The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 103: A Stroll Down Memory Lane

Episode Date: October 4, 2016

Corey Sznajder joins the show to discuss tracking the 2016 postseason, which microstats are most important and how they should be incorporated into evaluations, and what all of it says about various individual defensemen across the league. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 0:40 Jogging memories of the 2016 postseason 10:20 Primary Shot Contribution Percentage 13:50 Jon Cooper's deployment of defensemen 19:15 The Kris Russell conundrum 31:45 Defending zone entries against This episode is brought to you by Freshbooks, an online accounting service designed to save time and help avoid all of the stresses that come with running a small business. They’re currently offering a free 30-day trial to listeners of our show at Freshbooks.com/PDOcast (just remember to enter “Hockey PDOcast” in the ‘How You Heard About Us’ section). Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher and can also be streamed right here on the website. Make sure subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new shows as they’re released. All ratings and reviews of the show are greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices 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.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theos, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl defensive end, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athletes, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and, of course, the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React, R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light.

These days, everything is go, go, go. It's non-stop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family. Expect you to be on 24-7? Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold-filtered, and cold-packaged. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. It is literally made to chill.

Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Regressing to the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Demetri Filipovich.

and joining me as my good buddy, Corey Snyder. Corey, what's going on, man? Not too much, just working on a few things right now. Yeah, yeah. You know what? Let's be honest with our listeners. This is our second take at the intro. I realized I kind of messed up something at the start.

So we had this little back and forth about how you were playing around with spreadsheets and how that's a common thing for you. So we don't have to rehash it ourselves. We can just let the listeners know it was probably the best cold open I've ever had and they missed out, but at least you and I were part of it.

Yeah, I guess we'll always have that to look on. But it is true. Like, I am just playing around with spreadsheets. That's what I'm doing, like, probably most of the time. Yep. So the good thing about having you back on for people that either just started listening to their show recently or have short memories, I guess, and don't remember. You were on sometime towards the start of last season.

And we had a little discussion about the zone tracking project you'd done the year before. And we couldn't really talk too much about the specifics of, you know, which players were good and which players weren't. Or we couldn't really talk about present-day stuff just because you were at the time employed by an NHL team and we didn't really want to get you in trouble with your club. So now we can finally kind of just like have an open-ended discussion without tippy towing around delicate subjects. Yeah, nice to talk about stuff that's a little more recent than from two years ago. Well, I mean, we shouldn't say too recent because we are about to talk about the 2016 playoffs. and it feels like, I mean, it was like three months ago, but it feels like it's probably been even longer since then. So I don't know how necessarily, how, if recent is the best word for it,

but it probably is the sort of the last images of hockey that we have. Yeah, aside from the preseason, which I am doing some stuff on right now, but I guess we'll get to that a little later. I feel like you're probably the only person in the world doing some stuff on the preseason. Yeah, I'm just doing it to test out some new things I'm going to be doing for next year. to kind of just get used to it. Well, we'll get into that in a bit, but let's discuss the 2016 postseason. And I think that a good place to start is a discussion of why we're doing this,

you and I, because we both watched every game of the 2016 postseason and tracked it meticulously and wrote at depth about it. And, you know, it's very time-consuming. It's very meticulous work. But I would like to, I don't want to speak for you, myself, I think it's pretty useful in terms of providing added context and information that we can build upon to expand our knowledge of the game. Yeah, like the big thing I wanted to do with the solo of a postseason tracking project was

basically go into every series and find out basically everything that went into a team winning or losing it. So I wanted just to like hit every single like nook and cranny of what happened in every series. And I didn't get, I didn't get to the Stanley Cup. final yet, but everything I did do, I feel like I've hit that. I hit that pretty well. And as I went deeper into the playoffs, like there was more stuff. I just wanted to add to it. Like the first few, the first few posts on the playoffs were kind of just data dumps because I had tracked those a lot earlier. And I just kind of wanted to get something out. But as I went more into it, I started like

adding a lot more like, like adding a lot more like screenshots and like breakdowns and stuff like that. Right. So it just got, it kind of took on a life of its own after like the third post I did or something. Well, I can't even like, I can't stress how time consuming a process it really is because I mean, for myself, like I'm clearly not as experienced doing it as you are. You've tracked many more games than I have. But I've kind of gotten the hang of it and learn some of the tricks of the trade. But even for myself, like, you know, there's, there's times where I have to backtrack and double check and then obviously NHL TV bugs out and doesn't do us any favors and throws us for a loop. And, and. And I was only tracking, you know, zone exits and defending zone injuries against for defensemen kind of focusing on that aspect of the game. Whereas, as you were mentioning now, you were basically kind of noting down every single thing was happening. So I can't even imagine how much time each game took you. Yeah, it definitely took a lot longer than just the games I was doing for the all three zones project where I was only doing entries and exits. Like this time I was adding a lot more context.

Like who was defending the entry, who was supporting it, like who the passes. were going to on zone exits and which direction the past was going in, basically, basically almost everything. Yeah. Like, that was a little thing with the all three zones project, because that, that alone just took so much time to do, like, every single game. And at the end of it, like, there was a lot of useful data that came from it from just zone entries and zone exits, but there was a lot of stuff I didn't track.

And I kept thinking, oh, man, I should have done this. I should have added that to, like, adding this would have helped. And, like, I kind of realized all this, like, maybe. halfway in. So I couldn't just go, I couldn't just like add it in there because it was going to screw up like the whole continuity of it. And it wouldn't be consistent.

So I wanted to hit all that this time around. And it was easier to like start over or add something new. If I wanted to because it's, because it's just a series. Like if I didn't do it one series, I'll just add to the next one. Right. And it was a good way for me to kind of just kind of test myself a little.

and just test out to see if some new metrics would work. Yeah, if some new metrics could come out from all this or if I can find anything that was interesting. Well, I mean, just like with anything, there is a trial buyer component to it because, I mean, there's an interesting discussion to be had about sort of the relevance of all these microsatts and sort of gleaning the difference between predictive and descriptive value

and what things we should be focusing on, whereas, I mean, just like with anything, having more information is good, but it doesn't necessarily, it can kind of confound stuff and cloud the picture and make it even worse than we started off with. And there's obviously certain things we should kind of throw out. And then you kind of have to weigh all of it. Like the way I look at it is, and often describe it, is it's all just one big puzzle and we're trying to find the correct pieces to put it together, right? Right.

Yeah, that's one thing I always try to remember. Like, I always just try to remember, like, especially when I'm tested out, like, a new statter tracking some new data. I'm like, I have to make sure I or someone else test this to make sure it's, to make sure that it's repeatable. And it actually, like, it actually correlates with something that relates to creating or defending shots or creating or defending goals. Because that's, in the end, that's what matters in hockey. Yes. So if something looks interesting, if something, like, looks interesting and I feel like it's worth tracking and it leaves some, like, interesting data.

but it doesn't like correlate to anything or it's just or it's just random throughout a game to game basis, then it can probably just throw it out. Yep. So that's. I think it's also, you know, there is a difference there in the sense that it's not everything needs to necessarily, you know, be like predicting and telling us what's going to happen in the future. Sometimes it is okay to have just sort of interesting nuggets that you can kind of keep in your back pocket for future use or just kind of consider them without actually, you know, viewing it as the be all end all for everything. Oh, right. for sure, especially with zone exits, because that was one thing I didn't get a chance to attest with all three zones, but I believe some other people did. And they found some correlation between the number of zone exits the player has and how many shots he creates, which intuitively makes sense. But it's something that I always track and I always keep note of. It's something I always track. I always note down, but I always put it at the end that I always like make sure that I note that, uh,

that it's something that I'm still, like, working on right now. Which is totally fine. Yeah. And, you know, the reason why this is important is because, for example, I've been railing on ASAP a lot about how, you know, they brought out all these new features for the World Cup hockey about how they were tracking. And, you know, they provide these kind of stats, like, acceleration speed for a player or something like that.

And while it might sound interesting for someone sitting at home, ultimately, like, without any context or knowing what it actually means, it's just kind of a random filler. It's basically empty calories at that point. Yeah, definitely. That's why I mainly stick to zone entries and shot generation stats when I'm doing my breakdowns because those are because those have been tested before and those have been like noted as stats that are repeatable and they're very important when it comes to like

coaching and tactics too. And I've been following post by Ryan Stimson basically all summer. when he's, like, he's been doing the passing project. And I started tracking passes from the playoffs using, not exactly, not his exact methods, but like as close as I could based on, like, the stuff that he's released online. And eventually, I think starting with the conference finals, I started tracking using his methods.

So we're going to be joining up next year. Nice. We're going to be joining up next year. I'm going to be tracking using his methods. And his track. are going to keep working on last year, so we'll have two full years of data on passing, as all goes to plan.

But anyway, he was posting a lot of, like, really interesting, a lot of interesting articles about how the passing stats can relate to coaching tactics. And I was keeping an eye on those all summer and seeing how I can relate those to my playoff articles. And I found, like, I definitely found a few interesting things with those. Well, yeah, I think that's the funnest part of all this when you can actually, rather than just having a bunch of numbers or stuff like that, where you can spin it forward in a practical sense by looking at systems and looking at, you know, what it can tell us about how coaches operate and how sort of they utilize their personnel and whether they're optimizing that talent they have.

And I think that I'm glad you brought up Ryan's work because it really has been fascinating to follow along. And I know that yourself, you mentioned you started the primary shot contribution percentage, which is basically the show. shots and then the passes they led to those shots. And I think that obviously it's great that it's a repeatable skill. But the other thing that really fascinates me is that we, what's been shown that generating shots off of passing plays is actually more tightly linked to future goals than just looking at raw shot totals. Oh yeah, definitely. That was the, that's the thing that's, that's the thing I like kind of wish people would harp on when it comes to shot quality. Because shots off passing plays are obviously, obviously are going to be tough.

or stop for a goaltender, then just like a scoring chance that might be from like, I don't know, 10 feet away that the goaltender is square, already squared on, and he's probably going to stop. Like, uh, when he's the location like stuff.

You want to get the goalie moving a lot, right? And that's what passing plays basically tell us this happening. Yeah, exactly. So I was, I definitely wanted to look at those a lot more. And once I started, once, uh,

once Ryan sent me his, uh, spreadsheets to track the, uh, to track, the conference finals. It became a lot easier to look at passing plays

because I was tracking passes by location zones. I split up the, I split up the rank into like a bunch of different numbered areas. He actually just labeled them down and noted the type of pass that it is, which makes things a lot easier

when it comes to analyzing the data because all the different passes are all tracked for you instead of you having to try to figure it out yourself where all the passes go. Yep. like uh yeah go for it yeah like in particular he was uh what he tracks in uh what he was tracking uh in particular was passes that went back to the point and passes that went from behind the net and he wrote a post on this

like passes that went back to the point well that led to a shot that went back to the point or have a much lower percentage than a shot that went that comes off a pass from behind the net right and i was looking at that a lot in the Eastern Conference final and the penguins were just abusing like passes that were from I mean a passing place that were behind the net like they were just generating those that are an incredibly high rate compared to Tampa Bay well yeah that's I mean I like to call that Henrik Siddings office yeah definitely for sure crosbie's office in this case yes all right Corey let's let's take a little quick break here to to hear from our sponsors and when we come back we'll get into I've made a

speed round of topics that I kind of want us to sink our teeth into. All right, cool. This episode of the PDO cast is brought to you by FreshBooks, an online accounting service designed to save time and help avoid all the stresses that come with running a small business. With the new version of the interface they're now offering, accomplishing that is easier and quicker than ever before. It's ridiculously easy to use and it's loaded with a number of immensely useful features. Whether it's customizing, professional-looking invoices that only take a few seconds to create from scratch, or saying goodbye to shoeboxes full of receipts, thanks their expense tracker option. FreshBooks is a godsend for freelancers and entrepreneurs like myself.

They're currently offering a free 30-day trial to listeners of our show at freshbooks.com slash PDOCAST. Just remember to enter Hockey PDOCast in the how you heard about a section and you can get started today. That's freshbooks.com slash PDOCest. All right, we're back. Let's get this one out of the way because I know it's not necessarily the most interesting topic point, but it is something that, you know, you and I probably spent an ungodly amount of time and energy texting about during the postseason, and it's how bad Matt Carle was, because I feel like, you know, people know that a guy like Roman Polack, for example, doesn't actually have any real hockey skills and is going to struggle whenever the puck's on his stick

and stuff like that. But, you know, Matt Carlo actually used to be a pretty decent player. And I feel like, just because he can kind of skate around, people don't necessarily view him in that light. but he was genuinely atrocious than this past postseason. He was atrocious and he got thrown into the wolves because he was on a pairing with Victor Headman in the first couple of rounds, I believe. And I don't think he did a single thing like right in the entire postseason. Like forwards were just getting past him really quick, really easily. And he couldn't exit the zone well and he wasn't doing much when it comes to,

when it came to like contributing offense, which for like a player like that who might be terrible at defending his own blue lines. Sometimes they might be able to make up for it by, I don't know, creating a lot on the offensive end. He did absolutely nothing in any regard in any of those. And Cooper mercifully probably put in Slater Kuckoo in the conference final. And the lightning were doing a lot more when he was on the ice. Yeah.

I mean, the thing with Matt Carl is obviously, you know, heading into this season, it's a lot easier to swallow all that one. It's a one year, $700KK dollar deal. and he's on the Predators, which I had forgotten until I searched it up. And he's probably going to be what, like they're six, seven, or maybe eight defensemen up. So it's not one of those things where it's going to be a massive problem. But it was very bizarre to me because I think we'd both agree that that Cooper is one of the better coaches in the league,

if not right up there, were the best ones. And his usage of defensemen in the postseason was kind of alarming to me because there was the one. Obviously, he was utilizing the seven guys, which is very frustrating to you and I who track all these. games, but from a more practical perspective, it took him a while to warm up the Slater Cuckooke, and he never really wound up giving Nikita Nesterov the shot that I thought he should of, whereas he kept playing a guy like Andre Schuster who really struggled in my eyes. So I don't know, was that something to you when you watched all these games that you were kind of curious about or raise your eyebrow looking at?

Yeah, part of me felt like he had his hands tied because Strallman was out, and when he came back, he clearly wasn't himself. He couldn't, he couldn't make the plays he could at the blue line and he couldn't defend as well as he could. He just couldn't skate, like, he couldn't skate laterally or move as well as he usually does. But at the same time, it's like, I don't know, he kept feeding out Matt Carl to the wolves and he got away with it for the first two rounds because he was going up against the Red Wings who weren't really that good of a team, but they played a lot better in that first round than the results showed. And then the Islanders, which they got behind five games.

but like I felt like he kind of had his hands tied because like his other options especially on the right side were like Andre Schuster and Nikita Nesterov and Nesterov got benched for Luke Wutkowski a couple of times who was basically an HL player which I don't think was justified in my mind I don't know did you think that that's something you would have done

if you were running the lightning defense it's like Nesterov frustrates me in particular because like I feel like like he does a lot of things well. He can skate with the puck well. I tend to value defensemen who can rush the puck up the ice because there's only there's only like a handful of guy. Well, maybe not a handful, but there's not that many players in the league defensemen in the league who can do that effectively. And I thought that's one area that that Nesterov did well and something the lightning really needed. But he's he is kind of a mess in the defensive in the defensive zone. Like he does

make some really bad turnovers, and I guess he is pretty frustrating to watch, especially for the coach. So maybe I can understand the coach going to like a more reliable, quote unquote, reliable, better an option. But at the same time, Carl was just 10 times worse than Nestorov. Right. And I mean, at least you mentioned, you know, for all the bad things in his game, at least he does one thing well. And it was, I can't say that about Carl. And it was something that the lightning really needed because that was one thing that I thought Slater Kuku who especially added to that team

when he started to get more minutes in the postseason because they needed someone other than headmen to rush the puck up the ice and generate plays in the defensive and from the defensive and in the neutral zone. And they were just starving

for like some, for like more puck movers back there because I think their second best puck mover was like was Garrison. And like if you go through the whole playoffs, which is obviously, a problem because Garrison isn't that well isn't that good of a skater.

Yeah. Especially compared to how he used to be. Right. And, and yeah, like, and that's something that you figure Carl would be good at, but he just struggled in every single regard in the postseason.

Yeah, it was bizarre. It was weird watching him play. Let's move on because I feel like we spent enough time talking about Matt Carl here. Yeah. I think, you know, is Chris Russell.

And the reason why I bring that up is because there's less than 10 days now to the season and he still doesn't have a contract. It's kind of, well, it's kind of tough to say. I mean, at the same time, you know, it's tough to say whether he just sort of priced himself out of something earlier in the summer because he had these unrealistic expectations of what he was worth and what he should get because, I mean, I don't think Chris Russell is very good. But at the same time, there's a significant, there's a large number of defensemen that are

probably worse than him that are under contract right now right like i feel like he's still an nchl defenseman if utilized properly but obviously kind of things just went way overboard last year with the narrative around him yeah well i mean nick grossman got a pto so you figure if he can find a job and russell might be able to find somewhere too so i guess it is kind of surprising in that regard but yeah i don't know like like russell i kind of feel like he's a little like nesteroff where i feel like there's one thing he does well like i think he does he is okay when it comes to like skating with the puck and maybe like generating

making plays out of his own zone but like the bad outweighs the good with him because teams just bleed shots when he's on the ice and goals so there's definitely a lot of problems there but I figure I mean I thought some team would give him a shot maybe not for like 5 million or however much he wanted was reporting it was being reported out there

but he I thought he at least like a one year show me deal or a PTO or something Well, it's really weird that Chris Russell is the person that sort of brought the idea of zone exits into the mainstream discussion because obviously people were kind of confused as to why Jim Nill, who's generally thought of as a good GM and has won pretty much every trade he's ever done up until that point paid so much for Russell. And it was cited as his ability to transition the puck out of his own zone was one of his main skills. And I was a little perplexed at that at the time because having watched a bunch of him in Calais, especially under Bob Hartley he'd really struggled with that system that Hartley was playing especially at the start of last year where he was just trying to hit the home run on on every single play out of the zone in terms of the long outlet pass and in the playoffs I didn't you know he's a

good skater but I didn't really see any of that ability with the puck that was talked about which was which was bizarre to me he was like by my count one of the worst defensemen and especially in terms of on the amongst the stars defenseman he really struggled at pretty much every facet of the game yeah he was He definitely didn't have a good postseason, and he had a pretty terrible regular season, too. And I don't know. Like, I feel Russell, when it comes to, like, zone exits, I feel like he can, like, get the puck out of the zone,

but now transition it into anything, like, worthwhile. Right. Like, it either goes for, like, an ice scene or, like, the past misses and makes the other team come back the other way. Or it just, the play just dies in the neutral zone after he gets the puck there. so he might be generating zone exits, but it might not be doing anything productive with it.

And in the postseason especially, I feel like that was the case kind of. He didn't play a whole lot of minutes either because I think Ruff did a okay job at kind of sheltering him, like making sure that he wasn't out there against anyone going, and he was stuck on the third pairing with, I'm not exactly sure because Dallas did change up their defense parings a lot in the playoffs.

But he was definitely... He played with the Bears quite a bit, didn't he? I think so, but I think so, but either way, rough was definitely keeping him like away other teams best forwards and he wasn't playing him a lot of minutes. But like Russell kind of felt like in the playoffs he was just like there. Yes. Like he like he didn't really like stand out to me in like kind of a Roman Polack way

where I'm like, oh my God, get this guy off the ice now. But he wasn't generating that many, like the stars were not generating that many shots on the ice and the shots he was on the ice. and the shots he was on the ice for, he wasn't doing anything to kind of like directly contribute to them unless he was like missing the net or something on a shot. So I don't know. He's kind of an interesting player to me in general

because like I remember when he was in Columbus, he was a small like he was a small kind of Mark Andre Bergeron type defenseman who got Uber sheltered. He only started in the offensive zone or like he only took draws in the offensive zone basically. And ever since he went to. Calgary. He has this reputation of being this really big, like, well, not a big shot blocker, but shot blocking defensive defenseman. And it's kind of like the reputation around him just

totally shifted ever since Bob Hartley took over in Calgary. Yeah, I mean, if you, if you search Chris Russell on Getty images, for example, and like the first 10 pictures are going to be him just like flopping around like a fish out of water on the ice in that series against the blues. And I don't know, it is very frustrating for myself when I watch him just how frequently he sort of resorts to taking himself out of the play just to try and block a shot as opposed to, you know, staying on his feet and trying to do something with his stick. Like it's, I don't know if it's a mentality thing or what because he does have the physical tools, as we mentioned, he can skate.

And it seems like he should be more useful than he is, but just something there isn't adding up. Yeah, I remember, I was watching this one game after he got traded of the stars and he, he immediately like blocked a shot that was that was really softened from the blue line and like Dallas's color guy Terrell Ray was like he does know there's a goalie behind him right he's like he has the big pads on and block those like let him block those because he probably can but like Russell definitely is really eager to go down and block shots whenever he can it's it's pretty it's pretty frustrating to watch in general I think a good transition is and And I don't want to equate these two guys because I think the guy we're about to talk about is a much better player and a much more intriguing player moving forward.

But a similar player in that sense is Cam Fowler for me because there is a pretty clear mismatch between kind of when you watch him and when you track these games. And especially like I noticed when they were playing against Nashville, he did a lot of things well. Like he moved the puck well and he was pretty aggressive in defending his own blue line. and he posted some pretty impressive numbers, but then you look, and in terms of the sort of prototypical underlying numbers, in terms of the shot metrics, he never really stacks up that well.

He's generally a negative, uh, coursey relative player. And, and I just wonder what the mismatch is there. Like, why is there such a discrepancy between how good he should look and how good his numbers actually are?

I think another good guy, maybe a more notable example is, is a guy like John Carlson, right? Yeah, definitely. So maybe it's, something that's, yeah, I'm not really sure because I didn't, because I tracked that series a long time ago, but Fowler is someone that I always thought was really good when it comes to

like getting the puck out of his own zone, kind of like, uh, same thing with John Carlson. Yeah. And I don't know, I thought Carlson played really well in the playoffs, especially when it comes from like an offensive standpoint, because next to Ovechkin, he was like the capital's best shot generator. Especially in the power play, I mean, his shot is such a weapon from the point. Yeah, definitely. and I don't know if Fowler

Fowler's a really Fowler's a really interesting player because his numbers have kind of nosedived in the past in the past couple of years and I don't know maybe he's playing a role that he's not ready that he's not suited for because I know he generally plays like he generally plays like top four minutes there

I don't know what kind of matchups he gets but yeah that one I'm not really that one I'm not really too sure on because I don't know Fowler never really stood out to me as kind of like a as like one of the best in the league at it, but he kind of, but I know like he definitely holds his own when it comes to,

when it comes to zone exits. And, uh, he was, he definitely got lit up a bit in terms of shots in that pred series, though. Right. I do remember that. I'm not sure how,

but he was like the end of BXA quite a bit, I feel like. Yeah, he was. So maybe it could be that. I know BX, uh, definitely,

definitely is not one of the better players in the league when it comes to moving the puck out of his own zone, especially, and especially I defend his blue line too. It's weird because, Like, and ever since I started tracking this, like, the only way BX has stood out is from an offensive standpoint, which is kind of alarming to me because he's not really, because he's pretty mediocre in that regard to. I feel like that was a very nice way. He's definitely not one of the best in the league is a nice way of saying he's not very good.

Yeah, I'm being a little too diplomatic here, I guess. Yeah, no, BX has fallen off a cliff recently. The reason why I bring up Fowler is interesting to me is because obviously the Ducks resign Sammy Vatinin to a long-term deal and they have, you know, BX is under contract for a while, and they're probably not going to be able to offload that contract. And Simone DePrey has an extension, and Hampus Linholm, you figure, will get signed at some point here in the near future. And you wonder whether a guy like Fowler, who's available, I think, his contract is two more

years at four million per would be an interesting trade target for a team. He's not necessarily going to be, you know, your number one or even your top pairing defenseman, but if you could bring him in at that reasonable contract, I feel like he could be a pretty big upgrade for a lot of teams around the league. yeah definitely especially when you look at some of the defense courts around the league someone like cam fowler could definitely fit in to like your second or third pair and not be a total disaster but yeah i'm not sure what i'm not sure what the ducks are going to do with kind of because they have kind of a logjam back there and when you couple it with like their internal

budget or whatever that's been reported like i'm not sure what exactly they're going to do with like their defense going for because you figure they're going to resign lindholm yeah and they still have to resign rakel too and I'm not sure how they're going to fit like everyone under their supposed budget or their internal cap but Vaddenin is someone I personally I think Vaddenin is better than Fowler

like basically in most aspects because when I was doing my project Fowler I mean Vaddenin was one of the best in the league well one of the best defensemen in the league at generating zone entries with control and rushing the puck up the ice and carrying the puck in and that was when he was only a rookie and I feel like he's only gotten better since then.

And I think that's, I think that's, uh, someone who they should probably value maybe more than Kim Fowler. But, I don't know, like Fowler's definitely kind of, he's kind of drifted into like, I guess average territory for me. But I feel like someone, I feel like he'd be a fit somewhere in some team's blue line. Because he's not, he's definitely not like, he's not a bad player at all. And, I mean, it's all relative, right? Like the ducks are so loaded in the blue line that it's, it's easy to look.

at him as an afterthought, but as you mentioned, there are quite a few blue lands around this league. Let's take someone like the Rangers, for example, like, Camphiler would instantly be like, what, I think their second best defenseman, so I feel like. Probably. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I remember, I, I asked on Twitter who the worst defense corp in the course in the league is, and a lot of people said Ranger, said the Rangers, most of them are Ranger fans. I'm like, they're probably just overreacting. And I was making dev charts for the upcoming year. And I was like, oh, my God, when I looked at the Rangers. What?

Yeah, that right side is just a total disaster. Because they're probably going to, I mean, it's just a mess right now out there. Because I think like Kevin Klein is their second best defenseman. And he's going to be playing top pair of minutes because they don't, they don't have anyone else unless Brady Shea steps in there and has a surprise season. Well, I mean, and you mentioned how much you love or how partial you are to guys that, kind of can transition the puck out by skating it out and I feel like you're going to love watching Brady's yeah, if that's the case. Yeah, he was good at that in the penguin series, but that was only five games. So I don't know how much to talk to put in it, but he definitely has he has some skills.

Well, no, which is surprising because you look at him and he looks kind of like this big lumbering guy and you expect you could expect him to play that way, but he gets the puck on his stick and all of a sudden he's just flying around there like a chicken with its head cut off, which is pretty cool to watch. Yeah, he does that. Like in this whole preseason thing I'm doing, I'm noticing a lot of a lot of defensemen that do that. And a lot of them are probably going to end up in the HL because their coaches probably hate them. Yeah.

Yeah, too risky. All right, we talked a lot here about zone exits. I think on the other side of things, though, we can have a fascinating discussion about defending zone entries against, which is something we've also looked at. And I want to start it off with a sort of philosophical discussion about it because I don't know if there's necessarily one right way to play or not. Like, obviously you don't want to,

do the Chris Russell, Matt Carl, Matt Adore defense where you're so afraid of getting beaten out wide that you're just giving the guy free access into the zone. But I think that there is, you know, you can go too far the other way where we've had discussions about a guy like Radco Gudas, where he goes so above and beyond trying to defend the blue line and throw vicious body checks on whoever's approaching that he basically takes himself out of position and all of a sudden the team is just playing like five on four on the other end. Yeah, definitely. but I feel like defending your own blue line is definitely critical when it comes to like a defenseman skills

because we already know that zone entries are important and entries that are done by carry and lead to more shots than opposed to dumping the puck in and defensemen who can and defensemen who can effectively defend their own blue line definitely have a lot of value when it comes to that

but yeah definitely you can go overboard when you try to do it too much like one player that I remember this from the project is Eric Jelina from the Devils. And the Devils in general that year were pretty good at defending their own Blue Line just because of their system. It was so hard to get up the ice against them. But Jelina always

went for like a big hip check at the Blue Line. And sometimes like sometimes it worked and sometimes you would just miss completely and there would be a 2-1-1. But yeah, it definitely depends like how well you play the Blue Line.

I think one of the best players is like that's been do at this in the past like few years is Paul Martin and he's cut when it comes to this because he's really good at making plays with this stick he's really good at having a good gap on other forwards not giving them much room to work with up the ice and like seeing on the sharks Justin Braun was another guy who was really good at that because in my last post on the playoffs it was on the blues shark series and the blues just got suffocated in the neutral zone in the first two or three, in the first three games. And their defensemen, well, like, we're playing really aggressive.

Like, the second the Blues got the puck and we're trying to go out the ice, the Sharks were basically at the Red Line. Like, the Sharks' defensemen were at the, basically at the red line, not giving them any quarter. And Justin Braun was one guy in particular who just completely shut down the blues and didn't give them anything to work with. Well, I wonder if that's something the Sharks management team is actively sort of seeking, because you mentioned Paul Martin and Justin Braun,

and I was actually going to say that I think, the best guy in the league of this might be Mark Edward Vlasik in terms of just how good he is at he's aggressive, but he kind of knows his physical limitations or what he's capable of so he doesn't you know, overreact and he was really good with his stick. And I remember watching that series and just thinking that, you know, there were a couple times where whether it be a guy like Teresenko or whoever and he would just like, he would just nip that entire rush on the bud just by himself just by kind of jumping in and surprising the guy where he was, it wasn't expecting him to do that. Yeah, I know

the funny thing was the numbers from that series, Vlasic actually gave up a lot of carry-ins, but he was barely targeted. Like, the blues kind of just avoided going to that side of the ice all together, and they kept targeting Braun, and they had even less success going against him because Braun

is, because Braun's also really good when it comes to this. And yeah, that was another thing. That's another thing, like, I'm going to be incorporating from Ryan's project. Because one of his posts, I believe this was a month ago, he was looking at entries that also had a pass,

that also had a pass or a pass that led to a shot. Like after, like, they're like with carry-ins, like, I guess some, I get a lot of people, like, think they're kind of overvalued now because there's a lot, there's a, I don't know if there's a lot of them. But every, every now and then, you'll see a player just carry the puck in and take a shot and the plays over. Yeah.

And like one way he, and something he was looking at to get around this was looking at entries where there was a pass that led to a shot. And those obviously led to higher quality. I shouldn't say higher quality opportunities, but they led to shots with a higher shooting percentage. Which makes sense because there's passing play,

because it's off a passing play, and those are harder for a goaltender, harder for a goaltender to read and stop. Yeah, I mean, you do see that a lot where a guy might enter the, zone with possession, but then he instantly just relinquishes about kind of firing the puck away. I do think that, you know, we should value the ones more where a guy comes in and then maybe he stops or maybe he passes it off to someone else and then all of a sudden they're maintaining possession

in the offensive zone. I feel like that's much more valuable than the alternative. Right. And on the defensive side of the, like going back to like Vlasic, on a defensive side of this, like I was interested in seeing how many of those entries that Vlasic allowed that actually led to like shots or anything because the blues were only generating like maybe like point point two eight shots per entry against vlasic even though they carried the puck in a lot against him so maybe he was a so maybe he was allowing carry-ins but breaking them up right after or but breaking them up along the boards or forcing them to the outside or something like that so uh starting well i shouldn't say starting next year because it's starting right now with the preseason but uh i'm going to be looking

at that like i'm going to be looking at entries that that also had a pass and see how, see which forwards are the best at doing this and which defensemen are the best at preventing this because I think there's definitely a lot of value there when it comes to this, especially with, especially with the San Jose defensemen because they just did not give up anything. Yeah. And the first round and the third round, they got exposed a little bit against Nashville, which is really interesting to watch from a tactical standpoint. Well, you bring up, you bring up the tactical standpoint and you bring up how much Vlasic was targeted and whether the opposition was sort of, it was something they noticed while watching film or while they

were game planning for playing the sharks where they realized they might be better off going on the other end of the ice. And that is always one of the questions in terms of a practical perspective, how much you can utilize this because the game is moving so fast and you wonder whether you can exploit it to your advantage in game. But I think I definitely sort of noticed whether word gets out or whether whether something else is the case. like for a guy like Shea Weber, for example, he gets a lot of flack and I'm partly responsible myself. I got on his case for his ability to move the puck and how, you know, valuable he actually was on that area of the game. But where he really stood out to me watching the playoffs was

it felt like, I don't know if this is the right way to say it, but like I felt like the opposition was spooked by him in the sense that whether it was just sort of the way he's discussed or the way he's kind of propped up in hockey circles or whether it's just, you know, justified because of his reach and because of how hard of a hitter he is. But whenever he was standing around the blue line and the other team was trying to come in, it definitely looked like they would kind of make a frantic play sooner than they'd ideally like to in a best case scenario. Like they'd either dump it in or they'd try to make some elaborate move at the blue line that would wind up getting snuffed out. And that was one area where, you know, credit where

credit is due, he was legitimately really good at that. Yeah, that is one thing. Shea Weber has been good in for as long as I can remember, because in the all three zones, project. He was one of the better defensemen in the league at preventing carry-ins, whether it was by teams just avoiding him or whether it was by teams just avoiding him or him making like a play at the blue line or playing aggressive there. But that's the interesting dynamic with like him and the pairing with him and Roman Yose. Because on the flip side, Robyn Yossey is, I don't want to say, I don't want to say terrible when it comes to defending the blue line, but he allows a lot of carry-ins, whereas Weber is like the complete opposite.

and, and, uh, when you, like, when it comes like to sit there play without the puck, but with the puck, Yosey is like, obviously in another league compared to Weber. But at the same time, at the same time, it's kind of part of the Prette system because, like, every single time I've tracked like any Pred's game, Weber doesn't handle, Weber doesn't handle the puck. Like, he defers to Yosy almost every single time and just let him carry the puck up the ice. And honestly, why wouldn't you? Because Yose, might be the best skater on that team and he's easily their best defenseman

at rushing the puck up the ice and creating plays from the defensive zone. So that's been really interesting to watch because in the playoffs, Weber barely has any events logged with the puck. It's all Yossi, which is interesting. But that's the one thing Weber still did well. He definitely defended the blue line well. but he definitely defended the blue line well,

and he definitely did a good job at preventing carry-ins. And it's interesting because it's interesting because, like, in terms of like his impact on shots, like it was still negative. So something is definitely going on there. Yeah, yeah, something definitely is going on there. I feel like we're going to get a lot more answers to that, this season of Montreal.

I understand that, you know, I don't necessarily like player comps either because they're generally lazy, and you sort of pick one trait that reminds you of two guys and you all of a sudden link them for the rest of their careers. And at the risk of doing that, I think that someone I saw that had those similar traits in terms of defending his own blue line were Colton Pereco,

especially with the reach where he was very aggressive and was able to really kind of just alter the game plan for the other team. But the scary thing about a guy like Pareko is this was his first year. And he basically had that defensive component to a game, but he was also really, really good at moving the puck out. And I think that's someone who moving forward. forward. Like, I'm not sure if people are fully on board yet. Like, I feel like, you know, he looked really good in the World Cup of hockey and he obviously made a deep playoff run and he was getting

some Calder trophy buzz during the season because he was putting up a lot of points. But I feel like people still haven't fully grasped. This guy could legitimately be like one of the next great defensemen in the league just based on everything he does well. Yeah, I'm definitely a fan of Perrako. and he was excellent in the first two rounds. Basically, in almost every single aspect. He did struggle in that shark series, though, but he's a rookie, and he's going up against the sharks. So I don't want to knock him too much for that.

But at the same time, he was really impressive to watch this year, just at so many things he does at such a young age. And, like, as an offensive defenseman, like, he's pretty top-notch. Like he has that shot and he can move the puck up the ice really well. And he can also make pretty good pass in the offensive zone. So he definitely has, he's definitely off your great start like in his career. Yeah.

And I do wonder you mentioned that he struggled a bit in that Shark series. And, you know, it seems a little convenient, but it also is quite possible that he was just, you mentioned he's a rookie and he's probably just fatigued, right? Like he was entering what, his like 90th game of the year heading into that series, whereas I'm sure in the past playing in college, it's like a 35, 40 games. season, right? So it is kind of aware and tear thing. And I'm sure that next year he'll be more acclimated and more suited to hold up in the long run. Yeah, I've seen people kind of ding him because of like quality of competition and like who he faces. But like I broke down like who who was entering

the zone against him in each in each series. And yeah, he may have not been out against Taves and and Jamie Ben ever shift. But he was still. going up against some pretty good players because if he wasn't going up against if he wasn't going up against Taves, he was going up against Panarin or Hosa with how Quinville is spraying out his lines. And if he

wasn't going up against Ben he was going up against he was going up against Hemsky or Spezza against Dallas. So those are still pretty good players. So I don't want I don't like holding quality of competition against him because yeah, matchups matter

especially in the playoffs. But At the same time, it's like, it's not like he's facing fourth liners every single shift. And especially on the road, because on the road, you're not going to get the matchups all the time. So he was going to be, so he was out there against first liners a bit. And he still did pretty well against him in the first two rounds. Yeah. So I'm, I'll buy all the, all the stocks for the Colton Preco experience. I feel like he's going to be really, really good.

Right. Yeah. Me too. I mean, I personally, I'm personally a pretty big fan of him. Yeah. And I'm interested to see where he goes on the dev chart, because the blue, right side is kind of stacked. Yeah, well, that could be something where they exploit that and make a trade or something like that

and then prop them up and give them more ice time because I feel like he's going to be capable of handling that. Corey, this is the part of the show where I let you plug some stuff. I know you've got your new website, you're tracking all sorts of stuff as you alluded to earlier. So kind of just let the listeners know everything you're doing and how they can help support you. Yeah, well, it's going to be a lot since I have a lot on my plate for the upcoming year. but I'm going to be tracking basically every game I can for the upcoming season. I'm going to be doing zone entries and zone entries, zone exits, zone entry defense,

a shot contribution and passing, which is going to be using Ryan's methods. So we're going to be teamed up a little bit with that. And I'm also like taking other people's input on what I should and shouldn't be tracking. Like someone suggested that I should start tracking like whether the goaltender was screened or not. on shots. And it'll be easy for me to include since I'm doing everything else. So I might, well, I'm probably going to be adding that too. So we can see, like, how much a goaltender's safe percentage is affected on shots

that he can't see. Because that's something you hear people talk about a lot, but how much impact does it really have? Right. So, yeah, so I'm going to be doing all that. It's all going to be on my blog on theenergyline. Wordspread, wordpress.com. And it's eventually going to be a dot com sooner. rather than later.

And if you go there, you can go this tab, you can click on this tab called a playoff data, and you can download everything I tracked from the playoffs and play with it as much as you want, because all the raw data is there. It's all broken into tables for you

if you want to use it in like a blog post or something. And I'm going to be doing this all season, have it updated like every Sunday or every couple days, depending on how quick it takes me to track all the games. and I'm going to be doing a lot more cool stuff like throughout the season like I have data charts posted now

I'm eventually going to make those a little more interactive and have like game logs there and basically everything you can imagine and if you want to help me with this you can contact me at C. Snyder at outlook.com or you can go to my Patreon page

which is on my Twitter account and on my website and donate a pledge to that. Because as you can imagine, this takes a lot of time to do. And I kind of had to go out of full time to make it happen. So if you want to help me with that, you can go there. And I think that's it for now. Excellent.

Well, I definitely recommend wholeheartedly that everyone checks out all your work and help support you if you can because you're doing great work and helping the hockey community get better one day at a time. So, Corey, let's make sure to get you back on as season goes along. we can talk about some of the new developments you've noticed in your tracking and go from there. Yeah, definitely. I'm pretty excited about the upcoming year. Cool.

All right, man. We'll chat soon. All right. Cool. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.