The Hockey PDOcast - Breakout Players This Postseason, And The Impact Their Contracts Will Have On Decisions This Summer

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Shayna Goldman to talk about young players who have broken out this postseason, and the trickledown effect those performances will have on their next contracts and the team building decisions their teams make this summer as a result 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.

dressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyedioCast. My name is Dimitri Philipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Shana Goldman. Shana, what's going on? Hey, thanks for having me today. I'm excited to have you on.

We're into the final four. We got As Golden Knights game one on Wednesday night, Habs Hurricanes is starting on Thursday. And I wanted to have you on because I know you've been very busy at the athletic recently writing about some of these young players who are breaking out and having glow-ups in the postseason and then what it's going to look like for their next contracts and then the trickle-down effect that's going to have on their teams

in terms of how they approach other personnel moves this summer. And so I thought you and I could kind of go through some of those names, some of the young players, even if they're not necessarily up for new deals that have broken out or have just gotten more appreciation nationally and league-wide because they're playing on this biggest stage. All of a sudden now in the postseason, and kind of talk our way through all that good stuff. So I gave you a little bit of homework in terms of putting together a list of guys that hit the bill here.

I've got my own list. I'm sure there's going to be a ton of overlap, especially at the top with some mutual personal favorites of ours. But I'll give you the floor here as a guest to start us off. All right. I think I'm going for the one we probably have top of the list, the player everyone has been talking about. And that's Zach Benson. And if you didn't watch the Sabres before the playoffs, you probably fell in love with them pretty quickly. He's the kind of guy you don't want to play against.

He's the guy everybody wants on their team. And he was fantastic. And it's super impressive because, you know, here's someone that turned 21 years old during ground too. This is someone that, you know, do it in the regular season is one thing. To do it in the playoffs is another. And to do it while maintaining an element of discipline, right? Because this is the kind of player. He's fearless.

He's gutsy. He's pesky. He pisses everyone off he plays with. He's always talks. He's in that nephron area. He's staring it up, but he does a very good job of drawing penalties instead of taking as many, and that's really important. But it's everything else he does.

That's so important, too. Like, obviously we see him after whistles, but it's everything he does between him that makes him so special, right? This is the kind of guy who is just a menace on the ice. He's always hounding the puck. If he doesn't have it, he's getting it back very quickly. Pressures for turnovers. He spots the right moments to take that step and go for it and pursue the puck and break out of position a little bit more, which I think is really impressive to see. And, you know, he's a great

forechecker. He's a great puck retriever. He's good around the boards. It's all those skills that made him such a fit for the top power play unit. And you saw how much that power play one changed once he was on it. But you pair all of that kind of grinding skill that you'd want for a third line. Like you think back to like the years of Tampa Bay winning, like he would have been a perfect fit with like Yanni Gordon on that third line. But he also has this true top six skill. He's good in transition. And that was huge for the sabers who were. having a lot of entries, especially on the power play, a lot of issue with their entries, sorry, he's good at getting the puck into the zone.

He has a lot of tricks up his sleeve. You're seeing him toe drag in the offensive zone and set up these crafty passes and get to the net front area to get to the right areas and has the finishing ability. So he makes life difficult for everyone he plays against because he really does a little bit of everything. And you look at his comps from the regular season using Dom's model with similarity score. And players like Jarvis and Lundell showed up at the top of the list. I think those are great picks because those are great two-way threats.

And Benson already has the makings of that. And it's not like his comps change because he's in the playoffs. But I think it just adds more weight of saying, like, wow, he really could be the next Seth Jarvis. And obviously we see the Brad Marshie in comparisons because of the stylistic, you know, peskiness with the high-end skill, with the size factor. And that's going to get him paid this summer. Like he's worth right now $10 million on average over the next seven seasons, according to Dom's model, using his market value. He probably won't sign for that.

I would guess more of that $7,8 million range, but that would be a steal because he is the real deal already. He had a phenomenal postseason and coming up party. He was doing a lot of this stuff throughout the regular season, especially this year in particular, but really throughout his early in-age-old career, but I feel like it gained a lot of appreciation doing it against top competition with all the spotlight on them.

And he was so good individually. The Sabres have obviously been eliminated as a team since. But he finishes with five. five goals, nine points in 13 games. I think those five goals are notable as well because for all the other stuff he does and has in his game that provides value early in his career. I thought one of the offensive limitations for him was some of that finishing ability, especially around the net.

And I imagine that will come and improve with skills development and just him getting kind of stronger on his stick in general as he gets older, but already started to put it together more down the stretch this season. And the playmaking is off the charts in zone. I was talking a lot throughout that Hab series about some of the fun one-on-one battles him and Lane Hudson were engaging with behind the net where he was trying to shake free

but Hudson was sticking with him as well as he could stride for stride and they were just battling for puck possession along the wall as well and now in the neutral zone like he was doing stuff this postseason that was like generally reserved for Pavl Datsuk and Leon Dreisaito in terms of those entries where he kind of puts the puck in front of him

and then tries to lift the stick of the defender as he navigates around them and so he's adding so many more layers to his game. I think his biggest value is probably the defensive conscience. He provides to his team, him and Don, in particular, and that's what makes him such a quote-unquote fixer for the Sabres. And we saw it in that HAB series where Tage Thompson and Alex Tucker were struggling so mightily together. And then Lindy Ruff splits them up. He puts Benson with Thompson. And all of a sudden Thompson starts getting more opportunities, more shots, more chances. Everything looks

better. And it makes sense considering all the little stuff Benson does. And so that's incredibly valuable moving forward. He also just turned 21 as you said and it's crazy because despite his size he gets drafted and he immediately jumps to the NHL as an 18 year old out of the WHOHL. And so what makes that interesting is even if the Sabres go eight years on his next deal, I know sometimes young players who are on ascending on the way up like this might not want to give away that many UFA years because the next time they hit the market with a cap going up the way it as it limits their earning power. In this case, even if he signs eight years, he's going to be, what, 29?

The summer he hits the market again. And so that's kind of a win-win, I think, for both sides, potentially, where he can get another big contract down the road, assuming he keeps progressing like this. And then the Sabres can get him at a fraction of the price he's probably worth on this current extension. And I think that's what's exciting here. I know there was some skepticism about what that next deal would look like for both sides,

whether they'd potentially go shorter with him after they went long with dough. just because of cap considerations. I feel like his play and his value to the team this postseason pretty firmly push the Sabres, I think, in the direction that they should have been all along, that like we need to just sign this guy for, for eight years and figure it out afterwards because he's such a fundamental piece of this team.

It's not even a luxury item anymore. Like, we need to build around him moving forward. Yeah, absolutely. Like, it's funny. Like, the NHL is not a developmental league, and it's not. But it's like some guys can make it that way. And you wouldn't expect it to be someone like Benson. You wouldn't expect it to be someone smaller in stature.

And if it were to be, you would think it's in the bottom six. Like if you saw Zach Benson and saw what he brought to the lineup and went, yeah, this is going to be a good bottom six guy. And then it was like when he's 23, 24, all of a sudden it's, you know, he can actually score and move up the lineup a little bit more. I think that's a different conversation. That's a little more expected here. The fact that he's just cooking this early and it immediately translates at this level to the playoffs.

So it's wild, honestly. So yeah, you got to lock them up for everything and more. And, you know, you mentioned Don't. He deserves a ton of hype as well. His breakout, we saw it all in the regular season, someone who wasn't really thought of as the cornerstone of the Petirka trade, right? It's really more Kesslering and it ends up being Donne. And he emerges as a similar player in that it's that blend of, you know,

tenacity and high-end skill that makes him so special. And both of them, when they split them up, you go, okay, is that going to help or hurt the sabers because obviously it's their best line. They were outscoring opponents, I think, 5-3, Don't Benson and Norris together. And they were the spark the sabers needed. But I think they knew they could split them up because they have that similar skill set. And now you spread the wealth across the top six. You have two energizers that also bring a ton of skill.

And if anything, you wonder why it didn't come sooner because I think both lines look suddenly so much better when they had each of these players on them. So the two breakout stars for Buffalo without question. we should probably devote most of our attention here today, teams who are still playing in the playoffs because it's more current. And we're going to have a lot of time to talk about this stuff as soon as the offseason starts in the lead up to the draft and free agency. But I do think the Sabres are so fascinating from this angle relating it to for Stone's extension and now the next one that we anticipate for Benson from a team building perspective, right? Because I know it's

disappointing for them coming out of that game seven loss and overtime feeling like they were the better team in game six and seven and we're so close to breaking through to the conference spinal and you don't want to take for granted that a young team like this is just naturally going to keep improving like you sometimes you're going to take advantage of those opportunities in front of you. I think they're set up pretty nicely though this summer to really build on this and be even better for it next year, assuming they take the right lessons out of what happened this postseason and maybe for you and I it's easier kind of emotionally removing ourselves from it and looking at this stuff a bit more pragmatically. But I think it's pretty clear in terms of how the games played out

who the core pieces are moving forward and then how to build around those guys accordingly, right? And like, especially in terms of avoiding landmines, potentially for Yarmone, his first off season running this team, where Alex Tuck was so bad in that series that I think it probably makes it easier to thank him for his service

and allow someone else to pick up the tab on his next deal and wind up quickly regretting it. Logan Stanley got played out of this series, and I know he was banged up as well, but I think it makes it easy. probably to be like, all right, well, I know we paid a fair bit to acquire him. He was a rental essentially and someone else can sign him this offseason in a very barren defense market. And we won't commit to that and kind of throw good money after bad money, giving Benson the eight

years. You know, Consta Hallenus looking as good as he did and like he's going to be an immediate day one guy next year. I think they're going to certainly have to dump Jordan Greenway's final year of his deal to accommodate some of this stuff and Benson's contract. But they've got a a lot of options in front of them because not only is Benson and RFA, but Krebs is as well, Michael Kessering, who didn't really factor into them, but we'll see what happens with him. And then a guy like Beck Malenstein, who was very valuable for them as a UFA. And because of Jeff Skinner's buyout hitting its peak this off season, they don't actually have that much financial wiggle room to accommodate all this stuff.

So I think a couple trades probably are coming. And I'm just fascinated to see what Yarmot does with that and how they build this out because all the pieces are there. but now they really got to strike wild irons hot and maximize this heading into next season. Yeah, at least with them, like, it feels like they had the right vision at the deadline and then the wrong execution when things didn't work out. So you have to hope that the promises there and they're going to go in the right direction. I wonder who they can convince to take one year deals to kind of, you know, hold firm until that buyout money goes back down. But all right, you said let's focus a little more on the teams in it.

So I'm going to throw one at you from the teams in it from the other side of that round two matchup. Dovesh has been fantastic this postseason. And it's really funny because I'm starting to see the conversations of maybe you don't need to spend that much on goaltending because look at all these contracts of the final four teams. After you have back-to-back cups from Bobrovsky, you have the years of Vasilevsky winning. And it's always funny how the conversation shifts. And that's the takeaway all of a sudden when Dobesh is going to be one of those highly paid guys at this rate. is showing that he can be that true number one goalie, right? Like the other teams, it's a different conversation.

I know with Dobish, he wasn't expected to be the starter this year. He comes in hot. He fizzles out a little. There was a lot of like changeups and net for the Canadians. But you go from the Olympic break on and he was just fantastic. He earned that starting role without a doubt. He ran with the opportunity and he's really carried into these playoffs. You know, there were a couple off nights in round two.

There were a couple early goals back and forth in those round two games that were bringing down his numbers, but it comes down to 10 quality starts in 14 games. It comes down to 10 goals saved above expected according to hockey stats. And I think he could be such an X factor in this series because he's a very aggressive goalie, which obviously makes him more entertaining to watch. It's also sometimes anxiety-inducing to watch those aggressive goaltenders, but he's someone that does handle the puck well. And I thought in the series against the Sabres, we could see him breaking up the forecheck

a little bit more if he was getting out of his own net. but I think that there was just too much chaos for that to happen. So I'm curious if it'll happen here at all, because if you think back to past post seasons, and one that sticks out in my mind is when Flurry was in Vegas, and he kept passing the puck out and helping Vegas break out faster before, you know, the wild get to work for checking. And it was the years of like the Falino Greenway, Erickson Eckline,

that just kept grinding it out. If he can do that here, I think that'll really hurt the Keynes attack too. But it'll be interesting to see how much you can keep this breakout year and break out postseason going because he's up to 57 games across the full year. That's the highest he's ever played in a single season. And it's not only that he's playing more games volume-wise across the whole year, it's the repetition factor. You know,

he's never played this many consecutive games either. And it's not like he's going to get a break anytime soon. So it'll be interesting to see how you can hold that up. Undoubtedly, and what? He's, by the time he plays game one of the conference final against the hurricanes, it'll be like 15 games this postseason. in a 32 or 33-day stretch, essentially.

And it looks like also the schedule makers didn't really do him any favors because there's no extra off days between any of these games either. They're essentially just going one day on, one day off, all the way through the conference final. And you compare his workload to the guy at the other end. And he obviously doesn't fit the bill in terms of a young guy breaking out and getting shine because Fred Anderson's been around forever. But he's also fascinating because he's got a chance to kind of rewrite the narrative

and script on his career and postseason resume, but the workload difference between the two is staggering, right? Like, obviously the hurricanes went through two sweeps, so Freddie Anderson only had to play eight games and has 12 days off now between the second round and the third round, but Dobish has faced twice as many high danger shots. He's faced like 200 more shots in general, played so much more. And so, yeah, I'll be curious to see how that works out. I don't want to belabor this point, but Kevin Woodley, every time he's on, talks about how good Jacob Dobish's pads are and how he like absorbs everything down though he's so um athletic and flexible and you saw it in that saber series where how many times that a sabers forward look like they had a great chance and they're

kind of trying to cut east west in front of the net and try to slide the puck pass his pad and he just stretches it out and absorbs it which is going to make such a fascinating test for the hurricanes here because we know in previous post seasons especially against the guy like bobrowski who's similarly very good at that they struggled with that particular area of the finishing where they were kind of jammed into his pads and really get stifled on a lot of those rebounds and in tight opportunities. And now a lot of their skill guys are going to be tested to lift the puck and be more thoughtful with their shot placement. So I'm really curious to watch how that plays out.

I think Doebusch in general sets up the habs pretty nicely in terms of their books heading into this off season. You know, they've got him and Fowler, both making less than a million dollars, which is going to be their tandem moving forward. Sam Montembow has one year left on his deal. It's 3.15 million. A.V, but the actual salaries below that and the market is so thin for goalies that I imagine they'll be able to trade them potentially if they want to to clear out some of that money, but they might not necessarily even need to. It remains to be seen how aggressive they are this offseason coming off this conference final appearance and they're still playing so I have a chance to make the Stanley Cup final, but they didn't do anything at the deadline. There was a lot of rumors that they had something in the last minute and then it eventually fell short and they'll probably revisit it this summer. They've got all their picks.

They have a bunch of money expiring next summer with Gallagher, Dono and Anderson coming off the books. All their guys other than Demidov are already signed long term on very team-friendly salaries. And so they've got room to keep adding here and potentially add one or two impact players and how cheap their goalies are helps facilitate a lot of that in the short term because they're not having to commit any of those resources to a position that's pretty up and down and volatile from year to year. year. Yeah, I'm excited to see what they do and I'm excited to see what happens honestly with

Montembo, too, like could he rebound elsewhere because that was such an odd year, but it does feel like Dolbush is like well on his way to being a true number one guy. Okay. Do you want me to pitch on you got someone? No, I got one. So let's stick with that series. And I'm going to lump Logan Stankov and Jackson Blake in here together. And we can talk about both of them, but obviously they play together and they've been so electric all season really. Like there was a time in the regular season where they were using Niklai Elers there as the third guy in that line. Then they bumped him down to play with Stalin-Martinuk. They put Taylor Hall there in his place.

And that line has really been one of the biggest, if not the biggest story this postseason in terms of their goal scoring dominance and just in general, 5-on-5, how they dictated play. Stankov and Blake in particular, because they're the two young guys that really fit into this exercise, have combined for, what, 11 goals in the team's eight games and the Keynes have given up 10 goals total. to the senators and the flyers so far. So they've outscored their opposition just by themselves through two rounds of the postseason. I know you tweeted this a while back up 9-1-5-15, 66% of the shots, 73% of the expected goals. High danger chances are 31 to 11 with the two of them on the ice. And most notably for me, they're doing so much of the work off the rush. And that was an issue for this team in the past.

What we saw from this year made me encouraged that this team was different offensively, and it's largely, Niklae Uler certainly helped. But Stankovin and Blake, how good they've been in transition. And Stankovin, by my account, has led the postseason in rush chances on a permanent basis. They've done it to their first two opponents, and they're going to need to keep doing it. And if they do so, the pathway for the hurricanes to actually generate sustainable offense is much more visible in plain sight than it was in previous post seasons when they obviously got through the first two rounds pretty easily, and then bumped into a roadblock and fell short in the conference final.

Yeah, and I think with Stankovin, too, it's like you can see, him getting more and more comfortable within the cane system and at center, right? Because he's asked to switch positions as a position he's played before, but not at the NHL level for this year. And it took him a little bit of time, I think, to make that impact on the score sheet, but you saw it down the stretch. And maybe we didn't flag this enough. Like, wow, look, all of a sudden he's scoring a ton in the last, you know, 15 games or so, that's something to carry into the playoffs because there's always been so much about what are they going to do with Tusi and, you know, what will happen in the playoffs? Can they make it?

There were 20 different narratives. Who was going to play goal was obviously taking up more of the airspace than maybe it should have because if that's been such a stable position here. But with Stankov and Blake, what's interesting is like throughout the regular season, Stankovin was doing a little bit of everything, right? Like you want to cook up a perfect hurricane in a lab. You're getting him. He's so good off the rush.

He's so good off the forecheck. But he was carrying the puck a little bit more. And so far through two rounds, we're seeing that kind of change here because Hall is so good in transition and can move the puck up the ice. And because Blake is really good at that. Stankovin has been carrying the puck less and focusing more on a shot. So he's shooting the puck more this year. He's also doing a better job so far in the playoffs of getting those shots to actually go on goal than the regular season.

He gets himself open sometimes and, you know, they do a lot of the legwork and he's just in the right position and has the finishing ability there. Sometimes he's creating chaos and net, which is allowing more rebounds to go through and second chances, which is helping that line go even more. so you just see the progress already. So from the regular season, some of his comps were players like Lekinen, Tyler Johnson, Kim Atkinson, Alvip Jurchin, those were all very good comps to have. But we're going to see him now

even more comfortable at center next season. And also that we're going to see him with Jackson Blake, who's, you know, assuming going to take step forwards too. So that line's going to be that much stronger that I expect him to just raise the bar higher on who we have is like those similar players for him next season. And the same goes for Blake because they're coming up together. They're like right now for Blake, some of his comps are guys like Andre Kasha,

Vincent Trocheck, O'Shee, Eelers, Brat, and those are all really good players to have become the next brat. Like that is a fantastic win for Carolina. So it's not just that they're on this impressive run right now because this run has been ridiculous even if you want to say their opponents haven't been as strong, but they're doing it and the outlook and going forward is so strong because of players like this. Between Benson and Stankov and what a postseason for short guys from British Columbia. Unbelievable glowups for them.

Yeah, I think what's really notable here is beyond how fun and productive this postseason's been. Both guys are finishing up their ELCs. And this past summer, the hurricanes proactively and smartly lock them up both long term. And you look ahead, moving forward, Stankov, and signed for the next eight years at $6 million. Blake is at 5.117 and they use a bunch of that deferred money in signing bonus structure with him to get the number that low. And the hurricanes are right up there with any team in the league in terms of meticulously crafting their cap sheet and planning ahead. And that's how you get into a situation like this where both guys are looking like such bargains moving forward. And that's what sets up the hurricanes so nicely in the years to come as well.

They pretty much have this entire team signed other than Alexander Nikitian, who is an RFA. this summer and still despite being the best team in the east or arguably the best team in the east and four wins away from a Stanley Cup final appearance they have like 12 million in caps base essentially to add to this group could be even more if they find a suitor for just Barrycock and yemi's contract and he's not really part of this team's rotation at this point and then they've got guys like bradley nadeau who have been ripping it up in the hl or is probably a regular on this team next year with a very interesting scoring profile at lower levels.

And so the ability to keep improving offensively and getting more of these types of players who are going to combine into superstar production essentially, even if individually they may not seem like it on the surface based on reputation or name brand value or even counting stats, I think is very exciting for this team. Yeah. Let's stick with the Keynes for a sec. There's one more I want to throw out there.

Candier Miller. Look, this is not his first rodeo in the postseason. And he has a little bit of, he has a little bit of seasoning to him at this point from his time in New York. But I think it's the level he's playing now this year with the Keynes and especially this postseason is not what we've seen at the NHL level consistently to this point. Like this is someone that has all of the raw tools to be this like incredibly special two-way defenseman, right?

This is someone who started playing forward, converted to defense. he has really great skating speed. He can catch up and make these highlight real plays. We saw one of those diving poke checks earlier in the playoffs too. And those are the moments that have always stood out for him. And I think sometimes you think of those without remembering everything in between. I think that was the problem with New York because he had all these highlight real plays and these incredible moments where you see him catching up with that stride and that long reach to break up plays.

But it's just not consistently top four caliber. When he signed that contract, there was a lot of talk about whether he's a $7 million guy. And I think you make the case of maybe he never would have been in New York, but with the Keynes he has been. And he's played such an important role in this postseason because their blue line is so deep. And that second pair, you have Candre Miller, who's super tall with the short king and Sean Walker. And they have been fantastic together. They're outscoring opponents seven to one. They have a 59% expected goal in their minutes together.

And they've been so good, you know, leading the breakout for the Keynes. And we talked about how they need to have a little bit more rush to them to have success because we know they play the high pressure swarming system otherwise, but you've got to go against the green. You've got to have a little bit more dimension. And I think that they're doing a really great job leading that on the back end because we've seen so much of, you know, over the years, Kane's defensemen can just kind of like rim the puck out.

And that will be fine. And just let them just keep playing that chip and chase style. Well, now you have players who can help you start the play with control. And I think that's made such a big difference. and it's really springing the forwards. And I think that's going to be even more important going forward in this series because Montreal is a much faster team. They're much more up-tempo and rush-based team than the Flyers and the senators.

And that's going to create different kinds of matchup issues and different types of styles clashes in this series. I think it's so fascinating how it's going to go because we've seen both teams. Montreal's had to adapt more to this point than I'd say the Keynes have had to. I expect that to change in the series. And I can see this pair being a big part of it because they skis so well. Yeah, I think that recoverability element in

Keontra Miller's game, which he was doing with the Rangers with high frequency is even more valuable based on the way the hurricanes play, right? Their forwards are so aggressive off the forecheck and cycling the puck down low and sometimes they can get caught deep. And that's why one of the defensive issues for this club the past couple years has

been some of the high danger odd man rushes against where it's a breakaway or two on one after a lot of that zone time that they generate. And even playing with Walker, who's going to be given the free light, the green light to pinch down the wall and try to extend those plays. Sometimes he just needs to essentially just get back defensively and break up a play the way he does. And you don't want to rely on a lot of those highlight real like diving plays where he barely

gets a stick on the puck. But on the occasional time when it happens, I think it's very valuable to his team. I also think, I'm not sure how you feel about this. Like I always felt like Keondre Miller had more untapped offensive potential to his game that never really flourish the way I hoped in New York. Like he'd have moments, but it would never really be sustained. And part of it would use the driven where generally on that team, Adam Fox would get the majority of the offensive opportunities with his own starts and power play time and all

that. And you've got Gossus Bear here. You got Walker, Niketian. Like, Kendry Miller still doesn't have to play that role. But in watching him in these playoffs, I've liked his shot selection as well, where he's not necessarily kind of dumbing down the game to the point where he's just, every time he gets the fuck at the point. He's just trying to fire it on that and hope for chaos and rebounds. Like he's actually thoughtfully sending it back down to reignite the cycle or looking for a teammate

stick to potentially redirect it and doing stuff like that that kind of reinforces the idea that he has more layers to his game offensively and it might not show up in the points. But I think it's still huge for a guy like that to be showing stuff like that at a point of his career where he's still, I think, getting better and entering his prime. Yeah, no, that's a really good point because I think you go back to the New York era and there were a couple things like Peter Lovillette's system was super demanding on the defenseman. So it was tough for him to play and jump up in the play offensively. I think Phil Housley's defensive system was pure chaos. So, you know, it's hard to play offense if you're constantly scrambling on defense.

The other part of it is he was playing matchup minutes a lot of the time. And if he was getting power play time, it was on PowerPlay 2, which wasn't very deep, right? Like the Rangers didn't have enough forwards to fill out two dynamic units. So that was going to always drag him down. and sometimes when he was getting power play too, they even went with a second defenseman at times. So he just didn't get to like cook up to, you know, his full potential. And you look at it, he was, I guess, thought it to be that more offensive guy on that pair

back then because it was Truba and Miller. And Miller was the guy who could skate a little bit more. But also he had to be so aware defensively because of all of Truba's lapses. And here, sure, Walker gets to be a little bit more active of the two. But I think you can switch on and off a little bit more. And I think that's for the best here. I think, you know, he definitely has more offense in the tank. I think we're starting to see it.

It's tough to go across the full season, honestly, for the canes and look at it as a whole because you can kind of like put a line in it when Slaven returned and everybody was back in there more like fitting roles. And that's when he could really, I think, step up on both ends of the ice here. So I think we'll just keep seeing more growth and development of that side over the next few seasons. For sure. All right. Let's take our break here.

And then we come back. We'll jump right back in a way to keep going through our list of, you know, young players that have either developed or broken out this postseason so far and impressed us. You're listening to the Hockeypedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. All right, we're back on the Hockeypedo cast, joined by Shana Goldman. Here's the next guy on my list, Shana. Pavel D'Urfiav, who scores again, game one against the abs, becoming the first player this postseason to hit double digits in goals.

All 10 of those goals he scored have come in the last 10 games because he had a really slow start to the postseason against Utah. In a round one, it's coincided with him and Jack Eichol playing together. five on five. He obviously does a lot of his damage on the power play. But I think that certainly helped him with Eichol's playmaking ability and willingness to look for him and distribute the puck. And it was interestingly enough a combo that they never really used under Bruce Cassidy this season. I think the two of them played less than 100 minutes total five on five to get there. And they've become a full-time pair atop the lineup throughout this postseason. His next contract

is fascinating to me because he scored 72 goals over the past two regular seasons. That's for 15th most on a permanent basis. He's tied with Jason Robertson for the 10th most goals per minute scored. He turns 26 in the first month of next season. He's got a ton of leverage here. And I think the Golden Knights have a little bit of wiggle room contractually. We know they've certainly going to be aggressive via the trade market and potentially sending guys out when other teams might be emotionally committed to them.

And so there's going to be ways for them to create the cap room to fit door if they choose to, but it will be tight, especially if, depending on how Rasmus Anderson's next deal plays out and if they commit to that after trading as much as they did for him, and we all just assume that would come with an extension the way they've acted previously. That has obviously not come to fruition yet, but I don't know if you have any thoughts on Dorfiev's next deal, what we've seen from this postseason or just the trickle-down effect this summer of what the Golden Knights are going to do to kind of move the money around to actually accommodate whatever his next deal looks like.

Yeah, his, his current contract is such a steal. It looks more and more like by the day. And the big thing here is that he has not produced that this level in the playoffs. You know, like to do it in the regular season is one thing, to do it in the playoffs. It's another. Yeah, yeah, it's all cliches, but it's true. And he's exactly what this team needs. He's such a good shooter.

He obviously, like, I don't want to say obviously. He isn't as much of a play driver in his own rate. And that's, that's important here too. It's like, Vegas is such a great spot for him because it maxim, his strengths, right? Because they have so much two-way talent up and down the lineup, right? Whether you're playing with a Marner or an Ikel or a stone, like you're, or William Carlson, you're playing with a defensively.

So you can just cook offensively. You're also playing with really high-end playmakers. And that's important here too, because if you look through a lot of his goals, you know, there are a lot of one-timers and there's some plays like there's one against the ducks in overtime where, you know, he gets the bouncing puck crawls and quickly scores. but it's also set up by a sick pass by Eichl. So there's a lot of credit to him for being able to finish the way that he does. Sometimes he's in tight and he has to twist his body to get these goals.

And he's doing really great things with the puck on his stick. But he's also getting set up a lot of the times by amazing passes. And I think that's so important to talk about because he's someone that could become an overpayment target if teams try to look at him without having enough support. Right. In Vegas, he's, you could argue, the number. four guy behind, you know, Marner Eichel and Stone. And to have that just shows their depth. And he's exactly what they need because they need a sharpshooter like that. I don't think he's

an empty calorie score. But I also don't think the Chicago Blackhawks could offer him, you know, $11 or $12 million tomorrow and be happy with what they're going to get. So the next contract will be so fascinating to see who tries to pursue him outside of Vegas, how Vegas can make this work because his market value, according to Dom's model over the next eight years, is $11.6 million. And while RFAs generally don't reach that, it's a weird year. The market for high-end wingers is really thin. The best way to add talent, like that's going to be through trades or offer sheets. And obviously an offer sheet for him is not going to come cheap.

But it could be worth it for certain teams. If you're the Carolina Hurricanes, you have enough substance up and down your lineup that you can maximize Dorfiav's game and make him a perfect part of your team. A team like Edmonton, team like New Jersey, they all have enough skill that I think you could make Dorothea be that probably closer like $9 million player, $10 million player I think 11 or 12 is obviously reserved for like

the upper upper upper upper tier but we'll see and I think Vegas obviously knows how to do that so we'll see how this one turns out because he should make a lot of money his postseason is opening a lot of eyes to what we know he can do in the regular season now it's just on a national stage in a higher pressure situation and goal scores don't grow on trees

but he could quickly become that overpayment candidate in the wrong surroundings, I think. Yeah, Eichl's been setting him up a ton. Even the goal he scores against the avalanche is a beautiful setup by Mitch Marner on the power play. And so he's been on the receiving end, a lot of those. Now, it's one skill. It's a very, very valuable skill, especially this time of year,

because we see teams generally when they fall short, it's just not being able to convert on their opportunities. And so having a guy who will probably convert on a high number of them the way he has here is a nice asset to have. And I do think while it's clearly the biggest selling point, And the past year or two, he's gotten faster and stronger and added more layers to his game where he's not one of those like Daniel Sprong types, for example, where a coach just isn't going to trust him at all, regardless of his one shot scoring ability because there's so many other limitations. Like, I think he's gotten his baseline level off the puck high enough where he's not necessarily going to be relied to be a top checker or a matchup guy for another team. But if you have him out there with Eichael against McKinnon's line or against Leo Carlson's line in the previous season,

it's not necessarily going to be a disaster either and he'll be able to hang around enough to maximize all the other stuff he does. So yeah, I'm I'm curious to see how this plays out. Like they have a couple options the Golden Knights do this summer. One is, I mean, Aynne Hill's contract is looking like an albatross at this point, the 6.25 for five more years, especially the term, even in a market this thin with his play this year and what a commitment that would be. It's tough to seeing them get out of that. unscathed. Mark Stone's entering the final year of his deal. William Carlson's entering the final year of his deal. Both guys are clearly immensely valuable to this team. Stone's the captain of the organization and they've been very committed to him despite all the injuries. Carlson missed a ton of time this year, but man, you're seeing how good of a playoff player he is upon his return. And so those would be big losses, but also it's the golden night.

So whenever a guy is approaching the end of the line contractually and they view it as an opportunity to move the money around and get a longer term fit, we've seen. them do that pretty ruthlessly in the past. And so it wouldn't necessarily shock me either, but they're going to be tight up against that. I think they've got 91 in cap commitments in terms of million dollars. The cap's going to be 104. And that's nine forwards under contract next year, one of them, which is in Dorfiev. And he would account for a good chunk of that.

So they're going to have to get creative. Okay, who's next on your list? I think we have time for a couple more. All right. It's tough after last night. But I want to talk a little bit about Sam Malinsky, because even some I think we both had as a potential playoff breakout this year. He had such a great regular season.

I thought he was good in round one. Struggled a lot in round two at times against the wild. He played head to head with Quinn Hughes a bit. And Hughes and Faber were in complete control in those minutes. But now with the Kalmikar injury, I think this is like make or break time for Milinski. And there's such a big difference between being the number two guy in Kalmikar and being that number one on that number one pair. Obviously, if you're changing, it's not just roles and responsibility.

like, yes, you're getting higher quality teammates if you're going to be absorbing those minutes, but you know, you're getting all the tough matchups here. So it'll be interesting to see how he can rebound from game one, what he can do if McCar is out? Or if McCar returns, can they lean on him and give him a little bit more without completely overloading him in his minutes? And, you know, I think his regular season proved that it made Sam Gerard expendable because realistically, how many short kings are you going to have on the back end and how many, you know, like-minded players are you going to have when you need versatility. And it feels like the abs have found a ton of versatility.

up front so you want to have it on the back end as well and having guys like Kulaf make more sense in this context and he's been really good and they probably have no complaints after that his game five performance against Minnesota but Malinsky's someone I'm looking forward to amp up his game a little bit more in this series and obviously the Golden Knights are a tough team to play

against they are the avs toughest opponent yet they have a much deeper approach than Minnesota does but I think he showed in the regular season he has that skating ability to skate himself out of trouble and add that you know, dynamic ability that makes the Ave so special. So I'm looking for big things from in this series. He had a tough game one of the West Final, no doubt.

I'll give him a little bit of leniency because he missed games four and five of that wild series with injury. And so coming back from functionally two weeks off and jumping into a spa where all a sudden now you're playing top pair essentially with Devontase and filling in for for Kail Makar, it's a pretty tough task. And he struggled within it. I think he'll be better. you know, one adjustment I'd potentially like to see them make, and we still don't know

Kail Makar's status moving forward, but I was a little surprised to see their insistence on using Devon Taves on that top unit power play. And he's, listen, when you have Duvante's on the ice, it's generally a good thing. And we know how valuable he is. And he's got a good feel for the game as well, kind of atop the point in the power play. So I like that he's going to try to distribute the puck, but there were times in that game one where the puck would come to him and he'd be a very reluctant shooter and would pass up opportunities or kind of get them into trouble and get them out of promising spots. And then he was out there late and wasn't able to convert on that pass from McKinnon.

And partly it might be driven by the fact that they like that he's a left shot and they run a lot of their stuff off that side of the ice with McKinnon and H's. So it sets up the one-time option. But if he's not going to use it, I'd like to see Sam Malinsky potentially use there a little bit more because we know he's going to be a much more willing shooter to at least threaten up there. Now, the apps have to be careful. We saw them get in trouble with it a couple times.

and Malinsky himself, at the end of that second unit power play, essentially, Howden blocks his shot, it goes into a neutral zone, they get a two-on-one and convert off of it, the Golden Knights do. And they're so good at blocking shots up high like that. So I think these abs eventsmen need to be careful with not having that happen because it can fuel the Golden Knights counter game quite a bit, but I'm still a Malinsky believer, despite that performance. And I think he's ultimately going to be fine. And if McCar gets back and he settles into that spot with Brett Kulak, we've seen them be successful in the past.

I think he'll turn it around. Do you want to talk ducks real quick? Because they got eliminated by those Golden Knights in round two. They're an interesting team for me. Obviously building off of this remarkable season where they get back in the playoffs of the first time in nearly a decade, beat the Oilers as easily as they did, and then put up a good fight against the Golden Knights. I know game six at home kind of went off the rails for them,

and it was an ugly departure from the playoffs. but the first four, four and a half games of that series in particular, I thought they were right there with the Golden Knights, if not even better than them, despite not winning that series. And now they enter this summer with $41 million in cap space. Now, Leo Carlson's an RFA, Carter Goce is an RFA, both Minchikov and Zellweger are RFAs, and those two forwards in particular are presumably going to soak up

at least half of that available cap space, so it's not necessarily as abundant as it appears. they only have Jackson Lachom and Drew Hellison as NHL defenseman under contract. And so I'm curious to see how that shakes out. And then what they do in kind of reinforcing this team around those top young players, in particular with Mason McTavish, because he really fell out of favor. He was a healthy scratch.

He really struggled throughout the regular season, even in the playoffs when he drew in. He had some moments, but he was a fourth liner essentially in terms of usage for them. And they really need to, I think, be careful about what they do, financially moving forward because when they were rebuilding and on the way up or really bottoming out, they were taken on all of these veterans with high priced commitments to them like Truba and Crider and Strome and Coulorne and so on and so forth. And it didn't matter because they weren't competitive. They weren't spending a lot on their young players. Now that all of them are going to be expensive other than Beck and Seneca, they need to be careful about having inefficient contracts

on their books moving forward, especially what we saw this postseason where You know, Crider in that Golden Night series was on the top line with Carlson and Terry and really struggled. He didn't contribute anything. FI.15, a guy like Petrono wasn't even used in the playoffs and really fell out of the rotation. Coulorin was useful and he's got one year left, but it's at over $6 million. And so what they do with a lot of these contracts and how they fill it out and what they do with the Blue Line in particular is going to be interesting because the strides from these young players were phenomenal. And like Carlson was unbelievable in round one. Gochier was their best player in my opinion in round two.

And then we learn later he's essentially playing with a broken back after fracturing two of his vertebrae at the end of the regular season and still looked as good as he did. So it's incredibly exciting. But I think there's a lot of work for Padrabeak and the Ducks here this off season in terms of not taking a step back and really building on this momentum they've created. Yeah, because I can definitely see them looking at it going, okay, so we're a playoff team now. What do you do? You go out and get playoff players.

And it's like, okay, but you did that. You did that. And those were the weaklings in this. postseason. They should be really proud of the fact that the young guys were the difference makers because, you know, Leo Carlson, I thought was fantastic. You had him what, like number one in scoring chance contributions. Yeah, like unbelievable there. And I think you see where there's room for growth. You know, you could sign him to 10, 11, 12 million right now and be very happy on a long-term deal because, you know, he's all that. But I think if he can learn to use his

size a little bit more, like he's just going to be a total force. And that's why I love that roundwell matchup between him and Leon Drysidal because Drysadol's like, perfect example of how you can use your frame without becoming some big physical player and slowing down like to just be stronger on the puck and that you look at that game one sequence of you know i felt like it was like carlson's welcome to the playoff moment of dry saddle just muskling past him with control and i'm like that is what he should become that play is what he needs to study and be like that's the difference here because he did great in transition in his own right but if he could just be a little bit stronger, you know, within himself,

I think that'll make such a difference for him because he has such star power. And for Beckett Seneca, like, he was the difference maker in round two for Anaheim. I know his underlying numbers weren't perfect, but he was someone like, you needed a clutch goal and you're getting it, and you're getting it from a rookie. Like that's really special. You want something to happen on the power play. You're looking at Cutter Gote. All the young guns were what the ducks needed more.

And that extends to the back end, right? Jackson Lacombe was the guy. He was playing these incredibly hard matchups. I get it. It was Connor McDavid of 50%. But Connor McDavid at 50% is still harder to go up against the most players. And the fact that he could skate, like that's a matchup I would love to see again next year with both of them healthy

because the fact that he could skate and keep up with him, he was blocking passes and getting in his way. And most players can't do that. Most players are going to get burned left, right and sideways. And while that did happen to him a little bit more when he was going up against Marner and round two, you know, it's a growing moment. And I just think that those are the players to lean in on. And yes,

they're going to have to find complimentary pieces around them. And I think guys at Granlin were good examples of that. But it's finding that balance between the experience and the young guys because the young guys were the difference makers here. All right. I believe it's your turn. You got one more for me? Yeah.

Are we going with, we're sticking with teams that got knocked out. We can go with that a little bit more. Yeah, let's do it. All right. Let's talk a little bit about Walsett for Minnesota because going into the postseason, I don't think any of us expected to see him as the starter. They were both goaltenders like on the season as a whole.

Their numbers weren't like drastically different and there were moments for both of them. They had that even rotation. But I think Gustafsson, you saw it heading into the Olympic break again down the stretch like just wasn't at his best. And yes, now it turns out there's an injury factor to it. But it did seem like they were kind of gearing whilst Gustafsson up to be the starter and giving him those consecutive starts down the stretch. see if he could do it and Walside still gets you know the the starting role in the playoffs sure he gets swapped out for a game uh didn't really love that decision personally but gets the net right back and i think it just adds a little bit more intrigue to the wild situation of his

readiness even in those situations um because you look at teams and how they're going to build this window and you think about like the goaltending of it all Walsstead for so many probably was viewed as a potential trade chip because Gustafson has that, you know, longer term contract already. But I think you should be having, if you're Minnesota's front office, you can't base it fully off of one postseason. And Gustafson does have a pretty good record, but he does have some streaky moments that I would be seriously contemplating if moving Walsheds the move, unless it's bringing

back that big of a game breaking center because they obviously need two things here. But I just think he kind of established himself more than I would have expected as the potential guy in Minnesota between the pipes. And listen, if they can make it be well, said in the long run, that's going to help them financially too. And they're going to need whatever help they can get because Caprisal's contract is starting soon. There's going to be the next Quinn Hughes deal

if they managed to extend them. And they have a lot of work to do around that. So I think his postseason was pretty eye-opening. It was. I mean, he was phenomenal, obviously. It didn't end the way. I think he would hoped. But it's kind of tough to blame him, especially in that game five with the pressure

the abs regenerating, where you know, the wild really just kind of flatlined after going up 3-0 and he did as best to keep the lead until he couldn't. The financial component of this is probably the most interesting part, right, where Walshid's so cheap next year he's got $2.2 million due to him and then he's an RFA the following off season, whereas Gustafson, who lost the net to him in this postseason hasn't even started or is about to start his extension of 6.8 over five years and in particular the first two years of that deal, he gets paid like $8 million next year. 0.5 the year after. And so I think that adds another layer of intrigue here in terms of how they

approach this, whether they use one of those guys to add that center they're looking for atop the lineup or build elsewhere because the top pair is phenomenal. We saw some of the issues in relying on Spurgeon and Brodine to the extent they did. Brodine gets hurt and that happens in the postseason and that played a big role in that series. But he's like 33 now and has missed a lot of time over the past couple years, Spurgeon's 37, and so I don't think it's reasonable to lean on those guys like that, and they had no real safety net beyond that. And then a lot of their wingers beyond Boldie and Caprizov are either 35 years old or UFA's this summer. And so they have a lot of team building ahead of them with not that many resources available to them. So it makes sense that

one of these guys would keep being looped into whatever trade package is rumored. But also, if they just roll it back with the two of them and just have above average goaltending to potentially really good goal tending for all 82 games and heading into the playoffs. It's not a bad place to be in either. So we'll see how that all plays out. I think that's all the time we have for today. I really wanted to talk Jack Drury a little bit, Dominic James, you know, guys like New Hook and Bull Duke for the Habs, but we'll have more time to circle back on that.

And maybe we can revisit it the next time I have you on. What do you want to promote here on the way out, Chena? Because as I said, of the top, you've been very busy at the athletic. So let the listeners know a little bit about what they can read from you here recently. Yeah, Dom and I are doing a contender checklist series. We're looking at end of the regular season. We did it for the contenders with Marat and Harmon. They did the West.

We did the East. But now it's just Domini going through it, collaborating with all the beat writers to look at how far every non-playoff team is from stacking up to a Stanley Cup team. So I will have Nashville next week. And also what we're seeing in round three. looking forward to that keep up the great work and especially once we get in today off season I'll have you back on right at the start and we can revisit some of these situations because

it'll hopefully be a fun and active summer this year in the NHL with the trade market um if you enjoy today show give us a five-star review wherever you listen subscribe to the PDO cast patreon as well we got harman on friday to talk game one of each conference final matchup put out a newsletter uh yesterday yesterday as well breaking down every round two series with a ton of detail and scoring chance that i think I went crazy with like 12,000 words in it. So no audiobook for it available, unfortunately. But if you want to make yourself a cup of coffee and get into that, I highly recommend it. And that is all for today.

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