The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 128: It's The Metro Division's World, We Just Live In It

Episode Date: January 5, 2017

Jonathan Willis joins the show to help construct a preliminary power rankings list, counting down the teams from 30 to 1. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 0:20 Thomas Drance being hired by the Panthers 2:45 The Cellar-Dwellers 7:45 Spots 28 to 24 21:00 Rounding out the bottom third 25:00 The Edmonton Oilers 28:00 Season's biggest disappointments 30:30 The murky middle tier 44:45 How do the Los Angeles Kings keep doing this? 46:45 Are the Blackhawks due for steep regression? 48:50 Montreal Canadiens improved play 52:15 The Goddamn Metro Division 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 Jonathan Willis. Jonathan, what's going on, man? Hey, good to be here again. Yeah, it's been a month or so since we chatted. I thought we'd go through the fun exercise today of doing a slight power rankings. And I know that whenever you do something like that, I mean, people obviously love lists, but you run into the problem of people taking stuff way too literally and are going online

and arguing about how we said that their favorite team is three spots lower than they really should be in their eyes. So we're going to try to avoid angering too many people. Hopefully we'll use this more as a launching pad for our discussion about the various teams. But before we get into that, I did want to have a quick chat with you about a fun development that happened in the hockey world yesterday. And that's that our buddy Thomas Drans got named the VP of Communications and PR with the Florida Panthers. Yeah, I was wondering if you're going to ask me about that. Obviously, I think it's a great hire for Florida. Tom, for those who didn't know, was running the Nation Network previously, which is Hoyler's Nation, Connects Army, all those websites, and he did a

great job of that. And of course, he's done fantastic work for SportsNet. And hiring him in a media relations role is good. He's really good at sort of juggling writers of various degrees of statistical awareness and, you know, rage issues and all that good stuff. So I think he'll be a good fit in the role. And I'm really happy to see him get hired. Yeah, I'm a big Tom Jones guy. obviously not having, you know, his, his hockey opinions and his hockey takes publicly available anymore will be a hit to the community. But he's, you know, I always thought one of his best skills was just his people person skills, his ability to actually just, you know, get along with people on the internet and, and remain level-headed during some of these petty arguments

we sometimes find ourselves getting into. And that's, you can't say that about everyone that that makes it away online. So I think Tom's going to do great at this job. And, you know, people that have been listening to the show know that he's the person that they gave me my first platform on Knoch's Army and sort of took me in under a mentorship role and helped me out when I was getting started. So I'm always going to be eternally grateful to him for that. And I'm looking forward to seeing what he does with the Panthers. But with that out of the way, let's get into our power rankings. And I thought that it would make sense if we start in an inverse order. We'll start counting down from 30 down and we'll see where we go. So I don't think we're

going to have very much argument here that, you know, I put 30 and 29 together just because I think that it's tough to separate them, but I think that the Avalanche 30 and the Coyotes 29 is, seems like the way to go here. Oh, I disagree entirely. I have the Coyotes 30 and the Avalanche 29. So big argument time, right? These two teams are pretty clearly the worst in the NHL. When I went to put together my list, I just, those two instantly just fell into the bottom and nobody ever came close to unseating them. And I think it's going to play out that way the rest of the year. Yeah, yeah, which is nice for our purposes that we didn't have to spend too much time thinking about it. But, you know, I definitely agree that the avalanche have more talent

on paper and you'd think that they should be better. And obviously, preces and expectations, we kind of all knew that the coyotes, this would be another sort of lost season where they were just going to give some of their young guys, some minutes and some experience in NHL, but ultimately go for another high pick and see if they can kind of be more competitive next season. But whereas the avalanche, we didn't really know what to expect with them with the coaching change and some of the moves they made this summer, but we thought they'd at least be competent. But I mean, you look at them right now and they're on pace to finish with, you know, over minus 100 in goal differential for the season.

And it's just startling how bad they've been. I think for them, the interesting question spinning forward is, you know, you know, You know, do you just sit still and just say, you know what, we're going to go through these lumps and we're going to get a high pick and we're going to see where we're at this summer? Or do you start to indulge in some of these trade rumors we've heard recently for a guy like whether it's Matthew Shane or even a Gabriel Landiscago? Yeah, that is the question. And I think there's always a danger in these situations of overreacting, tossing away, you know, throwing out the baby with the metaphorical bathwater. The one thing I would say about Colorado that I'd like to see. And this isn't because their underlying metrics are good.

They aren't good. But they've got a 905 save percentage at five-on-five this year, which I believe is, yeah, it's the worst number in the NHL. And that's the kind of thing. When I look at teams that are doing really poorly, like that's the kind of thing that drives teams doing really poorly. But it's also the kind of thing that can be fixed in relatively short order. In Colorado's case, I do think it's one of those situations where, you know,

you may not be a big fan of Zemian Varlamov, but I don't think it's solely him either. You look at that defense core, especially in the games where Eric Johnson isn't playing, and it's pretty terrifying. So I think they need to, they obviously need to fix a whole bunch of things, but they don't really have so many young players that are really good

that they can just afford to trade them away. Obviously, if you can get fair value, but as anybody who has followed a bad team, knows that's very difficult to do when you're losing games. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, guys like Matthew Shane and Gabriel Lanniscault, who would be the prime candidates, because they made it pretty clear that, you know, with good reason Nathan McKinnon isn't going anywhere and they're still holding out hope that the Miko Randinen is going to turn into something special for them. But, I mean, those guys are, what, to a 24, 25 years old. They're in their peak years.

They're under contract for at least another couple of seasons each at reasonably, you know, palatable cap hits. So I don't think, and when you're trading guys like that, you're not necessarily really trading from a position of strength. You're generally going to be trading for 75 cents in the dollar or something like that. And I don't think that, as you mentioned, the avalanche are in a position where, you know, they can be trading those guys for need because it's not like, you know, they're one strong defenseman here away from all of a sudden becoming a contender in the West. Like they're at the point where they just need to accumulate as much talent as possible wherever it is in the lineup and then figure it out afterwards. absolutely and you'll see people say things like well you look at edmonton and they traded taylor

hall for adam larsen and everything turned out well and they should do that but you know edmonton had connor mac david for one thing and and you know for a second thing larston's the number four defenseman in edmonton that's maybe not a template you want to follow if you're colorado you have to have that that uh you know franchise changing player come in you know because mac david's obviously an upgrade on Hall and, you know, rightly or wrongly, the Oilers, you know, felt they had enough assets and with McDavid driving the team that they didn't need Hall anymore. I don't see how you can make that case in Colorado because you don't, I mean, with due respect to Nathan McKinnon, you don't have that guy who's going to step in and make you forget you ever had Matt Dushane.

Yeah, yeah, that's definitely true. Okay, let's move on because if we, if we go at this rate, we're going to be here all day. So the next, I lump the next four teams together and just out of convenience, but I have the Devils 28, the Sabres, the Canucks 26 and the Islander is 25. What do you think about that combination of teams there? I have, my list is almost exactly the same except that I have the Islanders slightly higher and in the bottom four, in that group of four, I'd also add Detroit. I have it, Vancouver, New Jersey, Detroit, Buffalo, 28, 27, 26, 25. Yeah, I think that, you know, you can make a strong army in.

I, the Red Wings 24 and I think we could lump them in here. But I think just kind of going in order, for the devils, the weird thing for me this season is that Corey Schneider is having a very uncharacteristically bad season. He's sitting at 908 right now in terms of say percentage, and that be the first time he's been under 920 in a season that he spent at least 20 games in the NHL. So I think that, you know, in the past they had all these question marks about them. And we could at least rely on Corey Schneider to be their saving grace and win them a bunch of games. But this year, that hasn't even really been the case. Yeah, that is one of the biggest questions I have this season. And in Corey Schneider, I mean, things get even worse when you kind of look at the fact that he's been saved a little bit by the penalty kill.

Like at five on five, that team, and I believe Keith Kincaid's the backup right now. And Keith Kincaid is, you know, not a guy who's going to pressure Corey Schneider for his job. New Jersey's made some improvements. I think in part I'm a little bit easier on New Jersey just because of the division they play in. Like when you're the number six team, or I think they're number six right now, I'm not sure, in the metropolitan, like, that's a tough thing to play through when the top five teams are, you know, arguably five of the top ten teams in the league. So, and the same thing goes for the Islanders. I have a little bit of slack for them there.

But the Devils obviously, we knew they were short on talent. Last year, I think, was a great year in a lot of ways for them. And maybe they were always going to take a bit of a step back, and you combine that with Schneider's sort of baffling fall off this year, and you end up with what we have. Yeah, and they had that little lull there. They've started playing a bit better, or at least winning some games recently,

but they had a stretch there in December where they just couldn't really buy a break. So I think that, you know, we'll see where they go, but I feel pretty good about them where we have them here on this list. The sabres are interesting to me because if you look at them, their big problem this season has, I mean, their goaltending has been really good, and the issue has been they just can't really seem to score any goals. And I think that's a little odd, considering that if you looked at this team's composition heading into the season, the strength of their team would clearly be their forward group. But I mean, obviously, Jack Eichol missing

the first 20 or so games of the year. And Kane, O'Reilly and Ennis have all missed extended periods of time throughout. So, you know, they've been decimated by injuries. But, I mean, you know, they should be better than they are just based on the collection of talent they have, but I guess, you know, you look at that blue line and they don't really have guys that can move the puck or skate or do really do much beyond a guy like Rasmus Rishalainen. So I think that that's an area of need that they're definitely going to need to look to shore up in the coming years. Yeah, and even Rasmus Ristelainen, he's a guy who, you know, there's some skepticism towards

him in analytic circles. And I always sort of thought it was unwarranted. I actually went to write a piece about it. And I sat down and I watched, you know, three or four games like, all of his shifts over three or four games just tracking him really closely. And I went, oh, I don't think I can write this piece defending him because he's got so many rough patches still do his game. And it's not all Josh George's fault. The other thing with Buffalo, I'd point out, is I think you really see the lack of defensive quality on the penalty kill. And this ties into

to having a young team up front in a lot of ways. They are the worst team in the NHL in terms of goals against per hour in four-on-five situations. And in terms of Fenwick against per hour, they're 14 shots worse per hour than the New York Islanders, which makes them the worst team in the league. Like the penalty-killing unit's atrocious. And, you know, goal-tending at five-on-five is only going to bring you so far when you're getting caved in in those situations.

Yeah, I wonder about a penalty-killing unit like that because, you know, for a power play, for example, you can say that, you know, skill is very important, although we're seeing with a team like the Columbus Blue Jacks this season where sometimes you just put the right chest pieces together, you can kind of have a better product than if you had just a bunch of superstars. It's not necessarily, you know, skill isn't necessarily the most important thing there. But for a penalty kill, I wonder, like, how much of that do you think is just coaching? Because it seems like you could inconceivably, if you, if you're running a good system there and you have everyone kind of working together, it could be at least, not that dreadful as they've been. Like I find it hard to believe that the players are using on the penalty killer are just so bad that it's overriding everything. Yeah, that's a fair question. I think the thing I would say is they're, like,

they're not that different from last year, and they were 20 shots per hour better on the penalty kill last year, which is 20 Fenwick's, you know, so miss shots and shots on net. So I wonder if something's changed there. I haven't had a chance to, you know, take a really good look at their four-on-five configuration for this exercise. But it is a good question, one well worth asking.

Yeah, I don't know if a deep dive on the Buffalo Sabres penalty kill woes is going to be driving traffic for our employers. That's why people tune in here, right? Exactly, yes. So moving on to the Canucks, there are three points out of a wildcard spot right now, which I find very amusing because they're objectively one of the worst five or six teams in the league by pretty much any single measure. And I think that the key for them here is to avoid deceiving themselves into thinking that

they're actually in the hunt. Like it's one thing for them to have a brave face with the media and say that, you know, they are going to try to compete here and try to do this quick rebuild on the fly rather than bottoming out. But, I mean, it'll be fascinating to see how they approach this if they're still around this position near the deadline because last year they didn't really sell off any of their parts. And I thought that was a big miscalculation on their part. that they didn't get anything for guys like Radeem Brabata and Dan Hamuse.

And they have a few pieces here this year where they could conceivably trade, you know, a guy like Gannick Henson, if he comes back from injury or Alex Burroughs, if he keeps playing as well as he has lately. But, I mean, the thing with Benning, the dirty secret is for a guy who's heralded as, you know, being a draft guy that's going to come in and do big things for them in the draft, he's been sort of siphoning off picks more than he's actually been acquiring them during his time in Vancouver.

So I think that how they proceed. especially around the trade that line is going to be the fascinating thing with this team. Yeah. Is this your way of saying you weren't a fan of Lyndon Vey for a second round pick? That strategy is not doing anything for you. Well, funny enough, I actually defended that trade a little bit of the time. Obviously, in hindsight, it wound up working out horribly. But, I mean, at the time, Bay was a guy in his early 20s who was producing very good numbers in the HL.

And I think that, you know, if they use that second round pick, to get a guy who was basically Lyndon Vey, we would be deeming that a successful pick. So I think that, you know, obviously maybe it didn't have the upside that you would have hoped for, but at the time I thought it was a pretty defensible trade. But the thought process is right there where you, if you're a team like the Canucks,

you just want to be stockpiling these picks and getting as much young talent as you can as opposed to trying to a Van Dade approach. Yeah, and I mean, what Vancouver is, like it fits into that overarching narrative in Vancouver, right? Like bring in young players, don't tank for picks, don't wait. Because, I mean, you take a second round pick, and like you say, you know, Lyndon Vaye is probably a pretty decent end result of your average second round pick, but it takes five years to get them there. And we've seen that all down the line since Benning was hired that he's preferred to trade for young players.

The problem with doing that is sealing. Like, when you trade for a prospect who's 23 rather than making the pick, like the pick's a lottery card, but you get enough of those picks and some of them pay off gold. You trade for a 23-year-old player. I don't know if you get guys with the same ceiling. You have more certainty. You probably get a better player than you would have got with any individual pick, but you don't have the same home run upside. And that's my problem when I look at Vancouver.

They've got sort of that older, they've got a few old players that are propping up the tent, and then they've got a bunch of guys who's upset. I'm not really sure that, you know, Brandon Sutter and Marcus Granland and Sven Berci are the nucleus of a great NHL team. And if you're not trying to build a great NHL team, I'm not really sure what you're doing.

Right. That's the problem with them. Like, you know, they've made a big, big stink about not thinking that this market in Vancouver is willing to sit through a rebuild and sit through them bottoming out. But, you know, they're making all these moves for these sort of tangential side complementary pieces, but they don't have that next wave of a core. You know, they're still relying on the Siddines way too much for guys that are already in their mid-30s and are on their last legs. And there isn't really a plan for what's going to happen after that.

And the only way you really get those players is generally by bottoming him out and getting high picks. Like it's tough to, you know, make a trade like that where you're trading for Brennan Sutter and all of a sudden expect that he's going to turn into a number one center for you. Like that's just not how things work in the salary cap world. So I think they'd be served well to take their time here and actually think about stuff because they could really set themselves back years if they keep on this path. With the Islanders, they have one year left to basically convince John Tavares that they'll be able to surround him with enough talent to legitimately compete here during his prime years. And I think that that should ultimately be the thing that they have looming over their head and the thing that they should be catering towards. Yeah.

that's obviously sort of a ticking bomb for the Islanders team. I wonder a little bit, you know, new ownership. If we're going to see a shake up there, like two years ago, the Islanders were a team that people like you and me were just raving about as being on the upswing as, you know, potentially, well, at least I was, you know, a potentially great team, all these good young players. And the rebuild is just sort of fizzled. And they've been better of late. They have, they have, you know pretty decent gold-hending the last while from Thomas Grice and um but this isn't a this isn't a good team um by five on five at puck possession uh and they should be given their age they're getting by on you know sort of power play and gold handing and they have to be more than that um the islanders

i don't say this very often because i this season's actually been a welcome change of pace because we haven't seen a whole bunch of coaches fired but the islanders are one of those teams i'd love to see with a different coaching regime just to tell if somebody else can get more out of this group of players because so many guys are having awful years. Has anyone kind of oscillated more between us thinking he's actually smart and done a good job and being very skeptical of his moves and guards to know over the past however many years? Because like for a while there, they were sort of this team that was very progressive in doing a lot of smart stuff.

One thing was the draft, but they were obviously, you know, they were there to sort of benefit from the capitals not really having a place for Nick Letty and they were they were making smart moves like that for a while there but then I mean just the amount of money they've voted to guys like Cal Clutterbuck and and Casey Sizekas is very indefensible in my mind and I'm just like I still don't for a guy that's had the job as long as he has I still don't even really know what to think about Garth Snow as a hockey mind which is an interesting thing to say well this is the problem with judging general managers you and I talk about Sam sample size all the time. And an NHL team as a result of, well, I mean, like, if you, Garth Snow

probably has a hundred different ideas. And if we knew those hundred different ideas, we'd have a really good idea of how to evaluate him. But we only see the one or two trades that he's able to pull off. You know, if you were going to judge, like George McPhee, I think, has been a pretty good GM over his whole career, but he's also the guy who traded Philip Forsberg for Martin E. Rat, right? Like all these guys do stuff. At the end of the day, it's body of work. In Garth Snow's case, there seems to be a tendency to overpay supporting players. And I don't think that's something you can get away with in a salary cap environment.

Yeah, especially when you're not as, you know, it would be one thing if they were this really good team that was like a few of these side pieces away from going to taking that next step. But it's pretty clear that they just need more talent. So we had the Red Wings next. and we're basically, we have three teams left here in our top 20. So who do you, or in this back half of the 20? So I don't really want to spend too much time on the Red Wings. I feel like basically you can just kind of cap, everything we just said about the Canucks,

you could basically save for the Red Wings. They, you know, they should take a long, hard look in the mirror and realize that they're not where they need to be or where they think they are, where they've been in the past, and they should probably do a longer-term rebuild as opposed to trying to patch it together. Who do you have on this list after these teams we've mentioned?

Well, there's one other team that I'd toss into that group with Detroit and the Islanders and all that is the Winnipeg Jets who have been better of late. I think they're down there. And after that, then we kind of get into my mushy middle. For me, the teams between 8 and 22 are, they're not interchangeable, but that's where the league's parody really comes through, right? Like there's these seven teams at the bottom, and then there's everybody else, or these bottom eight teams. So rounding out the bottom 10, I'd toss in Carolina and Ottawa.

And I know those will be controversial with different people for different reasons. But in Carolina's case, they just don't have the gold-ending. I don't know why they went back into this year with the tandem they did. And in Ottawa's case, they're getting by on what to me looks like smoking mirrors. if you're a 47.8 score-adjusted Fenwick team, you're not going to be very good long haul. Yeah, and another thing the senators have working in their favors, they've won a disproportionately high number of their one-goal games, and that seems like something that also probably won't continue.

So yeah, I had the Red Wings 24. I had Ottawa 23. I had Winnipeg 22, and I had the Calgary Flames 21. And I think that, you know, let's let's let's let's let's, talk about the Jets here for a second. I think that, you know, they're a fascinating team because they're endlessly frustrating to me because I look at some of their individual parts, and there's just so much skill there and so much talent, and they should be remarkably fun to watch and much more competitive than they are. But then you look at the overall package at the end of

the day, and it's just underwhelming and it's not nearly as good as you think it should be. Do you think it's just purely a goal-tending thing, or do you think there's a bigger issue there? I think it's too large particle-tending thing. They've got a terrible five-on-five save percentage. They've got an awful penalty kill, and those things sort of tie back to that. But they're kind of a mediocre puck possession team, and I was hoping for a little more from them this year

because you had Mark Schifley emerged last year, and between him and Brian Little, and I mean, there's a ton of other talent on the wings. We haven't even talked about Lennie or Wheeler or any of those other guys, but you've got a one-two punch at center that stacks up against most teams. really well and they haven't been able to take advantage of that. I do think this is a team that, you know, is sort of less than the sum of its parts right now.

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a fair way to put it. I had, I had the Hurricanes 20 and the Panthers 19 and I mostly lumped those two teams together because if you look at the shot metrics and you sort of dig into the underlying numbers, it's, you know, they look pretty, pretty favorable and they look like they should be much higher than they are, but then you look at, it just, they've had very bumpy seasons and, you know, the risk of being a prisoner of the moment. It's tough to make the case that they should be much higher on this list just because

they haven't really done a lot of winning this season. And at the end of the day, like, it's tough to say that, you know, they should be better than they are, but they haven't been. And it's tough for me to be like their top 15 teams because they haven't really been playing like them or winning like them. Yeah. And, I mean, you and I know we both really value the shot metrics, but like take Florida, for example, they're 51.6.

score-adjusted Fenwick this year. I don't know what they are the last 10 games, but it doesn't take much to make a 1.7% above the average just disappear, right? If you're weak in other areas, if you have problems on special teams and so forth. I think there's a lot of potential there, but they haven't delivered on it yet.

I'm much more bullish on Florida than I am on Carolina, but I have them. I think I have Florida, yeah, Florida 17 and I have Carolina 22, so that shows the gap there. but neither team wouldn't be my top 15 today. Yeah, yeah, I hope that people don't nitpick these rankings, although it is the internet, so I'm sure that will happen. So the next tier, I have the Edmonton Oilers 18,

and I don't know if that's going to cause a big stir or not, but I had someone on my Twitter feed come up with a great line, and I apologize for not being able to attribute who it was. I'll try to make amends to that later, but he basically said something along the lines, of with McDavid, the Oilers are like the 07 Red Wings, and without McDavid, they're like the 2017 Red Wings. And I think that's a, it's a very good point.

It's amazing how differently we'd be discussing the Oilers right now if it weren't for just like, even if he was, I mean, you mentioned a guy like Nathan McKinnon earlier, who I still think is a fantastic player and is going to have a great NHL career. But even if McDavid was something along the lines of Nathan McKinnon right now, I think that we'd be discussing the Oilers in a much different light. This is interesting because as much as I, I don't know, maybe I'm just over familiar with the team, but I have them 10th on my list. They're incredible by the shot metrics right now.

I think the problem with Edmonton, like Edmonton is, last I looked, I think it was something like a 49.6% Coursier Fenwick team without McDavid on the ice, which is actually pretty good for, you know, if the rest of your lineup can do almost 50%, I do think the problem with Edmonton is fragility. McDavid drives their five-on-five scoring. McDavid drives the power play. Like the power play was miserable early in the year before, you know, McDavid sort of took over.

And if he gets hurt, they're doomed. Jonas Gustafson is maybe the worst backup in hockey. So if Cam Talbot gets hurt, they're doomed. So when I look at the Oilers, I see a lot of frailty. But as long as those two key pieces are healthy, I like them a lot. They just sneak into my top 10. That's interesting.

I might have to dig in a little bit deeper. Maybe you're just being in Edmonton Oilers Homer. Well, yeah, that's possible. But I would say, you know, score-adjusted Fenwick is sort of my first thing that I look at here. They're above 52%. They've got a plus seven goal differential, which I believe also puts them inside the top 10 at the NHL. I think they're a pretty decent team. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, listen, as you mentioned earlier, I have them 18 and I think that

you just made a very compelling argument for why you think they should be 10. And I think that there's this massive tier here of teams where it's like, there's basically 10, 10 to 15 teams where it's like you could go either way with them. And I think that as long as you make a compelling argument as you did there, it's totally fine. Like, it's tough to be up in arms about it. So if you want to bump up the oilers a few spots and say that our consensus here are aggregate, is 14 or so, I think that I'm perfectly fine with that too. Yeah, any of these teams, I think, if you really came at me and argued for any one team to move up, even eight to 10 spots, you could probably make a pretty good case because

there's not a lot to choose from in this middle tier. Yeah. I have the Flyers 17, and then I have the stars 16 and the Lightning 15. And I thought that, you know, if you told me heading into the season that roughly at the 40 game mark, we'd be discussing the stars in the last. lightning in particular in this sort of middle tier here, I would have told you that, you know, something went horribly wrong. And I guess it has. I mean, a lot of it, it has been injury-based, but it's, it's tough to sort of reconcile just how mediocre both these teams have been for

for a long stretch now. Like, I keep waiting for them to turn it on and start playing a lot better, sort of like the predators there early in the season. And that on switch just doesn't really seem to be coming. Yeah, Tampa Bay's had, Tampa Bay is more surprising to me than Dallas. I think with Dallas we knew that they had goal-tending issues, and we also knew that their defensive retooling, where they basically jettisoned all the veterans was dangerous. Having said that, the stars are 7, 5, and 1 since December 1st. They've got a plus 6 goal differential over that span.

So I think maybe we have seen the stars turn a corner a little bit, but they were so bad early on that it hasn't really, trickled through to the standings. Tampa Bay, I'm much more concerned about. I know Stephen Stamco's hurt. I know they've been just racked by injury, but most of the injuries have been short-term. I expected them to be a better club than they are.

I don't know what to say there other than there's a lot of movement in that middle tier. I expected them to be sort of in the upper tier of the league, and maybe when they get healthy, they will be. But for now, they've been maybe the most disappointing team to me in the league this year. Yeah, I mean, you know, you look at how they performed the past few years and they brought back most of those same guys and they're still young enough where it's not like, this isn't like an age-related decline or anything for most of these players. It just seems like it just hasn't added up to being as good of an overall package as we thought it would.

So I sort of have my eyebrows raised and I'm going to be following them very closely for the next couple weeks here. So we're into the top half now. And I have a tier here with the Maple Leaf. the Bruins and the Rangers. And they're obviously very different teams, but I just couldn't, you know, once we get to this point of the rankings, I just couldn't really differentiate or decide,

you know, there's pros and cons for all of them. So I just sort of thought that it'd be good to just have a discussion about them one by one as opposed to making any definitive statements. Well, before I jump in there, I do need to mention one more team because you obviously rate them quite a bit higher than I have them. I have Anaheim at 18.

I think that's the last team from the bottom half of my, list that we haven't touched on yet. So I'll just throw that out there. I have Anaheim 11, so it seems like we could basically just swap them and Edmondon and we'd have a very similar ranking set. There we go. I actually, if the Rangers are a little bit higher, I don't think the Rangers are a particularly great five-on-five team. I think the shooting percentage thing, which got them off to such a great start, is cool and isn't something you want to bank on going forward.

Having said that, I do think they're a solid, special teams club and i think if we just confine our lens to sort of five on five analysis we underrate them i i have the rangers inside my top ten actually they just uh just squeak into seventh place well and and they're interesting because i i definitely don't want to be counting them out just purely because henric lennox is amazing and he can he can you know drag the entire performance up so much because he gives them an elevated baseline and and the other thing as you mentioned is you know at five on five they've struggled recently and and and the shooting percentage has come down. But I think a lot of that is probably, you know, they've been missing Zabinajad for a while now.

And Bichnevich and Rick Nash has been out of the lineup. And the thing that made them so special early in the year was they're just relentless ability to roll four skilled lines and just play with so much speed in that, you know, counterattack style game that they've been playing for years. And it was just teams were having a really tough time adjusting to the speed they were playing at and being able to account for all four of those lines. And obviously when you start taking out some of those components and putting them on the shelf, it diminishes everything they're trying to accomplish. So I think that once they're healthy, I think they're going to get back to maybe not being as scoring five goals a game like they were in the first quarter of the season, but, you know,

they'll be, they'll resemble much more like that team than they have recently. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true. Zabandajad is such a huge piece and he was playing so well for them early in the year. It's hard to quantify his loss. and I think there is more potential there than we've seen of late. Yeah, I think they're a team that's prime for a little bit of a bump. But the standings, you know, they had such a hot run at the start of the year that it's hard to make the case that they've been ill-treated. I think the Bruins are an interesting discussion point for us because, you know, if you look at the shot metrics, they are, I think they still might be leading the league. and if not, they're right up there.

And, you know, they compare pretty favorably well to some, some of the best teams we've seen since 07, basically. But they also at the bottom of the league in terms of shooting percentage. And on the one hand, you look at the roster, and there are definite holes in the team in terms of talent. Like, it seems like a lot of what they have going on is very Los Angeles Kings-ish, where they're dominating possession and they're kind of grinding teams down.

But we should expect them to have a low shooting. percentage because the guys taking the shots clearly aren't up to snuff. But at the same time, you look in guys like a Brad Marchand, for example, is shooting way below his career average, and you would sort of expect that we have a large enough sample of him that, you know, he should be overtime shooting at a higher clip than he has so far. So on the one hand, I'm expecting that to increase a little bit. But at the same time, I do wonder if it is fair to suggest that why they might not be the 30th ranked team in shooting percentage, they might be closer to, you know, that 25 range than we'd like to admit.

Yeah, I think that's legitimate. And I think when we talk about individual players shooting percentage, we really need to mention the power play. Boston is 29th and five on four goals per hour. They're in the top 10 in terms of unblocked shots per hour. So they're generating a lot of shots and they aren't scoring a lot of goals. And when we look at somebody like Brad Marchand or any of those guys who play first or second unit power play. That's, you know, that's the kind of thing that's going to drive your shooting

percentage down. I think the points you've made about Boston are bang on. I have them 15th on my list. I place them in the same sort of thing as LA. When I look at their roster, I'm a little bit skeptical about their blue line positionally. I like their forward group for the most part. I wouldn't want to face them in the first round, I'll tell you that. No, they seem like a nightmare. and the key for them is, you know, it's interesting, you mentioned for a team like Edmonton as long as Camp Talbot stays healthy, it's going to be a big boost for them just because they won't have to rely on a guy like Jonas Gustafson. I think that no team in the league has had a bigger split between their starters production and their backups production. I mean,

you look at whether it's been Malcolm Suban or Zane McIntyre or Anton Hudobin, they've been amongst the worst backup group in the league and Tuka Rask has been amongst the best starters in the league. So I think that, you know, heading into the playoffs, you'd expect that assuming Rask is healthy, he's going to be starting all those games. And that's going to be a major difference from some of these, you know, performance games that they've basically been just, like, throwing away whenever they've had to play their backups. And that is not to keep going back to Edmonton, but it is a good point because right now, Edmonton's basically playing sort of a playoff rotation with its goalies almost. And a lot of other teams, you know, are going to get a boost when they go into the postseason and they can just play their start. every night the way the oilers have been for much of this year. So some of that advantage will disappear.

Hadobin's struggles this year have been not totally out of left field, but he's been a pretty good backup goalie for a number of years. A guy who even looked at points like he might be a starter. So it was surprising to see the bottom fall out there, and I wonder if we'll see him turn it around at some point. But, yeah, once Rask gets a net, combine that with a team that plays a team that plays, big possession, drive a lot of shots, maybe don't finish a lot,

but keep the puck in that end of the rink. And then has Tuka Raskin net is a dangerous team, no matter how you slice it. Yeah, and I think that, you know, they are pretty top-heavy. So I think that in a playoff series, another reason why you wouldn't really want to play them is because they could just sort of throw all caution to the win and just say, listen, we're going to play that Bergeron, Bergeron, Marshaun, and maybe even pass-or-knack combination for nearly 25 minutes. minutes of this game and then we're going to play the Carlo charra pairing for for pretty much half

the game and all of a sudden, you know, we're limiting the exposure of some of these depth pieces that we've been relying on the regular season and it becomes a much trickier task for the opponent. Yeah, I think that's absolutely true, particularly on the blue line. I wanted your take on the Maple Leafs. I had them 14th and they're an interesting team to me because, you know, they're definitely trending upwards and they have so much immense talent and we're recording this on a Wednesday afternoon and they just played one of the funest games I've seen this season against the Washington Capitals last night

and showed some of that ability. But, you know, the big issue with them this season has been they've really struggled in one-goal games, which we would expect would even out over time. And they've blown a lot of third period leads. And I don't think that, you know, it's easy to point to their youth and their inexperience and their team and just, you know, spin that as the narrative of,

you know, they have to go through these growing pains. but I'm skeptical of that sort of narrative. I think it's a bit too convenient. I think it's just one of these things that they've been a bit misfortune there. And if they start pulling out some more of those games the year goes along, all of a sudden they're going to become a legitimate playoff team.

I like the Leafs a lot. I have them. I think, let me just see, 11th on my list. I don't think they're a team with any particular weaknesses. I point out at this, we had the conversation about McDavid. We should probably mention Austin, Max. Matthews.

They're a 49% coursey team when he's off the ice and a, well, and there goes lagging on me, a 52% coursey team when he's on the ice. So that's a pretty big bump, and he's had a bigger impact than I think anybody had a right to expect this year. They're a good team in a lot of different areas. Like you, I kind of think the learning to win narrative is mostly garbage. I think that's just a function of most teams are good before they're great. And so, of course, they don't win a playoffs. You know, Stanley Cup, their first year, they make the playoffs.

This is an up-and-coming team. They've done the rebuild exactly right. And I'm not in a big rush. You know, if things don't go well this year, if they don't, because it's possible that they won't make the playoffs, right? Like at this point in the year, it just takes a little bit to go wrong to miss out. But I'm not worried at all about their future. They've shown so much this season.

And the one-goal games thing, when you see a team that loses a lot of one-goal games, it's only a matter of time. I think the Kings were the worst team in the league in 2011-12 when they just squeaked into the playoffs and ended up winning the Cup. So that'll turn around. Yeah. Yeah, that's a fair point. Quickly on the Ducks, because I had them in this next spot here at 11. And, you know, it's tough because I have a tough time sort of separating these two thoughts.

One is the team that they actually are using right now and the other is the team that they could be using if Randy Carlisle wasn't their coach. And I understand that's a bit unfair because Carlisle, you know, unless something catastrophic happens, will probably be their coach for the remainder of this season, considering that they just brought him in. And it's tough because, you know, I think that they could see a massive boost in performance. They just stopped playing guys like, you know, they're relying on that pairing of Kevin BXA and Corbinian Holzer for some reason when they have guys like Shay Theodore and Brandon Montour and all these much more talented, much more appealing options in the back end, just sort of toiling away in the HL. So I think that, you know, if URI or someone more capable was running this team,

I think that we could, we could, there's a way, there's a path towards inflating their performance here. But unfortunately, with Randy Carlisle here, it's very suspect. And I noticed something a bit earlier. And it's that Ryan Kessler's playing like 22 minutes a night this season, which is pretty insane for Andy Forward, let alone a guy with as many miles, as many years as he has on his odometer. So, you know, if he breaks down just because they're relying upon him so heavily, it's going to be pretty disastrous for them. I haven't put a lot of, yeah, I didn't put a whole ton of emphasis on, you know,

what they could do versus what they are doing. I think they're a little top heavy up front. So I do, you know, I definitely see the dangers in playing Kessler 22 minutes a night. But then when I kind of look at their lineup, I go, well, if you don't lean on that top, six, what are you doing, right? Right. And on the blue line, Kevin BXA is,

it's a problem, but it's a third-paring problem right now, for the most part. When I look at the Ducks, I think that they're not that far away from being a great team when I look at the roster, but the performance this year,

which is all that, you know, because like you said, Carlisle's going to be the guy all down the line. They're one game under 500, they're two goals under break-even. They're half a percentage point off. by score adjusted Fenwick.

I have them 18th. They're not playing in a very good division. And when you're just a touch below mediocre in the Pacific division, you're not a very good club. Yeah. And it's frustrating because it's mostly self-inflicted. Like they are very top-heavy and need to rely on their top six.

But it's, you know, it's because they had a dreadful summer. Like you look at what they did and it's like their big moves were bringing in Jared Bull and Mason Raymond. And then it's like an Antoine Vermet who's really, really washed up at this point. and it's it's frustrating because for a lot of these teams we mentioned you know we were talking about the canucks for example or or or the red wings or who have you we're saying you know they're making all these sort of complementary additions but they're missing the core or the you know the guys that are actually going to move the needle for them to rely upon up front and the ducks have that

and unfortunately they haven't been able to surround them with with guys that can actually play and I think that's as a hockey fan and pretty frustrating I think we have this discussion with Colorado, and I think that maybe it's maybe even more appropriate to Anaheim. This is a team that's woefully unbalanced forward to defense, right? Like this is that rare NHL team that can look at its blue line and say, okay, we've got some good pieces here with high value. And they could probably do something about their forwards right now. I know they're not going to trade Cam Fowler because he's having this phenomenal year. This to me is the year you trade Cam Fowler because his value is so high.

and I think campus Lindholm can slide in into that first pairing role, no problem at all. So they're a team I'm going to kind of watch at the deadline. I think if they don't make a move to shore up the front end right now, particularly with Perry and Getslaff and Kessler all at the ages they're at, I think it'll be a missed opportunity. Yeah, no, this seems like a great sort of just opportunity cost thing where if they move Camp follower, they have very adequate pieces, maybe even better pieces than Camp followers at this point to step into those minutes whereas, you know, the replacement level of the

guys they bring in in a trade, you know, that they could replace some of these guys that are playing up front right now would be pretty massive for them. So I like where your head's at there. I had the Kings 10 and I don't know how or I don't know why they're as good as they are right now. I mean, it's sort of the same tale as it's been for the past few years where they're dominating territorially and they're dominating the shot battle, but you have legitimate question marks about the actual, you know, true talent of the shooters taking those shots. And I mean, you just look at this roster and it's like, you know, Dustin Brown's on their first line right now. Devin Sittaguchi's on their second line, you know, Kyle Clifford and Trevor Lewis are on their third line. And it's,

and so like Derek Foreboard is on their top pairing and Peter Boudai is a net. And yet, I don't, I don't know if it's, you know, maybe we should give a lot, half of the credit to guys like Dowdy and Kopitar because they're just, you know, dragging everyone along for the ride. And, you know, maybe a lot of it is just Darrell Sutter being a mad genius who's pushing all the right buttons, but I think that the system they have in place lends itself really well and is an interesting discussion point to, you know, you pay for talent and you pay for goal scoring and you pay for those sorts of things in this league, but they have this system in place where it seems like they can just interchange a lot of these guys and be competitive on a nightly basis, and there's

something to be said for that. Yeah, they're, well, Daryl Sutter is a superb coach. I'm going to take a quick shot at Jonathan Quick here because they really haven't missed a beat without him. Outside of the quick little stumble of Jeff Zatkoff, when he stepped in it, they've got a guy who's basically written office in a H.L goalie posting a 920 save percentage for them. And I wonder a little bit if we'll see the offense come a little bit more when Quick gets back just because they trust him more. I suspect there were coaching adjustments there to turn the league's most defensive team into a slightly more defensive team even. But outside of Jeff Carter, the offense has not been there this year.

I think the thing is, though, I do think there's a difference stylistically between the way regular season games are called and the way playoff games are called. I think the Kings are built to thrive in the postseason. Most of the time when you hear that, I kind of shrug it off. The Kings, I think, are sort of the exception to the rule. And they're a team that you could easily see in the Western Conference final once again. Yeah, no, you definitely could. I mean, we've seen them do it in the past. At the same time, you know, if they run into a team like the San Jose Sharks, for example, or even the St. Louis Blues at this point, they're going to give them all sorts of fits with their speed and their ability to play a balanced game. So that's an interesting sort of stylistic matchup between those teams. I have the Blackhawks number nine, and I don't know where you have them. I don't know if that's going to be a controversial opinion just based on where they are in the standings and how much winning they've done early on. pretty much any way you slice it, they scream as, you know, there's so many red flags about

just how their performance has been, they've been overperforming what they actually should be doing right now. And some of it might just be that, you know, their top players are really, really good and they're sort of inflating that. But I'm very skeptical of their ability to actually be, you know, a challenging team in the playoffs. I wish I had this with empty net goals taken out, But their record in games decided by more, or in games decided by more than one goal is 5 and 10. So they're losing twice as many of those games as they're winning. They're winning a ton of close games. They've got a 943 save percentage at 5 on 5.

Yeah, I don't think Chicago is Chicago anymore. I had them 12th on my list. And honestly, I really played around with the idea of bumping them lower. This is not the team that it was. I don't have great expectations for them, although, you know, Corey Crawford can take over and Scott Darling's shown he could step in. They have the goaltending. They have the elite finishing talent.

But they've been just so devastated by the salary cap that I don't see them being a serious contender this season. Yeah, it seems like how high we have them on our individual rankings is just sort of a testament to, you know, paying a little bit of respect to their elite players because, as you mentioned, Corey Crawford can really, you know, win them a lot of games. and they can be getting severely outplayed, and then all of a sudden, that combination of Panarin and Kane just scores like two goals in a matter of a couple of minutes,

and you're just kind of scratching your hand wondering what happened, and they're up on the scoreboard all of a sudden. So I think that, you know, they still have the ability to win a lot of games just because of those guys, but they're clearly not the team. They've been in years past,

and I think a lot of it is people are sort of slow to adjust to the fact that they're not that team anymore. So, yeah, I think that I have them nine, you say you have them 11, I think, as you mentioned, or 12, and they could be a lot lower. I have the Minnesota Wild 8,

the Predators 7, and the Montreal Canadian 6. What do you think about that order? I had Minnesota 6. I have Nashville 14, which is maybe... Yeah, Minnesota is one of those teams that, you know,

there are some red flags there, but they're pretty good special teams team. They're better than, you know, a pretty average shot differential team, but they've had goaltending this year, and, you know, that's something that could very well last. I've got Montreal inside my top five, actually. I have them fourth on my list. So I guess Nashville's the team I should be talking about. Maybe I'm just penalizing them too much for their poor start early. I know they've been a lot better late. I don't trust their goaltending. I don't trust their,

their special teams. I think they're a good shot differential team at five on five, and I think I may have them too low, but that's kind of where my skepticism comes from. Yeah, yeah, I don't have too much issue with it. Like, as we mentioned, this tier is very interchangeable, and I think that, you know, they've been playing better of late. Hopefully the sub-bad injury isn't serious,

and you can come back and not have any side effects of it. And, you know, I enjoy watching them play. They have a lot of very fascinating, you know, skilled players, and they can play with a lot of pay. and I think that could give teams fits, especially in the playoffs. So we'll see where they go moving forward. Obviously, the start wasn't what you'd like to see, but it's nice to see they rebounded from that.

I think that the Canadians are an interesting team. I add them sixth, and you know what? I put this list out before I saw Mark Dumont, who covers the team and does a great job, and I recommend following online. He put out this list of sort of how their performance has been trending upwards lately, and they're in the top two or three of pretty much every category you'd like to see at this point. And that's a scary combination with Terry Price because in years past it's been sort of similar to that discussion we just had about the Rangers where they do some things well,

but ultimately they're relying a bit too much on their goaltending. And that's always kind of a cause for concern. But if they're actually able to play as a top five to even top 10 five on five team in front of him while having that type of goaltending behind them, Like that's a pretty scary recipe in the playoffs. Yeah. Carrie Price is, you know, he's Carrie Price. Montreal's got a very good lineup, top to bottom, forward and defense. I don't have any problem with them.

I have them four just because of the division they play in. We'll get to the Metropolitan in a moment when we get to all the top teams. But so I did, I gave those teams a little bit of credit for playing in a more difficult division. Maybe I gave them too much credit. But Montreal is a contender. I don't know how you argue otherwise. Yeah. No, it's pretty clear.

Yep. Sorry, I'm just going to say, I think we agree on that. Yeah, no, I think that it's pretty clear that they're the cream of the crop in that Atlantic division. And it'll be interesting to see. I mean, if they're actually able to play this well in front of Kerry Price, then, yeah, I would want to try and stay as far away from them as they could in the playoffs. I have three metro teams in my top five, which is pretty crazy. but I think it's warranted. I mean, you can at least make the argument for it.

What teams have when we mentioned on your list, and what does your top five look like? So I guess I should mention St. Louis, who I have ninth. Where did you have them? I have St. Louis 5th. Oh, okay. So that's why we haven't mentioned. Yes, yeah.

And I think that, you know, they're a good team, man. I'm sort of, I like how they've transitioned the sort of, I don't want to say the makeup or the identity, but I guess those are the best ways to put it. Just the way that they play where for years they were considered this sort of slow it down, bump and grind physical team. And all of a sudden you look and it's a team that's just filled up and down the lineup with skill and with speed and with undersized guys.

I mean, whether it's a Jaden Schwartz or Robbie Fabri or who have you. I mean, they're a good team, man. I mean, it was interesting. It was a bit eye-opening watching that Winter Classic game against the Black The Blackhawks the other day, you don't want to put too much stock into just one one showing because everyone can have a good or bad game. But they were pretty clearly just better team. I mean, they just sort of ran the Blackhawks off the ice. They just kept coming in waves. And for a while, the Blackhawks were able to hang on. And I think they were even up one nothing at one point early on. But the blues are just a superior team in pretty much every way. And I think that I'm not sure that that's, you know, that's a popular opinion around the hockey community, even though the blues, they'd beat them in the playoffs last. year. If you are running St. Louis, you trade for a goalie at the deadline? I would look at who's available, but I'd be, you know, I'd be wary of giving up anything of consequence, for one. I mean, they tried that a couple years ago with Ryan Miller and

just didn't really, you know, change the ceiling for them. I think that Jake Allen's fine. I think he's been a bit shaky early on this season, but we've seen that he's a pretty capable goalie. I don't know. I guess it depends on who's available. and what the price is. I think every player is in play for the right price, but ultimately I'd be comfortable standing pad if I were them. Because that's kind of my thing with St. Louis

is I don't trust Carter Hutton at all. I'd like another guy besides Jake Allen to push him down the stretch and then make a decision on your playoff starter. And I think, like last year, James Reimer really wasn't very pricey. Generally, you can get a decent guy for a second or third round pick.

And that's kind of my issue with St. Louis. I think they're a good team, but they need gold-ending. Well, they're in a little bit of a tricky spot because we went through this last year with them. And, you know, they stood Pat with a guy like David Backus, for example, because we discussed whether, you know, as an impending UFA, whether they would consider ever trading him. But it's tough when you're one of the best five to ten teams in the league and you actually have a legitimate shot come playoff time to give away a guy like that for future assets. So I understand why they just sort of sat pat with the team they had, you know, they made it pretty far in the playoffs. and they wound up losing him for nothing.

But it's going to be tough if they lose Kevin Shaddenkirk this summer, which it seems like it's heading that way. I mean, I would personally pay Kevin Shaddenkirk if I were them and then try to figure out and move other pieces. But it's going to be tough to fit him in with the amount of salary. They're giving to other guys on that blue line. And, you know, if he walks for nothing, like, that's going to be a pretty big blow to that team. Yeah, I think they have to hold on to him for now because, you know,

asset management is all well and good, but when you have a window where you could win a cup, and they could win this year. I, yeah, but I do think they're, they're better positioned than most teams to replace them with Petrangelo and Pereco. I personally trade Petrangelo and keep Shantan Kirk preco on my blue line, but I think they're not in a bad spot and they don't really have a choice, but to keep them. Yeah, I agree with that. I like, I love Shantzanker as a player. So where do you have the blue jackets on your list? I have them number one.

Oh, Jonathan, you hot takest, you. I have Columbus, Pittsburgh, Washington, one, two, three. And I'm probably, I'll freely admit, I'm probably a little too much on the blue jackets right now. I just watched them play Edmonton last night. Yeah, it was incredible. That's an incredible team right now. They're just winning. And I figured with the power rankings thing, I could put a little bit too much weight on their recent win streak.

But they're a legitimately good team. I think the power play is probably not, you know, 10 goals an hour good, but it is better than their shot rates, and their shot rates are pretty good. They've got a decent penalty kill. Sergei Bavrovsky's excellent. They're a very good five-on-five shot differential team. They're deep up front.

They're deep on the back end. John Tartarello seems to be coaching his safe as death, Tampa Bay. Like I was having flashbacks to the 2004 playoffs watching Columbus last night. they're a good team maybe maybe not number one but they're a good team i mean i think if uh if they never lose again you'll definitely be justified in this number one ranking and they're uh they're on pace to win the rest of the games that they play for the till the end of time but no i mean listen as you laid it out they don't really have many weaknesses right now i mean even if the power play regress is a little bit it's still going to be one of the best ones in the league as long as

Bobrovsky's healthy and playing this way, we can expect their gold ending to give them a chance every night. And there aren't too many weaknesses in the lineup. I mean, you've got to give them credit for, listen, like Scott Hartnell and Sam Gagne are in their fourth line, and that's probably one of the best combinations of any fourth line out there. Like they're just, they're not wasting any lineup spots right now. They're playing aggressively. They're playing fast. And there's a lot to like. And I understand why people are a bit slow to adjust because generally we see one of these teams kind of come out of nowhere every year and be a little bit inflated by their percentages. And there's no doubt that the Blue Jackets are overperforming right now. I mean, no team is going to win this many games

in a row generally. It sort of goes hand in hand with a winning streak like this. But at the same time, they could come back down Earth a little bit and still wind up being a very, very good hockey team. So, I mean, I have four on my list. And I think that, you know, you can make the argument as you just did for number one. I still think that I have the penguins number one on my list, and I haven't really seen anything this season that would make me feel comfortable unseating them from that spot, but I get where your head's at. I've got Pittsburgh 2 and Washington 3, and if you told me that I'm way out to lunch and Pittsburgh or Washington goes in the number one slot, I won't argue with you. They're both just phenomenal teams. We've talked about them

a lot in the past. They're very balanced forward attack. Good across the board, good in all situations. The metropolitan division is just stacked this year. Yeah, it's absolutely loaded. One team you didn't mention that I have second, I have in between Washington and Pittsburgh is the San Jose Sharks. Where'd you have them? I have them number five. And yeah, I'm, maybe I'm penalizing them too much for playing in the Pacific, but you play in the weakest division in hockey and, you've got to be, you know, clearly head and shoulders above the group. I think those top five teams are separate from the rest of the league. view and they're a very good team but i'm curious to see what happens when they get into these

matchups against teams from other divisions yeah that's fair i mean the thing with the sharks that i look at is like i don't really know what their weakness is i mean assuming martin jones holds up a net um you know like last year it was pretty clear that every time they played roman polack who was dragging down brend and dylan with him that was their big weakness and and the penguins really exploited that with their speed but you know you replace polack with a guy like schlemko and all of a sudden i'm pretty comfortable and especially assuming that they take michael haley out of their lineup in the playoffs and start playing that fourth line of of melker carlson tommy wingles and matt neetto like if you're playing that lineup i just don't really see what that weakness is and i'm pretty

comfortable in them at least you know keeping their head above water if not actually dominating the play with pretty much any single combination of players they have out there which there's very few teams you can say that about. Yeah, they're a very good team. They were the Stanley Cup finalist last year for a reason. They haven't really stepped back from there. Their power play is underperformed a little bit. They're generating a lot of shots, but they're not scoring a lot of goals.

So there's maybe some potential for an even better performance the rest of the way. I like them. I just don't quite like them as much as the other teams we've discussed. Yeah, that's fair. Jonathan, man. Where can people find you online? and check out your work. The best place is on Twitter at Jonathan Willis.

Pretty much all my stuff gets posted there. Absolutely. Yeah, I definitely recommend people follow you and check out all the great work you do. And thanks again for taking the time, man. It was a fun power ranking. Hopefully we didn't ruffle too many feathers. And it'll be interesting to see. I think it would be a fun exercise if we revisit this maybe in a month or so

or maybe sometime around the trade deadline to see how much things have changed between now and then. Yeah, I look forward to getting pilloried for my mad love. of the Columbus Blue Jackets and for Chicago fans to come at me with Shives, but it's always a pleasure to come on the show and it was a fun exercise. All right, man. Talk's in. Take care. The Hockey P.D.O.cast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypediocast.