The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 152: Always Making Lists

Episode Date: March 15, 2017

Jonathan Willis joins the show to help break down the playoff races, the potential postseason matchups, and distinguish between the bubble teams and the legitimate contenders. Here’s a quick rundown of the topics covered: 0:45 Late Season Malaise 7:00 Western Conference Bubble Teams 16:10 Eastern Conference Bubble Teams 28:15 Full List of Legit Cup Contenders 32:00 The Flames winning streak 37:00 Playoff Matchups 39:45 Should we be concerned about the Capitals? 41:50 Recalibrating expectations 47:25 The Western Conference's Top Tier Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $20 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews 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 uh joining me as my good buddy jonathan willis jonathan what's going on man hey good to be back to mary um yeah i mean obviously listen all the listeners want their fix of young willis and and i have to say you're uh you're 2016 2017 uh you're the pdo cast breakout star this season so um with all that said though i i got to be honest with you uh my intentions for having you on this time are purely selfish because i need you to talk me out of this malaise i'm currently in because the season has just been dragging on so much that uh I've hit a little bit of rut here.

I can't watch the games the way I used to earlier on in the season. It's funny how that works, hey, like, I find for me, when I used to just follow one team, I found this time of year really exciting. But now that, you know, I try and follow the league as a whole lot more, you get to the three-quarter mark of the season, and it's just like, oh, I've been doing a lot of watching hockey. So I don't know how good I'm going to be at talking you out of it, but hopefully we can be at least a little bit excited about this.

Well, listen, I mean, I obviously give this caveat every time or sort of disclaimer, but like, I'm well aware that we're very lucky to be able to call this work. Oh, yeah. It's a huge privilege and an honor. And we're blessed to do so. But at the same time, like, when you are trying to watch all these games and really keep your finger on the Pals of the League every night, it just like it goes on and on. It just seems like this endless thing. I mean, it's never going to happen because they'd basically be just lighting money on fire from the NHL's perspective. But like the 82 games, I mean, we can agree.

is just way too long, right? Yeah, it, it's, uh, if it were a, if it were a 50 game regular season, I would be totally happy with that. Yeah, I think even like, I think honestly though, even like 70 would be, make such a difference. And it would kind of help appease the crowd that says, you know, if it was 50, I feel like, I mean, there's so much randomness in hockey anyways, but I feel like that would especially, like the results would be pretty wonky at that point. Yeah, for sure.

I mean, if you, if you dial back, you pick any, season you like and you dial back to the 50 game mark and you look at where all the teams are and you kind of get an appreciation for the fact that those extra 30 games do change the outcome. But one thing too, this year, this year has been I think especially hard just because of the schedule because it has been so condensed and because we had the World Cup at the start and it's just been a tough year. Well, I think even beyond like obviously if there were fewer games, you know, it'd be fair to theorize that players would be healthier and their performance would be more optimized and all

that. And I get that, you know, some people are kind of upset about the fact that hockey's going into into mid-June now with the Stanley Cup final. And I appreciate all that. But I think that even more so than that, it's like this stretch between the trade deadline and the start of the first round is supposed to be one of the more exciting times of the year. Whereas you mentioned, it's like this sprint to the finish line. And if you're following one team, every, every day matters and you're kind of like scoreboard watching and stuff. But it's just dragging on so much that it really feels like this is the part of the schedule where a lot of people that are following a very close here, kind of like getting their rest in, but it's like the calm before the storm?

Well, and especially because with the trade deadline in the past, that's obviously, you know, one of those big things with all the storylines you've got to follow. And once that dies off, you can kind of take a breather just before the playoff push, because it is going to be a crazy few months. And then this year, you kind of touched on them going to mid-June. But it's going to be insane once the playoffs end, too, because it's just a jam-packed. summer. Yeah. Well, like I said, I don't think anyone's feeling too bad for us at this point. No, well, that's the thing. If you complain about watching hockey for a living, people will

absolutely, totally rightly say, well, get over it. Yeah, yeah, that's fair. Okay, so we did something similar to this about two months ago, I think. It was somewhere just after the new year. And I think at this point of the year, we don't necessarily need to devote a full show to an extensive power rankings list just because there's a handful of teams at least that we can just immediately cross off and focus on the ones that matter in the present for our playoff purposes. I mean, listen, as riveting as last night's rock fight between the Colorado avalanche and there is one of a coyotes was, I think that I think for just in terms of a big picture of you, I don't think we need to spend too much time discussing which one's 30 and which one's 29.

Well, I'll take your word for it. I mean, when I looked at the schedule last night, I knew that it was not a game I was going to get anywhere near. And then when I looked at the score this morning, I went, okay, yeah, I'm, I'm very pleased that I, I didn't even consider that one. Yeah, yeah, no, you, you definitely didn't miss out on a classic. So, so those two teams are out of the, out of the way. I think we can pretty safely cross off the devils, the Red Wings, the Canucks and the stars, too. Do you, I guess add the Jets and the Sabres that list as well? Yeah, honestly, I, I think there's nine, nine teams you can make a case for in the West. You can almost make a case for eight, but just prudence dictates nine. And in the east, you're down to,

honestly, I'm down to 10. I, I'm not too worried about Philadelphia and Florida and Buffalo at this point. Yeah. So I guess you're adding Carolina to that list of teams that you're still, still have a, still have a, still have a, oh, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not, I wasn't counting Carolina either. I had Tampa Bay, the Islanders and the eight teams currently in playoff position. Okay, so yeah, okay, so that makes life easier for us. So that's what leaves like 19 teams, I think, remaining out of the 30. I mean, listen, that's still, that still means that there's some interesting playoff races. And I think that, you know, this late in the year, this is exactly what Gary Bettman wanted, right?

It's like this idea of the artificial parody with the three-point games every night. And, you know, there's only like a month left in the season, but there's still a handful of teams that you could squint hard enough and potentially see, like, things working out for them, even though, you know, the objective observer would probably say they're better off just losing a bunch of games and getting a higher traffic, but it's just this weird middle ground we're in. Well, and one of the things with a lot of the teams on the bubble is they aren't really in a position where they can kind of stock up. I think you can make a case for L.A. because L.A. has some ability if they really collapse, but at the same time, you know, if L.A. gets in, are you going to, you can't seriously write L.A. off as a team that can beat you in a playoff round, right? And then you look at teams like the Islanders in Tampa Bay, and they're almost past that stage where they're really, I mean, not that you're ever past the stage where adding a

good prospect matters, but to me, you know, picking number eight or picking number 12 or picking number 16, there's not, if you slide four spots, it's not a big deal and you're much better off to try and make the postseason. Yeah, no, that's definitely fair. Okay, so let's key in on some of these, on some of these bubble teams. I think let's start with the West just because I feel like the discussion is much, much neater for us and much we can get through it quicker. So there really is, it's pretty much the Kings versus, I guess, the Blues and the Oilers, if they really slide. Like, there's those three teams and there's only two playoff spots left.

And I think the Kings are on the ropes a bit here, especially after that tough loss to the Blues last night at home. And, I mean, we talked about this at the deadline when they acquired Ben Bishop, but especially when you watch that game, night and fully acknowledging that games between the blues and the kings are generally not necessarily the most high scoring or free-flowing games, but it's like there's sixth in the league in goals against per game and they're 24th and goals four. And they didn't really do anything to try and improve that area. They're clearly weak in at the deadline. And I think that we were we were puzzled at the deadline and watching this team right now, it's even more puzzling the fact that they didn't even try to do anything really to kind of help.

and just give them a shot in arm. Yeah, I'd also, if we're including Edmonton, I'd also include Nashville in the potential for slide discussion. But, yeah, L.A., we did talk about this at the time. They had a really weird deadline. Jerome Ginnla was, you know, anytime your big offensive ad is a reclamation project, and when that's a real area of team need,

it's a problem. They haven't been able to score all year. they've still been very good in terms of shot metrics, thanks to the famed Los Angeles system, but they're so offensively impotent that it doesn't even really matter. And we didn't really understand at the time what their end game was, why they would expend assets on Bishop.

But it's even less clear now. This is a team that should be, you look at Drew Doughty, you look at Anzai Kopitar, you look at Jeff Carter, should be nearing the tail end of its, you know, sort of competitive window or, or in the very prime of it if you're a little bit more optimistic. And for them to just kind of twiddle their thumbs and accept their slow fall from grace, it's very odd. Well, especially with some of the prices that were paid for guys that could have made such a

dramatic, like, PA Parental for a six, like obviously every contender we've discussed this should have been in on him for that price. But I mean, for them, like, he'd instantly become like what they're like fourth maybe most dynamic offensive player up front like it's just like the difference between him and and the replacement level for them right now is so massive that I just don't understand how they weren't you know going all in on that and even offering up like a fourth rounder or something yeah yeah absolutely like that that's a pretty clear cut case you can even make a case for the guys who who didn't get moved you know guys like redeemed verbata i understand the price there was dear but whatever the case was there were options out there

it was really a slow deadline in a lot of ways. Los Angeles had the ability to do some things, and they settled on Jerome McGillan, Ben Bishop, and... Magic beans. Yeah. I don't even know what to say about that, right? If you look at the whole market and you go,

these are the two things I want, and you're in LA's shoes, it's really hard to understand the reasoning there. Well, what's Benny La Cabley after these days? I feel like they could probably dust him off and give him another spin around. Well, Luke Chen should have been available, shouldn't he?

Yeah. It's funny because, I mean, Jerome McGill has like, it feels like he's such a perfect LA King at this point of his career where he just like, they're just so, everything is just so slow

and methodical and plotting. And I guess it's, it's a perfect fit. I guess just go all in with a, he's definitely fitting in with the rest of the players around him. I'll say that much. Yeah,

unfortunately, the rest of the players around him are a bit of a tail spin at the moment. So, um, so that blues team to beat them yesterday. They're interesting to me because obviously, you know, they were sort of sellers at the deadline, especially with Shadankirk, and that made sense. And I get that. But it's funny because

they're getting like 940 goaltending from Jake Allen since February 1st when Kenne Hitchcock was fired and Mike Yohr replaced him. And I mean, you know, he's obviously not this good, but then you could also make the argument that he obviously wasn't as bad as he was showing early in the season. So it's kind of all evening out. But I guess from their perspective, it's he has. Yeah, picked a hell of a time to pull them out of the state percentage of the seller that they were in pretty much for like the first, what, four or five months of the season. It's a little bit like the parallel that comes to mind for me is Joseph Joffrey, the great First World War General for France. And French strategy at the start of the war was way out of sync with everything else that was happening. And they suffered just this terrible pushback right at the start of the war.

And then just when everything was at the breaking point, Joffrey, who's just famous for being, you know, super calm and stoic and imperturbable, he's sort of the rock and he saves them because he's, you know, utterly unfazed. Well, everybody else is losing their heads and running around. He's calm. He's firing guys. He's moving guys around. He's doing all the things they need to win. And so the question with Jopre is, you know, is he a great general because he pulled their butts out of the fire? Or is he a terrible general because if he hadn't been in charge in the first.

place, there wouldn't have been a fire to worry about. And I feel like it's the same thing with Jake Allen. His overall performance, if you, you know, kind of average it over the year, that's not terrible. But there wouldn't be any fire to pull the blues out of if he hadn't been so bad early. So I agree with you that it's, you know, it's kind of evening out. You know, maybe I was just looking for an excuse to get that story off my chest. But I feel like it's evening out. And I don't think, like, I think if you, if you kind of look at how St. Louis is. performed post-Kitchcock, post-Shattonkirk, in terms of sort of the underlying metrics, they're really not that impressive.

And they are riding the goaltending right now. I don't like their chances of winning a round or two in the postseason. But, you know, as long as you have 940 goal-tending, you can do anything. Yeah. Wow. I mean, to be fair, though, like this is sort of the best-case scenario for them, right? Because they got those assets for Shattonkirk, so they're not going to see him walk for nothing this summer.

And they're potentially also going to get a little bit of that playoff revenue. a couple home games and not necessarily just completely fall off. So it's like, it really is working out pretty nicely for them, even though I agree with you that, you know, their shelf life here isn't too long. And I wouldn't be surprised to see them out in like five or six games in the first round. Yeah, I was a little bit surprised they didn't take more of a hybrid approach at the deadline than they did. I thought there was a really interesting opportunity for them there.

Well, and particularly since if you think about a guy like Cody Franz and not getting, you know like there there were opportunities to add at the deadline and and maybe kind of like Kevin Chattonkirk is you know the Cadillac of number three right shot defenseman like you you don't get much better than that is your third option on the right side and to be St. Louis could have added a cheaper third shot third pair right right shot guy or better still added a second pairing left shot guy and maybe been the drop off from losing Chattonk would have been a lot less, well, you still would have had a similar asset haul. So I'd like to see them be a bit more creative, but you're not wrong. Yeah. So, I mean,

they've got a five-point cushion now, thanks to that big win yesterday. And this, it's seven-point gap between the Oilers and the Kings. So I don't know, it's going to be tough here for the Kings just because, you know, they obviously have enough game. I think they have 14 games left. So it's, conceivable that they could make up that ground. But just with, you know, we really have to keep this stuff, these leads and perspective here. this point of the year, just considering how few games are actually just like ending in regulation as a clean two-point game. It's like it seems like in every game, these teams are picking up at least one point. So like for the Kings to to jump those five,

six points, it's going to be pretty tough. And I don't know, like you mentioned that if they make it to the playoffs, I think no one is really going to want to play them because despite what happened last year against the sharks, I think in the right matchup, they still really could just grind you down and just beat you on a purely volume basis. So it seems It seems like it would be a very unpleasant matchup to draw in the first round for any team. But I just wonder if they're actually going to have the firepower to get there. It seems like they really are on the ropes here. Well, and I think they almost have to pass either Edmonton or Nashville.

I was looking at St. Louis's schedule, and they've got a lot of road games, which is kind of what I was looking at first. But then I looked at who they were playing. In the month of March, they play Arizona and Colorado five times. Like five of their next nine games are against either Arizona or Colorado. So, you know, if you're LA, good luck catching them now. Yeah, that's a pretty nice low draw there. Okay, so let's shift to the east here because I honestly think this conversation

could take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour. I don't even, I don't even know. Let's cross off Carolina, Florida, and Philly. And, you know, if one of them makes a magical run here towards the end, we'll readjust our expectations and we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll tuck our tails between our legs but I think you know just for our purposes here I think it's kind of safe to write them off which means that you've basically got three teams fighting for one one play I guess I guess too if if you're cutting if you're just erasing the flyers from this it's basically just between the

the least I guess the three the least lightning and the islanders right you can you can shoehorn Boston in there a little bit but especially because I have Boston is one of my legitimate contenders. I know what you're saying just mathematically, but I feel like they're, they probably are in a different class than some of these other teams.

Yeah, well, I think Boston, pure talent-wise, is probably a better team than Ottawa. But at the same time, you know, Boston only has 80 points. You took a rask, pulls a groin and is out for four weeks.

And, you know, Boston could very well find themselves in ninth or tenth. So, I guess the leaves are currently holding onto that spot, but the lightning are the team that's really capturing people's imagination and really kind of forcing us to keep an eye on them, because despite the fact that guys just seem to keep falling like flies for them, I mean, Tyler Johnson was the latest one, and Nemesnikov got injured, although it looks

like he's going to be okay, they just keep finding a way to win. And I noticed that they're like a 53% coursey team over the past 15 games, and they're really playing some of their best hockey at the right time. And, you know, Vasilevsky's right at the ship after they traded Bishop, and he started to play a lot better. And they obviously have the top-end firepower. I mean, Kuturov and Hedman are having absolutely elite top flight seasons. And then there's this sort of looming specter of a potential Stamcoaster turn down the line. So I don't know, it's like, do you think that it's a bit too little too late? Or do you think that there's actually some traction here for them to really kind of kick this into high gear and make this a legitimate run?

well they're only one point out and once you get into the playoffs anything's possible I think I think they do themselves a well I think they do themselves a world of good if they could somehow overtake Boston in addition to Toronto because

then they won't be drawing Washington in the first round but having said that if I'm Washington and I'm looking at the options the idea of getting Tampa Bay in the first round is pretty much a worst case scenario because, you know, we've been wondering about them all year, what's going on with them. Some of it's obviously injury.

Some of it, who knows. But this is still a quality team. The core pieces are still intact. As you mentioned, their shot metrics the last while are phenomenal. Vasilevsky's playing extremely well. And if Stamco's comes back, this is not a team. Well, it's really not a team you want to face in the first round. Yeah.

No, I mean, if they get Stamco's and Tyler Johnson back in there, like, all of a sudden, you could make the argument that they're right up there with the capitals and the Penguins is the best teams in the East. But it's like, you know, it's funny because I feel like, you know, people like yourself and myself especially, like we look a lot at optimizing every single roster spot and, you know, not taking for granted your third pairing and your fourth line and really trying to have this balanced team that doesn't have any spots that the opposition can exploit. but then like it is a reminder that it is still a little bit of a star-driven league just because like you look at this roster right now that they're currently using and it's like loot woodkowski is on their fourth line and he's a defenseman and it's like Jake dachian comes up from the hl and he's all of a sudden playing with victor headman in the top pairing and byron frees who they just you know picked up off the scrap heap is their third line center it's like they have all these guys that are obviously playing in roles that they wouldn't if they were healthy but they're still winning just because those that top end of their roster is so good

that it's just kind of carrying them throughout these games? Well, the thing with the thing with the headman-dotchin-paring is it really does solve a problem for them in that it allows them to move Anton Strollman onto the second unit and shore up

what has been a notable weakness. I think kind of what we've learned from Chicago the last, not last year, but in previous seasons. We've seen them win the cup with well basically they did have four proper forward lines but basically four defensemen and you can get away if you've got if you've got a solid coach and i think john cooper's a very solid coach if you've got a solid coach i think you can get away with some of the weak spots just because you play them in low leverage situations and you don't give them that many minutes and uh you know you know if chicago can win with with duncan i'm trying to remember who all everybody who duncan keith played with in uh in 2015 because there were some pretty funky defense parings there for a while. But you can do it.

You can sneak these sort of lesser players into the lineup as long as you use them judiciously. And Tampa Bay has been able to do that. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, you know, you look at how loaded some of those backlock teams were in the past, but it's like, if you remember, especially the year they beat the Bruins, like, Nick Letty wasn't really playing in that series. Like, he was dressed, but I remember he was playing like five or six minutes per game.

It was like, for whatever reason, Quenville was reluctant to use them. I didn't trust them in those high leverage situations. And they still just managed to get it done because basically that John Morrison-O-Di-a pairing and then Keith and Seabrook were just playing all of the minutes for them. And it didn't really matter who else was out there. Well, I just, I had to pull it up since we were having this discussion. I had to pull up their 2015 Stanley Cup winning defense roster. And they've got, you know, the two pairings that you just mentioned.

But then they've got Roosevelt and Teaman and Ben Reimstike. And well, Van Riemstack didn't really play. He was hurt. but Gummisky and Run Bladdock. And Kyle Kumisky is the name that I couldn't remember. But I remember they would spot Duncan Keith on the pairing with Comisky. And it would just be, you know, the Cadillac of NHL defensemen and pretty average minor league guy. And somehow it worked.

Yeah, somehow we're all, yeah. It's the top end of the roster is so good. It just rises, lifts everything up. So if you had to pick one of these three teams, are you picking Tampa Bay then? It sounds like you're pretty optimistic. I mean, we should say that they are a point back and the Leafs do have a game in hand on them as well. If I have to pick one of them to make the playoffs right now, yeah, I probably would pick Tampa Bay. Although Toronto's schedule the rest of the way is favorable right up until the very end.

and Tampa Bay and Toronto do play before the end of the year. So that'll be like that I believe they play twice before the end of the year actually. So that'll be something to watch for sure because those two games could very well decide everything. Yeah. Well, listen, I mean, all three of these teams have, have their obvious strengths and weaknesses. And, you know, like it's pretty easy to dismiss the Islanders amongst these, this group of teams.

But like, I mean, last year I felt pretty confident picking the, the Panthers in that round series and then John Tavares just reminded us that, you know, he was the best player on the Ice stead series and he basically just wanted for them. And it's like, it's, it's, it's easy to overlook that sometimes where we get a bit too overconfident with some of this stuff and being like, of course the lightning and the Leafs are better than the Islanders here. And of course, whoever draws that number one, see would rather play them. But it's like you, you, you really can't ever take any other stuff for granted. Well, the Islanders have a, a lot of the Islanders struggles recently kind of relate to

goaltending. I think they've been a much better team since the coaching change. And the thing with the NHL is outside of the very top end, there's not a lot of gap. Like, you draw Toronto or the Islanders are Tampa Bay.

Tampa Bay is a little bit more scary just because they've underachieved this year, and we know they're capable of more from past seasons. But any team can beat you. There's no such thing as a safe playoff matchup these days. Let's quickly talk about the Leafs.

I feel like we've all been spending so much time talking about them for good reason because they've been really exciting and fun to watch. But I know there's probably Leaves fans listening to this podcast that are pounding their table right now waiting for us to talk about them for a little bit. And I think that they're an interesting case here where, you know, let's say you are a Washington or a Pittsburgh or even a Columbus at this point and you draw them in the first round. Like the interesting problem they would present is

You know, these playoff series are so matchup-based, and that really determines how these things go. And whenever you have to play a team like the Leafs, it's tough because they can really, you know, take you out of your comfort zone and make you play the type of game that they want to play, which is sort of this frantic up and down, up and down pace where, you know, anything goes and there could be wild swings. And in a short playoff series, like that style lends itself to a pretty high variance, I suspect. and it's, you know, it's very conceivable that they could just get hot all of a sudden and just run you out of the gym and in short order. So it's like, it's scary all the way around. All these teams, you could really kind of make the case that they have one certain, you know, style or set of players that pose a really interesting, unique challenge.

Well, the thing with Toronto is I personally would not relish the idea of, going up against Mike Babcock when Mike Babcock has three good offensive lines and a fourth line that is far more useful than it was prior to the deadline. That to me is where the real threat level rises and because they have that depth

if you're a team with a little bit more of a week, not that what, because I mean, we're probably talking about a first round matchup with Washington. Not that Washington lacks depth. this year, but Toronto has the ability to win, not just to win the matchups between the third and the fourth line, but also to do some damage there. Like a lot of teams, you know, if it's a third line battle, it doesn't really matter because you're not going to get hurt. Well, if you're

playing against Toronto and Toronto wins the third line battle, they have enough offense to hurt you there. And that, to me, makes them frightening. Yeah. All right, Jonathan, let's take a little break here just to hear from one of our sponsors and we'll pick it up on the other side of things. We have pretty loyal listeners who generally know what's up and how we do it here in the HockeyPedio cast. So they already know all this.

But for those of you that may have just randomly stumbled upon the show for the first time, in which case, where have you been all along? I mean, we've done over 150 episodes by now. Or those of you that don't have your hands free at the moment and can't skip ahead a couple times through this ad like you normally do. And I don't blame you for that.

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and click add a promo code and enter the promo code PDO. And Cickeek he'll send you $20 after you made your first ticket purchase. So all you got to do is download the Siki Cap and enter the promo code PDO today, and you'll get $20 off. Now let's get back to the show. All right. So this is the important stuff here. Acknowledging that the playoffs can be a crapshoot where lock and matchups mean as much as actual ability at times,

if you look around the league right now, how many legitimate contenders would you say there are that, you know, in a realistic scenario, they could conceivably make a real deal? long run and potentially even win the cup? Probably six. I think you can, you might be able to, if I really stretch it, I can make a case for eight. And if I'm, if I'm really, you know, really chop it down, I can probably get it down to four. So six-ish. Yeah.

I'm at eight right now. I mean, you know, if you really wanted to be stingy about it, you could, you could cut it down to like three or four, just realistic. but there is a certain scenario for a handful of other teams. So I'm kind of like reticent of writing them off here just because I know that it could wind up backfiring and making us look really stupid for having a discussion. It just doesn't involve them at all. So I always got to keep that in the back of your mind. Yeah.

Well, like to me, I can see a scenario where Nashville ends up coming out of the West and being, but I don't. I wouldn't lump them into that group of contenders, even though I can, I can, I can imagine a scenario where they would be. Right. They were one of the teams that I was thinking of where it's like they're not playing as good as a lot of these other teams, but it is conceivable that, you know,

their A game can really hang with any of these teams. And if it all comes together at the right time, all of a sudden no one's going to want to play them when like they're just rolling, rolling lines and have, you know, the best defense group in the league. And it's, they, they'd seem like they'd be a tough out. So it's like there are a handful of those teams. But let's let's let's kind of start from from the top here. Are you buying the senators at all?

No. Okay. Next. If if just to because I know there will be Ottawa people listening to this and just to explain why goal differential really does matter. Ottawa is a plus nine team this year. The New York Rangers are plus 42 team. Ottawa is not in the mix.

Ottawa has gotten away with a lot because they've won a ton of close games, and playoff games are all close games, but their margin of error is too thin to survive four playoff rounds. Yeah. No, I agree with that. I mean, it's been a good story in some of these deadline day acquisitions, you know, Burroughs and Stahlberg definitely help sort of in the sense, just how we were talking about the Kings, where it's like parental would have been such an improvement from some of the other

guys are relying upon, just getting a couple of players that might be. not necessarily be, you know, world beaters or fantastic players in their own right, but compared to who they're replacing in the lineup, all of a sudden the senators actually have a couple of lines that they can rely upon to keep their head above water. And that's a big upgrade from where they were earlier in the year. So it makes them tougher to play against, but you're right. I think that I have them lumped in this group with, you know, teams like the Oilers and the ducks and the blues where you can't necessarily just totally dismiss them because they've accumulated enough points. here where they're in the in the

playoff discussion but I ultimately see a pretty clearly defined ceiling for them in the playoffs I agree entirely when I put my list together Edmonton, Ottawa and Anaheim we're all in the same tier well I guess the next logical question is what about the

flames because they're 11-0-1 in their past 12 games since a 5-0-0-0-loss at home to the coyotes and we do this dance every time a team goes on a long winning streak where there's this like backlash to the backlash to a backlash where you know it's like you you have this group that all of a sudden goes like whoa they're the best team ever like look how many what games they want in a row and then you have the people that go well

actually they're not this good that you know then they start pointing to their shooting percentage or their safe percentage over these small bursts and i don't think anyone's arguing that the flames are the best team in nchl history and they're never going to lose again but if you look at it it's like it's pretty that this isn't just one of those short-term mirages where they're just, you know, pulling this, pulling this out of their butts and they're going to fall back down to earth rapidly. Like, over the past 20 games, they're a 52.5% Fenwick team. They've been on this upward trajectory for a long time. Even when they weren't winning these games, they were kind of an interesting team to point at and look at, well, if they start getting some better bounces or some better

goaltending, all of a sudden their performance could improve and they could start winning some of these games and that's basically what's happened here. Yeah. You just referenced the Fenwick over the last little bit. I was going to make the same point. So I agree entirely, obviously. When I kind of look at their roster construction, I have a hard time not putting them in sort of the my second, like I've kind of got three tiers, you know, the teams that that I don't see as legitimate threats, the dark horses, and then the legitimate contenders. And Calgary, to me, is a bit of a dark horse. I really, Michael Backland, Matt Kachuk, Michael Furleek line,

is maybe the best line in the NHL that people don't realize is a great line. Like, that unit has been great all year. A lot of the flame struggles earlier were due to sort of the Monaghan Goddryl line collapsing. That's turned itself around. I don't think Michael Furland's going to keep scoring at this insane clip that he scored on since being put on that line. But now that those two guys are together, I think they should be able to work with, you know,

a variety of pieces. Matt Stajan is a very useful guy in a specific role. So that line's fine. I think the real question is whether their third line can click. Verstieg's been decent form all year, but Brower's been very bad. So that's a bit of a toss-up. But the other thing they have is they have a legitimate potential

for two solid defense parians, which I think you absolutely need. They've obviously got the big three guys to your Dano, Brody and Hamilton, and it's just a question of whether the fourth guy in that rotation, be it Stone, be it England, can be passable.

If he's passable, then Calgary's a team that could come at you with, you know, three potential scoring lines, a good all-purpose fourth line, and a solid top four on defense. I struggle,

I struggle to put the case together for them to actually win four playoff rounds, but it wouldn't shock me at all if they won, you know, two. Yeah, it was a, I mean, the game last night was pretty interesting against the penguins where, like, you know, the penguins, obviously they're sort of towards the end of this Western Canada road trip, so you've got to take it with a grain of salt, but they gave them a good little punch early on, and the flames absorbed it and gave it right back, and it turned into this really fun back and forth game, and they show that they can at least hang with some of

these upper echelon teams. It is a bit frustrating that, you know, man, we just talked about the senator as like if they'd been able to scoop up a guy like Stalberg or something on the cheap or parent, as we mentioned earlier, like to help give them another guy there in that middle six. Like that would have been pretty enormous, especially if Rowland comes back down to Earth and stops being productive. All of a sudden, you know, they're probably going to wind up going back and trying to reinvigorate Troy Brower there. And we saw earlier in the year that's probably not a recipe for success. So that would have been a nice little addition for them. but they're playing really good hockey right now. And I don't think that this is a fluke at all.

Like they're looking like a legitimately really good team. I still think I have them in that tier that we just mentioned with the ducks and the oilers in the West and the blues. But I mean, I don't know. I guess I guess crazy things have happened. I still have a hard time elevating them to even that tier with the Predators. I think the Predators, A game is probably still a bit better, though. That's legitimate. They are anytime, like, because we're, I kind of set this up as tiers instead of like an ordered list.

Like they're towards the bottom end of that tier. If you have them at the top end of sort of the Anaheim, like I don't think there's a big gap between Calgary and Edmonton. I think Calgary's a bit better based on what they've done lately, but I don't think the gap is huge. And, you know, it's probably comparable to the gap between Calgary and Nashville. Maybe even maybe, maybe Calgary Nashville, the gap is even a touch bigger. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, let's

let's talk about the Eastern Conference because it's, it's, it's, at the top of the standings, it's very interesting. I can't decide

what is more idiotic. The fact that the Rangers are living life just sitting in that first wildcard spot right now. We've talked about this quite a bit, but it's remarkable that they're probably in the best spot right now of any team in the league. And then you have, you know, sudden penguins, capitals, first round matchup, which would be just, which really just mind-blowing.

I mean, you know, it would be fun. And we saw a little bit of last year, maybe a poor man's version with the Kings and the Sharks in the first round. But it's like, man, that would be a disaster if those two teams met that early. And one of them was sitting at home the rest of the way. And then we've also got the realistic scenario where the team that wins the president's trophy could run into the Tampa Bay Lightning, which as we kind of drew out, you know, might be one of the better teams in the league if they get healthy and everything comes together for them. So it's just like this entire Eastern Conference picture is such a mess because there's so many moving parts still, but it seems like there's going to be something that happens that just

makes absolutely no sense and just kind of really just drives people like you and I crazy. Yeah. Well, I mean, Washington, Pittsburgh in the second round last year to me was the Stanley Cup final. I know the Tampa Bay series went longer, but I don't think any team pushed Pittsburgh as as the capitals did. If that's the first round matchup this year, I don't even know what to say about that other than I'll be watching it and how stupid is this.

But, you know, it is kind of hilarious that the Rangers are probably going to be almost certainly going to be the fourth best team in their division and are going to enter the playoffs with the most favorable matchup in the Eastern Conference. Well, everyone knows that, you know,

you enter the season trying to be the fourth best team in your division. Oh, yeah. That's the prime spot right there. The crossover stuff, everybody drew this up. We knew this was happening. No, it is insane because there are, like, honestly, if you cut the east down to four contenders, you probably end up with Washington, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and New York. And if you think Tampa Bay is for real and New York is obviously the number four

to your on those teams, you can make a case that the four best teams and the playoff playoffs are in the Eastern Conference, they're all going to meet in the first round. It's nuts. And I don't know how to choose between the Metropolitan. Like I like Washington a tiny bit better than I like Pittsburgh. I like Pittsburgh a little bit better than I like Columbus and I like Columbus a tiny bit better than I like the Rangers, but the gap between there is, it's paper thin. Yeah.

Yeah, I think I agree with the way you rank those four Metro teams, but it really could go either way. Are you worried at all about this recent capital slide and Ovechkin's goal scoring woes, or is it just one of these things where over the course of a long season, they can't just keep winning every game and having these remarkable numbers where they're just scoring five a night and they were due for this, and it's kind of good to get out of the way now before the playoffs. Well, I don't know that it's, I don't know that it's good to get it out of the way now before the playoffs, but like I don't think it,

I don't think it's something that I look at things probabilistically, and I think that for the majority of teams, you're going to hit this kind of run. I don't think it's anything worth worrying about. But I also don't think it's something that it's, the balance of probability indicates it's inevitable, but if you don't get it out of the way in the last bit of the regular season, and it doesn't mean that you're going to experience it in the playoffs,

as I guess what I'm trying to say. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's obviously not encouraging. Like, you'd like to see them playing well heading into the playoffs. Of course,

I'm not, I'm not making that. Yeah. I just think that I'm wondering, like, I don't necessarily think that there's, um, any sort of predictive value.

Like, I don't think that this malaise they're in right now that, that I'm feeling myself. Like, maybe they're just, they're just with me. They're like, oh, man,

this 82 game season's so long. They're just kind of sitting some of, some checking, checking out a bit mentally here, but it's like, it's, I think they're going to be fine. I mean, you look at that team and there's just so much depth and so much talent and really no weak spots throughout the lineup. They can just roll pretty much all their players pretty comfortably. So I think, I think they're going to be fine.

It's kind of a convenient story for people to point to and wonder what's wrong with them and sound the panic, panic, hit the panic button. But I think ultimately, they're going to turn this thing around. And I still think they're the best team in the Eastern Conference. Yeah, no arguments. So the Blackhawks are an interesting team to me because early on in the season, they were winning a ton of games, and they were the obvious regression candidate where you just look at their statistical resume and went, well, Corey Crawford is just playing out of his mind right now and winning a lot of these games for them. And they were a pretty pedestrian 5-1-5 team otherwise. And it was easy to think that that wasn't going to last.

but all of a sudden you look now and I think over the past 20 or so games they're like a 53% shot share team and I don't I don't know how Stan Bowman keeps doing it but guys like Ryan Hartman and Nick Schmaltz and even Tanner Carroll and Vinnie Hannistroza like I all of a sudden just like a lot of these players like I you know they're they're pretty feisty and they're a nice little supporting cast for the obvious tough dogs that they still have playing at the highest level and another key development is the fact that after looking very pedestrian at the start of the year Jonathan Taves has really kind of kicked it into high gear here and started to look like more like the player that some people have been saying that he's that he is for a lot of years and him playing really well and being able to carry a line all of a sudden gives them those two

dominant scoring lines and that makes them much tougher to play against as opposed to just being able to kind of key on that Panera and cane pairing. Yeah. I have to own own a bit of a, at the start of the year, Chicago was a team I identified, and I didn't write them off, but I came pretty close because you look at those names. Like, you have Richard Panic on your top line. Okay, well, I feel pretty comfortable saying that that's not a guy who's going to drive results for you. Well, as it turns out, he may not be driving results, but he's doing just fine in a shotgun roll there. So Chicago is a much better team than they looked at the start of the year, a much better team than I gave them credit for. I still, they're an extremely tough team.

They've got the kind of depth on defense they didn't have before, and the flip side has been that they don't have the same depth at forward. But the core of this team, we've seen that the core of this team can get by with some pretty weak supporting pieces. This time they're just up front instead of on defense. And I thought that was an insurmountable obstacle, but apparently it isn't. And particularly with the West, as weak as it is, it's impossible for me to take them out of that top tier now. Well, don't beat yourself up about it.

I mean, I think that you definitely weren't alone. I was right there with you. And I think they are a good reminder of, you know, this stuff is pretty fluid. Like, you're allowed to recalibrate your opinions and expectations the year goes along because teams and players get better and worse. And we get new information on how they're. playing and what, you know, a realistic expectation is of them. And you're allowed to sort of reformulate your opinion. Like it, you know, at the start of the year, they weren't as good as their win-loss record. And that was pretty obvious. And then they started playing better.

And that means that we should be able to change our opinions. You're not like stuck. You're not stuck like, oh, yeah, Jonathan Willis, he's the guy that wrote off the Blackhawks because they weren't playing that well. It's like, you know, it's not mutually exclusive. They, you were right. They weren't playing that well and now they're playing better and now we're saying they're playing better and that's just how this works. Well, and the thing with any kind of, is somebody like me who, you know, has to have opinions for a living and does this. I think the thing is when you, when you see something like Chicago this year where, you know, the first couple months I went, well, they're not that good for these reasons. It's just a good reminder for the next time around that when you have a team that's got,

you know, this long record of doing pretty well, and then their shot share. I think what really threw me is that it was coming off 2015-16 when they had really fallen off from their previous heights. And I kind of thought, you know, wow, you look at the age of the core. This is a team that this is clearly a sign of things to come. And then it was easy to fall into the thing of saying, well, this is a continuation of the pattern we saw last year. And that clearly wasn't the case. So it's, I don't mind getting, I'd prefer not to get anything wrong, but I think the important thing is when things change, don't get stuck with your inaccurate prediction at the start. Like don't be willing to acknowledge you a wrong and move on and say, okay, this is a better team than I expected. What can I learn from this? And going into the playoffs, I'd much rather say, okay, I was wrong early, but I'm right now than stick with a wrong opinion all year. And I think that's the key here.

Just like learning from what happened and being able to be flexible with your opinions. I think that's big for people like you and I in this industry. Well, you're just not going to get everything right. That's the thing. And just as corrected as soon as you can. Yeah. And I think neither of us ever even claim that we are going to be always right. It's like we all have bad opinions.

Especially I look at it more as a process. It's like, is there a logical argument that you're making at the time? And it may wind up looking bad in hindsight, but as long as the reasoning was there, I'm perfectly okay with it. And with that approach, like, that's all it really matters to me. Yeah. So would you put the Blackhawks, Sharks, and Wilde at a tier together atop the Western Conference? Or do you think there's a separation between those three teams?

And if so, where do you see that separation? I yeah I think if if I'm really being super critical and cutting down to my my list of four then it's probably just Minnesota and San Jose but Minnesota, San Jose, Chicago are all really tight and if I'm going to a list of eight contenders then Nashville's in the fourth slot there my preferred view is just that Minnesota, Chicago and San Jose are the real threats in the West. Yeah, it's funny because they sort of slayed that dragon a little bit last year when they made the run all the way to the Cup final. But now all of a sudden,

no one's really talking much about the sharks. They're just like, they really are flying under the radar a little bit this season. Like Burns' insanely productive season is getting a lot of the attention. But otherwise, no one's really making a big fuss about the sharks. They're just kind of there. But pretty much from start to finish, I've been most impressed by them out of any team in the Western Conference. I just think that they're going to be a hell of a team to play against in the playoffs with no weaknesses and the top end guys to really drive the results as well. Yeah, and the fact that they're going to come up through the Pacific,

they should win their first two rounds. Like they shouldn't, like Minnesota and Chicago, those two teams have to go through each other to get to the conference finals. San Jose, there isn't a team in the Pacific that should be able to beat, I mean, obviously, know, a seven-game series, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the caveats. But San Jose should win their first two rounds. And that relatively easy road to the EM conference finals, I think gives them a leg up over Chicago and Minnesota just because they should only have one really tough matchup to get to

the final versus two. Yeah. And I have the capitals, penguins, and sharks sort of in a tier by themselves up top of the league. But it's funny because like there's a, I don't know what percent chance, but there's a reasonably high chance that, you know, the capitals and penguins could just beat each other up in the first round. And then all of a sudden, whoever wins that loses in the second round just because the playoffs and NHL are crazy like that sometimes. And it's like, neither of those teams is in the Eastern Conference finals. And all of a sudden, I would view the sharks as the favorite. But I think

that those three teams right there are kind of the class of the league right now. You can, you can make the case for the Blackhawks and the wild. I still think, now that I think about it, the blue jackets and the Rangers, even though they're both really good and have their strengths, I still think that there's a decent gap between them and the capitals and penguins atop the Eastern Conference, I think. Yeah, I don't think there's,

I would class it the same way. And the only thing that concerns me about that sort of the scenario you've just outlined. Like, it's possible to envision a metropolitan division title match between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Tampa Bay Lightning, which would be pretty hilarious. And it's possible to imagine, you know, Calgary slumping chest enough to slide into the top wildcard slide in the West and then beating San Jose in the first round. I could see that happening. Yeah. But San Jose, Washington, Pittsburgh, I think, are the three best teams on merit.

and the three that I would kind of peg as the best teams going in and the only thing that really stands between Washington and Pittsburgh being at the very top of that list and in the clear from everybody else is the difficulty of their road to the post to the finals. Yeah, I think that's well said. All right, well, let's put a bow on it here and we'll pick this conversation back up maybe in a couple weeks from now when the playoffs get closer and we have to start making predictions

and trying to figure out how this stuff's going to play out. I'm looking forward to it. I think that this chat really helped reinvigorate me. I'm excited about these races and the jockeying of our position right now. Well, it is a grind at this point like we talked about. But talking about the Metropolitan Division always encourages me because you know you're going to have some really good matchups right off the hop. Yeah, it's like, oh, this team's good, and this team's good.

And yeah, those two other teams are also very good. Okay, we have four really good teams. I can get excited about that. Yeah, absolutely. All right, John. Let's, yeah, I'll chat with you soon. And thanks again for taking the time. It's always fun.

And we'll pick it up back up in about a mother-so then. Very much. My pleasure. Take care, Dimitri. Sure. The Hockey P.DoCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud. At soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.