.

are 307 to 194. His impacts are through the roof at both ends of the ice. And, yeah, their ability with him and Hintz and Pavelsky out there to just consistently generate high danger chance after high danger chance is phenomenal. I've been doing it for two and a half years an hour or so. So it's definitely the real deal and they're very good. And you're right. His pace fell off slightly from the start of the season when we're talking about him going

toe to toe with McDavid at the start of the year from an offensive production perspective. but his impacts are still so good and he does as far as he's willing to take them that's how far the stars are are going to go this postseason so yeah hecklebeyer for jason let's get into our defenseman here um who did you have as your two defensemen on the second team all n-h-h-l yeah as i revealed earlier quinn hues and rasmus stallee for you same yeah yeah this is lame maybe we disagree on uh on the third team yeah yeah maybe that was a tougher one. Yeah, with Dahlene fell off a little bit offensively.

Still, 15 goals, 72 points, and 74 games. His creativity and playmaking, especially as a shooter and, like, the patience and the windows he's created has been so fun to watch this year. The game he had most recently against the hurricanes was you could just see, like, the potential and impact at both ends and ability to disrupt defensively

and then just create ridiculous chances and goals for them offensively. really coming on coming together putting it all together playing nearly like 26 minutes per game this season as well for them just eating up so much responsibility taking too many penalties a lot of them like he takes so much punishment from other teams players right he goes back to play the puck guys are just have free reign to just take as big of a shot as they can against him and the second he dishes it back he gets called for it and and some of them have been his own doing some of it requires discipline some of it is i'm sure like he doesn't have the reputation yet

as like a veteran player, I write young players sometimes get officiated differently. But I'd like to see the penalties come down and I'd like to see him get a bit of a fairer shake from officials because it feels like it's gone a bit too far in another direction. Sure, that's fair. I just think his three zone impacts are tremendous or off the charts. And I really like, you kind of mention it there.

Like even though there's a drawback to his physicality, I really like it in general. His ability close off offensive attacks and just, he like can he can basically play any situation for the for the sabers and you know he draws offense or sorry defenders to him as well as an offensive player he's not afraid to hold on to the puck for that extra second to make sure his teammate gets open and then feeds his teammate like he's just i just feel like he's evolved really well this year obviously a really strong player coming in the year um you know burst onto the scene as a as a rookie and whatnot but

I feel like he really leveled up this year and it was worth giving him the thumbs up for that. Well, speaking of, Quinn Hughes, similarly playing 25, 308 per game, leveled up defensively, I thought this year, certainly, right? Like, I think the knocks against him off the puck, the final Travis Green season, whatever that was, I think were fair. Like, I did not like the way he was playing, the way he was defending. That has not been the case anymore. Even though he's an undersized defender, there's certainly going to be certain limitations

that he just, you know, because of his size, he won't. won't be able to handle, but his skating makes up for it. His ability to go back and play a puck and, like, end a defensive zone sequence and end the possession for another team is phenomenal. And I think that's an important part of defending as well, making sure you're not just stuck and trapped in your own zone for extended periods of time. And look at the impact. Like, with him on the ice, they're up 19 on a team that has not been good this year.

Without him on the ice, a 5-1-5, they're down 125 to 88. He's got 73 points in 75 games similar to Dali, and he's drawn more penalties. than he's taken, which is a differentiator there. And I think he's 10th in the league in average offensive zone possession time, just one second behind his brother, Jack Hughes, which speaks to how much heavy lifting he does for the Canucks as well, like walking the line, looking for passing windows. Like he's been responsible for so much and he's been just phenomenal.

So I don't think he's going to get into the Norris conversation because it does feel like at this point it is kind of like this duel between Carlson and Fox. but honestly, if you wanted to have him as high as third on your list, I would not, I would not think that's crazy. Yeah, that's fair. I like that he's, yeah, like you said, like he's the primary distributor on that team. Obviously, Patterson, you know, at Forward also is,

but he's far and away their best defenseman. And for him to come around off the puck and what he's been able to do in those areas is massive, especially while playing with Luke Shen and Ethan Bear, who are fine players, but it's not like he's paired with a fellow All-Star or something. Like say you got Slavin and Burns and Carolina, just to use a random example,

they obviously feed off each other, whereas Quinn Hughes is certainly carrying a lot of the load for his partner. Yeah, when he's going back to play a puck and then when literally any other Canucks defensemen is going back to play the puck, it looks dramatically different. And I think the team's forwards would definitely tell you as such.

Second team all goalie. I had UC Soros here. I think for me, we can talk about him and Ilya Sorokin. It was between those two. I gave Soros the slight nod because I think as the years gone along,

Sorokin's environment has actually improved a little bit, whereas Soros has degraded and him keeping the predators afloat here post-trade line after they sold pretty much everything they could. And they're going to fall short here of the postseason, most likely. But the fact that they were playing meaningful games in the final week of the season.

And you even saw on Saturday, in Winnipeg. They were just so outclassed by that Jets team, and he was still keeping them in it. They were down 1-0 for a really long period of time, purely because he was like the most impactful player on the ice, and that's been the case many times this season. Yeah, I'd so broken ahead of Saros,

but like honestly, by a hair, it was basically a coin flip. And for Saros, I mean, the workload is incredible. I mean, most shots against most minutes and net, most games played, as it was last year, and as it probably will be moving forward, as long as he's with the Nashville Predators. They just throw him in there time after time after time in an era where that's just not happening as much.

And then with Sorokin, he just had a slight edge in most of the categories that I was looking at. And I'm like, okay, if I can't pick between these two, I'll give it to that guy. So similar workload, but slightly better statistics. So Sorokin got my second team. Yeah, for Sorokin, public goals, say, what I've expected, plus 52.7, which is just behind

Henrik Lindquist plus 53 from 2009, 10 as the highest to date. Wild. Privately plus 17.6, which is a significant gap, but still, I believe, the third best behind Allmark and Soros. So it's not like it's, you know, it's a total barrage by any means. It's just having an important note here. 16 shutouts in 131 NHL starts in his career. So he's shutting out the other team like 12% of the time.

It's just a comical thing to think about. And I desperately want to see him go up against the Carolina Hurricanes in round one because I think it would lead to some very hilarious box scores. So I'm looking forward to that. One last thing before we move on from the goalie is shout out to Philip Gustafson. He's second in goals saved above expected per 60, according to sport logic, right behind Mr. Omart there. Same goes for quality start percentage second.

and if we take away all the sort of fancy stats, he's just straight up second and say percentage in the league this year. And the caveat there, obviously, is that he played 37 games. I think that's below the cutoff line for me as far as including him in this discussion, because I think his numbers would probably go downhill a bit with a larger workload. But just wanted to shout out to a guy who's supposed to be a backup that turned into quite the starter, I guess, for Minnesota. Yeah.

third team center. I had Jack Hughes. You had Nathan McKinnon, right? Center is just so incredibly deep at the top in the NHL. Like I just, I gave serious thought to Brayton Point. Elias Pedersen, Tage Thompson. I think Leon Dre Seidel, I know it's a lot's been made of, oh, well, a lot of his production hasn't come by 5-on-5,

but A, his ability to be one of the best shooters and one of the best passes in the league is a big reason why their power plays historically great along with McDavid. But also, if you look since March 1st, I think part of it is him getting healthier. Part of it is then adding Matias at Coleman and giving him some minutes with a better defense pair as opposed to just being staple to CC and nurse for the primary ice time. But his 5-15 play has significantly improved.

And if you're going to be excited about what the Oilers could do this postseason, it's not just Connor McDavid anymore, right? They clearly have more depth scoring, but also if Dreis Etoll is going to play at like a near 60% expected goal share at 5-15, the way he has over the past 20 games or so, they're going to be very scary to deal with and he has done that. And so I had him out of my honor mentions as well.

There's so many centers that you could choose from. We picked the same three guys, but there was another four or five that are all in a normal season basically deserving based on their production. Yeah, you named my top six, so that's fair.

Okay, let's do our wingers here quickly. Who did you have as your two wingers on the 13th? Marner and Kuturov. Yeah, I had Kuturov and Kaprizov, and I had a note here, it said,

If you want to do Martyr instead, I'm cool with it because Caprisov did just basically miss a full month most recently, right? I just thought that when he was playing, there was that stretch where there was a 13 game stretch where he scored out of their 23 goals and they were desperately struggling offensively. He scored 11 of the 23. He was on the ice for 19 of them. He was their entire offense. And then he gets hurt and then basically Matt Boldy takes over that role.

But I just thought he was just incredible. And the heavy lifting he was doing was one thing. But yeah, in Marner, the totality of his season and the fact that he has. hasn't missed that time, I think I'm okay with giving him the slight edge. So you talk me into it. Yeah. I mean, 98 points for Marner. He's up there in time on ice among forwards, first and takeaways. The Leaf's penalty kill looks a lot better when you look under the hood. It's fifth and goals against per 60 versus I think they're like 12th or something when you just look at raw penalty kill percentage. And he's just a massive part of that. So that was a deal breaker for me or

something that put him above Caprizov and of course the time that Caprizov spent injured didn't help his case. Yeah, and Kuturov quickly, we got to breeze through these 111 points, 81 assists the unique way he distributes the puck and his running Maybrain point is going to crack 50 goals and a lot of it is because he's a fantastic player in his own right, but it's Kuturov serving up the puck on a silver platter to him in that bumper spot on the power play. So there's that we have like a minute left here.

me or two defensemen on the third team. Vince Dunn and Josh Morrissey. Okay, I had Dougie Hamilton and Hampus Lindholm. So our big disagreement was saved for this moment where we're rushing to the end. Give me a quick 30 seconds to be able on those two guys. Yeah, I just think Vince Dunn, massive breakout season. I love what he does in transition. On evolving hockey, he's the top defenseman in goals above replacement.

Obviously, he plays with a really good partner with Adam Larson. So I guess that's a knock on him. But I just, I wanted to give him some love. And then Josh Morrissey, kind of on the opposite end of things in terms of what he had to work with on the Jets blue line. And put up a ton of points is a huge part of what they do offensively, even though he's a defenseman. And I know his numbers, you know, tailed off a little bit towards the end of the season versus the first half. But I just think that what he did this year, the body of work was pretty impressive. That's fair.

I between him, McCar, Heiskenen, I gave a lot of thought to it. I settled on Hamilton, 21 goals, 73 points with him on the ISO 5-on-5. They have 60% goal share of 57% high-danger chance share. They've been just dominant with him. And then Lynn Holm played nearly 400 more minutes than anyone on the Bruins. Wow. In that month, the McQuay missed the start of the year. He was eating up significant ice time and they didn't miss a beat.

And that was a big reason for kick-starting this historic year. they've had up 75 to 35 with him on the ice at 5-on-5. And according to Dom Lusitian's game score value added metric, he's ninth in the league behind only Adam Fox at the position. So maybe I just gave the case for why Hampas Lindholm should have been even higher on this list. But in classic Linholm fashion, it was a very underrated and under the radar phenomenal season from him. John, this was a blast. I'm glad we got to do this.

Sorry for having to rush through this at the end and jam all these names in. but this is a blast man looking forward to it. Let the listeners know where they can check you out. Sure. I guess just follow me on Twitter. It's Mattis John. So M-A-T-I-S-S-ed, J-O-H-N, and post all my links there for the score.

I'm the senior hockey writer there. So yeah, this was super fun, Dimitri. And maybe we can make an annual tradition. It's all up to you. I don't want to put any pressure, but maybe we can. We will 100% do that, and I'm looking forward to having you on during the postseason as well to talk about playoff hockey.

John, this was a blast. Thank you to the listeners for following a long, with us and we'll be back tomorrow with more of the Hockey P.D.O cast here on the Sports Night Radio Network.