The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 216: The Return of The King

Episode Date: January 11, 2018

Nick Mercadante joins the show to discuss the New York Rangers and how Alain Vigneault has misused Pavel Buchnevich (4:18), Henrik Lundqvist's return to form after a down season (19:45), the trend of poaching someone else's backup goalie to be your own starter (33:45), and potential solutions for the Islanders (47:15). 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.

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Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Demetri Philipovich, and joining me as our good, good go-to-goaltending buddy, Nick Mercadante. Nick, what's going on, man? Oh, hi, Dimitri. How are you? I'm good. That was a very sinister response by you. I felt like it was a devious a bit.

Oh, you didn't see the disaster artist, did you? I did. Oh, oh, that's a huge... I didn't pick up on, oh, have I seen the disaster artist? I've seen it once already and I'm planning on seeing it again. Honestly, man, the room is near and dear to my heart. I think I've watched at least like 20 times. Oh, that's... Oh, okay. That's beautiful. Yeah, the room is moved for me. It used to be like, oh, this is the worst movie ever created to now I actually enjoy watching it. Like, it's an enjoyable watch for me. Have you ever listened to the How Did This Get Made podcast? Yes. Yeah. So they have a special episode of that with the guy that plays Mark, Greg Sestero. And it's, uh, really? It's pretty freaking hilarious, man.

He, uh, because he actually dishes, this is obviously this happened before he, he wrote his book and disaster artist came out. So if you see the movie, it's sort of, you kind of pick up on that. But it's pretty funny. He provides all this like behind the access, behind the scenes, um, access for like random Tommy Weizzo things. and it's pretty comical. That's fantastic. Yeah, I got to check that out.

I like, I like cringe comedy and like cringe stuff that other people are like, I can't even watch that. That's just like so bad. I can't stand it. And I think I've always liked that. So the room is just the ultimate for that. If you're into watching something where you're like, this is making me hurt.

I honestly, like, I'm not. even like that. Like I, when something's too cringe-worthy, I have to, like, pause it sometimes and go for, like, a little walk around the apartment. Yeah, you got to walk away, right. Like, when I was watching, have you seen The In-Betweeners? Yes, I have. Yeah, so, like, the In-Betweeners was, like, very borderline for me. There'd be, like, certain scenes and episodes where I'd have to just pause it and go get a glass of water and take a little break just because it was, like, too much, and I'd have to pick it back up. But the room, like, transcended all of that. I thought it was pure comedic, in the most unintentional possible way, genius. So,

I highly recommend checking that out. And Nick, you know why you're a regular on the show? Because we just spent a couple minutes talking about the room. And I know that I've had people say that, you know, the Hockey P.D.O cast is so different than other shows because you really just get right down to business right away. But this will not be one of those episodes. I apologize. Look, it was either that or we talk about turtlenex.

So I don't know. There's still a lot of time left in the show. So that's all I'm saying. Yes. Yeah, I haven't, I'm stalling a bit because I haven't really done a lot of planning for this show because I know people enjoy when you and I just kind of freewheel and back and forth banter. And honestly, to be, you know, to give the listeners some perspective here, I mean, you really invited yourself on the show. I, uh, which usually doesn't happen. I usually do the work getting the guest, making some notes, preparing everything.

And you really, uh, you know, you stepped up here. You kind of just called a shot and got yourself in the podcast. So we're here talking. I'd say hey I like that my my style I think even if it was more planned out and we've never really had that like where we're like okay let's you know plan out the four five things that we're going to talk about and here's how long and all that but my style I wouldn't want to do that anyways because it takes away from just kind of off the top of the head conversation which I think is fun if if the two people talking actually

know a little bit about what they're talking about and can kind of freewheel and talk about it. Sometimes when it's like so rigid and so structured, do you just kill all of that? And so that's why I always like coming on. Yes. And you know who else doesn't do a lot of planning? Your favorite coach, Alainvino,

because we're about to talk about his line of decisions and have a bit of a powwow about Pavel Bucenevich. I feel like as soon as people see, that I post this podcast and that you've been on and we were talking about him, I feel like there's like, I know Rangers Twitter, whenever something happens with him,

uh, instantly jumps into my mentions and asks me to, uh, fire Alan Vino into the sun and, and, uh, get Bichenevich some more ice time.

So I know they're going to be pretty excited that we're talking about this. And I feel, uh, I feel pretty passionate about this. Yeah, we're, so Rangers fans, it's the,

it's the, it's the, it's just, I, I, I, I, I,

say it's the strangest dynamic in in terms of like you know teams fans because there are there are a lot of there are a lot of things i mean Vancouver fans have a bizarre relationship with their team and i think there's different things throughout the league but the the rangers i think are a little bit unique because think about how many years the team has been you know just if you're looking at wins a good team um a good if not upper echelon team that's routinely in the playoffs and you're And, you know, it usually goes a couple rounds in the playoffs, too. Right. But at the same time, they are frustratingly, to a lot of fans, frustratingly bad.

And it's not just, you know, fans that are frustrated with Elaine Vigno's moves. It's fans that are frustrated with the performance of individual players and, you know, stat heads that are looking at the numbers and digging in and going, how are they even doing the things they're doing? It's bizarre, and therefore it's frustrating. So, you know, it's just a strange dynamic. And then you have a subsection of Rangers fans who are like, it's like ignorance is bliss fandom where they're just like, this team's awesome, that's the best, everything Vigno does is great. And then there's nothing in between.

It's just one, it's that extreme or the other extreme, and that's it. I'd say that that first fan he described there is justified. And like, listen, there's a lot of fan bases that would do anything. to have their team have this type of run the Rangers have been on where you're constantly making the playoffs and winning a round or two as you mentioned. But you have to factor in the fact that throughout this run,

they've had one of the all-time grades at the most important position in the game. And it's very hard to make the argument that they've optimized that. And, you know, when he's gone, but by that, I mean, stops playing for the Rangers, not dead.

He, you know, you're going to really look back at this because there is going to be a bit of a down period, I'm sure. And you're going to sort of, if you weren't appreciating this run they were on and what Lunkwis meant to the franchise, you will when that happens. So it's tough. I mean, just looking at it from the outside, I definitely feel like they've squandered some really, you know, potentially promising years here. And the thing I will say is, you know, I'm sure there are the crazies out there. But I feel like this Bichnevich thing unites Rangers fans quite a bit. Like generally speaking,

Twitter is a very divisive place and you're always, you know, if you have a big enough following or you have a tweet that gets retweeted enough, there's going to be random stragglers to jump into your timeline and say outrageous stuff and you're going to be like, is this an actual person or is this a bot? Like, how can someone have this opinion? But with this Bichnevich stuff, like every time I tweet about it, it's just 100% uniform opinion. It's like, yes, we agree. Please play him more. I haven't had a single rangers fan jump into my mentions and argue otherwise, which is crazy. Yeah, I think last year there were people, and I don't think it was totally unreasonable. There were people that were saying, he's too young, he needs time, you know, don't throw him into the fire, blah, blah, blah. I certainly was not one of those people. I was like, let's get him out there with other players that can contribute offensively because he's got skill. And his skill will shine through and he'll catch up to the speed or whatever the silly argument was, you know, from him coming from the KHL. But I say at the very least, if you don't want to give him a kind of a starring top six role, give him time on the third line with maybe a Kevin Hayes or somebody like that that can get him the puck

and then give him power play time. And those things just didn't really happen. So he had to make his own offense a lot when he did get his chances. And he was in and out of the lineup. He was in and out on different. It was like musical chairs as far as the teammates he's with. And everybody with half a brain. and everybody with half an eye on hockey knows at this point,

or has to know that the teammates you play with, that matters a lot. And, you know, I think furthermore, you know, getting some semblance of consistency where you know where you're going to be in the lineup and you know who you're going to play with, you get the whole, you know, that word nobody likes to say, but that we all know as part of the game, which is chemistry.

And none of that happened for him last year. So this year was like he was coming in totally fresh again. And he came in on fire. Every time he put him out of the ice, he does something dynamic. Yet he wasn't getting the ice time, and he was being either healthy scratched or buried on the fourth line and getting eight minutes and not seeing the ice in situations where you'd think you would want an dynamic offensive player to be out there. And that's just kind of continued in ebbs and flow.

all year. It's like, so he'll get the ice time, you know, on the first line for maybe a game or two, and he kind of gets hot, and then Vigno talks about him in the press and how great he's doing everything else. And then all of a sudden, two or three games later, he's buried again. Or he's war, as of recently, he's just flat out scratched. So it all just, it all comes back to that, I truly believe this, and I've said it before on your podcast, I've said it every place else. Elaine Vigno makes the most bizarre, random personnel decisions of any coach I think I've ever seen, at least in the current crop of coaching regulars in the NHL. He just doesn't stick to his guns with anything that makes sense.

He sticks to his guns with, like, Dan Gerardi and now Nick Holden. Those are the guys he sticks to his guns, and they go out there no matter what. Yeah. I would add he makes the most inexplicable decisions for a coach that has actually shown that he's not an idiot, right? Because we've had coaches who make, who do ridiculous things in their lineups, but then you have no reason to believe that, you know, there's a method to the madness for him. It's like he's shown over the years in Vancouver and in New York that he's at least like an average coach, even if you, you know, really don't like him. but then he does stuff like this and it's just like it's head scratching and with the buchnevich thing I mean he's 11th in uh in five on five ice time per game for rangers forwards so he's basically

being used as a fourth liner and that's right that's between like just ahead of him is david d'arnay and behind him is boone yves which is you know tells you everything you need to know and the weird thing for me is like when you watch buchnevich play like especially on the power play there's such magic between him and mika sabinajad and it makes sense based on what you're talking about with the chemistry, especially in terms of the skill sets meshing, where Pichnevich is a natural playmaker and Zbenajad's shot is very, very impressive. And I'm just surprised that they're not just riding that combination as their top two guys all the time.

I mean, I'm looking at their numbers together this year, 5-1-5, and they've been very good. They're like a nearly 55% shot share team with those two guys on the ice. And regardless of their usage or if they're getting shelter, like, that's very good. And that's something the Rangers could use more of. Right, and that's something that's rare in recent history for the Rangers is to take that shot share and really control it. The only guy who's been able to do that consistently with any set of teammates has been Zuccarello over the past, you know, call it four years, whatever you want to call it. Everybody else on the team, and this may be a function of their systems where they have this kind of counterattacking style or rope-a-dope style that relies on Lundquist to make the saves, and then they kind of get the wingers out high and pop the wingers out and let them run.

Whatever the case may be, there has been one player on the team that no matter what has been able to kind of control the shot share, and that's been Zuccarello. And now you've got another guy where when you get him on the ice with somebody good, like you pointed out, Zabenejad, suddenly they're getting that good shot share as well. why not either put those guys in triplicate out there together or put two of the three out there consistently together and if it's not Bouchnevich as one of those two then put Bouchnevich with with another guy who's capable of supporting his offense don't bury him and it's just I yeah it makes no sense you're really not I mean you're never doing any young player favors when you bury him in ice time like that. that and diminish the skill set but especially for a playmaker it's like how is he going to look good if he's passing the puck to guys who don't have any natural finishing ability which most fourth liners don't so it's

like and you rarely ever see this where like zabinajad and buchnevich together this year have been remarkable and then both guys without each other have completely fallen off the map so it's not like it's like you know one guy's doing great regardless and then you put them together and all of a sudden they take off it's like you have these two guys who aren't really doing much by themselves but you put them together and they're great and it matches the eye test and for whatever reason you they've spent as much time the season apart as they have together which is just mind-blowing to me yeah go simple go simple they put up points they put up points if you don't if you want to ignore everything else if we want to throw all that we you know as far as we've gotten in statistical

evidence throw it all out the window they put up points when they're on the ice together why would you not want to preserve that and and to your point when you've got a young player who's got creativity and can use it at this level, give them a chance to flourish. You know, Elaine Mignon, he did this with Hayes. And now what's happened to Hayes, in my opinion, is Hayes has turned into, he used to be a multi-dimensional, multifaceted offensive player. Now he's become very kind of one-dimensional and boorish offensively.

He's doing a lot of just simple like dump and chase kind of work in the corner type stuff. And now is, if you just look at him just based on his points for 60, even strength, or just just overall points, he's turning into like a 30 point of season guy, which is not what he was, um, you know, not, not the trajectory that, that I think everybody expected him to be on. And, and I wonder if that's just a function of that he now is like, okay, well, this is my role. So this is who I'm going to be. This is who I'm asked to be. And this is who I'll be. Um, You know, you kind of take the, take the wind out of his sales. And I worry that the same thing is going to happen with Buchennevich. Well, I'd argue similarly you and I, when we're podcasting together, we just put up points if you want to keep it. We're just putting up points right now. Yeah, the thing with Bichnevich, and the main takeaway here for me is like, it's, I don't know if this is a sort of a lazy thing to say just because he is Russian. but if this results in him going back to the KHL during his prime years,

I will be very, very upset. Yeah, no, I won't be a Rangers fan anymore. Like, it was legitimately as a hockey fan, not even, like, I'm not a Rangers fan. As a hockey fan, this guy is such an immense talent, and I, you know, the NHL is the best league in the world, or at least it's positioned that way, and it is. And that kind of means that you're going to have the best players

playing at the peak of their powers, and I want to see Butchnevich play, and do his thing. And if we get deprived of that because Alan Nguer doesn't trust him enough to play him more than David D.RNA, I will take that personally. Yeah, I like to use the, and I've seen it a lot on Twitter, you know, use the compare and contrast with Kutrov. So I've seen about a million times over a comparison of the two players through their,

based on points for 60, even strength. their first, I think it's 60 games or 55 games or whatever it is. Whatever the sample is, they are like neck and neck, right? And then through the start of this season, Bouchnevich basically picked up his points for 60, almost the same, at the same rate that Kuthorov started to pick up his. So if you look at those guys as kind of on a comparable trajectory, you could be talking about what small sample size be damned.

you could be talking about a guy who could end up being at the top of the league in points. And he's 11th in ice time at this point in his career. Whereas in Tampa Bay, they recognize what Kuturov could be early. And they put him with other talented players and now look at him. Yeah. And obviously it's not, you know, I know you yourself here, kind of that's like the, you know, optimist Rangers fan in you. And you wouldn't believe that you wouldn't expect that trajectory.

But I mean, there is a middle ground where he can still be a super useful player even if he never takes that step that Kutrov just did. Yeah, of course. And look, Tampa is, they're basically like the Harlem Globetrotters right now in terms of offense. So you could almost put him on any line and there's going to be another guy who can support the offense playing with him. But the point is with the personnel you have, use the weapons you've got, use the creativity that this guy has and make the most of it. there's kind of a proven path for that with Zabedad or potentially with Zuccarel or find another combination that works not just well we'll play them a little bit here we'll run them out on the first line then we'll skip them for the rest of the period

and you know and we you won't see him in the third period or overtime um the not seeing him in overtime thing is inexcusable that you wouldn't want a guy like that out on three on three but hey he's too risky but you know what Dimitri get Nick Holden out there because he's just your bread and butter safe stable defenseman

and he's the guy who's supporting McDuna and making sure that McDonough doesn't screw up he's like the very stale kind of mushy potentially even moldy bread I'd say of the Rangers if you're going to use that analogy

like Holden I mean wow bread and butter it's money yeah Hey, he's a first-paring defenseman, just like Dan Girardi before him. Hey, you keep Dan Girardi's name out of your mouth. He's been very good in Tampa Bay this year. Let's talk a bit about, we have you on. It's 20 minutes in.

We haven't even talked about goalies yet. And let's talk a bit about Henrik Lundquist, who has really bounced back to form this season. I mean, my goodness, you know, 924% this year, everything looks legit. He looks great. Yep. Imagine what that would be if he didn't spend the first 10 games of the season just like way, way below NHL average performance. Yeah, yeah, it's true. Ever since then, he's been absolutely insanely good.

And I don't know, what have you seen from them? Do you think, like, what are you chalking up? Are you chalking up last year to just kind of one random down season and injuries? Or like how do you, when you see two seasons like this, back to back, how do you explain them beyond just a shoulder shrug? Yeah, so here's how I see it. I think that, so he's older now and he's not as fast and you can visually see it. And I think it took a while.

And this, you know, I want to say that this is all me studying him, you know, studying every single game. But I'll be honest, I haven't studied every single game. but I feel like I've watched him enough to get the gist of what he started to do. I think that last year he wasn't ready to make adjustments to his game, and age and fatigue, and let's face it, the guy's been playing for more than a decade in the playoffs every single year, playing international hockey, everything else,

playing a ton of hockey more than any other goalie at his level, by a lot. And I think a couple with age, it just caught up with him last year. He probably got fatigued and he just wasn't ready to make adjustments to his game. He was doing the same things he always does, which is staying on his goal line and rely on his better than everybody else in the world, reaction time and eyesight to do what he does. And I think he started to get burnt by it. I think that this year he started out the same way and you could see it.

and then in October it started it started you know probably five or six games in the season when they were on that run of like they lost their first whatever it was I think six of their first seven or seven of their first eight whatever whatever it was right towards the end of that all the sudden um he started getting really aggressive like hyper aggressive which is not him at all and it took him a couple games and then he kind of rained that in and then all the sudden he started to find a middle ground in terms of his depth coming out of the net in situations where he'd usually be backed up onto his crease and doing what he always does. And now he's, I think he's hit a comfort zone with an adjustment to his style, which is to be more of a blocking goaltender, somebody who gets out and doesn't always rely on his reaction speed and eyesight, but sometimes just relies on having good, good angles, being at a proper depth so that the puck will hit you if you, you know, if by chance you can't react and make that save. And that change coupled with the fact that, yeah, he's older, but he's still Henrik Lundquist, has gotten him back

into form. And I would tell anybody who's watching, especially watch him when he's on the penalty kill this year. He has been much, much more aggressive than he used to be. He used to back in further than normal on the penalty kill so he could get better kind of better eye. eyesight of what's going on and look around the screens and do all that type of stuff. He actually pushes out now, which is something that a lot of goalies use like, you know, as a comparable in terms of conservative play. Freddie Anderson is a conservative goalie. But when he gets on the penalty kill, he pushes out a little bit and tries to, you know, get behind screens and poke his eyes around him and be a blocking goalie because he knows he's not

good enough to stay back and react late, right? Right. So Lundquist is starting to do that sort of stuff, which is an adjustment. And I think it's just old habits die hard for a superstar world-class elite goalie. He finally said, you know what, okay, I'm going to do this stuff. And now it's paying off. I love those type of stories. I'm such a sucker for them.

You know, like the, I imagine if you are one of the truly, you know, just great athletes to get to that point of your career and have a long run in your prime, there reaches a certain point where you sort of have to come to terms of the fact that you can't do it physically like you used to. And then some guys just try to keep going on anyway. ways and they don't have the longevity generally. And then you have the guys that have that sort of second wind or latter stages of their career that are still not necessarily as impressive, especially physically, but still get

the job done because they make these little adjustments to their game. And I love stories like that. So it's pretty cool. I think it's, I think it's so, you know, you could go to Luongo. Like Luongo caught a second win for sure. in Luongo became a blocker. He became much more of a blocker than he was. Longgo always had a style that lent itself to playing longer anyways.

And Lungwist definitely does not. Lungfuss plays a style that nobody else could play in their right mind. He's just that good, and it works for him. So I think, you know, and this is, look, this is all me just seeing it and making conjecture about when he made that decision. I would love to get inside of his brain and pick it and see where he actually said, you know what,

I'm going to do these things. But I can guarantee you in an interview, he's never going to say, well, I made these concessions with who I am and what I am at this point, so I did this and did that. He doesn't usually talk about his game that way, even though he's open to talking about why a puck went in the net.

if you hear an interview with him, he very rarely will say, like, well, I made this specific adjustment. And I think that's his gamesmanship and, you know, that he doesn't want to give away what he knows are his strengths and weaknesses. But I would love to, if I could ever, it's one of those things like if I could ever sit at a bar with a guy and talk about it. I'd love to sit at a bar with Henrik Lundquist and just pick his brain on how he makes those decisions and when he made him. because it's becoming very apparent and I think even a casual fan will start to pick up on it if you really are looking at him now versus him, you know, in his prime, let's say. Yeah. Okay, let's take a quick break here, Nick, to hear from a sponsor and we'll pick up the conversation

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So, enough about the Rangers and Lundquist. I was, you know, I was looking back at the goalies list we made at the start of the year. It was the first couple weeks of the season, I believe, and we did a top 10 or so, I guess. Maybe, I might have been top 15, I forget. But I remember we had a spirited discussion about Jonathan, John Gibson was, I feel like, the biggest one. And you talked me into having him in my top 10, and I wanted to give you a little love here because you're looking pretty smart on that call. been remarkable. And him and Ryan Miller have been the only reason the ducks are still in position to compete in the wildcard picture in the Western Conference, despite the fact that it

seems like every single one of their skaters has missed significant period of time. Yeah, yeah. It's, you know, I noticed this last year, too, in Vancouver. Ryan Miller, his game, he's another guy. His game lends itself to longevity. First of all, he's Gumby. Like, he just doesn't really get hurt. You know, I mean, he's, unless Milan Luchich runs him over. But I think that his style is one of those things where if we were ever going to finally get to a point where we have really, really good biometric data on what makes a goalie, you know, what lengthens a goalie's career versus what might shorten it in terms of body style and things like that, I think you're going to come out with like Ryan Miller's build is is perfect for a guy playing. playing late, late into his 30s and maybe even into his 40s. And so that's why he makes a great backup because they're not going to rely on him to play every

game, but when he comes in, he's going to give you, he's going to be healthy and he's going to be ready to go. And so he's been solid. And then on top of that, Gibson, I think, is starting to find, you know, what, or starting to head into what his potential prime or peak years could be. and he looks very, very, very good. He looks like a top 10 NHL goalie and headed towards maybe even a top five NHL goalie for me. And, yeah, on a Ducks team that is not really doing him any favors.

And, you know, I would pull up the expected save percentage versus actual save percentage and see what the Delta is. I'm sure he's doing fine in that. I'm sure that they're not helping, you know. Yeah, I would guess that as well. I love how I was like, let's talk about John Gibson, and then you just talk about Ryan Miller for a couple of minutes. Well, look, I mean, Ryan Miller is like one of those guys where a lot of people started to dog him when he left Buffalo and, you know, said, oh, his career's over and everything else. No, his career's not over.

He's found a niche, and now he's a backup guy, and that's okay. You know, I hope that, you know, maybe some other goalies that hit their peak years and then they kind of tell off, but they're still held. they find that role too but sometimes these these guys that you know come off a really high peak and can never reattain those heights they just fade away um he's managed to find a niche for himself well and especially on other than that um you know ridiculous season he had in 2010 11 uh the olympic year um he has been sort of or i guess it was the year before that he was um he's sort of just been like a league average guy and i understand that's not like a super sexy thing or no one gets very excited saying, oh, my goalie is league average, but that's a quality and that's

something good, especially because you know what you're going to get. It's very reliable at a very uncertain position. And I feel like that sort of makes him very well suited for this role as a backup. Like obviously, it's a bit of an ego, kicked an ego a little bit. You know, he's been the number one starter. He's been the guy for so long. But at this stage of his career, if he's willing to accept it and it looks like he is, it seems like he's really well suited for that gig. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, you know, let's not forget, the guys that are above league average, it's actually a smaller group because it's usually elite goalies that are carrying a load of minutes that are kind of dictating what league average and above is. So if you've got a league average goalie or maybe a slightly better than league average goalie, which is really kind of where Ryan Miller most of his career has lived, that's a good thing.

You've probably got a top 15 goalie. So that's one of those things where a lot of people sneeze at and they go, eh, you know, but Henrik Lundquist and, you know, Carrie Price and Cory Crawford and Bobrovsky, those guys are rare. And they're not, unless you get lucky and win that lottery and grow one through your system, it's pretty hard to pluck one out of free agency or pluck one for. from another team. So I think

when you've got a guy who can hit league average or slightly above, you know, that's okay. You could build a team around that. Okay, well,

let's talk about sort of that next crop of guys, not even necessarily in terms of age, but in terms of, you know, their teams this year kind of gave them the car keys

and decided to make them the workhorse. And we're sort of seeing mixed results there, right? Like, I'd say the light, with Andre Vasilowski aren't regretting their decision at all.

He looks mighty good for them. But then, you know, you're seeing Matt Murray really struggle both on the ice with the performance and with injuries in his first sort of spin at this. And I think he'll ultimately be fine. But he's really been really been underwhelming this year and have been a big reason why the penguins are struggling as much as they are. And then, you know, you have a guy like Scott Darling, who's obviously older, but also the hurricanes kind of took a gamble.

on him similar to the way Edmonton did with Cam Talbot a few years ago, where he was this guy who was very productive in a smaller sample size on a good team, and they had a desperate need, and they sort of plucked him from that and hoped that it would carry over, and it certainly has not so far, which is frustrating as someone who has been on the Hurricanes Banwagon for a few years now, it seems like... Yeah, I was rooting for him, and hoping the hurricanes would kind of get over the hump, you know, based on his goal-tending. We talked about it.

You know, we talked about that. That might be the perfect situation for him to thrive if he was going to thrive as a starter. But I think at the time I said that's a big if. And it just hasn't worked out. So I think you and I are both of the mind that unless you have one of those like four or five guys that you listed off a few minutes ago, you're probably better off having a time share where it's, you know, even if it's like 50-30 or whatever in terms of starts. Um, but I obviously understand the appeal where it's like if you see a guy who's really thriving in that 20, 25, even 30 game sample to talk yourself into, maybe he could be that 50 to 60, uh, start guy for us and maintain these results.

Do you think that that is something that's going to carry over as a trend in the years to come? Or do you think the thinking behind that is going to change? Well, you know, I, my hope, my hope still in, in, in, It's weird that I've kind of shifted my thinking on this, candidly, over the past May 2 years. But my hope is that we're going to start treating goalies more like pitchers and baseball, where you give them regular rest. You figure out what that optimum rest is, and you figure out where their peak performance is most likely to live, whether it be with consistent starts or whether it be with more rest, you know, depending on whatever data is available, whether it's biometric data or, statistical evidence. And then you make your decision on the percentages starts based upon that, based upon your staff, so to speak, if we're doing comparable to pitchers. I've kind of come to this

point where I used to say, like, if you've got a workhorse, ride them, you know, just keep them playing because goalies want rhythm and they want to keep playing. And if you ask any goalie, they're going to say, I want every game. Because if you take me out and I don't play for a while, I'm going to get stale. I'm not so sure that that's the case. anymore at the professional level at least I think that these guys keep themselves pretty prepared to play all the time and I'm starting to kind of get a feeling that there is a more of a fatigue there's more of a risk for fatigue and injury impacting performance negatively than time not playing impacting performance

negatively right if that makes any sense so you know is that something that that I or somebody needs to dig into more to prove it out. Yeah, absolutely. I'm just talking and saying it. But that's just the sense that I'm getting from what I'm seeing across the league. And so that lends itself to, you know, you probably got to go with like at minimum the 50-30 split. And maybe you're getting to a place where it's just a true timeshare and you're splitting the goalies equally. And maybe one goalie is playing in chunks, you know, five at a time.

time and because they get hot, but then you're going to give them a break for a while too because because of the risk of fatigue or whatever it may be. Yeah, I'm sure as I'm sure all the goalies and all the athletes in general want to play as much as possible. That's obviously why you have a coaching staff there to regulate that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's obviously, I mean, it's pretty hit or miss any as you see with, it's tough to get your hands on one of those guys and that's why teams keep taking these gambles. and I'm all for it. And, you know, if it's the right calculated risk, I like, despite the fact that Talbot has struggled this year with injury and performance, I mean, you saw what he could do for a team last year for Edmonton. So it's like, I get why it happens, but it can go bad. And now all of a sudden, if you're Carolina, it's not even as much like, oh, man,

another sort of lost season in terms of not making the playoffs because of our goaltending. It's like, man, we have this guy on our contract now for years. and what if we just completely miss the boat on this? Yeah, yeah. Again, I hope that's not the case because he's got a great story of where he was to where he got to. And he's got a good situation. He's got Bales as his coach, who's been his coach before. So he's got the things in place to be successful.

You hope that he can find success. But I don't know. I mean, that's going to be a rough one for Carolina. If he just doesn't find it, what do you do in that circumstance? you just eat it and say, you know what, we got to find somebody that can time share with them. It's not going to be Cam Ward. Cam Ward's not going to give you that time share. And they just can't seem to quit Cam Ward.

I mean, they've given him, you know, I mean, it's true. I mean, look, Darling struggled yet. And so now it's gotten a point where they are almost in a time share. They've given Cam Ward, I think, I'm looking at it right now. So they've given him almost 850 minutes of the season. I love how Cam Ward has like four good games. row and people are like, he's back, baby. And it's like, back to what?

What are you talking about? It's been like eight years. That's what the Stanley Cup ring is. It's been a long time. Like, I don't think he's back. I don't think he's been back since whatever. I don't think he was ever there. Second season of his career, which was just a playoff.

All it was was a playoff. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say it was a hot stretch. I wouldn't say he was ever quote unquote there wherever he's back to. So it's, that's one of the more amazing. you know, runs of like longevity as a starter

I've ever seen. I mean, there are guys that are bad backups that have managed to play for years and years as bad backups. But as a starter, that's pretty rare. And, uh, yeah, hey. Well, I will say, I know that, uh,

the organization's a super nice guy. Yeah, the organization's comfortable with him. And I understand that. But obviously, you know, you would hope that that wouldn't be resulting in as many stars. arts as he's had to have because darlings needed the time off so that's concerning moving forward but hopefully there's still time to iron that out um but and you know this flies on the face of what we were just talking about but i will say one guy did want to talk about was if i was a team who

needed a goalie and i was planning ahead um philip grubauer would be someone i would be targeting the summer and maybe even during the season right now because you know if the capitals can get some sort of asset for him that'll help them right now it doesn't really make that much sense for them to be carrying both Grubauer and Holby. Yeah, Gruberauer's, I've said in the past, Gruberauer's like the perfect high-end backup who can, you know, he's like right on the cusp there where, you know, you feel pretty good with him in Ned,

even if it's got to be a little bit of a longer stretch. He's a guy where, I mean, maybe he falls into that darling category where it's like, okay, but if we give him the reins, can he do it? The one thing I think that Grubauer has in his favor is, for me at least, is from a stylistic standpoint. He plays a very, very steady, consistent style. He does the same things over and over and over again to be successful.

And he is routinely in position. He's routine. It's like he is like if you're looking for somebody for a kid to watch in regard to fundamental goaltending, he would be a perfect example. Does he have all the athletic ability that some of these other guys at this level have? No, no, he doesn't. But he makes up for it by being basically technically perfect

or technically sound. So is that the recipe for a good starter? It might be. I don't know one way or another, but I know this much. You could probably get them for a pretty good contract, you know? Yeah, I mean, so I'm like, He's started 22 and 23 games the past two years, and he's going to start, I mean, he's started

14 already this year. So maybe he bumped that up closer to 30, especially as the capitals have plans of playing deep into the postseason, hopefully again. So, yeah, I mean, it obviously all depends, but, like, I know that, you know, they're definitely not going to be able to afford him. Like, he's gone this summer. Yeah, he's going to get, he's going to get low-end starter money, which I think would be a great contract if somebody can sign him for that.

You know what I mean? So what's a good landing spot for him? I know, I know I'm kind of putting you in the spot here. but like is there someone that comes to mind who could really use a guy like that I mean How old is he again? He's he's actually a couple weeks older than me so he's 26 Oh boy not a spring chicken no he's not but I mean you know it's fine but he's young for he's young for Peek years for a goalie he's heading in he's he's at he's basically in the beginning of his peak years of as a goalie or at the cusp of peak years as a goalie.

I always point to 27 to 29 from what I've analyzed, but you could go 26 to 29, fine. So Gruberauer heading into that, you give them a three or four year contract. Vegas. Vegas. So you are not buying what Malcolm Suban has done this year? Nah.

Nope. Yeah, I like Malcolm Suban. He's looked good, but it is a small sample. I like Malcolm Suban, but it's pretty. small sample. And Malcolm Suban's like, okay, this is perfect, actually. He's kind of the opposite of group hour. He's a very erratic wild goal. He's kind of like young John Gibson, where Gibson then started to figure out like, oh, I can't get away with flying out of my net to follow a guy

who's coming to the near side post. If I fly out of my net, that guy is going to take the puck behind the net and find a trailing guy in front. That guy's going to tap it in. So, Suban probably still hasn't quite learned that yet. Will he? Yeah, maybe, but he might not too. There was a while there with Gibson where, you know, they were kind of afraid to start him because he was erratic like that. And he had to figure it out. So, yeah, I don't know if I'm not buying Suban, but I'm not, I'm certainly not saying he is for certain my goaltender of the future. I would feel a lot better if I had a grubauer. And there you go, that maybe that's a perfect time share. You get two guys that are. on reasonable contracts and you're splitting them. And maybe when Suban is hot, you ride him and otherwise you're playing Grubauer, who's your steady guy. You know what I mean?

All right. How about this? Hearing me out. So Yarrow Halak is off the books finally this summer. So that, you know, he's making four and a half this year. You free up some money there. You know, he still have Thomas Grice on the books for two more years at 3.33 million per year, which is rough based on how he's looked this year.

but hey man, if while you were describing Grubauer there earlier where it's like he's a perfect time share guy, he's very solid. I was thinking, I was like, man, that sounds like the way I was describing Thomas Grice for years. And then all of a sudden.

I know, I know. And what's kind of scary too is like Grice had that like peak year, whenever it was, it was it two years ago where he was just like really at the top of the league. And Grubauer this year especially is like, if you're talking about putting aside sample size he's at the top of the league

in terms of his performance. He has, yeah. I don't know, maybe you bring in you bring in Grice and Gruber you let him be all German together, you give him 40 starts a pop, you know what? It seems pretty good.

It seems pretty good in my end. You let them be all German together. I like that analysis. Hang out with Dennis Seidembourg, bring him back for another year. Do German stuff. You know. They get on a team together,

they start doing all this German stuff, and suddenly you've got two goalies that are just, you know, all German and performing great. Yeah, that's, yes, that's the extent of my analysis here. This is the reason why I bring you in to describe goalie play because otherwise it devolves into that, and that's something you hear on TV, so that's not. I'm in. I'm on board.

But yeah, no, the Islanders need to do something. They're another team I wanted to talk about here because, like, obviously, you know, they're very prolific offensively, and their Blue Lion hasn't done them any favors by any means. But I mean the play of Halak and Grice's here is completely fallen off and they you know, they're giving up goals at a historic rate and And especially with being John Tavares' free agent season, it's like, man, if they waste this year and then Tavares walks because they couldn't buy a save and couldn't make the playoffs and couldn't capitalize on this, like that would be a very tough thing to reconcile. So I wonder if there are going to be a team that's going to do something in season or if they're just going to hope that this turns around, although it hasn't really shown signs of happening.

I don't know. Yeah, I mean, and they're in the. they're wasting Josh Bailey's best years. It's true. I mean, I don't know what's going on there, but is Josh Bailey eclipsed his last year? I know last year he put up like 55 points or something. He did a good year. I mean, that's All-Star Josh Bailey, first and foremost.

But I mean, he is also. It's like the best spot for a passer to be in, right? It's like playing with John Tvers and one of the best net front guys in the league in Andrew's lead. It's like, you're going to stumble out of bed into 60 points. Yeah, exactly. No, you're right. So what do the Islanders do?

Yeah, first and foremost, they've got issues on the, you know, on the back end with the defense that they have to address. I do think that they need maybe just kind of like one of those like makeovers from goaltender through their defensemen if they can do it quickly. If they can, they've got some offensive pop. I mean, my biggest disappointment with them is that they're not moving to Hartford. I really thought that that was going to somehow come to fruition. Finally, that Hartford Whalers tattoo you've had all these years would have paid off. Yeah, yeah, well, and then people are like, well, they'll be the Hartford Islanders. I'm like, we have one island, what island in Connecticut?

Stop it. The Islanders are on pace to give up 300 goals this season, which is a pretty crazy, amount considering that they only play 82 times. Yeah. I mean, they just need to do like one of those, I think, full scale we're going to make over this defense. We just are going to start from scratch. How do you do that? I don't know. I think it starts with mid-season trades and maybe taking some lotto tickets, which is then you run the repercussion, possible repercussion of John Tavares going, what are we doing here? and can I be a part of this right now?

But I don't know how else you dig out of that. I mean, what do you do? Who are those guys has value where you could turn them into some other defensemen and how do you give up, I guess you have to start giving up offensive weapons to get the defensemen in, but then you still got contracts on the books for the defensemen. Yeah, that's a tough thing where it's like, so the point. Point for going all in this year and trying to do something is like, you know, with Barzow making nothing still in his ELC and Bailey and Lee on very team friendly deals and Tavares for that matter

in terms of the cap hit, you know, they're paying like $13 million combined for their top two centers and wingers, which is great. But then you look and it's like, oh, well, they're paying all their fourth liner as like top guys. So it kind of cancels out. It's not like you, it's not like I mean, they're not the Blackhawks where other teams are just going to do them favors to fix that situation. I feel like the Blackhawks every summer somebody says, yeah, yeah, we'll do your favor and we'll help you out with this. The Islanders, I don't think, are going to have that luxury. So they're in a bizarre spot, and they really might not be able to keep Tobiris around. I think if they're rational about it, they've got to prepare for the worst.

and prepare their team for the worst. They've got a lot of good young talent there. I don't want to say that Tavares is replaceable. He's not. But I think you have to prepare for that scenario because that, to me, seems like almost the most likely scenario because I don't know how they can dig out of what they're in or potentially are going to be in in

in terms of their cap and their defensemen to appease a guy like him who wants to win right now. Yeah, and it's also tough because I feel like, you know, our understanding of, like, how to divvy up blame in this part of the game is still not where I'm comfortable enough saying, like, all right, you know,

if they bring in a better goalie than Yarrowhala, Thomas Christ, that they're going to fix everything. So, like, if I could say that with any comfort, then I'd be like, yeah, of course you make a push now for, I don't know, Robin Lennar, or maybe even Craig Anderson, if the Sends are looking to shed, salary like you do something but what happens if you bring in another one of those guys and

they still give up this many goals because it's actually the play in front of them then it's like well now you just made up you kind of two negatives there yeah we don't know that's that's the whole thing is like with goalies there's a bunch of like like kind of gray mush in the middle where it's like okay is this the goalie or is this team effects and we've we all have to acknowledge that team effects are are a big part of it and a big part of goaltender performance. You know with Henrik Lundquist that the team rides and dies with him. I mean, the first month of the season, they lost eight of ten games, and he was awful, right?

And they were losing because he was below league average. Then he started doing Henrik Lundquist stuff, and then the next month of the season, they won nine of 11, or whatever the hell it was. And then he got even better, and they started performing like the Rangers. They were hot that next month. Then they started performing like the Rangers in front of him where they just leave him out to drive for 49 shots a game. And they've stayed afloat because of him. So like, yes, with Henrik Lundquist, we know that the team lives and dies by his performance.

But with, you know, for your example, like a Craig Anderson or maybe a Lennar who gets hot or something like that, you're just taking it. You're just, that's throwing dice at this point. Yeah. All right. Well, that was a very satisfying conclusion. we reached. You're basically, sorry Islanders fans.

You're basically throwing dice at this point. Yeah, hey, good luck. Hey, that's a, you know what? The one silver lining is that's

going to be the title of today's podcast. You're basically throwing dice at this point. All right. We have like 10 more minutes here. Is there anything else that we haven't touched on that we should? Turtlenecks. Um, okay.

Yeah. I'm just saying. I don't want to get into turtle necks right now. We'll do it another. There's any, there's, from what I'm seeing, there's some NHL players copying your style. Yeah, yeah, we're going to need to flesh that out. We're going to need to sit down and get some copyright issues going on and figure it out. Maybe I'll call you as my lawyer to represent me in that case.

Okay, all right. Look, I've written cease and desist letters in my time, not for Turtle Necks per se, but, you know, I think I could craft something for you. All right, great. All right, here's what I want to talk about. Let's do it. Let's talk about Cary Price. So Cary Price is an All-Star, which is kind of odd. Yeah, but James Neal is an All-Star, too.

That's true. That's true. You know, James Neal's at the current season, but it's obviously, it's, they sort of, they got voted in, right? Yeah. Wait, is March so an All-Star? No. Yeah, and Braden Schen got picked over Vlad Tarasenko.

Oh, God. Oh, I knew about that one. Yeah, I didn't know about that one. And Shenz having a fine season, but it's like, come on. Come on. Yeah, Shenz, a fine player, but stop. The Marches-so thing that, I mean, at some point, at some point somebody's going to realize that he's actually just a good player, right?

I mean, somebody's going to just, I feel like some, we need some, like, everybody collectively needs to just go, okay, yes, he is a good player. because I still feel like he's flying under the radar and he's up at the top of the league in points. Yeah. I think it's going to have to be like another year of this sort of production. And then next year we're going to people are going to fully buying. I mean, because he has two things going against them, right? It's the stature.

But then it's also he was an undrafted free agent. Yeah. And he's, and third thing, as a result of those two, he's balanced around the league. He bounced around. Yeah. Yeah. So that's the, that's the big one. It's the perfect storm.

And I will say, like, listen, I don't think you and I, if we're being truthful, would have expected this. Like, I don't think anyone in their right mind would have expected that he be, like, a legitimate top flight first liner. But similar to the discussion we were having about Pavlovichnevich, there's a middle ground there. And, you know, you can say, I'm a fan of this guy's game. And I think he should be playing a lot more and should have a legitimate NHL gig in a top

six for years to come without taking. that next super elite step right so it's like i felt very comfortable saying based on his track record and jonathan marcia so was an n hl player which was the whole point but uh teams disagreed apparently yeah all i'll say is this and i won't totally blow up his spot but just a little bit so so steve warrior uh with the florida panthers he and i had some conversations around the time that they were uh signing march so and in the there's some place on the record where where i said I don't know if he's a first line guy, but he's going to produce like a top six, and he'll be a 50 plus point guy.

That's, that's, that's, uh, so I feel, I feel pretty vindicated about that one. But, but you're right. I, I don't think I was, you know, expecting this where he's literally carrying the load for his team, but, um, I did say we were going to talk about Carrie Price. Which is a weird topic for you to pick, because I don't know what you want to talk about with him. All right. So Kerry Price is an All-Star.

His performance has gotten a little bit better as of late, but overall he's had a wolfily inconsistent season, if not just flat out bad. On a bad, bad team. Yes. On a team that has they given in, are they starting to at least acknowledge that they have to figure this out for the future

and do something? or are they still in like, we're going to win? I mean, they're, they'll never acknowledge it, right? Yeah. It's Montreal. No, but even more so than that, they're not going to acknowledge it with his current regime because as soon as Mark Bergerbent says something like that, he's gone, right? Like when you build a team the way he has right here, you're sort of-

He built a team to win. You're committed. You're committed to this team. And it's like you give Carl Olsner, whatever, $25 million or whatever this summer. You make the Shea Weber trade. It's like you're pushing all your chance. chips in and now you realize you have like a two and a seven and you are not going to win this hand so what do you do and it's it's really tough um so go for it so here's my here's what i want

to talk about with carry price i put his performance i think has been talked about at an ad nauseum this season i don't want to talk about his performance i want to pose a question do we think that in the next season or two if things stay the way they are in montraiseries in terms of their overall performance and, you know, the team around them and everything else, or if they go into rebuilding mode, either of those scenarios, do we think that Kerry Price is going to go the way of Patrick Waugh? In what regard? Demand to trade?

Demand a trade, get poor, or they just say we have to trade because of the salary or whatever it is. Well, I don't know. How likely is it that he would just do a horrible job coaching the quarter? Routre avalanche. I thought that's what you meant when you were saying, is he going to go the router patch of a bar. That'd be quite a leap here. That'd be quite a leaf. It took me a second. Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm, listen, I imagine that he is the type of guy that would obviously want to spend the remainder of his prime years competing for a cup or at least being given a chance to do so. But man, yeah, and it's, it's, here's a thing. His contract

starts next year. I know. Eight years, 84, and no full no move clause in every single one of those years. Yeah. Yeah, that's, I wonder if he was made available this summer and he was willing to waive that no move, like what do you, do you think his value is still at its apex? Well, and so that's, and that's why it's so interesting that he got named to the All-Star team. He still viewed his carry price and everybody's kind of going, it's a slump. He's going to come out of it.

You know what I said at the beginning of the season, which is that I think, Yes, he is still Carrie Price, but his injury stuff makes it very, very scary. And it could get, I think I've said several times now, it could get scary as soon as this year. And it kind of has come to fruition. So what I think that it's going to be, his value is going to ebb and flow because everybody's going to give him the benefit of the doubt. So, you know, let's say he finishes the rest of the season and he looks carry price like. I think his value will be high and they'll be able to

you know and there will be a if they put them on the market there will be a team that will say we have an opportunity to get carry price in our net right now you know the best or one of the very best

goaltenders in the world and somebody would take that chance somebody would maybe trade off very very significant assets for it now if he continues to kind of or if he ends the season on

a down note in terms of his own personal performance, I don't know. Maybe it takes another season for that to come about out, where you put him on the market. And then, yeah, he's got to wave as no trade or no move or whatever has to happen. But he's going to end up like another like Lundquist where it's one of the best goals in the world who doesn't win a cup.

Well, I think that's the perfect note to end this podcast on, A very somber note for a very somber show. I mean, the reason why I'm actually ending the show here is because it appears there's fireworks going on randomly in Vancouver for some reason. I'm not sure what's going on on January 9th or January 10th. Exciting. But, yeah. So, oh, and there's a siren in the background too. I hear it.

There we go. There we go. You know, you've listened to an episode of the PDO cast while there's a siren going on. You know what the show is actually. The show is actually moving to the Sportsnet Radio Studio here soon, which is exciting. It's going to be sound very professional, but unfortunately that means there's going to be no more sirens. So enjoy it while you can, people. The big time, going from the true apartment slash house podcasting set up to studio.

He's moving up the world. Look, if that's going to buy you more nice turtlenecks, I'm all for it. Yes. I think everyone is all for that, including myself. All right, Nick, plug a... Actually, I'm not going to let you plug some stuff. You always plug some stuff, and you never actually follow through on anything.

You're never putting out new content. Like, what are you going to plug here? There's nothing for you to plug. Follow me on Twitter. Do you really recommend people do that? Yeah. Yeah, I do too. You're pretty fond of follow.

Thanks, buddy. And a Mercad? Is it still at? At N-M-M-E-R-C-A-D. Awesome. Well, buddy, I appreciate you taking the time. I know you're super busy in your personal life these days and you haven't been tweeting as much in the past

and you haven't been as active on hockey Twitter, but it's always good to chat with you on here. Yeah, it's fun to be on. And this, for me, it gets the juice's phone. So hopefully I'll start tweeting it. And like always, maybe I'll start writing. Dare to Dream. All right, well, whenever next time you get bored

and you want to talk for an hour, feel free to re-invite yourself on the podcast and we'll go from there. Love it. All right. the hockey pdo cast with dmitri philipovic follow on twitter at dim philipovic and on soundcloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdiocast