The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 288: The Leafs, The Bruins, and The Officials

Episode Date: April 14, 2019

Justin Cuthbert joins the show to discuss why the Leafs were so effective in Game 1, the adjustments the Bruins made in Game 2, and all of the other main talking points emanating from the series as it shifts back to Toronto. Then Producer Matt comes on to sort through a grab bag of random topics including awards ballots, the draft lottery results, and Joel Quenneville’s hiring by the Panthers. Nazem Kadri redux, and complaints about the referees (1:40) The back-and-forth chess match of a playoff series (10:45) What’s next for the Leafs and the Bruins? (23:30) Dimitri’s Fake Award Ballot (33:00) Karmic rewards in the draft lottery (57:30) Joel Quenneville and the Panthers (1:02:00) 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 Philopovich. and joining me is my good buddy and Yahoo co-worker live from location in Boston. It's Justin Cuthbert. Justin, what's going on, man? Not much. Just out of the war room, the makeshift war room there at TD Garden and ready to head home after a few days in Boston. It's fun here, but, you know, covering the H.Ls a little bit better when you go home after. Yeah, well, we agreed to do this well before game two started, and I was kind of crossing my fingers hoping we'd have some storylines and talking points, and I

guess game two tonight certainly did not disappoint in that regard. So we've got plenty of stuff to dive into and we're going to do a little bit of a deep dive of the first two games of Bruins' Leafs. And then we're going to kind of look ahead and preview some of the rest of the series. So we're recording this on Saturday evening after game two and we still don't know the result of what's going to happen with Nazan Khadry. We know he's been offered an in-person hearing, which means that it can go north of five games in terms of suspension, but we don't know what's come of that yet. So we're going to kind of assume that he'll probably miss some extended period of time. What's kind of the vibe around there? And what are you thinking after everything that went down

tonight? Yeah, I think we can probably assume that he's going to be done for the series. And the Maple Leafs didn't make the same mistake twice like Nassam Country did tonight and bring him out to talk to the media. I think that was something they probably regretted doing last time. But it's funny. I mean, he promised that he would do it all over again because he's always going to stick up for his teammates, right? And he certainly did the wrong thing tonight because he's probably

not going to be playing again in this series. And it's interesting because in any other walk of life dropping the gloves and fighting someone would be the opposite of what you're supposed to do. But if he just dropped his gloves and engaged in a fight, because it was brewing between him and Jake DeBrusk

the entire game, instead of using the shaft of his stick and driving it through his face, he wouldn't be missing any time and the Maple Leafs would be able to move on in game plan for obviously the changes to matchups that Bruce Cassidy implemented today which flummoxed them a little bit and they'd be able to move forward

and put their best foot forward. But now I even wrote in my preview piece that there's a possibility of Cadre maybe not playing because of what happened last year and the emotions that he gets tied up in and I thought they'd be better suited to deal with it because you obviously have John Tavares who knocked all the centers down are wrong,

and now they have such more depth through center. But I don't think they have an answer right now for the loss of Cadry because they were getting chewed up with him in the lineup. Yeah, they were. And we're going to talk more about matchups and sort of what they can do going ahead for the rest of this series. I guess while we're still on this, I think it's my own personal hell to be like just condemned to a lifelong,

just like suspension talk and just people arguing back and forth about the merits of stuff. how long guys should miss. I assume Cadre is probably going to miss at least three to five games, and the rest of the series makes sense based on everything you outlined there. But I think, you know, it's kind of a shame that it'll come back down to this because there's so much talent in this series and there's so many natural baked-in storylines. But after Game 2, clearly the main talking point is the officiating that went on in this game. And I should preface it. I don't think it's necessarily just exclusive to this series. I've been pretty much watching everything

so far in the first couple days of this postseason. And just like in past years, it seems like there's this recurring theme where both sides are equally unhappy at how the game's being officiated. And I understand that the game is so fast and so physical and there's so much going on that you're never going to get it right 100% of the time. But this whole argument that just because it's the postseason, you kind of have to change your rulebook and change the way you're going to officiate your games. I don't know. Does it bug you as much as it really seems to bug me and a lot of other hockey fans out there? Yeah, I mean, certainly. I mean, I sort of see one side of the coin where I think it should be a little less lenient, maybe with stick and fractions, whatever. I think I'm sort of okay with that. But what happened tonight with Cadre happened because the officiating was either too lenient or just poor. I mean, he tied up with DeBrusk in the first period. The confrontation was clearly initiated by DeBres. Cadre didn't even throw a punch, and he was getting walled.

on while he was on his knees, and they both went off the ice. So I guess DeBrasse did get a penalty, but that wasn't just, I don't think, in the situation. Then the next period, we had the knee-on-knee hit, obviously uncalled as well, DeBrasconcadry, and that's probably what threw him over the edge. It wasn't be hit on Patrick Marlowe. It was that he had been or felt mistreated to that point, and that's because the referees either missed the calls or put the whistles away. So that's what happens in playoff hockey.

If things build and build and build, and if the referees don't step in to nip these things in the bud, you get these incidents like the one we saw tonight. So I think, yeah, I mean, I see sort of some benefits to it. I see maybe it's a little bit more, you don't want to break up the action too much, and the power plays are a big and exciting part of the game, but I can see the little ticky-tack stick stuff

not being called quite as harsh as maybe in the regular. season, but not call knee-on-knee hits and guys clearly taking advantage of certain situations and getting off scot-free, it builds and it adds to the problems that we have, and I think that happened tonight. Yeah, I agree with that. I'm not advocating for just a parade at a penalty box, because no one wants to see that. Remember, when the league tried to do that after the first lockout in 2005, and they thought they'd, like, artificially sneak one by the fans, by inflating offense, by just calling everything, and that was a very unesthetically pleasing product. But I do believe that you know, the players are creatures a habit.

And if you have 82 games where you officiate the game a certain way, you kind of get used to knowing at least consistently what is and isn't going to be called and what you can get away with. And I think that maybe initially players are going to get more whistles called against them than they like. But eventually, if you just keep calling the rules consistently and you keep enforcing them, players are going to realize you can't get away with certain stuff and they'll eventually fall in line and stop trying to do that. instead, when you open this door and it's kind of this mysterious, nebulous definition of what is and isn't a penalty, obviously certain players and certain teams are going to try to push the

envelope to try and get away with as much as they can. And then that's what leads to these sort of incidents, right? So it's like, it's kind of ironic because I understand why referees are doing what they're doing to get out of the way and let players dictate the outcome of the game. But by doing this, it actually kind of reaches the opposite effect where all of a sudden you have these games where it just benefits one team significantly more than the other. And I'm not here trying to say that the Leafs got screwed out of this game because I think they were going to lose game two regardless. The Bruins were clearly the superior team right from the jump. And it's just something that happens in the postseason where the calls sometimes go a certain way.

And ultimately, that seems like it's not the best way to do business when you're trying to conduct a postseason where ideally the best teams and the most skill teams are the ones going to ultimately going to wind up winning. Yeah, it's interesting that you say that that teams and players sort of get a feel of what they're allowed to do and what they can get away with, I guess, in the regular season, and maybe that gets distorted a little bit in the playoffs. But the Bruins, I think they do have an advantage in this scenario because they seem to know exactly how far they can push it. I mean, the physicality, the difference between the two teams is remarkable. And the Bruins seem to be right on the edge of going over the line, but rarely do.

Now, they did a couple times, and Jake DeBrusk obviously should have been penalized, for it and there was the pastor knack hit on buzzin but they know how to use their physicality so much better than the leifes do you see a guy like fredi goche try to be physical and it's just it doesn't work even even slightly as well as everyone one through 12 forwards one through six defensemen can do that that it happens uh or that the bruin can do so it's it's it's it's such a difference between those teams and it was so apparent tonight and like you said i think when when it gets a little bit more lenient and they have a little bit more push or a little bit more leash, especially for the Bruins at least, they can take advantage of that.

And I think that's one of the differences in the series. Well, I think the biggest part where this comes into practice, actually, is in terms of like off the puck obstruction and sort of interference and little bumps here and there where I understand you can't call everything, but obviously it makes sense, as you're right, it's going to benefit a team like the Bruins that plays a bit more physical brand of hockey because when the Leafs are rolling and when they're absolute best, they want to play as fast as possible. They want to get into a track meet.

They want to utilize their skill. And if you're able to slow them down in whichever way possible, clearly that's going to benefit you. And that's sort of, I think we saw in game one there a couple times, and finally they wound up making a call against Chara, I believe on Elander up against the boards. But I feel like throughout these first two games, we've seen a lot of that sort of stuff where it's like,

I think the Bruins just sort of realize, like we can probably get away with a lot because we know the riffs are going to let a lot go, not going to call everything. And ultimately, even if we wind up taking a couple interference penalties, it's going to be a net positive for us because we're going to stop so many rushes from materializing just by hitting these guys subtly when they don't even have the puck. Oh, yeah.

And it's right out of the gate, too. I mean, the first five minutes in both games were absolutely dominated by the Bruins. It does set the tone for the rest of the game. And obviously, game one went a different way. But the way that they're able to sort of chip away immediately, and continue that and push it, push it, push it, push it. Eventually it gets to the Maple Leafs, it seems, and we've seen, obviously, in game two,

and a lot last year when they met in the postseason. It's one of their most productive tools, and it's something that they've taken full advantage of. Well, I think what makes this series interesting, and we're going to get away from the referee now, but it makes it so interesting, above all else, besides the history between these two teams, is that you're sort of getting a little bit of everything

from a storyline perspective, right? like we come into game one and the Leafs obviously win the game and they do certain things well and all of a sudden the story out of that is you know they bought into Mike Babcock's preachings they learned from last year's mistakes this is a new team that's going to focus on all the little things that's going to take to get by the Bruins and then in the game two right out of the gate you see that Bruce Cassidy makes some adjustments they're going for different matchups they're playing differently they're getting back to how they were playing when they were so successful in the regular season and so it kind of it leads perfectly to that

beautiful part of a playoff series of a seven-game series where you kind of have teams that are relatively equally matched trading shots and making adjustments and going from one game to another and i wouldn't be surprised at all to see this series turn into that type of a seesaw fair where the leaps come out in game three with certain adjustments of their own and get back on top and then it's up to the bruin to do so in game four and so on and so forth and i guess that's what makes this such an entertaining series and why it's probably going to go maybe not the distance but going to be another hotly contested a long series. Yeah, it was interesting because

Mike Babcock got a lot of praise for I guess his work in game one, but really they ostensibly just agreed on the matchups they wanted and let it happen. I mean, both of them wanted the big lines to go at each other, Tavares versus Bergeron and then Matthews and Creachie and

Cadre versus either Achari or the Charlie Coil line. So a lot of a lot of praise went to Babcock and I guess he deserved some Grat of, I think, putting Muzon and Zytev together, there's obviously the defense was a little bit of flux going into the series, a lot of injuries, and he didn't really know how they were going to match up, but it all worked, and it wasn't because he was getting the right

matchup in game. It just sort of happened that way. So it forms Bruce Cassidy to make the changes, and now the Lees obviously have to make some changes because nothing worked from the Leaf standpoint Saturday night in game two. So, but then it goes back to the Cadreary injury or the cadry suspension and i'm not sure i'm not sure what the answer is there because you could slide william neelander to the middle but with the way william neelander and patrick marlowe were rendered completely ineffective tonight i'm not sure that you can lean on that so it's going to be interesting to see what he comes up with he needs to come up with something he will have the benefit of last change this time but uh i think this is where the coaching

begins from mike babcock he didn't he didn't deserve probably all the praise he got for game one he's got to earn it now Well, that's also kind of the curious thing, because if you told me, you know, heading into game two, that the one magic quick fix that Bruce Cassidy was going to do that was going to change the fortunes for the Bruins was going to be not to use his best line in Patrice Bergeron, David Pasternak, and Brad Marchand against the least, I guess, most dangerous offensive line with Martyrr and Tavares, and instead use Chris Wagner's checking line a lot more. And we saw it right out of the gate from the first opening face-off. and they did really well against them compared to game one when Bergeron's unit very surprisingly got caved in to the extent that we rarely ever see them do at 5-on-5. I would have been like, that seems kind of weird because I feel like that plays into,

I think the Leafs will be happy with that, and instead it worked out magically for the Bruins. So I'm not sure from Mike Babcock's perspective, heading into game three with the benefit of last change. Are you going to be trying to get away from certain matchups? Are you just going to be rolling those top two lines and maybe rolling them, and more aggressively, maybe that's a solution. You don't even rely on your third line as much as you might have with Cadrean there, and you instead just finally take the chains off and start playing Matthews's line much more than you have before and playing Tavares and Marner quite a bit more.

I don't know what that solution is for Mike Babcock, and I don't know if there is an ideal one necessarily. Yeah, I think it's going to, I mean, it has to come down, I believe, to shortening the bench a little bit. I know you can't do that too much, but when you look at, you don't want to put too much emphasis on what's going on in the fourth lines. But when you have a fourth line in Boston that can take on a first line or be sort of that that second look that they have to deal with when you maybe go back and forth between Bergeron and that fourth line where you're kind of, you're not letting them get settled in a specific matchup. Maybe that's one of the tactics that Bruce Cassidy uses to his advantage. But now I think without cadre, you'd have to shorten the bench a little bit because you just don't want to rely too much on forwards with the last five forwards, I guess, that he has.

it's going to be pretty thin there and I just don't think the matchups will ever look good. I think Boston's going to be happy with most of what they can get. I mean, Austin Matthews' line really hasn't been that effective. I mean, I thought the Krati line shooed them up a lot in game one. They were very fortunate to not get caved in and not get lit up on the scoreboard. And you got to think, I mean, there's a sleeping giant there with the Bergeron line. if whatever Mike Babcock chooses, how he chooses to handle them, I think he'll try to go back to the Tavares matchup, but that might be just rolling them off the bench more and more because

there really isn't an alternative to that. So I see Austin Matthews being sort of the key here. I mean, he's got to win his matchup at some point for the Leafs to succeed in this series, and the options are a little bit limited now. Yeah, not only win it, but probably win it decisively, right? just based on, like, when we were previewing this series, we're like, okay, what's going to be different between this year's team and last year's Leaf's team? And it's, okay, Matthews doesn't have to bear the entire brunt of the responsibility, having to play Bergeron's line and still create all the offense.

Now they have Tavares in place, and he can help take some of that responsibility and pressure off of him and maybe by Matthews, some softer minutes against secondary competition. And he's gotten that so far. They just, the results haven't really been there. He had one nice little rush in game two where he did a wrap out. and it almost looked like it was going to sneak past Rask. But beyond that, it's been relatively quiet from him. And obviously, I imagine in front of that home crowd,

you can only hold him down for so long and he'll eventually break through, but they're going to need more. But I guess, you know, the more I think about this and the more I try to wrap my head around this and plan it out, I think for the Leafs, it's not as much about the matchups as it is about controlling the style of play and what terms this game is played at. Beyond just the physicality,

I think what really stuck out in game one was they sort of like lulled the Bruins into this fall sense of security where they would trade a couple chances here or there. And then all of a sudden, the flood grades sort of open up a little bit and they'd get a breakaway or they'd take advantage of the Bruins' lack of footspeed on the blue line. And in game two, it felt like the Bruins, I'm sure that was a big emphasis for them in preparation of it. And they did a much better job in terms of keeping everything in front of them and not letting the Leafs stretch them out with all those outlet passes and also just dumping it in and chasing and recovering it. So I guess that's going to be the key in terms of just who gets to execute their game plan more and what pace this game is played at because the two teams are moving in such opposite directions in terms of what they want to achieve. Yeah, it was interesting in game one in the second and third period.

Obviously the Bruins, I mean, the two goals, the Leaf scored basically just broke up waves of attack from Boston. But what was the most encouraging from the Leaf standpoint in that third period is that they were actively defending the lead. I mean, the events were way down, and they were doing a much, much better job controlling the puck and staying behind it. And I think that's a lot, like you mentioned, I think that's a lot of what Boston did today. I mean, they sort of took away the speed that was really evident for the Leifes in game one, and they just pressured, pressure, pressure, pressured. And they dominated the forecheck, and they forced so many mistakes for the Leafs. I mean, the games did start out a lot the same.

I mean, it was about five minutes of just downhill pressure from the Bruins in each game. but they were able to maintain that a little bit more. And I guess they got out of that phase a little bit in game one when they were obviously chasing the game. But it did, the Maple Leaf success in that game, while they were the faster team, I believe, in the first period. It was a little bit of a tough second period, but in terms of just the goal scored.

But they were the team that was controlling the run of play predominantly in that second period, and it stopped in the third. period. Now, I think what the Bruins did tonight is they just kept the foot, they kept the pedal down, and they were, uh, they were just able to stay behind the puck and they didn't let everything, every little detail seemed difficult for the Leafs, like just simple passes, trying to get out of the zone. There's bodies in front of everything and they just did a really good job staying behind the puck tonight. And I think that's easier, obviously, when you have the lead and the Leafs opportunistic. I mean, they got to take advantage of that because if they don't get these leads,

it makes it far more difficult. No, it does. And I think that first period, uh, tonight in game two was ultimately sort of like everything you need to know told the full story. I think the attempts at 515 are 21, 6 for the Bruins. The shots are 12.5. The goals were 2-0. And right out of the gate, I think those first five minutes, you saw exactly what the Bruins want to execute, where they're going to be the most dangerous is sort of kind of doing that like MMA fighter, ground and pound style in the offensive zone, where

you eventually just this cumulative effect is going to wear down the opposing team and it's going to lead to mistakes on their breakouts and on their outlet passes. and we did see that where the Leafs were making a bunch of Carolers turnovers, and obviously they weren't enforced. They were from what the Bruins were doing with their forecheck. But that's where the Bruins are the most dangerous when they're controlling the play in the 5-on-5 attacking zone like that, whereas in game one, the Leafs got so many of those rush chances. And I'm going to be very curious, because I think in the second period today,

we did see a little bit of that start to happen where it's great in terms of theater and entertainment for us to watch them just trade chances. like that, I'd love more of it. But I think from the Bruins, like, they need to sense when that's starting and quickly put an end to it because while as alluring as it can be to get a bunch of two-on-ones and three-on-twos and odd man rushes, that also means you're playing right into the hands of the Leafs in terms of where they're going to generate most of their offense. So I'm going to be really fascinated to see how that plays out and how the home crowd for the Leafs affects things because it's clear that I'm not sure how much of an effect it played,

but clearly that Bruins crowd tonight at the TD Garden was rocking from the get-go. that fed into that forecheck and everything the bruns are trying to accomplish. Yeah, there's no doubt it has an impact. I mean, this is now four home games that I've been in Boston against the Leaves in the last two years. And the first five minutes play out exactly the same. I mean, just not, I wouldn't say uncharacteristic mistakes, but mistakes defensemen shouldn't be making fumbling pucks, not being able to get out of the zone.

It just plays out over and over and over again. And I think a lot of that has to do with the environment. I mean, I don't have any other explanation for it. I'm going to be, yeah, so I guess moving forward, like, I guess the one massive positive for the Leafs is that even though they lost 4-1 today, Freddie Anderson was amazing again and really kept them in it. It felt like it could have been six or seven, nothing at one point before the Leafs even scored their only goal. And, you know, he stopped 74 of 79 in this series. In Game One, I believe the Bruins had like almost three expected goals scored and they only scored the one.

And for as much as we want to make about the Leafs defending and how much better of a job they did in front of. of him using their speed to make the Bruins rush a little bit in the offensive zone. At the end of the day, when Freddie Anderson's playing as well as he played for a lot of the regular season, and in these two games, he gives them a chance to win regardless, and maybe that gives them some more confidence to open it up, knowing that he's playing this well behind them. Yeah, it definitely should. I mean, they had a chance to win tonight's game because he was brilliant in game two as well,

and they probably wouldn't have won the game without the superb goaltending that he did offer in game one. I mean, there were times in that game where it was very tenuous early. There was a barrage in the second period, and he was there to ensure that things didn't get out of hand. And things could have got ahead in tonight's game for sure, but he kept it reasonable and kept him in it until Cadre went rogue on DeBras there. So, yeah, a lot, a lot of heat on Freddie Anderson coming into this series because he just didn't play well for about four to six weeks leading into the postseason. but he's been the rock for several years now and he has been able to turn it up when it matters.

Game 7, obviously, last year he wasn't able to do that, but superb gold ending so far and they're going to need it if they're going to finally get over this hump. I guess, yeah, we'll kind of put a pin in it here and we can pick up this conversation later, but I'm very curious to see what the next wave of storylines or narratives is going to be in this series after game 3 or maybe even game 4,

obviously, as I said, so far we've had after game one, the Leafs have figured it out, they finally bought in, they're playing differently. Now after Game 2, it's kind of much more of the same, and it's very reminiscent of last year, even though the Leafs technically have a split in Boston and now go back home, controlling their own fate in front of their home crowd. But I'm very curious to see sort of what our next storyline is going to be, because it feels like, you know, as our media brethren does, there's a lot of like kind of reactionary stuff and maybe overly reactionary after each game,

as opposed to the regular season when it's such a marathon that we can kind of take our time and cite sample sizes and really be patient with stuff. It seems like in the postseason, after every single game, things completely swerve and changing a dime depending on who won that game. Well, you're 100% right.

And what's interesting is if you reverse these two games, if basically what happened to the Leafs in Game 1 last year, which basically happened tonight, happened in Game 1 the other night, and they were able to come back and win game two, there would be so much positivity and, you know, changes in the foam ice and the Leafs sort of finally making inroads into the series and having a real chance of taking it over.

We're there. But now you kind of, you have it reversed and you have the same situation happening with Cadreys who's obviously going to be out some games, and it feels a lot the same. But it's only going to feel like that until Monday night when the horn goes on the 60 minutes and we know what's happening in game three. So it's amazing how quickly things can change, but how they can sort of be the same.

And after game one, I didn't think things would be the same, but things sort of are the same as we shift back to Toronto. What do you think, we'll sign off on this, what do you think like the X-Factor or key for both teams is beyond, I guess, like, the obvious ones of like your best players need to be your best players. Yeah, I mean, I still look to Austin Matthews. I mentioned earlier that at some point he has to have that impact. But I think it's going to force the Leafs to do a little bit more,

and that might be line juggling, because Captain and Andreas Johnson haven't really been effective on his wings. Maybe it's moving Nylander up and sort of concentrating the talent within that top six a little bit more in an effort to try and take advantage of the matchups that he is at that Babcock is able to create. And then you look at the, top line of Boston. I mean, they haven't completely broken out yet. Maybe a day that Pasternak's going to arrive in a big way at some point in the series because he's, he's feasted

and had those big breakout games where he's just, he's just unstoppable. So, I mean, that sort of leans towards the superstars, but I think ultimately that's what's going to decide it. Yeah, I think that Bruins top line still has, like, we saw kind of the makings of some of that razzle-dazzle they're known for in game two. Pasternak had a couple brilliant passes, one of them led to Marshawn's early goal, but it seems like, yeah, they're going to break through for at least one huge game here. And I guess it'll just be up to the Leafs to sort of limit that because they're eventually going to get theirs. I think, you know, we haven't really talked about the Bruins defense yet. And obviously, Tori Krug took a big hit from Jake Mazden and didn't come back. And we're

not sure about his status and Connor Clifton left as well. And this is already a Bruins defensive group that, you know, is missing John Moore, is missing Kevin Miller. They have a bunch of question marks there to begin with. And if this means relying more on Zedino-Chara, I think that's alarming because even though he did play better in game two, we saw sort of that lack of foot speed at this stage of his career and how that can be a problem against this Leafs offense and against these Leaves forwards. And I think the key for the Leafs is just basically doing more of the same where you just kind of get the puck over their heads, you dump it in or you get it past them and then go chase after it. And either they're going to have to take you down and obstruct you or you're

going to get some odd man rushes going the other way because they're just not going to be able to go back in time to retrieve it. So I really like that interplay there. And I think like a key for the Bruins might honestly be one of these depth defensemen, whether it's trusting and playing a guy like Matt Grislykemore or getting more consistent efforts out of Brandon Carlo because he's one of those guys where if you catch him on the right night, he looks amazing and you're like, oh, this guy's a stud. But then if you catch him on another night, he looks like he doesn't even belong in the league. So depending on what they get from those guys, I think, assuming that they're not going to be fully healthy on the blue line, that's obviously going to go a long way towards determining the

outcome of how much they can slow down this Leafs offense. Yeah, it's interesting with Chara because clearly the foot speed and it was an issue in game one, and I think we talked about the opportunism of the Leafs and jumping on them, but I think they made that adjustment for Charra. It was almost like they were playing, they were not completely committing on four checks and investing so much into attack. they were dropping back a little bit more, maybe the defense wasn't well, and they were sort of, they were preparing themselves for the counter from the leaves a little bit better. So to have that ability, maybe you're losing their foot speed a little bit, getting a little bit older, obviously, but the ability to sort of take that into account and prepare for it and change your games, change your style a little bit, and be ready for it.

Obviously, I think the Bruins were able to do that a little bit better, which are. Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, obviously, I think he played like a career low 21 minutes or something, a game this year, and he can't be relied upon to play the 25, 26, up to 30 minutes that he did once upon a time. But I think, assuming they manage those minutes for them, they can still get value out of them. Justin, plug some stuff. What are you working on? Because obviously, you've been out there in Boston for the first two games,

and you guys have been cranking out some great content. So what can people look for or go find while they're waiting for game three? Yeah, it'll be least heavy for me, at least. until the Leafs and Bruins are done because I'll be covering games 3 and 4 and maybe a couple more down the stretch in this series. The one bad thing about covering one series

and traveling with one series that you don't get to watch as many other games. I'm kind of out of the loop when it comes to the other teams and I'm looking forward to watching some other playoff hockey tomorrow night before returning to Scotia Bank on Monday and I'll have columns

and video stuff from games 3 and 4. Well, do your homework because I'll be in town in Toronto know from the 23rd to the 25th, and you and I'll be reunited in studio, and I'm going to do some podcasts on the video, so I'm looking forward to that. Perfect. I can't wait. All right, chat, soon, man.

See, man. And before we get out of here, I thought, you know, that was only a 20 or so minute conversation with Justin Cuthbert, and I didn't want to leave you guys hanging in shortchange you with just a half dose of the PTO cast. So we're going to round out the episode. I'm going to get my intrepid longtime producer of the PDO cast, Maddie D, to come on. and discuss some league-wide random topics with me to really kind of help put a bow on the 2018-19 regular season. And don't worry, we haven't forgotten about the rest of the playoffs and all the different series going on.

We're going to do plenty of deep dives starting next week. I think as soon as Monday afternoon, there's going to be another episode coming out to fill those needs. So never fear. In the meantime, just a reminder that you can help us show out by showing us some love. Go on Apple Podcasts or iTunes and leave us a five. star rating and review and go check out the show on Spotify and subscribe so you don't miss any new episodes. I've heard from some people that they haven't been getting new episodes loading into their feed. And I think there was some shenanigans going on when the PDO cast switch feeds

to the Yahoo one. And so I think it's as simple as just you need to unsubscribe and resubscribe and everything should go smoothly from there. With that said, I want to welcome my producer, Matt, as I said, to the show. I think this is your first time coming on. You, you've kind of left some notes here and there in terms of in post editing when we've kind of needed you to jump in. But otherwise, I don't think you've actually had a voice in the show. So I'm excited to finally get you on, Matt. Yeah, it's nice to finally be on.

I think longtime listeners will probably recognize my voice popping up here or there once in a blue moon, but this is the first time I'm actually on the show proper. Yeah. Well, obviously, I mean, you and I chat about hockey all the time off the air and off the record, but I also wanted to get you on because I truly do admire the people who release solo podcasts where they're just talking to themselves into their microphone for an hour straight without any feedback or any sort of dialogue. But I unfortunately find that incredibly weird.

I struggle enough doing the two-minute ad reads as is. So I needed to get you on so we can turn this into a bit more of a conversation as opposed to me just kind of talking to myself and lecturing the listeners. So we're going to do in this order, we're going to do, the awards. I don't have a actual ballot so I can do a bit of a hypothetical fake ballot if I did have awards in terms of who I think is deserving. We're going to do the draft lottery, quick takeaways since we haven't really done a show since then, and we're going to do some reaction to the news that Joel Quinville was hired by the Panthers. So a lot of this stuff is, I guess,

kind of random, especially with the playoffs going on in the background. But as I said, we'll get back to regular schedule programming. I'm going to try to have a little bit of fun with this. So let's I'll leave the floor to you, Matt, to kind of moderate this. Where do you want to start with the awards? Well, let's start with the big one. Let's start with the heart. Who do you have for the heart? Oh, right.

Starting with the big guns right out of the gate. I like it. So this is an interesting award to me as I pull up my list because there is obviously that discussion which we had last year and is continuing in terms of sort of the letter of the law here and how we feel about whether, you know, how much we should be attributing team success to this award and whether a player not making the postseason should ultimately affect his candidacy. And obviously that is largely tied up in Connor McDavid's case here in the discussion there. And I don't have him winning the award this year. I think there's obviously

a very realistic argument to make that he was just by the letter of the law the most valuable player to his team because they were an absolute disaster with him off the ice. And when he was on there, they were one of the better teams in the league and so by default you can make the argument that he was the most valuable player i think obviously this is a special occasion with what nikita kutrov did this year and won't get into that in a second but also i think and i know they played together and mac david is certainly uh partly responsible for leon dry sidle success but i feel like there were enough occasions where dry sidle did enough on his own to at least give him a bit of a running mate so it's not like last year where it was really just a complete solo effort so you put all that together and I have McDavid as third on my list. I have Sydney Crosby second, and we're going to talk about him more

when we get to the Selke, but his throwback season this year was really just a vintage Sydney Crosby season. He was healthy for pretty much all of it. He was doing classic Sydney Crosby things in terms of regardless of who you put on his wings, they were instantly performing like rock stars, and they were just absolutely killing it

and having career nights, and there was a rotating cast there, but it ultimately didn't matter because he's Sidney Crosby and he makes everyone good. And the on-ice, off-ice results for him in terms of how responsible he was for both in terms of shot share, but also goal metrics driving the success of the Penguins at 515. I ultimately thought that just made him such an intriguing candidate here from an MVP perspective. But ultimately, it begins and ends with Kuturov.

And I know now there's a bit of a sour taste in people's mouths considering the lightning are down 2-0, and he got suspended for game three and the season's kind of going off the rails completely unexpectedly here, but we need to remember this is a regular season award. And when I think, it's a crazy rule here. I don't know if you agree with Matt,

but I think if a player has 128 points, I think there's a, I think he's very deserving of this MVP award here. And we haven't seen it since the mid-90s when you are Mariahi, Mario Lemieux, were terrorizing the league. And so I think ultimately, I get the argument

that the lightning were so loaded and had so many different contributors that, you know, if you take Kutrov away from that, they still probably would have been pretty good and would have had a decent offense just because of all the other names around there. But he was such an integral part to that this sort of team success offensively in terms of running the power play through him and how, you know, he helped Braden Point reach this next level offensively and have a career season that's going to get him paid very handsomely this summer and taking the pressure off of Stamco's and some of the other guys. So I just think it was a special season.

I know goal scoring is up around the league, and this really could be, you know, a new era where we're going to see crazy, gaudy point total. But I also wouldn't be surprised if next year we go back to something resembling closer to guys having the low hundreds. And we look at this as just, you know, a historical footnote or an aberration of a guy just having an absolutely absurd season that's going to go down in the record book. So the 128 points and the team success and everything that went into that,

I think makes Kutraub a very deserving hard trophy winner. Yeah, for sure. I don't think, I think that's a pretty solid case for him. I mean, the only person who's even come close

to putting up points at that number was Cuddy Crosby in the year that he got his serious concussions and missed out on a per game basis. Yeah, yeah, he was on pace for about 130 points, but nobody else has done it since 96,

so it's pretty remarkable. Well, the thing, well, just one more point on my, like, I, I'm,

it feels really unfair to make, David, because it feels like if there was just like a certain baseline level of competency around him, I don't know if it would be a no-brainer for him here, but if the Oilers were a good playoff team, it'd be interesting to see how much discourse would change because, I mean, you just look, and he had a primary point where he was directly impacting the result of the goal on well north of 40% of their goals, which is unheard of, I think, going back to 2007 when we have a lot of, a lot deeper information on the database, No one's really done that.

And, you know, we thought last year he kind of set a high watermark for him. And then this year, he just, you know, went to another level. And so regardless of the fact that the season didn't go the way they wanted it, and they were the brunt of a lot of jokes, what McDavid did this year was remarkable. And I think in some way should be, you know, should be denoted. I wonder, you know, he won the, I guess, voted by the players of Ted Lindsay last year in terms of what's generally considered to be, like, the most outstanding player. And sometimes there was some conflation between these two.

and, you know, difficulty in figuring out how to weigh those, I wonder this year whether he'll ultimately win that again or whether Kuturov's point totals are going to be so ridiculous and just so unheard of that the players will nominate him to be the Ted Lindsay winner as well. So I've got two questions on the Hart Trophy before we move on to the next one. Do the professional hockey writers, do they cast their ballots before the playoffs start, or do they cast them later? That's a great question. I feel like I should know the answer to that. I think you are supposed to, and if you don't actually physically cast it by then, it's a regular season award. So I think the first couple games of the postseason should not influence your opinion because that's not what we're ultimately deciding upon here. But you're right. I think if you haven't actually physically cast your vote, like it's kind of impossible to shake that sort of feeling that even if it's like an unintentional bias, I'm sure it's going to be weighing on your mind just based on how surprising the start of this

postseason has been. Sure. Yeah. Well, and I mean, the Lightning could win the next four games and Kutrov could score 16 points in the three games. He's back for the series too, right?

Absolutely. Who knows what's going to happen? And it's also not like, you know, obviously McDavid's not playing this postseason. Another guy mentioned Crosby has had a very uncharacteristically subpar for his two games versus Islanders as well. And,

you know, I'm going to talk about that more next week, but they've done a great job of flanking him and sort of dictating the, uh, on-ice matchups with last change and home ice advantage. And so it's not like he's necessarily just kind of blown us away either. So I think ultimately, we should just kind of focus on the regular season here by the letter of the law.

And in that case, I have it, Kuturov, Crosby, McDavid, 1, 2, 3. And it's a great class. I mean, you could really make a very strong argument for any of those three guys. Do you have a sense of who the award, you don't have a ballot? So who do you have a sense might actually get the award? have a sense. That's also a good distinction. I guess I should have preface this entire conversation.

These are, we're ultimately talking about things that I think, like, if I had a ballot, that I would vote and I'm not saying, I'm not trying to predict what the actual results are going to be. But in this case, I do think Kucharab is going to take the award. I mean, we already saw last year that there were enough voters

who were sort of queasy about the idea of giving McDavid the award for not making the postseason. and I think he's going to lose some because of that. And I don't think there's anyone else that had such an undeniable case that they're going to jump in and swoop in and overtake Kuturab. And I think a common theme here that we're going to see is, you know, this season the Lightning had was just so remarkably dominant with their 62 wins at 128 points. And I think that's going to be reflected in these awards.

And I don't necessarily have an issue with that because the point I make time and time again as I treat these awards ballots like sort of a, you know, historical time capsule where they should really reflect what the season was all about and who the most impactful players were. And when we look back at it, 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now, we're going to look back at this 2018, 19, Lightning team with admiration and odds, based on the totals they put together and how obviously it might wind up being with an asterisk and a cautionary tale of sorts if they fall short kind of like the 2009, 2009, 2010, Washington Capitals did when they got upset in the first round. All right, well, let's move on to the Norris.

this is Giordano's award to lose. Who do you have for the Norris? Yeah, I think it's pretty clearly Mark Giordano, and he kind of checks all the boxes. I know we like to joke about how the Norris Trophy is sort of a narrative award in terms of, it's like we kind of want all these great defensemen to have at least one, and it started with the Drew Dowdy thing, and then, you know, Brent Burns and so on and so on, where it feels like kind of,

it's kind of like a participation award where every great defenseman should have won, and we should recognize what they've done. done in the league. And it feels like this year, Mark Giordano certainly checks that because he's come close before. I think he has a couple top 10 finishes and he's fallen short and he really put it all together. And at the age of 35, I believe, for him to have a career season like this is relatively unheard of. But then there's also the element that it's very well deserved in this case. The on-ice results for him were amazingly positive for the flames. You know, he was a key member of a team that surprised and wound up winning the Western Conference and the one seed.

And I think there's also the element that, you know, for a couple of years there, especially from an analytical perspective, we all thought very highly of Dougie Hamilton. And we were wondering how much of Giordano's success was attributed to playing with an elite partner like that. And, you know, you strip Doggy Hamilton away from the situation. You put T.J. Brody back there. You put even some young guys on occasion like Rasmus Anderson. And Giordano didn't miss a beat.

In fact, he took his game to a next level, and that's the mark of a true leader and a great player. And so I think for that, he's been clear number one runaway choice here. In terms of afterwards, I really wanted to put Chris LaTang and Eric Carlson on this list because I think they were probably the second and third most impactful defensemen on a per game basis. But they both missed like 20, 25, almost 30 games, I think. So I had a really difficult time awarding them here just because it's unfortunate. It's not necessarily their fault. that missed that much time, but this is a regular season award, and if a guy misses that significant a portion, that's pretty detrimental to their team. So I had them as honorable

mentions. I have Morgan Riley and John Carlson as two, three here with Brent Burns just narrowly missing the cut. Oh, you're going to antagonize some of the anti-leafs crowd with Morgan Riley at number two. I mean, I believe, I'm not sure as of most recently, but for a large chunk of the season, he was number one on evolving wilds goals above replacement, and I believe he's he led all defensemen in 5-1-5 scoring. I understand the concerns and sort of the flaws and how he sometimes doesn't look like your prototypical number one defenseman. He's been dragging Ron Hainesie around.

The corpse of Ron Hainesie. No, that's a great point. I think this is something that throughout his career has plagued them. I remember when they traded for Jake Muzzen, I looked up, and I tweeted out the list of all the defensive partners he's played regularly with, and it's truly a remarkably stunning list of guys who, pretty much instantly after they stopped playing with him, we're out of the league or, you know,

we're sent back down to the AHL and so on and so forth. So when he's played with Muzin this year, when he's played with Jay Gardner, it's no surprise that his 5-on-5 numbers and all of his shot metrics have skyrocketed. And it's obviously, you know, at this point in his career, Ron Hainsey, unfortunately, has only so much to give and drags him down a little bit.

And the fact that he still had the year he had, playing with who he did is a testament to his skill. So I think I understand there's going to be pushed back because of the Leafs, anti-Leafs crowd. but trust me, there's no East Coast bias here. I think Morgan Riley earned this vote of confidence. All right. And so who did you have as your number three again?

I deliberated long and hard between John Carlson and Brent Burns. And I think there's a case to be made that Burns deserves to be on this top three ballot. I think maybe I'm falling victim a little bit here to sort of not necessarily recency bias, but kind of, I guess, that expectation bias where I was so pleasantly surprised by the year John Carlson had because I was an advocate that they should just let him walk this summer and not pay him for everything he'd done because I thought it was a bad bet and he really took his game to another level and they're going to need him if they're going to continue in this postseason without Michael Kepney around to really keep playing at that

very, very high level. And so I think I was very, very pleasantly surprised at the year he had and I think he's on this list as the third guy. All righty. Let's, let's move on to the Vesna. I think most of the season people were saying it was Vasilevsky by walk, but Ben, Bishop made a bit of a late season case. So who do you have for the Vesna? Yeah, this is a tough one because I ultimately have Ben Bishop winning this just because I think his numbers were so remarkably dominant that it's really tough to overlook. Part of the nagging thing in the back of my mind was his backup in Anton Houdobin not only nearly started the same number of games, but was not quite as good, but was still a top 10 goalie by pretty much every

metric. And so when you look at that, similar to Robin Leonard and Thomas Christ, on the one hand, you don't want to take away from their individual success, but on the other hand, you can't help think that it was kind of a systems driven thing by whatever their coaching staff and their defense was doing in front of them. At the same time, Bishop was first amongst goalies and goals saved above average. He was first and safe percentage with just an absolutely absurd 9-34 this year. He was fourth and goals above replacement and fourth and five-on-five save percentage. And ultimately, I think that's enough. And he really was the backbone of that Stars team that didn't have much else going on in front of him.

So I have Bishop as number one. I have Vasilevsky as two. And then I have Darcy Kemper as three, which is obviously very surprising. Go back and listen to Kevin and Woodley and I talk about him at length a couple podcasts ago. But even though they fell short of the postseason, just what he did in his games down the stretch was just, you know, remarkable and completely unexpected. And I don't think he's going to replicate it next year. any time in the future, but this is sort of a descriptive award for what happened this regular season, and I think he was one of the most impactful goalies in just missing the cut were

John Gibson and Freddie Anderson. All right, Calder, this will probably be a short conversation too. Jordan Bennington, did he do enough? No, no, he didn't. His 30 games were great, and it's clear that he was a big part of that Blues turnaround, which was an amazing turnaround. They were last in the league, as everyone's heard at this point, and they wound up making a run getting, potentially, they had a chance there to actually win the Central, which was remarkable, all things considered. They fell a bit short, but they're looking good this postseason. And I think just the fact that he's not Jake Allen means so much for them.

But this is, if you're talking about this is a historical time capsule, Elias Patterson coming into the league and single-handedly almost changing just the way we look and talk about this Canucks franchise where people are tuning into their games, where people nationally are talking about them. and it seemed just kind of giving them hope. We talk about the NHL as being a team sport, hockey being a team sport and the NHL being completely different than a league like the NBA, for example,

because one guy can only do so much. But just look at how people are talking about and viewing the Canucks and their future outlook last year at this time compared to right now and it's night and day. And that starts and ends with Pedersen. And I know the critics will say that he kind of fell off as the year went along and his point totals dipped, but he still ended the year with,

such a high percentage contribution share for the Caduc's offense as a whole and historically looking great on a on a per game basis for rookies over the past however many decades. So I think Pedersen very clearly is the number one here, Bennington number two. And I think Rosemus Dahlene, I know kind of flew under the radar a little bit, which is weird to say about a first overall pick, but the Sabres were such a disaster in the second half of the season. But I think I saw the stat that he was the first 18-year-old defenseman to ever play all 82 games.

I finished the year with 44 points, played over 21 minutes a night, had great underlying numbers. And as the year went along, he started kind of eating away some of the minutes that they'd been giving to Rasmus Rilin for all these years. And I'm being very fascinated to see with this new coach. You know, if Rasmus Slinon is even there after this summer, maybe they might trade him. But even if he's around, whether that new coaching staff is going to do a better job of just feeding Dali and all of those first power play and all of those top five-on-five minutes because he showed already, which is remarkable to say about a player of his age, that he's their best

defenseman and he should be getting those minutes. So a quick follow-up question on this one. The past couple seasons, you have had the Canucks ranked bottom three, I think, in your watchability rankings at the start of every season. How much does Pedersen by himself lift the Canucks on your list? I mean, I'd have to really think about it. We're going to do it again at the start of next season, and I'll have more definitive answer for you there. But I mean, just single-handedly, I'd say he bumps them at least up like five spots,

right? Like, on a bare minimum. And then when you add in Quinn Hughes and how good he looked in his last couple games, there's a case to be made that Knucks are going to be like in the top 20, which I haven't been able to say in quite some time. So at least they have that to look forward to. Yeah, they won't be completely unwatchable going forward at least, which is a plus after the past couple of seasons. Selke. Who do you have for the Selke? So Selke, I have, I have Crosby here at number one. And I kind of laid out the case for him when we were talking about the heart, so I won't rehash that. I think it's a pretty clear one, two, three here in some order with him, Mark Stone, and

Ryan O'Reilly. I love the effect Ryan O'Reilly had this year on that Blues team. And he was not only as good as advertised, but I think even better, we'll talk a bit when we get to the Bing about how he doesn't take any penalties, which is really amazing considering the minutes he plays and who he plays against. He kind of helped carry that line. and he had such an immediate chemistry with Vlad Tarasanko in terms of serving as a playmaker that could just retrieve the puck and get it to him in scoring regions.

And so I love Ryan O'Reilly here. If you want to have him at number one, I'm perfectly okay with that. And if you want to have Mark Stone winning this award, I would love that. You can't have a winger winning this award. I would love to see it because we need to change that. We need to change the discussion. It is open to all forwards. It is not just for centers.

And Mark Stone is that damn good. I'd normally agree with you, I'd say, for a win. to exceed a center here, he would really need to be head and shoulders better. But I think that is just how good Mark Stone is. And I'm not even talking about that lazy takeaway stat to people always like the site. You just watch that guy and what he's capable of on the ice. And I'm glad that now playing in the playoffs for this Vegas team, more people from a national perspective are noticing and cluing in

because he was kind of this hidden gym for a long time at Ottawa. But he's just such an amazing game-changing five-on-five talent that I think you have to have him in this ballot somewhere. and Crosby's your number one. I do have Crosby. I get it. He doesn't really kill many penalties for them and understandably considering all the other

responsibility he has the shoulder. So if you want to bump him down a little bit here, I'm okay with that. I think it would be kind of cool because it's the only word really that he's never won. And so it kind of, you know, from a historical perspective, adds a certain element to that as well.

And it's kind of a neat story. So I kind of like that. But ultimately, any of these three guys I'm cool with and I know Flyers fans are going to get on my case about not having Sean Kutriere and so on and so forth, but I really do think those are the top three guys. All right. Well, you just mentioned it, so why don't we do the Lady Bing? Oh, an amazingly impactful award.

It definitely means a lot. No, I, listen, I like the fact that over time people have embraced that low penalty minute totals are perfectly fine and actually a net positive because it generally means a guy is not putting his team down a man and being in the box all the time and it's not some sort of indictment against him for playing soft and not mixing it up in the corners. I have Sajal Barkov winning this. The fact that he only took three penalties and drew 29 at 515 this year is truly preposterous, considering especially how many minutes he was playing. I have Ryan O'Reilly for a similar reason, second here, and then I have Sam Girard third. I know he's kind of thought of as an offensive

defensive defenseman, but, you know, we always talk about speed from an offensive perspective in terms of what type of offense and scoring chances you can generate with it. I think we saw with guys like him and Nate Schmidt and Devon Taves this year that being a good skater can also help on the defensive zone because you aren't having to hook and hold and take guys down and draw penalties just because you're constantly chasing the game so you can use it to cover ground more quickly and make up for any mistakes anyone else around you make. So I love defensemen who can skate and don't take penalties.

I have Nate Schmidt as an honorable mention. And I'm going to give some love to Matthew Shane here, who took zero penalties in 1,100 5-on-5 minutes this year, which is quite an accomplishment. That's amazing, yeah. All right, let's power through these last couple. We got the Jack Adams. Mm-hmm.

I mean, I think it comes down to Barry Trots or John Cooper. and it's sort of this argument of how much credit you want to give John Cooper for the success of the lightning, considering all the players they had. I think the fact that they went from good to historically great this season isn't something we should take lightly and just dismiss. And I think that's a very important piece of contextual information. I think Barry Trots is my winner here just because of you can sort of point to the 2017-18-Ilanders and the 2018-19-Ilanders and sort of directly delineating. like when he came in and would impact his system he had on that team and obviously the

goaltender is making saves helps a lot but I think at the end of the day it's kind of that trot system we've heard about time and time again and all of his stops kind of paid fruition again for this islanders team and really changed that organization and their outlook and so I have him at number one cooper at number two and then I couldn't decide I have you know brew bay Peters brindamore talk at number three you can pick any of those guys all of them had amazing seasons and all their teams exceeded expectations and so whichever one you want to give love to them perfectly cool with. Yeah, and I think I don't know that enough has been made of that Islanders team.

I think they're one of only five teams that have had a swing of 100 goals in a year against. They went from leading the league with 296 goals against last year to leading the league with 196 goals against in the opposite direction this year and with basically the same defensive group and switching out Yarrow Halak for Robin Lennar, who, you know, traditionally those are pretty similar goalies across their career. So it's pretty incredible to do it with very similar team. Well, and if you look at the rest of the league, it's like kind of zinging when everyone's zagging, right? Like, the offense around the league went up this year and everyone's scoring goals and goaltenders say a percentage is down and everyone's talking about how it's in U.S.L. And for the Islanders to make the change

they did in that time from one year to the next without really adding any sort of game-changing defensive players really speaks to the job, both Trots and his goalie coach Mitch Gorn did. All right. Last of the award. here. GM of the year, the only one without a fancy name. So, I don't know what to do with this one because it's clear that like the lightning, just based on the team they construct and sort of their sustainability or longevity past this season, because I don't think they're going to necessarily fall off moving forward. Probably deserves love here, but obviously they change GMs at the start of the season.

So it's kind of weird to give it to Steve Eisenman, considering he's not their GM anymore. But I guess if you kind of just, like give it to him and Julian Breezeball and let them both go up on the podium and hold the award together considering Eisenman still is with the organization. I'm perfectly cool with that. All right. So shall we move on talk about the draft lottery now? Yeah, let's do it. I mean, I don't necessarily have too much to say because I haven't really done a lot of my draft prep. So like, yeah, everyone knows that Jack Hughes and Capococco are really good and are going to go one, two, in some order. And then the draft kind of opens up after that. And we're going to have so much time to really dive into that on the P.

cast in June. But my two quick takeaways were I was happy as an unbiased observer to see the devils and the Rangers get the top two for different reasons, but both were kind of carmically rewarded. Like, I hate this idea that teams shouldn't tank or shouldn't try to rebuild organically through the draft because it's no guarantee. You look at the Buffalo Sabres. You look at the Edmonton Oilers. They've had so many top picks and still have nothing to show for it.

And just such a flawed argument because it means you're going to. completely ignoring the lightning, the Blackhawks, the penguins, all these teams that had top five picks for a couple years in a row and all of a sudden used those cornerstone franchise players to build around. And so... And the massive mistakes that the Oilers and the Sabres have made over the past decade as well. It's like, yeah, they got high picks, but they completely crap the bed in every other respect of running their teams. Well, absolutely. And it's like, I think there's a distinction to be made. Like, getting these top picks doesn't assure you that your directions and your franchise.

is all of a sudden going to become incredibly successful and competitive and be vying for Stanley Cups. But it feels like as a baseline requirement, you need to at least have a couple of these picks just to have a chance and just kind of as a cover charge to get into the playoff door, right? And so with the Devils, they get the first pick again for the second time in three years. And I really like an eco-historic year. I know people don't necessarily think of them as sort of this transcendent generational number one center that you should be getting with a first overall pick. And he's clearly a tier below.

but he does so much well and he's still so young. I think the world of him. And so adding Jack Hughes all of a sudden is huge because it really helps you have those top two centers, bumps Travis Sejack potentially down to a third line center role, which is skill sets more suited for. And hopefully you can convince Taylor Hall, assuming you want to keep him long term to stay past next year to re-sign long term and end his career with the devils. And finally, you have these offensive pieces in place to actually be good and relevant again.

And for the Rangers, they're kind of carmically rewarded because they have this clear, defined, coherent rebuild. They wrote that letter to their fan base. They've made no bones about what they're trying to accomplish. The past two years, they've sold off pretty much all of their aging players. They've loaded up on picks. I mean, if you look at it, they had three first last year. They had two the year before.

They have potentially up to four this year based on how the playoff results turn out. They've had 10 picks in each of the past two drafts. So I really love what they're doing there. I know the pushback from people is, well, it doesn't matter how many picks you have. It matters what you do with them. But having more volume here, just like a lottery ticket, gives you a better chance at hitting home runs in the draft and getting useful contributors from the draft. So I love what the Rangers are doing.

And I hope they're rewarded for it because hopefully it'll put this stupid argument to rest and potentially get more teams to embrace it moving forward. Do you have a sense of any teams likely to make moves up and down now that we know where they're sitting? I mean, it feels like most of the teams picking at the top of the draft are going to be content making their pick just because they really need that player. Like, I guess the one team that is interesting here to keep an eye on are the Colorado Avalanche potentially because they obviously have the fourth overall pick

from the Ottawa senators, and I think they were hoping that would potentially be the first overall pick, so it's a bit of a bummer for them. But at the same time, you know, they're going to have their own first. they're going to have this fourth overall pick and they're already a playoff team that has a bunch of great young players to build around and kail mccar is coming as well as potentially this postseason and he'll be on the team full time next year and so you have the infrastructure already in place and if there's an opportunity where you can cash in one or both of those first round picks to get some sort of player that is currently still in his prime or about to enter it that some team

is willing to give away for whatever reason for future draft capital i think that's a very intriguing possibility for Joe Sackick and the avalanche to explore because it's pretty clear that they view themselves as ready to win and compete right now. And based on the performance this year in the past couple years, there's no reason to believe that a Nathan McIntyre can't be feisty come the postseason. All righty. Shall we move on from the draft? Yeah. The one final thing we wanted to touch on were the Panthers here, right? Higher than Joel Quinville. Yes. Joel Quindle to Florida. Second winning us coach in NHL history. Now in Florida.

Second winning his coach, first winning his mustache. Absolutely. Well, I mean, Paul, oh, former Ottawa coach, Paul. McLean, yes. I guess he's not in the NHL at the moment. I don't think he's not an assistant anywhere, is he? He was an assistant with Randy Carlisle for a while in Anaheim.

I'm not sure if he was retained or what's going on, but he might give Quinnville a run for the Best Mustache Award, but not for the most winning coach. No, yeah, Best Waller's mustache, yeah, that's for sure. No, so Quineval's interesting here because obviously, I think any team would have loved to bring him in as their coach. I think there are, I don't know how many openings are seven or eight teams at least that need a new coach, but I think there's at least another 10 to 15 teams that would probably be happy to replace their current coach with Joel Quinville, just based on his track record. and deservedly so all the work he's done over the years.

And, you know, it's really tough evaluating these coaches in terms of separating the talent they have from the job they do. But it's clear that Quenville might not necessarily be like the youngest, most progressive mind, but for a guy who's been in the game for as long as he has and commands as much authority as he does, it's clear that he's at least willing to think about the game from different perspectives and at least, you know, listen to some new ideas and having that combination is very ideal in today's NHL. And he comes into a Florida situation

where I know they keep disappointing and falling short of expectations and that's why they needed a new coach. But look at it. You got Sasha Barkov, Jonathan Huberto, and Vincent Trocheck all locked up long term on really nice team-friendly deals. You have Henrik Borgstrom

coming up as a potential third-line center slash second-line winger if you want to bump one of those guys to the wing that I think is going to be an impact game-changing type of player. you have Frank for Toronto's emergence. You have Mike Hoffman and Evgeny Datenov, who I believe have one year left on their deal

and are like awesome top six wingers that you could either dangle out there for future trades or just keep on your team and have a stacked offense up front. And then I think the most important development for them is that Aaron Eckblad looked like the first, you know, the top pick and the guy that he was advertised as after a couple down seasons, he bumped back up. He had the eighth best goals above replacement for any defense.

and looked like that top defenseman that they were hoping he'd be. So there's a lot of pieces there in place. And I know there's depth questions. I know there's goalie questions. I'm going to talk more about Luongo here in a second. But Quineville, I can see why it would be a tantalizing spot for him to come into because, you know,

pulling a few little strings here and there, hitting home runs in the summer with how they spend their money in free agency. And all of a sudden, this could be a team that all of a sudden could see a massive boost in production and results next season. And you have to think that Quinville being there, I mean, Florida has made no bones about wanting to make a big splash and free agency this summer.

You have to think that Quenville's being down there, you know, they're going to go hard after Artemite Panar. And then, you know, he and Quenval have a history. So they do. And Bobrovsky as well, right? So you look at, he doesn't have a history with Joel Quenwell necessarily, but in terms of being teammates and sort of this rumored package of guys coming from Columbus to Florida this summer. You're right. All of a sudden, adding those two guys, especially Panarin, would be game changers. and Quenville's shown that he can handle and coach and get the most out of awesome young superstars

as he did during his time in Chicago. And so I like that fit here. I think it was a no-brainer and the fact that he chose them. And the fact that the Panthers showed that they're willing to spend top dollar here is a really fascinating indicator of potential things to come for the franchise. All right. So do we want to discuss the future of Roberto Luongo in Florida? Well, let's talk about it.

I mean, so this year, they were 30th as a team, and this isn't just the long. Obviously, Rimer had a rough time. Rimer struggled as well, yeah. So I think they were 30th and 5-1-5 and overall safe percentage this year. I think only the sharks were worse. And when you look at it, I mean, having nearly $8 million committed to those two guys for next season and the year after that, at least, is a tough pill to swallow, considering that performance and the fact that there's no real reason to expect it's going to get better. And so I know that you, I don't know if it was a next time. necessarily your debut appearance. I think you've written before.

I have written before, yeah. At Canucks Army, you wrote this great piece that I recommend people go Google and check out in terms of sort of the potential options for Roberta Luongo's future, especially as it relates to the Canucks and sort of the cap ramifications because of the recapture attacks that they're potentially facing based on when he retires. And so I don't know, do you want to lay out some of those potential scenarios and sort of how it may impact both the Canucks, Panthers, and Roberta Luonga himself? Sure. So, I mean, the big, you know, everybody, just says, well, long-term injury reserve, doesn't matter, which is fair. We haven't seen any

player on one of these long-term backdiving contracts that was signed before the last lockout actually retire. Every single one of them has gone on long-term injury reserve with the exception of Brad Richards, who was bought out. And I think La Cablee was bought out as well. So everybody else has ended up being put on long-term injury reserve, which, you know, is mostly good, most clears them off the books for the team. The team has to be cap compliant at the start of the season before the player is placed on injured reserve. But then goes on injury reserve, they typically are paid out by insurance because they're considered an injured player. It doesn't actually have to pay them real dollars from the team. And they just, you know, they go off to

an island somewhere and don't play and everything is fine. That's... Robida Island, right? Roboda Island, exactly. Yes, Steve Dangle coined the term Roboda Island, which is a wonderful term. So probably that's what's going to happen with Roberto Luongo at some point. But it might not. And there are some really interesting scenarios that could go down if that doesn't happen. So if Luongo retires out, you know, Luongo had his first season below 900 safe percentage in his entire career this past year. It was the first year, I think even below league average safe percentage.

So it was a huge drop off for him. I think he was like a 9-2-8 or a 9-22 or something the season before in 8-9-7 this year. So he might be done. he might bounce back. I mean, he's an unusual player, so it's hard to say. But if he is done this year, there's a small cap recal, and he actually retires. Doesn't go on long term injury, reserve. Straight up says, I'm done. I retire. In the 2012, 2013 CBA, there is a penalty for these backdiving contracts that were signed in the previous CBA. So by the terms of that CBA, Lwango's, for the remainder of his contract,

still count against the cap of both the Canucks and the Florida Panthers. For the Vancouver Canucks, they're looking at a $2.8 million cap hit for the three remaining gears of the contract. And for the Florida Panthers, they are looking at about a $1 million cap hit for the remainder of the contract.

It's not a huge deal for either team. Both teams would be able to work around that. Where it really starts to get problematic is, you know, Longo has said he wants to come back as backup this coming season. So if Luongo is back as backup in Florida and retires after next year, that cap hit for the Florida Panthers goes down to zero. So they have no real incentive to put him on long-term injury reserve because if he just retires, they don't owe him anything. Whereas if he goes on injured reserve, they have to continue to pay his, you know, $1.5 million real salary or whatever, how much it is. or their insurance company has to pay it,

which the insurance company might not be thrilled about. But for the Canucks, their cap penalty goes up to about $4.5 million in that scenario for the next two years. So that starts to get significant. If he retires in the final year of his contract, again, it's zero for Florida. It's $8 million for the Canucks for that one season.

So, you know, potentially disastrous since they're going to be looking at new contracts for Besser for Pedersen at that time, potentially for Hughes. You know, a lot of these young players, you know, they're going to be wanting to enter their window to win with those players being in sort of the 21 to 25 range. And, you know, you don't want $8 million just sitting on the books there. So potential serious problem. Now, it also, there's an additional wrinkle.

And this is what I discussed in the Canucks Army article is some creative things that the Canucks can do to address this problem. because obviously that's a nightmare scenario. They need to do everything they can to avoid it. They can't just sit back and assume that the Florida Panthers are going to put him on long-term injury reserve because there's not really any advantage for the Panthers in doing that. There's no incentive for them to do it. It doesn't save them any real money.

It doesn't save them any salary cap money. They can just let him retire whenever he wants. So the Canucks would want to see either bring the contract back and put long, go on long-term injury reserve themselves, you know, give up an asset to Florida to return the contract to Vancouver or, you know, trade it to another team that needs to hit the cap floor. We've seen that happen a few times with guys like Pavel Datsuk. Or they can sue the league, which I think is unlikely. But there's a general presumption.

I should, for people who don't know me, which would be most listeners, I am a lawyer in British Columbia. I'm not a lawyer in New York, which is the jurisdiction where the CBA is negotiated. So I'm just going to talk about some general principles, but, you know, the actual details can vary on a bunch of different technicalities. But in principle, in common law jurisdictions like Canada and the United States, retroactivity is really frowned upon. And what that means is you don't want to put a law place, for example, that says, we're going to throw you in jail for something you did five years ago that was legal at the time. And this applies to a lot of other areas as well, including contracts. Generally, if you enter a contract, it's presumed to be only forward-looking and not backward-looking.

So it's presumed that if you say there's a penalty for doing something, for example, entering into a back-diving contract, that applies to contracts going forward. But it doesn't apply retroactively. now there is a clause in the 2012-2013 CBA that says that this penalty for backdiving contracts does apply to contract signed under the previous CBA, but the Canucks might have an argument that it ought not to apply for some complicated reasons that we don't necessarily need to get into that. I have a question for you from a layman's perspective, which I'm sure the listeners are thinking. I don't know if we have access to this, but I, I mean,

imagine when the CBA was being put together and teams were voting on certain things, would how the Canucks at the time voted on this matter or spoke on this matter be potentially in play? Absolutely. Yeah, that would be one of the most important things to know in order to, you know, sort of make a more definitive statement about whether this retroactivity penalty could be applied by the league to the Canucks. so if the Canucks consented to it with the full knowledge of how it would apply to Longo's situation, then game over it. They don't have a case. However, I mean, it's pretty clear that this retroactivity provision is in the contract because the commissioner was pissed off about these backdiving contracts. And that is a real problem because the commissioner is there to represent the interests of the teams

and the general manager, or pardon me, and the owners. He's not there to penalize them for doing things that he doesn't like. So if he put that, you know, arrange for that provision to be in the contract over the protest of the Canucks, you know, he is not acting in the interests of the teams that he represents. And he may have, you know, that could cause a problem potentially. It would be basically, it's not cut and dry one way or the other. for the information that's available publicly. Obviously there's some information that's not available publicly.

However, I think one of the reasons that the NHL has turned a blind eye to Robida Island and to some of these shenanigans that have gone on with these backdiving contracts that are supposed to be penalized under the CBA is that they don't want to end up in seven years of litigation trying to tease out whether they can actually apply this penalty or not with some of their owners and their teams that make up the league. They want to avoid that. So they're going to

turn a blind eye to long-term injury reserve. However, if Luongo just straight up says I'm retiring, they might not have a choice but to try and apply it. So it could potentially be a really sticky situation. Well, and obviously it doesn't necessarily apply to Long-go here, but also in a lot of those cases,

I think a lot of the guys that hire a long-term injury reserve are unfortunately due to head injuries that were suffered playing in the NHL. And I imagine the league also doesn't, based on the backdrop of the concussion lawsuit and everything that's going on with that and the dialogue there that I imagine the, you know, the less conversation that goes along here and the less reopening of stuff is probably better for them. Sure. And it is, you know, anytime a professional that's particularly, you know, hockey player, somebody who's hard on their body, gets to 38, 39, 40 years old,

Right. You know, there's always, you can always get a doctor to say, yeah, there's things wrong with this guy and he shouldn't be playing. Well, and look at Luongo not only this year, but I think the past couple years, right? He's missed so much time recurring with lower body, soft tissue injuries that kind of are sort of nebulous, I guess, from a diagnosis perspective. And he just turned 40. He has over a thousand career starts, and that doesn't include both playoffs, but also doesn't include, like, there's that one period there towards the end of his first tenure in Florida and the start of his Canucks. career where he was playing like 75 games. Yeah, yeah, for like a seven or eight year window, which I imagine like the games are one thing, but that rapid succession of just insane usage,

I imagine added countless miles on his body. So the fact that he's been able to hold up prior to this season as well as he has in terms of performance in games is remarkable and why he's a legend and why he's no doubt about it for his ballot hall of favor and right up there in a discussion of the greatest goalies of his generation. So, Matt, let's get out of here. We ran a bit longer than I thought we would, but I'm glad we got into that. And I'm not going to ask you to plug stuff

because you are out there doing way better, more impactful stuff than talking about hockey for a living. Well, I actually, I will have a piece on Canucks Army at some time in the next couple of weeks here, looking at trying to see if Jim Benning has a plan in his management of the Canucks. If we can look over the deals that he's made over the past five years and tease out any kind of,

of direction from what he's done. So that's in progress and it'll be up probably two weeks from now on Canucks Army. Oh, well, I'd definitely recommend checking that. I'm sure you're going to do your due diligence and look at every possible scenario, which, man, it's a fun, it's a fun discussion to be had. All right, so Matt, we're going to get out of here. Thanks to everyone for listening to today's show. Apologies, I guess, because it's kind of a weird format, but we're going to get back to

regular schedule programming with a ton of playoff. analysis and deep dives next week. So please check that out. And until then, let's roll the outro music. The Hockey P.D.Ocast with Dimitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdocast.