The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 228: The NHL is Dumb, Riverdale is Dumber

Episode Date: March 30, 2018

Dom Luszczyszyn joins the show to discuss a variety of topics, which includes: 2:20 The Steve Dangle Podcast 3:45 The Triumvirate at the Top of the Atlantic 10:15 The late season collapse by the Stars and Flames 22:00 Changes in pace and possession 31:00 Criteria for the Norris Trophy Race 39:00 How Evander Kane has changed the Pacific  45:45 Can the Blue Jackets get over the hump? 50:20 Are the Capitals for real? 58:30 Bubble Teams Due to Regress next season 1:03:30 The hole the Red Wings dug themselves 1:10:30 A speculative gamble on Josh Ho-Sang 1:13:00 Riverdale chatter 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. Also sponsoring today's show is eHarmony. Stop waiting and start your journey to a satisfying, meaningful relationship! Come see how eHarmony can change your life. Go to eHarmony dot com and get started. Right now my listeners can get a free month with when they sign up for a 3 month subscription! Enter my code PDO at checkout. 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 Dimitri Filipovich. across from me is my good buddy Dom Luce Chishin. How'd I do? Really good. You're getting a lot better there. I mean, I've had you on the show, what? Three, four times now. I hope that the whole

shtick of Dom L is done. You're Dom Lus Chishen now. Oh, now that I said it, I'm only referring to you. You are the best in the business at that, I got to say. Some people think they know it if they've had me a couple times and I'm like, you don't know it. I'm a broadcasting professional. What can I say?

This is my first rodeo. So we are right now recording. in my Toronto Airbnb. I got to say, Dimitri always has the hottest Airbnb's. Every time I go in, it's a castle. I've got the hookups. What can I say?

I've got that Rogers money. And we're recording on these new handheld mics I've got. I've done a few shows with them, not too many. So hopefully the audio is okay. I'm still learning on the fly here in terms of how far I need to keep it away from my mouth and how I need to use this thing. And my producer always gives me crap about it.

But we'll see how it goes. And we are recording in the kitchen and there's a fridge beside us. It's a lesser of two evils. We were trying to record in a smaller room before, but there was a bit of an echo, so hopefully it'll turn out okay. I'm really painting a picture here for our listeners

so they feel like they're part of the show. You got to get an Airbnb with a studio space. That's next. I do. I do. Yeah, I mean, we'll see. You know, Rogers is a fly-by-night organization. They don't have that much money yet.

So we're recording this on a Thursday afternoon, I guess, now. It's kind of a weird point in the season. I've been standing for a few weeks now, but especially, I mean, there's like the individual awards races, I guess, to talk about. There's still a few playoff matchups left to be determined. But for the most part, I feel like we're all just kind of waiting for a round one to get here. And thankfully, that'll happen in the next 10 days or so. But for now, it's like, you know, we solicited some questions on Twitter and we'll get to that because there aren't too many natural topics other than the ones that have just been rehashing over and over again for the past few weeks. Yeah.

It's a tough time because basically just waiting, especially if you live in Toronto. You've been waiting. You've been in third for like six years now. You're just wondering if it's going to be Boston or Tampa. So that's going to be a big game tonight between those two. Yeah. So what do you think? Okay.

I was on the Steve Daniels podcast the other day. And they were on one of the questions. One of them asked who was the most delightful member of the CD Daniel podcast. I've never been on. So I don't have the answer. But maybe you do. Someone wants to know this. they're all um this isn't i'm honestly not even being diplomatic here this is the honest truth

they're all like the sweetest people ever they're so nice uh steve is obviously a bit of an acquired taste he's very very eccentric very uh energetic and excited especially to talk about the leafs um so once you kind of recalibrate for that um he's great adam is adam is just really nice and jesse was um you know he's sort of the third wheel in that show so he was a bit more quiet and kind of fact checking and stuff but he was great as well. So I had a blast and they have a bit more of a professional setup than I do here. They got the actual Rogers studio and they got the cameras set up and everything. So it was a blast. Hopefully the P.O. Guests will get there one day. So that's wear your best turtleneck for that, right?

I had to, yeah. I mean, right now I'm wearing like my third best one. I have Pock Talks tonight. I'll wear my, I think I might wear the first one again. So we'll see how it goes. But anyways, let's talk a bit about the, what you raised there with the Bruins and the lightning and We're in Toronto here and, you know, we have a bit of that leaves bias, so we need to kind of factor them here as well. Like, I think the Bruins and Lightning are such different teams. Yeah. And there might not necessarily be a right answer in terms of which one you'd rather face

if you were the Leafs in round one. But I don't know, like, how do you break down those matchups in terms of both from a least perspective and if you were just sort of grading all three of those teams as a whole? Sort of like a pick your poison because the Leafs are going to be underdogs to either team. I follow a lot of leaves fans, as most hockey fans do. They look at their Twitter feed. Anytime a Leafs thing happens like, oh, I follow a lot of Leafs fans. I follow even more because I cover the team.

And it seems like a lot of people have veered away from wanting Boston to wanting Tampa Bay in round one, because they see it as the easier opponent because Tampa is kind of floundered a bit lately. The way I see it, I think I'd prefer the Bruins just because the way the Leaps are built, they have depth on all four lines now they can they might not win that line one matchup but they could win lines two to four because boston as great a team as they are the their bottom three lines aren't as strong i don't think they're as deep there as tampa but obviously the marchion burson pasternak line is going to be hard to contain so that'll be tough but i think i'd prefer playing boston right now hmm yeah it's interesting i mean i think obviously we saw um

I mean, we've seen it from the Lightning all season, but in the most recent matchup against the Leafs, sort of how they quickly they can turn the game on its head, where the Leaves were looking good for a while, and then all of a sudden, like, the Lightning just scored three goals in a matter of minutes, and you're just like, okay. And there's very few teams in recent memory that have that capability, which is obviously what makes them super dangerous. The Bruins are more of that kind of Elliott King's team from a few years ago. I think they have a bit more scoring talent, but it's kind of like that battle of attrition and they wear you down and they want to have the puck as often as possible. they're going to win in that way. Would you be worried from a Leafs perspective? I know Mitch Martin is having a great season, especially of late. And you've got Patty Marl there.

You've got JVR, especially on the power play. But with the Bruins having home ice advantage in that series, as a Leafs observer, would you be worried about the potential of, you know, the Bruins can just throw that Berger online against Matthews pretty much for the entirety of the game whenever he's out there? And do you think the Leafs have enough sort of secondary scoring? there to combat that if that Matthews line isn't able to generate much. I do. I do. The Leifes, that's their biggest strength, is that they do have secondary scoring, especially since they

don't have anyone playing like 20 minutes in night. They balance all the lines. The third line with JVR, Bozac, and Brown has been crushing opponents lately. And if they can win that match up against the Bruins third line, which is a fine third line, I think I would place the Leaf's depth ahead of them. The big concern for me is that the Bruins have the best left winger in league, probably arguably. Yep. I know if that was a hot take or not. I don't know. Who else do you put Taylor Hall there? Hall, Ovi. I'm sure we're missing someone. We're yelling at us right now. I mean, Jamie Ben. Jamie Ben. I'm having a bit of a down. Right. But I mean, in terms of like, just pure ability, especially over the past few years

if you're using a three-year sample or something like that. But yeah, I mean... Goodro. Yeah. Yeah. I would put Marsha, I have all those guys, and the league's biggest weakness is right-hand defensemen. So do we really want to see Hainesi, Zaitzat-Polak handling

Marchand on a nightly basis? I personally do not want any business with that. I mean, those guys were built for postseason hockey. Roman Polack, bringing the grittensity. Yeah, no, you're right. I think, I mean, it's obviously not ideal that for the Leafs to advance, they'd probably have to beat both of those teams in succession. Like, that seems like it's a tough thing.

And, you know, people are going to bring this up because it feels like this year, more so than ever, more people are calling into question the playoff structuring format and the seating and everything. And obviously it's kind of convenient. People are like, oh, now that it affects the Leafs, especially, of course, people are calling into question. but that ignores the fact that people like you and I have been kind of calling this out for a few years now

as kind of bogus and not the right way to go about it. I went to bat for the Columbus Blue Jackets last year, wrote a whole thing about how garbage it was that they were facing the pens in the first round. And I had people in the Columbus organization tweeting at me or DMing me saying thank you for this. So it's not just a leaf thing. It's been a thing for years.

I know people were messaging Travis, who's been on this, bandwagon, I think, since they brought this format to existence. And it's just amazing that they called him a Leap's Homer, I think. It was a sense fan. Yeah. Man, it's tough. I see both sides of the argument just from the perspective.

Like, I think the rationale the league uses is they wanted this because it's going to increase the likelihood of building in division rivalries, which I think is bogus. I think the argument makes much more sense that, you know, you know, eventually if you're the best teams, you're going to have to beat the other best teams to win the cup. And you want to, like from a fan perspective, um, I think it would just be,

it's fun watching the teams play when they're at full capacity and when everyone's healthy. And we know that, you know, come the conference finals and the finals, um, you know, teams start losing guys. Guys are dropping like flies.

They're playing at less than 100%. And maybe the hockey isn't as that playing at, play at a high level as it could have been earlier. But, you know, it sort of defeats the purpose of the regular season then because what's the point of being really good in winning as many games as you can. If you're like the fourth best team when you're playing,

the sixth best team in the league in the first round, it seems kind of on its head and just backwards. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense. I feel like I'd rather have the marquee series in rounds three and four instead of rounds one and two, but that's the NHL for you. Well, okay, so let's talk about two teams here out west that don't have to worry about this

because they're not even going to make the playoffs. And wow, that was a segue and a half. That was, we're talking about the Dallas Stars and the Calgary Flames here. And I know that you wrote about the Dallas Stars, but we're going to lump the Calgary Flames into this because it feels like they deserve it. It's sort of tough to discern which one is more disappointing and which one is more egregious. Both teams look really good for large stretches of the season, both in terms of underlying numbers and in terms of their place in the standings. And then now they've both just completely fallen off. And unless something, you know, drastic happens in the final couple weeks here,

they're both going to be out on the outside looking in, and that's going to be a massive disappointment. Which team do you think, you know, when they're sitting at home watching the first round, should be more disappointed about the way their season's gone? There's an argument for both. Dallas, because they had it. They were the first team with 80 points after 6-6 games

to likely miss the playoffs unless they pull a rabbit out of their hat. But I feel like I'd go with Calgary only because, I think they are the stronger team and they have the high-end talent that teams clamor for and they somehow mess that up because their bottom end is garbage. Yes. Also the first round pick they traded away. Yeah, and they don't have their second. I think their first pick this year is in the third round and now we hear reports.

Elliot Freeman reported in a 31 thoughts a couple weeks ago that Tree Living is going to be looking to get back into the first round. and I think that's obviously depends on what the deal is, but I imagine after this disappointing of a season, that's often when we see teams overreact and trade someone from the core to kind of shake things up and show their fans that they're doing something. And I think that would be just a horrible way to go about it from the flames perspective here because obviously you never want to overreact,

but in this case, like their top players are the ones that have played so well. And so subtracting from there to just for the sake of making a move seems like a very, poor, miscalculated decision on their part. Making a move for the sake of making a move seems like the bold, brave thing to do. But the brave thing to do is to do nothing. Right. Because no one does nothing. You, like, it would be very brave with them to say, you know what, we have a good team.

We could just have some holes to fix. We're not going to make a rash decision. They're not going to do that, probably, because that's just not how most teams operate. You'd hope they do. And I hope for the flames fans' sake that they don't trade away someone like Dougie Hamilton, for example, but yeah. Well, I think there's a few things the flames can do. You never don't necessarily want to advocate for someone to lose their job,

but I think Glenn Colleton will be fine financially. I think he's done not a great job this season, and they could upgrade there. And then obviously, you know, I think most people at the deadline wanted to see them add some talent and scoring ability on the wing to sort of supplement those top guys. And obviously poaching Chris Stewart off waivers was probably not the way to go about it.

You know, depends on who's available, but guys like Mike Hoffman, you're going to have to pay a premium, but those types of players is where you'd go about doing it without obviously subtracting from the core if you could trade defensive prospect or, you know,

the flames do have a decent pipeline of guys coming up. So you could get creative there and that's obviously what I would target first and foremost. I think trading any of those top guys would be a massive problem. And that's what makes this season the most disappointing because, you know, the Goodrose, Matthew Kachuk, Monaghan, Giordano, Dougie Hamilton, Mike Smith, like all those guys are having such high-end seasons that it's just, it's tough to swallow

the fact that they weren't able to surround those guys with enough talent to even make the playoffs. Yeah, that fourth line is probably one of the worst in the league. And we saw a couple years ago Columbus had a similar problem where, well, they didn't have the high-end talent, but they had a garbage fourth line they got rid of it they had on the best fourth lines league and then they set a franchise record and points last year i think that's the big thing for cogri and the other disappointing thing is they had the legend yarmory yager in the fold and he wasn't playing that bad he just wasn't playing as good as he was last season and they sent him home and played what they even have on their team there's a lot of there's a lot of kirtis lazar troi brower yeah

that line up and all that line up and all that line up and i don't know they're they're there's a lot of lineup and obviously some of the guys were injured and um you know best wishes to johnny goddrow and his family he was not with a team uh for all fights reasons but man that lineup they used the other night in laa was i think i think there's a case to be made it was the worst for a group anyone is ice this season like that was shocking it was kers lazar and troy barrow in the top six they did the sabers did play a few games now jack ickel so that's true that's true a lot of evan rodriguez and uh nicholas baptiste and uh yeah um it was definitely up there though yeah It's pretty bad, especially for a team that's not bad.

Let's talk a bit about the stars then, since you did write about them. You know, at the start of the season, both them and the Boston Bruins were necessarily winning a ton of games. Like, they were doing fine, but their underlying resumes were off the charts. And on the one hand, you looked at that and you watched their games and you went, man, it's disappointing because that 2014, 2015, and even the following season teams, were so fun to watch. And obviously they didn't necessarily have the final results they would have hope for, but that was just good for hockey and they made them the most entertaining team in the league.

And they were playing well under Ken Hitchcock, but the pace had slowed down so much, you know, much more lower event hockey. And it was sort of tough to reconcile that. But you're thinking, okay, well,

at least, you know, they're going to be ready for the playoffs and maybe they'll be a more dangerous outcome come to postseason. And now that they're not going to make it, you sort of wonder where you go from here and what you do if you're Jim Nill and you're running this team because I don't then don't I don't I don't feel like they don't necessarily have that much flexibility they sort of have this roster set in place like where what are you doing

this summer if you're running that team in terms of like how are you going to get an upgrade is going to be in-house or you can play guys like julius honkamore shout out to Tyler Delo friend of the podcast or are you going to make some sort of a trade like what are what are you going to do because it seems like the core is going to come back at the very least like I don't I don't know yeah I mean it's been a weird season it feels like they're trying to think of an analogy for it but like it doesn't seem like they're playing a style that they were built for and maybe this will just be a learning season and now that they have the tools at their disposal they can go back but I feel like that's not hitchcock hockey it's

really disappointing because John clingberg had such an incredible season rising to be one of the league's best defenseman Esa Lindel Is it Lindel or Lindell? And I know it was a weird one To start Just go with Essa I mean there's only the one Esa

Our boy Essa Had a pretty good season Putting up top hair results And The rest of the defense was fine Even though Hitchcock Seems to hate Julius Honka He's got Tyler Delo

Whisper in his ear maybe Like this seems like a good team Just not a good enough team Maybe playing Jason Spetsamore would have been a nice thing to do this season, but... Right. I'm not sure where they go from here. Yeah, I mean, that's...

If you're a Starris fan and you're listening to that, that's probably not the most satisfying answer. I don't know where they go from here. I don't know what went wrong. I mean, it's weird because, you know... They have the high-end talent. They had goal-tending this year, too. Yeah, and as you laid out, like,

they fell off and they stopped winning games, but a lot of it was Pucks stopped going in. Mm-hmm. which is it's always tough especially in such a small like we're the thing is the attention to it and the importance of it is heightened because of when it happened in the season i think if it was more so in like the early stages or in the middle of the season like this stuff could correct itself and maybe it'd be a less of an issue but now when they need to win these games and the pucks aren't going in it's like what's going on what's what's what's what went wrong um and i look at this team and i don't

necessarily think it's one that is so devoid of talent that they're going to keep shooting three or four percent or whatever that was going on. Especially with Sagan and Benz, kind of like one goal in the last like 10 games or so. Yeah. And I guess it is disappointing from the perspective of, you know, you mentioned Jamie Ben's falling off a little bit, but Tyler Sagan had a great season,

bounced back to form. Alex Radulov had a perfectly fine season in his first year in Dallas. You know, there's talent here for sure. I mean, it was nice having with TSPN mark back in the lineup, but I don't know. I really, I long for the days where this team was playing track meet back and forth hockey. And we saw a little bit,

we saw a glimpse of that when they were here in Toronto, what was it, like a week or two ago that game. That's a six-five game. Yeah, it was like, oh, man, like, we're back. I miss this team so much. And they obviously, they didn't win the game in the end.

So maybe it's not the best game to point to in terms of what they should do, but I miss it as a fan. But it's funny because they played Toronto who plays that style. You look at all the top teams and they have these high offensive talents, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Winnipeg, even Nashville, to an extent, even though they've got all those great D.

But it seems like as the stars went back towards this grinding defensive game, most of the league went and picked up the pace. And they have better defensive talent to do that, I guess. But it seems like DAL should have just doubled down on their style and try to win games by outscoring teams. Maybe not the Lindy Roughway. But I mean, there's probably a way. they could have managed between.

There's a middle ground. There's a middle ground. And they went too far. They overcompensated for their lack of defense. Yes. Okay, I want to talk more about sort of that league change you just alluded to. And we'll talk about John Klingberg and the Norris and everything in a second. Let's take a quick break here to hear from a sponsor and we'll pick things back up.

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You just want to kind of unwind. And that's especially true for myself. I mean, if you consider my scheduling on my job, even though I get the advantage of living out on the West Coast, I'm still, for the most part, hanging around in my hockey watching layer from 4 to 10 on most nights. And by the time the games are done, I'm gassed and all. I really want to do is just turn on some Netflix and kind of zone out before passing out. I'm not complaining because I realize that I have an awesome job and I wouldn't change that

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Stop waiting and start your journey to a satisfying, meaningful relationship. Come see how EHarmony can change your life. Just go to EHarmony.com and get started. Enter my promo code PDO at checkout. Now, let's get back to the show. Okay, we're back. So people, I probably know this by now, but obviously the, the ads are pre-recorded and then we put them in there.

So you and I kind of just sit here for a second and pause. But I will say, I think the read we ran there is going to be an e-harmonie read. So it's going to be, hopefully we all find the love of our life by any means necessary. Anyways, you mentioned there before we took the break, how the league has sort of gone in this faster-paced direction and the stars went, sort of zagged when the rest of the league zagged. you know, there's something to be said for that. I think, you know, we see it in basketball a lot, for example. It's like we've been talking for years about how can you beat the Golden State Warriors

and you're probably not going to outgun them, although, you know, Houston might pull that off this year. But then we had like the San Antonio Spurs model of maybe you slow things down, you beat them up inside and you go a different direction. Actually, I read something by Sirat Sohi. She writes for the athletic. She's one of the best basketball writers right now, in my opinion, might be a little biased because I met her and she's a very nice young lady. Yep.

But let's get rid of a shot. It was like, it was like, it was like, it was like, Damian Liller. Right. Yeah,

okay. That's her Twitter account. Um, but yeah, she wrote about the Houston Rockets and I think something about how they slow down. They started doing more ISO plays and just giving the ball a heart and Paul. So they sagged while everyone's trying to copy and emulate.

Right. Golden State like Toronto. The Raptors this year. They're playing more like the Warriors do, more three-pointers, more ball movement. And the Rockets aren't really doing the, that. Right. And it's just interesting that they found this new style a new way to get more

Mori ball shots. This is the most I've ever talked about basketball I think in my life. And I don't know if I'm sounding smart, but if I do, it's thanks to reading Sirot, which you all should do. As soon as you shout out Mori ball already sounding really smart. But the reason I brought that up was because I think you and I actually discussed this. I had you on the show around this time of year last season. And I remember a big topic at that point was, you know, in 2017 or 2018, now everyone's paying more attention to shot rates and shot attempts. And you sort of wonder if there's going to be kind of a point of diminishing returns or if it's going to get devalued a bit if everyone is sort of paying attention to it. You know, if the gap's going to shrink in terms of

the best team is in the worst teams and if everyone's going to start hovering around. pound 50, 51% or so. And the reason I brought that up is twofold. One, you know, if you're going to be an anti-shot attempts person, this is a good year to do so because I believe the second, third, and fifth ranked teams in adjusted coursey will not be playing in the playoffs. That's Carolina, Calgary, and Chicago, surprisingly, who's fifth. And the other thing is, you know, you look this year and goal scoring is up a bit, shot rates

are definitely up. It seems like teams are playing at a faster pace. But goaltending for the most part is leveled off. I think league average is around 9-13 0% or so as it has been in the past. So I don't know. I guess I just brought it up. I don't necessarily have a defendant advance or anything, but just from watching these games or looking at the numbers, do you feel like this stuff is sort of normalizing a bit from the perspective of a lot of teams are doing the same thing? Maybe teams are actually trying to get the puck on net more frequently than. and not because of what they know?

Or do you think it's just one of those things where it's just a random season and doesn't necessarily mean anything? I'm not really sure. It's been weird because there's just this huge uptick in goals and shots this year. But it feels like goaltending performance itself hasn't necessarily deteriorated, right? Well, it has for some, like the goalie in Montreal this season. Of course. I mean, like it's a league average.

Yeah, I think the league average is around the same, but like goals are up to, they're close to six goals is like what most people want. And it was just a lot of it was the penalty crackdown. There's more space out there for players to be creative. And there's just this young, exciting, talented group of players that are blossoming this year. But I'm not sure if that's teams honing in on the whole put pucks on net because that's been the thing since I was a young kid playing on. I said put pucks on net. If they called it Corsi, I'd be like, what the hell is that?

Exactly. Put pucks on net. That's what it is. I feel like a lot of people are trying to hone in on the middle ground, though, trying to get more quality chances and more rebounds, that sort of thing. So that might be it. And once goal scoring goes up, things like shot metrics will be less important as well. Because if there's six goals per game or five and a half goals per game, five and a half goals per game, you can get by by just outshooting your opponents as often as possible. six goals per game, you need the talent to get by.

So this year we have a Colorado team that's not very good, but they have McKinn and Renan just lighting up the league because they have the talent to do that. And Carolina, for example, they have some good players, they have a good system. Their goaltending is still a mystery. We can vote a full podcast of what the hell is going on in that there.

But, yeah, they just, they don't have the talent that other teams do necessarily. And so they can't score goals like their shot rates suggest they should, I guess. Right. And from our perspective as analysts, obviously the reason we value shot metrics is because there's just a larger sample for us to work with.

So you feel more comfortable with their kind of repeatability and predictability moving forward. But all of a sudden you start increasing the goal data, then maybe take more of that into account. One theory that I've talked about a bit and I've been welling over, and let me know what you think about this, you know maybe a part of the reason why you know goals and shots are up so much is because

there's so much talent in the league now and it feels like we're in a good place with that and like in terms of individual star power and we're seeing you know crazy point totals that we hadn't seen in the past few years I believe like 14 guys or so could realistically end the year with like 90 points which is crazy because the past it's more than we've had in the past five years combined um so teams are kind of embracing or more willing to use, you know, smaller, faster, more skilled guys up front. But it still feels like on the blue line, teams are a bit more hesitant to fully buy in and make that transition. Like, it feels like there's still a place in the league for the Roman Polack, Eric Good Branson types that don't

really have much utility, but are just kind of big bodies. And I wonder if, you know, obviously if there's a talent gap there that drastic in terms of forwards and opposing defensemen, maybe that makes more sense why teams are able to generate so many more goals and shots. Yeah, maybe. We got more of the Yankee gourds of the world. Yeah. More small players who are very offensively gifted and the pace has been a bit slower to get there. I still love the stars.

Pull up my computer and I see Mark Motha there and Julius Honka not. Right. So that progression has been a lot slower on Deven. So I definitely see your point there, I think. That could be one of the reasons. Yeah, teams are still kind of like risk averse with that, right? It's like, I trust this guy because he's, you know, lower event and doesn't really hurt us that much, but it's a much more subtle ways. Yeah, you see that in Toronto with Roman Polack over Connor Carrick as well.

People freaking out about every time Jake Gardner makes a mistake. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Okay. Well, so while we're on the topic of defensemen, man, this is the podcast of Segways. I feel like everything is just lining up perfectly. I'm on fire here.

You know, we talk about John Klingberg. We're talking about defensemen. let's talk a bit about something you wrote a few weeks ago, which was the Norris Trophy race and how it's kind of, it might be an even more interesting topic. It seems like everyone right now is distracted by McKinnon versus McDavid and whether you need to make the playoffs to win the MVP and what that means and where we're out with that moving forward. But for the Norris Trophy, you know, for years, it's been Carlson Burns.

And then Dowdy was in there for a while, but it's kind of like the usual. names this year it feels like that crop has opened up a bit there's some new guys there with Seth Jones uh you could make the argument that this could be quote unquote the year for uh you know either victor headman or alice petrangelo or a few guys like that who have been around but haven't been in that discussion before um i guess it's an interesting topic for me because i know alison lukin wrote about this recently for the athletic it's sort of how do we evaluate who the best defense is what are we looking at because you know you have the two camps where it's like which guy's driving the most offense who is the highest point totals and then there's oh

the you know the guys who romanticize i remember the days where defensemen actually play defense and as if those two things are mutually exclusive but like when we're looking at or when we're talking about who is the most impactful who's the best defenseman what are we looking at like are we looking at who's driving the most offense are we looking at on a on a off ice results are we looking at shot suppression like what i mean obviously the answer is probably a little bit of everything but like if you're looking at the resumpturess for a guy, what should we be looking at first and foremost? I feel like there's a lot of things to look at and what's currently being looked at is

not that. What I wrote, when I did this North Story piece, I wanted to put a bunch of things into a regression just to see how past voters voted. And it was just so predictable that this would be it. But it was literally just points plus minus are they on a good team? And then sometimes there'd be exceptions for, for legacy. but it was just amazing that Carlson, I think, led the league in points four years in a row and won the Norse twice. The two years he didn't, he was a minus player. The two years he did,

he was a plus player. Right. It's just, it's dumb that that's what it is. And it's not even like we're looking at five-on-five goals or five-and-five goals relative to the team. It's plus-minus, which includes a lot of garbage in it. Right. So there needs to be a change, and I hope voter transparency and I hope the rise of analytics does change that and people do pay attention to the to other things more there are stats that I think are important that should be paid attention to um whether they drive play whether they suppress shots I mean you could even look at whether they suppress goals and put that in your in your thought process you don't necessarily to use it but like if there's a guy who's getting buried alive by goals this year like I'm like

Chris LaTang early in the year, maybe you don't have. Or Eric Carlson. Maybe you don't have them this year, but everything has to be considered. And I think there's just a long and lengthy list of things to look at before you can get a choice. And this year would be an especially tough year to do that because there's just so many worthy contenders. And it feels like they might not get their shake because this is Headman's year or maybe Petrolanders' Angle's year or maybe we just give it to Dowdy again because he might even deserve it more this year than he did. He probably does. He does.

Well, especially since no one is necessarily having the type of kind of transcendent generational season that Carlson was having, the year Dowdy actually won. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at it right now. And for example, Eric Carlson has 58 points. Victor Headman has 56 points. The difference is one of them's minus 25 and the other one's plus 27. And that's going to be something that, you know, I was talking about this with Emily Kaplan on a recent show where we're,

were discussing Norris favorites and we didn't even mention Eric Carlson. It seems like we'd kind of take him for granted and obviously he's still an insane talent even if he's not playing 100% this year and everything that's going on off the ice with the senators. But like he's not going to finish even top five in the loading because of that. Like it's people just can't overlook that. Well the big goal difference is like you yeah that needs to be account for somewhat for sure like I include it in game score and I don't know if people like I do 5-1-5 and I don't do plus minus but there needs to be. some of that in there because

I think those rules matter. I remember a couple years ago Tom Tango dove into the hockey Alex pool for like a week and said here's weighted shots and people were like do we need this? And I feel like I was already doing that.

So like I feel like we sort of like ignore that but it does bridge the gap between coursey and goals and the answer somewhere being in the middle. So including both and just weighting coursey like a little bit higher because there's so many more events

does help. But even this year, like Eric Carlson's raw course, he's obviously not good because he's on the set. Right. And the terms are terrible. But his relative numbers are exceptional. Right. Which is funny because last year, they actually weren't for like the first time and a long time. And he got more Norse buzz than he usually would just because I think his plus minus was pretty good.

Right. Well, as with everything in life, I mean, you do need to account for what's happening on the other end of the ice, even if it's luck driven because it's ultimately it's like, what are you putting on a table versus what are you taking on? off, right? Yeah. As long as it's a net positive, that's all that really matters, which is like when we bring up a guy like Jake Gardner, like all the stuff he does well is much more important than the few bad mistakes he occasionally makes.

And sometimes people just can't shake that from their head. But I wonder, like, when we're talking about these individual awards, you know, there is a distinction that I think needs to be made between descriptive and predictive. Yeah. Because, like technically, like when you're talking about an award, like the Norris, you're capturing which defenseman had the best season. So a guy might have poor luck. Like, you know, if a guy like Crystal Tang is just getting murdered

in on-a-say percentage, like that probably doesn't mean that next year that's going to happen. But you have to account for what's happened this year already because that's what technically the point of the award. Yeah, the award is descriptive. So I do get that point of view. I don't think you should ignore completely. I do think you should ignore plus my as completely and maybe look at 5-15.

For sure. Instead. But at the same time, you also have to. not weight it the heaviest because... It's out of the player's control. There's some things that are in the players control where you'll watch the tang and he'll make those mistakes and,

oh, that goal against was on him. Yeah. But other goals will just happen and they won't be his fall necessarily and he'll get ding with the minus anyway or he'll get a plus because Crosby flipped the puck in the air seven times and batted it in and Ltan just happened to be on.

Like those things have to be accounted for and that's where you get the watch the game argument Right. Yeah. But even the people voting, most of them are regional voters. They're not going to watch every single players, every game. No one can. Not even the national writers. So you've got to find a way to balance the numbers with what you see the few times you do see these players.

Hmm. Okay, let's take another quick little break here. And then we're going to do some mailbag questions. We're going to talk about playoffs. We're going to do all that fun stuff. We're coming into my personal favorite stretch of the year here. in the sports world. We got March Madness going on.

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but forget those mobs. Let's seek geek know you're riding with myself and the PDO cast. That's promo code PDO for $20 off your first ticket purchase. Now, let's get back to the show. Before we get to the listener questions, you know, I tweet, last week, I wrote about Evander Cain and the impact he's made on the sharks. Yeah.

And I tweeted it out yesterday and you, you know, you quote tweeted it and you mentioned that, you know, you've never really had to take proven wrong quicker than saying he wouldn't make them a contender have a discernible impact on them. Let me see what the exact thing I wrote was. Yeah, let's quote it. Let's quote it.

This is riveting podcasting. Let me read back what I tweeted at you yesterday. No, it was what was the, okay. Other teams of note, San Jose, does adding a van der Kaine make the Sharks contender? No. No, it doesn't. And I'm wrong. Yeah.

Like two weeks later, three weeks later? I mean, he's having a bonkers stretch right now with him. He obviously, you know, he had the four-goal game, so that's going to skew things. but that still counts the same. He has nine goals and 14 points and 14 games. He has 66 shots on goals, shots on goal in that game, in that stretch,

which is like over, I guess, what, four something a game? It's crazy because Thornton isn't even the one passing to him right now. You know, he's playing with Pavelsky quite a bit,

and they're putting him in a position to succeed, obviously, and I think, you know, there's two factors here, which we can't, depends on how much you want to wait them, but you can't ignore,

obviously playing for a new contract and being out of Buffalo, I'm sure the fact that he's finally playing on a winning team that's going to play in the postseason. That's obviously got to be a motivational factor. And playing with better players. But, you know, they're just, they're relying on him so much. And he's rewarding them for it.

I mean, the other night against the Blackhawks, the game went to overtime. But he played more than even Bram Burns. He led the team in ice time. He played like 25 minutes, which is just crazy. Yeah. And, you know, their schedule has been fairly easy. I feel like they've only played two or three teams that are going to be in the postseason since the trade deadline.

But they're like 11, 2 and 1. And if you look at all of their underlying numbers, they're through the roof. They're just dominating at 5-15. Even their expected goals are way up. And, you know, when they acquired them at the time, they had had some poor shooting luck. I think a lot of that probably had to do with the fact that Brent Burns was taking like every second or third shot for them, it seemed like. But, you know, they were not scoring.

Yes. Yeah. And then, you know, they were like 27th or 28th and 5-15 goal scoring, and they're leading the league since the trade deadline. and part of that is the better shooting luck, part of that is the opponents, but it's tough to argue with the gamble that they made in terms of the small price they had to pay and how they were being rewarded for it. Do you think that him being there and the potential of Thornton coming back eventually here

and maybe the two of them playing together, and it's sort of from a stylistic perspective making sense as a passer and a shooter, does that give them a leg up on the other California teams here? And does that make them either the second or even the best team in the Pacific Division? I honestly think they're the best team of Pacific Division. It's not because they're necessarily one of the best teams of the league. I think I have them below the two central teams, the three Atlantic teams, and probably Pittsburgh, maybe even Columbus, the dark horse in the metro.

But it's because the Pacific is just not very good. And I think it was a similar thing last year where just no team is just overwhelmingly better than everyone else. I know Vegas had their beautiful sunshine year, but like they're still an expansion team. They're still, they've been not very good lately either. So I just don't believe in them as much. I think San Jose has the inside track. Anaheim might surprise now. They're a lot better with Getslaft and Kessler in the lineup.

Like the weirdest season. It's been a weird season, but they've been better, and they have arguably one of the best goalies in the league in John Gibson. in L.A. will be better with Carter, obviously, by just, and they also have Jonathan Quick, playoff goalie extraordinary. It was actually had a really good year this year. Credit to Jonathan Quick. He's been like the sixth or seventh best goalie in the league.

We frequently say bad things. So this is our moment to say, Jonathan Quick, you've been really good this year. Abovely the average for the first time in a while. We were sorry. Yeah, I feel like that Duck's point can't be overstated because I was thinking about this the other day. And there was like a good, I don't know how many games. games it was, but there was a decent stretch. It wasn't just one or two games where, you know, Derek Grant was their

number one center and Chris Wagner was their number two center. And then they trade Chris Wagner. Obviously, they get healthy. They trade Chris Wagner, who becomes expendable for Jason Chamera, who's like one of the worst players in the league at this point. They both are, I think. No, but then now Chris Wagner is playing on the fourth line for a horrendous Islanders team. And that just like kind of puts into perspective the fact that this Ducks team was able to stay afloat with him on their second line because of I mean, they obviously have a great blue line, but John Gibson, you know, there's a case to be made that he's probably going to finish second or third in Besna voting this season. I don't know where that puts them moving forward. Obviously, now that they're healthy with Getslaft back, I think they're an intriguing team and I wouldn't necessarily want to play them in the first round.

But I think the sharks probably have the highest upside of any of those teams. Yeah, definitely, especially when Thorne comes back, if he does. Yes, knock on wood. I mean, obviously with injury and his age, you don't want to take it for granted that he's going to come back and be 100%. but any of those four teams probably get smoked by the two good teams in the central but the thing is they might not have to play them till the western conference final and at that point like successful season well but i mean yeah and those two teams might be like battered and bruised definitely you look at you look at you look at that set you know that could be like a crazy seven game series with like multiple long overtimes based on the recent matches we've seen from them and then yeah you know what we've seen with winnipeg with dealt with injuries you who knows what's going to happen with mark schifley at that point it seems like every other game he's leaving with injury. I mean, all of a sudden, you would walk right into the Western Conference final, and that other team could be, like, 60% of what it would be otherwise.

And you get thornback. Maybe. It's crazy. I mean, this is, wow, if the sharks, after everything that's happened, had another Stanley Cup final run in them, like, that would be, I feel like that would be such a cool story. Just because of, like, you know, often, and for valid reasons, we talk about, you sort of have to be pragmatic about this and you have to realize what your window is

and if it's not happening for you you need to look towards the future and blow it up but this shark's team has been just kind of treading water waiting for these small little windows to attack and it'd be pretty like a shark oh look at that I didn't even do that on purpose but I'll take credit for it um the other team I wanted to talk about here is Columbus who similarly have been uh playing amazing hockey recently and And I'm kind of torn here because I really like them. And, you know, you look at their profile. I think there's an argument to be made that they have the best goalie in the league.

One of the best, if not the best defense pairings. You know, they finally have an actual bona fide superstar and Artemey Panera and the way he's playing up front. Their forward group as a whole doesn't necessarily have a lot of brand name value, but they just have a bunch of guys who can play. It does help that Cam Atkinson woke up recently. Yeah, I'm playing really well. Yep. And, you know, they have a bunch of frisky guys there, like Alex Wembergs finally, kind of back to his forum from last year.

Thomas Vannock, great deadline acquisition. But then you look at the standings. And who they have to play? They might play the Penguins in round one again. And as good as they've been. And with all these statistical evidence we have to suggest that at least it should be a toss-up series, if not the Blue Jackets should be favored. Like, are you going to predict that they're going to beat the Penguins in round one? I would have them favored against any other metro team. If they played Washington, I'd probably have them favored. That would probably be their best case scenario if Philly passes them. But playing Pittsburgh is not an optimal path for them, which just sucks. Because it's just a bad break two years in a row that is undeserved for a team that struggled for so many years. They finally have good teams, and they got to play.

the defending champion. Yeah, I feel for him. This might be a crazy thing to say on the PDOCast, but I kind of like the job John Torrell has done this season. I mean, even last year, and, you know, you mentioned earlier that fourth line

and sort of, you know, it's one thing for them to actually make the personnel moves, but, you know, you got to give the coach a bit of credit there in terms of utilizing his forwards in that way where you have the fourth line who doesn't really play much a 5-1-5 or just kills them in the power. art play and that was clearly an advantage for them last season and i don't think it's an accident

that they go out and acquire sort of more special teams oriented players like mark letestu and thomas vanick at the deadline and i just i don't know i i like the way he's not going to get buzz for it because of galand and uh bruce cassidy and jared bedner but i kind of like the job drawing toward riles on the next year you got to give him credit you for occasionally scratching jack Johnson as well, which is some bold coaching. And Brandon Dubinsky, who is making a lot of money and, you know, is obviously a former Tortorella favorite and used to be a really valuable player. But clearly with the injuries and the Miles is not the player he used to be.

Once you said, because I'm looking at the team right now and how my model has them rating, I saw like three replacement level players. I just thought, okay, that's the fourth line. And then you said brand new binski, I'm like, one of those guys is Brandon Dubinsky. Yeah, he's making a lot of money for a lot of years. He's been bad this year, apparently. yeah he has um and that's a problem i know uh good buddy travis yos wrote about this a year or two ago but the blue jackets for all the smart stuff they've done have had a problem and this isn't unique

to them but it seems like they've been big offenders here in terms of like paying guys after big uh either individual shooting percentage seasons or on-ice shooting percentage seasons and then you look at some the contracts and it's like oof nick felino is making how much for how long Oh, Brandon Dovinsky, that's a tough one. So it's not ideal there, but they have so many, I think it's a great story. They're sort of like Minnesota out west where it's like, I guess they do have Artemi Paneraan on and they have the two blue bleners, but it's just like a lot of pieces up front that you could move around, very malleable.

Like I know both you and I love, Bjork Strand, you've got like Sonny Milano, Boone Jenner, Thomas, like you go on, it's not like anything is necessarily set in stone. and it's interesting. Obviously, when you bump into a team with, like, the Penguins, who it does have the star power, it becomes a more of an uphill battle. But I've always been kind of intrigued by a team like this Blue Jackets team,

and I hope that they can have something to show for this season beyond five playoff games. Hopefully, imagine if they do play Washington. Well, that'll be a fascinating matchup, and I know one of the questions, let's get into the mailbag here. One of the questions was... These segues. Great work.

I'm just killing it, man. I'm killing it. It's episode. 228 so I've I've done a depressing amount of this of talking on this podcast um one of the questions was about the capitals and you know their underlying numbers are not good this season they keep winning games and they clearly have you know with obechkin and backstrom and kuznetsov they clearly have the star power um but what do we what do we make of them heading into this both season I think they're much better than their underlying numbers suggest.

So how would you explain those poor underlying numbers? Well, they've always had underlying numbers that are worse than their goal numbers. Right. Usually because they have... Because the talent. They have the talent, right? So whether that is like a 2% gap or a 3% gap, that's something you can live with if you're the Washington Capitals,

if you're at 47, 48%, you can still win the 5-15 battle with your talent. and then you have a power play that has a vetchkaner. So that's usually enough to be an above-average team. They're not the elite team they were last year, but I feel like if they were in a series against Philly, I'd still pick Washington, even if Philly has slightly better, probably mediocre 5-on-5 numbers. Just to guess based on the Flyers past season,

they're probably always around 50%. Just always assume that. But if they play Columbus, I would take Columbus, just because Columbus is better at controlling final five, and they have Star Power Net on D and Panarin up front, and they have the depth to beat the Capitol this season. Yeah. Well, I guess throwing a monkey wrench in things is what's going to happen to net with them.

Because obviously, Philip Grubauer has been great, but I wouldn't say it's optimal that Brayden Holpe is such a question mark at this point in terms of whether he's even going to be a net for them. I guess if Gruberauer is playing as well as he has this year, It doesn't matter. But, yeah, it's interesting because they got beat up quite a bit for how they handled this summer and how they weren't really prepared for the expansion draft and just losing a guy like Nate Schmidt. And I guess it worked out for them that Vegas didn't take Rubar because they'd be pretty screwed right now if Holby was having the year he's had.

And they just had a replacement level, generic backup in that instead of Rubar. Well, then they'd have Nate Schmidt, though, who was pretty great. That would help. That would help, especially since they have that hole where they've been. left alzner and imagine subbing alzner in with a guy like nate schmidt number one defenseman for the pacific leading biggest gold knights imagine if the capitals had that would be pretty helpful right now but i mean they did they did pretty well at the deadline finding Nate schmidt like players guys who thrive in third-paring roles like michael kempty and jacob

jerobic they still have brooks orpick in so i mean they're not doing their best there don't love the job toward er uh barry trots has done this year um oh sorry that was a for slept there with the torterelle. Especially with the forwards, it seems like he should be playing guys like Jacob Rana and Brokowski more and he just relies on very questionable talent. But I guess that goes back to that sort of

risk-averse nature of coaches that we always talk about. Interesting, moving forward here, you know, a guy like John Carlson is going to be a very trendy name this summer. And I believe, you know, today, while the Bob Fother, Bob McKenzie, he was doing a little Twitter Q&A while he was on Wi-Fi waiting for his flight and someone

asked him about John Carlson and he said he expected his deal this summer to be between $7 and $8 million annual salary for six or seven years, which is scary for a guy who's turning 29, I believe, and is having a career year. It's tough for the capitals, though, because of how much talent they've lost the past few years and you look at that blue line and you look at the fact that they're a cash-strapped team that it's like if you lose John Carlson this summer in free agency for nothing you're not going to be able to fill

that hole in the lineup because he's making under $4 million this season so it's not like you're going to have that $7 to $8 million that Carlson's going to get paid elsewhere to fit to replace him it's only like who are you going to get for that price that's going to be able to do what he does especially when you look at the rest of that depth chart where it's like man i i like niskinin even though he's been a bit down the season with injury and

orlov but beyond that it's a lot of unknowns and a lot of let's hope that madison bowie and christian juce uh get a lot better because otherwise they're going to be pretty screwed yeah i mean they were hoping for that this year and madison bowie was not as good as they thought he would be juice was fine but they obviously didn't think he was fine enough because he's scratched now and they traded for two guys to replace him so i mean I like Carlson. I'm not sure if he's, if I like him,

I'm at a price. But yeah, there's a big hole in the caps line if he leaves though. So it's a big question. As a right shot, as a right shot defenseman who is currently

leading the league and defense scoring, he is going to get paid. Yeah. And it helps obviously having a 35 of those 64 points on the power play. You better hope you got an Ovechkin

to pass two if you're John Carlson, I guess. those guys also grow on trees and a lot of team teams have them so um i don't even think he plays the the matchup minutes on this team either which is the other thing uh i think those go to orlob and niskinin and the fact that he's not playing those minutes and his i think his possession numbers are still a little wonky compared the rest of the team is probably a bit of a red flag as well if you're giving him seven eight million he's always been one of those guys for me that there's a mismatch between like how good he looks like if you physically just want the eye test if you watch john carlinson you're

like very beautiful player this guy's amazing like oh like so big and strong and he can skate and these puck skills but then you always look at the underlying numbers and it's like they're fine but not necessarily nearly as good as you would have thought based on how good he looks out there the other thing with him this year is always he had to carry around one of the the children that watching this next time he's been babysitting a lot this year so you wonder if that drop-in competition is being offset by the drop-in who he has to play with as well as well as well as he was watching his put in well that could be true but i just wonder like what what that fit for him is going to be this summer because there will be teams lining up to pay him but it's like what team is he going to go to where

it's going to be able to optimize that value like you know i think toronto could next to next to morgan riley i think that'd be a pretty good pair for that price really depends on how long the years are and leaps have the cab space so i think it would be he would be a good fit especially on, I mean, they already have Riley and Gardner manning a pretty good power play, but I think he could do well there. Yeah. But for the price, I'm not sure. I also wonder, like, is he going to be on the top power play unit?

If you bring him here, probably not, right? I mean, why mess up one of the best units in the league, right? Yeah, especially with the way it's, like, it's set up for them. And obviously, if they lose Van Rames, like, you're going to have to rotate some stuff and figure it out. but like I feel like part of Carlson's value is his shot from the point there and I don't think the Leafs power play or any I mean a lot of the good ones already either have the guys in place or are kind of focusing more on getting funneling those shots from different areas as opposed to the traditional just you know tee up bombs from the point well I mean the Leaves have a another powerplay

unit with Matthews and Nylander on his own of those guys so he could help the second unit there um Oh, we have a Riverdale question here. We're going to save that for the end of the podcast so that we don't alienate everyone. But I have some thoughts, and I'm sure you do as well. All right. Let's let's, oh, okay. Holden McComb here asks, what bubble team is best set up for the future and which one's a fluke do for regression? I feel like he wants us to talk about the Colorado Avalanchee.

Colorado, New Jersey are probably our options, I'm guessing. in terms of regression candidates for next season. Florida, New Jersey, Colorado, St. Louis, Dallas, L.A., Anaheim is our group, I guess, a bubble team. I know it's a hot take because Florida is poorly managed, but I think they are primed well for next year just based on the top end talent that they have. Yeah. Well, I say that, and then I realize that their goalie is 48 years old. So I'm not 100% sure, but they have the high in talent. They rhyme her.

So I do like them for next year. I think the devils and abs probably won't be as strong next year. The abs, if they find some depth behind McKinnon, maybe. The devils, I do think this was a fluke year. and I'd hesitate to bring up the Ottawa senders, but I think they're this year's sense, and I just hope for Taylor Hall's sake, because he's one of my favorite players,

that he doesn't have to live through what the Ottawa centers did this year. Yeah. I'm sure people will be very rational about that and not blame him at all. Yeah, okay, I think, I think there's, I mean, there's not too many of those obvious teams to choose from, right?

It feels like, especially at this point in the season, like the bubble teams have either completely fallen off or have snuck into the playoffs, So it's, I don't know, like, we talked about Dallas. Let's move on from that one. So I'm going to combine two questions here. One is, why is Clayton Keller not getting the attention he deserves? And the other is, can you still be a fan of a team if you aren't cheering for them to tank?

Interesting combination. And the reason I bring that up is because, and I know that, you know, you as someone who deals with, you know, game probabilities. and a little bit of sports betting action has enjoyed this run that the Arizona Coyotes have been on as the odds haven't necessarily lined up with how well they've been playing. I forget what the exact numbers are,

but I think they've been one of the best teams in the league the past like 20 or so games just in terms of win-loss. I think they're like 15 and 6 or something like that. I saw a tweet earlier day. They were, I think, 14, 7-1 since February, which is great if you're betting on the Coyotes, which I have frequently done.

down the stretch. Right. Very big change from last year where I was also betting on the coyotes and did not go very well. But this year was different because they, once they got anti-rancho back, full health, they got their defense back. They started playing like the team, many of us expected at the start of the season where they could be actually decent. And that's how they played lately.

And the betting lines have not reflected that because their record is still so. so bad from the start of the season where they did not have rancha they did not have full health on defense and I mean you mentioned clean Keller whether he gets the credit he deserves and I mean I don't even know how many points he has I think it like is around 60 or something yeah it's in the high 50s I think I mean he's been playing he's obviously you know he had the towards start to the season and then he kind of dipped a bit and then now recently he's also kind of elevated his play and started producing a bit more and he's an awesome player but I think the reason I'd answer that question is because he's playing for Arizona.

That's why he's not getting it. And obviously, you know, Barzales just run away with the Calder, so he's not really in that discussion. People don't care about players until they're on good teams. Yeah. No one cared about Blake Wheeler until he had this season on a great team, even though his underlying numbers fell apart, which is hilarious. He's been this superstar for years.

What was it, like 26 straight seasons of Blake Wheeler's the most underrated player in the league? Yeah. And it's just, oh, he plays with the Jets. How good can he really be? I think last year when I had my Star Powerpiece I had Blake Wheeler in Tier 1 and that's one of things I got ripped apart for

and then this year you're like Wheeler, Hart, maybe? Yeah, well this is the bad year for that to happen. This is the bad year for that to happen. There was so many. There was so many candidates and he was one of them. He was leading this amazing Winnipeg Jets team to their first postseason birth in a few years

and that's because Wheeler's amazing and y'all should have known that. Cody Chandler asks, in your opinion, which I goes without saying, we're doing a podcast, it's clearly our opinion. Would Detroit be better off

replacing Kent Holland or keeping him? And this is interesting because Elliot Freeman reported that I believe he's about to sign like a three-year extension with Detroit. I wish people could see your face right now.

Man, so if you look at, let's look at the bottom like five or six teams or whatever. So, you know, you have the Buffaloes, the Canucks, the coyotes, like the worst teams in the league right now. And I'm going to lump Detroit in that. And you're just looking at sort of their longer term outlook. And it's like how soon can these teams feasibly become relevant and at least playoff contenders again?

Like, for this Detroit team, I mean, at least some of those other teams, like they obviously every team has bad contracts. But there's like the financial flexibility where if some of their prospects pan out, they could conceivably, go out and add talent from the outside to help supplement that and potentially get better. With this Detroit team, I mean, you look at the contracts and it's like how, like, we know that it's possible no matter how bad a contract is to dump one or two contracts, but how are they getting out of everything that's on the books? I mean, the abdil caters, the Erickson's, the Cronwald, the DeKaiser, the Luke Lindenin, like, Darren Helm, I mean, the list goes on and on.

And it's like, as much as I like guys, Dylan Larkin and Nendon. three menh i mean it seems like this team is at least the cut like to like 20 20 21 away from even considering being competitive again yeah you listed those guys and even those two as much as you like them they're probably not no of course they're not like foundational like these guys are going to carry us in a promise line by any means but they're good like they're good players they're they're they're good players uh one of my favorite charts that i did over the past year was for my red wings preview I had every team's replacement level and fourth line players on one axis, how much value they have and how much they cost.

And the Red Wings were in a league of their own, basically. And just the amount of contracts they have with just terrible players is, it's a daunting task. And I don't think Ken Holland is the man to dig that hole out because he put them in. But you did mention the Canucks, and that made me realize we did not answer the last question, fully, which is whether it's okay to cheer for your team to tank. Because I know that question came from a Vancouver segment.

And as someone who lives in Toronto, as someone who gets to watch Austin Matthews daily, I will say from the bottom of my heart, it is absolutely okay to cheer for your team to lose. Yeah. You want what's best for the future. Right now, that means losing. It's an unfortunate part of the drafts and the lottery system, but it is what it is. Yeah. Yeah, 100%.

No, that's what all said. Who's bringing the cup back to Canada and does it happen in the next decade? It'll happen in the next decade. Oh, yeah. It's a long, that decade's a long time. Although, I guess if you were saying that, if you were saying that a decade ago, yeah, of course it's going to happen. There's been a few opportunities, of course, in the Stanley-Gil final.

So I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I just clicked in my head. I know you're going to say Toronto here, aren't you? Who's going to be it first? Yeah. I'm actually not going to say Toronto. I'm going to say the Winnipeg Jets. Ooh. You think it happens this season?

I don't know. According to you, I think there's like a 12 or 13% chance. There's a 12% chance. I think I have them as my third or fourth favorite this season. So just because they have the higher likelihood than Toronto. I got to go with the jets. And the fact that it's not like necessarily like based on their roster composition, it's conceivable than next year they'll once again be in that same spot.

It's not like either if they don't win this year, they're in a very good spot too as well. It'll be between Toronto and Winnipeg. If Edmonton ever figures it out, they have Connor McDavid. So I mean, it's bonkers that Edmonton is not in the top two on this list. I mean, wow. Are they even in the top three? Who would you put between Calgary and Edmonton? Edmonton.

Yeah, just because of Connor? Yeah, I think so. I mean, there won Peter Sorrelli firing away from really turning this thing around, so. I feel like they'll bounce back next year. Yeah, I mean, obviously they've been unfortunate. Pretty much everything that's gone wrong could have this year, and Connor McDavid will only conceivable even get better next season, which is a frightening proposition.

Yeah. But it's very sad and depressing that that's not the case. And, you know, I don't know if you get this. You know, sometimes they've made themselves very easy to poke fun at on Twitter. and whenever something happens to make fun of the Oilers. And I get a lot of pushback from people, you know, saying like, oh, you know, the trolling is becoming tiresome. You know, you got to move on.

Like, the Taylor Hall trade happened. It's enough times past now. Just let it go. And I think people, like, don't understand that for you and I, other than the easy jokes, like, it's, as hockey fans, it's just disappointing because they could have been a dynasty. Yeah. And like, Connor McDavid is playing at. such a high level and is such an insanely transcendent generational talent that for him to not be playing

in the playoffs is a shame, especially for people don't want to see this game grow in the States and around the world. Like having your best player play in meaningful playoff games is generally a good way to do so. It would be. And the other thing is, is that they gained momentum last year and NBC still didn't have Connick David and the Oilers on nationally broadcast games. I think it was like one or two games. And they're not going to do that next.

year for a bottom-feeding oilers team again. So can you really complain when Conradivate is only shown nationally one or two times when this team is a tire fire? And it's of their own doing because they thought they could address needs and pay $6 for one. Yep. It's just how it goes. They lost the trades. It happened.

But that doesn't mean we have to necessarily move on. because it's still affecting them. As someone who lives in Toronto and heard daily about how one particular trade for two firsts and a second went poorly and well for Shirelli

his one big win which he then turned into a loss somehow. I mean, the talk doesn't go away until there's a reason for it to go away. And right now, with the Edmtoilers in the bottom seven or so, there really is no reason.

Yes. landing spots for Josh Hossang and potential price to acquire. And I don't necessarily like kind of speculative fantasy questions like this because it's quite possible nothing happens in the summer. But I bring it up because Arthur Staple did a great piece on The Athletic today where he talked to Hoseg. And Hosseng let his thoughts be known on the way things have been handled and the way he's been treated, let's say.

And I agree with his take. by the way. Ultimately, it comes back to what we're talking about in terms of what you bring to the table versus what you take off. And he's far from a perfect player. I'm not saying that. But if you look at the alternatives and the Tanner Fritz's of the world and the Ross Johnsons and the fact that those guys are playing ahead of him in New York, like, it's clear

that there's more off-ice politics involved and just purely rating players based on their talent and actual ability in the ice. So I don't know What do you think about Hoseng as a player? And is he someone who is worth pursuing if you're another team as like a by-low candidate Similar to other sort of temporarily failed prospects That we've seen in the past

I wouldn't even call him a failed prospect He had like I think he has on a 40 point pace When he played with the aisle He just had to clean up his defense And I loved his quote today in the piece Saying they want me to clean my defense And they're one of the worst defensive teams in the league Like what's up with that

and every time he talks, I just love him more. And I feel like every time he talks, other teams don't. So I'm not sure what the price would be. I'm not sure what it would, but a smart team would take Hoseang on. If you have this incredible culture of winning, you can change that and turn him into the player he needs to be because he has a talent.

He's shown that at the NHL level, especially when he's been put with good players. and it's just a shame that the Islander season went down in this flaming wreckage and this terrific young player is just twirling away in the minors. Like when I saw Staple Tweet that piece, like my eyes lit up and like, this is going to be good. Art brings the heat. And I'm not just saying that just because he's a friend of the PDO cast.

He's great. I think every fan should hope that their favorite team has a beatwriter like art because he does not, he doesn't do the generic fluff pieces. He really, he really brings a fire. He brings a fire. Just a reminder to subscribe to the athletic.

Oh, is there a, is there a promo code going on that people can use? I feel like there's always a promo code. It's like, oh, limited time only for the past two years. So,

yeah, don't, what do you, what do you, if you listen to this podcast, you should be subscribed to the athletic. And I say that as someone who doesn't even work, is one of the few people in the hockey industry

who does not work. for the athletic. I do and I need to pay my rent so please subscribe thank you. There we go. All right. I think there's a lot of other questions here but we've already been recording for like 70 minutes. Let's talk a bit about Riverdale. Where are you at with this season? Yeah, that's my question. How are you feeling? How are you feeling? There's just, it's just been so much. Yeah. Like the first season was perfect and I think it has a lot to do with length because they could go at their own They probably had a vision. This second season has been, I think, twice as long, and therefore twice as ridiculous

because every day something bonkers is happening in Riverdale. Like, even when they went away on vacation one week, they got robbed. Like, these stories don't happen to, like, high school students. Okay, and, okay, I guess. And they're high school students, and one of them is, in your close off in the bar. Should we have done a spoiler alert? No. No.

Who cares? It's Riverdale. Crazy, crazy shit happens. Crazy stuff happens. I was a professional Riverdale writer for three weeks. I got fired because no one watches Riverdale anymore, so they didn't get the viewership they wanted, even though everything I wrote was gold.

Yeah. It was arguably the best part of Riverdale. It was. People still messaged me saying, what's the point of watching Riverdale now? We're the power rankings. And, like, onstage just became a grind for me because it was just so...

stupid and for like such little payoff. There's so many factors to consider when, and here you mentioned that, remember the vacation when they get robbed. You failed to point out the fact that a dude got shot in the woods as well. Yep. Archie also went into. High school students involved.

Yeah. Archie's coming up a murder now. Spoiler alert. Yeah. Or like three, I think. I don't know. Archie's like technically part of like the mafia now. Like I don't know.

Archie's part of the mob. Betty. is a cam girl and strips on the low. I think she's still like 16 though. And he's trying to out crazy her stepbrother, but maybe not. But maybe not. Well, it is her stepbrother

because, spoiler alert, her mom, banged Jughead's mom, dad, everything is happening right now. I think that's the first time the term banged has been brought up on the PDO cast. I wondered what the most G-rated way to put it was. Especially after we've done an e-harmonie read on this podcast. This is really, wow. I'm sure, yeah.

Yeah, there's, I'm trying, I'm like, I'm trying to think in my head what's happening this he's going to talk about. And there's so many things, I think. Jughead's skinned a person alive. Like, skin, the arm, right? Just the arm, right? Just the arm, but, like, still, like, skin this person. To, like, send a message. To send a message.

Also, Jughead is no longer an introvert. He's a leader somehow. And that person was a woman. We should also say. Yeah. It's crazy. What did Veronica do? What the lies?

The coverups. She's part of the mob too, I guess, and she's brought her boyfriend. Tried to run for a school president. Didn't go well. It did not go well. That was a tough smear campaign she ran into there. Man, she got roasted. She did.

That was honestly incredible. That's why her. And then Josie being behind it because she deserved to get Veronica back after after Veronica took over the pussycats. That was one of the most damning things about this season. Veronica just putting on the ears and thinking she can lead the pussy cats, absolutely not. I think also, you know, we should point out that the town's mayor was sleeping with the town sheriff. The town sheriff and then essentially got muscled out of her position by the mob.

and now is yeah like I when you say it like that it's like wow oh okay by the way these kids are in high school and then we're this whole season is about what this shady mob boss is planning right and you think it's like the worst thing ever

and it's a private prison yeah on the ground of a high school that was like a dump yeah like doesn't seem that bad doesn't seem like evil incarnate it seems like there's a lot of crime going on in Riverdale also maybe having another prison would probably be a good idea. I mean, it would, but also the way he like framed his archie's like,

this will stop crime. And Archie's like, you're right, Mr. Lodge. This is what we need. What about the fact that a bunch of high school students chain themselves up to that school so it couldn't be torn down as a sign of protest? And then Archie brought a bunch of football guys to just come and just take them off, clip them off and just send them home. And it's like, oh, okay.

What? Man. This is. I don't even... What else has happened? Fred Gull went from being shot to running for mayor. There we go. Archie's mom is back in town.

Archie's mom is back in town. Yeah. Man, so, so much. Oh, we didn't even talk about the fact that Betty, I mean, we talked about how she's a cam girl. She also was complacent a cover-up of a murder. Yeah. Which I think is being found out in last night's episode,

which I have not watched yet. Oh, damn. Yeah, they found it. Now, that's a spoiler for me, because I haven't seen that yet. Well, I didn't see it either. I just saw the trailer. There's also Cheryl and Tony, which is the ship of the season, for sure. The only good thing they've done the season is Cheryl plus Tony.

Wait, but Cheryl is now in like a mental institution. Yeah, so that happened last week and I forgot about it. Yeah, so Cheryl's in conversion therapy now. It's like one of the 463rd crazy. thing that happened this season to a high school student. Like it's funny we're like talking trash about like how ridiculous it is. But like I feel like with how many comics they had of the Archie series like all this like not all this stuff. Like they had like a bunch of stuff happening to Archie in like real life like Archie wins a Grammy or something.

I don't know. I love how yeah. There's like I don't know. I'm not a huge. I used to read some of the comics back in the day when I was younger. But I love there's like random occasional throw. growbacks or it's like when when juggedo was doing that

hunger strike and Archie's like you you love to eat and it's like this doesn't get brought up nearly enough I guess he eats burgers occasionally but they should them eat him burger like two or three times it's not enough yeah it's never like a pile of burgers like in the comics isn't he like always eating burgers he should be eating more burgers um okay

wow I don't yeah I will leave that I was gonna be like we should just we should just cut the final 10 minutes of this podcast that was important as stupid as the NHL is Riverdale is even more stupid. The segways on point. There we go. Dom, plug some stuff. What are you working on these days?

And I know you work for a subscription-based site. So how can people read your work? You can read me at The Athletic. Next week, I will have an update to Star Power, one of my most controversial pieces. Steve's got it going to the playoffs. And then after that, I will have a preview for every playoff series once everything's locked in.

So that'll be a fun week for me of writing eight playoff previews in like two days. So I may be sleep deprived, but got like nine things to read from me in the next few weeks. And we'll see who is the Stanley Cup favorite. In a few weeks right now, it's Nashville. We'll still be Nashville. Probably. Yeah, probably. But tune in to find out.

Tune in to find out who's number two. Yeah. All right, man. That was a lot of fun. We'll be back either later. this week or next week. I'm still here in Toronto for another week or so, so you can do some more shows. Yeah, thanks for listening. We'll leave a rating and review on iTunes for the show, and we'll chat soon, Tom. All right. Thanks for having me, man.

The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud.com slash hockeypedocast.