The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 319: The Intimate Brisket

Episode Date: October 25, 2019

Murat Ates joins the show to discuss the Winnipeg Jets, the ups and downs of their early season play, and the seemingly abrupt change in trajectory for what was quite recently considered to be a very promising franchise.4:00 Red flags heading into season8:00 Talent that went out the door this summer13:00 Connor Hellebuyck's return to form16:00 The paper thin defensive depth chart21:00 Systemic adjustments to cover flaws28:00 Getting the most out of the top 632:00 Nikolaj Ehlers' value36:00 Realistic expectations for Laine's ceiling47:30 The ongoing Dustin Byfuglien mysterySee 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 Hockeyo cast. My name is Dimitri Hilpovich. and joining me from arguably, I'd say probably the worst, the most random location that anyone's ever recorded the PDOCast. It's my good buddy, Maratitesh. What's going on, man? Hey, how you doing? Do you want to tell the listeners you're recording from the side of the road on a highway?

So if the audio quality is off or if something random happens, that will explain it. But it should be pretty good, and I'm excited. I mean, we're taking this very seriously. I know you're doing some heavy lifting right now for your writing and you're kind of taking some time out of your day to chat with me. So I'm excited, Oregon, to do this. Hey, I'm excited as well.

I'm also proud of friendly Manitoba. I pulled off the number one just east of Brandon, and I've got some safe space on a farmer's field. He gave me a nod. Life is good. No, I think I was telling you right before we came on, I did have to drive by some of the places of my childhood sports misery, and the last place I ever played provincial soccer

for my home team of Pinawah, McGregor defeated us. And if anyone on your listenership of the PDO cast is from McGregor, I'm just finally forgiving you now, and it's been like 15 years. So I just had to say that. I'm very excited to be doing this from rural Manitoba. It just feels good, Deb. Oh, the Pediocass is a huge following in McGregor, Manitoba. It's like, you know, Toronto and New York City, Stockholm,

and then McGregor, Manitoba is like fourth on that list. Ah, beautiful. This is what I like to hear. Good. You know what? I'm glad we're chatting. We haven't really had a chance to talk. We traded Twitter DMs back and forth,

but the last time I saw you was following day one of the NHL draft, which was Vancouver last summer, and it's been a while now, but just to kind of give the listeners a peek behind the curtain, we got to hang out after that crazy day, and I think, yeah, we intimately shared a brisket sandwich and some fried chicken and had some beers after the, after round one of the draft, and that was a blast.

So it's always get to chat with you, man. Yeah, yeah, I can't remember exactly the spot, but I remember the brisket, and I remember just being so tired and needing, like, the best possible brisket that I could possibly have in that moment alongside that beer, and it hit the spot. That was definitely a good time. Well, it was. It was a hectic day. I haven't done too many drafts like that, and it's just like, I think it's like four or five hours, but it really, the entire time, you, you know, your eyes are wide open. You're just, like, meeting so many people and shaking hands and networking. and there's a lot going on, a lot of moving pieces,

and then we kind of got to relax a little bit. And I forget whether, like, one of us wanted the brisket, one of us wanted the fried chicken, and we ultimately decided to order both and they just split it, so we could each try both of them. And I remember the brisket was just far and away better than the fried chicken. So whoever wanted that one more than the fried chicken was the winner in my book. No doubt.

I like how you're sharing how sweet we were as well. Yeah, I think who was it was Patrick Teesan's for that as well, I thought Patrick Johnson. But yeah, yeah, it was a good time. Oh, gosh. What sweet memories, Vancouver? I know. Yeah, it was a blast. Well, let's get right into it then, since you're a busy man, and who knows how long you'll be able to be pulled out on that highway. We're going to talk about the Jets. And I'm really excited to do this because they've been a team that I've been following very closely.

One of, I don't even know it's necessarily a bold call at this point because it felt like people had soured on them so much and we're so aware of all the red flags. But when in the preseason, when we're all making our picks, and then we're being asked, like, what's your bold call for this season? What are you expecting? What's kind of going to be a bit of a zag when other people are zinging? And for me, it was, I just was really down on this Jets team. I think most kind of casual fans that it may be unplugged for the summer, just based on the fact that they've made the postseason in the past couple of years.

They have a lot of young, exciting big-name players. I think people were typically penciling them in there somewhere, maybe not, if not a top three central seed, then definitely a wild card spot. And sort of my take was that all the play, they lost all the defensive question marks they had was going to be ultimately too much to overcome and you don't want to make any sort of bold you know any sort of um close and shut proclamations after just 10 games or whatever that they've played so far and there's a lot of early season

confirmation bias where you kind of see what you want to see or what you're expecting but um i have to say i have not been particularly impressed i went back and and rewatch pretty much all their games so far the season uh in preparation for the show and there's a lot of the show and there's a a lot of stuff going on, a lot of moving parts, not a lot of great stuff. I don't know. What's been kind of the vibe around there early on in this season? And also what's been your takeaway watching this team play? Yeah, I think heading into the season, close watchers of the Jets would have expected a step back. And that's only reasonable.

Jacob Truba for Neil Pionk is a downgrade in terms of quality on the ice, losing Ben Chirot, Tyler Myers. Okay, there's some impact there depending. on what comes up and replaces them as well. Nathan Bolu, sort of maybe a number five or six guy, but he's hurt and not able to play Saminyu, who is finally due to claim a full-time NHL spot. Well, he hurt his hamstring.

He's been with the moose but not playing, so he's not quite getting the conditioning stint. You'd imagine Tucker Pullman, who has been due to claim a five or six spot or maybe even higher up, depending on his partner quality for a couple of years now, but have injury troubles while he's out of the lineup all of a sudden as well. And now you've got a lineup that's featuring Dmitry Kulikov in a premier role,

Anthony Beto in a premier role, Carl Dahlstrom in a premier role. There are players playing for the Jets in key minutes that are not just, you know, one rung above their typical or idealized spot, especially on defense, but sometimes multiple rungs. Sometimes they were AHA guys last season. Sometimes they were press box guys last season. So you've removed Jacob Trubon. Truba from Josh Morrissey's pairing and Dustin Buflin from the second pairing.

It's basically two top pairing guys that you've dropped. And that has a major impact. And then up front, Blake Wheeler struggled a little bit out of the gate. And every time he ever struggles, we're going to have to go down the is this one father time is catching him sort of conversation. I don't think we're quite there yet with him. But that's going to be something to keep an eye on. At the same time, Demetri, I apologize. the monologue, but one of the things that

if we can say that the casual fan maybe has missed the step back, I think that the obsessed fan who has predicted the step back because they saw the second half of the last season, they saw the roster changes, they might be missing

some of the progressive changes being made in the neutral zone, which is the Jets really, maybe I'm going to say coaching for how desperate their roster situation is. It's been a lot better, a lot more aggressive at Winnipeg's blue line. The gap has been tighter forwards.

It's been coming back harder. And even a guy like Neil Pionk who struggled so poorly at zone entry defense with the New York Rangers, well, systemically here in Winnipeg, he's actually been the most aggressive and most successful defensemen at shutting down entries at the line. So there are good tidbits tucked in there. We can get into all this sort of stuff as we go on that are maybe lost because of step-by. is real too. Does that make sense? No, it does. And I think that was a key point you made there where this isn't like a 10-game sample per se where you're like, oh, well, we don't want to overreact. Like even when this team was relatively a full strength, they had Bufflin and

Worsi injuries last year, even when all those players were still on the team. But I believe from like, the stat I keep coming back to it is from January 1st on, which is clearly a random sort of arbitrary cutoff, but just it's clean because it's like basically 2019 onwards. they were 25th in shot attempt share they were 29th and shot on goal share and they were like a very trendy team to get upset in round one now you know they lost to the eventual Stanley Cup champions so you don't want to dock them too much for that it's a it's a very understandable defeat but it felt like there was kind of like a an air of stink around this team sort of there was a lot of rumors there was a lot of questions about why the performance was dragging so much and then they couldn't have

had a worse summer and you know part of it was not kevin chivalda off's fault by any any means because you look at the contracts that guys like Kevin Hayes got from Philly, Brandon Tanna from Pittsburgh, sort of how everyone in the run the league knew that Jacob Truba was gone and they lost a lot of their leverage and so they could only get back so much. And if anything, they did a pretty good job of getting back that first round picture, which allowed them to identify Vili Heinola and we can talk more about him. But he's been one of those silver linings that you mentioned. So, you know, a lot of these guys were going to leave regardless.

and I'm not suggesting that the Jets should have paid the price that it would have taken to retain them. But you remove all those guys from a team that was already taking that step back. And in preparation for the show, I was just kind of like looking at some of the underlying numbers, trying to figure out what's happening. And this isn't a sentence that I thought I'd say. But if anything, like they're 5 and 6 right now. They have a minus 6 or 7 goal differential.

It feels like if Connor Hellebuck wasn't taking this step up and kind of regaining his form after a pretty down season last year. Things could be even worse than they are right now all things considered. Do you think that's fair? I think so. And I wouldn't, how do I say this? I absolutely think that the point to Connor Hallibuck is completely on point. He had a poor first game.

And believe me, the radio shows, the Twitter ads, all that sort of stuff. I mean, folks were ready to declare the contract, the failure, and ship them out. It was pretty harsh, especially because, I mean, goalies being what they are, and sorry to play into the stereotype, but his disposition following losses historically has been to stay in a positive frame of mind. So he's not going to dive into a mistake that he made. He's going to say he feels like he's played pretty well. Anything that he does need to work on, I think he's going to do on his own time.

But there are some pretty bold proclamations after giving up five goals and poor ones against the New York Rangers to start the season where he genuinely looked clumsy. Well, he had a post-game conference in which he said, he actually felt pretty good about his game. And that turned some folks off in the city for a little while. The fact is, I think he's a good bet to be an above-average or at least an average NHL starter in the NHL,

and he's been quite excellent since that time. And I think that Winnipeg is going to absolutely need that because as good as they, could become relative to my expectations at protecting their own blue line, at some point you have to play defense in your own zone, right? I mean, there's no such thing as

a perfectly offensive defensive team. That, I mean, it didn't make even make sense coming out of my mouth, right? You have to play the end zone stuff. And even the guys who are taking big steps forward, like a Neil Pionk at his own blue line, well, he's still losing battles in his own zone from time to time. There's going to be long shifts

in his own end. Josh Morrissey hasn't what he's showing perhaps maybe it's the maybe it's the pressure of the alternate captaincy maybe it's the pressure of the contract extension maybe it's just a coincidentally slow start that we're going to zoom way too far in on because it's been 11 games

but he hasn't been dominant and without a Jacob Trudeau quality partner on his side that's been exposed and really Hainola and other just what a great pick that Winnipeg made in the draft and I think that he's got a great future

such an intelligent player. There's some rhythmic things that he does where he throws veterans off with simple timing. He'll wait an extra on fraction of a second before a pass, find a lane, hit the tape, or make a play before, a beat before somebody's ready for it. And these little subtle things that make very good players look kind of comfy sometimes, he's still a small guy and he's still scrapping for it in his own zone as well

at 18 years old. Of course he's going to in the NHL. So, Dmitry, there are going to be long nights in Winnipeg zone zone, even if everything goes well for this team. And I think that's a reality for the Winnipeg Jets, no matter how well their forwards come back and play, no matter what step forward Nick Euler takes and he's taken one, or Patrick Liney takes as well, there's going to be these painful nights.

And I think that that's where that bubble or worse thought comes in, especially without Bufflin. It might be a bubble team with Bufflin, but that's it. Yeah, well, we're going to talk more about the forwards. I have plenty of stuff I wanted to get into on that. But before we do move off of Hellebuck, you know, it is, I do think it is a point where the hammering home, listen, we can never, I think our evaluation of goalies is all over the

place and still has a lot of room to be refined. And people can get way overreactionary when a goalie's on a hot stretch. They proclaim him the next best goalie in the world. And then when he has three bad games and gets pulled a couple of times, people panic and start pointing to the backup goalie. And for Hellebuck, I mean, I do think his bounce back, both for the purposes of keeping this team afloat for now until they do get some more long-term defensive solutions. But also, just for himself in terms of his career and his trajectory, can't be sort of understated or overstated, just because, listen, last year, it really felt like everything was kind of going against him from, you know, not living up to year one of a mega six-year contract extension to Lauren Braswa coming in. and playing above his head and outplaying him at times

and people clamoring for him to get more starts, the team around him started loosening up a bit. When we think back to that 2017-18 magical season of his when he finishes a Vezna finalist, part of the reason for that beyond him playing better was also how Paul Maurice in his system had done such a better job of locking stuff up around him and really making life easier for him.

And so for him to bounce back like this, especially after that first game where I'm sure a lot of people were like, oh, here we go again. He's been terrific. He has a 9-29 save percentage this season. He's fourth in the league in goals saved above average. He's given them a chance to win pretty much every night.

I mean, he has a 9-20 save percentage or higher in six of the eight games, including that, you know, first bad showing against the Rangers. And so, you know, moving forward, I guess we don't want to be too negative. We don't want to start off the show by just being like, oh, my God, everything's a mess. This is a disaster because that doesn't make for a good entertaining content. So I'm just trying to, like, point to the fact that this is a positive development or a positive revelation for them to kind of build on or hold out on hope that, you know, if this is going to continue and he is going to keep living up to his contract and living up to the flash as he showed two years ago, then that's clearly, you know, a massive step in direction for them,

regardless of what's happening in front of him. Yeah, and that's key for the Winnipeg Jets. I think he was also a little bit of a victim of a bad first half last season at the same time that Brissual was just playing incredible. And if you look at the full season, if you look at the second half, in particular, Hellebuck's game starts to turn around and improve if you're just going state percentage-wise and things like that. But because that contrast was so strong early on when things were a little bit chaotic,

I think sound memories would be a little bit longer. Like you said, I think that it's a great sign for the Jets. And I continue to believe that, you know, a good goaltender who is above average as a starter over the course of those six years could have a below average one or two years. and with goaltending being what it is, that strikes me as reasonable. Yep. Oh, perfect. I mean, 100%.

But, you know, in terms of this blue line and sort of as we spin it forward and, you know, talk about adjustments and potential things Paul Maris can do and how this system can kind of compensate a little bit for the clear depleted talent that is on that blue line, you know, you look at last year in terms of it, even if you stretched out to their top eight because they acquire Nathan Boyu at a certain point and they were playing him, and there was kind of guys coming in and out of the lineup with injuries. they've only really had access to two of their top eight most heavily used defensemen last season, and those are Jacob True.

Sorry, those are Josh Morrissey and Dimitri Kulikov. And there was a one game, I believe, there, during that Eastern Road Trip to start the season, when both those guys were out as well, and they were basically playing six defensemen that really had no experience for this team last season. And I think Sammy Niku was like their most tenured guy, which was just a remarkable thing to say. So on the one hand, when you consider all of them, that like it could be worse but there is that as you alluded to earlier that it kind of trickle down effect or snowball effect of every guy's being asked to do a little bit too much and it really

stretches them thin and i think especially in josh morseys case he's a player who i've really liked in the past and thought highly of and he was in a perfect spot last year where him and jacob trouba could kind of play those reliable top defensive minutes and then not have to do much heavy lifting offensively or or beyond that and now if you look around him him, you know, his minutes have gone up yet again pretty substantially. He's being asked to do so much. And so I think it's pretty clear that that's kind of the driving force behind his struggles beyond all this other stuff. And sometimes I think we lose sight of that a bit where it's like, I think, you know, we look at these numbers, we look at them on a permanent basis and we kind of

lose sight of the fact that there is a human element and you can't just like project that a guy can keep playing more and more and more without having a drop in efficiency. And I think that's what we are seeing, which more is he. Yeah, I think that's fair. I mean, he's certainly a human being. He's sort of spoken as well in recent times to admitting that he's fighting it a little bit, and I think that's reasonable. If you look at the ideal circumstance of the Winnipeg Jets,

I mean, he's lost a top pairing partner with whom he had chemistry to, their communication, the reads they made. Winnipeg's defensive system involves a lot of man-to-man and a lot of zone, and switching between those two things. as well. He and Jacob Trubo were, even last season, leagues better than any of Winnipeg's other defense pairings in terms of just managing their switchoffs and communicating that sort of stuff. So even if he got an excellent new partner this season, it would have been a new partner. And so now he's played with Dahlstrom, he's played with Kulikov, he's played with a pile of

different partners as he's also being asked to do more and do more of the heavy lifting. And in an ideal circumstance, you'd have Delson Buflin anchoring a, another one that can do sort of similar situations, or play in similar situations of that. Anil Pionk wouldn't be counted upon to be on a top pairing equivalent or be the leader or the go-to guy, but instead he'd be supported by somebody like Morris here, Buffalo. And then Avela Hainola, who we should spend some time on if,

where I guess we already have a little bit, but in a perfect situation, he could be protected by a Dustin Bufflin sort of, partner, especially because Hanel has had some pretty good success in the neutral zone, stepping up at the blue line. He makes his defense of Reed very quickly, very efficiently.

He forces the dumped puck, which is all Winnipeg's really trying to do in that sort of situation. He forces the dump puck pretty effectively, and well, had he adjust some bustling to help him clean up that zone instead of name the other possibility,

I think things would be even smoother, and it would be a really good argument, I think, to keep him with the Winnipeg Jets. Instead, I think that to me the best argument is to pat the amateur scouts on the back, high-fied everybody, think Vila Hanelper his time and send him to the

HL or even probably the HAL or even Liga, which are both options where he can excel in a little bit more stable of a situation with less chaos and less likelihood of being exposed so constantly. This is why you're a professional

referring to this as an unstable situation is putting it kindly. But I mean, here's the question, I guess, then for Paul Maurice and for the Jets, because I had them really high at the start of the season on my watchability to rankings because I figured that they would just go at this acknowledging how paper-thin their blue line was and how many issues they'd have in their own zone by going like, you know what, screw it. We're just going to try to outscore all of our issues and open things up. embrace that chaos and hope that our talent can win us games on occasion, similar to what

like the Blackhawks did, for example, last year, or even the Leafs have done at times with how their roster is constructed. But early on in the year, I think we saw that a little bit, especially out east and a couple of those games against the Devils and the Rangers, and they were incredibly fun to watch. And then as the year has gotten going here, and I think that's what you're alluding to a little bit with those neutral zone adjustments you were talking about and stuff like that but I have noticed this team it feels like part of it is I guess by necessity that they feel like they can't get away playing like that so they're really slowing it down trying to be more methodical about their approach and really tightening it up to kind of cover for the actual talent

itself and that's been it's just like an interesting sort of philosophical thought exercise for me because you look at someone the forward talent on this team and you think man like they would really thrive in an up-tempo, fast-paced back-and-forth shootout, but then clearly they are so hesitant to place that type of stress on their depleted defense that instead they're raining it all back in. And I wonder if it's having a potentially even adverse effect, which would explain some of the uncharacteristically poor numbers for a lot of those forwards who should be playing better than their numbers would indicate. Well, it's interesting.

I've seen the same sort of drop off the pace, I guess, if you want to think that the Jets have started the season as a fairly high event team and sort of faded off of that. I definitely see that as well. And just philosophically, if you've got the finishing talent that they do, you might think that rolling the dice on playing aggressively both ways would be to the Jets advantage. And certainly in recent seasons,

I think some of the criticism that Paul Moress' coach staff has taken has been because that pace has been pulled back even when the offense and defense was really probably quite capable of handling it. One of the things that has happened this season that I wonder about in terms of how it relates to this

is that Andrew Copps started the season of the Winnipeg's second line center between Kyle Connor and Patrick Lining. Nick Eulers was on the top line with March Sheifley and Blake Wheeler. It was a relatively new look for the Winnipeg Jets top six And one of the things that happened in those games,

even though it was sort of firewagon hockey a little bit, was you saw plays where Patrick Liney was back-checking, sticklifting, checking players who were trying to make breakouts, turning pucks over and sending them the other way. And seemed to have developed a bit of a chemistry with Andrew Kopp as well. Their huge comeback against the New Jersey Devils was led by that second line. I would say led by Kopp in terms of creating some entries, chipping and chasing around players, laying the back.

body on people. And then Patrick Lainey was right there. The amount of players where it was his physicality and his winning of a battle that set up a goal and that comeback was really quite special. And I saw it as a pretty good sign for this guy who's going to be, he was going to look to just

increase marginally his ability to drive play. And that was exactly what you wanted to see from the guy. But he was playing so well that he got promoted. And he started to play with Mark Schifley and Blake Wheeler. And that's a slower pace line for sure in terms of how it thinks the game. There's a lot of great passes made. There's a little bit of perimeter play, but there's not that crash bang and then come back hard so the defenders can gap up sort of mentality to it. And that's one of the things that

I would like to see a little bit more of actually, the cop line A pairing as time goes by. Brian Little's healthy now. That's a new thing as well. And that might make it a pretty unlikely events and it's a philosophical issue that has reared its head before. And that's referencing your slowing of the pace. It seemed like there was a solution there for a moment, but then roster situations and sort of shuffling of the line seems to have pulled the jets off of that as well. So I'm really just thinking out loud on the idea.

I don't feel like I have any conclusions, but I thought that there was something special and that the promotion to the first line might have actually been a disservice to Linae early in the season. Well, that's a great point. Marat, let's take a quick break here from a sponsor, and then I want to pick that more up because the whole Aligni thing is really fascinating to me. How pal. Sponsoring today's episode of the HockeyPedio cast is Seek.

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That's promo code PDO for $10 off your first purchase. Now let's get back to the show. all right um so here's the thing uh with line a um i think paul maurice is in a in a bit of a tricky spot here it feels like um you know he's clearly trying to pull the right strings or push the right buttons and kind of have his cake and eat it too from the perspective of um you know i think that he would like to get line a going offensively because despite some of the improvements we've seen that you were mentioning the puck away from the puck in terms of, you know, how strong he's been on it, how active he's been, how he's noticeable he's been in different areas of the game, at the end of the day for him to

be most valuable to this team and justify, you know, not only what they're paying him on this bridge deal, which is a suppressed cost, but also what they would potentially pay him down the road. He needs to score goals at that kind of superhuman level we saw in the first two years. And so I think from Maurice's perspective, you know, he was thinking, it was a make the most sense to get him up with the two guys who should be my two big playmakers in Shifley and Wheeler and try to get the puck to line in places where he can score and really get him going offensively. But what wound up happening there instead from what I noticed was, you know, Wheeler and Shifley at this point have really struggled at 5-on-5 when Eilers hasn't been around with

them to do a lot of the sort of dirty work and puck retrieval and moving the puck up the ice and transitioning for them. what he wound up doing it inadvertently a little bit is when you move eilers away from them to try to get line A going. Instead, not only does it not work for line A, but it also kind of decreases the effectiveness of Wheeler and Shifley. And so it really felt like there was kind of a cascading effect there where I'm sure he was, yeah, the rationale makes sense. And he was trying to accomplish a certain thing. But instead, it felt like it totally backfired and really just submarine not only what Linae had going for him, but also what Wheeler and. Shifley had going with Eilers as well.

Yeah, I think that that's a solid theory for sure. I don't want to overstate how far Linae has come off the pace as well. There's just a brilliant goal, I believe it was against Arizona, but it starts with lining kind of high up in the neutral zone. He's a clear option for Mark

Schifley who's breaking the puck out. Sheifley looks them off and appears to basically just ignore him the entire way up the ice. Linae pulls up the speed and stays on side. Shifley curls as if to go outside towards the right wing wall and then fires a pass across his body to line at the wheelhouse he won times at home and i think the entire building was fooled by that play linea said that sheffley didn't

look at him once the entire way up the ice and it was for me a symbol of these two players developing a chemistry and almost an unpredictability that's missing when when it's just wheeler and and shifley running the show one of the reasons why i think that wheeler and shifley have sort of falling off their dominance is maybe a hint of predictability and in addition to speed and zone entries and all that other stuff that Nicolus brings to the table.

He also, like, let's face it, he's a bit chaotic. He goes so fast, he sees reeds that other people don't, he'll curl around the back of the net, he'll change the angle, there are things that he does because he plays the game as fast as he does that are, I

think, less predictable for defenses. And there are times especially I would say second half of last season where the struggling was really quite pronounced. It seemed to me that you could count on Schifling Wheeler for one cutback, a second cut back, and then a pass towards the slot. There really wasn't a whole lot of creativity,

which is astonishing because of how brilliant those players are. I think that that's one of the things, one of the extra things that Eelers brings to that group. And you know what? Speaking of bright spots, I think Ewers has quietly been one of Winnipeg's best forwards all through the season. Just like Linae adding just a hint of puck winning

and battle winning to his game, which is great because he can already fly through the neutral zone and in his own specific way, I think you can already confidently call him a driver of play for other players. Well, that's a great point. I think something Eilers has done well throughout his career, even last year where he was struggling in other areas of the game,

was his ability to use that speed and puck-carrying ability and that unpredictability to keep defenders sort of off their balance and cause them to hook and hold and draw a ton of penalties. And since he entered the league in 2015, he's drawn 126 penalties.

He has a plus 76 differential, which is amongst the league leaders. And so far this year, he's already drawn nine penalties and 11 games. And that has been a bit of a saving grace for this Jets team so far when you talk about sort of why things haven't been even worse

because their power play, which used to be money in the bank, still hasn't gone going. Now a lot of that seems to be shooting percentage related and that'll eventually kind of normalize and they'll start scoring more goals there. But their penalty kill has been the league worst. And so having a guy like Eilers who at least gives them more volume in that regard until their special teams gets sorted out has been kind of a low key, really, really important factor for them. It feels like if it weren't for that, like things could really be off the rails right now. Yeah. I'm glad that you mentioned shooting percentages.

well because in a small non-wild way but in a small way percentages haven't been kind to the jets and if I've got this correct and at least it was before the Los Angeles game they were shooting at 6.5% at 5 on 5 and I think that's roughly

2% below what you'd expect for a 5 on 5 average it's been the bounces haven't necessarily always been kind some of that you can easily explain away because Kyle Connor and Patrick Lainey missed a lot of time and Kyle Conner's missed looks from in tight that you don't typically expect him to

miss as well. You can sort of negotiate your way around that stuff, but I think the fact of the matter is they've just been a hint unlucky in terms of PDO that'll come around. But back to Nick Eelers is a bright light. One of the things that I think might help improve those power play numbers as well. Step one was to move Neil Pionk onto the top unit in Josh Morrissey's place and his right-handed shooting ability is a boon there. It makes it a little bit easier for him to take that pass from Blake Wheeler on the right wall and much easier for him to fire it off to Patrick Lining as a shooter. And if there's one thing Pionk did particularly well last season, it was primary assists on the power play. So that was a good step. I think the next step for Winnipeg is to figure out

its own entries. Mark Sheifley is good at so many things. I have them inside the NHL's top 10 centers probably in that range, but he's the career 45% on the draw. So Winnipeg's starting a lot of its power plays with a need to go back, get it, and bring it back up ice. I think that's an area where Nick Eulers could perhaps sub out for Kyle Connor because they have similar qualities of pass distribution and they have similar qualities of one-timer as well, even if Connor is maybe a little bit more skilled in tight spaces. I think that's one thing Connor does exceptionally well.

All to say, more Nick Euler's. more success, probably. Yeah, well, and how the most sort of, if you were Palmaries, what the optimal utilization of that top six, even at 5-1-5 is, is such a fascinating question to me, because I don't think there appears to be a right answer beyond just, you know, really thinking outside the box and potentially just completely splitting those gaps, eyes up and having line A play with a guy like hop, as you mentioned, and really kind of going to the extreme because, you know, you look at like when line. is played with Shiafiel and Wheeler, they're like a sub-42% shot share team. And they've really only been bailed out in terms of the goals because they're scoring at a super sky high rate. Now, you could argue that Shifley is a guy who has throughout his career been pretty much one of the few players in the league that's immune to shooting percentage regression. It seems like he's money in the bank for between 15 and 16% himself. Now with Linae, I remember I had you on, maybe it was last year or two

years ago or whatever and we got into that kind of philosophical discussion about, you know, what a realistic expectation was for him for the rest of his career because he comes out of the gate with this shot unlike anything we've ever really seen before, I guess, maybe like a prime Steven Stamcoz or, you know, a prime Eliakovych in terms of his ability to generate so much force and accuracy from so far out that he can still beat NHL goalies cleanly and he was scoring at 17, 18 percent of his shots. and I honestly thought to myself that it completely checks out from the eye test, like the puck coming off of his stick makes a completely different sound than it does

for pretty much any other player in the league. And I talk myself into him being just that sort of rare exception that breaks all of our expected goals models and can keep doing this time and time again. And now since then, in year three and year four now, he's down to shooting 12%, which for most players wouldn't be an issue because that's roughly, around league average slightly above for forwards and you'd think okay that's you know fine that's reasonable but it is a massive um massive step back even like maybe just like mentally for us to think about because we had penciled him in for being so above average and i don't know like where do you stand on

that entire sort of thought process of what the real uh true outcome is for patrick cline what we can expect moving forward what what the real uh shooting percentage range is for him because it doesn't It might not seem like it, but going from that 18 down to 12 without necessarily even increasing the shot volume is a massive problem for both him and the Jets. I'm going to start emotionally with this one. And if there's a sensation that I had when Dustin Buflin was at the top of that power play, faking a slap shot and moving the puck over to line, that the puck would go in. I didn't question it oftentimes. You could see the way that defenses were frozen just slightly, and then Lainey was shooting at the percentages that he was,

that there were streaks where, I mean, you know, variance being what it is, right? He was clocking out at 18% or whatever it is at the end of the season, but there were stretches where he was scoring on half of his shots for a couple of games in a row, right? And there was a time where the emotional response to Patrick Lainey receiving a passes, oh, it's going to go in, and it felt right. I don't feel that way anymore about Patrick Lainey. And it's, I don't think necessarily all to do with him. I still think that he fires the puck as well as he ever has.

But some of those opportunities are a lot less effective when he's the only option on that power play at that side. Defenses have adapted a little bit to Shifley in the middle, but they've always done that. Sheifley's always found a way. I think the big difference is that lack of a bomb at the top is sort of to change things up. The Devils in particular, but I think one other team, as I was rewatching, didn't just, like, fade a guy towards line, but they played him, like, hip to hip, man to man

as he tried to go up and down the lane on the power play as well. So there's been some changes and some issues there. To go to what I think that he is overall, I sort of ran through kind of my perspective on it before the season started, just in terms of what I expected from his shot rates, his minutes, maybe a progression in his ability to influence what zone the puck is in, because I think that's the thing that he's furthest off of average from in a bad way, is his ability to influence what zone the game is played in. And I came up with 44 goals for 82 games as a realistic expectation for this year.

We can get more into methodology and all that sort of stuff. But that's not 50, that's not 60, that's not expected goals model breaking. It was just very good. and is it weird that that's disappointing? Is that weird? Like, it's so, what a phenomenal character and career arcs that he's already had that that could possibly be seen that way. But that was my response. I was like, oh, okay, 43, 44, fine. Yeah, no, it is crazy, especially when a guy that young comes out of the gate and it's really all we've ever seen from him and you just start of start, even subconsciously thinking like, okay,

as he develops, as he gets a bit better, as he gets smarter, what could this potentially be down the road? But you look at it now and he's on page, he's got three goals and 11 games and he's not even like shooting so, so poorly that you'd go like, oh my God, he's a clear regression candidate. I think he's actually at like 12% or so far this season. It's just like the volume hasn't been there. The looks haven't been there. And I think that's certainly what you highlighted there plays a big part of it where teams not necessarily haven't caught onto it. But it's a lot easier to key in on a guy like him on the power play as opposed to Ovechkin, who still has his. John Carlson at the top of the point. He still has all those other threats around the ice, whereas

with this Jets team all of a sudden, it is a lot easier to just kind of view it as a bit of a one-trick pony and go, okay, well, we're just going to not let them do that and make them beat us elsewhere because the other threats are much more sort of manageable or palatable if you're an opposing penalty kill. Yeah, and to the Jets credit, their power play has formed a new look as well. They've set up on the left side a couple of times. They've rotated lining and shifley to other spots as well. And Kyle Conner, actually, when they set up on the left side, ends up as a shooting option in the middle.

And I think to a certain degree, their ability to just demand respect, right? If there's another option that defenses realistically have to cover, it'll create a little bit more of an opening, just whether it's a fraction of a second or whether it's a little bit more space or whatever it is. But in that default format on the power play, Neil Pionke mentioned his primary assist on the powerplay.

It's absolutely something that he excelled with, or at least had massive numbers in New York. He's a great distributor of the puck in that context, but his shot is nearly what Bufflin's was, what Trubas was, even what Tyler Myers' would have been at that time. So in terms of respect, Patrick Gronin might not get that space in a hurry. I still think that there's more goals to be scored for him for sure, But just if you're trying to make a realistic way of the land and think of ways for him to get even more open on the power play,

I'm not sure I've found it when I've been thinking about it. Yeah, no, it is tough. I do, I don't want to beat the guy up. Like, listen, he, um, you know, three goals and nine assists or something, right? He's one of Winnipeg's top scores throughout, in terms of rock counting stats through the beginning of the season. It's been a strong start by a lot of metrics for sure. And he has, and he has, just to the eye test, I think he's been much more noticeable, much more active. He's done a lot of the stuff that people have been kind of clamoring from him for the past two years, even when he was scoring goals.

And so I do think the arrow is trending up, but it is, it's just, it's tough to reconcile what that sort of upside was and what we thought he could potentially be capable of and then kind of trying to on the fly adjust our expectations. And it's unfair to him, obviously, but it is kind of this like mental gymnastics that we have to go through. You know, a guy we haven't really mentioned yet is Kyle Connor much. And I think that's very fitting because I always think. of him as a bit of a sort of chameleon where it feels like his game is so suited to sliding in and around pretty much any combination and he'll make it work and he's been excellent with eelers so far it's been interesting that over the past couple years i believe he'd had 500 and 600 uh 5-1-5 minutes respectively with schifely and wheeler at 5-15 and and he hasn't really played with him at all this

year so i do wonder if they eventually revisit that but um i don't have too much to say about Kyle Connor, except for the fact that when I was going back and rewatching some of these games, his hair is, um, yeah, I can't, I can't decide if it's, if it's majestic or if it's just completely outrageous. Like, I always think of a Lord Farquod from, from Shrek when I watch it. Like, it just has this like, it just has this like poof at the bottom of it and it feels like it just doesn't move. Like, I don't know, it's defying gravity in a way. I don't even understand how he's pulling it off. So it's not, uh, it's not the most analytical take by any means, but it's, it's something that I keep coming back to whenever I think about his game.

you know despite that it was actually one of the first things I asked him when I saw him when he finally signed and got back from Michigan was about that because Matthew Perrault had just cut his hair and he was about to shave it pretty much as well so the overall amount of flow on that team has gone down Sammy Niku's injury trouble and A HL demotion limits it as well I'm trying to think I guess Blake really drew it out a little bit but if you're looking for majesty in terms of flow anymore especially with Perot gone or Perot's hair gone pardon me he's still a human being without his haircut. But I think Kyle Connor's probably your leader in that regard right now. Didn't help him in terms of his early season finishing, but he was never going to shoot 0% at 5-on-5 forever. His hands were

too good for that. And then it was against Los Angeles, I think, that you got a pass from Brian Little and buried one at 5-on-5 for the first time. So I think it was his fourth goal of the season, the first one in that capacity. And he's an interesting guy to me because last season, even when he was moved

away from Sheifley and Wheeler, there was always this, like, with certainty, he was going to go back there in time for playoffs. And that was something that I interpreted. It's something that Paul Marais just about said without saying sort of thing. So that was my read, but it happened. And you could have been sure about it at the time, especially a lot of Jet fans I interact with, we're sure about it as well. It's interesting to me that this would be the season that he goes away from that time, time spot, because he just sort of cashed in in the off season, in terms of what he he is and what his peak offense is we probably have seen something close to it in close to it in his case because of his line mates at five on five and because of the power play time as well um you

might not make that same argument for patrick linens and you might not make that same argument for nick eilers who's uh i guess just a little bit older by a few months than than conner is um that's an interesting one for me because they're all so good at such different things yeah i would say that connor feels like he checks the most boxes in terms of the ride ideal partner for those two guys just because he has a bit of that Euler's ability to be a bit more tenacious and a bit more sort of capable of retrieving the puck. We actually saw it in one of the more recent games. They're all mixing together for me now. But he was playing with Eelers and he did a really nice job on the for the four on the four check of, uh, it was against the Kings. He led to a goal for

him where he was really disrupting Drew Dowdy on the for check. And so he does a little bit of that, but he also has a bit more finishing ability. So it feels like he's kind of like a nice marriage of some of the skills that Eelers brings to the table and some of the skills that Leyen brings at a table. And I imagine we will see him back there eventually because they had too much success over the past two years not to do that. But yeah, there's a lot of moving parts there for Maurice. And we're 45 minutes in here and we haven't really, like we've been dancing around the subject and we haven't really brought up Dustin Buflin tangibly yet. We've kind of talked about what his absence in the lineup does for both the blue line in terms of

the minutes and also for a guy like linea in terms of the power play effectiveness but where are you at with that entire situation in terms of are people still um expecting that he's going to kind of come save the day and walk in the door all of a sudden or is enough time passing now where we shouldn't plan for that like just the entire way that the jets organization has acted since that news came out in terms of not really making any major moves in terms of pretty much leaving the exact number of cap space open for sliding Dustin Buflin's contract and cap figure back in to stay cap compliant. Some of that stuff always led me to believe that we were going to get a happy ending to this and there was going to be some sort of a resolution way that they would get them back

in the lineup. But I mean, now you see, like, it just, they haven't, the fact that they haven't done anything beyond really stealing Lucas Spisa away from the Ducks, which is pretty hilarious. in and of itself. That all points to me that they are expecting them back, but I don't know. Like, what's the temperature like right now? What are you thinking about the situation? Yeah.

At the athletic, Ken Weeb and I wrote a 10 bold predictions piece at the beginning of the season, trying to, you know, just push beyond the typical, okay, I think this guy's shooting percentage is going to regress, but I actually try to be halfway bold. And I'm not really known for spitting fire. at the best of times, I think.

I think I try to keep it kind of reasonable. My take on that was that we would see Dustin Bufton again this season, and just not soon. And I still honestly believe that. Whether it's sort of the smoke around Darren Dregor's announcement about a week ago, that the talks have shifted, or not talks, but the attitude has shifted slightly positively, or just maybe my perception, I guess, around things that I've heard

thought in the last little while. I continue to believe that just a little bit more than half, I'm leaning towards him coming back. The problem with that is that even if he does return, he's not an immediate savior.

He needs to get back up to game shape. He needs to get back to pace, pick up the new system, all that sort of stuff. He's not, I don't think anybody is capable of walking in on December first and fixing what ails a team that has lost as many guys on the back end as Winnipeg has.

At the same time, I think maybe the interpretation around Winnipeg's roster moves is part of what influences my thought. I would have known in the summertime that with Patrick Lainey and Kyle Conner's contract as of yet on sign, even though there was some cap space there and a good free agent like Jake Gardner was on the market, I would have known that the Jets were not necessarily in on that because they were protecting cap space. And that's where you see the Mark Let's Testu at, and that's Nebetetto at, and moves like that, which are about bodies in a way.

And Winnipeg certainly likes having those bodies be people that it believes to be good humans or good in the room. But really, at the end of the day, it's about having somebody capable of playing the role, who's not an albatross of a contract, who's not particularly expensive, that if the situation resolves itself in a different direction, you can move. want from that player. And that's with no disrespect to people with great careers like a Mark Lettestu has had.

But I think that's the role that he plays. And then with Winnipeg's the most recent pick of Stisa, well, I think that follows the same sort of phenomenon. Like the Jets still have the Bufflin issue hanging over them. They still have the Bollyue injury, the Niku injury, all these sorts of things sort of piling

up, Buffalo and obviously being the most significant of those three. and all the tiny little moves you see in the Dahlstrom pickup as well off of waivers. It's just them doing the best they can while treading water and knowing that they're not going to make a move that requires commitment right now. They're not going to trade for a $4 million defenseman right now to patch it up until they've got resolution. And maybe you read some optimism into that,

or maybe you just think that it's them doing Buffle on a solid and being falling through on the idea that they were going to give them as much time. There's a lot of stuff there, and I don't think any of it says that he's absolutely coming back. I don't think any of it says that Spitzler and Dahlstrom or Dettto are the answer either. But just to take it back to your initial question, I still believe that we will see Duff and Buffin play hockey this season. Well, I hope you're right. As someone who has, you know, no rooting interest or no bias beyond just watching the best players in the world play hockey and do their thing, he's such a unique athlete in terms of what he's capable of when he's on the ice, when he's

healthy and when he's playing at his absolute best. And I'd love to see that. Now, it is a bit troublesome that the Jets have, you know, part of it is, it was just going to happen anyways. Part of it is by their choice in terms of how they've approached a situation. Like, in terms of just expecting him to come back in and solve all their problems and be the immediate answer. Like, it's clear that he'll help. You know, they could use. any of that at this point. But even last year we saw that, you know, he was laboring quite a bit physically that expecting him at this point of his career with his age and all the miles he's accumulated to just step back in and play 25, 26 minutes a night and do everything for them

and be able to still stay healthy and play out the rest of the season. Like that seems ambitious in and of itself. So I guess like all of their moves point to a team that is just kind of trying who buy time and, you know, hold on for now and not completely fall out of it until something comes down the road. But I'm just not sure what that thing in their mind is that's going to come in and immediately fix a lot of these things that ail them. Yeah, I think that's a fair interpretation. That's how I'm taking it right now. And even if, let's say, that, you know, that they believe that he's not coming back. I think that there's something to a point to be said for showing.

some goodwill and allowing a person to take all of the time to make what decision is best for them as an individual. I think that's the right way to treat individual people in this situation. At the same time, it comes with the cost and every game that there is no resolution, whether it's a buffling or a usage of this cap space or whatever it's going to be, I mean, they're treading water at a position where they're already weak. So it's an interesting push and pull or tug of war between those two ideas in my mind. and I'm certain that the fan base will have its own opinions

or fall at different sides of that continuum as well. But I think that Winnipeg is doing itself a service as an organization by being as overtly, I don't know if loyal is the right word, but sort of treating it in the appropriate way. And all of their press verbal and all of that sort of stuff has been supportive as well is the best I think that you can do in what's clearly a difficult situation for them. that's well said uh all right well i think that's it was there anything else on this team that we

neglected to cover or that we're overlooking like i feel like we really kind of hit it on all fronts there we've got a heritage classic coming up in redana that's exciting um outdoor hockey is always a good time but uh in terms of how they've done and so the nitty gritty of their performance i think it's it's so interesting that they can be doing something so much better and to me that's their gap at the blue line in the neutral zone and still be so much worse because they're just on able to make those same shutdown plays in their own zone. And it's fun. I honestly think that there's something really compelling about this group

as it fights for this bubble or for the 500 mark or whatever it's going to be when it's all said and done. I guess that will be disappointed by that. But I'm compelled by uncertainty at the best of times. I think that's what this is. Yeah, I guess it's sad when you factor in where they were at two years ago or even a year ago at this time and sort of what their, you know, reasonable out ceiling or capability was. And then when you compare it to now,

but you're right, in terms of from an, like wearing an analyst hat, they are an interesting team just because they're a great test case for this kind of interplay that we always wonder about of, like, talent versus coaching and structure and system and sort of how those two things play off of each other. And also, you know, clearly you'd love to have as much talent as possible and have, you know, an all-star team that can just score a million goals. and win every game handily, but in a cap system that is not typically something teams can do. And so you have to make it work and you have to try to optimize your talent. And, you know, this is a great sort of guinea pig for that, especially, you know, with Paul

Maurice, it's crazy to think that he's already the second longest tenured coach just a couple months behind John Cooper, but he's been around for so long now. And there's been so many different iterations of this team. And this is just the latest one. and it's such a drastic change in terms of philosophy and talent from where they were at pretty recently. So following all of that and seeing how it turns out is going to be fun. And I can't think of a better man to do that job than you. So I appreciate you taking the time.

And this is the part of the show where I let you plug some stuff. You were talking about the Heritage Classic. What are you working on? What do you have coming out? What can people look forward to from you? One of the fun things that I was able to do in the last couple weeks is sort of get a behind-the-scenes process of a winning. Peg's Jersey creation development. So obviously

they've got this heritage classic blue jersey that harkered back to old times and sort of had some conversations about the thoughts behind that. And also all of the things that it could have been or back in 2016, what the white one could have been and other heritage type ideas that the jet explored. I thought that was kind of a fun one that's not something I normally sink my teeth into.

One of the most interesting things I would say that I would have written recently was after rewatching a pile of games, just a demonstration of how well certain defensemen are or aren't protecting the blue line and what the puck possession outcomes are of Winnipeg's new defensive scheme in a neutral zone. So we sort of got the fun stuff, the goofy stuff, and the analysis as well. And then I can't wait for the outdoor game in Regina and all the things that come out of that too. So it's, yeah, it's definitely fun to write about this team right now for sure. Beautiful, man.

Well, I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to following your work. I'm looking forward to the next brisket sandwich we share together. This is a blast. Enjoy the ride. We'll check back in sometime down the road to kind of see where the season went for the Jets. Thanks a lot, Dim TitoCast, Dim Peelepovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdf.com.

Thank you.