The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 274: The Podcast is One for One

Episode Date: January 22, 2019

Rachel Doerrie joins the show to discuss her time with the New Jersey Devils Hockey Ops, the Hurricanes buying low on Nino Niederreiter, the Oilers giving Mikko Koskinen a head-scratching extension, and what separates well run teams from their counterparts. We also talk about the pros and cons of video tracking coming to the NHL, and market inefficiencies still there to be exploited. 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. 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 $5 to play with after your first deposit, which will surely come in handy throughout the year. See you there! 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.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theos, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl defensive end, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athletes, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and, of course, the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React. R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light.

These days, everything is go, go, go. It's non-stop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family. Expect you to be on 24-7? Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold-filtered, and cold-packaged. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies.

It is literally made to chill. Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. To the mean since 2015, it's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey P.D.O.cast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich.

and joining me is my good buddy Rachel Dory. Rachel, what's going on? I'm good. How are you? I'm good. I'm excited to finally have you on. You know, for various reasons over the past year or two, I haven't been able to get you on the show yet, and we've talked about doing this. And now that you're at a different stage of your career,

hopefully we can finally have this conversation and get around to doing it. So I'm pretty excited about that. Yeah, me too. I mean, I think it was probably at least over a year we connected and started talking about doing this. So now that we finally finally, they get to have this podcast.

It's exciting. Well, give the listeners a brief rundown of, you know, I guess your various job titles over the years or what you've been up to because, yeah, listeners do always get on my case for skimming past that and just assuming that everyone knows everyone in this little hockey community you have going on. So if anyone doesn't know you or isn't familiar with your work in the past, give them a brief rundown and we're going to get into it. So essentially, I just spent the last year and a bit with the New Jersey

Devils as their analyst of player information and video. So that's essentially taking all the video and information that comes into the organization and filling the needs of the different parts of the hockey operations department. So whether it be the coaching staff that has needs or any reports that they need versus the scouting staff, amateur or pro, sort of handling their needs, whether it be video or different projects statistically. So that's sort of what I've been doing for the past year and a bit. Prior to that, I had a short stint at the athletic, which is actually how I got the job

in New Jersey. But I went to school sort of for sports business, and my first gig actually was working for the Sudbury Wolves as their video coach, and that's sort of how I got into video was being their video coach and handling different needs for the coach. coaching staff from that perspective. So it kind of just grew from there. Through university, I was also doing some analytics with the hockey team at Nipissing University up in North Bay.

So it's been really fluid. And now I'm actually finally getting my first break since forever, actually, because I didn't take any time off school after high school or university. So it's good. I'm going to have a bit of a break here. you're doing, I mean, you should be doing something more glamorous, you know, sitting on a beach or something instead, you're, you're wasting your time coming on this podcast. I mean, honestly, I took a bit of a break.

I, for the first, probably I would say week and a bit. I didn't watch a single hockey game and it was really refreshing. And I'm actually willing to Germany in February to spend some time with family. So I doubt I'll be watching much hockey while I'm over there. Just a lot of my other passion, which is soccer. So I'm very excited for that. Yeah, I feel like that cleansing on the palette is really important, unfortunately, just because of my job, I don't really get a chance to do so during the season. But, yeah, in the summer especially, I mean, it's pretty easy, especially around August when it feels like the hockey world kind of collectively agrees not to do anything.

I like to kind of unplug and just not think about hockey for a week, because especially doing, like, when you're in the, in the midst of it throughout the regular season, I mean, it really can be such a, such a grind and marathon. And not that I'm complaining, it's the best job in the world. but yeah it's uh you know sometimes you can get kind of you can lose the forest for the trees just because you're so deep into it and taking a step back like that is probably ultimately a good thing in the long run oh absolutely like it's just um it's necessary quite honestly when hockey's become such a 12 month sport even in minor hockey which is insane in my opinion um people just need to learn like you need to take a break and quite honestly unless you're the GM or the assistant GM of the team or maybe even a head coach, but even they take a break at least,

you should be able to shut her down for probably like at least two weeks, sort of in the summer. I know teams operate differently, but there is nothing that you're doing after prospect camp or development camp and before sort of late August. That's really that important, unless you're pulling off like a huge trade, which is obviously a little bit of.

bit different, but I think the whole shutting down thing, if you don't have time to shut down, you're not rejuvenated for the season. And then that's sort of how hockey eats people up. It's like, we don't get break. Yeah, you become very cynical and jaded and lose out of the fact that it's, you know, ultimately kind of talking and evaluating a game. And it's, it's pretty sweet. So on today's show, we're going to talk about your time of the devils and we're going to bounce around and do a bunch of different topics. But I thought that a good starting point for us would be to discuss the recent trade between the Carolina Hurricanes in Minnesota Wild because I haven't had a chance to do a show since the news broke of that. And I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it's not necessarily,

you know, a monumental trade by any means that shifts the landscape of the NHL. But, you know, especially with a guy like Nino Niederrater, he's a pretty big name and he's done some good things in NHL. And I think we're at this point of the season so starved for a player's transaction news like that. and we're gearing up towards trade deadline season, which is probably the most fun part of the year. And I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to kind of discuss that trade and sort of evaluate it from both perspectives and see if it is as lopsided as it seemed like it was on the surface when it first broke.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it's definitely not like a Taylor Hall for Adam Larson or a C-Bahn for Weber type of altering trade. But I think on its surface, both players could actually be very good fits for their new teams based on how they play. Particularly Nino just because he has good shot relative metrics for a Minnesota team that plays very defensively, and that fits right into how Carolina focuses on their shot and chance generation. So I think the fact that Nino sort of was a leader in shot generation

and scoring chances with Minnesota will make it. him just a glove-type fit in Carolina because that's exactly the type of style that they like to play. And then you have Victor Rask who, I would say like his skating isn't as bad as it is made out to be, but it certainly isn't. Wow, what a glowing endorsement. Yeah. I mean, it's not as, it's not as bad as it's made out to be, but it's certainly not

top line sort of. echelon in today's game. But I think under the Boudreau sort of Minnesota system, he will actually be better than his stats in Carolina were. Just because I think he'll fit that system may perhaps a little bit better

because, I mean, let's face it, Minnesota is not exactly the fastest team, but they do have a system that allows him to play very structured defensively. And I think Rask is one of those players that while he doesn't necessarily have the speed. He's very smart, and I think that'll fit really well with what Minnesota sort of does.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's interesting because you mentioned some of the other one-for-one trades we've seen in the past, and it's obviously not of that caliber. I think it's closer to the Jordan Eberle for Ryan Strom trade. I think the Rask at this point of his career still has, you know, more of a realistic opportunity of actually providing some positive value than Ryan Strome does it at this stage of his career. But it feels like from Minnesota's perspective, they wanted to ultimately save a bit

of money. And I think they save about a million and some change per season over the next three years on the cap. And they get a center. And I understand that was probably kind of the rationale from it from their perspective. And obviously, with Nino's declining offensive numbers the past couple years, they felt like it wouldn't be too much of a drop off. or maybe they felt like, you know, they were trying to salvage some value while they still could.

It's just, I mean, for me, when I look at this trade and I look at Nino Nita Ryder's sort of trajectory for his career, like, what are the odds realistically that a 26-year-old suddenly forgot how to play hockey? And that's ultimately what I keep going back to. And then you look at some of the percentages and sort of what's causing that decline in offensive numbers. And I certainly think he's not, without blame. I think he hasn't played as well as he did during that breakout season in 2016, when he scored 25 goals and had nearly 60 points. But it does feel like there's a lot of sort of percentage fluctuation here. Particularly, I think he fell out of favor a bit because you look and I know NHL teams still

are looking at plus minus or some reason. And he's a minus 11 this year for Minnesota compared to the plus big whatever he was, double digits in the years past. And I think part of that is why he fell out of favor and why people are viewing his season is such a disappointment. And then you look a bit closer and all of a sudden you see like, oh, whenever he's been out on the ice, the combination of Dubik and Steylock hasn't been able to make a save. And I don't think that's, that's clearly not something that's been a trend of his over his career. So it feels like

that's more of a 40, 50 game aberration than anything. And so what I keep coming back to for this trade is I feel like Minnesota made that kind of Cardinal Sin mistake of selling Nino Niederrider when he was at his lowest value just because of that depreciated on a save percentage. And I hate when teams operate that way because, I mean, it seems kind of cold to talk about players. as assets and I understand there's a human element to it, but ultimately if you're running a team, you sometimes do need to view them as assets and view this as a business. And it feels like they kind of misread this situation and sold low when, you know, I don't think, especially like a year or two ago, if you were saying, what can we get for Nina, Nita Ryder? It feels like it could

have been a lot more. Yeah, like I would say, I mean, a small sample size because Rask has only played, I think, 26 games this year because he somehow like chopped off his finger. Right. But if you look at the numbers and I saw the chart, the evolving wild chart, ironically. And I think it's like this season, Nino is plus two in even strength games above replacement or goals above replacement, sorry. And Rask is minus three and a half. Like that's a pretty big discrepancy. Right.

And I also think with Nino, he's not as good as the 60-point player he was in his breakout season, but he also isn't as bad. I think if given the proper opportunity, which I think he will get in Carolina where he'll be a good power play option, and this gives them two, maybe two and a half solid lines with Aho and Tara Vinen and the young Svetchnikov.

He's probably a 40 to 45 point player, and that's not bad. Like, you can definitely have that kind of player on your team. And the fact that he moves the puck really well and he plays with speed, both perfectly for somebody like Sebastian Aho or Lucas Walmock and especially Andrei Shetnikov, which is a player that's going to be really key for Carolina down the stretch. So I think this move was more for Carolina. Not just a change of scenery for Victor Rask, but it was more about injecting perhaps another player who can play

with their mentality of speed, get the puck to the net, create scoring. chances in that kind of philosophy. I think, you know, if that's well there. And I mean, selling low is never a good idea. You look what Edmonton did with Eberley and sort of the trade tree that ended up with Ryan Spooner on waivers today. It's never good to sell low, but I think at least Minnesota gets a player that will be serviceable in a three center type of role.

And if there's injuries, he could play. on the second line. So it's not as bad sort of as I think it was made out to be. Yeah. I mean, they got a functional NHL are back at least in return. But no, I like this from Carolina's perspective.

Obviously, I think, you know, points aside and offensive production aside, Niederr has shown over his career that he's one of the few wingers that can sort of discernibly or tangibly, you know,

drive possession, especially defensively for his team. And even this year, during his offensive struggles, he's still been a positive shot share player on on Minnesota. And he's going to feel like a goal. love, as you mentioned, on that Carolina team, and it feels like they're going to probably

generate just an absurd amount of shots if they haven't been already. And we've seen so far, he's only played the two games with Carolina, but he's looked mighty good next to Sebastian Ajo, and he's got the two goals against Edmonton and seven shots on Ned. And so it feels like he is really going to be a perfect fit there. And I think that, you know, expecting him to kind of bounce back and look a lot better than he looked in this first half of the season seems like a good bet and I imagine that's exactly what Carolina and their analytic staff led by Eric Tulski were probably looking for in targeting. And I don't know, like when I, when this trade happened, I did look at that and I at the PDO and I understand people's reservations with it and the flaws.

And you sort of should look at the on-ice shooting percentage and save percentage individually and not lump them together. But when stuff like this happens and when a guy's just fall out of favor or when the perception of players changes or the narrative becomes that they're struggling, it's still crazy in 2019 how often we come back to the idea of it's probably just because they've been a bit unlucky and things are going to turn around like as much as we've gotten smarter collectively and sort of acknowledging this stuff and the importance of it it feels like a lot of mainstream media members and even teams and coaches still get fooled by this stuff and place a bit too much stock in it and you know later you and i are going to talk about market and efficiencies and places you can

kind of exploit stuff in the trade market and somehow it is still one of them well it's interesting because this is absolutely a market inefficiency as being able to buy low on players. Not to mention the fact that this is still, the whole using archaic stats is still very prevalent. I had my friend who I'm sort of trying to teach hockey to because this person never, she didn't come from a hockey family.

So she's learned everything she knows from hockey from basically talking to me and on Twitter and watching Sportsnet. Well, when you have broadcasts that are mentioning combined plus minus, that's a big problem. And then I can say that I have heard more than a few of the hockey men use combined plus minus as a stat. And you just had to shake your head because there's just so many more telling stats that clearly a staff led by Eric Tulski is using and the team is listening to.

that when you as one team are looking at plus minus as your tell-all stat, that's a relatively large issue, especially given sort of what we have. And this even comes back to what's going on in Toronto right now with William Nylanders. Yeah, he's not going to shoot 2% forever. He's going to have a regression to the mean. And I think a lot of people sort of forget that that's how things work is sometimes, there's a cold slumper sometimes your shots aren't going in but that's not the time to trade a player yeah i mean it's obviously easier than done for us when we're kind of looking at this from afar and we don't have any any stake in it or any emotional attachment to it and you could just sort of go like okay

let's kind of cooler heads prevail this will eventually turn around but obviously if you're the player if you're the team and you're watching this guy constantly have nothing to show for being out on the ice i imagine it can be pretty um irritating or or make it make that kind of uh make you itch to make some sort of a trade because you're all of a sudden starting to feel desperate. But yeah, sometimes, you know, just looking at this stuff a bit more cautiously and accounting for fluctuations and those percentages can go a long way towards, you know, preventing big mistakes that you ultimately can't get back. So I don't know. I don't think there's anything else particularly on this trade. I think, you know, a lot of the analysis has already come out so far.

It's been a handful of days and we've soaked it up and it feels like this is a win for Carolina. we'll see how it plays out. But I did want to talk a bit about the Oilers as well with you, because you and I have been messaging back and forth. And today, especially, we're recording this on Monday evening with Ryan Spooner going on waivers and then the Miko Koskinin contract extension. It feels like the hits just, you know, don't stop coming. And who knows, by the time this podcast is posted, maybe they'll even have relieved Peter Shirelli of his duties. But yeah, it's a seemingly never-ending circus in Edmonton with head-scratching moves. questionable decisions.

So what's interesting is I actually have a very good relationship with the New Jersey goaltending coach, Willie Malanson, and the goaltending development coach Scott Clemenson. Like I did pretty much every project they had, I did for them. So we have a very good relationship. And the one thing that I really came out of that with is goalies don't tend to get better in their 30s. And obviously with what's going on in New Jersey right now, with Corey Schneider. I mean, it's been well documented from every single angle. It's very

difficult to see why you would think that Koskinan needs a $4.5 million A.A.V. Now I understand he's played very well, and he has. He's been great. But does this not really remind you of the Scott Darling contract and the fact that Darling had one really, really good season? And then he was signed to this contract for relatively similar money and you just didn't have a big enough sample size to see sort of where it was going to go and obviously I hope that it ends up turning out for Edmonton a little bit better than Scott Darling has but you can't help but draw the comparison I think it's an even riskier bet to be honest I mean I think you're overselling slightly how good Koskinin's been oh he got off to a really hot start and particularly in November he

was amazing and he was sort of single-handedly keeping Edmonton afloat, especially during that coaching transition. But I believe since the end of November, so he's played like 16 games or so in December and January. He's kind of reverted back to being a 900 goalie. He's got a 9-11, say, percentage for the year, which is still slightly above average. But I think ultimately that's sort of what he is where he's kind of hovering around a league average guy. I mean, he's 0.44 goals saved above average for the year. Like, it seems like, you can find goalies like this and I'm not trying to devalue what he's meant to Edmonton or how important he's been especially with Camp Talbot's fast and fully documented

struggles this year but you're right I mean he's going to be turning 31 by the time this contract extension kicks in and right now he's got 28 career in HL starts and four of them came like a decade ago so it seems like a pretty ambitious bet for them to take especially with it just I mean obviously he would have been an intriguing candidate in the in the trade

rental market as well and they possibly could have got assets there but some of the pushback that I've gotten when I was tweeting about this was well this is sort of the price of doing business

and this is you know there you have to prevent you're trying to get ahead of the curve and not let a guy hit the open market because then other teams can create a bidding war it's like okay ultimately if someone wants to pay

Miko Koskinin more than $4.5 million dollars per season And you ultimately just you thank him for his service. You give him a sturdy handshake and you let him walk out the door. And that's just the way it is. And it seems like a very questionable bet. Like ultimately, the three-year deal is in the end of the world.

We've seen some disastrous goalie contracts that run way into the late 30s. And that's not going to be the case here. But it just seems like an unnecessary risk for him to take. I'm not sure what the upside is. I guess if he turns into an above average starting goalie, then it looks like a good deal. But at that price, it's not even like that big. of a home run if that happens and the likelihood of that happening seems pretty minimal at this

point. So I did some thinking. Apart from looking at his stats, I would say that Gru Bauer probably has a better track record. Anti-Ranta definitely has a better track record. So if I'm Edmonton and they clearly don't think the same way that I guess hockey Twitter does, I look at anti-Ranta stats and I go, I'm sorry, but I am not paying you anywhere near as much as Antiranta because he's clearly established himself as a number one, obviously, when he's not hurt. And we can't be paying you in the same neighborhood. But the one thing about the Koskenen deal is it wouldn't shock me to see Edmonton take Spencer Knight in this draft.

And goalies need about three and a half-ish years to develop. And that sort of lines up with the Koskenin contract. So maybe if that's sort of the line that they're thinking is we're going to take a goalie in the draft this year, perhaps a Spencer Knight who, by all accounts, is sort of Andre Vasilevsky light. That makes a little bit of sense, but I just don't see the need for $4.5 million. The term is fine, especially if that sort of your plan is to develop either Olivier Rodriguez or a goalie that you draft. this year perhaps Spencer Knight. The term makes sense, but I just don't see why you need to sign a goaltender to $4.5 million when you've got Luchich on the books, you've got Russell on the books,

you've got Secair on the books, and then you have your McDavid and your dry-sidal sort of thing. I just don't see why you need to be spending that amount of money. Yeah, I felt like they were kind of bidding against themselves here. And I just, yeah, I'm not sure what the market in free agency. I mean, obviously there's still half a season to go. And if he accrues more quality starts in that period of time, maybe the narrative will change a little bit. But yeah, it seems like kind of 4D chess for them to be like trying to map things out that far ahead and being like, okay, we're trying to bridge this gap for three years here. And then this goalie, we're going to eventually maybe possibly draft will turn out to be our goalie of our future. Like, I don't know, it just seems like a comedy of errors.

And that, you know, leads into the issue of what's going on right now, what they're met with their front of. office and their management where it's like, you know, it feels like we're really, somehow we haven't reached this point yet, but it feels like we're rapidly approaching this kind of point, no return or boiling point where things are just going to come so untenable. The Doylers are eventually going to have to replace their general manager and let Peter Shirley go and go somewhere else. And if that's the case, and it feels like it is, then why are you letting that GM, who's ultimately a sitting duck GM, make these sorts of long-term decisions and try and to map out what your team's going to look like three or four years from now when he's probably

not going to be around himself. So that kind of gets into this kind of like conflict of interest issue where when a GM's fighting for his life and trying to get into the playoffs, I find it hard to believe that he's also balancing the best long-term interest of the franchise in mind with some of these moves. And we're seeing that take place. And I think that's the frustrating part, especially when you're looking at Connor McDavid's trajectory and acknowledging that even though they've already wasted a couple good years here. There's still a long shelf life of his peak years to come and you want to maximize them as opposed to just strapping yourself with these contracts that kind of keep pushing the ball forward but not ultimately getting you anywhere. Yeah. And I think one of the issues that

maybe doesn't get enough attention is when your owner is a giant fan. Yes, you want the owner to be a fan, but you also don't, ultimately he pays the money, but you don't want him making the decisions around player personnel other than yes, no, I am not signing, I am not paying this, or I am going to pay this, or I'm willing to pay this. Like, I don't think it's necessarily a good idea to have ownership that involved. And speaking from experience, it's better when ownership kind of trusts the person that they have in place and doesn't try and get actively involved. I understand why Daryl Cates would want to be involved given sort of the track record and things. But when you think about it, he put him in place.

So you can't put someone in place if you don't trust them. So I think that is an issue. And it came out with a story with Yakupah versus Murray. And I'm sure that he's had his fair share of him involvement. And he owns a team, so that's fine. but I think he deserves his fair share of blame for sort of what's going on in Edmonton with regard to the hirings and the forcing of deals. I don't think that Peter Shirelli signs Luchich to that contract or Russell to that contract

without Cates's either pushing or stamp of approval. Oh, 100%. Yeah, none of this stuff happens in a vacuum, but obviously it's a, I mean, it's fun to blame Peter Shirley for all. I love the new cat-friendly feature where you can go and look at every single GM's trade in their career. And somebody sent me a few of the former and current GM's track records. And it's pretty fun to compare quite honestly. Yeah, I mean, this trade tree going from Everly to Strom to Spooner to putting Spooner on waivers and

still paying a hefty chunk of that salary just to, I mean, I guess the rationale behind it. And I remember the year they did trade Eberley, he struggled in that postseason, the one year they did make the playoffs. And he was also just having a really down season in terms of shooting percentage. And last year, he conveniently enough bounce back to his career norms in his first year with the Islanders. And a lot of the kind of rationale behind it from the Oilers was we're trying to get ahead of the curve and save a bit of money anywhere we can so that we can. so that we can sign some contracts and bring in other guys to help McDavid. And then you just look at how they've actually proportioned that money that they've saved and what they've used it on.

And it's just, I mean, it really is just this endless cycle of just bad decisions. Yeah. One of the things that's interesting is when you look at the Spooner-Strom deal, let's say they wanted, they would have honestly probably been better off buying out Strom as opposed to making that trade because Strom falls under 26 and Spooner's above 26. So I believe 26 is the line for the one-third two-third buy-out clause. So if they would have bought out Strome, they only would have had to pay one-third of his contract, which, considering they make even money, you're either paying one-third of Strome's contract or now if they buy-out Spooner, they're going to have to pay him two-thirds because Spooner's already 26, I think. So now you're paying double against your cap.

but the whole thing could have been completely alleviated. If you really decided that Strome wasn't a valuable asset, then you just buy him out. And I think his equates to $500,000 against the cap, whereas just Spooners will be double that. I think, yeah, I think even more. Well, I think what they would tell you is that, you know, they made that trade,

and then Ken Hitchcock came in as the coach, and Brian Spooner is not a Kent Hitchcock type of player, and so there wasn't a fit there. And so how could they possibly know? but then that kind of brings us back to this idea where it's like there's no foresight behind any of these moves there's no planning there's no uh cohesion it just seems like they're just making all of these moves in a vacuum and just going like we did okay we did this one thing now we're going to do something else even though it runs completely counterintuitive to all we did it makes no sense

with our trajectory and then we're going to do this and then we're going to do that and that's quite possibly the worst place worst way to run a team and I've talked about this time and time again in the pedo cast but the best franchises the best organizations in any sport are the ones where you have top-down communication, everyone pushing and pulling in the same direction, that cohesion with everyone kind of having. Like, it's perfectly fine for not everyone in the organization to agree on certain players or certain moves. And I think that's ultimately good. You don't want a bunch of yes men.

You want intellectual discussion and you want pushback and you want people to really make you think critically about certain things. But at the same time, when you're so fundamentally all over the place like this and you're not trying to figure out who's making a decision, whether it's ownership, whether it's management, whether it's the coach, and what's going on. Like, that's really where you get into trouble, and that's ultimately what we keep coming back to with this Oilers team. I mean, you just look at all the decisions and everyone that's been coaching there and everyone that's running the team, and I guess the common denominator is the ownership, but it's just, it's such a mess. And I really do, it gets frustrating after a certain point because Conner David is so freaking good right now that I want to see that, you know, put to the forefront.

And rather than talking about how great he is, instead we're talking about this entire mess that's around him. Well, you bring up a good point in terms of pulling in the same direction. And I think what gets lost is there's a difference between pulling in the same direction and being a yes man. Because you have a common goal that is more than likely set out by the GM and it's his vision. And you have your coach's vision. Okay, I want to coach this type of team and I want to have this type of culture. And you have your GM that has his vision for that. but if your GM brings up a trade and this has happened many times I would think that you either don't think is a good trade because it either just is not a good management of assets or it might not fit the way he thinks it'll fit you have to speak up you can't say yes man just because he's a GM because at that point for some for me I know if I'm in a room and you disagree I want to know why because

Because you can learn at that point. And I just think that the teams that aren't successful are the teams that have a bunch of yes men or are making moves for the sake of making moves. And having yes men is arguably next to nepotism, the most dangerous thing in hockey. Yes. And I mean, we don't necessarily have too much insight on the behind the scenes of how things are being run in Edmonton. but if you use history as any indicator and you look back at Peter Shelley's run during Boston during his time with the Bruins and you look at that video that's still somehow on YouTube of the Tyler Sagan trade, it's like literally the exact scene from Moneyball where they're just

like comically talking about stuff that makes no sense and everyone just kind of nodding their head and agreeing about this random issue they brought to the forefront as being ultimately a fatal flaw and that's why they have to trade this great player. and I imagine at this point of his career, especially with the past success he has had, that Peter Shirelli is not changing his ways, and I imagine there's a lot of that going on in Edmonton as well, even though we haven't actually seen those hilarious videos from his time there.

Yeah, and I would say it's definitely not just happening in Edmonton. Oh, for sure. It's, we, the old joke is the 200 hockey man. It definitely exists, and I would argue that it exists to a greater degree than hockey Twitter thinks. Yes. Yeah, I would definitely agree with that. Rachel, let's take a quick break here to hear from a sponsor,

and then we're going to continue this conversation on the other end of things. Sponsoring today's episode of the HockeyPedio cast is Seek. Getting tickets online can be far too complicated, with hundreds of websites and varying levels of reliability. It's hard to know who to trust out there. And that's why Seekek is the way to go, because they take all the guesswork out of that equation for you by doing all the the grunt work.

They pull millions of tickets into one place, so you can easily find the seats you want for a price you're willing to pay. There's nothing quite like being there in person, and Cicke's going to get you closer to their action for a great value. They're designed to make your ticket buying experience easier than ever before. Like I said, they search the multiple ticket sites and grade every ticket based on value, and by doing so, they help you immediately identify the best seats to fit your budget. Plus, every purchase is fully guaranteed,

so you can shop for tickets on Cique with full confidence, knowing that what you're paying for is what you're going to get. All of that's why you need to make Cickeek your go-to ticket source for everything from sports and concerts to comedy and theater. I've talked a bunch on the show in the past about all the different events I've used seekeek for I've got the app on my phone and every time I've used it whether it's been for basketball games or hockey games or concerts or what have you um it honestly is such an easy process it just takes a couple clicks a couple of minutes and I'm in and out and it saves me both time and money and

hopefully it'll do the same for you as well and as my listener you get one other perk and that's that you're going to get $10 off your first Seekkeek purchase just for listening to today's over the Hockey PDO cast. All you have to do to claim that is download the Cickeek app and enter the promo code PDO today. That's promo code PDO for $10 off your first CKK purchase. Now let's get back to the show. Okay, enough about Emmington.

It's depressing me. Let's talk a bit about your time with the devils and sort of, the thing I'm interested about the most, rather than actually the specifics of it or any planar transactions or anything like that is just the flow of information. and we were just talking about how the good organizations are the ones that have open lines of communication and people constantly striving to answer questions that they might not have even thought before they had answered questions to.

And just this idea of sort of everyone working as one and I think that relay of information, especially from, you know, someone who was in your position to both the coaching staff but also up top to the decision makers who ultimately can be pulling the trigger on things is a very very, sort of undervalued part of the equation and that just community that kind of communication and sort of how that information does flow is something I'm really interested by because we obviously don't get we aren't privy to too much of that access because it's obviously you all kind of held behind the scene so we don't get to see a lot of it but obviously you having lived it can speak to it a bit more so I'm really curious about talking about that yeah I would say the first thing that's

really important to mention and I know definitely not the case with other organizations is our head like the head coach in New Jersey John Hines is probably the most open-minded hockey person I have met in my entire life. In terms of being open to new ideas, new ways of doing things, he does want to operate obviously as a coach. You have to have your pillars of this is how I want my team to play. But if you can bring him suggestions, hey, you can try this and this is why I think it will be successful or you provide him the data as to why it will be successful. He's constantly looking for ways to innovate. And I don't think that that's quite the case with most hockey coaches. So I know from my perspective, John, the department provided pre and post game reports. I had my

own report that I provided John on the mornings of games. And then there were other reports done for different time periods. So that's sort of where the coaching staff is concerned. I worked really closely with the goaltending coach, Roli Malanson, just because I have experience working with goaltenders, so it was a natural fit, the fact that I already understood the position. And it was something that Roli kind of, I guess, gravitated to, which I understand. I mean, goalies are creatures of habit, so that makes a lot of sense. But coaching staff in New Jersey was very trusting of the player information department in terms of asking for opinions on lineups

or optimal player choices. Given everything, it was a very, very good relationship in terms of open communication. Now, our department also provides information and studies on players, and potential players, so acquisitions. And that's more for the management side. I would say a study you would provide to a coaching staff

would be, for example, who should play where on the power player? What's an optimal power play unit, for example? Whereas I know for the Vatnin deal, let's say, because that's been New Jersey's biggest deal in the past probably a couple years since Taylor Hall, that the department looked into pretty much every aspect of the players involved in the trade, potential players involved in the trade. Like you really do your homework. And I would say that unless it's a really, really quick decision that needs to be made,

the management there was very good about asking us for our opinion on things and asking us to go and do research. Or if they thought that they had something, they would say, what do you think of this? and we would say yes or no. And often my opinions didn't necessarily match with others in my department and vice versa. So it also created an environment of differing sort of devil's advocate. So we're getting all sides of the equation. And that's really good to have because then you get informed decisions.

You're not just getting a bunch of yes, no. and I think that that's really important. But I would say that the organization really does use the department. And I think it's obviously going to expand with the hiring of the VP of Analytics. And I think that'll be it. I think that department will likely get listened to even more just because the ownership is so keen on analytics. As you can see what they did with the Philadelphia 76ers. So I think it's going to be a really key part of what New Jersey is doing.

but the fact that they're even listening to people like myself who I mean I'm not really just an analytics person like I get the hockey man side of things too but the fact that they they're willing to listen and be innovative is a great sign especially where John's concerned because he really drives the everyday ship yeah well I'm I do want to get into this a bit more and I'm not sure obviously how much you can speak on it but during your season there last year with the devils. The team was in a very interesting spot where, you know, you were making his playoff push and approaching the traded line.

I think the devils, people didn't probably think that the devils were going to be more of a buyer than a seller, but all of a sudden you get to this point where, you know, you're looking to make the playoffs for the first time since 2012, and you actually have a good competitive team and you're trying to make that final push, and then you wind up making a couple trades where you're trading for rentals, like guys like Michael Grabner and Pat Maroon, and you're giving up picks and prospects. And I know, like, on the analytical side of things, people like, you're, you know, you and I usually look at those trades as not typically being optimal because unless you're really

one of the top upper echelon contenders, a lot of these guys that come as rentals, especially if they're likely to leave as free agents to following summer, you don't really want to get into the habit of giving up too many future assets for that because they're not going to move the needle particularly dramatically for you. But obviously when you're kind of trying to balance those things, and like I mentioned, if you're an organization that hasn't made the playoffs in a long time and you're really thirsty and hungry for that. And you have to consider all this other stuff. And then obviously you've got, um, you know, your fan base to consider, but also probably an ownership group that

wants you to make that push if it's feasible at all. So like, I'm always fascinated by, especially with the trade on approaching now, uh, those kind of external factors and driving forces that help educate and make some of these decisions and become, um, you know, driving forces for it beyond just the pure X's and O's personnel side of things. Yeah, I would say that, um, there was definitely a belief last season that we could get into the playoffs and because we were playing so well i mean anything could happen in the playoffs the fact that we ran into tampa bay i mean they were just playing such great i don't think losing sammy vatnan helped at all in fact i think that was terrible um my personal belief is that was a dirty head um but i think when you're approaching the trade deadline you have

to send a clear message to your players especially um the players who are really important to your cultures like Taylor Hall that we're just as in as you are and when you think about it Taylor Hall had never played in the playoffs and that was sort of one of raised things to Taylor was like we want you to play in the playoffs so and this was when Taylor got traded like well before my time there um and so I think it's it's not just about the fact that the fans want you to be there and ownership definitely wants you to be there because there's playoff revenue associated with that. I think it also,

you need to be cognizant of the message that you're sending to your coaches and to your players because it actually has a large impact on the trust factor and the belief factor that the players have in the front office. And that's a really important factor

when you're looking at resigning players and when you think about it, they're going to have to resign Taylor Hall and Sammy Vatin ends up. So it's better to have players that believe or that perhaps know that you are on board and you want to at least give them a shot to say, let's see what you can do. I think that's really important. And that's sort of why I think New Jersey did what they did at the trade deadline last year. I would hazard to guess that it

will not be the same this year. Yeah, the season's been going slightly differently. Yes. And I said this, and I've said this, it was unrealistic for anyone to expect that Keith Kincaid was going to have the season he had last year this year. Right. It's unrealistic for anyone to think that Corey Schneider is going to magically become Pecker-René because he had the same surgery. It's just not going to happen. Now, did I expect Corey to be better? Yes, I did expect him to be better than he is, but I don't think it's realistic to say that he's going to be Pecker-Ren. A.

So you need goal tending. And my big thing is, like, show me a good coach and I'll show you a good goaltender and show me a fired coach and I'll show you a goaltender with a sub-900, say, percentage. Yep. Yes, for sure. Well, I am interested in, I mean, obviously that's, you know, a bit overly and but, but no, you're right at 100%. That typically is how this stuff works.

And it's kind of, it's linked together. And I'm really fascinated about, you know, from your work. as a video analyst and sort of the information that's being passed down to the coaching staff, and like you were saying, for the preparation side of things and sort of X's and O's, I feel like that's something, and I'm curious to see how much that's going to change when more of this player tracking data becomes publicly available, and especially with the league dabbling with VR, and we can talk a bit more about that in its own right. But I feel like, and I've gotten this from listeners sometimes where it's like, we'd love to hear you

talk more about system stuff and about X's and O's and about stylistic differences in terms of how different teams play and sort of four checks they're utilizing and stuff like that and power play formations and i'm really fascinated by that stuff but obviously unless you're just watching intense amounts of video it's probably tougher to get access to that information and really um you know make a discernible plan about it and when you watch a team like the devils for the islanders sorry for example this year you know everyone keeps pointing to their elevated pedo and their unsustainable safe percentage. And obviously now Barry Trots is getting a lot of love for, you know,

preliminary Jack Adams voting because of the turnaround for the team and how much better their goals against numbers have been. And it's sort of tough separating those two things and trying to figure out how much of it is that legitimately that heralded Barry Trott system that's making the Islanders better defensively and how much of it is the goalies, you know, Thomas Grice having been there as well last year, but obviously Robin Lennar coming in and, and being ridiculously good this year, how much of it is simply those two guys

just making the safes for him and making the coaching staff and the defensive team around them look that much better? Yeah, I would say, we definitely sort of behind the scenes have access to a lot more data than is discernible publicly.

And one of those that Andrew Berkshire is actually associated with is sport logic. I don't have access to it now, and it's driving me a little bit crazy because it's hard to do my research without everything. Like they track about 3,000 data points per game. And when you think about that, everything is broken down to the most minute things. And that's really important for someone like me who does research and who provides information of the coaching staff.

Because there are statistics on sport logic that would tell you that perhaps this Islander's team is more sustainable than the public data would tell you. now I would point goaltending-wise to their new goal-tending coach Perro Greco. He was the Marley's goal-tending coach for the past few years, and Garrett Sparks has actually spoken very highly of him. But Robin Lennar, I believe,

actually came out and said that he's done some work with Perro Greco, and it's really helped him. So I think that the goal-tending will regress a little bit, absolutely, but I don't think that it will regress to the point where everyone thought that they were going to be a bottom five

team this year based on some of the signings and moves they made in the off season. I think the Barzell improvement and him getting sort of tougher opposition was seen coming and I think he's handled out really well. I think Andersley's

having a great season. So there's a lot of data sort of behind the scenes that would tell you that the islanders for example are maybe a little bit more sustainable than people think. And I know there's a lot of other data tracking that teams use.

And I know that Sport Logic actually is piloting their player tracking cameras in certain NHL ranks based on speaking to a few people. And I wouldn't be shocked to see Sport Logic in the NHL come to some type of player tracking deal where Sport Logic would be used sort of to track players and GPS type of thing. probably the biggest issue would be the line changes just because they happen so quickly. Right. But that doesn't require a CBA agreement. It's only if you ask players to wear a chip, does it sort of get ugly with the CBA?

Because as long as they're not wearing anything, you can take whatever information you want, which is why they don't have to ask the players for the puck technology or anything like that. Well, yeah, obviously that's kind of been a big talking point in league circles recently, especially with the players agreeing and the league testing out over a couple games in in Vegas recently. And I'm sure a lot of people by now have seen that cool video of the VR where you can really put yourself into the shoes, I guess, the skates of the player and sort of see what they're seeing out on the ice and experience it for yourself.

And yeah, we're obviously headed towards this new way to soak up a lot of this information and digest the game. And I think, I've talked about it in the show before, but I think, especially when some of this information becomes publicly released. We're going to test a lot of it and we're going to find out that some stuff's not maybe as valuable as we thought and some other things are and we're going to make some mistakes along the way. But I'm very, and I don't think necessarily this player tracking, I think this is a misconception is going to suddenly provide us with all the answers and be this

kind of one-stop shop antidote to everything. Like I think there's still going to be a lot of things we don't know and that's what makes it exciting. But you having had access to it for your time with the devils obviously and I think you can speak to it better than I can. I've gotten a bit of a glimpse with it and Andrew has shown me some of the stuff. But yeah, I mean, just in terms of like the information they have in the neutral zone is, uh, is so revelatory and so remarkable and would be so cool to be able to digest on a daily basis when it is publicly available, assuming that it eventually is one day. Yeah, I would say, um,

a few things. One, when this information, part of the reason I think that the CBA will fight the NHL on, on player tracking is because, If this gets used in contract negotiations, this could potentially be either very good for the team or very good for the player. But it also has potential to be very bad for the player. I know some teams have actually asked their players to wear the catapult technology. And that's sort of a cross-bore tactic, which I think we'll get into later with the whole inefficiencies thing. But catapult essentially, you can ask your players to wear them. They don't have to wear them.

but let's face it, if 17 of the guys agree, all of them are going to end up wearing it. And you can use it to track heart rate. You can use it as a GPS. And it populates live into the system. And so that can help with determining maintenance days or if a player is playing outside of sort of his maximum output. So I think being in Toronto, the perfect example is Ron Hainsey. if he wears this catapole technology, let's not even say that it's public,

but let's say that the Leafs can now look at it and say, okay, he's playing, based on his GPS tracking and his heart rate and his breathing output, he's playing sort of out of or above what he's supposed to be. Then maybe he gets an extra maintenance day, or maybe you tell Mike Bavis is the contract negotiations as well as the player maintenance. But with regard to sport logic, I think the release of that much information is potentially very dangerous.

Now, I think it's dangerous not only for the uneducated sort of analytical fan, but I think it's also dangerous for the people who put perhaps too much stock in analytics because there's just so many statistics available and sortable on the sport logic interface that you can pigeonhole or you can make a player look good or bad depending on what stats you cherry pick. And I know this because I've seen it done. And I think that's potentially very dangerous. Now, if Sport Logic decides they're only going to make certain statistics available

that are easily understandable and easily unilaterally applied, I think that could benefit. But allowing all of that statistical information to be public, I actually think is very dangerous. Yeah, I think there's, I mean, there's obviously a distinction to be made between descriptive and predictive stuff, right? Look, I think there's a way that we'll be able to really information to viewers at home on game broadcasts that, you know, spruce up that viewing experience and provide you

with interesting stuff, like how fast a guy's skating or how hard he's shooting or sort of, you know, having live trackers of who's on the ice at all times, but I don't know necessarily what, you know, for you and I, what the utility is of that or what that actually tells us about a player is value moving forward. But there's, that's to say there's kind of two sides of that coin,

right, where it's not necessarily all about that. And there's also a certain element to improving the broadcast, since I know that we all constantly rail on them and sort of the information they're providing. And there's an avenue towards improving that as well, using this information. Yeah, like I would say, the one thing that really comes to mind is zone exits slash entries

and then something that I really think will get skewed big time if it's released publicly is the stat called Passes to the Slot. I think that if that gets released publicly, it could potentially be very dangerous because there's a certain portion of hockey Twitter that sees a stat and goes, well, it's got to be this end of story goodbye, as opposed to looking at the entire scope. Like, they get very myopic.

And I think that that stat in particular, it'll end up, the result will end up being, well, this player should play here on the power play because they have more passes to the slot. Or this player should not play because they don't create scoring chances because of X, Y, Z. Now, I think that the general public would benefit from Sport Logic releasing its entry and exit data

because I think that tells a much better story, than some of the stuff that's publicly available. So I think there's a lot to learn from that perspective, and it might change some people's opinions on particularly some of the defensemen that Hockey Twitter likes to argue about, and even some of the forwards. But I just don't think that unilaterally releasing it is necessarily a good idea.

Now for broadcasts, I think it was the Nashville broadcast, I want to say, that started talking about goals 4% and shots for a percentage, and that's great, or even talking about relative to team stats, like if they could do that or talk about quality of competition, that's enough sort of for the stats. I know TSN in Canada has started to show scoring chances from the house, which is that home plate area.

So that's a positive step in the right direction. But with the same token, you have to stop discussing things like, combined plus minus or faceoff that happens 35 seconds earlier like are faceoff's important absolutely are they important 35 seconds later no yeah yeah no i completely agree with you especially like you get to one of the common pushbacks and i've experienced it myself having been on some of the connect's broadcast when i was with sports night was there is a kind of limit logistically of how much time you have to talk about something so you know we probably shouldn't use that time on stuff that's

ultimately irrelevant and we could kind of spread that out in a better and more efficient way. But yeah, you're right. I think there's some really good broadcasts out there. And that Nashville one you mentioned on Fox Sports, Tennessee is done a really good job. There are color commentators, former goalie, Chris Mason. And he's reached out to me a number of times and asked about certain things and he clearly wants to learn and sprinkle that into the analysis. And I'm all for that. And I think there's various other ones as well that have done a really good job. So yeah, the more of that, the better. Yeah, I would say like I've even had so the MSG broadcast in New Jersey is Steve Cangeloosy, Danico, and then actually Bryce Salvador.

Between the benches, right? Yeah, exactly. And Bryce has come to me on a number of occasions and even now that I'm gone and ask me, hey, how do I incorporate this into the broadcast? Or how would you explain this to someone that doesn't necessarily understand it? Because I've explained the statistics to him and as a former professional defenseman, he understands them. but Keith sitting on the couch probably doesn't understand them to the same extent that Bryce Salvador understands them to.

So it's more about Bryce trying to educate the New Jersey fans who are calling for John Heinz head, but they don't necessarily realize that John's actually got this team going in a very good direction, and these are the signs. You can't just be looking at plus minus at this point.

Come on, Keith. Get it together. Yeah, exactly. So it's broadcasters like that who are actually making an effort to reach out to the people like you and I or use natural stat trick on their broadcast because you're educating forward and to where the game is going because if you don't as a fan understand what your coach is looking at

then you don't understand how he's coaching and that's where the disconnect is and that's where everyone gets so mad. Yeah. Okay, before we get out of here, we did talk a bit about marketing efficiencies and we've sort of alluded to some of it And obviously, you know, there's certain things that you probably could have gotten away with a handful of years ago that some teams have at least, for the most part, wise up to now. But, I mean, if the need or need a rider trade is any indication, and we've seen others in the recent past,

there's probably still having used to buy low on players and target certain things. Like, what are you looking at and what are sort of things that having worked with the devils and spending some time there, you might have gotten surprising pushback, or disagreements with that other people might be surprised about. I would say I have three sort of identified inefficiencies that now that I actually have time, I'll be researching sort of on my own and working with some junior coaches to sort of pilot this. The first one is cross-sport tactics.

So how do you apply things from different sports to hockey to sort of get creative? So for me, things like how do you can't, is there a way you can have a Hail Mary version of a pass in hockey? So like the stretch pass, but you don't use the stretch pass. Like you would use the stretch pass to create a breakaway about as often as you would throw a Hail Mary. Like you wouldn't use it very often. Another thing is rest days. And I know the NBA is very good with this. You look at Kauai Leonard and even Tim Duncan in the later part of his career, teams resting players.

in order to keep them at their peak performance, I think is potentially something that the NHL really needs to look at, especially these players are playing 82 games. It's a very condensed schedule now with the biweek and the All-Star break. It's a really long season. So I think that the team that goes into the playoffs the most rested probably has an advantage when it comes to injuries as well as burning out. And then there's an inherent weak points, such as playing in the goalie blind spots to create offense, that I think sort of could be exploited.

And it's something I'm looking into. But those are sort of the three that I've identified. But I think the crossboard tactics and the rest days, as well as buying low on players, specifically smaller skilled players, is definitely, there's some of hockey's biggest inefficiencies. I'm also a fan of the offer sheet. But I don't think that it's being presented quite correctly right now. I think people are so focused on what's going on in Toronto that they don't really realize that Tampa's probably going to have some issues with Braden Point. And I would argue that he is potentially a better all-round player than Mitch Marner or it is at least a discussion. So I think the offer sheet is a huge market inefficiency that people don't use.

And maybe not for the star players, but think about offer sheeting somebody like Kasparin. You probably don't need to pay him $5 million, which means if you give up a first and a third, I believe it is, you can get Kasparee Kappan. Well, I would take a guaranteed player over two draft picks any day of the week. and so those are sort of the market inefficiencies that I'm seeing and sort of looking into. Well, in terms of the offer sheets, I mean, yeah, I'm right there with you. It's obviously very tantalizing and looking ahead, especially to this summer. There's a lot of fascinating situations to follow. I just, at this point, I need to see one before I believe that it's actually going to happen.

Like, we've gotten to this point where especially a couple of years ago, with Leon Dricidal and the Oilers, where, like, Peter Shirley came out and said, like, people's basically like, threatening other things. Like, don't even bother signing into an offer sheet because we'll just match regardless. It's like, if you're another team, why wouldn't you as a competitive advantage raise the price if they're clearly going to do so anyways and trying to force their hands and potentially make them make some more critical financial decisions down the road? So the fact that we haven't really seen in the past couple of years, even though there's been

countless examples of guys that were ripe for the taking there makes me believe that we're probably not going to see it. But, you know, this year in particular, it feels like there's probably some more dire situations, as you mentioned, with Toronto and Tampa Bay. So that would be something to follow. And the rest one is something that's near and dear to my heart. I mean, you know, especially with veterans who have so many miles in them, like Azizino Chara or Joe Thornton or some of the other guys around the league, there's no reason why they

should be playing 80, 82 games. Like, I understand that it's got a hockey culture and bravado that, you know, you play as often as you can and you tough it out through injuries and wear and tear. but if the ultimate end goal is to make it far in the playoffs and win the Stanley Cup, then you should be using the regular season as sort of a runaway to set yourself up most optimally for that. And I think that hopefully as teams are embracing sports science more and we're learning more about the human body and how fatigue affects performance, we'll see more of that.

But yeah, with certain stuff like that, it does really feel like hockey is so far behind the times and a bit archaic still. Well, think about it from this perspective. And would hockey, the hockey men like to poke fun at soccer players or basketball players for sitting out for minor injuries or taking rest days in Kauai? Leonard's example. But is it really all that smart to be playing with a punctured lung and a broken rib? Because I would argue that the rest day is probably less dumb than playing with a punctured lung. Yeah.

Right. So it's things like that. We don't need this bravado. Do you want to have bravado or do you want to win a cup? Because I would rather win a cup. But, I mean, we have this old adage of like, oh, no, we got to tough it out because we're hockey players. Well, if someone told you, like, hey, Zadeno or hey Ron or hey Patrick Marlowe, hey, Shay Weber, if you don't play the second half of a backtie, back or Alex Ovechka, perfect example, you don't go to the All-Star game. Now you have a week off and you can take another run of the cup.

Or you play 82 games and you get hurt in the first round and the team's eliminated. What do you think is the smarter option? Right, but there's this whole thing and I've got to tough it out. And I just, I don't see why it needs to be that way. I think that coaches and general managers need to say, they need to put their foot down and say, listen, you're not playing. Like for Tampa, for example, they're in the playoffs. Like, they could lose probably 20 of their final, however many games they have left.

They'd still make the playoffs. I'd be resting Stamcoast. I'd be resting Kutjurov. I'd be resting. Yeah. I'd not be playing Vasolowski all that much down the stretch. Like, obviously, you want him to stay sharp, but he wouldn't be playing on any back-to-backs. He wouldn't be playing three and fours.

None of that. So I think that's sort of where teams need to capitalize. this whole thing of goalies playing 65, 70 games is ridiculous. Like, it's not necessary. Well, I would say, I think actually, I'm glad you mentioned that because I do think, you know, to the credit of, uh, of NHL teams and it's been a long time coming, but it feels like for the most part, like there generally has been, uh, an acceptance or an appreciation of the fact that, you know, their goalies are still probably playing

too much. Like, I think 65 and above is still too much. but we're definitely not seeing the days anymore of 70, 75 games like me, Keprosoff and Marty Bordor were playing. And we're seeing all these stats where it's like, you know, all the teams that have made long playoff runs and cup runs, their goalies were playing 40, 45, 50 games during the regular season. And I don't think that's any fluke or any mistake. And I think teams have accepted it.

But I understand it's kind of apples and oranges in terms of workload and how fatigue works playing goaltending as opposed to being a forward, for example. but I do look forward to the day where it is more of an accepted thing that forwards and defensemen will not be having to play the full 82 games because it just doesn't make sense if your end goal really is to make the playoffs and make a cup run. Exactly. And I think it's obviously different for players. Like New Jersey, for example, they're fighting down the stretch to make the playoffs. You're obviously not sitting Taylor Hall at any point during that stretch. But you have teams this year.

Tampa, Toronto, eventually the West will sort of sort itself out. I think the metro will as well. There's nothing inherently wrong with going to players like Sidney Crosby, Nikita Kuturov, unless they're in a scoring race of some type, then I sort of understand. But players who have had history of injury

or are sort of getting old, there's nothing wrong with going to a Patrick Marlow or Ron Hainzian and saying, hey, like, you're not playing tonight because your tracking unit or we think that your output has sort of gone down and we think that you need to take a break so that you're ready to go for the playoffs. And that's where I think player tracking will have its most positive impact is it will allow teams to say, okay, this players really sort of come down, whether they're coming back from injury or they're just tired. and I think it will actually allow for a lot of injury avoidance and it'll allow players to stay more fresh

there's nothing wrong with with a player being told he's got to sit down because the team's already firmly in the playoffs and there's no sense in him playing. Yeah, I 100% agree. I think that that biometric data is going to be a game changer even though it's not publicly available just for the teams to have access to it

and be able to sort of indicate when a guy's performance is deteriorating a bit and whether it's fatigue related or what's going on there and sort of taking a bigger picture of view of this stuff and keeping the end goal in mind. Rachel, plug some stuff. What I guess, I guess that question doesn't really apply to you. What are you working on? I guess you're mentioning a bit that you're going to be working with some junior stuff.

But what's on the agenda for you? I would say, not a whole lot. I'm still kind of, so in New Jersey, I pitched a mental health awareness night game. So that's happening February 5th. So that was separate from all of my job. It was completely unbeknownst to the hockey operation staff. It's just mental health. That's something that's really near and dear to me.

And it's something I've written about publicly and spoken about publicly. So I'm still sort of not really involved, but like keeping an eye on it. And that's sort of my focus, I guess, right now. But I will be doing my own research looking into some of the inefficiencies that discussed tonight. So the cross-board tactics and the rest days and creating tactics that take advantage of inherent weak points. But other than that, and going to Germany and in February where I'll be sort of off the grid for a bit, I'm just taking a break. And we'll see what's next. But whether it's public work or I'm back with the team, we'll see what happens.

All right. Well, I'm looking forward to seeing that. I'm sick. Looking forward to seeing what the next chapter is and I'm glad we finally, after a long wait, got to do this. And yeah, enjoy that break. And hopefully we can get you back on and discuss some of this other big picture stuff down the road as well. Perfect. Thanks for having me on. This is a lot of fun. Yeah, it was a blast. All right, talk to you and Rachel. The Hockey P.DioCast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud.com slash hockeypedocast.