The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 158: On The Counter-Attack

Episode Date: April 8, 2017

Nick Mercadante joins the show to do a deep dive on the New York Rangers, and look ahead to the most intriguing head-to-head matchups between the pipes in the opening round of the postseason. 3:30 Playing a run-and-gun style 12:10 A Rangers vs. Canadiens 1st round series 19:40 The perfect fit between Kreider and Zuccarello 25:50 Free Brady Skjei 35:50 Shattenkirk on the Rangers 39:20 Goalie matchups in the playoffs 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 Demetri Filipovich. and joining me is Nick Mercadante. Nick, what's going on, man? Right, Dimitri. Thanks for having me back. Yeah, well, last time you had a, we had an incident with you using, what were you using, like, the Apple earbud headphones?

Yeah, just a good old-fashioned earbud headphones hooked up to my computer and sounded like I was in a subway. Yeah, what are you in, like, 2011 or something? Look, look, it's hard, okay? I don't have all this high-tech stuff for podcasts, like the pros like you do. Yes. Well, you know what?

It's a testament to how loyal the listeners are because I think a lot of people actually listened throughout the entire show, regardless of the audio quality, which means you're doing something, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. All right. Well, hopefully it's better this time. Yeah, it sounds good. Okay, we're going to talk goalies later, but I thought that while I have you on, we could do a little bit of a Newark Rangers deep dive since you are a,

a Rangers fan and I haven't talked about them much since the start of the year. I mean, it's been an interesting season for them because I remember they came out of the gate just red hot and they were sort of the talk of the league really because it felt like they were scoring five goals a night and they were just playing really exciting hockey. And then in the middle of the season there was this lull where they expectedly came back down to earth and scoring the goals became a tougher task. And now they've just sort of leveled off and they are they're kind of who we thought they were. I don't know, like, where are you at with them right now?

And just what's your take on how this season's gone from them so far? So, you know, as an analyst or critic of hockey and of my own team, I'm pretty happy right now because they are exactly what I said they were going to be at the beginning, before the season, like to a T. They fell exactly into my expectation of them, which is a team that struggles to get the puck out of their own zone and struggles in general with the defensive aspects of the game, especially in giving up high leverage chances

and making life hard for their goaltenders. They can put the puck in the net, but they rely on odd man breaks and stretch passing. And so they get into track meet type games, and that can be tough to keep up, because look, it's the NHL. You're not going to score 15% every night. It's just it doesn't work that way.

So no matter what style of hockey you play. So, you know, when the pucks aren't going in the net, they're struggling. And they're also spending a lot of time in their zone. And then, you know, at the end of the day, Lungwist basically got back to being who he is. And outside of the little span of time that he was injured, for much of 2017, he's been one of the best goalies in the NHL. So that's who they are. They're a playoff team who is kind of backing in,

but they'll probably be respectable in the first round, but they're an also-ran. That's what they are. Yeah. Well, they're an interesting team for us to discuss here because, I mean, this has been the case for a few years now, but there is this imbalance between their shot metrics. which are hovering in a very pedestrian, like, 48 to 49% range, depending on what you look at.

And then their goals four, which is pretty good. It's in, like, the 52% range and their win percentage. And, you know, it's interesting because they're 22nd in shot attempts. They're 12th in goals four, and their sixth endpoint percentage. And I think that the obvious thing is, like, if you look at any of the models, whoever's putting them together, they're obviously not going to be very high on them because those shot metrics are, baked into it pretty heavily. So they're going to kind of frown upon them. I think that Mani's, Emmanuel Perry's model is the only one that has them in the top 10. All the other

ones have them in like that 15 to 20 range in the league. But I wonder, like, I look at this team and they have that quick hitting counterattack style that you mentioned and that's predisposed to these kind of screwy splits across the board. And I just wonder like it's clearly working for them because they're winning a lot of games and they're successful. And I guess spinning it forward, like looking at the rest of the league, the question is, why aren't more teams trying to play this style? Do you think the Rangers are just uniquely positioned to pull it off because of their personnel? Or do you think that more teams should be trying to adopt this track meet style or there's trading chances and trying to take advantage of whenever their opponent slips up a little bit as opposed to playing a more conventional balanced attack? Yeah, it's, I think it's hard to play this style. and be able to, as a coach or, you know, as a team, be able to anticipate the results.

And that's not to say, you know, look, I don't want to give front offices too much credit in, you know, that going into seasons they have everything figured out about their team. I think, you know, it's been proven over time that a lot of it is, you know, you put your team together and you kind of take some. stabs in the dark and you hope everything works out. But just from putting on my coaching hat, if you go into a game, you're like, look, we're going to try to create high leverage chances and we're probably going to give a lot up as well in the process. It's kind of a scary proposition. And it makes you as a coach, you know, you kind of shirk at the idea of just going into a game,

going, look, let's kind of go for it here. And the interesting thing with the Rangers is, you know, I don't know that, I think Vigno has had a history of kind of coaching his teams this way. And maybe we didn't notice it as much in Vancouver because they spent so much time in the offensive zone down deep because cycle like Cedines, right? So, you know, you didn't notice it. But when he got to New York and you had that defense that was kind of, you know, predisposed to ringing around the boards.

But you had also these offensive weapons, guys that could really get up and go, the fast type of players like Crider, you started to kind of see that style bear itself out. So it is, to me, it's a system that A.V. likes to play offensively. I just don't know that other coaches would think that way. Myself as a coach, I look at it and I go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. We need to, let's shore up neutral ice first before we, you know, start trying to play long passes and get our forwards way out out of the zone. You know, we can't even get it across our own blue line half the time.

And so it's a little bit of a blind spot with Avey as well because I think he thinks his team is solid defensively, just from the quotes and what he says. And really, that's just not the case. Yeah. And then, you know, when you run into a team that's just generally faster than you, like the Penguins were last year in the first round, you kind of, yeah, everything just falls apart because, like, they're, well, the one condition for this working is that they're going to take advantage of their speed, especially up front, to

burn their opponent. and if they lose that ability all of a sudden, then it's like they don't, they aren't really left with anything really to fall back on and we really saw that first run series. And it's, you know, the thing with the Rangers is it's the wingers that are getting out and going. And this is something that's kind of left over from,

I think really all Samuelson instilled this in the defense. I don't, I can't get too much credit to A.V. I think it really was Samuelson just from the quotes and how he liked to talk about his D. But, you know, in terms of what they do in the defensive zone, people sometimes ask, well, okay, if they're doing that, you know, stretch passing and getting out, aren't the D pretty good at moving the puck up ice? It's not the D that are moving the puck up ice a lot of the time.

You know, maybe save McDonough, who really even he's not the greatest vertical passer. It's the supporting center that gets down low and picks puck. their centers get really low, especially step on, and they work the puck out of the corner, and they make those long headman passes or go off the boards to a guy who's kind of streaking out. So, you know, what that in effect also does is so you send your two wings, they go flying down the ice, your center's trailing, play starts coming back the other way, your center's still behind the play, then you get caught down low and your center's down deep. So in many ways, even though you get those high, those great scoring chances, those two-on-ones

every once in a while, you also are handicapping your offensive flow and control of possession. And that bears out in the numbers. Their possession just isn't there. Well, to be fair, in their defense, like, it is sort of when you're weighing the risk-vers-reward and you're trying to figure out how you want to play this, like, is one of those things where, I mean, when it doesn't work out and when you try to do one of those long stretch passes and it gets picked off and it comes back the other way, it can look really ugly. But like, in theory, you only really need a couple of them to work for every handful

that flame out completely for it to be a still like a positive endeavor for you, right? Because like, we see that these odd man rushes like that is, it's so tough to score in today's NHL when you're, when the other team can set up in the defensive zone and you play in that five-on-five game. Like you creating those types of opportunities really is just a complete game changer for them. Yeah. And, you know, if I think if logical Rangers fans, bear with me for a second, like, you know, Rangers fans beat up on AV because of his personnel decisions, especially with the fourth line and Tanner Glass and all that stuff. But I, you know, let's just pretend that AV, you know, 10 years down the road, he's no longer coached. and the Rangers, and, you know, you sit down next to him at a bar and have a beer.

If you asked A.V., I think, point blank, so, you know, why did you coach this team the way you did? I bet he would say, well, look, you know, we didn't really have defensemen that could corral the puck in their own zone and make outlet passes. So we had to do some different things. And I think he'd also say, keep in mind, you know, we played this, you know, kind of chance-taking risk trading game, but we also had the greatest goal in the world in net. So I did use the personnel I had to try to get the best result on the ice. You know, can you question some of his

systems and methodology and of course his personnel decisions? Yeah, yeah, you absolutely can. But yeah, you know what? At the end of the day, you do have Henrik Lundquist in that. Everybody he keeps saying, well, I wish that this would just be a better team so Lungwis could win a Stanley Cup. It's not. And he's, you know, it is what it is. But at least you have that backbone. You know, what would this team have, what would the results have been over the past three or four seasons if Lundquist wasn't in that? You know, I don't know if they even, you know, I don't think they would have won a president's trophy a couple years ago.

Yeah, she covers for a lot of those mistakes for sure. Well, so early next week, I assume my bosses will want me to write a little bit of a playoff preview and help guide people in terms of how these first round series are going to shake out and what to look for and who I think is going to win. And obviously, the playoffs are a complete crapshoot. And all you can really do is just try to inform yourself a little bit and make a more calculated decision. But it's still going to be kind of up in the air. But, I mean, looking ahead to this Canadians Rangers series, like, I it's tough because I generally you know we know that if you look at the performance in the last 25 games that's generally pretty predictive of who's going to win the series more often than not but I think that evaluating this rangers team is so difficult because of all the all the reasons we just mentioned like it's it's pretty easy to say well the Canadians have had a better shot share over the past 25 games so I think they're going to win but then you know you throw in the blanquist monkey ranch where he could very easily even though he hasn't necessarily played up to his usual standards this season. He's been better as the year has gone along and he's still capable of

stealing a series for them. And in a seven game sprint, like, it's very conceivable that they could just have a few games where those stretch passes all of a sudden do work and they just get into this track meet where they just run the Canadians out of the gym and just score a bunch of goals. And all of a sudden, you're just scratching your head wondering what happened. Like, it's, it seems like it, I have no idea how to go with it because there's like the rational part of my brain to just say, yeah, just pick the Canadians because of all this other stuff we know, but then that is the other part of me that's saying, but the Rangers could also just, like, I could very easily create the blueprints or the recipe for what the Rangers need to do to win that series.

Yeah, and it makes it even tougher because both teams are kind of backing in down the stretch. You know, they're both middling. And Montreal, for most of the season, they've been in the top, you know, five to ten, bouncing around in the top five to ten in terms of expected goals for. So, you know, I think that they're carrying play much better than a Rangers team who's really kind of middled in that stat. And mostly they've middled because, you know, their course he stinks. Their scoring chances are okay.

You know, they get high danger scoring chances and tend to put them away. So it really does make it hard to predict because in a seven-game series, I think the one thing that we do know is, generally speaking, the games seem to get a little bit tighter and teams probably take fewer chances in general. And the teams hone in on the strengths and weaknesses. So, you know, if I was trying to, you know, make a pick, I think I would probably take, you know, look, you got to call the goaltending a wash. And I think offensively, I'd be more afraid of the team that can keep play in your end than the team that struggles with that. So I think Montreal probably has a slight edge But if it went one way or the other

I wouldn't be surprised Well I mean the running joke this season has been That the Rangers are sitting in the best spot In the Eastern Conference Because it's that first wildcard way They get to play through the Atlantic Division part of the bracket Rather than having to go up against the other Metro Division teams But it's funny because now after the Chris Latang news

Like I still think that I'd be scared to play the penguins because even without Latang, who's such a big part of everything they do, like having to just go up against Crosby and Malkin in a series seems very scary and they could easily just win it themselves. So it's just like it's funny how much the perception of this entire thing has shifted over the past little bit. Because for a while it just seemed like the Rangers were laughing in that spot where like it was pretty clear that they were going to be the big winners here having to stay out of that capitals, penguins blue. Jackets Triumbert, but now I'm not sure if that's changed or whether it's still a good thing. Yeah, it's interesting too because, you know, the Penguins in Columbus are still kind of jockeying for home ice. And I don't put a ton of stock in home ice, but it doesn't hurt, you know. For sure. So, man, I mean, the Rangers have, you know, kind of been in terms of their place in the

standings and what's going to happen in the playoffs, they've been on cruise control for weeks now. You know, they kind of, okay, we're the first wildcard team. And if you look at the, you know, if you look at the other side of the bracket, we're going to face Montreal. And that's just how it's going to work out. So it's funny because Pittsburgh and Columbus are kind of playing down to the wire for something that matters.

And I generally think that that, you know, some say it's overblown, but I do think that that helps. You know, hockey players like to be keyed into something. They like to, for things to matter. You know, you're an athlete, you're a competitor. You want it to matter. You don't want to just get through these games

to get to the playoffs. And, you know, I get the sense that for, you know, like a team like Pittsburgh who's starting to click, Benino's doing his usual spring into the playoffs thing. They're kind of starting to come alive for the playoffs, even though they've got these injuries.

And they have to play down the stretch. So they're playing the devils, right? And taking a night off against the devils could be easy. The devils don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. But they're still playing for home ice. So why not go out and win that game? and I think it just kind of keeps momentum going in their favor. Yeah, you know, I really do wish that they would go back to just playing your standard 1 through 8 seating.

Yeah. Well, I mean, I was looking at if they did the 1 through 16, it would be Rangers sharks in the first round, which would be incredibly fun and new and refreshing. But I can imagine people already complaining about the east-to-west travel for that series. Yeah, I think that would be cool. but I think there'd be a lot of first-round matchups that would be pretty darn taxing and it would probably

as a result of that it would extend the playoff schedule even further just to try to accommodate travel and that might be a headache but I mean let's at least go back to the one through eight and stop with this goofy top three in each division nonsense yeah um okay let's talk a bit about uh I was looking at the forward combinations for the Rangers

and I know knew that they were good because these are three really good players and pretty much everything Matt Zuccarello is associated with, it winds up turning into gold. But the Kreider-Sephan Zucorello combination has been pretty insane. They're like 58% shots, 56% scoring chances, like 56% goals. They've drawn way more penalties than they've taken. Like it's, they're not really talked about much when you, when everyone discusses, you know, the best, most lethal forward combinations in the league and the top lines, but they've pretty much been as good as anyone out there this season. Yeah, and it's funny because even still, you know, Rangers fans

are still talking about, well, what are they, you know, what's the team going to do with Step on? Is it time to move him, you know, is his contract too much, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, he's playing in a role as a first line center, and you can call it whatever you want. I mean, clearly, literally, literally every player that plays with Zouker, Zucarillo plays better. Yes. And he's been on lines with, you know, other good players. I mean, it's not like when he plays with Rick Nash.

It's, you know, he's bringing Rick Nash up to speed here. But, you know, he makes everybody look better. That being said, you still have to have some, you know, ability to be a first-line center. And Derek Stepan is a first-line center. No, he's not a premier first-line center, but he's certainly a top-six center. and there are a ton of fans that are still, still, even this season going, I don't know, maybe it's just time to get rid of them. It's like, why?

Look at this line. Look at how well they're performing. Yeah, it's really interesting. And it's amazing that league-wide more people don't recognize this as a potent line. I think if you ask an average fan, they wouldn't even know that it's a line combination. Yeah. You know? Well, is there still consternation amongst Rangers?

I guess I don't even know if it was mostly Rangers fans or just casual fans or maybe people that are talking heads on NBC sports, but it's like, do people still care about Chris Kreider's apparent lack of effort at times, or has that been washed away for good? No, I still hear it from time to time. You know, I don't, Kreider is what he is in terms of being a player. You know, he's a physically gifted player with tools. He doesn't always make the smartest decisions on the ice. He's never really going to help you. to any great extent in the defensive zone. It's just, you know, that's just who he is.

But he can be an incredibly effective player if you put him with guys that will cover up for his weaknesses and play to his strengths. And when you put him with Matt Sogorillo, who is awesome within about six feet of his own blue line. So in the defensive zone, six feet from his blue line, he makes life hell for the other team in terms of trying to make passing plays to D and things like that.

He breaks those plays up and he looks for vertical passes to a guy like Chris Kreider who can then just rip through center ice or rip down the boards and create a scoring chance. You know, that's a good line combination. That's two guys that have complementary skill sets that can make things happen. You know, not every player, I say this about Rick Nash. Like not every player can be what you want them to be. You have to adjust your expectations a little bit and appreciate. them for who they actually are.

Yeah. No, that's the great, like, I mean, Lars Eller is a really good example of this. I think Chris Grider is a more impactful player right now, but it's, it's like people really struggle with these former top prospects or guys that just look physically impressive and have great tools.

And then when they don't necessarily become a superstar or put it all together, people just kind of look at them and go, well, this player is disappointing. He's not actually that good, even though he is, like, he can still be, disappointing in the grand scheme of things because he could have been better, but still in the present be perfectly fine and valuable as a player as he's as he is constructed.

And I look at Kreider and he seems like the perfect New York Rangers player just for the style they're playing that we mentioned earlier. Oh, absolutely. He's so well suited for what they're trying to do. Absolutely. That's the winger that you want on a line like that that they can just go. And they have the same thing to a certain extent with JT. Miller. I think J.T. Miller is a more skilled

version of that. J.T. Miller has the added passing in situational awareness. So, you know, they've got these two guys that they can do that. And then you've got Rick Nash, who's just an absolute

monster in terms of his ability to ward off players with the puck. And Grabner, who can score a lot, apparently. So those, you know, those, that group of top six, or, you know, I guess it's top nine technically because Miller falls onto the third line, but those top, those top wingers on the Rangers,

I think make that whole system go. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Let's take a quick little break here to just hear from our sponsors and we'll get back into this discussion. We have pretty loyal listeners who generally know what's up and how we do it here in the HockeyPedioCast, so they already know all this. But for those of you that may have done. 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 to this ad like you normally do, and I don't blame you for that. I do that myself when I listen to podcasts. Let me tell you a little bit about Seek, who's sponsoring today's show. With their easy to use mobile app and online interface, they make it more convenient than ever before to get your hands on some tickets, whether they be for sporting events to watch your favorite hockey team play or to a concert for whatever act is in town that night.

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Let's get back to the show. Okay, so I have two things here that I have on my notes that I still want to talk about in terms of Ranger's stuff. One's positive and one's negative. Do you want to talk about Tanner Glass first or do you want to talk about Brady Shea? Let's talk about, let's talk about Tanner Glass. Okay, yeah, that's a quick one. Is this actually going to be a thing? Because it seemed like I didn't get too worked up about it when they called him up a few weeks ago or whatever it was because I figured it was just one of those midseason things.

Yeah, no, it's a thing. He's going to play in the playoffs. Avi's trying to spark his group and just make some, you know, brief changes to get the team going. But all of a sudden it's like, no, he's a thing. Yep, it's a thing. He's going to play. He's going to play over Pavel Buchennevich.

He's going to play over, you know, probably won a Jesper Foster or Oscar Lindberg. Yep, it's a complete thing. So, I'm actually some speechless right now. Um, the how they've handled Bichnevich this year has been, uh, incredibly disappointing. Not surprising because I remember in the preseason when I was in your neck of the woods, you, me and Patrick Hurons recorded a podcast together and we discussed how, you know, Butchnevich is incredibly talented and could make a difference, but he had, he looked like the exact guy that AV would not, uh, warm up to especially early on.

And he came out of the gate hot was producing a lot and playing really well. and then he got injured a bit, and now he's been in and out of the lineup and sent down and call back up, and I just, I don't understand what they're doing with him, and teams do this all the time with these young, talented players

where it's like, they sporadically put them in the lineup, but when they do, they give them suboptimal teammates and opportunities, and then when they don't succeed, they go, well, see, I knew he couldn't handle it. He's not, just not ready. We're going to have to go with the safer option instead,

and it's like they're setting them up to fail, and just so they can do what they wanted to do, to begin with. It's just like negative. It's this feedback loop that is just so infuriating to watch from the outside. Yeah, I mean, look, put a talented player with other talented players and they'll succeed. You know, we saw it last season with Kevin Hayes. Kevin Hayes drop him down to the fourth line and he's playing either with Tanner Glass

or in the playoffs getting scratched for Tanner Glass. But generally playing with guys that aren't up to his skill level, you can't. can't play hockey alone. It just doesn't work that. Maybe if you're Connerick David or Sidney Crosby, you can pull that off. But even a really, really talented player, a guy like a Kevin Hayes, needs somebody to playoff of, especially if you're a playmaker, you need somebody that can put the puck in the net, they can receive passes in dangerous areas and do something with it. Otherwise, you're not going to have much success. And I think the, The phrase feedback loop is perfect.

You know, put them in a shitty situation and expect results. And then when they don't give the results that you want, despite the shitty situation, then treat them like shit. You know, it's like, what are you expecting out of these guys? What are you expecting out of Pavel Bucenevich, who's a rookie in his first season in North America? never mind the NHL and you're dropping him down of the fourth line pulling him in and out of the lineup

for a guy like Tanner Glass who you know exactly what Tanner Glass is and what he can do I wouldn't be surprised at the guy just says you know what screw this I'm just going to go back to Russia where at least I play on a top line and get some power play time and get to do the things I can do

which is you know play with the puck and put pucks in the net that's what he's here for Those are useful hockey skills, so I've heard. Look, I don't know much. I've been proven wrong a lot. But I think that if you have a guy who is good at hockey things like scoring goals and passing pucks, they should probably get an opportunity to do those things.

Just call me crazy. But you know what? Hey, Linda Cohen was criticizing Pavel Bouchenevich for not fighting. Yeah. For looking the other way while his teammate was getting in an altercation. That's right. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, let's talk more positive stuff. Brady Shea, he is a delight. I really fell in love with his game during that brief postseason matchup against the penguins last year, where he was pretty much the only silver lining. And it was just like the first thing that stuck out watching him was that ability for him to just fly with a puck and create something out of nothing with his legs. And it's weird because I look at his statistical resume, and it's really eye-popping. at 5-15, the only defenseman with more points than him this year are Carlson and

Dougie Hamilton, and Burns and Dougie Hamilton are the only two guys that have done it more efficiently on a permanent basis because Carlson's just logging an insane amount of minutes at 5-15. And, you know, you look at the fullest of a defenseman with a better relative coursey than him, and I think he's 13th out of a 192 qualified defenseman, whereas Dan Gerardy's 183rd. So that seems like a big discrepancy between those two. But, Then you look, and he's sixth amongst Rangers' defensemen in 515 usage, and he's, it just, I don't know, is it one of those things where he's just a young defenseman so A.V. doesn't trust him. Because when I watch him, it's not like he's a liability in his own zone. Like, I just don't really see why he's not relied upon more.

Yeah. I don't get it. Yeah, it's, you know, it could go to the whole that A.V. doesn't trust young players. and there's a, you know, a forced learning curve that I think he's been shown to put on almost every young player. There are very few that come in that just jump right up and get the playing time that maybe they deserve. Brady Shea is years ahead of where I expected him to be in terms of his physical maturity and his mental maturity. I mean, he looks like a guy. First of all, if you just look at him, you're like, that guy's a hockey player.

You know what I mean? It's like one of those things where you see him on the ice and you know, like, that guy belongs. Just, you know, watch him skating down the ice. You're like, wow, okay, we've got something here. Before you even know anything about what he can do. You know, on top of that, he's got incredible awareness with the puck. He always has his head up. He has, you know, one of the things that I noticed was at 5 on 5.

he has about an equal amount of primary and secondary assist. But he has just like a perfect kind of razor-sharp accurate first pass that he can make. And he gets guys in stride. Kind of that vertical passing that I was talking about that works well with this team. But then other times he won't see something so he won't force it. Instead he'll curl back, he'll make a safe, smart play, not do anything stupid with the puck to turn it over and not just kind of throw it off the boards to turn over.

So he's got this, it's a little bit like a, I guess, like a Keith Yandel where he is more reticent to just give up the puck if he doesn't have something or force it if he doesn't have something. And those are things that, you know, for a rookie or second year player, I mean, that's something. So yeah, it's frustrating that he doesn't get the time on ice that he deserves, especially when you've got, you know, guys like Nick Holden that are ahead of him on the depth charts, so to speak. Well, so not that they necessarily have better options, as you just mentioned, to play in his place.

But I do wonder, like, you know, just stylistically what we were talking about in terms of how the Rangers want their forwards to fly the zone and get that quick counterattack going. Like, I wonder if maybe a guy whose tendency is to, just put his head down and maybe skate the puck cut himself a bit more because he is so good at it. Like, do you think that maybe that is a potential reason why he's not playing more just because it's like if he was one of those pure puck mover guys where he just, you know, as soon as it's on his stick, it's off of it and he's getting it out quickly to a guy. Like I just wonder if maybe that's because I'm trying to figure out reasons for why five other ranger defensemen are playing more frequently than him because nothing in the number suggested that should be the case.

Yeah, I don't know. I feel like, we would really have to do some mental gymnastics to try to make sense of it, really, because I guess my point, you know, with what I was saying earlier, is he really doesn't force anything. You know, he doesn't force himself to skate with the puck.

And I'll tell you, and I'm a huge fan of McDonough. I do think he's a true number one defenseman who has been carrying around an anchor weight for years. but, you know, McDone sometimes has a tendency to force the puck, either force a pass or force skate it. And he gets some criticism for that, and I think it's justifiable. You know, a lot of the times it's trying, it's him trying to make something happen. It's kind of like Cam Fowler. He has that reputation a little bit.

He's trying to make something happen, and he just, you know, and then he'll turn it over, you know, five feet after crossing his own blue line. Shea doesn't do any of that. She just makes smart decisions all over the ice. So I don't know. You know, I can't really figure out a justification for why he's just not already playing, you know, as much or more than anybody else. It's, you know, there's a little bit of seniority that's going on. I think it really comes down to that. Do you think that if, you know, the common belief or the hot rumor is that Kevin Shandkirk will,

wind up on this team this summer. Do you think that the Rangers will actually use him properly and allow him to just do his thing? Or do you think it's going to be some more of that Keith Yandel goodness where they're not letting him really spread his wings because he's a bit too risky or perceived riskiness of the way he plays? Yeah. You know, the one thing that benefits Shatt and Kirk over Yandel is that he's always played for

winning teams. and so, you know, when you have that NHL winning team, team leader on a winning team pedigree, it follows your run and it sticks, whether it has anything to do with your actual play quality or play style or not. So I think that, you know, Yandel didn't have that. Yandel came from, oh, well, you know, he's playing in Arizona. They're a perpetual loser. He's freewheeling, you know, and it's like all those things kind of feed into each other. They give up a lot of goals, which means he gives up a lot of goals.

You know, let's not look at the underlying stats on, you know, the situation he was in. Let's just kind of pigeonhole him into the reputation of the team he played on. So, you know, that's, I think, what benefits Chatton Kirk. So I think that if Chatton Kirk does come to New York, and I really believe he will, he'll get the benefit of the doubt in that respect. I hope you're right. It'll be very disappointing. I mean, I go on this ran all the time, but it's like, I feel like people sometimes genuinely just look at how many points the defenseman has and that guides their opinion on whether they're a defensive liability or not. It's like you're allowed to, you can be

offensively gifted and contribute in that regard and still be perfectly fine in your own zone. It's not like you have to sacrifice one to come to do the other. It's like they actually kind of go hand in hand sometimes. It's such a hilarious and bizarre. are a thing. And just going back to the Rangers, it fits with Nick Holden, for example, or Kevin Klein from a few years ago. So if you're a defenseman, whatever play style you are, defensive defenseman, you know, fast, slow, doesn't matter. If you're a defenseman and you don't put up a lot of points during your career, but then all of a sudden you find some, you know, offensive wellspring and you just start.

scoring at a rapid clip in a particular season. The opinion doesn't become that, what you were just saying, which is, well, he's, you know, he's a liability defensively. It becomes, oh, well, he's realizing all of his potential. And now he's, now he's an offensive threat. And he's the best of both worlds. And he's this and that. It's never, oh, well, he just got lucky for a little while.

And he found the back of the net on some slap shots or, you know, whatever happened. So it's such a funny dichotomy with kind of the reverse of it. You have an offensive defenseman who always puts up numbers and everybody just disregards whether they're good at defense or not and just assumes they're an offensive defenseman. And then if they slow down on their numbers, it's not, oh, well, they're focusing more on their defense. It's, well, they're falling apart as a player. Yeah, it's pretty funny.

Okay, let's do a little bit of goalie stuff because I feel like you being on the show, there's like a certain quota we have to fill. Otherwise, people will go home disappointed. So I'm looking at some of the head-to-head matchups, not that, you know, goleys are facing each other head-to-head, but it's going to be billed that way. And I think the Lundquist Price one is obviously the most marquee one. I mean, Matt Murray versus Sergey-Babrowski is going to be pretty good.

Like, what do you, which one are you excited to see, like, how it plays out or who can get, who can one up the guy that's going to be another end of ice? well i i think um it'll be interesting to see what ends up happening with the second wild card in the east uh if so where are we sitting right now is it toronto that's sitting there it is right now yeah but it's like yeah that's like a one point gap between those three games so what i would what i would like to see is i'd love to see rask and holpe not that you know i mean look rask has been injured he's kind of struggled more as a season

and went on, he was really strong for a little while there, and he fell off. But I still, I don't know, there's just something about Rask. I always just feel like when it hits playoff time, he's going to perform. And I'd like to see that matchup in a first-round matchup. I think everybody knows that Price and Lundquist, they are what they are, and that could make for a very boring offensive series. If their offenses aren't kicking and those guys are playing, playing up to their standards, there may not be many goals.

Yes. So you know who wouldn't like that Rask matchup with the Capitals? Braden Holby probably wouldn't like that. We were talking about this on Twitter earlier today, but he has a 937 save percentage in his 46 career playoff games, hope he does. But he's 22 and 24 in those games because the other goalie is stopping 933 on the other ice. And it's like, I mean, obviously playing 3-7 game series.

against Henry Glunk. He also played one against Tim Thomas, and then he played another one against Yarrow Halak while Halak was still on top of his game. So it's like, this dude just cannot catch a frigging break. Yeah, he's one of the, you know, in the modern era, he's been one of the best playoff performers in his, you know, during the span of his career.

But his opposition has been just as good. So it's funny that it gets overshadowed. And, you know, it speaks to how much value everybody puts in just winning. You know, if the guy could catch a break, he would win more games, but he really can't control what happens on the other side of the ice. You know, he probably should have the reputation as a playoff winner, you know, more so than some of the more undeserving guys like John Quick, who, you know, he got

carried to a Stanley Cup. So, yeah, and Holpey has really come into his own. He's having his best season of his career, much better than last season when he won the Vezina. But he shouldn't win the Vesna this year because Bavrovsky has just run away with it. So it'll be interesting to see how things play out. You know, part of me, I can't say this, but I'm going to say this. A part of me is kind of rooting for the capitals just for things like that. You know, Holti probably, Holti and the rest of the team, Ovechkin,

in Baxter, especially, they've probably earned it at this point. Yeah, that would be a nice little narrative buster, although I'm sure, you know, I've learned that people will just find something new or they'll attribute it to Jay Beagle or something. Like, I don't know, it'll never be the guys that actually deserve the credit that'll get praise for it. But so out West, there aren't, I don't know, I was kind of scrambling and looking for intriguing.

Talbot. Yeah, Talbot. Do you think that has anyone? really, okay, so I've been asked this. You didn't even ask your question. I just said, yep. Well, we mentioned earlier a few months ago, I think, when we were recording, because we were talking about Talbot's workload

the season. And I offhand mentioned that, you know, just intuitively you don't really want to play your goalie 70-something games in the regular season. We've seen teams stop doing that from the Kipper softbroder days. As we now know that, you know, rest is important and you're probably better off playing in that like 55, 60-ish regular season game and then giving her back up some nice run,

especially with all the back-to-backs. But I also, I'm not sure if there's actually been a definitive piece of work that's looked at how a goalie's performance has either eroded or improved based on workload as the year has gone along. Like, is that, is it just one of those things where we're intuitively saying that and we think that's the case versus something that we can actually point to and say, like, after a certain point, the goalie just starts a breakdown? I guess it is such a subjective case-by-case basis thing that would be tough to generalize that.

So I did a thing last year when I was coming up with different topics that I might want to talk about at the Rochester Hockey Analytics Conference. And one of them was this exact topic, which is how does workload affect playoff performance? And so I ran a bunch of different tests, you know, testing kind of tiers of, workloads and and then bumping that up against the annual playoff performance of the goaltender. And of course, you're working with small and imperfect sample sizes. I was hoping that maybe just something would come out of it anyways.

And nothing, nothing at all came out of it. There were no reliable correlations. It was just all over the map. You had guys that played a ton of games and performed poorly, guys that played a ton of games and performed well. and, you know, in the opposite. So, yeah, you look at a guy like Talbot who's played, you know, whatever he's played,

whatever he's played, 148 games this season. And you start to say, well, when is this going to, you know, when is this going to hurt him? And you don't know. You just don't know. Yeah, you really, you really don't. I mean, he could very easily, not that I'm wishing injury upon anyone, but he very easily could just go down, like pull his handstring or something. or he could be amazing and guide them to a long playoff run.

And I think both things are very, very possible. So it's a tough one. And I think, you know, the whole thing in this, we've talked about it before on your podcast. You know, one of the things I'm most interested in with analyzing goal tender performance is biometrics and trying to determine, you know, the physical tips that we can find to try to guess at how well goal is going to perform, whether it be injuries or physical. makeup or anything like that. And I think the important thing to remember with NHL goalies or any NHL player or any pro athlete is these are people that are in their

peak condition, generally speaking, absent injuries. So if you're looking at a guy, you know, an NHL goaltender who's relatively young, who doesn't have an injury history, you know, it's safe to assume that he can probably stand up to the workload because that's what he does for a living. But, you know, you do, I think at some point, you do get into uncharted territory. And if you draw the correlation to baseball with pitchers, you know, over time, they've learned that you can overwork an arm, you can overwork a pitcher. And I think that it's true for goaltenders as well.

And where you see it is with, you know, the life expectancy of a goaltender, you know, in terms of staying in the league, early 30s, they're, They're blowing out their groins and their knees and everything else and falling apart. And I think some of that has to be tied to your workload. It has to be. We just have to prove it. Yeah. And that's on people like you and I to help people.

I know. I know. I got a, I got a right. Or people way smarter than us. One of those two. Nick, man, thanks for taking the time to come chat. It was a good, good time. And I think that we'll get you back on as our resident goalie expert during the playoffs.

Maybe we'll see. maybe Pecoretna implodes a little bit and all of a sudden we've got to get the UC Saros bandwagon up and running again. We'll see. Yeah, I hope so. Well, thanks for having me on. Hopefully I can make it onto your Mount Rushmore of gas at some point. You got some work to do, my friend. You got some work to do.

All right, we'll chat soon. The Hockey P.D.O.cast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey p.docast. True. Thank you.