The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 136: Canadiens Deep Dive

Episode Date: February 3, 2017

Andrew Berkshire joins the show to help 'adopt' the Montreal Canadiens, and answer the ultimate question of whether or not they're better equipped for success in the postseason than in year's past now that they're less reliant on Carey Price's brilliance. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: f1:45 How bad goaltending did Ken Hitchcock in 9:10 Carey Price's uncharacteristic struggles 13:00 Alex Radulov's puck possession dominance 18:30 Marc Bergevin's savvy minor moves 21:04 Shot metrics vs. Goal metrics on the Power Play 26:10 Has Shea Weber been what you were expecting? 32:00 Possible trade deadline maneuvering Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, and Stitcher. All past shows can be found here listed 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.

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

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My name is Dimitri Filippovich. and joining me as my good buddy, Andrew Berkshire. Andrew, what's going on, man? Not much, just excited to be on. I think this is like the third or fourth time I've been on the PDO cast, so I'm, you know, pretty jazz. I'm becoming almost a regular. Yes, you are becoming at least a semi-regular.

I mean, we had you on a couple times in a row there at the start of the season when we did that top 10 series, which people were surprisingly okay with. I didn't get too much hate mail. I mean, obviously there was, you know, people would be like, oh, you need to have Nicholas Bags from here, but it would just be like caps fans and sort of stuff like that.

So it wasn't anything too outrageous or too angry. So I feel like that means we probably did a pretty good job. Yeah, I wonder, maybe it's just like people are so busy being angry about politics these days, but there's just like less anger about sports. I find like, I don't know if I've insulated myself with blocks and mutes to the point where I just don't see it as much, but I get far more angry tweets about anything politics than hockey these days. Which I think is pretty reasonable.

I mean, I don't really want to get too much into politics here because I feel like you know people generally tune into this show to get their dose of hockey but it is one of those things where it's it's tough to you know when you put everything in perspective it's like it's tough to get too worked up about what's ultimately a game when really important kind of life stuff is happening out there in the real world so i kind of get where people are coming from there absolutely we get to stick to this fun stuff yes yeah well okay so i brought you on to help me do a deep dive on the on the montreal canadians who you're very familiar with but i think that a good starting point for for us here would be to touch on the Blues and the Ken Hitchcock firing a bit here.

We're recording this on a Wednesday morning, early afternoon your time in Montreal. So we're, okay, let's start here. Are you okay with this move from just an outsider's perspective? Or do you think it's one of those things where it's just another coach that was basically just done in by the percentages, particularly just the sloppy goaltending that he was receiving? Well, I mean, I think the problem with the blues is definitely more. to do with how they've managed their peak years than it has been about Kenny Hitchcock. I think that the goaltending has consistently been a problem as much as I like Brian Elliott.

He's not like a 60 game guy and they never had that like peak starter. You know, there's lots of stuff working against the Blues right now. You know, someone mentioned today that Alex Dean has kind of fallen off the cliff again or this season, which, you know, that happens to guys his age. and it's not something that you can really control or even necessarily predict what year it's going to happen. And, you know, Patrick Berglund looked like he was going to be a great player for a really long time.

And then now, you know, he's only a decent player. And the Blues have a lot of those types of guys. And, you know, people have looked at losing David Backus, but, you know, Backus hasn't been that great in Boston either. And while Boston has some great underlying numbers, they don't look like they're going to make the playoffs either. So it's a tough situation for the Blues. it's almost one of those things where you look at they've never been as great as the sum of their parts.

And, you know, you can look at coaching as a problem for that. But I don't know, I think Ken Hitchcock's a pretty good coach. I don't even know what's particularly wrong with the Blues for the last few years outside of being in a really tough division and getting a ton of tough breaks. Right. I mean, obviously, you know, if you were going to make one complaint about Hitchcock, it would be his handling of Teresanko, particularly in the playoffs last year. But, I mean, other than that, like, it's pretty clear that he's gotten quite a bit out of this group.

I mean, they've been, I understand it's not very satisfying for fans of their team, maybe, or it's easy to poke fun at them because they haven't really had those long playoff runs, except for last year when they made the conference finals. But it's like they've just ran into, you know, the Blackhawks juggernauts and the L.A. Kings when they were on the top of their game, and that stuff sort of happens. I mean, there's nothing wrong with consistently being one of the top teams in your conference and at least giving yourself a fighting chance come to post-season. season and they've done that for years now and I wonder, I guess we'll see what happens under Mike

Yo. I think that it's, it's, it's, they're in an interesting spot here because they do have to make some decisions, you know, who they want to have on their team moving forward and whether they want to try and keep guys or whether they want to trade them now while they still can get some value for them. But it's kind of tough when you look around in the landscape and at the central division. I mean, you know, the Minnesota wild look really good, for example, but I don't necessarily think anyone is overly frightened about playing them in a playoff series. And beyond that, it's, you know, It's, you know, the Blackhawks have very serious flaws right now. The predators aren't as good as we necessarily thought they'd be heading into the year.

The stars have completely fallen off the map. I might not even make the playoffs. And it's like the central division is pretty much there for the taking. Like this in a weird roundabout way, it might be one of their best chances to actually make a long run here. But I guess, you know, they are the type of team and type of organization that wants to, you know, get ahead of the curve and not necessarily be paying a ton of money for their guys. So it makes sense that they'd want to try and figure it out now. they still can. Yeah, for sure.

And, you know, they're a team that, as much as they do have some young guys who will be great for a long time, like having Colton Perrako and Vladimir Tarasenko being like their future on forward end defense is a huge thing. You know, like they've got a lot of guys on there who are either in their prime now or at the end of their prime. So like you said, now is kind of the time that they have to make a run. And if they see that ability slipping away, it makes sense to get rid of Ken Hitchcock and try something, else. Even if I don't have a ton of confidence in Mike Yao as a head coach. I don't think he's great, but maybe he'll prove me wrong. And maybe a different voice is just enough to get that core group of players playing at their peak for enough time to make some noise in the playoffs. You

never know. But I look at, you know, just we talked about this in DMs, like you mentioned before we started, that people have been looking at the goaltending this year and how the the blues have been playing and whether or not, you know, it's on them or on Jake Allen. And when I looked into it, the blues are actually giving up fewer scoring chances relative to league average this year than last year. And they're actually playing like the exact same way almost. But everybody else, like the league wide scoring chances are up a little bit, about 15%. But the blues are the exact same as last year.

So it's definitely not Ken Hitchcock's system that's leading to this problem. So either they need to, you know, get serious and, commit to finding a goaltender who can make saves or I don't know what else they can do because I don't think firing Jim Corsi as the goaltending coach is going to make Jake Allen all of a sudden great like I've even talked to some junior teammates of Jake Allen recently they're saying like this is a guy that every team he's ever played on players don't have confidence in him and that's a huge problem yeah it's it's tough like I understand that you know if if you're the blues it's a lot easier for you to just fire again. Hitchcock and kind of put it on him and hope that things will

turn around and you can just go from there. But like it's a lot easier to do that than, you know, getting rid of Jake Allen and Carter Hattenden and completely starting from scratch and net. Like it's, it's, it's, go, coaches are much more disposable in that manner. But it is tough. I mean, they went from first and say percentage last year to 30 at this year. And I feel like, you know, just anecdotally, I feel like we, we haven't really seen that dramatic of a shift without too many moving parts. ever really. I mean, it's remarkable just how much they've cratered in terms of that. And as you mentioned, nothing in front of the goalies really seems to be changing that much. I understand it's kind of easy to point to them losing a guy like David Backus, for example, who was playing some tough minutes for

them and has generally considered to be a defensively reliable forward and pointed that and be like, this is the reason why they're struggling defensively. But the numbers don't really bear that out. It's pretty much just the goalies aren't making the saves when the puck's coming to them. And whenever that happens, it's going to wind up reflecting poorly on the coach. So I don't know. I think that Mike Yos can be fighting an uphill battle here unless either Jake Allen or Carter Hutton or maybe Phoenix Copley can string together some good performances here. It's just like other than that, I don't see what Mike Yow can do to make a tangible

difference here. No, it's really tough. I mean, unless, you know, the offense takes off to a ridiculous degree, goes on some crazy hot streak, that's the only way you can really compensate. for the bleeding goals against, even though you're playing well defensively, you know, a great PDO run would go a long way towards solidifying Mike Yo as a decent coach in the eyes of many. But, you know, that's random chance more than anything. Maybe he'll implement something that'll help on special teams, who knows, but in terms of even strength play,

it's hard to imagine they're going to improve by losing Ken Hitchcock. Yeah, probably not. Okay, so let's transition toward Montreal Canadians. I think that the big question with them heading into the season was essentially, would a healthy Kerry Price absolve them of everything that seemed to plague them last season? And I think through the first 50 games of the year, the answer is yes, but it hasn't necessarily played out the way that we might have thought. Like, Kerry Price has been perfectly fine.

I mean, he has a 922 save percentage for the year. And that's still fantastic, especially when you consider that league average is dipped down. to somewhere between 912 and 913. So it's still very good for, you know, most mere mortals. But for Kerry Price, it is a bit of a down-tick from where he's been in his past few healthy seasons. And a lot's been made of that in the recent months. Do you think that it's just one of these things where, I know he's mentioned stuff like

fatigue and, you know, the World Cup and the schedule being wonky as being reasons for this dip in play? Do you think it's as simple as that or do you think it's something that, you know, fans of the team should be a bit more worried about moving forward? I don't think it's something to be worried about. but I do think it's a little bit more than what he was letting on in terms of fatigue. You know, obviously he is a new father as well. So there's that situation to the, you know, lack of sleep.

But I think he was really like not just struggling in December and January. He was bad. Like he was not Kerry Price. He was a 940 guy in October and November. And then December and January, he was like 895 or something like. that and that's just not carry price and like i looked at the kind of shots that he was facing and they were ridiculous like the canadians during those two months were abysmal defensively they were hanging him out to dry but at the same time he was not making saves that carry price

regularly makes and you know all all the goals that went out in on them especially at even strength like there was maybe two over that two month period where you were like okay that's a little bit week, which, you know, for any goal, even carry price, you're allowed to lend a weak goal a month. But it's the goals that go in that are great goals, that carry price is expected to stop a few of those because he's carry price and he wasn't. And that was the big difference because the Canadians were, whether it was like allowing backdoor chances or like perfect deflections. And I think part of it was a little bit of bad luck.

Like there was so many shots during that period where it was just like a double deflect through the slot and it just goes like just inside the post like right over his glove or right under his glove. It's just like the kind of thing that you can't really control for. But, you know, the performance was lacking. I do think that he was suffering a bit of an injury because he was starting to slow down a little bit in side to side pushes. And you saw like he had that freak out against the New Jersey Devils where he tried to decapitate a guy after he got run a couple of times. I think something was tweaked a little bit, but it was just not a major enough injury. that it was anything to worry about and it just slowed him down that little bit enough so that the

extra dip in play was pretty obvious but the last five or six games now he started to look really good so it's a matter of figuring out if he's going to rebound completely or if it's going to be more 920 like the average of this season instead of his usual well i mean even even if he's 920 like you know that's obviously he's still pretty good but at the same time i think that a reason for optimism and with this team is that unlike maybe in years past where him dipping down in performance a little bit would be catastrophic, they actually have stuff working in their favor in front of him where they're not just fully reliant on him. I mean, it is, if you look at this team's sort of shot chairs and everything they've been doing at 5-1-5, they've been trending up for,

as a team for the past three years essentially now. But I mean, even this year, as the season's gone along, it seems like they've been constantly on the rise. I mean, they're up to 53% in shot attempts, which is fourth in the league, you know, 55% in scoring chances, which is second, pretty much anything you want to look at, they're near the top. So I think that, you know, that's a pretty encouraging sign for me when I'm looking at them as their sort of chances moving forward. But I'm kind of wondering, do you think that a lot of that is Michelle Tarian's doing, or how much of it do you think is just the fact that they've assembled a really good collection of players up front that are just pushing the pace for them and making things happen?

I mean, obviously, Michelle deserves like some of the current. at it because you can't have that kind of improvement with no involvement from the coaching staff. But at the same time, you look at like where the improvements have come from. And, you know, having Jeff Petrie back this year was, you know, a way bigger deal than anybody believed last year. When he went down to a sports hernia, like the Canadians, that was as big of a reason that they tanked as Carrie Price going down or Brennan Gallagher going down. And all three of those guys left around the same time last year.

So that was like quite the devastating situation. And then when you add in Alexander Radjulov, like, I can't even find words to say how good he's been for the Canadians this year. Like it's unbelievable. The only guy that I've ever seen in the last decade that can protect the puck and create offense out of nothing like Radulov is Sidney Crosby. And you're like that it sounds hyperbolic, but that's how crazy dominant Radulov has been on the puck in the offensive zone.

And he's brought, you know, an extra level out of Max Patcheretti as well. And those two together are fantastic. And, you know, even without Brennan Gallagher for a good portion of the season, and Gallagher was on like this crazy snake-bitten streak before he got injured. So you've basically not had Brandon Gallagher the whole season. They've still been scoring. Alex Galcenaic has missed like half the season. They're still able to score their way out of trouble.

And then you have, you know, the depth guys have been good players as well. And that's something that's plagued the Montreal Canadians for, a long time is their depth players have not been good whether it was running Mani Malhotra on their fourth line for a full year where he was getting like 32% coursey I mean Tori Mitchell is a big upgrade on that you know and like I'm not a big fan of Brian Flynn as a player because he's pretty one dimensional like he can only do one thing and that's like skate but he's a better player like he doesn't hurt you every game like a lot of the players that the Canadians have had and then you got like Paul Byron who is

just fantastic. Like, you know, I don't think Paul Byron's going to score 20 goals every year because that's crazy. He can't shoot like 30% forever. But man, he's a possession driver. He's great defensively and he chips in when he needs to offensively. Like he's one of the best third liners in the league, I think. Yeah, no, I think that's fair. I mean, he's amongst the league leaders in five on five scoring.

And I'm not even talking about when you adjust it for how often he's playing. It's like literally just the raw goal scoring. totals are just out of this world for him this season. And yeah, I mean, I don't think you're being hyperbolic about Radulov. I mean, just watching him play, it's, it's remarkable what he can do and sort of just boxing guys out. And, you know, other teams at certain times have had to just kind of shadow him with two or three guys trying to dislodge the puck from him. And the thing that he can do that, you know, other guys that might be really good at protecting the puck can't is he has the vision and the skill to actually make stuff happen when, when defense is sagged

towards him and we're seeing that i mean he's he's in the top 10 and in primary assist at 5-1-5 and a lot of that is just you know as soon as guys can latch onto him he just dishes it over to an open teammate for a wide-open scoring chance and when that guy is a max patch ready i mean that's a that's a pretty good formula for you to have up front yeah absolutely and there's other things too that have gone their way you know like philippe dineau has developed into a really good player which you know i think everyone could say that they expected him to be a better player than what he was in the black hawks like just through development but i don't think anybody to expect him to play the way he has this season i mean last year when the canadian's traded for him i took a pretty good look into him uh as far as his career had gone that far and he was a very good possession player you know he good defensive player but in terms of his shooting he was extremely perimeter guy you know like did not go and to the slot ever. And this year that's completely changed.

He loves hanging around the net. And whether or not that's the Canadians directing him to change his game or taking initiative on his own, he's made himself into an extremely effective player. Is he going to be, you know, a number one or two center? Probably not. You know, playing between Patrick Reddy and Radjolov for a whole season might inflate the point totals a little bit, but he's been good, like really good. And that's a huge, a huge factor for the Canadians, especially with Thomas

Bacanich not being himself and not necessarily falling off a cliff but maybe offensively he hasn't been a difference maker i think that's the main thing and another person to bring out for the canadians is arturie lichenin the rookie he's fantastic like incredibly smart player and you know great scoring chance producer he actually leads the canadians and scoring chances he's uh it's hard to be anything but really positive with arturie lakin and i think he's going to be a 25 plus goal score for a long time. Well, listen, on the Philbden O point, I mean, credit where it's due, it's been easy to get on Mark Bergevin's case over the years for some questionable asset management and guys

he's favored over others. But I mean, like, him turning a couple weeks worth of Deowice into a guy that, you know, the Blackhawks could desperately use right now is a big win for him. I mean, just getting a cheap young asset like that, they can play, even if he's not necessarily this good just because he's being lifted up by his teammates like he's clearly a contributor at that hl level and getting a guy like that for for a rental is is always a good move in my book so i just kind of want to give mark bergeron a bit of credit there yeah he's done a lot of those trades where he's not moving big assets mark bergerman has been you know incredible in turning those into quality players even like

troy mitchell and brian flynn who you know they're not game breakers by any stretch of the imagination and he got them for basically nothing from Buffalo and then ended up turning them into multi-year depth players who can help you out. Jeff Petrie for a second round pick and a conditional fifth. Even this Nikita Nestrov deal, who I'm not a huge fan of putting Mark Barbario on waivers, but if they believe that Nestrov is better than Barbario long term,

I guess we'll see. I think they're a little bit less effective at evaluating defensemen than they are. evaluating forwards, but I'll give them a chance on that. Nestrov looked all right in his first game. But again, they didn't give up anything for Nestrov unless they lose Barbario. Yeah, well, that's the thing. I feel like, you know, I was going to come on here and praise them for what they're doing with a blue line in terms of just loading it up with guys that can actually play and contribute and do stuff. And Nessarov certainly fits that bill. And I think, you know,

I was going to praise Barbario for just having a really good season. He's been one of those guys that's been sort of a 4A player where he's been the fringy type where he's always seemed way too good for the AHL level but he's never been fully given a chance to do his do his thing at that hl level and this year the habs finally gave a chance he's looked perfectly fine and adequate to me you know especially he's a third pairing guy and i think that that's a lot of teams could use those types of players because that is one area where you know teams just generally don't evaluate defensemen well but especially third pairing guys where they tend to stick these guys I can barely move there and that's a big problem.

So, I mean, if you're having guys like Barbario and Estraub on your, on your, on your, on your, on the depth of your blue line, that that's a big upgrade for me. So well, I guess we'll see what happens to our Barbario. But I kind of want to talk a little bit about the power play because I know our good buddy, Eric Engels wrote about Kirk Muller's creativity and how it's been driving their success with that unit and, and they did that flying V a few games ago, which was pretty awesome to see. but I think a few things that stick out, right? Like they're third in goals per hour, which is awesome.

They're generating a lot of goals there, but they're literally 30th and shot at times, scoring chances and expected goals. And whenever something like that just blatantly sticks out, I mean, I'm very skeptical that it will continue. So I feel like unless they're generating, like are they doing something to completely just rig the system? Or is it one of those things where they're just getting a lot of lucky breaks?

And if they don't start generating more shots and scoring chances, they're going to, the goals will eventually dry up. Yeah, this is a tough one because I think Eric, you know, naturally when he's speaking to players and coaches and stuff, they don't like to talk about what could go wrong. So if something's going right, they'll come up with a lot of explanations of why it's going right.

And I know he spoke to Max Patch Ready and he praised their creativity and unpredictability on the power play. But as we know, you know, we're dealing with really small sample sizes on the power play. And generally you want more shots, more scoring chances in order to get more goals. I think the fact that they have Shea Weber on the blue line kind of changes things a little bit in terms of expected goals

based on like shot locations because his shot is completely mental. And, you know, I looked up his shooting percentage on the power penalty because I thought, you know, maybe this year he's just going crazy, but it's not too far above his career average. He's shooting, like his average the last five years or something like that is like 12 or 13 percent on the power play, which is nuts. Because Suban had a pretty high shooting percentage on the power play for a defenseman, and his was like 7 percent or something like that.

So doubling that essentially, that's crazy. Like Brennan Gallagher only shoots like 15 percent on the powerplay, and he shoots from two feet from the goal line. So like that's a huge difference maker in terms of power play scoring. But you've got four other guys on the ice most of the time, and then a whole other shift without Shea Weber. I don't see it continuing. I loved to see the Flying V.

They did it again the other night against Buffalo, but it didn't work as well. The first time they did it, they did it three times in a row, and then they scored on it, which was hilarious and amazing. But I love the creativity, and they do some fun stuff on the power play.

But overall, I think they're more lucky than good there. I mean, Alex Radjolov is a big difference maker on the power play because he's able to create a lot of two-on-one situations out of nothing, like just down low. But overall, I'm not too impressed with their power play. A lot of times, like, they either score on a crazy goal or it just looks abysmal for the entire two minutes where they can't even get a shot.

So, like, they're special teams. I don't know what it is with them, but they've been great five-on-five, but they're dead last in scoring chances and high-danger scoring chances, and high dangerous scoring chances on the power play, and they're dead last in scoring chances against and high danger scoring chances against on the penalty kill.

So there's this huge disconnect going on, and I don't understand what it is outside of, especially on the penalty kill anyway, their personnel, because Placanich is no longer what he used to be, and their best penalty killers last several seasons were P.K. Suban, Lars Eller, and Max Pachretti. Patcheretti's not playing much on the penalty kill,

and the other two guys are gone. one. Yeah. Yeah, no, that would make sense a lot. I mean, on the power players, you mentioned, it kind of adds up that they might not necessarily look that great in terms of scoring chances if it's a lot geared up towards getting Shea Weber, the puck of the point, and making him just do stuff with the shot. And it's always weird. I mean, I feel like their power play has generally been very perplexing to me because they've had the assets for it to be a good one. Like, they've had the top end skill players and guys you'd think would be able to generate a lot of offense on the power play, but for every reason there's been a disconnect.

So I don't know, I guess it made, I guess powered more, more credit to Kirk Mueller for the job he's done. Maybe he's doing something with it schematically that isn't really registering or is kind of inflating their numbers. But whatever's going on, it's definitely going to be something worth monitoring moving forward. Yeah, for sure. And I think there's something maybe that Kirk Muller knows that we don't because I remember

a lot of things he knows that we don't. This is true, like what it's like to play in the NHL. But I know like last. year, I believe the blues were one of the worst teams in terms of shot attempts per hour on the power play. And they still had like a top five or so power play. It was like 21% or something like that. And like I looked at Kirk Muller's history on the power play. And it was like all but one season. His teams were clicking at 21% or better. So like he is a good power play coach. There's no doubt about that. He gets it done. But this year just doesn't seem as sustainable as

power plays that he's coached in the past. Yeah. Where you out with Shea Weber? Because obviously he got off to that tour and start and I mean, he's been producing a ton on the power play and that's been a big difference maker for the HABs. But has he been sort of everything that he was advertised coming to Montreal or has there been anything that you've noticed that's kind of made you reevaluate or sort of rethink your evaluations of him? I mean, I guess it depends on which advertisements you were looking at whether or not it was from analytical. people or like the mainstream media that like to talk about his presence every 30 seconds of every broadcast for the first 40 games that drove me nuts. But I think he's about what I expected. You know, his shots even better than what I expected. I was kind of surprised at that because I've never watched Shea Weber like every single game. You know, I got watched like 30 Predators Games a season kind of thing. But man, it's crazy. It's such a difference maker offensively. But

I'm kind of of two minds of Shayweber. because I think that he's been good, not great, but part of that isn't his fault because he's playing with Alexei Emelin. And Emelin had a good run at the beginning of the season with Weber. But for the last 30 or so games, he's just been a mess. And it's not even necessarily the defensive play where he's not very good, but it's that you can tell that Weber is used to playing with a Ryan Souter or a Roman Yose because he makes these plays in the offensive zone where he puts the puck, where he's, He knows his left side defenseman should be in order to generate offense, but Emmeline's never there. So, like, you'll see once or twice a game, he'll put a pass to an empty space, and then Emmeline will just start skating backwards out of the zone because he's like, oh, okay, it's going to be a turnover.

It's going to be a turnover. And it's just like these huge miscommunications that, like, Emmeline cannot think offensively the same way that Shea Weber can. So, like, you look at his numbers at even strength, and they're extremely. low event in terms of goals. Like he's not on for many goals against, but he's not on for like any goals for either. So that hinders his 5-on-5 production.

So I think that in terms of that, I give Shay Weber a bit of a break, but I don't think he's as good defensively as advertised. And part of that is because he has, he still has like a 96% on-ice save percentage or something like that. And on the penalty kill, he just looks terrible. Like he's too slow.

He doesn't think the game, as quickly as you want your top PK unit to think it. And for whatever reason, the Canadians, their number one PK unit is Weber, Emmeline, Tori Mitchell, and Brian Flynn, and those are the single four worst players for on-ice scoring chances against and shot of abs against on the PK.

So they're just, they've just been getting torn asunder in that four-man group. And, you know, obviously, Weber isn't the greatest puck mover, but he is, like, adequate there. I just don't think that he's, you know, you're a franchise defenseman. He has the shot for it, but he doesn't have the playmaking ability. He doesn't have the transition ability.

And to be honest, I don't think he has the modern defensive ability either. Yeah, well, that's, that was the big question we had back when we recorded a podcast this summer after the trade. It was, it was sort of, would they put him with Nathan Boyu as sort of a guy that could do some of the stuff Romanosi did in terms of moving the puck and handling a bigger workload there. But, you know, those two haven't been good together by the numbers. And, you know, they've been going with this Emmeline Weber pairing, as you mentioned. And I don't think that's a great marriage of skills, as you noted. So I'm kind of curious to see what they do with him. I mean, like, you mentioned the

breakouts there. Has he at least been competent there? Because the big question last year was whether he could do it if he needed to, but he just never really sort of needed to do anything in that regard, just because Roman Yose, he's one of the three or four best events in the league at it. So it was always kind of a chicken or the egg situation. Yeah, I feel like when he is there, like when he is used to break out, he's pretty good at it. Like, if you look at his decision-making process, he's usually making the right ones. Weber doesn't dump the puck out very often. When he has the puck and he's going to break out, it's usually with a pass.

never were the carry because he's just not a puck skating guy. But overall, he does the right things. It's just that he still does not do it very often. He's not a high event player. He's not highly involved. Even in terms of taking the puck away from opposition, he doesn't really put himself out there that much. He just likes to stick near the net and block shots

or try to stick check if a guy tries to carry it across the front of the net. And, you know, you can argue whether or not that's, you know, why he has an increased save percentage or un-a-save percentage, but, you know, it hasn't been that way for most of his career. So I don't see that being a huge difference maker in terms of whether or not it's luck or skill. I think he's just a little bit too conservative for his own good because, like, he has the decision-making process and the skill to be a decent breakout guy. He just won't. Because it chooses not to for whatever reason. Yeah, and maybe it's a matter of like conserving energy because like Michel Tarien has been playing him a lot like way too much for a player who's above 30 probably. But you know, who knows? And especially with Jeff Petrie there, like Petri can take some of those minutes and he hasn't, you know, pushed that. Yeah, yeah. So moving forward, looking at the deadline, is there anything that you'd like to see this team do or shore up a certain position? I mean, I'd be like the,

the Nesterov pickup for a sixth rounder was a smart move just because I'm always in favor of kind of getting ahead of the curve and paying a bit less while you have more leverage rather than waiting until the day of the trade deadline and then all of a sudden paying an extreme price just to make something happen. Do you think that that was their one move or do you think that there's something else in the pipeline?

Bergerand's usually pretty aggressive around trade deadline, so I can see them looking for something else. I think David Derenay's time with the Montreal Canadiens is probably coming to an end as much as, you know, he's been better than what a lot of, especially Anglo-Media, want to recognize this year when he has been healthy. But I think they want a more traditional winger, especially a goal score to play with Alex Galchaniac, because I think they're going to keep Philippe Dino with Patroredi and Rajalov when Gailchinov.

So I can see them going for that. In terms of defense, the only way I can see them making a big improvement would be to replace Alexei Emelin on that top pair. And I thought for a while that they were going to try someone else there, but it doesn't seem to be the case. They seem to be extremely happy with that pairing for whatever reason. So I don't know. I mean, they would probably love to get a center,

especially one who can score because Placanic doesn't. But I think that's just not something that moves on trade deadline days. So I don't think they're capable of doing that unless they want to part with like Sergehachev, which would be crazy considering Markov is probably going to retire at the end of this season. So I don't think it'll be a big move if they make anything. It'll either be like trading somebody who is part of their current core, not current core, but current lineup to just shift positions a little bit, or it'll be almost nothing. I'm cool with them sort of pushing all their chips in and making something happen if it is going to be something that's really going to

move the needle just because if people, look at the landscape around them, I mean, they're sitting pretty in the Atlantic Division where in the playoffs, the Metro Division's just sort of going to feast on itself. And I mean, you could argue that if the Canadians are one of the two or three best teams in the Eastern Conference, then the other two will probably, one of them is going to take the other one out in the second round of the Metro Division playoffs. So it's like, it's pretty wide open for them to make a nice little run here, assuming they get healthy and Price figures it out and is actually okay. Like I don't see why they wouldn't be considered one of the favorites to come out of the east.

Yeah, and I think the other thing is that carry prices on year, like the second last year of his contract, so they've got this year and next year to really push for a cup, and after that he becomes probably twice as expensive as he currently is. So it's a lot tougher to build that contending team. So when you consider that and the fact that the organization feels a lot of, I don't know if it's responsibility is not the right word, but maybe loyalty to Andre Markov for him staying with the Montreal Canadiens for so long,

even though he had several chances to leave in free agency. Long time have, he's probably going to end up being the second highest defensive score of all time on that team. I wouldn't be surprised if they pull a crazy move to try to go for it this year, something along the lines of acquiring, say, Matt DeShane out of Colorado. But it's one of those things where, like, can you actually predict that? Because that's such a big trade, right? But I wouldn't be surprised if they do something crazy simply because they've got two years in their best possible cup window. Yeah, I'm all for winning while you still can, especially as you mentioned while Price is still in his prime at a reasonable deal.

Andrew, where can people check out your work, man? Well, they can check me out on Twitter at Andrew Berkshire or they can go on Facebook and find all of my articles at Andrew Berkshire page, I think is what it's called. and yeah sportsnet vice rd s i'm everywhere man and you're doing a new podcast too that's right yeah doing a new podcast it's like half hockey half not either politics or pop culture it's nice to talk about something else once in a while i think my life is so obsessed with hockey that after a while you just get tired of it yeah you're preaching to the choir here man it's uh it was a nice getting a few days off there during the all-star break to recharge but uh i feel like this the second half of the season's here going to be a

grind, especially, you know, once the trade deadline comes, you know, some stuff happens. The guy moving teams and it kind of gets your, gets the wheel spinning and gets you excited for the, for the postseason. But this little stretch here between now and the end of February is going to, it's sort of like the dog days of the NHL season. It's like between games 25 to 60, I find are kind of brutal. And then once you get close to the playoffs, you get really excited. And then the first round of the playoffs hits and it's like, you know, Christmas in April. It's the best time of the year. Yeah, no, the first round of the playoffs is the absolute best where there's just like three or four games every night.

And, you know, you get some of these long overtime games. And it's just there's always something good on. So I think that that first round is peak hockey season for me. Yeah, it's just mayhem and you don't sleep and it's crazy. And everybody's jazzed. It's the best. Yeah, it is the best. All right, Andrew, let's get you back on here in a few weeks or so.

We'll figure out where the haves are at then and we'll kind of bounce around the league. So thanks for taking the time to chat, man, and we'll check you all later. Anytime, man. I'm happy to do it, and we'll talk to you soon. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.