The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 256: Growing the Game

Episode Date: October 12, 2018

Jonatan Lindquist joins the show to discuss the latest NHL Global Series venture and the league's attempts to grow the game overseas (1:00), the Devils pursuit to build off last year's surprising success and avoid regressing (12:30), John Gibson's excellence and the Ducks reliance on youth (21:30), the Sharks early season growing pains (34:00), and the differences between European Pro Leagues and the NHL (46:30). A reminder that we're hosting a daily fantasy listener league contest over at FanDuel every Thursday this season. While you wait for the next opportunity to play to come around, go over to fanduel.com/PDO and tell them we’ve sent you. They’ll hook you up with a bonus $20 to play with after your first deposit, which will surely come in handy throughout the year. See you there! Sponsoring today’s show is For Hims, which will serve as a one-stop shop for all of your hair loss, skincare, and other wellness supplement needs. They'll connect you with real doctors and medical grade solutions, while sparing you the embarrassment of in-doctor visits and saving you the time you would've otherwise spent sitting in a waiting room. Just go to forhims.com/pdo and answer a few quick questions, a doctor will review your file and prescribe what you need, and the products will be shipped directly to your door. As my listener, if you let them know we've sent you you'll even get a trial month for just $5 right now while supplies last. See the website for full details. 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. and joining me is my good buddy Jonathan Linquist. Jonathan, what's going on, man? Not much, not much. Just got back to California from Sweden covering the global series, so it's good to be back. How was, yeah, I know you were telling me you,

I guess you got back on Monday or so. I was following all this stuff from here in Vancouver on social media and watching what you and Ufa and all the guys were getting up to and it seemed like a good time and I watched the game itself, but how was the reception down there? because obviously this wasn't the first time that NHL's been playing regular season games in Sweden, but I wonder as we move forward, you know, if there is a big appetite for it, I know I interact with

a ton of Swedish followers all the time on Twitter who listen to the podcast and follow me online. So I know that there's a lot of interest there and a lot of, you know, appetite for NHL action there. But moving forward, do you think this is something that's going to become more of a regular occurrence as we potentially head towards some sort of an expansion and however that's going to look? Well, I certainly hope so. I mean, I got to say I was positively surprised by the atmosphere at the game. It was good. It was loud, which is always hard, like, when you have two teams and neither team is the home team in the practical sense.

But it was a pretty good atmosphere, and the ticket sold out. I mean, to be honest, they weren't cheap, but they still sold out pretty fast. So that kind of tells you a lot about the interest. So from what I hear, there's something that's going to keep happening. And, I mean, Sweden is, I don't know if it's as big of a market, obviously, as other countries. I know, obviously, there's, I heard it's more people in China than Sweden. I've heard that, yeah. I've got to run the numbers.

We've got to run the analytics. But I think off the eye test, it seems like that. Yeah. But, I mean, it's still like an important market, I guess, with the amount of players, we're around 10% now of the total NHL players. So I think that I still want to hold that relationship on a good level. And yeah, so I'm hoping it's going to keep happening. Yeah. So, I mean, let's talk a bit about the game itself.

You know, there's obviously out of one game, you can't really necessarily read too much into it, and especially in the grand scheme of an 82 game schedule. But like I guess, especially now that, you know, we're recording this on a Thursday evening, we just saw the New Jersey Devils come home and kind of lay a smackdown on the Washington Capitol 6th. nothing, I believe. And then you see Edmonton struggling once again and falling in the feet to

the Boston Bruins. And it seems like, you know, just watching that game, whenever McDavid wasn't on the ice, I don't know, did it kind of feel like the Oilers were just sort of with killing time and waiting for him to get out there and do something? Because it sure seemed like that just from, from watching it at home. Oh, absolutely. And I mean, it felt like as soon as they, they kind of got stuck, it was Mac David and Drysel. Throw in a couple ships, see what happens. And that's kind of the only thing they got going for him.

And it's got to be frustrating for McDavid. There was this one sequence in the third period where you just tried to jam his way through on the left side. People watching it might remember. He did it two times in a row at the blue line. It wasn't with speed or anything. It was just a pure frustration play,

like trying to just wrestle away through three guys. And even for him, it's not possible. And it kind of, for me, I just said, I mean, sample size, whatever, but that, those two plays, kind of thing about the frustration, and he must feel already because he looks so alone, to be honest. Yeah, he does. And I guess, you know, if you are going to, from the NHL's perspective, if you're going to try to grow the game and, you know, establish more of a stronghold there and, and create new fans in different markets, like sending a guy like McDavid for people to get to see him up close when they don't typically get to see him up close when they don't typically get to. to do so was probably a good way to go about it. I was watching, I was watching today and the only goal Edmonton did score was McDavid essentially, he was kind of just like standing still and

Tyratty passed him the puck and he all of a sudden, in a blink of an eye, was going 100 miles an hour past the Dino Charai and wound up scoring on a breakaway. It's like some of the stuff this guy's capable of doing physically is sort of a great encapsulation of how the NHL's evolved over the years and where it's headed. And obviously he's sort of a freak athlete that can do stuff other guys can't, but that sort of speed and skill on display is the NHL's biggest selling point to new fans. So I imagine kind of marketing that and showing that off as much as possible is going to be the way to go moving forward. Yeah, but I think a big selling point is that you have to get like native stars in whichever country are playing. And the best example now in Finland,

they got Sasha Markov and Patrick Klein and owner. And that's, I think that's a super smart move. obviously I get what the NHL did here bringing he's here to Switzerland and drives heading to Germany for the exhibition games and then maybe when you play the regular season game you want to have a more established hockey market whatever so you know that everything is going to work out in terms of the ice in terms of the clock

everything like that so they brought the regular season game to Sweden but I mean I would love to see a more quote-unquote Swedish team I remember like last year I talked to Philip Forsberg after game out LA and he brought it up and brought it up himself just said that hey we want to go so there's definitely like guys like that they want to go the Swedish player want to play at home and a team like Nashville would be terrific to see in Sweden if I'm talking from from that perspective I think that's

very important yeah no obviously especially like for young kids right if you can kind of relate to a guy who kind of maybe had a similar upbringing as yours from your hometown all of a sudden it kind of creates this different emotional bond than someone who, you know, is just a guy who seems like it's this like far away dream that you can never actually live yourself. Absolutely. And I mean, people, you kind of start following the NHL. Most of the times, I would say, because you're a favorite player, especially when you come from a different, like if you're from Winnipeg or whatever, you're going to follow the Jets.

But if you're from anywhere in Sweden, you'll follow the team with your favorite player. So that's important. And usually that player is someone who has you have a connection to me. Might be from the same place, whatever. Remember for myself, I mean, growing up, being old enough to follow the Nishel is, for me it was Vancouver, being the same town as Marcus Nassan and the Sedeen. So it's kind of obvious for me. So that's usually the way it works if you're a fan from another country than the U.S. or Canada. So obviously, you know, McDavid is one thing.

But I do think that if you're looking kind of down the oil as raw, it's rather. or one of the guys who is going to play a big role in making or breaking their season based on his health and sort of how effective he's going to be able to be this year is a guy like Oscar Cliffbaum, especially, you know, they lose Andre Sechre in the preseason for the season, basically. And that leaves a big hole in their blue line. And one of the reasons why the Oilers regressed so much last year, aside from the fact that they didn't get the goaltending from Camp Talbot was their power play really struggled. And it's remarkable that Connor McDavid. was able to lead the league in scoring and have 107 or 108 points or whatever he wound up having,

considering that his power play numbers weren't actually that impressive just because the Oilers were, I think, like, historically bad at both drawing penalties and then actually converting them into goals whenever they did get their few chances. And I think part of that was, you know, two years ago when they were so effective and had that magical season in the coming out party was Oscar Clefbaum was really turning heads with his aggressiveness and his shot from the point and sort of that. different weapon or different kind of dynamic that he added to that power play and you know last year there was it was just such a mess for everything in edmonton but he was playing at end of the season even though he

probably needed surgery and i don't know like it's after two games it's too early to tell with anything but what do you think about sort of that entire subplot and whether last year was a decent indication of who he is or what was two years ago or sort of what's going on with that entire ordeal Yeah, you know what? There's two things I want to talk about there. If we started with cleft bomb, I think, I mean, he had the shoulder injury, which is obviously limiting, especially in terms of shooting, which will affect his power play performance. And on five on five on five, I got PDO. I mean, he had the lowest on-eye shooting percentage and say percentage out of any regular or other defensemen.

So and that obviously affects his self-confidence, which in that will affect his power play performance. So I definitely expect him to bounce back. He had a good summer. He told me he, I mean, he missed a little bit. He had to rehab a little bit at the start of the summer. But he had like a good two months or whatever of good preparation this summer. So he told me like there's nothing to blame there. Like I had a good summer.

And physically he's ready to bounce back. And I think there's definitely, there's a bounce back waiting for him there. However, how good he's, like, I don't know, is he number one? Because the orders need a number one. I don't know if he's the number one. That's a different story, but I expect him to be better. And the other part, and I would love to have you waiting on that, is with the other powerplay. It's bugged me, even two years ago when they were good.

It bugged me so much that they played MacDavid as lefty, a dictating the play from the right circle. and then you have clefffman's who's the left in a point and a lot of times you see dry or new Hopkins on the left circle and to me it doesn't make sense like if you want to I mean I get they have a lot of lefties but for me the obvious solution would be to play macdavid on a left circle they can play dry cycle who has a better one-timer on the right circle where he obviously has a left he has the one-timer option

and clefpom will be a one-timer option and you can play whoever luchis maybe in the slot So I always wanted to see McDavid commit to playing on a strong side on the power play. I think that would be better. But I would love to hear your thoughts about that. No, I'm glad you brought that up. I mean, it is such an interesting wrinkle. I know that a friend of the podcast, Tyler Delo has been hammering this home for a while now.

But I think it's like it's kind of unprecedented that I believe all five shots on their first power play unit are all lefties. And that's just something you don't see every day. But it's a tricky problem because obviously on the one hand, you kind of want to just play your feet. five best guys and hope they can figure it out. But at the same time, like, geometrically, you're right. It seems like there isn't that great of a fit there. And I wonder, I don't know, like just watching them so far, everything is so stagnant. It seems like part of what they do best is when they're coming in off the rush. And then all of a sudden, if you're playing that power play game where you're just setting up in the offensive zone, everything kind of grinds to a halt. And it's not

necessarily that surprising when your entire sort of game plan is, okay, let's just tee up long bombs from the point when you're not and when it's not converting into goals it's like no wonder it's it's nothing's really happening there's no fluidity to this game yeah and i mean for me i don't know if it i'm making it too easy but if you move mcdiv to left circle i have him settle down that play a couple of games they're comfortable i think that would change the dynamic a lot but because then you get all the one-timer options i get that ideally want to have a righty ideally micdiv we want to play on the right circle but I mean, if there's not personnel for it, adjust. You're never going to have a perfect situation.

So for me, I would love to see it. I think it will work way better. And I'm surprised they haven't really committed to that so far. Yeah, yeah. I mean, listen, I feel like every time I do a podcast, I wind up spending like 10, 15 minutes talking about the Oilers. And we're already like a week into the year. And I've got a bit of Oilers fatigue.

So let's move on to the other team that was playing in that game. And, you know, with the Devils, It's obviously a very inspiring start of the season, I feel like, and I have to say I'm guilty myself when we were kind of forecasting this year. It was, you know, there's some trendy teams out east with the Carolina Hurricanes, for example, or the Florida Panthers or what have you. And you're thinking, okay, well, who from last year's teams that made the playoffs out east will fall out to make room for some of those trendy preseason sleepers? And it seems like kind of the natural landing spot for everyone was the devils just because we, you know, we all think

that the penguins and the capitals and so on and so forth are kind of locks. So you're thinking, okay, well, if there's not going to be five Metro Division teams and potentially the Panthers get in as a wildcard, who's going to fall out, and it always kind of came back to devils just because they came out of nowhere last year. And it seems like they were a bit fortunate. But, you know, so far, so good. And obviously a key to it is going to be goaltending. And I'm not sure, regardless of how good he looked for stretches last year, whether

Keith Kincaid is going to be the answer for that and whether they can get anything out of Corey Schneider at this point. But the other part was always been the secondary scoring, because we know that with Hall and his year up front, you're going to have a dominant line that's going to kind of slant the ice whenever they're out there. But I will say, so far, I've been very impressed with how Marcus Johansson has looked coming back from injury. And he adds such an interesting dynamic to that second or third line with his playmaking. And all of a sudden, if you can get just secondary scoring enough to kind of hold the fort and not completely get buried whenever that top line isn't out there,

all of a sudden this is a team that even if they don't make the playoffs might not necessarily fall back as far as we might have thought before the season? No, absolutely not. I think Marcus is a big part of that. I expect him to be at least a 40-point player. He should hit 30-eight even strength

and depending on his role in the power play, 40 should be the least he gets. And I think it looked good. I would love to have his transition numbers from that Euler game in terms of zone entries and so forth. He looked really good through the new. zone skating with the puck and setting guys up.

So that's important for them. And also with Schneider, I think, I mean, it's kind of tricky because he's obviously getting older. He's 32 and kind of on the downside. But he also had that hip surgery. So you're kind of curious, okay, is he, was that really limiting him, that limiting? Because, I mean, he was so good up until two years back. And then he just fell off a cliff.

So I kind of wonder, and maybe it's not like a top five golden. the league again ever. I wouldn't think that, but he should be better, shouldn't he, than last year? Yeah, he should be, but it's so bizarre because for years there, he was kind of the gold standard for consistency, right? Like, you could just, even when the devils weren't any good, it was like, you're going to get 920 to 925, save percentage from Corey Schneider. That's money in the bank. And then sometimes when it goes, it goes. And obviously, if it's a health-related thing and you can't ever get back to 100% physically, that's going to play a big role. you know, I'd still love to think that he's not necessarily done and he's going to have a bit of a rejuvenation here.

But now there were kind of the past two seasons of this kind of different standard for him. It's tough to have too much confidence. But you're right. I mean, with how much the devils have invested in him and how still relatively unproven Keith Kincaid is as a guy who could realistically start 55, 60 games for them and be above league average, like they're going to need to figure that out if they do actually have playoff aspirations. Absolutely. Because, I mean, they look solid in terms of team play. And they do have that first line and Marcus can be good on the second line.

And, I mean, guys can take steps. But I still think they're going to regress a little bit. And I think Schneider has to make up for that. And if he does, they could absolutely make the playoffs again, even though myself, like you, didn't have them in a playoff spot. I do like watching them play, though. I often get critique from Devils fans that I'm too hard on the team. And, you know, it seems like kind of a dated joke from,

years ago when they were the most boring team in the league and they would play the trap and shut down and everything would grind to a halt and they'd have these games where both teams would have like it was the shot the shot count at the end of the game would be like 19 to 16 or something and you'd be like oh god that that was a dreadful game to watch like that this devil's team under john hines is certainly much more free-flowing and fast-paced and you alluded to that transition play and how marcus johansom brings that to the table but i love watching this team play from the perspective of they constantly seem like they're moving and it's not necessarily even um you know kind like with the penguins when when mike sullivan came aboard it's not necessarily the guys skating that

fast themselves even though they do have fast skaters it's the mentality of once you get the puck look to do something with it and move it quickly because obviously if you're able to pass it like that uh the puck itself can travel a lot faster than any individual player can except i guess connor mcdaven yeah uh maybe But yeah, but yeah, I certainly agree. Like, they play well. They're well coached. I've got to give Heinz credit for that.

They're well coached. So, I mean, they're still kind of unsexy for whatever reason. Maybe, as you said, that, like, lingering feeling from years back is still there. But they are, they play fast. So they should probably get more credit than they are getting for the way they are playing in terms of entertainment value. I don't know if you heard of this, Jonathan, but this is one of the kind of dumbest, dumbest most hockey anecdotes that I'd heard. But I remember like, I think it was last year now, Elliot Friedman was on TV and he was talking about John Hines. And I think it was sort of at the start

of the season when the devils were catching people by surprise and they were kind of a hot topic. And he had this story about how, you know, Heinz had for years been coaching the Pittsburgh Penguins' HL team and they'd obviously had a lot of success and he was kind of tossed around as a, as a hot coaching candidate at the NHL level. But there were numerous teams. that didn't want to hire him because they thought he was too short and wasn't a firm enough presence behind the bench. And I mean, that's obviously the kind of the dumbest thing you could possibly think and that that would actually play a role in whether a guy can coach or not.

And I'm really glad that he's showing so far early on in his New Jersey tenure that, you know, the people that didn't hire him for that are kind of regretting it at this point for sure. You know what? Isn't Lou LaMerello really short though? Yeah, yeah. And he's like the scariest man in the league. Yes.

Yeah. There's nothing to that. I agree with that 100%. Okay, let's take a quick break here to hear from a sponsor. And on the other end of things, you and I are going to bounce around the league a little bit and talk about the California teams and whatever else comes up. Awesome. Here's a sad truth.

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but here you're going to get hooked up with all of it for just a couple bucks. Go to forhams.com slash PDO. That's forhims.com slash PDO. Forhims.com slash PDO. Now, let's get back to the Pockypdio cast. All right. Let's start with the Ducks. I know obviously you, you know, you just got back. You haven't probably had time to re-emerse yourself in the California scene necessarily and spend that much time around Anaheim this season. But they've, you know, they've only played four games so far. But man, it has been. an adventure in Anaheim.

You know, they've won three of the games. The only game they didn't win, they lost at a shootout, so they've gotten seven of the eight possible points. But when you look at all the numbers, it seems like, kind of like stretches last year. It's just a lot of John Gibson, and then not much else behind that. Yeah, and I mean, at this point,

it's only about staying alive. I think for me, I mean, it's so easy to say, but this team, they're so in terms of often, offense and driving play, they're so dependent on Ryan Gatslov. He makes such a difference in terms of just controlling play. I mean, it is like the defense is good. The top four is really good. Gibson is good, obviously, really good.

But they need Getsloff so bad. So at this point, they just got to stay alive. The other guys, I mean, Kasha, I really like Andre Kasha, and Eves is obviously a good player as well, and Perry might still be able to score. but if you look at that injure list it's guess it's got to get back and until he gets back if they can stay alive

and win games in whatever way that's good enough yeah I mean yeah that injured list wow and then you add in Nick Ritchie as well who still hasn't doesn't have his contract as an RFA and it's it's tough I wonder if you know you're right if they can kind of hang around here

and John Gibson's doing a marvelous job of ensuring that they do that it feels like we're just rerunning our conversations about this team last year when they had a bunch of injuries and we were like, well, as long as they can stay afloat and stay in a playoff position, they could be potentially interesting in the later stages once they get healthy. Now, the issue with that is it's not necessarily like we're talking about the youngest team here and the guys that are injured are generally either in their 30s or have a ton of miles on them already. So we could get into a bit of danger

of just assuming that once they get back from the injuries they have right now that they're going to stay healthy after and not have some sort of setback or different injury. But you're right. I mean, I wonder if they will be better off for this early season stretch, assuming they can't hang on just because, you know, NHL teams are so conservative with their young players and they typically don't like to play them unless they're really forced to. But this team, out of necessity, I mean, you look at the numbers and it's like Sam Steele is their forward who's playing the most and he was playing in Major Junior last year. I mean, you go on down the line, Max Comtois, who's really impressed me with his speed and playmaking so.

far, so on and so forth, Troy Terry, Isaac Lundstrom, as a guy who was a late first round pick making it in his draft plus one season is something you very rarely see in the NHL level. So the fact that they have all these young guys and they're throwing them into the deep end and now I don't think those guys are necessarily thriving yet, but just having this sort of experience where they otherwise might not have had it could potentially down the road leave the big things for them. Absolutely, I think so. And the division itself, it's kind of open.

I mean, obviously the sharks are favorites after calls. also in addition. But apart from that, from my perspective, I mean, there's no real standout. Like, Arizona is probably on the low end. They have to have a lot of things go right from to our conversation. But the other teams, they're all in it. So, I mean, I think the ducks, as you said, like, if they get the young guys in, if they get more comfortable, and then they get the older guys back and they are still able to produce, then they might be able to do something. But, I mean, it's a tough team to judge. And, you know, Gibson is a little bit injury prone. So for me, it's a really hard team to get a feel for. Like, I don't really know

what to think of him. And also with Getslov, I think it's, he's such a driving force on the team, but he's getting older. Like, you never know. Like, Perry is obviously he's in a big drop-off. And Kessler hasn't been himself since he came back from the last injury at all. So, I mean, age catches everyone. And Gatslov so far has been able to still play at an elite level, point of game and all that. But this might be the year when he gets older past. Yeah, well, and you look at that team, obviously the blue line is tremendous.

It's right up there as a top handful in the league when they're healthy. And Gibson, I thought he should have been a Vesnik candidate last year, and he certainly seems to be on a bit of a revenge tour to make sure that he gets it finally this year. But they got exposed so badly in that first round series against. San Jose where just, you know, they look like a team who was old and slow and they were like spinning their wheels in the mud while San Jose was just skating laps around them. And it was as lopsided a sweep as you're going to see in today's NHL. And out of necessity, I mean, you look at the moves they made this summer. And I understand, you know, when you have a team with this many veterans and

this many high paid salaries, you don't have a lot of financial flexibility. So it's not like they had the luxury of going out and bringing in an impact guy or three or four middle tier guys who are going to suddenly make this a fast team. So maybe this youth infusion is ultimately something they desperately needed, even if they kind of stumbled into it in an unfortunate way because of all the injuries, because I think if, you know, it was kind of trying to jam a square peg into a round hole where it's like, yeah, you could probably make the playoffs again and be competitive in the regular season just out of sheer force. But once you get into the playoffs and you're playing against the San Jose's, the Winnipegs, the Nashville's, the Vegas team, so on and so forth,

you're going to be exposed because it looks like they're playing a completely different sport than you speed-wise. Oh, absolutely. But I think for this team, it's mainly about they got to make the playoffs. I think I'm also playing in a market that where hockey hasn't really caught on. I think having a winning team is important and maybe even more so than actually go all the way, if you know what I'm saying. Like if you can win a lot of games and win a round or whatever, win a couple of rounds, people are going to be into it.

And obviously you want the championship and that's the ultimate goal. But it's also important to be competitive when you play in a market that isn't established. So I think that's a big part of it. And I think as long as Getsov is good, they're probably just going to try and do as good as they can around them. These younger guys are going to be necessary for that because they're cheaper and whatnot. And I mean, you got Gibson. Gibson can you, he can win your round. Yeah.

Or two even. So there's a little bit of an extra factor with this team. I'm not overly high on them, but they're interesting because they're so hard to get a feel for. Well, they're interesting. And if you look, you know, before the season when we were doing our projections and our picks and all that, it was easy to be, you know, a bit out of reasoncy bias because it was the most recent thing we'd seen. It was a bit easy to get excited about this specific division. because it felt like there was so much incoming talent with Colvichuk going to the Kings and Carlson

going to the Sharks and Arizona ended last year so strong that they were kind of the trendy preseason sleeper out west and so on and so forth. You know, the flame is bringing James Neal, Vegas gets patch ready and Stasney and so on and so forth. But if you look at it right now and we're obviously, listen, we're a weekend, a lot could change. But so far it's generally a pretty underwhelming bunch. It seems like all of these teams are kind of stumbling out of the gate. And it's easy to see the flaws with Calgary and if Mike Smith can hold up a net. Vegas is having sort of that inevitable regression. And Mark Andre Fleury, his play has really suffered from last year. So all of a sudden, maybe we were a bit too high on this specific

division and maybe just kind of treading water for now is going to be good enough for this team with Gibson and net. I mean, at the same time, I think I don't need to tell you that he's probably not going to keep up a 955 save percentage. And if they keep controlling like 38% or whatever they're at right now of the five-on-five shot attempts, it probably will end poorly for them because that's like tanking Buffalo Sabres levels. So they're going to read to write that a little bit. But assuming Getslaf gets back and they get some of these guys in the lineup, I imagine they're going to find a better mix there and at least be competent enough.

I think so. Yeah. I mean, given the defensemen they have, they should be able to push play a little bit better, even though the forwards are lacking a little bit. I don't know, like the last game, I haven't seen the first three games, but I did watch Arizona game on site. And they played Manson and Hampus Lindelwood Park,

played a Hampus with Montororan and Manson with Cam Fowler. I don't know if that's the way to go. That Lingholm-Mansom pairing is so good. So maybe they can drive play a little bit better if they get those guys back. those guys back together. I don't know. Something we're trying, I think.

Well, so I'm curious because I remember last year I gave you a bit of an assignment. I'm not sure if you ever went through with it, but I did want you to, using your Swedish connection out there, to talk to Jake Silverberg about his shooting percentage and how come someone who generally, I mean, if you look at him, has one of the more beautiful shots in the league, and when he does score, it looks so pretty, was always shooting below league average.

My next assignment for you is, is I'd love for you to pick Hampus Lin-Holm's brain a bit more about defending because I feel like we typically as fans don't know nearly enough about it and the stats are so bad for what makes a good defenseman, right? Like we know that Hampus Lin-Holm and Josh Manson

are one of the best shutdown pairings in the league because you just look at the numbers and whenever they're out there, the other team can't seem to generate anything. But like, what goes into that? Because I often think that defense is so tricky to evaluate because typically the best defense is when nothing happens.

So, like, how do you, as a defenseman, like, is it, it's about positioning, about stick control, about the gap, like, what, when you're out there, like, what, what are you looking to do? And sort of what, from a player's perspective, uh, makes them feel like a job well done because, you know, all these guys will block shots because they're crazy people and they don't feel pain. But I typically think that even a hockey player would tell you that if you're blocking a ton of shots all the time, it's generally not a sign that, you know, that, you know, you know, you're in the right place

at the right time. Yeah, I agree. And I did talk to Silverberg about it, actually. Ooh, what are he saying? Well, I mean, he didn't really have a good answer. Obviously, it's hard to, I don't think he even knew the numbers. Yeah. But he did say that I am shooting a lot for rebounds.

And he does do that when he comes down to the right side, especially when he played with the Kessler-Kagliano line, just throwing almost not passing, but hard, low shots at the pads. And maybe if you do that, I mean, two or three shots more than the regular guy, it's going to add up in terms of the shooting percentage. I mean, I don't know if that's an explanation really, but that was the only theory we could come up with.

So, I don't know, maybe he shoots more than the regular player. But you know who's interesting in terms of shooting percentage, though, talking about Swedes? Ricky Rakel. Oh, I thought you were going to say Ricker, Raquel. No, because Nielander is the same as Silverberg. Neelander is shooting like league average for a forward, and I would not say he's an average shooter in terms of NHL forwards.

So that one's interesting for me as well. He's done it two years in a row now. Yeah, no, that is. Yeah, I guess obviously, you know, you have to kind of look at the shot selection itself as well, right? Like maybe if you are playing a bit more on the perimeter or you, if you're shooting for rebounds, like you said, or if you're the type of player that, you know, you have such supreme confidence in your shot and your skills that maybe sometimes, you're taking shots that are necessarily the greatest, whereas guys who don't kind of,

all these guys obviously think very highly of themselves and their skills, and they should, they're at the NHL level, but maybe if you're playing a different role or you're asked to do different things on a team, you're not going to be just shooting all the time. You might be kind of waiting to pick your spots a little bit more. So I'm sure that kind of plays in it as well. But you're right.

I mean, a guy like William Nealander is one of the most skilled players in the league, so the fact that it doesn't convert into the results is always a bit of an eyebrow raising thing. Yeah, so it's going to be interesting. it's easy to see where that goes if he ends up signing. Yeah. Yeah. So the sharks.

I know that you got to watch them a little bit today. Before we started recording, you were telling me they were one of the teams you're going to be watching tonight. I think their latest update is their one for 18 on the power play, I believe. And, you know, they've looked better from what I've seen recently. They had one powerplay tonight against the Rangers where they were just whipping the puck around. And they were doing exactly what else. was hoping they do from the perspective of it was very fluid it was kind of the opposite of what i was talking about with oilers like brent burns was kind of just roving around the ice and there was one point

where uh carlson hit him with a beautiful east west pass that was going a million miles an hour right to right on a stick and it didn't go in but it was the type of play that makes you think like if they can do this all the time it's going to be as scary a combination as we thought when the trade happened now obviously um five games in it hasn't translated yet and it looked like there's been a bit of a feeling out process. How are you feeling about that? Do you think it's just one of those things where the talent will ultimately win out and they kind of need to just gel together since they only really played a couple

preseason games before the regular season started? Or do you think there's something to the idea that there's like too many cooks in the kitchen maybe getting burns off of that top power play unit and splitting those two guys up might be the better way to go about it moving forward? You know what? I think this is number one, I think, is the human. element of this. The skill they have, they should be better, not all in terms of scoring, but in terms of creating as well. And I think that it might be, they might feel the pressure

of being expected to be so good on the power play. They might feel, like, especially from good air coming, like not wanting to step on anyone's toes, like, okay, should I take the shot? Should I control the park, whatever? It might be that. I mean, there are professionals, but they're still humans, so I think that is important. And also the other thing, for me watching him, I'm going to go against you now

because I think they're too fluid. Like, I've seen Burns down on the right circle way too much. I've seen Eric play on the left circle. For me, I think, get calls on a point, get Burns on the left circle. Because I think, like,

the sharks last year, their problem of power play was Burns taking too many shots from the point. As we know, that's a very low percentage play. Get burns to the left circle. circle. And then you have Carlson, who's not necessarily a shooter. That sense, although he obviously has a good shot, but he's more a guy who makes plays and whatnot, and he can snap those little

wresters or pass the puck around. So I would love to see Eric on the point burns on the left circle and then just take it from there. Whoever is on the right circle, whoever plays down low, I mean, obviously, Pavolski is in front of the net, but that's not as important. But just to have them settle in, get comfortable with each other, it's so easy. Like, I can always defer to Burns, and he can always fire away at left circle. It's kind of like Ovi. Yeah. It's an Ovi, but he's about as close as you can come in this league.

So for me, dad, I think that will be a good start because I watch, obviously game today. I watch a little bit of them playing the other two games before this as well. And it's been, I don't know, I haven't seen that set up, Eric, the point and Burns on left circle almost a single time. And that surprises me. Yeah, no, I agree. I think that would definitely make sense just, you know, from on paper the perspective of, you're right, Carlson is at his best when he's sort of playing that quarterback out there and he's just flinging it around and finding the right guy and hitting him in stride. And with Burns, it's tricky because on the one hand, you're right, he is a shoot first guy. And we've seen that

the past couple years, but I feel like part of what made him special in that regard was sort of that ability to generate a lot of velocity and get the puck on net from weird angles without necessarily having to kind of wind up for that slap shot, right? Like teams would know that he was going to shoot the puck and he would still just kind of a flick low, a quick little wrist shot with a flick of the wrist and all of a sudden the puck would go flying. And if he's kind of just loading up there for the one time, I wondered, you're right the human element is is a big part of this you know we kind of uh as armchair gms or as people kind of forecasting this stuff it's easy for us to kind of view them as chess pieces and go like okay

this guy goes here and this guy goes there but if you're brent burn just put yourself in his shoes a little bit i you know i understand that sometimes you just kind of have to listen to the coach and ultimately uh it's going to work that way but if you're him like you've won a norris the past couple years you're putting up 70 points your love and life as the guy who's shooting 300 something times and the puck constantly kind of flowing through you and all of a sudden someone comes in and tells you like hey yeah you're just going to stand here at the circle and wait for the puck to come to you like obviously assuming carlinson's getting him the puck and the puck starts going in the net and i'm sure he won't complain but it is obviously a bit of an adjustment so i'm not necessarily surprised that

five games in they still haven't kind of hit their top gear yet no and i think i mean i don't think that going forward uh that should be the solution with him as like a trigger man only especially getting Thornton back I mean if he's working down low you can have burns kind of sneaking into the slot or whatever I mean he can roam the way he does the way he should because he has a special creativity in terms of finding space

and just doing whatever he feels like but I think just at the start like do the simple thing at the start and then you build on that don't try to be too much right now just go for that simple play and then you add once you feel comfortable okay we notice

We can work with like the set setup where everyone is in the position there should be. Then you can add the next dimension, which is more of a surprise element. But I think, I mean, being obviously, it's an armchair GMs. It's easy to just say that. Yeah. But I would like to see that. Well, and that's the thing. I mean, like if you just look at it, so they lose Joe Thornton early on.

And obviously having a guy of his ability and sort of gravitas as a playmaker would all of a sudden, I imagine, make things gel a lot. more smoothly, a lot more quickly. And then they go on this East Coast road trip and they're playing a bunch of games in the road and a weird time zone. And all of a sudden, like, I'm not making excuses for them, but you can sort of see why they're not necessarily just, you know, taking the league by storm and winning every game like we thought they would. But at the same time, I do think, you know, they had, what, 40 plus shots easily today against the Rangers and as they should against the team of the Rangers caliber. But you saw they're scoring

eight goals against the Flyers. And we've sort of seen, as these games have gone on, the flashes that inspire confidence where, as I was saying about the ducks, like they're winning games, but I haven't necessarily seen reasons to believe that's going to continue with the Sharks team. I do feel like maybe we should have tempered expectations a little bit. I understand adding a guy like Carlson, all of a sudden, it's very easy to just pencil them in into the Stanley Cup final and the NHL doesn't always work that way. But the upside is still there. I honestly believe they're watching this team the past couple games. They are going to figure it out. And once they do, I think they're going to be a nightmare to deal with for oppositions.

Yeah. And as you said, like earlier on, like the division itself, I mean, no one looks amazing. So I think once the Sharks figured out, they should have decently comfortable, comfortable right to the playoffs. So they're in a good spot, I think. Yeah, and I agree. And the last California team here, I feel like, you know, we talked about we were going to do the California teams.

And I don't really have any notes about the Kings. watched them play much this year. I have seen flashes and I'm really happy Eliya Kowiczuk is back in our lives full time and I really enjoy watching him play in that top combination with him and Kopitar is as dynamic and fun as it gets in the league. But I feel like a lot of the preseason questions we had are still unanswered and obviously not having Jonathan Quick now, as skeptical as I've been of his sort of labeling as an elite goalie in the past. There's no doubt that he's a better option than Jack Campbell and Peter Boudai. So they're going to have to kind of hold a fourth down until he comes back and until they get

Dustin Brown back. And a team that doesn't necessarily have a ton of depth to begin with is fighting an uphill battle right now. But hopefully for their sake, this division's uninspiring start as a whole so far keeps the door open a little bit for them to kind of tread water. And they had a good game today against the Montreal Canadiens. So maybe that's a step in the right direction for them. Absolutely.

And they have the advantage of having talked. band players and I mean hockey is a strong wing sport if you have drew doughty with whatever defense men on the left side that's gonna be a terrific pairing if you have Anzikopit on a line that's gonna be a great line so I think they they should be able to do a lot just because of their top guys and Kovalchuk obviously adds something there or adds a lot and and Jeff Carter is also an important piece so I think like the top and quality they have if you compare to some of the other teams on the division, it's better.

So that should make up for depth issues as long as they say healthy. Or should, but it could. Yeah. It shouldn't say should, but could. Yeah, no, I agree. I promise I'll any Kings fans listening. I'll revisit them more and I'll actually do a deep dive on them later. I do need to watch a bit more of them before I can comment.

What do you, so you're watching the Canucks today. You're watching Alias Pedersen, who is the talk of the league and deservedly so looks like he's going to have a point. in every single game for the rest of his career and win all the awards and be the best player ever and make people forget about the city. And so it's it's, it's crazy what he's been able to do so far, especially just the massive transition. It must be going, you know, he was playing in a pro league, obviously last year, but it still must be a massive changeover just because of the details and the schedule and so on and so forth. So for him to kind of come and be this effective right away, I got to see, even I am a bit surprised because I thought he was kind of,

trendy calder pick and I thought the talent was so good and his projections from what he was capable of doing overseas led me to believe he was going to be a really good NHL player one day. I just didn't expect it to be this soon. No, absolutely not. And we should also remember that, I mean, there's going to be tough stretches for him. It's not like he's going to score every game. And we'll see where it goes. But I think the one thing that we do know by now is that it kind of works.

Like, he can still do his stuff against the NHL players, the deeks and whatnot. So even when the stretches come when he's not scoring or not like not producing put up the points We still know that he's he can do it and he can hang with him in terms of the physical Uh aspect of the game and that's really important so and he seems to be so cool and everything Like he's he's so calm relaxed and everything so I've been really impressed like I haven't watched him a whole lot being over here But obviously I've heard a hype from seeing the highlights talking to people back home so it's just fun to see and i think it's good for vancouver like they're not in a bad spot right now

they have a couple of good really good prospects so i mean it's been a couple rough years but they should be able to could at least turn it around relatively quick i think yeah i mean jonathan i they're in a pretty rough spot i mean in the grand scheme of things like obviously having uh peterson be this good and besser is at least giving fans reasons to watch the games and buy jerseys and go pay money to watch the Canucks when they're here in Vancouver. But it's still, I mean, you look at some of these performances and the goaltending and the defense in front of them. And I think there's going to be a lot of nights where they're losing like 6-2 and giving up 50 shots. This season is going to be terrible.

I'm thinking long term, like, I mean, I'm thinking Queen Hughes and Uli Uli Uli, and Tadha, and then Tatsur and then Besser and Pedersen and whatever to get this summer. I mean, it's not like it's perfect, but it can be, I don't think it has to take that long. And they obviously have more of it already and some other pieces. It's not, I'm not saying that they're going to be a cup champion, but they should be able to build a good team around those guys. I am kind of curious. So, you know, back to Pedersen for a second, he was so good in the Swedish League last year. I did want to pick your brain a little bit about, you know, I don't necessarily living here

in North America, I don't get a ton of opportunities to actually watch Swedish hockey league games. I'm generally just kind of looking at the box scores and the numbers and trying to translate how that production is going to carry over to the NHL. But, you know, we typically think of it as a league that is right up there. I guess the KHL is still considered to be the second best pro league in the world, but it's right up there in terms of sort of physical readiness at least. And, you know, if you can hold your own there playing against grown men as a young player, that typically is a good sign that you're going to guy who's going to be able to come over to North America and at least be a contributor. Sort of what, what, what's the game like over there from sort of what tactics teams are playing

like and is creativity as encouraged or is it much more of that sort of North American brand where it's kind of more conservative and defensive structured and just kind of what's, what's the methodology there compared to some of the other European leagues and also the NHL as a whole? Well, the sense I get when I talk to players who played in Sweden and also in Switzerland or the KHL is that the Swedish elite league

is very well coached. So, as you said, the KHL is number two and that's skill driven. There's a lot of really good talented players in the KHL and in Switzerland too. Like, the top player, they get paid more in Switzerland than in Sweden, for instance, and it's a comfortable life.

I know I think the farthest you'll go for an away game is four hours on a bus. that's the first you can ever go playing in Switzerland otherwise it's like an hard air or whatever and it's beautiful so that's a good place to play and a lot of skilled like 30s whatever played there Sweden is it's very well coached

meaning it's not necessarily an open league in that sense I would compare it to the NHEL like it's skill driven like or skill is encouraged it's gotten that way the last few years just like in NHL and there's way more focus on the play with the park

and being creative. But it's also so well coached. So, I mean, you can't only focus on the offensive side of stuff. You also have to have good defense, just like in NHL. So I think that's part of why guys come over and do well. Like we have a lot of like Swedish third, three or third or fourth line guys that are well coached. So they can play in a system. They understand how you play in a system.

they understand how you move on the PK. So even if their skill isn't high enough to keep an in the NHL in like a top two role, they can still contribute. I think we talked about the sharks before. Take a guy like Melker Carlson. He's not an overly talented guy at all. Like he was never drafted.

He was never a high score in juniors, relatively speaking. But he was tremendously well coached. And he learned to play with good players. I played with some elite talent in Shalafthio went before he came over and he learned how to play system how to play the PKK and that translated

into something that Pete the Borlai and they kept them around so I think that's part of why we see so many Swedish and shell pairs I know if that was an answer to your question but no that makes sense I'm always fascinated about the differences in approach and sort of tactics right because I know that

or at least I believe that especially into developmental side of things. In the earlier years, like overseas, especially in Sweden, they're prioritizing practice as opposed to games much more. And you look at the schedules. And I know like here in North America, it's just game, after game after game, whereas if you're practicing a lot more, all of a sudden, you can kind of work on some more of those details and maybe refine it and play a more structured game. And when you're talking about, as soon as you said, you know, it's a very well coach league. All of a sudden, like an alarm went off in my head.

that it was like, oh, God, that must be very boring. Because I know that, I know, like, you know, the common joke is, but it is true. Like, it's early on in this first week, everyone's going crazy about the high goal totals and, you know, Toronto's beating Chicago 7-6 and it seems like every night there's a lopsided score and a ton of goals being put on the board. And I don't want to be a Debbie Down or a party pooper, but this exact thing happened last year. And it feels like whether it's a lack of preparation or whether it's kind of teams playing a bit more loose. I think as the season gets going and as coaches get a chance to really implement their systems and watch tape and hammer some of these guys in practice, all of a sudden you're going to see a lot more of those two-one slow-paced games that we see as the year gets going.

Oh, yeah, and that's the way it is. I mean, obviously you can do stuff in terms of, I don't know, rules and rule enforcement. But, I mean, it's part of the sport. And I think, honestly, like, maybe I'm going to sound like I'm going to sound like I'm going to sound like I'm going to. old school guy now, but like, I kind of like, especially with playoffs, I kind of like the low scoring games, as long as they're

like, I mean, because in the playoffs, you get the excitement because the games mean so much. So even if it's two to one or whatever, as long as the game is tight, it's still going to be entertaining. But it is fun to see Austin Matthews scoring at a hundred and a million goals percents

and pace or whatever he's at right now. But yeah, the system, and going back to what you said about, how you develop players it's it's very different in Sweden and it's not like you don't move like I noticed this living here for a couple years like how you put players like in you moving around to different teams or like you might even move to have your 11 year old play in a different team or whatever right that would that wouldn't happen in Sweden I mean most of the guys they play with their hometown team until they're 16

and then they go to the school system is different, but college, it's like a year old or whatever, but college and play hockey for three years. You might do that in your hometown as well. A lot of guys did. Most of the good NHL players, which NHL players play in their hometown until they were 18, 19, only played for one team.

So I guess it's much more of a stable situation. You'll live at home. You'll play with your buddies. And maybe that's sometimes it's good because players can focus on developing a safe environment. Sometimes maybe players would benefit from, I don't know, being pushed or, I don't know, put in a tougher spot. And that pushes them to being something greater than they are. But it's just different. I'm not ready to say what's better or not in terms of a problem.

pure player development perspective, but it is different. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's good. It would obviously very boring if it was the same everywhere, and it would be very just kind of generic and robotic. So I'm glad there's differences. Let's plug some stuff. What are you up to these days now that you're back in the West Coast?

I guess you're going to be kind of catching up and bouncing around some arenas and watching a bunch of these games. You've obviously got the podcast. Let the listeners know kind of where they can check you out. what you're up to and what they can expect from you moving forward. Yeah, what I do, I mean, most of the stuff I do is in Swedish, so it's going to be hard to follow. But I do, I do the Swedish rights holder.

It's called the Assad. It's like sports set, but in, and we're best to get people to watch the NHL. It's because it's a different. We work at, we're working with the NHL. And again, back to where we started. in the NHL's like effort in the league more global. They dedicated like

so that we get an early start weekend which is super important for us. So your PM or sorry 1 PME start on East Coast would be 7 in Sweden which is obviously an ideal time games. So all those games that are super annoying

if you're in the States or Canada are so important for us. So that's what you will work with the features for that. and produce material for the broadcast and sit down and whatnot and then the podcast, which is obviously also hard for Canadian or American listeners to enjoy. But I do try to put some stuff out on Twitter on English every now and such. So maybe there's something there.

I'm sure there's something there. Listen, I enjoy following you and I enjoy checking area where I can even though sometimes I don't understand what you guys are saying. I like listening. It's entertaining. and there's always good nuggets in there. And honestly, some of your tweets in Swedish are even better than your tweets in English. I got to say just because the generic translator that it uses is so bad that it always leads to high comedy.

Yeah, I love when you send these screenshots. There's a couple of total throughout the years. They're always so weirdly erotic too. It makes no sense. It's the best. Yeah. That's good, though. Yeah. It adds something to the game, I guess.

Absolutely. Yeah. Hockey after hours. All right, Jonathan. This was a blast. I'm glad we finally got to do this. and hopefully we'll cross paths. I know I'm still bummed out that I missed you

just because of scheduling when you were here in Vancouver for the Sidene's last home game, but I'm sure a pass will cross at some point and we'll get to do an in-person one of these, one of these days. I'm hoping so, Dimitri. It's great to be on. I really appreciate you having me. All right, man, chat soon.

I'll do that. Thank you. Asked with Dim Philipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud. Ocopdiocast.