The Hockey PDOcast - Canada’s Bounceback Against Finland, and Adjustments for Thursday’s Rematch Against Team USA

Episode Date: February 18, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Jack Han to talk about Canada's bounce-back performance against Finland, potential adjustments for Thursday's rematch against Team USA, and your mailbag questions about power plays and coaches. If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Demetri Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Jack Hahn. Jack, what's going on, man? So you want to hear something funny? Always.

So I was watching Canada, Finland, live. And then Canada goes up for nothing. And, like, we've been having some pretty long days over here with our son. and me were working late. So actually I went to get a nap at 4-0 before having to wake up and go pick up my son at daycare. So when I woke up and saw what I missed, I was completely flabbergat.

Well, you weren't the only one. Team Canada also took a bit of a nap after they went up 4-0, especially in the final 5 or 6 minutes. We're going to get into all that today. I was going to ask you before we started, though, because this tournament, the Four Nations obviously kicked off in its first week in Montreal, where you are located

and I imagine you you had some fun encounters with the whole hockey world essentially there for a week or so I know I was talking to our pal John Mattis he was on the show talking about Canada's opener against Sweden last week and then he was telling me he was planning

on meeting up with you as well you get any fun interactions with either rather friends of the PDO cast or other people in the hockey world not really actually because so my son had pneumonia. So I was actually in a clinic five minutes from the practice rink. And I was supposed

to go to lunch with John. But instead, I had to tell him where to go to get the best chicken chariwama in Montreal, which is actually in the supermarket next to the Hap's practice rank. So next time, you know, if anybody wants to go and catch practice, whatever, go to the Adonis supermarket next to the Havs practice rink for like 16 bucks. It's like two pounds of food. It's amazing. I like that. But the thing that really kind of disappointed me was the practices were close to the public. So it was media only, which on the one hand is understandable because obviously, you know, already with the halves, like it can get super packed. But now you got, you know, the Sydney Crosby's and the Austin Matthews and, you know, who else coming in.

I think the crowd situation would have been really difficult to control. But, you know, obviously still really disappointed. I wasn't able to go and watch practice. All right, well, let's talk about the game. So we saw Canada beat Finland 5-3 on Monday afternoon to punch their ticket for the finals, setting up the rematch with Team USC on Thursday night. We're going to later on after we talk about that game, we're going to kind of look ahead a little bit to that rematch

and talk about some adjustments and potential changes from the first meeting between the two. But I wanted to talk to you about that game we saw Monday in particular. And before you took your nap, there were a couple of notable developments or changes on Canada side of things that I wanted to get into here with you today following that loss on Saturday. The first for me was a pretty natural line switch or kind of tinkering with the lines by John Cooper. And we saw it towards the end of that game against USA in the third period. But they started out this one, bumping Brainpoint up to the top line with Connor McDavid and Mark Stone.

And you could see that paid dividends immediately, right? Braighton's ability as one of the very best skaters in the league to keep up with Connor McDavid. it to help push the pace, to stretch the ice a little bit, push back the defense, actually kind of run wild with McDavid on some of these, obviously led to points goal kind of off of a rush rebound in the first period. But after just managing two shots on goal in Connor McDavid's 19, 5-on-5 minutes against USA on Saturday, that new look line generated 10 shots on goal and two goals scored in 14 and a half minutes or so

at 5-on-5 in this one. And so I think looking ahead, that's obviously kind of on the forefront, of the changes Canada made, and you could see the logic behind it, and it immediately paid off for them. So I think moving point up is logical. I'm not sure how representative the results were against Finland,

because on both those goals, they were matched up against Bacchananin and Matampalo, which is obviously a pair that you would not see on Team USA. It's not even a pair that you would see on most NHAL teams. quite frankly. But certainly I think it makes total sense. And I saw this on Twitter yesterday. I forget whether it was J. Fresh or Corey Snyder,

but there was some talk about kind of during the regular season, McDavid Point and McKinnon being sort of the three fastest players in the league. And I think against USA, like it would be maybe helpful to even bump Mark Stone down the lineup. and to put like a McKinn or someone like that, you know, on that wing. Just because, you know, I listened to your episode with Drans, you know, with Austin Matthews and then Jakub Slavin being sort of the shutdown unit, neither of those players are particularly fast, you know, if we're talking about elite players. So maybe against USA, it's going to take like one more addition on that line to sort of to have that effect.

that would be an interesting strategy, doubling down on a strength. I think that John Cooper likes the idea of having that one-two punch of being able to send Connor McDavid out, and then you sort of have a chance to exhale a little bit. Normally, if you're playing the admins no-oilers, for example, it's like, all right, well, McDavid's off the ice. We're going to have a chance to regroup the game's going to slow down a little bit, and instead Team Canada is able to throw Nathan McKinnon on in his line after that. And so there's no real chance for that reprieve. I think he does value that.

And in this one, you saw Reinhardt as well step up, right? I was pretty critical in that show you're referencing after the Saturday game. I thought that his first two games in this tournament were very below his standards, especially on first touches. He was bobbling a lot of pucks, not completing sort of some of these connective plays that he typically does when he's playing for Florida and that he excels at. And this game, he had the three assists. I thought the first one in particular, regardless of the competition,

was such a high-level play, right? Where he gets this puck along the wall, he's able to kind of nifty-thread an area pass for McKinnon to skate into and then McKinnon finishes it in alone off the rush. And so I think in just looking ahead to what Canada is going to have to do against Team USA to make sure it's a different result

than their first meeting, having a guy like Reinhardt in the top six relieving some of that pressure the team USA is going to apply and making some of those passes to keep plays moving in the run. right direction, I think is going to be imperative, right? And so we'll see what they do with that top six and whether they run this back or whether in game they adjust again. But at least now,

seeing this from Reinhardt, it's like, all right, this is much more what it's supposed to look like from him. And that was something I think Canada was really missing in its first two games, even in the opener against Sweden when they scored a couple goals. Like I haven't totally hated Reinhardt's tournament so far. Like, again, like against the USA, like right off the face off on their first power play. He could have scored. Like I think like six seconds into the first power play, he gets the puck kind of in the bumper spot.

And like the puck's a little bit behind him. He doesn't get, you know, all of it. But if that puck goes in, then obviously everything else sort of after that changes, right? But, but I think he's the kind of player who can make a difference. And if I had a fiver to bet on, you know, game winning score and I'm not putting it on the usual suspects, I might put it on Ryan. Yeah. I think that's interesting.

I think that play you illustrated, though, is exactly what I'm talking about, where I think typically when he's feeling it and when he's in the zone, that's something that he at least controls a little bit more and gets more on than he did in that particular instance. The other notable change, of course, was Kel McCar returning for this game. He immediately led the team in Ice Time again. He was pushing the buck up the ice. He was making quick transition plays. You could see the difference having him in their makes,

especially because it then allowed John Cooper to bump every other pair into more optimal kind of slots and deployment as well. I thought in that game on Saturday, just because Macar wasn't there, you could see that the game is a little bit different for Taves, not that he's so reliant on him because he's a great player in his own right, but he was kind of pushing a bit more aggressively, or even the way he does typically for the abs, and he was pinching, but then the support and the recovery wasn't there compared to what he gets from McCar and the way to those two guys interact. And then there was all those shifts where they would be sending out the Morrissey-Pareko pair, for example, high leverage scoring situations in offensive zone draws and having macar around gives you a much

more improved option i guess to utilize in those situations so um you know this isn't groundbreaking news by any means but of course when a guy misses a game like that you're wondering what he's going to look like upon his return showed no you know effects or or signs that would make you think that he was impaired at all he was playing exactly the way kale macar always does and and you could see like what a difference he makes just in terms of that transition game and sort of killing plays of the blue line and immediately flipping the ice. So I think that was huge. Yeah.

I mean, I think we've talked enough about McCar on this podcast over the years. You know, he's been the real deal. And curious to see if Quinn Hughes is going to be the real deal as well for USA, because I hear he's in. Yeah, he is traveling after Charlie McAvoy was ruled out. We'll see if he draws into that game. But it's unreal to think, considering the pace and the intensity and everything involved in that first meeting between the two that you could be adding Kail McCar and Quinn Hughes

into the mix and what that's going to do for how the product looks on the ice. All right, here's the one final change from Canada's perspective that I saw in this game and maybe you already hinted at what your retort's going to be based on what you said about the quality of competition and how it might not be representative

for what it could look like on Thursday, but the broadcast had this interesting note where in the first two games Canada played in this tournament, they generated zero scoring chances off the forecheck. And we talked about that a lot in the post-game breakdown on Sunday about what Connor Hellebuck was doing to sort of neutralize that. We can speak more about that, certainly here in a second.

But from Canada's perspective, they finally created some looks off of turnovers in this one, including the two goals. Most notably, McKinnon's second one, where Reinhard and Crosby kind of combined to turn the puck over along the wall and get it into a slot for him. And so in terms of thinking about how they're going to create more offense and how things could look different, that's probably going to be my number one point of emphasis or area I'm going to be most interested to see. And they're going to create off the rush certainly as well and in different ways. But it's kind of bizarre that we didn't see them really tap into this at all

in the first two games and especially in that game against Team USA. And so in this one, even seeing it against a clearly diminished blue line for Finland that's very susceptible to it, it was good to see them start to generate something off the forecheck. Yeah, I mean, you know, the forecheck is It's like in the Canadian way of playing, like the game starts with the forecheck. And so certainly it is something that all the players on the team can do at a very high level. On the flip side, it's like, you know, do you really want to run the risk of being too aggressive against a team like USA and either getting beat by Helibuck or getting beat by, you know, Quinn Hughes or a Zach Werencky off ice? And all of a sudden, you're giving up a four on three, which against that team like completely destroyed. your ability to deny entries or deny shots off the rush.

So, you know, for me, like, it wouldn't be the end-all, just because I would rather force turnovers in the neutral zone against USA. And then, you know, if the plate turns in a neutral zone and you got McKinnon or McDavid skating onto the puck, like it's pretty much game over unless Hallibuck makes a big save. So I actually don't mind Canada stepping back a little bit on their ozone fort check. as long as it means that they can create more in the neutral zone. I mean,

they were certainly very passive in that game on Saturday. By my eye, they're essentially just kind of doing a very rudimentary style of Borchek where they're just sending one guy in and Team USA was having no trouble with it. It was picking it apart. And the reason I get your side of things in terms of the repercussions, if you get overly aggressive, get caught up the ice in that way.

I do think, though, in watching this tournament and then looking at the way Team USA's blue line is constructed, and now especially so with Charlie McAvoy missing this game and kind of how evident and invisible his physicality was in that first meeting, I feel like the way that you can attack this U.S. Blue Line is with the puck down low, behind the goal line, working it out towards the net. We've seen teams, even a team Finland that struggles offensively in the first game of this tournament, have whatever success they had through those means. And so finding ways to like ground and pound a little bit and cycle the puck and get.

get it down low and then work out from there is an interesting way to counteract what team USA was doing defensively in the first meeting and that has been doing in this tournament and that's something they weren't really able to establish at all right so i agree with you that the primary source of offense is probably going to be those quick transitions especially with kale mccar back now where you get a mckinin or mcdavit with a full head of steam and just overwhelm downhill off the rush but those opportunities are going to be harder to come by in that game, especially if Team USA plays as disciplined and diligent defensively

as they did in the first meeting. And so finding ways to sustain possessions and create sort of off those set, off plays where you either force a turnover and quickly attack or then set up in the offensive zone, I do feel like is going to be a potential turning point in that game and something I would be hammering on as like a key area of emphasis in terms of preparing for that meeting.

Yeah, I mean, we'll see what happens because it's so much based on execution and yeah, like, certainly the players can do it. Binland's side of things here. After your nap, which I'm sure you saw once you went back and rewatched it, they gave Canada a legit scare with three goals in the final six minutes, clawed back in. Two of those goals came following an aggressive goalie pole.

They were down 4-1 after Lindell's goal. There was 4.45 left. I love that they went with six forwards. It obviously wasn't out of the norm for them because they've been going with a five-forward, top unit power play in this tournament. But it makes you want, like I was watching it and I know, listen, like this is probably not going to happen anytime soon and especially in a tournament like this where everything is so cookie cutter in a way.

But considering this roster composition and the strengths of this team and the obvious weaknesses in the blue line, whether they almost would have been better just going four forwards, one defenseman at even strength to begin with, considering the available options. They just, I mean, score effects certainly involved in Canada, was just sort of turtling and playing back and had a few defensive zone breakdowns off of those sequences. But just watching when they had those six forwards out there, how much more threatening and dangerous they looked.

I loved it. I loved seeing that. And my stance here is very clear in terms of how much more important forwards are than defensemen typically. And so seeing that was pretty fun. So you mentioned cookie cutter. And it's interesting because before the tournament, I've had some people kind of ask me about like, oh, like what are going to? to be sort of the tactical things we're going to see in this tournament. And honestly, like, we're not really seeing much new from, you know, USA or Canada just

because as the strongest teams, you want to go with sort of well-proven schemes and you don't really have really the time to sort of rock the boat. And the only exception is, for me, it's Finland because, you know, they're the consensus weakest team. They have a, I would say, catastrophically bad, you know, decor for this level. of play even before Highskinen was ruled out. So for me, like, I'm always looking for, like, what are the, the quote-unquote, weaker teams doing to sort of make up?

And certainly, you know, that five-forward first power play or that six-forward extra attacker unit, like, that was their way to try to get back into the game. You know, you mentioned playing four forwards at five-on-five. And for me, like, that would have been a great thing to see with a healthy high-skinned because then you can have obviously Heiskenen as a lone defenseman, Barkov and Sebastian Alho as sort of the midfielders, and then Ratan and Rutanin as sort of the winger types or the kind of the push-to-pace, like scoring threats.

So unfortunately, we didn't get to see that. That was probably like the thing I was most looking forward to seeing tactically ahead of this tournament, and unfortunately, Heiskenen's injury prevented us from game. Yeah, I think even without Askinnan there, have been interesting to see the four forwards with Lundell and then another another wave of them with Mekola and essentially shorten your bench that way. But it's interesting because it ties into, I think something you and I have spoken about in the past. We were asked to kind of like who drives defensive results and how that works. And I have sort of this working theory that it's a bit counterintuitive, right? Because I believe that forwards actually drive a lot of your defensive results and you watch what Team USA did against Canada, for example, and certainly guys across the board, whether it's slave and Faber or Hannafin or McAvoy, of course. What they did is certainly invaluable, but the reason why Team USA was so imposing

defensively in terms of their structure was what the forwards are doing, in my opinion, like the support and the gaps in closing lanes and pressuring Canada and just not really giving them the time and space that a lot of those skill players would generally prefer and thrive in. And so forwards drive those defensive results a little bit. And then alternatively, like, defensemen are the ones who who drive. offensive results at even strength, not necessarily in terms of goal scoring and points, but in terms of putting you in a position to actually attack offensively as sort of the

first line of transitioning the puck and getting it up the ice with possession and all that sort of stuff that we tend to like. So in watching this finish team, I know they wound up giving up a bunch of goals as this tournament went along, but I feel like the underlying issue from the lack of blue line talent wasn't really defending necessarily. It was just a lack of skill to actually facilitate even strength offense. And you could even see how many of their goals in this tournament came, either on the power play or in those empty net situations as opposed to what they were generating at even strength.

So it's an interesting thing to think about, but I don't know. Do you have any thoughts on that theory or kind of how it applies to some of these teams? Well, I mean, you know, Finland's a small country. It's roughly, I would say, the size of Quebec population-wise. And I think they're punching way above their weight. you know, in international circles. Like if you made a team Quebec, you wouldn't get nearly the amount of talent

that team Phelan has right now, especially up front and in Nets. You know, I'm sort of biased because, you know, I grew up in Quebec, but now I work with a finished team. So I do know both sides of the equation. But certainly I think the whole idea of like whether it's a 5-4 power play, six forwards, extra attacker, or maybe four forwards at even strength, is something that they can explore heading into the next Olympic cycle just because that's what fits their personnel best right now. Like that's kind of what they have in terms of their Olympic cycle.

So I would highly encourage them to keep experimenting with it. I mean, Barkov, no surprise here, we've spoken about him so much, but he's such an animal in this game. He made so many elite plays. I think the most impressive thing I saw from him in this tournament was in the third period of that Saturday game against Sweden, where he's coming out of the penalty box and he receives his pass from Henry Yogi Haru, I believe, and it's sent him alone on a breakaway, but you go back and rewatch it

and the way he sort of receives the pass on his backhand as he's managing the blue line. It was some Datsuk-level wizardry, and he's just so smooth with it that you almost have to go back and rewatch the replay in slow motion to really appreciate what he just hold off so effortlessly. I'm curious for your take on Ranton

because I know that, and I want to speak to you a little bit about this because you put out some interesting stuff online after the trade when he got sent to Carolina in terms of the fit and what it would look like and best ways to utilize them and obviously got off to quite a slow start with them with just a one goal and six games, I believe, before missing their final game before this break. He had some moments in this game against Canada. He certainly had some moments in the game against Sweden, especially as a went on with that beautiful sort of spin-around pass that helped create Barkov's goal.

He scored a power play goal on a flub shot. like he was actually finally starting to make some stuff happen, but relatively looked pretty pedestrian to my eye in terms of being sort of disengaged and passive and getting knocked off pucks and not really looking like the player that I think we've grown accustomed to and the player who's garnered the reputation that he has over the years. You got any thoughts on him from what we saw in this tournament

or even stretching it out to when play resumes the NHL and when he goes back to the hurricanes? So like my main thesis on on Rattanan was I think most people under underrate how good he is off the rush but overrate how good he is down low and around and like around the boards or right off the boards. When when you look at him try to protect the puck along the boards obviously he's a really big guy and he kind of he looks apart but he's surprisingly easy to push into the boards or to knock, knock, uh, knock. off the puck I find, right? He just doesn't have that same ability to spin off pressure or to spin off contact like, you know, someone like Crosby would do, right? And whereas there was one play that he made leading up to, I think it was one of Grandland's

goals, the one we scored five-hole on Bennington. But Ratton made this amazing cross-ice pass to Lainey, kind of like it was either like above or through a stick. But those are the kind of plays that I think he's amazing at that maybe he doesn't get enough love for. Whereas all the sort of typical power forward stuff, he's actually not as good at them as you would think. All right.

Let's quickly, before we go to break here, I want to talk about what we hinted at, looking ahead to Thursday's rematch in the final between Canada and Team USA. My question for you is, if you're a team Canada, how do you work around, based on what we saw on tape in that first meeting, finding ways to either stretch out the sort of structure that the team Uese had between their forwards and defense to actually create some space to attack within,

or how do you get into the middle of the ice, right? Because for all the possession time and expected goals and shot attempts and all that, similar to what we've seen from, say, the Vegas Golden Knights at their best during their cup run, they did such a good job of protecting the house, keeping everything to the outside, and then every single sort of cross-scene pass or east-west movement was immediately met with resistance, whether with a body or with an active stick. And so for Canada, beyond just individual moments of brilliance from McDavid, like we saw in their only goal, or McKinnon, which he's certainly capable and showed flashes of, what would you do structurally or

kind of game plan-wise to ensure that you have some solutions, I guess, to the obstacles that they're going to put in front of you. So, like, I just don't think that there's as much to the game tactically as we would think just because, like, you know, if you look at TV USA, like, they're coached by Mike Sullivan and Rick Talk is one of their assistants, but the system that USA's playing is not all that different than what Pittsburgh plays or what Vancouver plays, right? It's all about the quality of the players and the goalie that's executing the system. and that's really what that's what makes a difference.

So for Canada's point of view, I think that the most obvious solution is, as I mentioned before, you load up even more because you're hoping that with something like a point McDavid-McKinnon line that you would just burn through Austin Matthews and Jacob Slavin. Because aside from that, like, I don't know if there's anything X's and O's that you can really tweak to find sort of these advantageous matchups because there's really not that many to be found, I think. I'd be curious to see if something John Cooper does in terms of setting the lineup is if he goes

11 forward, seven defensemen, just to get Harley in there as an option, especially in this game against Finland. You saw that Travis Keneckney's not playing that much in the previous game. It was Marchand and Bennett who play like seven, eight minutes. And it's nice having those guys available, I guess, but especially if you are pushing for more offense or trying to find ways to manufacture looks and how good Harley looked in that first game,

I'd be curious to see if they entertain that. John Cooper probably more than any other NHL coach has shown historically a comfort or even an appetite for going with 11-4-7 defensemen. And so we'll see if he does that. But that would be an interesting thing for me to consider here and see if he gets Harley in there because it was kind of disappointing seeing as soon as Kail McCarr came back that he, he was back to not being a part of this equation because, I mean, he clearly showed what he's capable of in that game on Saturday. Yeah, and I would agree with that. And especially if you're in a situation where if you're Canada

and you're trailing 1-0 early, then you're probably not going to put Pareco or Sanheim on the ice that much. You probably would like to have some different combinations on the back end, and you probably would also like to play your quote unquote top six forward. So you're sort of super elite guys a little bit more. So certainly that's an option. You know, USA will have last change. So maybe that's something that's going to dissuade Canada from sort of mixing and matching.

But we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of question marks for Team USC. We're not talking about their game against Sweden that much because as you're talking about representative for what's to come. I mean, that one with players they had available and the backup. goalie and running with essentially, I think, what, 10 forwards as the game progressed because the Kachuk's injury certainly as a representative. Both Kachukes are banged up. It sounds like

they'll play. We'll see if Quinn Hughes draws in with McAvoy being out. There are a lot of moving parts there that we're going to have answered between now and Thursday. But yeah, I'm incredibly excited about this game. I think it's just going to be an absolute spectacle. And I will say, for as lively and electric as that crowd was in Montreal, I thought that for a game that ultimately didn't have any significance because both teams had their fate sealed, the crowd for USA Sweden was incredible as well. So I think that Thursday night atmosphere

is going to be summoned to behold. All right, Jack, let's take our break here. And then we come back. We'll jump right back into it. We're going to switch gears a little bit. Move away from the Four Nations, answer some mailback questions that we have from the listeners.

You're listening to the Hockey-Pediocast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Canucks talk with Jamie Dodd and Thomas Drans. We'll dive deep into all that's happening with the Vancouver Canucks. Listen 12 to 2 p.m. on SportsNet 650 or wherever you get your podcast. All right, we're back here in the Hockey P.D.O.cast joined by Jack Con. While we were on break, I was scanning my Twitter feed and I just wanted to clarify because we were talking about this in our part one discussion about potential guys available and defensemen. The insiders are making it seem like both Quinn Hughes and.

Thomas Harley aren't going to be eligible to play unless the teams drop below six available defensemen and there's another injury. So what I don't know that? Just if you're listening to this and wondering why we were talking about it, I feel like the reporting on this in terms of eligibility has been all over the place. And it's very annoying because at this point, if the guys are there, just let the best players available play. And I think that's what everyone wants to see.

All right. Let's get into some mailback questions from the PDOCAST Discord. Centron here asks, the jets are pacing for the best power. power play percentage in the modern HL. How are they doing it and what can PK units do to be more effective against them? Now, you and I, about a month into the season, maybe a bit more, did a full show breaking down the most efficient power plays in the league, some of the stuff they were doing tactically, the personnel they had, all that good stuff.

One of the teams we didn't cover in that episode were the Jets. And at the time, I think you were kind of skeptical about it because similar to as the case now, the shooting percentage is off the charts. I believe they're finishing at like 24% so far the season of the power play, and you were thinking that it wasn't going to continue. Now we're nearly 60 games in. They're still clicking at this rate. They are by goals per hour, the most efficient power play we've seen going back to 2007,

and they're joining essentially the Oilers and the lightning in that time as the only teams in this sort of 11 goal per hour range. They're over 13 right now. What are you seeing from them in terms of either the personnel or the tactics? because last year this was a unit that was the weak link for this team. They were 24th in the league in Power Play goals per hour. And it was a massive sort of point of contention because they added Monaghan. They looked a little bit better at the time, but they were never really able to click like this.

And all of a sudden now it's become a major strong suit to go along with with obviously the play they get a net from Helibuck. So what are you seeing from the Jets on the Power Blay? So again, I just want to reemphasize the fact that shooting, 24% on an NHL power play is not sustainable. And any conversation related to how great this Jets power play is has to start with the fact that, you know, it's easy come, easy go. So if you go through a 10 game stretch where you're shooting, not at 24, but at 14 or 4%, then the whole narrative changes, I think. And but that being said, you know, this first unit is a lot better than last year's, in terms of underlying stats, expected goal shots, what have you. First of all, it's because Gabe Valardi is healthy.

He's playing every game, which is huge for them because he's, for me, he's one of the best net area guys in the league. You know, we talk about guys like Chris Kreider a few years ago or Zach Heiman, you know, guys like that who are able to pick up rebounds, make these little skill plays around, you know, that front post area or go to the back post for a tap-in or screen the goalie. Like, Valardi does it all, and he's such a great fit on that. unit because most skill players are not going to be able to have as much comfort operating around the net. The second thing is finally they've elevated a friend, the podcast, Nick Eilers, the first unit. And again, for him, like, you know, he's sort of seen as this sort of undersized skill forward with some defensive warts.

But really, he's very underrated at winning loose pucks and playing in traffic. and depending on how the other players are moving, he may be on the flank, he may be in the bumper, he may even go in the front of the net. So he's just been a really skilled, but also versatile addition to this unit. On the mode of regression,

I completely agree with the obviously shooting 24% is an absolutely charm season and everyone's going to look good when that's the case. But this is a unit based on what they're operating at right now that I believe they could go 0 for 28 on their next 20. 28 man to manage opportunities and still be the most efficient powerable in the league. So there's certainly some room for aggression, as you said, while still maintaining a much better bottom line than they did previously.

The Eelers one is huge. And partly why I picked this question is because it's an opportunity for us to talk more about Nikola Eelers. But it's interesting because I think it even strength a reason why a guy like Mark Schaifley hasn't really wanted to play long term with him full time is because he's much more unpredictable than a guy like, let's say, Carl Conner. And so that sort of X-factor or wrinkle to his game bugs a player who wants everything to be much more

sort of micromanaged or predictable. I think in this case, on the power play, though, that sort of wild card element is actually a feature and not a bug. And then I'm glad you brought up as well, the retrievals and ability to, if you don't score on the first shot, sustain possession time so you're not going back in your own zone and keep the puck moving and just, how dynamic he is as a dual threat opens up so many more doors for this powerplay.

And the other thing that I've noticed is they've also changed their entry scheme as well. Last year, they struggled quite a bit to get the puck into the zone and get established to begin with. And that hasn't really been a problem for them this year. And I think similar to a lot of the other power plays that we historically seen at Excel, there's a certain level of continuity as well here. Obviously, Valarity came a couple years ago. Eilers hasn't been on this top unit prior to this year full time. but for the most part guys like Morrissey and Connor and Shifley have such a firmly established level of continuity.

And so that timing and precision when you watch them slice opposing PKs apart has been a big part of this as well. So it's been a really fun unit to watch. And yeah, I think that's all I got to say on it. Do you have any other notes on that or do you want to move on to the next question? So just a quick thing on their entries. And this is an area where I think legitimately it's very interesting tactically. the Jets, they'll bring all five skaters back on their power play breakout and come up as a unit, whereas most other teams will have either one or two forwards standing at the offensive blue line.

So it creates a bit of a different look. It's not a silver bullet, but certainly it's one of those wrinkles that the Jets have that makes teams uncomfortable. So that's something to watch out for as well. I like that. All right. Lemon Cheesecake asks, if there's been a rise in dumping percentage across, the league. I'd love Jack's thoughts on what environmental changes have occurred in the NHL that have led teams to generally dump the puck in more. Are teams just copying what's worked for a team

like the Florida Panthers? Is there a difference between the types of dumpins, whether it's soft, hard rim or cross-ice ones? Do you have any thoughts on this? So, you know, some sort of high-level trends this year, dumpins are up, shots on goal are down, even though the game is, more high pace, more skilled than ever, right? So it's sort of a little bit counterintuitive. But, you know, if you look at, again, when USA plays Canada later this week, every single entry is going to be contested.

Every single shot is going to be contested. The defensive pressure is coming in just a fraction of a second quicker. You don't have guys who are just going to throw the puck away at the first sign of pressure, but at the same time, you're not going to have defensemen who are giving you the blue line for free or the red line for free. So that's where the game is headed right now.

And so even though it looks like a more defensive game on paper, when you're looking at just the numbers, when you're actually watching the game, you see that players are still, they're trying more plays than ever, but it's just the defensive pressure is so good that they don't have a lot of time and space. I guess that's your answer to. I was going to do a follow-up question.

from Meeks asking, are there any defensive innovations we might see to help combat the increasingly efficient offensive developments that we've seen in the league? And that's a good point you make, right? Because while skill is higher than it's ever been, and you could argue the pace is as well, not only are the shots down, but the actual rate at which teams are scoring is down. Now, power plays are becoming, I think, more important than ever because we're seeing the ceiling for some of these units. We mentioned, we just talked about what the jets have done on the power. play if you sort by most efficient power play since that 2007 mark that we have access to. There's a couple other teams there that are near the top of the list in the top 10 or so from

this season alone. So you're seeing how like that's one of the areas of the game where I think you can exploit teams defensively a little bit more. But at 5-1-5, it's it's interesting because it is a bit counterintuitive. I do feel like for all the innovations and adjustments and how it's more offensively oriented, teams are actually doing, I think, a pretty good job of, of tactically defending and making life more difficult for teams. Do you think it's just that or do you think it is partly because of this sort of tactical approach, I guess, the teams are just, you know, punting the puck into the zone a bit more and that's just generally taking more time to create something. And so more times coming off the clock and we're getting fewer goals per hour.

So one of the things that I'm seeing a lot during my research process for Hockey Tactics 2025 is like NHL teams are playing, they're playing much more of a vertical game. They're not really using as many change of sides or finding the weak side D as much as maybe, you know, even three or four years ago because the defensive pressure is coming on so quickly, the back checkers are working so much better to take away time and space that you, you really can't use the width of the ice unless you have exceptionally fast players. Like if you have McKinn and McCar and McDavid on the ice together, you can go east-west all day and so outskate people.

But if you have Mark Stone or Austin Matthews or Mitch Marger, you have to be really cognizant of how much use the width of the rink because, you know, if you make one or two east-west passes, all of a sudden you've got back checkers, you know, sort of right on you and you're risking a turnover. So teams are playing more vertical. They're playing quote unquote more simple hockey. Getting the puck deep is essentially the only way to make sure that they're not getting pickpocketed from behind a certain situation. Yeah.

I think that's really huge here because I think we generally tend to focus a lot of our attention through the lens of, you know, the skating talent improving as like, all right, well, now you can create more offensively. but I think that applies, especially come to the postseason or a tournament like Four Nations where it's as competitive as it's been, it means just as much defensively in terms of how quickly guys are able to get back. You look at the blue liners for Team USA, for example, and how mobile they all are, and how guys like Faber and Slavin, for example, even Rurenski, how they're able to contest everything at the blue line and make life difficult for you and take away your time and space. And I think teams are trying to adjust to that by getting the puck deeper and taking advantage of the fact that some of these guys are maybe a bit smaller or more undersized in previous defensemen.

That allows you, I think, to then maybe feel more comfortable that, all right, one way to exploit that or have a bit of a competitive advantage against them is to outmuscle them down low and try to create that way. And so the logical then progression of that is just dumping the puck in more and trying to attack from there as opposed to doing everything off of the rush. So yeah, it's fascinating. I ultimately think, though, like, and that's why I think this tournament has been so fun to watch because it has been such high intensity and so competitive. And you compare what we see in the NHL regular season compared to the playoffs, for example. So much of defense to me just comes down to effort and discipline and buy-in from the players, especially the forwards to backcheck, as you're saying,

and provide that support and close those gaps. And so when you get into spots like this, it's just really difficult to find any sort of real time to actually create unless you're just winning battles down low. Yeah, so I posted a clip of John Cooper, miced up on the bench on my Twitter feed, and basically for like 30 seconds, he was just yelling, get off the wall whenever his players had the puck

and track whenever his players didn't have the puck. And that's sort of the modern game in a nutshell, right? You want to get into the middle of the ice if you're a team with the puck, and then if you're a team without the puck, You just want to spam this speed boost button coming back into your zone and taking away those middle plays when you're defending. And that's what it comes down to. Like, I would say it's only a little bit more sophisticated

than what coaches used to yell at us when, like, we were young and playing minor hockey or whatever. But, you know, it is a little bit different and certainly what the game is trying. All right. One more question then, and it ties into coaching. So that's a neat little segue. Adam asks,

I was wondering what coach you think the Ducks should target, assuming they have someone new for next season, feel free to add potentially available coaches like an Andrew Burnett to the pool, for example. I think you and I have spoken about Greg Croner in the past and our frustrations with the job he's on in Annan. I am in particular the lack of relative development. You look at them this season, and not only they're still the worst defensive team in the league, the 32nd and pretty much every metric other than goals against because they're too good. goalies have been so good, but offensively, their bottom three and everything as well. So there's no real signs to point to as like, all right, the players are getting better or playing in a more favorable environment. And that's frustrating considering they should be at that point of their organizational cycle with some of these young guys coming in and presumably getting better

year over year. What would you like to see from them and what type of coach do you think would be able to actually create those signs of improvement for them? And you can maybe even use any examples we've seen around the league recently of a coach coming in and actually pushing a young organization in the right direction. So the answer to the Anaheim part of the question is I don't know because I haven't interviewed all or even any of the candidates who would be maybe a suitable replacement. I don't know Greg Cronin on a personal level at all. But I would say one case study across the league that we can look at is Travis Green in Ottawa. So Travis Green, and is a coach whose body of work I'm more familiar with.

And I've coached against him in the AHL. And the thing is, is, you know, Ottawa was on the cusp of making the playoffs for the first time in forever and playing meaningful games, you know, late in the season. And you look at their five-on-five outputs and they're near the bottom of the league in terms of goals for, right? But they've stayed competitive and stayed in the playoff picture because they've become such a better team

at defending, at, you know, tracking back and taking away rush chances and, you know, defending front of their net and just not making those backbreaking mistakes that we would routinely see from them in the past season. So, you know, the idea for Anaheim is like, yes, you do want a coach that's going to help the young players improve offensively and score more and develop their confidence, but not at the expense of playing a team game and, you know, giving up. like three and a half goals a game because you're not really going to go anywhere doing that. So I'd be curious to see how the Ottawa situation shakes out because, you know,

like winning reads a sort of confidence and a sort of buy-in that you're really looking to get as a coach. And, you know, maybe you don't need to have all your players be at a point per game or, you know, score four goals a game to make the playoffs and to, you know, complete a rebuild. So if the Ottawa thing works out, maybe the idea is just get a coach that can really teach the players how to defend, and then the rest will sort of fall into place. Yeah, Ottawa is a very interesting case study because, as you mentioned, they are tied with the Nashville Predators for dead last in the league in 5-1-5 goals scoring this season, yet they are in a playoff spot.

The power play is quite good at top 10, but also defensively, they're giving up the sixth fewest expected goals against. you look across the board, like their goal suppression has not just been from their goalies, although their goalies have played very consistently, but they just don't really give you much at all. And they've had individual games, like the one they played recently before the break against Minnesota that comes to mind where they just completely smothered them and held them to like 12 shots or something.

And there's just such a more detailed approach. I think part of this is, and it's kind of chicken or the egg, but part of this is I'm sure young players developing and maturing and being more. responsible, but also I think the coach gets some credit for that as well. And then just, you know, tactically, they've done certain things in terms of their defensive zone structure, move into more of a zone or kind of just gaping up. And especially with guys like Sanderson, their ability to defend in the neutral zone has been so much better than previous. So all of a sudden now they're shrinking the ice and you're just getting far fewer opportunities against them.

And one of the common themes for some of these young teams that struggle defensively is there's just so much time and space for the opposition and it's really tough. And then when you when you give them that much time in space, you generally don't have the pocket. And then your offensive numbers are going to result in struggling as well. And it's kind of this like punishing endless loop. I think Dean Eveson is an interesting one in Columbus as well. The defensive numbers haven't necessarily reflected what we just said about Ottawa. But when you compare, I think, his usage of players and getting more out of young players and putting them in a position to exceed, that's something as well that I'd be trying to emulate here because you look at

the ducks and not only the young players struggled, but especially on the blue line, some of these guys just aren't really playing for some reason. And I feel like that points back to the coaching. You got any final notes on this, whether it's just kind of a holistic view of coaching in the league, especially for some of these young teams? Or do you think we covered it? Well, I'm just really excited for Canada, USA on Thursday. I'm going to be watching that game live, which I almost never do in.

season because of how much other hockey stuff I got going on. So yeah, like it will be a great proof of concept for for how hockey can be played at the very highest level. So from that point of view, I'm super. Yeah, especially if that first meeting between the two on Saturday was any indication. It's just, it's being played at such a high level. Everything's so contested. The, the physicality, the speed, the skill is, is just off the charts.

So it's a great representation of, of this sport at its finest. All right, Jack, that's all the time we have for today. we're going to get out of here. I'll give you a chance here to plug some stuff. You were referencing the project you're doing. We've talked about hockey tactics in the 2025 version that's coming out that you're currently in the process of working on. Where are you at with that?

What can people expect? Let them know a little bit about all that good stuff. So as usual, it's going to be an illustrated e-book detailing all of the 32 NHL teams' teams' even strength and special teams tactics. Look for it. sometime in the next couple of months. I'm still working through the last couple of teams and then doing the edits and getting that out for publication.

But yeah, look for it. In the meantime, follow me on Twitter, J-H-A-N-H-K-Y, or look up the H-A-N-H-K-Y or look up the H-E-N-Tactics newsletter on Google or whichever search engine you happen to use. When you've been diving in and looking into the tape on some of these teams, which one has been the one where you felt like it's the biggest slog to get through, that you've done so far at least? the rebuilding teams certainly but but also like a lot of teams play in a similar way now and this

year i've kind of switched up the format to make that a little bit more user friendly so so look for that once the book is out all right buddy well good stuff keep with the great work looking forward to having you on again soon especially as we get closer and closer to playoff season that's when uh when you and i really shine and get together and break some of this stuff down um the listeners if they want help us out first give the five stars wherever you listen to the show leave us a nice little review join us in the pediocast discord we took a couple mailbag questions here today we're going to continue to do so so you can join the community it's really fun to partake in during these games every night but also you can get involved in future shows that's all for today we're going to be back here

thursday night following that highly anticipated four nations final with a postgame show with our pal thomas trans were given at the stanley cup final treatment and doing a immediate post game as soon as the game is over. So expect to show on your feed either late that night or early the next morning. See you then. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPedioCast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.