The Hockey PDOcast - Breaking Down Stars vs. Avs Game 2, Kings vs. Oilers Game 1, and Monday Night’s Theatrics

Episode Date: April 22, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to break down the first two games of Stars vs. Avalanche, changes Dallas has made to get back into this series, and the most interesting battleground between the two teams to watch going back to Colorado. Then Steve Peters comes on to sort through Monday night's Kings vs. Oilers Game 1, how LA was able to build their big lead, where it went wrong as the Oilers dramatically fought back late, and the lessons both teams can learn coming out of it. 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.

Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey PDOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey-Pedocast. My name's Dimitra Filipovich and joining me live on location back in his old stomping grounds for the first two games of Ab stars is my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's good on, man? I am, as I was just telling him, before we hit record here, I got the coffee's flowing, I picked up some breakfast tacos. and so I am, while the sleep was little, while I had little sleep, I'm ready to be here. I am ready and roll it and let's do it. It's going to be a fun one.

We've only got 25 minutes because we're going to split up today's show. I'm going to talk about different series on the back app, so we've got to go hard right out of the gate and jam it all in. What a fun game two in Dallas, a diabolical 850 or so local time. 852, 852. Yes, I mean, when you're as old as we are, once you get into those. hours of the night every couple minutes matters. And of course, the game goes deep into overtime.

I was thinking, man, if this went into second or third overtime, it could be an all-nighter for you. But I'm glad it finally ended. We got a resolution. You're on here to break it all down with me. Let's get into it. I talked a little bit about game one on Sunday night with our pal Thomas strands. I said at the time my expectations of what these games would look like heading into

this series based on everything we'd seen in the final month of the regular season from these two clubs didn't play out that way in game one. I thought it was an impressive game one effort by the stars, all things considered. They clearly went into it with a very different game plan executed for the most part. It was certainly a far closer game throughout than the final scoreline indicated in it. Yet coming out of it, I kind of chalked it up to, I thought the ads were pretty sloppy early on. They were missing the net.

They were kind of overpassing and maybe playing with their food a little bit. And I felt from the stars kind of chalking it up to. sort of a last gasp or kind of like a last ditch effort at home to not embarrass themselves and stay in this series. And I was curious to see whether they'd be able to repeat that. And then not only did they do that in game two, but I felt like they built off it. They executed better. They were more disciplined.

It was just a better all around performance. And then they obviously get the win on top of it to send this back to Colorado, tie it up at one. What was it like there in the arena kind of playing through this entire game and sort of just like what you saw? being there in kind of the star's approach and the way they've handled these first two games, I guess, compared to what we'd seen from them for not only the last month, I'd say the last like two months, 30 games or so. It's a wildly different product and obviously results as well. The thing I kind of equated to as I was thinking about this morning after, I haven't rewatched game two back yet.

But after rewatching, I rewatched game one back before game two yesterday afternoon and then watched game. and then obviously watched Game 2 live. And it's one of those where throughout going into the playoffs, stars were confident, like, oh, well, game one of the playoffs, we'll be able to flip that switch, right? Like, what happened in the last month is, it's fine, we'll hit the switch. And the stars managed their assets that way. It's why they rested Thomas Harley and Essel Andel and Del down the stretch and everything like that.

I think one of my big takeaways is it wasn't a switch. It was more of a crank, right? Like it was a kind of a crank that had to be turned and it takes a little bit longer. you can't just flip a crank. And so they kind of had to get back to their game a little bit. They had to do some things they hadn't done in game one that they hadn't done for a month and a half. And I think there was the building blocks of game one

that carried over into game two. I mean, for me, one of the big things about the, from the stars last night, and it's where they got to the net last night. And there were opportunities to get to the net in game one. And I don't think they did nearly enough in game one. to make Blackwood's life difficult in game one. And I think last night you saw it's okay,

there was almost like an awakening moment in game one of like, oh, my, this goalie leaves rebounds here. Let's go there. And they kind of had to see it happen. And then they went into game two and they're like, oh, let's go try to score off them. So it's kind of, that's for the stars, I think it's kind of that building block there of,

they had to get into a style that they basically were, they looked like, They looked like crud for a month and a half. And now for better or worse, all of a sudden this feels like a pretty good series. It's been very competitive. In game two, natural staturek had the high danger chances 17 to 7 for Dallas, including 10 to 1 in the third period.

And over time, they kept the abs by my account to 12 shots on goal in the final 30 plus minutes or so. And this continues the trend, certainly that I know you've been keeping tabs on of stars in game one. I believe they're 1 and 7 in the past three post seasons, and now they're 6 and 2 in game 2 of those losses. Oh, and 8 in the last two posts. Oh, sorry.

Oh, sorry. So you're right. They've lost eight straight game. They've lost eight straight game ones. So it's the, when they lost game one of this series, it was their eighth straight lost in game ones, and their eighth loss in a row in general if you go through the regular season. So now.

That's a fun loony streak right there. You mentioned the area of success in this game in particular, just kind of dominating that net front area. You look at Michael McCurdy's shot chart of where everything kind of played out on the ice, and it was just littered in the Star's offensive zone with looks in tight, obviously capitalized on both the tying goal and the overtime goal doing so. It was a previous weakness for the Aves in recent seasons, much less so this year when, especially,

post-deadline. They had really tightened things up defensively, but just that net front front coverage and kind of how they play in terms of sort of fronting a little bit there and potentially leaving stuff available if you are able to get to those interior areas of the ice. And in this game in particular, you saw the stars kind of target, you know, the second and third pair for the most part, whether it was Manson, who had a 25% expect the goals here at 5-1-5 and was on the ice for three goals against and regulation, where Sam Gerard and kind of win those minutes and those battles as well. I thought it was an impressive execution of the game plan.

Obviously, it's one thing for us to say, kind of common sense. All right, you're not going to be able to match this team necessarily on the rush. So you're going to kind of ground and pound and work that low post game and get in front of the net, especially with how well Blackwood's playing. And I think he, I thought he certainly did so again in this game, making life more difficult for them and just increasing the likelihood of that. I think also just as importantly, if you are winning those battles and getting those looks, it's more likely that you're going to extend the offensive zone possession as well.

And I thought in game one, there were far too many one and duns in terms of the stars coming into the zone, getting initial shot, and then it would just be broken out and go back the other way for the abs. And that was less so the case here in game two. And obviously a big reason for the star success. Yeah, one of the things I think the star is kind of identified, and I talked to a couple people around the team. There's that battle. And one of the ways the abs, like, to get up and go is there is a lot of their defenders,

even though not all of them should have the green light to go. There's a bit of once that puck, there appears to be any chance that puck is going the other way. There appears to be that quick first step going the other way. And one of the things that the stars had kind of talked about between game one and two, talking to some people on that team was that net front battle, that area, there is a place we can exploit of off that rebound. Their defense is starting to look to try to jump right away. We can take that half step there.

Like you don't want to get caught, but that was a big. thing. The other thing that was interesting, so up in the press box last night, I'm talking to a couple of the people who work in the, in the Stars Analytics staff and about talking to them about between game one and three. And obviously, they're not giving me their data, what they're doing. There's propriety or affirmation and the fog of war and all of that. But there was definitely, it was alluded to me by the trio of gentlemen who worked for the Stars Analytics that were hanging out in the press box about how there was a pretty large presentation about, look, there's a practical usage to this when we're talking about,

let's get here and let's go there. And so it was really hammered home the past two days in meetings. There's not practices now, so it's not something you can work there, but just from a mentality thing. And it was, it's kind of fitting because it's one of the reasons, like, now, no one expect, Colin Blackwell is not a goal score, right?

Like, this is one of the reasons Stanley Cup playoffs are great is because we get the Colin Blackwell goals. But one of the reasons there, like, okay, we're going to put Colin Blackwell back in the lineup is we're going to add another person that goes hard to the net. Now, I think the stars will even admit if you gave him the truth here and they never expected that to turn into a goal. It was just more of a mentality thing of like, like, let's get scrappier and everything like that and in the right ways. I mean, that is certainly part of the charm for the playoffs, right, for all the big name players

who watch this one. And it's like Logan and Conner and Jack, you're balling on a one end. And then Colin Blackwell, as you said, not only. only the overtime winner, but I think he had, what, six shots in like 12 and a half? He was good. He was really good. He was all over it. You know, I think this is a fascinating gambit in terms of playing styles and just like, as it relates to the terms of engagement in this series for like the battleground and where

it's going to be one and the way the two teams want to fuel their offense, right? I thought that your pal and my pal as well, Robert Tiffin did a great job. Yes. Breaking this down following game one on his website. as it relates to the star's offensive zone four check approach and kind of when the puck's low, sometimes Peterborough gives them a green light to freelance a little bit, right,

as opposed to getting back into your traditional structure and then letting the team come to you, they're trying to be incredibly aggressive by sending the third forward deep, attacking the puck, kind of swarming it and trying to keep it there to extend the offensive zone possession and work that low cycle.

game. And once you get those three forwards below the goal line, especially in game one, the abs just burned them repeatedly off of those exact plays, right? Where they would just beat that initial pressure and then immediately be attacking in transition. And even if it wasn't an odd man rush, even if it was a two on two or a three on three, the ads are so good at using that kind of delayed transition where they stop up as soon as they cross the blue line, wait for the trailer, and then all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose and they've got you in the torture chamber. And that also applies to kind of turnover as around the offensive zone blue line as well, but in particular just focusing on the down low play in the offensive zone. And I imagine that

must be incredibly exhausting for the players as well, right? Because not only does it require a ton of positional discipline and kind of not having momentary lapses and sticking true to your structure and your form, but also as you saw in the backbreaking three one goal by the abs to put away game one, Jamie Ben gets just caught down low. And then, then he's sprinting to get back up the ice, doesn't pick up Devant Haves on the back door, and it winds up immediately being a goal. And so it just kind of shows you how quickly that can sort of turn and speaks to how dominant the abs are in that particular area of the ice.

And then the burden, I guess, that puts on the stars to execute in that particular facet. And I thought there was an interesting adjustment. I think Pete DeBore is a good game-to-game adjuster. I don't know about Pete DeBore as an in-game adjuster. that's always been kind of my view of him as a coach. And I thought there was an interesting adjustment last night where they didn't get away from that completely. But there was about at least a dozen times where the stars basically conceded possession, kind of possession below the avalanche goal line.

Like the times where it's like, okay, that hasn't worked. And they kind of dropped into that very passive one, two, two, and just sat back. And it was and just kind of, it was a, it was kind of a chess move of sorts where it's like, okay, we know this burned us in game one. And if it doesn't work and we're not going to win possession, there's times where we're just going to sit back, okay, and we will let them basically concede the first 40 feet or whatever to the blue line and just drop into this kind of passive box in the neutral zone.

I thought that was an interesting thing because obviously Dallas didn't do that in game one. And then there's kind of the movement to that in game two. And now I'm interested to see, it's one of the things that I love the playoff series. You and I've talked about this. It's the, it's the, it's the, it's the, I make a move here and then you make the move here. So I'm now fascinated to kind of watch that in game three in Denver on Wednesday night when, okay, now how does Colorado do that? Is it something where Colorado even tries to push the pace a little bit more just to kind of before the stars kind of concede that? It is an interesting development to watch last night because after what we saw in game one to see half a dozen times where there's just an abs defender with a puck standing behind his goal.

and then the closest stars forward is about top of the slot and then fans just start booing because everyone's standing still and it's funny because they're booing the abs but really it was the stars who were the one that were causing it. Yeah, I mean, it must be a difficult balance to strike, right? Because you score only the one goal in game one,

although you had some chances and probably could have better Black wasn't playing so well, but you're also acknowledging not having Hayeskin and your defensive limitations as a team and so the burden becomes all right, well, we need to be, at least in a controlled manner, be aggressive

to try to create more offense and try to outscore some of our problems. And in a way that almost doubles down on your biggest weakness and kind of inflicts even more punishment unless you either just win that battle or the puck just bounces in the right way for you. I thought another adjustment coming out of game one

and it kind of happened, I think, at intermission in this game. We saw it for about four minutes, oh, four periods of this series. I'm surprised it took that long, especially at home without having Jason Robertson available, but we saw Pete DeBer reshuffle his lines, right? And he puts Ranton in with hints.

I thought, you know, despite being kept off the scoreboard again, Rantin was much more involved in threatening the broadcast. I agree. Of the job of showing how he was using his frame to protect the puck and create. He hit the post early on. He had seven attempts. It was a much more promising effort or showing from him. And then you saw the Donov put on the Johnson line and that change resulting in him

banging home that goal to tie it in the third. on a play exactly we're talking about in terms of winning those net front battles. And I think high danger chances were seven nothing or something in his five on five minutes. So it was awesome to see Daddy perform that well. And he was very, very excited about his tying goals, certainly. But I don't know, you put that together.

It was quite the jump. It was quite the jump, right? Like we used ecstatic. Like, it's the line, I mean, the rant in line, there was a finish reporter in at the game last night. And he made sure to ask Pete about, putting three fins together on a line. So it definitely made all Finland happy last night.

Pete's moves there. Which is important, right? That's important. Keep our Finnish friends happy. If we're going to be playing until 7 a.m. their time or whatever the time is when we might as well. You got to know your audience. Exactly.

The other thing that was interesting to me about kind of the, that game last night was it was one of the best games I've seen Jamie Ben playing a long, long time. It was very much more. vintage Jamie Ben power forward that we probably haven't seen it three or four years, honestly. And I couldn't help but note. And it's hilarious because there was a long time where the note on Jamie Ben from other teams was he tends to lull into games. Don't wake him up.

That's kind of been a bit of the scouting report for other teams. So about two and a half minutes into that game, I don't know if you remember, Dimitri, McKinnon rocks them along the boards, right? And for a lot of people, I'm watching that game, and I love watching McKinnon play. And it's one of those things. I love what he's playing that stuff. There's almost like kind of the double-edged sort of like,

is that the reason Jamie Ben had one of his best games in a long time was because he got rocked in the first period by Nathan McKinnon? We'll never know, but I would like to know. Well, I thought, I thought DeBer also did a much better job of syncing up Harley's minutes of 515 with that against Rant and pair and trying to unlock them a little bit offensively. I think in game one, it was. was like less than three minutes at 5-15 that he had played hardly with with HINS.

He was essentially using them almost exclusively with the Marchman's sake and Dushan line. And in this game, it was over nine, five-on-five minutes, kind of getting them up with those guys and just feeding them more opportunities. I do still think, you know, despite my agreement with you about Ben's performance and there was even that play about was in the third period where McKinnon kind of has like an uncharacteristic turnover, high in his own. and Ben just jumps in and picks it off and gets a great scoring chance coming back down against Blackwood. I still think the stars are going to need to find a way to more creatively free up Wyatt Johnson to cook. He's gotten some power play opportunities and he was much better as well in this game as well in terms of the opportunities he had. But they've been using him with home ice and last change here in a matchup role with him and Ben essentially against McKinnon and McCar. And that means you're also playing with CC and Lundell.

pretty exclusively. And so that's just like a very difficult spot for a guy who I think is, especially with Robertson out, is the key to this offense, right? Like we saw what he did, not only last postseason in the first two rounds in particular,

but then in the final 30, 35 games of the season and just what a difference maker he can be as a scoring chance generating machine. And this is just a difficult environment, I think, to reach the full potential, I guess, of what he's capable of.

Why Johnson wants to run those little area routes? He wants to be, he wants to, He wants defender. He wants to play the space. And he's not like, he's not a burner, right? He's got great speed, but he's not a burner. He wants to run, basically run those routes where defenders can hit him on the, on the pass through the neutral zone in stride.

The problem is right now the stars only have one defender who can do that. And that's Thomas Harley. So when he's, when he's playing with Lindell and Cici, that's the Lendell's default offensive breakout is a high flip. That is just a jump fall. And Cici's is very similar. But it's a little bit more off the board. So, yeah, you're right on that. Like, I think Johnston is someone who, whenever Miro is back in this series, whether it's,

and whether it's, and if he is, it all of a sudden creates why Johnston, no, the entire stars get better when Miro Hitchin's back in the series, obviously. That's not rocket science. But why Johnston in particular, I think, because how well he plays off of having defenders who understand someone is actually running a route to catch a pass or can actually read where my. passes going and right now it's Thomas Harley and the rest of the stars on defense. So it's a it's a great point by you because I think that when we talk about why stars will be better when Mero's back in the lineup and we ask why. That's one of the reasons why is there are forwards like why Johnson will get better because of that transition.

I thought Blackwood, I hear a goalie nerd here. You and I did our goalie watchability rankings early this season. I thought Blackwood was unbelievable. Again, obviously, you know, he winds up giving up the four goals. against and the loss, but the glove safe stuck out to me on Ben when it was that sort of impending, uh, too bad advantage and they got the extra attack route in the third period. I believe, where it might have been the second. Um, and then just the lateral explosion early and overtime on Marchment to get across and everyone's going to say, oh, just elevate that puck

as if it's, uh, as if it's an easy feed for the shooter with like a rolling puck coming at you that position, but you know, just getting across, uh, it was an incredible display, in my opinion. and he's been phenomenal, and obviously a massive difference between this Sabs team and previous versions in last postseason. Let's do a little health update, especially with you on location,

on you mentioned Haskin and there, and Landisgog as well, because obviously there was a lot of drama pregame with him taking the warm up. And then I love that, you know, reverse Clark Kent style, like 20 minutes later, camera pans to him,

sitting in the press box, he just like wearing this phenomenal suit and just looking amazing the way he gave Lanniscag, always does and I like, what a little. He never put his helmet on yesterday. I mean, I guess he did for morning skate technically, but it's funny because he took warm-ups. I mean, if you got that head of hair, would you be putting in a moment?

Exactly. The best part of the cold fog of war thing is so Taves did not take, Devin Taves did not take warm-ups with a letter on, right? Because you only get three letters to dress. So normally they've been dressing three A's with Landiscaug out. So with Landiscaug on the ice for warm-ups and him wearing the sea and everything like that, Taves is out there without an A on his jersey. And so it's like, it's like, oh my God, look, they're actually doing this.

He's going to, he's going to play. And then, lo and behold, after both him and Miles would take a run and rushes too, it's Taves is back out there with, with an A on his jersey for the game. I really want to know, actually, and obviously the Aves are in no position to be funny and talk about this. But an off day thing, I really hope one of our Aves friends asked about at some point is, did they have two jerseys? or was there just a really quick stitching job to get the A back on to Taves jersey for the,

for that? So it was, it was fun drama on that part. It was ridiculous and fun. And I, as someone who was not writing the Gabriel Landisog column, like about 90% of the press box, I was able to just laugh in the press box as I watched 85 columns to my, all the people to my left and around me, just their heart just got dejected of the content gold that was, that was scratch. by Jared Bednar. The Miro Hishkinin one's really interesting because as he skated,

not nearly as cryptic as what the avalanche did for warm-ups, but the stars yesterday, they had an 11 a.m. morning skate, and normally healthy scratches and injury scratches skate after morning skate, right? But because of the late game, they moved the morning skate to 11. So Miro Hishkinin actually was on the ice from about 10 to 1030. yesterday. Then they did a Zamboni, and then they Zamboni did it before the regular morning skate started and everything like that. So Miro put about an hour of hard work in yesterday, and it was kind of

stars, I was, because I show up early to the rinks, I saw him, and I got a kind of an angry glance from the Starr's assistant GM about being there at that time, but we all know now because I was there. So Miro skated hard for about an hour yesterday, came out feeling pretty good from everything I've heard talking to some people around there. And it's now Oh, we're looking at one of the greatest farses and jokes is they say, oh, well, we got to wait to see what happens to contact. Well, there's no contact practices anymore. NHL teams don't have contact practice in their regular season. So we're at the spot where we could be a coin flip on.

It's going to see how his knee feels. They were going to have to see how his knee felt when you woke up today and things like that. But we're at a spot where we could have the dueling debuts on Wednesday night, potentially, with Landisog and Hagekin in the lineup for both. That could be fun. Or maybe it could be Mero and Game 4 because there's that two-day break between game 3 and 4. It's something that is going to set up for some really fun drama on both sides because it's what makes playoff hockey fun, I guess, too. Yeah. In his absence, I mean, Harley's been immense.

What do you play, 36 minutes in that overtime game and game, too, I think 63, 28 through these two games, 48 of those minutes of 5-1-5, goals 2-0, high-d-d-d-hance chances, 10-6 stars, 66% of the expectations. 66% of the expected goals. Now obviously not really getting the McKinnan matchup, certainly. But I mean, just what a driver of offense for this team. And what a difference maker. I think he's been phenomenal. Yeah. Thomas Harley,

who also happens to be an Andy Scott client, just like Miko Randman and White Johnston. So I just now have this feeling that if, if Jim Nill ever decides his time is done, and agent was going to become the GM of the stars, would just be Andy Scott now because of every single, all of their future is tied in that already anyway. So you know, on the Landisog note, I think the Ross Colton injury might have sped it up, although I always assumed, especially heading into the series that the logical launch point would be that game three, especially what a spectacle that would be in the starting lineup and just how not that crowd's going to go and how fun that would be to watch. I think it's also become, especially with Colton's status, I think it's become functionally important, right? Because heading into the post season, the question was like, all right, well, you know, you've got this deep lineup all of a sudden up front.

Where would he even fit in? What's a reasonable expectation? And then you watch this game in Miles Wood stepping into the lineup with Colton out. And he plays 1242 or 515 on the ice for three goals against a 10% expected goal share. His decision making, especially on the overtime goal, where you just kind of like, you watch Miles Wood and incredible physical feats with absolutely zero brainpower applied, just like hurtling Eric Johnson on the ground. And then Colin Black was essentially able to get his own rebound and step into that.

winner. And so now it's all sudden become important if Colton's not going to be available or banged up. That actually is a massive, like, functional spot to fill in the lineup. There wasn't necessarily previously for consideration. Yeah, he was a, Miles Wood was someone who, because in the moment when you're watching the game, it's, it's easy to get lost in a bunch of other things, right? And obviously, you notice his game and everything like that, but it's one where he was one where I was driving back from the ring. last night and I'm like I he was much worse than I realized right with wood it's it's it's one of those where you don't want to pile out of guy and everything like that but I'm driving back from

the parking garage last night back up to the hotel and you're and you start to think about all the things you kind of laid out there where it's like yeah I remember this and this and this and like yeah now I understand the narrative and what the avalanche might be trying to build from the storybook presentation on Wednesday night in Denver but is if we're technically, since he wasn't activated until before game two, if we're technically giving Gabe Landiscag his first healthy scratch,

maybe in his career, I don't know if I can prove that or not, but are we really doing it, are we really making the right decision when it comes to winning hockey games? It's a great question. And now Jared Bednar has said multiple times, he's not discussing lineups.

And when I pushed him on it yesterday, he said it gives me nothing to tell you. So, I mean, that's fair. He's certainly right. He's right. But I'm especially coming off of these first, two games, I'm much more excited about this game three on Wednesday, as you said.

Yes. And I think for the stars, as well as they played in these first two games, just such an added degree of difficulty to execute with this type of discipline and frequency in that altitude where it feels like every single one of those potential openings gets blown open even further by the abs. And so, yeah, there's just no room for error in terms of momentary lapses in judgment because you're going to, or bad routes or any of that sort of stuff. So I'm excited to see how that chess match between these two teams and the way they want to play and operate plays out.

You got anything to plug here on the way out? Yeah. I've got, I'm down here. I'll be living back in Texas for about a week here. So I've got doing some stuff with the under 18 world championships here. But I've got some stuff going over at my place, shapshotshockey.com. Check that out. So I had some stuff.

I've been doing something from each of these Colorado. So Dallas games, do some stuff from some of the other playoffs. That interests me. I mean, tonight I'll see how well I get to Stad. Probably watch something on TV tonight and maybe write something about that as well. So yeah, check that out. Shapshotshockey.com.

Obviously check out the crew at Elite Prospects. I'm going to catch up with my buddy. Our pal, Cam Robinson later tonight, because he flies in and lands here in about, I think, eight hours or whatever after his 15 layover or whatever it takes to get from his home to anywhere with real civilization. So yeah, check out my places. And yeah, those are my plugs, man. All right.

Well, my plug is check out our last show that Sean and I did with Luke Chokot about six weeks ago. Oh, I saw Luke yesterday. Oh, nice. Luke is a gem. He was so good on that show. You and I, I wish, you know, this isn't a video show. But on the Zoom call, we were just both grinning year to year the entire time clearing out for him to cook. And it was a phenomenal one.

So please seek that out in the archives, if you missed it. All right, we're going to take our break here. We're going to let Sean go so you can resume gallivanting in Dallas. When we come back from break, I'm going to bring in Steve Peters. We're going to keep talking about Monday night's games and all the good stuff we saw there. You're listening to the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right, we're back here on the Hockey, Peeley Ocast. Got a new guest.

We got Steve Peters joining us. Petey, what a wild night of games full of twist, turns, drama, nonstop action, incredible finishes. We had four games. All of them were tight one score affairs, two OTs. I just covered one of those, Stars Avs in part one of today's show. I wanted to have you on two talk Oilers Kings in particular

because that finish was absolutely riveting and I feel like there's so much stuff for us to unpack. In the first game of that series, we were bouncing around so much. You and I were speaking before we went on the air just about sort of the process of like, you're watching on trying to absorb all this stuff live and then getting up the next morning

and doing it all over again in terms of going back and sifting through these games and trying to pick up on stuff. You missed, I feel like there was so much there to get through the Oilers King. So let's do it. What are your takeaways from that game in terms of if you're,

let's put yourself in the shoes if you're working for one of those teams and you come out of that one, I imagine there's a glass half full, glass app, empty approach. You're trying to shift towards the former if you're on the team side. But I feel like for both teams,

there's reasons for encouragement heading into game two in the rest of this series. And also red flags that we probably thought for them heading in, but we're on full display in this one. And so it's kind of in the back of your mind of like, what do you make of that? Or is it just one of those where it's a long series? It's going to be winding with back and forth and haymakers.

And you almost compartmentalize it. And game two is a fresh start for both. I think this is hard. I think it's hard from the team perspective for both teams. And you look at the LA Kings, the way they came out and played in the first 35, 40 minutes of this hockey game, they were so much better than the Emmett Jones.

They just were. All facets of the A's. But they're a team that's really good at home. But to cave like they didn't, give up the opportunities they did in the third. And to give up a lead that late in the last 12 minutes of the third period, you can't do that in the playoffs. I mean, that's where you're a coaching staff,

you've got to really question your team's ability to defend and to close out games in a playoff series. So you're concerned going to a game to it. On the other side of the coin, you're Edmonton. Unbelievable come back. Phenomenal how you hang with it. And their top players, top players and that team was the best one, 97 and 29 were on the ice together.

And they come back and McDavid ties it up and you go, oh my gosh, the height of heights. And then you lose in regulation. Like emotionally in that room to climb that mountain and then get kicked off right when you get to the top, it's tough to get up the next morning. Having said that, this is the team that's been through this before. And it's one game. And the hardest part of the playoffs is Carpent. I can't even say the word.

It's it's when we got no sleep, putting it into a box. car can you say it for me compartmentalize yeah it's a top yeah that's how tired we are but but it's hard to say it's just one game like as good as you've been or if you win if you win if you win by two or three or four or five it's one if you lose by five or six it's one and it's one game and and everybody going into this series edmonton had to come into this thinking hey we got to get one out of two against l.A and we still got a chance to do that so it's one game I think there are a lot of ebbs and flows this game I think both teams are going to take away a lot of good and bad from this.

But game two, honestly, I expect more of the same. Yeah, I think from the King's perspective, it would have certainly been a soul-crushing defeat to blow it in that fashion, being up 4-0 and then being up 5-2, about halfway through the 3rd or whatever it was, not only because you're at home, but the previous baggage of the past three meetings. And I think just being able to win a game like this,

and obviously not the way you draw it up or the way you want it to unfold. But a question for me heading in was, we know that how the kings want to play and their dream scenario is a two one three two type of win can you trade haymakers like this and win a six five game and they took a roundabout unenviable path to getting there but ultimately got the job done in that whereas from the oilers i think there's probably some stuff you can kind of throw out the window in terms of you know end of the regular season they used so many different lineups guys were out And then all of a sudden now, a couple days later, you jump back in, I thought in particular on the power place for the Oilers early on, they look kind of out of sync and not like fully firing on all cylinders. I know the Kings defensively tend to make a lot of teams look like that throughout the season, but you'd expect a different sort of play from the Oilers,

and so you could almost chalk it up to that and be like, all right, now you got this under the belt. You're playing every other day now. You're going to be able to start better. I just thought it was, you know, the oiliest game, the Oilers have ever oiled. In terms of the highs, the lows, not only within the same game, but minutes apart. At the end, I would have loved to see all the game recaps throughout this one that were written early on, then erased, then rewritten at the end to beat the deadline. As you mentioned, let's kind of go through it in chronological order.

I thought that early on it was a master class defensive performance in terms of executing the game plan by L.A. for the first 39 and a half minutes. Essentially, they held Oilers to 10 shots in the first two periods. You know, they were staying in front of them. They were creating layers of these roadblocks. It looked like Edmonton was struggling to even get the puck to the red,

or get the puck with possession to the red line. And whatever they would, it would just be a quick dump. The Kings would get it out and it would be moving back the other way. And that was almost to a T how you want to execute there. Now obviously it's kind of started to turn around towards the end of the second.

kicking off with McDavid individual effort of that swim move, getting around Copacar hole in a stick a little bit, certainly, and then setting up Drysaitle, and then we saw more of that in the third period. I guess from the Oilers perspective beyond McDavid and Drysidal going nuclear the way McDavid did in this one, and if you're going to bet on anyone to do so and replicate that four out of seven times, it's going to be those guys.

Certainly, one of my concerns for them offensively in the minutes apart from that though, is especially once they get it into the zone, they just don't really have the personnel right now to break that man-on-man coverage that the Kings execute in their own zone. And so it looks a lot different when McDavid's essentially able to beat the first guy and stretch out the defense and then set someone up with everyone scrambling. In the minutes apart from that,

I think the generation of how you create those looks is going to be so much more difficult to come by for the Oilers. Yeah, I think this is an Euler team that offensively you looked at and you go, I know a lot of people thought, oh, this is another, another team in the Western finals, another cup team. But I think the difference for this oilers team this year is their ability to generate in the bottom six of the lineup. And I think when you see how we know that the temperature is going to heat up here and it's

going to be a more physical game and players that I think that oil is you're looking, Holloway, Fogel, McLeod, guys that have in the bottom six that could play a style that they can't play now. And Jeff Skinner, I guess Frederick gets the puck to the net really well. But they are, they're going to have a hard time getting puck to the net. if 29 and 97 are on the next. They're just going to struggle to create offense. McDavid made the difference.

Again, this team's not in the Stanley Cup finals without McDavid. Everybody knows. It's no secret. You need to defend Connor McDavid. L.A. did a good job in the first 40 minutes, 39 minutes and 30-some seconds of keeping McDavid to the outside. They doubled up when they needed to. They were able to stack at the blue line.

You talk about their 1-1-3. They were great at the blue line. Edmonton could not get their speed game going through the blue lines because of their ability to stack up at the blue. but then they got 97 get away from him. And when you give him time, you don't even have to give him time and space. You talk about time of space.

Dude, there were guys all over him and he still fights them off. I've said this about the Evans and Roller's for the last decade. When McDavid's on the ice, get off the ice even. And it's a win. You have to defend Connor McDavid when you have the puck. And teams don't like to hear that. And all we got to try to create offense.

No, you don't. You don't need to create offense from the Connor McDavid's on these. You need to do a better job of staying above him. And I think the L.A. Kings, if they're going to get in trouble, it is only going to be because McDavid and Driesidell are doing it by themselves. I don't know if the firepower is there from Edmonton. I don't know, Demetri, I don't know if they're going to have the secondary scoring that they need to get over the LA Kings. Yeah, it's obviously an entirely different equation when they're out there

versus not. I do wonder from the King's perspective, just how much of it is once you know, you go up before nothing and you take your foot off the gas a little bit and everything was going in their favor in terms of how one-sided it was. I think there's a little bit of a snowball effect. then it certainly helps that when you're pushing to get back in the game the way Oilers were, McDavid's going to be out there pretty much every other shift, right? And you're just kind of stacking those together. And it becomes, I think, more difficult from the King's perspective to play so flawlessly and so disciplined the way they have to to essentially handle those minutes.

Yeah, they were incredibly physical with those guys, obviously officiating, especially in the round one is always going to be up for debate. We know it's an annual right of passage, right, where there's going to be a bunch of calls early on. and then it's going to start to whittle down and they're going to let more go as the postseason progresses. I thought, I mean, it's probably the least interesting thing to talk about

because it's so matter of fact, but just McDavid having the goal in three assists, the movie puts on the last one was so vintage in terms of the self-pass off the boards around Mikey Anderson at that and then the finish in tight along the ice against Kemper. It was an all-time McDavid goal.

I did think you talk about coaching and we made a lot of jokes about it last postseason about Chris Knoblock's propensity of these self-inflicted errors early in series right where he would start cc and darned owners together in game one and then he would split them up in game two and he'd actually use the right lineup and everyone would be like what a great in-series adjustment from Chris Knoblock he's done it again instead of starting the series like that and I thought there were a number of self-inflicted errors in terms of what he chose to do in this game. There was an immediate panic when they went down in terms of jubbling up the lines,

early game and essentially throwing the pregame plan out the window. You mentioned Jeff Skinner there. One of the silver linings towards the end of the regular season was him playing with McDavid and the chemistry they had and how interesting a look that was. And then now back at full health up front, they just relegated once again to playing with Ryan Nugent Hopkins and Trent Frederick on the third line. dressing Josh Brown ever, who in my opinion is not an HL player.

And then I think the biggest one, and I'm not sure how much this is going to be talked about, but with the Oilers pushing, there's 646 left in the game, and they're down two goals. McDavid plays essentially four straight minutes or so and creates those two tying goals. And then 16 seconds come up the clock after it's 5-5. And Noblock puts him back out there again with 112 left in the game. And then there's a turnover in the offensive zone. The Kings rush back up the ice and certainly get that fortunate balance off the Denou

shot that beats Stuart Skinner as he's slow to react to it. But I do wonder like the broadcast, especially the Canadian one was talking about how the logic for the Oilers was you've got the Kings reeling here. Don't even let it get into overtime. Try to kind of push in the final dagger here and win at 6'5 in regulation. I would have thought it made much more sense

based on the way the game was unfolded. to give those guys a breather, try to get it to overtime, have the 17 minutes or so break, and then be able to use them full gas again to start OT, but instead they kind of doubled down on it. And I do think that came back to bite them a little bit. Yeah, and you said it. We talked about how big of a mountain that was to climb.

This is a playoff game. Halfway through the third period, you're out of it. The game's over. And you know what the big tipping point for me was, was the five-on-three on the missed coaches challenge off the glass? first of all, Noah Segal, who is the video coach of the Evan Toilers, I respect. I think he's outstanding, made an unbelievably gutsy call in the Stanley Cup finals a year ago on off sides. This one, I'm confused at because as a former video guy, off the glass, it's impossible.

A black puck off a black background off a clear glass. It is nearly impossible to see for them to make a coach's challenge on that and go on five on three with 12 minutes to go. Stunned. I couldn't believe they did that because if LA scores here, it's over, 6-2. The game's over. Ten minutes and you just coast to the end. But L.A. couldn't put that final nail on the coffin. I thought that was a big turning point in this game.

But you talk about McDavid. And maybe we'll get into Bouchard because all I've heard about on Twitter is, oh, Evan Bouchard, Evan Bouchard. Dude, you know, turn the puck over and the winning goal? Conrad David. And who lost the race back to the net to Deneau? Leon Driesidal. And to your point, those two guys have been, they're run dry.

They got nothing left. Get it to overtime. Get a 20-minute break. Get a breather. Get some electrolytes and a pizza, and go out and play again and try to win it in overtime. To me, to have those two guys out exhausted in that situation, I know you're trying to win it in regulation,

but really, like, hey, we got here. Let's just play smart. Let's defend good hockey. Let's get to the extra minutes. Because as much as people love Connor McDavid, go back and watch the 3-0 goal too. From behind the net. And Connor McDavid curls away and leaves the front of the net open.

Again, take some of the blame as he should, but it's nurse and McDavid. So let's take a deep breath and put those guys out in this situation that really can succeed. And I don't know if that was one where Connor McDavid could succeed that late in the game when he's that tired. People are going to yell at me for that. No, I think that's right.

I think especially with the usage and in close succession like that, I just thought it was a bit of a miscalculation from the Oilers. But, obviously, without that bounce, though, maybe we're not even talking about it, right? But isn't that the problem in Emerton forever? Like Jay Woodcroft, what did you do? Well, if we were in trouble, we throw out Connor McDavid and Leon Dreiselt. As much as they talk about how great the coaching is in Emmetton, that's the solution. The solution to every problem is 97 to 29.

You and I could go coach that team tomorrow. Guess who's going out? 27 and 29 and 97. So you're right. It's ability to manage those guys over a seven game series, make sure they're getting the rest in relationship to their ability to create offense and do the things that they do. And it is a tough act to balance when you don't have the bottom six that you trust in all situations. And I think they're getting away from that.

And I think that is going to be a problem as this series where it's on. No, I think that's right. I mean, a lot of the issues and not just this year, but in the past have come back and boil down to that. Right. I think the Stewart Skinner conversation is a good example of that as well because I think there were a couple goals where he was certainly at fault, right? The second one in terms of like just like how he moves laterally at a snail's pace to get a cross. I know that he put in a good effort when Kuzmenko did the wrap around and shot it back into his pad and kept that one out. At least he made some nice saves for them to keep it within relative striking distance.

And then the last one was obviously a bad bounce, but his reaction time to it is is comically slow. But you look, it's like, all right, he's the 35th highest paid goalie in the league this year. What are your expectations for that? For me, I think it's missing the forest for the trees a little bit. If anything, it's Oilers front office to blame in terms of putting themselves. in that spot where you don't have a backup plan and that's what you're relying upon as opposed to the goalie himself who's probably performing

like somewhere between the 30th and 40 the best goalie in the league and is what he is at this point. For the Kings, they score the two power play goals. They got a bunch of opportunities. You mentioned the 5-1-3 where they weren't able to really put it away. It certainly wasn't for a lack of trying. It was a shooting gallery.

I was laughing, watching at home because Fiala obviously scored the beautiful fifth goal, 5-13 off the no-look pass cross-ice from Kempe. And then after that, he decided that he was going to go out with guns-blazing and just was just rocketing everything, including when they had an empty netter and he had an opportunity to seal it before McDavid's heroics. And it was a wild vintage Kevin Fiala performance.

For the Kings, I guess one thing they could improve, and listen, you score six goals here. And that's obviously huge in the grand scheme of things beyond just the win. and especially having some power play success after the relative lack of struggles there in previous meetings against the Oilers. There were times, especially as the game progressed,

where I really felt like they could have put them away with some of these rush opportunities. And I'm not sure how much of it was sort of a game plan of fearing a costly turnover that fuels the offense for the Oilers on the counter. So they would just do the simple guy carrying the puck comes in and shoots if Vogel had one late in the third that it becomes a routine stop for Skinner

and they need to integrate more east-west passing on those and not even necessarily a high-level ones once you get below the dots just even as soon as you enter the zone just move the angle and shift laterally and I feel like that will make such a massive difference in terms of the likelihood of those

rush shots actually going in and I thought the execution there wasn't good enough but listen they scored the six goals and there was obviously a lot to build on offensively for them yeah and this is a team that is they had four more goals in seven the last 10s in the regular season. This team can score, and they can score at home. And they are guys, and we talk about the East Coast bias. There's people that don't watch this

team much. They don't watch this team play. And I talked to Newell Brown, their assistant coach a couple weeks ago, and he said, Quentin Byfield is quietly having one of the best seasons of any player on this team. Adrian Kempi is an absolute monster. This team can score goals. But to your point, they had so many opportunities that a team that was down and defeated, and their back end had, I don't want to say given up, but their back-ended struggle. they turn pucks over. Skinner was not on his game. You just need that one more goal

just to tip this thing over the ledge. And then what does that do for game two? I think there's so much about the mental games in a playoff series that you go, if you come out of that game seven to two, what's Evanston thinking? Where are they going for game two? They have doubts in their goal attending now.

They have doubts in their penalty killing now. They have doubts in their ability to defend their turnovers. But this they go, hey, we're right there. We're right there. We have the confidence. We're there. We just need to play a little bit better at the start. I think for Evanton having to come back the way they did is so much for them emotionally

for game too that L.A. just couldn't find the way to put this game away. And they win it. Good for them. I mean, I'm not trying to diminish what they did but winning the game in regulation. But again, it's the mind game that if they can put this away earlier and they can find a way to put one of those empty net goals in or they can score on the five on three. That does make a difference. Real quick, do we talk about their power play?

this is a power play that was struggling for the regular season. It wasn't a good power play at all. This is a bottom half power play in the national hockey league. And they get eight goals in the last five games on the power play. And they've changed some things up. They're playing behind the net, which is different. We don't see a lot of guys. We're so used to seeing the one three one.

Putting somebody in behind the net is really added to what they do. And watch their slingshot breakout, by the way. Everybody does the drop pass. We keep an eye on that in the next game. The LA Kings drop the puck. But as soon as that drop pass player gets it, Instead of skating it up the ice, he fires it to the guy that dropped it to him. It's a great, great breakout.

I love watching it. So keep an eye on that. This power play is going to be the difference so far in this series. And can it continue? I guess we'll have to see. Yeah, getting Kuzmanko there was huge and obviously you opened things up and going to that fly forward look. It's just a different dynamic in terms of their season long numbers.

Yeah, I mean, obviously this was an incredibly entertaining game with dramatic finish. I think moving forward from our sort of storytelling purposes or trying to evaluate it, it also makes it so much more interesting because early on it felt like kind of a statement performance from the Kings in terms of why this year was going to be different and a lot of our concerns about the Oilers were playing out. And then all of a sudden the script flipped at a point where it's like it plants the seed of doubt back in your mind if you're the kings of regardless of your team effort and your structure and all the things you did so well in the first 40 minutes,

there's going to become a point where McDavid and Dreisaitle just go nuclear and take over and almost become comes to the point where they just decide they're going to take the puck to the net and you don't really have any course of action

to slow that down or stop it over the course of full 60 minutes and then what happens when that's the case so I think just banking this win is huge but I feel like the door has been opened up

to so many possibilities in terms of twist and turns for this series moving forward and I'm excited to watch it you got any other notes on this that we didn't get to I wanted to talk halves caps with you as well

but unfortunately we're out of time so we'll have to circle back to that at some point, but I know you're watching that one closely as well. Yeah, I just want one more thing to watch in game two of this Evanenton, L.A. series, is the experienced defenseman and Drew Doughty

that had a great four nations face off. And you look at, I want everybody to go back and look at the goal four and five for the Edmonton Oilers and how Drew Doughty and experienced defensemen play both of those. On the fourth goal, he lays down and McDavid just walks around the bottom of his feet. And on the fifth goal

is McDavid's driving the net. It's a one-on-one. I mean, it's a Doughty versus McDavid. And Dowdy, I think, doesn't trust his speed enough. So he backs off and just gives Dowdy, excuse me, McDavid, the lane and trying to protect the front of the net and tries, instead he tries to, in case he tries to cut back. I didn't like the way Dowdy played that. And I think his experience and his ability to be a warrior through the playoffs is going to be a key as this thing drags on for L.A. He's going to have to be that guy. And he's got to be a guy that you can trust defensively against the best players in the world. So when you have him out in the last 30 seconds, you know

Drew Dowdy's going to attack. He's going to be aggressor. He's going to use a stick in his body to make place. I want to see how he recovers for game two. Yeah, the fourth goal in particular, you cannot leave your feet against McDavid. He's just going to expose you there. I think the last one, I mean, it was the, it was a classic McDavid in terms of building up the, you talk about the slingshot, building up the speed in the neutral zone and then coming downhill and dry settle being able to get it to him kind of around on the wall near the blue line. I do believe he worked around Mikey Anderson on that one though. And to me, that's even more full marks. It's like Mike Anderson standing still.

Yeah, he is. I mean, at that point, it's a tough one. And I think Anderson had played like 11 minutes or something in the first period of that game as well. I mean, they're obviously leading on them to a very heavy extent as well. All right, well, this was fun. I'm looking forward to more of these games and more opportunities to have you on as well. I'll let you plug some stuff because I know you're doing some of these goal breakdowns on your YouTube page. I watched the game 1-1 from Stars Aves.

That was really good stuff. And I'd highly recommend everyone checks out. So let the listeners know a little bit about that. Yeah, and I'm going to do some video breakdown on this game later this afternoon on inside the coach's room on the YouTube page. If you want to see what these games look like from the eyes of a video coach, the good, the bad, the ugly, and what they're saying. Check it out. I think I'm going to get this up by later this afternoon on King's Oilers, some things to look at that you might not have seen. All right, buddy. We'll keep up the great work. Join us in the PDO guest Discord, the best place to watch these thrilling playoff games every night. That's all for today. Similar to what PD said about what the Oilers should have done last night and,

preparation for overtime. I'm going to go pound some electrolytes, maybe eat a slice of pizza, take a little nap, and then strap in for another evening of a fun playoff game. So we'll be back tomorrow with another show covering those Tuesday night games. See you back here then. Thank you for listening to the Hockey P.Docast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.