The Hockey PDOcast - Calder Race, Expected Goal Models, and Florida's Contracts

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Dom Luszczyszyn to talk about this year's Calder race, expected goals models and how the way the game is being played offensively is impacting them, and what the Panthers will do with all of their upcoming contract decisions. 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.

mean since 2015. It's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Dmitri Filipo. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy Dom Lus Chishin Dam. It's coming. Not too much. Just always happy to be here, Dim and Dom, once again reunited.

A Dim and Dom production. Yeah, I have to have you on. I think this is the first time I've had you on this season. Obviously, I would have you on regardless. But I think it's important for me to have you on a regular basis just to prove to people that we are different people, because I've ironically been getting a lot of angry messages sent my way from Canucks fans telling me to stay up and watch late games here on Pacific Time,

which is especially funny considering I live here in Vancouver and am watching those games regardless. But yes, I just want to prove that we are, in fact, different people by having this conversation. Yeah, I think it's funny also because I feel like I've tweeted about taking naps, so often that they should be iconic. And part of the reason is because I do stay up for the West Coast games most nights and go to bed at one, wake up at like 8.30. And then I need to regain that hour somewhere midday.

Sometimes people get traded during that time. It's a good sign for the league. Well, you're stepping on Seth Jarvis's corner there. He's really trying to make taking a lot of naps, his brand. And I think he's succeeding. He's attributing a lot of his success in NHL to that. So good for him. Okay.

Here's the plan for today. We're going to bounce around the league. We're going to take a look at a bunch of interesting storylines that have caught our stuff you've written about recently stuff that I've been thinking about. And there's been a lot of conversation in the PDO guest Discord recently about a lot of this stuff. So we're going to use some of those listener questions as well as launching pads for this discussion today. And so here's a good one to start us off. This is from a PDO guest follower in Discord server that says,

now that we've passed the quartermark of the season, the Calder would go to Connor Bardard if the season ended today. The implied odds from sports books have him around 70% or so likely to win the award. Is it really that wide of a margin? I feel like this is the best crop of rookies we've seen in a long time. If you think it isn't, who would you say has the best shot at passing him?

Now, I quickly looked up at Bet365, for example, they have Baddard at minus 350. Second is Luke Hughes plus 1,000, and then you go down to Logan Cooley, Brock Faber, Virif and Tilly, Carlson, so on and so forth, there's a long list of players who are very interesting prospects and have had awesome rookie seasons for a variety of reasons. But the gap between Boudard

and everyone else in the field right now is about as wide as you'd see. I think that those minus 315 implied odds have them at like 75% or even 80% implied. So how do you feel about this, about the market, about Baudard season, this Calder class as well, because I do agree with the general point that there's a lot of really, really enticing names in terms of what they're doing right out of the game in NHL. Yeah, it feels like the market is not wrong based on sentiments alone. I think as soon as he stepped onto the ice, people were ready to hand him the Calder. And he has earned it offensively. Obviously, he's got 28 points in 31 games.

He is doing that despite a complete lack of talent around him on Chicago. He is facing tough competition every night. I just don't think the gap is quite as wide as the markets suggest. And I got to go to back for my boy, Brock Faber, who has been the best defenseman on the Minnesota Wild. He's playing 24 minutes a night. He is a insanely good shutdown defenseman as a rookie, which is, might be just as hard to do as being a first line forward as a rookie. Like in terms of stepping into the NHL as someone's never played in that league before, the two toughest things you can do, I think, are be a shutdown defenseman facing tough minutes every night and putting up good defense numbers and doing a butardard. is doing and scoring at a near point per game pace and creating all this offense on your own.

Like those are two incredibly difficult roles to fill and they're both doing them exceptionally well. And I think Faber's a lot closer to Bedard than sentiment right now suggests. Yes. In terms of actual real life production, I agree with you. I actually think, you know, in terms of what we think will happen versus what what we think should happen, though. Like, the gap should probably be even wider because I think that people had already sort of been ready. Like, there was so much hype heading into the season on Badar, right? And the fact that he's actually delivered on it, I think he's done nothing to sort of dissuade people from that.

So if you had already entered the season just like penciling him in at the top of your calder ballot, I think it's going to take something like truly historic from someone else or a Boudard injury potentially to like change your perception of that. So like often with these awards and betting the betting market, you're trying to kind of prognosically what awards orders will do and where they're leaning. And so I would say that everyone is leaning pretty heavily towards Baderd. And you know, rightly so. Like he's he's had a phenomenal season.

You mentioned sort of the context of the environment like how difficult, the degree of difficulty of what he's doing in terms of the usage of the minutes, who he's playing against, who he's playing with. I think I expected him right out of the gate to score 30, 35, maybe even push for 40 goals because that shot is so elite and because I thought he'd already feast on the power play. And then you look, he's got one power play goal so far. There are 28 in power play efficiency as a team,

and yet he's still got 12 goals in 31 games. He's got 11 more points than any teammate of his. he's drawn a bunch of penalties with his elusiveness and his in his moves he was fantastic last night against Colorado all night creating stuff and so yeah I mean he's been phenomenal now I mentioned it might take something historic from someone to challenge him for the award I guess you could argue that what Brock Faber is doing just purely based on how much Minnesota is using him is historic right like I think Toby Enstrom I was looking this up this morning Toby Enstrom in 2007 for the Thrashers is the only rookie that played more than him since the 2005 walkout.

And that was 24, 28 for Enstrom. Faber right now is at 2418 and quickly climbing. And at that point, Anström was like a 23-year-old draft plus five season defenseman, whereas Faber is 21. And I think what he's doing is much more impressive in that regard. So yeah, maybe you could argue that especially if this keeps up or something resembling what he's done recently. then that might qualify in that camp of historic compared to what Baderr's done.

Yeah, there's two things I want to say here. Number one, I do agree that last night, Bajar, was probably one of his best games this year. And a key point in that is Philip Kershev was nowhere near him. And I think a lot of Baderd's defensive issues have to do with the fact that he's played so much with Kershav who's been such a negative in that. regard in past years and him being forced up the lineup in that role. I don't think it's helping butard in that manner and obviously the defense he plays in front of. I think the issue with Faber is that his impact is almost entirely without the puck defensively. He's been a rock

there. He, I looked it up for Joe Smith and Michael Russo were doing Faber stories all the time because they love in Minnesota and his defensive impact is expected to be like the best of any rookie since 2007-8 his total impact is on track to be comparable to kale McCar and adam fox i think the thing that needs to happen is he needs to put some numbers on the board along with playing these minutes and one thing that might help is he has recently moved to the top power play and he's been he's only two points off of Luke Hughes right now and wasn't getting PowerPlay this time before that. I think that could be something that sets in part down the stretch.

And if he continues doing this well without Jonas Brodine as well, that could be a big thing for his narrative case. Let me just close the loop on Badar here. I have so many other thoughts on Faber, but you mentioned Kyrusha there. And I agree in terms of like the total package, especially factoring in defense. But I just think when you watch how other teams are defending him and game planning for him, like the options are so limited in terms of talent that can even keep up or convert on some of the chances he creates.

And so I'm actually okay with just experimenting with like the younger or more talented, at least theoretically players with him and seeing what fits because there's just such a lack of respect for anyone else on the team that like you want to make sure he's not drowning, right? And you got to make sure he's actually at least got a chance. And so I think that's why their power play has been so bad because he's really one of the only threads. And that's such a shame of the Taylor Hall injury for a variety of reasons,

but mostly because he was one guy who could physically keep up with him in terms of skating ability, could occasionally carry the puck up the ice and take some of the burden off of him there and allow him to kind of, you know, skate, hide and then show up in the offensive zone and get the puck in a scoring position. Instead, now all eyes are on him. But he has to do it all himself. And I just don't think they have very many options to kind of fill that gap. So I think like at the top of my checklist,

I know they've drafted a bunch of other high-skilled, intriguing, fast skating forwards over the past couple years. And I'm sure those guys will get integrated in the coming seasons in Chicago. But I think that's at the top of my wish list, right? Just getting guys who can actually keep up with the way he needs to play to be effective. Yeah. And it's been a shame how bad Lucas Reichel has been all season. Because he was the, I think, one of the better options for Bajard this season, aside

from Hall and he just sort of face planted, didn't look anything like he did last year. I would have liked if they experiment more. It seemed like they kept going to the Kirshev well, whether it worked or not. And there was a lot of times, a lot of games where Bedard didn't have the puck as much as he could have because he's spending a lot of time defending. And Kirshev, I just don't see it. And I don't think it's a huge coincidence that they put him with Donato and Reichel last night. And he played a lot better against a contending team. That's true. That's a good. Good point. Okay, on Faber.

So I was thinking about this because you're right. Like I think the points will come especially if he's playing all situations, but especially top power play unit the way he has recently. And his points are actually fine, but you look at a lot of the other categories. It's not typically like these aren't the players and awards. We often talk about this from the Norris perspective, but I think it applies to this call to discussion as well. The stuff Faber does doesn't necessarily like you can't just go on that NHL.com stats page

to look it up and be like, all right, I can see his impact. I can see his activity on the ice, right? It's a lot of suppression of things happening. And so unless you're watching all these games or looking at some of the numbers you and I are talking about, you're probably not going to have that appreciation of it. And it made me think of the fencemen like this and this conversation for the Calder. And actually the one that I went back to was, funny enough, 2013 with the owner's protein. What I remember like passionately, this was one of my first sort of getting into the industry,

making these debates, making these like, um, arguments for why this stuff matters. In 2013, Jonas Brodine, I was like, this guy's playing like 23, 24 minutes a night regularly in the top pairing with, with Ryan Suter. His 5-on-5 impacts are through the roof. No rookie defenseman should be this good and this smooth already. Let's give him some love. And I think he finished fourth that year. Yep.

And the Calder. So. And Faber's better. He has been better. He has been better. I, I went through all the defense. who finished top five in caller voting for Joe Smith's story. And Brodeen was on there and he did have some strong impacts.

He played a lot. It was just Faber. Faber wasn't in the Brodeen class. He was in the Fox McCar class, which I think is a huge testament to his defense. And if he gets his offensive game going to have just someone who already looks like such a complete defender playing these minutes, these tough minutes,

I don't know. he definitely has to be up there. He does. I mean, with no Brodian and Spurgeon in the past four games, 30-07, 31-34, 28-18, as I said, what a slacker, taking a night off there. And then 30-19. And most notably, three of those, like, those last three came in the past four days because they had a back-to-back in there as well.

Just ridiculous. The 5-1-5 impacts, they're up 30 to 17 with them on the ice, 54%. Expected goal share, 56% high-danger chance. share you just see how like smooth and poise is i've actually been impressed with his offensive instincts as well and like how he's been picking his spots and jumping in now i think one of my concerns is and like listen right now he's playing on that top air all situations jacob middleton is is his partner right like i think the responsibilities for him are just so immense i worry though like and i'm sure when spersion comes back and brodine will come back eventually he won't need to play 30 minutes a night

but it's like really difficult. It goes back to that actually suitor conversation we would have for years where when you're playing this many minutes, you have to pace yourself, right? And so for a young defenseman like this, I would love to see him like develop and incorporate more offensive habits into his game and really, you know, be involved in that capacity.

And that's not a luxury you can really have when you're playing 30 minutes because you essentially have to do everything. And so you just have to monitor your energy and sort of pace yourself in that way. So being on the top hour, will help with the with the boxcar stats but um he's doing great right now i just obviously i don't think it's ideal and i'm sure the wild don't want him to be playing 30 minutes a night but they kind of have to right now and they're winning these games under john hind so i think

they're probably going to keep riding that until the wheels fall off yeah uh just unbelievable i remember a quote earlier in the season from their previous coach deyna vason saying uh that's basically only been favor being their best offenseman everyone's been slacking off and it hasn't taken long for him to legitimately look like Minnesota's best defender. Yeah. Is there anything else on this Calder class in general that you think is worth noting? Because obviously the conversation, the question was about Badard and his competition.

And I think we highlighted Faber as the top guy that's rising up the ranks. I think obviously like Fantillion Carlson, their future is so bright. but this award is, in theory, impact for this season alone versus what our future expectations are, right? So it's not a knock on any of these guys to be like, they're not going to be awesome in future years. It's just in terms of what they're doing for their team right now. And part of that is just being given the chance to play this,

whereas you look at Antilles Ice Time, right? Or you look at Carlson's Knights Off occasionally that are baked in. And it's just like a different situation for them and reality than for someone like Bedard or Faber. yeah like carlston is put at the top of the lineup but the the nights off to make it difficult to really get the full impact to be i guess near bad in this conversation uh luke hues i think has been great for the devils but at the same time you look at his context versus favors and it's not even really close and when you see that he only has two more points than favor and his offense isn't As eye popping, the defense just overwhelms that as much as there are a lot of good rookies this year, including Mitzikov in Anaheim as well, I think it's really Faber and Bedard separating themselves from the pack. Yeah, I agree with that. Okay.

Let's move on to the next topic, which is expected goals. And so here's a question from Connor that says, it feels like expected goals is becoming less useful as more emphasis is placed on creating change. is through lateral movement and other means that make tracking just shot location potentially misleading. Is this just my perception of expected goals changing as I learn more about it, or is this a real trend? And if expected goals is becoming a less useful stat, what options are there to tracking online success the way we went from plus minus to coursey, from coursey to expected goals over the years? Now, this is obviously like we could take this any number of ways, but you wrote recently about power plays in particular

and how some of the pitfalls maybe or dangers of looking at historical trends in terms of what our expectations are for certain shot profiles and then carrying that over to what we think is going to happen in terms of regression this year. I think that's a really interesting conversation, right? Because often we just sort of look at the same numbers

and cite them without actual sort of maybe nuance or kind of critical thought in terms of what's happening in today's game and the product in 2020, 23, 24 is obviously so wildly different than it was even as recently as like 2017 or 2018, right? And so I think using historical trends for any number of years back

might not necessarily be as accurate as we'd like in terms of prognosticating what's going to happen the rest of this season. How do you kind of feel about this and what do you think about this idea that expected goals, while obviously still more useful than plus minus or even raw shot volume,

might be becoming a bit diluted, I guess, with the way the game's being played. Yeah, I think since 2017-18, goal scoring has gone way up. And with that change, I think the importance of just looking at actual goals has been, has become more and more important. I think people are still a bit stuck on just looking at expectable goals or shot times, because finishing talent and goal-tending talent matters more than it did in 2015-16 when they were like 5.5 goals per game, where owning the puck and getting the most shot volume and possession and all that, those were the big tickets, obviously, but we're in a game

now where actually putting the puck in that actually making saves makes a big difference if you can do it sustainably well. I think the Canucks are a great example of this where they're playing very hot right now. They're scoring, they're finishing. They're not going to maintain a 105 patio or whatever it is, but they have natural finishing talented team. They have a very strong goalie. They are going to be better than their expected goals total.

And that needs to be something that's accounted for. On the other hand, we don't want to ignore expect goals completely either. I think one of the interesting things like that. last year is everyone thought the Sabres would be amazing this year. This would be their big step up. I think even on the power play side, one curious thing is that they were seventh in goals per 60 on the power play last year. They were 27th and expected goals per 60 on the power play.

And even if expect goals on the power play is becoming less useful because of all the lateral plays and pre-shot movement all that, you still want to pay attention to those kinds of discrepancies and decide. what is fact and what is fiction because shot locations still do matter a lot even if there are other things that are beginning to matter a bit more that we don't have access to.

Yeah, I do agree with that. I think, I mean, first off, the shot charts this year are a bit wonky. I think the tracking data in terms of locations, I don't know what's going on with it, but you look at the shot charts for a lot of teams and you'd think that every team is getting so good defensively because there's just like this blue chasm of nothing happening

up the middle of the ice and I think that's just something that's off with the data I don't think that's actually what's happening in reality but yeah there's like a changing philosophy right there's I think the dynamics

are so different because certain inefficient shots like a slap shot from the point or kind of trying to come down the wing on the rush and just being the first guy in and then shooting teams are trying to stray away from that and become more efficient

and so on the one hand it's becoming more difficult to separate yourself because everything's becoming so cookie cutter in terms of everyone is is looking at all the same data and trends and is more aware of it now. And so it's trying to replicate that. And so everyone's trying to do the same thing, which is why it's so interesting when a team kind of comes out of left field doing something different and gets interesting results out of it. But also now, like, I just think the historical precedent of what a certain shot is worth and where it's coming from has just changed so much. Right. Like, when you,

you look at especially the expected goals, estimates or values for like a rebound compared to a rush shot, it would make it seem like this rebound is so much more valuable in reality, especially if it's close to a goalie, we know it's probably not going and it's just going to go straight into their jammed into their pads.

Whereas the rush shot is probably significantly more valuable, but maybe our expectations of that haven't really caught up with that reality yet. Yeah, and even for goalies, if you look at just one example, I always go to evolving hockey, so I generally veer towards their expected goals model, but you have over half the league saving more goals than the expected.

There are more expected goals than actual goals right now. And I think there needs to be sort of a maybe not a recalibration, but something there needs to be thought put into recent trends with expected goals because you can't use the full data set to train the problem. of a shot going in, which I don't know how often you want to update it. I don't know how many past years you want to use to get the right amount, but stats from 2010 to 2016, I don't think are super relevant to how often shots go in anymore because the sport is just so different now.

I think the baselines are also shifting dramatically and going up, right? Like we talk all the time about how, okay, save percentage around the league is down. well, that means shooting percentage is up, right? And so a lot of our kind of like previous beliefs in terms of what a league average shooter is or what we should expect is obviously going up, but I think part of it is teams are getting more efficient in terms of using better players, right?

Like there's fewer sort of dead spots in the lineup where there's just going to be complete zeros or black holes offensively. And then you're looking for little edges and you're streamlining more shots where, all right, there's fewer point shots now. That means that you're better players. are shooting for more dangerous areas.

So I think the team shooting percentage is going to go up. So when you look at a team like the Kodoxin and their PDO and their and their team shooting percentage, obviously that's inflated. But I don't think it's necessarily as crazy as it might have been. Remember that like wild team, however many years ago when like they started the for, they were like the first PDO team. I remember where like they started the season and their numbers were just absolutely preposterous.

And all the shot data suggested that they were due for a massive regression. and that was one of the first big debates we had. And then obviously they regressed quite dramatically. There was that avalanche team, the things they do result in a 107 PDO or whatever, of course. Like we've had these debates for years and it always keeps coming back to a certain mean. At the same time, though, I think that mean is probably moving up compared to where it was four or five years ago. Yeah. I also want to shout out to Mike Kelly, who is probably one of my favorite follows on Twitter.

He had the infamous the things you have to do. result in a 106 PDO back in the day, but he is really great on Twitter. A lot of great nuggets from from track data and a great understand the game. And I always learned something following him. And I think I love the meme, but it's so, yeah. It's so good. But he's great. He is great.

And I really enjoy his content as well. That was a foundational one. It was an important brick that we had to lay for the house that we built that we used. Strong redemption arc for him. It was, yes, definitely. Okay, one more quick thing that's related to this before we go to break then, Brandon asks, is controlling high danger chance share more important than just shot share? This is sort of related to what we were just talking about.

I think clearly yes. Yeah. I guess the repeatability is maybe the question mark here. Obviously, there's certain teams that with the way they're choosing to play offensively defensively are going to be more likely to replicate that, I guess. But maybe it's just because there's fewer attempts, right? It can be a bit more volatile, especially early in a season. So maybe that would be kind of the counter to it. But how do you feel about this from like a sort of philosophical perspective?

Yeah, I would definitely, between those two, I would care more about high danger chances because I think goalies now are pretty good at stopping things outside of that range. But at the same time, some of those shots outside of that range can be more high danger. than they appear just because of all the pre-shot movement we don't have. It really just depends on the sample size, I guess. And if you have a small sample size, maybe it's still a bit more meaningful to look at shot attempts. And if you want to know how good a team is in quality,

I would still prefer looking at expected goals. But over a longer period, I definitely care about who's getting into those more dangerous areas more, for sure. Okay, Dom, let's take our break here. And then we come back, we'll pick things back up and keep chatting about a variety of different topics. You are listening to the Hockey P.D.O cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Catch up on what happened in Vancouver Sports with Halford & Brough in the morning. Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right, we're back here on the HockeyPedocat.

We're done with Dish in a Dimm and Dom production, Dom. Let's keep it going. So here's a question that I think is really interesting. Sam Ryanhart is fifth and goals on pace for nearly 50 this season. He's also in a contract here. How do you think Bill Zito will or should approach this? It can be argued he's kind of set a precedent of having a knowledge of aging curves by trading away Jonathan Hubbard and McKenzie Weger to avoid having to sign 30-year-olds to term.

At the same time, I feel like Ryanhart could buck some of the aging trends and age someone like Pavelski. Is that a fair comp and what do you think the Panthers should do? I think this is a really interesting one. The Panthers are a fascinating team because not only, you know, they made the Stanley Cup final last year, I think they're going to play a significant role that we can talk about in the latter half of this season as well. And then they have so many massive contract decisions to make over the next two years

that are going to clearly impact the trajectory of the team. And the first one is going to be Reinhart and sort of how they respond to this season where he's clearly earning a lot of. himself a few extra dollars with each goal that he scores. Yeah, it's a fascinating question. I don't know if they necessarily bucked the age curbs by trading away Hubertow and Weger. I think they just had a slam dunk.

We have Matthew Kachuk available and we got to go get a superstar, basically. I think they would have liked to, I don't know if they would like to keep Weager. Actually, I think I remember they didn't like him that much. But yeah, they do seem to have an understanding of that. I don't mind the comparison to Joe Pavelski. I think that that's just extremely wishful thinking when it comes to an age curve because he is an age curve breaker. He seems to be getting better with age every year, maybe not this year specifically,

but he's been fantastic the past three years. So I have Sam Reinhart currently at $9.5 million over an eight-year deal. 10 point something over the next four years and then after that is when you start getting into the the area where he's no longer a 10 million dollar player and I think with barcob at 10 and kachuk at nine and a half you have an internal structure that means he probably won't get that high anyway if you can get him for eight and a half eight nine I feel like that's not too bad Florida tends to get some some discounts knowing that there's a barcob effect or a could check effect where it's state tax too yeah that too um so i think

he'll be worth what he gets and definitely worth it as long as this contention window however long it is for them so i i would do it up to a certain point because i think he even last year when he wasn't scoring he was still a really good player um i just don't pay him for what he is this year because I don't think he's that somewhere, somewhere in between. It's a nice, nice middle ground. Yeah, I think, yeah, certainly the context of, of situation and team structure and all the finances there are probably going to limit the ceiling. And I think he seems to be enjoying his time there quite a bit as he should. So I imagine he would want to stay unless someone just blows him out of the water in the unrestricted free agent or

unrestricted free agent market. Here's my thing, though. I think the Pavolski comp is interesting from like a playing style perspective, right? Because you look at what Ryan Hart's done this year and it's just being really crafty around the net and like tipping pucks and rebounds and obviously amongst all the other utility provides for the Panthers, but that's why he's scoring a lot of goals.

Now, Povelski, the past three years, 3.21 points per 60, 3.18 points per 60. This year, 3.55 points per 60. Now obviously his usage is coming down a bit, but those are his three best marks in his entire career. Yeah. And those are his age 37,

38 and 39 seasons. Now, the role he plays this year on that top line and power play, but also what we just talked about in the first half of the show, how different the league is now than it was at the start of his career.

Obviously, like, scoring is easier. So that factors into it. But listen, like, when you mentioned him being a rule breaker, when he first signed that deal to leave San Jose and go to Dallas in 2019, I was like, oh man, that third year, that's going to be a tough one.

And that was two contracts ago. So shows what I know, shows what we know. And obviously just immense kudos and respect to Pavelsky for being able to continue this, right, and adapt as his career has gone on. So I like the comp, but it's also very risky comparing anyone to like the true historical aberration, which Pavelsky has represented. And so you can always get it yourself into dangerous waters when you see someone doing something that's just truly unprecedented like this. And then being like, well, this player who plays like him right now is going to follow that path because that's part of what made Pavelsky so special in his ability to actually keep doing this into his 30s, into his late 30s.

Yeah. I would like to call on the record saying I love that contract because it was only $7 million. And I think at the time he was probably as good as right now, which is like a 10 million player or whatever. and I wasn't too worried about the third year. I thought he'd gracefully fall to a 7 million player when he was at that age, and he was even better than that somehow. Well, it's funny because that year,

I think he scored like 38 goals and shot 20%. And that was part of my conservative was like, I don't, I just as practice, I don't like paying for this and picking up the tab on it. And then hilarious how that is unfolded. Now, Reinhart, you mentioned, is shooting 24% this year, which is obviously sky high and is on pace for 47 goals at the moment. Now, he is historically a 15% shooter.

He's like, dip below 13 just once. And he averaged 38, 35, and 31 goals, Brady, two games the past three years. So while this is obviously at the top of his expectations and I wouldn't ever really expect him to repeat this, I don't think it's necessarily that crazy. right. This isn't this isn't like a 20 goal guy who shoots 10% all of a sudden doing this and then cashing in and me being like, well, he's never going to repeat that because obviously he's not going to get paid as a 47 goal scorer. And if he gets paid as a 35 goal scorer, that's probably what he is for at least the next handful of seasons. So I think that's perfectly reasonable from a contract perspective. Yeah, I just looked up the projection I have for Reinhart, 33.8 goals.

Yeah, pretty bang on. I think the other thing with Reinhart is like Pavelski, sneaky good defensively from the wing in a way that I don't think people gave either guy as much credit for as they should have. And I think that maybe puts a higher floor on his value because Ryan Hart's a smart player and that should continue. And he has some pretty good chemistry with Barkov. that could be the new

Bergeron-Marshaned combo that terrorizes the league at both ends the ice for their 30s. Yeah, I mean, his versatility is just so, such a luxury, right? Like, last postseason, he's on this, like, super checking line with Lusirina and Lundel. Now he's

playing top-wide scoring role with Barkov. He's a key member of the power play. Like, I think him and Barkov killed penalties together to this season. Like, they use him in every facet, and he crushes it. He's such a smart player. I'm glad he's being rewarded for the season he's having. The reason why I thought this was interesting beyond just like the thought exercise of what Ryan Hart is worth is this

Panthers team, despite the injuries they had at the start of the year and us being like, all right, are they going to fall back down Earth after last year's Cinderella run? Well, Spor Logic has them eighth in expected goals generated offensively, but defensively, they're a top five team in every single metric. Expect the goals against inner slot shots allowed, slot shots allowed offensive zone time surrendered like their aggressive defending style has them just suppressing everything and barkov's going to run away with the selki i think um although shout out to sean kuturi for having the season he's having once they start getting some more goals and regression from that kachuk Bennett combination i think the ceiling for this team is even like

they're better than they were last year based on the way they're performing right now which I think is amazing. And you mentioned that sort of contending window. It's clearly defined by not only the contracts of Barkov and Kachuk, but also their primes, right? Whereas five years from now

when there are different players who really cares, I'm sure Bill Zito will be doing another job or something. We'll see what the league looks like at that point, but it won't really matter from this perspective. So the reason why this matters. This summer,

not only is Reinhardt an unrestricted pre-agent, but Brandon Montu and Gustav Forresting also are. And then next summer, Ekblad, Verhege, and Bennett are UFAs. And so that is, that's their team. Pretty much everyone, other than Kachuk and Barkov, they're the only ones that are sort of nailed down. Everyone else is going to be in a similar conversation here

where they're going to be a UFA expecting a massive pay raise from what they're making right now, and they're going to be in their late 20s. So, I guess what they do with Reinhard here will be very indicative in terms of how they're going to proceed. And I'm very fascinated to see what you would do. What would you do if you were running the Panthers there with all those names in kind of precarious positions contractually at this stage of their career? I think you just got to identify who your core is and try not to overpay.

I think Florida has been very good at getting some bargain bin deals, partly because their system just extracts the most out of all these players. Bennett, Berhege, Foresling, these guys weren't what they are now until they got to Florida. They have an act for finding broken toys and turning them into something valuable. So I think they get a discount for, I guess those guys playing well in the system,

but not maybe being as good as, as the contract they might get somewhere else. Montour is a fantastic example. Last year, put up 70-something points, whatever. Before that, just to find third-paring defensemen, what do you pay for that? I don't know. But they, if they don't sign someone,

I think I would trust that they made the right decision because this seems to be a very smart organization that knows what they're doing and does the right thing when it comes to these things. And Montre, I mean, he was just so outrageously good last postseason, right, all year, but especially with his goal scoring and just like the minutes he was eating and just how forceful everything he did was on the ice. Like it was so impressive.

He's going to be 30 and plays such a physically demanding style where he's actually might be the one I'd be most wary of walking down long term, whereas a guy like, like four is like I know he's a left shot d so maybe slightly less valuable compared to montour's handedness but he'll be like 28 with i just feel like easier miles on his body and i think he's going to age differently but the reason why all these guys are interesting is ecblad's obviously making 7.5 so maybe he's a bit of a outlier in this case but like montour 2.67 or sorry montour's 3.5, 4's laying 2.67, Verhege 4.17, and then Ben at 4.4, like, all these guys that could just do for such significant pay raises,

especially for Zing and Verhegey, right? Where, like, they're legitimate top of the lineup, incredibly valuable players who are getting paid as depth pieces right now. And so the cap is going up by 5%. It'll go up a bit more, but there's going to be a lot of extra money that needs to be handed out to these guys and how Bill Zito navigates that, I think is he's one of the more like interesting subplots in the league right now. When is this Bobrovsky's contract on?

Well, this is why this is this is our connection. This is that was going to be my next point. So 2026 expires. So two more years after this one, 10 million per obviously. But here's the kicker. So July 1st this summer once you pay a signing bonus, he actually is owed only 11 million total over those final two seasons. and his full no trade clause becomes a 16 team list.

Okay. So I'm sure strategically he'll probably be able to figure out which teams would be even able to pay him $11 million in cash over the next two years or willing. And then just kind of make his list accordingly. But at least it opens the door for if they want to sweeten the deal and move off of his contract. I think there actually is an out this summer, which seemed impossible as recently as a year ago. Yeah, and he's been pretty decent this year. I think his reputation is crawling back a bit. It might not be as hard of a deal to move.

If there's a team that is tanking and has a lot of cap room and can weaponize it, that might be the route to go. Yeah. Well, another factor in this is, I mean, they've used so many picks and prospects to build this team over the years that there's very little in the way of future assets. coming as well. So I think that probably would motivate someone like Bill Zito and the Panthers to go even more all in with this core as opposed to trying to take a calculated step back and then yeah, you know, building for something for three years from now. Like I think that makes a lot of sense. Okay. One final question here that I think is interesting because you obviously do the player cards and, you know, projections and also like contract figures in terms of what players are worth on

the open market. Pixies says, what is the qualifier where we feel expected numbers, goals four percentage, and raw production meet? For example, if Gennie Malkin has had a negative 515 goal share for years, but I feel like many of us would still consider him an impact player even at 515. How do we navigate the conversation of these nuances of quote unquote advanced analytics while understanding that the game is obviously won by raw numbers of goals scored and these analytics are still somewhat subjective and circumstantial. I think it's really interesting, right?

Because I think often we evaluate players and their performance in a vacuum where you look at whatever numbers you want to look at and then you say, all right, they're playing this well, this is how we compare them to their peers. But obviously, at the end of the day, all that really matters is winning games and you being on the ice for more goals than for than against.

And that's a big role of this conversation. So how do we, from a player value perspective, I guess, like how do we compare sort of what matters and sort of how we put all of these pieces of the puzzle together in our description of their performance? Well, to put a nice bow on this chat because we started with this topic, I think you do have to pay attention to what's actually happening.

I think goals have become really, important since scoring has gone up and especially for forwards if you got a forward who has three expected goals but he is only on the ice for two i'm sorry that guy probably stinks he can't score and maybe he's a good third or fourth liner but i'm not expecting this massive regression there'll be some but there are a lot of players who can generate chances but can't put the puck in the net you got for fours at least, separate where Malkin's goals percentage is coming from, and whether that is he is not scoring as much as he should or if it's the goal-tending behind him.

Because for forwards, I'll be a lot more lenient for goals against used for defensemen when you have a big enough sample. I think like over three years, if a guy is on the ice for more goals against and expected, there might be a little reason for that if you're a defenseman. for forward, I would still lean towards blaming the goalie or defense behind him. And if that's the reason Malkin's goals percentage isn't hasn't been very high lately, then

I don't think it's his fault. But at the same time, he's getting points. He is contributing to offense in that way. And that is something that does need to be accounted for. Something that I do with my own model is sort of bridge that gap, where I, the basic gist of it is it's production plus play driving and finding the middle ground between a model that might only look at a player's playdriving and a fan who is only looking at points and sort of bridging the gap between

those two thoughts. And a lot of the time the issue is just looking at defense and how a player suppresses shots, I think is a valid thing that points will obviously miss, but generally speaking, especially for forwards. If a player has a lot of points, it's probably because he's a good offensive player. And that will usually line up with the offensive play drive metrics. There are obviously some exceptions to the rule where some players are empty calorie scores.

But even if they are, they're still the ones creating that offense individually. Yeah, as long as they're not like just very blatantly just cheating for offense and showing no regard, like just kind of doing laps in her defensive zone they're just waiting for the first second, they can fly the zone. And even then, if they're just taking those opportunities and scoring at a sky high rate, then that's still obviously very valuable. But yeah, you're offensively, you're in much more control, I guess, of your outcome and your result than the inverse where you can be good defensively,

but ultimately if your goalie gives up, you know, just doesn't stop the puck. It's going to, and we're purely evaluating your defensive play based on goals against, then you're going to look poor, even though you didn't necessarily do anything wrong. Beyond Malkin, I think, like, Kyle Connor is an interesting one for this conversation because you look and 2017, 18 was his first full NHL season. With him on the ice at 515, the Jets won those minutes, 49, 42. In all the years since then, minus 7, minus 1, minus 2, minus 3, last year, plus 1 goal share. And then this year, even though he has 17 goals in 25 games before he got hurt, they scored 17 goals of 5-on-5 with him on the ice, and they gave up 17.

So they broke even. And obviously, he's an immensely valuable player because he's such a plus finisher. And this doesn't take into account power play, even though the Jets power play hasn't been good. But, you know, him being able to turn shots that might not even register as high danger into goals is such a valuable skill. And those are the things you pay for typically on the market. So, like, he's a very valuable player and an interesting piece for the Jets, but also someone who, when you look at it through the context of this conversation, the Jets have never really actually won their five-on-five minutes

whenever he's been out there, even though he's played such a massive role for them in all those seasons. Yeah, and that's sort of what I aim to do with my model is, on the one hand, you have Kyle Connor, who's scoring a lot of points and is up there with some of the best in the league. and on the other hand, you have his on isometrics, which are extremely pedestrian year after year,

he is probably not as good as point totals. He's probably not as bad as his 50% goal share or whatever. Right. There's a middle ground that I try to walk along as best as I can. Okay, well, let's talk about that middle ground you try to walk along. I'll let you on the way out here

plug some stuff. Let the listeners know either what you've written recently, what you want them to check out or what you're working on, and we can look forward to coming out soon. I am going on vacation. I'm taking time off in two weeks, but I have some goodies planned for that time and writing away this week to make it happen.

Me and the two collaborators I work with most, Sean Chantilly and Gina Goldman. We are currently in the process of ranking every Stanley Cup champion. in the cap era. Who's your top three? That's a great question. That Aves team from a couple years ago.

I forget all the years now. They all blend together in my mind. It was it 2022, I guess. That team was just so loaded when you look at all the pieces that have moved on since and got paid accordingly. They were playing like complimentary roles in that team.

I think that the first Lightning Cup team obviously Stamcoast was out, but Hedman was still playing at his absolute apex level. And then they had that Gord Coleman Goodroll line that was like their third line on the Depp sheet, but actually playing second line minutes and they were just outrageous. How do you factor those two lightning teams in terms of which one was strong? Or obviously the context of like that being in the middle of COVID and then the bubble

and then the shortened season where you're playing in these specific divisions of all obviously factor in. But yeah, I think those two teams are interesting. Yeah. So I ranked the second one higher. Shauna and Shana and Shana ranked the first one higher. And then we did that. And then we added a goal differential component where I adjusted every team to six

goals per game for regular season. And then same thing for playoffs, but also accounting for quality of competition. and what an average team would have done with the same schedule. And the second team actually came out like fairly ahead just based on how they played in the playoffs. Right. And they played that entire season without Kutrov

and we're pretty close in during the regular season as well. So that would be my pick. But top two, no spoilers, but I think everyone's going to know it's going to be that Colorado team and the Detroit team for most 708. Restless will come out, I think, next week. and then we're doing some World's Cup of hockey great views as well and that'll be fun. But in terms of the topics we talked about,

we just dropped our player cards at the Athletic a couple of weeks ago. They're updated almost daily. If there's three games as late, I'm not doing that. If there's five or more, they'll be updated the next morning. And you can see how well each player is doing from a production standpoint and a play driving standpoint

and how my model combines them. and I think most importantly what they're expected to do over the rest of the season and how sort of the regression works in terms of maybe a player is currently on a 60 goal pace but they're expected to land at a 45 goal pace and that is I think a good window

in understanding the things we're talking about here with what do you expect these players to do based on their track record their history and whether they've been a little luckier if it's for or not this year. Awesome, buddy.

Well, I'm looking forward to checking that out. Enjoy your vacation very well deserved. My only plug here on the way out is to let the listeners remind them. We use the Discord questions from other listeners on today's show. We'll continue to do so. So if you want to get involved, just join the PDOCAST channel. The invite link is in the show notes. Get in there.

Have some fun with us. And so that's all I got for today. We're going to get out of here. Thank you to everyone for listening. And we'll be back soon with more of the Hockey PEDEOcast on the Sports Night Radio Network. Thank you.