The Hockey PDOcast - Detroit's Red Hot Start Offensively

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Sean Shapiro to talk about the new look Detroit Red Wings, their fun start to the year, and how Dylan Larkin has clicked with Alex DeBrincat.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filippovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dmitri Filippovich and joining me for the first time this season, first of many, hopefully. It's my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's going on, man? It's good to be back, isn't it?

It's like, I guess this is hockey season, right? Hockey season doesn't start until you get on the PEDO cast. So for all the people who don't get on here, your hockey season never actually begins. So I'm sorry for everyone else. But for me, hockey season starts today. So that's good. Well, that's,

that's true. It's going to be exciting. It's a great year for us. We talked a lot last year. You were one of our most frequent guests, and hopefully we'll be able to do the same this year. And the thing that I love about having you on is we always get to talk about a variety of topics. I mean,

I feel like last year we spent so much time talking about broadcasts and broadcast rights and HL like situations and everything. And so hopefully we'll get to do more of that this year. I thought a good starting point for us here. And I've got a fun grab bag of topics once again. again, but a good starting point would be the Detroit Red Wings because I've enjoyed watching them so far this season. I've got a lot of takes on them. You are fresh off of a trip to Columbus to watch them play in person against the Blue Jackets last night and quite a performance it was by them.

So let's talk about them in their start. Obviously, it's just three games into the season. I think we don't need to do that disclaimer on this podcast. I assume people listening are aware of the small sample size situation in the first month of the season at least. we don't, everything doesn't need to be prefaced with. Well, keep in mind it is a small sample size. But even though it has been three games, I think it's looked so different than last season that at least it should inspire some confidence that part of the plan or the logic behind a lot of the moves they made is actually starting to fundamentally change what this

organization and what this team looks like on the ice. Yeah, I mean, it is a better team. That's the whole thing. for any discourse or question about why they did this move or that move in the summer, like undoubtedly the Detroit Red Wings are a better hockey team today than they were last year when they were four or five months ago. They're a better hockey team. They are like you look at the depth of the team and I'm not saying they're a quote

unquote contender or whatever, but like you look at the depth and you look at how this team can play now and you're like, okay, that's actually a team that can go in, in, in games. And I know they go and they beat Columbus, they beat Columbus last night and Columbus is a bad hockey team. So it's hard to, you don't want to overreact to that. But their first three games, you go into New Jersey. You play pretty well against New Jersey, aside from one of the weird, like one of the weirder, really Husso games where if not for basically getting doinked on a, off the side of the head and kind of losing a fadeaway shot, you could argue Detroit could even be 3 and 0 with wins against both New Jersey and Tampa.

It's a really good start to the year, and they are a better hockey team. Well, speaking of that, devil's game, I was reaching, we're watching this morning in preparation for the show, and they did play pretty well. It was pretty much their downfall was just this five-minute stretch where Jack Hughes just went full supernova against them, and I know Red Wings fans are upset because the start of that was a blatant miss slash on the first goal, right? And then they come down, and he beats Willie Huso with that shot from the goal. line, but that's what Jack Hughes does, right? He just takes games over like that and he scores the two

goals in that stretch and had another scintillating coast to coast rush in that process as well. And that's the only reason they really lost that game. But you're right. The three games are highly encouraging. And as much as you want to just kind of chalk up that the Blue Jackets game to, oh, well, Columbus isn't very good. Columbus kind of positioned themselves this offseason similarly to Detroit, right? They're obviously kind of behind. in terms of the timeline. But for the most part, a lot of their moves

had us kind of feel in the same way, which was, all right, they're clearly going to be better because they're adding actual NHL players this off season, but kind of at what long-term cost and is this the right move for them?

They were clearly very desperate to at least be competent or relevant this season. And so for Detroit to go in and just kind of, you know, have their way with them the way they did is still, you know,

a check mark. in my box for them. Well, and also from a Detroit perspective, right? Like there's the side-by-side rebuild comparison. If you're Detroit and you're looking at side-by-side with Columbus, a team that's two rebuilding teams, quote-unquote, next to each other, you're in a much better spot. You're also supposed to, it's one of the things where we always talk a big deal

about when you win against opponents that are better or higher profile, like the game against Tampa. Like it was a big win for Detroit, right? Home Opener, all that stuff, team with Tampa's profile, everything like that. But teams that make the playoffs, especially in the Eastern Conference, where we're going to see 94, 95 points again,

and whatever it'll be, you have to go on the boring Monday night to Columbus and get the job done. Take care of business. Yeah, exactly. And I think sometimes we undersell that, where it's like, okay, well, they're supposed, but good teams are the ones that go

and they get those points 80% of the time. They're not the ones that it's, when you go and make a statement that you're going to win games that you're supposed to, that makes the surprise victories, for lack of a better word, or the bigs where someone like the eyebrowsers for someone walking at the box score, that makes them more impressive because you're combining those things.

Yeah, and not only taking care of business, but doing so in a definitive fashion, right, where you don't leave any doubt really. I think the big difference for me is, and we talked about this a lot last year, even there was that stretch where they were kind of hovering around the wildcard line, right? And then they had those two very disappointing back-to-back performances against Ottawa that essentially pushed them into the direction of, all right, we need to take a full step back here, sell what we can at the deadline and kind of play for next year or for the future.

But they were still kind of hovering around that playoff mark. They were sticking around. They were winning games. But even while that was all happening, the 5-15 results, particularly offensively, were downright pathetic, right? Like they were right down there with teams that weren't even trying to win games. It was like the Blackhawks and the coyotes and the teams who were in the Boudard sweepstakes. And they finished the year in 5-15 offense, 30th and shots, 31st and high-tinger chances, 31st and expected goals, 28th and goals generated.

And so that clearly wasn't good enough. And I think a lot of their logic this off-season was you go out, you bring in Gostisbury, you bring in Sprong, you know, less so, obviously they paid comp for a lot, but less so to boost the 5-1-5 offense kind of more for other reasons. You bring in Debrinkat, of course. and now you're seeing some of that pay dividends where it is only the three games, but their fourth, seventh, and eighth

in those respective categories offensively, a 5-15. And if you just watch that Tampa Bay game and maybe we can talk a little bit about the lightning as well, because maybe it might be more about them than the Red Wings. Well, we'll find out over the next couple weeks. But that was a very fun, chaotic back-and-forth game that I'm not sure last year's Red Wing team was capable of even participating in, right?

Like they were the aggressors in that one, and they welcomed the opportunity to play that type of game and obviously came out victorious in it. But I think the fact that they could actually do so and had the horses to play that way was at least noteworthy for me and kind of something to maybe at least, you know, year mark and kind of revisit later on in the season.

Well, Detroit has, like, they actually have guys who shoot the puck now, right? Like last year watching them play, part of it was, and I don't even think it was a system or coaching thing. They just, they didn't have guys who were, A, good enough shooting the puck, or be willing to shoot the puck. You bring in a sprang, you bring in a de brinket, you bring in Gostis bear from the blue line.

Like all of a sudden now, it's kind of like the rising tides, all boats thing, is once again terribly cliche. But when you bring in a couple guys who are willing to shoot more and it moves some other guys, it takes some of the pressure else. Like I was talking to Jill Villano about this yesterday before the Columbus game.

Like he's a guy who has really benefited from some of the guys coming in and being able to play with other guys where he is not a primary shooter on his line anymore. And he's never been really, it's, it's funny hearing a guy who has a first round picked to have even admitted out loud, but he said he's never really been a primary shooter on a line. And that's kind of what he had to be last year. And even in the bottom, the middle, six, bottom six, but still, he had to be that guy. Last night, he's playing with Daniel Sprong and David Perron. Clearly, Sprong is the is the attention grabber, the shooter, everything like that. It allows other guys to play their game a little bit more. I think just this Detroit team went

and added, obviously the Debrinkat one's always the big one. That's the one. That's the trade that everyone is going to talk a lot about because it's in everyone wants to see. And him and Larkin seem to finally be finding something the last four or five periods. But just, I think the Gostaspera thing is big. I think the Sprong thing is big, as you said. And it's a team that last year there was no, they didn't have the roster to actually make that leap. As much as they wanted to be like they were, there was that, I remember last year at the deadline,

about two weeks before the deadline. They're above the playoff cut line, about two, three weeks before the deadline. And everyone's thinking like, oh, they could do it. But anyone who really looked and pulled up the hood realized that this

wasn't going to come. Like this year, they actually have the pieces that I could see them doing this. Am I going to pick them? Probably not. But you know what? I at least see the path. here. And that's a huge step

for this franchise. It's been, I mean, as much as people have preached patience and the fandom in Detroit has really put full faith in Iserman and the Izer plan and everything like that, this is the first like real big step forward year for me in this view of

like, okay, we actually see them building a team that actually could be a playoff team here. Daniel sprang two goals in 38 minutes, the Seattle Crack and two goals in 185 minutes this season. now he is a player who has legitimate shooting talent like he's proven that over the course of his career it's funny because those two goals are two goals that you or i could have scored and that's saying a ton because it's uh one was legitimately even actually properly registered as a poke

on the nchl game sheet and then the other one was basically a weird bounce off his knee when his best chance i think he's rang the post clean three times like beating the goalie like he could stuff like he he scored the goals he shouldn't but he's having the shots too i love how much he loves scoring goals like obviously listen you're playing in the nch l scoring goals is very cool but like even on even on those regardless of how they come just like standing in front of the net triumphantly hands in the air with like a smirk on his face as if he just came down the wing and ripped one top corner like it's it's it's good stuff i love daniel sprong but you know you mentioned there kind of how much of it was it was a bit of a question for me right because

Derek Lalon came in last year and coming from Tampa, I think he really wanted to set a template for playing a certain way and kind of bringing over this like structure and, and defensive responsibility. And I think he placed a big emphasis on that. And so it was a question of me of, okay, how much of that is him and how much of this systemic and how much of it is just personnel driven on the fact that they don't really have the firepower to play any other way. And it seems at least now that they've got some reinforcements than maybe it was just purely a personnel thing. And regardless of so we don't want to get ahead of ourselves after three games and be talking about the playoffs, like that that's kind of irrelevant for me at this point.

But the point I kept coming back to last year, and I think is an important one and kind of gets understated and lost in the shovel sometimes, is regardless of what your end result is going to be, if you're going to sort of champion yourself as this young, exciting next wave team that has sucked for a few years, but because of that, you've drafted high and you have some fun, exciting talent entering your lineup. If you're not actually playing in those types of games at all, and it's just like you're trying to drag out to one games, that's almost unacceptable for me if I'm a fan of the team, right? Like, if you're going to regardless of, you obviously want to win. Yeah. If you win ugly, whatever, you don't, you don't apologize for it, certainly. It's

tough to win in the NHL. But I think there's a very valuable step in any organization. arc upwards of playing fun games, getting into these six, four games that they got into with Tampa Bay on Saturday. And that was an immensely fun game, right? It was, yeah, that was a great game. I mean, as it went along, you got whatever your interest are, you got big hits, you got chances, you got goals. It was back and forth.

There was a sequence, I think, in the first 10 minutes where the Red Wings go down, they have a two on O, right? I think it was Walman and Valeno maybe. Yeah, Walman and Valeno. Christian Fisher trailing. And then Tampa Bay comes back on a three on one in scores. And it's like, I'm sure,

you know, if Derek Lawn had any more hair to pull out, he would be pulling it out. But at the same time, as a viewer, it's like, this rocks. It's great.

And that's also, it's kind of funny because we're talking about Detroit taking this next step. But it's also the big point of you mentioned Tampa of Tampa, Tampa will always be there because you got, I give you a three on a three on one or three on oh with Christian Fisher, Jake Wallman and Joe Villano. And then going the other way is headman Kutcherov and Stamco. one of those trios is going into the hockey Hall of Fame.

One is not. So it's, yeah, but Tampa Bay, I mean, I don't know, you got to see them that night. They played the next night in Ottawa and, or I guess that was like the next, well, yeah, I think it was an evening game, it wasn't a bad name. Yeah, yeah. They didn't have Stamco's who was scratched and they're often inauspicious start, right? It's kind of maybe what we should have expected based on the goal-tending situation. Like the 14 goals against in three games,

one thing I think what's concerning for me though is it's a bit of an extension of the end of last regular season and we just chalk it up to all right well they're laying out the string they'll turn on flip the switch in the playoffs and they did to an extent against toronto in round one even though they lost but they get out shot 42 to 25 by the red wings they get out shot 38 to 24 by ottawa and you just look at the foot speed of that blue line i mean it was kind of stunning to watch in that red wings game where there were times the De Brinket goal, for example, where, like, Larkin just, Tampa Bay defenseman may as well not have been on the ice

because it was such a clear path from his own zone all the way into the attacking zone. And that was, that was a two-on-one that somehow turned into a two-on-oh after three steps. Like, that was, it was pretty bad luck for Tampa. That goal, obviously, Larkin's a fast player, but it's still, it's, the other thing with Tampa, too, right? Like, it's, the fact

of the matter is Vasilesky's injury was always going to be a huge story and everything like that. And I think there's there's always the tactical point of it. But I also think there's a bit of the, a bit of the emotional aspect of it too, because even when he wasn't on his best, which was very rare, but even when Masleski wasn't on his best, there, you could see, if you look back to past years, I talked to someone who's, I talked to an NHL video coach actually last week, about this. So he said, where it's, it was interesting watching Tampa's effort and for lack of a better word, given F level when it was Vasilesky versus whoever the backup was. And obviously that's changed quite a bit over the couple years. And it was interesting to kind of here's perspective.

He's like, I wonder where that kind of what happens with that team this year because they would kind of, for lack of a better word, when the backup was in, they would almost coast a little bit more because they're like, okay, we're playing with house money in this one. Because if we do, if we win this game. We win this game. Either way, we've got Vasillesi back the next game. This was another team's coach kind of reading on it.

And it's interesting to kind of look at that with this Tampa team. And they've won multiple championships, and I'm not taking anything away from the pedigree of who that team is. But it is interesting to have seen it in person here in Detroit the other night. And then I didn't watch that game live, but watch a little bit of some of us. I watched a little bit of that game against Ottawa where it shouldn't be, you take out one piece and somehow everything starts to. feel slower. And that's, that's concerning.

Yeah. I mean, Vasselowski obviously as the best, if not one of the best goalies in the league, covers up for a lot of those mistakes. But the reason why I made the point of the blue line foot speed is, and part of the theory was, okay, well, without Vasselowski, they're going to have to try harder as a team this regular season, because they just have less room for error. And so the offensively, they're going to have to score more, and maybe they're going to be more aggressive. That's all well and good. And they have the firepower up front to play that way and convert on some of those opportunities. But the chances they're giving up because of how slow they are on the back end is highly alarming.

And so when you run into kind of this younger team with a bit more pep in their step, it can look really ugly. And that's basically what happened to them twice in a whatever 24, 48 hour period there. And so that would be alarming for me and some to certainly monitor. But back to the Red Wings, let's talk a little bit about Dylan Larkin. because especially in that game against Tampa Bay, he looked like a man possessed, right? And add the combination of him and De Brinket makes a lot more sense

when you see him playing that way, because let's take that goal, for example. So Larkin creates it with just this like possessed effort where he's an absolute maniac and he's flying out there and he creates, his speed creates such a disruption against other players that are flat-footed like that and puts them in such an uncomfortable position

and creates all these mad scrambles and loose pucks that he's able to track down. And when you pair the Brinkett's lightning quick release and shot with that, all of a sudden you get into these very interesting situations where off the rush or even off of loose puck scrambles in the offensive zone, he's able to quickly convert on it. That's something that Larkin really hasn't had the luxury

of playing with before. And so I love the combination of the two of them. You're seeing it happen now on the ice. And I'm going to be watching closely as this season goes along to see if they can kind of keep honing in on that because the one-two punch in that regard of what Larkin creates and then the Brin gets ability to finish the play has the potential to be one of the best combos in the league. It's also not just the straight line 160 foot stretches which are impressive. But like even the guy was the third guy in the line last two games, Lucas Raymond, right? he set the goal his goal against Tampa is basically Larkin's speed creating the disruption on headman there and then Larkin and then Raymond just taking kind of the tight angle shot but that's

Larkin's speed going through and I think it's it's fun it's it's kind of I'm sure from Dylan Larkin's perspective and knowing a little bit for kind of the emotional roller coaster he went through last year like he had one of the weirdest I think you and the I even had a show soon after after he signed his extension it was right around and it was literally the sign his extension between him signing the extension and his media availability they trade away Tyler Bertuzi who's one of his best friends and and we have the one of the weirdest kind of emotional like I just signed to be here for eight years extensions at the same time I'm mourning that my best friend got traded away and everything like that and so he's just

wiping his tears with all the dollar bills yeah yes and this season I think we're kind of seen a little bit of the, to start the year, we're seeing a little bit of the, he's getting a rewarded by his own efforts and all of that stuff. And he hasn't had it, and it took, and they, the thing that I like that Derek Llan did was like, and I don't know how much Red Wings preseason you watch. Him and DeBringit did not click in preseason. For whatever reason, they did not, they struggled in preseason. They would play together and you'd be like, this is, this is not going to work. What's going to happen? And even in the game of New Jersey, it took a little, like in New Jersey, they weren't really impact players. They had the power, De Brinket scored the power play goal, but that was about it.

And then, but they kind of stuck with it. And I give Derek Lal credit because I know there are many coaches who would have already tried to shuffle that top line a little bit, thinking that would be the spark or that they would have overly coached it. And I think Lal deserved some credit early on for letting them. work their way through it. He spoke publicly, rather publicly after the first game, spoke going into the Tampa game about how he needed to see more, but he didn't take it apart. He didn't mess with it. He didn't be like, okay, I'm going to separate you and then put you guys back together. I like that they were able to find their way into it. And I mean, what, like you talk about Markins game, right? He's got like 18 shots and three games here.

Like, he's, the goal he scored last night against Columbus was just, it was silliness looking in how slow the rest of the rest of the, how slow we made the blue jackets look. Like he is playing on a, he's kind of hit jet speed after maybe about two periods in New Jersey there. He certainly has. I think stylistically the way, just thinking about the way you want Dylan Larkin and the brinket

playing is very similar to what the Seattle Cracken did last year, right? Where you use Larkin to pursue the puck like a madman in the offensive zone. and create all of these quick turnovers and situations where the defense isn't set. And then instead of slowing it down once you get the puck and passing up to the point and working it around, you need to quickly capitalize, right? You need to like immediately with very deliberately shoot the puck from a high danger area.

And the brinket is very well positioned to do so and has already capitalized a couple times so far this season. He's got the three goals. I think two of them were off of kind of situations that I would describe in that way. and the two end together so far. You mentioned the connection. I mean, 33, 5 and 5 minutes, shots are 26 to 15 for the Red Wings goals 3-0. So that'll certainly play.

And through no fault of his own, this is a big sort of crossroads moment for Dylan Larkin, right? He's 27 years old. This is year one of that mega extension. So he's going to be here, but he hasn't really gotten to actually enjoy an extended period of this type of hockey. Really, it is in his career.

with this team, right, because of when he came in to the situation. And so it's really fun to watch him play like this and to have a running mate like that and be positioned to actually succeed. And so for his sake, I hope it can continue. And regardless, I think this team's going to be much more watchable. And so I would like to take my victory lap already against our pal Thomas strands because he was very down on them from an aesthetic perspective. And I was at least cautiously optimistic that it would look much different than last year.

And so far through three games, I would say that's certainly the case. it is and it's uh i mean larkin it's funny like he's got people forget like i think people think he's older people think he's older because he's like it's it's he's both older and younger than people realize at the same time he's 27 um but i think people kind of think of like how long it's been since detroit's in the playoffs and for some reason that age is like five years and you think larkin's like already 32 or something like that he's really he's and but he's a guy who he came in his only career like NHL playoff experience is that last year of basically the Ken Holland's streak still sacrificing future years to get it to continue to continue a streak, right? And so his only playoff

experience is five playoff games in 2016. And he's had a lot of long summers, like a lot of really long summers. I actually talked about it right after training camp about how there's to for him the NHL norm is 80 games like that's that's what it is and it's he's really excited actually about the opportunity for it to not be that for and that's kind of one of the reasons that you saw the tears at the press conference last year because like they were this close they were above the playoff cut line he and then his his GM looks at the underlying things and realize this is not the year and as a player that really hurt that really pulls the rug at. Hide site. You look back at it. You look where this team is. You move some assets to get

some other things done. And you're having more fun to start this year. But at the moment, it really hurt. And I think for Larkin, it's one of those where it's like, it's like, you and I've talked about on the show before. Or it's like it's, you like to root for certain guys. He's a guy who's easy to root for it. Because you look at this Detroit rebuild and you look at where they're going. And he's the guy. You're like, I want to see them continue to take the next step because of the guys who got came in on ground floor day one as they were ripping it down and then are still there if it ever pays off however long it takes well especially with how he played Saturday night when he's when he's playing at that level it's like he's just a maniac and it's so fun to watch and

yeah he i mean he's it does feel like that because he's been around forever just because of how young he was when he entered the league right so he's been in our lives for so long um 27 for a guy who utilize his speed the way he does is you know it's it's reaching the point where like this is the time now I will say I think over the past year or two he's really added this layer of especially in the power play kind of like becoming this bumper player and an ability in the offensive zone

adding wrinkles to his game where I think he's going to have an extended run I don't think he's like a pure just basically fastball player and that's it. And once he loses a few miles per hour off that, he's going to become totally different. But the speed is really fun and is a trademark. And he's just able to make people very uncomfortable with it. And then capitalize on it.

So yeah, I'm excited to keep watching it. And man, I just, yeah, just M&M blasting after all those goals. Like, that was a fun game. So I wanted to talk a little bit about it here. Yeah. It is. You mentioned the bumper. And it just brings up another.

thing that we should give credit to for Detroit doing is one of the thing they were really missing and we saw they scored two on the power play last night. They scored two on the power play against New Jersey. The Shane Gassasbier signing, like they were, they bring them in and you're at first glance

you're like, okay, what role is this guy going to play? Most siders clearly power play quarterback number one. What role is he going to play on this? And he's added the element and you talk about like Larkin really has kind of grown into that bumper roll spot. But like, Gostaspera kind of playing the flank as the second defenseman on the power play

on that first unit, that's been a huge, obviously, once again, to say the phrase we wouldn't use, but just because it's only three games, but you look at that kind of move and it's added an immediate need for Detroit because that power play last year, so much pressure was on cider to get everything done. Basically, everything kind of, and sometimes he handled it, Sometimes he did it. This year having Gasta Spare there, kind of having him to kind of be that second point, man, almost from that point, add some of that creativity, what his shot opens up. Like, I think that's another big thing about Detroit, not just because he scored last night and that goal was at five on five, but just the way you look at the way Detroit's power play works better with Gostasper there in general. That's a move that the Larkin, the De Brinket move is always big.

The Sprang's got two goals, but the Gostisper one, like, that's one where I want, I think. You got to give a little bit more credit for kind of taking something from the Arizona trash heap almost. I guess you've technically finished in Carolina for a bit. But taking someone who had gone through the was lost in the desert for a while and kind of finding a solution, that's something where Detroit deserves a ton of credit for so far. Lost in the desert. Nice play on words there. Yeah, we could do a full show on power play tactics.

So I don't want to get too much into that here. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're bringing that up to me thinking because something else I've noticed early in this season. I'm not sure how much of it just like rust for penalty kills and how much of it is just a random sequencing. But I've noticed teams attacking a lot more off the rush in the power play so far this season. And I love it. I've been a big proponent of that for a while now.

I can think of, you know, the Larkin scored. I think you could also say Tyler Johnson against the Leafs, Mark Schifley against Florida the other night. Like that quick, it's always puzzling to me. And I get you have the extra man and you want to kind of. work the puck and look for the best shot possible. And so that's why teams just try to enter the zone and then get set and operate from there more methodically. But it always made more sense to me to try to kind of quick strike and seeing teams do that

so far is interesting. So I hope that's an actual trend and not just a random aberration early in the season. Especially when so many teams for penalty killers, they're just willing to put, they're willing to say it's okay for two slower guys to be on the penalty kill because you're basically standing in the box and defending space. So what's the weakness for that typical player, attack them with speed? Love it. All right, Sean, let's take our break here.

And then when we come back, we'll bounce around and talk about a variety of other topics who are listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network. Catch up on what happened in Vancouver Sports with Halford & 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 in the Hockey PEDO cast with Sean Shapiro. Sean, we spent the first block talking about the Detroit Red Wings. Let's balance around a little bit here. Let's talk about the other team.

You cover near and dear to both of our hearts, Dallas Stars. They've only played one game so far. You've got to love the NHL's rollout for the start of a season. It's like, all right, I know it's been three months. I know you've been waiting eagerly. to watch your favorite team. Here's one game in the first week. Enjoy it.

It's all you're going to get. That's basically what's in the case here. I know there's always like scheduling quirks and conflicts with arenas and all that. But yeah, just the one game so far while a handful of other teams have already played for. Well, so I like it's you want to, NHL doesn't really earn the benefit of the doubt most times.

So sometimes we give it to it. Every single game last night started at the exact same time. I know. it's it's crazy that like because October 24th I think it is the Tuesday they're doing that like that yes because of ESPN in the states they're doing that game that day where it's like every single team's playing yeah every single team's playing and most of the games are starting on like 15 minute increments right and it's absolutely baffled it's it's just crazy to think of the state of things it took the large the largest or basically one for the one of the two

largest partners for the league, the TV partner, saying like, hey, let's do this for them to try to, for that actually to happen, for something like that to actually happen. But it's, and it's also like Dallas, right? It's Dallas, Vegas tonight. Like, it's a, it's a Easter for, so if you're on the Eastern time zone, it's a late start, 10 p.m. start. I think it's for Dallas, people in Dallas, it'll 9, 9 p.m. start for them. And I know the game's in Vegas, but like, you talk about a game that, and I know, because I've played three games already.

But you talk about like, oh, you know what, we get two of the top teams in the West, two teams that are supposed to played in the Western final last year. And let's all build up to it with the stars basically going on a team retreat to California to Palm Springs for five days because they had nothing to do, but since they played last Thursday. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, so they don't stagger the games because they, because of sponsors, right? Like they want people to actually watch the commercials. so they like it when all the games are at intermission. But at the same time, I love that they're doing it. It's like one time only this season. We're actually going to start all the games at the exact times that you, the viewer, wants it.

We're going to give you this one game this season. We know it's good. We know you want it. But that's all you get. And part of it falls on the teams too because like, I think, like, I know Detroit did it last year. And I remember when Detroit did it, they were like the 28th or 29th team to standardize the 7 p.m. start on the weekday. So, like, we used to have a good split of teams that had standardized 7.30 home starts versus 7 o'clock. And basically, every team started going to

the 7 p.m. start. I don't know if it's all 32 yet or not. I know Dallas went to it this year. I mean, eventually, I mean, I don't know if it's 32 for 32 yet, but basically it went from, we used to have mostly maybe like, I want to say, 2010, or 20, 20 teams that were 20 teams that were 20 teams that were 7 o'clock, 12 teams that were like 7.30. So at least gave some, on a generic Tuesday night, we at least had some split. Since every team has decided, oh, I want the local 7 p.m. start for various reasons. It's led to nights like last night, five games all at the same time. Like I was at the, like as we said earlier, the Detroit Columbus game, like, oh, I'd like to listen to one while I'm driving back to, well, I'm driving back.

Nope, nope. You watched your hockey for the night. you don't get to watch anymore or listen to anymore. Yeah. Well, they did the same thing on both Friday and Sunday. I know the game started, I guess, slightly apart, but there was like no evening game. And yeah, yeah, with a 7 p.m. Eastern start time,

one of the biggest myths going. That's actually sometime between 707 and 7303 depending on the rank. 7.08, I think, is like the spot. I would bet if we wanted to get like deep into nerdy, like game sheet stuff that no one has any time. to pull. I would bet the start time is typically 708. I would guess that's the most frequent time, but

that's a project for... Well, last year, Stanley Cup final games were like 27 minutes after start listed start time. Yeah. Anyways, two guys getting old, getting crumagony, talking puck drops. No, let's talk a little about the stars.

We only got to see the one game so far from them. Rupa Hinton play, of course. We're going to see a lot more than this week. They were one of my obviously, you know, they were fun to watch last year. They made the Western Conference final. There was a lot of reason to be excited about them heading into this season. But what I really wanted to see from them was how they approach this season because they're one of the few teams, I think, that should be very incentivized to treat this regular season as kind of like a testing ground, right?

Of course, you want to win games. You want to finish as high as you can. Make sure you have home ice. They in particular, Rupa Hins is like the greatest home ice player that I've ever. ever seen play. I'm not sure they want to have that. You don't need the home ice modifier. You don't need the home ice modifier. Well, yeah. He's the greatest player I've ever seen that. That's true. People do know that. They certainly want to be good this regular season. But just because of and, you know, there's some older players on their team, they also are trying to sprinkle in and kind of thread

this needle of incorporating younger players and having them play key roles as well, not just kind of on the margins, but literally being integral parts of the team. And why Johnson certainly thrived last year. But on the blue line, they really need to try to get Thomas Harley more reps, get Niels-Lunquist more reps, have Pete DeBurr, trust them in key situations, and either find out that they're good enough and they should just be playing more all the time, or find out that maybe they're not good enough. And then you have up until the trade deadline to act accordingly because you have, you have,

some flexibility. You have interesting pieces that rebuilding teams would want and you're very firmly positioned as trying to compete for a Stanley Cup right now while you have Joe Pavelski playing at this level and Ben and say again still on the team, right? And how close you came last year. And so it's only been one game, but we saw what I think we've been clamoring for for a while, which is Thomas Harley and Neil Zunk was both played more than Ryan Souter. Now Suter played very predominantly with Miro Hayskin into 5-on-5, but we did see Pita Bura, manufacture some offensive zone shifts for Harley and Hayskin and together. We saw both those guys play more.

We saw Lundquist actually get some rope and play and play well. And so that would be very encouraging that it's just one game, but if this is the way they're going to approach it, I'm going to be much higher on this team's outlook this season. And I think they're going to be more fun to watch as well. Yeah, I'm really interested to see, I'm really interested to see what tonight and Thursday look like for Dallas because Hishkinen played 2753, I think. You've got played 2753, right?

Now obviously that also includes three on three overtime, so jumps up a little bit. But you also have to remember with Dallas's schedule. Like, I know there was, Miro had five days to rest. So there was, there was, within that game with that opening night game, there was against St. Louis, there was even more of the, like, we don't, we don't have to worry about any load management at all tonight. He doesn't have to play for five games.

It's the same reason Rope Hintz didn't play an opening night. I know that HINS actually probably could play it on opening night, but they're like, since we have five days before the next game, and we're looking at the long term here, we're going to give Hints an extra five days to heal up and not take up another knock based off how he plays. So I'm really interested to see how they use Harley in Lundquist tonight because this week they'll be back to, okay,

you can't have Miro playing 28 minutes tonight. even though you're going to get to that spot in the playoffs anyway, but in the regular season, you have to at least be smart, smart enough to start finding ways to share those minutes. I'm really interested to see, does some of those minutes, does that get an extra minute or two for Harley and Lundquist?

That'd be great. Does it or does it become more of, does it go to Yanni Hockenpa or Esselandell or whatever? At this point, like you really, I'm really interested to see the usage tonight on how that plays out. Because I really, one of the most important things Dallas did right off the bat.

And we saw it in that in that game was they took, they took Ryan Suter off the power play. That was one of the first big things they needed to do. And giving Lundquist an actual role was a huge step. Because last year he was basically this interesting, you traded a first round pick for him type player who had some excitement, but because they wouldn't take Souter off the second power play, and he was kind of a, he didn't really,

and he doesn't kill penalties, he didn't really have a role. And for Pete DeBoer, with how he uses his defenders and manages guys, you have to have a special teams role or you get lost in the flow. And that can be said for a lot of coaches. Some coaches are better at finding guys who don't have special teams roles. But DeBoer in general for his system and how he uses players, if you don't have a special teams role, you tend to get lost.

And that's kind of what happened to Lundquist last year. And he made some mistakes. And then he got completely sheled for the playoffs. The fact they gave Lundquist a specific role off the, bat to start the year to me. That's a huge step in the right direction because that's an asset. You need to find out who that player is and everything like that because I think Harley was a great example last year where he came in late in the regular season, what, for three, four games or whatever, and you found out he was probably already your second best defender.

You need Lundquist to be able to start taking those steps to this season. I'll be at the NHL level, right? Yeah, and Mero's so superhuman that sometimes he can kind of like trick us. and I'm sure trick the coaching's happened to being like, well, he should just play all the time because he makes it look so easy and he's so much better than everyone else. But you could tell by the end of that Vegas series,

part of it was because they had played so many playoff games to get to that point. But he was like hanging on by a thread. And both physically and psychologically, I think, because he was just going, like Corey Strider was tracking his puck touches in terms of defensive zone retrievals, like going back to play the puck.

And it was just so lopsided compared to everyone else because he was always playing because he was one of the only guys on the team who could do so. And so every time he's just going back and he knows that, all right, I got to brace myself for getting absolutely hammered here. And after that's happening 20, 30, 40 times a game,

20 into 20 playoff games, all of a sudden it's like it takes its toll, right? And so I certainly want to try to avoid that. Now, I think it's easier to do this from a usage perspective at home against St. Louis compared to on the road against Vegas. And I think that'll be. He'll play a ton of it.

he'll play ton tonight against Vegas. It's the Thursday game against Anaheim is the one where you're like, okay, that's where we. No, well, the thing for me is like, I'm on the record. I like Pete the board as a coach and I think he's a net positive, certainly, and the team improved last year for a reason under him. But sometimes he can get very sad in his ways like every, every coach. And this is one of those few situations where I feel like if you just, if you just hit every point on like a checklist of five things in terms of who plays,

what situation and how you roll out the minutes on this team, you can very clearly, like, go down a path of optimizing it and getting a completely different look compared to a lot of other teams where there's so many moving parts and it's clouded and it's uncertainty, right? In this case, it's like, all right, you need to play these defensemen. You need to not play Ryan's two on the second unit power play.

You need to have an actual distribution of ice time between your forward lines. And it can't just be all four lines playing the exact amount and relying on your fourth line too much because they always start in the defensive zone. And he did that in game one, right? Like the fourth line had a much different look than last year because they were using Craig Smith and they were using sand steel.

And it wasn't just three defensive specialists. And they actually played the least on the team. Ryan Suter wasn't playing 25 minutes and he wasn't playing on a second unit power play parable. And I was like, this is exactly the look I want to see from this team. You can't play Lindell and Hock and Pot together because no one can handle the puck on that pair as we saw last post season. and if people actually stick to his guns and does all of these things,

I'm going to be very high on this team. If it just reverts back during tough games on the road against a team of the caliber of the Vegas Golden Knights, all of a sudden, we're going to be basically having the same conversations we had all of last year. Yeah, I agree with that. I agree that. Like, you look at this team, it's role-wise are set up extremely well,

where other than the main guys that you expect, right? Like, Hishkin, obviously, is playing both special teams unit. The split is pretty good, too, of you don't have, you have a lot of teams where sometimes you have guys playing on both units because you don't have enough options, right? And basically, this Dallas team, other than Craig Smith, everyone pretty much has a job on one unit or the other. Or they are the elite of the elite in Miro Hachkinin, who, of course, he's playing both. Like, I think that's a really good setup as a team,

and it keeps a team flow involved really well. And like, as long, if there's, if you get into a special team's game, you're not going to lose a guy, except that may be Greg Smith, but that's, you know what my parting shot, okay,

enough on the stars. Let's know, my parting shot for today, because we do got to get out of here in a couple minutes, is here's my recommendation for everyone. Watch every single Florida Panthers game that you can this season. There, when you're talking about roles,

they're so positioned to just not play a single normal game for at least the next month or two. Like you look and it's like Oliverickman-Larsen is playing over 26 minutes a night. If they're down and if Sergey Barowski's not playing well, they're so good because there's such a high volume offensive team of mounting these frantic comebacks. And in the opener, they don't score, Philip Gustavs and shuts them out, but they generate a ton of chances and shots on them and at least it's entertaining. In game two, they're frantically trying to come back against,

the Winnipeg Jets and somehow they come within like a goalpost on a Matthew Kachuk short-handed breakaway in the in the dying seconds to actually tying that game. And then last night they're up for nothing. And it's like, all right, they actually might actually just play a normal game. No. New Jersey scores three goals has a chance to come back and they're just white knuckle hanging of the rest of the way. And so I just think because of how good the forward group is and we know all about it

because they're postseason run last year and how thin and decimated the blue line is and how they're just basically asking everyone other than Gus Forsling to play probably like five to seven more minutes than they should in a normal situation. This team is so perfectly set up to just play the most exciting games, regardless of who's up every single night. And so I think I had them like seven three on my watchability rankings. I wish I could redo it because I think they should be like third right after probably New Jersey and Edmonton.

I mean, Nico Mickelow played what, 20, 20, 21 minutes last time or something like that. that's a perfect example of how how usage is there and it's it's the perfect reason to bookmark their schedule too. All right, Sean. Let's get out here. I'll let you plug some stuff on the way out. What are you working on? You've been cranking out the post on your on your sub stack.

Let the listeners know kind of what you've gone to works and maybe let's let's workshop some ideas as well for you in terms of like what you've got on tap coming because I know you're always open to. Definitely always. So ideas that are seeds and then all of a sudden you plant them and you try to figure out what they're going to grow into. Yeah, I mean, last week I was over, I overly looked at one, Yonis Saganthal or two on one against Detroit and him completely leaving his feet and took me down the wormhole of that's what happened all the time during that 2015, 16, 2016, 2016, 17 stars team. Lindy Ruff wanted players to slide. And so if you want, if you want to get overly nerdy into whether a defenseman should slide or leave.

their feet on a two on one on that piece is up there uh that came out yeah yesterday was only monday so that came out yesterday uh and then uh yeah i got some uh still workshopping some other other ideas i'm sure you'll you'll give me an idea on this too last last year with this led to the pdo cast appearances led to a couple good stories so uh if we ever make to a spot where there's a commission check maybe you'll get something in the mail but we got you got to get much for have you written about connor bernard yet i am actually going to Chicago. I'm flying Chicago Saturday morning, actually, to go

watch the for the home opener in Chicago. And I'm actually interested to write something about the Conor Boudard experience just from the hype around it. Just kind of just but, and so not even

the, because just in A, we talk about NHL silly scheduling. Chicago gets this generational talent, everything like that and fans have to wait five games before he ever plays a home game, which is also great. So I'm actually going to Chicago on Saturday to kind of write about that whole scene

and kind of take a larger look at that with the lens of that. And then also I'm speaking of, the other really interesting thing that I'm interested to dive into this coming weekend, combining with a trip to Chicago, is there's obviously the fascination of, we have, it ties into Carolina and the lack of an AHL team and we're going to go, I'm going to go spend some time watching the Chicago Wolves play this weekend

and do some reporting out there because that's a fascinating case for me. As someone who spent some time in the AHL, who knows a little bit more about that lady than many other people, humbly speaking, I'm really interested to kind of have a little, some more in-depth conversations about what actually is happening there, how it's working, and it's interesting to see, like, Carolina right now, like,

Pierre Chekhov is playing for the Syracuse. crush because Carolina has to find a place to play it. Like things like that that all stem from the second team in Chicago. That's that in addition to the second team in Chicago. All right. Well, I'm looking forward to checking both those out, man. Keep up the great work. We're going to have you back on to discuss them when you write that up.

Speaking of Bardard, for those of you listeners who haven't checked out yesterday's show, you can also go on YouTube, just search the HockeyoCaddle guess and check that one out. I did like a video show where we actually. gave you a chance to watch along in the clips as Jesse Marshall and I broke down Connor Brad's first three games and he had another exciting one last night in Toronto with a handful of other chances created. So I'm sure it's not the last time we'll be talking about it, but it was a good experience to start talking about Connor Bardard.

And we're going to keep doing those. We're going to keep doing PDOCAST. So thank you for listening. Go smash that five star button wherever you listen to the show. And we'll be back with plenty more of the hockey PEO cast, as always streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.