The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 166: Two for the Price of One

Episode Date: May 9, 2017

Jonathan Willis joins the show to discuss how Todd McLellan's decision to finally split Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl up has raised Edmonton's ceiling, which specific matchups will decide this series, and whether the Ducks or the Oilers have more on the line in Game 7. The topics covered include: 1:16 The benefits of splitting McDavid and Draisaitl up 6:28 Young players improving their skating ability 10:39 Locking Leon Draisaitl up long-term 16:38 Fighting back against the Jordan Eberle slander 21:29 Goal scoring talent becoming undervalued 25:33 Ryan Getzlaf's ability to slow the game down 29:17 Oilers PP vs. Ducks PK 32:00 The faceoff discrepancy 35:28 Which team has more on the line in Game 7 37:32 How the Ducks approach the expansion draft 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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and joining me. He's my good buddy, Jonathan Willis. Jonathan, what's going on, man? A, always fun to be here. Let's get right into this thing. We're going to do a little bit of an Oilers, Ducks, deep dive here ahead of the upcoming game seven. And, you know, when thinking about this series, I thought there was two ways we could go about highlighting the biggest storyline. And I think the first one is the one certain segments of Oilers Twitter would probably like us to focus on. And it's the refereeing angle, especially after the Game 5.

showing where, you know, Oilers Twitter was just amazing that night. I forget, what was that like, was that on Friday night, I believe? Oh, the days kind of, they all blend together in the playoffs. Yes, yeah, that's why I was focusing on calling a Game 5 rather than a specific night.

But it was, it was amazing after they blew that lead and seeing some of the discourse going on. But then, you know, they came back in Game 6 with the dominant showing and kind of erased some of those memories. And I think that that's a good, segue into the actual important storyline to focus on here.

And it's, you know, I feel a little certain sense of vindication here because it's something that I know you and I have been talking about quite a bit on the show throughout the season. And it's that for the Oilers to really hit that next level and give themselves a higher ceiling where they could legitimately be considered a contender would be to eventually split up the combination of Connor McDavid and Leandro Seidel and give themselves a more of a two-pronged attack. like we've seen from other contenders in the past,

and they've done in the past few games, and the results have been encouraging enough that I think that we'll see that moving forward, and I think it's the right approach for them moving forward. Yeah, you and I obviously have talked about it, and this is something that I've sort of seen as a strong move for the Oilers to make all year. I think it's been pretty pivotal in getting this series to seven games,

and I do think we're going to keep seeing it going forward. Well, and you know, you wrote about this for Oilers Nation, and you brought up, you know, whether it's been Malkin and Crosby or Taves and Cain or Copart and Carter, it's a common thread from teams that have won the cup over the past, however many years, has been that they've sort of, you know, they've split up their stars and they've been able to have those two lines to prevent other teams from just fully loading up through defensive efforts on stopping just the one combination. And in this series in particular, I think that is the smart move just because, you know,

you don't want to just be able to allow Randy Carly on the Ducks to send Kessler's line and Hamas Linholm and whoever Linhom was paired with to just go and just be basically a blanket on McDavid and Drysidal because if they slow them down to a certain degree, then the Oilers don't really have enough firepower beyond. on that to be able to generate enough goals and then that you get into a whole thing with then you have no then you just allow ryan gets laughs unit to basically feast on on the depth players for the oilers as well so it's this is like the perfect matchup for them to really just put those guys up and give themselves a different look yeah and and i think the key thing that

let them get away with loading up that top line in the first round when san Jose was running mark edward vlasic had it all the time was that ryan hougain hopkins and his unit did a pretty good job against the Joe Pavelski line. And maybe, you know, that was just a factor of Joe Pavelsky and, you know, Logan Kutcher, well, less Pavelsky, but Logan Kutcher and Joe Thornton being hurt. But, you know, that line did a good job of checking them in the first round. But in the second round, Gep's laugh was taking Newton Hopkins line apart. And obviously they needed to figure out some way to keep them in check.

The way they went was to, you know, match dry sidel, who's a, you know, a big physical center against a big physical center and gets laugh. And it has made a huge difference. And I think this is why we've seen teams like Pittsburgh and Chicago go to this approach. You have to be able to have two lines that are going offensively and have two different lines with one of these players who can really drive the attack. And that way, you know, you don't have all your eggs in one basket. and I think it's just been vital to their turnaround.

Well, and especially, you know, with the salary cap and just spinning things forward, you do have to find a way to be creative with sort of from a cost-benefit perspective where, you know, we've seen the Penguins have been masters with this, especially last year and this season where it's like they're putting guys like Jake Gensel and Connor Shiri who are fine players in their own right, but cheap players who they just bring up and just put next to a guy like, Sidney Crosby and all of a sudden you have a lethal scoring attack and that's in large part

because Sidney Crosby is at that, you know, highest level of superstardom in the league where pretty much anyone you put with him is instantly going to thrive. And I think it's fair to say that McDavid is also at that level. So all of a sudden, if you can put guys like Slepechev and Cajula who are pretty much making peanuts on ELCs right now with him, then all of a sudden you have, you know, better resources to spread throughout your second, third, fourth line. And all of a sudden when you, you know, especially come playoff time, you become just such an entirely different animal for other teams to game plan against. Yeah, absolutely.

And right now the Oilers are in a position where because McDavid and Drysiddle are still on their entry-level deals, they've been able to spend $6 million on a Milan Luce, each or $6 million on a Jordan Eberlay. But that's not something like Drysidels entry-level deal ends this year, McDavid's next summer. They're not going to be able to do that in future. and it's it's going to become you're not going to have the luxury of putting dry sidle and McDavid on one line and you know paying a ton for your support players it's you just don't get to

do that in the salary cap world you have to have to find economies and and that's a really good way to do it well and I think the you know the Leandro's dry saddle is such an interesting discussion point for us here beyond just the fact that he's playing incredibly well right now because you know I remember heading into into the draft and then when the oilers did wind up taking him there were some legitimate concerns about his foot speed and whether he'd be able to translate his success at the junior level to the nchl level when the game sped up and got faster and we've seen that you know he's obviously improved his skating and it's definitely not an issue at this point i mean we've seen him blow by some good defenders in the

past and really show off that and you and improve foot speed and and it's it's it's something that i think teams can probably learn from because that is something that has you know been a sticking in the past but now as we've seen you know whether it's dry sidel or john taveres or bull horovat or the list goes on and on there's all these guys that had these red flags about their foot speed uh at at a young age and then all of a sudden you know you bring them in and you get them working with the best trainers in the world closely on a daily basis all of a sudden it's it's remarkable how much they can improve that one facet or their game so it's it's i don't think it's as big of a concern as it might have been in the past um i i agree with that to an extent like certainly it's it's the case with dry

Cicidal that his skating has improved markedly over his time with the Oilers organization. But I do think there are guys out there. For some reason, Dylan Strome in Arizona is sticking out to me, although it's way too early to make a judgment call on him one way or the other. You still end up with guys who skating hurts them. I think it's less pivotal for forwards than it is for defensemen. Yes. But certainly in Drysidels case, it's been something that they've been able to get passed. Well, of course, yeah. I mean, you know, the game has moved to such a more, you know, free-flowing, fast level that you do need to keep up.

And I think like a good counterpoint to what I just said would be, you know, a guy like Timu Poccanin, for example, who is a bit of an analytics darling in the sense that he generates a ton of shots. And it was very successful at the HL level. And people were very confused when he wasn't getting a shot with the Red Wings. And then they waived him. And then he got picked up a few times and didn't really do anything. and, you know, he's still at the point in his career where it's conceivable that he could be a NHL contributor and on some team moving forward. But it's also, you know, just watching him, it makes sense that teams have been skeptical or that he hasn't been able to make that leap to the next level just because you can kind of see that maybe some stuff that might have worked for him at the lower levels just doesn't really fly in the NHL. And all of a sudden, you know, he has less time and less room to operate and he has trouble getting to those spots where he might have been able to get to them.

more easily at the HL level and all of a sudden things are coming much more difficult for him. So it makes sense with a guy like him, why it hasn't really happened, even though if you just look purely at the numbers, it seems like he'd be a no-brainer. Yeah. I think with, like, Polkin, it's an interesting case that I don't want to get too far lost in the weeds here. But like we are still talking about a guy who is, you know, 13 goals in 80-odd career NHL games.

And I think with. those guys, a lot of times I really do think it's about fit. Like if you can find a place where he can be, you know, your right shot shooter on the power play and you kind of use him as a specialist in that role, then maybe he's a guy who could have a career. I mean, he's still very much up in the air and we'll see what happens with him. He's a guy who might get another extended shot just because there's an expansion team coming in next year.

But I think with those guys a lot of times. And it's funny because Patrick Maroon kind of falls into this, the same crowd of guys who were big minor league scores and couldn't make the adjustment to the NHL, couldn't make the adjustment to the NHL until he did make the adjustment to the NHL. Obviously, playing with Connor McDavid this year didn't hurt, but he was a pretty good NHL player for a few years too. And he was a guy who had to overcome some foot speed problems, but found a way to be effective in the NHL. Yeah, for sure. So one last thing on Dris Idol, and I just did a show with John Press from Japer's Rink, where we talked about the Capitals quite a bit. And we had a discussion about Andre Beirokowski,

and he's showing to be a really good, intriguing player right now in these playoffs. And the Capitals have an interesting question with him moving forward this summer where he's up for a new deal coming off as ELC. And generally with a player like him, we'd see teams maybe go. the more conservative bridge approach and give him a few years and figure out see you know where he's at what where he actually is and then deal with any financial concerns then my may arise if he blows up and you know scores a ton of goals down the line and that's you know a good problem to have but you know tying this in with dry saddle and the oilers like I know for a while people were thinking that they

might go that route with him but now as we're seeing him take this next level and potentially even show that he can, you know, he wasn't just a product of playing with Taylor Hall for so long and then playing with Connor McDavid that he could actually conceivably drive his own line and be a legitimate, you know, one B to Connor McDavid's one A. Like, where do you think the Oilers are at with that in terms of their line of thinking on how they want to approach his contract negotiations this summer? My expectation is that we'll see a long-term deal. I'm really curious to see how it all works out because dry sidles in a unique position

They burnt the first year of his entry-level deal without burning a corresponding year of free agency just due to when they sent him down. So he actually still has, I think it's five full seasons of restricted free agency before he's eligible for unrestricted free agency. That may drive the dollar point a little bit lower than I think a lot of people are expecting. It's really interesting to me because it's one of those situations where the theoretical leverage the Oilers should have based on that, versus the practical reality of the season Drysidal just had is going to be really interesting. But I don't think there's much doubt that they're going to go long-term with him. I feel like they kind of gambled on Drysidle when they made the Taylor Hall trade, that he would become the secondary presence that could stand behind McDavid and drive a line.

And as a result of that, you know, it's obviously it's worked out for him pretty good year one. And, but, you know, when you make that bet, you're kind of, you're stuck in that position, right? Like, you don't get to back out of it now. And I think the confidence, you know, like if you have enough confidence to move Taylor Hall and keep this guy because this guy's going to be able to run its own line, then you probably have the confidence to go eight years with them. Right. And, you know, with guys like McDavid and Drus Idol, it's like, yeah, you pay them no matter what because there are the ultimate difference makers and they're going to be the driving forces. But, you know, it's, it is worth noting, as we've mentioned time and time again, I think McDavid was first in the league this year and in cost per point. And I think Dr. Seidel was like fourth with, with Artemi Panarin and Victor Arb.

It's in bridged between them. So when you have that type of production for for that few dollars on your board, you. books, it's very easy to fill in the gaps around them and potentially have some luxury items like Luchich and Eberley, but all of a sudden, if they start getting up into that $7, $8, $9 million range, then you have to really start finding ways to be creative around them to find them in supporting players. Yeah, I don't think there's any question about that. The one thing with Drysidal that is a little bit concerning is away from McDavid this year. his lines were outshot and outscored during the regular season.

I think there's a bit of context to that number that's important. You know, like a lot of those minutes were sort of drips and drabs. So it's not, like I lean towards the idea that this guy is, you know, absolutely legitimate. And the results of him and McDavid together cannot be attributed solely to McDavid. Just like the results of him in Hall last year, you know, we're maybe certainly on my end attributed too much to Hall and not enough to dry sidle.

But there is still that little bit of caveat where you don't really know how he's going to do in that position until he's done it for a full year. And so I'm just the tiniest bit hesitant, but not so much so that you wouldn't sign him to a long-term deal. Right. Yeah. It's a bit different than what we just went through with a guy like Sean Monaghan last summer where he was just like so entirely dependent on playing with Johnny Goodrow.

that it really kind of was a bit worrisome, giving him that type of contract. I feel a bit more confident with the dry saddle here. Yeah, absolutely. All right, we need to give our sponsor for today's show FreshBooks a little love. And I thought you'd be a good guy to discuss this with since I, you've covered some, you've actually been in the building for a playoff game or two this season, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you can vouch for the fact that, you know, the playoff atmosphere and the vibe in the building is, is something that, you know, fans should be going out of their way to explore. Yeah. Yes, you can. Well, I would say an NHL playoff game is a pretty special thing.

Yes. If you're a fan of the sport. Yes, yes. It's an entirely different animal than regular season. And, you know, we can help listeners get, get to experience that. If they just go download the Ciki cap, go into the settings tab, click add a promo code and enter the promo code PDO. Ckeek's actually going to send them $20.

off to go for their next purchase to hope, you know, get them, get them there and get him experiencing that, uh, that playoff atmosphere that you just, uh, so glowingly reviewed. Um, so let's, uh, not that's that's out of the way. Let's, let's, let's, let's talk a little bit about Jordan Eberle, because he's been a bit of a hot, budd topic here. Uh, I forget which game it was in this series, but there was a big discussion going on about, uh, his, his, his play and his struggles and Todd McClellan called him out a bit. And there's been all these questions about, you know, his physicality as if, you know, taking and throwing hits is something that he's being ever been paid to do. Where are you at with him these days? Well, the way I,

I kind of get into trouble with players and the reason I do it is because I don't like the what have you done for me lately approach to evaluating an HL talent. Like I kind of think of these guys, like if you're a general manager, you got to be kind of cold-blooded and view them as, you know, almost like stocks where there's going to be high points and low points, and ideally you sell at a high point and you hold it a low point because you don't, I mean, you know, there's limitations to that because you're building a team, and sometimes you're going to sell a guy who's at a point where he's undervalued league-wide because that's just the way it's going to work.

And I think that might be the case with Everleigh just because the salary cap may force them to be that way with him. But I think this is a very good player who has been a very good player who has been a very good player for many years. He's had a low point season, which was remarkable in many ways, not the least of which was a personal all-time low-and-shooting percentage. It's sort of the mirror image of 2011-12 when all the analytics guys were screaming, you know, sell him, he's not real, sell him, he's not real. And now it's, you know, he's better than this. Like this is, this is a low point in his career, it's a low-eb, and, you know, if you're one of those people who looks at the last

40 games as your whole your whole basis for looking at a player, you're going to be much, much, much more down on him than a guy who looks at his career and says, no, this is a pretty good player going through one of these seasons that every player has at some point in his career. Has anyone gone with the Jordan Eberley column titled The Low Ab yet?

I feel like you definitely threw that one in there unintentionally, which is amazing. Yeah, the low web. No, you're right. I mean, I think, you know, I wrote about this a few weeks ago, and I think, I believe only three or four players had a bigger discrepancy between their expected goals and actual goals this season. And that's pretty much entirely due to the fact that Jordan Eberle, who for six seasons before this one was a well above average, a well above average finisher, was suddenly a very below average one. and I would always side, you know, unless we're talking,

something has foundationally changed, or maybe it's a, you know, a significantly aged player. Like in his, but in his case, I mean, just where he's at in his career, I would tend to believe the six years and the however, you know, thousand or whatever shots he's taken compared to the, the one season and 200 or so he's taken this year as what his true talent level is. So all of a sudden, you know, it's funny because, if that regresses a little bit and all of a sudden you give him a few extra goals I feel like people are all of a sudden not not dealing not talking about this if it's some sort of an issue that needs to be remedied immediately and I think that we've learned time and time again that you know buying low and selling high is such an important skill and you don't want to be the sucker that gets gets gets kind of caught either not realizing that a guy has shot lower than he will moving forward and you sell him for way too low a price and

all of a sudden he goes to a team and scores a lot of goals. And I could definitely see that being something that happens with Iberle here if it really kind of reaches a point of no return and they wind up selling him this summer. Yeah, I agree with all of that. The only caveat I would add in Eberle's case is that he is making $6 million and he is a somewhat one-dimensional hockey player. I don't think, I think, you know, in a good year for Eberle, he's probably a 25 goal, 65 point guy, a pretty standard year for Everleigh.

Most years it's going to fall in that range when he's healthy. And he, but he doesn't bring you a whole lot outside of that. Like he's a first line level scorer, but he's not one of these tremendous, like he's not a Justin Williams or one of these guys. He's just a good player. And at $6 million, the price point on his contract is a little dear. So there's always going to be an element of, you know, oh, this guy's a good player, but he's getting paid for it.

So even if you trade a low price in terms of assets, you may end up, the deal may not end up being so lopsided just because you're taking on that salary. That's true. I've come around a little bit on this, though, in the sense that, you know, he definitely is a one-dimensional player, but that dimension is a pretty valuable one in today's NHL. And, you know, sometimes we can miss the plot a little bit or miss the forest for the trees. And, you know, we always want to uncover these hidden gems and guys that contribute, you know,

on a more underlying level, whether it's with shot attempts or what have you, and try to give them some love and appreciation and get them into the mainstream, mainstream kind of level. But then all of a sudden we might be actually kind of undervaluing the ability to actually generate goals a bit and like you see a team like the kings for example and you know i don't i don't know how they would even be able to make that work money-wise they don't they're not in a spot where they can be taking on a lot of salary but like i i feel like they would uh they would love to have a guy with jordan ever leaves one dimension at this point i don't think there's any

doubt of that and um you know not everybody can be jonathan marcheso or i i think you put your your finger on it with the the analytics side just a little bit you know like we We really like guys like PA Parento who are, you know, just bargain contracts that you're not spending anything or risking any money your term on. But there's a place for a guy who can generate offense who gets paid to because it is hard to do. And there are only so many, you know, right shot offensive players of Everleigh's caliber in the league. Yeah. And listen, I'm not like, you know, throwing shade iron because I'm completely guilty of this myself. but there is sometimes this little bit of a overcompensation that happens where, you know, there's a certain segment of fans or analysts that just pull up the boxcar stats on NHL.com

and go and cite how many goals or points a guy has and view that as the be-all end-all. And of course, that's not it. There's process-related stuff that we want to look at and figure out what's real and what's not and, you know, project future performance. And that's all fine and good. But at the end of the day, also being able to score goals and, set your teammates up for them is very valuable and and sometimes that can be lost so i just kind of wanted to uh to make that point but let's um um just just one one more thing before i move off everlay

here i think he's really hurt by where he is relative to the edmonton oilers within the market because he's a guy who is here through all the lean years and through the lean years you kind of get tarred with this guilt by association yeah um part of the reason we've seen like to me if you look at Jordan Eberle and Milan Luchech this year, I don't know which of those guys has been more disappointing to me, like in this individual season, but you don't hear nearly as much about Luchich because he's new. He doesn't have years and years of losing,

whereas Eberle, some of the shine has come off just because he's been around through all those lean years. So when it came time locally to turn on a player, he was sort of at the top of the list. And I think there's a bit of a market bias working against Eberle in Edmonton specifically. Well, and, you know, it became a bit of a mood point because he wound up having such a productive season and scoring a lot of goals, unlike Eberley. But I feel like there was a similar point in the season where this was happening a little bit with James Van Riemszke in Toronto as well, where, you know, he was around for all those years where everything was going horribly wrong in Toronto.

And then all of a sudden you have these guys like Matthews and Marner and Nylander come up and succeed and there's so much younger and making so much fewer dollars. And then all of a sudden it's like there's this weird fit with James Van Riemsdike where he's making so much more than them. And he's a bit of a reminder of what this franchise went through in the past. But he's still, you know, that that shouldn't affect the fact that he's still a very good player in contributing. And it'll be interesting to see what the Leafs do with Van Ramesk as well moving forward because he is kind of like Eberley in that a little bit of a weird spot, just in terms of where he's at in his career compared to where some of the other guys in the team are. Yeah, absolutely. Okay, let's, I wanted to give Ryan Getslap a little bit of love here because, you know, we've been focusing this entire show on the Oilers, but I think that I've just been in love with his game in this series. I mean, this entire postseason, but especially in this series.

And the thing that's stuck out to me, and it's been a perfect parallel in a series where it features Connor McDavid because, you know, when you watch a guy like McDavid, it's very obviously impressive what he's able to do. I feel like anyone, regardless of their experience level or how much they've watched hockey in the past, could sit down and watch Carter McDavid and realize how amazing he is and how he's able to play at a certain pace and level that pretty much no one else on the ice is. And then, you know, you look at a guy like Ryan Getslaff and it's essentially the exact opposite, but I think kind of equally impressive where, you know, guys like him and Joe Thornton and I think Henrik Sidney and I'm sure there's a handful of others out there that aren't coming to the top of my head right now, they're just able to kind of slow the game down and play and think it at a different pace

than everyone else. And, you know, we've seen that a lot with Getslaff in this postseason where a lot of guys, when they get the puck, I don't know if it's because they're coached to do this or what have you, but it's like, you know,

it's like a hot potato. They want to just get rid of it right away and just dump it in or make a play out as fast as they can to rid themselves of that pressure. Whereas with the guy that Getslaf, he seems so comfortable just holding on to the puck

and waiting for passing lanes to develop, and it's led to so many great either goals or scoring opportunities for the Ducks, and he's just been an absolute pleasure to watch. Yeah, absolutely. I think the ultimate example of this, I mean, he gets last to a superior player at this point in his career, but the guy who comes to mind is sort of the ultimate example

of this player type to me is Mariel Lemieux during his last season in Pittsburgh when he's, you know, he's come back to play with Crosby, and he's sort of running on fumes, but the brain is still just so incredible the things that he sees and his calmness when he gets the puck and all of those things. And Getslap has a lot of that. He's a very intelligent player.

He's a gifted player who can play the game any way you like. And he's just been so productive during this playoff run and really incredible to watch. Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's let's let's let's let's. Let's kind of lay the land. We've got to lay out of the land here ahead of this game seven. What are you looking for?

What's going to be the ultimate sort of determining factor or what's going to give either team an edge in it beyond the fact that, beyond the obvious of whoever scores more goals, and why not winning and advancing the conference final? I'm really curious to see what happens with Edmonton's defense. You know, Oscar Clefbaum is expected to be back for games. game seven, but we'll see in game six. Griffin Reinhardt, of all people, came out and had a really solid game in place of

Gleft Bomb. But that is something that the Ducks should be able to exploit if the Oilers have to go through that again with due respect to Griffin Reinhardt. He's not Oscar Cleft Bomb. So that would be the first thing right off the top. Other than that, I'm really curious to watch these two matchups, you know, the Kessler-McDavid and gets left dry-sidal. I think that's where the series hinges, right?

Like you win with your best players as a rule, and those two matchups are probably going to be the difference. Yeah, no, I definitely agree. I think another, you know, beyond the matchup, well, I guess it is kind of a matchup, is the Oilers Power Play where it's the Ducks Penal Kill, which, yeah, I know you've made note of in the past, and it's fascinating because, you know,

the Ducks Penal Kill, this regular Cs, season was remarkable, I believe. Fourth in the league. Yeah. And I think they were giving up like the second fewest goals against per hour at five, or four and five. And, you know, that's obviously huge. But then you look at, you know, you do a little bit of digging and you look at, you know, what's driving that success.

And it's a lot of, you know, safe percentage and face off stuff. And it's, you know, they're sort of more middle of the pack in terms of scoring chance. and shot metrics and it makes you wonder, you know, whether that's the most sustainable formula and whether we're seeing some of that regression start to happen in this series. So that's going to be fascinating to see whether, you know, especially considering how much,

how physically the ducks play and maybe discipline is a better term for it and how many penalties they want, they have taken throughout the year. If, you know, they put themselves in the box a few times and the Oilers are able to capitalize on that, then obviously that could be a pretty big determining factor. Yeah, a couple things. I think I do think that in power play penalty kill situations,

there's a lot more room for, I know you mentioned scoring chances rather than just the shot metrics, but I do think there's more room for a shot quality argument on special teams than there is in five-on-five. Like, I just think there's more room for that. I also think that, you know, even if Anaheim's middle of the pack, they've been running it like, you know, 67% penalty kill or something like that for most of the postseason, which is just

it's ludicrous. It's like the other team gets a penalty shot on every on every power play. It's a it's a ridiculous, ridiculous kill rate. And I kind of wonder a little bit if that hasn't, I, like I don't want to get into the conspiracy theories that some people have, but I wonder a little bit if that's fed into the reluctance of the referees to call penalties at points just because, Anaheim cannot seem to help themselves once they're in the box. They're just getting crunched.

And, and, you know, like you said, they play a very physical and, yes, undisciplined brand to hockey. And they're a team that more than most needs a strong penalty kill. And like, even if they managed to get by Edmonton, I cannot see them winning the Stanley Cup when they're allowing a goal on every third power play. Well, it's interesting because, you know, there is such a, uh, a pushback to the you know the talking heads going on on on TV and and and raving about face off stats and and you know trying to make sense of stuff that doesn't

ultimately matter nearly as much as they're trying to make it out to be or or how much time they're spending talking about it but at the same time in this series like it's been fascinating watching this dynamic of just how dominant the ducks are on on in the circle and how many they've been winning and you know I I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm willing to concede that at a certain point that might also wind up being a factor. You do reach a point where it can become sole-opsided that that does possibly start leading into more shots and goals just purely based on raw volume alone. Oh, absolutely. Like, you know, most of the time, a really good face-off team is a 55% face-off team and a really bad face-off teams, a 45% face-off team.

And, you know, if you're trying to present that as the reason to use win and lose while power teams. to you, but you're wrong. Like, it's just, it's not big of, enough of a gap to matter. But in this series, like, I don't know what the numbers are today, but when I looked before Edmonton was winning 39% of their draws, you know, like some nights the ducks would win two out of every three face-offs. And once you get up to margins like that, yeah, that matters. And it particularly matters, I think, in a playoff environment just because of how it relates

to line matching. So, you know, you have a situation where, Randy Carlyle, and this has been pointed out by a few people that Randy Carlyle can send out, you know, Ryan Kessler and Ryan Getslaff for the same face-off, and then once the ducks win, and then, you know, when the Oilers have last change. So the Oilers send out whichever line they send out, and ducks win the face-off, and they can switch out whichever center isn't needed to get the matchup they wanted because they're so dominant in the face-off circle. Well, and I forget the exact specifics of the players involved, and how.

it happened but I believe it was a the opening goal in game three where it was a draw in their own zone and you know the ducks win it cleanly and all of a sudden it was this set play where cagliano just makes a dash to the bench and uh ricard rquel comes off and gets laughs brings him on a breakaway and and you know they get a quick goal like that and i just thought that was like one of the one of the most exciting fascinating plays we've seen all postseason because it was pretty clearly uh you know a premeditated concerted effort on their part and i wanted to of working out to perfection. The Ted Dolan special, I think that is.

Yeah, and I thought it was interesting, too, in part because of which Oilers' defensemen got burned by it. It wasn't, like, that's the kind of play you think about running against a young and experienced team, but it was Andre Seckerah who kind of got caught by it. And, I mean, not to get Sechra in too much trouble because that was a, that's a tough situation. And if you're not expecting it, I mean, you know, the guy comes from the other end of the bench, that's a pretty big gap to try and make up.

For sure. No, I'm excited about this game seven. Listen, just purely based on the potentially delicious irony of the ducks losing yet another game seven after they made such a big fuss about how they wanted to change their fortunes and their culture in these exact moments when they made the switch behind the bench from Boudre de Carlisle would be a very interesting thing to be a part of. So, you know, I'm sure it's going to be a game that's going to cause a lot of concernation amongst one of the two fan bases as the case with game sevens where it's just a completely

emotional roller coaster ride and it's impossible to remain uh remain calm and and not have hot takes so it's going to be it's me it's a fun time to be a fan of hockey especially since we have those two game sevens back to back on the same night well i think um this one in particular i was looking at last night or i guess technically this morning by the time the piece was done but uh i was looking at the sort of the stakes for both franchises in this game seven and you know anaheim is in a in a very tough spot if they lose because you know you've pointed out to budro and and they brought randy carlyle in after the gm was saying things about how you know the core maybe he'd been too easy on them and they were going to hear different words

next year and so they brought in randy carlisle to change all this if he doesn't change it what do you do next because you can't really move that core like those guys are all old they're all paid forever and they've all got no move clauses So it puts Bob Marine a very tough spot. But I also think it's been underplayed how important this is for the Oilers. Like the teams, like Edmonton, when you look at Connor McDavid, you know they have a shot at being one of these great teams, one of these teams that wins multiple championships over a, you know,

five to 10 year period. And the teams that do that win early. They win during entry-level deals. Drysidal gets expensive next year. McDavid gets expensive the year after that. And if you look at the road in front of Edmonton, I mean, I think most people would probably have Nashville as a slight favorite. And then, you know, whoever came out of the east, probably to beat the Oilers. But there's a very plausible road to the Stanley Cup right now.

And that does not happen for you every year. So I think there are, and Edmonton has had, you know, pretty good health and they've got pretty good gold hitting right now. So there are some factors feeding into this that, you know, this should be a year that Edmonton pushes. They've done very well. I don't want to take anything away from them. but if they fall in game seven this year, we might be looking back two or three years from now and going, you know, that was kind of a missed opportunity.

That was sort of the moment where they could have broken through and didn't. So I think the stakes are really high for both teams. Yeah, no, they definitely are. I think for the ducks, though, like it's, I think they're going to be one of the most fascinating teams to watch this summer regardless of how this game seven winds up shaking out because like by the looks of it right now, they're either going to need to make some,

some creative trades or they're going to wind up losing a pretty good player in this expansion draft. And I'm just very curious to see the path they're going to take, you know, for the longest time. I was a big advocate of selling high on Camphaler while you could and then figuring everything out after that. But I don't know, like if you were running the ducks, have you thought about like how you'd approach this thing or which player you'd try to move just purely from what you could get for them and how much it would hurt your team? Yeah, I think I'd still be looking at Cam Fowler. He's, you know, he's going to be highly rated around the league. I don't think there's a big gap between, like I think I'd rather have Hamphus Lintone than Cam Fowler, and I think Fowler's just incredibly valuable, and he's going to be very expensive

very soon. So that, I would seriously look at what you could get for him. I mean, everything depends on what you can get for a guy. But I don't think it's going to be anywhere near that exciting. With Anaheim, I'm sort of a skeptic. that interesting this summer. There's a political columnist, Paul Wells, who has his rules of politics. And one of them, if I remember it correctly, is, you know, Canadian politics tend

towards the most boring outcome possible. And it's usually true with the NHL as well. So for me, I think Anaheim just probably takes Sammy Vatten and calls a bunch of teams, flips him somewhere for a young forward, takes a 731 approach, and is fine going into expansion. Yes, Sammy Vatn is an interesting guy. because I've been a huge fan of his game, but he had a very uncharacteristically poor season this year at 5-15. You know, he's still a great power play guy and he can drive your offense for you. But it's funny because I've really come around on Josh Manson, for example, and I still am not entirely sure which one I prefer.

I mean, obviously purely from the fact that Josh Manson costs like $4 million less next season, he's going to be a better value, but just even in a vacuum just on what they contribute. Josh Madison isn't the type of prototypical defenseman that, you know, your eye might typically like, but he's actually shown, especially in this series, you know, a willingness to join the rush and show some of that skating ability and creativity with the puck, and he's not just purely this big bruising guy in his own zone. So he's just like a fascinating combination of a guy with a fascinating combination of skills that I just like keep gravitating towards and like every time I like a bit more every time I watch him play. Well, I know Toronto fans have talked a lot about Josh Manson as a possible target.

I don't think he'll get moved. Partially it'll be a salary thing that he's just so much cheaper that it's kind of a no-brainer. But I think partially too, it just reflects the status of the Ducks Blue Line. Like what does Sami Votnan bring that that is really underrated? well, he's a right shot defenseman while they're pretty good on the right side, and he's a high-end offensive guy. But when you've got Hamphus Lindholm and Cam Fowler, you can, you know, you don't have to worry so much about having a third guy who can really bring offense to the power play. At some point, there's enough redundancy there that you can move him out.

Whereas I think Josh Manson, like if you look at how Lindholm plays, obviously Manson's been a great partner to Lindholm, how Cam Fowler plays, you know, I could see Josh Manson being a fit there too, because Cam Fowler's another one of these more of a finesse defenseman, and having a guy like Manson with him is probably helpful. So to me it's kind of a no-brainer that you move Vatten and over Manson just because of style of play, and they don't really need the offense so much and price point. Yeah.

I still think if someone's willing to actually give you a legitimate return for Cam Fowler, who I believe has like one year left at $4 million, $10, I would, that would be my first plan of attack, but after that, it's a bad minute, yeah. I just don't think it's, like, if they played them like their number one defenseman this year, and, you know, teams don't move those guys. Yeah, but I agree with you, because he's going to get very pricey very soon, and I'm not sure that, like, I think he's one of those guys who's a good NHL defenseman, but his reputation exceeds his actual performance.

Well, I was going to say, you know, it would be a brilliant move on their part if they were, you know, pumping his value up by giving him those minutes, but then just knowing how that HL works, that's probably more of a sign that they actually believe he's like their best defenseman as opposed to anything else. So he's probably not getting moved. You're right. All right, Jonathan, plug some stuff.

Where can people find you, check out your work? And what are you working on these days? So I'm pretty engrossed with Edmonton until, you know, if and when their playoff exit ends, then I'll be a little bit more interested in other stuff. But right now I'm following them pretty tight. Follow me on Twitter at Jonathan Willis. and I should have some Toronto Maple Leaf stuff out this week as well.

Well, you're contractually obligated to have some Toronto Maple Leaf stuff out as part of the company mandate. I believe I'm now officially a member of the mainstream media, and I've been working really hard on my Eastern bias game because I'm not there yet, but every year I get a little bit better at it. Yes, me too. All right, we'll definitely have you back on sometime down the line of this postseason, so looking forward to that, and take care. And thanks as always, Jonathan.

Thanks for having me on. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud. Atound.com slash hockey pDOCast. Acast powers some of the world's best podcasts. Here's a show we recommend. There's so much going on in Latin America. Literally, they're literally to die because all, absolutely,

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