The Hockey PDOcast - CBJ’s Electric Top Line, Team Risk Profiles, and Situational Player Usage

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Jack Han to break down the success the Blue Jackets top line is having this year, why Mika Zibanejad's individual play has been a microcosm of the Rangers team struggles, things teams have been doing to create more offense this season, and player usage in penalty kill and 3v3 situations. 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 Dimitri Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy Jack Khan. Jack, what's going on, man? We're back. Happy New Year. Happy New Year to you, too.

So here's the plan for today. We've got a couple of questions from the PEDAOCast Discord that we're going to get into. But first, I want to do a deep dive on an incredibly fun developing story. and that's this year's Columbus Blue Jackets. Now I wish people could see our shared text message thread because it's just me at all hours of the day and specifically night late into the evening, badgering you about whether you've seen what the Blue Jackets just did,

the latest cool goal they scored, what they're running offensively, all that good stuff. And I just want to explore that and kind of share that love with everyone because that's what this podcast is all about. That's what the platform is for. and I've just been increasingly captivated by their playing style. I've been excited about watching them play. And so I want to use the start of today's show to get into all of that with you.

I gave you some homework to go and watch some of the tape, see what you're seeing from them, top line in particular. And I think the listeners are going to be interested to hear us break it all down. So what do you, what are you seeing from them, why they're generating so many good looks and so many goals in particular and kind of what they're doing with that top line, especially when they're out there with top defenseman Zach Wrenski to get it done offensively. Okay.

Okay. First of all, like I haven't gotten this many text messages with like this level of enthusiasm since I was single like 10 years ago. Right. So, so, you know, props to you, Dimitri, for really getting me to look at this. Because yes, like this is a good line. So we're talking about Broncov, Monaghan, who's hurt now, but it was mostly Monaghan. and Marchenko, right?

And the thing with this line is like, it's very, very cliche. And I kind of roll my eyes when coaches talk about it, but like these guys are working their tails off. Like they're outworking opposing lines sort of shift in and shift out. They're winning loose pucks in the corner. They're winning their races up ice. And initially, like when you told me about them, I'm like, I have to check their usage because,

you know, when I think of Columbus, I think of Kent Johnson, Adam Fantilli, you know, sort of those guys. And it turns out that it is actually this Broncov, Monaghan, and Marchenko line that's getting the toughest matchups. Like, they're matched up against top lines, top D pairs. So they're actually outworking some of the best players in the league right now. And they're putting up, you know, kind of 60% expected goals, which is, which is insane. It is. after Thursday nights 6-2 thumping of the Cracken, the Blue Jacks have actually leapfrog,

both the Bruins and the senators, to sit in the first wildcard spot in the east with 44 points and 42 games. And the reason why they've intrigued me so much is because no team this year has played in more high-scoring game environments or game scripts than they have. If there's an offensive stat, they're near the top of it. If there's a defensive stat, they're near the bottom of it.

I know that could probably be a bit too risky for a lot of coaches, but I give Dean Everson full credit for coming in and understanding the assignment and essentially just letting his horses run wild, especially from a usage perspective, because I remember you and I, one of our most popular shows we did last season was a midseason episode where we kind of just teed off on Pascal Vincent and the job he was doing and how we were frustrated. That was at the time where he had that infamous Globetrotters comment where he was essentially fed up with the offensive flare, I guess they were playing with and they weren't playing.

defensively responsible enough hockey. And so he was limiting the usage of these guys. And we were just frustrated because that kind of reflected a misunderstanding of what the Blue Jackets were, where they were at in their shelf life and kind of how they should be operating. And then you look this year and at 5-15, only the capitals are scoring more frequently than the Blue Jackets do across all situations. They're fifth in goals four. Now, as I said, they're also second in most goals against on a permanent basis with only the

penguins giving up more. So their games are averaging roughly seven combined goals for and against per game, which is made for great theater and a really fun viewing experience. I mentioned they scored the six goals against the Cracken. That was the 10th time this season where they've erupted for six or more goals. And so this has been a regularly occurring thing with them. And I think what intrigues me so much about that top line, and it is a real shame, then Monaghan is out now.

I believe he's on IR. He's going to miss some time with what's reported as a wrist injury. but we're still going to break down kind of the way they fit together as pieces. And you mentioned the hardworking and you certainly see a lot of that in terms of the forecheck and the motor and the ability to create turnovers off the forecheck and then immediately get it into the middle of the ice for scoring chances. But what I really like about these guys is how complimentary the skill sets are as well. When you mentioned kind of the cliche, the direction I thought you were going to go is sort of talking about how it's like three guys who all have very complimentary. and unique skill sets that really sort of fill in the gaps for each other, right? You see Marchenko and his rush ability and his ability to create and then shoot

Varankov with his battle winning and especially his net front presence and how he wins every single battle there and can make plays in tight while closely contested. And then Monaghan, I think, is maybe of the most intrigue because he's done such a phenomenal job of sort of rehabbing his game, right, out of necessity as he got into his 30s with all the injuries he had incurred along the way. He was productive last year in Montreal and then when he went to Winnipeg, but it was much more of a power play function in terms of his points and the way he was creating, whereas this year, so much of it has come at 5-on-5 where he's been one of the most productive 5-on-5 players

in the league. So I'm curious for your take on the way those three guys interact, what the lessons are from it, and then maybe specifically a little bit on Monaghan as well, and the way he's sort of revamped his game at this point of his career. So when Monaghan first went to Montreal, and Monaghan's a player, I think we've talked about in the past, I've talked about with Kent Wilson, who's a flames writer. And the knock on Monaghan was always like, there was a perception that he was a passenger on the Johnny Goodroll line.

So whether it was with Yerujo Lurit to start, whether it was with Michael Furland later or Elias Linholm. So, like, you know, Monaghan, he would score goals around the net or on the power play, but it seemed like it was Godreau making most of the plays in transition. And, you know, his defensive impacts ended up being very, very bad at the end of his tenure in Calgary. And it was really difficult to find a fit with him anywhere in the lineup. And all of that made total sense when he went to Montreal and he started talking about, like, how he literally couldn't sleep at night because of how much his hips were bothering.

Right. So not only, like when you play hockey, like your hips are super important because if your hips are not right, you basically can't skate. And also you're not sleeping at night, which like it doesn't matter what field you're in. If you can't sleep at night, then it's going to have severe repercussions on how effective you are when you're not sleeping. So those things really kind of made me sympathized with them. And it seems like at least, you know, until recently he's really put those issues behind him. And now when I watch him play, like you remind me. me a little bit of

Pavelsky's role with the Rupert hit to Jason Robertson line from a couple of years ago, which is defensively he's going to be the first guy back. He's very responsible and he frees up Voronkov to, you know, kind of stay longer in the corner to win a battle

or Mark Chanko to kind of improvise with the puck. And then offensively, he's a guy who I think he's really useful because he doesn't need the puck a lot. And the interesting thing is if you compare the result of this line

with Monahan down the middle versus Pan Tilly down the middle, so far it seems like with Fantilli, like at least the expected goal share is quite bad. It's like in the 40s. And I suspect the reason is because

first of all, Fantili is obviously a younger, less experienced player, but also Fantili's game is having the puck. And perhaps there are situations where, you know, him of Marchenko,

like they can't really, they don't work as well together because they both like to have the puck under stick. Whereas Monaghan really doesn't mind when his teammates carrying it. In fact, he prefers that. And he instead focuses on getting to the middle of the ice, getting to the net front, being the first guy on the back check. He's not really sniffing for offense.

Whereas when you have Fantilli and Marchanko, I think, now there's sort of a negotiation ongoing every shift of like, is Marchenko going to be the guy or is Fantili or they have to learn to share it? like there's really not that debate with. No, that's a really good point. I think with Monaghan, what you see is, is obviously we kind of highlighted the defensive part of it and being the first guy back and being more reliable there.

I'd say even in the offensive zone, though, just the routes and kind of consistently knowing that he's going to be in the right position in the slot, his battle winning and wall work and kind of extending positions. And I think you saw that exact phenomenon on your describing there where last year we saw a lot of Marchenko and Bronco, play together and they were prolific offensively and created a bunch of goals. And in their minutes, I believe they played nearly 500, five on five minutes together. They still outscored the

opposition 25 to 15. But a lot of their underlying metrics, whether it was shots, chances, or expected goals were a sub 50% in that kind of mid 40% range. And that's exactly what you're seeing without Monaghan this year as well. So I think that's kind of that concept of how he extends possessions and creates a few extra looks for them to actually be able to sustain those offensive zone sequences as opposed to being kind of one or done. And if they don't score, then they're going to be defending the rest of their shift. I think this provides an interesting opportunity for Fantalia. We've seen about a game and a half of it so far now.

He had a really encouraging play. I thought in the most recent game against the Cracken that I highlighted to you in our, in our aforementioned texts where he was sort of took a play completely out of the Monaghan playbook, which is he's kind of standing around in the slot, making himself available. you see that hardworking shift from Marchanko and Voronkov along the boards. They create a turnover off the forecheck, win a puck battle. They bring it back up into the slot. And something that's plagued fantilli, especially this year, but early in his career,

has been, I think, something that we've seen with previous players of the silk, where I think at lower levels, and especially at the NCAA in his draft season, he was just so physically dominant that pretty much he could just like a bull in a China shop, essentially just take the puck wherever he wanted. And so it didn't require a lot of nuance or a lot of layered attacking. He could essentially just take the puck to the net wherever you want, beat his guy one-on-one, and score more often than not. It's really difficult to do that sustainably in the NHL.

And so he's had a little bit of tunnel vision in my viewings of him, where his play selection is very binary. And a lot of the times it's just, all right, I have tunnel vision for just shooting the puck here. That's what I'm going to do. And so in this sequence that I'm describing, he gets the puck in the middle of the ice. And instead of doing that, he actually makes a great read where he's able to laterally move the puck over to Wrenski, who has more space to step into a shot, turns a good shot

into a great shot. Werencki scores on that. And so I think that's a very encouraging sequence that he was able to kind of stack that together and build off of it and do what Monaghan had been doing previously. So he's going to get more reps there. And I think if anything, it's certainly a shame that Monaghan, who was so productive, is hurt now and will be out for a bit. But from a bluejacket's perspective and develop.

developing Fantilli into a future down the middle role, I do think this is a bit of an interesting period of time for them to experiment with this and see if he can sort of fill that void and add to his game. And, you know, early returns so far are obviously mixed, as you mentioned, in terms of the underlying results. But I do like seeing stuff like that. And I want to see more of them because I feel like playing with Marchenko and Voronkov is going to drag him out of his comfort zone, right? Like you have to fit in with the way they play because they play so connected. and have such a great understanding between the two of them that it's going to require whoever is out on the ice with them

to sort of fit in and essentially just have to play that way. So I'm curious to see if he's able to kind of replicate a little bit of that. Yeah, so I agree with all of that. And on that specific play, I don't know if you've already posted a clip of that, whether it's in Discord or on Twitter. But the thing that really jumps out at me is Werencki, because for me, like when I was in the Maple Leaf organization,

like whenever we face Columbus like Wrensky was a guy that I looked for on his parent with Seth Jones back in the day but then for like four or five years after that it seems like he kind of dropped off the list of like the best defense men in the league and you know he wasn't as active as used to be you don't see him in the old zone getting the puck

and shooting from the high slot area but now I think under Dean Evesant like it's back and the thing that makes it so that he works really well with Marchanko and Baranko and whether it's Monaghan or Fantilli is the three forwards, they're at their best when they're very tight to each other, which is, I think,

a little bit unusual for offensive players because normally on offense, you want to spread the ice. But the idea, and it's perfectly illustrated on that play is, you have two guys along the boards, you got Fantili sort of on the strong side dot. It's a short support path out to Fantilli.

And then all of a sudden, Werencki, materializes at the left dot at the opposite side of the ice and that's a spot where usually you would find forwards like it let's say if you're looking for the boston bruins that's a spot where um pasturnack would always hang out at right like normally it's a forward but because warrensky is so good at covering ice all of a sudden you know he frees up the forwards to really control play on one corner of the ice and then whenever he's needed he kind of slides down and occupy that kind of a

fourth forward role with something that you would see on a one three on power play basically. And we're seeing more of that this year especially with this line. And I think whenever we talk about how much success this line is having, I think, you know, whether it's Werensky or or Severson or Proverov

or, you know, Jay Christensen, like this Columbus Blue Jackets, like, they have a very mobile, very offensive decor and I think you know, we can't separate those two. No, Wrenski's been a phenomenal. I think he's been quite clearly the third best defense in the league this year. I didn't want to spend too much time on him here today because I'm doing a full

film club episode on him next week. But yeah, it's just his rotations there in attacking the middle. He fits in so well with them. I just one quick final note on this line. And just to give some context for the listeners in terms of why we're spending so much time talking about them, they played 235 on five minutes together. And that's partly because Broncov missed the first month of the season with injury. they're up 22 to 5 in that time,

have 60% of the expected goals, high danger chances are 62-37. And I've spent a lot of time on the show talking about Marchenko and what a rock star he is and his 13-5-15 goals are tied for a seventh most in the league this year. But for Ronkov, who missed that time early on, has 17 goals in 33 games

on a permanent basis, only Ovechkin, point, Dreisaitel, and Caulfield are scoring more frequently than him. And I feel such sweet vindication. I don't want to take too much of a victory lap here because it was pretty obvious to anyone that was paying attention. But last year, Pascal Vincent had this guy playing 13 and a half minutes per game. He's at 17 this year.

He's been playing over 18 in the past 25 games since he got caught up to speed. And that was a total that he reached just one time in 75 games last year. So we talk a lot about the impact of coaching and especially in dealing with young players and developing them and allowing them to play through mistakes and all that sort of stuff. And I wanted to circle back to Dean Everson here because he clearly has, I said, understood the assignment. This is an organization that went from a burnt-out John Gordorella at the end of his tenure there to Brad Larson to the Mike Babcock fiasco, even though he never coached a regular season game for this team, to then Pascal Vincent and bringing in someone

like Dean Emerson who's allowed these guys to flourish, I think has been such a cool story. So I just want to keep watching more of them. I'm very excited about it. I'm not sure how meaningful it's going to be from a win-loss perspective because as I said, they still have a lot of work to do defensively in terms of ironing things out, but they're very live in that wildcard race. And I do feel like that's one of the more fun stories this season because I don't know how you can watch this team and not come away, being excited about what you're seeing from them. Yeah, absolutely. If you're a young player with like a big body, powerful kind of game, like Broncov is a guy you've got to watch for sure. He wins so many battles. And especially like his

playmaking around the net, obviously scoring a lot of goals and finishing. But even some of the passing laterally and into positions for cross-ice stuff has been really, really cool. One final note on this, I wanted to give a shout out to PDOCAS Discord member and listener, Eric Schumacher, CBJ POKEA on Twitter, coverage of this team, play tracking. If you go into the PDOCAS Discord, there's a section called Watching the Spreadsheets. He posts a lot of his hand-track data for this team that he covers after every game, and I think it's an invaluable resource. And so if you're interested in learning more about what these guys are doing and how they're doing it,

that would be the first place I'd go. So kudos to him for all the work he does. And I highly recommend everyone checks that out if they haven't already. You got any other notes on the blue jackets here or this trio in general? Or do you want to move on to some of the mailbag questions? No, I think we've got a lot to cover. So let's get going. All right, let's do it.

Here's a question here that I think, and a couple of these are sort of more general, I guess, philosophical or tactical things. that we can apply then to specific situations, and I think that's going to be most useful for a lot of listeners. Crowbite asks, do you think it's better to run a system like Florida and Vegas do in terms of putting out their best forwards in the PK or to do what Edmonton does, where they instead load up with McDavid,

Dreisaitle, and Hyman for the shift immediately following a killed penalty. I have no doubt that McDavid could be an excellent penalty killer, but they clearly prefer keeping them fresh for offensive situations. Where do you stand on us? I'm not sure, I can't recall if we've talked about this, before just the general sort of dilemma of how to use your best forwards, whether it's worth burning some of their minutes and miles on the PK and creating that way or whether you'd rather have them sitting on the bench waiting for that first opportunity to attack after a kill penalty.

Like for me, it's really not a black and white thing. It's really hard to say in theory whether there's a better approach. There's pros and constant both. And I think there's a few factors you have to consider. First is who are your star player, right? So if you're number one center is Sasha Barkov and he's got one of the best defensive sticks in the league and he knows where to be defensively and he's going to be an elite penalty killer, then you want him to be out there, right? Like you don't want to squander that part of his game or, you know, Matthew Kachuk, who's a super hard worker and, you know, very effective as puck pursuit, keeping pucks out of your zone or winning puck battles, then, then you want to give him those looks, especially in high leverage situations in the playoffs.

You know, in the playoffs when you're going up against the best players in the league, then you want to have the option, at least to have that power and power matchup, even on special teams. You don't want your, you know, I don't know why. I just have Noel Chari at the top of my head, but you don't want Noel Chari defending Hunter McDavid or Jack Eichol in the playoffs necessarily because, you know, he doesn't have, have the mind speed, the foot speed, at the hand speed to really come out on top, right? Like, at some point, you're going to get hurt.

On the flip side, and this is an example that I, you know, that I know quite well, is like, when I was in Toronto, Austin Matthews never penalty killed because if we gave him those additional minutes, he would be too tired to be effective at 5 on 5 on the power plane. This is early in his career. So if you have, you know, if your start players are maybe less fit or, you know, they don't cover the ice as well, they're not as efficient in their movements and you wear them out by playing them on the PK, then maybe it's not as good an idea. Yeah, I obviously it's on a case by case basis. I would say just generally there's probably been a, there's never been a better time in hockey to try and manufacture more odd man rushes and scoring chances. chances on the PK than right now, partly because a lot of teams are running four forward sets,

so that just means they're a bit more vulnerable, skating backwards. I think also teams just generally have completely eradicated that big Shea Weber bomb from the point. So if one of your best forwards is the high man having to kind of come out and contest in that shooting lane, I think the worry of him standing in front of that and blocking or breaking his hand or his foot trying to block that shot, I think is alleviated. less of a concern. Obviously, a team like the Lightning is probably best set up in this way because they have the point Kuturov combo and they can save especially Kuturov and not really worry about it because they also have Hagell and Sirelli and they're just two of the biggest dogs in the

league. I tweeted this yesterday. They've played like 71 short-handed minutes this year and in that time Tampa Bay is actually leading the opposition five to four and outscoring opposing power play. So obviously that's a best case scenario where you have. have essentially two top forward combinations and you can play to their strengths that way. But I don't know. I think there is something to be studied there. Obviously, you're going to be less likely to score and create offensively on the PK because you're going to spend less time with a puck.

A lot of the time you're prioritizing as soon as you get it dumping out and getting changing to get fresh bodies out there. But then you watch a team like the Flyers and just how frequently they're creating all of these two-on-ones. A lot of them are wasted because it's like guys like Ryan Paling and Scott Laud, and not necessarily skilled players who are going to turn those chances into goals. But I feel like if I was a team

trying to manufacture extra offense or look for ways to get out and attack off the rush, especially if I'm one who struggles to do so at 5-on-5, I would be studying that and then trying to integrate it with my more talented players because I do think there is an area of opportunity to create a few more goals here or there. It might not seem like a meaningful thing

in the grand scheme of things, but especially later in the season when it becomes so much more difficult to create goals, I feel like there is a bit of a competitive advantage there that probably hasn't been fully taken advantage of yet. So just two quick things to add. I can't believe I didn't mention Sam, right, heart, because it's the perfect example of him and Barkov

if they're able to create a two-on-one, shorthanded they're going to score. Like that's probably the best example of that. And then the second thing is, aside from the theory of what I would do, is what I actually do when I play NHL 25 online. And I play with the Oilers right now in Online Verses. And I have Derek Ryan with Yarmark First Wave.

I have Adam Henrique with, I think, Casperi Kappen and Second Wave. And then I got Dry Saddle and McDavid feasting on Power Play 2s. So I win the face off back. I hard rim it to McDavid. And then it's just a breakaway goal. So that's how I do it right now in the virtual world. there you go chris and hoblock take notes um all right jack let's take our break here and then when we come back we will jump right back in a little we've got a couple other mailback questions we're going to get to you're listening to the hockey pdocast streaming on the sports net radio now all right we're back here on the hockey pio cast with jack con we're doing some mailback questions from the pio cast discord jack here's a question from nico what kind of deployment for me because abenad makes the most sense for the rangers the reason why i pick

that's when I want to talk about it with you is because I know that you spent a bunch of time recently looking at the Rangers, you did a big video thing on them kind of breaking down the way they're playing where a lot of the issues for them defensively are arising. I think Zabinajad's play in kind of how it's deteriorated, both from an efficiency perspective, but also some of the moral quandaries it poses for them on the ice in terms of how they want to play and the way they are playing, I think is a fascinating conversation because obviously he has a big reputation around the league. He's been incredibly productive before.

They're paying him a bunch of money. So I think there's an obligation there to keep sending him out there. Yet the results haven't been matching that. Where are you at with this? When a star player like this is struggling what you do with their usage and kind of just in general what's going on with the Rangers right now. So we talked about Monaghan earlier. And the reason why things really,

went downhill with Monaghan and Calgary was, you know, he had some physical issues. His play deteriorated, especially defensively. His team couldn't find a spot from the lineup. They had to let him go. And then ultimately, you know, fortunately he was able to kind of get back on track in another market. And I feel like it's a similar situation with Zvanajad. And whenever I watch him play, like I'm aware of the really terrible underlying metrics and all that stuff. And it just seems to me like he's not moving very well.

Like when you look at him skate, he's a powerful athlete. Like he works quite hard, I think. But it always looks like he's on his heels. Like whenever there's a change in direction, he's late, when he's forechecking, you know, he's pretty easy to be. Like he has to make a clear decision on whether he wants to take the body or try to, you know, get the puck. When he's along the boards, he's easy to sort of rub out or, you know,

heard into a corner. When he's got the puck in open ice, he's still very good, whether it's with his shot, whether it's carrying the puck north-south. But I just wonder, like, is there a physical or, you know, anything else?

Or, you know, anything else? Like, is there something going on with him as a person? Because I just feel like if he were, you know, better physically, it would translate in his game. Because right now it just looks like he's not moving well at all, even though he's trying.

I mean, he's 32 in April. So I think it might be, be as simple as that. Obviously, falling off a cliff this dramatically is always eyebrow raising. Yeah, he's not moving his feet. I mean, there was a play in the most recent game I was watching against the Devils on Thursday night where on the power play, he's kind of standing up top near the blue line waiting for a pass. And he's so flat-footed. And by the time the pass gets there, Dawson Mercer is essentially able to just step right into the lane and just breeze past him for for a very easy break and scoring chance,

and that's a regularly occurring thing. I think at 5-1-5, and that hasn't been his forte for a while, I think he's provided a lot of functional value on special teams, obviously. But at 5-15 this year, there's been 358 forwards with at least 300 minutes,

played. Only nine of them have been on the ice for more goals against frequently or on a permanent basis than he has, as you mentioned, the underlying metrics. They've all cratered into the 45% range, or so in terms of the chances, shots, and expected goals. Now, I think previously him and the Rangers were able to overcome whatever those metrics

were based on offensive efficiency, right? Because they were just able to whatever shots they got, even if they were lower in volume, they were such great A's because of a lot of the lateral movement and obviously the finishing ability of guys like him and Panarin, and they were able to overcome that and just turn a greater percentage of their shots into goals. That hasn't been the case this year. A lot of that efficiency has dropped off. I saw our pal Mike Kelly tweeted this stat. It applies for Panarin as well. But last year, Zabinajad scored 15 one-time goals. And this year, he scored just one on 60 attempts. Now, I think some of that is probably bad luck, right? If you keep with that shot

firing away, you're probably going to score more often than one on every 60 you take. But I think, I do wonder whether we're seeing his game slowing down manifested there as well, whether maybe that's a byproduct of the way the game is changing in general, because players are just scoring less frequently on those sort of post-up one-time bombs the way they used to. And so a lot of, there's a lot of moving parts there, but pretty much everything is cratered and a lot of the stuff that he had to fall back on that was compensating for a lot of these underlying issues have eroded as well. And so now there's nothing to fall back on. And I think Peter LaViolette, is very aware of that.

Like you look at his usage. He's down to eighth amongst Rangers forward this year in 5-on-5 ice time per game. It's not really reflective of a star player. He's essentially being used as more of a third-line player, both him and Chris Kreiner when he's been healthy and in the lineup. And so, yeah, it's becoming an untenable situation, but based on the contract, I'm not sure what you can really do other than hope that he just starts turning,

I guess, some more of these shots into goals or suddenly start skating better, which if he seems a bit more far, fetched at this point of his career. Well, I just think the highest impact thing that can happen is for whether to be a sit down, maybe after the season between Zabedad, his gym trainer, his maybe his osteopath, maybe, you know, a doctor or like a team official, but there has to be sort of a mini summit saying, like, what's going on?

Is there something in my injury history that's creating problems elsewhere? how do we treat it at the source? Because at 33, you know, with his track record of being an effective score, like he should be able to play until he's 36, 37, you know, if his health holds up, at least. So I think there really has to be an effort, you know, between the player and the team and other people to figure out what the root causes are because I think there's still a lot of game there to salvage. But if you keep going down this direction where you respond to bad,

results by benching him or or reducing his usage, then you're, you're in a death spiral now. And, and, you know, you're, you're never going to get to root cause. Yeah. Do you have any other notes on, on the Rangers or what you're seeing on tape from them in general beyond? Has it been edge at in terms of a lot of the sort of defensive struggles and issues that have cropped up on their tape in terms of what they're given up? So, I, I put up a 13-minute video breakdown on my substack, J-A.

H-N-H-H-K-Y dot substack.com. I encourage any Ranger fan to go and check that out. Essentially, if I can bowl it down, they're giving up a lot defensively because they're way too reckless offensively, and they have some key players who are not able to recover as quickly or as well as it used to. Yeah, and I think that ties in perfectly

to what we're just saying about a lot of Zabinijad struggles. All right, here's a question then from Centron. Now that we're roughly halfway through the season, Are you guys seeing any shifts in strategy or systems amongst teams in the league that you find particularly interesting? You're working on your 2025 version of the hockey tactics where you're breaking down a lot of the intricacies and little details of what teams are doing. Is there anything, whether it's from a specific team or just a league-wide trend that you've seen this season that's kind of piqued your interest in terms of little things teams are doing and try to create a few more opportunities or little kind of, trends, I guess, in terms of playing style that maybe have been taken to a greater extreme this year than years past? So I've been doing this yearly ebook in this format for four years now.

And it seems like every year teams are actually becoming more uniform at five on five. Like there used to be a time when like half the teams played a one, one three and that's essentially disappeared. There's only maybe a handful of teams playing that now, as opposed to like almost half the league. Most teams forecheck and a one-two, some will add a two-two, depending on the situation. But it just seems like defensively teams are getting more uniform. In D-Zone coverage, some teams will play man-on-man,

but most teams will play some sort of a zone with, you know, defensemen of varying aggressiveness levels. But it seems like it's gotten more cookie-cutter, which actually is not necessarily a bad thing because now we see individual players sort of come more to the forefront and their problem solving. And on the flip side, on the offensive side,

you know, there used to be a time when defensemen were, you know, not usually encouraged to activate in the rush and you would only see, you know, star players get that green light. And now it's gone, you know, full 180 where basically the defensemen who can't or won't activate are on their way.

way out of the league, even the more defensive mind. Yeah, I think part of that is what you're seeing, obviously, teams that have had success previously had won the Cups and then that sort of copycap and all my honor of teams then trying to sort of replicate that or integrate that into their games. And I think we're still seeing, based on the success that Vegas had two years ago in the way they won, I think that has really seeped into the game a lot. I think there's been a lot made this season of shot totals being down. and that's certainly true.

Teams are averaging about two or three fewer shots on goal per game on average. I think part of that is the league's dedication to now actually properly sort of vetting this stuff for tracking it because a lot of the sports betting that's happening on the shot totals. And so they're actually going back and taking shots off the board and that's partly why they're down. But teams are certainly just trying to, as a part of a natural progression and evolution of optimizing their offense, passing up those sort of low percentage shots that would pad the totals previously to look for like the, you're seeing any more defensemen pass up a point shot

and just work the puck back down and reload the cycle than you did previously. And that's partly what we're seeing there as well. I think what a team like Carolina is trying to do this year is, is interesting to me. It's a progression from last year when they brought in Gensel and clearly placed a larger emphasis on attacking off the rush and trying to be a bit more nuanced offensively. They still do a lot of the high volume point shot to a deflection rebound and then kind of

working their way closer to their net that way. But I think we've seen them take more risks this year as well, both in terms of the personnel they have in the way they play and then some of the green lights they have. Now you can argue about whether how much of a net positive that's really been because a lot of their defensive metrics have declined this year. And I thought watching that game on Thursday night against the Leafs was very interesting. They obviously came back and after a 2-0 deficit wound up winning the game. I believe it was 6 to 3 or whatever as the final score.

But the Leafs, especially early on, we're getting some really, really high-quality grade A looks. Willie Neelander had three breakways in the first like seven and a half minutes or so. And it was against that or a lot of Chadfield pair and part it was just like them being out of position and taking some some chance. offenses offensively up the ice. We've seen more of that from the hurricanes this year. They're not exactly the defensive team. They were last year. I think that's okay for them to experiment and try stuff

because continuing to play the way they did previously was going to keep leading to the same results in the most important time of the year in the playoffs. So I do think they need to increase their risk profile and I commend them for doing so. But I don't know if you've kind of noticed that in watching them. And it doesn't seem like people have really caught on to that, I guess, yet. They're still talked about as being the best defensive team.

in the league and they really haven't been like that's clearly been the kings the wild and then they're kind of more middle of the pack i think this year than they have been previously uh still a really good team certainly in scoring a bunch of themselves but just different than they were maybe in years past yeah like like i wonder if we're getting to a point where just the pure differentials are becoming less of a signal than before because you know you're you're saying that carolina has regress in terms of their defense play but if you're defensive play in terms of volume share is that important, they'd be like the reigning six-time chance.

You know what I mean? Like, and then, you know, Vegas won the cup with a pretty neutral five-on-five shot share. They're on this incredible heater right now with a fairly neutral five-on-five share. Winnipeg had this great run early in the season and they were pretty much neutral five-on-five. It seems like at least in the regular season to go on a heater and win a lot of games, like it's become less important than years past. In the playoffs, obviously you still, you know, you still don't want to get came then. But if you can break even or better, then you have a chance now contingent on your

goaltending, you're finishing and your special team. Of course, yeah, finishing talent and goaltending talent, obviously goaltending talent is a bit more variable, but those two are going to drive a lot of the success. So I think that's totally right. All right, we've got another question here. Are teams with limited, offensively gifted defensemen better off just rolling with three forwards during three-on-three overtime?

I think the Panthers are really the only team this year that's actually just essentially told their defensemen to sit on the bench and watch as they use exclusively forwards. I think Foreslings played seven of their 28 three-on-three minutes, and then like Obis Balinskis is next with about three. They don't really use any defensemen at all. there haven't been a lot of goals in their three-on-three overtime. So it's tough to say that it's been a smash success or something that everyone should adopt.

But I do like the aggression from Paul Marys and the and the Panthers. And it's very on brand for them. How do you feel about three-on-three usage and kind of optimization in terms of personnel and who you'd send out there depending on the situation? So just kind of a preface. Like I don't like three-on-three hockey. I played three-on-three hockey when I was young. and like playing three on three hockey. I don't like watching three on three hockey now

because I just find there's like there's two few players on the ice to create any sort of a nuance. Like the way to win three on three is you play back and forth and you hope that your goalie makes a save and then you score on the two on one. That for me is kind of like how

three on three gets played in most of my experience. And you know, when you watch NHL teams like they set up in the zone and then they got three guys kind of rolling around in the zone, like unless one of the defenders falls down or makes an egregiously bad read, you're probably not going to score from a half-ice situation. And I guess that's where having three forwards help

because if you play half-ice in three-on-three, at some point somebody's going to have to crash a net and to draw sort of traffic away and force the goalie and the defenders into decision. and most defensemen are not comfortable doing that offense unless they're like a Warensky or a McCar or, you know, Adam Fox, someone of that type. If you have a defenseman who's just staple to the point at three-on-three,

then he's pretty much entirely useless unless you give him the puck and he shoots it and somehow it goes in. Like it's just, for me, it's a waste of a player on the ice. So if you have three forwards and they play more open, and they're comfortable going to the net and they're comfortable back checking full speed, then probably that's the way that I would have it because I just, I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of having a full-time defenseman on the ice at three-on-three unless, I don't know, he's exceptionally good at breaking up two-on-one

and then sending a stretch path the other way or breakaway or something. Yeah, I think the Canucks are a fascinating case study for this because no teams played more three-on-three hockey than this season. They've played over 40 minutes so far this year. And Quinn Hughes has played about 22 of those minutes, so more than half. They're breaking even in that time. They've scored three goals. They've given up three goals against.

In the other 19 minutes he hasn't played, they've been outscored 5-0, outshot 16 to 4, and high-d-a-treat chances are 10 to 1 for the opposition. And that became painfully obvious watching their most recent game in Washington, where the Capitals had clearly done their homework. and Hughes takes one massive shift early on. They're not really pushing or trying to create anything. He takes a quick little break, has another shift. And at that point, when he comes off the ice,

that's when Washington really goes for it. And you watch them expose Tyler Myers. I know the Canucks are limited right now in terms of their options with Philip Pronick out, but it's almost unconscionable to send him out there in that situation. And he makes a mistake, makes a poor read, goes behind the net. Pure Luke Dubois is able to essentially cash in a very easy goal. that ensues.

And so, yeah, from the Cox perspective, I'd argue, especially now without Honeck out, it's like Hughes should certainly be out there for every single possible second he can because he does fit the bill of one of those players you mentioned at that position that can still create and initiate and probe and look for openings. But if he's not out there at that point,

I don't really understand why you'd even be beholden to making sure you have one defenseman out there because it feels like in terms of the options, you may as well just go for broke and send three forwards out there and concede that you might give up a great look, but at least you have a chance of actually scoring as opposed to just wasting minutes with a defenseman

who can't really contribute at either end. Yeah, like, again, like I'm sort of exposing my distaste for three-on-three, but I wonder if some teams would be better off if they just go here. Here's the puck. Going on a two-on-one, if you score a good game, we'll take the point. If you don't score, we're going to get a two-on-one. As opposed to like playing grab-ass for like 45 seconds,

in the zone with like people rolling around and then eventually you get score on. I think that's almost certainly true and that's probably true for more than half the league. One final question here with your coaching background. I had to ask you, Meeks asks, are there any indicators that a team is struggling due to coaching decisions as opposed to a player is simply underperforming and not doing their job? Obviously, without being in the room, I think this is an incredibly difficult one to answer. there's certainly, you know, deployment or usage stuff that we can point to from the outside and say, all right, this player should be playing more.

They should be playing with different players. And I think that stuff is kind of particularly obvious. But for the most part, especially from a tactical perspective, I think a coach can do and say whatever they want, but it's going to come down to the players actually going out there and executing. And that's what's going to drive the results for the most part. I imagine that's probably how you feel, especially as a coach. But I'm curious for your take on this. and whether there's certain things when you're watching a team

like you were doing the Rangers deep dive previously when you go into the tape study and looking at the way they're playing whether there's certain things you either look for or can identify that provide that delineation between the coach and what they're asking the team to do and then the way the players are actually going out there and executing it themselves. So first of all, shout out to Meeks.

Happy New Year. I'll go a little bit esoteric. So there's always like sort of two internal compasses that are at odds when you're playing a hockey game, which is, you know, the player's internal compass and then the coach's internal compass. So what I'm talking about is like when you're a player and you're on the ice, you're looking to maximize value in a very short time span, right? So for example, there's a loose puck in the corner. You're thinking, how can I get to this loose puck and make a play to create a scoring chance like five seconds from it? Right. Like it's a very, very short time span. When you have maybe a more experience or a better player or, you know, like the Cindy Crosby's or the Adam Foxes, they're thinking 20 seconds ahead of like, okay, if I do this, then my opponent's going to do that.

And then I'm going to do this. And then my teammate is going to do that. And then something's going to happen. Right. But it's always on an extremely, extremely narrow time span of like under a ship. Whereas as a coach, you know, you're talking about tactics and line matchups and just use. special teams, you're thinking about like, you know, what's going to happen, five minutes from now, you know, 10 minutes from now, 50 minutes from now, 10 games from now. So the one thing which I look for is are the players' internal compasses overly dominant, right? So when we talk about the Rangers, like, you know, I said they're way too reckless on offense, the things that I see them do, whether it's with the puck or, you know, after they've just lost possession, I don't think of any coach sort of being agreeable to that.

So maybe that's a situation where, you know, the coaching and the player dynamics are going off the rails, for example. Yeah, that's interesting. I mean, obviously, if it keeps reoccurring, I think of the natural inclination for us to be like, all right, well, the players are messing up here. They're being too risky. They're taking chances that maybe, you know, they're writing checks that they can't cash essentially. But at the same time, if it keeps happening,

then I think you do point to coaching and being like, all right, well, there's no real adjustments being made. There's no consequences to this. If it's happening, either there's some miscommunication where the coach has lost the room to the point where they're unable to essentially rein them in and get them to change. I think it's almost more interesting to learn about the coach player dynamics when things are going poorly in that case and when things are failing and to see

what like how the team I guess adjusts to that or what they do as a result of it as opposed to when they're succeeding because obviously when any team's winning games we're going on a PDO bender and score on every shot they take it's pretty easy to kind of just stick with status quo and everything's working and you're not going to change anything but I'm always fascinated to see when teams are struggling whether they stick with it especially if the underlying results are good or whether they kind of overcompensate and go too far the other way. And it's on a case by case basis, but I almost find that more interesting than the alternative. Yeah.

And, but for me, like the most interesting coaching decisions or coaching moves is like when a coach comes down on a team when things are going well or a coach that's very encouraging when things are going bad. Like I think there's some element of like if, you know, you're, let's say 10 and 1 the past 11 games and you're scoring 10 goals and everybody's feeling it. And all of a sudden the coach sits you down and really drills you for, let's say, you know, you're back checking or your D zone coverage or your forechecking that that's not on point.

And I think that's really interesting because it takes a lot of courage and a lot of insight to do that correctly. And ultimately that's where I think the really good teams thrive. And I remember a story I read when I was very young about the sort of the late 70s Montreal Canadians and I think that was a team that went like 60 and 8 one season to have the league record and Scotty Bowman was on the team playing and he was he was fuming because he said

you know we're we're never going to catch up to these guys and his players are like what are you talking about we're first in the league with a bullet like there's nobody in the league that's remotely close to it's like no like I'm talking about the ABA's Denver Nuggets because they're like I don't know, they're like 50 and two or something like that. So it's like as a coach, can you find the bad and the good and can you find the good and the bad? And I think that's sort of something that's that your players kind of, they need you to do that

because when things are going early or well, they're performing. So they're really in it. And are you able to create sort of an outside perspective and sort of help them along in that problem? Yeah, I think it's about the standard you hold itself too. That's why I keep talking about, I think, beyond the results. why I've admired the job Spencer Carberry's done so much this year, where there have been times where they've won, and he's been actually critical of the team and their performance

and noting that it wasn't up to the standard that they expect from them, and I think that's kind of exactly the phenomenon you're describing, because you can win, especially depending if you're playing a lesser opponent, you can win a regular season game, but you can also, in doing so, develop bad habits or maybe reinforce things that won't work once you start playing a better team or have a different, different game. And so in that case,

just stuff like that is really cool. And I love seeing that from coaches. And I'm not surprised that he's going to win the Jack Adams. And the capitals have had all the success they've had so far this year. All right, Jack, I'll let you plug some stuff here on the way out. Let the listeners know about what you're working on. Tell us a little more about hockey tactics 2025.

Whatever you want to say here is your plug on the way out. Yeah. So the best way to keep up with what I'm doing, is on substack, j-h-a-n-h-h-k-y-d-substack.com. I write a few times a week about topics that I find interesting. You know, so for hockey nerds,

you'll probably find something you enjoy. Around March, in any case, before the playoffs, I'll be releasing the newest edition of the Hockey Tactics e-book series. Hockey Tactics 2025 will have a breakdown on every single NHL teams, even strength

and special teams schemes. So if you're a coach, you're a player, you're a hardcore fan, you're a new fan, that's going to be a great resource for you. So just stay tuned to my substack, and you'll get the updates for that. All right, buddy. We'll keep up the great work.

Everyone getting the Pideokest Discord as well. You can get any questions for future mailbags. Jack's in there as well, and you can tag him if you want to get at him directly. Thank you for listening. We've got one more episode coming here to close out the week. So we'll be back with that. Thank you for listening to the Hockeypedeocat streaming

on the Sports Night Radio Network.