The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 310: Railroaded in Edmonton

Episode Date: September 18, 2019

Greg Wyshynski joins the show to help kick off our preseason preview content by outlining the biggest questions that need to be answered, and the most interesting storylines to watch for around the league. 2:00 Avoiding another lockout for now9:15 Did the Devils do enough to satisfy Taylor Hall?18:15 How do the Lightning approach the regular season?27:00 Can another Atlantic team break into the Top 3?31:00 Can Ralph Krueger turn things around in Buffalo?39:45 Are the Coyotes pushing the right buttons?45:45 Can the Hurricanes and Avs take the next step?53:45 Has the window shut for the Jets this summer?58:45 The case for Vegas as a legitimate contender1:02:00 The pros and cons of future tracking data1:05:15 Can Connor McDavid get enough help?See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich. And join him is my good book. buddy, my colleague over at ESPN. Greg Wysinski, Greg, what's going on, man? Oh, nothing much. We are colleagues now. We are. And that's very exciting. Although you were at my old spot last year at Yahoo. Are you still doing Yahoo things? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, the podcast is actually up at Yahoo. I'm doing the podcast at Yahoo still, and I'm doing a bunch of articles pretty much once a week over at ESPN

with you. So a little bit of a little bit of both. This will be on Yahoo then. It will, yeah. this is very exciting are you about to hang up no no no I'll just I'll just mess with you it's funny like I was I was poking around reading Lambert stuff the other day and it's just remarkable how everything looks the same but it's totally not the same

as when I was over there but it's still good to see them kicking, kicking tail and taking names and doing their thing listen my I have nothing but kind words to say about all of my bosses and all of my coworkers at Yahoo Sports Canada, and I think they're doing a great job,

and I'm really excited to be part of the team this year. And so you won't hear any bad words coming from my end, but I'm also excited to be back up at ESPN.com writing with you as well, and hopefully we'll be able to collaborate on more ideas. You know, I was thinking this summer about some of the stuff I was most proud of that I did last year in terms of writing. And one thing that quickly came to me was that article you and I collaborated on when we were writing about how the lightning could possibly get upset.

I think we wrote it about halfway through the year when they were like at their absolute apex. And a bit of it was kind of obvious common sense stuff, like hot goaltending and so on and so forth. But some of the stuff in terms of like, you know, you got to stay out of the penalty box. You're going to have to have a team that plays a certain way. Like the Columbus Blue Jackets wound up checking out pretty much all those boxes.

And so they made us look pretty smart. Not that either you or I were actually picking them to win that series. But that was kind of a fun little project that we got to work on together. Yeah. And I tend to believe that we did set the blueprint. the template for John Totorella to follow. It didn't give us any credit, I'm sure as this is want,

but certainly we were ahead of the curve on the, oh my God, what if the Lightning don't win a track. So give us credits for that. But yeah, it'd be tons of fun to do more stuff like that this year with you. It's one of the reasons I love the spot we're in right now is, you know, the fact that we can do collaborations, the fact that we can do these little roundtables in the morning, the fact that behind the scenes, there's always a lot of sharing of ideas and things like that

between the writers. It's a good spot. It's a happy spot. And two years into it, entering year three now, which is quite crazy. Super, super happy that things worked out the way they did. Can you tell we're in the middle of preseason mode here with all this filibuster in to start off the podcast? Well, I mean, we were met with a flurry of news this week at the very least, kind of scuttled my plans for some things to have to start to calling around and figuring out what the heck happened with this NHLPA deal. But yeah, I mean, it's squarely the preseason. It's squarely the time when you're on Twitter and you're hoping to find out some news from your favorite writers and they're giving you the shots on goal total 10 minutes into a preseason game.

It's a bleak time. That's a good version of calling around, though. If the news had come out differently and gone in the other favor, maybe I, uh, next summer where I would have had to be calling around asking for people to give me jobs as a bartender or a barista if there had been no hockey next year. So I think I'm pretty okay with this being the alternative. Yeah, I mean, look, none of us want a work stoppage. We're all a bit affected by them. And I think that that's in kind of researching a little bit and talking to some people,

that's one of the reasons why the players aren't, you know, don't have an appetite to try to force the issue here is the fact that a lot of these guys, have been through a work stoppage. Some of them, maybe even two. I'd have to go back and see how many guys are still kicking around for 2005. That's like Joe Thornton. And then, you know, they all know guys and how their lives have been affected by previous lockouts. So the scars of those battles still linger. And there's no question that the current leadership of the NHLPA, the guys that are ages 30 to 33,

just don't have an appetite to see any portion of their career wiped away due to a work stoppage. And it's one of the reasons why talks have been amicable. The other reason is that the owners for once don't have a reason to lock them out. They don't have the big salary cap issue or trying to make revenue 50-50 or any of the other stuff that led to previous work stoppages. They are fat and happy and they approach negotiations that way. and the players at least feel comfortable enough not to have pulled a trigger on the re-opener clause, even though I think there were certainly forces within the NHLPA that wished that they did. Well, I know you brought this up as well when you were writing about it earlier this week,

but I think, you know, the players obviously, you know, from their angle, they're making money and the league is heading in the right direction, even if sometimes it's a bit slower than we'd like. And obviously, they would still like the fight for a bigger piece of the pie and probably, I mean, definitely deserve more of it. But at the same time, whether it's with these sort of front-loaded signing bonus-laden deals or whether it's some of the RFA stuff we've seen this summer, whether it's Austin Matthews kind of flexing his leverage and getting a shorter-term deal while still maintaining that A.A.V. Or whether it's, you know, even the Myers and the McAvoy's and the Wrenskys of the world

with these bridge contracts where they're getting that last year with a big qualifying offer-based salary so that it is actually a bigger deal than it winds up looking at on the surface. the players are finally starting to kind of take control this a little bit and actually start looking out for themselves and realizing that their shelf life for making as much money as possible might not be as long as they'd like and they need to cash in on that while they can. And, you know, people that have listened to this podcast

know that I'm all for that. And whenever you're picking between the millionaires and the billionaires, I'm always gone on the millionaire side. Yeah, exactly. And the other thing, too, is, as I pointed out, when all the Marner drama was going, on is, you know, there's also been a pleasant shift towards compensating younger players correctly now instead of kicking that down the road.

And, you know, it's a good direction for the players and for the owners, I think, to go in to make sure that the younger, talented, not over-the-hill guys are getting theirs early and locking them up and things like that. So, yeah, the one intriguing thing is he brought up, you know, Timer Meyer, I saw Team O'Meyer the other day at Sharks Camp and was joking about how do you feel like, how do you feel about having set the template for every contract this summer with your deal? And he's like, I just wanted to get it done and go hiking, you know. But it is kind of crazy that this new trend that we have of these monster final years of these sort of bridge contracts was definitely sort of the trend this summer.

And it's going to be really interesting to see what happens with some of these qualifying offers, you know, whether they do arrive or don't arrive when those contracts are up. One thing, I do love that NHL. It's so funny sometimes you joke about how it's a copycat league. But as with Demo Meyer and his agent, they do this one thing. And everyone's like, whoa, what an exotic idea. It may have been making it structuring it that way so that you get paid more at the end? Let's just do that.

And it's like, and now it's all the craze and everyone's doing it. And it's so funny how like everyone just one person comes up with one outside the box idea. And then all of a sudden everyone just starts walking to it. It truly is. And, you know, you go back to and you wonder if, Connor McDavid had the benefit of foresight to see what Austin Matthews ended up doing contractually with Toronto. He believes that maybe his life would be a little bit different right now. But you're right about the Copycat League thing, and it's never more obvious than when you're dealing with the summer like we had with the RSAs and the unsigned players where, you know,

Zach Worensky's the first guy to sign in, boof, there go, Broveroff and McAvoy. Now they sign too. And, you know, Marner finally goes, and then we get some movement with Bess around other guys. So it is very much a stalemate until someone takes the leap. And then once they do, it's amazing how quickly all these other things start working themselves out. All right. Well, so here's the plan for today. Now that we are sort of in squarely in preseason mode and games are starting.

And we're starting to look ahead to puck drop on October 2nd. I thought it would be fun for you and I to kind of go back and forth on some questions we want to answer or some stories that we're interested in seeing play out early on in the year. or kind of stuff to highlight as for people to look for. And so we'll go back and forth here a little bit. I gave you some homework, you being the good, diligent student that you are, did it. And so I'm excited to see how this plays out. So as the guest, I'll allow you to go first. What is one question or storyline that you're really keying in on right now?

What's up with Taylor Hall? That's very much pressing and prevalent on my mind as a devil's found, is trying to figure out where it's all going to lead with Hall. Now, obviously, the team is built. in many ways to win now, you know, trying to create a team around Hall where he feels like you'll have a window to win in two years as well. I said the minute the Devils won the lottery that this was going to be the biggest piece coming in that might actually end up convincing Taylor Hall to stay is the idea that now there's a pass forward. I think, you know, before

the Jack Hughes arrived and before they won the lottery, I think there was sort of a concern that maybe this was going to be a somewhat rudderless franchise. I mean, they had Heshaer, they've got some young players, but they didn't really have something to kind of tie the room together, if you will. And so when they brought in Jack Hughes, I think this gave, at very least, the team some clarity. You know, you're going to have Hughes, you're going to have Hesher, you're going to have these two pillars going forward. Now they bring on Suban, he'll be there for a few years.

Is that enough to convince Taylor Hall to re-up, or does he have his mindset on going someplace else? because the real test isn't necessarily what the team looks like around Taylor Hall. It's whether or not he believes that team is going to be good enough to win a cup because I believe that is first and foremost his most important thing right now as a player even beyond the money he's going to earn next summer. So what happens with Taylor Hall? Where is mine at? Is it going to be Jersey?

Is it going to be someplace else? I think is one of the biggest questions of the season. Yeah, so that ties in tangentially to one of my questions, which was who is the next disgruntled star to merit a daily watch slash track? And I think obviously the devils with the way they've approached this summer and winning the lottery and getting the first overall pick goes a long way towards that. But the shrewd move of acquiring Nikita Gusev, sort of jumping on a really down market for Wayne Simmons and basically, you know, taking a lottery ticket on him with very little downside if it doesn't pan out for one season. jumping in on Suban when no one else really wanted to take on his contract and sort of using that cap spaces they'd afford to themselves and sort of weaponizing it, all of a sudden they've brought

in a bunch of talent to help and play under John Hines's preferred fast-paced system, which we don't typically think of the devils as, but they do want to play that way. And so if this translates into a nice result, it could lead something special and really be a driving force towards convincing Taylor Hall to stay. spend the rest of his prime or at least the rest of his sort of most productive seasons here in New Jersey. But if it doesn't, and, you know, let's say have a couple injuries or what we saw from Cory Schneider and McKenzie Blackwood towards the end of the last year was just a red herring and they actually aren't that good and the goaltending sinks them. Like there's a number of different

factors that could play in here to really kind of take this thing off the rails. And if that happens, how quickly do we start tabbing Taylor Hall as the next guy in terms of like this is a guy who similar to our Temi Parnara last year at the deadline should theoretically be available. Is someone going to pay a premium for him? Where is he going to go? And so I definitely think that's a really important storyline to watch, especially, like, I just love pretty much every move the Devils have made this summer,

and I'm going to do the watchability rankings here in a couple weeks, and they're going to be shockingly high because I just want to see, especially later in the year, how all of these pieces do wind up fitting together. Yeah, for sure. And I think the other intriguing part of this, like you said, is, a lot of this does depend also on what they're looking to do. I think they want to keep all. I think they'd love to keep all.

I think a lot of the thing in talking to race here during the summer, a lot of these moves were made with the idea that it's going to be something that's going to entice him to stay. But now all of a sudden, their mass changes, right? Like whatever Taylor Hall is looking for and forever, however many years he's looking for it, well, now all of a sudden you're thinking about what you're going to have to give. Hughes down the line and so on and so forth as well. So the Hughes addition kind of changed the devil's math to it a little bit as well.

But, you know, they want to keep them. I would be frustrated as a fan of you didn't stay because I think that this was a really good home for him and where he was really appreciated by the franchise and grew a lot as a player and a leader under Heinz and with the Devils. But if a guy wants to go to play somewhere else and doesn't think he's, it's in the cards to win with the devils. I mean, he's got to do what's best for him. So it'll be interesting to see if it plays out, like you said,

where all of a sudden he becomes the next guy on the watch. I do wonder when we set this watch, because are we there with line A yet? I have, you know, if the watch starts at the beginning of the regular season, maybe we don't have it on line at all right now. Probably have to say the Patrick Linae might be the guy on the watch right now. Yeah, well, we're going to get to Linae more. I want to talk about the Jets there,

definitely one of the teams that I've highlighted here, before we get off the devils, the one thing I do, when I'm looking at this depth chart, I'm looking at how the lineup is going to shake out and trying to think ahead. What I really do like is sometimes I think as analysts and as fans, we don't, we kind of look at each edition in isolation in terms of just how good is this one player in a vacuum. And there's an element to that, but just from the team perspective, some of these additions make so much more sense because they bump Travis Sejack down, for example, to the third line center, which I think he's much more suited for, even if he's, you know, paid a bit too much to do

that. It bumps Pavel Zaka down to an area where he can just be sort of this reliable defensive center and doesn't necessarily need to produce a ton of offense. You bump certain guys down, you take a lot of pressure off of either Jack Hughes or Nico Hissio, where neither of them necessarily has to be the number one center. They can kind of be a one A, one B. So all of these pieces coming together, I do really think that they gel, and I think it makes a ton of sense in terms of what Ray Shiro and a bunch of the analytics hires they made have clearly targeted this summer. And so they, along with the Rangers as their Metro Division counterpart, are two of my most sort of fascinating teams to watch in the first couple of weeks just because sometimes this offseason buzz

doesn't translate to on ice results immediately, but sometimes, you know, it can be a good sign that some special results are about to come. For sure. And Hughes is such an intriguing one because, like you said, Heinz, like the play an up-tempo pace. It plays a style that I think, you know, sort of dovetails right into what Jack Hughes does well, which is play with tempo and play with speed and sort of be a poor man's Connemad David in a way that he could do that. You know, for a young center of his stature to enter the National Hockey League

sometimes with a icy proposition, you have to almost in some ways, I remember Matthew Shane telling me this years ago, that you have to in some ways relearn the position when you come to the NHL just because of all of the different levels of, you know, defense and responsibility that you have that you may not have had at previous levels. But it might just be a situation where he's the right guy to come into this system as a kid and thrive versus if maybe he was in a more methodical system. Well, the thing they do have is they have a lot of shooters on this roster and they have a lot of guys.

I'm not sure who he will be playing with and maybe they'll mix a match and see how it goes, but they do have a lot of wingers who are kind of like those prototypical tenacious types that are really good at puck retrieval and will do a lot of the dirty work. And so I think they've certainly set him up here where no doubt he's going to have a lot of attention on him. And I think opposing teams and opposing defenses are going to try to rough him up and take advantage of that physical immaturity to try and sort of intimidate him. But I think he clearly knows that he can expect that heading into the year.

And I think the Rangers have done a really nice job here. of the devil, sorry, have done a nice job of insulating him with the right type of talent to, you know, just let him do what he does best, which is skate through the neutral zone, distribute the puck, and not have to go on above and beyond to really do all the things right out of the gate immediately. Yeah, but you just reminded me that we're in for a full season of the new L.A.S. Tederson conversation around Doc Hughes of you see two tiny to play in the league. I mean, that'll be a thing that surrounds him for his rookie year, right?

Yeah. One of my favorite storylines. Awesome. So, okay, here's my next question. How do the Tampa Bay Lightning approach this regular season? And the reason why I asked that is because clearly, you know, last year they did pretty much every single thing imaginable in the regular season. They won 62 games.

They had a near plus 100 goal differential. Their goalie wins the Vesna. their best player wins the heart and has a ridiculous 128 points. You know, assuming Braden Point doesn't miss time and they come to what's likely looking like some sort of a bridge deal, they really won't have lost any real talent this summer. Like they lost J.T. Miller, but I think he was pretty replaceable considering however they were using them. And that first round pick that they have from the Vancouver Canucks in that trade is a legitimate

asset for them moving forward, whether they use it or whether they trade it for something, trade it for something to upgrade their roster. So this is a team that's basically bringing back that full core of players and they have young guys like Circa Chav, like Sirelli, like Matthew Joseph, who clearly have more room to grow and can step up and conceivably even make this team better than it's been in the past and past incarnations, which is scary to think about. But as we've done with great regular season teams in the past, whether it's been the Washington Capitals, whether it's been the San Jose Sharks before they finally got over the hump,

I can already tell what's coming here where even if they come out of the gate hot and they're winning a bunch of games and they're putting up ridiculous point totals and you just tweet about her you write a story about them where we're talking about them in the podcast the common refrain is going to be so wet let's see them do it in the playoffs and everyone's just going to kind of shrug it off and act like it doesn't matter and you know maybe that's an overblown thing maybe the players in the room and the coaching staff in the front office doesn't care at all about that and they're just going to go about their business and try to win as many games than they can again but I'm kind of curious.

to see how balancing regular season excellence versus preparing for long playoffs and trying to shed those demons and trying to get over that hump, how that interplay works out and sort of just how they approach this regular season from the perspective of whether they go full pedal to the medal again and try to win as many games they can or whether it's much more of a sort of balanced approach or maybe they're not playing their top guys as much, maybe they're trying to ease into it as the year gets going along. Yeah, and that's going to be really intriguing because I want to say it might have been a Joe Smith report from The Athletic, quoting John Cooper is talking about what went wrong last year in the post season

and what they're focusing on this year. And he said something to the effect of, you know, playing better team defense overall and being more cohesive and focusing on, you know, situations in which defense is going to win the day and yada, yada, yada. And it was kind of the same thing he told me last year. And it made me a little bit nervous. You know, the real issue with Tampa right now. is wondering if there is some kind of a defect,

some kind of fatal flaw in the makeup of this team that is not going to allow them to get over the hump in the playoffs. And I know that's very sort of, you know, armchair, psychologist, or whatever, but the thing that happened to them last year can't happen. It just can't, I still can't believe it happened, you know. And when it does happen, you can dissect it for a year and come up with reasons why,

it was a better matchup than we thought it was, and my Bobrovsky played out of his mind, and missed out of the other thing. But you come back to the fact that one of the greatest regular season teams in the history of the sport folded and collapsed and was pushed around

and couldn't even dictate play in a four-game sweep. So I'm less concerned about what they did. They could sleepwalks with regular seasons and probably get 120 points. I am really interested to see what the response is in the playoffs. And they kind of sense it too.

I mean, you don't go out and take a flyer on a Pat Maroon without looking at the playoffs last year and seeing that guy and saying that's the kind of shift that we needed in the first round and we didn't get. And so they identify that too. So I'm wondering, you know, if they've got the stern stuff to win in the playoffs and whether or not that's a tactical change

that needs to happen, or was it bad breaks and they couldn't stop the avalanche, you know, the ball rolling down the hill before it came on avalanche, or what it was. But I am fascinated to see what happens when adversity hits in the postseason for this team this year. Well, I think they've already passed this one initial test of clearly not, you know, completely panicking and overreacting to it. Like, yeah, they brought him Patty Maroon, but that was pretty much, you know, a flyer where he was just available for them for nothing. and he's probably going to play on their fourth line.

And he can actually play. Like he has obviously a big body with his playoff resume, but he can actually score some goals and be useful as we saw in St. Louis. So it's not as like, it's not what happening in Calgary, for example, where it's like they just get outplayed by a team that's faster than them. And then all of a sudden they're like, we need to bring in Milan Luchich because we got out physical.

Like, you know, they at least are sort of saying the right stuff. And clearly with their actions, they're not completely panicking out. At the same time with this roster and the players they had in place, I'm not sure what that panic move, have entailed because they're like pretty much set at this point. But it seems like I think I'm still optimistic that this is the right roster to get over the hump and win the Stanley Cup. And I think when I do my preseason projections and predictions and sort of cup pick,

I'm still going to lean towards them just because I do think they have the most talent. And we say time and time again, how often do we as analysts and fans go, listen, hockey's random, you know, the puck's bouncing around all over the place. A goalie can get hot. The postseason, it's just a best of seven. It's a series. sprint, who knows what's going to happen. And when a team loses, we try to come up with all, we bend over backwards trying to come up with all these excuses for why they fell short and what happened. And I know when it happens more than one year, it lays some credence to something internally being wrong. But in this case, I do think that last year was just such a wild

four-game aberration where they definitely got outplayed, but I think they just kind of got punched in the vase, and they just didn't know how to react. And they were stunned that it was happening. And I know myself, just watching the game, I couldn't believe what it was unfolding and how badly the Blue Jackets were outplaying them from top to bottom. And so I know it's not very satisfying, but I think it's one of those things where you just try to kind of toss it to the side and just kind of look ahead and just realize that you come into this year again as a favorite and you have another chance at it. And that's the beauty of the sport where it's, it doesn't really matter what happened last year because you come in with a clean slate. I agree with you to a point where I don't think that, I mean, I do think what happened is an anomaly. I mean, you know, getting swept in that fashion probably isn't going to happen again.

You also hope that your heart trophy leading score doesn't do something titantically stupid to getting kicked out of a series game. That'd be pretty good, too. But I will say this about Tampa, man. I mean, there is a bit of a track record now with this group of, you know, pressing forward in the playoffs and then being unable to close out series. Now, obviously that's not an issue when you get swept. Right.

But it was sort of systemic in a couple of previous postseason runs for this team under Cooper. So I'm not saying that that should be indicative of everything. I'm not saying that at the end of the season, we might not finally get a chance to see Stephen Stamikos raise the cup. But I am saying that there's a little bit more of a psychological profile about this team than maybe the sweep would pretend. Well, okay, one of my other sort of questions here that I highlighted, and we'll go kind of a snake draft order here where I'll go again,

because it just ties into this is can anyone in the Atlantic Division threaten or actually break into this vaunted top three with Tampa Bay, Boston, and Toronto? And whether they can or not, I just wanted to lump these two together because I guess one encouraging thing for Tampa Bay not sleepwalking through the regular season and not taking anything for granted is that the two teams behind them are so talented and so good as we've seen over the past couple years that I think they can't really afford to enter this season taking it for granted and just expecting to come to make the playoffs and then figure it out and try to kind of uh you know approach the year that way i think they need to enter the regular season uh trying to fire on all cylinders and and played up to their

best capabilities so uh with those two teams behind them and then obviously all we saw with florida spending all of the dollars this summer or you know the the habs who um made some news this summer as well and we're pretty surprisingly good last year. There's a couple teams there in Atlantic that are nipping at their heels. How do you sort of forecast that and do you think that there will be some sort of turnover there in the hierarchy or do you think we're just kind of looking at it again where when we're doing our preseason predictions, we should just pencil those three teams in and not even think about a fourth? No, you cement those three teams in, but the issue is going to be where they fall because, you know, there's a part of me that's trying to find a way to pick the Leafs

to win the whole thing. And I don't know if that path goes through Boston in the overcoming your tormentors bracket or that path is what the devil did all three times. They won the Cup, which is not playing the Rangers. So like, so if the Leafs win the Atlantic, right, and then you get the lightning maybe taking care of business for you and getting Boston out of the postseason. Well, now you're in business. I trust that path a lot more than I trust the elimination of Jake Gardner and Nazan Khadry being the reason they finally get past the Bruins.

Right. So, you know, we're all kind of writing our own narratives when it comes to these teams and where we think they're going to place. So I'm kind of noodling through an idea where maybe the least end up winning that division from now. As far as the other teams go, it's all a wild card play, and it gets really interesting because then you have to look at the Metro. I mean, I think the capitals are safe. I would be somewhat surprised,

unless the goaltending goes completely haywire to see Carolina not make it next season. What do we get out of the Islanders? The Penguins, I think, are probably still a playoff team for at least one more run, maybe. And then what do we expect out of the Devils? And then you look over and then you start wondering about Florida and the Quinevilla effect and things like that. And Montreal as well with an extraordinarily underrated coach, for my opinion,

and a guy that can easily lead that team of the playoffs. So it becomes really intriguing around the bubble and maybe the last seed in the metro. I mean, I think we all can assume that Columbus is going to give up their playoff spot. It's just a matter of what are the owners end up being and how much of this, is now a black hawks-esque decline for the penguins that we might be seeing. Yeah, yeah, the metro is going to be fascinating because obviously you can go any number of ways, and I guess that does also just make it all the more important for these three Atlantic Division teams to win that division and avoid having a play in the audience.

I feel bad. Let's not forget about the Flyers with a coach who tends to get pretty damn good results out of the team in year one as well. Yeah, how could we forget them? I mean, I'm nursing a cold here myself, so I've got a lozenge in my mouth, which is tribute to El Anvignon. So I, and listen, I mean, obviously, they spent some cash themselves this summer. And, you know, they did a tidy piece of housekeeping, sort of keeping the figures down while retaining Pro-Brov and connecting long-term. And so all jokes aside about Kevin Hayes and the money they gave him, they're clearly going to be better next year, even if you think it's an overpay, than they were allowed. year and it sort of fits a need down the middle there where now they can really go with a more balanced approach and so yeah clearly i mean just like with them it's obviously going to be is carter heart the answer long term and has he finally solved that goalie carousel for them and if he has i think the pieces are definitely there where they should be right in that mix with all these other teams where it's like

it's just going to be a free-for-all and a rock fight and i'm really interested to see how it plays out that's what it makes doing these predictions so difficult because it's like it could go any number of ways that, you know, the top teams, there's like a handful that I feel comfortable that I feel comfortable that I feel comfortable saying are going to be up there. There's a couple with, like, the Kings and the Red Wings and the Senators that I feel comfortable saying are going to be really bad. And then it's pretty much just like everyone else in the middle. Right. For sure. My next question is, I mean, we kind of touched on Klanville, so I'll just skip over that. Another team in the East, what the hell are the Sabre is going to look like under Ralph Kruder?

I mean, the thing about Kruger is that we all have a lot of nostalgia built up for him because he got railroaded in Edmonton, and all those kids in that team for years would say that the biggest mistake that franchise made was giving him one year. And, you know, amongst all of the instability behind the bench, the one guy they wanted to come back was Kruger. And then there's a lot of nostalgia built up because he took, I mean, the only team that actually cared in the World Cup. and then led them to the World Cup final where a team that all of a sudden cared for one game I'm sorry, they cared for two games

they cared against the U.S. as well and then, you know, got beat by Canada. I mean, I think we rightfully praised the job he did with that World Cup team, but it's pretty easy when you're in an exhibition tournament and you're coaching the team that's super pissed off and motivated against a bunch of teams that don't care. So I think his legend was built a little bit too,

high during that tournament. So what is he now? What does he bring to the Sabres? What do they look like? What does he do with that team? Is his coaching prowess good enough to taper over the fact that there are significant lineup deficiencies for the Buffalo Sabres in 2019? That's a great point. I love the title Railroaded in Edmonton speaking of. I mean, like Dallas Aiken's as well as one of my favorite hires this summer from a coaching perspective. and with him and Kruger, I think there were like the two that stick out for me in terms of at least like promising and inspiring because it leaves the door open that it was just an Edmondon thing and those guys are actually brilliant progressive minds who could make a difference

in these next stops. And so with Buffalo, no love for Tom, my one. I mean, I certainly wouldn't use the words brilliant and progressive when describing him. He just fills out the ex-Edminton coach trifecta for hires this summer, which is kind of funny. I didn't really think of that until now. All the three ex-oiler coaches. Well, here's the thing with Buffalo. I think it's still a bit incomplete because I keep waiting. I wake up every morning out here in the West Coast, so I know I'm a bit behind,

and I open Twitter thinking I'm going to see Ratt, Rasmus'n's the line and got traded, and I keep waiting, and it hasn't happened yet. I think it's a bit of an incomplete grade right now for Jason Botterall and Kruger and the staff because I'm curious to see how that plays out. I just don't see how they enter this season and go long term with Ristlin is still there after all the moves they made on the blue line and how much they invested in that and sort of the idea that he's still a coveted asset around the league because up front there are a lot of holes and I think even the best coach can only do so much to cover them.

I think a guy like Victor Oliveson, for example, is an intriguing fantasy pick because he's probably going to play a lot with Skinner and Eichael, and he flashed towards the end of the season, and Marcus Johansson was a really nice pickup for them, considering the price they had to pay. But beyond that, they're still asking way too much,

I think, of Casey Middlestad, the shoulder, that second line center role for them. There's not that much scoring on the wing. And so, you know, they certainly made improvements on the blue line, and I love that they got Colin Miller, and they brought in all these pieces to compensate for that lack of upfront talent by maybe chipping in a bit from the blue line and sort of working the transition game from their own end.

But at the same time, there's only so much they'll be able to do. And so until they shore that up and until they make one or two more moves, I think ultimately it's going to be another year of them, you know, maybe being more fun to watch and maybe not being as abhorrently bad as they were over the past final two or three months. But I certainly don't think we'll be seeing too many 10-game winnings, Greeks unless something changes. No.

And, you know, you mentioned Bidlstadt. I freely admit I was completely wrong on him. I thought that he was going to be a much better pro than he would have to be. That's one whiff that really hurts. The other whiff that really hurts, and it goes back to Botterol, who's a guy that I really like, but I think that the grade is starting to creep down the marking period for maybe like a C to a D. he whiffed on the O'Reilly trade.

And you can't whip on a trade like that. And it came back to haunt them last year. I think it continues to haunt them. And it's one of the reasons why this lineup seems so piecemeal and patchwork when it shouldn't feel like that after he's been there that many years. Well, you know what's outrageous, Greg? The only asset they really have to show from that Ryan-Oreilly trade is Colin Miller because they use that like a future second-round pick from

St. Louis to get him from Vegas, which is like, when you're trading a player of O'Reilly's caliber and I understand with the financials involved and all the baggage and everything, like, you know, there were external factors there, but at the same time, they sold at an all-time loan and basically went for the, like, you know, five, or like five dimes for a dollar bill approach, basically, and just got a bunch of throwaway parts. And it's, that's clearly, you know, an issue here because if you had a player of his caliber or a bunch of interesting pieces that they got in return, all of a sudden we'd have a much more sort of rosy outlook for them. But without that, it's just a lack of sort of high-end offensive talent on this roster.

Yeah, and, you know, he had to go, obviously. The idea of O'Reilly remaining in Buffalo wasn't tenable, and I appreciate the spot that they were in. But to make that trade with the St. Louis Blues and not pull Robert Thomas or Jordan Kyru from that prospect pool is insane. And again, it's one of the reasons why at the end of the season, Doug Armstrong is lifting the cup because he did a remarkable job the previous summer, and it just took a little bit of time and one insanely blazing hot rookie goalie to have it all kind of coalesce. I will go, I will go again. Let's take a quick break here to hear from a

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Give me your next question or your next storyline that you're looking forward to. Okay, not to belabor the GMs in trouble trope that I apparently have established here, but what if the coyotes aren't built right? Like, there's a lot to really like about this team and the way that they play, and I think that Rick Tocke did himself well as a coach, and the addition of our glorious, you know, Phil Kessel could hopefully make up for some of the goals, scoring they did not have last season and the goaltending should be good and yada yada yada but what if the contracts handed out to some of these players in this roster a roster remind you that has not

coalesce into a playoff team or even a playoff contender um what what if what if he's bet wrong on these guys like what if the jacob trick runs of the world and the christian devorax the world and players like that aren't aren't the guys that you should build around what if we're just wrong on on on on the coyotes I wonder if the average fan at home realizes that the Arizona Coyotes are pretty much a cap team this season. A cap team, exactly. So now we have this investment on this roster. And I think in some cases, John Jake has been rightfully praised for some of the value

who's gotten on these contracts, but they're long-ass contracts. And there's a certain commitment that's been made to this collection of players, a commitment that if you close your, your eyes, if you squinted your eyes and looked at cat friendly at this roster and saw how far these contracts stretched to the right, you'd say to yourself, oh, this must have been a team that made the conference final, right? Yeah. They've done nothing.

And so there's a part of me that really hopes that obviously the coyotes thrive, the better they are, the better it's going to be for them to, you know, get the building they need and everything else, positive momentum, all that stuff. but there's also a part of me that's wondering, ah, you know, there's all this criticism levied at Chaka for being a snake oil salesman to begin with, and then you look at that roster and you say to yourself, is this really a team that can come together and be a contender as it's currently constructed?

Well, one thing I will say is that they went and addressed clearly their biggest need, which was an offensive playmaker, and particularly a goal score. I think when your leading goal scorer is Brad Richardson with 19 goals, and you don't have a single player over 50 points. Getting a guy like Phil Castle of his caliber, regardless of his deficiencies in other areas of the game, is a big get. And I think he'll-

And reuniting him with Tocke. I mean, that's the real key. It's like, not only do you get a guy like Phil who could score, but you're putting him with the guy who was nicknamed the Phil Whisperer in Pittsburgh. Certainly. And they dealt with, you know, a real litany of injuries last year, and clearly some better health there will result in better. numbers for a lot of their players and it felt like you know they never managed to get any sort of

consistent line out line combinations or chemistry throughout the lineup just because guys are constantly going in and out of the lineup and you know they had this remarkable season from darcy kemper this was basically the equivalent of what we've constantly been hoping and praying that anti-rancho were able to give them and so now the rant is back we'll see how that dynamic plays out in net so you know if they can maintain that defensive stinginess they had year under Tocket and with the amazing goaltending they got and then be a bit healthier up front, get a better year out of Clayton Keller, get some, squeeze some one final great season out of Phil Kessel, all of a sudden, especially in a pretty weak Pacific division aside from the top

three teams, there's room there for them to make that run and justify the payroll that they have for this roster. But I do want to say, he keeps getting lumped in with sort of being considered as an analytics type. And I really want to caution that narrative in terms of John Jacob being sort of this patron saint of the analytics movement because a lot of these moves that happen, I think if anyone's following along on hockey Twitter or really thinking about this stuff rationally goes counterintuitive to a lot of the stuff. I think people are looking for when they talk about sort of this money ball approach in hockey or thinking ahead and thinking progressively. And I certainly quibble with a lot of the sort of signings and how they divvied out their money on this roster.

And so, I don't know, I'm not a huge fan of how they've dispersed their resources and how much they've really sort of tied themselves to this roster because, you know, some of these players are theoretically on the upward trajectory and you can, you know, you can move them at this stage of their career, even with the amount of money they're still owed. So they're not fully locked into this, but they pretty much are for at least the short-term future. And so I just don't see the upside for this roster to justify sort of the investment they've made in it, I guess. Yeah. And the good news is that there's enough teams that are, you know, correctly dobbling in the dark arts of analytics that if Jacob fails, you can't have Steve Simmons declaring the

death of analytics because one guy, it didn't work for one guy. Now we can look at Carolina. I know we could look at a dozen of their teams. We'll look at Seattle in a couple of years and say that we've gotten a lot smarter since the moment John Jacob was hired. I was always a Jacob fan because I wanted more young guys that were sort of from the outside and then put inside to get hired. That was sort of the banner I raised for him. It wasn't necessarily like he was the band leader when it came to analytics, although that was his reputation. It was the sort of outside the box thinking of hiring this guy to replace, you know, Maloney in that game. that I thought I was really excited about.

He's young. He didn't play in NHL, therefore it must be analytics. There's no other way to get in there. Yeah, right, exactly. Let's talk about the real analytics god, Eric Tulski and the Carolina Hurricanes. And they're next on my list, and I sort of lump them in here just so we could cover as much ground as possible in this podcast. I'm lumping the hurricanes and the aves together here. And they're sort of, you know, the east and west version of each other in the sense that they're these really sort of, just fun teams to cheer for. I mean, they really broke through last year,

finally lived up to a lot of the hype. We've been waiting and waiting for anticipating from them over the years. They both had inspiring long playoff runs where the hurricanes made it all the way to conference finals. The avs were basically one goal away from following suit. And I think they both had great summers where they addressed a lot of their needs. They made a lot of smart calculated risks and brought in a bunch of talent, especially up front. and figure to be deeper and more lethal in the scoring department. And now they're trying to sort of do what is, I think, the toughest thing to do in the NHL, which is go from being sort of this fun, frisky, young team to taking that next step

and vaulting yourself into a legitimate contender for years to come. And, you know, we can take them on a case-by-case basis here and not necessarily just talk about them all in terms of generalities. But I'm really curious to see whether they can do that and whether some of these, moves they made this summer pay off because there's a lot to like there clearly, but until we see it on the ice and see how it all fits together and whether some of these questions that are lingering can be answered by those moves,

we can't say for certain that they are going to take that next step and justify some of this hype for like Stanley Cup contender status. Exactly, and obviously Colorado also has its own legacy when it comes to analytics as well in the way that teams will put together. So, you know, it is interesting. think in Colorado's case, I'm fascinated to see how some of these pieces fit.

I'm a big Jonas Donkoy fan. I thought that was a really shrewd pickup from them. I'm interested to see how they deploy him, because I do think he has some offensive upside. I'm a little less of an Andre Barakowski fan, so I do wonder whether my

opinion could be changed if they put him in a prominent offensive role. And then, obviously, for me, in the avalanche, and this might be the fantasy player in me talking right now, but plugging in Cal McCar to the Tyson-Berry role, specifically on that power play, oh, man. I want to see what that looks like,

because, I mean, the upside on that kid is just, I mean, my God, like, it's endless. And to watch him, you know, quarterback that power play, it could be a real thing of beauty for them this year. So I don't know if they're necessarily actualizing as a cup contender this year. They were, as you saw, number one in our future power ranking as an ESPN this week, and rightfully so, because of the management and the contracts and the young players they have on their roster. But, man, they made some, you talk about addressing your needs in the off season. The moves that they made were really, really shrewd, including the acquisition of Nazim Kodry to be your second line center.

Yeah. And, you know, they obviously, I think, you know, Chris Peters would probably a better person to have this conversation with, but they killed it at the draft. and I think added the most talent out of anyone there. So they had a remarkable summer from that regard. And when it comes to a guy like Brokowski, even if opinions on him may vary, I think the bar that needs to be cleared here for him to be an improvement offensively for them is so low considering what they had last year

and just how much they relied on the top line. And it's to a point where, you know, with guys like Cadry and Don Skoy and Berkowski and even Nchuskin in their bottom six, pretty much anything they get from them is found money right now just because it'll go that much further to supplementing arguably the best line in hockey. And we're approaching this conversation, just assuming that Miko Randinen will be on this team and we'll miss any time because they have the finances to do so. And there's no reason to believe it won't happen.

It doesn't seem like one of those contentious situations where it's like a relationship that can't be fixed. So I'm fully expecting that. And I think their full systems go. I'm not worried at all about losing Semyon-Rlamov-in-Net. I think what Philip Grubauer is short towards the end. last year and Pablo Frantzuz who killed it both overseas and in the AHL last year I think those guys will be just fine and so yeah I really like this team I think you know we could potentially run into the risk of like overhyping them where

if everyone is just so excited about them you know we can sometimes lose a bit of a sense of reality and maybe vault them into a tier where they're not at yet in reality but at the same time I think there's clearly a lot to like here and I don't want to be a Debbie Downer I think if you want to be all in on that this year I'm perfectly fine with it Yeah, and for the record, by the way, I know that Chris Peters, our colleague always gets put over as this, you know, draft guru. I'll have you know that I am really good at going to the draft and pretending that I've heard of these kids' names before. It's a skill, it's talent. I fake it really well.

So I consider myself every bit the draft guru that Chris Peters is. I mean, the key is just praise a guy's hockey sense and you fit right in as a scout. Right. And then look at where he played and then talk about how good that league is and then put over the fact that you once talked to his coach. Okay, let's do the hurricanes here because they themselves, so they add Ryan the Zingle and Eric Halle. So with those two guys, they bring in some scoring punch and sort of add to this frenetic pace that they want to play at, which won over so many people last year. They basically flip Calvin DeHan for Jake Gardner, which I think everyone agrees is an upgrade. we'll still see what'll happen with Justin Falk.

I am not a big fan of what he brings to the table, and I think he's very overvalued. And I assume whatever they get back for him, especially if it's Andre Cashas, has been rumored in that potential trade with Anaheim would be a massive home run for them. They basically flipped Curtis McElaney for James Reimer, and I think the biggest key here for them offensively

is year two of Svesterkov, which I think has a chance to absolutely erupt and burst onto the scene as a top NHL player. So I think there's a lot to like there. And, you know, I think the goaltending is going to be the big, obviously, thing to point to because last year it was the first time and seemingly forever that they had above average goaltending. And it was, not surprisingly, the one year where they finally realized their potential and make a long playoff run. And if they can get something similarly resembling that from Petter-Mrazic and James Reimer this year,

I think there's a lot to like with this team. And especially in a wide open metro division where, you know, even with Washington and Pittsburgh's having the familiar faces and familiar names, they showed last year that there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of flaws there with those rosters and with those teams, and they can be taken advantage of, and especially with the speed game that Carolina wants to play

and is flush with throughout the lineup, they can give some of those older, maybe slower teams, all sorts of fits just like they had last year. So I think it's a very replicable formula of what they did. I'm not necessarily too worried that NHL coaches are going to go into the kind of bunker this summer and figure out a way to slow this team down

because I think it was just a very sort of organic process of we're just faster and more tenacious than you and we're going to win all of these puck battles and we're just going to dominate the puck and they, you know, similar to what Vegas did from year one or two, they replicated it and obviously adding marks so it helps. But I think it's a similar thing here

where it's not, I don't think it was a fluke by any means and I think they're legitimate in here to stay. For sure. And let's not forget that I think we probably both anticipate Justin Williams descending from the rafters and grappling down to the ice at some point later in the season in a Niedemeyer Timuslone-esque return to the ice after missing the unimportant part of the season.

So they'll probably have that going for them as well. Okay, let's do my last one here. Just how far will and can the Winnipeg Jets realistically fall? man, I think if you were like writing a script or, you know, putting together a checklist, it couldn't possibly go worse than it has for Winnipeg pretty much since like the second half of last year. You know, I know they made the playoffs, but they've very unceremoniously, I thought, bowed out in round one. Now it was to the eventual Stanley Cup champions, but if you look from January 1st on, which I understand is a very random arbitrary cutoff,

but it just sort of goes to illuminate this point. They were 25th in short of, shot attempts and 29th in shots. And they were certainly very far from this dominant contender that everyone just thought of them all of last year. And this summer, they just lost so much talent, especially in the blue line with, you know, basically getting like, what, 25 cents on the dollar for Jacob Trubah. They're losing Tyler Myers, losing Ben Chirot, now Dustin Bufflin is away from the team on personal leave. And so there's a lot of question marks there. And they're asking a lot from Josh Morrissey. And two of their best players, and Patrick Lion A and Kyle Conner still don't have contracts,

and it sounds like especially with Line A, there's a legitimate impasse there, and it's fair to wonder when that's going to get resolved. So, yeah, I think there's a lot of red flags with this team, especially in a loaded central division where you can make the case, they are suddenly the fifth best team there. Yeah, and that last point, I think, is probably the most salient one, is the idea that you can't take too much of a step back when the team. on your tail are the Dallas stars and the Colorado Avalanche, right? So now all of a sudden, I mean, I would be genuinely shocked if Winnipeg Jets finished in the top

three of that division, given the talent of four other teams in that division, which means now of a sudden you're in a wild card, which means now all of a sudden you're going and trying to overcome Pacific division teams. They're going to be able to pick up a lot of garbage points against pretty bad hockey clubs. So it's not a formula for success if you're Winnipeg. And on top of that, I mean, like you said, the hits the blue line took are significant and maybe fatal to their chances. But it was a good run.

They had a couple good years, right? And they could still reload. They got some significant young talent. But, you know, as far as this year goes, you can't lose three pieces off your blue line like that and not sufficiently replaced them and hope to repeat the results you had from the previous. I mean, I'm going to go the other way. I think this has been a catastrophic down swing for them. Obviously, just making the playoffs and winning a playoff round and, or I guess two, in making the Western Conference final after all of the Andre Pavlov years was a big win for them. But if you told me that after that postseason run two years ago, that that was pretty much going to be it. I think the fact that they got that one great year out of this roster with all of the young pieces they had in place and everyone projected. them as sort of this lock to be a perennial Stanley Cup contender for four or five years to come. But that window seems to have certainly not necessarily shut, but been closed for the time being

and certainly at least sort of decrease their margin for error where it looks like they really can't afford any more mistakes moving forward. And they were supposed to be the chosen ones, man. They were supposed to win the first cup 93 for Canada. They were supposed to be the ones. Now we have to depend on the Leaf. my God, you imagine that. Well, I mean,

And just think about it. I still think, you know, they're going to be a fun team to watch. I think there's a lot of talent there in place. I think they aren't necessarily should be completely written off right now. But, you know, even like just how much they're relying on Dustin Bufflin at this point of his career

and how many games he's missed recently in sort of the wear and tear on his body. And then Blake Wheeler, who, you know, puts up a lot of points and is still a prolific playmaker, especially in the power play and makes an awesome one, two punch. with Mark Schifley. And so I think those gaudy point totals and sort of that fantasy hockey perspective clouds people from the realization that he's 33. He's in the first year of a mega five year deal

where he's making over for $8 million per year. And his underlying numbers have been dipping for a couple of years now. And the jets aren't even that good with him on the ice of five on five. Like all of those factors put together. And there are certainly a lot of red flags with his team. And I'll be curious to see how it plays out clearly. Having Lina and Connor there from day one would go a long way to alleviating all of those concerns, but at this point, that seems unlikely. Yeah, I tend to agree, and I'm just pissed off when you get more of a run out of that national Winnipeg rivalry that was like there was going to be a thing for a while. Remember those games?

Like, the world would stop for those games. You're like, this is what hockey should be. We only got like two years out of it at the most, I think. It's a bummer. Yeah. Okay, what's your last one? I got one more. I'll do, I got two more.

So I'm just going to do them quickly. Why don't I love Vegas more? I mean, I love the city. Why don't I love the team more? I like a lot of the pieces of the team. Is it because they lack that one foundational defenseman guy? I don't know what it is. But I like watching the play.

I like covering them, especially home games. But I don't love them. I feel like I should like them more than I do. I mean, you could make a very strong argument that they're the best team in the West. right so you know I might be the right person to ask them because I'm very high on them yeah why don't I love them more like I is it is it because I look at that blue line and I'm like you know the ceiling is Che Theodore like what is it about them I don't like yeah I mean

certainly they don't have that um you know prototypical number one workhorse but I think yeah yeah but they've shown um with Nate Schmidt and Theodore that they can cobble it together. I think the way they handle the Colin Miller situation and him falling out of favor is a shame. But I think up front, just with their ability to roll three dominant possession lines and how much talent they have there and just sort of how strong the underlying numbers were for that team

after Mark Stone came over at the deadline, like they were arguably the best team in hockey after the trade deadline. And who knows how the playoffs would have played out if they had gotten through that San Jose series and hadn't been gone-jobbed. Yeah. Who knows? But certainly they could have made a long run

and maybe our perception of them would look differently. But I think just the talent there that's in place and their ability to roll those lines. And the fact that I think there's enough questions with both the flames and the sharks where they didn't necessarily get significantly worse, although obviously losing Povellski and not really replacing them, hurts a team like San Jose.

The fact that their biggest competition in that Pacific Division didn't really do anything, and Vegas is just coming back with the same team, and should conceivably be even better now that they're going to have a full offseason in summer to integrate Mark Stone and just really be sort of this well-oiled machine. I think I'm all in on them, and I think they should be right up there with the sharks as the two best teams, and then however you want to rank all of the teams in the Central Division, vision. So yeah, I mean, I don't know if that was enough to convince you, but obviously a lot of it is dependent on Mark Andre Fleury, shouldering a very heavy workload for them, which is concerning

at this stage of his career and the fact that he's been banged up recently. But I think just with pretty much every one of these teams, there's going to be one or two kind of nagging things there where you're going to be like, oh, well, if this happens, this is how their season can go south. So I'm not too worried about that. I just think the talent that's already in place is, uh, so above and beyond that I'm willing to pencil them in there as a, maybe not a favorite, but definitely a contender. I tend to agree. You've done a good job convincing me a little bit more.

And the final thing is, when the hell are we going to see puck tracking? That's my last question. That's a really good question. You know, I reported it a couple weeks ago about the fracturing of the NHL's relationship with the German company that was doing the tech for them. and, you know, from what I gather in talking to some people afterwards, I get the sense that this approach they took to puck and player tracking is going to be looked upon as an unfortunate diversion

from maybe what they should have been doing anyway. And so they keep telling me, playoff, that's what we'll see it. I'm a little bit wary of that. I would just like to see it arrive, but more than that, I would like to see it arrive and be effective and not be a broken product when they debut it. So hopefully they've figured their stuff out, but there's no questions.

They might have set themselves back a little bit with the approach they took with this one company. Well, I have no idea that, I have no doubt in my mind that this, however it does wind up working out, it's going to be a jumbled mess at the start, if the NHL has given us any sort of samples last or track record here to deal with. And, yeah, I mean, the fact that it's already been postponed, and there's as much uncertainty as there is considering the groundswell that had happened last year and sort of these first inklings that we'd seen from some of the regular season games is certainly

alarming and I think even when it comes out there's going to be a lot of work to be done so I'm kind of in like to see it to believe it mode with that and I'm not as obsessed with it as other people seem to be and I do think a lot of people are also viewing it as it's sort of this like automatic solution to a lot of our problems with analysis and lack of certainty and knowledge which I don't think it will. Like it'll, it'll paint a different type of picture for us, and it'll certainly provide us with a new way to look at the game

and maybe provide broadcasts with, you know, fun anecdotes to share with viewers and to come up with fun charts to show us how fast guys are skating or how hard they're shooting the puck. But I don't necessarily think it's going to be, especially right out of this gate,

this revolutionary thing where it's like, we're going to get tracking data, and all of a sudden we're going to have all the answers and put all of the debates that we've had to rest. no but I'll be able to bet on how many miles Milal Luchin skates in the game which is really the only thing I care about when it comes to the fuck track

well you sir are the general stupid stuff but I mean and also I mean let's be honest I mean it's not simply just spending money on that stuff it's also going to open up the possibility for people at home to you know wager on silly stuff and win discounts at the team store and things like that

I mean, the data is going to be great from a scientific perspective, and I think it's going to be great from a media perspective, depending on how much of it they let us see. And I also think that it's going to be super fun from a fan perspective because it's going to open up a whole lot of different avenues on how we can, in real time, approach what's happening on the ice. Okay, here's one about my one final thing. I'm cheating, but I guess it's my show so I can do whatever I want.

That's fine. I mean, it is your show. Exactly. Yeah, when you have me on, you can say you can have the, final word and you can you can cut it off but um connor mac david i'm interested in Connor mac david because he's obviously coming off of this um it's not a vague injury because we saw it and it was very gruesome when he went crashing into the net in the last game of the regular season but we haven't really he kind of just went away and obviously we haven't really heard much about it

he's skating with the team so on and so forth it sounds like he's going to be good to go but um can he get enough help and how much higher can he conceivably take his game at this point. I mean, clearly with his age, it stands the reason that he could not be at his apex yet and he could get even better. How much higher can that realistically go? I mean, the fact that he scored or set up directly 42.4% of all of their team's goals last year is absolutely insane. And I have a hard time believing that figure could get higher. But, you know, right now it sounds like it with these preseason line combinations, they're planning on having James Neal and Sam Gagne on their second line and then Marcus Granlin

centering a third line with Alex Chassan so I'm not too high on this team with a combination of Miko Koskinan and Mike Smith and Nett and the fact that we're staring right in the face of another wasted Connor McDavid season in his prime makes me very sad as a hockey fan

I don't know like how do you feel about that entire situation? Yeah I mean sad as a hockey fan is the way I feel about him being exiled and never getting to see the best player on the rich and you know after like April 10th every season. It sucks. Will he have enough help in the lineup?

No, will he have enough help on his line? Yeah, if Tippett puts dry-siddle with him again. And that's sort of my intrigue about this season. I mean, Dave Tippett, in his introductory press conference, swore up and down that his reputation of being a defensive coach is an outlier because he was an offensive coach, you said, with the Dallas Stars. This is not a good hockey team. And typically when you have not good hockey teams, you don't see them play run and gun.

You see them contract and try to cover up their holes by playing more conservative style. And while I don't think that that's going to be the case with a McDavid dry saddle line, I kind of want to see what a Dave Tippett team looks like with a McDavid dry saddle line. I mean, just think about this past spring in terms of like what those two playoff rounds did for Nathan McKinnon, where it's like it seemed like every conversation for a full month was revolving around what he did the previous night or what he's going to do next and just like how he took that team by the neck and just basically dragged them to within one goal of the Western Conference final and how funny was to watch. And it's just such a shame that we're being deprived of that here with Connor McDavid.

And I hope that gets rectified. But based on their offseason moves and how little they had to work with because of the Shrelli effect, it's probably not going to be this year. So I guess that's not a very intriguing question or a very optimistic way to end this podcast, but I felt like we did need to mention the best player in the world at some point in the show in terms of the biggest intrigue. So I wanted to throw him in there. No, it's fine.

I mean, you know, 287 regular season games, 13 postseason games for Connor McDavid for the best hockey player on the planet. It is, it is, can we bring a malpractice suit against the Edmondson Oilers? at some point for depriving us of Conner-McDavid. Yeah, we need to start some sort of GoFundMe. I don't know what the campaign is going to be about, but just raise some money. Yeah, something in the,

something in the NHL bylaws will allow us to either fold the franchise and rescue him or send SEAL Team 6 into the Oilers locker room to kidnap him. And, I mean, you know, probably put him on the leaves. I mean, that's probably where I think I'm right. All right, let's get out of here. Greg, plug some stuff. what are you working on and what can we expect from you as we get closer and closer to opening night?

ESPN.com for all of your hockey writing needs. My column of the wish list publishes every Thursday. It's sort of puck daddy in a condensed one column form. And, you know, you could read myself and Dimitri and Emily Caplin and Chris Peters and all of us over on ESPN.com. Puck soup with me and Down Goes Brown and Ryan Lambert returns to the free airwaves this week. to talk all things hockey. You can find it where a podcast are found. The Patreon is where you find bonus material.

It's five bucks, gets you six things a month. And then myself and Emily Kaplan do ESPN at ICE, which will return, I think, next, I think, like the second to last week in September, I want to say. Super fun podcast. We love the people during the summer, discovered it in some cases, and already had some really big guests,

Henry McLaughlinquist, Matthew Shane amongst them, lined up for the first couple weeks of the show. I feel like having Henrik Lindquist on a podcast is the biggest waste of talent since Connor McDavid on Edmonton. Well, if you still have an old video iPod, we will put up a picture of his hair. And you can just watch it sort of undulate and wave in the breeze as we discuss things.

with Henry Blanquist. All right, man. Well, I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for taking the time to come chat during this preseason. This was a blast, and I'm sure we will have you back on at some point once the season gets going.

Thank you, buddy. The Hockey P.D.Ocast with Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovic and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.