The Hockey PDOcast - Blues Improvement, Avs Since the Deadline, and the Most Interesting Playoff Races

Episode Date: March 28, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Harman Dayal to take a closer look at the Blues improvement under Jim Montgomery, the new look Avalanche since the trade deadline, a potential round 4 of Kings vs. Oilers, and the most interesting playoff races to track down the stretch 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 Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich. And joining me here in studio for our second show here today is my good buddy, Harmon Dile. Arn, what's going on? Nothing much. Excited for the weekend. Excited for more hockey coming up. Yeah, the Saturday schedule is really fun. A lot of big games. We're getting to that point where teams are getting under the 10 game mark left. So I thought it'd be fun to have you on. I took 10 days off. As the listeners know, I came back to. day. We did a part one with the stars skating coach, Luke Chocot, which is really fun.

Obviously focused him more on sort of off the ice stuff and his work with the stars. Haven't had a chance to talk about the playoff races and what's been going on in the league for the past 10 days. So I thought I'd have you on. And we just kind of rattle through the stuff we've been seeing recently, the recent developments, especially I think out West. Like we can talk more about the Eastern Conference races. It seems like at this point recently, no one wants. that second wildcard spot. So I think there is some intriguing storylines there that we'll get into at the end if we have time.

But I want to center today's discussion about what we're seeing in the West and especially starting off with this run, the Blues are on, right? I think you can stretch it out even until starting in November 25th when they hired Jim Montgomery. They've clearly been a better team since. The underlying numbers significantly improved. Their record slowly started to work its way up. But now they've gone on this stretch where they're a league best 14, 2, 2, 2 since the four-n-n-age. break, they've made up 13 points in what, six weeks or so on both the Canucks in the wild,

the two teams that are kind of sandwiching them in the Western Conference standings. They have a plus 33 goal differential in that time. And they're playing remarkably well. I mean, it certainly helps. You look at the schedule, right? And they went through this cupcake slate, which we anticipated them to have a good time with when you get to play the National Predators three times in 10 days in a miniseries. You're going to have a good time this season.

But they keep winning games. They keep finding ways to win games. The top guys, especially up front, are driving the bus. the defensive system under Jim Montgomery has improved to a point where you can talk about the shooting percentage and being inflated a little bit and PDO and all of that. But man, they're playing really well and just an entirely different team. You almost said you throw out the season long numbers because this is a different version of the team than what we saw early on in the season. Absolutely. And they're just mauling teams right now.

So even though you may argue a little bit of a shooting percentage bender, it doesn't matter when you're clubbing teams by three or four goals. It just means even if that was to regress a little bit, the games would just be tighter. they have been on an absolute heater. It's really interesting to see how dynamic they are off the rush, especially that Cairo Holloway combination on the wings on that second line. They're lethal off the counterattack, and this is where their defensive gains are also feeding into how well they're attacking, where because they are significantly improved defensively against Montgomery,

a lot of times when opposing teams are forcing plays or they turn pox over, over. The Blues ability to attack with speed off the counterattack is lightning quick. And that's where they're really catching teams off guard, which you combine that with how heavy they are on the forecheck as well, and they can create chances off the cycle. They scored a couple of dandy ones last night against Nashville, and that come from behind victory. I was watching. They're just so lethal with the big guys in their top six right now. And to also do it recently without Pavl Bouchnavich, who for a while there was finally starting to figure things out with Robert.

Thomas and without Colton Parake on the back end as well. It's just really impressive to watch their 200-foot command of the play right now. Yeah, since Montgomery took over, the 30, 16, and 6, they had the 8th best point percentage, the 7th best goal differential. And even the past couple years when they weren't playing this well, they were still a dynamic rush team. Like you look at their offensive profile, and that's how they attacked. The issue was especially at the start of this year, they were so bad defensively that they

just never really had the puck. So they would get out in transition and get some of those opportunities, but then they would just spend large chunks of the game defending in their own zone and really struggling to retrieve it. And I had Jack Han on right before I went to break, and I was asking him about what he's seen from the blues and kind of system changes they made under Montgomery. And he was talking about how they've done two things. One, they essentially lightened the load significantly on their defensemen,

just like getting them to do less, not relying on them to be skating around a bunch and trying to carry the puck because while they do have a couple guys who I think would like to do so, they're at a certain stage of their career age-wise where they're probably not going to be able to get back defensively in time. And then they're just making better and more calculated decisions kind of around the blue lines with the puck and playing a more poised game. And you're seeing that for the shooting percentage spike they're on. Since Montgomery's been coaching this team, they've given up the second fewest expected goals against and the second fewest high danger chances. And that's incredibly impressive. Now, here's the two things that have happened. one, they acquired Cam Fowler at some point there,

and what that allowed them to do was really ease up on the Ryan Suter usage. The first 22 games before the coaching change, he was averaging 1941 at 5-1-5 alone per game, which is outrageous, like top 5 to 10 defensemen in the entire league. That's been rained down to 1619, and the other one, and the one that I really want to focus on today, they've ramped Dylan Holloway up. He was playing 1252 at 5-15 per game,

which was seventh amongst blues forward. So essentially like a middle six guy. He leads the team under Jim Montgomery with 1446 5-15 minutes per game. And you watch these games in the bender he's been on recently from a scoring perspective. It's tough to argue with it. Like he's certainly earned every single one of those minutes. And now we're seeing him playing with Bichnevich out. He's playing on this line with Kairu and Thomas.

They've scored, I think, six goals in 28-5-15 minutes together. They're outrageous. And so, yeah, I want to talk more about Holloway because it's been a recurring storyline this season, especially with the Oilers struggling offensively and everything they've been going through, and we'll talk more about that later. But then in light of that, just seeing what Holloway is doing on this team is just a remarkable bagfumble on their part. A hallway is so fascinating to me because even last year when the point production wasn't necessarily there, I think he only had nine points, 39 regular season games.

the playoff point production wasn't necessarily fantastic either, but just watching him play, you could tell that the sparks of speed, dynamic rushes, you were thinking to yourself, okay, if you just get some more consistent opportunity further up lineup as he becomes older as the coaching staff hopefully gives him a little bit more trust and more opportunity and more minutes, that this looks like a player that should pop, that should break out. and to see him get that opportunity in St. Louis now, it's been awesome, but also from a skill set perspective,

he always had the straight line speed, he always had the hands, but it's been really impressive to watch a progress in my mind of his IQ. I think he's taken a lot of strides in terms of his decision-making with the puck. Sometimes it felt like he was last year a frenetic, chaotic ball of energy,

where he had so much that he wanted to do, but he just wasn't as polished, as poised. Whereas when I watch him now, even as a passer as a distributor, making decisions through the neutral zone, I feel like he's evolved his game a lot. And I think some of that has to obviously do with confidence. I think some of that has to do with just becoming more accustomed

to NHL speed and pace. But that's been a big evolution in his game that I think has allowed him to really flourish as a play driver. And so when you combine that with the size he has as well, how effective he can be in the four check, excelling as a puck transporter as well. Even down low the way he's protecting the puck this season and actually finding teammates in the slot,

he's just ramped his game up to a whole other level beyond just the athletic tools that we know he already had. He's tied for 15th in the league this season in 515 points. In his 515 minutes, the blues are up 58 to 34. Since March 1st, 19 points in 14 games. The only players with Moore are Jack Eichel and Willie Nealander with 20 apiece. And the last game in particular on Thursday, I mean, he's been doing this pretty much every night during this stretch. But they were playing in Nashville.

They're down to nothing halfway through. It looks like the winning streak's going to come to an end. They were playing. They look pretty flat to my eye. And he just sort of took that game over and had a couple of sequences. And that was enough for them. Score as the beautiful ultimate game winning goal. And so he's been doing it in these big moments too.

And I don't know. Do you want to talk a little bit about sort of. from the Oilers perspective there because clearly this is a player type and you could I think include Ryan McLeod in there as well because he's made massive strides and I believe his age 25 season in Buffalo I think his 33 5 and 5 points would be third on the Oilers this season behind only Dreis Eidel and McDavid so they kind of pivoted at in the off season they lost or this chose not to retain both Broberg and and Holloway here on offer sheets and you look at the price for Broberg, which is

for Holloway, sorry, which is his age 23 and 24 seasons. It was a third round pick compensation for it. And it's really tough. I think since we've heard the lawyers management come out and be like, whoa, we couldn't have made it work with our money, right? We were boxed in ignoring the fact that

on July 1st, they spent 10 million to retain Henrique and bring in Arvinson and Skinner and kind of forced themselves into that spot. And man, you just can't help but lamented because Holloway is pretty much what we've seen from him this version in St. Louis, and you saw flashes of it, as you said, less refined in Emmington in the playoffs. I mean, he did get quite a few minutes with Dry Seidel, and he was a game

four against Florida in the Stanley Cup final where he had that offensive outburst. You certainly saw what he had in his bag and what he was capable of, but now he's taking it to such a whole new level on a consistent basis, and it's the exact player type that I think this Oilers team needs right now. Yeah, when I look at the Oilers' the season, and this is maybe a part of their team story that maybe we didn't discuss enough, but after McDavid and Drysettled to see their secondary core pieces, the age of some of their guys over 30, Hyman Nugent Hopkins, Ekholm, et cetera,

especially up front, they just don't have the same secondary horses that, that it feels like last year they were a little bit more deeper and could rely on secondary contributions, but even with Henrique taking a bit of a step back offensively, they just haven't had a lot. And we know that simply based off the wingers that Leon Drysettle has had to play with for most of the season, especially with Arvetson and Skinnernaut panning out.

It's been a really thin group of wingers for them in the top nine. They haven't had enough scoring. And Holloway is exactly what they needed, not just in terms of the pop, but what he can do to drive a line at this stage in his career. How valuable would that be, whether it's, you know, with Drysettle or even on the third line? if he wanted to spread the wealth a little bit and have a really balanced top nine. The thing, too, is when both offer sheets were sent, I think the Broberg won, because he hadn't really proven himself at the NHL level yet, and because the cap, it was pretty steep,

I think you could have looked at that one and went, even though Broberg was really encouraging towards the end of the playoffs there, and he had some promising potential, at least the compensation was a little bit higher. Yeah, as a second round pick. That one was at least, you looked at that and went, it's not the end of the world. Now, obviously he's broken out and been terrific in St. Louis, so that one st. Louis, so that one st. But the hallway one. Yeah, 2.29 a million.

That was really rough, especially again, with the compensation only being a third-round pick and the issues that they're having now with a lack of scoring on the wings, but also the lack of speed in general. Some of the guys that they've brought in, like Skinner and resigning Henrique, aren't quick on their feet, whereas Hollow Inn McLeod obviously brought a lot of speed to the forward group as well. Now let's spin it forward. I think every year we sort of have this pipe dream that this is the year the GMs are going to change their ways. They're going to actually utilize offer sheets and try to steal young talent, especially in this kind of 23 to 25 year old age window from teams that view them either as expendable

because of their situation or just can't retain them at that price. Now, I think this was perfectly executed from Doug. Armstrong's perspective because not only the hammer of the double offer sheet and kind of throwing that wrinkle into it, but also, of course, keeping the compensations below that first and third round pick threshold. I'm not sure if you've had these same conversations with people around the league over this year. I think there's generally been speculation with the cap going up and with everything involved that teams might start actually entertaining this avenue for improving their teams more seriously this summer. I feel like the success of the Blues

are having here might push us even more in that direction. So I'm very curious to see if there is a trickle-down effect here beyond the fact that the blues obviously struck gold and significantly improved. Not only their outlook for this year, but I think adding players in this Kyru Thomas age bracket that they can build with for the next couple years as well. I'm a little bit double-minded on this

because on the one hand, the case for believing there could be more offer sheets sort of stems from how many teams are going to have cap space to spend, yet how mediocre this crop of free agents are. So you could end up in a scenario where a bunch of teams have money to spend, but if they strike out on that Marner-Eler's tier of free agents, then they're sort of left with a bunch of money and a desire to improve, but not necessarily many...

impact players through the more traditional means of talent acquisition. So that may force teams to think outside the box a little bit and get creative with offer sheet ideas. But then on the other hand, because the cap is spiking so significantly, I wonder how many teams are actually going to be boxed in, similar to how the Oilers were, where they sort of caught themselves in a pickle after they already spent on July 1st and bringing some of those other forwards in. Like how many teams are going to be in that type of cap crunch,

especially like learning the lesson as far as what happened with the Oilers and in making sure that you leave enough room there to take care of your RFAs. I almost wonder if the only way we see successful offer sheets that aren't matched is if it involves like a significant discrepancy between the perceived value that both clubs have, and that may require a steep overpayment. So I don't know. I lean towards, I don't know, this is just my gut feeling. As much as I want to see offer sheets happen, I'm still skeptical that there's going to be

a flurry of them this summer. Yeah, I'm with you, especially from what we've seen historically with the way GMs operate, just using the expansion process as an example, right? everyone was so after what happened with the Vegas situation, and then everyone's sort of getting into self-preservation, saving face mode, and the GMs being like, all right, next time this happens, we're going to make sure that we cover ourselves, and this doesn't repeat itself, and then the Seattle crack and expansion process happened, and so based on just all the coverage of this, and every time Holloway scores a cool goal or Broberg has a big hit and a couple points,

everyone's like, man, can you believe the way we just let these guys go? I feel like every other GM around the league is probably watching that and being like, oh, I really don't want to be don't want to be in the oilers shoes here. Last thing on the blues. So we look at it right now as we're recording. They're five points up on the Canucks. The Canucks do have two games in hand on them. I believe the blues have the regulation wins tiebreaker, so it's technically a six point gap in all functionality. There's suddenly only two points back of the Minnesota Wild as well for the first wild card spot. I think Sport Logic has them at 76% playoff odds. Now their schedule gets a lot tougher coming up.

I believe their next games at Colorado. We're going to talk more about the afts here in a second. They play the aves again and the jets over the next handful of games. So it'll be a good test to see whether this was a combination of better play, but also good fortune and Cupcake Schedule or how much of it is the real deal. But I'm certainly intrigued in watching. Do you want to get into the Pacific now? Yeah, let's do it.

We've been talking about the Oilers. Let's talk about this idea of L.A. versus Edmonton. a concept that I'm fascinated by because this is going to be year four of seeing that round one match up in pretty much all likelihood, especially with the way Vegas has been playing and kind of distancing themselves in first in the Pacific. The Kings, I know they just got shot out on Thursday night in Colorado, but before that, they were on a nine and one stretch. They scored 40 goals in that time, including back-to-back, seven-goal outbursts.

Eight of their last 11 games are at home, and the reason why I bring that up is something we've talked about. They're 26, 3, and 4 with a plus 4. 44 goal differential at home. They're 14, 19, and 5 with a minus 23 goal differential on the road. What do we do with that? Because I think generally our sort of stats-based inclination is to be like, well, there's nothing really there in terms of like concrete evidence.

It's small samples. You have to actually look into those specific games, how much we're back-to-backs, who are the opponents were, all of that stuff. But we're getting to a point of season now where these are about as extreme of splits as you're going to see for Home versus Road, and I really don't know what to make of it from this King's perspective, because I wouldn't necessarily say in watching the games that it's like, man, it's this madhouse that you can't play in if you're in a road team.

It's just, it's deafening, and it's a hostile environment. Like, I don't think that's what's happening here. The results are just dramatically skewed in their favor whenever they're at home. Oh, yeah. I was in L.A. for the Canucks King's game in November. Well, the Canucks are the only team that's had success in L.A. basically that's season. Yeah, and it was, there were a lot of things.

empty seats. Let me put it that way. So I definitely don't think it's an intimidating atmosphere thing. I'm sort of with you. I'm not entirely sure why they've been so much more dominant at home compared to the road. I wonder maybe if part of it is a team that is so locked down defensively when you get a last change at home ice and you have more control over the matchups, does that give a team that leans that heavily towards a low event playing style more of an edge than it typically would for the average team playing at home. That's one thing that comes to my mind. But yeah, I'm not entirely sure why the split has been so dramatic.

Well, the reason why it matters. They're up two points now with a game in hand on Edmonton. I believe they play a head-to-head in L.A. in April. And so the one difference, because I keep all season, I've been very steadfast. And I believe that not only the Oilers have about as high of an upside as any team in the league if they're at their best and at full health. And they obviously haven't been recently.

but especially in a series against L.A., it's like, all right, well, the one matchup you could probably get away with Stuart Skinner and Ned and some of his deficiencies and kind of cover for them is L.A. because of their offensive playing style and their own weaknesses there. And we've seen that matchup for three years in a row now and we kind of know what beats it's going to hit and how it's going to play out. Yet, I guess the one difference this year would be this wrinkle of L.A. being so good at home and potentially having home ice, unlike those previous matchups. Do you think we should actually be seriously revisiting that? And we should still see how the rest of the season plays out. But assuming things keep going to this direction as like a legitimate conversation or still just noise. There are two things I'm going to be watching for. The most important factor is simply how healthy and then not just being in the lineup healthy.

Right. I'm talking about like actually moving. 100% capacity are McDavid, dry, settle and echo I'm going to be. McDavid and Dry Settle, we know the impact. They have offensively. They're going to have to sort of carry the mail offensively. It is at least encouraging that lately, even though the Oilers have been scuffling,

Ryan Nugent Hopkins has started to catch fire a little bit. I was disappointed for a while with this production through the first 50 to 55 games. So for him to get rolling, that's big for them because for large chunks of the season, they haven't had enough of that secondary offense. But the at-home conversation, too, right? I know Jake Walman's been a terrific fit for the others in their top four,

but they still lean really heavily on Ekholm to eat minutes, drive play, drive strong results with Evan Bouchard. And he's been a little bit up and down. And you can tell, like, between illness and playing through injuries, like it isn't necessarily just, oh, he's declining because of age thing. There are other factors that play here. Especially considering how well he'd played in, like, I believe, in January, and then his numbers just fell off the map in February.

100%. So, like, those three guys and how close to 100% capacity they look, like, that's going to be the number one factor that I look at. Because if those three are still able to get back to where they were, let's say, during last year's playoffs, I still think the Oilers have a significant leg up in this competition. From the King's perspective, can Quentin Byfield really continue this tear and hit another level in the playoffs, which, sometimes for young players it happens, right? It isn't just a start of the season, will they pop? And we know in Byfield's case, it was a slow first half, but could this be a launching pad point for him,

and could that give the Kings an offensive gear that they've previously lacked? Yeah, especially in that series, you know, conventionally you've seen trying to use De No against McDavid, getting Copa-out-out-there against Dry Cytle, just kind of like stylistically body-type-wise, that makes sense. And then where the Kings have lacked is,

where are you going to manufacture goals outside of those matchups? Even if you play those guys who would draw, you know those are probably going to get a couple more power play goals than you in that series. And all of a sudden now, this combination of Byfield and Fiala and whether it's Laferrier there or you've seen him and Kempe there at times, sporadically, I think that is an intriguing wrinkle to this matchup.

All right, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll jump right back into it. I want to talk about the afts with you on the other side of this break. You're listening to the Hockey Ocas streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here in the Hockey P.D.O.cast joined by Harmon and dial today. Harm, let's talk about the apps, as I tease before the break. They have ripped off a 12-1-1-1-1 since the trade deadline. During these past 14 games, they're up 59 to 26. They've given up 17 total

5-on-5 goals against in like 700 or so 5-on-5 minutes. And it's a brave new world because you look at the acquisitions and since, you know, then they've broken up the top six, right? They've mixed and match. They're playing Brock Nelson with Lekinen and H's. They've moved Nitchhkin and Drewan up to McKinnon's line. All of a sudden now, we've got 60 minutes at 515 with Brock Nelson and Marty Natchez. They're up 4 to 1. They have 55% expected goal share. That's the second line. The third line with Coil and Colton, 86 515 minutes, up 6 to 2, 60% expected goal share. They're actually getting during this stretch more 515 offense out of that middle 6 than they actually are of the top line.

And so talking about teams where we're discussing the blues, it's like throw out the full season data and especially the early season stuff out the window because it's not representative of what the team is right now. There's no team in the league that that's more true for than the Colorado avalanche. I mean, especially with all the injuries and the Chuskin suspension early in the season, the difference between how scary they look beyond the top line in terms of their forward group is just completely night and day. I mean, Nchuskin has been on an absolute tear recently, so has Drew-Anne.

Natchez has been a perfect fit, and it's so encouraging to see that, okay, it's not just McKinnon that he's able to mesh with and be productive with, but for him now to be able to do that with Nelson as well, that's huge. They fortified obviously the center position with Nelson and Coyle to also get, I think Colton's picked up something like eight points in his last nine games. All those are assists. Which is remarkable, because I think the first. first like, I don't know how many games, at least 25 or 30. He was on that goal scoring there because he was occupying the Nitruchin can roll on the power play. And so he was finishing all of the stuff McKinnon was setting up.

But he was scoring all these goals, but like zero assists having a pure Saiang season. And now he's more than made up for it. 100%. Even I know Kivarantam is the last game, but he's got four goals in his last nine games. They're getting contributions from every part of lineup. And just even when you look at it line by line, it looks like a full, deep, robust four. group whereas I remember when the abs visited the Knox a few months ago and I was you know they print out the the game sheets with the lines on them for both sides and I was like oh geez what is

this bottom six it looked near HL caliber so to see that type of glow up it's massive and they're 100% back on the map as really dangerous cup contenders and through the stars I know they've won four straight, but like to know that Mira Haskinen may not be back for round one, you know, given up nearly 50 shots to the flames last time.

107 shot attempts. Yeah. Like the stars are still rolling results wise, but a lot of that has been heavily dependent on goal-tending and some brilliant individual performances from like Jason Robertson. First of all, it's such a shame that one of these two teams, as far as Dallas and Colorado,

is likely to be out. in round one, but second, if I'm the stars, I'm getting a little bit nervous about that round one matchup, even though I know that my own roster is pretty stacked too. Yeah, that's what I was going to bring up. I believe after this stretch, the Aves who jumped all the way up to third best Stanley Cup odds. Now, the only team ahead of them in the West is their round one opponent, the Dallas stars, who they probably, Dallas is going to have home ice in that series, most likely. We saw that one head-to-head.

It was it a couple weeks ago with Miko Randinen's return to Colorado. So the elephant in the room is like, is Miro Hayes going to come back? Is he going to be able to play as usual 25 to 27 minutes? What's that going to look like? Obviously, not only just having him back, but the trickle-down effect that would have on the rest of the blue line in terms of bumping everyone into a more natural spot, giving paid to bore more options. But watching that game and that matchup and then the ones that have followed since, despite Dallas's winning ways and results, it's tough to envision a series with how Colorado is looking right now

and the waves of offense they can come at you with. It's not just the one line anymore. even on the blue line like San Malinsky's been awesome. I think they're up to nine to two in his five-on-five minutes during the stretch. They have so many different weapons and ways to beat you. And it's just going to be this endless onslaught of downhill offense versus a bunch of defenders who aside from Thomas Harley can't really skate backwards or keep up with those guys.

And so you don't want to discount it because Dallas does keep winning and they have plenty of firepower on their own. It might just be able to outscore some of those problems. But that's a pretty gnarly. match up considering the way the two teams are playing and the one team in Colorado's strength against the other team Dallas's biggest weakness. Yeah, the rights of the blue line specifically worries me with Dallas with, you know, Dumbah, Lubushkin, C, C, C, that against the Aves speed and all the offensive weapons they have. It makes me nervous, especially when I'm uncertain

about just how heavy of a workload, hastening can carry. And this is where, I mean, relative to last year, right? Chris Tannave played such a huge role for them, especially in the first couple of rounds. He was such a shutdown ace for them and was playing at the type of level where imagine if you could add a Chris Tanev to the Star's blue line and now all of a sudden you have him as an option to go up against, say, the McKinnon line. You don't have that right now. And so even though the Star's forward group is arguably the deepest in the NHL and they've still got upside, especially if Rantonan can figure things out and it was encouraging to see him at have a multi-point night.

Last game against the flames, there is a higher gear for them to reach, but the cracks are showing there. They haven't been controlling play particularly well, and with the way the abs are rolling, I would be a little bit nervous if I was a Starris fan, even though they're going to have a good fighting chance in that series. You know, we've been talking about the West here for, what,

nearly a half hour or so, and I think part of the reason is because a lot of this stuff, we've been talking about kind of the races and the round one matchups and especially the home ice involved. The one team we haven't discussed in all of this, we don't talk about the Jets either, but we spent a bunch of time talking about them. They keep kind of rolling along

is the Vegas Golden Knights in all of this. And they won four in a row. They're on a 12, 3, and 2 stretch. They've built up this five-point cushion out all of a sudden for first in the Pacific, and we'll see whether that Route 1 matchup is going to be against the Minnesota wild, which obviously a very flawed team,

or all of a sudden this incredibly hot St. Louis Blues team that's playing really well if they can work their way up there. But it's been a theme for me this season where I think everyone's just associated the Golden Knights during their entire existence in the league as like the most dramatic team. There's always all these questions about who's available. LTIR, big splash deadline moves, all this sort of glitz and glamour. And it feels like this season, like I know like hurdles banged up right now and out. They just got back Carlson and Theodore.

But they keep winning games all year. Their underlying profile has been improving. as the year goes along, and they're in a pretty good spot now. And unlike those previous seasons, I think the reason why we haven't spent that much time talking about them is because there's been none of that other sort of drama involved, right? It's been such a business-like season from them, and I find that so not strange, but compared to what we've kind of become accustomed to from them, I think it's dramatically different.

Yeah, it's been impressive to see how well their Ford Group has survived some of the key pieces they lost in free agency to see the breakout of a guy like Pavel Dorfayev, who last set check is close to 30 goals now. That's been a huge victory for them. Eichols found a new level this season. And to see as well, there was a stretch, I don't know how many weeks ago, where Barbish had gone really cold, and that top line wasn't quite clicking at the same rate that it was

through the first, let's say, couple months of the season when they were unstoppable, one of the best first line. in the NHL. I think they're getting more consistent production from the top of their lineup right now. And they're rolling. I mean, their blue line, especially now that they have theater are back. And I think splitting Petrangelo and Hannafin as well, Hanifin's played a lot better in the second half compared to the first half

where I think his defensive game was a little bit up and down at times. They have such a deep blue line. Their forward group is cooking. They are still right up there. It's a really scary team. Yeah, Ikel is having the most, like, ho-hum, quiet, under-talked-about, just unbelievable season, right? Part of it is because I think we've become so, I mean, he certainly had the individual accolades in the past and the cup win a couple of years ago. We've become a bit sort of numbed by the video game like point totals we see around the league this year for these years from the star players.

But he just, he became the first golden night to crack the 90 point mark. he's been so, so good and just carrying the team and I wanted to shot him out because I think he's been absolutely dynamite. Any other notes on the West or do you want to quickly close out by talking about the East?

I feel like we covered most of it. I mean, we haven't notably talked about the team you cover on a daily basis of Vancouver Canucks. They could be lumped into that wildcard conversation with the Blues. They have this big game on Friday night. We're recording that before that in Columbus

and that's going to be a big one for the playoff odds for both those teams. But you got any other notes on that? or anything that we didn't get to yet? No, just on the Canucks quickly? This is pretty much all going to be about Can Thatcher Demko go on a heater and help this underman Canucks team

that is obviously without Patterson, Heidel and Hoaglander continue to grind out wins. It's really the Demko and Hughes show to try and put this team on their back and we'll see it. It still feels like a bit of a long shot to get there, but if you can get Superstar or absolute heaters from Demco and Hewes,

news, they're still in it. And I don't expect the bottom to completely fall out from them. They're officially called the zombie kinnucks because you keep thinking they're dead. And then all of a sudden in all these games, it's like whether it's halfway through the game or third period or even in St. Louis final couple seconds, they just find one last gasp and clawing out as many points as they can. So mentioned in the East just quickly that no one seems to want this wildcard two race. I was looking at the playoff odds on Vandu for all these teams.

The Rangers are plus 230. The Habs are plus 240. The Blue Jackets plus 300 and the Nile is plus 340. It's remarkable that at this point of the season, these teams are, even the market is essentially like throwing their hands up and been like, I don't know. You have your way with it. Do whatever you want because we don't know how to assign any of these values or any of these prices. We don't know how to gauge it. One of these teams goes on a couple good games stretch.

I know the HAB has had an extended one previously these past couple games, but all flawed, all finding ways to lose when it matters most. And so it's remarkable that those are the figures right now. Because like no one being better than plus 230 with 10 games left in the season is something you rarely ever can see. Yeah, and I don't like any of these teams. It's almost a debate about which team do I hate the least in this race. And also not just those four teams.

How disappointing is it for the Red Wings? and I know they've had a tough schedule down the stretch, but they went into the Four Nations break, clinging on to that last playoff spot in the East. How disappointing is it for them that while everybody around them has completely crumbled, that that hasn't been their opportunity to at least still continue hanging around the race. They've been in the complete free fall as well and are basically out of the conversation entirely at this point.

I guess we should maybe start with what teams we... Well, I was going to say, my beloved Blue Jackets in there went through. do this brutal stretch in March, right? They got shot out, I believe, four times in a seven-game span, bounce back. Recently, they've got that big game, as we mentioned, on Friday night, against the Canucks with a couple days of rest for them. So we'll see how it goes. I still think, if you're just thinking at this point of most fun outcomes, it would have

to be either them, just what we've seen offensively for a totality of season and what a cool story it is, or the haves just purely because of the home game environment, right? I was in Hawaii during that break. I'm at the beach most of the day. Come back, catching up, watching as many of the games as I could, putting on that game on Saturday night at the Bell Center against the As where they made the comeback and just what an atmosphere that was and how incredible it is and how long it's been now or at least it feels like since we've seen that.

And so I think if you're just kind of grasping at straws here in terms of what would be the most fun outcome, it would have to be those two. I think I'm done with these New York teams. Like I've seen enough. That Rangers win against the Canucks was such a telling tale for everyone involved in the way it played out. I know it was kind of chaotic with that roller coaster third period. But since March 1st, the Rangers are averaging 23 shots on goal per 60 minutes. It's been entirely on the back of the goaltending and Igor's Durkin specifically.

And so, yeah, I just think in terms of like new stuff and what could at least provide a bit of round one intrigue, it would have to be those two teams because the alternatives just aren't doing it for me. Yeah, the Rangers game, the lost ahead against the flames, when the flames run the second leg of back to back. They finished with 13 shots, I think? Yeah, that was, and I know the score was only 2-1, but that was because Igor Shisterkin was bailing them out. That was one of the worst performances I've seen from any team all season. The Rangers are a complete mess defensively,

just bleeding on man-rushes against. They're completely disconnected as a team. The number of egregious turnovers, they just lack basic professional, habits. Yes. Right? It's just...

Everyone's playing for themselves, right? And you can, like, that connectivity you talk about, you can see it like, the four is just constantly cheating. The defensemen aren't able to cover the gaps for them. It's just so much open space.

It's so discombobulating, disorganizes, really isn't reflective of a professional, not only a professional team, but one that's like still somehow hanging around a playoff conversation. And when you have actual talented individual players,

that's what makes it so disappointing. Everybody hates a team. team that's underperforming its talent level. It's one thing to be bad when you just straight up don't have the horses. Right. It's another thing to be this bad and this discombobulated and this dysfunctional when you actually have some big-name players and talent isn't supposed to be the issue. So I don't have a lot of faith in them turning it around.

It's all going to be on Shus Kirk and if they do make it. On the Blue Jackets, because I'm also kind of rooting for them. a couple good notes for them Sean Monahan's back and last game he had a couple assists so hopefully that can get the top line going again, hopefully that can get Carl Marchenko who's been a little bit cold going again, Marchenko scored last game.

I'll also point out that in reference to their offensive well as now part of it is a power play their power play is clicking at less than 6% since February 1st which is almost hard to believe considering some of the weapons. have, but the positive sign for them, at least at 5-1-5, is in March, they're still a top-10 team at generating expected goals per hour, despite their actual scoring rate being bottom-tint in that time frame. So part of it is a bit of bad luck. It's encouraging that the bottom hasn't fallen out

in terms of their shot and chance creation. And on the HABs, they do have them. most favorable schedule. Right. Out of these Eastern wild card contenders, they've got five games against the pretty awful teams, one against the Blackhawks, one against the Preds, Bruins, Fliers, and those slumping Red Wings we talked about. So I wanted to provide the case for a little bit of optimism with some of this new fresh blood that I think both of us want to see in this sort of rise above in this wildcard

conversation. All right, good stuff, buddy. We got to get out here. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out. I know you recently did a piece on the athletic looking at attendance numbers around the league and kind of trends there and risers and fallers. Let the listeners know about that and whatever else. What other else stuff you've got going on the works? Yeah, today did the power rankings with Myrtle, him and I subbing in for Dom and Gentile there taking a whole look around the league.

So that was a lot of fun. And then in the weeks coming up, it's going to be fun. Sheena Goldman and I are going to break down some of the strengths and weaknesses of both. the East and West contenders as we ramp up and get excited for the playoffs. All right, buddy. We'll keep up the great work. We're going to have you on again soon. I'm sure everyone can go help us out now that we're back by smashing that five-star

button and leaving a nice little review wherever you listen to the show. Join the PDOCast Discord as well as we get into the stretch one. We're going to be ramping up there as well. And the conversation every night is going to be really fun while we watch these games. It's great to be back. The Sunday special with Thomas Drans returns on Sunday evening. So we'll have plenty more then. Hope everyone has a great weekend, and thank you for listening to the HockeyPedocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.