The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 218: The Babcock Effect

Episode Date: January 17, 2018

Justin Bourne joins the show to discuss the recent struggles in Toronto, how much of the blame should lay at the feet of Mike Babcock and his tactical decisions, and what realistic expectations are for the Leafs moving forward. Plus we answer some mailbag questions by talking about the difficulty in evaluating players on bad teams, areas where we can squeeze hidden value out of moving forward, and the AHL as a developmental league.  Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $20 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. Every episode of the podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, Google Play, and Stitcher. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes as they’re released. All ratings and reviews are also greatly appreciated. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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My name is Demetri Filippovich, and joining me is my good buddy, Justin Boren. Justin, what's going on, man? Not a lot, man, just, you know, sit here, just rewatch the least game from last night so I could be sure to give you all the accurate insights that people are clamoring for. Do you usually do that? Do you go back and watch a bunch of tape, or do you just try to watch as much as you can live and then kind of pieced everything together later with someone's data. Yeah, I generally try to give the Leaves and other rewatch just because, you know, for SportsNet,

I do do lease analysis and it's kind of tough to catch everything in one go. And, you know, here we have the, they condense the games, like at least in 60 or whatever, 60 minutes, all the good stuff. So I'll generally go through that in the morning. But with most teams, it's just a one viewing and then, you know, maybe go over the goals a little closer. All right, well, the plan here today is for you and I to try and have a balanced conversation about the Toronto Maple Leafs, which I understand is probably hockey's version of an oxymoron, but we're going to go have a go-in anyways. I mean, you know, if you look at what's been going on lately, they're, what, 8 and 3 in their last 19 games since December 1st.

They don't have a regulation win since around the Christmas break. I mean, people are obviously freaking out, but at the same time, they've still got this double-digit lead over that poo-poo platter of Atlantic Division teams. So they sort of afford themselves a bit of a cushion here to figure things out. But I don't know, like when you watch them right now, do you think that things are as bad as people would lead you to believe? Or do you think it's just because it's the Leafs and there's so much attention being placed on them that, you know, there's this microscope going on and everyone is freaking out. And it's a bit, it's gone a bit too far.

Well, it depends. It depends what your expectations for beliefs are. You know, I'm going into this year, mine were extremely high. You know, they pushed Washington in the playoffs last year. and I thought the kids would take a step, and all of a sudden that means you're a contender. And there's a lot of nights, and particularly of late,

where they don't look like they can hang with the best teams. And, you know, that's real cause for concern. You know, when I look at them now, you know, I see a number of issues that they're fixable, but there are issues. And to me, they're this. There's Tyler Bozac and Leo Komarov have clearly declined to me. And the Leafs already have a, bad fourth line center. Freddie Goce is going to be there, whoever it is. You don't have a great

fourth line center. So if Bozac's bad, now you're really weak down the middle. And that's a huge problem in this league because you need those players distributing pucks to the wingers and the leaps have such great wingers. And if they're not getting the touches because their centers suck, real problem. And then, of course, Babs is playing Comerov to death. You played another 20 minutes last night. He just looks like he's not even agitating anymore like he used to. He just looks toothless to me. I don't understand why he's getting so much time. And then there's, you know, obviously the Roman Polack

issue. It probably should not be playing him. But yeah, there's some real holes and some real concerns with the leaves. Yeah. So that was going to be sort of my segue here into, I do want to have a big a big Mike Babcock conversation with you, but you know, when you're evaluating this team, it's, you sort of

try to divvy up responsibility or blame and how much it is on the coach, how much is on the personnel, and then how much of it is sort of a combination where maybe the personnel is not great, but then the which isn't doing himself any favors. And I think with Babcock, I mean, you know, whenever a team struggles the way the Leafs have this season, especially when it's Toronto,

there's going to be consternation and angst amongst fans, and there's going to be people questioning, line-up decisions and usage and calling for certain changes. And I don't know, like, I do want to kind of put this disclaimer out there that I feel like I'm predisposed a bit to liking Babcock in his style. When you hear him talk, he seems like a really thoughtful guy. I thought he came off great in front of the podcast, Craig Custin's book, and really had some thought,

walking comments in there. But at the same time, I do think that in this case, poking holes in the job he's done, especially in terms of usage, is fair. Would you see what you're doing with that? Yeah, yeah, I do. I mean, you know, I do think that there is a larger plan

for this Maple Leafs team. You know, obviously that the organization has put a lot of money into sports science. And, you know, you see other teams use their best players to more extreme degree. and you can see Babbs pushes back pretty hard against that and maybe more so than he did back when he had

actually definitely more so than he did when he had Nick Littstrom and Eisenman and those guys used to play them a ton and I think the sports science division has probably educated them a little bit on what's good for the players and what gives you the chance to win come June so you don't see Austin Matthews in crazy minutes and you don't see a lot of guys playing both special teams just because he doesn't he wants guys at their best he wants guys energetic and, you know, so he kind of distributes the ice time more evenly.

So that's one thing where he probably takes some criticism where I think there is thought behind it. But again, the Comorov thing, you know, some nights Polack plays 17 minutes, 18 minutes. Not great. But Leo is obviously, he's a big problem right now because the cadre line just doesn't look very effective. You know, last night, once again, they were in their own zone. I thought I thought Cadry was good outside a mistake on the game-time goal, but they just don't look great and I think part of the reason is

that he's kind of pulling them down. Yeah, I think I definitely, I read Jonah Segal did a great article about that for the athletic, talking about some of the sports science work that leaves have done and, you know, kind of tying all that together. I think that's a bit of an optimistic interpretation

of what's going on here because it is for sure. I would, I'd be much more willing to buy that. I mean, obviously, listen, the fact that, you know, an Austin Matthews type, just with his age, and some of the other guys in this team that I feel like they probably could take on a bigger workload

without seeing their performance dip as the year goes along, especially since they got some of their sea legs last year and experienced the postseason and playing deeper into the year. But I think also just when you combine the usage with Mike Babcock's comments in terms of how he wants this team to play, how they're not nearly good enough defensively, how he's preparing them for the postseason, I think you sort of do need to account for that. and then that would kind of explain why guys like Roman Polack and Leo Komarov are playing so much. And I don't think that come the postseason, all of a sudden,

that's going to do a complete 180 and flip over to all the young skill guys playing way much more. Yeah, no, you could be very right there. I definitely think there is some part of when he plays guys like Leo a lot, you know, in sending the message to the rest of the guys that this is how I want you to play. And if you play like this, then you'll get to play more. that's probably some measure of it. And, you know, then there's stuff that just, you know, they know that we don't in terms of video and stats

and in terms of just Mike's opinion. You know, Mike has kind of for a while had a bit of a reputation for loving the older guys and making the young guys earn it. And, you know, maybe that's a fault of his, and it seems to be. But, yeah, I don't know. It would be nice to know what they know

in terms of the deployment issues. I'd like to meet the NHL coach that doesn't feel that way that doesn't favor the veterans over the young guys. Yeah, it's kind of a weird thing, but I really feel there's a shift. I don't know if you feel the same way, but you can see that with the importance of entry-level contracts and winning well guys are young

and the education of understanding when players' primes are, you know, I think it's pushing away from that. And I think if you talk to a lot of veteran players who are 30 years old and sitting at home and still probably good enough to play in the league. They would say that there seems to be some shift towards young players. So it's going to be interesting to track if the love for the veterans maintains going forward. Absolutely.

I mean, the league is definitely getting younger as a whole. And we're seeing some of the, you know, clocks shifted up a bit in terms of guys getting into the league of younger ages. But I do believe that, you know, there's still this human nature element involved and a psychological thing where if you're a coach and your job is on the line, sometimes you're going to kind of gravitate back the stuff you feel comfortable with or safe with. And we see time and time again when a young player makes a mistake,

especially if it leads to a critical goal against or something, we see that the leash sometimes shortens quite a bit more with him as opposed to what he would do if it was an older player in that situation. But I think there's a purpose to that. And that's teaching and educating and all that. A lot of times when you have an older player who makes a mistake, whether it would just be a mental mistake or whatever or even physical, the coach just goes, okay, well, he knows what he's supposed to do there.

He just messed up. And when it's a younger player, oftentimes there's the kind of the thought process that maybe he just doesn't know. Maybe he needs to have it drilled into his head that this is what we want to do. And it needs to be something that he, you know, you give that chain a little bit of a jerk and say, hey, that's one of those plays where, you know, we need you to do this and not that. So I think it's just sort of part of that is the belief that you're educating and that the veteran guy knows what he's supposed to do. He just messed up. Right. Well, I'm kind of curious for your take on this because you've, I feel like watched this more closely than I have.

I've tuned into a lot of Leafs games this year and I've watched them fairly closely, but you've definitely put more time into it. And I'm wondering, I don't know, like just from watching them on a nightly basis, is this one of those situations where, you know, you said heading into the year, you have very high expectations for this team and you sort of expect this natural progression, like, okay, they took those first few steps last year and then this year they're going to hit a new level and sort of how the human mind processes, like, you know, the shiny new toy syndrome where last year everyone's super excited to watch this team.

They're taking the league by storm. is very excited about them. And then this year, you know, even if they're playing a similar way, we'd obviously just sort of naturally be less inclined to be overwhelmed by how fun they are to watch. Do you think there's some of that going on or do you think that some of Mike Babcock's tendencies or some of the stuff he's saying is actually seeping into this team and they're playing differently there because it does feel like they are, you know, dumping the puck in more and doing some of that stuff, which I obviously don't like.

But do you think that's actually happening? or do you think it's just how our mind is tricking us a little bit based on expectations? Yeah, no, I think you're bang on just in terms of if they had this season last year, you know, people are still losing their minds about this team and the way, you know, the potential and the talent and how fun they are. You know, I think they're pretty much tracking point-wise pretty comparable to last year. So I definitely think there is a certain element to that. I don't think that anything has changed in terms of their system.

and actually I can say that pretty definitively, nothing has changed. And, you know, Mike isn't coaching them any differently, but there's a whole, you know, the rest of the league is also no longer overwhelmed by them and like, and not, you know, wow, we didn't expect this. This is a team now and a team that, you know, when opponents are planning to play them, they look at their offensive talents and they look at their strengths and weaknesses and they're, you know, they're preparing differently and more diligently, I would imagine than they did against, you know, after that 15, 16 season for the Leafs,

it would be impossible to take them seriously. So certainly, you know, I think teams are playing them differently. I think it's a whole host of factors. I think, you know, you're seeing decline in a couple guys that maybe are falling off quicker than you expected. You know, we expected guys to take, you know, steps on the young guys that aren't, you know, guys that are pretty good players aren't having awesome years. I don't think Jake Gardner's looked good a lot of times.

And even JV.R. to me has 19 goals, but he doesn't look right to me. So there's a whole host of factors going into why this team isn't. doing better, but all told, it's, you know, it's very comparable to last season in terms of success they're having. Yeah, it's interesting because I was looking at this and, you know, they're playing a very similar pace at 5-1-5 to what they did last year. It's just that the rest of the league is caught up a little bit and ramped it up. So, you know, like last year they were first in the league by a fairly significant margin

ahead of teams like the Penguins and the Stars and the Islanders. This year they're down a seventh, which is obviously still very good. But it does sort of support that maybe the league has changed a bit or caught up. they are sort of similar to where they were last year and i don't know it does feel like you know last year maybe is some of that just preparation and teams weren't weren't ready for them but it did feel like you know there was this inevitability to their games where when they were really firing on all cylinders it was like the snowball effect where they gained momentum and ramp up and just overwhelm opponents and it'd be so fun to watch and everyone would be tuning into their games and this year it

sort of it's changed a little bit maybe they are playing a bit more conservatively maybe it's expectations i don't know what what have you but i don't know so like spinning this forward. Where are you at on the idea that you need to play a certain way or a certain brand of hockey to win in the postseason, kind of implying that it changes and maybe you need to play more defensively oriented or what have you in the postseason to succeed? So I'm not of the mind that you need to change the way you play at all. I think, you know, if you're the least and you're, you know, high-flying offensive team, I think you can still be a high-flying offensive team. The problem with the postseason is that the teams and the

playoffs, they're really good. They're really good. It's the best teams in the league. And, you know, oftentimes within the divisional matchups, it's two teams that could, you know, win the Stanley Cup facing off in the first round. And the problem when you play really good teams is when you make a mistake, when you turn the puck over, they're much more likely to capitalize. So, you know, these little turnovers that you get away with when you play a bad team, they cost you. So the Leaves can go ahead and beat the crap out of, you know, whoever, you know, I want to say Ottawa, but I didn't want to hurt anyone to do it.

Montreal, take your pick of the winner. Yeah. But, yeah, so they can make those turnovers and win seven-three, and it looks like they had an awesome night. But you still give up three goals because they're making mistakes and turning pucks over. And I think when you play, you know, the best teams in the league, be it St. Louis or whoever, you're not going to score seven. But if you're still making those turnovers, they're still going to get three.

So I don't really think you need to play a more defensive game. You just need to be, you need to understand that there's a certain amount of caution that needs to be applied, even when you're playing the bad teams. And I think, you know, the players, they get habits. They fall into certain routines. And so even when you're playing the bad teams, you need to be playing like you're not playing a bad team or it keeps in in playoffs. Right. Well, so, yeah, it's tough not to sort of project ahead at this point because it seems like it's a pretty much,

it's a given that it's going to be Bruins' Leafs in round one unless something crazy happens. And I don't know, like, while I did say that, you know, if this is just a blip on the radar, it's not that big of a deal because they have afforded themselves this cushion and they can figure it out. But at the same time, one of the problems here is that because of this losing streak or this funk they've been in, they've really seeded control of the second seat

to the Bruins. So now they're looking at the situation where they're going to be heading into round one of the postseason having to go to Boston without home ice advantage. And if you just match those two teams, up I feel like I mean this is probably true for a lot of teams playing in some Bruins but I feel like it's a tough match up just because especially with with having last change there in Boston they can just throw that Bergeron Marshan combo at Matthews and Nylander and if that's the case then like where on this Leafs team are they going to generate enough offense to

stay afloat beyond that I guess you would have to really give more more of a leash to JBR and Mariner and hope that they can carry the team because at best that'll be a wash between those two top lines. And how much do you hate the concept of being like, all right, well, you know, playoffs eight is in the hands of JBR? Yeah, it's not ideal. No, because like that Bergeron line, you're right. I think they're probably the most dominant line in the NHL.

And yeah, certainly they would negate Matthews if they could. You know, this might come up, you know, with Babcock and thinking, okay, well, how do we spread this offense out? How do we get, maybe we get Neelander away from them? maybe we get, you know, put Marner or some, you know, you need to find a way to have your talent that's not just with Matthews. So there would certainly be a lot of decisions there. But you do worry about this sort of the middle of the lease lineup.

I've long been saying it, and I'm still awaiting it, but, you know, someone like this very capitan can come in and, you know, provide speed and energy and even a little bit of offense. And, you know, Josh Levo is just sitting there. There are people they have who can, produce offense and you know it may come they may come to realize at some point if they are facing Boston that some of those guys

are going to have to get in if they have a chance I wonder how much that you know the fact that that's pretty pretty brutal first round draw and you know my cap they're stealing it for this season I wonder how much of that would change the thought process heading into trade deadline season here I mean they've shown

that you know they have a pretty pragmatic group in terms of taking their time here with building something special and not necessarily just cashing in all their chips at once trying to go for a big run right away. But with some of the contracts coming up over the next couple summers, they're going to have to make some tough decisions. And there's pretty clear flaws on this team right now.

And I wonder, do you think that's something that we see addressed coming to trade-ed line? Or do you think it's still going to be sort of maybe some patchwork stuff, maybe a more solid fourth-line center kind of like last year when they brought in Brian Boyle and just spinning it forward and trying to take their time and go for it next year as opposed to really making a push for this season? It's going to be interesting for sure. You know, I was looking at their expiring that's up front there. You have JBR and Bozak and Komarov.

And, you know, the idea was going to be, I think the plan anyway, was going to be, you know, keep them, don't trade them at the deadline, give this team a chance to win in playoffs. If they walk, they walk, you know, you're going to need to free up salary cap space anyway for upcoming contracts. not a huge deal. But the more I watch Bosak and Komarov,

I'm not sure that they're moving the needle in a positive direction. I'm not sure they're even helping. So if they come to realize or their opinion is that these guys aren't great, well then maybe they do end up making a move with the deadline.

I definitely think that they're going to do something in terms of trying to acquire a top board defense men and maybe patch up some other holes. But the only problem with what I'm saying here with Bozak and Comorov is just Polzac's a center. You know, they have no center, so they're kind of stuck.

Like, you know, if you move him, you have to get another center back. So they've got some tough decisions ahead. It's going to be fascinating to watch. I'd take it even a step further. I say trading a guy like Komorov might even be a net positive, like just because I think he could be a useful player. But it's sort of one of those things where if Mike Babcock can help himself, maybe you just take Comrov away from him and all of a sudden,

maybe some of that ice time goes elsewhere and the team gets better as a result. The old moneyball move. That's okay. Well, if you're going to play this guy, I'm taking away your toys. Yeah, I agree. You know, I don't know how long it is. I think Sosh Mokov is just down on a conditioning stint, and I think he's going to be ready fairly soon.

He plays Leo Comerow's role. That's his exact role, except, you know, he's young, and he's a little, he's still got some nastiness to him. You know, if you swap those two guys out, are you any worse? Probably not, and not to mention. Babs isn't going to play Sosh like he plays. Comorov, so you're better off there too. So it would be interesting to see if they got rid of them if they got better.

Yeah, I think they would. Anyone can develop high blood pressure. In fact, 7.5 million Canadians live with hypertension every day. The mission of Get Down BP is to bring everyone together with the goal of getting blood pressure down in a fun and interactive way. So join the community at Get Downbp.ca to learn more because getting blood pressure down has never felt so good. Community-based initiative fueled by one of Canada's leading pharmaceutical research-based companies in collaboration with hypertension Canada.

Okay, let's, enough of both the leaves here. Let's, let's, we solicited some questions from listeners on Twitter, and we've got some good ones, and we are going to dip into that mailbag and answer a few of them and see, see if we can come up with some fun stuff. And, you know, the first one I got was from Nick Ignatob, and he basically asked, you know, how much of a leeway do you give a player in a bad team? and he cites the coyotes and the Sabres players this season as an example. I'd say you could stretch it even past this season and go for the past few. When you're evaluating guys who are playing in dire situations like that, how much of a, not necessarily a free pass, but how much leniency do give in terms of their numbers and their performance?

I actually give them like a whole, whole bunch of leniency. I think it's very much worth considering, particularly, when you're looking at like box car numbers or anything like that. You know, my other students in college, you know, you only play about 30-some games in my sophomore year. I had a really good season. I scored 10 times and had another 12-a-fif, maybe, something like that. So, you know, a decent sophomore year

and was looking forward to my junior year. We lost some really good players. They just graduated. So we were a different-looking team the next year. I couldn't do anything. I couldn't, we couldn't score, we couldn't win. I think I ended up with. I don't know, maybe 15 points or something like that over the course of the season.

And then my senior year, we got a couple of great freshmen in. We were a much better team. And I ended up with 31 points. So I felt this dip. And of course, some of it's on me. And that's, you know, you take personal responsibility and all that. But you could really feel how being on a team that can't score and doesn't really have talent. You just earn your own end the whole time.

You feel like you never get to touch the puck. So I give those guys, certainly when it comes to statistics, I think it has a huge effect. Right. So, I mean, obviously with shot metrics, we have, you know, relative stats that show those team effects. And that's all well and good, and that's a good start. But obviously, in extreme examples, if you're just on a truly dreadful team, that's still not going to paint the clearest picture ever.

I think, you know, from just an eye test perspective here, you know, there's guys like Taylor Hall during his years in Edmonton or Jack Eichol now when you watch him in Buffalo that are unique talents that are capable of doing the heavy lifting in the neutral zone. And they go back to their own end, they receive the puck, they take it up the ice themselves. They basically flipped ice entirely, just single-handedly. And those guys are special. They're freaks. They're not like other guys.

For regular players, I wonder how much, especially if you don't have the defensemen to get them the puck in good spots or in the transition game or with a full head of steam where they can operate and do something on the rush. I wonder how much not getting the puck in those ideal situations plays a role into why some guys might struggle. It seems like that would be something that would make sense, right? Yeah, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. I mean, your decor makes such a big difference to your forwards. You know, I kind of think of, I don't know why Winnipeg's coming to mind, but just they're, you know, good decor, and they seem to get their puck up to their forwards a lot, and their forwards are dangerous. It makes a huge difference to just getting those touches.

And, you know, over the course of a game, if you've got a bad defense and you can't make it play can't make a pass, well, you're going to spend a lot of time in your own end and you don't get to, you know, use your tools at all. So certainly, uh, if you have great forwards, you're doing them a disservice. If you don't have defensemen that can get them the puck. And the other thing is you mentioned this when you were speaking from your own personal experience, but the idea of role on a team is something I'm so fascinated by both in terms of, uh, line made effects. You know, we always cite uh, quality of competition and how, uh, third liners or I guess their second liners on the Leafs, but guys like Komarov and Khadri's numbers might look different

because they're playing the heavy minutes against the other teams best. But we don't really account quality of teammates as well, and that's a huge thing in my opinion. And the other thing is the idea of sort of pro-rating stats, right? So if you have a guy that's crushing it in a limited role and he's playing very small minutes against soft competition with good guys and he's crushing it, and then versus a guy who's being asked to do way too much

because he's on a bad team that doesn't have anyone else to play ahead of him, so all of a sudden he's playing over his talent level and he's kind of drowning as a result. So these are all things that we need to take into account when evaluating these guys that I don't think we spend enough time putting into it just because it is more theoretical and it isn't just, you know, there isn't a single metric that we can just look at to sort of give us a cut and dried view of what's going on. Yeah, no, I absolutely agree.

There's just so many factors. And, you know, I harken back to the early days of hockey analytics. And, you know, I remember being on Twitter when trades would be made. and I'm talking, I don't know, like eight years ago or something. And somebody like, they traded a 52% coursey guy for a 48% course you guys. These idiots, you know, it's like the sheer volume of information you don't have there is just monstrous. So it's really tough. There's certainly a lot of factors to go in.

And that's why there's always going to be room for staff. There's always going to be room for scouting because it's, you know, you always need a mix of the two to really let you know what's going on. That was quite a sub-tweeted at our buddy cams were on there. with a thought damn in mind I assure you um

all right so here's a second question and this one is coming from uh from me from demitreropovich while i was thinking about it while uh while i was looking at some of these and it is i was kind of curious to pick your brain about this um you know having worked in with a team and putting some thought into this you know we see especially now with the standings and

the loser point um and this idea of parity how um you know the margin for error really is shrinking and teams are getting smarter and the standings are getting so tight and you really need to find ways to squeeze out extra value and see where you can get ahead with market inefficiencies and I'm kind of curious, do you see

any either right now that are being used or stuff that's going to arise in the future that you think teams that are kind of ahead of the game will be able to take advantage of? Like you talking about just in particular, like players

they're looking for or assist them? it could be either or, you know, a certain assets you're looking for, or, you know, that's undervalued by the league. I don't know. It could be anything, really. Yeah, okay. So certainly I think there's a push towards defensemen that can break the puck out,

so small, quick guys that can go back and, you know, Travis Dermott does it very well, but he's not, you know, he's 5-11, he's not that small, but, like, there's a huge understanding now that these guys that can go get the puck and make a break-out pass, don't

play in their own end. So it doesn't matter if they're not strong enough to defend because most of the time they go the other way. And I think that's one area. Other areas, how else we got? That's all we got off the top of the head. Here, let me give you one that I've been fascinated by lately, and it's

how teams utilize their fourth lines. Okay. And it's obviously not the sexiest topic, and I don't think that having an awesome fourth line is going to be the difference between you not making the playoffs and competing for a Stanley Cup by any means but you know in this idea of uh the little things matter and they add up i do think this is something that could uh could come into play and it's this idea that you know we see we've seen that you know fighting

is down in an all-time low and it's really being phased out of the game pretty pretty rapidly and we used to have these days where there'd be fourth-line spots devoted on pretty much every team to guys who would play a couple minutes a night potentially drop the gloves if need be you know be enforcer types and that's obviously kind of gone out the window i do think that now that's now that's those fourth line spots really for the teams that are paying attention should be used to guys who have some special teams utility and a great example of that for me is a guy like martin firk on the detroit red wings where you know his shot is a clearly a plus weapon for him and it's going to give him a chance to play in this league i don't think he can keep up at five-on-five and skate well enough to let that shot play but in terms of you know you play him a couple minutes and then on the power play all of a sudden he becomes a very useful useful weapon. And so there's guys like that. There's obviously penalty killers as well. So I think the fourth line is something where if you're looking for slight advantages, that can be a huge thing. Because I think gone are the days where you can have a fourth

liner who only plays a couple minutes a night total and doesn't really do anything else other than go out and throw a couple hits. I totally agree. I've actually heard that before. It's kind of like having a field goal kick or some sort of specialist on your bench. You know, like we had T.J. Brennan in the American Hockey League there, and he won the, I think, the Eddie Shore trophy for defensemen of the year. You know, I think twice. Only he can't play defense. So that was a little awkward. But what he can do is on the power play, he can shoot it in the damn net. And he was just an absolute monster on the power play. And, you know, he, I understand he's a defenseman. But you're right. If you hit forward like that, someone who is, you know, just excelled in one area, that'd be a nice guy to attack on. or fourth line. But at the same time, you know, we're already seeing, like you said, we're seeing

less enforcers and less fighting. But there's almost this thing with young kids now, like I'm almost certain that suspensions and headshots and all that are down significantly, there seems to be an interest in actually playing hockey from a lot of younger players. And, you know, that sort of eliminates the need for those enforcer tights. And, you know, you see this on a number of teams that are giving young guys a chance on the lower lines to play. Because you think of it Austin Matthews or Mitch Marner or how often you see them drawing it guys? Like they just play hockey. Austin doesn't even hit anyone.

He just plays hockey. And I think there's going to be less neat for those enforcer types. And certainly you may end up seeing fourth lines that, you know, their purpose isn't necessarily to crash and bang, but it's to be a cheap entry-level line of guys that can least hold their own, keep their head above water at five-on-five. So it'll be interesting to see. Yeah.

I think there's value in that. Another thing while we were talking here that I thought about was backup goalie. and you know this is something that it relates to the Leafs as well the situation they're in where they have a couple younger guys in the AHL who are doing really well and then they have Curtis McElaney who's their de facto backup up with the Leafs and it's a tough one right because you're sort of trying to balance the psychological element and playing time and you don't want to have a young guy who really could benefit reps from reps in the AHL just sitting on the bench up with the team but at the same time you know with back to backs and what we know about how

goalie performance changes with rest versus being fatigued and how every point matters at this point. I do wonder whether having a very, very reliable backup who will give your team a good chance to win when you use him is something that I feel like teams still kind of don't put too much thought into a short change a little bit where they just recycle a lot of guys that have been around the league. And I think that's something that could benefit teams as well. Yeah, I've got to, something to add to that one other things.

The thing I'll add to that is that there's like 100 goalies you can play in the NHL. They're probably good enough to play in the NHL in their 60 spots. The problem is the backup goaltenders generally play, I don't know, what the average for backup goaltenders would be 20, 25 games a season. That's not really enough to evaluate a guy because often they're going in, as you said, like in back-to-backs. You don't know what strength of team this guy played versus the next guy. So you just kind of have the two stats, you know, goals,

against and save percentage. And we don't have a ton to evaluate the backup. So so much of it is just luck and timing for these guys. You know, McElagney being there over Picard and Sparks, you know, it's pretty lucky. You know, those goaltenders are probably as good or better, but, you know, he happens to be in an organization where they want someone a little more veteran. And that's, you know, it's sort of a carousel for these goaltenders. And it has to be frustrating because they don't get enough opportunity to prove themselves.

So that's a tough go there. The other thing that I think teams are looking at getting better at is before they draft a player, better understanding the player. You know, there's a lot of sports psychology today, and there's a lot of hockey people will tell you it's so important to get a sense of who the person is for basically, are they intrinsically motivated? Like, are they going to keep working in the gym when, you know, no one's watching them? Are they going to keep pushing, you know, they're very hardest even after we give them 10? million dollars a year. You know, it's,

there's all these questions that, you know, what is this person as a man and who is he going to become? And it makes such a difference. And where did this guy come from? It's like, well, he's always worked that hard.

You know, you knew he was going to get better. And so I think there's going to be a lot of the advancement and development and sort of how they evaluate players before the draft. I'm curious for your take on us. Do you think that the H. The H. H.L.

is being utilized effectively enough as a, developmentally or a league to you know where teams can test out certain things or try to experiment or do you think it's just being used too much as sort of because it doesn't feel like with certain teams there is a bunch of uh and and a lot of respect to them i mean it takes a certain type of player to do that but just guys who have been kicking around for a while who are like those those four a type players that aren't necessarily good enough for the nchl level but are very well suited for the a hl do you think the league could benefit more if the a hl was more of a developmental league or do you think it's already there?

No, I think the the HL is, you know, the Marley's in particular, I, you know, having seen that, I think they're doing a great job with the focus on player development. The whole thing is, you know, there's five areas they look at with these players that I probably can't

get into, but they made sure that they're working on all these different factors and it's, you know, they're working with skills coaches, you know, you could have a day where you want to have a systems practice, but you know, that's not the focus. you're trying to make Toronto Maple Leafs, and so they put that time in to the person.

I think one thing that is sorely lacking is teams don't have anywhere to experiment with other things system-wise. You know, you want your American hockey league team playing like your NHL team so that when the players are ready to step in, they can just step in. They can get called up one day, and they don't have to learn the systems. They know how the team's playing on the same page. But it would be fun from a coaching perspective to say, well, what if we try,

this system. And what if we played that way for a quarter of the year, then we played this way for a quarter of the year, and quarter, quarter, we tried four different ways of playing, and we were able to evaluate, okay, this one was the most effective for us. You know, maybe we can try implementing it with the Leafs. You know, I guess the ECHL could be used like that for you to some extent. But, you know, at the same time with the American hockey teams, when those guys come up, you'd like to be able to play your system as well. So it's really tough to find a place to actually tinker, because they don't want to just be playing around in the NHL. games, you know? Yeah, no, I agree with that. Okay, one final question here. Someone asked who your pick for a player with poor metrics that you like watching anyways is. Oh, geez. Let that be. Well, is there, I think I talked about this with you last time I had you on, but it was a while ago we can rehash it. It's fine. Is there a certain type of a player that you just have like a personal bias or preference towards that you just really joy, like a playing style as opposed to a specific player.

Yeah, yeah, there's so right off the top of my head, I really love guys that can hold onto the puck and not panic, but also just sort of be elusive. So to me, that's, I love watching Goosef Nyquist. I love Barzal's fantastic, Johnny Goodrow. You know, the way they move with the puck, they're so aware and so composed. And it's just, I'm just so impressed by them. And they're sort of just core strength and their vision. and their ability, like, they never seem to make the easy play,

the easy dumb play where you just skate it down and put it on the pads, you know, they'll cut the puck back and the weight and the loop, and eventually they find some guy. I think that's supremely confident, supremely talented, and I have a ton of fun watching that. Yeah, I agree with that. I'll call on that, and I'll add, or Tammy Panarin is a guy who really fits that bill.

And obviously it takes a certain level of, you know, skill to actually pull this stuff off. But I do think some of it is kind of mindset as well, right? You see so often guys are just, you know, they want to get rid of the puck quickly. They don't want to make a mistake. They want to make the next play and keep things moving, and that's all well and good. But there is something to be said for, you know, waiting things out and letting stuff develop. And those guys that we mentioned are as good as it gets at doing that. Yeah, there's definitely, you know, I've been seeing a lot of people saying on Twitter,

and I'm probably going to write about this a little bit today or tomorrow, but just about the Leafs and dumping the puck in too much. It's just like so often you're getting closed off by the, defenseman, there's back pressure coming. It's just, there's nothing there. You know, you take what you're given and you kind of have to. If there is room, they're coached to go ahead and take that room. It's not that, you know, they're asking the guys to dump the puck in all the time,

but those types of players, when other players feel like there's no room, for some reason, they don't panic and they know that there is another, you know, if they hold it that they're not going to get poked or that they're going to buy some time for someone to show up so they can make a pass. It's a very specific type of player who is unafraid of making a turnover and supremely confident. And, you know, part of it when you see players dump in the puck in is because they're not those players.

So it definitely is a unique type of player that can hang on to it like that. Hmm. I agree. All right. Well, there's a, there's a siren going on in the background, which is the PDOCAS sign that we need to sign off here. Justin, what are you working on these days other than, other than that article that you just mentioned there?

Yeah. I've got a few things in the hopper. They're mostly least centric stuff, but it's over at the Athletic. Follow me on Twitter at JT. Born, and I'll post the, you know, I put everything out there when I publish, and yeah, I'll definitely share them when they're done.

Actually, I have one final thing before I let you go. The Penguins, this is something that you and I wanted to talk about a while ago, and then we never had a chance to actually do it on the show, but where are you at with them right now? Are you optimistic? Are you worried? Like, what are your expectations for them in the second half?

Yeah, I think like everyone else, I've all this whole time when they've been looking so terrible, I've been like, calm down. It's the penguin. You know, they've won four straight games. Crosby has two points in four straight games. It's there. They still have the difference makers to me to win.

You know, when you have Kessel and Malkin and Crosby and Latang and these guys to really, really make a difference, you're never out of it. And I think they have enough support players that, you know, can step their games up to and they're going to be all right. The D's always a worry, but once Matt Murray starts playing a little bit better, and I think he has a lot better to give, I'm not

overly worried about the penguins. Yeah, yeah, and they'll benefit from a bit of regression. I mean, it makes no sense they'd be one of the worst teams and 5-1-5 shooting percentage, and the power plays really carry them, so if the talent will win out eventually, but I'm kind of curious because that's a metropolitan

division, excuse me, is so tightly jam-packed that, like, a couple of good games here or there can all of a sudden change things so dramatically. Yeah, and they're just the type of team, though, that they always seem to find a way to pull through. So I'm not going to be the guy to bet against them just yet. No, me neither.

All right, Justin. That was a lot of fun. Let's do this again sometime. And we'll all follow you on Twitter at J.T. Bourne. And we'll chat soon. All right. For sure, man. Thanks, Demetri.

Cheers. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud. At soundcloud.com slash hockey pdocast. You know,