The Hockey PDOcast - Dallas Stars Offseason Approach, and Coaching Clinic Talking Points

Episode Date: July 13, 2023

Sean Shapiro joins Dimitri to talk about what the Dallas Stars have done this offseason, their decision to focus on their forwards rather than their defensemen, and the most interesting takeaways from a recent coaching clinic.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.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 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.

It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Demetri Filippovich and joining me as my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's going on, man? Not much, man. I think I'm going to keep my hockey writer credential this weekend because we're going to go up to near a body of water with my in-laws. Now, I don't have a cabin, but I just have like a camper.

So don't tell anyone that part. But I get to keep my Hockey Writer card for another year because I'll spend part of July near a body of water. So that's vital. So we can still keep doing this show. The key is to once you get there, take a picture of it and then tweet it out and be like,

off for the summer, enjoy the off season. See you guys in September. And then and then just go from there. That's the key there. No, you don't have to, you can leave all the part of all the camper. You can just leave you have to imagine. And you'd be like, oh, yeah, I'm at the cottage. That's the play.

There's a, there's a, there's a multi. multi-million dollar cottage sitting behind me. You just have to paint it with your own brain. There you go. That's a veteran. That's a veteran hockey writer move there. So here's the plan for today. It's our last episode that you and I are going to do this off-season or this season before we get into the off-season.

And so we're going to try to make count. So I got a couple fun topics planned for us. The first block here, we're going to talk about a team that I haven't discussed yet this off season in the sense that I took last week off and then I came back this week. we've done kind of like a big two-parter looking at everything we missed since July 1st and what teams did so far this offseason and one team we notably didn't get to in those two episodes were the Dallas Stars who had a fascinating process themselves I think in terms of what they chose to do this off season in terms of trying to kind of consolidate the

success they had last year where they made it to game six of the west final and trying to take that next step into becoming an even better team next year. And so they signed Matt Duchesne after he got bought out by the Predators, $3 million for one year. They signed Craig Smith and Sam Steele to one year deals for peanuts essentially. And then they bring it back of Gideonnell, who was wonderful for them after they acquired him at the deadline. Let's start with the Duchesne one.

I'm kind of curious, you know, the timing of it was certainly interesting because I wouldn't say it necessarily came completely out of left field, right? the predators sort of telegraphed their intentions when they did what they did at the trade-ed line, but also then previously retaining on Ryan Johansson to get him out the door. And so it made sense that Duchesne was the next domino to fall in that regard. But the buyout did happen literally the day before Freed and C-Opein's the open, right? So it was a quick turnaround in that regard. Now, another guy who was bought out in that same window or time frame was Blake Wheeler,

and he was someone who was linked quite heavily to Dallas. He went to the Rangers instead, but it wasn't necessarily surprised that Jim Nell was shopping in this end of the grocery store because this is a very up his alley. But they get through Shane. I'm kind of curious for your take on sort of the timing of that and how this plan came together and whether that was an initial intention of theirs or something to kind of keep tabs on or whether they might have had a difference

sort of plan and then once this opened up they kind of pivoted on the fly well like mat ducheshaen obviously i don't no one really thought he was going to be available we he kind of as you as you mentioned that surprise availability of the of the ufa class and from a dallas perspective this was kind of the deal that they had looked to uh this was kind of the max domy spot for them This was kind of the space where they were looking to potentially bring back both Doddanov and Max Domi, looking at this type of potential deal with Domi. And Domi actually did kind of basically, he did sign the same deal, basically, with Toronto a couple of days later. But from what I've heard and what I've read and other reporters as well is that basically at this time,

right away on July 1st, Domi wasn't looking for, Domi wasn't looking for that type of deal at that spot. And so it became a pretty easily replaceable spot within the budgetary, within the shopping cart of Jim Dill's offseason to replace, well, this was our max domi budget and just move it to Matt to Shane. I think it was always going to be, they were always going to be trying to look to fill somebody to kind of bring in a top six forward with that with a smaller cap hit like that. and obviously do Shane's availability and the buyout and everything like that. And that changed the, it didn't, it just changed, kind of quickly changed how the Stars reacted. And this is the Stars MO, right? Like we've taught, like Jim Nill has a, Jim Nill has a big history of signing guys of being willing to, he wants to bring in those veterans who he thinks has a couple years left.

to our, and particularly often coming off buyouts. The stars have Corey Perry in his time in Dallas. They signed him right after the buyout. They brought in, and we've talked to, you know, I've talked a lot about Ryan Suter, but they brought in Ryan Suter after the buyout, whether that was the right decision or wrong decision. That doesn't matter.

But for this, but as part of Jim Nils M.O., for the purposes of this, coming off, looking at guys off of buyouts, guys looking to who have kind of already made their money want to come to a place where the stars often use the selling point of like when you have the no state income tax

use it come to Dallas that three million dollars in Dallas goes a pretty long way compared to some other places in the league obviously Vegas and the Florida teams and even Nashville had a similar style and the stars also were able to bring Duchenne to a place where honestly it's probably not too much of a change lifestyle wise in general you talk about just a quick easy change from Nashville to Dallas two places pretty similar lifestyle wise in general from from literally almost everyday life there and so not a surprise that once Dushain became available that he ended up in Dallas for me obviously just more of the surprise not surprise but more of it was more of the that he was available

was the bigger thing, but that once he was, it became like, I obviously see Jim Nill calling Matt Dushain right away on this because of that. Yeah, well, let's talk about the fifth then. It's obviously a fun addition for them. I do think it'll be an immensely useful one because at 32 years old at this stage of his career, he's clearly not an $8 million player, which he was for the National Predators, and he's also not someone who you can sort of rely on as a player you just build your entire offense around as a top of the lineup type of guy, right? And you can even quibble that he ever really

was if you had Stanley Cup aspirations, but certainly earlier his career, I think he could handle a bigger workload in that regard. Now, the beauty of this for Dallas is he doesn't really need to be that for them, right? They already have those guys. What he needs to be for them is something that he still is overqualified for. And I think he can do really well. And that's being a second playmaker. It can be someone who kind of like lives in the shadows and potentially even takes shifts off or doesn't do anything for an extended period of time or the course of a game. And then all of a sudden just pops up, breaks a game open, makes a high skill level play. And all of a sudden, you're cooking and that's what you brought him in with the intention to do. And so for all his other

shortcomings, you look at any of the track data or a kind of player type tendencies or how he creates his shot, something he's still so good at. is being a lethal downhill attacker, right? He carries the bucket of the zone, and he creates chances off of that. And so, based on how Dallas showed they want to play last year under Peter Burr and what the rest of this lineup looks like, I do think from an on-ice fit perspective, it's also like a really smooth transition for him. And one that I think he'll benefit from, not to mention that, you know, Hinson Robertson are going to take up so much of the defensive attention of other teams.

And I think that'll go a long way to benefiting him as well, where he's going to benefit him as well, where he's going to get some softer mashups compared to what he was getting when he was in Nashville and there was just less firepower around him. Well, you look at, I mean, it's from an asset management standpoint, too. If you include the Dushan signing

and then resigning Dandenov, looking at cap-friendly here, right? Like, it's those two guys are your eighth and ninth highest paid forwards on the roster. When you're getting that role out of your eighth and ninth highest paid forward on the roster, that's a good piece of business for that role.

And to, Um, it's Dallas, they kind of needed, Dushain fills like two parts of, he's a really great, like, breaking case of glass insurance policy on two fronts, I think, for Dallas that are, that are really important. One in the present day where, um, and I don't expect Joe Pavelski to slow down. He keeps, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I'll 39 now, but Joe Pavelski, at some point, age will get Joe Pavelski. I don't, it'll be a little actually surprise us. He'll be like 53 and he'll be like 53 and then age will finally get him. But at some point, age will get Chopevowski. So adding somebody who is a score who, if that did happen this year, and I don't think it would, this is a nice little insurance signing. The other thing that I think

is really nice about the Duchenne deal for Dallas from both the immediacy and the long term buildout is it doesn't get in the way of if a Logan Stankhoven is ready this year. And I think, I know a lot of Dallas fans have looked at Logan Stankovin and thought like, oh, he's going to be ready this year. And I think a lot of Dallas fans are being tricked by the success of Wyatt Johnston. I think, like, Wyatt Johnston's success is setting unfair expectations for Logan Stankovin. We, Logan Stankovin, if he is that guy this year, incredible. But I think you have to have to remember he'll be making the jump from junior to pro.

He's a smaller guy. He's not a center. He's going to be. Stankhoven, I think, is going to have a little bit more of a learning curve. And having to bring in Duchenne in, it takes some of the pressure off of Stankovin being that solution right away. And if Stankovin is ready to play like that right away, I think the stars have built up. a style and a lineup now that fits Pete's DeBore ideology where there's no longer a scoring line and then a checking line there. I think the way Dallas plays now, you've now created an opportunity

where if Matt Duchesne is deep in the lineup, that's not an issue. If Logan Stakehoven or another prospect Maverick Bork make the NHL team and they're low in the lineup, they're still playing an offensive game as opposed to being asked to do something they wouldn't do later in their career. So I think the Dushan signing is a really good piece of insurance business for this season and for the long term. And I think the one-year deal part of two is also vital because it gives you, gives both sides the chance to, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. And it's not a big deal. Yeah, Rick Bonas right now is pulling up the CBA and making sure that you're actually illegally allowed to have a third and fourth line that can score because he was under the assumption that they had to just be specific. grinder defensive type. So that's certainly a revelation for certain listeners of the show. But no,

I'm curious to see how Pete DeVore is going to use them because I think the natural inclination is to think, all right, well, they've already shown last year. You know, they bring in Domi. They committed to Mason Marchman the previous summer and pre-agency, right? Tyler, say again, still an important player for this team offensively when he's going. I think they're at a different level. And so I think the natural inclination to be like, all right, we're committed to those two guys. Let's put Duchenne because of his ability as a puck carrier and someone who can create with pace to try to get those guys going and make life a bit easier for them in transition and get them in better spots in the offensive zone. I actually think though. And, you know, when Dadov played

with Ben and Johnston, the three of them were clearly very good together. So maybe now that Dadaught 's back, you just go with that. And then Dushain falls in that natural spot on the third line or or 2A, 2B type of formation. But I'd love to see Dushane, and I message you when this happened, playing with Wyatt Johnston, because Johnson has already shown this kind of innate ability to just get lost in coverage, sniff out soft spots in the offensive zone, and just be wide open there. And you're like, how is this guy who everyone knows is really good has so little defensive coverage around him?

And it's because he just kind of waits and waits and probes. And then all of a sudden he pops up and he's open on the slot. and having Dushain's playmaking with him, I'd be very curious to see that, especially in transition, if that could be sort of a second wave of rush offense for them because the team likes to attack off the rush, but it looks different when Rubei Hintz is out there doing it, as opposed to when everyone else is.

And so I think that's why Domi was such a revelation for them when he came over at the deadline, because he was able to give them an element of that, and Dushain clearly can still at this point of his career. So I'd love to see them, experiment with that a little bit. I'm sure we'll see doses of it here and there as the season gets gone. And I think you could play around with a couple ways.

You could go, I really like, I think Dadanov was, we saw how much the stars secondary rush offense kind of took a hit when Dadaanov was hurt and late in that series against Vegas. I think Dadaanov, you could play Dattanov and Duchenne with Wyatt Johnson. You could potentially play around with something like that. Or you could move Dattanov down to another line and playing with Sagan. And like, I think this opens up a lot of different options to find the different things that work. Like, if you had to, it's July 13th or whatever, right? Like, if you had to guess right now, it'll be like, oh, well, they'll probably go Ben Johnston,

Dattanoff to start the season just because of the recent history. But I think there's a lot here where the stars need an owed to themselves to play around with early in the season to figure out how this works. Because it's you got pieces that move. And then the big thing, I think for all of this, for Dallas and the big what is, right is Mason Marchman where you made the big commitment to Mason Marchman he's still got three years left at four and a half he had a really rough first year in Dallas is he is he still part of your quote-unquote top nine or are you biting the bullet on a let's move he becomes a fourth line player

just making making a big chunk of change that's another big kind of like what if for me on Dallas of how this stuff plays out because obviously when you're watching the playoffs last year and everything like that and you watched Dallas last season for all the excitement that was when they brought Marchman in and everything like that of oh we got this brought this goal scorer and really didn't pan out that way and uh well it looked to the point where it got a bit uncomfortable where you'd watch the games in that Vegas series and i was like Frederick Oliveson's probably more useful in terms of helping them win these games right now than Marchmont was.

They got into an uncomfortable position where they essentially had to pick who to play and their commitment to Marchman sort of won out, right? And that's not why team lost, of course. Like it extends well beyond that. But that kind of highlights this sort of crossroads they're at in terms of commitments they've made to players and that that ties into the studio conversation, which we're going to have here as well, and sort of balancing that with what is actually the most optimal thing if you're trying to win games right now.

Yeah, I mean, and the Marchman, the commitment to Marchman, too, and not that Frederick Olson is somebody any of what's building the team around, but it's one of the reasons he was basically traded away for future considerations to Colorado. One of kind of the weirder deals in mid-June was because he saw that Dallas, when it came time for who was going to play, Dallas picked Mason Marchman. And Olofson was going to be a UFA this summer, and he was probably going to leave Dallas either way. And so they had that little weird future considerations deal. But it's the contracts make jobs, right?

Like that's the, it's the reality of it so often. Some coaches are a little more forward thinking about it in the playoffs than others, but in the regular season, for sure. It doesn't like you have to, in the regular season, you're going to play the guy making four and a half million. It's just whether it just depends on how palpable you can make it. Well, and I think it's, I'm pretty high on this team. I mean, in general, but also like offensively, if you just look at the way the forward depth chart is shaking out, right? There's a lot of depth, a lot of talent.

There are a lot of different ways that you can create offense. And this was already a team that finished seventh in scoring last year and was one of the better offensive teams in the league. Now, I think there are room, there is room for growth, because they were only 13th or 14th, I believe, in 5-1-5 scoring, right? A lot of that was driven by how lethal their power play was. And in the most important parts of the season in that Vegas series, you could sort of see that against a different defensive team,

some of that depth they thought they had kind of dried up, right? I think aside from the first line, they only got a goal from one of their other three lines in, like, one of the six games, and then they got shut out as a team in game, six with their season on the line and so there are ways for improvement and optimization here and I do think that this offense could even conceivably be better next season and for a team that did finish seventh and scoring that's obviously a very intriguing opposite about proposition I think so I think it's I think you're going to have year two of Pete debor's system two

you're going to have we talked about the some of the fourth line moves with them bringing in Craig Smith and bring it in Sam Steele, I think that fourth line becomes, that you replace a Luke Lendetting with guys who actually have a little bit more offensive transition. I think all of a sudden, I think DeBore can actually run more of a fourth line that he actually likes than he was able to, personnel-wise last year. So I think that all contributes to what you're talking about here, where this team can take another offensive step, which is going to be vital, frankly, with.

with what they, how they're rolling things about on the back end, right? Well, before we get to the back end, just to kind of close the loop on this, because you brought this up earlier. You know, part of my logic for believing that they could get even better offensively before we even got to July 1st was I did have aspirations for Logan's tank open and even a Maverick Bork to step in and maybe not have the success that Wyatt Johnson had last year's, certainly because I think that's kind of like an exception rather than the rule. Yeah.

At least have a chance to give them an even different dynamic in terms of just like having this creativity and skill and juice that they didn't have otherwise. And obviously getting that at an ELC is so valuable to a team like this that's in their cup contention window. Now, you bring in all of these guys, right? You bring back to Donov, you bring in Duchen, you bring in even Craig Smith and Sam's deal with Tide Landre's RFA deal still to be sorted out. that happens. Actually, it's actually been sort of.

Boy, it has that. We're going. Okay. Mitch, Mitch, Mitch, mid, Mitch, Mitch, Mitch, Mitch, show here. Wow. Wow. So. Yeah, well, there we go. I mean, I'm a tied to Landria guy. I would have. Yeah. And, you know, they were in a position to do this because of how tied up against the cap they were. I believe they had like 1.4 million or something to play with once they sent Gavin P. Ruther down as their eight defensemen. But I would have loved to see them go like the, you know, I remember that Colton Sisson's contract when it came out, whatever.

Like, whatever, six, seven years at like two million per and everyone's like, what's going on here? And usually you don't want to give that type of term to depth players, but I do believe just based on the age. And I'd agree like there is, that would be a deal that would be beneficial to the stars moving forward. But they obviously were in a position to do so at this point. But so, okay, with the landowners assigned, they have 13 NHL forwards. And that doesn't include staying COVID and Bork. Now, there will be injuries, right? you can certainly just

part of the beauty of having Craig Smith at the $1 million is you can just you can bury that. Like it's not it's not going to preclude you if those guys come to camp or preseason and show out and force your hand, you can go that route. You're not stopped from doing this show. But you do have 13 legitimate

NHL forward options right now and so it doesn't block the path but it certainly muddies the waters a bit in that regard and especially with the amount of players that would theoretically be in those top nine kind of scoring roles more so. Part of why Y Johnson, I think, was so successful last year was it was a rare situation where a young player came in and immediately

got to play in a favorable position, right? It wasn't like a, all right, you're going to play with Luke Lindan Denning and Radic Fax on the fourth line and have to earn your minutes. And then when you're not scoring, people are like, oh, well, see, he's struggling. He wasn't ready for it. And then he gets sent back down. He actually got a chance to shine and he took full advantage of it. Now, I don't think that at least out of the gate, Stankov and or Bork will unfortunately be afforded that opportunity. I don't think they will either. I also, I do think I'm less scared about them playing on the fourth line with this team

because I'm a little bit if, I'm a little bit more comfortable with one of them, with one of them playing with a Tidelandria, with a Tidal Andriana Sam Steele as opposed to a, Radick Fox is also a big question too where obviously he is kind of a I think Fox is a fine checking line center but he is a bit of a relic of the old coaching staff where I think there's other there's he would get he's a more effective player in other systems he's not really he's kind of the type of player where this star's system I don't think he fits as much so I

honestly I don't know anything for sure on this it's just this is just me play armchair GM here is like, it would not surprise me if at some point Radic Fox's time and Dallas ended before the, this three point before these two, this two years remaining on this deal end. That would not surprise me. So I think that they have, at least they're not going to get the Wyatt Johnston second line minutes rule. That's not going to happen. But I do think you haven't blocked them, but I do think you've created a spot where

there is a legit space where you can, they can. earn the spot and they can earn they can they can they can get that spot and they can earn it and i think they will play now i believe they'll play in hl games this year i believe bold will um and i also am more and more of a firm believer of because of the nature of the sport and injuries and like just to be like rope hince we both love his game so much but rope a hintz is probably going to miss 15 games because of an injury. That's the reality. Mason Marshman's dealt with injury. Like, you're going to have, I think you have to be 15 forwards deep. And I think, I believe the stars are 15 forwards deep now. And I think whether it's by

design or necessity or whatever, I think Stankov and Bork are going to find their way into this group. And I think they will have some of those opportunities at some point of the season. I'm just interested to see what they do with it. Like, like Stankovin, I think obviously has a ton of potential. I'm really interested to see his jump from the, to pro hockey. Bork is a guy who, I think Bork went through that, a little bit of that struggles with the Texas Stars, where he had some of the, this is the pro game, but Bork is a guy who I think will actually be better in the NHL than he is in the HL, because he's more of that playmaker where I think playing with. better players will unlock a little bit more of his game for Bork.

And I think he's, I think he may be a little bit more ready to step in and play with certain guys than Stankovin. I'm really curious to see Stankovin against in the pro game. So I really think that jump from junior to pro, it's what made what Johnston did even so much more oppressive. That really is a wall that a lot of guys hit. And the stars kept expecting why Johnson to hit that wall last year. Like, they kept, like, oh, well, like, going into the season, they're like, well, you know what, Wyatt Johnson, he'll be on the NHL team.

We can send them back to Team Canada for World Junior. If we need to, we can do the six-game conditioning stint. Like, they expected Wyatt Johnston season to look a little bit more like the Shane Wright season in Seattle. And, like, every time a wall, a potential wall would pop up, the kid just smashed through it. And it's just, and more kudos to Wyatt Johnson. You can give me back on track. It's your job here to do that. Well, Wyatt Johnson is special, but I do believe that Logan's Dankoven is as well.

Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that it will be, as you mentioned, demonstrated right out of the gate. But he will get there. And you're right, they're in a position where it's always risky when teams just sort of pencil in their prospects to hit their absolute ceiling right away. It's like, all right, well, we have this guy and he's been good at lower levels. and so if he just steps in and repeats that here at the NHL, we'll be fine. And then if it doesn't happen, all of a sudden, you don't have a backup plan. The stars have many other alternatives and routes they can take. And so that's a very smart thing to do as a team in their position.

But yeah, I can't wait to watch them play at this level. All right, Sean, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll keep talking about the stars and a few other topics. You were listening to the HockeyPedio guest streaming on the Sports Night Radio No. Missing the Canucks. Subscribe to the Canucks Central podcast and get alerts for breaking news episodes. Daily shows return in September. All right, we're back here in the Hockey Pedy O'Cast for Sean Trapiro, Sean.

We spent the first half of the show talking about everything the stars did so far this offseason. And, you know, the efforts were almost entirely focused or centered around adding to the forward group and focusing on improving there. And so I guess the other side of the coin then is that the. extent of the work they did on their blue line was essentially sending Colin Miller to New Jersey for a bag of pucks and sticks and bringing back Joel Hanley to sort of reprise his role. And I, you know, I guess let's start with this. What that means then is that they chose to forego this unique opportunity they had to essentially pull the shoot on the Ryan shooter experience and get out from under that contract

save themselves 2.87 million both this year and next. And I think most importantly, as we've talked about, as you wrote about before the free agency period started, essentially take a toy away from Pete DeBore and be like, you know what? You can't use them as much as you did last year. And you might say you that you'll change this offseason, but then as soon as the game start, you'll probably wind up going back to old reliable in that regard. And so we're just not going let you do so. And I think that was the, you know, the cap savings and maybe reallocating that to actually bring in someone better was certainly intriguing. But I think just the addition by subtraction in the sense that just, just making sure that he wouldn't play top pair of minutes and

second unit power play next season was the biggest selling point for me. And the fact that they chose not to do so, ultimately it's not disastrous, but I do, it does give me kind of a little bit of cause were concerned. Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a defense that's good enough for the stars to reach where they reached this year. And it's, it's like, I think that's, that's, that's, that's the, that's a reality. And I think, but the other just big thing that the stars did while they went and improved, they basically going into this season, they put a lot of, they took, they put a lot of

question marks in the blue line. Is, is, is S. Lendell going to. find form he had two years ago. Is Ryan Suter, is Pete DeBore going to better, is the coaching staff going to better use Ryan Suter in a role that he probably should be used? Is Yanni Hockenpah going to come back healthy?

Is he even going to be, is he going to come back healthy? I believe Thomas, I believe Thomas Raleigh is the star's second best defenseman right now. How good of a second best defenseman is he? Is he, is he a great second best defenseman? Or is it the fact he's the second best defenseman, more of a concern. And then you have the Nils, you made the Nils-Lunquist trade. You have to, like,

it's a lot of, it's Miro H-Kinnon and then a bunch of question marks. And for, I think, you're not going to be exposed as much in a regular season format with teams. But I do, I would have concerns like what happened with Dallas against Vegas and even against Seattle in the playoffs where this defensive unit, this defensive core would go in and you give another coach four or five games against them, you'd start to see some pretty fun ways to pick him apart. Yeah, I mean, the fact that he was second on the stars in Ice Time and played eight five on five minutes more than anyone on Vegas in the West Final is just kind of like unfathomable to me. But I guess shouldn't be surprising because essentially when Hayskinin was out there,

unless it was a situational low zone draw where they would put Harley with him. it was Souter out there, even after catastrophic mistakes, they would just send them back out there because that's the leeway that veterans are afforded in this league. And so I don't know, I just, I would have loved to see them open the runway for Harley and potentially another left-handed shot option to get those minutes instead,

or even potentially actually just finally sticking to having Miro Haskinen playing on his strong side, because I don't think that Ryan Suter is a good enough reason for him to be playing on his own. offside, even though Hayskin and obviously has a lot of experience doing so, we saw that he was pretty successful playing on his strong side with Colin Miller for large stretches of last season. And so I guess ultimately, if you truly do believe that they are going to stick with giving Harley significantly more usage and finally just like having Niels Anquist in there and relying on

him and playing him more than that sort of internal development of those guys and giving you at least one person who can pass the puck to a forward cleanly when they're out there gives you reason for hope. I just, I think you, you haven't eliminated the option for this coaching staff to once push comes to shove, go back to just leaning on Suter and Hayeskin and then potentially even putting like Hock and Paw when he's healthy and Lendell back together. And then that means that Niels-Long was probably isn't playing anymore. And that's exactly the scenario we saw last year. and I haven't really seen anything to lead me to believe that suddenly next year is going to be different. Like maybe in the regular season become the playoffs, unless something changes here,

it's probably going to at some point wind up going back into that exact same scenario. At a minimum, the simplest thing you could do, if you're like, okay, you have to roll back from the script. At a minimum, you could be like, okay, just don't put Ryan's hooter on the power play. Like, it's time to give, you have to let Thomas Arley and Nils Lundquist, you have to let one of them emerge as the second power play guy. for the second unit power play guy. That's the minimum. And you may do that in November. You may do that in December,

but it's still the fear that come April, come May, that all of a sudden power play unit's not working and all of a sudden you pull, well, let's pull out the veteran and put it up there. That's really one of the big things I keep going back to, and you and I have talked about this before, of when you kept that option for the coaching staff, you have kept it as a big option,

you kept it as a club in the bag that it's going to be hard for them not to pull it. It's just like the golfer who's like, you really shouldn't hit driver on this hole. Really, you know, don't do it, don't do it. And you're like, yeah, I'm going to hit driver. It'll work this time. And then it goes in the water for the 15th time in a row.

Yeah, I mean, especially when you have Harley Longquist, like it's the idea of, and this first power play is so good that oftentimes that's all that really matters. It's like they'll either score or they'll give the second, unit 30 seconds to play with and it doesn't necessarily matter that much. But if you're rolling out, especially now with Dushain there, like Ben Dushan, Donov, Johnston and Harley, for example,

like, that would be a very good first powerball unit for many teams in this league. And so that would be a nice luxury to have at your disposal. But I don't know, I guess that's part of also the ride suit a suit dilemma. Like, yeah, I think he wants those minutes. And so, you don't want him necessarily sulking either or being like, ah, I should be playing these minutes instead of this other guy and then that causing other problems. So I think that's kind of the situation that they've backed themselves into here. I think Thomas Arley has shown me enough that he's clearly their second best defense man. Yes, yes, he is. I guess the question is, you know, you mentioned, is that a problem?

I think the bigger question is, is he good enough or does this coaching staff rely on him enough at this point to carry his own pair, right? Because if he is your second best defenseman, you probably don't want him playing full-time with Miro Hayskin and regardless, because then that, you know, you're really leaving yourself stretched thin on the other two pairs. But then if he's not good enough and then all of a sudden he is playing with someone like Hockenpa, well, that's probably not ideal as a second pairing either. And so that's tricky. I think a lot of this will depend on just kind of how good he can be. I'm a believer in him, certainly, but, you know, this is ultimately, like, these are

champagne problems in the sense that we're talking about a team that should be trying to win a Stanley Cup next season. And so it's good enough, but once you get to the West Final or you get to a Stanley Cup final, this is where these things kind of, you shine a brighter light on them. Yeah, agreed. Okay, any other notes on the stars here, or do you want to move on to? a few other kind of fun random out there topics. Let's go random.

Let's go random. All right. Don't I talk about the coaching clinic you visited? Because it's been a while now, so I'm not sure if it's still a pressure your mind. But it happened right before the draft, and so we didn't have a chance to talk about it yet. But you got to see a fun kind of grab bag of NHO coaches and a problem in college coach as well speak at this coaching clinic. And so I'm kind of curious for the most interesting or insightful, I guess, anecdotes or kind of observations or things you heard talked about. It kind of came up during that seminar.

Yeah, I mean, it's, so I went to the coaches site was the one that ran it. And basically I just paid to go as an attendee to this coaches clinic that they host in Ann Arbor now every year. And the things that just kind of, one thing that just kind of popped for me, just watching it was interesting. was the, it was a lot of talk about how certain teams play across the league and everything like that. And now, Bruce Cassidy wasn't at this coaching clinic, but a lot of other coaches talked about Vegas, and they were in there. And there was a very interesting kind of conversation about how, frankly, there's, in the NHL, defensive zone coverage,

there's basically three different types of coverage a little bit, probably about 50-50 in-zone, 50-50 and more of a zone, 50-50 man or whatever. And then there's what Boston and Vegas does, where the team that won the Cup and the team that won the regular season basically are the only two that plays so strict where they literally stick, where their defensemen are almost an extension of the posts. And it's one thing to, we've seen that, Like, it's one of those things when you, when you, it's one thing to see it watching a game yourself as a reporter or an analyst or whatever.

But then there's another thing to hear coaches talk about it and to talk about how specifically how much that they can. And it, I'll tell you, it gave me a lot more, not to take anything away from what Jim Montgomery did, but it also just gave me more and more of an appreciation from hearing other coaches talk about how much they still saw Bruce Cassidy's imprints on what Boston did this year. So for a coach who wasn't even there, to hear other coaches, his peers basically talk about kind of what he was doing there. And Pete DeBore spoke at this clinic too, and he was actually pretty good because he was someone who obviously coach was the prior coach in Vegas who it was. And so that that was a pretty good thing. And then the other thing that before you move on to a defensive coverage thing, the note that I wanted to make there was Bruce Cassidy certainly deserves a lot of credit for that. The other name that I will point out there on a similar note was those couple of years where the islanders were firing on all cylinders that are Barry Trots.

The only team that was really able to beat them during that time was that absolutely stacked Tampa Bay Lightning team. And they pushed them to the, as far as they really got in those two conference finals. And the reason why Tampa Bay was able to beat them was because of how unique their own. offensive zone scheme was. I mean, obviously just having Kutrov unlock so much for you, but they were one of the few teams that just wasn't really wasting time with having a net front guy just kind of stand in front of the net and be very stationary there. Instead, they would have like Alex Klorne kind of darting laterally behind the goal line and then coming out front and pop it into the slot and doing all this stuff. And so that gave them trouble because they were

similarly just packing the paint in that regard. And other teams were like, like, all right, well, we just can't figure out how to get in there. And Tampa Bay was like, well, that's not a problem for us because we're just going to play differently against that. And so you need certainly the personnel to do so. But it's interesting. Hearing you talk about that kind of harken back to those epic battles between those two teams and the finals for a couple years there.

Yeah. You hear coaches talk. I really, it's kind of when it's like you got a coach's clinic as a reporter and you feel like you're the cliche like Wolf and Sheep's Clothing because you're hearing the break down things that they would never ever break down for a media member in season. Where DeBoer talked about how in that series against Vegas, how they intentionally tried to start bringing Jason Robertson higher in the zone against Vegas to try to bring, how to try to get to get up a little bit, yeah, to bring up a little bit of the zone. And how in that same series,

because Dallas really Dallas has a pretty aggressive swarm type defense where they send the second guy in the zone right and how Vegas basically kind of picked them apart by having Jack Eichael go right to the dot where Dallas even noticed it where it's like okay the minute we start doing that Eichl just goes right to the dot

and then Eichl becomes that either shooter or distributor right from there it's the type of things that you get from a coaching staff that we may notice, but especially in the playoffs, we're never going to get that type of transparency. The only type of media members they ever give that transparency to in general are typically the play-by-play guys and those little – it's always kind of one of the funny things where a coach will have the media availability, and then he'll meet with the rights holder and the broadcasters, and that's when they give all the state secrets, and the broadcasters are basically, you can see this, but you can't say, we told you this.

It's that type of stuff. The other thing that was just kind of cool to see from a perspective of how things work sometimes is, so Derek Lelon, the coach in Detroit, he gave a presentation on the power play. And Derek Llan doesn't run the power play in Detroit. That's Alex Tenge's job. But he did run the power play for Team USA at Worlds this past year. And he basically brought in the exact presentation he gave to the Team USA players with clips and everything. broke down exactly how you go through and how he taught the Red Wings powerplay to Team USA. And it was just a really interesting thing to sit there and take it in that way and look at

the examples of how do you implement a power play? How do you how do you break down this? How do you focus on this? And there's a lot there. Like I filled a whole, I got a whole notebook on my desk here of stuff that I'm probably kept audio recordings that I'm sure I'll listen to well mowing the lawn later this summer to try and like to try to get a to get even more but a ton of stuff there i mean it's the and then the other thing that was just kind of fun to see from a and he didn't talk as much about his system but um the coach at michigan brandon neruto has runs kind of a pretty different system but in college hockey there's obviously obviously michigan's powerhouse they you know they don't want a title since 97 or whatever um

My buddy Marty Turko will, is both kind of doesn't like that point. It likes that point. He's the last goal he to win a title. He's the last goal he to win a title there. He won two of them. But you talk about the strength of the athletic department at the University of Michigan where the University of Michigan hockey team has almost a dozen data analysts working with them on everything from in-game data to sleep to load management and how they specialize and build their practices from a load management standpoint.

It was fascinating, where they've basically gone and they've taken the data of this drill, say, this two-on-two drill is a green drill, and then this battle drill is a red drill. And so they build their practices out that way. So the energy is optimized for Friday night of a college hockey season. And it was just interesting to hear how they use. and how a Division I team uses that. And obviously that's an advantage of being one of the richest Division I programs there is too.

So a lot of stuff there. I mean, I'm going to let you talk a little bit, though. No, well, no, no. I'm fascinated about it. Obviously, you get a kind of behind the curtain that, as you mentioned, who you wouldn't otherwise get to see under normal circumstances.

So you saw the law and there, right? You saw Pete DeBore. You saw Brendan Roder as mentioned. Who else was there? Glenn Goldson was there. Glenn Goldson was there, told a pretty great story about how the end of the

when the oilers were the oilers really wanted to break the power play record that the they were in there is the last game of the season there's something like one for four on the power play and uh mac david and dry sidel basically turned to goals and it'd be like we're good we have the record right and they're like yeah yeah we've got the record and so then dry sidel's yelled that basically yelled at the official that the oilers didn't want any more power plays and the uh And so dry so dry so deals with the ref.

The refs like gives like a weird book skates by. The refs skates by again. Drysider like reiterates no more power plays. Like a couple minutes later there's like a blatant trip and like Klim Kostin stands up and starts yelling to complain to the ref. And the ref just turns is like I thought you guys said no more powerplace. Now the irony of all of this is Clim Kostin was later traded away. So maybe maybe Klim was off maybe maybe maybe Klim's attempt to get his days were numbered. Yeah.

Yeah, after not being on the same page of the power play record, but that was kind of, that was a fun story to come out of that. And then you just, the other thing that was just, you hear, it's kind of what are stereotypes or what are actual player archetypes is interesting because like throughout this entire clinic, now the coach, the coach of the women's Czech national team was there. And that somehow set an entire tone of every single coach throughout praising. how Czech players are born to protect the puck

better than it, better than anyone else. And there was a ton of Thomas Hurtle praise and everything like that. So it was definitely an interesting weekend. And then Ryan Huska also spoke as well, who was now obviously the coaching Calgary. He had recently, just been to recently name of the coaching Calgary time too right before this happened.

What did he talk about? Yeah, Huska was his, let me have got my notes here. the uh huska was talking more about the he was talking about the penalty kill and the and it was the it was the talking about the flames penalty kill talking about other penalty kills in general and it was interesting to see kind of the um i'm using the word interesting way too much but the uh the internal debate of do you use the the diamonds do you use the box where do you use more aggressive and the discussion of the ins and outs of why Calgary might try one thing this year versus next year and everything like that. And obviously he has a little bit more autonomy too with that.

He had autonomy last year, but at the end of the day, the head coach is the one. Of course. The final say. Yeah, and now he has the final say on that. Well, that's cool. Yeah, Brenner Roder was someone I'm very interested in because he's clearly had a lot of success, but he's also just very highly regarded. And especially, you know, with how, I mean, the amount of talent that I guess has funneled through that program recently,

but also how just the league is getting younger and younger, right? This was why when the ducks were still in the hiring process after they let Dallas Agans go, I wanted them to almost kind of hire like a really young coach, maybe even someone from Major Junior, that had worked with a lot of these players recently, just because I get that it's a big jump to go from working with teenagers, all of a sudden working with like grown men at the professional level and the two leagues don't really have much to do with each other. But if all, if the demographic you're working with in terms of your own players

are all those guys that you just had experience with, it's not as big of a jump, right? And so we're getting into these situations where for some of these teams, that is the case, especially rebuilding ones. And so I'm sure that whatever his time is up in Michigan, and he's going to have plenty of interest and opportunities, at least as like an assistant coach to work his way up to the pro level. For sure. He's someone who will be, I mean, it's the kind of the nature of that Michigan job,

right? Like, you can probably go one or two ways. There's the, you could do what Red Barrens did, where Red was there for forever, and it was a lifetime job, and you're a hockey legend in Ann Arbor. Or you go the way where you're there for, I think he just recently signed a five-year contract, I think, or whatever. But you go there, you win a bunch of big 10 titles, you get some high round picks and eventually you make the decision to make the job. It'll be interesting to see which way it goes, because it's like, you talk about cushy jobs, and I don't know what these getting paid at Michigan, but you talk about cushy jobs where you, where you're getting 12, where you're getting a dozen, getting the resources for a dozen analysts for your team. I don't know

how many NHL teams have a dozen analysts working on things for their teams. So I love that. All right, Sean, well, this is a blast. I'm going to let you go here and enjoy your offseason. Enjoy the lake life for the next couple of weeks and months here before we get back into it in the fall. So we had a blast here having you on as a regular this season. So looking forward to reprising that again next year, man. Enjoy the off season.

Thank you to the listeners for listening to us. If you enjoy the show, go smash that five-star button, wherever you listen to our PDO cast. And we'll be back tomorrow with one, more episode of the show to close out the week here on the Sports Night Radio Network.