The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 198: Super Duper Early Season Takeaways

Episode Date: October 17, 2017

Jonathan Willis joins the show to discuss early season observations, what's real and what's not, and which trends we should be keeping an eye on moving forward. 1:40 Kings making offensive changes 7:30 Senators outperforming underlying results 16:00 Canadiens strange forward deployment 23:35 Coyotes and Sabres not showing signs of improvement 38:40 The Flames defensive struggles 42:30 Worst case scenarios for the Oilers coming true 51:50 Changes to power play frequency and strategy Sponsoring today’s show is DraftKings, the leader in daily fantasy sports. To try your hand at it and play for free with your first deposit, just use the promo code PDO when you sign up. The podcast is now 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. If you’re a fan of the show and you’d like to take a second to leave a glowing rating and review for it, that’s cool too. 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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Joining me is my good buddy Jonathan Willis. Jonathan, what's going on, man? Hey, Dimitri, it's a fine early, early morning, and I'm happy to be here. Yes, it is super early, especially out here on the Pacific time zone. But you know what? The show must go on, and we're going to bang this podcast out. So I thought that it'd be a fun idea for us to devote this show to sort of going back and forth about some of the early season observations or take.

takeaways that we've come away from some of these games with. I mean, we've got to get the requisite disclaimers out of the way that we're only two weeks into the season and each team's only played five or six games. I think Carolina's actually even only played three themselves. And so obviously whenever you have a sample that small, the data is going to be all over the place. And we're still early enough in the season that a single great game or a horrible game is going to really skew things in either direction. But with that said, there's obviously some stuff we can sort of kind of sort of, kind of circle and maybe some trends that we can keep a closer eye on as the season gets going.

So I don't know. Are you cool with that? Yeah, absolutely. Okay, since you're the guest, I will let you go first. And I, as always, gave you a little homework assignment to prepare for this show. What's one thing that has really stuck out to you so far this season? I decided that one of the most interesting things to me early on has been the performance. of the Los Angeles Kings.

And I don't strictly mean their record, although the record's very good. They're 4-0-1 in their first five contests. That's not a huge shock. There are a bunch of teams that have won four out of five games that I'm kind of like, yeah. But L.A. is interesting to me because L.A. has always been this very specific type of team.

You know, this puck possession, this monstrous puck possession team that has a tremendous ability to keep the puck, but has always, you know, kind of battered it square. You know, they've never been able to generate much offensively. They've had a terrible time, in particular, creating high shooting percentages and turning a majority of their shots into scoring chances

the last few years, even in their cup winning years, this was a team that never scored on a high percentage of its shots. And that's changed, they've got five on so far. But they also have a shooting percentage of almost 11%, which is for people who don't spend a lot of time looking at the NHL shooting percentage scale, that would lead the league most years.

So that's probably not going to last. And driven mostly by that Dustin Brown on Zayko Patar line, and the Dustin Brown redemption story is a story all by itself, so that's going to be fun to watch too. But as good as that line's been, they're not getting anything from Mike Amelierry, The Jeff Carter trio is not posting, you know, anything at all almost.

And normally you'd expect that line to drive it. So there's some room for equalization here. And if it's, in fact, something that the team has changed about themselves because they were going to spend this summer, as we may, listeners may recall, they're going to spend the summer really working on creating higher quality chances. If they've managed to find a way to do that without losing their shot clock dominance, they're going to be a monstrous team. They're going to be fascinating to watch,

and I'm really curious to see to what level they can keep that up. Right. And that was a pre-season thing we discussed because, you know, this summer they were saying all the right things about how they sort of with, you know, they basically cleared house with their front office and the coaching staff. And they came in a fresh set of eyes

and they realized that, you know, they had to do something. They couldn't just keep playing the same way they had been the past few years. because while they were dominating that shot clock, it wasn't really leading to the results. They were hoping for and needed to actually make the playoffs and be successful. And, you know, they bring in John Stevens as the coach.

They hire Pierre Turgeon as their, quote, unquote, offensive coordinator. And we figured that stylistically it would have to, that's where the change would come because other than bringing in Mike Camilleria as sort of a, you know, a one-year flyer on the cheap, they didn't really actually make any major personnel changes. So I don't know. I know that Tyler Delo recently on the athletic road about how, you know, one possible theory is that, you know, they've sort of unleashed their defensemen to be more active and aggressive and jump in and the play a little bit more.

And maybe that's potentially leading to some of this. And that's certainly a, it seems like a plausible theory. But whatever the case is, you know, they're up to ninth in goals in 5-1-5. Their fifth and expected goals, which isn't that surprising. But, you know, they're off the 13th in shooting percentage, which is a net. necessarily, you know, it's not through the roof, but it is one of those things where there are over 9% now. And a league average season for them in that regard would be a very positive step and would clearly indicate some sort of structural change for them. So I agree.

I think this is something that we definitely need to keep an eye on moving forward because if this is a sustainable thing, then it really sort of limit, it really increases their upside as a team this season. Yeah, I'm glad you made the point about shooting percentage because I was just looking at score tied shooting percentage in my initial comment. And it's good to clarify that as as good as it's been in that specific situation, it hasn't actually been crazy overall, which might make this more sustainable. Well, and there's that, there's that tricky balance with a team like this where on the one hand, you know, if they had a crazy sky high shooting percentage this early on, there'd be reason

for sort of pessimism and not expecting it to continue. But at the same time with this Kings team, I kind of want to see them have a high shooting percentage. just to indicate that there's actually been some sort of change and they're following through on their plans, even if it might not be the most sustainable thing. So it's funny how our expectations for them and the perspective is so different than for pretty much every other team in the league when it comes to the shooting percentage discussion.

Yeah, and you know what? The same caveats that we would apply to anybody else usually apply. This might be nothing, but because there was such a push in the summer on this very subject, I know all. I'm tempted to give it more benefit of the doubt than I would in a normal scenario. And I have to say, you know, I've got tremendous respect for John Stevens, who has been an associate coach there for years. I thought a very good coach in Philadelphia for years.

And, you know, as much as he's fresh eyes, he's also very familiar with everybody in that organization. So if you're looking for somebody to pull off this transition, the guy who's very good, who's been there a long time, but in a subordinate role is not a bad choice. Yep, that's totally fair. Um, okay, so my, I actually had the Kings as one of mine, um, but so I'm not going to rehash that because I feel like we just covered it pretty well. Um, I want to talk a little about about the senators. Um, you know, you mentioned with the Kings there when a team wins four out of five games that doesn't necessarily mean much to you at this point of the season. You want to actually see, you want to dig a little bit deeper and see what's going on with the performance and how

legit it is and whether we can expect to continue or whether it's just a small five game sample sort of thing. And I mean, the senators haven't lost in regulation yet. You know, they're 3.0 and 2. They have a plus 10 goal differential in five games. And at the same time, you know, it's sort of a similar discussion to where we're at with them last year where, you know, I mean, they're all the way down to 30th and in Shaw's share so far at 515. There's a massive disparity between their expected goals and their actual goals. And a lot of that is driven by this PDO they have of nearly 103. And, So, you know, all that stuff would you lead you believe that this can't possibly continue? At the same time, a little bit of devil's advocate here. You know, you saw them up close, I guess, this weekend. They absolutely blasted the two Alberta teams 12-1 and back-to-back nights and looked good doing so. And I think that the fact that they're just able to keep their heads above water and bank some of these points out at Eric Carlson is something that can't be overstated

because of how important he is that team and how much he changes. our expectations for them. And the other one thing that I kind of wanted to mention here is I read what Justin Bourne wrote at The Athletic the other day. And he had a really interesting X's and O's piece on the system the senators use. And the 131 Ghi Bouchet employees versus the more conventional 112. And basically the summary, I mean, I recommend everyone reads it for themselves. But the summary that Justin concluded was that this 131 does a really good job of

sort of defending against the big play. and not allowing the senators players to get trapped up on the ice where they're going to leave themselves exposed to a rush against. And so the reason I just wanted to bring this up was because, you know, I understand why people would be a bit hesitant to buy into this stuff. It seems like a little bit of snake oil with a team that's getting lucky and we're trying to come up with reasons for why they're sort of overperforming or why their results are better than what we'd expect them to do

based on the underlying numbers. But at the same time, they've been doing this for long enough now where I feel like we need to actually have a a more in-depth conversation about them as opposed to just kind of looking at the shot share and just concluding that they're not as good as their record indicates they are.

Well, there, yeah, there's a whole conversation to be had about the senators. I'm going to start with their game against Edmonton, which was, just over the weekend here because it's super fresh in my mind. And Ottawa, if you were just looking at overall chances and shot metrics and things like that for the game, you would say that Ottawa played a terrible game. They were outshot.

They were outchanced by the Oilers. But it's one of those games where the – and I actually attract scoring chances for the game. So it wasn't just that they got outshot, but Edmonton outchance them by a few. fairly massive margin. But it was one of those things where that's misleading, because for the first 10 minutes of the game, you know, Ottawa knocked Edmonton to the ground and then just kicked them and kicked them and kicked them while they were laying there. And when you do that for 10 minutes and you jump out to a massive early lead, it doesn't really matter if the other team dominates the last 50 minutes of the game if they're, you know, they're probably still not going to score four

goals. And in this case, there was some snowball effect, and Ottawa ended up winning in a blowout. So there is an element of that, and because they've won so many games, I'm less down on them about their disappointing shot metrics than I would be otherwise. So like, when you look at a team like Buffalo and they have a terrible course that you go, well, what's their excuse? They've lost five of six games. When you look at a team like Ottawa, well, they're winning all the time. Of course they've got bad shot metrics. But there's another thing there with them, too, And this may maybe ties into the point you just made. And it's about the difference in their their coursey versus their actual shot metrics.

So if you look at their coursey, they're worst in the NHL, 42% at 5 on 5. If you look at the percentage of shots taken, their 11th in the NHL, 52%. So there's a massive disparity there. Ottawa, 61% of Ottawa's shot attempts are actually shots at net. only 41% of their opponent's shot attempts are actually shots at net. So there's a huge section there of shots that are missed and are blocked, mostly blocked, because the big jump happens between Corsi and Fenwick, and then there's a smaller jump when you look at missed shots as well.

And typically when I see that sort of thing, it's impossible to keep up that kind of disparity over a whole season. but you can create some disparity there. So partially, well, mostly maybe I'd credit it to Ottawa's defensive system, but it's the kind of thing that teams adjust for. You don't get away with doing that all year. Like nobody can maintain those percentages because other teams adjust to whatever your system is and find ways to make more of their shot attempts effective. It's something teams haven't figured out how to do against Ottawa yet,

but and and you know full credit to gibe bushey and their staff for for making it work early but uh i don't know if it's so much snake oil just as it is something that i can't imagine lasting not at those levels yes well definitely not at these levels and you know we'll see i mean we're getting eric carlson back and assuming he's healthy and firing on all cylinders eventually will elevate that performance a little bit you'd imagine and i i i agree listen i think there's still a lot of reason to be skeptical and I think that these five games alone shouldn't necessarily change our opinions by any means

but I do like having these discussions sometimes beyond like sometimes I feel like we can kind of just be a bit too simplistic with this stuff and sometimes even if you don't necessarily completely believe in it or you're not sure what the answer is sometimes having these discussions is

more important than anything else really and I'm going to be fascinated to see how the rest of the season goes for the senators because we obviously know how last year went and how they exceed their expectations. And I'm kind of curious to see whether there's going to continue being a disparity between those underlying numbers and the results. Well, and just one really quick thing, because I know I've gone on and on here,

but about last season, a lot of people are like, oh, you know, Ottawa, you, Corsi people don't know what you're talking about. Corsi is terrible because they finished, I think, 21st out of 30 teams in the NHL and Corsi. the difference between turning your shot attempts into actual shots, that can be real and sustainable. And it was one of those things that did exist last season in Ottawa. So although they were 21st in Corsi, you know, they're almost 49%. So they're basically break-even. And then you look at their shot metric, like the strictly the shots rather than the shot attempts.

They were over 50% by shot attempts, like just barely. But they gained a percentage point in the transition there. So they weren't that bad to begin with by the shot metrics. but they were just sort of middle of the pack, and then they're slightly above middle of the pack when you go to strictly shots. So the bigger thing with them has always been that they win these incredibly close games,

and what they're doing this year is different than what they were doing last year. Like there's elements of it that are the same, but it's a different concern. Yeah, I mean, I think for them, if they do with getting Carlson back in the lineup, and they do eventually get back to that sort of 49, percent to 50 percent middle of the pack area and they still continue to get really good

goaltending from Craig Anderson and Mike on and then you know that's a there's a recipe for being a pretty successful team I don't know if it's necessarily a recipe for for being a team that comes within one goal of making the Stanley Cup final again but they're going to be competitive at the very least so they have that going for them all right let's let's move on what's your what's your second observation this season um okay let's pick on I've got a few here and I'm just trying to to figure out which flows naturally from Ottawa. Let's look at Montreal. And specifically in Montreal, I'm less concerned about sort of the early results, although I know they kind of flow out of a difficult

preseason, so maybe there's more to them. Maybe not. But the usage of their forwards has been just fascinating to me. So if you think about Montreal's forward lineup, just as somebody who's not, you know, like a day-to-day Canadians fanatic. And I tell you, Alex Galcenaic, Paul Byron, and Alice Hemsky, those three names, where would you figure they'd rank on a list of the teams, 12 forwards, by even strength ice time? Just from your tone and the way you set this up, I'm going to say significantly higher than I would expect. Oh, I was going to say significantly lower. But they got those rank of their 12 most used forwards, Galchampton.

Kenyuk, Byron, and Hemsky ranked 9th, 10th, and 12th in even-strength ice time per game. Hempski's playing less than eight minutes per game at even strength. Gell-Chen-Yuck just got bumped down to Alex Hemsky's line. He hasn't played at center at all. Hey, sir, that's Tori Mitchell's line to you. Yes, my apologies. Do you respect Tori Mitchell? It was a great San Jose shark for years.

But anyway, but the thing is, those are guys. who, you know, Hemsky was specifically brought in to contribute an element of skill on the cheap, something that they, not that I don't think anybody expected him to replace Alex Rajulov, but to bring some of the things. And, you know, Galcenaic, the team's obviously been down on him, but he's been an important player from Montreal in recent years, and he's obviously still should be considered a somewhat important player in terms of their future. And Paul Byron had a big year. all of those guys have been sidelined by by claude julienne and that's just fascinating to me and i'm curious to see if it continues because unlike results in the early going sometimes you can just take coaching usage to the bank when when like

julian had a chance to look at these guys in the back half of last year with the exception of hemsky and the fact that they're starting out so low in the lineup suggests that perhaps none of them fit into his long-term vision for the team. Yes. Well, and one of those things is not like the other, right? Because as productive as Paul Byron was last year, I don't know anyone necessarily expected him to score that many goals again. I think the Gail Charniak thing is much more fascinating to me because,

you know, whenever a young, talented player struggles, there's going to be two. be two sort of divisive camps. There's going to be the ones who are still believing in him and especially sort of, you know, fans of other teams, they kind of start circling like, like sharks with blood in the water where they just start, you know, licking their lips envisioning their team, buying low on this guy and bringing him in and him blossoming and sort of realizing all his potential on their team. And then you've got the sort of kind of critical fans of the team who believe that the coach is benching him for a very legitimate reason and you know the player is just

not trying hard enough and there's all these character and attitude issues and i generally side with the you know the talent winning out and it just seems insane to me that gel chenegh is being used like this based on what he can contribute and what this team needs right now because they have you know they've been generating a lot of shots and they look good in in a lot of the underlying numbers and look like they've been very, you know, unfortunate so far. But at the same time, you do need to actually start converting some of those shots into goals. And Galcenaic has the requisite talent and ability to help make that happen. And it just seems weird that they're using him the way they are considering what's going on with a team right now in terms of the results.

Yeah, Galcenaic's definitely the guy who sticks out. Like, you know, Hemsky's getting power play time and he's at the point in his career where you kind of expect whatever. You already raise the points with Byron, but Alchenyuk's the really interesting one. And he's not being sheltered to the same degree as he has been in recent years. Like, Galchenyuk's always sort of been a poster boy for the guy who gets those results, but more as an offensive specialist than as a real two-way guy.

And I'm really curious to see if this is, because you could interpret it differently than, you know, the coach, just hating him for whatever reason. You could interpret it as the coach saying, no, this guy, we're not going to be a team that gives a guy two-thirds of his starts in the offensive zone. We need more than that from Galgenyuk, and he's young enough to learn. And maybe that's what they're going for.

And they want to start him off in lesser situations and then work him back up the lineup as he shows he can handle them. Yeah. I guess that's the most charitable interpretation. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, these things can definitely go south pretty quickly, so you hope that they figure that out before they yo-yo and a bit too much around the lineup.

Jonathan, let's take a little break here to hear from a sponsor, and we'll pick up this conversation on another thing. We'll get back to the conversation with Jonathan Willis in just a minute here. But before we do, let's talk a little bit about draftings, the leader in daily fantasy sports. Here in the PDO guests, we don't necessarily get into fantasy hockey talk that often, at least not directly, because that's ultimately not what the show is about. We leave that to shows out there that specialize in that particular field, like Keeping Carlson.

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to get started and eligibility restrictions apply but you can go to draftkings.com and read up on all those details for yourself now let's hear the rest of the conversation with jonathan willis okay um so here's my second observation and this is going to be uh a very sort of a niche uh one because it's about the buffalo sabers and arizona coyotes and uh i think they aren't really on the forefront of a too many hockey discussion and I feel like fans, other than fans of those teams, of course, don't typically think about them that much on a daily basis. But I know that they sort of, on the one hand, it shouldn't be that surprising because they have this, you know, annually reserved spot as bottom feeders in the league over the past handful of years. But, you know, I think there was reason to be cautiously optimistic about both these teams after the summers they had and the moves they made in particular, just, you know, going out and adding a bunch of actual NHL players and filling out their lineups and looking like.

like they'd be at the very least more competent. And, you know, for the coyotes, they're 04 and 1, and they have a minus 11 goal differential in those five games they've played. And it's been really ugly throughout. I mean, they blew a 4-1 opening night lead to the ducks who are very depleted and decimated themselves. They've lost twice to Vegas, including just like a really unforgivably bad showing in Vegas's home opener where they were down for nothing about 10 or 11 minutes.

And, you know, they played so poorly on Saturday night against the Bruins that Rick Tock had publicly apologized to their fans. So not a lot's going right with the coyotes right now. I guess, you know, the one silver lining would be that they're actually hovering around 50% in both shot share and expected goals. And it seems like they've probably played better than they've actually gotten credit for so far. And maybe once those percentages normalize a bit, they'll wind up looking better and having some wins to show for it. But it's been really ugly and disappointing throughout. So, I don't know, let's talk about the coyotes first before we get into the Sabres. I don't know.

Like, what were your, you had slightly heightened expectations for them based on years past heading into the season, right? I mean, it was hard not to just based on the additions they made. Oh, yeah. Look, anytime you can add Nicholas Jalmersen and Derek Stepan and Jason Demerz in a single off season without really subtracting too much from your present, you have to think you're going to get a bump. And so far, that just has not happened in Arizona. I don't know. I have to confess, you know, I haven't watched a whole lot of Arizona season so far.

I've been really interested to see them, but I just haven't had the opportunity yet. So I can't comment on this as intelligently as I would have liked. But, man, I, you know, this is just the worst possible start. And the problem with them is they get no benefit of the doubt at all, right? Like if you're San Jose and you start this way, people are probably willing to say, well, you know, let's hold off. Let's wait and see what they can do. There's an established track record here. When you're Arizona and your default track record is you're terrible and you start this badly,

sometimes it can just snowball and go totally off the rails. So I'm really curious to see what direction they go. their underlying numbers are not that bad, but they're not that good either considering how much of the time they've been playing trying to come from behind. So I don't know. I'd like to think that Louis Domingue cannot be worse than he has been,

and there's still some upside with this team, but they're in such an early hole and given their past track record, it's hard to cut them any benefit of the doubt at all. Right. Yeah, they seem like one of those teams that, you know, all 82 games are in theory worth the same. And at the same time, they seem like one of those teams that definitely would have benefited quite a bit from getting off to at least decent start early on just to instill a little bit of confidence in them. But, yeah, it's been pretty tough so far.

As for the Sabres, I mean, they actually have a win so far this season. But, oh, boy. So they're a league worst, 44% coursey team. They're a league worst 38% expected goals team at 5-1-5. And here's my favorite stat. So on Sunday evening, they played their sixth game of the season. And in that game, they finally scored their first two goals at 5-1-5 without Jack Eichael on the ice. And for the year, they've played just under 280 minutes.

I have 5-15 as a team, and they have nine goals total in that time. Jack Eichol's been on the ice for seven of those goals, and he's played in 85 minutes or so. So it's basically like, you know, 200 unaccounted minutes for there where they just haven't done anything and have looked horribly listless offensively whenever Eichael hasn't been on the ice. And that's a, it's a big time problem. I mean, you know, they didn't have the, they didn't have the moves that the coyotes had in terms of, you know, the star power or the big. names but I really like their summer from just you know taking a lot of calculated risks and bringing in a couple of defensemen to replace massive liabilities they had on the back end last year and you know they made some really smart moves and they just haven't really had anything to show for it so

far and you know for years now ever since they really stopped tanking we've been kind of waiting for the sabers to progressively you know take steps in the right direction and finally we realize this potential and it just seems like it's it's it's really not happening and i don't know i think you know there's a case to be made that they've been like just the worst team this year to watch i guess maybe this side of the canucks it's it's been really bad in buffalo yeah and it's funny because there's so much that i want to like in buffalo um i obviously i love jack like how do you not right but you look at that second line that they've got with o'reilly cane and moulson that's and canes have had a had a really strong

start to the year. O'Reilly's always been on my sort of, you know, all underrated team. And then they've got Sam Reinhardt on, like a third line sort of led by Sam Reinhart. And you think there are some pieces in place there. When I look at the savers, the thing I wonder about is their defense. And as much as they made positive changes this offseason and their defense really couldn't have been worse than it was, it's still so sketchy. I've never been a big Marco Scandella guy.

Ristelinen is, I don't know what the word is for Ristelainen. I think we need, I think we need like a full podcast to get it. Yeah, I'll leave it alone. I just, when I look at their defense, I'm not that shocked that they've struggled to the degree that they have. But there is a lot to like about them. And you just, oh, man, I guess it's just one of those things that shows when you get into one of these deep holes, how difficult it is to dig yourself out even when you do have Jack Eichel. Yeah.

Yeah. oh boy there's a there's a lot to be scratching your head about it in Buffalo right now so yeah I just I don't know I was I was cautiously optimistic on both those teams and I've been very underwhelmed so far I disappointed and I that's why I've been one of my takeaways um what uh what else you got on your list well I've got a little sub point which will fit in nicely with what we just

discussed and it's an Arizona related thing Dylan Strom So the top four picks in the 2015 draft were McDavid, Eichael, who we just discussed, and then Mitch Marner at fourth overall. The third overall pick that year was Strom. He got two games in the NHL. He had terrible underlying numbers. He was assigned to the American League. He did get two points in his first game there, but Arizona is just in miserable shape right now,

and the fact that they're sending their 2015 third overall pick who has been given plenty of time for a guy drafted in that position. The fact they're sending him to the minors has to be deeply concerning, I would think. Yes. You know, the thing with Dylan Strohm has always been and still remains questions about his skating. And while in the past, I think we, you know, that would have been something that sort of would have been a bit of a nail in the coffin and we would have just completely ridden him off. We've seen over the past number of years various prospects. significantly improve their skating ability in these sort of formative late teens, early,

early 20s years. And so, you know, with that amount of talent and that pedigree, you'd like to, you know, keep the door wide open and, you know, believe that eventually it'll come together for him. And he maybe he might not realize all that potential that he had and how highly he was talked about. But he'll be a productive player at the very least that they'll get some sort of value out of. But, yeah, it's bizarre, especially considering. I mean, listen, they do have some young talent in Arizona that they are featuring.

I mean, Clayton Keller looks awesome at the very least. And, you know, Brendan Perlini looked good before he got injured. And they have a few other guys. So it's not like they're just completely going, playing veterans instead of their young players. But it seems a bit weird that they wouldn't just give Dylan Strome at this point, just a regular spot in the lineup and just tell them to kind of, you know, work out the problems on the fly and see what he can do with the NHL level because, it's about time that he starts kind of showing us what he has right now.

Well, that's almost what makes it more damning is the fact that they are playing other young guys. The fact that they're willing to accept the mistakes that come with their game because of the perceived upside, but they aren't willing to do that with Strom is not a good sign. All right, give me, give me another observation. That was, I feel like that wasn't even a point of its own. That was, that was you just adding to my Arizona Coyote's point. Okay, okay. Here's a different observation in the same kind of vein.

Late 2017 draftees getting a great big push early in their careers. And I'm thinking specifically of Kyler Yamamoto and Philip Shytil in New York. Those guys were drafted 21st and 22nd overall last season. Very rare for a first round pick chosen at that point to make the jump. Yamamoto's got kind of a unique shot in Edmonton right now with Leon Dron. Cicidal having concussion like syndromes, whatever that means. I'm reading to that as you will. But Yamamoto is on the McDavid line right now.

He is an older draft pick, which gives him kind of a better shot. He was born in September 98, whereas Shytil was actually born in September 99. So the sort of the two opposite ends of the draft year. But Yamamoto's interesting to me, because I thought he was a draft day steal. He's an undersized guy who is, you know, based on his production levels, always been would have gone, you know, if he'd been six foot two in post of those numbers, he almost certainly would have been a top ten picks. So maybe there's a case of the Oilers got value there, although there's

a whole debate about whether or not it's good idea to keep him with the team. Shytale is actually more interesting to me right now because if, like Yamamoto's in that nine-game cameo window, and if he gets sent down, he's gone for the year, and it wouldn't be a big surprise if he did get sent down after playing nine games. Whereas Shightil, you know, he's already been demoted to the American League, but his early results there have been tremendous, and he can come back. So it's a different situation, and he might actually have more staying power, which to me is

amazing, given that he is, you know, just barely 18, and he's already pushing. So what I'm curious about with these two guys is sometimes you see guys get a push early and then fail to live up to it. Michael Delzotto is maybe a good example of that. But sometimes a guy gets a push early, and, you know, he's the next David Pasternak. He's just the guy who got, for whatever reason, really underrated in his draft year. So those two guys, I think the arrows are way up on them in the early season, and I think it's going to bear watching to see what they can do the rest of the way. Yeah, well, especially with Yamamoto, I mean, the cynical part of me was like, oh, God,

here, here we go again, where he played like six minutes in his debut, and then they benched him against Vancouver in the following day, and I was like, oh, well, now he's just going to, like, the Islanders were doing this with a guy like Beauvais or even Barzal last year where, you know, you make these headlines with this top prospect, surprisingly making the team out of camp, and then he plays, like, you know, a couple of minutes, and then all of a sudden he's up in the press box,

and you're not really using him, and then you're wondering why he's even up with the team if you're not going to play him. And, you know, then to their credit, they brought him back in the lineup, and he actually played 18 and a half minutes or so against Ottawa in that game. And he'd look,

like, you know, Edmonton's pretty, I thought he was one of their best players of not the best, and he seemed to be buzzing around the pocket and creating chances all night, and you saw some of that talent and speed that it's been publicized of his. And so, yeah, I thought that was a very, very positive development and encouraging, and I hope that that that continues and that the next time he makes a mistake, he's not all of a sudden getting benched again. But I know, I feel like you actually retweeted an article, sorry, I forget what publication was on or who wrote it.

or it might have just been a quote from an interview, but I thought Todd McClellan made a really astute point about sort of having Yamamoto not necessarily play conservative, but more so pick his spots and view the risk-reward component of things when he will go for stuff as opposed to just playing recklessly. But at the same time, he wants him to play his game because with talented guys, you can't just, you know, you can't completely just rein him in.

You've got to let them do the thing. Yeah, the McClellan comment was fascinating to me because he said he doesn't want him to play. I think he was asked whether he wanted them to play safe, and he said, you know, I don't want him to play safe. I want him to play smart. And then he kind of differentiated that, you know, some young players, they play too risky,

and they start gambling, and you can't have that. And then other guys go into a conservative shell and they don't produce, and you can't have that. And the trick was to thread the needle and, yeah, and do those things. But it's interesting, it's particularly interesting in Edmonton because of, yes, he plays, Plyarvy

getting devoted to the American League and, you know, like a year ago, he was in the same position as, as Vuvillier and the guys in the Islanders, he mentioned, a guy who was with the team not playing a lot, and you kind of wondered why he was there. So I think Yamamoto's been used differently

than Pilly RV was a year ago. And like Pilly Ravie was expected to make the team and then, you know, did, but didn't get the minutes and then got sent down and it was a whole thing. Whereas Yamamoto really pushed is way into this spot. I think it's a very different situation. Yep, I buy that. Yeah, so, I mean, one of my observations here, and I guess since we're talking

about Edmonton, we'll continue with it. It wasn't necessarily as much of an observation as it was sort of an open-ended question for us to discuss, and it's, you know, what do we make of the start of the season for the two Alberta teams? And I'm lumping them together, obviously, because of their geographical proximity, but, you know, they've had different starts a year. But I think with Calgary, it's been fascinating because they've been winning games, but they haven't looked very good doing so except for these short bursts. And in particular defensively, I don't know, I don't really know what they're doing other than like my working theory right now is they want to make Mike Smith feel at home

and make him feel like he's still in Arizona because the, you know, the play in front of him has left a lot to be desired and it was one of those things we're heading into the season the debate about Mike Smith and I know that you wrote about him on sports net was it was kind of a bit tougher to just evaluate him on the surface and his performance in Arizona because everything around him was so poor and just the volume and the quality of chances they were giving up kind of you know through a wrench in things and so you expected that coming to Calgary playing for a better team a more defensively responsible one that that would change and his workload would lighten and here we are and it seems like they're

giving up 40 shots a night basically in front of him and he's he's been you know spectacular so far but it's obviously not a recipe for success if they keep on relying on him to have to do that and bail them out and i'm just wondering i don't know have you noticed anything with them that is it just a you know a five six game aberration and the shots have been piling up but they're actually not that bad or is it something kind of systemic that we have to worry about a little bit moving forward. Well, in fairness to Calgary, I think we have to mention that as much as they've given up, you know, a zillion shots, they're also shooting quite a lot, too.

Like the ratio between shots for and against is not as terrible as it could be because they're playing track meet games early. Yeah, so you think it's just a pace thing sort of? Well, I don't know if I'd go that far. I think if I was Glenn Glutson, I'd be pretty upset with the way things have gone early on. The good news is, and, you know, I actually had this on my list, is that Mike Smith has, has been very good through the small sample, and he didn't look very good in the preseason.

So that's something that Calgary had reason to be concerned about, but has gone really well. When I look at the flames, one of the things that really does concern me is, I don't know if they've buttoned down that second pairing to the degree that they, thought they had. Like, I'm not worried about Dougie Hamilton and Mark Giordano. Those guys were great last year. They've been really good early, I think. The guy I am worried, the pairing I am worried about is that Travis Hamannick,

T.J. Brody, you know, supposed shut down defensive tandem. When you look at which players are allowing all of these shots, like Brody and Hamannick are getting their heads kicked, and they're really struggling. And this is the second year in a row for Hamannick. I was a fan of the move that brought him in because of his long-term track record, but he had a terrible season last year, and this season is starting the same way. So when I look at him, I think, you know, there's legitimate reason to be concerned there.

Other than that, you know, when I look at the forwards, there are some weaker points. Troy Brower is an obvious one. Tanner Glass, we should pick on just because he's Tanner Glass and he's still in the league. But, yeah, I think the biggest thing to me is just that second. comparing. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. With the Edmonton side of things, you know, it's obviously concerning how they looked in the last time we saw them. And Leon Dre Seidel is now on IR and Camtabot's has been pulled twice and everything seems to be going horribly wrong. But then, you know, you look at all the numbers and it suggests that, I mean, I think they're shooting like under 5% still as a team at 5-15,

which obviously will not continue. And one, that elevates back to what we'd expected to. The goals will start coming and Cam Talbot while I think the season he had last year it might, it might not be fair to expect him to be able to replicate that again, especially in terms of workload. He's obviously not going to keep getting pulled every night and giving up four or five goals against, so he'll be fine. So I don't know, it's just one of those things where if this was happening in the middle

of the season, we wouldn't be really buying too much into it, but because it's the only sample we have so far, everyone is just freaking out. about it? It's a little bit of both things. I think it's easier to freak out in Edmonton just because of their history. But I'll give you two stats. And to me, this is kind of, if you break this down to an individual level, this is where it really, it kind of shows why not to panic yet.

Connor McDavid's C-4 percentage this year is 66%, which, you know, is a bit on the high side, but not a little bit outlandishly. guess, but his, his P. But it is Connor McDavid. Yes. But his, his PDO is 87. So, you know, that's, that's not the kind of thing that lasts. Yeah, but Jonathan, is it because does, does Connor McDavid have the requisite talent to shoot at a league, at a league average percentage?

Or do you think that he's a bit of an offensive black hole? You know, that's a good question. Like, this is still a young player. There's so much we don't know to, too. You have to ask the question. Well, and as a former GM in Edmonton said, you know, if you ask the question, you know the answer. No, there's a lot of funny things going on with Edmonton. I don't want to be one of those guys who say, well, hold on here, people, everything's fine,

because I don't think everything is. Their bottom six is a bit of a mess. The coach has taken this top-heavy approach. When he had dry-siddle, he had him on the McDavid line. he's got a suspect back end because Andre Secker is out and Sechra was the backbone of the second pairing last year and what he's done on the back end is keep Adam Larson and Oscar Cleftbaum together which gives it sort of a top heavy orientation which is what he has up front to and when you have depth issues which the Oilers do have that makes things worse because you don't have any kind of talent spread throughout the lineup it's not what Pittsburgh and Chicago do to compensate for there occasional lack of depth issues and you wonder if it's the right approach. So there are real

problems in Edmonton and, you know, with dry-siddle being hurt and Talbot's struggling a little bit. Talbot does not have a huge track record as a starter either, which I think needs to be pointed out. But for all these problems, yeah, I've got to think things turn around in Edmonton. Well, and heading into the season, you know, the Edmonton Oilers were considered to be one of the cup, you know, the cup favorites in terms of the odds and people were very high on them expecting that after last year they'd continue on this natural upward trajectory and the ceiling was the limit and, you know, you know, there was. I feel like, hang, I feel like there was somebody specifically who was very high on them and you were just aghast when you

talked to him. He had the Oilers like crazy high in a preseason power ranking and you were kind of like, oh, that's a bad idea. I don't remember who that was though. To be fair to Jonathan Willis. That discussion was more so about the assets in place and moving forward in the future as opposed to just for this season. But my sort of, you know, my pushback against kind of, you know, pressing on the brakes a little bit here with the Oilers hype was, one was obviously the Talbot situation and just how much they relied on them last year and my concerns about that continuing again this year.

And the other was, they were one of the most fortunate teams with injuries last year and we're already seeing, you know, when you, Sekira was going to be out. since the playoffs but you know and dry sidles out now and and this stuff just happens like the the NHL is a league of attrition and as the year goes along injuries tend to happen and you you know being on the ice is a is a skill I believe but at the same time sometimes it's out of your own hands and and these things do happen and now they're going to have to uh to figure it out on the fly without being at full health and all of a sudden that becomes more of an uphill battle and we'll see if they're going to be able to do it but it's all of the worst fears about

this team are sort of coming to fruition here early on, and that's a bit of an unsettling feeling. Yeah, and we talked a little bit about this with Arizona, but there's always the potential for things to snowball, right? I hate getting into it because it's one of those things that you can't prove, and when you can't prove it, you don't want to be spinning a story that isn't actually there. but the Oilers, because they have a lot of players who have been on bad teams and because they have sort of a subpar history prior to last season, when they get off to this bad start and then injuries come in and you feel sometimes like a ball gets rolling and it's hard to arrest it. And, you know, injury, like the point about injuries cannot be stressed enough how lucky they were last year and it was one of the things that allowed them to get by. with their sort of depth problems that have always been in existence. And they traded Jordan Eberle for in a salary dump move for Ryan Strom last year. And that further damage their ability to handle this sort of thing.

So to me there is a slight concern that once they start down this path, you know, get a couple of critical injuries there and it might be very hard to stop. Yeah, no, I completely agree with that. Um, whose turn is it? Is it my turn or your turn to, uh, come up with that? Well, you, you just, uh, I brought up the Oilers and the flames and you sort of stole my fifth point from, from Calgary there. Uh, but fortunately I was prepared for you to steal my points and I had a backup plan. Oh, there we go.

The Vancouver Canucks. I know a team near and dear to your heart. Yes. Uh, I have been less fascinated by the results than I have been. By the way, Travis Green has, has run his bench. Brock Bessor is probably a whole conversation all by himself there. But what's really interesting to me is sort of this by-committee approach that the Canucks have taken, where Bo Harvat does a little bit of everything.

But Brandon Sutter plays a ton in games where the Canucks are defending, and the Cedine Twins play a bunch in games where they're trailing. I'm really curious to see if that can go all season. Because Vancouver doesn't have the top-end talent. I think most people would agree doesn't have the top-end talent to to really drive results. And Green's approach has been to have sort of three specialized lines that can do specific tasks. I'm really curious to see if he can stick with that all year and whether the guys that he has in those tasks can perform.

Like, can the Siddings be effective as offensive specialists? Can Sutter be effective as a shutdown specialist? And you'll get a mix of reaction to both of those questions. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm really curious to. see the results and I think it's it's the most rational approach to the lineup that he has at his disposal. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, listen, you, uh, you laid everything out there. I honestly, I don't, I don't have anything to add. It's, uh, it's, it's going to be a, uh, it's going to be a long season of Vancouver. I'll just leave it at that. yeah but it's it's i i don't know what more green can do in that position yeah his hands are tied a little bit yeah but yeah it's it you can't imagine it ending well but it's uh it's it's a good

strategy and i'm curious to see how it plays out yeah and you know for in for greens in in greens uh you just hope for him and for his sake that the team is going to give him uh enough of a leash here to endure some of these growing pains in these losses because, you know, in theory, it's easy to say, oh, we have this new young coach and we're going to give them time to see this thing through. But then once the losses start piling up in bunches, all of a sudden, teams can quickly change plans and overreact and try to make some sort of changes just to save face a little bit with their fans. So you hope that he's actually going to be able to see this thing through and last behind the bench for a few years because based on the personnel they've given to them right now, there's only so much. much you can do. It's picking like the lesser of two evils, basically. Well, the other thing in that situation that I'd add just real quickly is a lot of times teams in the conduct shoes end up changing their management team. And when that happens,

sometimes the coach gets thrown out with the bathwater, right? Yep, that's true. Okay, here's my final observation. And this is more of a league-wide thing. But power plays are up this year and pretty much entirely due to the fact that the league is hammering down on anything resembling a slash that of hands. And we know that teams are using the four forward one defenseman set at an all-time high. I believe last year was around 60% of the time league-wide, and this year it's all the way up to three-quarters of the time or so. So it's quite a bit of a bump.

And we know that when teams do so, they generate a lot more offense, both in terms of shot attempts and shots and goals and chances and everything. So one thing that's caught my eye, though, is we know the benefits of, you know the benefits of passing the puck out from behind the net and how it can, you know, sort of theoretically, it makes sense where intuitively if you're passing the puck from behind the net, the, you know, the goalie and the defensemen are off balance and they can't react quickly enough and that leads to some great scoring chances for you. But we also know that through the work of people like Ryan Stimson, that we can actually kind of quantify that now. But it seems like teams have been

taking it a step further and I've noticed this, you know, it's been sprinkled in here and there. It's obviously not a full-time thing, but I think as teams start watching more tape on each other and realizing what they're doing, I think we're going to see more of it. And that's sort of this, you know, you see it in the KHL international hockey a lot more too, where teams are keeping two forwards behind the net now sometimes and sort of passing it back and forth. And occasionally the opposing penalty killers get sloppy and one of them goes puck chasing behind the net and all of a sudden you have wide open space in the slot and it's led to some really nice looking goals. and I think this is something we're going to continue seeing moving forward. So I just wanted to, I know listeners like obviously when we talk about numbers, but also when we point out stuff we've seen and noticed while we're watching these games for them to keep a track of themselves when they do watch likewise.

So that's something that I've been noticed. And I'd like to see that continue because it's, you know, we rag on the league a lot for being sort of overly conservative and not willing to try new stuff. So I wanted to give teams a little bit of credit now that they are experimenting and getting a bit more creative with their, with their offenses. yeah Tyler O'Dello's been hammering the four forward one defense

I know he's not the only one but he's been hammering it for a while he just had a great piece I think last night on that subject about it being sort of embraced league-wide whenever we end up talking about sort of the minutia of power play deployment I think back to a

conversation I had with Todd Nelson when he was the Oilers Farm Team coach one of the things he pointed out to me back then the 131 was sort of the innovation that everybody was using and the point he made to me was that you know none of this stuff is new like if you go back to Montreal in the 70s Montreal was using the one three one power play alignment and it's one of those things that fell out of fashion and then then came back into fashion and these little tweaks I think what we have now that we we didn't have before is that as coaches experimented,

there's increasingly data to back them up on it. So we look at these little coaching maneuvers, but you can actually measure the impact in ways the teams 40 years ago couldn't. The four-forward one defenseman powerplay alignment's a great example of that. I'm curious if we actually see a five-forward power play at some point in the NHL because that conversation with Nelson stemmed out of the whole idea of having a five-forward power play, which was something that he deployed successfully in the miners and something that Dallas Akins had tried in Edmonton at one point.

So I feel like one of the big changes in the league is just this ability to really quantify everything that's happening. And so when teams experiment and go to these formations, rather than just moving past them when they stop working, they can kind of look at exactly how they're working and how those trends change even when the goals don't necessarily come immediately. And so that just reinforces them keeping them in the system. So it's kind of a neat one of those neat places where statistics and analytics and coaching savvy and got feel intersect and can result in some pretty cool things. Yeah, the thing it's always irritating and maybe about watching certain power plays is like

At its essence, you know, at 5-15 hockey, the thing that makes it so special is sort of how free-flowing it is and all this movement and unpredictability. And then a team goes on the power play and they just have, you know, three forwards to defensemen and they're all just super stationary in their spots that their coach told them to stand in. And nothing is really happening. And it's super easy to defend because the defense doesn't really need to move. They can just stand in the shooting lanes and block shots. So whenever we see these new formations in teams trying to get a bit creative and push to envelope, I'm all for it. even if the results don't come initially. In terms of the five forwards, I'd love to see it.

You know, I've mentioned this before, but the other day we saw Tampa go with four forwards on a four-on-three power play in overtime and they won it against Pittsburgh. You know, with this stuff, it always comes down to that risk-reward balance and opportunity cost and sort of, like we know that with four-forwards, one defenseman,

you're going to give up more coming the other way for the short-handed unit. and you just live with it because on the other end you're creating so much more yourself so it's worth it i do wonder if you might reach uh you know a certain kind of tipping point where if you do use five forward potentially what you're giving up becomes you know too much based on what you're generating yourself and maybe it's not worth it but we haven't really seen it enough um to know that for sure and the only way we're going to find out is if someone does it and that's that's why i'd love to see some of these teams that aren't going anywhere this season, try some of this stuff,

but I do understand why you might not want to do that, just, you know, especially if you actually think it would work, maybe you don't want to show your hand when it's not really worth it. So, because we do know that if it starts working, all of a sudden, other teams are going to start incorporating themselves, and then you lose a little bit of that competitive advantage. So that's a fascinating thing to consider as well. Yeah, and it's a, it's sort of a necessity is the mother invention thing, right? Like if you're a team that doesn't really have a defenseman who makes sense on the power play, maybe you're more likely to go to that five-forward alignment. If you've experimented with it in the American League or even at a lower level, potentially,

it's a lot easier to go to at a higher level. And it's a lot easier to experiment with stuff if you're a farm team coach than it is when you're a national hockey league coach, just because not only are you not going to get hammered if the results aren't there, but a lot of times necessity is more of a factor because not only do you have all the injuries and stuff that the NHL teams deals with, but you have your own injuries and the call-ups to go to the NHL. So a lot of times you end up with a much less balanced roster at the minor league level, and that drives some of this innovation. What I think is interesting is just the idea that when we see these innovations,

maybe they become the standard because teams are looking into the data more than they were. Yep. Yeah, I completely agreed. Yeah, I'd love to see HL teams actually try some of this stuff more often as opposed to just playing a bunch of, you know, old veterans on their last legs. Like, I've always been fascinated to see how a penalty kill with three forwards would look if you were just playing a, like a super aggressive, frantic, just trying to jump into passing lanes and use your stick and cause havoc as opposed to sitting back with a more traditional two defensemen set where you're just trying to jump into passing lanes and use your stick and cause havoc as opposed to sitting back with a more traditional two defensemen set where you're. just hoping to block shots instead. So, you know, it might not work, but there might be something to it. And at the HL level, you obviously don't want a coach to lose his job just because he's

trying this stuff and it's not working out. But if he has support from the organization, then it sort of opens up the door to get creative and gives him license, it gives him some freedom to actually try the stuff. Yeah, that sound you heard was the rattling of my headphones. Chill ran down my spine at the thought of a three-forward penalty kill unit. but I could see a situation where you might do it is if you're trailing by a single goal late in a game and you go on the penalty kill. Maybe that's something that you've worked on and you have it in your bag of coaching tricks more so than as a mainstay. Because that's the other thing is with game state is the risk-reward balance changes.

And the same thing applies to the five-forward power play. You know, when you're trailing by one goal late in a game, being more aggressive in those situations, even if you give out more is potentially the right play. Absolutely. All right, Jonathan, I think we've covered everything we wanted to here. What do you working on these days? Is there anything you want to plug? Yeah, I've got a piece coming up for Sportsnet on the Winnipeg Jets.

So that'll be fun kind of digging into their early work. And, you know, whether Paul Maurice is doing the right things, which is always a fun discussion. and then some stuff for the athletic on the on the on the Edmonton oilers about the early start and about the absence of Leon dry sidle and all the cute little ripple effect that that has on the lineup excellent well I definitely recommend checking both those things out and subscribing to the athletic to read the fine work of yourself and Tyler Delo and Justin Borne and all the other stuff we've mentioned in the show and I'm sure I have no doubt that people will be hearing your voice on the PDO cast sometime in any of your future here so I'm looking forward to as well. Well, it's always fun, and especially when, uh, when I, I, I think you

only stole one of my ideas today. So I think I only stole one of years. Yes, this was tremendous. Yeah, that was good. Um, that was fun. Let's, uh, let's, let's pick this conversation back up in a couple weeks when we have, uh, a bit more of a sample to work with and we can see where we went wrong, and where we went right, and what new trends we've noticed. Sounds great to me. All right. All right. Chat soon. and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud.com slash HockeyPedioCast.