The Hockey PDOcast - Ending the Week With Your Mailbag Questions

Episode Date: November 10, 2023

 Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Matt Larkin to answer your mailbag questions about what the Oilers can do to salvage their season, whether there's any signs of life from Jonathan Huberdeau, and how to cheer for rebuilding teams like the Flyers. If you'd like to participate in future editions of the mailbag, you can do so by signing up for the PDOcast's Discord 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 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 Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Dimitri Philpovich and joining me making his PEDAOCast debut. A long time coming, my good buddy, Matt Larkin. Matt, what's going on? Dimitri, it's an honor to be on. And it sounds like a cliche when I say big fan of the show, but I am.

And I feel special today coming on. So I really appreciate it. Yeah, a long time listener, first time. first time my parents. This is going to be fun. It's a Friday afternoon. We are going to end the week in style. We're going to have some fun.

We're going to dip our toes into the listener mailbag. The listeners, as always came through with some brilliant questions, really thought-provoking ones, ones that'll give us a chance to get a good view of the league, bounce around, talk about some interesting topics, and see how far we can get with it. Let's start with, I got so many oilers questions, Matt. And it's understandable.

I'm going to Cal Ripkin. like streak here. I did a Palo Minchikov show with Daryl Belfry a couple days ago and that was a nice little reprieve but otherwise every non-specific themed show over the past three weeks it feels like has been oilers heavy

or at least tangentially related to oilers. But listen, after the spectacle on Thursday night against the sharks and everything that's been going on within the past couple weeks, it's kind of impossible not to, it's impossible to sidestep it right? Like we have to talk about it because it just seems like everyone just

keeps defaulting to what on earth is going on with Edmonton. I think it's bang on. And we're going through the same thing over at Daily Faceoff. If I look at our headline topic on Daily Faceoff Live, every day this week feels like we got to go back to the Oilers. Well, because they are the talk of the league. Every time you have a team that's picked by many pundits to win the Stanley Cup, not just be competitive, not just make the playoffs,

but win the Stanley Cup. And they're now neck and neck with the team with the worst goal differential in NHL history after 11 games, the sharks were losing to the sharks, it of course is time to sound the alarm. And I think we should dive into it and see what we can figure out in terms of answers. I love it. Well, we got a lot of variations from it. But I'm going to take a specific question here from the Pediocast Discord.

And this is a just a shout for everyone listening. If you want to get involved in future mailbag additions, I'm going to try to do these every Friday to end the week. Sign up to the PDAGast Discord. It'll be the invite link will be in the show notes. You can also DM me and I will send it to you if you can't find it. But yeah, get in there. We're building a nice little community there, people chatting about stuff and also a place for you to leave questions for these mailbags.

And Paul asks, asks, anyone want to guess what Edmonton's going to do? Replace Woodcroft, trade for a goalie, both, neither, something else. What are they going to do? Matt, this is the question everyone's asking, right? And it's always precarious to record shows like this because things can change in a dime, right? We know that especially when things get this dramatic and this extreme, things can change very quickly. but it does sound like Jay Woodcroft will be running the team's practice today in Seattle as they prepare for a game against the Cracken.

And so that would lead us to believe that he at least for one more game will be the team's coach, barring some unforeseen news developing over the next, whatever, 24 hours or whatever until they play next. Where do we go with this? What do you do at this point if you're the Oilers 12 games in with your season just quickly slipping away from you the way it is? Yeah, I think I can split it into two answers. One is what I think will happen and one is what I would do.

What I think will happen is Jay Woodcroft is going to fall on the sword. I think it's only a matter of time. I don't think it's necessarily fair. He's got a 640 career points percentage since taking over. I think it was, I looked at it today. It's like 12th in NHL history among coaches that have at least 100 games coached. And I've said this all week to anyone who will ask, Jay Woodcroft cannot stop the puck himself.

He can not don the pads and drop down into a butterfly and make the saves. This team has the worst team save percentage in the NHL. So I don't think it's his fault. The Oilers, you could blame it. Okay, yes, maybe it's a little bit related to score effects, but this team is still first in the league and expected goals. So territorially, I think they're fine, and goaltending is so random, I think it normalizes.

So if you look at what they have, I personally would leave everything exactly as is. You could say, well, maybe the first decision is going to be to trade for a goaltender. Jordan Bennington has been thrown out there. But is Jordan Bennington actually going to solve the problem? It's the most random position, arguably in sports. If you look at how Stuart Skinner got here in the first place, how Jack Campbell rose to prominence. These are both players who are not expected to be the starters for their teams at any given time.

They slowly ascended into those roles unexpectedly. Same as the backstory for Jordan Bittington. So what I'm saying here is you could trade for a goaltender. He could go into a slump. You could be in the same situation. So I wouldn't do it. And I think it's not necessarily easy to make that trade at this point in the season. Every team is capped out.

It's very difficult to make all the pieces work. So I think whether it's fair or not, it's going to be Jay Woodcroft going down first. That's my prediction of the quote unquote solution, even though it's not what I would do if I were Kennell. Yeah, it's always precarious trading for a goalie that you view as playing well at the moment, especially in their own situation or environment because that doesn't necessarily mean that you can just plug in play and that you will get those same results that they've been performing under recently. I'm with you on that. I think I had Shane a Goldman on yesterday and we were talking about.

how Woodcroft has been very adamant. Not that he's been like deflecting blame or being like, oh, no, like this is my fault, certainly. I think he's pretty aware of what's going on. But the point he keeps making is that this isn't a failure of the system, though we've heard, talked about all season, right, about how they've tried to change to this were Vegas-style defensive zone structure. It's the players failing to execute the system.

And you watch that game against the sharks. And the first goal is just a wide open breakdown. where Fabian Z. Erland just winds up wide open and inner slot for a tap and goal. And that is certainly not any system, right? That's not, Jay Woodcroft's not telling his players, all right, you should actually leave him wide open there. And that's the system we're running. So if you want to say from an X's and O's perspective that what he's doing isn't working,

that's fine. But a lot of this seems like it is the personnel or the players just not actually performing well enough, right? And you could argue that, all right, well, it's the coach's job to if things aren't working, make adjustments, right? you can't just keep doing the same thing, keep losing, keep underperforming, and hoping things are going to turn around. It's your job to take a hands-on approach and do something. Part of it you could argue is motivation, right? That's another job for the coach. It's like there's been some very,

not that they're not trying and you see at the end of that Canucks game the other night, like there's clearly passion there, right? And they're very frustrated. This isn't a team that's totally checked out. But there have been some very lackadaisical efforts and losing a lot of battles around the net and players not necessarily competing like their season is on the line. And so if you want to argue a motivation perspective and there's going to be that dead cat bounce, new coach comes in, we see time and time again. There's a spark lit under the team. All of a sudden, they get that little jump up and it resurrects their season.

I'm willing to hear that out. I just think that there's much deeper rooted issues. And if you're going to slay all the blame at the foot of Jay Woodcroft here, that seems like it's a bit too convenient and too lazy for my liking. Yeah, I think those are really great points. And I think we're in a situation now when you're 29 and 1, you can't really just judge everything by the box score at this point because we can say, hey, the shots for 4118 against San Jose sharks is a purely luck base. But Jay Woodcroft can't be a mathematician just saying, hey, the probability is here. We're going to turn this around.

I agree. You do have to sort of start to factor in the intangibles when things aren't working, when the numbers are favoring the Oilers this many times. But when your eyes, if you're watching the game, you do see those little mental lapses. Maybe it is a team that needs a spark. The other thing I think that people aren't talking about enough is the possibility that Connor McDavid is playing hurt still. I think if the Oilers were off to a six at oh start, I don't think we necessarily would have seen him rushing back for the Heritage Classic.

I wonder if there's sort of a panic setting in and he's playing at 85%. Because it's clear, this is not the otherworldly Connor McDavid that we're used to seeing. he's only on pace for 82 points. For him, that's like the equivalent of Jonathan Nupidot dropping from 115 to 55. Connor McDavid is not human. And seeing him anywhere close to human to me says he's not himself. So I do wonder if you have to consider going backward to go forward. Do you have to sit Connor McDavid for two or three games, let him heal whatever it is,

that left side, I think it was, whatever is nagging him. And maybe you need to get him back to that superhuman level if you really want to go on the run. Yeah, it's tricky because 85% of him is. is still almost certainly their best option that they have available to them, right? And there is a, you reach a point of diminishing returns where not only is it frustrating that he's not performing to the superhuman capabilities we've become accustomed to, but also you run the risk of further re-injury, right, that I imagine that could sideline them for even longer and then all of a sudden your season is definitely done.

And that's very risky for a player that means as much of this organization as McDavid does. I think like the county stats and everything is certainly down. I believe like all the metrics that show like how much he's setting up his teammates and the looks he's generating for them are still there for the most part. So like quantitatively it does seem like this is just bad shooting percentage luck and his teammates kind of letting him down and he could have many more assists than he does. But I'm with you. Just watching it, it doesn't seem like he's got the same pop to his step as where we've become accustomed to where he just effortlessly, you know, ducks his shoulder, turns the corner, blows by a guy and goes straight to the net. those instances have been kind of fewer and farther between, and it's been strange to see it,

and it makes sense that that would be injury related. So I'm with you on that. Part of why this job would probably be pretty desirable for someone taking over, though, is I don't think that whether it's Skinner or Campbell coming back, although after that goal he gave up in the HL that went viral yesterday, I don't think we'll be seeing him back in the NHL anytime soon, or Picard is probably going to mean none of those guys. Even if someone you brought in,

I wouldn't expect the same percentage to miraculously improve. because these rush opportunities they're giving up and the shots in front of the net that they're not cleaning up are just so high danger that most goalies that are going to be available to them will struggle in that scenario. Where I would expect an improvement is on the other side of the ice, right? I think they're 30th in the league in 5-1-5 and all situations shooting percentage.

And this is a team that led the league in that category last year, and maybe it wasn't reasonable to expect them to continue to lead the league. But with the personnel they have, I still imagine they're not all of a sudden 30th, right? like there's got to be a middle ground somewhere. And so if that uptakes all of a sudden, whether it's Woodcroft or whether it's someone coming in, that would be very convenient timing to ride the wave

with that positive progression. I think you're right. I think whoever comes in is going to be arriving to a sweet situation. It's going to be heralded as an offensive genius, right, for turning this ship around. Exactly. And especially if you look at Leon Drysettles, the prime example, I know, I don't have his numbers right in front of me,

but I believe that he is the most accurate shooter of this entire generation, career shooting percentage. So there is a situation with the Oilers. They're unique in that they have so much skill that they're built for a high student percentage. They're built to be finisher because they just have that many quality players on the team. So nothing about that stat so far makes sense.

And I do think it's going to regress massively in a positive way. It's going to be a lovely gift for whoever might be coming in to replace Woodcroft. The other element I'm wondering about is, you know, you mentioned the idea of whatever goal is available, is not going to be able to make a difference. The tough part is if there's a goalie who will be available, I don't think the goalie of the caliber they need is going to be available yet. And to me, it's not Connor Helbeck anymore, of course, the extension. But UC Soros is the guy that you have to wonder if he'll shake loose,

if Nashville, I don't think they have the talent to be competitive all year long, despite the fact that Barry Trotz brought in some guys of winning pedigree. I think that's who you're hoping for that could shake loose later in the season. You can find a way to make it work. But you can't be speculating on that this early. There's no way Nashville is going to move a player of that caliber this early in the season when they're still in the hunt. unless you make a godfather offer

and I just don't think the Oilers are really positioned even if they lumped together literally every single future they had, it's still probably there isn't like a great A piece in there to move the needle for Nashville where you're like, all right, well, he was part of our plans, but this is too good to pass up, right? And I don't think that's in the cards.

This is, you never want to be making moves, like rash moves from a point of a place of desperation, right? And that's kind of where there are at this point. And at the same time, though, you look at it. It's like, all right, after this season, you have one more year, Andrei Settle until he hits the market and he'll be 30 at that point. And then you have a year after that and Connor McDavid is in a similar spot. And so these are about as high leverage of seasons as

you're going to get for this organization. Right. This isn't a matter of, um, all right, well, let's play the long game here. This might be a lost season, but we'll regroup after that because these are just years you are never going to get back again. And so I'm very curious to see if they allow Ken Holland to be the person to make whatever next moves are coming. right. I think on the one hand, everyone was pretty high on this team heading into the season with this roster that he had put together the past couple years. And so I wouldn't say anyone saw this coming, this two nine and one start, right? This is like on the very extreme end of almost unbelievable that things have gone this bad with this group. At the same time,

though, you look at what they did this offseason and it's pretty stunning to see a team that was as close as they were the past two years, understanding that they were pretty tight up against the cap and didn't have a lot of wiggle room to go out and add, didn't really explore any super creative measures beyond this Connor Brown deal that they structured with the bonuses after 10 games played. And we can talk about that and see how that's going to unfold here.

But they didn't really like do anything to try and tilt the pendulum in their favor this summer with the group they had last year. And so if you're looking at what we're going to do moving forward, all right, we can get rid of the, coach, but is there any reason to believe that the person in charge of everything should be the person to make these decisions at this point? Like, I think there's enough evidence where that's probably the question we should be asking beyond just the coaching or the players. Yeah, I think that's absolutely fair, especially when you think about the fact that, you know, the oilers were

pretty hamstrung by their cap situation as a result of all the money that went to a goaltender who already last year by the end of the year was a back of a goaltender and Jack Campbell, when you're committing $5 million to assigning that was that big of a flop. And I think a lot of people sort of telegraphed it, they saw that that was coming because Campbell playing in the media hotbed market of Toronto had his struggles here and there very hard on himself. And I think Edmonton's a tough market to play in as well. So I think a lot of people did see that coming.

So you could pin that on Ken Holland for sure, just the lack of flexibility. There are some moves he made that he deserves credit for. Obviously, the Matisse-Ikholm trade. It's not necessarily going to age well, but in the short term, I think it really did bolster with a group. And I think the Evander Kane signing when he was when he's, obviously it was unlucky what happened with the skate cut last year, but he's been an important addition to that team as well, Zach Heimann as well. So there's been plenty of good moves from Holland. At the same time, seeing this start to show cracks, it doesn't surprise me that much because

Ken Holland is someone who he's been around the game forever. He's had a lot of success. But for the second half, or at least the last third of that tenure in Detroit, he made a lot of the stakes. He signed a lot of really bad contracts. It took a long time. Detroit is still not recovering for how long they were pinned down by all those bad contracts that were signed. So I'm not that surprised to see Ken Holland having some missteps because that's sort of been the pattern at this stage of his career. The problem is just in the hockey hierarchy, it's not necessarily fair, but we just know that's not the way the life cycle goes. Every GM comes in. They get to fire a coach, maybe two coaches, if they're lucky. And usually the blame isn't laid at GM's feet until later in that

cycle. I think if we had our say as fans, pundits, whatever, it wouldn't necessarily play out in that order, but it just seems to be the way things always go. Yeah. I just think that the time, and this is kind of crying over spilled milk, but the time to push the envelope and act aggressively was probably in the summer and not 12 games into the season when it's much more difficult to actually make moves of substance, right? And it's like, all right, all right, all of a sudden now you're sort of doubling down and you're throwing more money. after bad money and it just leads to a whole mess. So it is what it is at this point.

But yeah, I'm very curious to see what's going to come next. All right, we've got to move on some other questions. Enough Oilers. There's plenty of other teams we can talk about here. And let's stick with the Battle of Alberta, baby. So we got a question from James here asking about Jonathan Hubertoe and whether there's any reason to believe that there's going to be some sort of a turnaround or some sort of glow up for him.

And it's interesting in following all of Elliot Friedman's, work over the past, I'd say a week or so, right? He mentioned this in his 32 thoughts in the column. I heard him talk about it on the broadcast on Hocken and he Canada last Saturday, I believe. The flames are making a lot of noise right now about how they're very, very committed to fixing this and catering to finding a way to get more out of him, whether it is the coaching or whether it's the players around him he's playing with,

like they're not just going to view this as a sunk cost. they're going to try their hardest to get something out of this. And they probably have no choice, right? Because they're in year one of an eight-year deal. They're staring right down the barrel of paying this guy 10.5 million. There's no way out of it for the foreseeable future. And so if I was in their position, I would probably be saying the same at the same time, considering he's 30 now.

And this is a month into year two of very similar not only results, right? There's the points not being there, but also concerning red flag. flags with the underlying numbers as well in terms of how many shots he's actually taken himself, how dangerous he looks as a player when he's out there. There's not too much actual reason to believe that any of these fixes or changes that they tried to incorporate are actually paying dividends. So Matt, where are we at with this? And have you seen anything so far this season that leads you to believe that this is salvageable

right now? Yeah, it's a great question. I have a lot of thoughts because I have interviewed Jonathan Eberdome many times in my career and I do have a sense of who he is as a player and who he believes he is as a player. And I do remember doing a story a couple years ago, we were sort of talking about his hockey origins and the way he described himself is he's sort of a rhythm player. He never believed growing up that he was the fastest or strongest player on the ice. It was all mental.

It was about being ahead, being the most studied player, being engaged in the game. And to me, if you relate that mentality to what's going on right now, it makes me concern because I think for him, he's got to be there mentally. I don't think it's necessarily a physical problem. If you look what happened last year with Daryl Sutter, the first thing he gets to Calgary, he's immediately played on his off wing for 50 games, I believe it was,

throwing off his rhythm right away. And I do remember talking to him after the trade and saying, what are you going to think about playing in a Canadian market after being in Florida so long? And his words were something like, I don't know what it's going to be like until I live it. So he wasn't sure.

And I think it's been a hard adjustment. And if you look at obviously the massive drop from 115 to 15. 55 points from 2021-22-22-23. What stands out to me is the 115-point season, his most common linemates were Anthony Duclair and Sam Bennett. It's not like he was playing with Alexander Barkav all the time. And if you look at the limelow quality he has in Calgary right now,

it's been mainly Nazim Kodry and Andrew Mangupani. Now you're seeing him with Elias Lindholm, but it's not like he's playing with weaker players. That doesn't explain it either. So I'm just wondering if it's, I don't want to say personal, but mental. It seems like it's not a fit. He was very happy in Florida.

He was very comfortable there. It was a place his family used to go all the time. They spent their Christmases there, all that kind of stuff, right? So I just don't think it's something you can easily fix. And that's why I'm wondering if we're ever going to see the superstar version of Jonathan Rubbertoe again. It seems like if you had the ability to magically make a change, you'd want to put him on a new team, give him a fresh start. But like you said, that doesn't seem possible, not when he's just embarking on this really expensive, contract. So I don't want to be the pessimist in the room, but I am genuinely concerned that we're

never going to see the peak version of him again. Yeah, some might call a pessimist. Some might call it realist. I don't know. I wouldn't, listen, when he got traded and when he signed the contract, I don't think anyone could have reasonably expected him to repeat 115 points, right? Like, there were so many signs that that was just an aberration from his own career totals generally to all of the positive luck that was in his favor, that team just being this super noball offense will be that regular season where everything clicked for them. That certainly wasn't going to be the case here.

I think 55 points last year and then now on pace for 41, basically having a half point per game, is on the other end of the extreme that I also wasn't expecting. And it's interesting to hear you say that because certainly I'm not disqualifying the psychological element and comfort and changes that are so significant to your life and your lifestyle impacting a player's performance, right? They're human beings, your eye,

if we all of a sudden have to move or do something different that we've been doing for the entirety of our pro careers, I'm sure we'd have a difference in performance as well. When the trade happened initially, whatever was a year and a half ago now that summer, I had my buddy Thomas Drans on here, and we did a full breakdown of it, and he knew Jonathan very well

because he did PR for the Panthers for a couple years during his prime there. And so he got to know him very well, on a one-on-one personal level behind the scenes, interacted with him a bunch. And he was very confident that he was actually going to smash it in Calgary. He was like, I know Jonathan, he, his personality, like he's going to embrace this. He wants to be the guy in a market that's this passionate like every Canadian market is.

Like, he's going to thrive off of it. And that might have happened. And then the Darrell Sutter thing might have just completely thrown a monkey wrench in it, right? And we might never know what could have been if he had had a smoother. landing basically from day one there, right? And so that's certainly an important caveat. What I'll say is you can see in the usage, right? They've bumped his ice time back up. I think he's playing like half a minute or 45 seconds more than he did it last year. It's some softer usage of 515. He's getting more offensive zone starts. All of that makes sense. And yet his shot generation,

he's down to 4.9 shots per 60, down from the 8.6 he was at in that last peak Florida season, which is like 300 out of 360 qualifying forwards. And he's always been a pass first guy. He's always been a playmaker. You're not going to expect him to have high shot totals. But that illustrates me the issue here where whether it's rhythm or lack of comfort or just taking a step back physically, I don't know what it is. But he's just not in the positions to produce offensively anymore.

And he's not a threat when he's out there, right? Like he's passing up shots. He looks a step slow in his decision making. All of it is out of whack and out of the rhythm. And I was willing to give him the benefit of doubt heading into the season because fresh start, new coach, getting rid of Daryl Sutter. All right, we're going to see him look much more like himself. And it's really been more of the same. In fact, if anything, I think there's been even more worrisome signs this year.

So it is only 12 games, but with the backdrop of last year, I'm pretty concerned about, you know, the outlook for this and this team if this is going to be what they're going to be getting from him for the duration of this contract. Yeah. And especially, I would have at least hoped for a. mini boomerang back to, let's say, being a point per game player. But like you said, when the shot generation is that low, even if you're not a shooter, to me, sometimes it's a sign of like a lack of engagement. And on the flip side, if you look at someone this year, like Artemi Panarin, who's turning back the clock, his shot rate is blowing through his career highs. So it's like that's someone who's super engaged right now and sort of elevating his game

when the aging curve usually would have you declining. Right. So you look at those two examples. I think you can again point to the mental thing where there seems to be a problem of engagement. And I know for a fact, his camp, they were really upset, really upset with how things went with Daryl Sutter, really upset with the deployment right from the start. It was a big problem. So is it a matter of just not being able to recover from that, the loss of confidence? The other thing is, you know, I've been championing the mental state as the big cause. But if we're looking at the physical element, this is a player who was not the fleetest of foot and the most physically get to. He's the first one who would say that in terms of relative to other players

who score at that rate. So when you get to the aging curve hitting your 30s, your skills can decline quickly. If you were having trouble keeping up, suddenly it can be really hard to keep up if you weren't the fastest skater to begin with. So I don't know whether we're seeing just a rapid decline of the physical skill. Are we seeing some kind of nagging injury that's being hidden? I don't think so because again, would it be a nagging injury two years in a row? So to me, it's probably a matter of mental and maybe just gradual erosion of skill. It's tough to say. It's really confounding.

It's one of the most confounding rapid declines of a player that I can never remember seeing. He has the same number of 5-15 points this season as Nick Desimon, who is a defenseman, if you don't know, for the flames, who has played two games for them this season. Like, he's got two primary assists in 12 games. Like, take away the shooting, take away, goal scoring, everything. Like, he's just not creating. If you look at his numbers with and without Andrew Mangyipani, and he's playing with him now,

but he's played 60 minutes with him and the numbers are good. Like they have 55% shot share, 67% high danger chair. They're outscore in the opposition. That's good. This is, we can work with this. In the 80 minutes without Mangiapani, he's been outscored 6-0 and all the shares plummet under 40%. And that's concerning because that makes me think that obviously there's,

you know, context and very many variables. in terms of with and without you stats. But that makes me think that Manjupani, and that's what we see when we watch them looks like more of the driver there, right? Like his speed is creating stuff, his puck pursuit and pressure that he applies on the other team is what's driving this.

And so all of a sudden, it's like it's great that they work well together, but if you have a $10.5 million dollar passenger, that's not the best way to build a team in today's cap world. So yeah, it's all of it is alarming. And I'm sure that wasn't a very uplifting for James here asking this question,

but I was interested to see how he would do heading it this year after all of the unknown after last season and so far not so good. Okay, Matt, let's take a break here and then when we come back, we'll pick up the listener questions in the mailbag and we'll answer a few more questions

you're listening to the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network. Back here on the HockeyPedocast, joined by Matt Larkin. Matt, let's jump back into it. So we got a question here from Don's asks, sell me on any semblance of optimism at the start of a long rebuild for the Flyers or just how to enjoy hockey as a rebuilding team in general.

I guess I wasn't really much of a question that much. It was a very, a very strong statement. Don's wants, uh, needs convincing. So let's talk a little bit about the Flyers a team. I haven't spoken about much on the podcast this year. They were 31st, I believe, at the start of season on my watchability rankings. And they've exceeded that. Like they've, uh, they've had certainly flashes.

Uh, I think they've, the results. have been better than I expected again to year. I know that they gave San Jose its first win of the season the other day, which looks a bit less bad now after the most recent game against the Oilers. But where are we at with the Flyers and kind of just this general, maybe even a bigger picture idea for fans of other teams that are watching rebuilding clubs that may not necessarily have anything to root for this season, but are trying to have something to hold on to care about and get excited about

and root for moving forward. Yeah, I don't think the flyers are the worst team to be a fan of right now, despite the fact that they may seem a little feister than expected. That's just the John Tortorella effect. The John Totorella team is incapable of totally tanking. I wouldn't worry about that if you're hoping for your flyers to bottom out. They still will. And that's what's important.

That's what I think you should be optimistic about. The worst situation to be in as a fan is if you have a team that's middling and just stuck there for a long, long time with a GM who's in denial, those are the teams that are furthest away from the Stanley Cup. I said it last year that I thought the penguins were actually the furthest team from the cup. When you're sort of limping along instead of blowing it up, the flyers are not limping along. They understand. Danny Breyer knows exactly what he has.

That's why he started blowing things up in the offseason. And I expect that process to continue. So if you're wondering why I should be excited, it's because I think there are going to be more moves coming when we get closer to the trade deadline that could blow things up further. And Travis Kineckney, that is a player that's going to command a massive return if a trade happens. between now at the end of the year because it's a two-year rental, right? You get the rest of the season all the next season, very reasonable cap hit. You're under six million for Travis Kneckme.

That's a player who in the first half last year was on pace for 48 goals and, or I think it was 48 goals and 98 points at the 41 game mark, just showing it what he's capable of and he's shown really strong flashes again this year. So when you think about what he brings to the table, that's going to be a massive return. That's a first round pick and prospect capital that you'll be adding to a base that already includes, of course, Matt Imichkov, super exciting prospect. Yes, you have to wait a little bit, but the Flyers are going to get another high pick this year. It could be Macklin-Celebrini. It could be Cole Eisenman.

It could be Ivan Demanov. The list goes on. It's actually a sneaky good draft class at the top. I know last year was really exciting, but 2024 is looking pretty good too. So that's my long-winded way of saying. I think there's plenty to be excited about it if you're a Flyers fan, especially because of the fact that their GM understands that this team is in scorched earth, mode. That's the thing. That's what you would hang on to, especially new management group coming in

making significant changes to the way you operate, how things are done. We hear teams say that time and time again, like, oh, this is a fresh start. This is going to be a clean slate, this and that. And then generally, especially if the ownership group is very metal summer hands on, they hire someone who's going to appease to their whims and nothing really changes. It might be a different name, different face, might look different initially. Ultimately, you're going to keep coming back to the spot where you were previously. In this case, it really does seem like there's fundamental differences, right? For years, they were basically burying their head in the sand and just hoping to plow ahead

and despite all the red flags and, you know, the warning sign just blinking at them. They were like, you know, who cares? We're going to make win now moves. We're going to bring guys in. We're going to spend money on veterans. And we're going to try to squeeze into the playoffs. And last, this past summer, they finally acknowledged that they just couldn't justify doing that anymore, right? And they show that they're willing to spend money in the present now

to get off of future money and to create flexibility that'll help them in the years where it actually matters because ultimately these next couple of years, regardless of what they do, won't really amount to anything. So I think that's the right way to view it. Connect me. That's a great shout. He's got nine goals and 13 games so far this year, building off of that stretch he had last season. Also in his prime, right? He's 26. He'll be turning 27 in March and play. a very playoff type style, which I'm sure many contenders will be salivating over. So I think the Flyers would ideally like to keep him around because he's a popular guy who plays the right way, quote unquote, and you need to have some guys there like that

that'll show young players as they come in the ropes and not necessarily just completely gut everything and then have a young team floundering. So I think the Flyers will like to keep them, but I think that someone will come in from the top rope and just pull them away and they will wind up trading them. The thing with the flyers this year that surprised me is Matt, they are, I believe only the abs are generating more rush chances per game than then this season according to Sport Logic. They're averaging about eight per game.

And I saw that, I noticed this watching them. And then I saw Charlie O'Connor, who covers the team, tweeted about how he attract all the games. And they'd certainly had shifted to more of a sort of carry. puck possession style as opposed to what we associate with John Chorda hockey, which is dump and chase, right? Throw the buck in deep, go forecheck, try to hit a guy and keep the puck deep that way.

And so they're showing all these underlying markers of a team that's actually playing like a pretty fun brand of modern hockey. Now they don't have the horses to really do it. Like they don't have the talent to ultimately take that and turn it into results. And I think as the season goes along, you're going to see that talent deficit and talent gap result in more losses. But at least if you're a fan, you're like, all right, we're playing some pretty fine games. I can, you know, enjoy this as an entertainment product for the next two, two and a half hours. We're probably going to lose, but that's okay because that also feeds into the

long-term vision. And so that's a nice spot to be in. It can it can suck as a fan. Like it's easy for us from the outside to say, you should tank the season, right? Try to get increased your odds with first overall pick. And you have paying customers who have nothing to cheer for all season. And every time they tune in, it's just a miserable experience. They're probably going to check out. And that as someone running the team or as an owner is not an ideal spot to be in either. Right. So I think they're finding this nice balance, at least early in the year, of giving the people

who are tuning into their games something to hold on to while also still being a team that will wind up with probably a pick in that sort of five to 10 range, right? Yeah, I think that's fair. And, you know, with torts, yes, of course, he's one of the ultimate hard-ass coaches. of his generation of all time, really. But he's more adaptive than he sometimes gets credit for. The example I think of is during his final days in Columbus, when that team was riddled with injuries,

he was eventually just unlocking Zach Werenski and Seth Jones, I think, go ahead, carry the puck, just do whatever you can to generate chances. And they were putting up some numbers, especially Werensky, because Torts was open to the idea of just working with what he had. And I think maybe that's what we're seeing a little bit in Philly this year.

The other thing is when you have a healthy Sean Petruier, are relatively healthy, Sean Gertrier. You have Cam Atkinson out there as well. Those are two hardworking players that are going to raise your floor no matter what. They don't have tanking in their DNA, as a lot of players love to say. But I think it really applies to two lunch pail players like that. So I think that's also a reason why you've seen a more competitive Flyers team. Another element to look forward to, I think, this season, if you want something to watch as a

Flyers fan is maybe Cutter Goce turns pro at the end of the year. He's a really great prospect. He's a strong kid. he's a confident kid. He's got leadership qualities. I think he does a lot of things well as sort of a power forward. And I think he just fits in with the Flyers brand, which just seems to be a thing, no matter what, no matter what this team is, I still feel like they have it, just like the Bruins always have it as well. So if you're looking for a storyline to get excited about, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw Cutter Goce at the end of the season getting a cup of coffee. Well, I know Flyers fans

are following the Matt Veemichkov goal clips that they're seeing. And that's very exciting. And I think also So part of the perk of that, and this is something we were talking about a lot in draft season last summer was whichever team winds up drafting him has also a pretty, all of a sudden, clearly defined timeline where we were viewing people were viewing it initially as a negative that, oh, he'd be stuck in the KHL for a few years and you don't know when you're going to see him on your NHL team. You have to wait a couple years. That's not ideal for someone who might go second or third overall. And he slips to them. And now all of a sudden, you know that, all right, we have a couple years here. We're going to be bad regardless, but we can ramp our way up from a talent perspective to all of a sudden we could potentially bring in this guy who's instantly going to be a world class score while still playing on an ELC. And all of a sudden, you're cooking.

Right. So I think that's very exciting. And that's going to help them a lot because for everything that I said, I like about them this year, you can see that talent gap. I think they're, I think they're the league worst power play. And that's generally where just not having high end offensive players manifest itself. And so it's not surprising to see them there. and I think that'll be a trend all year. But as long as they're playing a high-paced, like competitive style of 5-15, that'll be fine.

So, yeah, I think all of a sudden it's a net positive. And they're organizationally, I think you'd agree, right? They're in a significantly better place right now compared to where they were a calendar year ago. Absolutely. And I really love the point there that you make about Michkov and sort of being able to look forward to him coming in because if we think of the precedent for KHL import, it's yes, when it's someone who's a veteran who's brought in,

not everybody's going to be in Andre Kuzmenko, there are far more Nikita Kusov type stories. But when it's a player who's a young prospect who already has the elite pedigree and develops, often you see that player arrived as not a finished product, but a player ready to immediately be a big-time contributor. So Vladimir Tarasenko adjusted very quickly. Evgeny Kuznetsov adjusted very quickly. Kareil Kaprizov is probably the ultimate recent example.

So I do think Mischov is going to fall into that category. in the sense that you can kind of bank on him being an impact player by the time he arrives. I like that. Okay, well, speaking about development, then, let's go to this next question from, from Caden Corsax's missing tooth. When it comes to developing prospects, where do you guys think the line is for letting them get seasoning in the minors versus overcooking them and giving them a lack of opportunity?

Is there a certain age or is it purely a quote-unquote, you know it when you see it kind of thing? Where do you stand on this? So if you're an always sunny fan, I'm picturing the Charlie Day meme with all. drawing connecting all the strings because I have different theories for different situations for you. Okay. So it really does depend on player and position. For a goaltender, I think you need as much minor league seasoning as possible, even though if you talk to goalies, which I have over the years,

every one of them will say I'd rather be a backup in the NHL than a starter in the AHL. It's not really the case in terms of what's best for the development. They need the reps. And I do remember having a conversation with it was Stephen Balaket, great goaltending expert, former NHL goaltender. And he was using Carter Hart as an example of someone who got rushed a little. too quickly. He could have used more seasoning. And if you look at players who come over from Europe, like Igor Shostaric and Ilya Serocha, it's not the minors, but it's a league below the NHL that's pro. They're much more polished and finished as products by the time they arrive. They get those crucial reps in that anticipation in terms of just east-west and following shooters, all that

kind of stuff, tracking the puck. You need those reps. So for goalies, it really applies. I think for defensemen, if you're coming from Europe, you need that seasoning in the minors. a lot of defensemen that I've talked to say that the hardest adjustment they ever made was going from Europe to the AHL, not AHL, the NHL, because just that initial adjustment of the time and space playing on a different ice surface. So for defensemen, I think you need more time. When it comes to forwards, especially forwards who play in North America, I don't think you need nearly as much time. And I know some players have told me they find it harder as a young player to be in the AHL because there's less structure. And in terms of just being able to anticipate what

your teammates are going to do, it's sometimes. makes more sense what's happening at the NHL level. So that's how I retire it if that makes sense. No, that makes a lot of sense. And certainly is case dependent. And I agree with goalies in particular, just because it does seem like being put in a tough situation where you're not ready for it. And then floundering probably it won't be the type of thing where you're going to learn from it and become better from it. It feels like if anything, it's going to like almost break you in a way where it's like it'll just totally ruin your confidence and everything that you had worked up to that point to be successful at lower levels to reach the NHL.

And so all of a sudden, you're just, you're regressing in a wrong way, right? And so it can be a net negative in terms of skaters in particular and defensemen are, or more different. Maybe it's easier for forwards. But I do think teams are still, like they're getting better at it, but they're still probably overly cautious in terms of throwing them in the deep end because we know that skater prime is typically younger than we probably associated with earlier, right? it generally comes in that physical prime in your early to mid-20s as opposed to late 20s,

early 30s, which I think we thought once upon a time, especially for good teams, contributors on ELCs are just so valuable. And with how much they game these days is played up and down off the rush and creating that way that suits younger players with fresh lively legs as well. So if I was a good team, I would actually be trying to find and carve out ways like Dallas did with Wyatt Johnson. And now maybe that's a bit of an extreme example because he actually played such a significant role for them. But I do think we typically see these contenders box themselves in where they have high-end players playing in scoring roles.

And then they talk themselves into needing a very specific type of defensive veteran type to play those clean up for five minutes. Right. And that all of a sudden doesn't leave a spot for a young player who otherwise might be able to contribute. And then we come to the postseason and offense starts to dry up. every goal becomes much more valuable and vital. And you wish you had other sources that could potentially chip in, even if they are getting a lesser volume of shifts. So if you're a contender,

you should probably be using the regular season to see what you have with these younger players and seeing if you can manufacture offense in hidden ways that way. So I would like to see contenders get better about actually utilizing young players, even if it is in minor roles to begin with, as opposed to viewing it as, okay, if you're not playing the top six, all of a sudden, there's no spot for you on our team and you have to play in major junior or the

AHL. I think there is a middle ground to be found there. Yeah, I think you've absolutely nailed it there. I think if there's one archetype that gets discriminated against most in this scenario, it's the small, silky-handed power play specialist forward who, quote-unquote, can only play in the top six. It's Nick Robertson. That's the example out here in Toronto where I'm based, the player who probably should have just been sticking a couple years ago and seeing what you really had with him. Now he's getting a look on a third-line role, but for so long the refrain was he's got to work on the two-way play because we're not going to be able to have a spot for him in that top six he's got to be able to win those battles get that 200-foot game and that's why you see those players that end up marinating maybe a little bit too long in the a hathel and then meanwhile as you saw the start of this year it's like all right they're actually not getting anything in the way of scoring from their bottom six and they could probably use a guy who could do that even if he is playing minimal minutes okay discourse champ asks a lot of pundits are saying queen hues is

a new level this year by tightening up his defensive game. But to me, it seems the biggest differences between this year and last is an increased willingness to shoot by him. And that play opens up, I guess there's a misspell in here, it opens up different options for him. What do you guys say about that? So I've talked a lot about Quinn Hughes here recently. I wrote a big feature on him for EP Ringsside this week as well.

I'm kind of curious for your take on what you're seeing from him and sort of the jump up he's made this year because, clearly. I mean, I think he's viewed now by the betting market as the, as the favorite for the Norris trophy. So people are certainly taking stock of what he's doing and his production is through the roof. So there clearly have been advancements in his game. Yeah. And I think not just favorite for the Norris, I think you could make a case that he should be the favorite for the Hart trophy, or at least in the running for the Hart Trophy right now, which is pretty wild. With Quinn Hughes, to me, I'm going to go against the stereotype of the East Coast based hockey

writer who doesn't know anything above Vancouver. I don't think that's true. I think Quinn Hughes is not or should not be sneaking up on anyone. I think this is actually being a steady progression. His defensive game has gradually improved year by year. I thought he showed a lot of positive signs last year as well. So I think this is the progression we should have been seeing all along. I think he was already doing historic things offensively. He was the fastest defenseman in NHL history to 200 assists. Last year, he was the first defenseman in 29 years to have two 60 assists seasons in a row. So he was already doing really special things. And I think just being a little bit overshadowed by Kail Makar has distracted people from that. That said, I think the question

there nails it the shot output has been wild this year. I think it's like almost three and a half shots per game. He'd never even average two per game in his career. So he is creating a lot more, whether that's rebounds as well. He's shooting at a high percentage too. He's almost converting at the rate of a forward, but there are puck bouncing off pads. He's going to get assists off rebounds if he keeps shooting the puck this prolifically as well. But I think overall, in terms of what's impressed the most. I think it's all of the above. I think we're seeing just from a two-way standpoint, he's maturing into a captaincy worthy player, which is fitting. And I think maybe, I don't want to say most importantly, but crucially, he's found a partner that fits. You're not

putting the square peg in the round hole forcing Quinn Hughes to play his offside and give interviews justifying why he can do it. No, he's with a natural righty, Philip Bronic. It's a really good fit. Their chemistry seems to be excellent. And that's already looking like a steel of a trade for the Vancouver Canucks. So it just feels. was like everything is clicking in the perfect way for Quinn Hughes. And that's why I expect him to keep this up. I think that he is going to win the Norris Trophy. He's got enough of a head start for all the voters that prefer to vote based on points. But he's doing so many things well. It's going to be tough to unseat him for the award right now. Yeah. I mean, his breakout game

this year has been phenomenal. His ability to just bring four checkers into the deep end and shake them and just break lose and then break the puck out and get it up the ice is a big and big reason for why Vancouver has been beyond just the inflated shooting percent. and all that that everyone has fixated on their breakout game and their transition game and off the rush is miles better than it was last year at any point in the recent past. And so that's a big driver of that. And, you know, to this point, something we've been talking about here is the individual shot output. Last year, he averaged 11 shot attempts per hour of play. This year, it's about 19, which is such a massive jump. And the rebounds created, which you mentioned,

from 0.57 per hour of play last year, all the way up to 2.14. I mean, that is just a size. make jump up in there. And we've seen that, right, whether it's the tips that allows in front of the net or rebounds for their forwards, which they've been cleaning up and feasting on. There's so many different avenues all of a sudden now for Quinn Hughes to create offense for his team. And so you put it all together. And it really has been the full package.

And I do think people have been so fixated on, there was that shortened season, right, under Travis Green, where his on ice save percentage was in the tank. They were giving up a ton of goals. The entire team was a mess defensively. And he certainly wasn't blameless in that. But I think people have been so fixated on that and this idea that an undersized defender who his main attribute is skating can't be a strong defender or can't be reliable in their own zone. They've had that cloud their judgment.

Whereas if you actually just purely watch him for who he's been the past couple years, you would see that that's not really a concern. And this year in particular, his rush defense has been phenomenal. His stick work and angling kind of around his own net has. been awesome as well. And so it's been the full package beyond just points. Like I think there's a lot of substance to this. And he's been the most impressive defensive in the league this season. He really has. He's almost turning into Scott Niedermeyermeyer, but with the offensive prowess of Brian Leach in terms of his ability to win with his stick and positioning and sort of embody

what a modern two-way defender really is. And I think if if we'd never seen Quinn Hughes, you only looked at just stats or if he was listed as six. 3, 220, a lot of the conversations about its offensive play would be totally different. So I think 100% there's a bias toward, you know, I don't want to insult him. It's not a bad thing, but it's a boyish aesthetic, right? He's a young looking guy.

He still is even wearing that sea. It's a bit jarring to see the sea under Jersey of someone who could pass for, you know, 18 years old still. But we have to sort of put that bias aside and just understand what he's doing is really effective. And I don't think this Canucks team is perfect. If you look at some of the under the hood metrics, Thatcher Demko is still bailing them out a lot.

right now, but I think the improvement compared to what we saw last year is legitimate. They're not going to be dominant all year and they're not going to be a 110 point team, but this might be a 95 point team to me. Yeah, even better. I mean, there's, there being, it's so much right to being driven by just super star performances in that by their number one center and by their number one defenseman, right? And so that elevates your baseline as a team to a significant degree if those guys are going to keep playing that way.

And so far, there's no reason to believe they won't. So yeah, there's going to be percentage regression as we've talked. talked about, but it's just significantly recalibating our expectations compared to what we had for them heading into the season. All right, Matt, on the way out here, I will let you plug some stuff, let the listeners know where they can check you out and kind of what they can expect when you moving forward. Absolutely. You can find me at daily faceoff.com on Twitter at at M. Larkin Hockey. We have Daily Faceoff Live, our show every day at noon Eastern going through all the different events that are happening. And we have our usual buffet of feature stories.

right now I have an in-depth interview on our site with Jake Sanderson. If you're curious to learn a little more about him and his dad. Awesome, man. Well, keep up the great work. It was awesome to finally have you on the show. We'll certainly, now that you've had you on once, hopefully we'll be able to have you on much more frequently. Thank you to the listeners for listening to us. As always, if you want to help us out, go smash that five-star button.

If you want to get in on future mailbags, go join the Discord and the show notes, as I referenced at the top of the show. And that's going to be it for another week of shows here on the PDO cast. feed. Thank you to everyone for listening to us. And we'll be back on Monday with plenty more of the Hockey Ocast streaming on the Sports Night Radio Network.