The Hockey PDOcast - Breaking down the Ryan O'Reilly trade and his fit in Toronto

Episode Date: February 21, 2023

Jack Han joins Dimitri to deep dive into the Ryan O'Reilly trade to the Leafs, why his numbers this season are misleading, and the ways he can help the team down the stretch.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.  The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Dmitri Philippopovic. Welcome to the Hockey-O-Cast. My name is Demetri Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Jack Kahn. Jack, what's going on, man? Very exciting times in Toronto and for least fans across the world. Yes.

Yeah, we're going to do the Ryan O'Reilly trade breakdown today. We're recording this. We're pre-recording it. We're off. It's a long weekend here in Canada. with Family Day on Monday. And so we're off on Monday, but I'm pre-recording the show with you because I want to get all our thoughts out here while they're still fresh, while they're still hot. And listen, the Leafs were, I think it's fair to say one of like the highest leverage teams

to watch ahead of the deadline because it felt like they were linked to pretty much every single player available, right? And I think it wasn't a question of whether they do that something because clearly with where they are in the standings and how desperate. they want to, you know, actually use that regular season success into finally getting over the hump and winning a playoff round this year, they're clearly going to do something. What they were going to do, I think, was up for debate, right? We heard numerous different perspectives. There were a lot of smokescreens about whether they'd even be willing to use a premium asset, like a first for a rental, whether they were trying to identify a defenseman and upgrade that way, or whether they were

going to add a forward. And we now know that they acquired Ryan O'Reilly and Nolichari. They sent out four picks to do so, including this upcoming 2023 first. And I think, I'm not sure your take on this, but from my perspective, I think regardless of your mileage on the player, I'm going to talk a lot about the details of O'Reilly's game, the decision itself to go aggressively after a forward upgrade was, I think, ultimately the right one. I think that was their most meaningful path towards improving this team. And I know that goes counter to what every single boomer uncle in Ontario will tell you about this team's weaknesses and how they're soft in the blue line. And how, you know, they're still susceptible to breakdowns.

But none of that is actually based in fact. If you look at any single metric, if you watch any single one of their games this season, it's just not true. This was their most realistic path towards improving the team. And I think they've clearly done so. And so for that reason, I like this trade for them. What do you think about that? Agree with everything that you said.

I love this trade. And, you know, I think a couple weeks ago, I just tweeted out, kind of off the cuff saying how the Leafs in the past, seven years they've had a type at the deadline, which is they'll either get an older bottom six forward or a defensive defense. And obviously, I think some people took issue because I wasn't able to list every single name, but I just kind of went off to talk in my head. But it seems like every single year, like the least would try to get somebody to play kind of a dump and chase game in the bottom six up front and then a defenseman that can help him.

kind of shut down slot chances or play PK. And then, you know, one of the years they wanted to guard goalie. But if I remember correctly, Jack Campbell wasn't really the main asset. It was really to go get Jake Muzzen. And certainly I'm sure they thought Campbell was going to be sort of a buy low candidate, but he wasn't really brought into kind of as a center piece of the trade. But so all that being said, like O'Reilly is by far the best forward. the Leafs have gone and traded for at the deadline since, as far as I can remember, certainly,

you know, within the past seven years. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, it's interesting about O'Reilly here is, I think it's proven to be the perfect storm of kind of like misinformation or people pushing agendas, right? Like I, listen, any big news involved in the Leafs is going to be, you know, largely devoid of nuance or I guess like balanced approach. It's going to be a lot of hot takes. But in this case, I think the gulf that exists between O'Reilly's reputation as a player, right? One who won the Selke and the Konsmite back in 2019 in the same season has had a ton of success, both individual and more recently team level. And then the player he's been this year in terms of, if you just look purely at his counting stats,

he had 19 points and 40 games before this trade, he was a minus 24, which I've seen cited as a reason why he's over the hill. and there's something in between those two, right? But it feels like for whatever reason, if you're going to go one way or another, it's kind of provided a platform for both kind of extremes. So let me just get on my soapbox and talk about plus minus for like 20 seconds.

And it's not even from the point of view that plus minus doesn't have the sample size that, let's say, shot differential. It's simply because when you play a lot of minutes for a bad team, first of all, you're going to get scored on a lot. and second of all, you were going to be on the ice latent games with the net empty alarm. So I'd be curious to know how many of those minus 24

is that Ryan O'Reilly, quote, unquote, earned came off of a six on five. Because that right there, it's like, it makes no sense to be why anybody should be punished for being one of their teams, go-to players, and then getting scored on in a situation that has nothing to do with 5-1-5-lock. Well, I'll tell you that, Jack,

because I have that prepared on my notes here. on the ice for 11 and a half minutes with the Blues that empty the season, and they've given up 10 MPN net goals in that time. And so that is a big reason why. Now, listen, he's also been outscored 37 to 22 at 5-15, but that is also wildly uncharacteristic or blown out of proportion for the way he's played. Here's a stat for you. So this year, he has an on-ice 5-15% of 8-78% of 8-7% of the shots they face with him on the ice. Previous to this year, in any full NHL season O'Reilly's played and he's been in the league a long time, it has never been below 908. And that was the only time with the Sabres in 2015-16, where it ever even got below 9-15.

Like, there's a lot of debate up for whether individual players can actually truly impact their teams on a state percentage and whether, you know, it's a goalie stat or whether there's certain things you could do or certain defensive attributes that can actually legitimately boost that baseline. But over the past six years, he's been 935, 9-921, 934, 927, 928, 926. Like, it's pretty clear that there's a trend there. And then all of a sudden you get this season where it just completely goes in the tank

and the plus minus goes with it. And so I think that's like an important piece of this conversation when you're evaluating his play this season. And you can make a really real fair case that he's been the unluckiest player in the league this season. Yeah. So for me, like, you know, obviously at age 31 now, O'Reilly is not getting any younger.

And there is a concern about his scale. kind of falling off. But again, like I watch and play this season. I think it's mostly just happenstance or bad luck or whatever you call it. And, you know, as a rental, I don't think the long-term longevity is going to be much of an issue. You know, the Leafs got a really, really good player, probably one of the top, you know, three or four forwards to move at the deadline, depending on where Timel-Meyer goes. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, extending the kind of luck-based thing, I mentioned that he also had only like 19 points or something in 40 games. He remarkably has three primary assists this season.

And if you look at any underlying sort of shot or chance creation, anything that Corey Schneider's track, any sort of the private models that you look at, it feels to me like his playmaking hasn't really dropped off, right? Like he still has a lot of, you saw it in his debut with the Leafs where you highlighted his ability to get the puck from a tight kind of contested area into an open space for a teammate and allow them to make a play with it. And I think it's worth noting like the impact the teammates or

usage or context has on a player's performance here, where last year, his most common winger was David Perron, who is a fantastic trigger man. And he goes from that to basically playing with Josh Lebo as his number one guy this year, who Leaves fans are quite familiar with. And with all due respect to Lebo, I think it's a pretty clear difference in terms of especially finishing ability. And so I wonder if O'Reilly had had another 10 assists. which is what he probably should have had based on his historical performance. Like we wouldn't really be talking about him in the same way that he seemed to be talked about at the time of this trade, which is like, oh, how much does he really have left in the tank?

Yeah, so now that you bring up Perran and his historical kind of outputs, I found a special little treat for you and for our listeners here, which is I went back and I found some notes that I took scouting, Ryan O'Reilly back in 2018 back when I was working in Toronto for Kyle Dugas. So the whole story of how that whole thing happened was

in 2017-18 Lou La Marello was still the GM and I was reporting directly to Kyle that was my first year working for the Leafs and throughout the season he would send me just names of whether it's draft eligible players

or NHL players and have me put together these short presentations or reports on these players. And I guess it kind of goes back to the idea that in a team, it's good to have multiple different viewpoints. And basically, Kyle was kind of using me as an alternative to teams pro and amateur scouting department. He would have me kind of do these one-man projects and, you know, to give him another

perspective. So I have my notes on O'Reilly and this is back when he was still playing for the Sabres. So, you know, back when the Sabres were doing really poorly and stuff like that. And most of my notes, you know, some of it was stats-based. So I tracked entries, exits, shock contributions, really similar to what Cory Snyder does, except perhaps I think he does a more comprehensive job. And then the second part of my report was just brief notes on different areas of his game. And for forwards, there are four areas that I,

generally care about when scouting forwards. First of all, play off the rush because, you know, obviously as a forward, it's important for you to be able to create controlled entries and drive the puck through and help your team set up. The second area is getting to the middle of the ice, whether it's off the rush or off the cycle. Third area is forechecking, back checking, creating turnovers. And then the final area is playing the D zone, but specifically, helping on the breakout. And I had O'Reilly ranked really highly in all of these areas, except his ability to get into the middle of the ice and to create off the rush. And if you remember, I made these notes. I believe it was his last year in Buffalo. And in the following year,

she goes to St. Louis, you know, gets put with David Perron. And basically all of my notes about that O'Reilly's inability to get into the middle immediately became Nolan Void as soon as he found a partner who can really play off his strength and weaknesses. Yeah, that's really interesting. And I would presume that, so that was the 2017-18 season, right? The last season of Buffalo, then he goes and he has that magical season for the Blues. I, that's part of why I'm sort of bullish on this as well from the perspective of it feels like the leaves are pretty well positioned here to significantly improve his playing environment, right? Like, I know we want to talk a little bit about kind of best ways to use them

or how they can get the most out of them for the rest of the season. We saw in his first appearance for the Leafs against the Canadians on Saturday night, he was down the middle, centering John Tavares and Mitch Marner. I think one of the perks of this horrendous system, playoff system we have right now

where the Leafs and Lightning are essentially locked into a round one rematch year and have nothing to play for it except for, I guess, marginal improvements on home ice advantage over the final 25, 30 games. like you suspect that Sheldon Keith and the Leafs are going to be mixing and matching a lot here, right? I think using these final 25 games to experiment with different combinations,

what do you think is the most tantalizing or most interesting way to use O'Reilly here for the Leafs, both in terms of the line and also like the players that he'd be playing with? So putting him at center with Tavares and Marmer, I think makes a ton of sense. And this is something that I talked with Sheldon Keith about. This is, you know, three or four years ago when it comes to extending Tavares' window, which is at some point he's going to become more of a winger. So he's still going to take some face-offs. He's still a very effective face-off man, and that doesn't really go away with age.

But shifting him to the wing is going to allow him to maybe, you know, cheat for offense a little bit more, stretch out of the D zone a little bit quicker, stay around the net in the offensive zone instead of getting on the back check right away, which are all things that O'Reilly can really help him with. The only kind of caveat that I would see is, you know, obviously you want your fastest players on the wing. That's where they're going to be most effective. And, you know, Martyr is, he's really quick.

He carries the puck extremely well. He's not really the fastest player in a straight line. And Tavares obviously isn't a very fast player in a straight line either. So for them, like, they can make. make it work certainly. And I think it might take a couple of games for them to start finding the correct level of aggression when it comes to pushing it out of the defensive zone. But perhaps they're going to figure it out. The other interesting option is having O'Reilly down the middle with Matthews and Nylander on the wing. Because what that does is

you know, Matthews is not quite as good as taking faceoffs with then Tavares. He, he, he, he, he, I would say he's above average, but he's not elite like a Patrice Bergeron or Claudeau or so on and so forth. So what that'll allow Toronto to do is every single left dot face off is going to be O'Reilly. And then every single right dot face off is going to be Nealander. And then Matthews, I think he has a much better feel for when to push out of the zone and when to play behind the D's. And he's going to be way more effective off the rush. and then O'Reilly can do all the heavy lifting when it comes to play in the D zone and being the low support, getting off the wall. And then, like, for me, like, that's a really interesting setup that perhaps the leaps are going to try soon.

Yeah, I'm very, I mean, I'd be very fascinated with O'Reilly's, you know, playmaking abilities, which I said at the top. I think he still has, despite what his assist numbers this year would indicate, it would be very fascinating to see him. kind of uses a distributor with Matthews, right? And sort of freeing up Matthews to do a lot of that stuff. I guess I've also seen the idea of bumping O'Reilly to the wing as well. I'm less in favor of that for some of the reasons you highlight it, but also like part of what makes O'Reilly so effective is a lot of the tendencies that he does from a schematic perspective as a center, right?

Like you mentioned the idea of like him being sort of a third defenseman out there while being incredibly low and deep in the zone and providing a short, outlet for defensemen on breakouts and stuff like that and just being in the right area on the ice is such a big perk to his game. And I feel like that doesn't necessarily translate as well if all of a sudden you're asking him to do something else. He's a smart enough player and we've seen him play in like international settings on the wing. But I feel like it's sort of diminishing what he brings to the table if you're not allowing him to play in that area of the ice. I mean, I'm less concerned about that because first of all, growing up, he, he, he'd

did play a mix of center and wing, like back in his Colorado days, if I remember correctly, he played a lot of left wing. But also it's because hockey is such a fast and fluid game at the NHL level now that once the puck is dropped, your forwards are actually constantly rotating. So what's going to happen is you're going to organically see O'Reilly rotate into that low forward spot even if he's nominally playing wing. And the other thing is he's so good along the boards, whether it's at the defensive half wall or down low in the offensive zone, that if you play him on wing, he's going to just find other ways to create. Maybe he wins a puck along the boards.

He pops it out to a center or, you know, any linemate who has speed in the middle of the ice. And that creates a two on one or that creates a quality middle entry. So I think with the way that the Leaves play, there's a lot of interchange and O'Reilly can be productive wherever. Like the only thing that I would really be choosy about in terms of who his linemates are is I want him to play with some players who can score. Yeah. Because, you know, if we think about, you know, when he was so effective with David Perron,

like, Moran is a high-end finisher and a high-end, you know, high-danger passer, right? Like, he's not a guy that's just going to throw lots of low-quality pucks on net and play more of a crash and bang style. So, you know, certainly, O'Reilly can be a very good third-line center for the Leafs, but I just don't think his playmaking and his defensive acumen is best used if you put him, let's say, with, you know, Angval, Curfoot, Kavv, you name, right. I'd rather him slip a puck out the Neelander or Matthews or Marner or Tavaris

because those guys are going to finish. Yeah, I assume here, while it's still short of like, you know, the shine is still on and there's like the it's like the shining new toy it's like oh like we're excited to have ran Riley they're clearly like that's why they started them with taveras and marner I think they're going to put him atop the line up in those roles then as we get towards the end of the regular season and they experiment a bit more I think they will eventually try that and I think there's going to be some some um you know potential interest or like uh the idea of oh well all of a sudden if we're rolling with matthews taveras and roll riley down the middle

and then you've got Kemp or Achari as the fourth line center. It's like who's going to beat that down the middle? But you're right. Like what you said there, the issue of him not being surrounded with the right personnel is a problem to me. I think if he is playing with Engwell and Kerrfoot, let's say, I'm a bit skittish about like the lack of finishing ability on that. And I think it's not putting to use his playmaking ability nearly enough.

And so I do like him atop the lineup, even though it feels like that. That could be potentially a bit of overkill because all of a sudden. sudden you're just loading up these these top two lines and then kind of trying to make it work with the rest but i think they do have enough uh enough versatility and enough kind of depth pieces to uh to make it work in the bottom six and and you you mentioned uh the idea of you know whether it's overkill to have o're raleigh in top six well uh for for us to have that discussion we got to look forward to the playoffs and you know the leaps uh they're essentially guaranteed to have uh Tampa bay in the first round and after that they're what they're probably going to play the Bruins second round if you know

if I get there certainly but both Tampa and Boston are teams that are relatively top heavy right like they have like they're able to put an elite kind of first wave of fours and these on the ice but after that they're a little bit more exploitable so if we go back to last year um uh when Toronto lost against Tapa in the first round like if memory serves Tapa tried to get Hedman out against the Matthews line as much as possible.

Correct? Especially in the 90 games where they had last change. So, you know, in a playoff setting, we shouldn't be surprised that Hedman's able to neutralize the Matthews line.

But then, you know, what happens after because if we look at Tampas DEMN usage this year, let me look at what they're their second pair yeah so their top four is headman surgachev

churnack and coal right so let's assume that uh tapago's headman chernak as well no i think they're gonna go chernak chernac chav and then they're gonna what they typically do is put headman with like coal or bogosian or like just i mean it used to be the

the jan ruda spot right like it used to be like whoever with him and make it work that way okay uh Okay, well They don't have McDonagh anymore, right? I used to be like McDone and Chernak would like kind of be

your go-to in that regard. Yeah, so let's say they go Hedman and let's say Cole for our argument's sake against Matthews. Well, the second pair now becomes

Surgichab and Chernak and so some of O'Reilly's biggest strength as a player I think it matches up pretty well against Sergachev's weakness. So, Mikhail Sergachev, he's a really good hockey player, and he's a player that I follow for a long time as a Montreal Canadiens draft pick.

You know, as someone who's been with Tampa for a number of years now, I've seen him a lot on TV. And the thing with Sergachev is under pressure, he makes mistakes. And one of O'Reilly's best trades as a player is he's so good on the forecheck and he has such a good stick that in the first round, I foresee a situation where Hedman does a good job of shutting down the Matthews line, but then O'Reilly and Tavaris and Marner and whoever they really victimized Surgachev for high danger scoring chances or oddman rushes

and maybe that's the path for Toronto to finally get over the hump against Tampa. Yeah, not only turnovers but then being drawn into penalties as a result of it, right? I think if you rewatch that series against the lightning last year was really the dynamic between the two teams was so fascinating to me because at times Toronto looked like such a superior team when they were able to utilize the speed advantage they have in particular the areas that I sort of that really drew attention were when they were deep in their own zone and they would just kind of flip the puck up and try to get it in positions where

some of these lightning defenders would have to fish the puck out of their skates and tight quarters or whether it was near the blue line or in the neutral zone and then their forwards light the leafs forwards were able to basically pressure them and skate into it as fast as they could. They created a lot of turnovers and ensuing scoring chances off of that. Where they got in trouble was when the game kind of bogged down, particularly if you watch the back off of game seven, where the lightning are playing with a lead, and it's a much more conducive environment to the way they want to play, which is allowing them to load up defensively, create layers of roadblocks, and just basically dare the Leafs to dump the puck in and then go

after it and waste time doing so. And so if the Leaves are able to play, the first way, I said, they're going to have much more success. If they've fallen to the hands of the lightning, the way the lightning want to play defensively, it's going to be tricky and I'm not sure if that's kind of why I would have preferred the Leafs attack and added a forward with a bit more game-breaking speed off the rush than O'Reilly has. I know that O'Reilly has utility as a playmaker moving downhill, but he's not going to be the type of player where he's going to take it in his own zone and transport it before the other team gets said defensively. and that's why I would have really been infatuated with a player that could do that.

Now, those players are much more difficult to find and probably more expensive than O'Reilly was, so that's a different discussion. But the Leafs really need to avoid playing into the Lightning's hands in terms of that quote-unquote playoff style, grinding it out and doing it that way. I think they need to utilize the speed advantage they have on them because the Lightning, for all of their strengths, especially in the Blue Line, are not the fleet as the foot. Yeah, certainly Tampa is, they've, they've, kind of progressively gotten slower every year. And this is natural in the league where obviously,

you know, players age relatively quickly, right? They've had the same core for a number of years. So it's pretty, it's pretty normal with all the kind of wear and tear in the long playoff series. If, you know, if we think about Timel Meyer, let's say, as the best kind of rush player up front that's still available, O'Reilly is certainly not that, but perhaps, you know, if we think about, you know, by doing things that he's good at, he's going to free up some of Toronto's players to kind of play a little bit more like Meyer, which is more north-south, more behind the opposing D's trying to go in and maybe cheat for offense a little bit. But certainly he moves the needle because he's a legit top six or maybe even top-line player.

And overall, like, that's why I love this move. It's not so much because of the stylistic element, but more of the overall value element. Okay, Jack, let's take our break here. And then we come back. There's a bunch of other topics regarding this trade and the Leafs that I want to talk about with you. So we'll do that after the break. We're listening to the Hockey P-Docast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Your number one spot for Flames coverage can be found on Flames Talk with me, Pat Steinberg.

Exclusive interviews, trusted insiders, and the latest news. Listen live weekday afternoons and four or stream the Flames Talk podcast on demand. All right, we're back here in the hockey video guest with Jack Hahn, talking about the Ryan O'Reilly trade. So, Jack, I guess part of what was interesting thing. I alluded to this kind of tongue-in-cheek at the top about how, depending on who you ask, they would have told you that the Leafs needed to get better on defense. And then the reason why I just thought that was so silly, I know you and I have talked about this in the past on a PDO cast a couple months ago, I think,

but it's very strange seeing the way people are just like living in the past in terms of not really updating their priors. Just watching the Leafs this year and then looking at their statistical trends, like by any single metric, it seems like they're like a top five defensive team. Now, they're certainly prone to lapses the way any team really is, particularly off the rush. but in totality you look at 5-1-5 they give up the fifth fewest shots out six few as expected goals fifth fewest goals against same across all situations on the penalty kill only the ruins penalty kill surrenders fewer high danger chances and expected goals against and yet for whatever reason the way our idea of this leaves team is oh those run and a gun and a loose leaves teams that

score a lot of goals but give up a lot themselves like that just really isn't the team they've been in the past couple years, but especially the season. So here's, I'll speak from my perspective, which is whether it's this year, whether it's previous years in the playoffs, you know, we do remember all kind of the big defense and mistakes leading to the Leafs giving up goals and eventually, you know, losing big games.

And my personal feeling on this whole thing is a lot of times, These mistakes happen defensively because they don't really feel good about, you know, how they're doing offensively. So what they'll do is they'll force kind of high risk, high reward plays in close games because they don't really feel comfortable with their ability to score that second or third or fourth goal to get the win. And that's when you start getting, you know, the D zone turnovers where the defenseman tries to get the puck in the middle. the ice to get the rush going. Or maybe they overhandle the puck high in the offensive zone because the other team is collapsing down low and they're not able to kind of fight through it.

So, you know, it's not just the Leafs only thing and it's not even only a hockey only thing. Like if you look at soccer teams, sometimes like, you know, when you see fast breaks in soccer, it's because one team is kind of so offensively inept that they're forced to. to throw a lot of players into the problem and then ultimately they get caught kind of on a two on one or on a breakaway the other way because

essentially defensively their structure breaks down because offensive they're taking too many risk because they don't feel like they can do it by using a more optimal or more normal pattern or if you play tennis. I'm sure you play against a guy who

doesn't hit the ball very hard and whenever he tries to try to overpower you, he just, he just starts spraying an attempt to go for winners. So a lot of times I find defensive mistakes are not actually defensively rooted. They're more rooted in a lack of confidence in your ability to create offense. Yeah. No, I mean, definitely there's an interplay between the two. I just think it's interesting the way they're talked about because if you look, especially they've used 12 different defensemen this year, right? Their best defensemen in I opinion and T.J. Brody has played like 33 of the 55 games.

And the barrier to entry for their lineup defensively is, is, I think, surprisingly high for the way people talk about it, right? Like, if you look, if you're going to go Brody Riley, for example, and then I would personally go like Giordano Hall as sort of like a thankless pair that just does all the defensive assignments and dirty work and then just load up Illigrant Sandy and basically have them try to tilt the ice in the most sheltered minutes possible. I just adding a gabrakov or an Edmondson, not that they've been linked Edmondson,

but some of these players, even to Jake McCabe, I just, like, they don't move the needle nearly enough. It was with Jacob Chikrin, that's an entirely different story. But ultimately, like, I know that it's kind of like a no-name crew in terms of not your traditional number one defenseman or not the way you think of a blue line being assembled that wins a Stanley Cup. But I just think the reality of the way they play and the way they've produced versus the way they're talked about is about as divergent as you're going to see in the league.

You know, I think a number of people are going to disagree with me, but for me, the Leafs have the best group of defensemen from, let's say, four to eight in the league. For me, like that, like, if we go four to eight, like, that's, uh, what, that's Sandine, Lillegrin, uh, you know, you got Connor Timmons in there also, uh, uh, you know, Jake Muzan, his future is in doubt, but, you know, if he were healthy, he would certainly be a top four defenseman, which pushes, pushes down somebody else. Like, they have a really good defense score and, uh, you know, where would Jake McCabe fall in that group? Maybe he'd be a four or five. Where would Gavikov fall? I think Gavrokov is like a number six,

seven. Yeah. Because offensively, he doesn't give you nearly as much as Sandy. I just, I also don't think that's the way they should be playing. Like, I, I don't know, watching. watching Ilya Lubbushkin versus the lightning last year. I just, I don't, I think that's what the leave should be trying to stay away from and should be doubling down on what their strengths already are. But like, you know, it's interesting you look at, you know, for all the praise that Ilya Simsonov has gone this year and certainly from a bang for your buck perspective, he's wildly exceeded even my expectations. Evolving hockey has a man at like plus 13 goals, same of all expected they have Matt Murray at plus three. But then you look at the private

models where Logic has them at Samsonov plus 3.8. Matt Murray minus one. And I think this is the reason why I bring this up. It ties into my theory of how much the game is changing from like what good defense actually looks like in the ability to impact shock quality because something the leaves do remarkably well along with teams like the hurricanes is the pressure they provide, right? They don't give you a lot of time and space in the offensive zone to get your shots off. They disrupt with their stick work and their and their work ethic. And so by doing that, it looks like the shots are actually coming from more dangerous areas than you think. But in reality, it's not because the player was disrupted big time.

And so I think that's kind of the next gray frontier from a public model's perspective of quantifying some of the shock quality stuff and the calculus behind it. And so I just wanted to point that out because I mentioned all the natural static stats in terms of what they give up and how good it is. But I think it's actually been even better than that, which is why I wanted to focus on the offensive side of things. because I know that O'Reilly has a lot of claim as a defensive center and all that, and he won the Selke. But I think the offensive part of this equation is much more interesting to me. Yeah.

And one idea that my former colleague, Cam Chiron, has brought up, is the idea of contested shots, right? And I believe he draws it from the NBA where it's called a contested shot if a defender is kind of able to swat at the ball, not necessarily touch it, but at least get within arm's length and kind of, you know, get his arm into the shooter space or whatever. And I think the similar, there's a similar phenomenon in hockey where if you're in traffic and you're being contested,

it's harder to get a lot of mustard on that shot and to get it where you want it to go, which is why rust shots are perhaps more valuable than, you know, these contested ozone cycle shots because you have speed, Do you have a direct route to the net? You know, the goalie may be set, but at least you have time to really set up and get a loud zip on that puck and anyone who plays hockey would understand that feeling.

Whereas if you're getting these contested shots off, even if it's in the slot, if you're not able to lift the puck, it's going to be hard to be a goalie. If the opposing defenseman gets a stick on your release or, you know, is able to take away half the net, then that's going to take away a lot of your effectiveness. And perhaps the Carolina Hurricanes are the best elite in terms of contesting shots.

But I would argue that the Leafs, you know, they're right there. Maybe they're top five. But certainly, you know, their players have good feet, good stick, good understanding of positioning, and whatever shots that you take, they're going to be able to at least get in the way, which is a lot of what defending is. Okay, let's kind of circle back to O'Reilly. and some of the stuff that he can bring to the table for the leaves here in terms of watching his tape and what he provides specifically from an X and O's perspective because it seems to me like,

is it fair to say that this is kind of strengthening a strength in the sense that I'm not sure how much of it is, as you mentioned earlier, what happened with the lightning, like their player is just getting a bit older or how much of it is them having a bunch of playoff defeats and then making a deliberate effort to play a more quote unquote playoff style in terms of their approach. the leaves for better or worse have become more sort of methodical and deliberate and part of the reason why they generate so many high danger chances is because they have a good flow chart offensively right like they they eliminated point shots they try to funnel everything into high danger areas and around the net and they want to establish an environment where they're getting a flurry of chances where

they're cycling the puck where they're getting where they're kind of getting player moving in the offensive zone and then players are popping wide open and you're getting a good shot from the slot and it feels like O'Reilly will help sort of double down on that from the perspective of he's fantastic around the net. He's going to generate a lot of turnovers off the forecheck and then he's going to be a beast in the cycle game. And so it feels like regardless of who he's playing with, but especially in those top two lines, it'll kind of strengthen a strength in that in that regard. Yeah. So I agree with all that you said. And I would add one more point, which is the thing that makes them, I think, really attractive

to Kyle Dubas and Shelton Keith is that he's able to win a lot of these loose pucks in the defensive zone too. And the Leafs they've simplified their games over the year so they're more of a dump and chase for a check team. And the thing with them is once they're in your zone,

they're able to really sit on you and really tire you out and start cycling around and then creating chances kind of in a more methodical way. And at least O'Reilly gives the Leafs more of a chance to start those kind of sequences, you know, where he wins a puck, he gets off the wall, he gets it to somebody else, the puck goes deep, and now the Leafs are

cooking, right? So it's not so much like he's not going to get behind defenders and he's not going to dangle through three people off the rush and get to the net, but at least he's going to allow the other four players on the ice with him to progressively move the puck up and then set up in the Ozone. Yeah. And if you watched him play against in the past and high leverage moments against the McKinnon or a McDavid or any matchup he's been in. I always marvel at his ability to just be like kind of like a nuisance and a pest in terms of always being in their space but never really taking penalties.

I'm sure some of that is his reputation based as well, right? Where if you do it for long enough, it just kind of becomes a thing. But he has never had a season with a negative penalty differential in his NHL career, which is remarkable considering he's not necessarily a burner, right? so he's not going to draw a ton of penalties with his speed and just forcing you into mistakes that way. And he plays against other teams' best players. And especially this year, for example, a ton of defensive zone draws where he's starting in sort of disadvantageous positions. And yet he just doesn't really historically take a lot of penalties, which I imagine has a lot of allure if you're going

into the playoffs and you're like, all right, we're going to have to play the lightning. We have a top five power play. We're going to have to play the Bruins who have a top five power play. And we want to desperately stay out of the box as much as we can. And so that's kind of like an added. wrinkle to this in terms of like the utility you can provide. Yeah, I mean, not too much for me to add there. Do you want to talk about his penalty kill stats? Okay, let's do that. What do you have?

Yeah, so whether if you look at hockey viz or natural stat trick or basically any public hockey resource, I think the biggest weakness in O'Reilly's game is actually his penalty kill impact. It may be the only part of his game that's below league average right now. And I kind of watched some of his PK shifts this year. And my theory on that is his lack of, you know, smoothness or lack of foot speed or lack of, you know, speed period actually shows up way more when he's playing shorthanded than when he's playing five on five. And I think his anticipation and his defensive stick is so good that at five on five, he can basically, if he thinks he's not going to win, a race or a battle, he can switch off and then jump to the next play, right?

And I think that's why he takes so few penalties, which is at five on five, if you think that you're not going to be able to win a certain puck race, we'll get to a certain spot, you can always kind of stop, we group and then meet the puck carrier where he's going next. Right. Whereas on the PK, your team has one fewer player and you don't have the luxury of switching off people, like, you've got to do your job. Right. Well, do you think, I was going to ask you along those lines, like, because you posted a video

of sort of his like strengths and weaknesses looking at the tape the other day after the trade happened. And you made a point of how at 5-1-5 in particular, like, he's, he does such a good job of staying like any really good defensive and responsible center closer to his defenseman than his wingers, right? and he kind of closes that gap. And then in a way, you watch when a lot of these plays unfold, the other team sort of like skates right into his trap

where he's almost like awaiting them there. Whereas on the penalty kill, especially as the advancements have been made on, okay, what works and what doesn't to stop a lethal power play in the modern game, teams are far less sort of just like sitting back in that defensive shell and allowing stuff to come to them. A lot of the times you're wanting guys to actually skate out and pressure and be more proactive in that way.

Do you think that's partly why the penalty kill metrics are nearly as good as sort of his reputation? Yeah. So it's exactly that. Like if you watch the Leafs play PK, like their most effective penalty killers, you know, David Kaff, Mitch Martyr, you know, Mikhail, you know, Mikhail, you know, Mikhail, these are all guys. Engval, these are all guys who are really good at skating at a threat and then neutralizing them, right? Whereas the way that O'Reilly plays, he likes to get into a good spot and then wait for the threat to skate into him, as you said. And that's really conducive to, first of all, getting pucks back, but second of all, not taking any penalties because you're already there. Like, how can a ref call something on you when the other guy skates into you, right?

It just basically never happens. But again, on the PK, like, that's where he's vulnerable, which is against the team that moves the puck well and quickly, he just doesn't have the speed to get from point A to point B to prevent, you know, a seam pass or flex out against a point shot or, uh, defend an entry, right? Because defending eight entries is all about moving and angling plays wide and using your speed to take away time and space. And he's just not, um, if I recall correctly on Aki Viz's, uh, site, he hasn't been an above average, um, player on. Um, he's just not, um, if I recall correctly on AkiVis's, uh, site, site, he hasn't been an above average, um, player on. on the penalty kill since he's been like 27 or something like that. And that's the age where generally speaking players with skating issues tend to fall off. Yeah, which is fine because I don't think the Leafs need that much penalty kill utility for him beyond going out there and winning a couple of draws or whatever situationally. But like they have a pretty good thing going in that regard.

And it's a direct opposite of the way he wants to play as you highlighted. I guess here's a philosophical question for you then because he just turned 32 years old. He is remarkably about to hit a thousand games at the NHL level in a couple weeks, which is stunning for me to realize because I remember distinctly when he was just coming up as a teenager and Jeff Merrick consistently yelling at me about how he was a guy to watch, and now we've kind of full circle come all this way all these years later. For a player who, and I should say he just also came off of broken foot as well, for a player who already needs to kind of play a more sort of surreal,

real game in that regard. We're talking about how 5-15 he sort of occupies a space and banks on the fact that the probability suggests that you're going to eventually skate into it and that's where he'll be able to do a lot of his damage defensively. Do you think that that'll equip him better to still maintain positive impacts at 5-15 into his 30s as he theoretically slows down even more just because it's not really that big of a part of his game already? Or do you think it's kind of a situation where he doesn't have that much what speed to lose. And so if he loses even like a millisecond of a step, all of a sudden, it kind of makes them vulnerable to making other mistakes and kind of compensating in other areas. Like, where do you fall in that? Whether it's

for O'Reilly or just like for any player in terms of how they're going to age depending on what their foot speed level is already at. So I think that the two more, the two most important things to consider, first of all, is his health. And second, his linemates. So about his health, like, when we talk about players who are like clunky skaters or don't move very well or don't, you know, don't rotate very freely through their upper bodies, it doesn't mean that they can't be effective players right now, right? Like Mark Stone was one of the most effective forwards of the entire league for many years

and he's possibly the ugliest skater I've seen at this level. He still was this year while he was on the ice. Yeah. But the problem is, like, is as you get older, can you stay healthy? You know, because, you know, what does Mark Stone have now? He's got back problems, right? So whether it's a back, whether it's knees, whether it's hips, whether it's ankles, uh, whether it's something else, uh, you know, if you can stay on the ice and you can stay

healthy, then, you know, you could be as ugly as you'd like. And the main, the, the best example I can think is Joe Pavelsky, right? like Pavalski is 38 years old now. He wasn't the fastest even in his prime, but he's still, you know, he might be the most effective 35 and over forward in the league. So yeah.

And then, and then the second thing is line mates. And again, Joe Kavowski, perfect example because he's got two guys in Jason Robertson and Wu Pay Hins, who compliment him perfectly, right? Like we've talked about this at length.

You know, I'd suggest listeners, you know, listen to our previous conversations, but if you have the right linemates and you have, you know, the kind of skill set that a Pavelsky or O'Reilly has, you can play in the league for a long time if you stay healthy. Yeah. No, I agree with that. I guess the reason why I brought it up is I'll take Kyle on his word on it, that they haven't talked or really thought about a trade, uh, a sort of an extension yet beyond this year. And this is kind of like a trial run and they're just playing the season out. I do suspect that there's a better jam.

and not that Ryan O'Reilly will be on the Leaps moving forward at a what I describe as a team-friendly deal based on the way we've seen them operate in previous years with similar players. But that's obviously purely speculation. And we'll see, obviously, depending on how the rest of this season goes with his health and his performance and the fit and the team's results and all that, I think that'll dictate what they wind up doing. Yeah. And right now, I'm just curious on, you know, where he's going to be deploying the lineup,

up, obviously curious about how far the team is going to go because they got a heck of a roster right now. They do. I thought it was interesting that they paid a bit of a premium, I think, to get the 75% double retention on O'Reilly. Now I know that a lot of this is determined on whether Matt Murray stays on LTIR for the rest of the season or whether he'll be back at some point. And then, you know, whether they decide to were able to trade Kerrfoot or what have you that follows in terms of like cap manipulation but because of the premium they paid and they did pay a lot like we should say like a first second third and a fourth is in the future is is quite a hefty price not that those picks really matter to the leaves based on their competitive window right now but

i think they did so to at least leave the potential door open for making another move to improve their team like i don't think they're necessarily done after this even though it feels like it's almost impossible for them to add more money. Yeah, and I think getting Nootari in the deal is a sneaky good ad because that frees him up to deal a roster player without really compromising their depth. So, you know, I know a little bit less about his game, but certainly an effect of...

Nolachari's listening to this podcast and he's like, all right, I'm waiting for the part when they talk about what I'm going to bring to the table. But again, like, I think he could be a sneaky good, fourth-line player, who can do a little bit of everything. And you know, you need those players, right? Like, you can't have a fourth line that's going to get caved in all the time because that's going to affect how the rest of your roster is deployed.

But I like the inclusion of Vashari in this deal, certainly. Yeah. All right. Is there anything else on this trade, whether it's the fit, whether it's the Leafs kind of going all in with this move? We haven't really talked about sort of, you know, the Blues perspective of, getting all these picks back and all that. I find that less interesting in the grand scheme of things,

especially for the present day. But I don't know, is there anything else on this trade before we sign out that you thought was worth mentioning? No, I think we've said it all. And again, I'm really looking forward to how this affects the whole matchup game against Hapa in first round. Oh yeah, that's going to be. That's going to be that chess match there is going to be real fun. How about, well, well, I'm sure we'll have you on back before then as well. But we're going to preview that series where I do like an hour of just like nerding out over the X's and O's of who's going to go up against who and tactical advantages to look for and all that. All right.

Speaking of hockey tactics, look at that segue, Jack. I'll let you on the way out, promote. Yeah. Remote something and also let the listeners know where they can check you out. So a couple of days ago, I posted a 10-minute video breakdown of Ryan O'Reilly's game. If you want some visual examples of what we just talked about, check out my. Substack newsletter. It's J-H-A-N-H-K-Y dot substack.com.

So go watch the Ryan-O-R-Riley breakdown. There's actually a number of clips that shows exactly what we've talked about for the past hour. And if you're a hockey nerd like us, I think you're going to find a really interesting. Awesome. Well, this is a blast jack.

Thanks for answering the bat signal during a long weekend here. We will be back on Wednesday with another episode of the hockey PDOCAST as always so if you enjoyed what you liked here please help us out by smashing that five-star button and sticking around with us for the rest of the week we'll be back with more of the hockey pdo cast streaming on the sports net radio network