The Hockey PDOcast - Designated Backups, Pick Your Opponent, and the Monday Mailbag

Episode Date: March 25, 2024

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to answer listener questions about teams using three-goal systems, why being able to pick your opponent in this year's postseason would be especially intriguing, teams who have had the most disappointing seasons, and Nikolaj Ehlers' usage.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty. 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.

mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovic. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dmitra Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's going on, man? Not too much, man. We're doing this from the club level at Little Caesarserina right now. And behind me, I just running up to get up here, I interrupted them taking the picture with the important sponsorship people on the court for the regional. They're hosting an NCAA regional. regional basketball. The regional final is in this building later this week. And so if you see a picture and there's a person shooting up behind and getting yelled at by security for walking through the back of a picture, that's, that's me. So we are, uh, uh, we're off to a great start today.

That's boots on the ground marketing here for the hockey p.io cast. You love to see it. Yes. Yes. So I did a mailbag, uh, to end last week with our EP ringside colleague, Ryan Lambert. And we solicited a bunch of mailbag questions from the listeners in the Discord, and they came through with so many that we had an overflow of them. And so I thought it'd be good for you and I to circle back to some of them here to start off the week with a little mailbag Monday here in the PDOCast. So there's some really fun stuff. If you want to get involved in future editions, as I always say, pop into the Discord. The Invit League is in the show notes. We're building an army of nerds there, and you want to join us. Sean is in there as well. A lot of contributors to the show are, and obviously I'm

mixing it up there on a nightly basis. So get in there if you haven't already. All right. Let's do some fun stuff here. So Netfront Badger says, it looks like Carolina is rotating Anderson and Kachekhov as starters with Spencer Martin backing them up right now. Martin was the backup Saturday night in Toronto, Sunday night in Ottawa, and Tuesday night first the Islanders.

It looks like they're down with your idea of giving starters a full night off during their road trip. I'm not sure if any other teams are rotating their starters right now with a quote unquote designated backup. So this obviously is something we've talked about a bunch on the show in the past. The hurricanes certainly are

necessarily the first team to do so. There have been a few examples, but it is also one that seems almost most deliberate on their part right now. And I'm not surprised that it's them, considering obviously their data heavy approach, especially from the front office. But it's really cool to see. And I wanted to talk about it with you here because as soon as we hear a team doing it, you often just send me a message in the, in the DMs and chat about it. So it's good that we should just have a public conversation about it and kind of the merits of it. Yeah, because Toronto did it the other day with Joseph Wall, right? It was the night of the Samson of injury, right?

Where they basically, the wall wasn't there because he had been sent to Carolina to start the next night. And I'm a big fan of this. I think we've seen other teams do it. Like, for example, I'm in Detroit. We saw Detroit even do it a little bit last year with their three goalies.

We saw them doing a little bit earlier this year. But I think from a full copycat, quote unquote copycat, big taking off as a ideology that works. I think it takes a good team to lead to more copycats. And I think that's one of the reasons Carolina probably gets a little bit more attention on this right now because it's a team that is a cup contender. And B is typically we like to think of as pretty smart when they do things like this.

So I, you know, I've talked about it before. I'm a big fan of this. I think that it's a position that we should be better managing minutes. so we should be better managing usage. And I also think one of the spots that it really, it's knocking down, I think, a boundary right now. And I think this might be a generational goaltending thing. Because I sort of been, I was, this would have been the year or the year before,

either, I think it was the year before, in 2018, 19, 2018, 19 season, I think it was. I had this conversation with Ben Bishop once. and the stars goalie coach jeffrease at the time when i was on the stars beat about would you consider doing something like this like hey you got it back to back and both of them were from the mind of things like uh like the goalie coach jeffrease was well it's like if the goal he wanted to do it but ben bishop was kind of more says like at one point i actually had a scenario in tampa late in my time in tampa where we didn't do it and i was asked if i wanted to and i essentially said no because i didn't want to feel like i wasn't

part of the team and nothing like that. I think that was one of the big, as silly as it's, it's not the data. I think the data wasn't the barrier here. I think it's more so the old hockey ethos of you got to be all in. You got to be all in all in all the time. And I think teams and goalies and goalie coaches in particular are starting to realize you can be all in by being all in for the night you're actually starting. And then you're better for that night. And I think that's the positive trend we're seeing out of this. And hopefully Carolina, lead some more copycats on this because I think it's better for the game when our gold heading is better across the league because goalies are better rested like no well that no certainly a lot of

that makes sense and you're hitting a lot of good points there the red wings are an example the haves are doing it for a while because they're carrying the three goalies right they're doing it in particular funny enough with montembo and primo now they had jake allen there as well before his trades in new jersey and i was talking about this with woodley because he was writing an article about this sort of concept brenichel.com, I believe. And he was like, oh, could you send me like some, some references of when the HABs did this just so I can include it in my article? And he spoke to Jake Allen about it. And Jake Allen was like, I don't really recall doing that. And then I went back and looked at it. And it's because they were doing it with their two younger goalies,

where they were essentially sending either Primor or Montaubo to the next city or sending him back home to prepare and keeping Jake Allen, the veteran with the team. So he wasn't necessarily that in tune with it because he was just going about his day-to-day job as he normally would. and they were doing it with their other guys. So I thought that was a fun little anecdote. As you're right, the Leafs did it on Saturday night. They started Simona.

They had Martin Jones backing him up since Sonal got hurt. They had to bring in Martin Jones to seal the victory at the end. Joseph Wolfe flew to Carolina ahead of the team to prepare and stopped 41 of 43 shots and a loss, but was phenomenal on Sunday. So it should note that. I'm not surprised when I say I'm not surprised the hurricanes are doing it. I think what distinguishes this may be from some of these other previous examples is they're doing it in a very, defined way by role, right?

They're not necessarily alternating three goalies because they have three NHO goalies up in their active lineup. And so they're just trying to get them all starts. They're very clearly delineating between Spencer Martin in the backup role as the guy who sits on the bench. And then they're alternating the two starters, right? And I think that is really interesting here. It makes a ton of sense because one of the perks that we keep talking about,

and I think is worth noting, is so much has been. made of the kind of physical toll that playing a lot of games has as the goalie position. And that's why we've seen workloads come down and more of these one A, one B time shares. And that's all well and good. But I'd argue the psychological accumulation of just preparing for these games, both mentally and warming up and taking shots and doing all your exercises of like all the visual tests and stuff and everything that goes into preparing to be an NHO goalie on any given night,

that has just as big of a toll over the course. course of a season. And so the argument here is, well, if we're already making such a big point of decreasing workload from a games played perspective, why aren't we also doing so from a games prepared for perspective? And so in this case, I don't know if you necessarily need to be sending the goalie to the next city to prepare, although I guess that's sort of the logic of that is the wear and tear of like back to backs, particularly when you're traveling, you kind of avoid that by having him already in the city the night before. So there's that.

But you could still keep them around. My argument is like, I don't want him sitting on the bench, taking any shots that day, doing anything from the usual activity. I want a full mental reset of you can come to the rink and be with the team if you want. But I want you in the press box wearing a suit and tie, relaxing, eating some popcorn,

hanging out and not worrying about, all right, my goalie's one, you know, hit to the head or weird hamstring tweak away from me having to go in there. And so that's, I think, the distinction between the two. Well, and I think the other thing, the other two keys, things that come with Carolina, one's a piece of context I think we need to add to. This is a team that doesn't have an A. Chal affiliate.

And kind of even before Antirontah went through the spot where he struggled, we kind of, I wrote something I think all the way back in September about looking at Carolina and potentially doing the three-goly system because of this. So I think that's an important context to remember. where Carolina, they don't want to, like, they got Spencer Martinoff waivers. They don't want to kind of, it's, I think that's another important thing to remember here where they don't have a HL team to actually send someone to, even though they've kind of become a little bit more agreeable with the Chicago Wolves

after they're messy divorce. They're kind of like the parents with semi-co custody figuring things out. And then the other thing that will be just fascinating for me too on this, and this is a topic. I'd love to dive in deeper at some point because it's one. I don't, do you have the, the, the, the, the Hutzpah to do this game one, game two, game three, game four, the playoffs where I'm going to go and I'm going to stick with what rolls. I'm going to go Kachekhov, say, game one, and Spencer Martin's still my backup. And then Kachekhov has a complete day off for game two.

And then he comes back and completely fresh for game three. Like this, this is the, there's the caveat. and that I'm fascinated to see if this gives you the, are you willing to roll with it into a playoff series? And A, you use two different goals in a playoff series by design, and B, do it this way. Well, I'd argue,

I mean, with the possibility, and funny enough, we saw it with the hurricanes last year at the start off that Eastern Conference Final against Florida, where you have that, what, four overtime game one,

and then you're rolling immediately into a game two with very limited time off, just the potential of these extended overtimes where it's not, you know, it's not capped with a five-minute overtime shootout and you're going home and playing the next game. I think the potential for it is even more interesting to actually just give goalies full runway to recover both physically and mentally before the next time they're playing. But you're right.

As soon as it goes south and you have a bad performance or goalies out of rhythm, you're going to get people coming out of the world where complaining and being like, all right, why are you trying to totally change the game here? I think what's interesting. That's a great point that you made about the NHL. I'll spin it even further. I think one of the perks of this, I really do think that we're like three to five years away from this just being standard practice for teams. Is that by having this sort of defined a backup role, that'll traditionally, because of how little you're actually going to be playing is going to go to a Spencer Martin, right?

He's going to go to a goalie who's sort of a veteran who's been around the league, who's kind of late 20s, early 30s. It's sort of a four-a goalie in terms of like obviously is a good goalie. but you just have higher upside options. So that's why you're not necessarily relying on them. One of the benefits of that then is you're essentially, if every team has that, you're creating what, at least 20-ish,

like HL gigs where a young goalie who actually needs those reps at that level is going to get to play more because they're not being blocked by a Spencer Martin or whatever equivalent that is within your organization. And most teams do have a goalie of that ilk, right? So I think that's a very interesting, and valuable resource for teams. And the other thing is, you know,

we've seen this trend, and it'll be interesting with, you know, Sorokin just got paid. Well, Soros is up in a year. Shasturiken as well. So we'll see what happens. But there's been this obvious trend of teams just investing less in the goalie position, right?

Like you're not particularly with terms, certainly, but even with dollars, you're trying to sort of spend as little as you can and fill out your team in front of them. Well, in that case, then I think it also makes it much more feasible to have a couple goalies who are making essentially the league minimum or something equivalent to it

in these positions, right, as opposed to the times where if you have a goalie making $11 million, you're going to want to actually use that guy as much as you can to justify the investment you made in them, whereas if your starter is making $4 million and then you have two $850K or $1 million goalies backing them up,

I think it's much easier to sort of alternate those three guys and give them all their fair share play. Yeah, it's also like this also goes down the path too of we've heard about the GMs have kicked around the idea of the basically the professionalization of the e-bug or whatever you want to call it right where a team could in theory I call it the equivalent of baseball's bullpen catcher where you got a guy that you're carrying who's a practice guy but all of those ideas don't really include the backup that's just kind of hey you have someone there I am I would argue as we move forward on this especially as the cap

normalizes going forward is your ROI on your roster spots right is it carrying Unless you're a certain team that's that's really deep or whatever, are you getting better return of investment on carrying an eighth forward, sorry, an eighth defenseman or a 14th forward or a third goalie? And I think more and more teams as the cap normalizes, and we get teams actually everyone back to carrying a full 23 and everything. I think we're going to see more teams realize that this league minimum goalie,

it's much more valuable than us saying we need an eighth defenseman so we can have well-run lines and practice, because that's the most ridiculous thing we see all the time. It's like, oh, I like having a well-run practice with eighth defensemen. Well, then when you do that, you still have 13 forwards, your forward lines get all the best stuff. So I mean, the amount of times we see a 13th forward play with the defenseman to make it all work when the team has three goalies is this happens all the time too.

So I hope this is a trend for the future. Yeah, teams are certainly cutting at close. I think I saw that, you know, Aiden Hill got banged up recently for the Golden Knights and they like, they had to move Tomaz hurdle to LTIR. to just carve out enough room to call up Yuri Patera from the HL to back up Logan Thompson. And it's like that that sort of illustrates kind of how little wiggle room some teams have by design.

And one of the positions that's sort of been overlooked or kind of overshadowed has been the idea of carrying that third goalie. So yeah, I'm with you on that. Okay. Any other notes on this or do you want to move on to a next topic? Let's keep going. Let's keep going. All right.

J.R. Jersey asks, thoughts on the PWHL's differing league processes, particularly ones like the playoff format and anti-tanking for the first pick. Now, we've spoken a bunch about the goal plan for the draft lottery system and everything that entails. I don't think we necessarily need to revisit that. There obviously are some interesting things like the jail break on if you score a shorthanded goal, you're essentially are back to playing five on five. The point scoring system in terms of three points for the regulation win.

The reason why I wanted to take this question, though, is I think it's very topical because one of the one of the processes the listener is alluding to is that, idea of top seats picking their playoff opponents in round one right and that's something we've seen in other pro leagues and i get the issues with in the n hl we just know how the league operates teams are generally going to sort of take and defer to the path of least resistance and just go by standings anyways because you're not going to want to give bulletin board material or or sort of you know provide extra motivation for a team by picking them even though you're sort of going out of your way to pick them because you're suggesting they're the most inferior option

But the reason why it's interesting is this year in the NHO would I think be the most sort of practical or best case scenario for this system being in place because I would be personally fascinated. I'm curious for your take on this to see what the Vancouver Canucks would do given the option as the top seat in the West ahead of round one, whether they would pick the Nashville predators who for a long time, we were like, all right, whoever wins that race in the second wildcard between all these teams is going to be inferior. winning the West is a huge luxury for whichever team does it. Nashville is 50 and 0 and 2 in the past 17 games is playing remarkably well, and we've spoken very highly on them on the show in the past. Or Vegas, who would be the worst team in the West right now by point percentage and would be the team that can actually play,

but is also thought of very highly in terms of potential based on the personnel they have. And in the playoffs, if they potentially gone Mark Stone and Tomas Hurtle back and we're at full health, they present a variety of problems themselves. And so I don't know what, they would do, but I think I would be very fascinated to find out, and this might be a bit of an aberration in that regard. But this is the exact example of why that system is so intriguing

because all of a sudden now teams sort of have to make this decision where they otherwise wouldn't. Would we be doing it where it's just the two division winner, the top division winner picks their wild card? That's basically, would we still be keeping two versus three in this, in this scenario? Or could in theory, would you be, would it be okay for Vancouver to say like, you know what? I see what Winnipeg's doing lately. I'm going to pick Winnipeg to come on down, even though it's technically, even though they technically finished top three in the central. Are we, I think, what's kind of our. Yeah, I would say let's go, let's go fallout. I would say that the top team gets the pick their pick of the litter. Whoever, whoever qualified

for the playoffs, they can pick them to play them in a round one. Yeah, I think that would be, I think it would be, I think it would be, A, the storyline would be great for it. I think the justification for things would be be fascinating. And at the end of the day, I know people think people want to go the path of least resistance, but I think at some point, someone would go and look like, you know what, we were terrible against this team in the regular season, or we had, we don't match up well against this system, or like, we can, we can really give ourselves a better chance to win. And so I know probably in year one, you did it, you'd probably get the very, yeah, we're going to choose our basic what would be.

But I think after that, somebody would stop and look at it and be like, okay, if the goal is really to win a Stanley Cup here, why do we want to play the team where they've got the, why would we intentionally pick the team that went four and one against this this year? Or we know that their power play absolutely destroys us. I think at some point, common sense or thinking would prevail on it. I don't, the PWHL two part of it is interesting too. because I like that they're playing around with these things and doing some things,

but a lot of their league format stuff to me, while interesting, is hard to apply to the NHL because it's just six teams, right? Like on Sunday, I watch the like the whole like, oh, the anti-tanking one where the team that uses the goal plan in a six-team league, right? Like I watched the Ohio State, Wisconsin Women's National Championship game on TV the other day.

And the third best player from that team is going to a playoff team, right? Like, like, that's just, it's, so I think the PWHL, I'm glad the league is doing it from the onset, but it's hard to use them as an example because of the size of the league, right? Like right now it's, that's, it's, it's, it's, but from an NHL perspective, path of least resistance probably in year one if I'm forecasting, and then somebody would be like, no, that team destroyed us. Let's do, let's do this, right? Yeah, and Vancouver might still pick Vegas regardless because last time they played them,

they really gave them a lot of difficulties with their speed and everything. And so they might do that and be like, all right, you know what? We're just going to take this match up anyways, but it does provide a lot of conversation or I guess added wrinkles. That would be fascinating to consider. And the reason why it's particularly interesting,

and I wanted to note this was, like, this is a biggest team that opinion on them wildly differs between who you ask in terms of how good they are. And especially for the purposes of the rest of this season, like how scary they truly are versus the potential or perception of what they could be. But the betting market right now still is showing them a lot of respect.

Like they're a Stanley Cup odds right now for a team that's still not even necessarily a lock to make the playoffs, although the past couple wins have really pushed them in that direction and made it much more comfortable for them. Like they have, they're more likely right now perceived by Vegas to win the cup than the Jets and the Bruins who are two teams that are still very live for the president's trophy. And I think that kind of shows you the,

the sort of specter or I guess kind of like boogie man aspect of the way teams are viewing Vegas where it's like once we get into their playoffs and all these guys come back and they're healthy no one's going to want to face them and so all of a sudden this is the exact scenario where getting to potentially stay away from that if you were inclined to do so is an option available to you and it should be because I've long said that there is not enough of an advantage for teams that win the president's trophy. or the one seat in their conference through 82 games, right? Like you get home ice throughout.

That's not as valuable as it used to be. And it's not nearly enough in terms of a seven game series where you were dominant for 82 games. And all of a sudden now it's like, all right, we're back to square one. We get an extra home game. But otherwise, we get no real perks against this team that was significantly worse than us. And now just needs to beat us four times. And to me, that's a very flawed sort of way to approach this. And that's kind of one of the issues with the current playoff format.

My one thing I would want, when you talk about picking opponents. If I was, I believe that the, if you win your, if you win the president's trophy and you're the one seed, and I think the two conference winners should be allowed to pick the game schedule for the series. Like if you, like I think that should be a spot where you get, you're guaranteed. If you want to go game one through four, see your Vancouver and you win the West. And you want to go game one through four all in Vancouver. and then see, hey, we can probably sweep them. Or you could be, hey, I'm going to give game one and two there, and I'm going to take three through six at home.

I think that would be another twist where you let you give some control and some power to teams that win. That's my oddball idea to add on top of this. I like the pick opponent, but I also want to go a little bit further and giving more control to the teams that win their conference in the regular season because it is not easy to do, and we really diminish it. I would love that, especially to see the media covering those teams

being incredibly frustrated and upset online about having a potentially travel, like back and forth from Vancouver to Nashville for games, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I think if that went that route, that would be fun because I love it when, when hockey media complains about travel and things of that. All right, you know what, Sean, let's take our break here because we're getting close to the point where we should do so anyways, and I don't want to start a new question and then have to cut it short because it's going to be one about Nick Eilers.

That's my tease here. And so I know I'm going to go along on this. I'm going to give us as much runaway as possible to answer it to its full capacity. So looking forward to that. That's a tease there. So we'll be back in a second here. You're listening to the Hockey Pediocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Catch up on what happened in Vancouver Sports with Halford and Brough in the morning.

Be sure to subscribe and download the show on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. We're back here on the Hockeypedo guest joined by Sean Shapiro as we take listener questions here in this Monday mailbag. Sean, let's keep it going. All right, as I teased, fantasy hockey fiend says, if Nick Eelers isn't going to get the opportunity or minutes in Winnipeg, what team do you want to see him go do that you think you would thrive on the most? Or what team would you just personally like to see him join?

Now, I know this is a topic we've talked about a bunch in the show, but I just cannot quit this because it drives me up the wall, and I want to talk to you about this. He played 17 minutes yesterday versus Washington, which is great, but it was also the first time in the past six games that he had gotten over 15 minutes. we're seeing this guy just live in the 13 to 14 minute range, which is just so unacceptable playing on a team

that's struggling to generate consistent offense for a player of his capabilities. And I'm curious for your take on this, both from his usage to the potential of like where he would fit on most, where you'd like to see him because anyone that watches this guy falls in love with him. And yet we keep bumping into this issue where I just do not understand why this coaching staff on Winnipeg,

over multiple coaches now is so allergic to using him appropriately. And in particular, like shooting themselves in the foot unnecessarily. It's like, just please use your most efficient and best lineup that gives you the best chance to win. And in spite of that, they just keep doing the opposite. And so, I don't know. How do you feel about all this? How many times have we beat the dead horse on Eilers having to play more? I mean, that's, I think we've talked about that one,

enough times over and over to be both of our opinions. are well known on that that he should be playing more. You should be hiring the lineup. He shouldn't be limited in the way he is. And I don't really have much more to add on that part. I mean, to me, the more fascinating question, unless you do have something to add right now. To me, the more fascinating question is like, where could he go?

Well, I think it's an answer the mailbag question. I think it's important. We're certainly going to get to that. The reason why this is important beyond the fact that I love this player is I'm going to keep talking about it until something changes because that's how we enacting. We cannot let this go by. And the issue for me is it just seems like such a clear misunderstanding of what personnel they have right now, which is really like often we think about like, all right, talent evaluation, what teams are doing is you're scouting other teams. You're familiarizing yourself with opponents, what they have, then you're trying to acquire players and all that.

I think a very undervalued or underappreciated skill for good teams is the introspection component of it of like self-evaluating. right and so yesterday in this game against washington where they got shut out finally they decided because they had such a embarrassing performance the day before against the islanders it's like all right we're putting all the lines on a blender we're mixing things out we're going to try to spark this team and they finally put eilers with shyfully on the top line it's like all right this is great and then you look to the opposite wing on that line and it's mason appleton who's like a fourth liner and then you watch that game play out in the first period i counted at least four or five times where Eilers either had a play to make or was open.

And the fact that Appleton just does not have the requisite skill to play on a top line like that immediately killed a potentially promising sequence. And so you bump into this issue where it's like even when they take one step forward in terms of putting this guy either higher in the lineup or with one good player, it's always attached with a player who just does not belong there. And that's a very stark sort of comparison to how they treat Kyle Connor. and the way Kyle Connor is spoken about by a lot of people where it's like, I've seen so many people in this industry

just refer to Connor as like the most underrated player in hockey and all this stuff. And it's like, I just don't see where that's coming from. Like by any metric, Nikla Eilers is a superior player. And yet the Jets just treat the two guys very differently in terms of usage for years now. And that's where I think keep coming back to the frustrating part where it seems like it's very directly linked to this one player

as opposed to maybe even a bigger issue for this organization. And I don't know. the inner workings of the Jets' feelings toward healers. And I don't know how management feels. I don't know the exact type. Like I'm not going to claim to know how it works. But having covered teams before, there are times and there are inner politics at work in the past

where some teams just don't think a guy is that good. And that's just the reality of it. And they just, for whatever reason, they can't get out of their head on that. I've covered teams where there's been, or on the flip side, there are players who are coaches, pets or GM's pets that get to play through mistakes other guys will never play and I think that is

and I want to be clear I don't know about Eilers about how Eilers feels or that means how management technically feels about Eilers or anything like that but it just you look at it and there's always kind of the question internally in my mind of is this just something as simple as that where he needs to go to another place where he would actually be a pet cat like right now I just I wonder looking at it from the outside. And I want to be clear, just, I am not saying I know anything about that. I just, I've, having covered other teams and know how the human relationships and how things get developed, I just, I wonder.

No, I mean, I think there's certainly, like, there's truth of that, right? Where teams are like, there's a human element where you decide or you think of someone in a certain way and then you put them in a box because of that, right? Whereas someone is just viewed in a different light, whether it's from your initial perception of them or something that happens along. the way and then you're very committed you're almost like personally invested to making it happen and that's kind of what i feel like is going on here where regardless of missing an assignment or a sloppy lackadaisical back check or a turnover Kyle Connor is going to get his

15 and a half five one five minutes nearly 20 overall minutes and it's just going to happen no matter what whereas eel is one mistake all of a sudden very shortly yeah playing significantly less and it just the efficiency between the two, the production, the impact on their teams, like one guy is just so much superior to the other and the usage does not reflect that. And that bugs me for a team that has been struggling recently, but at full health should be considered amongst the Western Conference elite, right? Like they've been a very good all season. They're right there still in the standings.

They have a very unique structure and playing style that I think can translate well to the postseason. But for that to all matter or work, they need to actually use one of the guys who, gives them a chance to compete offensively the way they should. And so that's why it's frustrating. Now, to answer the question here about where he should go, Elyler's an interesting spot in his career because he's got one year left on his deal at a very team-friendly $6 million. After that, though, he's essentially going to be entering his age 30 season as an unrestricted

free agent, right? And for a player who relies so much on their skill or, sorry, their speed and their skating ability and their transition prowess, that's a scary thing for a player who's entering their 30s, not that he's shown any signs of decline or deterioration in that, in that aspect, but it is something where it's like, all right,

what's this guy going to look like when he's 33? I could argue based on how many minutes he's been playing these years, that he's still got more runway in that regard to age gracefully than a player who had otherwise been playing more up until his point. But still, I'm very curious to see that. And also how teams potentially value him, either on the trade market this summer or in free agency, the following year because he's obviously a player who the Jets don't, don't value that highly.

So I'm curious to see if other teams follow my logic or whether that sort of consensus amongst the league. I think it's fair. I mean, it's, he's got the, what, the 10 team, no trade or something like that? Because obviously you and I have both looked at this before to see where he could go and play around those. I'm sure at some point next year and when you write your EP Rinkside next story of trades we'd like to see. I'm sure there'll be a nice

Nikola Euler's piece and everything like that. So I look forward to that. Yeah, but do you have a place where you think you would be really fun? That's like actually possibly? Ironically enough, I think Nashville will be really fun. Yeah. Like I think he'd be fun in Nashville. I think he would be and now those two teams have shown they're willing to trade within their division. They don't seem to put the quote unquote division tax on each other for whatever

reason. So I could see something like that. I think that would be fun. I think there's a couple of other teams too. I think he makes any team better. That's that's that's that's kind of the reality of it. So yeah. I thought yeah no go for it. What do you think? No, I was just no I was I was just musing on it. So no, I'll let you go. Well yeah, that's the issue I've been doing. That's why I never write up trades on nickel I was because I value it was so highly where it's like I don't know how to rationally write about this from like a what it would take to get him back and return. And also it's like, can I just write 31 teams that would be better off here from acquiring him. And so you bump into that issue where it's like, yeah, this is the guy who's going to make everyone better.

I will say national is a very interesting one particularly because of how much financial flexibility they have. And also it would be fun playing for Andrew Brunette. Seems like a player who the Panthers would be all over in terms of potentially acquiring. and then getting the most out of. And there's a very logical opening as well on that left wing. So playing for that team, he'd be a very intriguing player. I mean, I'd like to see him here in Detroit. Honestly, there's a team you talk about adding,

what is Detroit missing? We talk about missing kind of that additional scoring punches and what is this team. And now maybe we run into the same problems since at the same time I just watched a practice where Austin Zarnik is continuing to play over Daniel Sprong. so maybe it would be changing one problem for another at a higher cap hit. But that's, I didn't mean to get your blood boiling on that. But that's,

I wouldn't mind seeing him in Detroit either. No, certainly. I mean, he'd be a very interesting player. I would fit very nicely playing with someone like Lucas Raymond as well. So I would love to see that. I just, I have to note these because I wrote them down.

And in my haste there, because I got so frustrated, I skip past it. But just to really hammer this point home. And then I promise, we'll take at least a week off from talking about Nicolius on their show. So him and Kyle Connor have essentially been on the same team for how many years now since like 2016, I believe, or around that range.

2017-18 was the last time that Kyle Connor scored more points on a permanent basis than I met 5-15. 2018-19 is the last year where the Jets scored more goals per minute in Kyle Connor's minutes than Nikola Euler's. He has highly outperformed him in both those ever since then. And yet Connor is averaging two and a half more five-15 minutes per game than him, not to mention the quality. of line mates that he keeps getting, which Eelers does not get the luxury of. So that's that. Okay,

here's the next one from Brandon. Which team should be most disappointed in their season? Ottawa, New Jersey, or Pittsburgh. And I will also lump in Buffalo into this conversation because when you think of most disappointing seasons based on preseason expectations, I think they certainly belong in this list,

but it's an interesting group of teams. How do you feel about this question? I mean, are you, am I supposed to read your Tage Thompson T-shirt out loud? which you are actually wearing as we are. Hey, Tage Thompson, 30. You know what? Him, Timo Meyer and Alex Ovechkin,

it seemed highly unlikely a couple months ago. But all guys, now, Ovechkin's certainly much closer based on his recent scoring output. Timo Myers getting there. Tatee Thompson, I believe, is up to 22 goals. All three guys are still in play for 30 goals this season, which seemed like a couple months ago to be statistically impossible.

But we're getting there. So who knows? A hot stretch to end of season. you could still get there. How do you feel about this? Yeah. Buffalo is a really good addition to that one because it makes me think a little bit more about it. I have, I think I kind of go to New Jersey on this more so because we all knew what the problem was from the beginning.

And I don't think it was the coaching. And I really think it was something where the GM really led his team down by not making, addressing the goalie issue much earlier. I know you'll say, oh, it's hard to make a trade for goalie, ari-y-yad and they traded for Allen at the deadline and all that stuff. But to me, it's New Jersey because I look at kind of what could have been. And if you had just addressed that goal-tending problem much earlier, and there's really one person to blame on that.

I think the other teams have a little bit more, I think there's a little bit more nuance to what the disappointment is, and it wasn't as simple as upgrading one position as it was. as in New Jersey, in my mind, at least. Well, I think also the most consequential one as well, right, where even in a best case scenario, I still struggle to see a reality where this Penguins team would have been positioned

as a legitimate Stanley Cup contenders, same with the Ottawa Senators or even the Buffalo Sabres, despite our excitement for them. Whereas the Devils, based on the way they played last year, I know they kind of got outclassed in that round two match up against Carolina, but still you would have thought, based on the relative age and what they already showed last year.

It's like, all right, the next logical step here is being wanted into like legitimate Stanley Cup contender status and now they're going to likely miss the playoffs. And there's a lot of excuses which you highlighted there for, for why I think they can sort of justify this season and still head into next year with high expectations. And I'm going to be right there again with that. But I think it's got to be the most disappointing just because we're deprived of what should have very logically been a Stanley Cup contender. and they're not.

And so that's, that's disappointing. The reason I wanted to include Buffalo there as well, because in that aforementioned mailbag I did with Ryan Lamber last week, we got a question about what went wrong in Buffalo. And I've given this a lot of thought since then. And I wanted to loop in here, an article that you wrote on your substack,

particularly looking at sort of this power play philosophy of how teams enter the zone, how they get set up, how they establish possession, what the most efficient way to do. so is. And in that chart that you had put together by, I think, Prashant using Corey Schneider's tracking data, it showed the Buffalo Sabres at 32nd in the league in shots created off of power play entries, right? And the reason why I want to note this is because one of the biggest

issues for them has been the fact that their power play has dramatically regressed, right? They were ninth in the league last year. They're down at 27th this year. It's about a 30 goal difference. And for a team that's 16th in the league and goal differential at like break even. That's the difference between missing the playoffs and making it, right? And so while there's other stuff at play here, I think that in unison with Tatea Thompson's injury, of course, and him taking fewer slapshots and all of that is why it's regressed. But it's also an interesting conversation about their approach,

because when watching them anecdotally, I feel like something that they keep bumping into issues-wise is when there's move to, like, when there's room to skate, and move freely, they look very good and dangerous still. But as soon as a team sort of strategically puts up roadblocks in the neutral zone, or at the blue line, which is typically what you're going to face when you're trying to carry the puck and the 5-1-4, they don't really have very many answers or kind of like off-speed pitches to get by, right?

It's like they have one speed or one pace. And if you try to take that away, they're completely befuddled. And I'm not sure how much of that is a personnel issue or how much of it is a coaching issue and tactical one. but that's something that I think they need to figure out this offseason if they're going to take this next step and sort of not only bounce back from this year, but actually become a team that's serious about competing

and not just competing for a playoffs, but trying to win a Stanley Cup in the next couple years. Yeah, it's, they are, they are kind of at the spot when it comes to schematically in coaching for me. There are questions where, I've used this example with, with our pal Rick Bodas before. And we were just obviously talking about Nick Eilers and stuff like that.

And I think there are some coaches who are good crisis slash situation managers where you can help a team get a team from average to good or from okay to good or whatever terminology you want to use. And then I think there are some, and then I think there's a difference, though, between getting a team from good to contending and great and actually being a good tactician and game manager. And I think that is something where you actually, if you're Buffalo, I think you have to,

this harsh because you have a coaching staff that has coached through some tough times and did all that. And we heard all the time about how a couple years ago basically between the coaches and Craig Anderson, they had this great young group that's all taken in the next direction. And at some point, maybe that coaching staff is not the solution. And you need someone who will actually change the approach and be willing to adjust to this. Because clearly everyone else figures out what they're trying to do. and they're very predictable team. They're very exciting teams at times,

but it's a predictable, exciting if you were to use one of those charts with dull fun, exciting, everything predictable. Like we can make predictable and fun on the same chart if we wanted to. That's the Sabres. Well, that makes sense, right? Like, I think coaching,

there's so much nuance to it, but just because you're a good coach or well-suited for a team where they were at two years ago, right? Where it's like, just bring someone in here, who can communicate with young players and build relationships and make them feel comfortable and confident at this level

so they're in a position to succeed. That's one skill set. And that might not necessarily have anything to do with the skill set of those tactical adjustments and strategy and problem solving in high leverage situations when it comes down to winning against other good teams and when you get into the playoffs, certainly adjusting within a series, right?

and we often like we kind of think about coaches as like very is this guy a good coach or not and we don't never really think about what those actual skills are and what their strengths and weaknesses are in that regard and just because someone's a good coach for one situation even within the same team does not necessarily mean they're the right coach within the next year based on you know your expectation changing right and I feel like that's what maybe is happening here I'm not going to throw granato completely under the bus because yeah no no but it's but I think It's a fair question. But no, it's also, at some point someone has to coach, too.

It's the whole, and whether Derek Lal, like, so once again, Detroit is a good easy example for me because I'm right here. Whether Derek Lal is the answer in Detroit or not, we will definitely find out, we will find out as things go here. But part of the, one of the toughest jobs that Jeff Blashell had during the end of his string here was essentially, we all kind of knew it. The writing was on the wall. This team is going to kind of just be bad on purpose.

we're going to kind of just muddle around, we're going to get some picks. And at some point, when it's time to put things going, then we go find the next coach. And it happens with all sorts of, with NHL teams. Now, some teams are like, not every team has Kelly McCrimmon as the GM who's willing to be like, okay, well, we can make the change right now. Like, not everyone is willing to be Vegas about it. And I think this is, and as I said, like I said, we're not trying to be. trying to throw Granado under the bus, but there is a reality here of you might be the great right coach for this time, but you might not be the guy that could, that is for the next

step. And too often, um, I think too often we get overly loyal to coaches, like just as a teams, I'm using the royal we as teams. And when, when the reality is we realize that this is a spot that changes all the time. And, um, honestly, like, if you, looked at if hockey, if hockey management was more realistic about what their coaches meant and did, we would see it look more like international soccer, where you see a manager can be in spot for 18 months. And he's not the guy, but we still have to win. We have to get into the top four to get into the Champions League or whatever.

We're willing to make the move now. And I don't think hockey has the stomach for that in general. I hope that makes sense there. No, no, I think that's, I think that's right. Okay. Yeah. One final question here. Landy's knee asks, how good is Valenichikin really?

and I've got a bunch of points to make on this and a bunch of stats, but I will summarize it as probably much better that anyone is seemingly willing to admit because on this team with a bunch of superstars and big-name players, Kenan, McCar, Ranton, he has been so valuable for them the past couple of years and it's not necessarily as simple as looking at with or without you stats, but at the same time, the numbers with him in the lineup for them

versus when he's not, And part of this is just because for a long period of that time, they haven't had the depth to sustain guys like him and Lekinan being out of the lineup. But they completely fall off the map when he's not available to them. And I think the answer to this is very good. Like really legitimately one of the more important players in the league based on what he contributes to them. I was there was two, I can't remember there was. And I think the Zach Hyman story is great.

But everyone, there was the whole social media interaction the other day. And I can't remember who somebody brought up like, goes, he would of the best, like, impact free agent signings in a while and everything like that. And obviously, the first one to kind of pop in my mind that was kind of snubbed was Artemmy Panarin. But the second one to me was the, like, I know Natchushkin didn't get that first. I know there wasn't the mega deal right away. He had to kind of the prove it deal after the buyout from Dallas. But, I mean, he's been for, and he's a complicated player too, right?

Like, he's a guy who when it's, it's hard to separate just the on ice from the off ice. because we had, we don't really know what happened for him to disappear. And he's, he's obviously dealt with some, some personal things with the player assistance program and everything like that. And I'm someone who covered him when he was a rookie's first couple of years in Dallas. I covered him on a daily basis. He is a person who, he, he's a human being. But when he's on the ice and he's fully dialed in,

he somehow starts to live up to that. Like it was, people laughed at it. Yager, Yarmur Yager was the wonder. and his rookie season in Dallas, people said, oh, this guy could be one of the best players in the world. And Diagra was right, actually. Like, if you watch on a daily basis,

if you had Valenich, Ginnett, with what he is now, when he has everything together, and I want to be very kind to, I'm kind to whatever is happening, because I don't know the background. But when he is fully there, he's easily a top 15 player in the world right now.

And I think that's, he is that good. Like, that's true. That's, and it gets overshown, because he plays on a team with Nathan McKinnon and Cal McCar, but he is that good. I mean, 47 games is here, 26 goals, 50 points, playing 21, 41 per game because of how much they lead on their top players. Obviously, when he's playing with McKinnon and Ranton and like this,

like it's just terrifying seeing three individuals that big and strong and powerful and fast skating together at the same time. Last two years, only Dre Seidel, Ryan Hart, and Timel-Meyer, score power play goals on a permanent basis more than him. And here's that stat for you that I was mentioning. year, they're 33, 11, and 3 with him in the lineup. They're 13, 9, and 2 without. Last year, they were 39, 8, and 6 with him in the lineup, and 12, 16, and 1 without.

And so that's a massive difference here. And he's been incredibly valuable for them. And you're right, I think from a UFA signing perspective, because it came with like an initial one that was much less valuable from like a commitment basis and also was a slow burn because he wasn't playing in this premium usage right away right he was kind of more of a middle six guy for them and then worked his way up but ever since that's down like a final run essentially he's been this top line player for them and has been incredibly valuable so um yeah i thought this was an interesting one because the answer is is very very good and it's never really

talked about in that way so uh any other notes on this or do you want to uh do want to do to do some plugs. Let's do some plugs. All right. I mentioned the substack, which you obviously reference where you write. You got a great piece up there, particularly recently. I want people to check out the PowerPoint one that I mentioned about the Sabres, but also the shot blocking one about the Golden Knights,

which we referenced with Jesse Granger last week when we did our Golden Knights deep dive. But I'll let you quickly plug some stuff and let people know what else they can expect for you moving forward. Yeah. obviously we've got the we have we have that stuff right now and please check that out we have got something from over at EP I've got my weekly column coming up either later today or tomorrow depending on what time I turn it into our palch shady for the for the thoughts on that I over at the website my site shapshots I've put together a quick casual viewers guide to the

NCAA tournament. This is not the Ryan Lambert. Ryan Lambert will give you everything you need to. This is the person who you turn the hockey game on at 2 o'clock on Thursday and I need a reason to root for one of these teams so I threw that together and then I would be remiss if I did not

brag about and talk about sell up the movie this week. We are bringing it to Chicago it's showing the Chicago area on Saturday and I will actually be at the we are doing a promotion with the Chicago Wolves of all people on Wednesday and Friday, I will be at those games. So if you're PDOCAST listener and you're

going to be the games Wednesday or Friday and you want to talk hockey, I'll be at both those games too. Awesome. Well, I highly recommend that. And hopefully people do so because I know people have mentioned in the Discord previously. So if you are in there, give Sean our best. And Sean, thanks for coming on. Mention the Discord. Get in there. If you're not in there already, invite link in the show notes, send in questions for future mailbags. That's going to be. for today. Thank you for listening and we'll be back tomorrow with another episode of the Hockey podcast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.