The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 133: Trust The Process

Episode Date: January 25, 2017

Charlie O'Connor joins the show to discuss the sports scene in Philadelphia these days, the uneven path the Flyers have taken to getting where they are this year, and their outlook for the season moving forward. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 1:05 Sam Hinkie's Legacy 6:10 The path to a Wild Card spot 9:00 Possession vs Scoring chances 13:15 Steve Mason's Struggles 17:45 Dave Hakstol: Pass or Fail? 25:05 Radko Gudas is Actually Good 32:10 Gostibehere's apparent sophomore struggles 35:55 Spreading the wealth vs. loading up lines Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, and Stitcher. All past episodes can be found here in chronological order. Make sure to subscribe 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 is my good buddy Charlie O'Connor from Broad Street Hockey. Charlie, what's going on, man? Hey, Dimitri, thanks for having me. Of course, man. I'm going to have you on to help me do a little deep dive on the Philadelphia Flyers. It's always certainly an interesting team to follow from afar, and I'm sure being a fan of them and covering them on a daily basis

is just as interesting, it's a pretty wild ride. But I wish we could just kind of talk about Joel and Beat instead for 40 minutes rather than focusing on the flyers. I feel like that would be a much more entertaining topic. Definitely, definitely. And it's been fun to watch a guy like that, especially with just how ridiculous the Sixers, ridiculously bad the Sixers were, obviously, intentionally for so long

and to finally see the roots of the process. It's been a blast. Philadelphia's been going crazy over the guy, understandably so. Well, before we get through the Flyers, I am kind of curious what sort of the general sentiment or feeling was about Sam Hanky and Philly. I mean, like, obviously sort of the progression from when he first took over and started doing this process, quote unquote, to around the time he actually got fired and then to now where we can actually see this vision that he had all along kind of playing out on the court. Like, is there people that were trashing him for a while there that are now kind of just like, you know, not good feeling bad about everything they said about him?

Or like, what's sort of the feeling in Philly right now with that? You're definitely seeing more people sort of grudgingly admit that he might have been all. onto something. But most of them still say that, you know, even though he was right on Mb, that the team never would be in this position if he was still there because they wouldn't have gotten players. There was a lot of people that just don't like Hinky because of the kind of the style that he, it wasn't even just the process per se. It was more some of the ways that he, you know, didn't necessarily speak out to fans very much. And people thought he was this you know, guy in the ivory tower.

Most of the people that I talk to, you know, love the guy and love the process. And I'm not a huge basketball guy, but I obviously root for the six because I want to see them succeed. And it was neat to see someone try something new for once. And obviously he comes from an analytical background, which is something that I'm going to, you know, inherently root for. But it's been neat. To me, the funniest thing is you have, you know, the big thing was trust the process. That kind of became the rallying cry for all the Hinky fans. And all the Hinky haters got to talk about how the process is ridiculous.

It's so stupid. And then, of course, Joel Embed takes the process as his nickname. And as long as he stays healthy, he's probably going to be the star of the team for the next 10 plus years. And all of these Hinky haters are going to have to be calling the star player the process because of Sam Hinkie. And that just makes me smile. Yeah, I mean, he's obviously, I mean, you're preaching to the choir here. I think he's brilliant. I mean, just the sort of the stuff he put into motion is stuff that I'm sure

UI and countless other people like us have spent so much time kind of, you know, having beers talking with their friends, how if they were running a team, how they'd approach it and how they'd do this sort of stuff. And then he was actually kind of getting to do it. And we got to see what, you know, we're kind of seeing the vision he had in mind and reaping the rewards now. But, I mean, it's also stuff that I've sort of pleaded with other NHL teams to do for years now where it's like, if you're not going in.

anywhere fast anytime soon, like you may as well bottom out because, especially while you're incentivized to do so by the system, right? I mean, it just kind of seems like a no-brainer. Yeah, definitely. And the big thing I think for a lot of people in Philly and outside of Philly was the fact that it was just so brazen. You know, there are teams like the Lakers have been bad for what, three years, three, four years. And no one seems to care because it's like they're still trying to win. The Sixers just kind of threw a wrench in that because they were very open about the fact that they weren't trying to win. The one thing I will say about people in Philly who were opposed to the process, and I get

this to a degree, I like the process. I really liked what Hinkie was doing, but I didn't watch the games. I wasn't sitting down and watching 82 games a year, and there are people that just want to watch the Sixers, and they know the team might not necessarily be great, but they want to enjoy themselves and watch a Sixers game, and they were the people who were getting frustrated because they were watching an awful product, and I get that to a degree. You know, you do want to, you know, there's a very large element of sports, just you want to get enjoyment out of watching games. And I think that did drive some of the honest frustration, just that

they were watching an intentionally poor product. But at the same time, you looked at the way that the Sixers were structured after Iverson, and it was just, they were in the muddled middle, and they were never going to get out, and unless they tried something like this. And now you have a Joelle and Bede, and you hope he stays healthy, and if he stays healthy, you can build around. Well, and I also think it'd be kind of, you know, foolish to suggest that a large part of the pushback against Hinky was just the fact that he was kind of, you know, and for a back of a better term, like a quote unquote analytics guy, right? Where it's like, we saw exactly what happened with the Florida Panthers this year where it's like as soon as they got labeled as being an analytics team, whatever that even means. Like, you know, all of these old school hockey people were like, oh, they're just not doing it the right way. Like, you know, they miss guys like Garrick Grantson, but it's like you see teams do similar stuff all the time, but maybe they're just.

more PR savvy about it so no one's really kind of calling them out like i mean like i haven't really seen any you know mainstream guys really bemoaning how the colorado avalanche are an absolute joke this year and it's like they're bought him out badly but just because you know their gm is joe sacch and not some random random guy who who never played hockey before like people are just kind of just accepting it for what it is rather than freaking out about it absolutely 100% agree with you Okay, let's get into the Flyers. Right now, as we're recording this, they are sitting in a second wildcard spot. And I think that, you know, heading into the year, that's roughly where we all would have reasonably expected them to be.

I mean, you kind of give or take a spot or two. But, I mean, you know, no one really saw CBJ having this sort of year. But I think most rational people still would have had them somewhere behind the Penguins, capitals, and possibly even the Rangers on most of their projections. So I think it's just funny that, you know, in typical Flyers fashion, they've gotten to the point we expected them to be, but it's been in such an sort of uneven roundabout fashion where they had that early 10-game winning streak,

and then they really fell off and got absolutely walloped a few times heading into their bi-week. And, you know, it's kind of okay to just be like, yeah, they've had sort of the year we'd expect them to be on aggregate, but just if you break it down in the chunks, it's been very kind of all over the place. It's been a bizarre season, and I kind of chop up the season into three sections.

You had the first little, bit where the flyers, like, their underlying numbers were pretty good. They were driving play at five-on-five, and they were scoring a ton. But the defense was breaking down regularly in the defensive zone, and the goaltenders were playing absolutely awful. So you were having a lot of, you know, five-four games, six-five games, games that you probably would win if your goaltenders are playing anywhere near as well as they played last year. Then you had the 10-game winning streak where they caught up. They jumped into, you know, a very good spot in the Metropolitan and the wild card. But the underlying numbers weren't that strong. They were winning a lot of

close games and they were shooting at a high rate. Steve Mason finally started playing well, and they go on this win streak. And then after that, they kind of carried over the luck, the luck dried up. They started losing games. But then in January, the poor results have continued, but the underlying numbers have got a lot better. Like, If you look at all their underlying metrics in January, they're the second best. This was as of yesterday. I'm not sure if that changed due to games, but they were the second best score just a coursey team in January in the NHL behind Boston.

Their third best, I believe, in expect the goals. They've generated the most shot attempts of any team per 60 on the power play. The underlying numbers in January are very good. It's just that they're not winning, and that's primarily because they're not, their shooting percentage is ultra low, and the goalies, again, are struggling. So it's a bizarre year because you're right. If you look at the season as a whole, this is kind of where you'd expect them to be, maybe a little bit lower than fans had hoped.

But it's just been the process in which they've gotten there that's been so bizarre, and it's turned into kind of a roller coaster of a season. So I noticed something when I was looking at their shot metrics, where, you know, there's somewhere between 50 and 51% in terms of, you know, shot attempts unblock shot attempts shots on goal but then when you look at something like scoring chances for example they dip all the way down to 46% is that something that just kind of one of these weird statistical aberrations and it'll probably even out or kind of regress back closer to 50% or is there something uh with regards to the system or the style that they're playing that it's

lending itself to that being kind of so far off from from what their actual shots are like I think it's a little bit of both, but I am leaning more towards, at least recently I'm leaning more towards that there is a system element to it. One thing that does stand out to me is, you know, on Corsica, they track shot distances, and the flyers have the furthest average shot distance of five-on-five. They're at about 35 feet on average, and that's in comparison compared to, say, the Rangers in Pittsburgh, who are under 30 in terms of of average shot distance. And one thing I've noticed, and this, you know, kind of piggybacks off of the great work that Ryan Stimson does over at HockeyGraphs with his passing project, the Flyers do in the offensive zone.

They use a lot of low-to-high offensive zone structure, generating a lot of point shots from the defensemen and looking for deflections, looking for rebounds. And to a degree, you know, it makes sense that when you have guys like Shane Goss, spare and Ivan Proveroff and even Radhugudas who is we think we might talk about later is such an interesting player to break down. You have guys that you probably want them to shoot a lot because they have very good shots. But at the same time, I think there's a tactical desire on the part of the coaching staff and the players, I believe, to generate high danger chances by collecting rebounds and deflections

and not by trying to actually pass the puck into the high slot and generate chances like that or play a behind the net game and try to fool goalies like that, which is something I think the sharks do really well. I'm iffy on whether it's a great strategy. Ryan has done a lot of work on offensive zone tactics and how they affect shooting percentages. And I believe like a low to high strategy tends to generate

around like a 4% shooting percentage, whereas shots that originate from passes that occurred from B below the red line or over 12%. So that could potentially be affecting the fact that the flyers don't necessarily shoot at as good of a rate at 5 on 5 as you would expect. So I do think there's a system element to it. At the same time, you're probably going to see more bounces go to the flyers way because when you're taking a lot of shots from the point, essentially the way you're generating scoring chances is by getting good bounces. You're getting, you know, bounces off a goalie, a rebound pops out on the slot. You get a good chance that way where a deflection turns into a goal,

and then a point shot becomes a shot from the slot because of the deflection. So in a sense, I think it'll regress to a degree, but there is definitely a system element to why the Flyers, I believe, are going to underperform, you know, maybe their expected goals or their overall shot attempts, just because of kind of the shots they're taking. Yeah, yeah, I mean, for the, year, they're roughly around 48% expected goals, but their actual goals are down at 43. And I think it makes, you know, a lot of sense. Obviously, you look at it. It's like, well, it's pretty eye-popping that

they're in the same sort of roughly territory as the abs and the coyotes. And it's compared to everyone else. But it's like, it's very tough in today's NHL to win if you're not getting at least a certain baseline level of goaltending. And just the difference between what they were getting even as recently as last year compared to this year is kind of startling, right? I mean, Steve Mason, for, for roughly three plus years there now was, you know, kind of one of these, one of our darlings in terms of goalies that always had these, you know, good five-on-five numbers. Maybe the total package wasn't necessarily adding up, but you kind of expected him to be at least a roughly league average, maybe slightly above guy, but he's completely fallen off

this year, as is Michael Neubert at the same time. And I don't, I just don't know how to explain it other than just, you know, sometimes this stuff just kind of happens with goalies. But I mean, And I don't think that a lot of Flyers fans are going to take that, you know, and just be like, okay, well, whatever, it's going to even out over time when you constantly are giving up so many goals and losing these games. I imagine that it kind of gets frustrating for fans. Exactly. And I think Mason's regression this year has been the biggest surprise, you know,

for more analytically oriented Flyers fans, because people had kind of come to expect at least a level of, I wouldn't even say confidence, but he was truly an above-average goalie, and even his years where he wasn't bordering on a leap, he was still very good, and it was mostly some poor metrics on the penalty kill that dragged him into the mid-9-10s

in terms of overall save percentage. So everybody kind of came into this year thinking that the Flyers' goal-tending was really a strength, and the thought process was well, maybe if Mason has a bad year, then, well, they have Noyverd, and Noyverd, at the very least, is an above-average back,

up and probably is closer to like a league average type starter. And they've just run into a situation where they're both having really bad years. And you're absolutely right in that we have our Broad Street Hockey Radio podcast weekly. And every week we kind of go on and say, look, Mason isn't playing well, but you look at his numbers over the last three years. And most likely he's going to play more like that goalie than the one that he's shown so far this year. But now you're into late January.

And he's still playing like the goal. that he was in Columbus. And it's so hard to explain because, you know, goalies are weird. Sometimes they just have bad years. And is this Mason's bad year? Is it because this is the second season away from Jeff Reese, who basically revitalized his career when he came to Philly?

And maybe, maybe this is a situation where Reese just knew how to fix Mason when he was going through tough stretches. And now that Reese is gone, Mason kind of, you know, just those bad periods. it's turn into, you know, bad weeks and bad months. I don't know. And that's the thing with goal is you're always just kind of, you know, throw and dart to the blindfold on.

You just don't know why things happen. You just sort of wait and see if things are going to turn. And the Flyers need Mesa and play better because if the Flyers keep driving play, that's great. And if the Flyers keep having a great power play, that's great. And it's building the foundation for a strong second half of the year. But if they're getting 90% goaltending the rest of the way, I don't think this is a playoff game.

Yeah. From my personal experience in this industry, when you tell people, I don't know as an answer to a question, generally they don't take too kindly to that. But I mean, sometimes it's the truth, right? I'd be very disingenuous for us to be like, oh, well, there's these two to three obvious reasons for why Mason's struggling this year and how we can improve.

It's like sometimes this stuff is just kind of weird, especially at that position. And I don't know, it's like, this is just, you know, narrative heaven for people. I mean, you can bring up the fact that it's a contract here for him. And then I've kind of lost track of if that's supposed to be a good thing or a bad thing. I mean, it's all over the place. Like, it's just, it's, it's, it's so bizarre. I mean, like, listen, the fact of the matter is that I kind of looked at it and, you know,

they've given up 150 goals against this year, and that's the fifth most in the league. And if they were stopping the puck at the rate, they were stopping it at last year on average, that would go all the way down to 1-16 and that'd be the fourth fewest. So, I mean, that's just like, it just kind of goes to show you for some context, just how big of a difference it is. I mean, all of a sudden, if you're just taking 30-some-odd goals off the table from them, like, I've, I've I'd imagine that all of their goals, four rates, expected goals, four rates, just how they'd look in all of these metrics would look so much better, and they'd be jumping up the standings.

So it's just one of these things where hopefully it kind of evens out and he cuts back to that three-year average we saw from him. But at this point, I kind of just throwing my hands up like you and just kind of playing a wait-and-see game, I guess. Yeah, and you have to assume, if you're a Flyerson, you have to hope and assume that Mason will play better. You have to assume that he isn't turning back into the goalie. He wasn't Columbus.

But as I said, you just don't know. All you can really do is hope. Or you hope that Noyver gets on a hot streak like he did in the first half of last year. Maybe he can take the job. With goaltending, you just, all you can do is put guys on the, you know, on the ice who have performed well in the past and hope they can sustain it. And then obviously hope that you have, you know, goalie coaches and they're getting direction that fits their skill set. But that's not something that, you know, we on the. outside really have access to.

Yeah. So where are we at with Dave Haxthal? Because we're at a year and a half or so now, in terms of information with him, with systems and sort of his preferences and tendencies as a coach behind the bench. And, you know, everything I heard and read about him when the team hired him was glowing. And I'm on the record as, you know, being all in favor of hiring NCAA and HL guys and giving them a chance as NHL coaches rather than just sort of recycling the same old

retreads over and over again because we kind of know what they're going to do and how they're going to behave as the coaches. Let's see if we can do something better with these vacancies. But I don't know. I think just like with any other coach, there's certain stuff I've liked, but then there's also some kind of obvious things that have left me a little bit perplexed in terms of why, like some of his personnel decisions with his bottom six and how he's been handling the blue line. Like, where are you out with him? Is it mostly positive or is it kind of a mixed bag? I think that the shine has definitely worn off a bit this year. I'm certainly nowhere near the point where I'm calling for his ouster.

For no other reason, then, the Flyers have made a lot of coaching changes recently, and there's no reason to give up on a guy who, you know, probably overachieved a little bit last season based on the talent he had, especially on the blue line. At the same time, you're right. You're right that the personnel decisions this year have been odd, to say the least. you had an extended period in the first half of the year where he seemingly was fixated on the idea that Pierre Edward Belmar was a third-line center. And then after Sean Gertréry went down, there was even a stretch for Pierre-Dua Belmar was the

second-line center, which it was one of the more amusing things, in my opinion of the season, watching Pierre-Edward Belmar. It was darned as to try to shut down Connemert David in a game in November. I think it was in December. but actually, McDavid didn't score even straight point, but it was just funny watching them try to shut down maybe the best or the second best player in the world right now. And then you get down to something like Andrew McDonald,

where Andrew McDonald not only is playing every night, but he's also getting either top pair or second pair, or five on five minutes. And this is a guy who, you know, over the past four seasons, five seasons, he's been one of the worst play-driving defense. been in the NHL. And you could, you could forgive it to a degree if he was being used as like a number six defenseman when he plays, because I'm not convinced that Nick Schultz is any better than Andrew McDonald. And when you're that, when you have seven defensemen and there are two of them, you

got to play one of them. But it's more just the role he's been given, and he's been given a very prominent role. He's been paired with Ivan Pro-Raw for the past month and a half, and their, their metrics together are not good from a, from a shot attempt standpoint. I think they've broken even from goals, which may be the reason why they're still together. But from a shot at that standpoint, it hasn't been pretty. And that the pair just stays together and McDonald's still getting put out on the ice. And yeah, fans watch that and they get frustrated. They get frustrated when they see a guy like McDonald out there.

They get frustrated when, you know, Chris Van der Veldy is consistently on the team and gets nightly starts, despite the fact that he's probably not that great of an NHL player. And then you have people bring up, well, he was a North Dakota guy. it's the only reason why it plays. And who knows if that's the reason or not, but it's something that fans certainly can latch on to. So there have been a lot of things that people have gotten frustrated with, and that's not even bringing up the scratches.

You've seen Haxel go to this well of scratching guys like Shane Gosses-Bair and Travis Kineckney and even Michael Raffle for a game, and that gets on fans' nerves because even though you could argue it's a teaching moment, you're in a playoff race and you're intentionally putting a weaker team on the ice. So, yeah, there's reasons for fans to be frustrated. I totally understand that. At the same time, the system seems solid. I especially like what they do in the neutral zone.

It's a very aggressive, very aggressive system. They force a lot of dump-ins, break up a lot of plays before they begin, and Hax-Ls preach that from day one. So there's positives and negatives, and I think we'll have a much clearer view of Haxall after the season, because this team really should be a playoff team, considering the additions of Proveroff and Connect Me. the development of guys like Gossus Bear, the development he should be having.

So I think it's probably premature to make any real determinations on whether he's been a success or a failure yet. He was definitely a success last year, and I think it's probably best to reevaluate after the year's done to know kind of where he stands. Yeah, the McDonald one is just a real head scratcher to me because, you know, this is the second consecutive year where he's basically just attached to Andy McDonald's an anchor

to his promising young rookie defenseman. It was Gosses bear last year and Proverov this year. I noticed like it's kind of, it's unfair to Proverov to evaluate him just looking at his full season stats because he's up over 52% course he in 400 or so minutes without McDonald and he's down to like 46% with him. So he's just, you know, he's really kind of paying that McDonald tax at this point. But like the curious thing to me is, I mean, you mentioned sort of that aggressive neutral zone play and how they break a lot of stuff up before it even generated.

And I do notice that when I watch their games, you know, their blue line is very aggressive and mobile and active in terms of how they approach defending their own blue line. And McDonald is basically the exact opposite. I mean, everyone, it's kind of a running joke. Everyone sort of knows about the Andy McDonald's zone by now where he gives a guy just free access into the attacking end. And it just seems weird like with all the other blue line options they have there. I think that's definitely one of the strengths of his team that they would keep going back to Annie McDonald, even though there's just better options.

Like I just don't really see what he sees in him, considering that he's so different than pretty much all of the other guys that are just better than him. It doesn't make a lot of sense, and that's where people start to question, you know, what is he thinking? Because you want to understand why a guy like McDonald would seemingly end up in his coach's good graces.

Because you're absolutely right. He doesn't seem to fit with the mentality that the rest of the defenseman clearly take on under Haxstall. But for whatever reason, McDonald has just turned into a guy who is seemingly locked into the lineup. And that's not to say that the Flyers defense is very good. Like, in my opinion, the Flyers have three defensemen right now who you can envision playing a major role on the next, you know, theoretical championship contending Flyers. you have Proveroff, Gosses Bear, and Goudas.

Past those three, you know, you really have a bunch of third pair guys. Mark Strites probably the best of the bunch, but he's clearly lost a step. Brandon Manning's a third pair talent. Michael Delzado is just too inconsistent to be anything more than a third pair guy right now. And then you have Schultz and McDonald. Like, you don't have a great defense, but McDonald has seemingly like slid into that spot as kind of like the fourth most important defenseman overall in terms of overall time on ice. And it just doesn't make a lot of sense to me when he doesn't seem to fit anything

that the tactics and the overall mentality, especially in the neutral zone kind of, you know, seem to fit. I don't get it, but he keeps doing it. So he just kind of keep watching and seeing if anything's going to change. I'm glad you mentioned Goudas amongst that list of the future Flyers defense corps because I think that's, you know, for people to watch him closely and kind of remove all the other shenanigans that we don't like about his game like you can kind of tell that he's a very effective n hl defenseman i mean he's very aggressive he's almost impossible to carry the puck in against he generates a lot of shots like he's he's very good he's very reliable in his own zone he it's funny because you know he he does all of these kind of things that

old school types might like from their defensemen where he's you know he's hard hitting he's physical he block shots he does all the stuff but it actually does manifest itself in the where, you know, we can actually kind of quantify what he's doing and point to it and say that, yeah, he actually is making a difference. It's not just all this sort of intangible mumbo jumbo. So I just think that, you know, with him, it's always going to be people are going to point to, you know, the questionable hits and some of the headhunting he's done in the past and stuff like that. And you'd like him to rein that in a little bit because once he actually does walk that fine line, he's actually remarkably effective. Yeah, and no one, you know, no Rational Flyers fan is defending some of the really bad hits he made last year, especially in February. He kind of lost his mind for like a two and a half week period and he had like three or four hits that probably could have been suspendable. It was pretty ridiculous.

And then even in preseason this year, he had two hits, one of which he was eventually suspended for, that you're watching him. You're thinking, okay, why are you doing this in preseason? This doesn't make any sense, but to Gouda's credit, he has toned it down a bit. He hasn't been suspended since the season to start. He probably got a talk to you from the front office again after the preseason suspension. But he's just taking away from, you know, putting aside the hits for a second, he's such a fascinating player to analyze just because, as you kind of hinted, his skill set doesn't seem to fit what we kind of, you know, the analytics community kind of has

as the ideal defenseman, the Eric Carlson, the P.K. Suban type. And neither do his microstats. Like, I'm a big proponent of all the work that Corey does with his tracking. And this isn't a guy who generates a lot of controlled exits. And this isn't a guy who, in one-on-one rush coverage, forces a lot of dumpins. But it's other things that make him effective and make him really effective. Like, the one thing I've noticed the most is, is, well, he's not that great in one-on-one coverage in the neutral zone, he's fantastic at just breaking up plays before they begin. Like, he'll cut off passes that, you know, intended for, you know, a guy who seems open, cut him off and then send it right back in the offensive zone.

Or, you know, when a team tries to, you know, tries to dump the puck out and uncontrolled exit and catch up to the puck, like Montreal under the Mauritarian does a lot. Gudis is the guy who retrieves the puck, you know, fights off the guy chasing after it, and then passes it to a forward who gets the puck back in. Like the flyers own the neutral zone with Radko Gudis on the ice. And he does it by not, he doesn't generate controlled exits. He doesn't, you know, break up a ton of rushes one-on-one, but he just does it by being smart and having great reads.

And the result is really fantastic possession numbers. Like, I marvel whenever I look at them. Like over the past two years, if you're looking at a court C4 relative teammate from Sassette Hockey analysis, He's the sixth best defenseman of any defenseman in the NHL over the past two years with over a thousand minutes of five-on-five, and that's right behind Victor Hedman and right ahead of Eric Carlson, which is insane because Thracogood is. You don't think of him as a play driver, but he is. And the only real hole in his game, in my opinion, is that he still does take too many penalties,

even when he's not making dirty hits. He's still taking minors, and that hurts the team, and that probably keeps him from being a true first-payer defenseman. But I don't see any reason why he can't be a second-paired defenseman on a good team as long as he keeps his head. And he's a right-handed shot, which obviously is something that a lot of teams need if your name, if your team isn't the St. Louis Flues or the Winnipeg, Jeff. Yeah. No, with him, it's all about sort of, I don't know if moderation necessarily the way where, but sort of just being in control where, like, you know, I definitely have no. noticed we were talking about where he kind of reads the play and breaks it up before it even has a

chance to fully develop. But then sometimes he can get a little bit carried away and maybe kind of take himself out of the play if he's going too hard for a hit or something like that. So sometimes if he kind of notches, it takes a notch down a little bit. He becomes much more effective. But listen, I'm a huge fan of his game. And I still believe, like, if they really wanted to do something special, if they put him in Proveralb on a pairing together right now, it would just, I feel like that. It's such an interesting combination of skill sets between the two that I feel like they would just pretty much eliminate anything the other team's offense was trying to do, like just with Proverov's sort of instinctual gifts and his talent and his speed, and then all of the

things we mentioned about Goudas, like that just seems like I just, you know, as sort of a little bit of a chemistry experiment or something like that, I'd love to see it kind of take place on the ice. Yeah, they tried it briefly, like right before Proveroff got placed with McDonald. They tried the Goudas Peruvrovrovna. And it didn't look amazing, but I think they only gave like one, maybe a game, two games at most. And you think that two guys that

seem to be as talented, and Proverroff seems really talented. You know, by the eye test, he passes with flying colors, and then Goudis has the numbers, and it makes sense as a lefty-righty pair, and they both seem to drive play, although it's so tough it's so tough with Proveroff now, because

as you mentioned, you can't really isolate, it's hard to isolate him from the McDonald effect. Like, the same thing kind of happened last year with Gossus Bear, where his play-driving numbers did not look very good at the end of the year, and there was kind of an upswell from some people in the analyst's community, like Gossus Bear isn't that good.

And, you know, it's fair to say that his possession numbers weren't fantastic, but so much of that was due to the time he spent with McDonald. And same things kind of happen to Proveroff, whereas Gossus Bear this year, the possession numbers have went through the roof, but now there's other issues with his game that have, you know, a lot of people in Philadelphia kind of in an uproar. Yeah, no, I'm a huge pro-veral fan. I mean, every time I watch him play, it's just,

it's one of those things where he might not necessarily always be like the flashiest guy or he might not do it in the most obvious ways, but just some of the ways he, like, eludes forechecks or gets it out of his zone cleanly or just, just little things like that are just kind of, you know, make you think that he's going to be special once he gets, you know, a real partner and gets a chance to shine. But I'm glad you brought up Gasta Samar, because it's sort of the elephant in the room here where, you know,

know, he's been kind of yo-yoed around by being healthy scratched and people are up in arms about his play and all that. And I just look at, you know, I haven't watched him every single game and I'm not necessarily keying in on him and his defensive zone coverages. But just by the numbers, I mean, it seems pretty clear that it is one of those things where he had really good save percentage behind him last year and a lot of pucks were going in when he was on the ice for the flyers. And those two things have come down this season. And of course, once you start kind of having poor fortune that way, people are all of a sudden going to start complaining about how you're on the ice for too many goals against and stuff like that, regardless of whether

it's in your own doing. Is it just as simple as that where he's just been kind of tortured by the percentages and people are just getting angry about it for all the wrong reasons? I think it's mostly that. As usual, you know, when it comes to these sort of narratives, like there is some truth to it. You know, Gossus Bear has regressed a bit in terms of defense's own coverage. He has blown some coverages, and some goals have been his fault, and that's undeniable. It's not that he's had a perfect season by any means, but the luck has just been unbelievably bad.

And it's ridiculous because, as you mentioned, his advanced metrics, his play-driving metrics are so good. He's over 54% score just to Corsi, plus, I think 4.6% of Corsi-Ral, and everything looks great. even expected goals. I think he's over plus four relative to his teammates there. So if you're arguing that he's winning the raw attempts battle, but the shock quality battle he's losing. No, he's still outperforming his teammates there

as well. It's just the percentages this year. Like, he's, as you mentioned with the goals, he's been on the ice, he has a 33% goals, four percentage, which is obviously awful. And it's obviously what is catching the eye of his coaching staff and whatnot. But the flyers are shooting 4.6%

with him on the ice. And that's obviously really, really low. When I went on a Comcast sports set last week, I noted that the Flyers have scored on 10% of their shots with Nick Schultz on the ice. And I don't think any reasonable person would say that, you know, Nick Schultz has this magical ability to make the forward score more when he's on the ice. And it just, it's a way kind of to say, like, look, Gosses Bear is not going to keep holding an on-ice shooting percentage of the mid-fours.

It's just not his true talent. and it kind of, in a way, it's sort of making up for last year when everything went his way. Last year, he shot 11% with a personal shooting percentage. And people who thought he was going to keep doing that, like, defensemen don't shoot 11%. They just don't because they take a lot of their shots from the point, and those shots don't usually go in. But at the same time, you look at the shot that he has, he has a blistering slap shot. He's not going to keep shooting 3.5%. There's going to be some sort of course correction here.

I just, I really hope that the Flyers don't, don't discourage the way he plays because of the percentage is not going his way for a while. Like, he's an effective defenseman and he will put up positive results if he keeps playing like he's playing. I just don't want him to change him because he is what he is. And yeah, you probably don't want him on your first pair facing off against Sidney Crosby with a minute left protecting a one-goal lead. But as your number three defenseman who gets sheltered,

altered a little bit and, you know, gets to rack up the points and his dominant on the power play. Yeah, he's, he's great. And really, you know, every team could use that kind of guy. And I think he's, he can be a really effective event for the future. I just hope the flyers don't start trying to screw him up because of the stretch of bad luck. Yeah, that'd be a bummer. Okay, one final thing before we let you go. I noticed that, I don't know how recently they've done this or they've been doing it for a while, but they sort of are spreading the wealth up front in terms of, you know, they've, they've, they've, they have Juru on one line, they have Warchuk on another, and they have Simmons now in the third line with Keneckney and Braden. Do you think that that is sort of the best configuration in terms of trying to roll those three lines that can all do a little bit of something and contribute offense and then maybe just kind of phase out the fourth line or at least play them as little as possible? Or do you think that they're still better off loading up a top line

and then kind of going that way and having kind of Sean Ketriere just fend for himself, basically? it's so tough to say with line combinations just because you kind of just, you know, try stuff and hope it works. I have no problem with them splitting up Drew and Vorichick just because I do believe that having that balance and, you know, giving Katuraya a weapon like Vorichick, you know, helps him and his ability to score, which is important for a team that really hasn't scored much of five-on-five. Simmons on the third line is something I'm less enthused about just because that unit, they've been using a unit of Braden Shen with Wayne Simmons,

Braden Shen as a center, and then Kinectney's been down there as well, Travis Kinectney. It's so hard to put a guy like Simmons with a guy like Shen because to me, Shen is not, he really shouldn't be a center. He spent most of last year on the left wing with Jeru. They basically just turn him into a center

this year, I think, because they didn't have much of a choice. The Belmar 3C experiment predictably was a disaster because Belmar never scores a 5-1-5. So they just put Shen there. And you have Shen with Simmons, you have two guys who, you know, Shen who probably is a slight negative in terms of overall possession from a true talent standpoint. And then Simmons, who is a slight positive, but he's not a true play driver. And you put those two guys together, and I think you're begging for a lot of time spent, the defensive zone.

I'd be more apt to have Simmons up with Drew and Raffle long term, because I feel like Simmons can provide that net front presence along with Raffle and let Juru kind of find them in the slot, ideally. Then you have Vore check with Kuturier,

and then have Shen, who in my mind is, as long as he's the center, I think he's going to struggle to drive play as he's done most of this year. So I'd want to almost just put him with guys who can drive play like a Matt Reed to get him in the offensive zone

and then turn Shen sort of into the score. But it's so hard with line combinations. You just kind of, you know, you hope things work. There's obviously the point of, you know, styles and whatnot. But I don't have a problem with them splitting the guys up. I don't think they've necessarily found the perfect combos yet. But let me put it in this way. They're a lot closer now than they were when Belmar was getting, you know,

second line or third line center minute. I really hope here, Edward Belmar isn't listening to his podcast. podcast. He's going to be pretty upset. And Belmore, he's a fun guy to watch. Like, he's not a useless player by any means, but I think Travis Yost actually posted this

a few weeks ago. Like, he's been one of the worst five-on-five scores in hockey at F-4, ever since he was brought to the NHL. And as a fourth-liner, as a penalty killer, like, that's okay. He's not a guy you don't, you want playing up in the lineup, even though

he's a speedy guy, and, you know, decently defensively responsible. It's just he was getting played, you know, in a spot way above his talent level and the flyers suffer for it, I think, in the early part of the year. You know what's hilarious? Like, I totally recognize that. It's all true, but it just makes that random play. It was like earlier in the year where he was in the neutral zone and he like,

like a little flick of the wrist to like do like a saucer pass over to, I think it was Matt Reed or someone like that. It was like one of the greatest offensive plays I think I've ever seen. And, you know, there's a high possibility that it was just like a random fluke and maybe the puck was on edge and it just worked out perfectly for him or it was like a little bit of an optical illusion but for anyone that's seen that clip it's just like it's a total mindbender i've watched it at least like a hundred times and i still can't really figure out how he managed to do it yeah he's he's a likable player and he's you know he's got speed to burn he's a he's a fast guy he's a really good forechecker it's and it's funny even the um the primary shock

contribution numbers that uh that that Ryan tracks with the passing project and now core he's tracking like Belmore grades out pretty well. He creates shots and, you know, get shot assist. It's just for some reason the shots he creates never go in the net. And whether that's partially bad luck or whether that's partially just, you know, they're not generating quality shots. I'm not quite sure. But for whatever reason, the Flyers were very certain in the early part of the year that

he could play up in the lineup. And recently they've accepted that, okay, he's like a six to seven minute, a game, at five-on-five type of guy, and then you use him on the penalty kill, which is what he should be as long as he's on the flyers. Yeah. Well, the Braden Shen thing is fascinating to me because I know it's kind of caught your eye as well and you've written it at length about it, and I recommend that everyone goes and checks that out. But, you know, basically, like, it's one of these things where, at least last time I checked,

no one's played a greater percentage of their minutes on the power play this year than he has. And, you know, he has like, oh, what, 11 of his 15 goals are on the power play, 18 of his 32 points. Like, he's basically a power play specialist. And that's great. And that's very valuable. in today's NHL, but the problem is that, you know, he's making north of $5 million, so they're sort of attached to this idea that he's going to be more than that, whereas, like, if they just had the luxury of using him, like Columbus uses Sam Gagne,

for example, where you're not relying on him much at 5-1-5, but then he's just terrorizing the other teams on the power play, like, that would be so much better for them as an entire operation. But I guess, you know, when you're that committed to him financially and just sort of the ideal of him as sort of this guy that came in with a lot of pedigree was a prospect and, you know, he was part of that big trade to get him. Like, it's just one of these things that I guess they're just going to have to live with. Yeah, and to Shen's credit, like this year he has been really bad at five-on-five,

but he hasn't been this bad in past years. Like, this does seem like something of a down year in terms of five-on-five performance. Last year, he was solidly like a second line, left-winger in terms of play driving and terms of five-on-five scoring. And this year, you know, he's scoring. That's the bizarre thing about Braden Chen this year. He's still on pace for over 50 points. It's just that it's all coming either on the power play or with an empty net or a three-on-three.

And on one hand, you can't get too angry about paying a guy $5 million a year to score 50 points, regardless of how he gets it. He is helping the team win. It's just that at 5-on-5 he's been a disaster. You're absolutely right. It would be nice if the Flyers could use him as a fourth-line guy. unfortunately they don't have the forward depth that Columbus does where Columbus can have a Sam Gagne on the fourth line and still roll

three other lines that can drive play and they can score and that I guess was probably the main reason why a lot of people underrated Columbus I think we all just sort of overlooked like they have a lot of really useful forwards and most teams don't most teams don't have the ability to roll

four lines full of 11, 10 and 11 useful forwards and it would be nice to use Brainsh as a fourth line guy, at least in the short term, wait until he gets back going on five-on-five. But unfortunately, you know, if I have a choice between using Braden-Shen and Tracy and using Belmar and not to be labor to Belmar point,

but I'm going to pick Braden-Shed. He's shown the ability to be better at five-on-five than what he's been this year. Yeah, I think that's fair. Okay, so to some things up, kind of a takeaway. I think, you know, there's a lot of reason to be pretty optimistic about this team. I mean, just beyond even this year,

I mean, if you just compare sort of where they're at now, compare it to where they've been in the past, like I think that Hextall deserves a lot of credit for, you know, getting them out of that financial hell, accumulating all these top-flight young assets in the draft and via trade. And all of a sudden, you look now, I mean, it feels like when we were watching the World Junior Championships a few weeks back, like every couple of minutes, all of a sudden some random Flyers prospect was doing something amazing. So it's like, it's pretty clear that, you know, the cupboard stock, there's a pop. positive future here to look forward to and probably is a playoff team this season.

So I think that, you know, it's kind of tough to be too upset with what's going on in Philly. Yeah, and in all honesty, if they can continue their strong underlying play that they've started in January, I do think this is a playoff team. As we mentioned, the goaltending is

a question, which it's Philadelphia. We had to reprieve the past few years from the usual, oh my God, the goaltending in Philadelphia, but seems to be back this year. That to me is going to is going to decide it. But yeah, they have a good core. The forwards are solid.

And then the defense, well, it's limited now. You have guys like Travis Sandheim, who are starting to play really well in the H.L. Phil Myers, who was great in the world juniors before he got concussed by Luchanan. Sam Moran, who, well, maybe isn't what they hoped he was going to be at the, you know, as a first half of the first round type of pick. he's looking like he can at least be a semi-useful guy on the third pair, and maybe more than that if he continues to develop.

They have guys coming, and that's, it's a fun time to be a Flyers fan, but at the same time, don't tell fans that right now, considering how poorly they've been playing over the past month. All right, I won't. Charlie, where can people find you online, find your work, and check you out? Sure, so my handle is BSH underscore Charlie. The vast majority of my work is on broadststst, Streethockey.com. I am a

contributor to hockey graphs. I haven't written an article yet, but I plan to in the near future. But yeah, the bulk of my work would be at Broadstreet Hockey, where I cover the team on a daily basis. Excellent. Well, I highly recommend checking that out, and hopefully we'll be able to get you back on as the year it goes along here.

Definitely. Thanks so much for having me, Dimitri. Absolutely. Chat soon, man. The Hockey P.O.cast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud. dot com slash hockey pdiocast