The Hockey PDOcast - Decreased Shot Totals, and Players Defying Father Time

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to look at the early season trend of shot totals being down across the board in the NHL and the reasons why, the impact time of during the Four Nations is going to have on the top players not participating, older players that are defying Father Time this year, and why talented guys like Daniel Sprong have trouble sticking with one team. 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 Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Dimitri Filippovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Sean Schiapiro. Sean, what's going on, man? Not too much, man. As I told you before, I just dropped off pizza for the kids' birthday party. So I made a bunch of four-year-olds happy today.

So I'm winning in life right now. And now we're going to make a bunch of adults happy because I presume it's mostly adults listening. to this show, although hopefully, you know, hopefully we're getting the kids into hockey analytics early. That'd be great. We need to inspire the next generation. We're going to have some fun here today.

We're going to close out the week, you and I, a nice little Friday show to end the week strong. We've got a fun topic list ahead. Let's start with this. You and I were chatting about this off air a little bit. I want to use this an opportunity to really get into it. It's an interesting topic I find just that applies to the league and the landscape and kind what the NHL has looked like so far this season

of the first month of the year. And it's a topic, courtesy of our pal, Prashon Dyer, in an article he wrote those titled, it's harder than ever to get a shot on goal. Now, we're going to get into this. I do think it's perfect timing for us after last night's slate of games where we saw the Canucks muster,

I think, six total shots on goal heading into the third period against the Islanders. We saw the Flyers have seven shots on goal through two periods against the Ottawa senators, the Blackhawks were stuck at nine for the longest time as well. Very low shot totals across the board. You and I have spoken at length, particularly the last both season. I think that was a, uh, the listeners really enjoyed when I went on my rant about, uh,

how meaningful shot counts are in today's game. But Prashat had this really interesting note in that piece where since 2007, 2008 season, 10 of the 50 lowest shots on goal per game totals are from this year alone. it's still early in the season. I think we see an annual tradition is the October numbers are very wonky all across the board. Then teams tighten up. The game sort of starts resembling more of the NHL product and things change as the year goes along. But I do think this is an interesting trend to start the year and something fans are probably

seeing while they're watching their favorite teams play this year. What are some of your sort of potential theories, I guess, for why this is, whether it's meaningful and kind of what impact, I guess, it's going to have with the product moving forward. Yeah, and there's a couple of thoughts, too. I also just read this morning, Matt Larkin had a really good piece over a daily faceoff talking about the kind of the lower save percentage so far this season as well. And he had a really good conversation with Stephen Valacette about some of the shot choices that we are seeing.

For example, I think the term that he used that Valacat used in was the teams are passing off rebounds more, where there's, it used to be, goalie makes a save with the left pad hypothetically, goes right to a player. Forever it's always been, okay, you try to roof that thing over the goalie's glove, right? That's always been the go-to practice. And now it's instead, because of how goalies track pucks and move, it's just, well, Let's just try to go east to west to beat them back. So I think there's a bit of, on one hand, that's led to some more goals. And I think that's also from a shot count percentage.

Now this is a very small example, but like instead of getting, that was 100% typically going to be another shot in the past. Now it's probably, I don't know, maybe a 30% chance of being another shot. I don't know what the exact number is. But now all of a sudden you're adding an element if you got to connect that pass, you got to make sure the other guy hits the net. You got to make sure there's not a stick in the way and all of that stuff. So I think that comes into play a little bit, too, where I think there's a little bit of a,

there's more of an emphasis on the, we talked a lot about on the show last into the playoffs, right? An emphasis on taking that quality shot versus not necessarily worrying about the quantity. I think the other thing about it, too, and we've seen the kind of the, we've seen the continued death of the point shot over and over again. I look at how just with how teams are effectively blocking shots now. And this is anecdotal.

I don't have a number to represent this. But I kind of watch games and I see that there's been off a block shot and the rebound off the block by a skater. There's not the quick rush to try to get that puck on net. It feels like it's like, okay, this show. shot is blocked. We work on a retrieval, then we try again. I feel like we've seen a little bit more of, and a little bit more of the let's wait and see and go a little more half court on that. Those are some of the things that stick out to me. I was watching the Dallas game, Boston game a little

more closely than others, but flipped around to some others too and you see those trends. So that's, that's kind of, I don't have the numbers on that, but anecdotally, that's kind of what I was thinking about watching last night. Yeah, I think it definitely speaks to first and foremost the offensive game planning and how dynamics have changed there, right? A lot of what you just said there were teams are just attacking more purposefully now. There's fewer wasted, low percentage shots that are padding the totals and kind of suppressing the numbers. I think teams are making an emphasis of their game plan to turn down good shots or good looks

for even better ones. And sometimes that leads to just no shot ultimately, right? Like someone, the defenseer gets in the way or something happens and you don't get a shot off of that. I think it's on a team and individual level too, right? Because it makes sense we speak so much about how players now across the board are just so much more talented and skilled and the emphasis that's placed on skills training at young ages as these guys are developing and making their weight of the NHL to begin with.

And so everyone's more talented. Teams are more efficient offensively. And that means they're just going to be more selective by design, right? I also think the point you made there off rebounds is really interesting because there's certainly still are some net front guys in the past couple years. Brady Kachakak comes to mind, certainly, as someone who, you know, you get that first shot, it goes off the pad, and then he's kind of in that crease area, and he's just banging away at rebounds and just jamming it into the goalie's pads. And then you look up and it's like, the goalie got credit for five saves

on this sequence. And so I think if teams are just scoring more efficiently off of a lot of these plays, there's just going to be fewer additional opportunities than for shots, right? Like if the puck goes into the net, there's no opportunity for two or three more shots on that shift. The puck's going to center-rise and you're dropping it for a face-off and you're starting from scratch. And so I think, I certainly think that's playing a big role here. Yeah. I also think there's a bit of like, it's kind of one of these all like these factors come colliding with each other. I think goallies have also done a better job of, and it's kind of funny, like we're talking about a year we're saved percentages down. But I think.

think goalies in general actually do a better job of controlling those rebounds on times. So I think there's there's some shots that have come away because the rebound control when a goalie has a clean look on it is it's not creating the second or third shot. And then it's also why I think the rebound becomes even more valuable, but it becomes the trigger point for another hockey play as opposed to a shot is there's like I'm watching the game last night and it's a game where much in the Boston and Dallas game and Swayman is having a rough game struggling and everything like that and there's still a number of chances where he makes pretty decent one and done type save where it's like it looks it's not that it's a

it's a great save but it's the type of the puck that the play were four or five years ago you think about like the typical shot against on goalie or that where it's popping out for a rebound and like so I think you're seeing more of that too and like The rebound thing is, the Kachuk one is like, he's the, he's a bit of that poster child, right? For the like, like, keep slamming away, slamming away at it. But, um, right, I, it's, I don't know if, uh, I don't know if our, I'd be curious to look at the numbers to see if our eyes are telling us the truth where, or if it's just the way Brady attacks it with the veracity that we get a bit of that, that energy where it looks like there's more there is. No, you did in the past. I mean, he'd always have just outlandish,

expected goals to always, and it's because he's stacking together all of these chances that are registering as high danger ones because of their proximity to the net, but they're not actually that dangerous. I think the goalie element is a good point you make there. I had Kevin Woodley on yesterday, and he went on this whole diatribe about Joey DeCorp's blocker

and how I think he actually emulated it. I believe, if I'm remembering correctly, from Audinger, you mentioned there, where he's using this blocker now that just gives him so much more control to like purposefully direct rebounds out of danger and so previously maybe a shot that he'd stop anyways would kind of drop in front of them

or fall into a high danger area and the other team would be able to pounce on it now it's either almost like he's like directing it out of out of out of bounds out of the over the glass and it's starting a new face off or out of the zone or like into a corner where his defenseman can retrieve it So that's part of it.

I know that you wrote last year as well about, you know, the success of Vegas had defensively during their cup run and how they sort of adopted this aggressive zone style defending where they would just front everything and block a ton of shots and make life pretty easy for their goalies. And so I think Prashant even noted in this piece that the actual raw shot attempts are relatively close to where they've been in the past. It's just the ones that are making it on target or through traffic are the ones that have come down.

And so I think that would point to that idea as well where more teams now are prioritizing, fronting in their own zone, and blocking shots and not even letting them come to their goalie, and that's what's bringing down the overall shot on goal totals as well. Yeah, I think there's just, to me, there's not one, there's so many different pieces to it. I also have a

I have a curiosity of and Prashant and I were texting the other day I was curious about something to where I wonder if just from a data perspective we've gone to we've effectively moved into an era of everything is now automatically tracked right it's no longer human tracking and so I do wonder how much that comes into play

I'm not saying it goes against the tread but I do also think that's another thing to add where I think there's times in the past where when everything was human tract where you could say, hey, certain buildings, especially when it came to shots, I know goalies who would tell me we knew which buildings were going to work for us that night and which ones weren't. And I wonder if there's, I wonder if that comes into play at all with just, now that's not just this year. That's that's part of the trend, but I do wonder if that comes where that comes into play too. It does. And I think that's a fair distinction. make the shot tracking, I think definition the league's adopted has changed pretty drastically

here recently with that automation. And I'll give you a direct example. Like if you look at Sport Logic, say percentage totals for individual goalies and you compare them to the official ones on the NHL.com website, there's quite a disparity. And in general, Spore Logic actually has the say percentages higher pretty much across the board universally for goalies by like three or four points. Like, Hella Buck is at 938, the NHL. com was 934, Markstrom 914, verse 908, Dustin Wolfe, 916, for an example. And so that adds up as well, right? I think there's a bit of an undercounting officially now as well compared to some of the more

sort of in-depth tracking companies. And we should note, like, I think that's the league's logic for this change in philosophy, I think is directly linked to the increased. prevalence in betting on the product. And the reason why I say that is we've seen in the past couple years more, like there's just more of an appetite and more involvement in people betting on like shot props and stuff in these games, right? Like how many shots on goal of players going to have?

And so we've seen now that they're going back and reviewing this stuff in real time and even after the game and adjusting the totals to try and sort of, I guess, legitimize it considering how much money is at stake. So I think that's part of it as well. yeah i mean we've seen how much the nchel and leagues in general if there's any even inkling that a human could be in control yeah yeah if there's any bias at all of a sudden this could be this so there's been there there's that part of it too where now the until until we get to the world where it's going to be very scary when they do until machines can start betting i think this is the

this is a bit of the norm now so well i think i think it's fascinating i love to speak to some of the current goalies about their thoughts on it because anything that's taking away from your own numbers, especially if it's a contract year or it's going to have a financial stake in how your performance is being compensated.

I think that's interesting, right? And we'll see what happens from that. If this does continue, I do think that with all these things we mentioned, both stuff teams are doing specifically, but also the way the tracking is changed, I do think this is something that's going to carry over and continue

and maybe even to a larger degree. And then at that point, I wonder if there's going to be a bit of pushback or a bit of sort of adjustment going the other way. Yeah. And it's also made it hard to, like, like, it's, it's made it hard to use the kind of the era adjustment, right? Because we're kind of in the middle of one right now.

It's made it hard to really track for goalie, from a goalie perspective, track, like who's actually getting better, who's doing well, right? Like so for example, like one thing that one thing that all that tells me right now so far this year, just using the numbers is like Connor Hellebuck's 934 say percentage. That's that's damn good. That's really damn good this year. When went with where we with where we've gone with that. But if you were to go through like line by line over a guy's like career numbers and if a guy had a I don't know if a guy had a 906 four years ago and now has a 905. this year, he might actually be better, right? Like, that's the, like, that's, and that's the weird thing when it comes to kind of looking

back and now, and I like it because it tells people you have to take deeper dives into things, but it does kind of add some murkiness to how we rate which various, where various people sit in the league pecking order on these things. Yeah, and I think we also have to rewire our brains accordingly, right? Like, I think whatever your expectations previously were, it's just an entirely different climate and environment the games being played at. So yeah, I think it's a really interesting thing. I think I'm curious to see where we're at halfway through the season

and three quarters away through the season, but I do expect that this is sort of the start of a new wave in this direction. All right, do you got any other notes on this or do you want to move on to some different topics and get into the PDCAST mailbag a little bit? I mean, we could talk for an hour and a half on this, so let's just move on so we can get to some other things. I like it. I always have more thoughts.

You're keeping us on track. Okay, here's a mailback question. And last time you and I spoke a little bit about the impact and over the Four Nations tournament and interest and all of that. I think from a player perspective, though, this question raises an interesting point. How do you think the Four Nations affects the players who aren't going to play because their country isn't one of the four teams involved? For example, do you think it helps Ovechkin to keep him fresh in his push towards not only competing for another Rock of Richard, but obviously his chase for Gretzky's goal total? What about Leon Dreisdahl? Does it help preserve him for a deep playoff run?

The Oilers are trying to repeat with this year. I think this is really interesting because obviously a lot of our attention is going to be devoted to the players who are playing in a tournament. We're going to see lineups released in a couple weeks here. There's going to be a lot of dialogue about that. And then when the game starts, obviously, our focus is going to be entirely centered through the lens of who's playing and how they're playing in that tournament. But meanwhile, it's this kind of odd scenario where. there's going to be a good chunk of legitimate star high-end players that are just on vacation or just chilling out and hanging out for what, two, two and a half weeks, almost bordering on

three weeks, if you include before and after, and what impact that's going to have, considering the point in the schedule it is, right, where it's mid-February, that's around halfway mark of the season. And then all of a sudden, they're just going to jump back into regular season games for the final half of the year. What impact do you think? I think it's certainly going to be on a case-by-case basis. Players are just going to respond differently to that whole dilemma of rest-first rust. But do you think this is going to have some sort of a sizable advantage or kind of potential asterisk or additional context that we're going to need to consider as we think about how this

regular season is going to play out? Yeah, I think for the guys who don't play, like, I don't really see the like like the all-star games are already at farce anyway right like the all-star break the bi-week like all that stuff was already so like i think it's i don't think that part comes in to play i think two things will happen out of the four nations face off and i'm not going to say any names on it because i don't want to put anyone in the jinx world but someone's going to get hurt right like it's going to be four intense games um it's going to be four intense games you You get rivalries and everything like that. And so someone on one of those four teams is going to get hurt,

and it's going to be a talking point for us the rest of the season. Why, how somebody got, and I won't even say a name, so I don't put anyone's name out there. So, like, someone is going to get hurt, and it's going to impact their NHL team. The other one to, the other one for me that I think will be interesting to, is I think there might be some guys who might use this on the flip side for they avoid any lull.

Now, I'm not sure how it's going to pay off in the playoffs because that's like playing 86 hockey games is a lot of games. But I do wonder if there's going to be guys who like, let's take a like McKinnon, right? Where it's, McKinnon is not going like what McKinnon's doing right now. It's incredible, right? The 160 point pace.

So if he goes through and he just keeps churning and never has to stop, does that mean that he's going to come in those first couple games for Colorado against, I don't know what Colorado schedule is, but just imagine the first couple games where, hey, we're coming off a break, we're slowing, we're trying to get ramped up, and here comes Nathan McKinnon, who's still at full speed. So I think there's going to be one or two guys who actually use Four Nations to kind of jump, there'll be more jump started.

Now, we'll see in the playoffs because that's a lot of wear and tear, but that's kind of what I think about it, because I think the break is a normal. normal part of things. Yeah, I think there's going to be, I mean, it's tough to quantify, but I think it's tough to also argue with the idea that for a young player who's on the way up, like let's say a Lucas Raymond, for example, I'll keep referencing him as someone who obviously based on the way he ended last year and even started this year, I think there's a growing appreciation for his

game, but then seeing him in this context playing with other great players and sort of how he fares there, I think it's an opportunity for those guys to kind of keep stacking to their game and feel really good about where they're at and then carry that over into the regular season. I think that's fair to say. I do wonder though, like, that is a long time off for a lot of the league. And every regular season, we see obviously the off season is significantly a longer period of time off. But when teams come back, the game's a bit sloppier, disjointed. It takes a while for them to get into a rhythm.

And I do wonder if, like, that first week back is going to look a little bit different than we're used to, especially for that point of a regular, regular season. But the rest, I think, is ultimately going to be a good thing, especially for the older players, certainly, like an Ovechkin here. Yeah. But even look at recent examples, like both Florida and Dallas went to Finland, right? And then they come back, they had, what, four or five days off before they resume their regular season. I think both teams

looked pretty recharged and played really well coming back from that. Tampa Bay just had a pretty early by week and then they came back after about a week off and were just all over Winnipeg on Thursday night and played one of their better games this season. So I do think there's certainly a benefit to

it. So yeah, it'll be an interesting thing in the track. I don't think there's a definitive answer, but I did think it was an interesting thought exercise from the listener, just kind of thinking about the impact this is going to have because it is a very unconventional thing because we haven't really had an Olympic break for a long time in the NHL

where we've seen this sort of a context or idea where guys just had two and a half weeks off and then had to come back and just jump right back into the regular season. I do think it's a bit strange. I am curious of who's going to be the who's going to be the person who hits the hot streak at Four Nations

and all of a sudden that's going to be, that's going to lead to our narrative of like changing from a public perception, it changes, it leads to like the changing narrative of like, oh, we have to talk about this guy is one of the best players in the world. Like I'm looking forward to that too, because someone is going to be just from circumstance

who they play with or whatever, four game tournament, someone's going to go for like six points in four games or whatever who is not going to be the person you expected. And then we're all from our business world, our content, the content machine is then going to be, I mean, how many years did we juice out of Jamie Ben's strong Sochi, right?

Like that's a good point. Okay, next question here from Backhand Sauce says, we talk about young players breaking out and impressing a lot, but less so about longevity. Are there any vets this year, say players in their mid to late 30s that you expected to hit the agent career of decline stage, but I've evaded father time and impressed you.

I'll give you one right off the back because I was watching the other night, and it was a TNT game and ultimately I thought it was a pretty poor showing from the Kings like speaking of those low shot totals they were stuck in in single digits heading into the third period and it was a pretty ugly performance

from them overall but early in that game just watching Anzee Kopitar and how in command and control he still is like everything especially deep in the in the zone he is almost playing at his own pace he like doesn't care that there's this pervasive idea

that the game is so fast and the pace is incredible. He just slows it down and almost like Joel Thornton did for a couple of years towards the end there in San Jose when he was still at the peak of his powers. He just like reigns everyone in and says, all right, this is the pace I'm comfortable by playing at. This is everyone's going to play this way now

and he's the one that's able to benefit off of it. And you look, he's 37 years old. He's approaching 1,500 combined regular season playoff games in the NHL. He's still LA's number one forward and usage. got 20 points in 18 games. And he's a guy who, I remember like six or seven years ago, I was like, oh, he might be entering a different stage of his career.

And he's certainly not at his prime, but him doing what he's doing still at 37. And the significance of it, I think, is incredible. So I wanted to shout out Kopitar here, because he often gets lost in the shuffle when we talk about that era of superstars and great players. But man, he is still playing at such a high level. Zuccarello to me is also a guy, too, where it's like he's one where, like, he's all I always thought his game was going to have good longevity, too. But, like, and obviously we talk a lot about with Minnesota and what Caprice so I was doing and everything like that.

But Sukarello is one that comes to mine after you took my answer. Coupatar was going to be where I was going to go with that. So, like, I, as Zucarillo comes to mine. How about Matt DeShane? He's a bit younger. Yeah, he's, and less miles on him. I mean, he's turning 34. Like, he's getting up there in age and yet you watch a play.

What's our, yeah. Yeah, what's our line for age, though? Like, what's old? I think mid-30s. I think certainly especially you think about how everyone's like, all right, it's such a younger game. Players are coming in earlier now. We know that relative peaks are in their early to mid-20s as opposed to late-20s. And I think if you're 34 and still performing at this level, I think it's pretty impressive.

I mean, I guess just watching the Dallas Boston event, that's not, you're watching the way Evgeny Doddanov still is somehow kind of, no, he's not a superstar and he's not doing a ton. But, like, that's a guy where you're watching his gameplay and you're like, that's a guy. who's a 35-year-old who's playing the game, we kind of asked the 24 and 25-year-olds to play. But, yeah, Dushan's good. I just, I didn't think of him as old. That was the, but that's, but I, I mean, 34 in today's game is ancient.

I, I'm going to, I'm going to embarrass myself. I forgot how old I was, and I made a reference to my age in my piece, and then I'd go back and edit my age to correctly get it right this morning. So I, I am, I am,

ancient. I forgot how old I am. Yeah. When I say that Matthew Shane's turning 34 this year and I call I'm ancient, I just turned 33 last week. So I am also ancient. I think of myself is still 28 though. So I think I'm still due for one more long-term contract. I remember that I was 35 today. I was so I'm I'm signed I'm I'm I'm old enough to sign a at least a contract to a bonus laden contract at least. So I guess I at least get that. So the fact that you're so able to talk for 50 minutes in a row is a marble. I'm impressed. I know. I know.

Here's a future shout because he's obviously not at this age yet, but in thinking about this, I do feel like, and when he signed the eight-year deal this past off season, obviously it was at such a low AAV relative to people's expectations that it was a no-brainer for the team regardless to keep him. But I feel like Sam Reinhart, in my opinion,

projects as a player who, if we're doing this question again, five, six years from now, when he is at that sort of mid-30s range and he's 29 right now or turning 20 or just turn 29. I have such confidence that his game is going to translate beautifully, you know, hopefully with full health along the way. Similar, I think, to the way a guy like Pavelsky aged in those sort of mid to late 30s

before he obviously fell off last year and retired. But before that, he had been having some of his most efficient scoring seasons of his entire career despite his age in Dallas. and I just think from like a smart perspective, finding soft spots in the open ice, just being a good player positionally and then obviously having some of that knack for like the tips and slot area wizardry that we saw from Pavelski. I think I see a lot of that in Reinhard's game. So I feel pretty confident that he's going to be a guy who when he's 34, 35 is just going

to still be so effective and productive. Let me throw Josh Morrissey on that list too just from a defensive perspective. and now obviously it's a little bit of inherent having written about him semi-recently biased, but I think he's a guy who I will look back out of his career arc as fascinating as a guy who kind of found this offensive game in his mid to late 20s at the NHL level, and I think it will just continue to age well. So I'll throw him there as the future shout if we're doing that. I like that.

All right, let's take our break here, Sean. And then when we come back, we will jump right back into it and do a few more questions on the way out. listening to the Hockey P.D.O. cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. All right. We're back here on the Hockey PEDOCast with Sean Schorpeer. Sean. Let's keep the PEDOCest Discord mailback questions going here. We've got one from Puna Sweet. Ask, I've seen rumors of Gennie Malkin being on the trade block. What role would he have at this point of his career? And what do you see as a good landing spot? Now, we just saw the Penguins make the first of what I assume is going to be many moves in the coming weeks and months, where they moved Lars Eller back to the capitals for a couple of later.

draft picks. There's been a lot of talk about Marcus Pedersen, certainly considering the need across the league for defensemen and the fact that he's a UFA this summer. I think Drew O'Connor as well, considering he's just like a nifty player who makes less than a million dollars. He can fit on any contenders cap sheet. He'll probably be next as well. I'm still skeptical, I think, that Malkin and any of the top older players on Pittsburgh going to get moved, because I just think from like an organizational perspective, the value they have in terms of emotional attachment and how long they've been there, right? Crosby, Malkin, and Lattang.

Specifically, it's tough to envision him playing for someone else. Like he's already accomplished pretty much everything he can at the NHL. Now, that's not to say that he still doesn't have a game. He's still an awesome player and probably could go somewhere else and contribute meaningfully for a contender. But it just, I don't know, I can't wrap my head around. what do you even look like in a different jersey? And I question whether there's,

I certainly question the appetite for the organization to do so, but I think even from the player perspective at this point, I feel like it's almost a situation where you're going to more likely to see it ride out and ride off into the sunset in Pittsburgh as opposed to some sort of a big move, particularly in season. But what do you think about just looking around the league, like where a guy like Malkin would look best

and where you'd want to see them if it wasn't in Pittsburgh? Yeah, well, for me, the first thing I struggle with is to how a team financially makes it work, right? He's making the 6.1 million, right? Yeah. And it's not a, for my understanding, there's no, like, 35 plus, like, performance bonuses and stuff like that. So it's not like a team could go and be, I guess, Pittsburgh could retain to create a little flexibility here or there. But, like, it's not like you could go, you could make this deal and be like, okay, well, we know it's, partially performance bonus enhanced, so we have a little bit more room. I just, I struggle to see the, I struggle to see that how it fits, right? Like I just like the numbers to me, every time I've, you try to play this game, I go through the,

I don't see how he fits in the cap and I don't see how another team, especially because he signed for next year. If he was a, if he was a like the quote unquote rental, all of a sudden it becomes, I can start seeing a lot of places, but it just, I struggle with it for for that spot. Now, if we're playing video game world where you can try to get them to go play with the team and everything like that. Now, once again, you're talking about how the heck does the money work? Like, it'd be fun to see and play with Caprisov, right? Like, that would be, like, that would be legitimately fun.

Like, that would be from a wild perspective, like, obviously for everyone's perspective, it would be fun to see those two guys play together. Like, I'm a, and maybe I'm being a little bit. bit over nostalgic about things, but there's like, we talked earlier about guys we're not going to see in the Four Nations face off, right? So I think I have a little bit of this appetite in my head of we get to see McDavid and Crosby on a team together. We get to see because of where we are in the world, right? We're not going to see Crosby. We're not going to see Malkin and Capriso on a team. We're not going to see some settings like that. So maybe that's why Minnesota pops into

mind for me because it's like, oh, that'd be fun to see. But that's, That's the first thought for me after. Well, how the hell is anyone going to make that work financially? Yeah. I think Minnesota and both Winnipeg, the fit would be very obvious. And I think it would be cool. I struggle to see if he is going to go anywhere, those being the destinations that he would sign off on.

I think the money is a bit less of a roadblock because if both parties decided that it was best, and then their best interest to just move on and not have Malkin retire in a Pittsburgh uniform, 6.1, especially at 50% retained or even potentially a third party at that point, if you really want to get creative. For a player of that stature and his ability to still contribute at this level, I feel like that's pretty doable, especially since so it is only one year. It's not like a long-term commitment. I think he would look amazing on both Florida teams.

And I feel like, especially the Panthers in particular, I mean, every player would look amazing there. but we know there's a big Russian population there as well. And so I feel like if you were to sign off on anything, that would make a lot of sense for them, especially considering they are a Stanley Cup contender, could potentially be a Sam Bennett replacement next year as well, although we've heard that they've started contract negotiations with him. But yeah, I think of those as landing spots,

but ultimately I don't really see it going anywhere at least this season. Maybe if it continues kind of just going completely off the rails it the way it has so far this year all the way through the season and it probably will at this point. Maybe it's a off-season topic we revisit. Here's a question from Luke. A down

horrifically bad Ducks fan, I should say, that's a I love Luke because he posts so much in the PioCast Discord, but also it's been a tough ride this year. Asks, why do talented players like Daniel Sprong always have trouble getting into lineups? Is it personality?

Is it practice? Is it just some fatal flaw that a coach sees in games from them. Sprong's a player you covered closely last year during his time in Detroit. A player we've covered very closely here on the PDO cast for years. Yes. Yes. I'm curious for your take on this. As it relates to Sprogg in particular,

certainly not unique in this circumstance because I think we've seen skilled offensive players bounce around the league like this and never really find a fit or have us being frustrated with their usage in ice time along the way. But we did just see him. have a very short stint in Vancouver and promptly get traded back to Seattle. I think that makes it the sixth time he's switching teams in his career and he's, what, 27 years old. So you can make the argument that, all right, well, this many teams have wanted to bring him in.

So he must be doing something, right? But also teams have been reluctant to give him a full-time role and then quick to move on and not retain him long term. Why do you think a player like this struggles to find solid footing? the NHL. Well, in Detroit, one of the biggest things was they would, Derek Llan and the coach's coaching staff, didn't trust him at all defensively. And I think that's the, that's, that's one part of it is you have to, as much as Daniel Sprung is a supremely talented shooter of the hockey puck. The, I had last year, Wingsgoly, Alex Lyon told me that Daniel Sprong has probably,

one of the hardest, like, shots to stop in the NHL, just from the way he, the way he shoots it coming down the wing and everything like that. Daniel Sprung knows that. He is very confident in himself. The issue is, I think the issue for, from a sprung with a coaching perspective is everything is, he doesn't really fit in the way defensively coaches want, and he's not supremely skilled enough to be a quote-unquote top six guy, so he has to he gets putting these roles where, hey, we can have our third and fourth line produce offense, but they also have to do those traditional third and fourth line things, which Daniel Sprung isn't willing nor able to do in many cases.

The other thing about him just as a guy that's moved around a lot of times, and it's, there is a, there's lots of guys who, let's be clear on this, there's lots of guys in the NHL who their goal total is more important. their goal total is more important than anything else. Sprung in many ways is that guy. And there are teams and there are, and it's sometimes when that is your persona, and that's the one you omit a bit,

because Sprong does give that off when you're around him, it can be like, I don't know who Dylan Larkin was talking about specifically, but like there was the comment, you probably saw the comment from Training Camp where Larkin was talking about, I was like, well, we had some guys that weren't all the way on board or weren't focused on everything for the team. And now we've sorted that out.

So you go and you play the reverse engineer and you see who was here and who's no longer there and everything. And me, you can't help but wonder if it is sprung on that list. And so I think that's, I think it's a bit of that. He's a, like, he's a guy you want on your team if you can, if you can have a coach who understands who he is. And I think that's the other problem. I think too many times coaches try to change guys, where it's like, okay, Daniel Sprung is, he's going to score 20 goals a year. If you just let him be out there, like even in Detroit, when he scored 18 goals, like he was averaging like 12 and a half minutes or whatever it was. So it's like I think that's the other part.

I think too often coaches think that they can convince a guy to be something he's not. And Daniel Sprung has always been unabashedly himself. And that's why he will unabashedly probably play for four more teams before he, turns 32. Yes. I think he has a skill set that's obviously valuable. It's tough to score goals consistently in the NHL and just be a shot taker and shot maker the way that he is.

And so that's why teams keep bringing him in. I love that about him. Just the fact that he is unabashedly himself, I do wonder whether that swag or personality or approach sometimes rubs people internally the wrong way, right? because it's kind of perceived, I think, as being individual oriented as opposed to team, which is kind of what you were hinting at there or even saying that happened in Detroit. I think that sometimes rubs people the wrong way and kind of wears out the welcome.

I do think this applies to many more players than just him, but also that's this idea that coaches still have a very specific idea of what they want from bottom six options in terms of the way they play, and in particular not taking stuff off the table, whether it's with effort or defensive ability or positioning or turnovers. And so he does stuff like, you know,

this kind of blind draw pass in the neutral zone for the Canucks and his Rick Talk, it's like, all right, I just can't have that. Like, if you're an operational on player and you have a very established role in the top six,

you get much more leash to do stuff like that. But if you're a bottom six guy that the organization isn't paying much and deems to be pretty expendable or replaceable. If you do things like that, you might get a free pass once or twice, but then keep doing it. And it's like, all right, we're just going to play someone who we perceive to be more of a safe option.

I think that's ultimately what's been his undoing here. And the reason why a lot of coaches and a lot of teams now have been like, he scored a bunch of goals for us in very little ice time. And we like that. But ultimately, we're going to look elsewhere at the try to fill that spot. And so I think that kind of explains a lot of it. It's a bit frustrating because obviously he's a very talented player and quite productive. And I just want to see him play and shoot the puck because it's fun to watch.

But I do see why he struggled to, I guess, stay with one team or one organization for a long time. Well, and I think, I mean, I think, I feel like he'll stick with Seattle for a bit, honestly. I joked that he might play with four more teams before he's 32. But like, this is, Seattle is an organization. that's traded for him twice now in season. Like you talked about a moving team multiple times. Like Seattle twice in season has traded for Daniel Sprung. And they were interested in bringing him back, actually,

before he went to Detroit two years ago. It just didn't work out. So I don't know. I think maybe Seattle's the spot he needs to embrace. But like that's a team where they need, like we've seen with how that team's been run. They need to be able to have guys who could. can score 20 goals on their third line if they're gonna go anywhere in this world

if you're Seattle right now. Yeah, I'm with you. They obviously value him, but I will say the reason why he got to Detroit in the first place was because they chose not to tender a qualifying offer of like 800K or something like that that summer. So clearly.

That's true. They weren't that. That's true. That's true. All right. If you like this guy, I appreciate him, that's a small price to pay.

I know you love Daniel Sprong's stories. So here's one from, So he comes to Detroit, when the wing signed Kane last year, everyone's making the whole big deal of, because Sprong's wearing 88 of really give the number, obviously gave the number to Kane and everything like that. The like, oh, is he going to get, and one of the, I asked Sprong after the thing of like, oh, is there anything that, like the whole, like, you know, like the whole like, oh, it's the fun journalist story. Oh, someone buys a guy at dinner for their number or something like that. And Sprong's direct line to me was, he sets me up for about seven more goals on the power play.

He'll have paid everything I need for him to fade for the number. The man thinks about, it's a very one-track brain. Puck in net, money in the bank. Those are the things that correlate. Yeah, well, he was put on this earth to shoot the puck and score goals and he doesn't need a Rolex or a fancy dinner on the road. He wants to put the puck in the net. And so how are you going to help him accomplish that?

That's the way he views every single transaction. So that's why we love him and that's why the teams hate him. All right, we've got a couple more minutes here on the way out. I wanted to talk to you a little bit. I feel like every time I have you on, this is going to be a running bit where we end shows with this sort of bigger picture conversation about broadcast. This week, I forget what day I was, but God news,

that there's going to be this offer now for various broadcasts. I'll let you speak more directly about it to make individual games available for a cost. I'm curious what your take is on this model and this choice by the broadcasts and whether it's viable and feasible and make sense because I initially saw it and I was like, I don't know who the market is to pay $7 to watch one game when for a slightly larger fee, you can get a full month or even a full season with some of these bundles. But I'm curious, what was your take when you saw that this was a direction of the league? Yeah.

See, I do like it, actually. I think the price points too high. Like, I do think that it's a, like, I think as a, I actually don't mind the concept. Because, like, for me, I think about the, I'm based in Detroit, right? and if you're a I don't know if you're a Panthers fan that lives in Detroit right now you can watch

every every Panthers game on ESPN Plus and everything like that you have no reason to subscribe but once the Panthers play their games in Detroit or playing Detroit you'll be blacked out on ESPN Plus so for that Panthers fan if they're trying to get those last three or four games per year

against Detroit to be able to watch that person I think is the kind of one of the potential client. So I don't mind the option on it. I don't like the $7 a month offering on it. It's very $7 per game. $7 per game offering is really high for me. It's I think the big thing that the league and these things they run into is you take, you're creating. It's so very NHL in the way where if I told you, hey, we're going to make each game available for $2 per game. I don't know what the exact number is, but like if you said $2 per game,

all of a sudden, like, oh, that's not bad. I'll throw $2 down, right? Like, I don't think, like, right or wrong, I don't think about throwing $2 down for watching a game. But when all of a sudden you start saying, like, oh, well, $7.99 or $6.99, whatever is, all of a sudden it becomes like a point that it's, it becomes another barrier. I think, like, it's a subscription pricing, and I figure that. So I think, and it's also hilarious too because we're talking about a company that is dealing with bankruptcy and in Diamond Sports and everything like that. So they're like they're actively dealing with bankruptcy.

So they are, you see this. They're going to dig it away out. Seven bucks at a time. Exactly. Exactly. So. And then at the same time, this also goes into the recent like rebranding to the Fandul Sports Network. They got they somehow convinced Fandul to give them money to for the naming rights.

So it's all a. And why I wrote about it this week at my site was the, it's so fascinating for me to watch this and see the attempted kind of let's dig our way out seven bucks at a time. And then to see what's happening to Anaheim and Dallas where all of a sudden it's like, okay, we're not taking, we're just going to give you the games for free and see where it goes. And it's this whole like, and I don't know which way is going to work. That's the other part where it's like, I think the more, I hope the Anaheim. in Dallas way work, right? Because the moral, the karma of giving the games away for free, and now they've got a lot of,

and I wrote about it all about my site this week, about the, there's a lot of challenges to make up that $40 million otherwise. But it is, if you are, if you're a hockey fan, it's amazing how different your viewing experience can be to find games right now with this Wild West right now. I'll let you get me on track because I rambled there.

No, well, this is why another example of why, millennials can't afford down payments because they're spending money on avocado toast and $7 per a game to watch their favorite team play in the regular season. I don't know. I think it's interesting. I think we're at a very, we're an impasse right now where I guess some sort of crossroads or inflection point where it seems like so many different teams are doing so many different things, I think. And this doesn't just apply to the NHL. I think it's a phenomenon that you're probably familiar with if you're a fan of the NFL or any other North American pro league, but like sometimes just trying to figure out, like, you have the appetite to sit down and watch a game and the league

should want, should prioritize that, right? Like, this is the product you're trying to sell. Yet it's becoming increasingly difficult to know where the game is, like how you can watch it, whether you can watch it. And so trying to figure that out along the way is, uh, is something the league is trying to reckon with. So I'm curious. I'm always whenever someone tries something new, I'm interested. At least it's a little bit different and you're thinking outside the box, but I'm not sure necessarily that this is going to be the long-term solution they're striving for. Yeah, it'll be, maybe we should talk about this.

We should probably start with this topic soon. And after I wrote about that piece at my site over this week, I had actually had the comms literally like 20 minutes before I got on this call with you today. I got an email from the people, the CEO of Victory Plus reached out to me and wanted to see if I wanted to talk more and discuss a little bit more on the state of things. So you and I should probably start a show

with this topic at some point because that would be maximizing our value, I think. Next time we hop on, we're going to do, we're going to three-way with the CEO of Victory sports. Yeah. And they're going to paint the picture of what the plan is moving forward.

All right. You got any stuff to plug? other than that story, what have you been working on? Yeah, yeah, I got, check out my site, Shapshotshockey.com, go over there. I've got the, been doing some stuff in Dallas

with the All-City Network with the all-DLS site go. We do, I'm on there, I do a star show with them twice a week. They go every day, but I'm on twice a week, so check them out, and watch the show for free, it's live, and then do,

go follow our friends over at Elite Prospect, our old friends at elite prospects too. They're doing some good stuff. I wrote something there about some goalie scouting stuff today from a scout's notebook. And you're in the blue sky now, right? I am in the blue sky now. I am in the blue sky. I still have both platforms.

I'm not a got rid of one. I still have both. But yes, I am in the blue sky now. I think it's, I mean, it's got the little dot and period, but it's the same name. It's just Sean Shapiro and then period,

blue sky, all that other stuff. So yeah. Yeah. Well, that's very exciting. there as well. Same handle for me as Twitter. It's nice to see that it's growing pretty much exponentially every day this week. And I'm trying my best to double post and stay active on both. So we'll see how that goes moving forward. But I'm enjoying it so far. I think if you're not on it or you've been kind of wondering whether you want to take the jump, I would recommend it. It kind of harkens back to

simpler days when Twitter was fun, in my opinion, just in terms of the lack of like bots and trolls and people seem to be on there in the hockey community, just looking to talk about hockey and have a good time. And so early stages certainly right now, but it's got me feeling nostalgic, I guess, about the way Twitter used to be in like the mid-2010s, and hopefully it continues because I think it's been a nice little addition. If you're on there or if you're thinking about going on there

and you're looking for other places to keep up with us every night while these games are happening and just be part of a community, Shout out the PDOCAS Discord as well on the way out here, as we did today and on many other shows, taking mailback questions from there. So it's a great place for you to post those and just get your voice involved in the show. Go smash that five-star button wherever you listen to the podcast and give us some love with a nice little review. And that's all from us today. I'm going to let Sean go here.

We're going to be back with one more episode to close the week out. Thank you for listening to the HockeyPedioCast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Thank you.