The Hockey PDOcast - Coaching Change Adjustments, Video Reviews, and Coyotes Stories

Episode Date: November 22, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Steve Peters to talk about the adjustments that come with making an in-season coaching change, the NHL's review system, and some fun war stories from his time as a video coach for the Coyotes. 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.

2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitra Vilippovich, and joining me is my buddy Steve Peters. Pizzi, what's going on, man? You know, it's another beautiful day here in Arizona. So I'm always happy to be watching hockey where the sun shines. I cannot relate. Although we were supposed to get a lot of rain this week, and it was pretty, pretty tempered. But they were calling it the bomb cyclone, whatever that is. And it was supposed to be pretty intense.

So we've survived it for now. But the sun is not shining here in Vancouver. Let me tell you that. No, but winter's coming. Winter's coming. So you're going to see plenty of rain and doom and gloom. It's coming. But you know what?

The good thing is, then you don't feel bad about being stuck inside watching hockey for 18 to 20 hours out of the 24 available to you. So I cannot complain about that. All right. We're going to have a fun show here today. We've got a list of topics that we're going to get through, I think a lot of it is right in your wheelhouse and you're actually perfectly suited to provide some nice sort of behind the scenes inside information on it.

You and I were chatting about what we wanted to talk about today. And you brought up the Bruins coaching change and you were watching that game closely. The first game of Joe Sacco being the Bruins head coach against the Utah Hockey Club. You were doing your post show with Craig Morgan about it. So you're really dialed into it. I don't want to necessarily spend too much time today deep diving the Bruins because on our last show here in the PDO cast. I had your colleague Pete Blackburn on and we did a full deep dive of that. So I think people can, if they're looking for more of that, just go listen to that.

If you haven't already, we get into everything there. But I did want to generally talk to you about sort of the idea of coaching changes, especially in season, considering your vast experience behind the seeds, working with an NHL team. You recycled through during your time with the coyotes, a laundry list of head coaches along the way. And I think specifically like the mechanics of a move like this. in season, right, and how it sort of works within the scheme of an organization, sort of the adjustment period. I think generally we kind of equate it to that kind of that like dead cat bounds that you see initially, right, where it's like a team fires or coach, whoever it is,

regardless of what happens, there's immediately an uptick and performance. I think it makes sense. There's the human element of motivation, a fresh start, new voice. I think players who were on the outs or had their ice time diminished all of a sudden see it as an opportunity to give it their best shot because they can actually earn more and everyone kind of gets that sort of fresh start. So I think that makes sense. People generally get that concept. But I'm curious for your take, having gone through this and working through different coaches along the way, kind of how that works in terms of how much you can meaningfully do within

one season in terms of changing things, how much the message can change, how like what really the options, I guess, are available to you when you do something like the Bruins just did. You know, it's funny because it depends. And it's all so varied. I think one of the big bumps you get when you make a change is exactly what you said, is that change of that atmosphere. When a team is losing and things are going bad, it is a black cloud out in the room. Guys hate going to work every day.

Players hate practice. Coaches are just waiting to get fired. They know what's coming. Jay Montgomery knew it was common. Like he knew they got there every morning going, today, today. They didn't talk about it. The video guy knew.

The players knew. Everybody knew it was coming. It was just when. And I've been there with the Arizona Coyotes. You have to go way back. The end season firing was Bobby Francis, who again, just had won coach of the year. And now here it seems like a death knoll when you get that coach of the year or, you know, the Jack Adams nomination. You're going to be fired.

But in season, you knew it. Like, you just knew it was coming and you just didn't know when. It was just awful atmosphere. And the problem. And the problem in Arizona was the same problem you're going to see in Boston. They promoted Rick Bonas at the time, who was an assistant coach on the bench at the practice in the team meetings. The same thing you saw with Joe, Joe Sackle and Boston. So my question to Boston, I don't know Joe Sackle, never worked for.

Don't know him. By all accounts, Jim Montgomery was a player's coach, guys liked him. But he gets fired in the next morning, your leader now is a guy that's been with you the entire way, a guy that's been part of the struggle, a guy that's been part of the problem. And now all of a sudden he's in charge. And you can go, okay, we're going to make changes to the culture. And you're like, buddy, you're part of the culture. What are you talking about?

So for me, those changes are the most difficult. But what happened in Arizona, so Rick Bonas coached for 24 games, they went two and 22. Didn't make a change at all. Like nothing changed. As a matter of fact, the team got worse because the trade deadline came and more players got dumped. And that may happen in Boston. I think the ownership believes in Joe Sacco.

I think they think he's the right guy for now. I don't know if this team, you watch them play and I don't know if they've got the personnel or the effort right now to make that bump. But you are around for the opposite. And you can go to Vancouver where I know Travis Green is a player for Arizona. I like Travis Green. I think Travis Green is a good coach. I liken him a lot to Rick Tocke. I think they're very similar in their coaching approaches.

I do. I think they're very similar. But they can be hard to play for. They can. There are guys that it's black and white. This is how it's going to be. You play our way or you don't play. And I know some of the players that freewheeling, skilled, talented players in Vancouver struggled under that.

And they were frustrated and they were angry. So here comes Bruce. And Bruce, there it is. And, buddy, Bruce is fun. Bruce comes to the rink, smile on his face every day, fun to play for guys like practicing with them. It's light. It's funny. It's great.

Offensive players love it because you just open the door and you go, play and oh my gosh look at all this freedom we're getting in vancouver look at look at this is great there's no real rules on the ice do what we want they get the bump they they incredibly well and they're fun and they're exciting and they're fast and then comes playoffs and you got to win like you got to x as and o is you got to beat your opponent you got to make adjustments off in the neutral zone and defensive zone and i'm not sure that coach brudrow was that guy i think he's the guy that comes into the lockerman goes okay let's play harder okay we got to play harder guys I want to hear play harder.

Guys are going to go, okay, you know, we're going to switch from one, two, two, two to one three one because they're getting through the neutral zone too easy. Hey, we're going to forecheck two guys below the goal line because they're breaking out too easy. Players want that structure. They want to be free and score, but they also want to coach that they can trust to make adjustments. And I think you can get one way or the other. And I think Vancouver saw that, that, oh, they had fun, but fun doesn't always win. So it really depends on the situation.

BT, I will, I respect you deeply. I will not allow any Bruce Boudreel Slander on this program. I know. I know. I'm sorry. I know. He really well liked in the community. And he's a good man and he's great with, he is, he is a great human being. He's unbelievably nice.

Players love him and they love playing for him. And you can go back and look at his record everywhere he has coached and teams have been successful, except in the playoffs. I'm so sad. I can't have him on this show. He's one of my white whales right now because of his agreement with T. and unfortunately, I can't have him on this sports program, but man, he is such a good dude. And watching him now on his Cavs broadcast, he's having so much fun with it.

She's so good. Just awesome. Yeah, I think. But again, Demetri, I want to say this too. Like, I'm not criticizing the man or the person or even what his coaching style is. I'm not. I really like Boost Boodra. I think he's a wonderful man.

But I do think in today's game, there has to be a mix of, hey, I can get along with players. I can pat players on the back. I'm not, you know some of the coaches. I want name by name, but they're tough. They're tough coaches. I don't know if you can coach like that anymore in the NHL. I think you have to be able to pat a guy in the back, but I also think you need to be able to go to the whiteboard and solve problems.

And if you don't have both, I don't think you can be successful in this league. I guess the confusing part for me is the Bruins had that, right, under Sweeney. They did. Sorry, and then all of a sudden, or sorry, under Bruce Cassidy, I should say. And Cassidy, yeah. Apparently all the reports were they got rid of them because it wore thin with the players, right? They were frustrated.

They didn't want to keep going through that on a day-to-day basis. So they bring in Jim Montgomery, who's much more of a player's coach, and now everything you read is like, well, we need more of a motivator and someone who's going to be tougher on these guys. Even though you've seen Montgomery mix it up with Marshan and Pasternak this season,

and it clearly was trying to instill some of that. So I find that a little bit confusing. I guess my question ultimately is, I think you guys are going to see some of a bounce up. And I mentioned this earlier. I think it was very smart what they did in terms of the specific timing because you look at the schedule ahead and not that there's any easy games in today's NHL, especially for a team that's struggling like the Bruins have. But it was about as soft an upcoming schedule as you can have where I believe over the next three weeks, they play pretty much the lower teams in the league. They don't really have any super tough tests or actual legitimate Stanley Cup contenders along the way.

And so if you are going to get off to a good start with a new coach and kind of have a reason of point to like, all right, we made a positive. change here. This was certainly a time to do so. They got off to a good start in that game against Utah. The thing I'm skeptical of is you talk about the adjustments, especially in a season like this, I think we know that under the new CBA, right, there's been sort of a mandate to limit practice times to make it more player friendly from the perspective of the schedule is already so jam-backed and condensed. You want to actually give them time to recover and recuperate and have off days in between. And so the practice time is generally pretty minimal. And so where are you going to get those adjustments that actually get ironed out on the fly.

I'm skeptical that's going to actually happen for the Bruins. I think ultimately I'm with you. They have a noticeable lack of offensive juice. Even this game, they won against Utah. They got whatever 30 plus shots on goal. Not that many very high danger opportunities, although Valmalka was quite good, especially early on to keep the scoring down.

But I'm still skeptical of where the goals are going to come from, where the creativity and playmaking is going to come from from this team. and so without an answer there, you can do anything you want tactically, but if you don't have the horses to actually get the puck into high danger areas and create here, adjustments can only take you so far.

And that's a great comparison between the two teams we just talked about between Boston and Vancouver. I think Vancouver at the time did have the horses. I thought they had the offensive skill. They just needed to be happy to be there and feel free to go play hockey. And I think that's why you saw the bump.

And in Boston, you don't have that. I think Boston overachieved a year ago. I think when Bergeron left, I expected them to fall off last year and they didn't fell off, I mean, a little bit, but it was the best record in hockey history. They fell off a little. I expected them to fall further. And now I think you're starting to see who the Boston Bruins really are. I think this is more of a leveling off of, hey, they're a team that's going to scrap to be a team fighting for the playoffs, you know, seventh to ninth, maybe 10th in the east.

And people might in Boston might now want to hear that, but it's not just Bergeron. The goaltending tandem was elite last year. And now, you know, Swainman's contract, he started off slow. So how much can this coaching bump really do? You talk about changing systems. And there are some systems. And we'll just pick the neutra zone. One two, do versus a one three one.

Most players have played a one-two at some point in their career. You can easily go in and out of a one-two, but if you've never played a one-three-one and that winger has to protect a lane, that's a huge adjustment, like huge. You have to make that a natural on a rush read. You just have to go, okay, I go here. And that just doesn't happen like that. overnight. You're talking about practice time. Those type of huge changes where you're changing

your structure that dramatically have to happen in training camp. Because you need that two, three weeks, you need game prep, you need video prep, and you need practice prep to make a major, major change like that or defensive zone structure system changes where things become natural. You need all of those things to fall into place. I don't think you can make major changes. As a matter of fact, I think over the first week to two weeks, you're going to see those changes like SACCOS. It's not going to change anything. because they don't want his players to think. So dramatic changes to systems are difficult.

You're going to see more of individual performances get better because their role may change. That coach didn't like me. And if you don't think there's rooms where they don't like a player, buddy, it, Wayne Gretzky was our coach, and I won't name who the players were, but they would walk in and Wayne Gretzky would just mumble under his breath. Like it just didn't like that player. And guess what the player's gone? And it's like, it doesn't matter what the numbers are or how everybody else in the coaching room

the GM thinks about that player. If a coach doesn't like you, it is hard to play. And so this may alleviate some of those things where there was those relationships. And you know it. It's no fun to come to work if your boss doesn't like you. I don't care if it's hockey or if you're an accountant. It's no fun. So I do think that may be an immediate shift and you might see the immediate bump from that.

Especially when your head coach is Wayne Gretzky, that's a tough beat. When he's like he doesn't like you. When he doesn't like you, it's like, oh, man, that's tough. When he doesn't like you, it's a hockey player, it's like, It's harder. It's way harder when Wayne Gretzky doesn't like you. Yeah. You really feel bad.

So on the Bruins note from that game against Utah, I think the encouraging things are, despite the fact they didn't necessarily score that much more defensively. And that was an area of concern for them because while all the attention has been on Jeremy Swayman and how he was late to report to the team because of the contract situation and how he hasn't played well. Since then, the defensive environment pretty much since last year, post-Berser-Rond has been. declining and deteriorating. And in this game, they held Utah to just four high danger chances, I believe the entire game. The power play, which was 32nd ranked heading in, scored their only goal

with a last line home getting one around the net. So I think those are encouraging things. I guess my question for you is in watching that game and having such a close connection to this Utah hockey club based on their history and doing that show that you did last night and covering them the way you have, does that performance in those stats I just told you, especially the four high high danger chances tell you more about the Bruins or about their opponent that night because I think there's a growing and highly concerning trend here with this Utah hockey club, which is incredibly disappointing because, right, they start the year very explosive, very exciting. They're scoring a ton of goals. We're seeing the young talent really materialize.

I personally got very excited about the play of Cooley and Gunther's goal scoring and obviously you knew in the past what you're going to get from that Schmaltz-Killer connection. And now it's kind of more of the same. It's almost like, that Scooby-Doo meme, right, where the guy's tied up, you rip his mask off, it's actually still the coyotes underneath. And unfortunately, it feels like that's what we're seeing now and it's kind of more of the same. And I think myself and certainly I think listeners of the show after me hyping them up for the first couple weeks of the season are left feeling pretty disappointed that it's kind of more of the same. You hit it right on the head when you talked about the Boston

ruins and their schedule. They played the right team at the right time. And their schedule, like you said, up until almost three weeks from now until they play a real contender Vancouver's in there. So I think that's one of the top games. But again, that's at home. Utah, man, they were so fun to watch that first four games. And everybody in the league jumped on them and said, oh, this is great.

Look at Gunther. Look at Cooley. And unfortunately, I think this is what Utah is. Utah has been shut out five times in 19 games. Five, you know how long it took them to get five, been shut out five times prior to that? Two complete seasons. 164 games to get out shut out, shut out five times.

And now it's happened five times in 19 games. Team can't score. They can't get to the interior. They can't get rebounds, hip screens. Barrett Hayton is now demoted to the third line. He can't get to the front of the net. Bugstead is a guy that could count on to get there. Right now his injury to start the season.

He hasn't got his legs back in front of them to get to the front. Their defense in Jersey, the guy that could get the puck up the ice, he can't add to the offense right now. This Utah team, they're in trouble. and they're in trouble to score goals, and they go to Pittsburgh next. And then it's Toronto and it's Montreal. I don't know where the goals are going to come from there. The Schmaltz and Keller have not played exceptionally well.

Schmaltz is the highest paid on salary on this team, and it doesn't have a goal through 19. There's concerns on Utah and how are they going to generate offense. I still think the future is bright for them. I still think they have a lot of young talent there in the American League and across the globe. Simishev boot, I think are playing well. And I think, you know,

We've got Max Zuber and Josh Dohn down in the minors, but it's not now. This team, the excitement is starting to wear off. And I'm not sure where this team's going to end up. I think they'll be neck and neck with Chicago here in the next two weeks. Yeah, I mean, over the past 16 games, your pal, Craig Morgan, my pal as well, had this stat on your show that 16 games since that hot star, we alluded to two regulation wins in that time, 33 goals score combined in those 16 games. You mentioned the Schmaltz and him having zero goals in 19 games, despite the fact that he's actually generally when a player is not scoring like that, and he's obviously more of a pass-first kind of playmaker by design, but his shots are actually up individually.

The 5-1-5 numbers with him on the ice and with Keller out there are fine. They're winning those minutes in terms of all the underlying metrics you look at. Pucks are starting going in for them. I think you look at the ice-time distribution last night, and this kind of points to the injuries that you mentioned there. they have Mikhail Sergutchev played 28 minutes and then it goes Ian Cole and Olimata are the only other skaters above 20 minutes and

they have their role and their purpose certainly and Nicole helped prevent a goal against there in that game but ultimately when you look at that it's like all right where is the offense going to come from here they're 26 and expected goals generated as a team 25th and actual goal scored this season and that's one of the toughest spots

that I talk about for young teams like this right it's like one thing to lose and obviously when you keep losing year over a year that presents its own problems and we're going to talk more about rebuilding organizations here in a second. But when you're not scoring and you're not actually displaying

that theoretical high-end talent that you'd expect young, talented players who are drafted high in the NHL draft to have, I think that's where it gets really concerning where you're not, progress isn't linear but you're not really seeing any sort of progress there. In fact, you're seeing a bit of a regression and step back and that would be the biggest concern

to me here this season with them. And I think when you're talking about all these young teams, and there's so many teams rebuilding in the National Hockey League right now. And they're going to lose games. This Utah Hockey Club and Chicago and I'm San Jose, all of those teams, they're not ready to win. But what you want to see is you want to see. And again, we talk about that progression. You want to see a team that's competing and a team that's in games later or at least having

offensive opportunities or doing things the right way. And you still end up losing. I hate to say it, but losing's okay, as long as you're losing the right way. and one of the problems with Utah right now that you're seeing, they lost a lot of games last year as the Arizona Coyotes. They did. But that was a team that was one hard to play against. They were a little more physical,

but they were quick last year. You could watch them play live and go, okay, they're quick on pucks and they're trying to get pucks to the net. They're outmanned. They're overskilled. They're not good enough. But, man, they're trying really hard. You're not seeing that in Utah.

You're not seeing that extra step or winning a foot race. Or even Clayton Keller, a player over the last two years that kind of played like he had a chip on a shoulder. He could play physically. He could give a guy a little whack on the shim pads. And, you know, he was engaged more. You're not seeing that with Clayton Keller now. And you're not seeing that little fire around that team.

And that's the bigger concern because you can lose. It's okay to lose. And, you know, coaches hate hearing that. But managers understand you have to lose to eventually win. Losing's okay if you lose the right way. The problem is when you start losing, And losing becomes a habit and losing becomes easy and losing becomes a way of life. It is incredibly hard to dig out of that.

It becomes too easy to lose. It losing is acceptable. And you just become a loser. And those are the things you worry about in Utah, in Chicago, in San Jose, Anaheim, you know, Ottawa, Buffalo. The list goes on and on. And you don't want to become losers. You don't want to be losing as okay. Well, you're teaming up nicely there with a segue because we got to go.

great listener question about rebuilding. But before we dip into the PDOcast Discord mailbag, I'm going to put my own question here at the front of the line because I'm excited to have you on the show. And as I said, you have a lot of experience with this. And so I wanted to ask you specifically about how, and where's all about coaching, right? And obviously, I think it differs organization, even within organizations, depending on the way the coaching staff is structured and how this stuff works. But I think listeners would be curious or interested to get a bit more understanding on like how video sessions work during the season, maybe how that sort of communication works even within a game because I know that there's certain teams that really like to beef up on a bunch

of video, right? They have their staff cut up a lot of stuff during the period as it's going on. And then intermission have stuff to kind of like hone in on or highlight along the way during those 10, 15 minutes you have in between play or even for the coaches to kind of congregate when they have a bit more time and the game's not going. from your own experience, kind of how did that work? And do you have any interesting stories as it relates to that? You know, it's funny because

video has taken such a different role as players have progressed and the game has changed. Like you would go to Keith Kichuk and Jeremy Roneck and Rick Tocke back in the late 90s, but absolutely, they don't want to see their games.

They don't want to see their shifts. They don't want to see anything. So video was a very minor role back then. And you got to the next era and then you get a guy, Shane Dohn won't want to the video, but Shane Done didn't see. see the video the way the coach did. No, I did it right here. I was good here. It was good. No,

you weren't. And I think now it's evolved to where players want everything they can get their hands on to all of the time at a moment's notice. And you see it on the bench with the iPads. Like the second they get off the ice, their heads are down in the iPads. And all they're looking for, look who's doing that. Look which players are doing that. It's the high skilled guys looking to see where did I miss my opportunity to score or or the power play guy. Where did I miss my opportunity to score. And it's all about the offensive guys. Rarely are you working on the bench on defensive zone systems. Now the preparation work, I believe you talked about it, Dimitri, how little time these teams have to practice. They don't have time. This schedule is too condensed,

you're traveling too much. So you have to practice on video. And video has become such a major key in improving system play that it's replaced practice at times because you don't have the practice time. So it comes down to on the video. Guys, watching video on the planes now. You get you guys have iPads and phones. They'll get videos sent to them specifically by their power play coach, penalty kill coach, and they're watching on the plane. So you're not having any downtime on the plane. You're learning and coaches are breaking more film down. But the preparation for a team depends. There are some coaches that really, really, really want to dial up an opponent. What is this opponent doing on every single face off? What are we looking for on this

player, this line, this system? And I think you can spend a lot of of time breaking down your opponent. But what I've always said about teams that are successful in the National Hockey League are those that understand their opponent, but they understand themselves better. Make it about us. So again, it doesn't matter if you play one, two, two, one three, one, two man four, check, one man four. It doesn't matter.

You've seen Stanley Cup champions, any system can win. It's what team plays their system the best. And the best to do the best way to prepare for your system is you learn through video. You play a game, you watch the video. What do we do right in our? our one, two, two. What do we do right in the neutralson? Here's the mistakes we need to clear up. Then you go practice it. Then you go play the next game and you try to do it again.

It's a vicious circle of practice. Learn from your stakes on video. Do it in a game and repeat. And it's over and over. In game video is going to be extremely specific. In game video is you need to solve something now. And that's usually special teams. So when I go back to Arizona and you go, we're bringing guys in for video, it is special

teams. On the penalty kill, why are we leaving this guy open? we've got to adjust this. They're getting, they're eating us up here. Or conversely on the power play, we're not getting into the zone. Here's why we need to fix it. So I think special teams in game are where you're going to see most of your adjustments with the use of video.

So teams can try to exploit those systems for the next period. You're not changing your overall structure of a one to two, two. And you're not making those kind of changes in game. Yeah, I think it's a great point that you bring up there about how it's generally, especially when the camera pans to the bench after a play and you see. it's top player on the team. They're on the iPad. They're kind of looking over

at the play. It just happened where they might have missed an opportunity. I know a topic very near and dear to your heart is the reverse VH. The goalies are utilizing

these days and every night it seems like you can point one to one example where it's like the goalie probably misplayed it here in terms of safe selection. Neither of you or I

or Kevin Woodley and we don't need to dive necessarily into the technique here. But I do think from that perspective, that would be a very sort of instructive example for me where if you're a sky scale player, you had a scoring chance from a great area on the ice and maybe you either miss the shot or it wound up being saved and then you go back and you

sort of get a little tell there that the goalie is, you know, dropping here and then there's a little bit of a tell in terms of what they're going to do all of a sudden next time maybe you act differently and maybe you kind of wait for them to drop and then you have much more net to shoot at. I think that would be a very sort of practical and functional example of where that immediate sort of video exercise would pay dividends, but I don't know. Do you have any notes on that or sort of the reverse VH in general? But so what happens to me, Jim,

one of the things, it is those high-scale guys and exactly what you're looking for. We would have a redeem verbata is a good example. Again, I know these are names people might not know every day now, but... Oh, listen, everyone here in the market knows,

everyone in Vancouver knows redeeming about very well. So when he was a coyote, that's where he played his best years of his career, and he was an absolute shootout master. and he was extremely talented on the shootout. He had the highest shootout percentage in the National Hockey League for a few years in a row there because he studied it. And so before every single game.

And how many shootouts do you have a year? Five, six, maybe seven, maybe? Every game, he would go through every single goalie on that opposing team. He'd go through every shootout shot that they've had over the last few years. And he would study it and he'd go, okay, this is what's, and he'd walk away incredibly confident in what he was going to do if that opportunity arose. think that really helped him. And I think that the use of specific things like that on those high-skilled players that go,

okay, this goal is going to do this. I can exploit that. But we're talking the elite of the elite. We're talking, you know, Crosby, Bardard, McKinnon, McDavid, that can look at those and go, okay, I got this. Like, Keller would do that too. But when it comes, I'll brief the reverse VH, this is where I separate myself on analytics. I know you need analytics. I know advanced analytics are incredibly important in the game of hockey.

sometime we'll have to sit here and talk on a show on what really happens in a coach's room with advanced analytics and what the coaches really are saying. Now what they're saying to the media. No, that's going to bomb out our listeners. We don't need to do that. But that's not today. That's not today. But the reverse VH goalie position is entirely based on analytics. And the percentages of saves that are saved below the lower third of the net or those shots that are saved from pucks coming off of rebounds or to plays to the middle of the net.

That's where that move is based on. I do not have a problem when it is used properly. The problem is goalie coaches across North America, and I'm going to specifically call it North American goalie coaches, is they've taken that to, that's the only way we're going to teach a goalie to play. We're going to teach a goalie to play in this specific style, in this specific position,

and you can go anywhere across Canada or across the United States and watch 9, 8, 9, 10-year-olds dropping down in the reverse VH every single time the puck is below the dots. Every time, period. And I think that's where analytics and overcoaching has really hurt. And you're going to see it here in the Four Nations Cup where it's hurt the coals in Canada. And I might take a lot of pushback from that. But there's a lot of coaching going on in goalies that are 7, 8, 9, 10 in Canada.

And they learn that move. And that's what they rely on instead of their quickness, their athleticism and their ability to read plays. And I think that's one of the reasons why I'm so frustrated with the reverse VH. I know I talked to Kevin Woodley about it. And he'll tell me, you need it. I agree. You need that in your bag of tricks. But where are the goalies that could do a little bit of both?

Carrie Price is the guy that could do both. He understood and read a situation. And that's why at that year of Canadian goalies, they were the best goalies in the world because you could do both. You could stand up. You could block that top corner of the net. You didn't drop down unless you needed it. And I think now it's just too easy.

I'll just drop down because analytics say it's going to stop it. But too many of the lower end players can hit that corner now. It's not just the top players. It's everybody can hit that corner now. There is. And there's going to be a reckoning. I will say, just like with any sort of statistical analysis, as I often like to point out, I don't think it's a shortcoming of the numbers themselves.

I think it's a misapplication of it. Unfortunately. 100% agree. And I think anyone that looks at any sort of stat or number and uses it properly accounts for context and situation and all these other variables. and then how to apply it. And in this case, I'm right there with you that every goalie is essentially being churned out in North America, specifically,

out of a factory where they're all kind of cookie cutter robots, essentially, and it's just like, do this one thing no matter what. And obviously, within the flow of a game, especially at that position, I think situational, you know, call certain situations are going to call for certain measures, and ultimately, goalies are just woefully underprepared coming into this league from lower levels in terms of their development

for those situations. And so I think that's what you're seeing there. One final thing on video here before we go to break and to some listener questions, do you wake up in the middle of night from nightmares of challenges and especially as it relates to the goal interference? I will say this.

I started as a video coach in 1997. There was no goal to turn or something. Remember back in those days when it was your toes in the crease that's not a goal. The toes not in the crease. It's a goal. Those days were just easy. Yeah, his foot's in the crease, even though Brett Hall, that's a whole other story.

But it was easy. He's in the crease where he's not. And now it is so, so, so difficult. I would not want to be a video coach in today's NHL because it's not only the goal of interference. Offsides, I won't say it's easy because they still make mistakes. Offsides, it's easy. It's either is or it isn't. And you might have a bad camera angle.

You might have be blocked by something. And so you make a mistake. Goal interference, there is absolutely no way I can make a call today's. game zero and all we used to do is video guys and believe me we'd call each other it's a really tight fraternity because you you need guys support and help to get certain video and and it's a really close-knit community so when a challenge happens we call each other hey what'd you think on this call you see that call in boston last night what did you think of that call well i thought it should have been this but now we know how refs are calling it well then you you go okay i'm gonna

the same thing happens to me on thursday that happened in boston on tuesday i can make the call comfortably knowing it's going to go my way. And then it doesn't. And the consistency right now in the National Hockey League on goaltender interference is non-existent for goalie coaches or excuse me for video coaches. I don't know how they make a call because you cannot see the exact same goal that happens in Ottawa, and that's happened recently with Nick Cousins,

happens in Tampa Bay with geeky. One goal counts one doesn't. Same exact play. I think there needs to become a better, and I don't know what they answer. is I think it you know how they do it in baseball they have an umpiring crew go into the war room and they rotate in and rotate in so it's actually officials in there instead of the upper brass of of the nchel making those calls maybe that would get it more consistent I also believe that takes some retired nchel video coaches because they're out there and get a group of four or five of them

and put them in the in the in the room in Toronto and let them make that call because I think video guys look at the game differently it's and And to meet me, not only they're making the goalie coach, they got to do high sticking now. Is the puck played with a high stick? Is it a glove pass? Is it off the net? Is a black puck off a black net with a background of fans wearing black jerseys? But how the heck is he supposed to make that call?

And if he doesn't, the GM comes down after the game, but why didn't make that call? Because I saw a replay on a guy's phone on TikTok in the third period. Why didn't you make the call? And I think it's incredibly difficult to be a video coach in this league right now. and I don't think they get enough recognition. There's nothing that makes me feel like more of a boomer than this exact subject as it relates to goal interference because I'm firmly in the camp,

the goalies just have way too many rights in today's game. And speaking of that Utah team and Andrews Budrow, the example that comes to mind is the recent game the Capitals just played in Utah where at the end of that first period, the Capitals got a goal taken off the board. And I guess by the letter of the law, it was goalie interference,

the player, I believe it was Nick Dowd, I'm not sure, was in the crease when there was contact made, but if you go back and watch it, Connor Ingram is the one that initiates the contact and has time to get set after. And the player can't go anywhere. No, the player is boxing by the defensemen and they call it off and I'm like, all right, I know goals are up around the league, but if you're taking goals like that off the board, what are we doing here, what's the agenda, what are we trying to accomplish? And so that stuff just drives me up the wall.

So I think we need to totally stop coddling goalies with these reviews and make a lot more fair game there. All right. And I know, listen, before the goalies get at me, it's an incredibly tough position. I think you have to be an absolute lunatic to willingly stand in there and just have people tee off on you. So I get it. It's tough, but I think ultimately a change needs to be made there. All right. Steve, let's take a break here. And then we come back. We'll jump right back in. And we'll close out the show. You're listening to the Hockey Ptie Ocast streaming on the Sportsnet radio network. All right. We're back here on the Hockeypedio cast. We were going to transition to another topic. But before we went to break, we were talking about challenges and sort of the communication

within a team in game and the video coach and their role and responsibility. Before we got back into recording here, you were giving me some fun stories. And then you were like, you know what? We're already past the topic of challenges. Let's save it for next time. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. We got to get into it now while we're still on it. I think the listeners would want to hear it. This is a Friday show after all. So let's end the week with some fun here in the PDO. What are your best challenge stories from your time working? It's funny. You talk about how much pressure that you have in making these calls.

And understand that the technologies continue to improve camera. It better have a bit improved. When it first came into the league, we didn't have access to all of the cameras they had now. And I remember we were on Hockey Night in Canada. And believe me, the Arizona Coyotes are not on Hockey Night in Canada. Like just doesn't happen. Once every two years we might.

And we're playing the Toronto Maple Leafs at home, in Arizona, and it's the late game. And so it's a big deal for Arizona. And there's a questionable call at the blue line. It's questionable. And the puck's in the air. I can't see it. It's black against black. Again, we talk about the fans. You can't see the puck. I don't make the call. Toronto goes down and scores. Toronto wins that game. Well, thank goodness for the staff at Hockey and Canada, because as the game progressed, they found more camera angles and they had a high end zone that clearly show the plays offside, clearly. So now my general manager was Don Maloney at the time.

This happened in the first period. It was a first period, first period goal. By the third period now, Hockey and Canada has several angles, clearly off sides, off sides. And so the second the buzzer goes, I'm bombarded GM, assistant GM head coach all over my shoulder in the video around. And this is, you're just trying to keep your job in the national hockey league. And again, the questioning of a general manager literally yelling at a kid in a chair trying to make a call on a missed call.

And I feared for my job that night. And luckily, you record everything you have. And so I got to go back and show them. Here's what I had to look at when I make that call at that point. And yet, because of the advancement of television, how many great replays they had, I was in a position that I literally affected the outcome of that game. And it just kind of shows the pressure that those. guys are in. So I got to Washington. Rick Tocket's first season. First season. Rick Talkett is the head coach. If you know Rick Talkett from the Vancouver area, nice to media,

but dude can be a little scary. Like he looks scary, act scary. And let me tell you, he is scary one on one. He is. Great guy. Love him. Adam is a player, assistant and a coach. But you do not want to make mistakes when you want to impress him. So we're in Washington, one of our first games with him as the head coach and I'm in the video room and I'm watching the video breakdown and Max Domi takes a penalty. And we had rung one off the bar prior to the penalty, but we rely on TV replays. And so I'm watching the TV replay. They're showing Max Domi. Okay, that's clearly a penalty, penalty. And then their last shot of the replay sequence was the shot that went off the pipe. The camera angle was from the one behind the net. And what really happened, it went off the left post,

the right post and out. But the camera angle makes it look like it goes off the camera inside the net. And I'm like, oh my gosh, we scored. We need to stop the play. We got to stop. We scored. I'm on my headset yelling to John Anderson, who's on the bench. Excuse me.

John McLean at that time. John McLean can't hear me. Headphones aren't working. And I'm like, we could stop the play. Stop the play. That went in. What? Can't hear you.

Can't hear you. All that's going in my head right now is Rick Tockett is going to throw me up against a wall when this game is over because I missed a goal. And we're going to lose by a goal. And he's going to threaten me in the parking lot. I swear that's what I thought. I swear, he is going to beat me up. And I know he wouldn't beat me up, but I was afraid.

So instinct goes, okay, the headsets aren't working. I leave in Washington. The bench is about 20 feet from the video room. I run down the hallway. I jump up on the bench. And I start screaming at the referee waving my arms. in a National Hockey League building, in the middle of a face-up, yelling, stop to play, stop to play. I remember looking at a guy in Washington, just a fan looking at me, drinking his beer,

and his popcorn thing, and this guy is absolutely bananas. He's nuts. Players on the bench are looking at me, like, what are you doing? One of the equipment managers is jaw drops going to, nobody knows what's going on. And the referees don't care. The referees drop the puck. So here I walk back to the video room cursing, like as loud as I can possibly close to curse on the hallway going,

I'm going to, I'm going to lose this game for Rick Tockeet. He didn't have his first win yet. This team was winless through 11. Oh my gosh. I ruined his career. I get back to the video room and they show another replay and it's post to post. And I go, oh my gosh.

I just, I just nearly stopped an NHL game for a mistake. I get a call from the league. The league calls me immediately after the game about my out. burst on the bench because they see it. So Murphy calls, Murph calls me from the NHL. And that became a learning point, not just for me, but for the league going forward on, hey, they don't want to miss a goal. They want to make sure they get it right. But again, it just goes back to the pressure the video guy is under with their head coach.

Those guys aren't paid enough. They don't, they don't get enough credit and enough recognition because the stress and the importance of that one goal could make a difference of a game. I think also with pretty much every challenge, obviously there's ones where like extreme examples or players offside and you go, all right, they just miss that one. That's a very clear example of it. A lot of them, though, even if you feel like you're right, there's different interpretations of the video. And so there's a certain level of probability or uncertainty involved.

And from my experience, people in hockey generally don't like to deal in that parlance, right? They want certainty. And so all of a sudden acknowledging that there's some room for error there or even if you feel very confident about it, could. go south. I think that's generally not greeted with open arms and happiness. So it's a pretty tough cake, certainly. But the other thing, Demetri, is you've got to look at the emotion of the manager and the coach. With the coach, you've been near an NHL bench and in the crowd. But you get, if you think a play went one way, it's in your head. And that's just the way you see it,

period. The crowd's yelling and screaming. I'm, I'm on the bench with all this emotion going on. players are yelling and screaming. I'm boiling over and I call my video guys the head coach going, hey, we're challenging that. And the video guys in a little room near the locker and can't hear a thing, no sound and watching intently frame by frame going, there's no way we're getting this call. Zero chance. And then your phone lights up and it's the general manager. John Chica used to call me. From the, from the GM box going make a challenge. And I'm going, what do I do? General manager saying it's a challenge. Head coaches are saying a challenge, but I'm telling you, we're going to lose this challenge.

And again, it's the emotion. You have to take the emotions out of it when you're sitting that chair. Because of course you think it's going to go your way. Of course you do. Or you don't make the call. You're on your team side. But unless you can quiet the noise down and push your team aside and just go, okay, team A versus B, not my team, just two teams.

What is this call going to be? And I tell you, we made so many incorrect calls over the time of before when it was just an old, excuse me. me the timeout that you lost. We made so many incorrect calls because coaches just would override the video guy. We're going to make the call. We're going to lose. We're going to lose the challenge.

We're challenging. Now you don't see that much overriding because of the penalties involved. But absolutely, that emotion takes over to. And I think that, again, I get it. I get it. What it's like on an NHCHO bench. Well, it's interesting. I feel like just anecdotally, this year,

much more we've seen teams go the route of calling their time out to buy themselves more time to challenge. And I don't know how you feel about that as a strategy, obviously as long as it's allowed. And I think the league might look into that because it feels like you're kind of trying to have your cake and eat it too. I think what's frustrating to me is we see certain coaches get a lot of leeway from officials and it's generally more sort of established coaches where they're like kind of holding off the ref. The ref wants to drop the puck that are asking if they're going to challenge the coaches waiting to hear back from their video coordinator and trying to get them as many looks as they can,

and you're going on like a minute, two minutes, potentially between the time the goal was scored and the puck drop. And it's like, all right, I think at some point, you got to either, you got to make a decision or not. And I wish officials are more strict with that. And I feel like they're giving certain coaches a bit too much leadance there as well. So let's speed up this process. Let's keep the game moving.

I think that's what everyone watching. Oh, you want to get the call right, certainly. But I think ultimately you want to drop the puck. And so let's get going with it. But it's funny. Gary Bettman said to the video coaches, we have meetings in the summer. Gary Bettman, when they brought in these rules and this replay system, when they brought it in, Gary Bettman met with all of us. And he said, and I can't give the actual quote because there's some cursing in it,

but he said, do not make a challenge unless it is dead effing wrong. And he repeated that statement. If it's got to be dead effing wrong. Because I remember if you remember when the offside rule came into play, it was because an offside I think it was Danny Breyer was offside. But like, it was Matt Duchet. Oh, it's Matt to Shane. And they just missed it.

They just missed it. And that was the intent of, oh, my gosh, we can't make mistakes like that anymore. So when you see a linesman and or a referee sitting at that, that video replay by the penalty box for a longer period of time than the normal in my mind, it is no longer dead wrong. It's too close. If it's that close, we're going with what you guys saw. I agree with you. I think it does take too long. It does take that long.

Don't change the call. I agree 100%. Those take too long. And yes, there are the guys. Tortorella is going to get a little bit longer, but that's just the way John Tortorale is. I don't know what's the future for goal interference. You're seeing, like you said before, the guy in the crease now,

that's being called. That wasn't called a year ago. now it's being called. And you had to bump the goalie. Now you don't have to bump the goal. You just have to stand there and touch the goalie. I don't know where that ends. In football, you can't understand what roughing the quarterback is.

In hockey, you don't know. No one knows what goal interference. Nobody, coaches, media, the league doesn't know. They've got to come up with some better ideas. And honestly, I don't know what that answer is, Dimitri. I wonder if they just don't mind it because ultimately sports are inherently random. And there's going to be a little bit of that regardless. But I think it also just keeps people talking,

that they're necessarily looking for bad publicity. And obviously, if it came in a very critical moment in a key playoff game, it would be a bit of a different story. But in a regular season game, it's like, all right, people are heated about this. They're talking. They're passionate. We don't necessarily mind it too much

because otherwise I feel like it probably would have already been addressed. All right, we actually are out of time here. I had so many other things that I want to talk to you about. It was rebuilding teams. You had a great question, as I mentioned on that. The American Thanksgiving cutoff. We had some other fun listener questions. We're just going to have to put it in the bank.

And then next time we have you on in a couple weeks, we'll revisit it and we'll get into all of it. And I'm looking forward to that. You got any other things you want to plug here or let the listeners know about or any final parting shots here on your way out? Just make sure you follow me at S. Peters Hockey on Twitter trying to put out some videos where I teach the people a game a little bit more. But, but I, Dimitri, I'm sorry. I rambled too much. We had some really good topics. No, no.

That was great. Listen, as I said, it's a Friday show. I certainly don't mind getting into the weeds here. We've got a couple other shows coming as well to close out the week. So I think we're going to try to cover as many bases as we can here. I think the listeners won't mind it. And as I said, it's always cool having someone with that sort of inside the game experience. It's actually lived through some of this stuff and has some of these fun stories that you can share.

And it's also, you know, I'm sure there's other stories that you just you have. And you're like, oh, man, I probably just shouldn't say it because it's either going to get someone in trouble or it's just not podcast friendly. But that's the nature of the beast. So it is what it is. Yes. Thanks, Dimitri. All right, man. This was a blast.

We'll have Steve Peters on again shortly here. Thank you to everyone for listening. My plugs are join the PDOCast Discord. We'll take questions there from listeners in the future. So if you're not in yet, the invite link is in the show notes, and you can join us there. Go smash that five-star button wherever you listen to the PDO cast. Leave us a nice little review. And go follow me on Blue Sky as well.

I'm on there now. I'm spending more and more time there every day. Are you on there as well, Pete? Yeah, I just got on Blue Sky this week. It's very pleasantly, it's a breath of fresh air there. Everyone's just so nice to each other. Everyone's just down to have fun and talk about hockey. And so I'm enjoying my time there, spending more time there every night.

So join us there as well. And that's all for today. As I said, it's a jam-packed Friday here in the PDOCAST. We're going to have a couple more shows to close out the week. So check those out on the feed. And thank you to everyone for listening to the HockeyPedocast streaming on the SportsNive Radio Network.