The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 264: In The Jet Stream

Episode Date: December 4, 2018

Murat Ates joins the show to help deep dive the Winnipeg Jets. In this episode we discuss Patrik Laine's goal scoring binge to start the season (1:30), Kyle Connor's role as the unsung hero (6:30), the handling of Dustin Byfuglien's head injury and the league's concussion protocol (24:45), Connor Hellebuyck's shaky play (31:20), the differences between last year and this year (35:50), and lessons other teams can learn from how the Jets were constructed (46:30). Sponsoring today’s show is SeatGeek, which is making it easier than ever before to buy and sell sports and concert tickets. They’re giving our listeners a $10 rebate off of their first purchase. All you have to do is download the free SeatGeek app and enter the promo code PDO to get started. Also sponsoring today’s show is MeUndies. To get your hands on the softest, most comfortable underwear you’ve ever worn just go and let them know we sent you. If you enter the promo code PDO they’ll even give you 15% off the first pair, and a 100% satisfaction guarantee that you’ll love the style and substance they have to offer. One final sponsor today: PuckPedia. It’s the ultimate resource for hockey fans, containing salary cap information, basic and advanced stats, draft and transaction history, news feeds, game previews, and injury updates. It’s also the exclusive home of the Agent Leaderboard, which shows who the top agents are and lists which players they represent. Regardless of what you’re looking for, it’s got it, which means that you no longer need to be switching between multiple different sites in the pursuit of information. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich. and joining me is my good buddy, Murat Detesh. Marat, what's going on, man? Just happy to be here, Jim. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I'm very excited to do this show with you. I've wanted to talk about the Jets at greater length on the show for a while now.

They're obviously very exciting and also intriguing team filled with storylines for a number of reasons. And I feel like no one really around the hockey road has a better kind of finger on the pulse for this team than you do. I really enjoy your work covering them on a day-to-day basis, and I'm excited to unpack all this stuff and really get into the nitty-gritty of it as much as we can here on today's show. I absolutely love that. I am here for this. So let's start with the natural starting point for this discussion, and it's Patrick Linae, and you know, you obviously released recently this great long foreign breed and feature on him, and you went to his hometown, and you dug up a lot of, you know, fascinating nuggets and stuff that I would definitely recommend for people to go read. at some point after they listen to this podcast, but we'll kind of give them a little bit of a spark notes version of it and maybe get into a discussion about him

and sort of where he's headed as a player because obviously he's only in his third season and he's still 20 years old, so there's still a lot of room to grow, which is kind of a scary thing to say about a player who's trending towards 60 plus goals this season. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, against the grain,

his shooting percentage is increasing incrementally as the seasons go by too. So it is a bit scary, I think, how high those totals could get. What do you think is a reasonable expectation or baseline for this? Because, you know, typically with stuff like this, we try to look at, you know, historical comparables or benchmarks for us to point at and go, okay, this would be a reasonable expectation. For him, like, just in terms of anecdotally thinking about it,

like prime Stephen Stampco's before all the leg injuries, kind of sapped some of his shooting talent and age, obviously, as well, affected that. I feel like that is the most logical comparison here, just purely in terms of the, you know, the shooting profile in terms of the actual percentages he's shooting and the efficiency of it, but also the volume that he's been firing at at least this season. I mean, I wrote about that as well at over-at-a-league prospects last week, and he was shooting a fair amount, obviously, in his first two seasons in the league, but this year he's trended upwards towards being, you know, he's shooting the highest of volume out of any player in the league

on a permanent basis this season in all situations. And that combined with the efficiency, which hasn't eroded it all seemingly, leads to a pretty lethal combination, which actually makes me think that we could see a guy get into the 60s again, which seemed as recently as the past couple seasons as kind of a number from a bygone era that we wouldn't see anytime soon. Yeah, I mean, how much fun is that, first and foremost? But the thing that I really like about your piece is that it combined quality and quantity, and it looked at both in terms of just how unique Patrick Lainey is right now. And if you look at the Winnipeg Jets season,

there's kind of a touching moment or a touchstone moment where his shot rates and his chance rates actually start to skyrocket at even strength. And that was the switch of Kyle Connor with Nick Eelers, Connor on to the second line with Brian Little and Patrick Lainey had a huge impact and after Lainey's five goal night I had a look at that and in terms of shots per 60 even strength the line he was getting almost four extra shots with Connor on that line and with Eelers

and then in terms of his individual scoring chances he was almost he was above four extra individual scoring chances per 60 minutes so maybe roughly one per game based on his five on five minutes just from that line switch alone. And I think that's one thing that, you know, even with the gaudy totals that Linae was able to put together last season,

I think the separation from Nick Ewellers helped him in a big way. He sees more of the puck. Kyle Conner is ever so slightly, he's a better puck hound in terms of generating turnovers. He's got a pretty active stick. He's very quick in a very aggressive sort of way. And I think the fit there has been really excellent. And it's okay if Patrick,

Lainey and Nicky O'Hillers are the best of buds off the ice and it's hilarious to see them just make fun of each other in the room and in those things. But I think on the ice, Kyle Connor has been a much better fit for Lainey. And at least it even strength, at least a five on five, that's been part of it. And then the other thing is Winnipeg Jets power play this season, that top unit is operating at a much faster pace than it did last season in terms of its shot rates for every player, almost every player, I should say. And then lining and Shifley are the two that are shooting more,

the increase in shot rate is disproportionately beneficial for Shifley and lining. So somehow they're finding them even more often. And I think that's been one of the crazy things about how Lina is still improving his scoring rate. Yeah, I mean, he's absolutely been teeing off on that power play, what, 10 power play goals so far? And it seems like, you know, similar to with Ovechkin on that Capitol's power play unit,

I know people say, oh, why it doesn't, another penalty killing unit just focus in on him and take away that shot and make the other guys beat them. And that sounds all well and good until you realize that you've got one of the best passers and playmakers in the league and in Blake Wheeler on the half wall. And you've got Mark Shifley, who himself is over the past three seasons shooting roughly 20% in that kind of bumper slot in the middle. And obviously when Dustin Bufflin's healthy, you've got him as a lethal offensive weapon and chess piece there on the point. And so when you have, combine all that, it's like opposing defenses, I guess, could gravitate a bit,

towards line A, but really you can't cheat on it too much because the other guys will happily beat you themselves. So the end result has been him just absolutely teeing off there. And I don't know, like, I'm glad you brought up Connor. He's such a fascinating player to me because obviously playing on that top line last year with Shafley and Wheeler, he found a lot of success. But I've always thought of him as more of a sort of shoot-first score just based on the way he'd statistically profiled coming up through college and at the USHL level. And then obviously, um, scoring 31 goals last year on that top line, but I guess maybe part of that was just sort of a necessity

or sort of where he was playing in the lineup. And now that he's at being asked to play a different role, he's serving as a bit more of a playmaker next to line A. I mean, I think ultimately, regardless of how this plays out and what combination they land on, this is a net positive for the Jets just because, you know, they're going to have to make a decision on Kyle Connor as well as Linae this summer financially and contractually

and sort of vetting what type of player he can be and whether he can thrive in different situations beyond just the best possible one with Sheifley and Wheeler, is a very important question for them to find an answer to before they commit however many millions of dollars they will to them this summer. Yeah, exactly. It's a multi-million dollar question.

Can Kyle Connor succeed on a line without necessarily being with Winnipeg's two best play-driving players in Sheifley and Wheeler? The Jets needed an answer, and I think they need even more of one to make sure, but that switch is sort of giving them an opportunity to find out. It's gone well so far. In the comeback win against New York on the weekend on Sunday,

there was a third period switch of Connor back to that line, and they did have success, obviously. And the thing that I worry about there is then the Eeler's lining a little combination on line two. It's a net loss for the Jets. But Connor has proven that he can fit in in either place. By eye, I think one of the things, that he does really uniquely is he times the way that he attacks, whether it's the slot or, let me put this a different way,

when Shifley and Wheeler or any jet have the puck on the wall, they're trying to do their tight turns, they're trying to open up space, and then they get just a beat, just a moment to look up and fire that path into the slot or somewhere dangerous. I don't think there's a player on the jets that times that attack better than Kyle Connor does.

and I think that's why stylistically he's a better fit with Shifley and Wheeler than Patrick Liney was when they tried that move because Lainey didn't seem to know when he should be right with the guys on the wall, didn't know when he should be far away waiting for that one time at a launch meanwhile Kyle Conner has figured out how to

how to be right there right at the right time and then when he is with Little and Liney as he has been of late he seems to know when to defer to the other guys or when to set up those other shots and I think that his hockey IQ is really quite phenomenal. He's not at the point where he's 100% a play driver,

but he's doing a lot of little things right to think that, I think Winnipeg's in good hands with him, they can feel a lot more confident paying him now than I think if they had just extended him September 1st. Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, I love him as a player, and similar to Eilers, I think, what makes him so effective as a player, but especially next to a guy like Linae is sort of that north-south,

to enter the zone with possession and sort of because of his combination of speed and skilled, the opposing defense has to back off of him a little bit and all of a sudden that opens up even, you know, an extra hair of breathing room for line to potentially get a shot off. So I do love that combo and, you know, I was thinking about this and I've

commented on it, I think on Twitter in the past, but it's just a testament to how loaded this Jets team is, particularly up front, that Kyle Conner sometimes just because of the other names there gets lost in the shuffle. I mean, if you think about it, how many teams out there in this league right now would be positioning Kyle Connor as sort of their foundational building block up-and-coming superstar after he scored 31 goals last year as a 20-year-old. And,

you know, I'm sure the Jets think of him very highly and you and I do as well. But in terms of the bigger picture and sort of how your casual hockey fan would probably think of him, you know, he's justifiably like the fifth or sixth guy that comes up in conversations when you're talking about all these weapons the Jets have. And that's a very scary thing. And also kind of unfair to him because in his own right, he's a fantastic hockey player. Yeah, note for note, word for word. I think that hits it. And I think that's the reality in Winnipeg. I mean, there is, you know, there is the mentality here in town that the Winnipeg stars,

even the Wheelers and Shifleys, don't get enough notoriety around the league commensurate to their ability. And then when you're looking at a guy who's buried, we're not buried exactly, but further down the line of exactly like you said, you hit it note for note. And to think that, yeah, maybe he's not. not getting as much pain and pomp and all those sorts of things as he would otherwise. Absolutely. And actually, to go back to him on the power play, I think one of the reasons why Shifley and Lining are open more often this year than last,

is that he's been sneaking across the net front for a backdoor option or even sneaking around the net for a backdoor option for Blake Wheeler as well. And I think that just that little bit of variety, that little bit of, oh, shit, there's this part of me. This other thing that we have to cover. is creating space for his teammates. Yeah, no, there's a lot of ocean moments that come across your mind when you watch this team play

and obviously that's one of them. I'm very curious to see, you know, it's purely speculation at this point, so it's not that interesting of a topic, but, you know, coming up here in the future, the next question after this season's going to be how do the jets make this all work financially and how all those puzzle pieces fit

and whether anyone's going to be, you know, on the way out just because they won't be able to fit them financially. And we talk about this with the Leafs a lot and what happened with Willie Nealander recently. But I'm very curious to see how both this season plays out for Cal Connor and sort of what the Jets can reasonably get him for this summer because I think if he has the season he's trending towards now, I mean, he's kind of hovering around a point in a game.

And obviously, if he's on either of those top two lines, he's going to be in a great spot to put up quite a few counting stats. I think that the ask that what Eiler is going to, got the other year, which was what, $6 million per for seven seasons, I believe that's going to be on the low end of things. Kyle Conner will be reasonably able to ask for, and obviously when you get into that territory going along with some of the other guys that need to get paid, that's going to be a tricky thing for Kevin Shevoldeoff and the Jets to figure out.

Yeah, absolutely. I think the season that Conner is trending for makes Nick Eelers is $6 million a floor, and all of a sudden William Nealander's deal, which I thought would come in above Conn, Connor. Well, if Connor stays near that point per game that he's at, I wonder if he can point to that as a, hey, I deserve more than that too. And if it starts trending up into the sevens, which strikes me as possible, even though today, I guess Gary Bettman announced that it could be about an $83 million cap so that buys a little bit of space, it's going to be trouble in Winnipeg. There's a lot of expensive players. And then a huge question mark on defense with the Truba situation, with Tyler Myers being an undersecured free agent, there's going to be some chaos in terms of catmast. management for winning a pick. Yep.

Although I think, you know, as analysts and hockey fans, sometimes we make a bit too much of that, especially ahead of it. Like, it's obviously a great problem to have, and many, many teams out there would love to have this tricky situation coming up for the Jets trying to figure out how to make all those great players work together financially. Before we get away from Lainé, though, I mean, you know, he's shooting 20.4% this season. And typically, you know, if a guy has 21 goals and 26 games, like Lainé does right now, And like we're seeing from, you know, Braden Point or David Pasternak or Jeff Skinner,

this early in the season you think, okay, let's look at the shooting percentage. And it's generally in the 20s and you go, well, there's no way this is going to continue for 82 games. And once that comes down a little bit, even if it's still elevated, their goal total and the pace they're trending towards is going to level off to something more reasonable and something in the ballpark that we'd expect. Whereas with Lina, I mean, he was 18% on the dot nearly heading into this season. And, you know, sometimes we do see that if you increase your quantity,

the quality goes down a little bit and the efficiency does, and that could possibly happen if he keeps firing the puck as much as he has this year. But assuming it doesn't level off that much, I mean, I just think we're headed towards such a fascinating Rocket Richard race with line A and obviously the other guys I mentioned, but then you've got Alex Ovechkin, who is pretty much a lock for 50 goals at least,

and is trending towards there again. And then maybe even Austin Matthews, if he can stay healthy and keep this up, can reinsert his name into the discussion. So that's kind of something I've identified. it as one of my favorite subplots of this season. You know, we could be headed to one of those just epic races towards the end of the year where they're just trading goal for goal.

And basically the guy who has the last day is going to win it. And it seemed like we were going to have that race and that storyline last year. And then Lainey fell off a little bit. I don't know how much you ran away with it. But it really feels like this year we could be headed towards something special. Yeah, I think every time that you see somebody have a goal scoring spike, you look for those signs. And I think found across the league,

no matter who the player is, they're always looking for reasons why their guy is going to keep that shooting percentage, you know, in that unique range, let's say. I think Patrick Lainey is that special of a shooter that, you know, if it falls off, if it fades below 20, it's not falling too far. It really is one of the best shots that we've ever seen. And geez, like, I get to watch it so often. It just makes hockey fun. It makes hockey fun when any given moment somebody can,

can just put a fire laser beams through the back of the net. Yeah, yeah, no, it certainly does. He's, I mean, listen, he's awesome to watch, and I love that he still has that kind of brash personality that he seemed like he was going to have heading into the league and that the NHL's no-fund policy hasn't worn off on him and kind of taken away any of that. And obviously, you know, you get to cover that on a closer day-to-day basis,

but also I kind of want to get into that trip you did make over to Finland to his hometown and talking to some of the people around him and in his life, because I really enjoy the insights that you put together on that piece, but maybe you could kind of share some of your, your funnest anecdotes or stories that came across from that, uh, to the listeners. Yeah.

The, the, the, the, the, the big, you know, the through line of that piece, I think, is that, um, is that it's no surprise at a place like Tampaa in Finland is the place that Patrick Lina came from. The history is rich. And the history and connection between Tampa and Winnipeg is rich as well, going back to Tebow Newman, uh, who I was able to, speak to you for the piece, a lot of good insight to share. Even recently, U of M Women's Bisons, the Van La Havi, a two-time bronze medalist with the

Finland national team as well, and now Patrick Lainey. So it's kind of funny. This summer I went just for pure tourism and travel. I visited Paris and Dublin as well, two places I spent a few weeks in each. And in both of those cases, you can tell them, hey, I'm from Winnipeg. And they sort of go, hey, is that in Canada? cool, is that part of Toronto? And then in Tampa, in Finland,

you can say you're from Winnipeg and they'll be like, oh yeah, I know everything about Winnipeg. How's the bridge doing? How's Patrick Lainey doing? I think he needs to work on his 5-on-5 defense. Okay, that's cool. They know about Don Baisley. They know about Tepo Numen and they know about every connection

that there is. And you don't have to explain it at all. Even 10-year-old kids, who's minor hockey practice, I went up to you, as soon as they put the two-and-two connection between me and Winnipeg are like, oh, Patrick Linae, also Jonathan Taze. They know completely. And that's just how rich the culture is in terms of hockey there

and the connection that we have between Winnipeg and there. Do you think, you know, you do mention that his sort of play off the puck and the defensive part of his game, especially at even strength. You know, sometimes I do get that pushback from people who obviously aren't Jets fans and Linae fans that when I mentioned his goddy goal totals or some of the accomplishments he's had so far with all the hat tricks and sort of what he's trending towards as one of the truly elite goalscores who ever seen the pushback you do get is you know when he's not scoring he's not that useful and how much value does he bring to his team and you know there is certainly some of that

in his underlying numbers where it seems like the jets aren't necessarily dominating a five-on-five especially in terms of shot metrics and he can be reliant upon his teammates and you know at this stage of his career it's fair to say that and and it's also equally fair to say that over the next handful of years he's going to grow into being a more well-rounded player. But how much, you're like, how much merit do you think there is to that? And if you're the Jets and you're thinking of whatever contract, next contract he's going to get, how much do you factor that in as opposed to just sort of unabashedly giving him pretty much anything he wants because he's kind of like this once-in-a-generation goal score?

I think that, you know, the thing that I think about is when I see those giveaways and other things is like clearly the guy has some room to grow and I guess the piece talks about that as well in terms of how the Finnish system used to really fully restrict players like him and in 2009 there was a bit of an eye-opening and a paradigm shift that made perhaps this generation of players like Lainé Rantan and Aho and Pughervi and so many others at Calco coming up in the next year's draft so many of that high skill possible. But when I look at those giveaways and

see the room to grow, part of me, I also kind of wonder, how many of those giveaways turn into goals? You know, some fraction must. How many goals above replacement does Patrick Klein generate? And, you know, in the scheme of things, for every you know,

moment that one of those non-fams would cite as a complaint, I think that even already the amount of goals that he generating just by being him more than overcome that and I think that he's helping Win a Pig win hockey games in a big way and that yes he has room to grow

but also I mean he turned 20 at the end of last season Alexander Ovechkin turned 20 in September of his rookie season in the NHL as well so we sometimes look at Patrick Lainey as a guy who's been in the league for a couple years and that might affect our perception of him but when

Alexander Ovechkin broke into the NHL in 2005-2006, he turned 20 in September of that same year. So we're finally getting a sense of that sort of comparison. I think Ovechkin probably is more likely to go down as a better play driver than Lainey. I'm not trying to say that, but I think that perceptions are a little bit crueler to Patrick Lainey at 5-on-5 than even they should be. Yeah, and that's irony here in the background is the fun police coming to tell us that we're too high on Patrick Lainey and we need to settle down.

No, you're right. I mean, listen, the two positives you would point to are, I mean, clearly the youth still. And I think that if you look at Stamco's as comparable in terms of what I mentioned earlier as a shooter, he's also a guy who, as his career developed and he gained more experience, you know, became a more well-rounded player. And especially in the past few years, he's become much more of a sort of five-on-five possession guy than he was early in his career. And the other thing is, you're right. I think line A, just because of how big of a statistical anomaly is, he's always going to be one of those guys that kind of breaks our expected goals models, and the Jets can get away with not dominating the shock lock as much with him on the ice as they might be with other guys just because such a higher percentage of his looks wind up going into

the back of the other team's net than to do with other guys. So it's one of those things where you've got to factor all of that in, and he's certainly not a perfect player by any means, but that doesn't mean that he can't still be supremely effective even with some of those flaws in his game. Yeah, absolutely. And I think if you're, if the chart in your piece that sort of compared goals scored to expected goals, if it was line and a bunch of nobody's, it would be a major sign for concern, but it's kind of a who's who of excellent scores. And it shows that there are people at those fringe percentages that, you know, really are that good at shooting and scoring in the NHL. And I think we're all coming to realize and reaffirm that he's definitely one of them. He certainly is. Marat, let's take a quick breakator here from a sponsor, and we're going to pick up this conversation on the other end of things.

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To get in on it, all you have to do is download the CKKK app and enter the promo code PDO today. That's promo code PDO for $10 off your first Seekykeek purchase. Now let's get back to the show. Okay, so that was very positive, I feel like, overwhelmingly positive, talking about Linae and Connor and all these offensive weapons the Jets have. I do have a couple of things on my notes that I wanted to get to with you that are a bit more somber, a bit more of a bleaker outlook. And we do need to talk about the Dustin Bufflin situation and sort of how it was handled.

You know, he's on IR right now with concussion symptoms. and I was pretty critical on Twitter of sort of how it was handled, and I think people misconstrued that as me saying that the Jets mishandled it. I think I have a much bigger issue with how the league handles these situations, because even while they've put in this concussion protocol in place, and you do see guys get pulled for testing after suspected incidents that happened like this where you think something could have happened, I think the fact, you know, what we do know about head injuries is that,

sometimes some of these symptoms can manifest themselves after the fact. And maybe when a guy is struggling to get over the boards and get onto the bench and he needs to get pulled by his teammates, maybe that should outweigh the fact that five minutes later he did pass whatever test you gave him. So I think what I was critical about was just sort of the fact that he was, A, put back into the game and then B, obviously, you know, you'd see people both at the game in terms of fans, but also commenters on Twitter kind of lauded. the fact that, you know, he toughed it out and went back into the game. And I think that kind of,

you know, hockey culture and macho bravado we see surrounding the game can sometimes be very toxic and detrimental to some of this long-term health. So I don't know. How do you feel about the whole thing? And I understand that it's a topic that is kind of, you know, tricky to talk about, but I feel like it's also very important for us to get to when we're talking about the Jets. Well, yeah, I think that your show and your podcast gives enough room for nuance, right? we're not going to crank this out in 180 characters. So you can sort of say maybe a little bit more three-dimensional, just like you just did, a three-dimensional look at the situation.

So what I believe is that it's possible for policy to be followed correctly and still be inadequate. And that's the heart of what I think of this situation. And to see Dustin Bufflin with those obviously wobbly legs just barely standing, needing to be pulled over the bench and go out, well, okay, here's one of the triggers for, concussion protocol. He's got a, he's got to go pass a concussion protocol test. And so the trigger is made. He goes, he passes the test, which is a bit of a shock to me, but possible. And I'm going to

trust the doctors in that situation. And then he comes back out and he plays. So the Jets followed policy, but I mean, just like you said, when a guy's struggling that much and what we know about brain injuries at this stage of the game, clearly it was not in his best interest to continue to play. I should, I guess, admit my biases first and foremost. I've had one concussion in my life that came with several months of post-concussion symptoms. So if I were an NHL player, if anything like that ever happened to me, I would refuse to be going back on the ice. So that's sort of my biases at play and just letting that out there. I think with what we know about brain injuries in the NHL right now and brain injuries in other sports, the NFL,

all of these sorts of things and the long-term impacts of these, you know, what is another 25 minutes of game player, you know, compared to a person's career or their life? And if the symptoms are that bad as a guy hardly being able to move or propel himself off the ice by his own strength, you know,

I have no problem at all with saying that guy simply can't come back, can't come back to play for the rest of the game. You know, those tests 24 hours later, as some of those other symptoms could do, develop, let those tests come in and show because, I mean, in his case, you know, it doesn't seem like a lot of gray area, the amount that he struggled. Yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, it's obviously not a good look, especially with, you know, we have this

concussion lawsuit that's still pending. And you have just this added emphasis and sort of enlightening of knowledge in terms of what we do know about hit injuries. And there's still so much room to grow in that regard. But, I mean, I get that, you know, these players obviously. All of them will want to come back into the game and play, and they're going to say they're fine if they're asked. And you're right.

I think the distinction here is that the Jets certainly followed the concussion protocol, and he was pulled for the testing and happened to pass it. And there's no reason to doubt that he didn't pass those tests. But if this is happening, I think maybe if you're the league, you need to reevaluate that exact policy because it's just one regular season game. And even if this happened in the playoffs, I would say the same thing, where sometimes you just have to make the executive decision that, Listen, this guy is not in the right frame of mind.

We just saw him struggling very badly to stand in his own two feet. And the fact that he's suddenly back in the game, potentially taking more body checks and incurring more brain damage, just for the sake of trying to win this one hockey game seems incredibly silly to me. And I would like to see a firmer stance on that. And I understand that some of your traditionalists might take issue with it. I'm sure the players aren't going to be too happy with it. But at the end of the day, I feel like from a risk-reward perspective,

it would be a massive net positive to take this stuff more seriously based on what we know. Yeah, and given that there's a known critical period after brain trauma where secondary brain trauma can be even more significant and more substantial, I think that that's a situation where playing through it should be discouraged as much as possible. I mean, as much as concussions are sort of an invisible injury and you can talk to somebody who has a concussion, and I'm not talking from a medical perspective, but just out in the world, the guy who's coming off a concussion, you could talk to them,

have what seems like an ordinary conversation with them and not realize that there's something going on, whereas if a guy's got a broken arm or broken leg or something like this, it's very different, or, you know, all the bruises that players play through all the time. The biggest difference, I think, is that that brain injury can compound in a way

that a broken ankle, a broken toe, you know, a sprained wrist, there's at least a, they won't compound that much in the long-term, changing elements of that are a little bit less in terms of quality of life later down the line. So, I mean, I have room in me for some of that bravado and some of that, especially during the playoffs, you know, putting everything on the line for that one thing that you want so badly. But when it comes to the brain injuries, that's sort of where it stops for me. Yep.

No, that's well said, and I completely agree with that. Okay, let's move on. And I want to talk about Connor Hellebuck a bit because, you know, he's obviously in year one of this six-year, $37 million. or a new deal and he's coming off of not only a great individual season but i imagine for jets fans and jets brass and everyone in winnipeg uh such a welcome site to have a great goalie season like that and having a guy finally that you can rely upon and depend upon at such a volatile position and you know so far it's only 20 games worth but it's been a pretty uneven performance there's been a bunch of stinkers sprinkled in there in between and you know fortunately for the jets uh there's still plenty of time here for him to

ship and also Laurent Brassoa, who they brought in as a backup, has been incredibly reliable for them. Even having a couple of games where he's kind of stutter in his head and had 40 plus save performances, how much concern is there with his performance and sort of where are we at with Connor Hellebuck? Because while he was great last season, we should point out that so far in his early career, he has kind of yo-yoed back and forth from one season to the next. And I think it's still safe to say we don't necessarily know for certain what his baseline

level of performance is, although I imagine, you know, I at least feel this way that he's obviously a very talented player and hasn't shown us any reason to believe that he can't bounce back and be something around a 920 goalie, but obviously so far this season, the Jets have needed more than they've gotten from him. Yeah, he's under the microscope. And I can tell, you know, from the Twitter missions and the Twitter responses and things like this, that I think Jets fans have come to the point where they're beginning to lose patience in Connor Haleba. and I mean by the eye test some of the goals that have squeaked through his arms or you know the Mark Stahl goal from from New York Rangers game on Sunday there are there are some

visual reasons to think that hey this guy's not at the top of his game and then the question becomes you know is he going to find that game and in the summertime when he signed that deal I called him a good bet to be a very good goaltender I see him as an above average possibly flirting with top 10 moving forward in terms of those rates. But as we all know, save percentage is volatile and predicting goal tending is really quite rough. I certainly didn't see Laurent Broussaint. Having the season thus far that he had based on his previous numbers. And so while patients might be broken or at least tested in two months,

I don't think that we're at the point where that gives us a good evaluation of whether he'll pull it back together. One of the things that I look at with Winnipeg this season is the quality of advances that they're giving up. And that stall goal, I think, is a perfect, perfect description of Hellebuck season. So there had been some turnovers. The puck ended up in Winnipeg zone. Stalls sitting below the faceoff dot to Hellebuck's left for ages with time. So it's a dangerous spot.

It's a little bit of chaos in Winnipeg zone. and Stahl's got the puck uncontested. I think Hellebuck at the top of his game, last season comes out, challenges, plays big, plays compact, and there's not really much chaos to his own motion, but as Mark Stahl stood there and waited and waited, Hellebuck basically disappeared from the goal

and opened up a spot for Stahl to bury it to. And I think it was a combination of an overarching theme in Winnipeg where the chance quality has gone way up against, under Hallibuck. But as that's happened, he has, he's also sort of worked against himself. So I think there's a little bit of gray area, but he clearly needs to be better as the season goes on. Yeah.

I mean, he obviously was a Vezna finalist last year, and I believe he was top 10 in terms of goals saved above average. He was like a plus 20 almost. And this year, obviously, it hasn't been the case. He's been a negative goalie in terms of performance compared to your league average. and they're going to need more of them, I think, if you get to the point where we're, like, around the All-Star break and he still has the numbers he has so far,

then I would be much more alarmed. I think we're still at the point of the season where if he rattles off three or four straight games that are, you know, what he was doing last year in a row, all of a sudden those numbers are going to look better and everyone's going to relax, and sometimes that kind of stuff just happens. We place a bit more of an added emphasis

because it is the first 20 games of the season, whereas if he was doing this in the middle of the year, Maybe he would have gotten a bit of a longer leash from the fans, but it is what it is. I do, you know, you mentioned that sort of defensive scheme and sort of what they're giving up in front of them. And I'm trying to get a better grasp of this Jets team because obviously the talent there is through the roof. Their power of play is lethal. All the pieces are there in place for this to be one of the best handful of teams in the league. And, you know, based on win-loss record and where they're at in the standings, they're hovering around there.

They're slightly below their pace in terms of wins and points and goal differential last year. but the actual underlying five-on-five numbers themselves seem to be, they've created a little bit. They aren't necessarily that drastically different from last year. The expected goals themselves at five-on-five are under 50%, which is kind of surprising to see from a team of this caliber. But what do you chalk up those defensive changes to? Because for the most part, the actual personnel itself is relatively unchanged from last year.

It seems like, I don't know, is it just a case of a team that, made the Western Conference final last year and once again has Stanley Cup aspirations kind of pacing itself and trying to navigate this 82 game season or is there something there that's sticking out as a red flag for potentially troublesome signs that are going to continue down the road. Can I give you two completely different answers to this question? Absolutely. Okay, one, narrative only not a number or any rationality to it whatsoever. Winnipeg Jets coming out of the best season in their history, expectations through the roof, captain, big deal. Every single day in the dressing room, they're being asked this question compared to last year,

compared to last year, how's camp going compared to last year, how's your first game compared to last year? And I think that dealing with the weight of that expectation did get into the room to a certain degree strictly because of how often it was talked about. And it wasn't up until about the week before the Finland trip where the narrative changed. and now every single question was about Finland coming up. And in terms of the room, you have players like Blake Wheeler, you have a coach, Paul Marie, sort of acknowledging that there was a little bit of too much focus

on last year's results in the first month of this season. And perhaps that's what it is. They needed that Finland trip as a bookend, come back, sort themselves out. That's the narrative answer for what's happening. But I don't think that's necessarily going to convey the entire, entirety of the truth. The single biggest personnel change

on the Winnipeg Jets roster this season versus last is taking Toby Endstrom off of Dauffington Bufflin's pairing and replacing him with Ben Chirot. And I'm not going to say that that in and of itself is everything, but you commented on expected goals rates, shot rates, and things aren't wildly different.

But when you drill into the rates, there's a bit of a pattern that emerges. So in terms of shots four and shots against, shot attempts for, shot attempts against. The season is Winnipeg Jets are almost identical to last season. Their shots four, their shot attempts for are virtually identical in terms of a rate per 60 minutes to last season. The shots against, the shot attempts against, almost identical to what they gave up more

last season. But when you start going a little bit more towards shot quality, I mean, high danger scoring chances as the Old War on Ice model. that we look at at natural stat trick. That's where the rates really begin to shift. Winnipeg's creating roughly as much in terms of high danger scoring chances, but is giving up much, much more.

And it's that quality, it's that home plate. Same with expected goals, though not quite as disproportionate, where I believe that the jets are essentially the same through the neutral zone. They're still getting their looks in the offensive zone, and they're giving up the same total amount of shot attempts in their own zone.

year, but they're coming much more dangerously, much more so from that home plate area. If those, me just listing off numbers wasn't good, you can go to hockey viz and look at the heat maps for this as well. This season, there's an awful lot of red right in front of Connor Hallibuck last

season. It is absolutely blue in terms of the slot and the low crease, or the low slot, pardon me. So, I think that the numbers and the visual representations point to the fact that the prime real estate in Winnipeg is easier to get to.

When you consider that Dustin Bufflin and Toby Nstrom were among the very best in the league is appearing in terms of preventing high danger scoring chances last year, there is going to be a bit of give there. Ben Chaud has played better than I expected. He's been fine, but it's still quite a substantial drop-off. His minutes have gone up by a few minutes per even strength. Toby Nstrom's no longer there.

and as a result, in terms of high danger chances against per minute, Duss and Bufthlin's rate from this season, which leads the team, would have been about sixth or seventh on last year's Winnipeg Jets as well. There's a lot more quality going up against the Winterpeg Jets in front of their net. And I think that part of that is that personnel change, and part of that is just guys missing their men and making mistakes, which has happened a bit more often. Yeah, it's kind of a tricky topic to tackle,

because obviously, you know, expectations can really change the perspective on things. And if they didn't have the year they had last year and, you know, they were having this type of performance, I don't think people would be making a big deal out of it or kind of sounding the alarm. You'd go like, oh, this is still a really good team. And they're winning a bunch of games. And they're right there in a playoff spot in the central division. And I think at the end of the year, they're going to be fine. But obviously, we all came into the year expecting them to potentially even take another step forward in the right direction.

just based on some of the ages and youth that they have on their team and what we saw last year towards the end of the year. And I don't know, like I, on the one hand, I think there is some alarming stuff. On the other hand, I think this is a team that is kind of easing into the season and clearly has another gear or two to hit. And obviously surrounding the trade deadline, if they make a similar addition to what they did last year with Paul Stasney's a rental and they go out and get another guy, whether it's someone to fill that endstrom spot and play on Dustin Bufflin's pairing or, whether it's to add another forward up front, that would obviously provide them with a nice little shot in the RM, and I wouldn't be surprised to see that at all.

But I do think that, you know, it's just one of those situations where, similar to a conversation I had with Alan Wells on this podcast recently where we talked about the lightning, it's like, I think this is a team that's kind of just ramping its way up slowly, and eventually they're going to get there, and it's obviously not an incredibly satisfying way to go about a business for their fan base, I'm sure, and it's causing some of their fans to lose their hair and pull it out.

but at the end of the day, there is a bigger picture view here, and it doesn't really matter to this team whether they peak right now because all the matters is that they are in a playoff spot and they're humming when they approach that postseason. Yeah, and they're further ahead at this moment, this season, than this moment last season as well. It took them a little bit of personnel shuffling around and finally getting the full health with Matthew Perrae.

I think it was about November 16th of last year before things took off. their underlying numbers were actually quite poor before that. So the idea that over the course of a season that things can change and things can improve definitely make sense to me. And I do think that it seems likely to me even looking at the trends up until Bufflin's injury, actually. I think the team defense was in fact improving. I think that that second pairing left defense spot is an important weakness. And if Winnipeg is really going to make any noise in the playoffs, I think that that needs to be addressed.

but it's a good team and it's it's trending up until that injury in a good direction. And I say up until that injury, you know, they've won three games in a row, but they've been absolutely chaotic since that's happened. And it's magic for them. It's magic for Winnipeg because they get to keep banking points and keep boosting that playoff spot, basically ensuring it to speak a bit confidently on it while not necessarily playing flawless hockey.

And I think it buys them an awful lot of time to get those things going. Yeah. And I guess the other positive is, I mean, if you look around that Western Conference, I mean, the Pacific Division is obvious a mess in and of itself. And in the Central, I think that, you know, for a lot of reasons, the Predators are a team that this Jets team is kind of sizing itself up against and teams headed towards another crash course in the playoffs. And it'll probably be another Epic 7 game series.

But obviously, while they are ahead of them in the standings ever so slightly now, they have their own injuries with Forsberg and P.K. Suban out. So I'm sure they're going to hit their own little rough patch in the road here. So, yeah, I mean, over an 82 game season, you're not going to have, you know, a perfect string of games. And it's probably good that they're getting it out of the way this early. Marat, let's take one more quick, a little break here. And then we're going to finish up this conversation with some other topics at the end. Have you finished your holiday shopping yet?

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Okay. The one other thing that I wanted to get is sort of a bigger, picture kind of macro view of how this team was built. And, you know, we've seen a lot of turmoil and a lot of transition from more chaotic franchises this season, whether it's, you know, the Oilers firing their coach or whether it's the Flyers firing their GM. And it gets to this whole bigger conversation that you and I were having on Twitter before we started recording about how this Jets team was constructed and sort of obviously they haven't necessarily won anything yet. I mean, they made the Western Conference final last year,

but in terms of providing a blueprint for other rebuilding teams to follow and potentially gleaned them from that they can use for themselves, I think the thing you keep coming back to is sort of the patience that this was all constructed with, and also, you know, the luxury of slow playing this that Paul Maurice and Kevin Sheldayoff were afforded in terms of giving a bit of a longer leash and sort of going through that rebuilding phase

without having to look over their shoulders. And now all of a sudden you have this, kind of more sustainable, well-rounded contender, there was a bit more organically built. And I understand that based on ownership and certain other logistics, certain franchises aren't afforded that luxury. But I think if, you know, you're pointing to how other teams should go about it, this would probably seem like a pretty way to, pretty good way to kind of steal something from them in terms of when you're looking at a blueprint. I just have to say, I absolutely love that phrase, luxury of slow playing.

Yeah. I think that that applies to the Winnipeg jet success completely, and both in terms of his meaning and its impact, but also just a little bit of poetry behind that, D.M. I really like that, the luxury of slow playing it. And I think it's true. In Winnipeg, they have focused on, quote, unquote, the process. They focused on drafting and developing,

and they keep perhaps with one, you know, one exception of a trade-up for Logan Stanley remains more of a project than a sure thing, but they keep hitting year after year after year with their first-draft picks and finding players deeper in the draft as well. And then they seem to have the luxury of going slow with those players and when you have a line A or someone unique like this,

being able to promote them when the time is right as well. we talked about Kyle Connor to open things up and what better landing spot could there possibly be in a strong link NFL than on the left wing of Mark Sheifley and Blake Wheeler and he spent more than half of his minutes last season with those two players. It's a good situation for players to come into and I think that the long-term stability of the franchise has sort of created that.

They hit with Mark Sheifley, he became who he is and it gave them another driver with Blake Wheeler that they could give that opportunity to a guy like Connor or now Eelers when he needed a shot in the arm and things have gone well. There isn't that day-to-day volatility or the need to, I don't know, fire a coach to save your job or change a certain part of your staff or whatever those sorts of things are that can sort of distract from the long-term vision. And I'm not saying that it's been perfect.

There are certainly things even this season that folks criticize. And, you know, there's been some question marks about the fourth line. and Rossovic hasn't been perfect at center and other sorts of things, or Nick Patan struggling to get major minutes, Samuiko's next up. There are things, but when the big rocks are all taken care of and they have the patience to sort of see that through and they continue to hit with the draft, I mean, hey, maybe sometimes being an under-the-radar team isn't such a bad thing.

Yeah, no, for sure. And I think obviously, I mean, the perspective on it has changed so much. I was critical of the job Paul Maurice was doing a couple of years ago, and now he's personally been one of my favorite coaches this year. I feel like he's killing it on these, but both in terms of strategically and the actual job he's doing, but also it seems like he's kind of the perfect coach from a temperament perspective for this team right now in the city and sort of some of the quotes he's been giving in interviews and stuff like that. I don't know, just the way that entire situation has evolved kind of speaks to how, you know, sometimes this stuff takes, you need

more time for it to play out. and obviously if we close the book on it three years ago, who knows what this team would look like right now and how things would have played out. So I think that's something that's kind of just important to keep perspective of and keep an eye on when you're a fan of another team and things haven't gone your way for two seasons

and all of a sudden you're crying and demanding change. Sometimes it's justified, but other times you just kind of need to give time for stuff to organically grow like it hasn't won a pick. Yeah, there's so many different reasons that teams win, right? I mean, sometimes it can be hot stretches of percentages. Sometimes it can, well,

that was going to just repeat myself, it can be luck essentially. Sometimes it's based on a power play, sometimes, you know, or goaltending, whatever it is, right? And I think a coach has a huge number of decisions to make a huge amount of things that they're responsible for.

And if the big rocks are in place, if the systems, power play, penalty kill are good, if they're finding ways to generate chances from important areas of the ice, and getting through the neutral zone well, getting those entries and exits, I think coaches have an impact on that.

Great. Talent is a huge part of what happens once you get in those zones, I think anyway. And Winnipeg has been blessed with that, for sure. But when those major rocks are in place, then it becomes a little bit, you know, every team has a fourth-line decision or every team has a prospect that they want to move faster.

And, you know, there are times, you know, I think Winnipeg would be well served to get a player like Sammy Niku more minutes this season, even though he hasn't started hot. They could come to a point later this year where they depend on a player like that, or he can give them more than Schroeder more Rukov. That's one example. But those become further and further down the priority list and further, further down the

impact list, I think, at least in the short term as a season goes along. So when most of the big items are checked and players are still playing for the, person. I think it's a good sign and, you know, always be biased a little bit in favor of a guy who's a good quote and Paul Marita. Paul Marit is an excellent one. Yeah, he certainly helps you with your job. And another guy, you mentioned Samuiquu there and I like him quite a bit. Also, Mason Appleton has finally gotten the call up and is playing on that fourth line. And we'll see what the Jets do there and how long he takes to the team, but obviously based on his HL performance, it's very encouraging. And just having guys like that that you can kind of call up and potentially get creative with

is such a massive luxury that these great teams seem to always have because when you're paying all your top guys, the big bucks, you do need to have young players on ELCs that can come in and step in and potentially be reliable players for you. And I'm very curious to see what the Jets do towards the end of this year. I mean, approaching the trade line. Obviously, they went out last year, and I don't think they necessarily paid an exorbitant price for Paul Stasney,

but it was certainly deviating from their MO in recent years and getting a guy to waive his no-moo clause to come to Winnipeg and play. for that team was a big step in the right direction towards sort of positioning them as a contender from a marketability perspective. And I imagine, you know, whether it's selling a defenseman on playing next to Dustin Bufflin or whether it's getting another forward and saying you're going to be in our top six next to all these other great players, like it's a pretty, you know, appetizing role for a guy to step into. So we'll see what this Jets team looks like at the trade deadline. but I imagine they're going to be making some noise again if they're in a position to do so,

and it'll be fascinated to see what that player is and sort of how it changes their trajectory and their ceiling from a playoff perspective. Yeah, Paul Sassney was a rabbit out of a hat, I thought. I don't think too many people saw that coming from shovel day off, and then, I mean, there's the hope that he's able to do it again. But I think that one of the things that your point underscores is, you know, the Jets did give up a first-round draft pick, and they did give up Eric Foley, who was a promising prospect that he was heard early,

this season. They traded Joel Armia for cap considerations essentially with that Steve Mason deal to Montreal, and yet they still have pretty impressive forward depth, even beyond their top 12, and it gives them a little bit of ammunition to maybe go out and address

those things, those patch up some holes, as the case might be, or even pull another rabbit of the hat. They are a well-positioned team. Every team has strengths and weaknesses, but they are a well-positioned team in terms of trying to take that next step. Especially as we know, that trade deadline period can really turn into a bit of an arms race when all these contenders are loading up and having the assets to go out and do so.

Is it great luxury for shovel day off in the Jets. Morat, plug some stuff. What do you work it on these days and what can people expect from you and where can they find your work? Well, first off, if you haven't read Finding Patrick Lainey, the Patrick Lainey feature that went up at the athletic at the end of last week. You need to do that. It details how an entire country's system, an entire city, and Patrick Lain himself worked together

to make him the player and the hilarious human being that we know and love. So that's at the athletic. It's called Finding Patrick Lainey. And then throughout December at the athletic, we have the future of hockey and all sorts of segments from, I think one that I just saw going to the editing. Hopper was the future. women in broadcasting. One that went up today was projecting the 2020 NHL draft. There's going to be a ton of great hockey stuff, even in addition to the regular programming.

And then for the Winnipeg Jets, I've got some player grades and a bit of a one-third marker review of the team's performance so far coming up in the next week or so. Well, that sounds excellent, and I definitely recommend everyone goes checks it out. And I imagine you and I are going to be doing a podcast sometime down the road because this Jets team obviously is great right now, but I think with all the moving pieces and some of the uncertainty in the future, there's a bunch of stuff for us to dissect and talk about hopefully. So I'm looking forward to that. And when we do have something more to talk about, I will certainly ring you up and we'll do this all over again.

Heck, yes. All right. Chat's soon, man. It can't end today's show without a stick tap in the direction of Puckpedia, which aside from being a gracious sponsor of the Hockeypedio cast, has also helped make today's episode possible. It may have only recently launched, but, Puckpedia.com's already become an invaluable resource for me whenever I'm doing my show prep for this podcast. Whether it's salary cap info, draft and transaction history, individual player stats or injury news,

Puckpedia is great because it's got everything you need to know in one convenient place so that you don't need to bounce around from tap to tab and clog your internet browser trying to figure out what you're looking for. Plus, they really put an emphasis on making the entire thing user-friendly, so it's easy to navigate even for someone like me who's not necessarily all that tech savvy. My personal favorite component of the site is their agent leaderboard, which identifies the top agents and who they represent. When I was looking ahead to Patrick Lainey's upcoming contract and my discussion with Marat here on today's show about it,

I searched it up and I was reminded that he's got the same agent as the guy who got Vlad Tarasenko and Leon Dreisaito paid coming off their ELCs, and the same guy who also represents Miko Ranton. So just something to keep in mind and not too shabby. Anyways, go to puckpedia.com and play around with all their cool features yourself. and follow them at Puckpedia on Twitter since they're constantly tweeting out useful nuggets of info. Also, a couple other things.

Before we get out of here, you can go check out the show now on Spotify. It's been up there for about a month or so, and I've noticed that a bunch of you have a gravitated over there and are using that to listen to the show now, and I appreciate that. But once again, whatever makes you comfortable or whatever is your go-to source,

whether it's iTunes or Google Play or what-have-you or Spotify, as long as you're listening to the show. show, that's all the matters. And also, if you could take a minute and go over to iTunes and leave the show, a positive rating interview that's always appreciated. I'm not totally sure how their algorithm works and how their rating system works on the leaderboards for the podcast, but I've been told that that stuff goes a long way towards boosting the PDO cast up the charts. So hopefully you'll take the time to do that. And with that said, now we're finally ready to get out of here. so we're going to play the outro music, and we will be back later this week with one, maybe two shows.

So until then. The Hockey P.DioCast with Dmitri Filippovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypediocast.