The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 293: David versus Goliath

Episode Date: May 9, 2019

Matt Porter joins the show to help preview the Eastern Conference Final by discussing how the Bruins and Hurricanes stack up against each other, key matchups to watch for, complaints about postseason officiating, and Brad Marchand’s latest beef with the media.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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It's the Hockey P.D.O.cast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey PEOCast. My name is Dimitra Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy and one of the five. finest beat reporters out there right now. It's Matt Porter. Matt, what's going on in? Wow. Hey, I'm just trying to take a breather here. We're just about to start another series. I think I've had like, I don't know. Have I had a full day off in the last couple of months? I don't know. I'm not trying to paint myself as some hero here, but there's a lot of travel. Let's put it that way.

I'm a little worn out. So I'll try to bring the energy here. Someone's got to do it. It is, it does feel like it is, it is pretty relentless. I feel like in the NBA, it's a bit more spread out, and they're kind of letting it breathe a little bit, whereas here it's pretty much like you get one extra day off between series, I guess, but you go right back at it. Yeah, like today we were talking to Tuka Rask, and somebody knew the answer they were getting here, but they was like, you know, Tuka, would you like a longer break between series? And you just kind of like roll his eyes and was like, yeah, yeah, I think so. Yeah, I imagine the goalies especially, that's a, uh, something that'll come up. But obviously with Rask, I think, and this is a recurring theme around the league, but. the Bruins did it about as well as anyone with the year Yarol-Halak had, which was kind of pacing these guys and giving them much more of that kind of progressive modern day 1A, 1B approach where each guy starts around 40-ish games. And we can get into Dukarask here. I think that's kind of the natural transition point here to start talking about the Bruins. But his play in this postseason

has been next level great and it's been kind of a vintage throwback. I know he's had great seasons in the past and great postseason runs, but this is about as well as I can remember seeing him play. Yeah, me too. You know, it's funny, like, when you're a beat reporter, when you're with these guys, like, every single time they talk in front of cameras anywhere, like, you just kind of, you know there's stuff that you can't really ask him in the heat of the moment. Like, it's just you're not going to get a good answer. And with Rask, like, one of the things I can't wait to find out is, like, just if he can clue me in on how he approaches this season, you know, like, does he actually, does he try to not play well in the start

of the year and just kind of like just start it like start his season in January because like honestly like you look at his at his numbers in October and they're really bad you know they're like replacement level and then you know he starts to find his game a little bit and and

he's never rattled by that it's just he's he's like a he's like LeBron was you know when I was I covered the heat a little bit in a previous job and like LeBron's not given it all every single night he's just not you know and he's not alone obviously in the NBA and I know the NHL has this culture, you know, the warrior culture or whatever.

It's like, you know, you're always going out for your teammates and stuff. But it's like, you know, these guys aren't trying as hard in November. And with Tuka, it's like, I don't know if it was just more apparent or if it's the, you know, the pressure, you know, the media culture in Boston or however you want to say it. Like, but, you know, he just doesn't look as good until it's January, February. And now obviously he's been a killer in the playoffs. He's been really impressive. He keeps surprising me with some of the saves that he makes.

Well, it's funny you bring that up in terms of. of the element of pacing yourself a little bit and it does run so counter to hockey culture and this idea that you're always giving it 110% and and playing through injuries and all that but i think with this bruin's team in particular uh we saw in years past that come the post season especially after round one for example last year after that grueling seven game series of the leaps they kind of emptied the tank there and by the time they reached Tampa bay in round two a lot of their guys were either banged up or running on empty and you know i think this year they did a much better job with toning down Zadino Charas, you should just throughout the regular season,

you know, picking their spots, maybe getting him to miss a couple games here. They're playing much, much fewer minutes than he had in the past. And I don't know how much of that is related to this run we're seeing from them. But I imagine that that was like a topic of discussion, at least internally, where it was like, okay, we need to figure out a better way considering we do consider ourselves a contender to have our guys firing on all cylinders in May as opposed to. throughout the regular season and then having nothing to show for it after. Yeah, for sure.

And Charra, you brought up Charra, there's a few good examples there. You know, David Backus being won, like, you know, I'm sure part of the conversation with him because they did sit him down, you know, especially in the second half. And, you know, he's banged up. We had a concussion in the first half and missed some time there. But, you know, he wasn't playing a lot down the stretch. And, you know, now he's been able to give him three really good games against a big heavy team in Columbus and, you know, Charra played, Charer led the team in minutes the other night in game six.

I mean, Zanamo Chara is not a 26-minute guy anymore, but, you know, he certainly was in a clinching game. And, you know, they, he doesn't want to take a morning off, you know, forget a game off. He's just, he's like a Yarm or Yager type, you know, that just kind of, like a shark, you know, needs to keep swimming or else he's going to die or something. That's just what he, what he does and how he approaches his job. so, you know, he doesn't want to take any time off at all, but, you know, they've kind of given him, or at least offered, given him the option of taking a breather here and there.

And certainly, you know, they have reduced his minutes. So giving it to him at the right time, that's for sure. But Char has struggled. I think, you know, I don't want to, can't really lose sight of that. He's giving it all he has out there. But, you know, he's kind of, you know, not the same player he was. Definitely from a skating perspective. No, Father Ty remains undefeated.

but I think he does, in the postseason, considering how much the riffs, and we're going to talk about officiating more at length here in a bit, but considering how much the refs are letting go in all these games, like I don't want Bruins fans that are listening to think I'm making excuses for why they've advanced this far. It's happening all across the ice in every single series, but it does benefit a guy like him, especially. Oh, yeah. You know, a little hooking and holding and obstruction here and there to get a little bit of an edge.

And I think it's also helped Charlie McAvoy as well, based on when four checkers are coming in, he kind of slows them down a little bit and gives McAvoy a bit more time to operate with the puck. But I don't want to lose side of the rask thing. I want to talk a bit more about his performance because I think it's not necessarily ground-breaking material for us to say that the goalie is the most important player

and he's making all the difference. But it was pretty clear in a hotly contested series, especially in round two against Columbus, that I think he was ultimately the main difference maker there and the reason why Boston's advancing in Columbus is going home. And I think that's just kind of relationship I think most fan bases have this with their goalie, but it does seem like from having my finger a bit on the pulse

in terms of following some Bruins fans and seeing the discussion online, they've always had, especially in this past few years, a little bit of a weird love-hate relationship with him where it feels like they're really quick to point out his flaws, but then sometimes not as willing to embrace his high points, and then, I don't know, there's a bit of a pushback then. And I don't know, what do you feel with the fan base

in terms of their relationship with Rask and how they're dealing with this recent performance of his. I think part of it is goalies being voodoo, right? Like I don't, you know, if there's a, like how many fans, even fans that think they, you know, have an understanding of the game or, you know, I don't want to discredit people. But let's say like fans that, you know,

have an understanding of the game who might have played the game. How many of them were actually goalies? How many of them really understand like, you know, the finer points of goaltending? I don't. I try to learn as much as possible. But like I'm like when I played at a very, low level. I was a defenseman and then I was a forward. So I would, I've never strapped on the pads in my life.

I don't know what these guys go through a lot of times. Uh, you know, but I do know that Tuka, for whatever reason, whether it's that or something else or people don't like, you know, they have bad memories of the 2013 Stanley Cup final with two goals in 17 seconds, whether that's, you know, as people writing Tuka off for forever, um, you know, whether it's a few softies that he allowed last year against Toronto. I mean, whatever it is, I feel. like his, you know, random January where he saves, you know, 32 of 34 shots and he's really the reason why they win a game where, you know, his team's kind of flat in front of them. I feel like those kind of get glossed over a lot, you know, more than say like the play of a Brad

Marchand might where Brad, you know, maybe, maybe he's not a great, he doesn't have a great game, but he scores a goal and everybody says, ah, look at Marchand, he's getting it done again. You know, when Tuka's going, I mean, he's, he's not flashy. He's not like, you know, Bobrovsky, who's going to, you know, slide post to post like a table hockey goalie and, and, you know, cut off a crazy, you know, cross-crease pass and make a really flashy save. He's very positionally sound. He was more athletic when he was younger, but, you know, now he's just kind of, you know, rebound control, directing the puck away makes a lot of really solid stops.

And, you know, you look up and he's got 35 saves. I think he's gotten more notice. I think the tide is changing. That being, you know, that being said. gives up, you know, three goals, you know, in the next game and two of them are kind of of stoppable shots. And I think we're, you know, back to square one with Dukau, which is just how it goes in this town. Yeah. Well, I think that's how it goes everywhere. That's the beauty of the postseason. It's, you know, praise or, you know, being critical is very fleeting. It's all about

what you did in your most recent game. But I do think there's a bit of a, it is a kind of a thankless gig being like a good goalie on a perennial contender, right? Because I think people just sort of take it for granted and sort of assume you're going to make the saves. And if the ruins win, people are going to give the credit to Marshaan and Bergeron and Pasturek and Chara and Maccaboy and so on and so forth. Whereas if they lose, it's very, especially if he gives up a couple bad goals, it's very clear to kind of point of blame at his, in his direction and be like, oh, well, he's the reason why this team fell short. And, you know, I remember people used to do that with Mark Andre Fleury in Pittsburgh and Corey Crawford in Chicago. And I think this isn't

anything necessarily that's unique to Dukarask, but he's kind of the most recent example of that in practice. Yeah, he's he's right now, if you look at the numbers at 5-15, he's for almost five goals saved above average. And Freddie Anderson was 2.7. So like he, he's significantly better. You know, it's, it's not a stretch to call him the best goal in the playoffs right now. I really don't think it is. And it's pretty, I'd say a better than average defense in front of them. You know, I don't want to say the Bruins are great defensively, and a lot of that's injuries. But you look at their goals against, you know, throughout the year and just kind of the way that, you know, the number of one goal games that they were in when they had a ton of injuries. He was a big part

of them winning games there. That crazy run they went on. They pulled 18 points out of our, points out of 18 straight games in January and February. He was a huge reason for that. But then he went like 16-0 and 3 or something like that. So very impressive. Well, yeah, I think certainly now with Ben Bishop just sitting in a nice bath for the next three minutes after his season goes over, he's probably, I'd say. Yeah, it's fair to say that he's the best remaining goalie. And he definitely outplayed Sergey Bobrovsky in that series. And as we look ahead to his matchup with Curtis McElagher, I believe we'll get into

that a little bit. But, you know, I mean, Columbus beat him, what, 11 times in six games. And one of those was that weird controversial play where the puck probably went into the netting and should have been called off. And they beat him when he wasn't really set. So if you look at that, it's like 10, 10 goals against in six games, especially with how much they peppered him with chances off. rush and even short-handed and it felt like they were constantly generating a ton of pressure and he

was just a brick wall and as you mentioned there i think he's first in the postseason amongst goalies and goal saved and five-on-five say percentage and overall say percentage and yeah i just i wanted wanted to start off this conversation because i know we're going to get into officiating and bradmarshan dealing with the media and all this stuff and sometimes you can get a bit overly easily overly negative i wanted to give a bit of praise here before we get into some of that other shenanigan stuff yeah and and you know the thing too that that i'm impressed with is his stats to me like stats like this are often cherry picked you know like to either puff a guy up or or you know not break a guy down but just kind of like you know I think you know what I'm saying here

people cherry picking stats but like Tuka he closed out that series he really like he was their best guy in games four five and six allowed three goals uh you know two of them, like one of them was off Matt Kraslick stick. I mean, the other one was off the netting. It shouldn't have counted. Or four goals, excuse me. The other, the other was a Dean Kukin of all people, rocket off of one timer from Panarin where the puck, you know,

Brandon Carlo played the cross-ice pass as well as he could have played. It just happened to go off his skate and write to Panarin, who makes a really quick pass like only he can on that team. And Rask gets beat by a perfect shot from like 17 feet out. The other one was just a really nice shot by Ryan De Zingle, so you tip your cap there. I mean, he was basically as perfect as you could be in the most critical games in the second round against the team that, you know, really gave the Bruins a much better fight than, you know, certainly anybody expected if you had them matched up, you know, in October. But, you know, certainly the Bruins weathered that storm and Columbus kind of gave them everything that they had there. and, you know, Tuka was the reason that they pulled that series out, I think.

Yeah, especially in Game 6 once the Bruins got that early lead, it felt like he's like, yeah, he's not giving anything up today, no matter what the Blue Jackets do. And that must have been a pretty crushing feeling for them. You know, I got, I should have introduced you better when we started. Like, I introduced you as a beat reporter, but I didn't get into the whole fact that you cover the Bruins from the Boston Globe and what we're going to do today and recapping the Blue Jacket series

and pre-ewing the Eastern Conference final. I was just, I got overly excited and a bit ahead of myself because I've been thinking about this Bruins Hurricane series coming up and there's so many different storylines and I didn't know how to get into it because we could really go any million different directions. So if anyone is still wondering what we're doing here today, that's we're going to preview the Eastern Conference Final. Yeah, I'm excited about it too. These were certainly didn't have Carolina in the Eastern Conference Final. I would have believed based on what they had coming back that Boston could get there. But obviously I know Boston really well.

Carolina is impressive. They're really impressive to me. And I don't know what your take is on them, but they're better than I thought they would be. That's for sure. They're not a scrappy bunch of underdogs. There's a ton of skill there. They skate really hard. And it should be a really fun series.

Well, this is a big win for all the analytic stat nerds out there, which I'm lumping myself into. I mean, the hurricanes for years have obviously been an analytical darling, but have fallen short largely because they couldn't get the goal to ending. and you know this year they're first in shots here first and expected goals third in chances and the bruin are right there with them pretty much especially in the final 25 games or so to end the year after the trade deadline the bruin's were neck and neck with them so this is a series as we look ahead that's at five-on-five it's just going to be an absolute heavyweight tilt with arguably like two of the best five-on-five teams in the league and that's just going to be really fun to watch to see who can get a slight leg up on the competition because they are so closely matched that

Yeah, and it's not what I've come to realize about the hurricanes. And I totally thought early in the year that they were empty calories, you know, that the shot cheer thing was like, yeah, it's nice, but, you know, they don't really have the high level players, the high level scoring, the, you know, they don't have guys like Bergeron, like Marchand, you know. But as we've come to realize, Aho's pretty damn good. He's an elite player. Slavin from the back end is, I would call him in the,

elite player at this point. I don't think that's a stretch. And then they just have a ton of like, you know, Tara Vinen's close. But then they have just a really bunch of solid guys. And then a guy and a bunch of guys that are playing like, you know, I know this is like the anti-analytics here, but, you know, they're just playing like they don't care. You know, they're, they're playing without pressure. They're like the Bruins have like a few guys like that. Like, you know, like a Connor Clifton, you know, he's just kind of here and doesn't really care. He's going to go after everybody and, you know, go 100 miles an hour. It doesn't know what he doesn't know type player.

Cains have a bunch of those guys. And they're like just, I don't believe in this momentum that like a lot of people talk about. But, you know, I think they are kind of riding a wave a little bit, I guess. Maybe I do believe in momentum. Well, I'm having a bit of this like weird personal struggle here myself because I love this hurricane team.

They're so fun to watch since the get-go. And it's nice to see some of those. is that underlying process that they've been really good at for years, finally lead to results. But at the same time, there is now this weird kind of rewriting or history of people trying to jam narratives that fit what they're looking for where it's like, oh, well, now, you know, this is a gritty group that is playing the right way under Rod Brindamore and they're doing all the little things. And it's like, I'm willing to buy that, you know, they're getting different coaching now in

Rod Rundamore's first year and that they are more resilient and they're having fun out there. but they are also a dominant 5-15 team that checks all the boxes in terms of any possible analytical measure you want to look at either. So it's like they get lumped into this kind of category of being a scrappy underdog that's rioting the wave. And I think that's a fun story. And it's kind of like a fun headline to acclimate people to them that might not necessarily be paying attention otherwise.

But I think at the end of the day, this is just like a really good team that's legitimately good and has proven it all year. It's not just some sort of a fluky. you know, three-week mirage. Yeah. And when I look at how you build a team, too, you know, I like the kind of those old school and I really hope I don't sound like one of the 200 hockey men here. But, you know, there's like, you need balance. You need different player roles and things like that. They have that. And they have, you know, guy like Justin Williams.

You know, they have kind of young, young horses like Aho. I guess Vogel's becoming one of those guys, Taravine and Svesnikov looks like you can get there. They have a reliable veteran, you know, center kind of like a David Krati in Boston, you know, like in Jordan Stahl, not quite the, you know, the same type of player, obviously, but just that really solid second line guy that, you know, is going to kind of hold you down. No matter who's on his wing. You know, the D, you need a good top four.

They have that certainly and tons of offensive activity, which I think. is really exciting about them too, you know, and those guys take chances in ways that other teams don't. You know, and then the goaltending is the wildcard for me with them. And they've got that. So you really can't argue with that either. I don't know. The Bruins, when I talked to them today, you know, they didn't really know who they were going to face. So do you? Do you have an idea there? I imagine it's going to be McClaney just based on how he played to a net series and obviously he falchers and magic's good to go health-wise. I imagine they'll make that switch. But I think it'll that'd be Macleaned to start.

Yeah. So, you know, and then maybe they'll get Furlin back, who has been an absolute monster against the Bruins. He's destroyed Marcus Johansson, and David Backus tried to fight him, and that didn't exactly go too well either. So, by the way, I need to get your thoughts on Packas. Is that just like, to me, that's one of the better stories in the playoffs,

that just the fact that, I mean, former captain, gigantic price day, it would be like if Milan Luchich came back, and was all of a sudden contributing again. But the thing is they're not putting Bacchus in a role where, like, you know, they're saying, here, go be Connor McDavid's, you know, left wing. They're playing them like nine minutes a night and he's scoring goals and he's assisting on goals. That, you know, for him to do that, I don't know, I feel like obviously part of what I do

is being around these guys and building relationships and stuff like that, you know, to try to tell their stories. And you just, I feel good for a guy like Bacchus. You know, it's hard being 35 myself and completely washed to not feel good for a guy like that. It is, but at the same time... Not saying it was a good signing, by the way. No, of course, of course. Of course.

No, no, he's definitely contributing to this. But it is like, I was at Dean Kuken who hit him with that elbow halfway through that series. It's like whenever he has any sort of head-related trauma and he went through that weird spell towards the end of the season where he was trying to make an impact by fighting seemingly every night. And it's like, when stuff like that happens, I get... a little squeamish just because I know the history there and the potential long-term ramifications of that on his life

where we're just looking at this as David Backus is a human and not the hockey player. And so stuff like that is like very alarming to me. So whenever I see him take a big hit or get into a fight, I'm just like, oh, can that please not happen right now? But you're right. The contributions are obviously, you know, kind of like gravy for them because I imagine they didn't really expect anything of that. kind of based on the money they paid it and what they were getting the past couple years was probably viewed as a bit of a sunk cost. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I think a lot of fans, certainly, but even I think people in the organization kind of wrote them off and were like,

you know, what are we going to, what are we going to do with this guy? I mean, the no trade expires, you know, we'll try to maybe pass them off to a, you know, a team on the cap floor and they still might do that. But, you know, I do think, by the way, it's the, you know, the whole notion of David Backus as the wrestler, you know, just kind of making everybody, you know, as you said, squeamish by fighting every night. I think that was a little overblown. I think that was kind of like, I think that became bigger than it really was. He wasn't really saying like, I'm going to go out and fight every single night. He did have a couple. But yeah, for a guy who's been knocked around as much as he has, it's certainly, you know, I thought it was a bad look even to say that, you know.

But yeah, I mean, he is, he is one of those kind of. old school guys. That's how we you know, that's how he got to where he was by playing that style and, you know, he's obviously players like him being faced out of the game and not saying that's like a good thing

that guys are losing jobs, but certainly you know, you don't want to see a guy like David Backus, you know, rubber legged like he was after J.T. Miller hit him last year out of the playoffs. I mean, that was a tough side. It's a tough side. It's scary. Yeah. No, really. Well, I wanted to get back to you were mentioning the hurricanes and sort of how they have

all these players that, you know, fit this prototypical role and are doing their job and doing it well. And I was looking at that when I was sizing up this matchup and, and sort of looking at the differences between these two teams. And I think that's what makes this matchup so appealing, it that is the contrasting styles in so many different ways based on how they play and sort of their stature in the league and notoriety and how they got here. But there is also this element of, like, how they were constructed from a David and Glass perspective, where you know the Bruins you we mentioned back is he's their sixth highest paid player this year I believe at six million and the hurricane's highest paid player Jordan Stahl is also making six million and that discrepancy there in terms of how they're allocating their resources and how they're constructed is so fascinating to me because if other teams are looking at this hurricane's team and trying to glean any lessons from them or try to figure out how they were made to be so successful they do remind me a bit of that vagus team last year where both of their team is just guys who are in that like 23 to 27 year old range, which we view as sort of

your physical prime. Obviously, they have guys like Svetchenikov who are young and then Justin Williams on the older side of things. But most of those guys are in that prime range. And most of them are sort of making like between four and six million dollars. And so I think the dichotomy of how these two teams are constructed is also just another layer of intrigue in the contrasting styles between the two teams. Yeah, I think if you're looking at both the teams, you're saying, I mean, there's a lot of GMs across the league that would look at both of these teams and just like throw up their hands and say, you know, well, we're not that and we can't get

there. Because like, you know, you mentioned the hurricanes kind of maxing out with Jordan Stahl's contract. They have tons of guys that are on great deals. I mean, you know, Tara Vinen, when he jumps up next year, I think it's like 5.4, you know, that's still going to be a very good deal. You know, Aho's got to get paid. I'm pretty sure, you know, coming up as an RFA, but, you know, he'll be their biggest contract, obviously.

But, you know, then, like, Jacob Slavin's at 5.3. Well, you know what they did a great job of, they did a great job of, like, knowing who they had and making calculated bets before they really blew up, right? So whether it's Slavin or Pesci or a lot of these guys. Yeah, it's like, it's like, let's just pay this guy over long term and basically set him and his family up for the rest of his life and generations to come. but it'll be a great deal for us down the road. And, you know, we've seen, especially with defensemen,

it feels like teams are making those types of bets, but clearly Carolina is going that route. And when you're not going to spend the big bucks as some of the other teams, you need to be efficient in that way. It just kind of works out for teams too, though. Like, for example, like Florida did that with, you know, with their guys.

Like they paid Trocheque. They paid Eklad. You know, they locked up Barkov. Like, with the Echblat thing, like you could argue that he's not really paying off right now. I don't know. He really hasn't been in that guy. He didn't get a much better, much better.

Still, I'm, you know, maybe it's just covering that team in the past and maybe I haven't paid enough attention of them this year. But, you know, that was looking like a pretty bad contract, or at least an overpayment, not a bad contract. There's plenty of bad contracts out there. But the Bruins, I mean, when I say like GM's throwing up their hands, it's like, you have Bergeron, Posernach, and Marsha, and I'll learn this. all under seven million.

Yeah. Like that's... Well, especially the Pasternak one, it's like, oh, geez. Yeah. So it's like, you know, what are you going to do? What are you going to do there? I mean, you know, and you look at the Atlantic and what the Bruins are up against and, you know, what the cap decisions Toronto and Tampa have to make.

And, you know, the Bruins are, if they're going to get more out of this core here, you know, they're set up fairly well to do that based on the contracts that they have, you know, at the high end. A good story for you would be tracking down, I don't know if he's still his an agent, but figuring out what happened there with the David Pasternak contract and whether he's been fired into the sun yet or whether he's still representing him. Because I can't imagine Pasternak, especially with some of these deals that young comparable RFAs are going to be signing these days. I imagine each time one of those new deals comes out, he's just like, oh my God.

Well, knowing him, I mean, all kidding aside, like knowing him, I think people around him are pretty pissed off. But I don't think Pasternak himself cares. I think he's honestly, like he probably, you know, like anybody, he'd want to make more money. But he's pretty happy with life. You know, he's just that type of guy. Well, he's got that Dunkin' Donuts money coming in, too, right? Right, yeah, it's big. I just learned that that was a national, that's a national thing, by the way.

I did not know that. I thought maybe those commercials were regional. No, they think they show them during NBC broadcasts. Yeah, but, you know, I didn't know if it was like a regional thing or if, like, you know, there was other commercials they had, but yeah, David Posternak, coast to coast. I did a story on him and his Chinese marketing, too. He's got like a deal with a like a drink, like a milk drink company in China. Is that known?

No, I have no idea. Tell me about it. What's what is he selling? Well, I mean, I'm certainly not David Posternach's agent, but he's, you know, his face is on a milk, like a kid's drink. Like for, it's like a milk drink in China. So I had no idea. David Pasternak was huge in China, but apparently it's apparently he is. Yeah.

I like it. Matt, let's take a quick break here to hear from a sponsor. we're going to pick up this conversation on the other end of it. Sponsoring today's episode of the Hockey P.D.O.cast is Seekek. Much like this show aims to change the way you think and talk about hockey. Seekkeek's changing the way the ticket industry works. It knows that that industry as a whole hasn't really changed in a long time, and that's because they haven't had to. There's been a bunch of big companies who have been around forever, and because they've kind of cornered the market, they don't really need to worry about catering to the customer

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So to get in on it, just use our promo code PDO for $10 off your first Seek purchase. You can use that for concert tickets, sports, comedy, whatever you want. Remember, that's promo code PDO for $10 off your first purchase. Now let's get back to the show. All right. I wanted to touch on a few other sort of Bruins-centric topics, before we get more into sizing up this upcoming series, do you want to, I'll let you pick since you're the guest.

Do you want to talk about Marshan first, or do you want to talk about officiating as a whole, or do you want to talk about sort of how interesting the Bruins making it back to the conference final for the first time since 2013 is considering sort of the core they have and sort of how unique it is for a team to reopen a window this late in the game? I have to admit, I'm fairly, I've got a few things to say on Marsham, but not too many. Let's do that first. Let's do that first.

It's been, I would much rather talk about the construction of the team and how it's kind of like, there aren't too many teams that have been able to reload like they have, but the Marshan thing, I don't know. Why don't you start with that one? Because I'm basically like, it's kind of ridiculous. to me. Yeah, I'm very like, I personally don't care about the story at all, and I roll my eyes when I see people taking super strong stances in either direction. Yes. I do, like, listen, first off, I'm not sure. I haven't talked to Kyle Bukascus about it. I'm not, like, I imagine he seems like a good sport, and he probably wasn't personally offended by it, and he, and he sort of played it off well,

and I think he's a pro's pro's, and so if anything, that was kind of good exposure and had people talking so I'm sure he's not too upset about it but I get the argument that like the guy's just trying to do his job and part of his job is getting quality sound bites out of the player and so on and so forth but at the same time I also I think the whole concept of player interviews especially in those moments like the intermission one when the guy is like aggressively panting and trying to get his breath and you have a reporter just you know asking him generic questions and you don't really learn anything like I could perfectly fine I'd be perfectly fine with just doing away with those because we rarely ever learn anything insightful.

So I get from a player's perspective where, especially if you've been burned in the past, you just kind of, you know, you don't want to deal with it. But obviously he could have done a better job. I just don't know. What,

what do you think about it? I really, I don't care. There's a lot to impact there. Like, you know, I think Marchand was annoyed at the coverage that he got for, you know, first of all, the guy's 100,

you know, he's a hundred point player this year, right? And he also has, one of the longest rap sheets in the league. So I don't think he can sit there and complain, not that he is, but if he wanted to, you know, about the coverage of him because he brings it on himself. I mean, everybody kind of

realizes that with the way he plays. But, you know, he was kind of after some of the sillier things, like the stick stomp on Cam Ackinson in game one. It's like, did he have to do that? Absolutely not. It was a rat play. He knows it. But, you know, that kind of, that went huge and people were asking him about

that. And, um, You know, he does these things and he gets asked about him. And usually he's a pretty good sport about it. I don't really know what set him off in particular in this case. What I heard is that he just wasn't happy about the way that, you know, he was being knocked around on some of the panel shows in Canada. I understand that if that's the case. Those darn Canadians. Well, you know, it's back home for him, right? So he's, you know, it's a little too close to home. Maybe, you know, maybe one of his family members got rattled by it. I have no clue, but it's, you know, for whatever reason he got his wires crossed, and certainly that's

what he does, you know, on the ice and, you know, apparently, you know, off the ice. But my read on that actual night is that I guess maybe Kyle, who I don't really know, we've had a few interactions and he seems very cool, but, you know, maybe you just picked a bad time to, you know, throw that kind of line of questioning at Martian talking about his skates being sharpened or whatever. I also know Martian was pretty annoyed, you know, about the coverage of the head punch, which I think, you know, is that a high, a quote-unquote hockey play? Absolutely not. But, you know, he's looking at Jake DeBrusk being mauled by Columbus and, you know, he decided to do what he did. And, you know, it was just that kind of series. There was stuff like that happened all over the place. So, you know, I think he got felt a little picked on. But then again, that's when you're a hundred point player and you have a rap sheet like that, you know, you're going to get picked on. That's kind of just comes with the territory. Well, and that's, that's the thing. I think like this stuff does happen. and obviously we place a spotlight on it and talk about it more because it is Marshaun as opposed to if someone else does it like i don't really see people talking that much about how dean kukon for no reason elbow david back is in the head like it's if barshan did that it would be a 48 hour new cycle but he's also i don't think anyone's gonna you know feel too sorry for him because he clearly has brought this upon himself based on his actions in the past and that kind of comes to the territory right so it it is a bit of a double-edged sword and i don't know i ultimately think that it's weird to say, but this is kind of like good for the game because it just has people like talking about it, whereas opposed if you just give some sort of generic hockey player

a cliched interview after that game, it's like, you know, it comes and goes and no one really thinks twice about it, whereas this kind of adds another, you know, layer to the conversation and everyone's talking about it for the next 48 hours. So I don't know, I, I, the people that get too worked up about it one way or another, I'm just like, there's so many other more important things for us to care about than this. Yeah, and you know, you are right about the whole, you know, maybe there needs to be a villain thing in the playoffs. I mean, he was asked a lot about that, you know, in the Toronto series, you know,

like, how are you, you know, can you keep your, can you keep your hat on, you know, can you can you stay in a straight line, Brad? And he's like, man, I've been doing it all year. Have you been paying attention, you know, but people have pegged them this way, you know. And, you know, I'm no different than any other. reporter covering the team. You know, I've, I've chronicled his missteps and all that stuff. And I wrote a big story in September about how, you know, they've talked to him. And, you know, that obviously this is coming into a new season where he had just ended the previous season by licking someone. And,

you know, so it was, it's all fair. And he understands that. I'm fairly certain he has a pretty solid grasp on how this all works. And, you know, sometimes he just doesn't want to play the game. And, and, you know, take his ball and go home. So that's apparently what happened here. And, but, you know, I would expect him to, I don't think we'll have another outburst. But then again, you know, maybe just because I said that, there's going to be some stupid controversy after game three. Well, and listen, I'm certainly not the type of person that gets, like, on their moral high horse

and gets all holier than Dow and looks down upon him. I think it is a bit of a frustration. Like, he's such an amazing hockey player. And when he's doing his thing on the ice, like, the pox is flying around and he's always he's just tenacious and he's a tremendous super effective hockey player and so sometimes like there's a fine line between being a pest and being a villain and and i appreciate that side of things but then when you're you know physically harming people and doing just outrageous stuff that they can cross a line there so i get people's frustration and

irritation with him and he's also um burned so many bridges and done so many things in the past that I also get the side of the argument for people that are like, listen, I'm, I'm done with this guy. Like, he's, uh, he's just pissed us off one too many times. So I get it. But let's, let's, let's move on. And let's talk about, uh, a funner topic, which is, uh, the officiating this post season.

Yeah. I will say this, this, this though about, well, quickly on Marsha, like, he does stuff with the puck that you just don't see. Like the way that he, I love the way that he will attack the defender. Like, he just, he wants to get like underneath the guy. and then figure it out. Like, it's, it's, I love how he's able to do that. Like, he initiates the contact, but he always, he'll do it low and he'll protect

the puck, and then it'll just like, something will open up around him and he'll find a guy. I love that about him. I love watching him do that. And his puck control and is the way he wins battles along the walls. Like, it's awesome to watch it on a night and night out basis. It's like, you know, when you watch him and Bergeron together in their chemistry with Posternak, I mean, it's, it's, it's one of the things I like. doing most about, you know, like it's one of the things I like most, you know, when I,

I know I get to watch that when I show up, you know, to watch the Bruins. So, you know, he's, I think he, not enough people talk about that for maybe for his liking, but whatever. I mean, listen, I, to that point, I mean, we're talking about a guy who in the past four seasons at 37, 39, 34, and 36 goals. And he always shoots well above league average and is clearly a very talented shooter in his own right. But I do also appreciate the element of like he's playing with Patrice Bergeron, who's a lethal slot shooter. He's playing with David Pasternak, who they wanted to get going early in this postseason and has one of the most wicked one timers in the league. And I think, especially in that Toronto series, there were so many instances where I thought he probably could

have taken a shot himself, but made just a brilliant cross-ice pass to set one of those guys up. And so when you're talking about a guy who could easily score himself but kind of takes that next step and makes it better for others. Like those are the types of players that I really love watching. Yeah, for sure. And he's developed that part of his game. Like he attacks the weaknesses in his game like all the great players do. You know, there was a run that he went on early in the year where he was just passing all the time.

And, you know, everybody was asking him, why didn't he shoot, you know? And so I, you know, and that kind of goes back to like him being picked at. Like, you know, everybody's kind of always asking him. Like, you know, why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you doing that? And I think part of it's just his nature. Like, people don't ask. Zedano Chara, you know, why aren't you doing this? Why aren't you doing that? Like, you know,

maybe it's because he's six foot nine and gigantic and has the air of someone that could, you know, snap you like a twig. And, you know, you talk to Marchand and he's, you know, shorter than most of or some of the reporters that are out there, right? So people feel like they can go at him for whatever reason. And he, to his credit, I mean, he's, he deals with a lot of BS and he has a really good kind of humor about it. And he'll clap back. And, you know, we all in Boston in the media here, like pretty much enjoy the give and take. So, um, he's an entertaining guy to cover, but yeah. Yeah. I imagine he's, yeah, I mean, well, for you, I mean, it's great having a guy like that you're covering. Obviously, you never, never a dull moment. But, you know,

with the officiating, um, it really does feel like we're reaching a kind of boiling point. And I say this with full acknowledgement that I don't think this is anything new. Like, I think in the past, all these same concerns, all these same questions have been happening. I just think now with, sort of social media and visibility and transparency. Like it does feel like something has to change here. And I'm talking both about how the league deals with headshots and player safety, how like major, major penalties and reviewing them. I know that's come up a bunch and obviously with the recent Charlie McIvoy incident

and there's many others in this postseason. And so it's just an irritation for me because the hockey is so great and is being played at such a high level. But it seems like every night there's a yeah, but, and it's some sort of silly incident that probably could have been avoided, but the league just chooses to bury its head in the sand and pretend like nothing's happening. Yeah, I feel like there is some of that where every single year we say,

this is the best playoffs ever, and this is also the worst the referees have ever been. It feels like that's something people say a lot. But I feel like both those things are true this year. You know, this has been a bananas postseason from a drama perspective, from a, you know, overtime games, from, you know, a controversy, you know, a non-officiating controversy platform. And, you know, I, or standpoint. And I feel some of it is marred by the officiating, you know, that we've seen. I mean, that I was, obviously, I was there in Columbus for the, you know, for the puck off the netting.

And I just can't believe that that goal happened. I mean, you know, what if that was in overtime? Yeah. You know, I mean, what if that was in a clinching game? And it just seems so obvious. It seemed like how can we miss a puck that goes off the net that rattles the net that has everybody up in the press box, like looking at it and like pointing and being like, wait, are you serious? This is going to count. You know, when fans are in the lower bowl are pointing up and being like, hey, the puck hit the net, you know.

And then for some reason we can't find a way to take it off the ball. board, it's just surprising. And, you know, I dug into it. You know, I talked to the people in the league and kind of why that might have happened. And I understand that it's a combination of human error with the referees missing it. And, you know, they're not really being a, uh, uh, something in place where they can effectively look at the video in time for the, the play to keep going on, for, you know, for there to be some semblance of game flow. Because obviously that's a, uh, you know, an important thing too. You don't want to, you don't want more video reviews, but, you know, we want to try to get it right. So I don't know what the answer is. I feel like we're in this weird point where we have a lot of available technology. You know, things like player tracking are coming. I mean, they're doing all sorts of things with pucks and, you know, there's like frozen pucks now. You know, they're doing all sorts of stuff. We have cameras everywhere. But I feel like we haven't come to a place where we can effectively, utilize all that technology to both keep the game flow going and get every single call right.

I guess the lesson is maybe we're not going to. We're not going to, but I think there's like certain things where it's like, okay, well, this is silly that in 2019 it's still happening. I think the ironic part of this whole thing is I think the crowd that argues for, you know, changing the way the games are officiated in the postseason and letting the players play and not having referees influenced directly the results of a game. it feels like in a roundabout way by letting certain stuff go and having this kind of nebulous definition of what is a penalty and what is a headshot and what is a goal.

If anything, it's more directly impacting the result of the game than if they just actually called the game by the rules and ironed some of this stuff out. I don't know. I think that's kind of the frustration for a lot of people, myself included. Yeah. And there's this kind of blanket acceptance of its playoff hockey that's the way it is. And I get that too. I mean, you know, I think, you know, part of the thrill of playoff hockey is that it's faster,

it's harder, it's more, you know, I don't want to say like brutal hockey is a good thing, but, you know, there's certainly more physicality. I do worry about the player safety. You know, and I think players, when they're out of the heat of, you know, competition, they do too. But, yeah, I guess I don't really see a groundswell to change it from that perspective. I don't think if you polled players in the offseason when they were away from the game, like would they all, like what percentage of them would say, you know, yeah, I really want things to be called tighter in the playoffs.

You know, and obviously that does benefit that, you know, the hard part is that does benefit some teams. I mean, obviously, if the Bruins are, you know, playing the way that they do, they're constructed the way they love it. Yeah. Of course. They're not going to, they're not going to want things to be, you know, called more tightly, call them this the same way.

And, you know, there are certainly teams that, you know, can't hang. in that arena as well as those teams can. And, you know, they kind of get the short end that way. Well, I'm a believer that if you establish parameters, the players are going to adapt. And I'm speaking mostly about, you know, headshots here because we always get into this argument of like, you know, the players, there's a certain onus on them to respect each other and not endanger each other by going after the head. And then you can be like, oh, well, you know, if the league allows certain things or if you can

get away with it, like players are naturally going to push the envelope and push the boundary and see what they can get away with. And I think if you just laid a law down and go like we are based on all the research we have with CTE and with head trauma and we're going to take this very seriously. And if you hit someone in the head, we're going to throw the book in you. I think players will eventually adapt no matter how fast and physical the game is. That's just it's like because if they don't, they're going to be penalized. They're not going to play. Their coaches are going to get furious with them and bench them. And so like this. stuff will eventually get ironed out, but I think it goes back to the league and what they're willing to let the players get away with. And I think that's where fans are up in arms about it. Yeah. And I think when you put the, you know, when you put the screws to the league as far as like a concussion lawsuit and kind of that getting more serious than, you know, forcing the league to act. I mean, whenever we get to that point, I don't know. But yeah, it's going to be a bumpy road from, you know, now we have, you know, Charlie McAvoy and Josh Anderson shaking hands and patting each other in the chest, you know, and smiling.

and, you know, after game six, you know, like an hour and a half or whatever it was after, you know, he, you know, hits him in the head, then, you know, it's, it's not an easy point A to point B, so. No, it's not. It's not. But I think, like, a good example of this is in the NFL. I know, like, they've made a very concerted effort to protect quarterbacks. And I think players have adapted in terms of how they hit them and sort of what they get away with. And so I think that's something for the league to really look at and consider strongly. But this certainly is, isn't just the Bruins related topic. I mean, it seems like every night there is some sort of a new incident that has people talking about it. And it is a shame that that's what we're focusing on rather than the high level it's being played. And I should say all of this. Like, the game is so fast these days. And I think that's why it is reaching a bit of a boiling point because it is becoming harder and harder to officiate in real time with how fast and strong some of the guys are.

Yeah. I think if you, you know, if you took some of the Zinayno Chara in his prime era obstruction and put it back in the game, you'd slow the game down. Yeah. you might make it a little more safer. You might actually have, you know, fewer kind of back of the end boards, you know, collisions that look like car crashes. And, you know, but then again, who do we really want that too? So I'd love to sit in on these meetings with the league and figure it out. There's a great documentary that I don't know if anybody can find it.

I think it's on YouTube still, but it's like the making of the NHL. I think CBC did it in like 1998, but it's like all access, like behind the scenes. You have like Brian Burke and, you know, other people. people, you know, Gary Benton, it's like their discussions, I was watching this like three weeks ago. That's why I bring it up. Like, their discussions of like, you know, what they want the game to look like is absolutely fascinating. I would recommend checking it out. Maybe we can post a link or something later. But yeah, be interesting to see what that looks like in 2019, 2020. Yeah. Let's talk a bit more about the hurricanes and this upcoming matchup because

there's so many angles for us to dissect here. I mean, it really does. does feel like, you know, it's like the Bruins are the favorite, the Hurricanes and Underdog, sort of villain versus hero, speed versus power. Like, there's so many contrasting styles here. What are you looking at in this series in terms of the thing that, um, strikes you as most interesting, teeing it up and sort of what you're going to be watching as we get going here? Well, the Bruins energy reserves, for one, uh, you know, Carolina to me, I mean, they struck me as one of the fastest, hardest, hardest skating teams in the league. And I assume they're still there given how much hockey they've had to play so far.

And the Bruins have just gone through two really grueling series. And they're older. Their core is older. The players that they need to be at their best are older. So I'm curious to see if this gets to, you know, five, six, seven games, you know, where are the Bruins at? You know, I don't, I think they're going to have maybe one day off. You know, they're going to go every other day. Like most series are, they might have one kind of.

like extra break day if you know if if if if depending on what happens tonight in the game you know game seven but um yeah i mean that's going to be that's number one just kind of see where the team is at but you know as far as kind of how they match up you know i i can't wait to see if a guy like sebastian a ho can can rise you know to to the challenge you know of his first kind of significant uh you know postseason hockey here well then the the energy reserves and the fatigue of effect, I think, especially if, like, what's interesting to me with all these matchups is, especially with two teams with contrasting styles is who can dictate the terms of sort of the way the games are played at and the pace it's played at. And the hurricanes thrive and they're

at their absolute best when their games are just at this frenetic back and forth pace and it's helter-skelter. And the Bruins clearly don't want to play that way. And so I think it's going to be really fascinating to see who can control it from that perspective, because because, you know, I think we can learn a lot from the round two matchups as well, because, you know, the Bruins faced a very similar opponent in Columbus in terms of this kind of like depth, balanced attack that plays at a really high pace. And Carolina's very similar. And for Carolina's perspective, they played an Islander's team that wants to slow it down, wants to dump it in and forecheck and really kind of put their weight on you and really make you work for everything. And as that series went going or got going for Carolina, they really opened it. up and forced the islanders to play more of a trading chances back and forth track meet style

a game and clearly they were out of their depth and so from boston's perspective i think clearly managing that and dictating the the pace of the play is going to be sort of one of the most interesting things to watch game in and game out because i imagine both teams are going to view that as sort of the barometer for how successful things are going to go for them yeah for sure i i mean the columbus series certainly wasn't wide open to my eye i mean it had its it had its strength stretches, but there's a lot of Boston puck control, a lot of Boston cycle from, you know, the Bergeron line, but also

from, like, the coralli line, you know, when he got back in, he was big in that, just kind of wearing, you know, wearing the opposing, you know, guys down with just, you know, working along the boards, cutting back, cutting back, cutting back, cutting back again. You know, that's a game that the Bergeron line

wants to play as well. Obviously, they're, you know, much more dangerous, you know, when they do get their chances. But, you know, any of, like, Boston's second line is they want to slow it down with Krati. You know, that's his entire game is just, you know, kind of float around, draw two guys to him and then, you know, make a ridiculous pass to Jake DeBrescu's charging at the net. They've added David Backus to that line, so that makes him even slower.

But, you know, they're big and, you know, they want to bother the goalie in front. And, you know, that's kind of just set up shop there and, you know, cycle it around and get a chance from the outside and, you know, then get a rebound. It's not the most exciting things sometimes, but that's kind of their MO. I think it is exciting from like a hockey nerd, X's and O's perspective. I think this series provides so many little fascinating wrinkles like that are going to be played out. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, like we're talking about Marshan and how well he protects the puck.

Obviously, he's part of that. And, you know, Bergeron will do that all day and try to get posture knock open for a one-timer. The biggest thing that I'm, you know, I guess if you're looking at it from the, you know, aside from special teams, which I don't know, I think people have written about the, you know, Carolina's penalty kill being bad and Boston's power play being lethal. And I think that's definitely going to, that's going to be a factor here. I mean, you know, that that has to, that's something that Carolina has to prove that they can stop that, you know, that man advantage for the Bruins. But, you know, I think I want to see how Carolina attacks, you know, Zadena-Chara and Tori Krug and, you know, especially those two guys. And whoever the Bruins have in, you know, whether it's Steve Kampfer, Connor Clifton.

because Kevin Miller's out right now, and I don't think he's going to be involved in this series. He's, you know, one of their hardest defenders. And, you know, they have Connor Clifton in there because John Moore is not available. Moore really hasn't been great for them, but he's a, you know, a really good skater and he's a big body. So, you know, how do they attack a smaller guy like Tori Krug and a large immobile guy like Zano Chara? Columbus decided to go right at Chara. You know, they went from, let's trip the puck behind him to, let's just try to just right attack of one-on-one. And you don't really see that too often.

You know, they really, they said, forget it. You know, we don't think that, you know, he's going to poke the puck away. And they were proven right a lot of times. So that to me is a major concern for Boston, especially, you know, in game one with Charlie McAvoy out. you know he takes a lot of the load off charge just by being young and in mobile so that's uh that would be a concern if i'm boston it would okay i want to there's so much here on pack i want let's take one more quick break and then we're going to get into some of the matchup things that i've highlighted if you're a fan of the columbus blue jackets or the dallas stars or any team that's

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that I sent you to help support the show. That's harries.com slash PDO. Now let's get back to the podcast. All right. I think the special teams are, we can't overstate the importance of them, especially, you You mentioned the Carolina penalty kill in the Bruins power play. I think just the two power plays couldn't be more polar opposite from the perspective of the Bruins were, I think, like, the second most division power play in the regular season, and they've been

the first in the postseason. I think they lead the league with 10 power play goals in these playoffs, and it seems like if you give them four chances, they're probably going to bury at least one of them. Would this hurricane seem like that power play is just such a mess? It's like the one thing with this team that is just so aesthetically unappealing. It's just a lot of like long Justin Falk shots. And I hate watching it. And it clearly hasn't been successful.

So I think especially if this series does get into kind of a more physical style of play where there are more penalties called and there are more power plays, I think the advantage clearly shifts in Boston's direction, whereas I think Carolina wants as much of the series to be played at five on five as humanly possible. do your thing, Brad Marchand. You will not be hurting your team. Yeah, yeah, definitely. And the other thing that I wanted to bring up, and we're talking styles, make fights, and we're talking about how both teams want to control the pace the series is played at.

I'm really fascinated to watch how this Bruins defense controls the breakout against Carolina's forecheck because the Blue Jackets are considered to be one of the top four-checking teams. and I think they really crippled the lightning in terms of what they were capable of with that. And I thought the Bruins did a really good job of adapting as that series went along where instead of having their defensemen just throw wild outlet passes, they were doing a lot of like coming back and having one guy as a bumper on the wall.

And then the center streaking up the middle and making short precise passes. And I'm really curious to see how that's going to work against Carolina because they want to turn the puck over as much as possible and have this tenacious forecheck. but it's much more of a kind of layered approach with waves of four checkers coming, and I'm not sure how the Bruins are going to be able to kind of handle themselves against that. Yeah, I think that remains to be seen. You know, Bruins forwards have been really committed to reloading. You know, they do play a team structure that is hard to break in the sense that they have really smart centers.

They have pretty good speed on the wings, and they have guys like Grizzlic, Macavoy, you know, Kroog, you know, who can skate pucks out of trouble and make a really good first pass. And, you know, and something else that, you know, it was big in the last series was the emergence of Brandon Carlo in that. Like, he's always been a really good defender. And he got really comfortable. And I don't know if it was just something that he saw against Columbus in particular, but I've never seen him make the kind of passes he was making where he would make kind of almost like a Maccaboy-esque pass from one side of the rink to the other across the entire neutral zone. Like that's stuff that he just didn't do before, just didn't have the confidence to do it.

But, you know, now that he's kind of feeling himself a little bit, he can be a big factor in that regard because he does defend so well and take some of the, you know, the load off Krug a little bit. Obviously, Cruz's, you know, one of the better puck movers on the team and I'd say in the league. So, yeah, I mean, it's, I think, you know, the physicality of Columbus on the forecheck did bother the Bruins at first, but then they kind of seem to adjust to that. So we'll see if Carolina can kind of rattle the Bruins that way. I'm not entirely sure, you know, if they can from that regard, just based on the personnel. But we'll, we shall see there. Well, that's why. Yeah, sorry.

You're Matt Grizzly. You're a Matt Grizzly guy, right? I love Matt Gris. Like, he is so smooth. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why he doesn't get more recognition. Maybe he's just like he plays a third pairing role, but I think he's been great this postseason.

Just the way, the way he can skate bucks out of trouble has been. has been very impressive to me from what he's been able to do because he's a guy that like he defends really well too you know with his stick you know for a guy who's like 5-9-170 he also feels like he's one of those guys that has like ice water running down his veins right like it's like he can be in pressure in his own zone behind the net and he just like skates it out into traffic and with most guys you'd be like oh god this is going to be a disaster but he just makes a a smooth play and yeah i love watching him play i think i think the third pairing element of it is just he's not going to get the the points or the acclaim that it's going to draw a lot of

national attention, but he's certainly someone who pops off the page when you watch them. But, you know, that Bruins D versus the Carolina four check. Like, I think that's going to be the most important matchup, just because if the Bruins are able to deal with it, then they can play that cycle game they want where they get the puck into the offensive zone and just grind down on Carolina. If they're constantly turning it over and getting stuck in the mud and kind of falling flat in the neutral zone, then that's obviously going to shift things in Carolina's favorite. I think that is going to be the ultimate difference maker and the goaltending.

let's talk about the goalton and we talked about Rask's performance. I don't think anyone's expecting him to have a 9.51. It's a percentage again in this series. But I think it's pretty clear that he's locked in right now and he's going to give the Bruins a fighting chance on the other side of things, whether it's Macleanier or Mrazic. I'm really curious to see how they hold up in this because as great as they were against the Islanders where they gave up only two five on five goals and five all series. it's a much different task with some of these Bruin shooters and just the talent level is going to be a big elevation so I'm very curious to see whether they can hold up

and whether they can match or ask safe or save. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I don't know that there's a better weapon in the series than Postronach's one-timer. I mean, it's kind of like, you know, nobody's Ovechkin, obviously, but he's in that next class for me. You know, just the speed with which he gets it off. and he doesn't always get it off.

He goes for it so much that, you know, kind of his stick blows up a couple times a game and, you know, or it's just, you know, he has to catch it and kind of reset or whatever, but he brings it. And, you know, they don't have, from like the back end, they don't have really bombs, like that they have a bunch of guys that can shoot really well. Like, Charis still, you know, brings it not to the, you know, the record setting extent that he did, you know, five, ten years ago.

but, you know, still a very hard shot that he probably could use a little more. But, yeah, I mean, Bergeron with the slot kind of snapshot that he has, you know, Marshan really from anywhere is dangerous. And, you know, a guy like Jake Debrus can finish too. He's going to try to get inside and, you know, make one move and pitch it upstairs. That's kind of his thing. Well, you know what will be interesting. Like the hurricanes are so good at defending the slot,

especially whenever Slavins out there, he's got. You know, one of the best sticks in the game, and it seems like he's constantly tipping away pucks and deflecting stuff and causing turnovers. And the Bruins, as I mentioned, with Bergeron and Passernac and Mershan, especially when they're out there. They love those sign-across-seam passes where the goalie has no chance if the pass is completed. And I'll be really watching to see how many of those opportunities they get, where it's like a team that really loves passing it into the slot and shooting from there versus a team that does a really great job of defending it and how which one gets the upper hand there. Yeah, you have to look. That's how you shut down the Bruins. I mean, Toronto wasn't able to do it,

even though that's what Boston tried to do the entire series. And because that's where they're good at. I mean, they're definitely going to try. I mean, their Posternak's their first option in one circle. Marchand's probably their second option in the other circle. And then they have Bergeron kind of cruising around. It's tough to stop. Those guys are super accurate.

They work on in a ton and pretty much the best in the game at it. But no, I'm curious to see, like, physically, because Boston can be a load, you know, once they get going. Like, if they want to get to the net, you know, they have the guys that can get there. Like DeBrusk's not a big guy, but he charges hard, but really in the kind of the bottom two lines. You know, coils a big horse. Coralli's a big horse. You know, those guys, if they're not controlling the puck on the wall, you know, they can bring it inside. not like an old school Milan Luchich type, but they can, you know, they can play that game.

I'm curious to see if they're able to. You know, I know Carolina has some size, but for me they're not as big a defense as a Columbus or a Tampa was. But, you know, and I guess I guess we'll find out there. This has to be the most Milan Luchich references on a hockey podcast. Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Sorry, world. No, but I get it.

I get it. I get the reference. And it is a good point. And it is, you know, I imagine there's going to be a ton of Jacob Slavin going up against that top line for the Bruins, from the Bruins perspective in terms of how they're going to match up and what they're going to look for. On the one hand, you'd say, like, as Sebastian Ajo goes offensively, this team goes, and he's their most dangerous offensive threats.

So you'd probably want to key in on him. But it's actually been that Nino-O-Nita rider table tower line and combo that's just been absolutely dominant at 5-1-5 this postseason. So if they're with Jordan Stahl versus if they're with Aho, like I'm very curious to see how Bruce Cassidy identifies them as which one is the kind of most lethal pressing threat and who he throws Bergeron on as opposed to who he goes with a more secondary defensive approach. Yeah. And does he keep, you know, well, for games two or through whatever, does he keep the MacaVo Charr pairing,

you know, with the Bergeron line and use them there? to see kind of drop them to play with another line. You know, like in Toronto, you know, against Toronto, he had the, you know, the choice of, you know, either the Matthews or the Tavaris line. So what do you, what do you do there? And he wound up playing, you know, Carlo against Matthews and, you know, Burzoran against Tavaris.

So kind of like second pair versus second line and first, first pair of his first line. So it seemed to work out. You know, obviously Matthews didn't. was really the only guy for them that really got on track and was a big, you know, a huge factor in that series. But, you know, I thought on the whole, Carlo did a pretty good job against him. And then Carlo, you know, really rose, I thought, in his play in, in round two.

And it was a gigantic factor there. Yep. So, yeah, I mean, I put, I put the Bergeron line on, you know, on Ajo. I think that's, you know, just because Ajo is really smart. Bergeron thinks the game better than any player I've seen. And I just think if you want to take out one guy, you know, it's got to be that. You know, the thinking being that, you know, the combination of the way the Bruins, you know, break out, you know, and they can kind of get the puck in David Crachie's hands.

You know, you kind of, you know, take your chances with that line against, you know, the stall line. Yeah. No, I certainly get that like when Ajo's cooking, the hurricanes are certainly a much more dynamic team. Yeah, no, I mean, listen. I think it's also interesting because, like, we're not going to have time to get into the Bruins, like, kind of the way they were constructed and sort of reopening this window and making it back their conference final for the first time since 2013. But that is just like another element to this where it does feel like this, you know,

this might be one of the last hurrahs for this team and this current core they have, just based on some of the ages. Whereas this hurricane's team, it feels like this is kind of like they're just entering our lives, and this could be the first of many years that they have some sort of a playoff run. And so that's also just like another element to this that is interesting to consider. Yeah, yeah, it feels a little bit like the, maybe like the Bruins in 2011. I don't know, there's some young stars there that are, you know, people are going to get to learn, like a Svescnikov, if he's, you know, able to get back and kind of get cooking again,

Ajo being 21. Yeah, I mean, the Bruins have, they've reloaded. They had like a little dip, like a little two-year dip, but, you know, now they look as, you know, as strong as ever. And I just, I don't know what the plan is. is after Bergeron and Graschen and Rask and Char is kind of, you know, he's

certainly not the player that he was and, you know, he's kind of, there's not a lot of runway left in his career, but, you know, you have guys that are stepping up like Charlie McAvoy's in an obvious candidate to be the, you know, the number one defenseman, you know, the future for the Bruns. And, you know, Jake Debrusk and Posternak and, you know, Marshan for a few more years

are going to be in there, you know, their complete prime. So it's an interesting way that they've done it. They've kind of bet that they're going to get something out of these guys for, you know, for the next couple of years, kind of hold them, hold the whole things together with this core that they have and then, you know, try to reload and go forward from there. Yeah. Well, they're close.

I mean, listen, they're in the conference final. And they're, I think, favored in this series on base of the most of the models that I've seen. But I think it's going to be really close. I think this will be like a six, seven game series. I'm picking the Bruins in seven. but I've been picking against the hurricanes in both round one and round two. So maybe that's all their fans need to hear to get excited about them proving me wrong once again.

I've got the Bruins in six. I think that it's going to be a lot tighter than that would make it seem. I think the hurricanes are pesky. They have been all year and that's not a slight to them. That's not to say that they're like a little brother that can't get it done. But I think the Bruins still have one good run left in them. Yeah. No, this hurricane seems good. I'm excited to watch this. Matt, this was a blast. Do you want to plug some stuff? Where can people check you out? Yeah, Boston Globe.com is where I do all of my long writing and my dumb tweets are at Maddie Ports, M-A-T-T-Y-P-O-T-R-T-Y-R-T-S. Awesome, man. Well, I'm glad we could finally do this and enjoy the series.

Thanks, man. It should be fun. Talk soon. at soundcloud.com slash Hockeypedocast.