The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 187: So Nice, Let's Do It Twice

Episode Date: August 2, 2017

Jonathan Willis joins the show to help dip back into the mailbag. We discuss Oscar Klefbom's true value (2:31), which individual skills we should prioritize in defensemen (14:01), which rookies find themselves in the best spot to make a Calder Trophy bid (23:13), who our personal favourites are despite typically posting poor underlying numbers (29:30), which players could be next ones to break out like Viktor Arvidsson did this past season (38:46), which teams have been the best and worst at managing the cap over the years (48:02), and where the Boston Bruins go from here (1:00:15). 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.

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

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My name is Dimitri Filipovich. and joining me is my good buddy Jonathan Willis. Jonathan, what's going on, man? Well, since it's August 1, basically nothing. Well, you know, the mailbag we have for today's show would beg to differ. Well, and that's true. And it's an exciting list of questions, actually. You did a pretty good job.

It is. Well, I can't take any credit for it. I mean, I did send out the initial tweet, but it's really the listeners of the show and the followers on Twitter that have come through with us. And I've done a couple of these so far, and people seem to really be enjoying the mailbox. bag shows. I think it's a good way to bridge the gap here in the off

season during the dog days the summer. So it's a perfect fit for us. Absolutely. Okay, this isn't a question, but this is a statement that I wanted to read to you. And this was a listener who went on iTunes and left a review for the show.

And I think this might be the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. It goes, this is the listener's September 28th, 1972, that's the username. And he goes, I just like to start off with the fact that I'm a real person, unlike JF Barube. The PDO cast is easily my favorite. It's even better than PA Parento and a third-line scoring role. In fact, the only thing I'd rather hear than Demetri's

dulcet tones on hockey matters is someone signed Andreas Athanasu to an offer sheet because the Red Wings are currently over the cap. So that one really just, that one really hits all the soft spots in my heart. So I, yeah. Better than PA Parento in a third-line scoring role. Wow. Which is pretty good, which is pretty good. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I really don't like when people, you know, like retweet compliments and stuff on Twitter and stuff like that, but I did want to use that just as a little bit of a segue to get people to go take a second to rate and review the show on iTunes because it's

very important. I noticed that the other day, the PD O guests had climbed all the way up to 12 in the sports and recreation podcast section on iTunes, which is pretty cool. And I hope that keeps trending upwards and moving forward. And I hear that the reviews are very important to that process. So with that out of the way, let's get to the mailbag. And, you know, we got a lot of good questions here. I mean, both in terms of quantity and quality, which you like to see. And the first one from Dom Saravo goes, why doesn't cleft bombs start shooting knucklepucks

and call them cleft bombs? And then he goes on to say, really, though, is he good, spend at least 45 minutes on this? We're not going to spend 45 minutes on it. But I do think an Oscar Cliffbaum discussion would be a useful thought exercise here because he's been a name that's come up a lot in hockey Twitter circles this offseason for whatever reason. I feel like he's been a really divisive subject in the whole discussion about catch-all metrics, you know, whether it's goals above replacement or basically war representatives in hockey. Where are you at with Oscar Cliffbom? Yeah, he's good. I don't think, I think would probably set everything off. I don't even remember whose model it was. I'm very sorry, my mind has been a bit of jelly here this summer. So I do apologize for whoever's model it was. Somebody had him ranked as like the second best defenseman in the NHL, something like that. And I believe it was Tyler Delo, whose critique I was reading that talked about all the things that Connor McDavid does and how some of that gets, you know, lumped in over to Clefbaum. And I think that's very true.

I apologize, Tyler, if it wasn't you and to, you know, whoever else I did actually steal that from. I think there's a lot of truth in that. Having said that, you know, Oscar Clefbaum has been a very good defenseman for, for several years now. He's basically always been a 50 plus percent Fenwick guy on the Oilers, which hasn't been easy to do, you know, prior to last season. Right. Last year, I think he got a lot of the credit in traditional. A lot of the credit that he probably should have gotten in traditional circles went to Adam Larson because Adam Larson kind of came in and that pairing performed very well and people were like, oh, you know, well, gosh, they sure did a good thing trading that Taylor Hall for that Adam Larson. But to me, Clefbaum was the guy doing a lot of the driving on that pairing and that's no slight to Larson is very good. But Clefbaum to me is probably a good number two NHL defenseman.

I have at this stage. And he could be better than that. You know, like he's still young. Yeah. And then, I mean, also the obvious problem with, uh, and I know, I understand why people do it for simplicity and stuff, but the obvious problem with, uh, with numbering defensemen like that is that it obviously depends on who your other guys are. Like, you know, if you, if you, if you have like three or four other really good guys,

and I guess Oscar Clubbump could be your best defenseman and, you know, vice versa, as true as well. Um, I think a lot of, a lot of his value in these metrics. comes with the fact that he's probably like the most disciplined defenseman in the league, right? I believe, you know, he has 189 regular season games, uh, hovering around 4,100 total minutes in that time and he's taken eight total minor penalties, which is remarkable. And, um, it's, it's a skill. I know you can, uh, you can quibble with it because sometimes it can be a little bit of a subjective thing.

And obviously, you know, there's an argument to be made that maybe sometimes you're just passing up opportunities to take penalties where you may have been better suited to just take it rather than conceding a goal against. But at the same time, it also is generally, I feel like a decent proxy for just guys that are in the right position at the right time and that aren't constantly having to chase the game and chase the puck and having to, you know, hook and take guys down just because they're blowing by them constantly. I like to see that a lot, and I have a soft spot in my heart for defensemen who don't take a lot of penalties.

And so that's where a lot of his value comes from. And then obviously last season, you know, he was asked to do more offensively. And he did well in that role, especially on the power play. And I don't know, were you a bit surprised to see how much more he started shooting? Because I feel like, you know, obviously he was playing more. So that has something to do with it. And he was being used in cushy your opportunities. But at the same time, I feel like he had like twice as many shots on goal as he didn't.

had in any previous season before that. And, you know, that was an interesting little development for him in terms of his career trajectory. Well, I mean, he doesn't have a whole lot of backstory. Right. And one of the shifts to me is probably that playing with a guy like Larson versus playing with Justin Schultz, it lends itself to playing a different kind of style. Like when he was with Schultz, he was the defensive defenseman on that pairing. And with Larson, he was the guy who would jump in more and be more active. Not to take anything away from him. him, but that's part of it. I'm glad you mentioned the penalties thing.

To me, it's a farce that Clefbaum didn't actually rate higher in the, excuse me, in the Lady Bing conversation. I wish we saw that these, because these defensemen who can do this are extremely rare, and they don't seem to get enough credit in those discussions. And in Clefbaum's case, I think it is earned. I don't, like, I had some of the comments you'll get from sort of the old school people on. line. Even from Oilers fans about Oscar Clefbaum are interesting

because I don't see a player who is at all soft. I see a big, strong player with really good wheels who doesn't have to take interference penalties. He can make mistakes and he's fast enough to get back and when he gets back, he doesn't have to use a stick because he's 6.3, 220 and he's a big guy. People will complain about him being soft.

To me, it's ludicrous. He's just a very good, very disciplined defenseman. I do think he still has a little bit, he's prone to kind of that big gaff that you sometimes see with younger players. And he's kind of coming out of it this year, this past season. I think he's going to continue to progress because I do think that's a thing with younger

players that sometimes, my pet theory, and I haven't confirmed this, so I shouldn't say it, is that sometimes there is going to be a little bit of a difference between your shot metrics and your goal metrics. And for young players, I feel like the goal metrics are a little bit underperforming of the shot.

metric sometimes just because they haven't added that detail yet. At any rate, that's my rambling review of Oscar cleft bump. And, you know, to the point about the glaring gaps, like, you know, that's something that people always hold against a guy like even Eric Carlson, for example, and the obvious argument against, you know, blowing that out of proportion is if you're constantly handling the puck or if you're constantly having to just eat up a ton of minutes against the other team's best players, like occasionally you're going to get exposed a little bit just because defending at the NHL level is incredibly hard to do.

And occasionally the other guys are just going to, you know, get the better of you. And you're going to wind up looking bad and it's going to be on a lot of highlight reels. But as long as the good outweighs the bad, I'm perfectly okay with a few blunders like that. So I never try to put too much stock in them. I know that our eyes and our biases can kind of deceive us a little bit in that regard. Well, the thing I think people forget is everybody does this. Like if you watch Duncan Keith for any period of time, he's going to have a few of these. You watch Drew Dowdy for any period of time.

He's going to have a few of these. And I think people, you know, because the NHL is so, it's 31, I guess, now, niche markets, where you watch your own team for 75, 80, 82 games a year. But you don't necessarily, you don't watch L.A. if LA isn't your team for that period of time. So you don't see Dowdy do it. You don't see Duncan Keith do it. And so the reputation of those guys,

I feel like because nobody can, well, you know, unless you're Corey Schneider, nobody can sit down and watch all the games. It's kind of really easy to take, well, this guy's a little bit more offensive. And, oh, look at that giveaway count. You know, he's probably prone. And look, I see a giveaway here.

Yep, he's one of those guys. And just kind of lump him into a box rather than it being based on anything. Yeah. Well, I think the interest. thing you hear from the oilers perspective is uh like they have this top pairing in larcen and clefbaum uh locked up on their books for you know just over eight million dollars combined for each of the next four seasons and that basically spans their entire peaks i believe they're both like at 24 years old right now so that's that 24 to 28 really really prime spot and that's a nice luxury man i mean uh you know you're seeing some of the prices that top

defensemen are going for these days having both those guys for that price come combined is pretty nice. And, you know, I've been asked a lot about Adam Larson and whether my thoughts on him have changed in the past year since the trade. And I'm curious for your take on this, because obviously I imagine that you watched him much more closely this year than you had previously while he was playing for the Devils. Well, I watched him a lot more, but I've always been going back to the 2011 draft, I've been an Adam Larson fanboy. So I was pretty familiar with him before he showed up in it. Yeah, it's interesting.

Especially watching him in the postseason, I did get, you know, an added appreciation for what he brings to the table. I thought that, you know, he was really good in the neutral zone defensively. And in his own zone, he was, you know, it was all the things you hear about him being very solid, but it was nice to actually see them as opposed to them,

just, you know, being thrown around as cliches. My thoughts on the trades still haven't necessarily really changed because the argument always was sort of just, you know, an opportunity cost or from a, from a, you know, a value perspective. And I would still rather have a guy with Taylor Hall's skill set than Adam Larson's. But like I said, having those two guys under contract now and basically kind of building around them on that blue line is a good starting point for the Oilers. And it's, I guess it might be looking a bit better than it did at the time, but it's, I'm still hesitant to, view it anything other than the loss for the Oilers in the grand scheme of things.

Yeah, I haven't really moved a whole lot on the trade. I like Adam Larson. I've always liked Adam Larson. He doesn't bring you much offensive dimension. And the one thing I think that he's gotten better at from when I first started watching him when he broke into the league, the one area I think he's really improved is he gets victimized less by his speed because he's not a terribly fast defenseman.

but he's just incredibly smart and he's very strong and you combine those two things you can make up for having just average speed and he's he's learned to do that over the years in the NHL I think he's very useful but to me you look at all the teams that win Stanley Cups you look at Chicago you look at Pittsburgh it's having multiple talents on multiple lines and the you know Edmonton is kind of settled into Leon Drysidal is there

their secondary offensive weapon. But if you can have McDavid and Hall, I feel like that. Well, it comes down to a dry-sidal hall discussion in some ways if you're going to make a sacrifice of one on the defense. And maybe you don't even have to, because you look at Pittsburgh's defense corps, it's not that great Chris Latang

accepted. And they basically won without Latang last year. And the reason they won was they had that trio of Crosby, Malkin, and Kessel. And to me, the possibility to do that in Edmonton was too good to pass up even to bring in a player as good as Adam Larson. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. Okay, so Matt Walker asked, and this is, you know, kind of just continuing this discussion we're having about Larson and Klaffbaum

and defensemen is he asks, you know, how would you rank defensive qualities based by importance for, for defensemen? And basically, you know, he cites net battles, zone entry prevention, you know, playing the neutral zone, we're actually moving the puck with zone exits and so on and so forth. And, you know, I don't think there's necessarily one right answer here because obviously, like, all of these things are just pieces of the puzzle and you can make up for deficiencies in one area by being really good in the other. But maybe it speaks more to personal preference and sort of just what you enjoy personally. So I don't know, like in terms of your defenseman,

your ideal defenseman, what do you like to see from them in the individual components of their game? Yeah, I thought this was a really interesting question. And the way I kind of broke it down is there are things that if a defenseman is good at, or sorry, there are things that if a defenseman is bad at, there's not really any way to shield it. So if you're a defenseman who's bad at preventing zone entries, your team structure throughout the neutral zone can kind of herd guys over towards your partner rather than you. But you can only do that to a certain extent. Like if you're bad at preventing zone entries, zone entries are going to get allowed.

Whereas if you're bad at zone exits, to a large degree, you can build your breakout around a partner who can really pass. Like just, again, this is me watching Edmonton more than anybody else. But for years, they ran a Latislav Schmead, Jeff Petrie, defense pairing. And Petrie made nine out of ten zone exits routinely. Like I would sit down and I would count them and he would make them all. And Edmonton wasn't a very good team. but that pairing was effective.

So I think some things you can compensate more for and other things you can't. So for me, I had kind of zone entry, prevention, and battle ability, the ability to battle both in front of the net and on puck retrievals, which wasn't mentioned, but I kind of lump in as the same thing. I had those two things higher than zone exits or neutral zone work, which to me there's only so much a defenseman can do there. Like he's a relatively speaking, he's a smaller part of the team scheme than he is. when it comes to zone entry prevent.

Yeah, I'm very curious in the coming years as we get more tracking technology and, you know, just our understanding of the game grows. I think this is going to be one area that we're going to make the biggest advancements in because, you know, unless, as you mentioned, you're watching every one of these games, you know, very closely and really tracking it and paying attention to every single little detail and even then you're going to miss a lot of stuff. It's really kind of tough to see some of this stuff in terms of how it manifests itself in the results

and what really is and isn't important. And the other caveat here is, you mentioned defending against zone entries. And while I agree that if you lack foot speed, you're generally going to either wind up sagging back quite a bit and just conceding the blue line or you're going to get you know the guy just going to go around you and neither is necessarily a great outcome for you and your team but there are certain ways to help kind of defend against that structurally with your defensive scheme and you know with a partner

helping or maybe the forward sagging back a little bit more and being more defensively aware the thing with zone exits and actually moving the puck is I feel like that's probably the most repeatable skill, would you say? Like, if you can either move the puck and make tape-to-ta-ta-ta-passes where you can't, and that's a very kind of easy thing to isolate and actually evaluate a player on versus some of these other things kind of really, it's kind of a team dynamic. And also, we're not sure, like, you know, with net battles. I'm not sure if that's something that what type of player is particularly good at it

or whether they can keep doing it on a year-to-year basis. Like, you know, for a long time, we were led to believe that you needed a big, strong defensemen because they were the only ones that could really compete in front of their own net, but we're seeing in the past few years that that might not necessarily be true. And there's plenty of examples of smaller guys that, you know, like a guy like Ryan Alice, for example, is small in stature, but he has a very low center of gravity and he works the angles really well. And he definitely holds his own in front of his own net.

So I don't know. I guess that was a long way of saying there's a lot of different factors to consider here and we're going to learn more about them over the next few years. But I'm always drawn towards guys that can actually move the puck because it's just a very easy thing to pick, you know, just pick up on with your own eyes. Well, and personal bias, I mean, I don't really want a, I don't, I don't really want a defenseman on my team who can't, the puck at least a little bit. Right.

To me that, and, you know, the NHL reality is maybe you have to have that guy to compensate for other things you have on your team or it makes sense to have. have them or whatever, but it is something you'd like to see. And it's interesting, the thing you mentioned about net battles and not needing big defensemen. I don't know how it's been glossed over, but it has been. Chicago won three Stanley Cups with a top four on defense. I'm not sure if it was all three years or if it was, but anyway, for most of the top three on defense, you know, outside of Brent Seabrook, everybody else in that top four group was

basically under six foot two, 200 pounds. like Nicholas Jalmersen, who's maybe in your top 10 list of pure defensive defensemen, is, you know, under that size. So absolutely, you can definitely be effective without that. Yeah. And, okay, so here's a good follow-up question. And it asks, can skilled forwards who excel in the neutral zone, particularly at zone injuries, succeed despite poor transition defensemen on their team?

And the person asking his question is a Devils fan, and they cite, you know, guys like Taylor Hall and Eco-Haw. his year and now Marcus Johansson and even a guy like Michael McLeod coming up. I think this is a fascinating question because, and you can speak to this as someone who watched Taylor Hall very closely at Edmonton for years, he had to do a lot of solo efforts where he was basically retrieving the pocket deep in his own zone and basically going coast to coast and really doing everything himself because a lot of it was out of necessity. And I don't, I think you can succeed that way, but I think it's very challenging because, you know, there's so many hoops you have to jump through.

And by the time you actually make it to the offensive zone, you're probably drained your, you know, your gas tank quite a bit and you're going to be less effective there. And that's where you can do the most damage. And we saw a lot of that with the penguins, you know, two seasons ago when Mike Sullivan took over where under Mike Johnson, they had this, this really poor breakout scheme. and it was really hindering them because either they were constantly just getting stuck in the neutral zone and having the puck come back in their own zone or Crosby and Malkin were having to really just do all of the work themselves. And Mike Sullivan took over and they made a few moves in acquiring a guy like Trevor Daly and bringing some younger guys up. And all of a sudden everything seemed to just kind of click and their offense really exploded from there. So I think that would be a good example of how all those things are tied. together, but I don't know, do you think that you can succeed without defensemen that can move the puck in today's NHL? Not on the team level. On the individual level, I think you can be a very good score and even have an effective line if you have good enough players.

Like Hall was specifically mentioned in the question, and he's a great example because, you know, between 2010 and 2016, he played for a team that had very few transition defensemen. and when he was on the ice five on five over those three or six years the oilers were plus three when he was off the ice they were minus 225 so so I when I looked at the question I saw it sort of being as you know can a if you're if you're if you're if you're a zone entry forward if you're a guy who likes to lug the puck and and enter the opposition zone are you hurt more than a different type of player by not having those transition defense. And I don't think you are. I think if anything, you're better off because you can take on more of the load yourself. You can do more of it. So if you're building a team, you better have a bunch of transition D or else you end up like Edmonton from 2010 to 2016. And you're, you know, minus a jillion when Hall's not on the ice. But as a player, like, Hall was excellent in Edmonton.

He was brilliant. And the losing kind of obscured it in the market a little bit. and has tainted things. But when you're plus three and they're minus 225 without you, that to me is the definition of excelling. Yeah, no, I think that's fair. All right, well, sticking with Taylor Hall and the Devils, Brandon Wong asks, what can we realistically expect from Nico Hishier?

What do the stats say about his junior game? And David Palluzzi adds, who are our favorites for the Calder Trophy this year? I don't know. There's a couple different ways to approach those questions. What are you expecting from a guy like Nico Hish here this year? Well, I have to plead a certain level of ignorance here. I've been covering hockey full-time for five or six years now and have been doing this for almost a decade in some capacity.

and I've never paid less attention to the entry draft than I did this year. So I was looking at it when we got this question. And this is very basic analysis, but 86 points in 57 games in the Quebec League is good. It's not great for like a first overall pick. I think you have to take into account it's his first year in North America. It's a very good number for that. On a personal level, I love that his year is a complete player. I love that he's a guy who grew up without a super hockey intensive background like you did other sports as a kid.

I love that he speaks four different languages. But this is all personal bias stuff. I think you can be dumb as a brick and still be if you're a good hockey player, be a useful NHLer. And so I'm hoping he's a good player because I love the player type. I love the story and the numbers are good. but I kind of defer to the scouts who point out that this is just a weaker draft than anything we've seen since probably 2012. Well, and I think that both you and I would generally lean towards the side of conservative expectations and projections for, you know, young prospects who are taking the leap. Like, I understand why fans want to get excited and think of the best case scenario, especially if they're like a fan of the player or the team.

And that's all well and good. And I completely get it. I don't want to rain on that parade. But generally speaking, I feel like we can get a bit carried away with our expectations for young players. Like it's not one of those things where each year there's going to be this, you know, linear, linear, just upward trajectory. Like sometimes there's bumps in the road and sometimes guys take longer to develop or, or, you know, have down years before they finally reach that highest level.

So I'm not sure. Like it's tough for the Calder. I mean, obviously from this year's class, Hishio and Patrick stand out. I'm not sure whether, you know, what role either guy is going to play or whether they're even going to start the year with a team or spend the full season with their teams. I mean, a lot of this is opportunity based where you're just going to need to get those, you know, power play top six minutes and accumulate the points. And it might not necessarily be, you know, 10 years from now,

we might not look back and say that's definitely the best player from this draft class that wound up winning the Calder. I mean, Connor McDavid didn't even win the Calder in his rookie season. So it's, I never really know what to make of questions like this in the summer. I understand why people are interested, but there's so many ways to go about it. I think if anything, I'd go with a guy from a past class that is still eligible, whether it's, you know, maybe like a Dylan Strome or something is an interesting pick here because he's more physically, mature than these guys and stands to reason that he could have a pretty high-end role in the coyotes right out of the gate. So I don't know, he might be an interesting pick for this. Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned

how much this is opportunity-based because it's so true. Like if I'm limiting it to this year's class, I probably take Patrick over his year just because there might be an opportunity to play on that marvelous Philadelphia power play. And that could make all the difference. But I don't really like either of them as a front runner. And I don't think there is a front runner in this field. Like, when McDavid was a rookie, it was really easy to pick out a front runner. When Crosby and Oveskin were rookies in the same year, when Malkin was a rookie, these are guys who, you know, clearly lead the pack. To me, I see a very wide open field. Strom was on my list, but, you know, the fact that he still hasn't made the jump is pretty concerning, even though he's been a major

point producer in junior. If you're looking at the coyotes, I think Clayton Keller might even be a better bet on that team. But, you know, I don't think then you have to take in the Arizona team situation into account. Yes, they're going to get some opportunities, but they're also going to be held back by playing for a lesser club. The guy I like, if defensemen won the Calder Trophy, I'd like Charlie McAvoy in Boston, but defensemen don't win the Calder Trophy as a rule. So I don't know.

I think it's wide open. I looked at Brock Bozer. I looked at Josh Hossang. I there's there's probably 10 guys who could win it right now and that's not counting the possibility of of somebody coming out of nowhere and playing on Patrick Keynes wing. Yeah. And the tough thing is, you know, on the one hand, you can make the argument that playing for a bad team is a positive because it means that it's more likely that you're actually going to kind of get those opportunities. But at the same time, that also likely means you're playing with worse players. So, you know, for a young player, it's generally you're playing more of a complimentary passenger role as opposed to just bringing all your linemates up with you and really moving the needle yourself.

So it's tough to know, you know, how much of that, like for a guy like Clayton Keller or even a Tyson Jost in Colorado. Like, I love the skill, but I can't, I'm not really sure what to make of the fact that they play for such bad teams. Yeah, absolutely. and it's one of those scenarios where it's good and it's bad right like it can work for you it can work against you so much of this is situational that it's it's really hard to say okay so Dan Saracini asks players you and your guest like in spite of bad underlying numbers um this is a this is a good one this is going to be very enlightening to our personal preferences. Can you think of any guys off the top of your head that really fit to bin here? Well, Dimitri, I did all my homework that I was assigned.

It took ages. So none of this is off the top of my head. Let's pretend like this is, you know, freewheeling. You know, just off the top of my head when I look around the league. Do I get to say Phil Kessel? Is that, am I allowed to say Phil Kessel? Or Mark Edward Vlasic? Because both those guys had had bad underlying number. last year. I feel like that's cheating, though. Yes. Yeah, I think more so, uh, you know, as a general trend or a career norm as opposed to just last year, because I feel like both those guys in a past would not have fit here. Yes. Yes. No, I, I, I put them, I, yeah, I didn't think I'd get to say it. Yeah. But I wanted to make sure that this wasn't a trick question, that there wasn't a loophole.

And you were going to, when I said Kyle Quincy, you were going to come back and say, yeah, well, John, you like Kyle Quincy, but I like Mark Edward Vlasic. So, is Kyle Quincy your answer? How Quincy is one of the guys I was looking at because I think there's some, and basically it comes down to, I think there are unique situations that lead to bad underlying numbers. In Quincy's case, he spent a ton of his career on a pretty mediocre Detroit team playing on his offside. And I think that's the kind of thing that just sewers your career numbers. I had other guys listed who I'm not going to get into if I can avoid it because we don't want the conversation to go there. but that's the kind of situation that'll sue your career numbers. The other guy I had listed there is Chris Russell who last year.

I know, I know, I know. I know. Well, I actually, this never comes out, but I have a personal bias deeply in favor of Chris Russell because, I mean, he's a tiny defenseman, and he was a very skilled guy coming out of junior, and he would just get pounded by opposing teams when he was with Madison Hat. and I love a guy who's 5, 10 and can play the kind of game that he plays. Like, personally, I love that. And when I look at him last year, he played on the right side. And he played at a level that I wouldn't have been comfortable assigning him.

Like, I don't think he's a top four defenseman. I think he's a good number five. Or, you know, in the right situation, he can be a good number five with special teams' ability. So he's a guy who I think in the right situation could perform really well, but was placed in a bad one last year, and his underlying numbers were just hammered by. Oh, man, I'll leave that. I'll leave that one there. You thought you're like, you know, I'll have John on, and today we're going to, there's

nothing that can be spun into a Chris Russell question. Seriously, John, come on. This is like, we're reaching like Cal Ripkin levels here, streaks of you being on the podcast and us talking about Chris Russell, so I'm going to leave that one alone. But see, I went a different way here. I went with a guy like Cam Fowler. And the reason why he's an interesting pick is because

I really enjoy watching Cam Fowler play hockey. He's an exciting talent. He's beautiful skater. He can really move the puck, especially I thought when he came back in the postseason from injury and played. in that Western Conference final against the Predators, he was fantastic. And at the same time, there seems to be this mismatch between those skills and his actual results and output.

And for years, I feel like there's been this disagreement between, you know, more traditional evaluators and the people who are actually looking at those underlying numbers. And, you know, we saw that really blow up this summer when the ducks threw a ton of money at him. And while I like him, if I was running the ducks, I definitely would not have done that. And I probably would have traded him already because I feel like what you could recoup for him is much more valuable than what he actually presents just by himself playing for your team. But with that said, for whatever reason, I mean, not for whatever reason. I just listed those reasons.

I really enjoy watching him play. So I kind of, I like him as a player. But the results don't really match those affections that I have for him. Well, I agree with you that the Ducks probably should have been really bold and traded Fowler this summer just because the reputeate. Because to me, it's nothing against the player, but it's all, to me, a question of reputation versus ability. And if reputation is higher than ability, then yes, you trade the player unless he's such an irreplaceable piece. And in Anaheim, they've got a very good blue line. I don't think he is.

But when I look at him this year, like, how much weight do you place on him playing fairly, tough minutes with Sammy Votan or Kevin BXa, like if I'm drawing up a shutdown pairing, Vatina BXA don't make the cut for me. And I wonder to what degree that. I mean, and I know this is kind of a career trend with Fowler where he's basically a 50% guy, but do you, do you got him any slack because of partners this year? Or does this long-term trend outweigh that? I think the long-term trend outweighs it because it wasn't necessarily a massive deviation from the norm where it's not like, you know, he was this 5-1-5 beast for years before that. And then this

year it was kind of an uncharacteristic dip. But to that, then point you bring up is interesting because he could have been another name to fit this bill. The reason why I didn't use it is because, like, I, you know, he might just be one of these guys that's just awesome on the power play. And you have to shelter him at 5-1-5, and that's perfectly fine. And that type of player definitely has value. But his performance this year at even strength was alarmingly, bad as well and I wonder how much of that was just that usage you mentioned and how much of it was maybe we need to kind of take a step back and maybe rein in our expectations on him because I feel like as recently as a year or two ago people were really really high on him and wondering whether he

was the best defenseman the ducks had and then now it's pretty clear that you know that honor goes to hamps Linholm and the second might even be Josh Manson so it's it's interesting how uh our opinions and the narrative on him has changed, you know, just over the course of one year. I remember when they were both restricted free agents a year ago, and there were, you know, like prominent hockey insiders saying, well, the ducks will probably trade one and it'll be whichever one doesn't, you know, has the more onerous contract demands. But to me, there's, like, Campus Lindholm is so far above any other defensemen on that team,

in my view that, like, I thought that was pretty crazy at the time. Yeah, no, I agree with that. Another guy who I don't, we talked about a bunch of, this summer with the trade and everything. So I don't want to spend a lot of time on him. But it's a guy like Jonathan Drew and the reason why, you know, he's so young still and he's really been jerked around between, you know, the HL and NHL and who he's playing with. So I'm going to cut him some slack and it's quite possible that he really puts it all together this season in a bigger role in Montreal now that he's established.

But he sort of fits that Cam Fowler description of a player that's so excited. exciting to watch and has these highlight real moments, but, you know, it's very easy to get enamored by that, but then overlook all the negative parts of his game that might sort of, you know, throw cold water on it. So I'm sure there's a handful of other guys. I'm not thinking of that you could sort of lump into this tier as well. Yeah, I, uh, Drew Ann, I, I don't think we have enough of a track record to really make a firm determination about him. I will say that the rhetoric you heard after the trade was I don't understand

how people are seeing these things in a player with this track record like people are I oh I can't remember where I read it but somebody there was a news piece that talked about him being the best French Canadian superstar in Montreal since Patrick Juan I'm just going you know

are you kidding me like this guy's this guy's not I mean he's not even the best left wing on your team like but but anyway that's neither here to work now Well, that's very disrespectful of David Dayharnay. New York Ranger, David Dayharnay. Wow, former Montreal.

And Edmonton Oiler Legend. Scored an overtime winner. Come on, now. Yes, yes, he did. Yeah. Another name we could have mentioned here is John Carlson. I feel like he's the prototypical. If you just break down his individual skills and how impressive he looks on the ice,

you're like, man, this guy must be one of the best defense in the league. But he never actually rates that well by the underlying numbers. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, so Jeff Rinoe asks, analytics helped identify Victor Arbetson as someone fantasy players should have targeted going into 2016-17. What players fit that category this year? And, you know, obviously this isn't a fantasy hockey podcast,

but maybe just let's talk about guys that, you know, could break out and produce much more offensively than they have as recently as this past season. well I looked at when I went back because I wanted to look at what indicators suggested that Arvetson could be a potential breakout candidate. He was interesting because he had these glorious on-eye shot metrics and also because he was an incredibly high volume shooter himself. So if you go back to 2015-16, in terms of shots per hour at five-on-five, I think he was the number three guy in the NHL. But he had no finishing ability. And this year, he had finishing ability.

So I went to try and find somebody who fit that sort of same profile. And the name I came up with, and I'm curious to see if you have the same name, was Timo Meyer in San Jose. Yep, yep. Yeah, he's a guy I've been highlighting, especially now with, you know, a guy like Patrick Marlow leaves and free agency. And all of a sudden that might open a wing roll. And, you know, I've spent a lot of time this summer thinking about and discussing on this podcast, this, you know, stuff that Ryan Stimson's been working with in terms of, putting complimentary player types together. And if you're thinking along those lines,

you know, I'd be very fascinated to see what Tim O'Meyer could do playing on the wing of a guy like Joe Thornton who's just constantly competing in the puck. Yeah, and I mean, like, even this year, like he playing mostly with, you know, Chris Tierney and people like that, he had crazy shot volume, but no finishing skill. And this was a guy who, you know, a ninth overall pick.

I think he had 44 goals in his draft year. Like, he can probably finish. There's some pretty good priors for thinking that this is a guy with finishing ability. So if he can combine that shot volume with finishing ability, yeah, so he'd be my breakout candidate. I also feel obliged to mention Oliver Bjork Strand. He's a personal favorite, so that's why. It's not quite the same profile, but the interesting thing to me about him is Columbus has a pretty good power play.

They lost Sam Gagne this year, who was sort of their right show. shot, who played a key role in the slot as a right shooter. York Strand's a right shot. He might fit that role. He had a good scoring rate this year. He had a good shot rate this year. But mostly this is just me being a fanboy because he was such a good player for Team Denmark at the World Juniors. I think it's very justified.

Obviously, the added role could be there. And he's also the, he's what I'd call a professional goal score. Pretty much everywhere he plays, he just scores a lot of goals. and I feel like that's a legitimate skill. And there's no reason to believe yet that that won't translate to this level. Maybe not to the degree it did where he was scoring it on just obscene video game-like totals in the WHL. But he seems like he'd be a very useful player of a Columbus this year. Yeah, a few other guys.

I mean, I'm very intrigued by a guy like Arturi Lekon in Montreal. He's also a guy who shot totals and rate stats in terms of goals. he was scoring were pretty high this year. Obviously, he was only playing like, I think, 13 or so minutes of night, so the actual raw totals were suppressed. But you could see, you know, in an increased role, maybe even some power play opportunities, all of a sudden, dad jumping.

Other guys, you know, Andre Brokowski would have been my number one here if Washington hadn't retained T.J. O'Shee. Now I'm kind of tempering my expectations a little bit because it seems like he'll probably just be kind of stuck playing on a, a secondary role, but on that Washington team, that could still be a pretty good opportunity for him to really break through, although that might be cheating a bit just because he's already shown, you know, significant flashes and he came into the league with a high pedigree. So it's not like he's going to come out of nowhere by any means, but I'm a huge Brokowski fan. You know, this might be my favorite question ever, because we're just hitting on all my favorite little guys who I never get to talk about, but who I, who I, who I, who I, always watch from afar and I'm like oh I like I sure like that guy so this this was a good question

congratulations listener thank you so much I think that I think that last sentence is like the description or the tagline for the hockey peteo cast a bunch of a bunch of players I've been admiring from a distance that I finally get a chance to talk about yeah yeah I like it yeah other guys quickly here I have uh Kevin Fiala hopefully he recovers from that nasty injury out in the postseason but he showed uh especially in that series against the blackhawks what he's capable of with his speed. And he's sort of in that McKinnon role, a McKinnon category for me where he's so fast that I feel like sometimes maybe if he slowed down a little bit in the offensive zone,

it would actually be beneficial. Like he has, he is that much speed. And then, you know, in terms of you're just looking at the shot metrics and guys that rated really well on a permanent basis, both Frank Vitrono and Ryan Hartman really stand out. And we'll see if they can have, you know, if they can, if they can take a take that next step. I mean, Hartman kind of did last year, where, especially as the year went along, Chicago started relying on some of their young forwards a bit more. And he really kind of stood out amongst that group of young forwards they were using as, as the most intriguing

name, I think, not counting to Brinkat who didn't play for them last season. But I don't know, what do you think about a guy like Ryan Hartman? My hesitation with Hartman is just that there's no record of him really scoring at any level. Like, he's never cracked 40 points in the American League, he's basically been barely a point per game guy in the OHL. I was really impressed with what he did last season, but I'm skeptical for that reason. And Vitrano, I like Vitrano a ton. I mean, how could I not? But I would have pegged him for a breakout year this year based on what he did last season,

you know, where he was a goal per game in the American League and just ridiculous shot rates in the NHL. So that has me injecting a little bit of a little bit of pessimism there. But I wonder a little bit with Vitrano. if it's a matter of, well, you know, Marty San Luis bounced around for years before he got an opportunity and really took off. So I wouldn't write him off by any strategy. Well, and the thing with Bertrano is he also, I feel like, you know, he had a preseason injury last year and he missed a significant chunk of the start of the season. And it's quite possible that I just also set him back more than we accounted for.

So I'm only given the benefit of the doubt. I mean, anyone that produces at the AHL level at, you know, that young old age like he did, is someone that I'm going to be intrigued. by. You know, if the tagline for the PDO cast isn't players I've admired from afar who I finally get to talk about, it could be the excuses that I'll make for players who I've admired from afar who haven't produced yet. Okay, let's take a quick little break here to hear from the sponsor and we'll jump back into some more questions on the other end of things. A big part of the reason we're able to keep churning out the show throughout the summer while everyone else seemingly has taken time off to enjoy their well-deserved off-season break is because of the fine folks

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Okay, TC84 here asks, who's your favorite goalie that never seems? to get a chance to be the guy. And I didn't even really think about this question seriously. I just wanted to read it so that I could make the obligatory John Francois Baroube joke here. Do you want to get that off your chest? I did. I really wanted to say it, but did you actually come up with a guy here? Well, is James Reimer just automatically the king of this category?

Yeah. Just by default? Yeah, he probably is. Yeah, I wanted, I looked around. Like, honestly, I went, okay, James Reimer done. And then I went, no, John, put a little more time into it. and, you know, Thomas Grice used to be this guy for me, but I can't use him anymore. Entering last year's playoffs, I would have said Scott Darling, but he's obviously going to get a chance this year.

I don't think there's like a, you know, a veteran guy. There's plenty of HL guys who I think, or, you know, KHL guys who I think could be really good backups. But for starters, I don't see anybody who's really overlooked. Like, the league has done a pretty good job of giving people like Cam Talbot and Scott Darling and Thomas Grice's chances. right now the name I have is Philip Grubauer, and I don't think he's been overlooked. I think he's just young, but I don't know that there's a guy who really fits the bill

outside of, of course, James Reimer. Yeah, I think that's a fair one. Let's see here. There's some other good ones, but we're already at the 45-minute mark, so I feel like we should get to the really, really good one. Okay, mean Kinnok here asks, in your opinion, I don't know why you needed to preface that,

obviously, this is our opinion. Which team over the past few years has been the best at managing the salary cap? and which has been the worst. Chicago's been the best and Chicago is the worst. In all seriousness, I like Nashville as the best team. They've avoided no trade clauses. They've had lots of those multi-year, low-dollar deals for young players.

So some of that circumstance, but a lot of it is skill. And if I have to pick the worst, I'd probably pick L.A. because Los Angeles was a legitimate cup contender, and they've kind of sewered it for themselves. And that's even with them getting away with Mike Richards, which they probably shouldn't have got away with. Yeah, I think that's a fair one. I actually like the Chicago answer there. That seems like a fair way to look. I mean, it's, listen, it's really tough to, the thing about NHL, and there was another question here. Someone asked about the Canucks. And oh, Sam Hogg here asks, is there any way to my dad's theory that the Canucks make a cup run once every 15 years and spend the rest of the time being terrible? And I understand, obviously, You know, he's being a, you know, a self-deprecating doom and gloom Canucks fan there.

But it is a good point in the sense. Is there any other kind of Canucks fans? No, they're the only ones. Continue. Especially today. It's really tough to stay good in this league for a long time. And, you know, like with the Canucks in particular, I don't blame Mike Gillis and his staff for the decisions they made in building that team because they were one of the, you know, few teams that you could consider a legitimate

cup contender for a handful of years there and they went for it, which I think every team should do in that position. And they swung and missed and then eventually they sort of had to pay for the fact that they constantly kept trading picks at the deadline for rental players and signing players to deals with

no move clauses and it's just kind of the price of doing business sometimes and you know, we're seeing that with the team like the Blackhawks where for years they were really good at avoiding those types of deals and even when they did hand him out to a guy like Brian Bickle, they'd find a way to get out of it with a trade by packaging a prospect or something like that. But now you look at this Brent Cibro

contract that they signed based purely on the fact that he was good for them while they were winning cups. And those are the types of deals you really have to avoid. But I completely understand why they're tough to do when you consider that sort of loyalty factor and just rewarding players for, you know, producing for you at really high levels when they're probably underpaid in their early seasons and sort of you kind of pan back for that but that's a that's a that's a that's a that's a that's an easy way to get yourself in trouble when you're building a team yeah it's well and and it is i you don't want to underestimate how difficult this is it's it really is a tight rope walk which you know is the chicago answer they they did so well for so long at such a height and you make one big

mistake which in this case i would argue is the seabrook deal and it's it's all for not you know like it's really difficult to recover from from that level of mistake when your margins are so with it. Yeah. Yeah, I was trying to think of other teams that, I mean, it's really easy to pile on teams for doing poorly with the cap. I'm trying to think of other teams that have done really well. I don't know. Nothing's really jumping out. I feel like, yeah, the Predators, I mean, they've taken a lot of those good gambols in terms of signing their young players to long-term deals, then now they wind up looking great. Yeah, I guess, I guess, so let's just leave it. The Blackhawks fit both of these bills really well.

Let's see here. Trying to look for the best. Oh, okay, here's a good one. Kung Fu Kanak asks, you have a D-Man with great position stats and a sheltered role. What stats and signs indicate that he'll perform well in a larger top four role? And this is a really good question because it's something that we constantly have to try and address and factor in for when, you know, It's very easy to become enamored by a defenseman who's just killing it in these sheltered minutes.

But from a practical perspective for our purposes, we sort of need to weed out which guys can actually be used in bigger roles and which guys are sort of capped at that as their ceiling. Yeah. I didn't like this question because I didn't have a clean answer for it, which I think is the sign of a good question when you don't. You can't have a clean answer for it. what I kind of came up with is to me it is somewhat useful to break down performance versus competition level there's a difficulty in

in slicing those samples too thin I think you can get yourself into trouble but there's a great website Puck IQ which does this and shows you versus I think they have three tiers you know sort of a middle tier the elite and then the the grittensity tier and how a player performs against each of those tiers

so that that to me is an interesting thing if you have a sheltered D, if he performs well when he's exposed to top talent, that's probably an indicator. Home versus road splits is really simple, but it's sort of the same thing. The coach has less control of matchups on the road, and when you see a player who really performs well at home and not so well on the road or vice versa,

it's often a sign of whether they're capable of handling tougher minutes when they're in that sheltered role. The other thing I'd say is I like it. And this is another one where you have to be super careful because it's dangerous to do. But I do think that it's valuable to have, if you've got great possession numbers and your goal metrics are really bad,

it can be a sign of a player who's going to struggle when he's exposed to elite talent. It's not always a sign like goal metrics fluctuate, but sometimes it is. So if the scoring chance and goal metrics are good as well as the possession numbers being good, I think it's generally a somewhat positive indicator

that a guy might be able to step up. Yeah. I think you nailed that one. I mean, there's a ton of examples of the fencemen that could be characterized this way. But it is something that, you know, we do sometimes get into trouble with where you don't account for quality of competition and quality of teammates. And you just assume that guys can do better in bigger roles if you extrapolate the results. And that, you know, sometimes when the circumstances change, you need to adjust expectations as well. And I guess that's the job.

of people like you and I to try and figure that out. But as you alluded to, it's, uh, unfortunately we still don't necessarily have, uh, just a completely cut and dried rule where you can just point to one thing and just go, well, this is, this is all we need to look at to figure this out. Well, and maybe that's fortunate because if there was a really cut and dry rule, you and I'd be out of a job, eh? Yeah, it'd be boring. Yeah. Yeah. I don't like that. Look at magic stat. Yeah, magic stat is great. Um, Buck Brazil asks, why is it so tough for a quote unquote normal hockey fan to go deep into hockey analytics and what's what's the best way he said the best way to evaluate a player but i'd also add what's the best way for us to um improve that to to kind of

get more casual fans on board and maybe uh you know just be more may make things more accessible for people that might not necessarily be super well versed and everything we're talking about so i love this question because i get to talk about then diagrams um um So imagine one circle, which is, you know, the Venn diagrams, the chart with all the circles, I'm sure everybody listening knows that. Imagine one circle, which is all hockey fans. Imagine a second circle, which is all people who love playing with numbers and data. Now you have to imagine what the intersection of those two circles is. And is that intersection bigger or smaller than the part of the hockey fan circle that's outside the intersection?

You know, if you're a fan of hockey, this is fun for you. This is something you're doing to enjoy. and if you don't live in that intersection of I enjoy playing with numbers and data, well, who am I to tell you that you have to dive into analytics? I think this is a losing battle in some ways. I think there are going to be people who just, they don't particularly like playing with numbers and data, and they're never going to be big analytics people,

and that's just fine for fans. There's no excuse for a team to do this, but if you're a fan and you either like it or you don't to me, I don't think that there's much more to it than that. Yeah, it is sort of, I mean, hockey is a little bit of that, you know, hips or sport where people do this with bands where it's like, oh, you know, if you're not talking about them a certain way or if you were there from the beginning, it's very easy to kind of scoff at it and dismiss people.

But I'd like to think that we're going to do a better job of that moving forward because that's ultimately the way we're going to, take the next step as a community and get more interest in hockey. And that's ultimately good for people like you and I to grow our readerships and our fan bases and get the discussion going with different perspectives and people who are approaching things from from different avenues. You know, if everyone was just talking the same language and really just viewing it through the same prism, it would be boring and very simplistic and binary. And I don't think anyone wants that.

Well, and I feel like some of this, too, is societal shift. Like, I think we're seeing society go more and more into having time for data and having time for the numbers. You see people like, like Nate Silver, is there an analog for Nate Silver in the 1980s, a guy who, you know, makes his claim to fame as a stats guru and who's legitimately famous in the real world for doing it? I don't know that there is. So I do think this is something where as more people get into the game who are younger fans, you're going to see just more acceptance of this because there's more acceptance of playing around with data and numeracy generally, which wasn't necessarily the case 20 or 30 years ago. I also think another good way to prevent people from just rolling their eyes

and instantly just not having no idea what you're talking about is maybe we change our normal. momentclature a little bit and start actually consistently referring to Corsi as just shot attempts. I feel like that's something everyone can get behind and not dismiss right away whereas as soon as you start dropping stuff like Corsi and PDO and Fenwick and so on and so forth, there is a certain segment of hockey fans that you're just instantly

going to eliminate from the discussion, which isn't good either. See, this is, if you're listening to this, what this question is, is the tension between me saying, no, don't even bother trying to convert the unbelievers and Dmitri going, no, no, no, we can talk to these people. The more people we're talking to, the better, man. No, and you're right. I think the one thing that an analytics guy who wants to make his work broadly interesting can do is to write it in terms that doesn't make people's eyes glaze over.

So, walls of numbers are bad. and explaining why these stats, and it's a pain to do it every time, I know it is because I've done it, and it is a huge pain, but explaining why these things work. I think there's a general level of appreciation for shot attempts, but if you're going to use something like IPP percentage or shot rate to explain something that matters, express it in real terms so that people can understand and not just understand, but so you start off speaking the same language. Because if you start off speaking different languages, it's very difficult to break through that barrier.

You have to start with the game and then move from the game to explain why the numbers matter, I think personally. I like it. Okay, we're going to end a discussion with one final topic, and it's two questions that we got about the Boston Bruins. And Brian Talbot 20 asks, do Bruins fans overvalue Brandon Carlo,

especially when it comes to the rumors of a potential Carlo Duchet, Dushan trade. And Trist, the Mist, asks, should the Bruins sign David Pasternak or should they trade him for a big name defenseman? I think discussion about the Bruins here is interesting because they have a few ways they can go with this. And they're a team that I feel like is heavily involved in a lot of these trade rumors and could potentially shake up their roster. But I'm kind of curious what you think about Carlo Pasternak and the direction this team should take. Boy, that Dougie Hamilton trade looks stupid, doesn't it?

Yeah, yeah. But I mean, that's not even like revisionist or hindsight that people were saying that at the time. Yes, yes. But I guess that wasn't the question, and I should actually answer the question that's being asked. So is Brendan Carlo overvalued? Yes, Brandon Carlo is overvalued. Should Boston sign Pastornak or trade him for a defenseman? You can't answer that without knowing who the defenseman is.

Right. As a hypothetical, like, Pastornak's amazing. So as a hypothetical, it's really hard to say. And the problem with Pastornak is that he's very young and the core of that team is old. You know, like the Bergeron, the Marchand. These are guys in the age 30 range. Char is much older. David Backus is older.

So, you know, do you hang on to a good young player or do you try and make your core work? You could go either direction. But that's a much larger question than Pastornak himself. And it really is difficult to say without. knowing the exact scenarios. Well, the uniting theme here between Pastor K and Carlo and don't get me wrong, I'm significantly higher on Pastor Nack as a player and contributor than I'm in Carlo, is that like the established high-end veteran players on the Bruins are still so good

that some of these younger guys that play with them is going to be tough for us to accurately sort of distinguish how good those players actually are by themselves. and how much they are a product of the players are playing with. So, you know, with a guy like Pasternak, I feel pretty confident in saying that he's a singularly dynamic offensive talent that would contribute offensively and score goals regardless of who he's playing with. But when he's played 55% of his 5-on-5 minutes last year with Bergeron and Marshaun, that's obviously going to help him quite a bit.

And you see that his numbers dip in the times or he's not playing with him. So, you know, you do have to factor that in at the same time. He's 21 years old all the way through this season. And he was 10th and goals last year and 18th and points in the league. And those players don't grow on trees and they're hard to come by. And I think the Bruins should definitely consider him a core piece of their franchise moving forward. With a guy like Carlo, it's encouraging that he was able to step into the NHL and play regular minutes at that young of an age with that little experience. But even though Zeno Chara is not the player he was a few.

years ago he's still really good and helps drag his teammates results up and i would always kind of you know approach this type of situation with caution and say that if you if you can sell high on carlo right now i would i understand that with how valuable young defensemen are that are cost controlled he's an intriguing asset but this is like the classic endowment effect uh where i i think bruin's fans are very on Brandon Carlo. I feel like most other fans or evaluators around the league don't share those opinions and whenever that's the case

you should examine it more closely and maybe try and take a step back and view it objectively because that type of mismatch is generally a bit of a red flag for me. Yeah, I've heard good things about Brandon Carlo from some really smart hockey people who aren't Bruins fans who really respect him. But to me,

Zenae, Zadano Chara might be the greatest truly great player who's been kind of relegated to the merely very good category over his career. I think somehow we've managed to underappreciate Zadano Chara.

Well, not all, not everybody, but as a hockey community over the course of his career, even though everybody will acknowledge he's very good. When I looked at the WOWE numbers with Carlo, and I know you can get into trouble doing that, but Charra had a 54% coursey while taking two defensive zone, like taking two shifts in the defensive zone for every shift he took in the offensive zone away from Carlo.

Jara's a beast. Even, you know, it is this ancient age that he's at. He's just a beast. And Carlo, I don't know that Carlo is, I think Carlo's good, but I don't think we know how good he is. And I think there's a huge risk in thinking that he's as good as he has looked with Jara. I don't think he's nearly that good. To me, it's totally worth rolling the dice and trading. And maybe this spins off, I'll finish that point.

But maybe it's worth rolling the dice and trading him while he's perceived this way, because a year from now, he may not be. And the larger point here, when you have an older core, and maybe the key distinguishing feature between Carlo and Pastornak, is if you have a young player who can really help you, like drive results to win now, I think Pastornak does that. I don't necessarily think Carlo does. So if you can trade Carlo for somebody who does do that,

and you are trying to win now with the core you have, well, you can still win with them. I'd be very open to trading Brandon Carlo. You'd have to really sell me to trade past. Yeah. No, on the chariot point, I think he's on that exclusive Mount Rushmore list of guys. You could just put anyone next to him throughout his career

and just not even worry about it because you know the results are going to be damn good. And that's such a huge luxury for teams where you don't need to devote premium assets to filling out the lineup up around him, you just put whoever and can allocate your resources elsewhere and try and help create a more balanced boo line. To meet Char as the player that people think Shea Weber is.

Yes. And I say that as somebody who likes Shea Weber. Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, well, like with a guy that Carlo, I mean, if you look at his profile, I mean, you know, he only has the one season in NHL, so I don't want to put too much stock into that. But even if you look at his major junior career before that, like, you know, he had 25 points. in 63 games in his draft year and then 27 and 52 in his draft plus one year. And it's like he's defensemen who produce at that low offensive levels in Major

Junior generally don't wind up all of a sudden becoming these massive difference makers at the NHL level as a general rule of thumb. And while he could certainly be a useful sort of defensive defenseman, I think those players can tend to be overvalue a little bit. And if there's someone in the league, you know, say Colorado, just to go with this example that this listener was asking about, that thinks, you know, they have a need on Blue Line and they need young defensemen and Brandon Carlo could be one of those guys to fill that role for them and are willing to trade Matthew Shane for him. Like, Matthew Shane is that type of difference maker. And I think that that would be a no-brainer type of trade for the Boston to explore right now. Yeah.

And do you look at team situations? Like maybe that does make sense for Colorado. I'm somewhat skeptical, but Colorado is in a very different position than Boston. And trading a definite for maybe you can make that work if you're Colorado. If you're Boston, it's a no-brainer to do it the other way. Yeah. All right. Well, there's a few other questions, but let's put a pin in it here,

and we'll just save them because they're not necessarily time-sensitive ones. And I'm sure that we'll get some more questions here throughout the summer, and maybe we'll have you back on sometimes towards the end of the month. month and we can get to the rest of them. Sounds good, Dmitri. It's always a pleasure. Absolutely. Talk soon, Jonathan. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich

and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdocast.