The Hockey PDOcast - Blame Game in Boston, Jake Oettinger’s Confidence, and Status Quo in Winnipeg

Episode Date: May 1, 2023

Sean Shapiro joins Dimitri to talk about a wild weekend of NHL playoff hockey. They discuss Boston's collapse against Florida, what makes Jake Oettinger so special, and the mess in Winnipeg.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.

Since 2015, it's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockeyedocatio cast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Sean, what's going on in this lovely Monday afternoon? It's a good day, man. It's been, I got to sit on the couch and watch both game sevens. The kids went over to the grandma and grandpa's for the weekend. So I got to enjoy just sit and watch hockey all day yesterday.

and it's a good day. What a weekend of NHL playoff hockey was. In like a 48-hour span, we had last year's Stanley Cup champion eliminated, the team that played in the last three Stanley Cup finals, and the Eastern Conference representative last year, the team of the Lightning eliminated. And then the best regular season team, or I guess we should say the most successful regular season team in NHL history also got eliminated all of them in a 48-hour span in round one.

The playoff field is wide open. It's very exciting. We're going to have some fresh new matchups and stories to talk about. And I guess, you know, the main summary you can take from this is that teams like the Lightning, Avalanche, and Bruins just need to learn how to win. They just didn't have what it takes to get over the hurdle when push game to shove. They just didn't have the experience and the veteran presence and the intangibles to win these big games.

And that's how, I think that's how you justify it. I love how the last of the teams remaining, right? the last one to win the Stanley Cup was 2006 for the Hurricanes, right? And I think they're the only team still in that's won the cup here in the cap era, I think. If I, if I, I have to double check that. I'm pretty sure. I'm pretty sure of all the teams still in. No other team has won the cup in the cap era.

Actually, so no, sorry, New Jersey would have won. Didn't. No, New Jersey's playing tonight. Right. They last one. No, they haven't won since 2005. They won in 2003 or 2003, right? Sure.

So yeah. Okay. So still before the cap came into play. So yeah, I love that fact where we've got, no matter what happens, the shortest drought of someone winning is going to be, what, 17 years or something like that. So I love that. It's great. And I love the discourse today of how everywhere, and I say that in air quotes, I love that

in air quotes, I love that. The discourse today of the Bruins lose. And so now the entire city of Boston is complaining about how the playoff format works. So that's a wonderful tradition today. Yeah, yeah, pretty good stuff. Well, let's start with talking about the Bruins then. How about that? Yeah, sounds good.

Sounds good. It seems like that's a good topic of discussion for us. Oh, I should note, the hurricanes did win in 2005, 2006. Yeah. That was the most reason one. Okay, Bruins Panthers. So I did a round one preview a couple weeks ago, which feels another lifetime ago now, with our colleague Jack Fraser, Eddie Peering Side and Jack Hahn.

And we did about 20 minutes going into extreme detail outlining red flags, kind of problems that Florida could uniquely cause Boston stylistically. They gave us pause and just being like, all right, Boston's just going to carry over the regular season success and walk all over them. Now, acknowledging that we gave them, I think, more time earnestly in our preview than anyone did. I still, just seeing the way it unfolded in real time was obviously stunning and did not see that coming, certainly. You know, they go up 3-1 in the series. They outplay them pretty significantly in game 5.

Allmark makes the mistake in overtime to lose that game. In game 6, they're up 4-3 and 5-4 in the third period. and you know you'd think that the league's stingiest defense from the regular season would be able to win a game in which their team scores five goals but they lose that one and then they're up three to at home in the final minute of game seven and wind up losing that in overtime as well and so when you put all those things together with the backdrop of the regular season success it's understandably a very big topic oh yeah definitely it's uh i mean i uh it's common that and you add it

in the fact. You laid out all those storylines already. And then the goalie who was going to win the Vesna. Those votes have already been cast. He's going to win the Vesna is, was, doesn't get the net in game seven. And I would argue maybe the question, I talked to someone earlier today. They're like, oh, that's bold to switch the, to make the goalie change in game seven, where arguably the bigger question is maybe you should have considered doing that earlier when you kind of looked how Omar. Omar did not look like himself at all after, I mean, throughout the entire series. Like, I think you and I were messaging back and forth as someone else pointed out properly

of like the way he was moving, his recoveries, like he did not look like a healthy Linus Omerk who will win the Vesman trophy. Yeah, I mean, certainly gave up more goals than we're accustomed to seeing. I think like the game two in particular where he gave up the most before I really went off the rails was mostly due to the play in front of them where there's so many defensive zone. Yeah, that's fair. They're really hanging them out to dry.

I'm like they had all regular season, right? So if your argument the whole time was, well, what Soros or Sorokin or Hellebuck did this year was more impressive because of the team in front of them and, you know, Allmark's case is being bolstered by what is happening in front of his defensive system, then seeing that, I think must have been very sort of vindicating or like, aha, see, this is exactly what I was talking about when he's put in the situation where Soros, Hellebuck and Sorokin were and many more times this season, he wasn't able to carry them. Now, I thought he played pretty well up until game five or so,

in game four in particular, right? He had that amazing game. He has an assist. He stops like 45 plus shots or something. He gets in that fight with Matthew Kachuk towards the end of the game. He wasn't moving right, though. He was clearly a hurt. I'm no goalie expert.

You are more so than I. You could just tell, like, every time he was getting up after a save or after a stoppage, he looked like an old man who was like, gingerly getting to his feet after sitting in his reclining chair for too long, right? And it was like, it was very bizarre. The first goal he gave up to Brandon Montour in, uh, in game six should have been the, the biggest red flag. Like if you go back and watch that one, Montour is a four on three power player,

or whatever and he gets a good, good look, but it's like a short side goal. And Allmark's reaction after that one was very bizarre. Like he, he looked like he was a guy who just like did not trust his body physically and was very upset about it. So I think that ultimately, and obviously how game five and six transpired was why they made a decision they did in game seven. I thought, what do you think about Swayman's performance? Because he had a few, he had a couple bad goals, right?

The first one kind of leaked through the tire by Montour was one he probably should have had. But for the most part, I thought considering the circumstances of not playing for as long as he did, held up very well, made some huge saves in overtime before they finally. before Florida finally broke through. And so I don't think you can blame Swamen on that. But yeah, certainly, like definitely put him in a tough spot

after not playing for weeks to just jump in in game seven in that spot. And so I think that's where you can kind of take issue with Montgomery's handling of it. And his lack of, quite frankly, accountability after the game when he was asked about it. And he's like,

oh, maybe you should ask our goalie coach about that and kind of just deflecting as opposed to, you know, taking the brunt of it. There was a, there's been a couple things in the past couple weeks where like the Montgomery just like there's been we talk about hockey right hockey is a it's a culture of accountability and you and and in everything like that and it's some of the deflections we've seen from a when it comes to

actually answering questions and being accountable on things has been semi hilarious in the past couple weeks um so jim montgomery saying oh well you'll have to ask the goalie coach on that one a you're the head coach you you you make the decision with him and be B, even if the goalie coach makes your decision, because now I know when I cover Jim Montgomery and Dallas, he really did let the stars goalie coach, Jeffries, really make some of those decisions. So that's fine. But as a head coach, you still are responsible for that decision. You are still responsible for, you can at least, you can at least own it in the right way of answering the question or discussing it. Or you know what?

also actually making the goalie coach available to talk to as a whole is a whole another thing. Like, I mean, it's something where I laughed like Bob Esson is probably on the plane home for or not plane home they were at home is driving home that night and like this is this is this is my fault. He's just feeling the tire tracks over his back after he just got pushed under the bus. I mean, yeah, I just don't understand what there is to gain from Montgomery's perspective because it's not like anyone would see that quote and be like, oh, we should really cut him some slack here. It wasn't his fault, right? It's like, if anything, it's just going to anger people that are already upset with whatever decisions they felt like he fumbled along the way even more.

It's like it's a weird doubling down. Now, you know, the goaltending thing is one thing. I would say that the bigger story here, though, in my opinion, is that the Panthers outplay them in this series. There were a couple games with the Bruins, like, you know, look like the regular season team that they were and dominated. But in totality, if you look at it, the Panthers, F515 in particular, were just flat out better. They outscored them. They had more chances. They won the expected goal battle.

You watched the games from the IDES perspective. They certainly outhustled them, outwork them, executed their game plan to a T. And that's where, you know, you can say, okay, well, Montgomery didn't have his top two centers. It certainly for a handful of games, but neither of them were clearly healthy for the entirety of it, even when Bergeron did come back. So it's like, all right, well, that's obviously going to handcuff you a little bit. I would still say that with the depth and the personnel the Bruins had, they certainly had more than enough pieces to make it work and make adjustments if they were able to. And they just didn't. And they just kept making these same mistakes over and over again. I mean, you watch it.

And it's very like rudimentary stuff, what Florida was doing with their forecheck. And they were just punishing that. They just kept like getting Boston to make the same mistakes over and over again. And watching that series, sure, the players need to execute better and all that. But that's where I would lay blame on on Jim Montgomery and the job he did in the series much more than how he handled divvying up the goal he starts. It's the fact that the series transpired the way that he did.

And there was no, there was no like plan in place of what to do when you took that obvious punch the Florida was going to throw in your way metaphorically, right? Like we went into the series and people like myself were able to be like, all right, the sport is going to be a problem.

Boston needs to find a way to navigate it. And they just had no answers for it in all, any of the seven games. Yeah. I mean, it's the interesting thing. And this is just a great question I have about Jim Montgomery. And this isn't, he won, obviously, he was a winner in the college game before he was the coach of the Dallas Stars. And obviously, I know him pretty well from covering his him in Dallas.

But my really big question about Jim Montgomery is can he coach a team to win a playoff series? Just because, and so like, you know, right, like an 82 game. regular season, you're not really, it's one-off. You're not playing the same team over and over again. There's not teams making adjustments to you. We've talked about that before. It's one of the great things about playoff series is the schematic chess battle. And Jim Montgomery, even by his own admission, has said that when he was in Dallas

and the year that he, the stars lost to the blues in that seven-game series, like, he got, he got the equivalent of coaching bullied by Craig Barubei in the series. And like, like he got out-coached. And that series was- And as far as Ben Bishop dragged them in that series. Exactly, exactly. And they got, and they, and they got out-coached. And you look back as I have talked to some other people, too, where, like, you go through

and you look at his time in Denver, and obviously you win an NCAA title in Denver. There's nothing, take nothing away from that, but it's win one game. It's not, the college hockey format is win one game advance. It's not about, okay, how are you going to, so Jim Montgomery and Paul Moore, I don't know if Jim Montgomery is a coach who's going to win those chess matches with another NHL head coach in a series. He could be. Just at this point,

he hasn't proven that. And that's so as much as... Well, getting school by Paul Maurice is a pretty tough look in particular. It is. It is. It is. It is. It is.

I mean, how much do you buy into this idea? And it's certainly like I'm willing to give it time. I'm not immediately being like, no, that's not a thing, even though it's really tough for us to quantify, the sort of psychological element of Florida clearly had to play meaningful games down the stretch, right, just to make the playoffs. Like they couldn't take their foot off the gas.

They were sort of getting all of these mini tests in along the way and passing them clearly because they wound up making the playoffs. Whereas Boston had big games down the stretch in the sense that they were clearly trying to set the record. But in the grand scheme of things, the pressure of that was different. And there was no real on-ice adversity at any point during the regular season. We keep hearing that for Boston, right? It was such smooth sailing.

They had like one mini little speed bump around the All-Star break where they lost a couple games, but for the most part, it was just everything was going their way. And when everything comes so easily to you, it's tough to prepare yourself for what the playoffs are going to look like, right? So you come to the postseason, and I think it becomes a lot more difficult to do that adapting and adjusting and sort of finding ways to overcome. obstacles and win games in different ways when you haven't necessarily had to do that at any point previously. It's like showing up to a test and not having done any sort of studying beforehand, right? It's like, all right. Yeah, this will be this will be fine. And you show up and it's like, wow, I'm not prepared for this at all. And that's what it looked like. I don't know if that's a lazy way to break down what we're seeing. But when you watch that overtime,

like they were, they looked absolutely petrified. Like they had a couple chances to start. And then they were like, all right, we're not messing up. And Florida just did whatever they wanted until they finally scored. I think you're 100% right because I think it's hard to, it goes to, it's, it's hard to lie to yourself as motivation on something because it's like I was, I got to, they covered Boston in person about three or four times this year with a couple times they came through Detroit. I was actually in Tampa in January around the same time they were there. And every time you talk to the players and everything like that, even on the record, off the record, informally, whatever, it was always, oh no, the, this, this president's

trophy, chase this record, it doesn't mean anything, all that matters. And it basically had to lie to themselves the entire time through it, right? Where it's like, okay, none of this really matters, really matters about winning that whole thing. But at the end of the day, it did matter, right? Like, it did. Like, it did. Having the best record and being the best statistically record team in NHL history for the

regular season, it did matter. And to say it didn't is is doesn't is kind of a line to yourself. And then all of a sudden, though, to flip a switch on it and to be in this space where it's like, okay, the Panthers have been playing do or die hockey. That was the, it's this was that it was you either win this game or your season's over. And it's been that way for a while where Boston just kind of you walk in, you go in. And then it's the same, the test example is great because like, one of the things like it's on a human level of this to give it.

It's a funny example. So my wife is going back to school right now for another degree in something right now. And so before she goes and she takes a test, she takes a practice test, right? And then she always comes out of the practice test like, like, oh my God, I didn't get this right. There's new stuff that I didn't even know was going to be on the test. Exactly. And then and then she goes and passes the test a week later. Like it's the Bruins never got the practice test

And so it's they were just thrown right into it And they got they got to go against the kid Who's taking like 16 practice tests with like the Yeah I will say the only reason why I kind of I kind of raise my eyebrows When I see like style like this is clearly a part of it I think it's very lazy to just be like this is what happened Oh yeah no no yeah else because not only does it do a disservice to the way Florida played but but Sean like Tampa Bay just lost three straight games

at home in overtime with like the same roster that they just made three Stanley Cup finals with. Yeah. Like if there was a team that you would say was prepared to win those games, if you, if you think clutch and experience and all this matters, no, it's it's a bunch of coin flips. The puck balances in certain ways and goes in or doesn't. And we wind up in hindsight attributing a lot of this stuff, post hoc to what we want, basically. You see it the way you want to see it. Yeah.

No, and I think it's a factor. And as you said, it's not the entire thing. there's the spot where, okay, you can go through before the series like you did and break down the red flag schematically that Boston got burned on. Which wound up happening a long way, by the word. Yes, yes, yes. You're very smart. It's not just me. I think, unfortunately, maybe Jim Montgomery should have been paying a bit more attention, but I digress.

Maybe he should listen to the PDAO cast. Well, like a couple other very successful recently Stanley Cup winning coaches do. So maybe you're on to something there. No, I think there's certainly a lot to play. I, you know, Florida, Boston really did seem like they just were necessarily surprised by it, but they were like kind of just like hoping that Florida would, would settle down and just like chill out and like, be like, all right, we're just got to ride this out. And Florida just kept going after them and playing their game the way they had the Red Liger season. And so that was impressive.

Any other. Oh, and get to tie bow on this. Did you see after the game then, Jim Montgomery was asked for it? And certainly that close to your season is ending, I think you've got to take every single like bit of media for what it's worth. Yeah. But it was notable that Montgomery described it as like confusion. I'm not sure if that quote was attributed to like his feeling about it or what the team was feeling on the ice or just the general vibe of it.

But that does certainly tie into what we're saying here about the lack of preparedness for being thrown into this spot. And if you're saying, wow, we're surprised. Like we were confused by the fact that we were. weren't winning this game easily because that's what happened at every single point in the regular season. That's kind of what I took from that. Well, there's, I don't know if you saw it. It was on the, it was on the T, I think it was the TNT broadcast. I can't remember what one of the one of the, it was either, I think it was game six where it was,

Montgomery was interviewed on the bench and like he had that whole bravado where he says like, oh, Pastor Knox playing well, I think he's going to get one this game. Like just it's, it's, it's, It's a nice bravado and a way to push guys and everything like that. But sometimes you need to, like, get the whiteboard out in between periods and be like, look, let's do this. And I don't know if that happened during the series. I mean, I don't think it did based off watching it. Yeah. Well, speaking of the note of the broadcast, right?

So, yeah, you were getting a mix of TND and ESPN for this series sprinkled in in the US. I assume you're watching those feeds and not the Sportsnet broadcast, right? I saw, I'm able to get those. I'm able to get the sports net one on the, when they do the, because I can get over the air on like the Saturday night or whatever. So I watched one or two games on sports net. So in this series, they were, they were running John Shorthouse and John Garrett. In game seven, Garrett wasn't available. So they brought in Greg Millen. But, you know, I'm a little biased here because I basically like grew up listening to those guys on Canucks local feeds. Yeah. But it was really,

cool to see them after years of calling essentially meaningless Canucks games, calling these big games and doing a fantastic job of it. And John Shorthouse in particular should be doing like national Stanley Cup final games. Like he is so good. He's a very good. He's a very good broadcaster. I'm not sure. I'm not sure how much of this is unique to him and how much of it might be more so common

practice and I just don't know it. But I've heard that he, and I'm sure he won't mind me saying this, he like, while he's calling the game, there's this audio fee. of like like from the rink right basically right it's like it's like a feed of like everything that's happening at ice level and so what you'll notice with him is whenever a post is hit or you know a shot goes off the back bar and in and just quickly comes out most commentators aren't able to pick up what happened and so they're like delayed on it or they're confused or they call it incorrectly right they're like oh i think that hit the bar and then the play gets stopped and in review you see it actually

hit the back bar and went in and was a goal. And he's able, because of his commitment to his craft while he's like doing this live, he has about 100% success rate of noticing exactly what happened with where the shot hit or what it was. Or he's like, oh, that sounded like it hit the outside of the bar. That's because like he's hearing that and he's in tune with that. And obviously that's a very sort nerdy thing to care about. But as someone who puts together like mixtapes after the fact of cool goals or highlights, it's so frustrating when an. awesome play is ruined by a play-by-play call where the commentator didn't notice the puck actually went in and it just totally like takes away the energy from what should be an awesome

moment and so you never get that with short house and i just wanted to give him credit because he's he's fantastic his job yeah any uh good great play by play allows the play to is where you accentuate the play but you don't take away from it and he does a really good job of that and there are and you're right there are some uh iconic or highlight to goals in the past couple years where there's been some play by play that has tried to overshadow the play itself. Is there anything else on this series that you want to get to?

Because we're going to move on. We're going to talk about Audinger and the chance and stuff. I would just say, I mean, Matthew Kachuk is the like the villain, the anti-hero, the NHL like locked into. Like he's like the, what's the whole like Batman line?

Like the hero that like you, they don't really deserve but they need. Like he's such a, he's so. great. Like, I mean, the fact that the fact you can build him versus Toronto is going to be great. Like, it's just, I love it. It's great for, it's great for hockey that, but, and it's hilarious, too, because the NHL does everything to create, to create the complete opposite of him when it comes to its players. So I love it. Yeah. And for all the like, you know, shenanigans, post whistle and all that.

And I could, I could do without some of that stuff, certainly, although it is part of the package and what makes him the player that he is on the winning goal there like wins a battle behind the net right uh makes life just miserable for whatever defense was back there they work the puck back out bannit passes at the verhege and he just beelines right in front of swayman completely takes his eyes away if you look at it it's like i mean it was a it was a high danger shot and it was a fantastic finished by verhegey but swayman had absolutely no line of sight on it at all because all he could see was matthewitchie's butt basically and so it was like a master clear of how you want to take away the goalies eyes and he did that all and he I mean he's been doing it

he did it all last year he did it all of this year certainly as well but the difference he makes on these games like he was carrying the panthers offensively for large stretches of this series when some of their other top players just weren't performing up to their capabilities and so you're right I mean what what a performance by him yeah um okay Sean let's let's uh let's take a break here um and then when we come back we'll talk about a couple other topics and bounce around some other series. So looking forward to that. In the meantime, we're going to do this break. You're listening to the Hockey-Pedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Everything Canucks. Before and after the games.

Canucks Central with Dan Riccio and Satyar Shah. Subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Video cast, Sean, we did, Bruins Panthers at the top. Let's talk about a series that ended, I believe, last Thursday, so it's been a while now. But, you know, Stars Wild. You and I already did a big, deep dive of it, sort of from a tactical perspective after game two, I believe. So I don't think we need to rehash it. In particular, you know, Minnesota was clearly very banged up

and didn't have a lot of pushbacked off or offensively as that series went along. And the last game in particular was a very tough watch. You know, they were clearly trying very hard, but everything was just kind of like weak point shots from the outside that Jake Onger was eating out. But I did want to talk about Andra a little bit now because, you know, it's still there's still a lot of runway here in terms of like sample size and and and he's still young but based on the past two series now that he's played right last year seven game series against

calgary and out these six games against minnesota he's establishing quite a posies and track record for himself here and every bit of jay gott's your content i consume is draws me in even more from watching him play to i read this great feature by uh for another podcast john mattis at the score which you should read on him to this like seven minute sit down video that Jeff Merrick did. You can watch that on the Sportsnet YouTube feed with him, which I found riveting for a number of reasons. And we're getting into some of that here. But I want to talk a little bit about Jake Odinger because he wasn't necessarily tested

as much as some other goalies in round one. But he did basically everything you want to see from him. And I think he's going to make a big difference here, not only in round two against Seattle, but potentially if they make it to a conference final against, let's say, Edmonton. Like, I'm really looking forward to seeing how this story unfolds for him. I mean, he was before the season started. Before the playoffs started, he was my Khan Smythe pick, actually. So I will, that's out there on Twitter somewhere.

And as people will know, even as someone who covered the stars, I am, I didn't pick the star. It's the first time I picked the stars to win a playoff series since 2019 against Nashville. So I have, as much as a franchise near and dear to my heart for my coverage, I've not, just because that's not the reason that I like Jake Out and, is like jay gottanger is such a great story it's such a great development um i love the way he approaches the game like so many i i love that he one of my favorite things about that makes j gottinger tick is he loves being the bad guy like he loves be like he loves the he loves the the ride into town black hat mentality like he's one of the few goleys i know who like he prefers

his road games to home games. Like he loves the, like he, he loves that, that mentality where everyone in the building is rooting against him. And it's, it's one of those things where, like, we saw it in the, uh, in the series against Minnesota. He goes back to a place where, like, yes, it was, it was really nice and cute that his grandma's there and in the crowd and everything like that. But really, so much of his motivation is just shutting the entire world down, more so than making six or seven people happy. I love it. I also love that it's also a bit of vindication for the stars franchise and organization

because it's fitting, obviously, that the guy I'm going to touch on his second, who's in the playoffs with Edmonton, albeit not as the starter in Jack Campbell, but with how they tried and failed with the first round draft pick goalie to, who they actually did everything right. They actually fixed what their issues were from the Jack Campbell time to the Jake Ottinger time. And like he's great. I love the Jake Ottinger story.

There's so many parts of it. Well, 944, save percentage in 13, career playoff starts, right? Yeah. A lot of that is patted by that ridiculous game seven, certainly against Calgary last year, right? But that's not not to discredit it because that's just adds to the lore here.

In this series, you know, they gave up, I don't know how many goals he gave up in the game three, but they go down to one. And from that point forward, he basically gave up two goals against total in the final three games when the outcome was actually potentially up for grabs, right? He gave up a goal eight in game four and then another goal eight in game six, but basically just lock him down from that point forward. And that Merrick interview that I was telling you about, I'm not sure if you had a chance

to see it, but see it, but some of the quotes really tie into what you're saying there about him embracing that thing. And, you know, there's a fine line between kind of confidence and cockiness or whatever. I personally don't care. I love both from my athletes. I think to be successful, you need to be that at least some way. I think pretty much everyone is. It's just a matter of how you choose to express it or how much you're willing to show the world in that regard.

But he, in that interview, he describes the feeling when the news broke to the stars signed Braden Holpey a couple of years ago to come in and take starts from him. he described that as feeling like a slap in the face. Yeah. And then, you know, he praises Holpby and Hudobin for like the things that they taught him along the way and being good mentors and all that. But he also says that I knew what I wanted and that they were standing in my way essentially in reference to being the starter for the Dallas stars. And so I mean, that's that's a catnip for me, right? Seeing that and then seeing the performance back it up, I'm like, this is this is everything I could possibly want.

from a player that you should be marketing as the guy. Oh, yeah. One of the, in the stars to give, to give Dallas, to give Jim Nell credit. I was something I was, I was privy to before they signed,

when they signed, Holby, I remember I had a conversation with a couple people from the stars about, like, hey, what's the plan here? And they were like, well,

we're going to send Jake down to the HAL. And we know we've pissed him off. Like, that was like, that was the internal dialogue that's like, We know we know we've pissed him off. We're going to send him down to the HL and we're going to see what he does. And then he went down, went down to the HL, started the years, played like 10 or 11 games with Texas, whatever it was. And then never set foot in the HL again.

Like they knew exactly what they were doing. They were so credit for pushing the butt in the right way, but also credit to like knowing your guy too. Because he's always been, what if the, so there's a great story. Jake Ottinger has always been driven by competition. So as a freshman in high school, he takes Lakeville North to the state title game and then joins the U.S. National Development Team Program as a sophomore junior.

He goes to Boston University. He graduated high school after his junior year and goes to Boston University as a 17-year-old and then gets drafted out by Dallas in the first round of anything like that. But one of the things that... There was the Holtby conversation. Holbe-Hodhobin at the end.

But there was before that, some people forget. So the stars had also drafted Colton Point, who was coming out of, who had a tremendous collegiate career at Colgate, was someone who was really good, was part of, had reached, was on the Canadian team for World Junior. And essentially, it was,

there was a point where they're trying to, the reason Colton Point came out of college a year earlier, was because he thought he had to come out of year earlier to get ahead of Jake Ancher. He tried to beat him to a bunch. He thought he had to, yes, he thought he had to, he thought he had to beat Ottinger to be a pro. He had, he's like, if I get ahead of Ottinger, and I talked to, and I know, and I've talked to people who know Jake well about this, so they looked at it. They're like, well, he's like, well, I don't need gimmicks.

I'm just going to go beat him straight up. And then obviously Colton point, now, Colton points certain things that are completely out of. Yes, of course. You know, it's like it's like the madman meme with Don Draper in the elevator. Yeah. Yeah. When, uh, his like understudies, like, I feel sorry for you. I feel bad for you.

And then he just looks at me. He's like, I don't think about you at all. That's, that's, that's going to point. Jake on your day Goddard is being like, I, yeah, do whatever you want, man. I'm coming. I'm going to take that job. Yeah. Yeah.

I love that. That is a, uh, that's a fantastic story. And, yeah, it'll be interesting. Like these might be famous last words because. Yeah. The playoffs are very weird and random and especially. goalie performance can swing wildly, but my confidence in him right now

in terms of just stopping shots, he at least should stop. It is about as high as, you know, pretty much anyone in the league. And I'm very curious to see in this series against Seattle. I'm doing a big preview of the series tomorrow, so I don't want to step on the toes of it too much,

but it's a fascinating matchup because the start, the Krakken, you know, they led the league in shooting percentage in the regular season. They've been very opportunistic. I think some of it is certainly just, a magical ride and good things go in their way and not necessarily indicative of something

they're doing so special. But some of it is they clearly attack very quickly and kind of put opposing defenses and opposing goalies in some potentially compromising positions where they're not ready for shots. And so this is going to be a good test for him in round two. And if you can keep it up, I certainly think it's a bigger offensive test than what Minnesota was able to pose with Caprisov clearly limited and Hartman Hurd and all that. And Gerald Erickson not in the line. up. That's going to be a good one. And if he keeps this going in another five to seven games

in that series, then all of a sudden, heading into the conference final, we're going to have a very interesting story to tell about whoever he plays coming out of the Pacific. Yeah, it's going to be, I love the, I love the Dodger story. I love where it's going. And it's going to be, you're right about the Seattle team is going to be. And once again, we won't step on your toes with your preview. But this Seattle, team is interesting. It's it's a team that is just like Minnesota last year's like, okay, what Kappersov does determines everything, right? Offensively. That's what it was like. The Seattle team is so much more of like, okay, as a goalie, you're doing everything is, it comes,

it comes from everywhere. So, but I'll let you. It's a nightmare to prepare for it because not only they have 15 different guys score against Colorado. battle in that series. But the hero of game seven, Oliver Berksand, was a fantastic player, but had a tough offensive year. The puck wasn't going in for them, had zero goals in the first six games, I believe. In game seven, scores two goals, hits the post another three other times. And it's like, this is the Seattle story, right? This guy who did not produce in the first six games from a goals winning perspective carries us in the biggest game of the season. And so it's a totally different matchup. So it's cool. And it's a fresh one, right? It's one that we have,

obviously haven't seen since this is Seattle's first year in the playoffs. So it's, uh, that's fun as well. Okay. Um, let's end the note. Let's end the podcast on a different note,

potentially less, less fun. Um, let's talk about Rick Bonas and the Jets because they got eliminated recently as well. I, I have to admit, I didn't cover this series very closely on the podcast as it was happening just because I found it deeply uninteresting.

Like I was watching all the games. Um, I just, I, I came away from it just lamenting how much, much time I had spent this season watching this Winnipeg Jets team because it was such a similar story to the Rick Bonus story of his stars teams the past couple years. And I just, I just realized it was valuable time. I was never going to get back that I had spent and invested in. And it's my

job. So it is, it is what it is. But I don't know. I just, I was very ready for this jet season to end. And the alarming part is if you, you know, bonus has that very fired up speech after they get a limited in game five. And you're like, all right, whoa, is this? And we can unpack. that but oh this is going to lead to some serious change finally and then nope he's coming back kevin shovel day i was coming back we can talk about the personnel but i would be very surprised if any of it significantly changed and we're just going to roll it over and that is the winnipeg jet story well i mean it's the the jets will come back next year and it's funny like rick bonus went and it's the in the when rick a bonus is an effective head

Rick bonus is not a good okay Rick bonus when Rick bonus is an effective head coach he's coaching from crisis management mode one of the reasons that when the stars back in 2019 when Jim Montgomery got fired on shockingly and the stars went into the bubble that it was stars needed a crisis manager they needed somebody who could come in and

basically be a strong narrative for them and they could fight for and everything like that that's what they needed it had nothing to do. Systematically, he didn't really change much of anything. He's a good defensive assistant coach, but he's not really great at creating much of anything else. And it almost felt like, I don't know how much intent it was or in Hutt, but it just almost felt like he was creating the crisis to go into next season.

Like that's what the post, like, that's like when he walked up to the podium, him, it wasn't a question that teed him off, right? Like, it wasn't a question. Like, he literally, it literally starts with, well, this is going to be short. No questions? Good. And then the first question came. Like, he literally came in with it teed up.

Like, it to me, it just felt like, okay, the jets are teeing up the crisis so they can galvanize around. We got through this tough thing together. We can be annoying. We can rely on Connor Hellebuck. And we can be in the wildcard race next year. and that's what the Jets will be next year. Yeah, I mean, listen, there's something clearly Rodder that extends much beyond bonus, right?

He's not the first person to get a peek behind the curtain within the organization, whether it's a player or a coach or or anyone involved and come away and be like, you know what, this isn't it for. This is not for me and just want to get out of there and move on. at the same time though I will say as someone who's been very critical of Rick bonus in the past of his coaching not a shock to me that the offense just plummeted this season particularly in the second half totally dried up I know they had injuries and were missing key players in this series in particular right Morrissey goes out

Elers was very limited came back at the end shifley missed the final game they scored six five on five goals in five games in the series which was just the continuation of how they ended the regular season, continuation of years of Rick Bonas hockey, and this is kind of what you get. And bringing all this back and maintaining status quo, like, this is what the Jets want to be, right? They're very content being somewhere between the 14th and 20th best team in the NHL, which is what they've been for the past four years. And they don't have a lot of aspirations for being better than that.

They clearly don't want to be worse than that in pursuit of being better eventually, right? Certainly we can talk about that. You listen to Kevin Shelvdaioff's press conference yesterday, and he had this just amazing quote where he gets asked about the core, right, which was called out by Rick Bonas earlier. And he says, this core got us to the playoffs in five of the past six years. That can't be lost. You play the sport to have the opportunity to get to the playoffs. do you?

I was under the impression that you play to win the Stanley Cup, right? And I think that is very, I know what he's trying to say, and there's his belief that anything can happen. You get into the playoffs, Florida beats Boston, you know, you get lucky, you go on this magical Cinderella run, it works out for you. If that's your plan, good luck to your organization, because that is not how you build a Stanley Cup contender and a Stanley Cup winner. And so I think that is at the root of this beyond bonus, beyond the players,

that is the problem. it's so much of the well so much of this hockey mantra that we've all bought into and that we sell as a way to watch the game and it's great and Florida can beat Boston any team can beat anyone but too often the people who it's almost become cyclical right too often the people times people running teams think oh I can now use that as an excuse for anything that doesn't go right

well we got in like it it's I You, you, like, what's the path forward here? Right. Like, if you're, if you're, if you're Winnipeg, like, what's the path forward here to do, to do anything beyond what you've done? Are you just going to be a, okay, maybe playoff run team and nothing more? I just, there's so many teams where, there's so many teams where you look and you're like, okay, I don't know if it'll happen, but I at least see the path.

Like, I at least see it. I at least see this is feasible where you could do this. With Winnipeg, it's so hard to see a like a real path forward. And like, well, the one of the years he's citing there in five out of six is losing three one in the qualifying round to Calgary in the bubble,

which I, which does not count in my books is making the playoffs. But I guess that is a, that's semantics. But yeah, like to my eye, um, it's strange that they get handled with kid gloves by so many media people.

I think it's because they're one of the Canadian franchises, I guess. But one of the most uninsurious organizations in terms of actually trying to win that we have. Even some of the bad teams are at least trying, right? And they're clearly not doing a good job, but you can't argue with the effort or they're losing intentionally so that they can one day win, whereas this Winnipeg team just wants to be the middle of the pack and just keep rolling it over, right? maintaining that status quo. And so you ask what the path forward is. Well, if I had any faith in their ability to do the right things, I'd say there is a very

viable path forward because you look and it's like, all right, Wheeler, Shifley, Nino, Nita Ryder, Dylan DeMello, Brennan, Dylan, and Connor Hellebuck are all UFAs next summer who are making reasonable capits. Certainly, if you retain and use your three retention spots, very, very, interesting pieces to different degrees for a contender. And you could just totally remake your franchise and your future outlook here by just recouping a significant amount of capital. And I have absolutely no faith that that will happen because I don't think they want

to take that step back. Everything that I've heard is that they're very afraid of the optics of what that's going to look like, even though a lot of their smart fan base is very fed up already and just like wants them to be bad, they, I don't think financially they're willing to do that. No, I mean,

look at the thinly veiled threat video. What was like April 15th or whatever that came out where they're like, they're like, they're doing this ticket drive and it was very much like a, it's like forever Winnipeg, but like it takes all of us. Like, what is,

what does that mean? I mean, you're preying on, on a market that lost, you're praying on, you're trying to sell tickets using the, don't let us move again tactic. Like it's,

I don't that felt very scammy to me. I didn't like that at all, but that's. Yeah, it was, it was a very, but it was saying the quiet part out loud. It was a, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was. It was a, it was a, it was a, it was ridiculous. Last summer, I know they were very, very worried about waning interest and, um, you know, the situation. And so they were like jumping through hoops basically to, to get like important season ticket holders

and sponsors and everything to stick around. And so that's why I think they're afraid of what, bottom mount is going to look like. Hockey DB has them at the third lowest attendance this season behind or ahead of only Arizona and San Jose. Yeah, I don't. Beyond trading

Pieroluteau bottom Montreal, I would honestly be pretty surprised that there was other significant moves even in light of Rick Bonas's comments about the core. And so it's, uh, it is what it is. I saw a funny tweet where it was like, and maybe this is sad for Jets fans, but in Connor McDavid's draft,

year right the jets got swept in round one and connor bedard's draft year they win one play one one game in round one it's basically there's there's there's some stops in between that that 2018 or team or whatever that made the conference final was fantastic but for the most part it's like almost a decade removed and it's it's the same story as it's always been and so that's uh that's pretty frustrating yeah i like it's to see, because Chappoldeoff's been there since, since day one of Winnipeg 2.0, right? So it's, it's, you talk about, like,

you know what he feels? I mean, now, at least Nashville made a Stanley Cup final, at least in his, but it feels very similar to David Poyle, where it's like, at the end of their respective careers, like you'll look at David Poyle retire at the end of this season and everything like that. And he was in Nashville since like 97 or whatever it was. And they just were, they had a couple good times.

But at the end of it, the winningness, like he has like the title of like the winningest GM of all time. But when you never won a Stanley Cup, did you, can you really have that title? And it just, it feels like with how things have gone with Winnipeg and looking from, and not having any further insight, but just looking at it from the outside. It's like, Shevoldeoff in 20 years from now, like Winnipeg will get the draft and it'll be like, oh, Kevin Shevoldeoff's retiring. We'll all thank Kevin Shevoldeoff for the lengthy and long. service to the Winnipeg community.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely. Yeah, I mean, you know, you hear this brought up time and time again, right? Where it's like, well, it's a tough job and his hands are kind of tired because a lot of players have Winnipeg on their no move clause and that restricts them in terms of what stuff they can do. It's like, I don't know, that seems like a cop out to me. And certainly doesn't apply here because what we're saying is that they should trade literally every single one of these guys. Yeah. And get back a bunch of draft picks and prospects and young players, none of whom have no move causes or the leverage in terms of the

place in their career that they're at to dictate that. And so that gives you a timeline all of a sudden of up to seven years to make something of this as opposed to just running it back with this core of like curmudgeoning older players and guys who clearly are fed up and not getting along and clearly not playing as well as people think of them as. So I don't know. I just have, I have no time for for any of those excuses. I think we would Winnipeg and and their fans certainly deserve a lot better than they've been getting. And the way they just went out with a whimper this season was, was fitting and kind of should have been the final blow,

but instead it feels like it's just going to be more of the same. Oh, yeah, it'll be more the same. They'll just be that they'll be that team that's always like awkwardly frustrating and fourth and fifth in the central. And that's where they'll be to be. Which Rick bonus is, he's the man for the job. I don't, I can't take that from him. All right.

Sean, this is a blast. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way. out here. Let the listeners know what you've been working on. You can talk about your new podcast. You can tell them all that good stuff. Yeah. No, it's been we've got, I laugh at, because I give you, I give you so much for this for, you pointed out, I made fun of podcasts. Now I do way too many podcasts. So I deserve that. New podcast for me that with me and me and and Prashant called Expected by Home, where we kind of last week we did a little bit of some analytics 101. We'll record this comes out on Friday mornings. Check that.

out. Thanks to the, thanks to Ryan Hannah over at the Winged Wheel podcast for handling all the production and backend stuff. So I don't have to worry about that. It's just me showing up and talking, which is great. And then check out

obviously stuff we do over at EP Ringsside, but also I got the substack. I've been still with my ties to Dallas there. I've been kind of closely watching the Stars, the Stars, Seattle was going through some video for Stars Seattle earlier today. And And then, yeah, we'll always share everything on Twitter as long as Twitter's still up and running. Well, looking forward to it.

I'm looking forward to that Starscracking series. And we'll have you on whatever two weeks from now to talk about it, I'm sure, plenty to discuss. All right. Well, that's it for me, just as usual, if you want to help us out, go smash that five-star button. Wherever you listen to PEOCast, help us out with a nice little rating and review if you're joined today's show. And we'll be back tomorrow, as I said, with that round two preview. So looking forward to getting into some of the nerd. 30 X's and O stuff there.

And we'll be back tomorrow with more of the HockeyPedio cast. As always, streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.