The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 320: Early Season PDO Benders

Episode Date: October 29, 2019

Mike Johnson joins the show to talk about the teams that are off to surprising starts, the likelihood that teams exceeding our expectations sustain their success, and if there's reason to panic about the teams that are stumbling out of the gate.1:30 Can the Coyotes create enough offense?5:00 Is this Sabres team different from last year's version?12:30 How far can McDavid and Draisaitl carry the Oilers?22:20 Can the good outweigh the bad for the Sharks?29:00 Do the Stars need to change the way they play?34:00 Are the Leafs issues overblown?39:00 Why are the Lightning starting off so slowly?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 Philpovich. And joining me is my good buddy Mike Johnson. Mike, what's going on, man? What's going on? Another year, another time to check in with the expert of all things hockey. So that's you. Happy to be here.

Yeah, no, it's good. That's quite the, usually I'm supposed to talk up the guest and give the amazing intro to introduce into the guests. But here you are stealing my thunder and making me sound much better than I deserve to be. So I appreciate that, man. I'm excited to do this. I thought the plan for today would be you and I are going to try to kind of rapid fire through this because I know you're a busy man and we're going to bounce around and discuss some either early hot starts for teams and sort of how sustainable that success is or

teams that have underwhelmed or disappointed so far and sort of how worried we should be. So I'll give you the floor since you're the guest. Is there a team so far that fits either of those buckets that you really have your eye on more so than others? As far as early season's success, I think Arizona might be able to, to hang around a little bit because I feel like

their defensive systems might be enough that they're able to withstand kind of the ebbs and flows of their offense which is still not great but you know

they still control the shots they still generate you know enough chances they have two very good goalies and I just think that Rick Tocke's got them kind of locked into a system that will allow them to

be pretty consistent in their game, and so they'll lose some, the win some, but they're going to play pretty much the same way. So I don't know if I consider them even a hot start, but I just figure that maybe this is actually the year. They have, you know, a few games over 500, that they'll be able to sustain this throughout the whole season. And they're doing it about Charlerson,

who I think is probably not given enough credit for being maybe the best shutdown defense of this generation of players or something close to it, and yet they're still locking teams down. to a great extent, not just because of great goal attending, but all their expected goal numbers and all those different things are still pretty strong. So I think that feels like

they can repeat that over and over. Yeah, I think that's a fair one. I mean, there's six, three, and one. So they've kind of crept up on us a little bit here. It doesn't feel like, you know, it's been such an overwhelming success that everyone's talking about them, kind of like these sabres or the oilers per se, but they've been quietly doing this thing. And I was really

here is to see how the addition of Phil Kessel would affect their offense because clearly they identified. I mean, it didn't take any analytics or any rocket scientist to be like, okay, if Brad Richardson's our leading goal score and we don't have a single player over 50 points, maybe we need to add some sort of a shot in the arm here. So they clearly identified Kessel. They went out and got him. And, you know, he necessarily hasn't just individually tore it up and been putting up crazy goal and point totals. But I think he's fit in really nicely with what they're trying to do in terms of how they approach the game offensively. And you know, you look at the power play. It's a dramatic uptick from the 26th or 27th ranked unit they had last year. They're

scoring more goals. They're still doing all the stuff they did well last year. And I think the baseline for them offensively, like the bar they need to clear to get it done is so low because of how good they are defensively and how good Darcy Kemper and now Antirante that he's back have been. And if you're talking about goalies and sort of how it's voodoo and how it's unpredictable and we don't know what's going to happen, I think Darcy Kemper at like age 29 or 30 becoming a star goalie is something I certainly didn't see coming over the past couple years. No, you're exactly right. And, you know, he came from L.A. And L.A. has made a lot of boys look really good over the last decade.

And it wasn't great there, but he's gotten to Arizona. And you're right. Because I think when Arizona sat there in the summer and with their whiteboard and everyone, healthy and thought okay how do we win games even with Phil Kessel I think it kind of looked like this where you know Phil would you know have some moments the power play might be a bit better

but he wouldn't be overwhelmingly dominant certainly not five on five he wasn't the last couple years in Pittsburgh either but he would add enough that it could make the difference so if I'm saying Arizona is the more sustainable version I'm happy for

Buffalo fans I'm happy that they're doing so well. I feel that, you know, you look at the ratings at any American game, Buffalo is always the highest rated market for a team that's not involved in the game. So, they support their team. My issues with them are this.

They are on a PDO bender right now. Their goalies are through the roof good, 90, whatever it is, you know, 4%, 5 on 5. I mean, it's just ridiculously good. The shooting exceptionally well as well. That's got to cool down, right? I think that has cool down. We saw it last year. Hutton O. Mark

will at some point not be 940 goalies. So if they end up at 920 goalies, that's great, but that means they're going to play 12 more games with their 900 goalie. Just to average themselves down back to where they probably would be happy to end up, that's going to be a tough run. Will their power play be 35%? Whatever it is throughout the whole

season? I'm guessing not. It's already starting to fall in low 30. So that's going to cool down as well. A lot's gone well, and I'm delighted for them, and the point now count the same as they count in the future. But they are not going to be, I don't think, first place in the Atlantic division.

I think they'll probably hang around the playoff chase. They won't fall off the cliff like last year, but they're not this good. They're not this good. It's just not sustainable. The numbers probably just don't add up. Everything's working, everything's going right, and that probably won't happen for 70 more games.

Yeah, but you know what? We do this every year, and it's funny because I was just saying about how Arizona there's something, no one's identifying them as kind of this regression candidate or this team that's not going to keep doing this well, because they do a certain number of things well, of course, but it's also like their six, three and one success feels kind of like reasonable and sustainable moving forward. Just because Buffalo has jumped out to this nine, two and one start, everyone's kind of identifying them as like, oh, well, they're clearly not going to win nine out of every 12 games. And it's like, I don't think we need, I don't think we need to look at the deeper numbers and be like, okay, their power play is going to come back down Earth. Carter Houghton and Linus Lvark will not be the best goals in the league to identify that they're not going to win three quarters of their games. But at the same time, I do think this is a bit of a different story than that 10 game winning streak last year where it was pretty clear. They were just rattling off all of these one goal wins and all these overtime wins. And it made for like a great story and a narrative and something for their fans to latch on to they were so desperately craving. But I think everyone from the outside was viewing that as kind of like, okay, this is going to end eventually. And when it did, it was pretty horrific down the stretch. But with this team, I mean,

the formula is there. Like the goaltending is not going to be this good, but we saw the success Mike Bales had last year in Carolina, and I'm willing to believe that they'll be like slightly above average. The power play won't be this good, but they're kind of running this, uh, this, it feels a bit sacrilegious to compare them to Tampa Bay's power play because I certainly don't think they have the personnel to pull off what Tampa Bay does, but just this idea of having those two lethal shooters on either end and then the hammer at the top with Dahlia. And it feels like they kind of,

put opposing penalty kills into the situation where it's like, okay, you can basically choose how we're going to beat you this time and there's no right answer. So just, you know, we're going to score somehow just a matter of which way we're going to do it. And so I love watching them move the puck around and shoot from all over the ice. And so, especially with Eichol kind of continuing to take another step this season, like there are sort of replicable steps in their formula there that I think they can keep doing. But yeah, clearly they're not going to win nine out of every 12 games moving forward. Yeah, so maybe I'm overstated

in the obvious stand, but I still think they're going to hang around the playoff chase. I didn't think they're going to fall off like they did last year where it was a bit of a smoke and mirrors 10 game run that they got through. And I do like just kind of on a practical sense, the fact that, you know, Jeff Skinner and Jack Egel don't have to play together. You can spread out, and Skinner

can still score playing with Marcus Johansson. That's pretty significant because last year it was Eichl and Skinner and not much else below it. So if Skinner and Johans can provide some sort of 50 goals between those two players or something like that on the second line. That would be exceptional. I still, I like Colin Miller.

I like Yoki Haru. I love Dahlene. McCabe versus the line. You know, they're not a perfect team, and they will come back to the pack at some point in the next little while. No, they certainly are flawed. And they're going to get Brandon Montre here back in a bit, and I think he'll help sort of with that identity of what that blue line wants to accomplish. But I think, I don't know if you feel this way, like philosophically, sometimes, you know, we can overstate a little bit, I think that hockey is a team game because you look at what Connor

McDavid and Leandro said or are doing Edmonton and we can discuss the Oilers a little bit here. But like, clearly it still is a superstar driven sport where if you have one of the best players in the world, they're going to make you a certain level of good regardless of what's around them. But then at the same time, I think sometimes maybe we understate like how big of a difference it can make for a team like Buffalo where you just remove a couple of the black holes in your lineup or the weak links and you just like get serviceable league average to slightly above league average players in there and all of a sudden you don't have a line that's getting caved in and getting 42% of the shot share and kind of starting this snowball effect of you never having the puck on your stick and

you're always chasing the game and you know ickel's coming out on the ice and he's defending in his own zone rather than having the puck in the offensive zone so i think stuff like that maybe we can understate it a little bit and clearly in buffalo i think they did a good job of sort of identifying that and making sure that, you know, they didn't get a ton of superstars this summer, but they got a bunch of guys who can at least play, and that's a massive difference from what they had in the past. Yeah, you know what? It's a really good point, because they're not maybe, you know,

even Marcus Johanton, whatever. He's not a world beater going to, you know, light the world on fire, but he's a good player. And generally, the positive things happen more often when him on the ice stand with the guys that he's replacing it, and you put three or four of those guys into a roster, and the games just feel different. And then the results are different because of the way that it's tilted a little bit.

So, yeah, I mean, I think that's part of it. And I know we like to talk about the numbers and the likelihood and odds and all that in this. And I can appreciate that. But every now and then, there are teams that can overachieve. And, you know, culture or whatever chemistry can be confident, you know, can be tangibly kind of things. And so far it's easy when you're nine to and one. everyone's good and then Ralph Krueger is the best coach in the history of the game according to Rist Aligning and all the rest of it. But I do think Ralph Krueger has come in for a group that has seen

a lot of turmoil, a lot of change, and offered a different voice that seems to be resonating. And that also can matter. I remember my first year playing for Pat Quinn in Toronto. We were the very, not a good team the year prior. We missed the playoff by a ton. We didn't have a lot of scores, but just because of Pat Quinn's systems and we added Derek King and Steve Thomas, and we went to being the highest scoring team in the league. And that kind of thing can't happen with, you know, a coach empowering players to play a little bit different, a little bit of confidence. And it feels like Ralph Kruger is getting bought into across the board in Buffalo. Yep. No, he is for sure. There is a bet of that new coach bump. And listen, there's going to be a team

at the end of the season that exceeds our expectations largely due to having a a very high PDO and they're going to they're going to be a team that probably started off hot and everyone wrote articles about how they're not going to continue it and they foregoed everybody and keep it up now they might not do it again next year but it doesn't matter in this in this case so it'll be curious to see which of those teams uh kind of checks those boxes let's let's talk about the oilers then i mentioned them with the star players and um they're off to an eight three-on-one start even after getting trounced at home by the panthers on sunday they still are sitting atop the Pacific.

I'm torn on this one because on the one hand, I don't want to bet against McDavid and Drysaito because they are ridiculous. And if they're going to legitimately keep playing like almost half of the game, like if they're playing 24, 25 minutes a night and they can keep that up, they're going to be good. Like those two guys are going to drag them to a certain number of wins. Now, how far that'll take them, whether they can keep getting top 10, say, percentage from Miko Koskin and Mike Smith, whether they can keep shooting

top 10 shooting percentage across the board with the rest of the team they have. That seems kind of I'm dubious about that, but I don't know, like, let's unpack this from a couple different perspectives. We can do it from the team, and then we can also do it from the perspective of Drysadel and McDavid playing the minutes they are. Like, how sustainable do you think each of those two things are? So we'll start with the easier one to mean. Like, how sustainable is it for McDavid and Drysaddle played 23 or 24 minutes a night?

I think pretty sustainable. I mean, I think, I don't know if it's wise to win or wise long term, but I think although those guys physically capable of playing that much and still being effective for 80 games, I think they are, they both are incredible skaters. And I think Dry Settle, his skating gets lost because he's beside McDavid and everyone gets lost beside McDavid, but you see him in the three-on-three and overtimes where he's taken off on the rush,

and, you know, he gets where he needs to go in a real hurry. So neither one is, particularly physical in how they play the game without the puck. So that also alleviates some of the wear and tear on how much you can play. And neither one is probably exerting as much energy away from the puck playing defense as they could.

I'm not saying they're saving their energy for when they get it back, but they're managing their energy for when they get it back. And all those things leave me like, yeah, you can play them 23, 24 minutes for sure. I don't think that's an issue. I probably don't think it's wise, but I also get why you do that. I mean,

when there's so much better than whatever else you have to put out there, and this is my concern with Emmettin. First off, I've read some of the technical changes that Koskin might have made in his game to kind of show up how he plays. I've read that, you know,

he got tired having to play a lot last year, so maybe having Smith around who's played well to start and them sharing the load helps him be good for the entire season. Top 10, I would not have bet on that before the season, but maybe some of these changes will result in that.

Maybe. The bigger issue to me still will be who is going to score. I mean, I know James Neal has 10, 7 on the power play, but hey, power play goals count, but, you know, five on five, if you're going to have McDavid and dry settle out there a lot together, and it seems like Dave Tibbet is willing to do that quite a bit, you know, who is going to score, you know, Cassian, Neil,

Chiesin, Giarchara, Yercho. I mean, like, who we talking about here? And a great and as sustainable as I think those two guys are,

and I think it absolutely is conceivable that Tricel and McDavid both end up with 110 plus points. Yep. And I still am not sure if that will be enough. I still think they need something more than they've gotten so far below them.

So I don't think the way they're playing right now and the recipe, they're using right now is going to work for 80 games. They need more scoring. They need more support. Maybe, you know, Adam Larson being out and having other guys play, you know, the factors involved there, but death scoring,

we talked about it all summer. I think Kenny Holland knows that it's an issue. I don't know if it's been answered. Yeah, it's almost impossible to sort of overstate just how reliant they've been on those two guys and how bad the secondary scoring's been. Like if we lump up Neil into not even secondary scoring, because he's like their third most, I guess,

dangerous or relied upon scorer behind Dreisel and McDavid. Beyond that, there's just nothing really there of substance. I mean, you look at just the 5-on-5 numbers, line one with McDavid and Dreisel. They're outscoring teams 14 to 6. Line 2 with Neil and Nugent Hopkins, 5-4. So, okay, at least they're kind of keeping their head above water. In 205 minutes without those four guys on the ice,

so that's basically bottom six minutes. They've been outscored 10 to 1. So they've generated one goal from their bottom six of five-on-five And the scary thing is like, you know, they're going to get a couple balances here or there. I don't think they're going to keep scoring one goal in every 11 games they play. But I don't see that any reason to suggest that, oh, this is a group that's been unlucky. This is a group that's actually doing a lot of things right.

It's like, I think this is probably going to continue moving forward. And so that's why I kind of like, you know, we're in this load management era, especially in basketball where guys are taking nights off, where teams are making a point of protecting their assets and not wearing them down and sort of managing their minutes so they can optimize their performance. And I totally get that. So that's like kind of part of my brain is thinking about that. And then the other part is like, I sort of respect the idea of like going down, swinging with your best players and trying to squeeze everything out of them. And so and but at the same time, you do want to protect them because they are

your future assets and you need these guys for the next six, seven, eight years to come. So it's, I don't know what the right answer is here. I guess the fact that they're off to, great start might kind of empower them and bolden them and might give them sort of more reason to believe that they should keep going down this path. But I think eventually, even if McDavid and Dre Seidel are as good as they are and they can keep playing 22, 23, 24 minutes a night, like the efficiency there is going to drop off a little bit just because they're kind of wading into these uncharted waters that we really never see forwards do. Like when's the last time of Ford even played 24 minutes a night as obscene? I think last time was like Pavelle Burray in the

90s as far as I know. So it's, yeah. Yeah, he never got back to his own end. Although I think Marty San Luis a couple of years under Torrance was pretty close in Tampa, where Torz just played the heck out of him, and he got into the 23, I think, as a guy who kind of did a bit of everything. But that's just it. Now, I mean, I guess they can go look for options.

They don't have much cap space. I don't know. No easy solutions to be had there. But, yeah, you just look at what they do when McDavid and Dress that out there together and what they do when they're not. and yeah, somebody else has to find a way

to scores and goals in the run of play when those two aren't on the ice for them to make it. The Pacific's interesting because I don't think the Pacific is as good as maybe thought it might be I think L.A. certainly we knew would struggle.

San Jose, I am leery of them. I think everyone assumed that they would be a lock. So Edmonton, maybe there is an opportunity there to kind of battle in with Arizona and Calgary and in Vancouver because I think an unlikely team will make the playoffs in the Pacific. Sponsoring today's episode of the Hockey PEOCast is Seatkeek. If you feel like ticketing websites make getting to the event difficult on purpose, you're

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That's promo code PDO for $10 off your first purchase. Okay, well, let's talk about, you know, you mentioned the sharks there. I think I'd lump the stars in here as well. We've kind of been talking about teams that started off hot, and we're wondering whether they can continue or not. Let's talk a bit about some of these teams that have started off really cold, and they came into the season with sky high expectations. And, you know, the sharks are as good of a place as any to start here,

because clearly being 4-7-1, you know, they just lost to Ottawa and didn't look particularly good doing. So I think a lot of the same concerns that were there last year are still there. The goaltending is still sub-900, and they haven't done anything to address that. And I get that their hands are kind of tied with Martin Jones' contract and sort of how committed they are to him. And I also do, I get that it's not entirely on their plate because the defense in front of them is very suspect and kind of leaves them hanging. on many occasions. But the issue with this team now is you subtract all the depth they had because of the cap concerns this summer and you lose Pavelsky even though he's struggling in Dallas.

You lose Don Skoy. You lose Nyquist. And the offense hasn't been there either. And that's the biggest concern to me where last year they could afford to play these five four games because I felt good that they would be scoring five goals a night. Now they're 24th in offense. I think at five on five, they're not really generating anything. You know, the power play, they're still lethal.

but it's not the formula isn't kind of adding up to me here where I don't feel as good about them having an up depth and an up scoring punch to compensate for those mistakes defensively. And so I am a little a little bit alarmed. I've seen people online go, oh, well, you know, you shouldn't have been that high on them coming into the season because they did lose all those players. But you look at the Pacific and you look at how many talented players they still have with Carlson and Burns and Hurdle and Meyer and Kane and so on and so forth. Like I do think the expectations were still there for this team. I'm legitimately beginning to wonder whether they are going to be able to achieve them. Yeah, I mean, I think the first thing you touched on, and God, I've done so many San Jose Sharks games,

and I like Martin Jones, but I mean, I think you can say he might have been the worst starting goal in the league last year who played, you know, a lot. And between him and Dell, poor results in the regular season, poor results in the playoffs last year. They're getting the same kind of results. So, I mean, after, you know, a couple years of this, is it really fair to say he's the guy he was three years ago, or is he the guy he was the last couple years? And if the guy he was the last couple of years, that's trouble. Because speak to how good they were last year that they made the playoffs, had as many points as they did, despite getting that kind of goaltending.

They get the same kind of goaltending this year. It's not happening. He makes some really good points. You forget how good at Puevalky was. But Nyquist late. Even Donkoy was an efficient player. And I think Joel Thornton had a really solid year last year. At some point, age catches up to everyone.

Joe's not gotten off to a great start this year. And the dynamics a little bit. different where, you know, Kane, Hurdle, Meyer, Couture, all excellent, even if LeBanks is a very good little player, but they're, you know, they can't outscore their troubles. So what you would hope would be, they wouldn't have so many troubles, though. They got 27 million invested in Carlson Burns and Vlasic. If those are your three defensemen, you have to think we've got to be a team that can

really control the game for the back end, and they're not. like Eric Carlson's game in Ottawa yeah, this past weekend, was as poor defensive effort as I've seen come a defender in a long time and we've seen that kind of stuff happen for San Jose so they can't outscore their troubles,

they can't defend well enough to protect their goalies and their goalies can't bail out mistakes made in front of them. I mean, you put all that together and you're getting yourself into dangerous territory and I think that's where San Jose is right now. They have good players, I've been this staunchest Eric Carlson supporter going, but right now it looks like a bad mix,

and I'm not exactly sure how they turn it around without changing how they're playing. Yeah, I mean, they were the best Puck Possession team in the league last year, so they could afford to have sub-900 goaltending when they just had the sheer quantity of looks that they were getting on the other end of the ice. Their volumes going on this. Yeah.

And now they're 19th. They're relying on a lot of guys who are, either on the wrong side of 30 or are still young players but have put so many miles in their body over the past couple years because of how much hockey this team's been playing and how much they've been relying on their top guys. And so I do worry about the depth. I do worry about sort of how that's going to go as the year goes along. And you know, you look at their at their cap-friendly page and they've really committed themselves to this team. Like there's a lot of money tied up in Burns, Vlasik, Carlson, Kuchur, Martin Jones, guys who are in that dangerous area where

their games should conceivably start to drop off a little bit. And so that's alarming to me. It's another case where I still think the Pacific is weak enough, and they have enough raw talent that they're going to make a run here eventually. But I think we do need to lower expectations and sort of lower the ceiling for this team, because I did think if they got healthy and they put it all together, they would be right there with a Vegas, for example, as like the two scariest teams out West.

And now it feels like they're dropping into that sort of middle of pack where they could outscore teams on any given night, but I don't think the consistency is going to be there where they are going to be there with a Vegas, for example. Yeah, I'm with you, but to go on a run like that feels like you need good goaltending. Yeah. It's a great goal thing. You need like 950 goaltending for 10 games. And I know they can pop up there for a game or two, but I don't even know if like a 10

game run like that for Jones is in the cards right now. It would be less likely than not. So, yeah, I would be worried if I'm a Shark's fan. I don't know how this one all plays out. And this team is going to have to be good this year because if you mentioned, the age, the contracts, like, it's not going to end well for this group. They're not going to age out gracefully into their late 30s and towards 40 and continue to be competitive with this much money tied up.

So they got to be good now because the three defense, when I mentioned, and even, you know, Benner-Cain's 28, uh, Croix-Cuture's 30, and Jones, who has still, amazingly enough,

four more years after this one, um, you know, three years from now, they're not going to be better off than they are today. Yeah, now that's true. Although I will say,

I'm more worried about Dallas. I, uh, have you, have you had a chance to watch, uh, a couple of stars games so far this season? Yeah.

Yeah, I called a Dallas game last week against Ottawa. and they looked amazing, surprisingly enough. Because against Ottawa, a lot of shots were 48 to 22, and should have been 7 to 2, it was 3 to 2. But, yeah, their start is a bit concerning because they got by last year on being a really stingy team, right? Their chances they gave up their high danger chances,

expected goals against were super low, as were their actual goals against, because Ben Bishop and Hood Obam were so good together. that hasn't been the case this year where the defense hasn't been there like the defending so that that and a goalie have taken a slip if they don't get great goaleting in that system and I'm not sure if they have enough goals in it to be successful yeah that's that's the alarming part to me I mean last year they they got 935 at 5-15 and 923 overall insane percentage and I like ben Bishop I like count on Houdobin, but other than maybe like a Barry Trots, Mitch Korn combo, and Boston, there's very few

goalie situations where I expect that continued a year over year. And I thought they'd be better offensively to kind of compensate for that. But I think they're playing, I think only the devils are currently playing a slower pace than they are. And we know that Montgomery prefers this kind of a more methodical defensive approach. And it worked so well for them last year that I understand why they would try to replicate that. But you look at the talent here, and that's the thing that bugs me the most. You have Tyler Sagan, you have Jamie Ben, who's clearly not what he used to be, but can still play that North-South game. You have Radulov. You have Klingberg and Heiskenen, like the two most dynamic defensive players in the league. You have Rupé Hintz,

stepping up and living up to this preseason hype. You have guys who would thrive in a more open, fast-based system. And this team is instead kind of trying to jam this square peg into a round hole by playing, slow it down, grind it out hockey. And that's what's concerning to me. I mean, they're pretty much bottom three to five in like every offensive category, both expected and actual. The shots aren't there. The shot generation isn't there. I think the Senators game is really the only game they look good in, and that was basically

like a scrimmage. So I'm just, it's, it's, it's alarming to me. I, the goalies could get hot here. You know, say again is eventually going to start scoring goals. I'm not expecting Rupa hints to have the same number of goals as say again, Ben, Pavelski, and Radula combined. Like, those guys will eventually get it going a little bit, but unless this team undergoes a very big philosophical change,

which is easier said than done in hockey. They're not going to, though. Yeah, so why are we expecting it to change then beyond just they did it last year? Like, I think that's kind of flawed logic because we know how volatile goal-ending performance is from year to year. You said it because they did last year.

I think that's, you know, it seemed like a recipe that worked, and Ben Bishop and Hulibon had great years, and, you know, you support them the same way, plus then you add, Pavelsky, who's still a very good player and Corey Perry, he's got something to prove and maybe he's healthy and all of a sudden you have a little bit more depth and the strived Hinson and then Heiskin and all the rest of it,

it seems like it would be a good idea to play the same way, but I don't think it's going to and because they have so much success, it's going to take longer for them to get away from a game plan that might not be working because they'll cling to the fact that it worked last year and worked very well last year. And so that will be a tough change to make on the fly because Montgomery, even though he came from college and talk about one to play up temple, that's not been what we've seen out of his team at all in the NHL.

So same kind of thing, though, if they get the goaltending and maybe I trust Bishop and Hoodobin more than I trust some of the other combinations around the league, and I think Ben Bishop's a pretty good goalie. With that kind of talent, they have a front, even playing this very methodical plotting system of just defending

and low event, everything. they'll just have enough game breakers to figure it out. I have a love what I've seen so far, but I guess I want to reserve judgment because I see the names of, you know, Tyler Sagan is a good player. And, you know, Jay Ben, well, as you mentioned, not probably what he once was, still good,

and Radulov still should be good. Even though they're all getting up there to the wrong age of 30, yeah, that would be fascinated to watch because it may take a philosophical, a technical change in a problem. approach more so than just letting your guys work through slumps or low shooting percentages. It might take a change in how you actually play to maximize what that roster is right now. Yeah, no, the results are one thing, but I think the process in terms of how you're getting

there is what concerns me a bit more. All right, before we get out of here, one more team. I'll let you pick. Leifes, Lightning, Avs, or Panthers. Which are those teams do you want to hit on? Leif Lightning, Avs, or Panthers? Okay, well, I mean, take a... the favorite talking point in Toronto Maple Leafs.

And what is going on with that group? And they're fascinating because they're so heavily dissected by everybody because there's a lot of people in Toronto whose job it is to try to make sense of what's going on in the Leafs. And I mean, I think you can chalk up a large portion of it to less than great goaltending. I mean, Freddie Anderson has been pretty good the last couple of years. And a bad backup goalie.

I mean, I think that's a reality. I don't think that's changing. I don't think they can count on Michael Hutchinson to kind of deliver, you know, the average numbers even. But Freddie Anderson just hasn't been particularly good yet. So I think that's an issue. And then the other one, and this is where I'm interested, like Mike Babcock is largely regarded as one of the best coaches in the world.

And I know they want to play an up-tempo system. And I know they have players that are designed to play that way. That's how they're wired. But defensively, they still give up an awful lot. And one of the fascinating conversations, I'm curious to hear your thoughts, is that, you know, a lot of people think Morgan Riley is a good defensive player. He's incredible offensively. Let's get that out of the way.

But the more I watch and the numbers I look, and I'm not going to blame it just on Cody Cici, that's his partner who's, you know, not had great kind of underlying numbers for a while. I'm not sure how good Morgan Riley is away from the puck in his own end. I think he's average. So that I don't think is changing. I wonder what Mike Backup does to change the way that that team plays defense

because they're giving up a lot of chances at five on five, and their goaltenders are not bailing them out right now. Yeah. No, I think those concerns are fair. you know, Riley still at the end of the day, I mean, this year has been a struggle for him, but generally speaking with a guy like him, it's like he creates so much on the other end of ice with the puck that you'll take the negatives. That hasn't been the case so far this year. What I see from those guys is, you know, with both CC and Riley, it's like two guys who

don't have whatever the hockey IQ is or the awareness of like where the puck is going when they're defending in the defensive zone. So it leads to this like comedy of errors where they're just constantly chasing the puck and they're out of position or they're like one step behind. And I think in Riley's case, he'd benefit a lot more from having a defensive partner who was much more sort of reliable or consistent in that regard. You know, you're quote unquote stay at home defense. But even if he's not necessarily as talented a player as CC, just having someone there that you can rely on and allow Riley to freelance a little bit, I think that would go a long way.

But they clearly need to do something here. The goaltending thing, it's crazy to me that they still in this time haven't found a reliable. backup or maybe just speaks to how good Freddie Anderson is that behind this same defense, he makes it work. And so maybe that's kind of, maybe we should be looking at that instead. But I think with Babcock's usage and some stuff, there's some, there's some legitimate concerns. And listen, the Leafs are going to make the playoffs. They're still a really good team. They're going to score so many goals. But when we're talking about the cream of the crop with the lightning and the Bruins and some of the best teams in the league, these are the ultimate kind of differentiation factors,

right? You can't afford to have these question marks because you do need to nitpick when you're talking about the very best. You do, and the one thing that I know he's not playing right now is John Tavarres, but he was so good last year, him and the Mitch Martin together, five on five specifically, and the amount of chances they generated

and all his shots that he created from that kind of high danger area, inner slot area, whatever you want to call it, and they weren't getting that when he was healthy. And that will have to come back when he comes back. Maybe Martin is playing a bit better now, but that was one number that kind of was pretty stark.

He was amongst the league leaders in those shots in and around the net at five on five. And he just wasn't getting them in the start of this season. So that's something to watch out for when he comes back because they'll have to get him back in there. And all the consternation about Austin Matthews, and I understand that you get paid a lot of money, you have to be really good. But if you take away the two Boston games, because I think we can just accept that Bergeron is better than him five on five. like he defends better than Austin attacks. And he exposes Austin defensively because he attacks better than Austin defends.

Austin's not alone in that regard. So is, I think, every single line in the league save Nathan McKinnons and maybe Sibb when he's on a game. Like, everyone loses that battle. If you look at Austin Matthews' numbers, still the shots, scoring chances, the gold, all that top 5-on-5 is still really strong.

I think it's easy to jump on him when the team's not doing well and maybe, you know, he loses those couple of games to Boston. I think he's just fine. I don't think if he just gets, you know, regular goaltending, he's on the ice. His 5-on-5 numbers down much better. Him specifically, I still think he's playing the same way, and we'll get the same kind of results when the goaltending shakes itself out.

Yeah, of course. I haven't seen anything to suggest otherwise. You know, I was hoping you'd pick the lightning. I should have known that you'd pick the Leafs when I gave you those options, but I'm kind of curious. Well, they're all my former teams. I can pick anyone you want. Well, as a former player, I'm very careful.

That's a good point. I'm really curious, like, not that you ever played on a team. team that won 62 games and was historically great as the lightning. But, you know, when you have that kind of success and then you enter a new season, but you still have that kind of bitter taste in your mouth from the most recent defeats, like, I guess maybe we should have seen this kind of more like lethargic or slower pace start from them. Are you worried at all about it?

Like, you know, just because of their standards, a 5, 3 and 2 start with like a plus 2 goal differential is is so below what they were playing at last year. but I mean the names and the talent are still there and on the back of the jersey. So I don't know how worked up we should be about a sort of underwhelming 10-game sample from this team. I don't know. I got the highest PDO in the league right now. So it's not like they're, you know, they got the goaltending to get them better than 5-3-2. I guess where I'm concerned is not the lethargic start, but kind of a multi-voices I've heard referencing a disappointing end to last year.

Of course. We've heard Samco's talk about it. or Cooper talk about it. You know, Sammer's saying, if we play the same way, we're going to adjust it again in the playoffs like last year. If it's me, I'm spending probably less time trying to adjust what happened last year. Like, I want last year again if I'm Tampa.

I want to have the same team play the same way, and I'll take the chances that my goal, who's really, really good, won't have an off couple 10 days in the playoffs. Like, give me that same team the exact same makeup again next this spring and put me the playoffs, and I'll take my chances over. any kind of adjusted systems they may be trying to implement.

Because I watched them play, I called them against the Montreal team. And Tampa was so good last year at just about everything. But, you know, generating chances off the rush, using the width of the ice, creating those kind of lateral plays across the slot. And not just the best lines, like all the lines. And they don't, I haven't seen the pace to their game throughout their roster throughout the entire game,

the same kind of way I did last year. And I'm not sure if that's because they're changing their systems or they're encouraging guys to be a little bit more cautious and guys are kind of thinking and hesitating out there. But what made them so scary is they would just, they would transition you to death and score off the rush and then just dominate that way. And they're not doing that.

They're not playing fast enough to scare teams that way. So yes, they're going to make the playoffs and maybe this is all part of the adjustment. But I don't know if it's lethargy from the loss, but more almost like an identity crisis. Like, who do we want to be and how can we win if we're that team? And I'm like, be the guys who were last year. Take that chance, bring that roster back.

And I bet you don't get swept in the first round. In fact, I bet you win the first round. And that's maybe you play Boston. If you bring that same team, you're back again next year. Yeah, I guess I'm doing that from a glass half full perspective where I think that kind of question of them figuring out their identity explains this and will eventually sort itself out. I just think especially John Cooper is probably approaching this season, especially at the start,

as like, let's see what we got and try to find the best combinations. And you're right, when you win 62 games, you clearly had the best combinations. So maybe you should just stick with that. But we've already seen him play point Kuturov and Stamco's more at 5-on-5 together than they did all of last season. And then all of a sudden he switches it up so that each guy's on their own separate line. And I think he's kind of like tinkering with it and just throwing everything up against the wall and seeing what sticks. And eventually they're going to really kind of put it all together. and find their best formula, but I'm still willing to give them the benefit of the doubt

because ultimately the talent is just so great that I just don't see how this won't succeed unless there is something internally flawed with this team. I'm with you, I agree with you. I just almost like selfishly would hate for them to try to change too much from something that was obviously so good last year. Yeah, all right, MJ, let's get out of here. Where can people check you out these days? You can find me at TSN in the studio stuff

calling the Ottawa Montreal Games at HL network down south XM radio 10 to 11 Eastern time during the weekdays Before we get out of here I wanted to touch on a couple quick little housekeeping notes First off, thanks for listening If you haven't already for whatever reason We'd really appreciate if you go and leave the podcast

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And honestly, it only takes a minute or two out of your time and it goes a long way to where it's helping us out. The other thing is, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but the P.D.O. guest has been blessed with some new artwork. And it's kind of weird getting away from the old comics and apologies to good buddy J.F. Barubei for not being on it anymore. But we want something a little more subtle, a little more sleek, a little more uh, simple and, and, I like to thank my buddy Kishon Mistry over at Yahoo for putting that together for us and whipping it up. And it looks great and I'm excited about it. Um, so yeah, with that said, we're going to get out of here. We're going to listen to the outro music now and we will be back, hopefully later this week with, uh, with another podcast. I've got some fun stuff planned for you guys.

If, uh, we don't usually do too many mailbag shows because I find like there's so much material out there that we're eventually going to get to a lot of it. But I found time and time again. that you guys are pretty smart and pretty on top of it yourselves, and you've got some really interesting stuff that you run by me. So if you've got any questions or any sort of suggestions for future topics, feel free to either tweet at myself or at the PTOCast account or email either myself, Demetri. com, at philipelpoet at gmail.com,

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And we'll be back soon. The Hockey P.D.Ocast with Dmitri Filippovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdocast.