The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 127: Ken Holland's Marinade

Episode Date: January 4, 2017

Prashanth Iyer joins the show to discuss the downward spiral of the Detroit Red Wings, Ken Holland's archaic ways, and whether Jeff Blashill is doing everything he can with the players he's been given. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 1:00 Pavel Datsyuk's absensce 6:30 Ken Holland's team-building philosophy 10:00 Loyalty and culture 13:00 Jeff Blashill's system and the cards he's been dealt 16:40 Steve Ott's usage 21:30 Anthony Mantha's emergence 27:30 Dylan Larkin's 'sophomore slump' Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Stitcher. All past episodes can be found here. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews of the show are also 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.

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My name is Dimitri Filipovich. and joining me as my good buddy, Prashant Tire. Prashan, what's going on, man? Not much. How are you doing, Dimitri? I'm good, man. I'm good. And for people, don't remember I had you back on last year before the first round of the playoffs. You are a Red Wings fan,

and you write about the Red Wings for winging in a Motown, and we had a good chat about them, and I wanted to make sure I got you back on because I'm not sure if we'll be able to do another playoff preview this season for them. Looks pretty unlikely so far. I don't anticipate that change, and so... Well, I haven't really talked much about the Red Wings on the podcast this year.

I wrote about them at length a few weeks ago, but they've been a pretty uninspiring bunch. And I don't know, it just feels like it's a lot of the same stuff. The people that have been paying attention to the situation have been saying for a few years now. So it's not really like any of this stuff is new, but it's just really bubbling to the surface now because the room for air has shrunk so much for them. Yeah, I mean, what you're really seeing is probably three years worth of issues that have finally manifested and the dam has been. burst with Datsuk leaving. You're seeing a lot of their problems at five on five magnified. You're seeing what happens when they don't get outstanding goaltending. You're really seeing a lot of their issues shine through. And then everything on the whole just looks a whole lot

worse when their special teams play has been absolutely abysmal this year. So, I mean, really overall, you're looking at a very boring, bad team. And that's probably why a lot of people haven't touched on them is they're frankly not super interesting to watch unless you've been invested for 20 years. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's a good point about the Datsuk thing because it definitely feels like, you know, they've been slowly deteriorating as a group for a couple years now, but Datsuk was around to, even though his skills on the offensive end had sort of declined a little bit, his 5-1-5 game was still so off the charts that it covered for a lot of their mistakes. And without them, without him there, I mean, they're 22nd and shot share now at 5-15, their sub-50% in

goals, expected goals, scoring chances. you name it. So it's just territory that feels weird for them. I mean, maybe I'm living in the past, but it's like whenever I sort of sort back, going all the way back for this analytics era, quote unquote, from 0708 to now when I'm trying to figure out like our historical context of teams, it's always those late 2000s Red Wings teams that pop as the best of the bunch. And then now it's just like they're one of the most boring, mediocre, just uninspiring teams in the league. And it just seems bizarre. Yeah. I mean, it's very bizarre for all of us. We've been watching them for a long time. know with that 0-708 team, you're talking about that top line with Datsuggetterberg and

Homestrum had like a course you percentage around 70%. I mean, it was frankly flat out dominated everybody. And the thing is that didn't really deviate a whole lot from the team. I think that team had, you know, several fluctuations well above 65% where they were just flat out dominating. Now we're looking at a team that is struggling to get up to 48% and spent a good majority of the season at sub-45%. And it's a it's a very, bad sign to watch. And, you know, it's not just the numbers bearing this out. You watch them on the ice and you're seeing great breakaway giving up after breakaway. You're seeing a lot of really high number chances going against, a lot of failed possession in the offensive zone.

And you're really seeing a middling below average team that thinks they can still compete. Yeah. Well, okay, so we're going 20, we have 25 straight seasons of them making the playoffs. And, you know, it's obviously something to be proud of. And I think it's also something that they've been kind of milking the crap out of for PR and marketing purposes the past few years where you could definitely argue that over the past handful of seasons, it's cost them to chase where, you know, they've made questionable decisions around the deadline trying to bolster their team and get, get over the hump, whether it's giving up prospects and picks for rental spare parts, like a David Legwand or an Eric Cole or what have you. But I don't know, I think the fair

question to ask, and you might be the right person to ask this because it's easy for me from the outside to, you know, say one thing since I have no interest or stake in the matter. But is it fair to say that they'd be better off missing the playoffs this season just so that they're forced to kind of take a long, long, hard look in the mirror and reassess where they're at rather than just tricking themselves into thinking that everything is good as it has been for years past? Yeah, I've had this internal debate for a long time. And I think part of the issue is, I think from your perspective, you're spot on,

from a sane organizational standpoint, missing the playoff gets them a high pick, potentially into a lottery scenario, and may force a reevaluation of management strategies and direction. I think the big issue is what you're hearing from the team, both the players and management, is that none of them are interested in a long rebuild. None of them are interested in this so-called tanking route.

And every time someone broaches the subject with them, you hear, tanking takes 10 years, just look at the oilers. And I think what they're really missing is the management doesn't have a good understanding that you can do this in the right way and turn it around in a short period of time, like less than five years. Granted, the wing situation would be a lot tougher given they have a lot more contracts that are very ugly and last for several years. But I think them missing the playoffs this year, if management does not change,

I still don't think it changes their directives. I still think you have Henrich Zetterberg, who openly said the wings will not tank while I'm here, and he's here four more years. You have Ken Holland, his contract doesn't expire until the end of next season, and because of that, I don't think you'll see any changes from the organization in that front. You can see that they really wanted to remain competitive because they've got the new arena opening next year. I still don't think that changes their directives. So as much as I think missing the playoffs, at least,

at least helps them replenish some of that depleted talent pool. I still don't think it changes management's overall perspective. And unfortunately, that means we're going to have an even more prolonged rebuild phase when management finally does come around to that. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're seeing that in Mancura with a Canucks is a great example of, you know, a formerly great team that kind of failed to see the writing on the wall and recognize that they aren't what they used to be.

and the sooner you realize and come to terms with that and then make the moves accordingly rather than trying to think, you know, you can patch things together and add these spare parts here and there and now all of a sudden get back to where you were before. Like that's just not how it really works particularly in the salary cap era. And I think actions do speak louder than words and you look at some of the moves they made this summer. And it's like, you know, they bring in guys like Steve Odd and Thomas Vanek on his last legs. And it seems like this is one of like Ken Holland's just bread and butter moves. It's bringing in the just insert the name of.

the formerly good player on his last legs. And it seems like the Red Wings bring one of these guys in every year, whether it was like Brad Richards in the past or who have you. I don't know. It's like it was much easier to justify when they were actually good. And maybe one of these two guys could chip in in a complimentary role and put them over the top, like with Robert Lang in the past or guys like that. But at this point, it just seems like these Band-Aid solutions

aren't really doing anything productive for them. Yeah, I think you're seeing a lot of the Ken Holland theory on how to replenish talent in an organization. And we know there's three ways you can bring talent back into the organization. You can draft it. You can sign it for agency or you can trade for it. And prior to the salary cap, if you wanted to trade Slava Kozlov for Dominik, you did. If you wanted to trade for Brendan Shanahan, you did.

If you wanted to, you know, go out and sign Brett Hall and Luke Robitai, you did. You can't do that in the post-salary cap era. And so his trades have been hamstrung. He hasn't been able to make the same moves in because the way. haven't been in good drafting position due to always making the playoffs and selling a lot of their picks, he's resorted to just bringing in free agent after free agent. And so you had Franz Nielsen come in a long-term deal. You had Thomas Vanek. You had Steve Ott. I mean, you've got a lot of guys just, this is the one method that Ken Holland knows he can still bring players he believes are

talented into the organization. And unfortunately, that's an outdated and archaic mindset in the salary cap era. Yeah, I mean, I'm sure listeners of the show have heard me say this a million times by now, but I do have this theory where I think Ken Holland has a good eye for talent, but it just unfortunately not necessarily players, but might be people in the front office. Like, I think if he was sort of a vice president type that was overseeing the hiring of, you know, who was on his staff and making sure the operation was running smoothly, I think he's perfectly well-suited for that job.

But unfortunately, as you mentioned, sort of the archaic tactics and how the game is passed him by a little bit on the player personnel front. It just doesn't really seem like he hasn't done anything to inspire confidence that, you know, he's going to be able to adjust on the fly here and completely change his ways. Like, it seems like he, if anything, he would just be outgoing with the mindset of, well, I've been very successful in the past. I've been doing this for a long time. So why should I change what will go me to this point? Yeah, I think you have a lot of people in the Wings organization who feel that way. And I frankly don't think it changes until Ken Holland elects to step down. I don't think you'll ever see him fire.

given all of the success he's had. My current hope is he does elect to step aside after the end of his contract next year, I believe he'll be 65 after that. So there's a potential chance he might step aside there. But otherwise, I don't think you see any change in the way the wings are run until Ken Holland decides to step aside.

Yeah, it's always a weird sort of thing when you have someone who's meant so much to an organization like that and you want to handle it gracefully and, you know, not burn any bridges, but at the same time, like, it's not really helping the team of this moment. Yeah, that's a common theme with the Red Wings, this idea of loyalty and culture. And we've seen it with the moves Hollins made himself where, you know, now they're stuck with a lot of these contracts for aging players who are getting paid way too much for way too long, and it's really tough to justify them. I mean, let me rattle off some contracts. I'm sure you're aware, but for our listeners, like, Henry Zetterberg, for example, he's over

$6 million a year until 2021. Justin Abdel Kidder, who just recently signed his deal, has 4.25 until 2023. Nick Cronwell, Jonathan Erickson, these guys, over $4 million until 2020, pretty much. And then, you know, the one that really catches my eye and sort of symbolizes a lot of the stuff that's going wrong in Detroit, and it might not seem like a big deal, but Luke Lennon getting $1.8 million until 2021 is just the perfect sort of microcosm of how this sort of idea of loyalty and what they're looking for in players is going wrong because while $1.8 million doesn't seem like much on the surface, the fact is like you're locking yourself up with a fourth liner who's not really

that good or that productive for a lot of years for no real apparent reason, it seems like. Yeah, I mean, you're seeing a lot of this loyalty and all of these loyalty contracts have continued to be doled out. You know, you had Danny DeKeyzer, another Michigan guy, signed a big deal this offseason, and he's thus far not proven to really be able to do a whole lot or be deserving of that contract. And actually, he has taken some third-parring minutes

the last few games, which is really, really interesting. But, you know, I think you hit the nail on the head. In addition to signing free agents, he's just handing out loyalty contracts to the guys he's comfortable with. He's basically telling his team, he wants to keep this core together. The problem is the core really isn't all that talented. And it does hamstring their ability to do a lot more down the road.

And I think a lot of people don't realize how tenuous their cap situation is because coming into this offseason at the end of the year, you've got Thomas Tatar, who's a restricted free agent. He's been cessational. He'll do a pretty sizable pay raise. You've got Thomas Jirko, another guy who's still only, he's in his early, 20s and he really hasn't been given a great chance in the NHL. So you risk losing him as a restricted free agent.

You've got Andreas Athanasiu as a restricted free agent. You've got Brendan Smith, who's quietly been very solid. You've got Xavier Lett, who's a restricted free agent. So you've got a lot of guys who are high-quality young players that you have the potential to lose because you've already committed upwards of $66 million to your core, and that really can't change. So the wings are definitely in some big cap issues. Part of the reason why I alluded to you earlier that I don't think their rebuild is going to be a quick one when it does finally become official and people start committing that way.

But really those loyalty contracts are a major problem. And I don't know how the wings are going to get rid of some of those. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I wanted to ask you about Jeff Blashell because, you know, it's really tough to evaluate him for me because he hasn't necessarily been dealt with a great hand. terms of the chess pieces or the cards which which he can play. I mean, particularly on the blue line, you mentioned a few of those names and, you know, beyond a guy like Mike Green who has one year left on his deal, but, you know, he's 31 years old right now and he's hurt once again,

which surprises no one who's followed Mike Green's career. And Brendan Smith, who will be interesting to see how they deal with him, considering that, you know, we always thought of him as this up-and-coming young prospect, but all of a sudden you look and he's turning 28 years old and you're kind of wondering whether we've already seen everything that Brendan Smith will be able to provide. And beyond that, I mean, it's very barren. During the centennial, the alumni game a few days ago, I made it a little bit of a joke online about how, you know, Nicholas Lidsrom was looking good and how he could step in and instantly be their second best defenseman behind Mike Green.

And a little bit was tongue-in-cheek, but honestly, I mean, at this point, I feel like Nicholas Littshrum would legitimately be an upgrade over some of these guys, particularly, like a Jonathan Erickson or a Nicholas Cronwell at this point. So, I mean, Blaschell himself hasn't, you know, been given the talent to work with, so it's tough to evaluate what kind of a job he's done. But I know that you're a systems guy and you follow all this stuff very closely. Like, where are you at with him in terms of how he has used what he has been provided with? Yeah, I mean, that's a great question. I think back in March, I covered the topic a little bit because what you saw when Blaschel took over last year at the beginning of the season,

he tried to open up the roster a little bit more. And it was in line with what he did in Grand Rapids with the Wings's minor. league team. He basically wants to open a system more. He wants his defensemen to pinch more. It involves more skating for his defensemen. And initially when the wings did that, they just got, I mean, they got blasted. They, they, they're, of coursey four percentage last year, I think it was like 42% through the first 17 games, similar to what you saw this year when they tried to turn up the pace. And so eventually as you watch the season progress, the wings kind of dialed it back in. They slowed the pace down. They dropped their defenseman back.

They had them challenge less, tried to keep everything in front of them. And that kind of coincided with Dat Tzuke's return. And you saw the wings give back up to much better possession numbers and kind of coincided with them making that push in the mid part of the season to get back in a playoff position and get back into contention. And this season, again, you saw Blaschell try the same thing where he's asked his defensemen to be more aggressive. He's asked them to push the pace up a little bit. Even though the wings are, I believe, at my last check, still the fourth-slowered team by

course the events per game, you're still seeing them at a faster overall rate than when they were under Babcock. And I think what Mike Babcock was doing was masking a lot of the defensive deficiencies, particularly the inability for the defenseman to skate. And so I think Blashele, like you mentioned, hasn't been given a great hand. His system really hasn't worked out the way he wants it to because of the players he's got dealt. And you're right, it really is hard to peg a grade on him.

He makes a lot of head-scratching player decisions, particularly today. It's released at Steve Ott's on the power play now, but it's still a bit of a challenge to really evaluate him. I don't think any coach steps in and makes this team better than the seventh seed in the east. That's just where their talent levels at. But I do think Blaschell has some deficiencies that could be corrected, not necessarily entirely his fault. I'm glad you mentioned Steve-Ot there. I feel like, you know, let's have it. I feel like, you know, I wouldn't be remiss if I had you on this show.

I didn't give you some time here to just rant about whatever they're trying to do with Steve Watt. I mean, the fact that he was slotting in over our boyfriend, Andreas Athanasu for a while, there's just mind-blowing on so many levels. It's mind-blowing when you particularly look at the wings right now and then recognize at the beginning of the year that Steve-Vat was deemed more valuable than Anthony Manta because Manta started the year in Grand Rapids. And you can argue that maybe that was a money thing, but it's really not. Manta and Ott make relatively close to the same amount of money.

If they really wanted to finagle that, they could have made that work. The difference between their contracts is $63,000 per season. So that wasn't the issue. And then you've got Ott now going from being an intermittent scratch in the early part of the season, which was fair. I never expected him to really be a fixture. And now with a lot of the wings injuries, particularly to Justin Abdelkator, and helm. You've seen Ott take on this larger role. And even in some games, he's been moved

down to the top line with Thomas to Target and dropped to the fourth line. And then today we see he's being utilized on the power play. I mean, the guy has five goals in his last 180 games. And I'm not really sure why you feel he's the answer to drive offense. He doesn't really do a good job of, you know, defense and he takes a lot of penalties. He's already negated several Red Wings power plays. He's also put the wings on the five on three in two different instances already when short-handed. So I'm not sure what you see other than a guy who looks like he's trying hard because he's always chasing the play. Yeah, that's a common mistake people make with guys like that where they think that, you know, they see him working hard and getting into those corners,

but it's like, well, the reason why he's doing that is because he doesn't ever have the puck on his stick. So he has to just constantly chase the play and it's sort of a circular way of thinking and backwards logic. So I don't know. I've kind of given up hope. I know that, you know, I wrote heading into this season, I had this sleeper's list, and a couple of the guys are panning out so far. And Athens EU just hasn't panned out the way I thought he would yet. And I honestly think that that is pretty much entirely just the fact that they haven't unleashed him on the hockey world yet. I mean, he's averaging 12 minutes a night this season in the games he has played, and he's been scratched a few times. And he was injured for a while there, understandably. But I mean, just like, I would just love to

see him get 14, 15 minutes a night and just let him constantly play no matter what mistakes he might make in his own zone. And I'm pretty sure that it would be a net positive for the team just based on the chances he would create for them on the offensive end. Oh, yeah, I 100% support that. And unfortunately, Jeff Blasheels decided his most, Athensi's best role is to center Drew Miller and Steve Ate, which he's been doing for the last handful of games. So unless Athornecy, you create something by himself, it's not going to happen. And I think that's part of the reason why you've seen his numbers drop off because he, you know, he was when early part of the season, when the wings had him up with Vanek and Nyquist,

uh, he was playing really well. He had a goal almost every other game. Then the wings decided that it was important to teach him some defensive responsibility by playing with Ott Miller. And as such, we haven't seen anything from him since. And, you know, I don't know if that's going to change. My expectation is that Blaschell is setting the wings up and setting the fan base up to basically take Atheniseu going back to Grand Rapids as soon as Abdel Cater and Helm come back. That's my expectation and he's just preparing everybody by going ahead and doing this. Yeah, man, I think that would be a big mistake. I mean, I understand like it goes against sort of hockey convention and you want guys to be

reliable in their own zone and it's tough to deal with some of those mistakes. But like I think a guy like Athensu, as you mentioned, when he was playing with more skilled players, you need him playing with guys, you can get him the puck. and since no one on the blue line can really do that, it's going to have to come from his line mates. And I would honestly, you know what, forget the defensive zone. Just pretty much any time it looks like the Red Wings are getting in the puck,

just fly the zone and try to make something happen with your speed because I feel like the few rare instances where it does work out are going to be so beneficial that it's going to outweigh everything else. Yeah, I mean, I 100% agree. If you looked at him last year when he had his big resurgence, like, yeah, the wings gave up more shots against, more expected goals against. All their defensive metrics were up when Athens,

he was on the ice, the only thing is the offensive numbers were always better. He was a plus in terms of his C4 percentage, in terms of his expected goals percentage. He was always giving you more than he gave up. And the wings don't have those kind of game breakers. I mean, right now it looks like Manta may be one of them, but Athana Cue is one of the game breakers and the wings simply aren't unleashing him right now. I'm glad you mentioned Manta there. I remember, I think it was maybe more than a few weeks ago.

a month or two ago, there was some legitimate talk about, especially when the expansion rules came out, rumblings about whether he might be left unprotected just because of the loyalty we just mentioned with Ken Holland and his staff and how they might, you know, be uncomfortable asking some of these veteran players on longer term deals to actually ask them if they want to be exposed just because it's an uncomfortable situation for them. But it feels like Ammantha's play the past few weeks has forced their hand a little bit here because this, there's an argument to be made that he's pretty much been their best player for the past few weeks here. Yeah, I mean, I've made this argument for probably the last month now,

that he's been Detroit's best player since being called back up. And it's really starting to show you. You saw a 3.9 for him in the Centennial Classic, a couple goals, his first multi-goal game. I mean, every time he's on the ice, he's dominating right now. He's got 17 shots on goal in the last four games. The guy really is just, he's a beast. And at 6.5, 2.30 with his reach and his speed, it's really, really hard to defend him. And he's finally figured out how to use his size and strength appropriately.

You're seeing him win battles to the net. You're seeing him forecheck appropriately. And he's one of the best possession players in the NHL right now relative to his teammates. I'm looking at his course 4 relative to his teammates. It's among the top 10 in the league. and he was first a couple weeks back until Matthew Kachuk took over that. But he is one of the premier players for the wings, and I'm really, really excited about him.

I think he has the potential to be a 25, 30 goal score of the wings haven't had since Yohan Tranzen. Yeah, I mean, just watching him, it's easy to see why scouts and people were so enamored with his game. I mean, he really is that sort of prototypical dominant power forward where he's just exerting his will. and he has this combination of size and skill that very few guys have. I guess the question is, why did it take so long for him to get a real shot on his team considering how good he looks right now?

Yeah, and that again goes back to the Holland system of marinating your young players. And actually, it's kind of interesting because, you know, lost in all of this is what the organization's perspective of Manta was just seven months ago when we were talking about the playoffs first of Tampa Bay Lightning and the wings were setting their playoff roster, they elected to call up Joachim Anderson, what I don't believe is in the NHL right now, and send down Anthony Manta.

And now you're watching Manta just tear apart the NHL over the last 10 days or so. And you're really wondering, why was that ever said about Manta and why the organization was so tough on him? Because that's not the first negative thing that's been said about him. And, you know, prior to that, Mantha had been called very, very disappointing when he was coming off of a broken leg and didn't find his game as a rookie in the H.L.

He got called that. So, you know, it's a lot of the organization being very tough on their youngsters. And basically, he forced his way into the lineup with injuries and then hasn't looked back since. And the organization is going to get credit for it when really, I think this was just a lucky accident for them. Well, I'm glad you brought up that sort of Ken Holland model of, marinating prospects in the AHL because I know for a while there you know they were getting a lot of praise for it because you'd see all these guys come up and just burst onto the scene immediately as soon as we'd see them in their first games in NHL because they'd spend so much time

being overqualified in the AHL and they were just ready to go right out of the gate but I mean when you think about it for a little bit it doesn't really seem to add up just because you know now that we know especially that for skaters and forwards in particular their peak years of performance are so much sooner than we would have thought originally, where they're starting somewhere in their early to early to mid-20s as opposed to closer to 30. And you know, you're wasting some of these prime years on their ELC contracts when they're the cheapest. So I just like, it's funny because I remember for a while there before when I wasn't really thinking about it, I would just hear all these stories about how the Red Wings were doing it the right way with their prospects.

And I would just nod in my head because that's what I was told. but then once I started actually kind of thinking about it critically a little bit, I started kind of asking these sorts of questions and some of it didn't add up. Yeah, I mean, it's a great system and a great strategy when you have Hall of Famers that are preventing those guys from being called up. You know, it's fine to go ahead and marinate Thomas Tatar and Gus Nyquist in the H.L when you have Dattoe, Kanzetterberg, in their prime, you know, dominating everybody in the NHL.

it's okay if you don't have roster spots for them in that scenario to perhaps delay that a little bit. But like you mentioned, everyone's always shocked when they're coming in and 24 years old and dominating the NHL. Well, you know, from the work we've seen, 24, 25, 26 is right around their prime age. So in terms of peak performance. And so when we're seeing these guys come in and tear it up and then ultimately never really match that or, you know, never really surpass what they did, it actually ends up becoming a detriment to them. For example, like Gus Nyquist came in back a couple of years ago and scored 28 goals in 57 games,

and everyone kind of lost her minds with that, and he's never really gotten anywhere near that, partly because he's shot 19% that season, but really he's never been able to approach that because teams have keyed in on him, and he's never been able to match that peak performance he brought in in his age 24 season. And I just really think he waste a lot of,

lot of the years when the prospects are going to improve year after year, you really waste those and you really waste getting that performance for a very cheap dollar amount. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Well, one guy they didn't do that with is Dylan Larkin, who's still only 20 years old, and they gave him basically the one year in college after his draft and then called him up right away last year. And, you know, he burst onto the scene. He had an amazing season, scored a lot of goals, but I feel like, especially early on, I remember a lot of it was very PDO-driven where he was getting a lot of bounces to go his way on the ice, and both in terms of when they were shooting the puck and his goal, he's stopping it behind him, and he hasn't had

that benefit of the doubt this year, particular. I mean, he only has four assists in 37 games, and whenever you see sort of an eye-popping number like that, you generally think that it's probably not an indictment against Larkin's playmaking ability as much as it is. a bit of, you know, bad fortune on the ice. But, I mean, it's, it, I get the feeling that people have soured on him a little bit just because we constantly expect this sort of upward trajectory for these young players and not realizing that it's not always a smooth upward path like that. Sometimes there's bumps in the road. Like, what have you thought of his play so far this season? Yeah, I mean, a lot of people have remarked on his point totals, particularly his assist

numbers are non-existent. One being that he's played a lot of time with Glenn Denning and friends, and they've been deployed in a very defensive heavy role where they've been tasked with playing a lot of the other team's best players. But, you know, the guy still has 11 goals. He's on pace for a 24-goal season. For me, I feel like that's a pretty solid performance from a 20-year-old. And, you know, we talk about sophomore slumps and things of that nature. It's not a bad sophomore slump if you're still scoring more goals than you did the year prior,

when teams are keyed in on your speed and keyed in on really your, your skill set. And one of the things is Larkin's still putting up those 24 goals with getting very little benefit from the Wings power play, which is dead last in the NHL at 11.7%. And if you want to look at the numbers for all the guys on the team, really they're all down because nobody's scoring on the power play. So he is still getting pretty solid numbers, numbers that I were considered to be repeatable and more indicative of his true skill set. And I think as he smartens up and learns to harness that speed a little bit. I still think he comes flying around the corner a little too fast sometimes and maybe misses some chances to take it directly to the net instead of going behind it.

I think you'll see his goal numbers tick up. I mean, I still think he's going to be Detroit's best shot, really, at an elite player. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, when you're watching play, that, that speed is just so mesmerizing that, you know, there's many nights where even if he's not scoring or creating too many chances, it's like his impact on the game is just uh is great and and as he gets older and matures and gets more experience he'll find better craft your ways to use it in terms of as you mentioned kind of cutting into the middle and creating better shooting angles for himself so i'm still uh i'm still very optimistic about him um prashan before i get you out of here is there any uh stuff you're working on or stuff you want to plug i know that you were mentioning the power play and you did a nice

little deep dive on that the other day yeah i just finished uh literally spent the last week probably about 50 hours worth of time in that week walking through all the Red Wing's zone entries on their power play just because, you know, 11.7%, this would be the first wings power play to be sub 15% since I started tracking that back in 8788. So this is a historically bad power play for the wings. And, you know, a lot of fans always expressed frustration with the drop pass. And we had Eric Parnas last year go through the special teams project and, you know, show that the drop pass can still be useful.

I think the wings do it a lot worse than other teams and that kind of showed itself in the results where the wings just don't generate a whole lot of shot attempts off of their drop pass as compared to other zone entries that they use. But that's been a big focus in my work this year because, you know, it's not often we get to see a historically bad situation for a Detroit Red Wings team. You know, like we talked about at the beginning,

this is a very uncharted territory for a lot of us. And so I'm taking the time. an opportunity to dig into some of this and see if we maybe expedite some of these corrections. Yeah. Well, I love all the systems work you do. It's fascinating stuff. So I definitely recommend everyone follows you online and checks out all the great work you've been doing. And listen, man, try to stay sane during this season and keep your head up.

And hopefully we'll have you back on as the year goes long. Awesome. Thanks for having me, Demetri. Absolutely. Anytime, man. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovic and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdocast.