The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 246: Make or Break

Episode Date: July 27, 2018

Alison Lukan joins the show to discuss the Columbus Blue Jackets, the looming uncertainty involving the future of two of their most important players, and how the franchise can finally turn their newfound regular season success into playoff wins. 0:20 Handling the delicate Artemi Panarin situation 14:30 The market for Sergei Bobrovsky 30:15 John Tortorella's evolution  41:30 William Karlson's upcoming arbitration 44:30 2018-19 predictions 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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joining me is one of my favorite beatwriters in the game right now. I've talked about this on this podcast before, but that's a job that covering just the one team that I have a bit of a soft spot for in my heart having started my career covering just the Canucks. And I know how tricky it can be to always find you creative ways to basically see the same thing over and over again. It's Alison Lucan. Allison, what's going on?

I'm doing well. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be on. I'm really excited to have you. We've been planning to do this for a while now. we couldn't make it work, but I guess it wound up working out well for us because the Blue Jackets really are a team right now, sort of in the dead of summer that actually has some stuff going on that might be interesting and might still, you know, take shape as the rest of this off season goes on.

It feels like most of the hockey world has really gone into a into hibernation. Everyone's, you know, going to their cottages and going camping and taking some time off, deservedly so. But for the Blue Jackets, it's, they're one of the few things. It's the Panarin trade potentially and the Carlson are like the only two reasons I check. Twitter these days basically. It's funny how around these parts and folks

who pay a lot of attention to the jackets, obviously Panarin is subject number one, but I was talking to an Ottawa buddy the other day, and he's like, oh yeah, I keep forgetting about the whole Panarin thing. It's just Eric Carlson. I'm like, just wait. But it's nuts. I mean,

I think that we thought this offseason was going to be, like you said, pretty calm, a totally different focus than what we have now with basically the best player, in my opinion, to come through the Blue Jackets franchise is basically, quote unquote, at this time, not willing to stay on board long term. And that changes the whole look of what this team looks like. They thought they had their dynamic superstar forward. And it looks like at most they have him for one more season. And if they keep him for the

whole season, we have another possible John Tavares scenario, which I don't think anyone wants to either. Yeah. No, it's, it's obviously it's a very delicate situation. You know, I was, I get a lot of flack from, uh, from, from, from Blue Jackets fans that I don't devote nearly enough attention to them on this podcast. And so I think this will, uh, they'll be happy that we're throwing them a bone with a show fully devoted to the team. But I mean, listen, they're honestly, I, I was kind of thinking I had the next season and sort of trying to highlight the teams that I think are the most interesting. We sort of know who's going to be good, who's going to be bad and so on and so forth. But that's not necessarily interesting to me. What's interesting to me is a team like the Blue Jackets

where they're kind of approaching this a bit of a crossroads or a make or break season where, you know, they've enjoyed a lot of regular season success over the past two years. They had that 16 game winning streak. They had 100 point season

and all that's well and good, but they don't really have the playoff success to show for it. And now all of a sudden, with this Panarin thing looming, and we'll talk about Sergey Bobowski, who has one year left on his deal as well, you know, you can make an argument

that Seth Jones notwithstanding, their two best players might not be on this team after this coming season, which is a really weird thing to say about a team that we generally consider it to be sort of a young nucleus that is on the up and up. And we haven't really had a chance to enjoy this team as it's currently constructed for a very long period of time. So it's a very weird mix of emotions where you like to see this kind of organically grow. But if you're Yarmok-Kalayan and Columbus Blue Jackets for an office, you might have to act quicker than you would have otherwise. Yeah, I mean, it's really, you described the situation so well with where this team is. You know, they've kind of been on the cusp for a while.

And that was, in fact, the whole impetus for bringing in Panarin in the first place is that after the jackets went out to the penguins two years ago, you know, the mandate was go find a dynamic offensive player. We've got pretty much everything else we think we need to make a good push, but we need that dynamic play. So they bring in Panarin, you know, and some of the people here who are trying to balance out opinions, they'll say, well, even with Panarin, the jackets didn't make it out of the first round. So it's, you know, is it still the deal breaker? It could be if he leaves. But it's, it's an interesting time because I think, you know, the jackets do, as you said, to kind of stay under the national radar a little bit. And they're struggling for that recognition of, you know, outside of, you know, like you said, Seth Jones, who I think still should be getting mentioned far more than he. he is in the national conversation, specifically the Norris conversation. But people know Bobrovsky, and they don't know much more. They might know Cam Atkinson, you know, a bunch of the folks up in Quebec obviously care about Pierre Luke Dubois, but there's still not a lot of superstar power to this team. And that's not just a PR thing.

That is a talent push thing. You know, Cam Atkinson kind of had a down year. He was poised to be one of those names, and he just kind of struggled a little bit, particularly the first half of this season. And so this year, regardless of what happens with Panarin and the Bobrovsky situation, the guys who they were counting on to make this a solid perennial playoff team need to be what they thought they were going to be. The Cam Atkinsons, the Alexander Wenbergs, the Boone Jenners, the defense looks pretty good, but some of these offensive guys have to show they're consistent at a level that can be where this team wants to be long term.

No, you're right. You mentioned all those guys, and it's why I've been very fascinated by the blue jackets for the past couple of years. I mean, you didn't even mention Oliver Bjork Strand and Sonny Milano. Like, you go on and on, and there's all these very interesting chess pieces that can move up and down the lineup and play in different roles. And it's, it must be, it's a great luxury for John Tortoella, obviously, to try and optimize those lineups. But at the end of the day, what got people really excited about Panarin and the Blue Jags is like they never really had a guy like this. You know, I was looking, Exactly. I was looking at the totals. It's crazy. I mean, I guess if you're following the team very closely for a long time, you might be familiar with this. But like for myself, it was just kind of seeing the numbers is a bit jarring that he was the first,

this was the first time a Blue Jackets player had ever topped 80 points in a year. And then I looked even further. It's like only five, four or five guys that actually ever even gotten 70 plus points, which, you know, it's just remarkable. So it's a testament to sort of what Panarin was able to do last year and how much it meant for this organization. And now that they're going through this, it's in a bit of a bind.

I don't know. Like, where do you stand with the whole thing? Because obviously your colleague, Aaron Portsline, has been doing a great job. You know, he had a Q&A with Panarin's agent, and he's been documenting all this stuff. And I highly recommend everyone checks that out. But, you know, with the newly implemented September 13th deadline

that Panarin seems to have now to try to figure this out, like, do you think this is a resolution we could see figured out either way or and if you still do you think are you leaning a certain direction whether it's going to be resolved organically or whether a trade really is looming yeah i mean i think that you know of course everyone would love to see panarin maybe change his mind i mean but he's earned the right to say he doesn't want to play here that that's the thing um but i do i get it i get where his mind is at i think that the sooner this team, if Artemey Panarin is not going to sign in Columbus, as talented as he is and as enjoyable as he is to watch, you've got to move him sooner rather

than later to maximize your return. Because, I mean, if you're a team where he is going to go, because as we, you know, we saw a little blip there right around the draft that possibly St. Louis was interested, but it was all a non-starter because St. Louis isn't a team he's going to sign with long term. So the closer we get to the point where he is completely an unrestricted pre-agent, the less teams are going to pay to have him, regardless of the balance that's left in the season. And I think if you want to get a return, you're not going to get an Artemie Panarin back. I just, I mean, there's so few of them, right?

I mean, his talent's unquestionable. So you've got to get some play now, guys. You can't just trade for futures. And you're going to get the better return, the longer a team can have him going into this year. I also don't know the impact on the dressing room. I think this is a good group. I think that Artemi likes the group. I think the group likes Artemi.

But with the constant, you know, every time a new team comes in and all the visiting media wants to talk about Artemian, I think it's just going to get exhausting. And the less of that, the better. Now, if he starts with the team, which is what both sides have said they expect to see, I mean, just last year, Cam Atkinson did the same thing. He said, I'm not discussing contracts once the season started, and then he signs an extension.

So, again, the hope is, of course, that maybe something magical turns around Artemis perspective. But if not, I think you've got to be looking to see what you can get for him sooner rather than later, because not just for the return sake, but to what we were just talking about before, who is this team now? because it's not going to be what you thought it was going to be with a Panarin as a centerpiece, you've got to start building your strategy around that new look sooner rather than later as well for the Blue Jackets. Yeah, it's, it's as a, you know, as a fan and just an observer of the team, it's, it's very disappointing because as you mentioned for the return, like regardless of what type of package they get back, they're not going to get an established star coming back that's going to be able to match what he can right now.

and for this team and its current trajectory and sort of all those pieces that we've already outlined, like they need, you can never have enough good players, but obviously having one of these great players is such a game changer for them. And I'm not sure what adding a bunch of other, you know, more minute pieces all of a sudden does for this team. But as you're right, I mean, you know, if it's a reality that you realize that, listen, he's not going to stay here past this season. And if you evaluate that going for a run this year isn't ultimately worth losing that player for nothing and all the media circus and all the questions that are going to arise throughout

the year if he stays in the team all of a sudden you know you sort of have to recalibrate and maybe readjust your expectations for what's going to come back i mean i'd be very curious to see what that return for him would look like it just him as a whole i mean you know he's turning 27 at the start of this year it's tough to say where he is respectively in his prime right now right we know that players reached their prime technically a bit younger but at the same time just because of his non-traditional developmental curve and only having been in NHL for three years, it's really tough to say sort of whether he still has more room to grow as a player or whether this is who he's going to be and if so for how much longer. But I think just from what we've seen in his playing

style and his ability and how he can make his teammates better, I imagine there's going to be quite a bit of interest in him now just how that manifests itself and what they're able to get back in return for it is an entirely different question. But yeah, I mean, there's so many moving parts here in so many complexities beyond just the, just the player himself. Yeah, I mean, it's, in a way, you know, Columbus was the best thing that happened to Artemi Panarin because he proved all the critics wrong who said, oh, it's because he's with Taze, oh, it's because he's in Chicago. And I mean, I remember sitting, like, it was literally two days into training camp last year. And we were all, you know, we didn't see Artemi Panarin much in Columbus. We saw him

twice a year and that was it. And to see what this guy could do, I mean, we just all kept looking at each other like this guy is incredible. I mean, it's to see him play 82 games was truly a treat for those of us in Columbus. And that's what makes it hard. But he, if he had been willing to sign eight years, 11 million per year in Columbus, I would have said that was a fine deal. I mean, he's, he's really, really good. Yeah. No, it's, it's true. I mean, and obviously the results and, you know, how his team does with him on the ice and the individual county stats, he puts up on one thing. But that playing style, I can't hammer that point hard enough because, you know, we always talk about, you know, leadership from players and sort of how, how that can carry over to their teammates.

But I think just watching what a guy like him does on the ice, just sort of with the creativity and the patience, like I imagine that has a bit of a sort of carryover effect that rubs off on the guys he plays with as well, where, you know, in the NHL is so commonplace for guys to just get rid of the puck as quickly as they can and dump it in and chase after. And then you watch him and he's so comfortable, just, you know, having the puck on his stick and waiting for passing lanes to open and not necessarily, um, you know,

frantically doing something every, every single time he gets it. So it's, it's, he's a heck of a player. And, and you're right. I think this prove a year that he had was,

was huge for him and his stock. And obviously, I guess, you know, if he, if he comes back with another monstrous season again, and I mean, he's going to be able to basically ask for a blank check at that point.

Totally. I mean, and to your point, and this is no disrespect to this player. But look at the year. that Pierre-Luk Dubois has playing with Panarin. I mean, this kid comes in, it's his first NHL season. So he puts up 20 goals and 48 points.

And he's one heck of a player in his own right, absolutely. But to play alongside Artemi on your left for the better part of your rookie year, I mean, it's not only with what it gives someone like PLD in terms of exactly, as you said, seeing how you can play, learning how to play with a guy that talented, but also a guy that gives you some time and space to figure out what you're going to do on the ice, right? So that you're more comfortable out there, you're more confident. He really, there was some time with the team kind of trying to get used to him and the way he played, but he really did elevate this group.

And he freed up the back end guys like Werenski and Jones to do what they do too. Because other teams had started to key in on those two perhaps a little bit more than was comfortable to allow them to play the way they need to play. Well, you know, this is going to be a good segue into talking about Bobroski next, but you alluded to it at the start of the show where, you know, the comments about how what's the big deal, this team lost in the first round anyways, whether it's that big of a loss. And I have seen some of that. And obviously, people debate the semantics of, you know, who's a star and who's a superstar

and all that. And we're not going to get into that because it's, you know, it's a fruitless exercise ultimately. But I think that I do take issue with sort of using that as a barometer for whether a team out of a successful season or not just because, I mean, you look at these past two years and, you know, small sample sizes aside, obviously in a seven-game series. I mean, they did wind up losing both times to the eventual Stanley Cup champion, and especially against the capitals.

I mean, I wonder how history is going to remember that series. You know, you look at it as a sixth gamer that had a couple overtimes, and, you know, I guess you could sort of judge it as a close series. But, I mean, they took those first two games in Washington. I don't want to bring back off old wounds, but I mean, just how close they were. And that game three, I think, was the one where the overtime winner bounced in off Lars Eller in an awkward way. And then I believe game five in Washington that went to overtime, they were just, you know,

they were completely dominating that and Holtby's stunned his head and eventually Nicholas Baxham scored. So it's like, it's one of those that very easily cut a flip. And then obviously after that, who knows what happens against the penguins in round two and whether they can slay some of those demons after having a playoff series victory under their belt. And so it's just one of those things where it's very easy right now to just go like, oh, you know, this is a disappointing season.

Who cares about this? It's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. they lost in round one, but there's just so much more nuance to it beyond that, as I'm sure you're well aware of. And it's funny. I actually, as a credit to, there has been some illusion, and I've heard it multiple places now, and I can't remember who first said it first, so I apologize. But, you know, there was the comment made that Washington was a team that had to learn

how to lose so that they could learn how to win. And I think the jackets might be in a little bit of an iteration of that themselves with slaying some demons, you know, being the first Jackets team to ever win a playoff series. And I really, what I saw from Washington in the series against Columbus was I think that is what really galvanized Washington. I mean, you felt the mental flip. You felt kind of that lockdown attitude, the Ovechkin guarantee. And I think them doing what they had to do as a group to come back and win that series,

again, they're clearly a talented group of players. but that was kind of the final missing ingredient that helped propel them the rest of the way, because they just felt like a machine from then on out. No, no, it's true. 100%. It's all about how you bounce back from that. I do get it also from the other side of things. It's like, you know, when you have, what, four playoff appearances in 17 years,

I think people are going to give you a lot of benefit of doubt and they're going to, you know, kind of want you to prove it before they give you some respect. So I do understand that, but let's get into Bobrovsky now. And, you know, I mentioned that he only has the one year left on his deal as well. and he's sort of kind of an avatar for that discussion we just had about, you know, the great regular season and not really doing anything in the playoffs and sort of how you weigh those two things and reconcile that and how that affects decision-making moving forward. You know, and I know you wrote about it at length after the postseason sort of that idea of regular season versus post-season, but I don't know, it's, is there something beyond like the fact that it's just, you know, 20 games worth or whatever? of struggles and we should actually evaluate the fact the 300 plus games he's had in the regular season is a blue jacket much more heavily? Or like, where do you stand on that whole thing moving

forward? Yeah, I mean, there's there's so many nuances to this. I mean, you know, it goes against everything in my nature and everything we learn to say to your point that we should weigh the very small sample size of playoff games for Sergei Bavrovsky against what we know the player can do in the regular season. But that being said, you know, there was an interesting little quirk in what he led in more so in terms of the low probability shots. And it's unfair for me not being a professional athlete to say what goes through a player's mind, etc. or so forth. But there does seem to be a slight downtick. And we just talked about the capitals kind of elevating. There wasn't an elevation there. I don't think we saw

from Bobrovsky and have yet to see. And that goes for quite a bit. a few players, obviously, on the Jackets roster in the postseason, but he didn't take that step, that whole thing you hear about of this is when it matters more because the margin for error is so small. And it's, the flip of that coin is, of course, do you even make the playoffs if you don't have Sergei Bobrovsky in that? Which then goes back to why you need Artemi Panarin, because you need someone scoring the goals because everyone just coming down and only Bob is stopping the goals on the other end. So it's this weird interconnectedness. I don't know that Bob is going to get the same kind of contract offer that Panarin was going to enter into the discussions with this Jackets front office.

I just think it's a different conversation. And I don't know that he's the franchise goaltender for the next eight years. I don't know that as surely as I felt about the team feeling really comfortable with Panarin at the end of last season. the flip side of that is I also don't know if if Bob Rovsky wants to play somewhere else where is he going to go that's going to pay him 10 million dollars a year you know there's not a ton of a list of suitors right now that we can come up with so Bob is Bob particularly for the regular season if the price is right I think it'd be fantastic for him to stay in Columbus but I just wonder if he's eyeing carry price type money right now right yeah well it's

I mean, there's so many things I unpack here, but like with, I'm just trying to think of, honestly, the last goalie of this caliber or even, you know, an above average starter that switch teams in free agency on a mega deal. We just see it happen so infrequently, right? Like if a guy has elevated himself to this level, goalies are, you know, treated like, like, like so well by their teams. They're just sort of like going to give up on them that. that if you get a guy like that, you usually lock them up for long term and you don't see them switch teams. Like, I guess, like, Ben Bishop going to Dallas a couple years ago, but I wouldn't, you know, he's obviously in a tier below and even that wasn't necessarily a mega contract.

But that's like the only name I can even think of, the really switch teams in free agency. So that's a whole other thing. And I don't, it's, I mean, so there's two things working against them here. I guess three, if you include the, the playoff failures. But, you know, one is obviously unlike Pernier and. we sort of know that the position itself is more volatile. So while Bobrovsky's entering his age 30 season, and we know that, you know, goalies might have a longer shelf life.

I think a smart, a GM like Yarmot would be reluctant to give him an eight-year deal at that point. And the other thing is obviously, you know, we should talk about Jonas Corpassallo as well, waiting in the wings, because people around the league are very high on him, and the Blue Jackets as well seem to be considering they made a point of protecting him in the expansion draft. so I'm kind of curious to see how that start split goes this season because I feel like for a while now we've been hearing how the Blue Jackets are really high on Corpusallo and he's the future but then what he started like 18 games or something last season so it's like we haven't necessarily

seen it manifest itself and until we see him play even 25 30 or so games kind of like what Philip Gruber did last year in Washington it's all well and good to dominate in 15 to 20 games but can you do that under a larger workload as an entirely different animal? And so I would really like to see that. And I imagine the Blue Jackets would as well before they made any decision whether they would move on from Bobrovsky and give Corpus All the number one spot or whether they would bring Bob back on a mega deal as well. Yeah. And you mentioned, you know, the goalie pipeline. And in Columbus, it's a very interesting one, right?

Because they have up in Cleveland kind of the young star who was the surprise who's in. North America right now is Matisse Kivlennox, who had a rough year last year in the HL, but that's because he was not expected to play as much as he did, and their kind of veteran guys went down to injury. But there's Elvis Merslikens, who's over in Latvia, who by all accounts is just a tremendous goaltender. Now, of course, that's in a completely different league that we're talking about. But how much do you lock up Bob if you've got Corpusallo, Kivlennox, Merzlikens, all of these guys waiting in the wings and you have great faith in them. You know, again, how much do you tie up that number one spot to your point and not give

these guys playing time when they're younger and perhaps cheaper, right? Get them in net if they can hold up there into the bargain. But we don't know. Yeah, it's tough. And I also wonder, I imagine this would play into it as well, as much as you'd like to sort detach yourself emotionally and make a calm, cool, calculated business decision. Like, you know, for Yarmo, he sort of plucked Bobrovsky out of relative obscurity while he wasn't, you know, what he wound up being in Columbus while he was in Philly. And all of a sudden, you know, you have this gem and he's been, for my money, the best most reliable goalie in the league over the past five, six seasons.

And so I'm sure there's a bit of an attachment to that as well where it's like, do you want to kind of keep this guy here? Or can you kind of realize that maybe the best business decision might be to move on, let someone else pick up the tab in this free agent contract and sort of move. on to some of those younger names you mentioned as well. Well, and that's, I'm looking to, I'm looking to confirm my dates here. I don't, I want to make sure I've got this right. When Yarmow took over, do, do, do, do, front office. Ooh, was he not even around? Did he not make the trade?

It was, it was Halson. Oh, well, then scratch, scratch everything I just said. There's no emotional attachment at all. So it sounds like we're reporting the Bogorowski's as good as gone. But it, well, it's, it's, It's, yeah, and, you know, all of this, sometimes to your point we're human and these are people at some point, you do feel for the guy because he literally is probably the hardest worker on the Blue Jackets roster right now, Sergei Brobrovsky, and he's a tremendous player. But, you know, we come down to these types of conversations because it is, it is about asset management. And I think it's, you know, again, I would not want to be in your armokelein's shoes because you know you have so much.

much money. You knew you, you thought you knew you just had to get two big pieces locked down. And now all of this is thrown up in the air because it could change your entire strategy for the next one to five years if you so choose based on what happens with these two players. Yeah, no, definitely. And I wonder, I think ultimately it'll, I wonder what the market will be like for him just because I remember when he signed the current deal he's on right now, which was, what, like four years, just under 7.5 million annual cap hit. I remember I being critical of it just because it seemed like a lot of money, and I like the fact that it was only four years.

But at that time, he'd only had a few years of being sort of this up threshold on goalie with the one massive business season. And I was like, ah, is he really worth it? This seems like a bit of a steep price. And obviously he's been worth every penny that they paid for him over the past few years. So I wonder, like, if depends on what would be available out there for him. But something like that, where it's a bit of a higher dollar figure, but a shorter term is obviously something I would always favor when it comes to the signing goalie.

So I wonder if he'd be open to something like that or whether a team would be willing to throw such big money and such big term at him that he would be reluctant to take it. Yeah. And that's, you know, and that's, again, that's what I was saying. You know, you go through the list of who's really going to be looking to sign a new number one at that number next summer. Worst case, right? If we don't presume a trade. but I mean, who's really, I mean, the list is shorter than some colleagues and I went through it a couple days ago. And the list we came up with was a heck of a lot shorter than we thought it might be.

And one of the teams on our list was Philly, and I doubt he goes back there. So who did you wind up, who you wind up settling on as potential landing spots? Well, let's see. We said, we definitely said Edmonton and Philly will be losing their goalies. we had Calgary possibly as an option. In the discussion, we had Islanders, Detroit, Colorado, Vancouver, potentially depending on what they did with who they have in their organization right now. But it's, you know, again, are these teams that are going to drop all that money?

Are they going to drop 10 million on a 30-year-old Sergat Bobrovsky? It's interesting because he may not be in as much of the driver's seat compared to his friend, Panarin over there who has a ton of suitors. Which is crazy to me. I mean, it totally makes sense, but on the other hand, I was looking at some of the numbers and it's like, I feel like just because of that playoff disappointment, he doesn't get the credit he deserves for what he's done in the regular season.

And I was just like looking at some of the numbers and it's like, you know, especially over the full six-year sample that he's been in Columbus, it's pretty much like Corey Crawford and Hendrik Lindquist are his only peers and everything. and just the durability and the fact that he's been able to shoulder this workload, whereas a guy like Carrie Price and some other of his contemporaries have some of those concerns as well. So the age is one thing and the position and the organizational pipeline, and I understand why it might be a smart business decision for Columbus to move on,

but just the fact that we're talking about, like, oh, is there going to be a market for what could be the best goalie in the league who plays the most important position? Like, it's just the new reality in 2018, and not that. it's necessarily a good or bad thing, but it just, it speaks to how much it's changed. Because I think if we're having this the same discussion a few years ago, we'd be like, oh, there's going to be a team that's definitely going to just throw a massive mega deal at them. And it just seems like teams have wised up to not doing that sort of stuff anymore.

Yeah. And I, you know, the flip of that too is, you know, the bad side of being a young team like Columbus is you, even if you want to pay a Sergei Barbarovsky 10 a year, you've got a ton of really young talent coming up that's going to want a new contract soon. I mean, Zach Werenski, PLD in a couple years, you know, these are guys that you're going to have to pay them too. And you can't, I mean, we've seen this lesson go the wrong way for teams too. If you tie it all up in one or two guys, now, you know, the rest of your of your talent pool suffers. And particularly for this jackets organization, they can't, they can't do that. They need to spend the money

across the board. Right. Yeah. If you're a team like, and especially if your team like Columbus, you sort of need to be forwarding. I don't know, like, does this team have an internal, internally imposed cap, or are they willing to spend to the ceiling? Well, the year they were closest to the cap was the year that they, I think, had the most man games lost in the entire team. Right. I do remember that, yeah. So they have taken that risk, but, you know, this is a smaller market team.

I don't think that unless this is a team that goes on a long, standing highly successful run. This is a group that's going to go right up to the line year after year. And I respect that. I respect that that's the market and the environment that they live in here. So probably not. Yeah. No, that's fair.

I mean, obviously, factors into how you plan ahead and try to figure out to maximize your resources. I did want to talk to you about what it's been like covering a John Twitter Rale team up close. But, you know, I don't even know if at this point in 20, 2018, if that's even like that sexy of a topic anymore, it feels like at this stage of his career, he really has, I mean, obviously, we can get into the whole Jack Johnson thing and maybe that was some good old-fashioned, good old-fashioned towards turning back the clock and showing us

his peak fastball. But other than that, for the most part, it's been pretty held in check. And I actually, I've been a big fan just from looking at the outside of what he's sort of, what he's done and how he's managed his team and how he's utilized all those pieces he does, he does have, which is something that, you know, after seeing his one season up close here in Vancouver, I did not think I'd be saying. Yeah. He's an interesting guy. I actually have really enjoyed every day that I've been allowed to cover him here.

When he, when it was announced he was coming in, I was actually on a plane out to California. And my phone started blowing up and I was like, oh, good gracious, my, maybe I shouldn't go back home because we didn't know what was going to happen. But, you know, it was funny. After that whole Jack Johnson thing, a guy who played, he never played in the Jackets organization, said to me, he said, his players will love him for that, for that outburst. Particularly because in the climate of this Paneraan uncertainty and this organization. And to Torts his credit, he calls a spade a spade. He says, this is an organization that is still fighting for respect. And so he's just not willing to see whether it was intended or not, anyone take a hit at the organization.

And the guys really like that. You know, we know he's, we know he's hard on his players. We know he's rough around the edges. But the more former torterella players who I talk to, the thing is there is ultimately, as much as there's the yelling and the open and honest critique, there is so much protection of his guys in the room. It's actually crazy. I remember being in Vancouver when Toritz was on this first season with Columbus, and the Sadiens stopped, interrupted his scrum to say hello to him. So it's interesting to see the way players respect him after.

But I've also been intrigued. I like to tease him, and he lets me get away with it to a degree that he is the most anti-analytics guy that I've come across. I mean, he'll say bad things about Corsi and this and that. and the other thing from here to high heaven. But the way he talks about the game, the way he's coaching the game, and the way he analyzes the game

really speaks to a mind that's becoming a bit more progressive than I think people realize. He even has the analytics staff tracking a metric he developed to give to him after every game. So it's been fun with him in that sense because I think along with the temper, there was also this whole, you know, the blocking of the shots,

the dinosaur hockey mentality. and I think after the Vancouver experiment, if you will, that's a generous term for what that was. He, you know, he did take a look at himself. And to his credit, as a coach, he took a really hard look at the game along with his buddy Mike Sullivan. And he still got old school in him. He always will.

But I've been really pleasantly surprised with some of the different ways he is thinking about the game that I don't think enough people give him credit for. Yeah, no, I mean reading Craig Custin's book with all the coaches in his chapter, he was sort of, he made the point of when he took that year off in between the jobs, they kind of looked into some stuff. And obviously, I were not sure what he was looking into and what he still factors in, you know, importantly to his decision making. But the fact that that's at least the thought process and the conversation that's happening is, is a testament to sort of how far he's come. And I think, yeah, that year was, the year off was important. It was a bit of a wake-up call, just how badly things went in Vancouver. believe that, you know, he was running out of opportunities at this level. And, and the fact that

he's had the success he's had in Columbus now has been good to see. And, you know, you mentioned some of that stuff, some of the metrics and stuff like that. I think just even regardless of what he'll say, and I do have this theory that, whether it's players or coaches or whoever in the league, it's kind of like that school year mentality where people don't want to admit their intent analytics because their, because their peers are going to call them nerds and think less of them. But like, the actions speak for themselves. And just sort of like, you know, two years ago, I love the idea of when he was using Sam Gagne and Scott Arnold, who were on their fourth line, on a second unit power play and stuff like that. And it's like, there's more progressive ways to utilize your lineup.

And that means more to me than, you know, a quote, a coach is going to give about what he's looking at. I know that people get really excited on the internet when a coach or a player or a GM acknowledges them. But I think the actions themselves are much more important to me than what they're actually saying. Yeah, it's, it's been really in, it's, so what was in Craig Custin's book, which is a tremendous book in totality as well, um, is that, you know, Torts and Mike Sullivan basically, they tracked, listen to this, they tracked every single goal scored and tried to look at if there was anything they needed to know that could help them understand what leads to a goal. And it basically led them to decide at that time that scoring chances were the best,

way to understand the game of hockey in terms of offensive production and looking at all the series of events that leads up to a goal. And this was right around the same time, you know, people like us were still just starting to talk about tracking passes and tracking shot assists and things like this. And I was shocked at how many people missed it when the jackets fell to Pittsburgh in the first round of the playoffs two years ago, they consistently outshot the penguins. And everyone kept talking about that. And the answer was, of course, you know, the incredible talent of Pittsburgh is the reason why Columbus doesn't have the talent. They can't convert. But Torts kept saying it's about the scoring chances. Shots don't matter. It's about scoring

chances. I was like, I can't believe no one is picking up on the one man who is preaching shot quality and shot set up and chances. And no one's realizing that he's the one advocating for this in the context of this whole series. It was just kind of a hilarious thing to me at the time. Yeah. And I do remember I think during that series or during that postseason run, I'd have Bill West who was covering the penguins on the podcast, and he was talking about how the penguins internally were making a big deal themselves about prioritizing that sort of stuff. And, you know, we could get into a mega podcast just talking about, you know, scoring chances of problems with them versus shot attempts and all the nuances there. But there's very clearly something going on

there. And it's, I'm always curious to see how it's discussed and how people in hockey talk about it. And, you know, I think that what it comes down to, and I want to talk about the Jack Johnson thing a bit here, is, you know, the Cole question was made by Jack Johnson himself, and then by Jim Rather heard about whether, you know, it wasn't a performance-based decision. It was something that was going on behind the scenes. But I think at the end of the day, you look at it,

and I give Tororella credit for, I think, realizing that, you know, that David Savard and Jack Johnson pairing was drowning a little bit throughout the season. And when Ian Cole came into the lineup and played with David Sabar, that pairing was all of a side and significantly better. And I'd like to think that that was actually, it really, it's ironic because I think that really was a bit of a performance based decision where he was able to pull the plug and get away from a pairing that wasn't working for a superior one. And I mean, this has been written as well. But I mean, if you know anything about John Tortorella, he's certainly not going to sit a player for anything other than merit-based

production-based reasons. I mean, it's, and he pulls no punches. He'll sit a veteran. He's scratched Scott Hartnell. He's scratched David Savard. You know, he's done this to guys that he thinks haven't earned a spot in the lineup. But, I mean, I think that was more just a move from the penguins trying to say, you know, we know something. And this is a good signing for us.

But Ian Cole really did that. The defense was floundering a little bit last year for the jackets after the Zacharan's. and Seth Jones pairing, and Zach was playing hurt most of the season. So there was a lot of kind of jumbling. There were some flashes, but not a lot of consistency. And Ian Cole came in and earned that spot. And, you know, that's not to take a dig at Jack Johnson, but Ian Cole was the better solution in that role playing with David Savard in the 3-4 position.

That's just how it was. Yeah, yeah, no, it's indisputable. You mentioned the metric towards developed, and he has his team tracking. I guess, and I know that you wrote about this at the beginning of last season, and obviously teams are reluctant to, you know, to divulge any real details. And sometimes they'll leave the stuff. And, you know, there's no real competitive advantage to letting it know

what they actually are looking at. But do you have any sense of what that would entail? It's obviously a scoring chance-based metric, right? Well, actually, so two years ago, not this past season, but the prior, when Zach Werensky was going to be joining the team, that was kind of what started to open Tortorella's eyes to how he wanted this team to play activating from the back end. He won't even call Zach Wrenski a defenseman. He calls him a rover.

I believe that he also considers Seth Jones a rover. He has used that term with him. But it's this whole idea that's kind of floating out there as well that some of our colleagues use about backs. They're not even defensemen anymore. And so, you know, he's got a really active pairing there in Jones and Werenski. and so basically this metric that he has the team track, he disclosed this to me and said I could use it,

and I sure did. I put it out there right away. He basically tracks where which direction play goes in the first play north of the dots in the defensive zone. Because he figures south of the dots is, you know, you can be collecting the puck, you can be gathering, setting up the play, what have you. But he wants the play going north-south as the first play

north of the face-off dots and the defensive end, far more than ever east-west. He wants his team in the high to mid-80% for north-south versus east-west. And it was funny. He drew it out for me, and he said, yeah, I think when we talked, and this was probably around December of last year,

the team was hovering around the high 70s. And he said, yeah, but we really want to get that up to, like, 85. And it's funny, you know, we talk about how some players don't even want to get into this, nor should they have to, quite frankly. Their job isn't to know their course. Their job is to play hockey well and be put in positions to succeed. But the guys know about that number two. And they talk about it.

They talk about the concept of it, about how it's all north-south. And that's a number tortuptial sight to those guys. And when you think about the philosophy of how this team is playing, it's perfectly hand-in glove with the philosophy of the team with a metric that then reinforces everything he's asking those guys to do every second of a game. So I think it's a really well-designed idea for what he's doing with this group. Yeah, I like that. Okay, I got a few other topics here that I wanted to get to before we get out of here. How often did people, if you tweet something or if you'd write something,

how often did people comment about William Carlson's season to you this year? Oh, goodness gracious. I love William Carlson. He is a tremendous human. He is obviously a tremendous hockey player. but I could go without hearing about Liam Carlson. I bet. It was, you know, and it's the thing that was hard,

and this is a little bit of a Homer statement, the thing that is hard is that so much of the critique came from people who didn't look at the decision-making process and just evaluated the result. And everyone who has been around this team has said, you know, right or wrong, would you have made a different decision at the time? And there's no one who says,

yeah, I totally would have kept William Carlson over a Josh Anderson or over a Eunice Corpusallo. It's, it just, if someone says they saw this coming, they are lying.

No, 100%. But it's, it is definitely been. And of course, you know, then you always get the, whenever someone was faltering on the jackets, you always got the,

well, if we still had William Carlson, da, da, da, da. But it was, I'm, I'm tremendously interested to see how his contract shakes out this year because you can imagine the arguments both sides are going to bring. It's going to be fascinating. Oh, no, definitely. And so we'll see. I mean, his arbitration hearing is set for August 4th. And, you know,

often this stuff gets resolved before and doesn't really go to that. But I think this would be one of those instances where, like, if I was Vegas, I would, I would approach it very delicately because just how would that, I'm very curious, like, how would that, I'm very curious, like, how would that arbitration here and go because if you're George McPhee in Vegas, your best argument beyond the fact that this was the first time he done it is he shot like 24%. But if you bring up that argument, you're essentially saying that the player was lucky and not actually that skilled and that talented. And I understand in this process, you know, it's a business. You can't have hurt feelings. And ultimately, if he winds up getting rewarded and getting paid, I'm sure it's going to be water under

the bridge. But it is like, it's very tricky because especially if you're planning for that player to be with your team for a long time. You don't really want to openly, you kind of want to walk around that as opposed to just blatantly being like, yeah, he's not going to shoot 24% again. Well, and it, I mean, it brings up, you don't want it to be, wasn't it PK's hearing where he came out almost in tears after the end of, I mean, that's, you're exactly right. You just don't want a player to get beat up that much. Those are the numbers, but the way you have that conversation. And I, I mean, so much of being, successful in this game from a management perspective is your ability to communicate effectively.

And gosh, that's, I mean, I would legitimately, just from sheer observation, I would just love to be a fly on the wall because it's, it's, I don't know how you handle this. Yeah, well, I hope. I mean, we probably won't hear much about it, but I'd love that would be quite a deep dive reporting. One final thing then. What's your, how are you feeling about the Blue Jacks this coming season if you're looking at the, at the Metro Division landscape? And obviously, It's a tough question to answer until we know how this Panarin thing plays out. But taking that into account and just, I guess, assuming that they're going to get something back that I'll at least help them now and it won't just be pure futures. How do you think they stack up with the rest of the teams?

Because obviously, you know, Carolina is for the 47th straight season, a very trendy preseason pick. And Philly, there's a lot of reason to believe they're only going to be better with some of their young players improving. and, you know, bringing in a guy like James Van Riemsdike, and then, you know, you have Washington, Pittsburgh. So it really seems like this division is, it could be the case again, unless Florida really takes a step up in performance, that it's going to be five Metro Division teams and, you know, both of the wild card spots being represented by them.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I will say that I think even if we presume that Panarin does not remain on the team for the entirety of the season, I think that this is a group that makes it back to the postseason. I think that while we have hit on it a number of times that they're still, particularly if Panarin is gone, they're still looking for that elite, elite, offensive talent, that what they did, particularly with their two quiet moves in the off season,

is they really brought back the depth that helps Tortorella be really effective and roll four lines effectively. So I think they bolstered that position. and the defense is really becoming the hallmark of this team because as we just discussed, they're not really defensemen anymore. They're becoming this back, this rover kind of idea. And I think it's a creative way to handle not having a tase or a cane or something like that. It's just a different way to attack the game.

So I'm borrowing some catastrophic injury to a major player. I think we see them back in the post-season again for what would be another franchise first of the third time in a row. Yeah, I'm pretty high on them as well. Obviously, we'll see how that plays out. But they do have the depth. And one thing that I really like, and I sort of kind of compare them to like the Eastern Conference version of Minnesota, where it's like they can really just roll the four lines and the three defense pairings.

And there isn't that glaring weakness that most teams have where it's like, oh, boy, when this unit is out on the ice, they can really be exposed. And I think that especially over the course of the regular season, maybe that's a bit of a less of an advantage in the come to postseason. but over the course of the 82 game season, there's going to be so many nights where you just take advantage of your opponent, especially if they're playing on a second of the back-to-back, just having that type of depth that can really overwhelm them.

So I think that's going to get them a certain number of wins, and I think that ultimately that's going to be enough to get them back in the playoffs. And I'm pretty optimistic about this team now, obviously, if a Panarin trade comes down and I really, really don't like the return, maybe I'll recalibrate, but for the time being, I think there's some, I think there's reason for optimism. Absolutely. I agree. And I, you know, it's Yarmokhekalan has proven to be quite shrewd in pulling off more than a few deals, even this Panarin deal. I mean, we're here now, but who even saw it coming last season? And it was a strong move for the team, I think. And, you know, if anyone can pull this off, I think he has a good chance. Yeah. And if there's my one, one final prediction here is if we know anything, it's that NHL voters love to be a year behind. So we know for sure that Seth Jones will be.

I know a trophy finalist and might even win the award just based on what he did this year. Yeah, you know, that is honestly kind of the shame of the jackets not seeing more postseason success. You just don't get the spotlight on this team. I mean, this team gets one national game a year. And last year it was against Buffalo on a Wednesday. So a lot of NHL fans don't know this team. And again, at the risk of sounding like a Homer, there are some really exciting players to watch. on it and Seth Jones particularly after his season last year is at the top of that list for me.

Just a tremendously dynamic player. I think he's, I think he has a really good shot at being the first jacket to win on Norris. Yeah, close on that. All right, Allison, this was a lot of fun. Let's, uh, let's plug some stuff before you get out of here. What do you, uh, are you, I guess you're, you're kind of enjoying your offseason right now. You're not, you're not working on anything in MENTLY. Uh, we're working on a couple things. We're going to take a look back at, uh, some of the guys that that suffered a little bit from a scoring perspective. There might be some reasons we've teased out about that

and looking a little bit at kind of the Ohio State college hockey landscape, some things there. But we'll start ramping up here as August gets going and prospect camp gets going and back into the numbers and the stories of what goes on in Jacketsland. Awesome. Well, enjoy your offseason. And I'll make sure to get you back on when we get into next year and we'll pick up this conversation.

Awesome. Anytime. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, absolutely. How are going, Allison? You too. The Hockey PDOCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash HockeyPedioCast. Looking for a new podcast to listen to? Here's what we love, courtesy of ACAS recommends. Hey there, I'm Reza Aslan.

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