The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 331: The Best of the Decade

Episode Date: December 30, 2019

Rachel Doerrie joins the show to help dish out some superlatives and awards for the decade of hockey that was. We discuss the best players, the best teams, the best games and playoff series, and much more.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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and he's my good buddy Rachel Dory. Rachel, what's going on? How are you? I'm, uh, Christmas is over. Christmas is over. Uh, we're recording this on, what is it like Sunday, the 29th or something. So New Year's still around the corner. Um, and with that, I mean, we're, we're wrapping up the decade here. So it's not really the most original content by any means, but it feels like everyone's churning out there, uh, you know, the best of the 2010s, uh, kind of wrapping up, put a, put a neat little bow on the decade of hockey. And so I thought it would be fun for you and I to kind of hand out some I don't know whatever you want to call on like super relatives or sort of best of both on an individual on a team level and kind of have a little bit of fun with it beyond just releasing a list of like the five best players from the decade so people can yell about it. Yeah and I think that there's definitely there's definitely a couple players of the decade that really aren't up for debate but I think that there are some players that maybe get in for other reasons and then I'm

I heard, just because I haven't seen anything, I heard that a network, I forget which one released like a decade team and people were very upset about it apparently because it didn't have Henrik Lundquist on it. And I was like, well, I don't know if you can leave Henrik Lundquist off of your 2010 decade team. Yeah. I mean, it's obviously very subjective and I think a lot of it comes down. It's similar to like maybe not necessarily the Hall of Fame debate, but like in terms of when you're when you're ranking players or what you prefer subjectively it comes down to like

if you prefer um a short but like very electrifying burst with a high ceiling or if you are giving more value to longevity and a player contributing value for like the entirety of the decade right because we've had guys come in over the past couple years and take the league over but if a guy's been around and doing it since the start of the decade that's also kind of impressive too just because of how much turnover there is in this league and how physically demanding it is. So, like, guys that have just been consistently doing it, like an Alexoveskin or like a Cindy Crosby, like, there's some merit to the fact that, like, these guys have been so good for so long, and that's kind of more impressive than just doing it for the past three or four years.

Right. And I think that for me, you look at someone like Nathan McKinnon, for example, and he's been electric the past three years, but we're talking, that's only 30% of the decade. Right. So for me, like, you need to have played an injuries played. a role in kind of who I selected too, because you might have been in the league for five or six seasons, but if you missed a hundred games, you've really only played three seasons at that point. That's still only 30%. That's not good enough for me, right? Unless you've won the last three

heart trophies. Then, okay, maybe we'll have discussion. Yeah, exactly. Well, okay, let's get into it. Then let's start off with, we're going to do all sorts of stuff. We're going to do best team, best playoff series, you know, best coach, best innovation, all that and so on and so forth. But let's start off with the top with the best player discussion. And I think it's going to be a pretty quick one, but I think it's still an important one nonetheless. Are we in agreement here that it's Sydney Crosby unanimously or do you think there is a legitimate argument to be made for someone else?

No, I think it's Sidney Crosby. And I don't really think that if you look at the decade, there's not really anybody that's challenging. Next decade we'll have a discussion on who the best player was potentially. but I think for this it's it's Sydney the when I was doing a research for this I thought the just the sheer volume of um accolades and awards he's kind of uh garnered over this decade was astounding like you know he's pretty much accomplished at all but just when kind of when I was like on his hockey DB page and just sorting through it and I actually forgot that he'd won he'd even won two rocket richards I think one of

them was in the short and lockout season but it kind of reminded you and I think maybe David, who we'll talk about here in a second, has a similar path to this, I think, where it felt like Krazi was like, you know what, this is the only thing I haven't accomplished, so I'm just going to score a ton of goals. And he had that, like, 50 goals season. And it felt like he sort of just challenged himself when he probably could have done it pretty much every year if he wanted to, but that's not, he's more of a playmaker. And that's not typically how he prefers to play if he kind of had his choice of it.

So he hasn't, he's kind of given that to Ovechkin over the years. But he had even two of those. He's got the two Stanley Cups. He's got a hard trophy, Art Ross, Ted Lindsay, two cunts, mifes. I mean, two gold medals. Yeah, I mean, this is. It's just unassailable. Yeah.

For me, the way I look at it is, okay, trophies are not the be all and end all of something. But when you are having a best player on earth conversation and that's something that has to be taken into consideration. And when the resume is over a page long in terms of accolades, you can't ignore it at that point. And I will say, I think that performance of his in, it was at the start of the decade, it was the fall of 2010. So it seems like ages ago now. But before that first concussion leading up to it, when he had the 26 goals and 24 assists in 25 games. And he was rocking that ridiculous mustache. And it really does seem like another lifetime ago.

And I guess it's a testament to his greatness that he had all these injuries and we were concerned about him. and then he followed it up with a healthy run of play when he won those two cups and the two cons mites and got back to the top of the game and the top of the sport. But man, I think in my lifetime at least, because I can't really profess to have seen a lot of peak Gretzky or peak Lemieux by any means. But just what I saw from Crosby there was I think

the sport played at the highest possible level. We've seen other guys have like 10 game bursts or a handful of games in a row, especially McDavid. I think this season he had a stretch where he had like 15 points in, you know, like five games or something ridiculous. And that's crazy in its own right. But over that 25 games stretch where he just was pretty much doing whatever he wanted on the ice and sort of methodically and surgically picking teams apart,

I give him a little bit of love there as well because it does feel like, you know, he wins this award as the best player of decade because of that consistency and longevity and what he's accomplished over the span of it, but he also has that highest ceiling where he has been the best player in the world as well. Exactly, and you could make the argument that for a large chunk of the decade, he was the best player on Earth

and wasn't necessarily usurped until very recently. And when you have that and you have all of the awards, you're doing mental gymnastics if you make an argument for someone else. I think where it gets really interesting is kind of the number two spot where, you know, or at least who you're considering beyond Crosby

because I think we both agreed that he was pretty unanimous, but, you know, when you're considering other players, at least to see if someone's resume stacks up to it. The discussion between Ovechkin and McDavid here is a fascinating one because obviously McDavid, in his limited time in the league, has been the best player in the world over the past couple years. And on a per game basis blows this argument

out of the water but on the other end of things it's like part of what makes ovechkins sort of the lore of him is that durability the fact that he's basically gone this decade without really missing any games beyond when he gets suspended for sitting out the all-star game i don't even count that as a missed game because that was a personal choice like the guy hasn't been injured yeah no his body has held up with the physical style of play he's played with how much he throws the body around and the fact that he just has not slowed down at all. I mean, the sheer volume of goals, when you compare him versus everyone else, it felt like for a while there, Stamcoast was going to potentially challenge him

or even take the crown from him but because of his own injuries and because he showed that just how hard it is and how impressive it is that Ovechkin has been able to continue doing it, sort of attrition took over and Stamco's fell back in that race. And really, it's like, it's Ovechkin by himself and then it's pretty much everyone else. you've got the other goal scorer. So I don't know, like, where do you lean there? Because we do have Crosby number one, but do you think the sort of the balance of Ovechkin's resume

is enough to put him number two? Or do you think McDavid's greatness over the past couple of years is enough to give him the nod there? For me, it's Ovechkin. I have McDavid's three just because of the flat-out dominance that he's shown in his short time in the league. And I have no doubt he'll be the player of the decade. in 10 years when people do this again.

But for me, Ovechkin, the fact that the only games he's missed have either been suspensions or because he chose not to go to the joke of the All-Star game. And I don't count those as missed games. That's a, like I said, it's a personal choice. And the fact that he has, I want to say it's like 30, at least 30 goals in every single season that he's played in is a feat that is absolutely remarkable. and that's a level of consistency where you just, you don't see it that often. The amount of Rocket Reschards and everything that he has, I don't think you can ignore that.

I also don't think you can ignore that until McDavid came in, Ovechkin was the player where you could have a game plan, but no matter what game plan you have, it didn't really work. Yeah, right? It's, he's so, like, he's been standing the same spot on the power play for 15 years and no one has figured it out. Yeah, no. And, you know, that speaks to certainly the talent around him as well and sort of the, the, the, the, the, the, an envio position they put opposing penalty kills in. But you're right. I mean, he has just been such like an overwhelming force.

And I think if you're just thinking about this decade and the 2010s of hockey, you know, you can even make an argument. Like, Crosby definitely has won it. But if you just, like, you won't be able to tell the story of the 20s. 10s without like right away getting into just what ovechkin did and what he meant to this generation of hockey fans right the ones that did miss out on all of the crazy goal and point totals from generations past and are now seeing this guy just rise up the rankings and make his you know very strong uh chase towards the all time record for goals and and i think he might legitimately get there like it's crazy so i'm actually very curious to see moving forward because i think we

we do agree that McDavid is, you know, far and away the candidate to be atop this list in the next decade. I'm very curious to see, like, what the next decade looks like for Ovechkin, because he very well might just decide he wants to stop playing hockey two years or now when his contracts up. But at the same time, I could also see him just rattling off like five or six more 30, 35 goal campaigns if he wants to, basically. Yeah, like, I could see him, even though he's getting older, I wouldn't be shocked if he

had one or two more 50 goal seasons and that is ridiculous when you're 33 or 34 however old he is yeah i think mac david um he does kind of like desensitize us a little bit in terms of like it's just every night is this barrage of just insane uh highlight real goals where he just has this burst of speed and no one else really in the league does aside from i guess nathan mckinan and just the you know the 1.3 3 points per game since he entered the league and i think kutrovs at 1.2 as second place. He really is kind of in his own stratosphere since he's entered the league. It just is a matter of because he missed a bunch of his rookie campaign as well. He basically has like four full regular seasons worth of data to work with. And I think ultimately when you're nitpicking, it's not

enough to bump a edgekin from number two. But yeah, he's, he's pretty, pretty good. Okay, let's let's, that's enough about the best player since we agreed on Crosby. Let's do a most underrated player. Who, uh, who came to mind when, uh, when I floated this question, away. So I feel like we're going to disagree, or maybe we'll have different answers for this one. I have Phil Kessel. Interesting. I could think you can make the argument that he's been both the most underrated and most

overrated player somehow at the same time in this decade. So for me, I had Bergeron, but to me he's not underrated. He's underappreciated, and those are two different things. So Phil Kessel for me, I think he has like the fifth or sixth most points the decade. He hasn't missed a game. and God knows how long. And everyone criticizes him, and yet there he is every year scoring goals. And he doesn't do much of anything else, but he scores.

He does. I guess it's a really tough question to answer sort of in a vacuum or on the surface, because I guess it would depend on how you're looking at it. Everyone has their own definitions of it. And clearly, if you can find certain places on the internet where a guy is just going to be ridiculously, underappreciated or underrated because of horrible takes, right? So it's like, yeah, I mean, all the slander about the whole hot dog scandal and everything

on his way out of Toronto and all of that. Like, if you're going to view it from that prism, yeah, Phil Kessel's been underrated. At the same time, I think, like, most rational hockey fans probably understand what he's been, which is, you know, a little bit of an empty calorie score, but at the same time, just a prolific power play player. And when he's at his best, he's not just the goal scorer, but he's a terrific. playmaker in every sense of the word and so I think I guess it's a good answer just because opinions on him have gone to such extremes on both end of it and he's been such a polarizing

name that he certainly fits this bill I think sometimes we uh it's tough to come up with the most underrated player in this you know in 2019 and in the social media Twitter era just because it feels like that word gets tossed around but like even like a Jacob slaving right now I think people would be like, oh, he's underrated. It's like, I think most hockey fans, I mean, with the stats that are publicly available and how available video is and on NHL TV, everyone's watching these games just because you're playing Carolina. I mean, they made it to the Eastern Conference finals.

No one's like, oh, who's this guy? Like, I think most people typically agree that a guy like Jacob Slavin's, like, one of the best pure defenders in the league. So I don't even think he's, like, underrated anymore. So it's really tough to come up with. But I think at the same time, I will say, I think a guy like Anzé Kopitar, when we look back at this decade will have gone similar to what you said about bergerner i think not necessarily underrated but underappreciated just because he happened to come along during this time with breron

with uh jonathan taves and with some of these guys who i think especially down the middle um when you're cranking out all these lists and when you're thinking about this decade of hockey that was come up ahead of him maybe because they have better scoring numbers or because they played on uh kind of more high profile more fun exciting entertaining teams but both the team success and the individual success where I think he was going mono-a-mono with the Kesslers and the tases of the world in the mid-2010s there competing in the Western Conference and coming out on top. Like I think Anzi Kopitra is going to go down as a little underappreciated because I think

there's a very good case to be made that he was like the best of that bunch beyond that Crosby. All can tear down the middle, but people probably won't remember it that way. Right. And I also think the fact that he plays at 1030 at night doesn't help his case. No. No, that certainly does not. I mean, I think the other one, and maybe this is a bit of a personal bias, because I grew up cheering for them and really got to see them up close a lot. The Siddins? I think, like, it's crazy because we don't even need to be like, oh, 20, 30 years from now when our children or our grandchildren are looking back, like, they're going to go and appreciate that. I think, like, right now, like, it just, they've been out of our, out of our minds the past couple years and they haven't been sort of at the peak of their game for whatever, six or seven years now. And I think they've already, people have already kind of forgotten how good those guys were at the turn of the decade.

I guess, you know, from like that 2008, 9 to like 11, 12 area where they were just cranking out these ridiculous, when they went back-to-back, Art Ross, and Hart and Lindsay and the Canucks were winning the president's trophy and made it within one game of winning the cup final. Like they were, they were the best players in the world. and I think just because there was two of them, it was kind of tough to differentiate and tough to split it apart, so they kind of cannibalize each other's votes. But if you just kind of lump them in together as one package,

I think they're going to be a bit underrated when we look back at it over time. Yeah, and I think that you really kind of, you don't capture the magic of the Siddins unless you speak about them together because they were great hockey players on their own, but together they had something that very few, like it's not often that you see something like that and I don't know when you'll see something

like that where it's almost a telepathy type of situation um again well we're seeing a lot of we're seeing a lot of great tannums right now right like with um you know you go pasturneck and marchion and mcinnon or um you know dricentan or um you know driccdell and mcdivian yeah there's some great combos but i think I really do think that the sidines kind of were were trendsetters or helped pave the way like they were doing a lot of stuff back in the day that is kind of commonplace now because the game has opened up and skills more incentivized and players are just more talented than they've ever been but like some of the sort of spin moves and slap passes and tips and deflections and all this ridiculous stuff that telepathy that you mentioned like

they were if you go back and watch the tape like maybe it's not as impressive now because guys are just making it look so easy in today's game. But if you go back then, like very, very few people were doing what they were actually doing with the puck. Yeah. And I think that it was one of those things where they would make a pass. One of them would make a pass and it would be like, well, where's that going? And then all of a sudden the other one would just appear.

Right? And I think that that's like, that is so crazy to me. Yeah. They were, uh, I highly recommend if you, uh, have some time to kill, just go on YouTube and There's like, watch the best of the Siddines because some of that are some of their goals. That Calgary goal that they scored is etched into my brain for, I think it was Edler that made the pass. One of the Siddins tipped it between his legs. The other one picked it up and then shot the puck through his legs around Kippersoff.

And it was one of the nicest goals I've seen at the time when I was, I was younger and just infatuated with hockey highlights. Yeah. That was one of the goals he could. just watch and break down a number of different things. Yeah, it was the final game in the season to lock up the yard Ross for Daniel, I believe. So yeah, it was pretty crazy. All right. Oh, I actually have one more here.

I think Garrison's going to be underrated because it's crazy to look back and think that he only won two Norris trophies, considering he was what, the best defenseman in the world for like a five, six, seven years span. I mean, you could even make the argument that he probably could have won at least. one heart trophy and even should have been up for consideration for the cons that year they didn't even make the cup final when they lost in game seventh to the penguins just because he was clearly the most valuable player to his team throughout that run and what he was doing was just unheard of and obscene and so um i wonder like if we're how long he's going to be have to remove

from the game before we start lumping him into that legitimate conversation right the lidsstroms and the oars is the best defenseman to ever play the game yeah he's he's so entertaining to watch and I mean, I live in Toronto, so it sucks that I have to stay up and watch a 10-30 game if I want to see him play. Because he just, he does things and the way he reads the play is so high-end that it's almost unfair that San Jose has both him and Brent Burns and then Vlasic as well, who's having a bit of a down season, I believe. But Carlson, I think as someone, I agree with you, will look back and say he was not nearly appreciated. the way he should have been when he played. All right. Let's keep this moving.

The next one on my list that I've got is the best team of the decade. And I think let's do this as like best single season, not like the best team that had the most success over the entire decade. Okay. So I have a regular season team and then I have my like team team. Okay. So the best regular season team is Tampa last year. Yeah.

They were, that was nuts what they did. And then my best team, I was going through and looking at rosters and what that team did. The first Blackhawks team in 2010 to win the cup was stacked. I think they had a top four of like Keith Seabrook, Bufflin and Jolmerson. Well, Bufflin was playing forward back then. Oh my God. That's, okay, so he's up there. And then you think about Kane, Taves.

Their fourth line was like Boland, Eager, and Verstieg, who went on to play like bigger roles. And they had obviously of cane and Sharp. And it was just, I looked at that roster and went, there's a lot of stars on there. Andrew Ladd was on that team. Yeah. Well, here's their roster.

Up front they had Taves, Kane, Sharp, Hosa, Boland, Browder, Ladd, Buffalo, and Verstieg. And on the blue line, they had Keith, Seabrook, like young Keith and Seabrook, Brian Campbell and Nicholas Jalmerson. It was a pretty obscene team. They were pretty good in the regular season, 52 wins. Like when you compare it to some of the other best teams over the decade, they're right there. But yeah, it was their first cup.

It was kind of on the ascent. They brought in HOSA to put them over the top. And they were like a 59% 5-15 shot share team that season. Yeah, that's pretty good. People weren't like that into looking at shot shares and stuff. but man, they were, yeah, it all checks out. I think just from a pure talent perspective and the names that came from it and how they had to eventually just because of the cap rules give away some of those guys,

basically, and they went on to play much bigger roles on their teams. Like, they were probably the most stacked team. I have a different nominee for this, actually. I think that I agree with the lightning. Okay. You know, just 62 wins plus 98 goal differential, basically one every single regular season award. Like forget the fact that they got swept in the playoffs. They were probably the most impressive regular season team.

I think the 2012 Kings have an argument to be made for the best team because they had a terrible regular season. They fired their coach. They needed to win on the last day of the regular season to make the playoffs and squeak in as the eight seed. And then they went on to beat the number one seed, number two seed, and number three seed, and lost two games total en route to the Stanley Cup final. And now part of it is they basically go.

got gifted Jeff Carter on a silver platter by the Columbus Blue Jackets made way through that season. But after the trade deadline when they got Carter, they were a 58% shot share team, 63% high danger at 515, and 60% expected goals. And I remember that was sort of the turning point when that we really started to embrace and think more about shot share and the importance of underlying metrics.

Because I remember when we entered that postseason, there was a lot of buzz about it. and I still didn't really know what was going on there. And we just thought, like, okay, well, the Canucks, you know, they made the finals the year before. They won the President's trophy yet again. They're the number one seed. They should beat this eight seed pretty easily.

And I remember people like Thomas Trance in Camps, Ra, and were making the argument. It's like, no, like, we should give credit because this Kings team is clearly significantly better since the trade deadline. And they just absolutely walloped everyone on the Western Conference on Route at a Cup final and winning it all. So it wasn't a full season effort, but basically after they got Jeff Carter, they were, probably the most dominant team of the decade, I think. All right.

Yeah, I liked that team too. That team was entertaining to watch too. Because once they had the puck is very difficult to get it back. Yeah, and they also misled so many people in terms of size being important. Yeah, and I feel like that screwed up a lot of teams for the rest of the decade. Yeah, well, there was a lot of takes there. And especially because like if in 2011 the Canucks had won the cup, I think this scale era would have come sooner. but just because the Bruins wound up beating them in that game seven.

And then with the Kings winning the next year, there was a lot of like, listen, these are the teams that are winning the Cups. You have to play this way. And it was losing side of the fact that, sure, Jeff Carter and Anzacobit are large individuals, but they're also incredibly gifted. Yeah. So it was an interesting time in hockey. But yeah, just looking back at it, they were pretty, pretty good.

Let's do a, let's flip it around. What was the worst team? Okay. So I have worst team of the decade and then I have worst like single season team. Well, let's do. Let's do. Okay. Give me both.

But let's focus on the single season. Okay. So I have the Sabres, the McDavid draft year just because all I can remember is them actively trading players that were either scoring for them or trading the goalie that won like three straight games for them. It was like, no, we can't have that. We must trade you away. It was just they were so bad.

And it was when when they were winning, it was. lucky. Like they were just horrendous. I think it was, uh, was it Michael Neubert or something? I think it was Michael Neubert that was like went on this bender and they were like, oh my God, this guy's way too good right now. We need to get him out of town, ASAP. And then they traded, they got Anders Lindbach, who I think had like an 880 save percentage when they traded for him. And I think it was like Ray Ferraro famously said, this guy can't stop a beach ball so we know what Buffalo is doing. Like it was, he was playing dodgeball in the net basically. So I think the saber, they were poor for most of this decade, I would say.

But that particular season, they were especially awful. There was a couple Tim Murray, quote-unquote, process years there. I think it was like 2014, I think 2015 or whatever. Yeah, it was tough to pick between those. I mean, in 2014, they had 52 points. They were sub-42 percent and basically every 5-15 metric and they had a minus 93 goal differential. So, yeah, I think that'll do it. You know, there's, um, Detroit is already minus 60 something, I want to say.

Well, so I have the 20, I have the 2019 Red Wings on my list here. Because they're not good. They're on pace for 44 points and a minus 143 goal differential. Oh my God. And, um, I will say the crazy thing here is, see, unlike the Sabres, they, were intentionally bad, right? Like Tim Murray came in and you were like, we need to get high draft picks to turn this thing around and that's the only way we can win.

And so they were, as you said, actively anyone that was contributing to them winning a hockey game, they were trying to get them out of there to increase their odds of getting high draft picks. This Red Wings team, like, they sort of acknowledge that they're bad. Like I'm sure Steve Iserman doesn't, didn't enter this season thinking they were going to make the playoffs by any means. But it was also kind of like their hands were. reforced in the sense that they just had all these horrible contracts that Kenny Holland saddled

them with on his way out. So it's not like they're like trading guys a way to be bad or keeping guys intentionally in the minors. Like it's just they're playing a bunch of veterans. These guys just aren't good anymore but they're being paid a lot so they can't really do much. So they're just kind of like accepting their fate sort of this season. So it's interesting because it's like it seems like a bit more of a passive thing as opposed to an active approach of what Tim Rae did when he was basically bottoming on on purpose. So I can't believe I'm reading this correctly, but does Jonathan Bernier have the same amount of points

as Justin Abdel Cater? Am I seeing that correctly? Yeah, are you looking at my Twitter feed? I'm on their hockey reference page. Yeah, yeah, no, I noticed that yesterday. Actually, he was tied with Franz Nielsen as well, and then Franz Nielsen scored a shorthand goal the other night. So, but here's the thing.

Okay, that's not great. So basically, the problem is, is, it's probably going to be two more years of this because they have on two-year stretch here where they're going to have like $45 million of cap commitments come off the books of guys who probably should not be in the NHL anymore or either aren't on the NHL anymore in the case of like Zetterberg and Franz and who are on their LTIR and so it's going to be a completely new look team over the next couple years I think I don't know they'll probably end up with one of Lafrenier or Byfield yeah well hopefully I mean they're clearly I would like one of them to go there

Yes. So it's going to continue being bad for the next couple of years, although a lot of this just comes down to goal tending, right? Because I think like the 2017 a V's who had 48 points and a minus 111 goal differential, like they're on this list because whatever, you have sub 50 points for a season and over a negative 100 goal differential, like you deserve to be on a list of worst teams. But their underlying numbers actually weren't like that terrible.

and they had, you know, McKinnon, Duchenne, Ranton, Landeskog, some of these names that are good players, it's just like their goaltending was just completely fell off the map and so they just completely bottomed out that season. But it wasn't, I don't think that was, the results were the worst, but I don't think on a talent level or on an actual like how bad was this team level that they were anywhere near as bad as this year's Red Wings or the 2014 Sabres. Yeah, I'd agree. I just think that you have to look at the full scope.

you can't just look at points and goal differential and Colorado wasn't as bad as I think everyone thought they were and clearly not because they came back the next year and we're very good yeah they still did at 48 points let's not uh let's not pretend like they were actually good though it was it was a bad no no no no no yeah it was mostly goal they're not at the Detroit buffalo level like they're just bad in every sense of everything they're bad at every single stage of the game Okay, let's take a quick break here. I'm a sponsor and then we're going to finish off this list on the other end of things. Sponsoring today's episode of the HockeyPediocast is Seek.

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All right. Want to do a best playoff series? Yep. Do you have one? Okay. I do. and I think you might like it, just based on where you're from. Yeah.

I have the Canucks Blackhawks series of 2011. Yeah. Yeah, when the Connox finally got. Slade the Dragon. Yeah, finally Slade the Dragon. Game 7, overtime winner. Yeah, that was a pretty good, and it was a pretty entertaining series because the Canucks were up early, right?

And so it felt like it was going to be a rally. Exactly. And then the Blackhawks came back. And then you have the overtime. And there was just so much back and forth. And then you have the hatred between the two teams. and Schneider getting hurt, Luongo having to come in,

and there was just so much going on. It was one of, I very rarely remember playoff series as like, oh, like, that was a really good playoff series type of thing. I remember certain games, so like obviously multiple game sevens against Boston for Toronto are etched in my brain.

But for me, this was one of the series where I was like every single game I was glued to the television. No, it was great. It was great. theater. There was a ton of talent involved and a ton of sort of drama and in the history of the between the two teams. So I completely agree there. And obviously, you know, with what wound up happening with, you know, losing to the ruins in game seven of the Stanley Cup final. And then the

riot that happened after like that seasons remembered a bit differently. But I remember just being in Vancouver when they finally did win that game and finally beat the Blackhawks in a playoff series. Like people here were basically celebrating as if they had won the cup. Like it was, after even when they beat Nashville in round two and then San Jose in round three that year it wasn't nearly the celebration that it was after they won in round one which just speaks to like uh the size of the monkey that they got off their back in that series so I think that's fair I actually had a 2013-14 western conference final um kings over black hawks on this list just because I felt like you know western conference final uh it went to a game seven overtime I remember the black hawks were down three one and

then they had this dramatic double overtime win while they were facing elimination and it just felt like it was the cup final i think that year the kings wound up beating the rangers i want to say in the standing cup final but it really felt like whichever one of those teams came out of the west was gonna win the cup just because they were completely stacked and i just felt like every one of those games was uh just a heavyweight fight between the two best teamers in the league and just with the stage it was on and the stakes involved i i i remember remember that one very memorable and I think that was probably from like a talent perspective the the series involving two of the better teams we've seen this decade agreed yeah because they're both

teams still had pieces from their basically peak um so you definitely anytime that comes together that's going to be entertaining that was a good series too I remember that one yeah what was uh well I'm actually gonna do um and we're gonna do the best game here but uh you know I don't want to give any spoilers away, but I know like the ringer does a, does like a rewatchable series for, um, individual games from different sports and stuff like that. And this summer, I think as a project on this podcast, I'm going to go back and rewatch and do deep dives of some of these classic games over the past decade. So I'm really looking forward to that. But so it kind of got me thinking when I was making a list of, uh, the ones that I wanted to do when I eventually do that project for

this. So, um, what, what, what do you have on your best games from the decade? Uh, so mine is not an NHL game. Mine is Vancouver 2010 gold medal game. Just because I remember exactly where I was, I was sitting in the penalty box. And that game, it was just so entertaining. And the hockey team I was playing on was scheduled to play a game. And because it was so close in the third, the arena allowed us to push the game back. so that everybody could watch the game.

And then when I went to overtime, they said, I, you guys got to play kind of thing. And then I took like a really stupid penalty. But where the television was, I just basically had to turn my head and I could see the game and Crosby scored while I was in the penalty box. So I got to see like the whole thing

and they stopped the game. We all like celebrated and then went back to playing hockey. So for me like I'll always remember that. And I think the famous Iggy call and the fact that it was Crosby, like, my most memorable game for sure. Yeah, I think that's fair just, yeah, the drama and sort of the entire world, or the entire hockey world, I guess, watching that is certainly up there. I actually thought when you were saying out hockey, you were going to do a World Junior's game

because I think there was a couple classics there as well. I think both the 2010 final with U.S. Canada, where Eberley scored a couple goals late to tie out and then the George Carlson overtime winner or even the year after where Canada went up 3-0 and Russia had five unanswered goals. Yeah. I look back at it now. Like I remember watching that, but then I look back at it now and it's like, oh, maybe, yeah, Artemi Panarin and Vladimir Tarasenko versus Mark Byzantine was a bit of a mismatch.

So yeah, maybe those five goals make sense in hindsight now. Yeah, and I think there were some other players on that team. I think whose Netsov might have been a little young, but I think DeDonoff was on that team. Like there were some very highly skilled players on that team. Yeah. Yeah, no, it was a pretty great game. Yeah, the Kingshawks series I was mentioning before, Game 7 over time in a Western Conference Final,

that's on this list. I think the, you might not like this one, but the 2013 Bruins leaves Game 7, the infamous 4-1 game, was if you're kind of talking about just about the most sort of memorable moments from this decade and the fact that people still reference it and still it's etched in our minds,

I think you have to lump that in here. I didn't speak to people. Like, I actually didn't speak for four days, did not go to school. Like, I was in grade 12 that year. And I had already, like, everyone knew I was very much emotionally invested in this series. So when that happened, no one texted me. Everyone just kind of knew, like, okay, we're not going to talk to her because it wasn't a good scene. So I think it was like a Wednesday night or whatever it was.

I didn't go to school for the rest of that week. I was so, I was damaged. Yeah. So it has to be up there. And I think if you ask Steve Dangle, like, that's probably one of the most memorable moments. And I'm sure he would love to have amnesia about it. I think a lot of Lee fans would. So I'd agree.

Yeah, it definitely belongs in that category. When you're down three goals with 10 minutes to go, like, you should be able to close that out in the NHL. Yeah, I don't know where Steve is right now or what he's doing, but he's probably somewhere just yelling about it pretty irrationally. So I think, yeah, definitely, definitely lump that one in there. Let's keep this going. So I had best innovation, and I broke this one into, you know, either we could go both ways. You could do rule or like how the game has changed over this decade or, you know,

the best innovation from like a tactical or personnel or sort of how teams operate perspective. So take it either way you want, but we'll do both of them. Okay. So I had one tactic and one rule. rule just because I didn't know if you wanted both. For me, the evolution of the 131 powerplay something I really like, just different powerplay tactics, whether it's the 131, the behind the net that's sort of starting to be used. And then my rule, I think purely from a safety perspective, hybrid icing. For me is a big one. When you look at, you very rarely have people

going into the boards shattering femurs anymore. Yeah, I'd say, yeah, player safety. You could lump that one in there. It has a, you know, still has a ways to go, but it's definitely better when you look back at where we were a decade ago. So for tactical, I've similarly got four defensemen

on the power play and going with four, four, four, or sorry, four forwards on the power play, going four forwards, one defenseman. Like, it feels like, I'm not sure exactly when that happened, but it feels like definitely this decade, at least it became much more commonplace and now pretty much every team is operating that way. and whenever a team like Nashville or Columbus trots out two defensemen out there,

it sort of sticks out like a sore thumb. And it feels like there's been a big time philosophical shift there. You also mentioned plays from behind the net. I think just generally how teams choose to attack with more east-west passing through the Royal Road. With operating from behind the net, teams kind of passing up quantity for more quality looks. I think a lot of that has happened over the past couple of years, and that's just a big gain from an offensive and sort of entertainment and stylistic perspective.

The other one I had for Rule was, and I thought, I'm amazed you didn't cite this one, I'm glad you didn't so that I can use it, is three-on-three overtime. See, I love three-on-three, but I think there needs to be a tweak to it where you can't just carry the puck around and it becomes this possession nonsense.

Like, I want the end-to-end. When they first instituted it, it was end-to-end action, that's what I want, right? Because that's entertaining. It certainly has, I have noticed there have been more games this year where nothing's going on for like two minutes because teams are kind of haplessly bringing it into the zone. Nothing's happening and then just bringing it back out and changing and doing that a couple times. At the same time, I will stay like, just as it's still such a massive net positive,

especially compared to the shootout where I think the fact that this is the fifth season and it's still as fun as it is and coaches haven't been able to fully suck the fun out of it because I think initially we were all kind of waiting for that shoot-a-drop and it still hasn't necessarily happened. And I think, like, a testament to how fun 3-on-3 overtime is, is I think the biggest quibble with it right now is, like, can we have more of it? Like, it feels like we're shifting towards extending it

like they have in the ECHL, and I think that's going to do even more for deciding more games with actual goals and staying away from the shootout as much as possible. So it feels like we're trending towards an even more extreme there. So I think three on three on three, just from an entertainment perspective, it feels like it is, it's still the best,

despite the fact that it's not as good as it was three or four years ago. Yeah, it's still very entertaining because, I mean, we've all been waiting for the coaches to suck the fun out of it, but the reality is,

is when you give a player like McDavid or McKinnon, Matthews, like that kind of time and space, they're going to beat someone one-on-one. And then you have an odd man rush, right? So it just, it creates more, there's more space, there's more room for the skill plays that you would do on your backyard rank.

And I love that because I think the skill is what attracts people to the game. If you were putting together a list, you kept this going and you were like, okay, I'm going to rank all of the funnest innovations of this past decade. Where would the offside reviews be like 475th or something? Video review in general would be last. Like I'm not even talking just hockey. I'm talking soccer and football. all of it, it sucks. I hate it. I cannot stand it. I would rather we just get rid of the

offside review and the goalie interference review. Like I really do. I miss the days where it was like, oh, you know what? Sometimes stuff happens. Like there's human error. That's why we have referees. If they're going to be missing blatant penalties, like a Matt Duchesne offside once every 15 meters isn't going to this whole thing of like was he a toenail offside is totally ridiculous to me so video review turf it i'm with you on that yeah i think it's awful i'm all for especially come the playoffs getting the calls as right as possible you you never want to see what happened with san jose Vegas last year for example with such an erroneous call plays such a big role in deciding who wins and loses a playoff series. At the same time, like, we've gotten way too far with this offside. And even

the goalie interference rule calls, like, just because it seems like there's no consistent rule or understanding of what constitutes that. And we just wind up, like, slowing the game down and getting rid of all the momentum and all the fun to basically flip a coin. Like, it feels like some of this, some of this stuff. Like, with the goalie interference, like, I honestly, I watch as much hockey as anyone out there pretty much any single time a goal is being reviewed for goal interference i could i'd all i have to do is shrug and basically flip a coin to figure out which way it's going to go because i have absolutely no idea and and the off side stuff i mean this now has become this whole thing with like what constitutes possession when you're crossing it where

where is your blade in relation to the ice is it hovering and we're like using all these computer film style uh pixelated views on ipads and just it's it's so ridiculous Like, come on, we got to, there's got to be a better solution for this. I think that one Charlie Coil goal, it got taken away earlier this season against Montreal, where he clearly had possession. It was like, he received a pass between his skates and he was doing that kind of Crosby thing where he kicks it from his stick to his stick. And he was doing it as he was crossing the blue line and they ruled that he didn't have

position, even though anyone using common sense would clearly view that as him having possession because NHL players are that talented and that gifted. And it was just so stupid. a goal off the board for that so I'm all for getting it right but we need some sort of consistency and we need to smoothen out this process so that the games can keep going because NHL hockey is clearly at its best when it's free flowing with as little breaks as possible yeah to me listen like if you're going to have video review it should be there shouldn't be a challenge type of thing it should be if a goal scored the situation room with mike murphy and chris king like they review

everything i've been in that room i've seen what goes on so unless to their naked eye or to whoever is sign that game, they go, okay, like, that's a clear and obvious error. Boom, done. But to have 87 camera angles and this challenge and feeds to the bench and, like, get rid of it. If the people in the situation room don't catch it right away, then it's human error and you ought to live with it. Because that should be sort of the, I guess, the quality control per se. Because at some point, you say, well, we've got to get everything right. Well, if you want to get everything right, then we're video reviewing penalties and potential infractions. And we all know how much everyone gets away with infractions in the playoffs. So are we getting it right or are we not? There's like, to me,

there's two sides of it. And if you're going to get everything right, that everything's reviewable. And if you're not, then it's not. And that's something you have to live with. Because to me, I would rather review head hits to see if it was a head hit and kick a guy out versus if it was offside or not. Because one is significantly more dangerous than a goal being scored. I would rather see that where it's like, okay, we've reviewed this and Tom Wilson or whomever, you're gone because that's a head hit. Certainly. And I think to your point, it's so ridiculous when you just step back and think about it

from like a logic perspective that a coach would have to challenge whether a goal was scored or not. Like wouldn't you just, if you are trying to get it right, yeah, there should be someone in the league who's just viewing all of the tape. as it's happening and determining whether a goal was scored. And if it was, you just rule it a goal. And if it wasn't, you wave it off. You don't need the other team challenging to see whether the referee got it right or wrong.

Like, why isn't this more of a league-operated thing as opposed to coaches having to step in? It just seems kind of counterintuitive and really slows the game down. So I'm perfectly with you there. What do you think, you know, just spinning it forward as we get into the 2020s here? it's obviously hard to say where the game is fully going to go and just how aggressive teams are going to get and how different the product is going to look because it has changed so much over the past handful of years already. But what do you think is going to be if you have to guess like one out there changed to the game, whether it was a tactical or a rule that's going to ultimately influence the game that if we're doing this podcast 10 years from now,

we would say is the best change of the 2020s? I would say player tracking, puck tracking, like the minute data. I think that's going to have a huge impact on everything. As opposed to rules, I highly doubt that we'll get here. Maybe towards the end of the decade, who knows. But I would like to see the IHF rule instituted in terms of if it's a hit to the head, it's an automatic misconduct. So it's two in ten or a hit from behind for that matter.

So boarding anything like that. but to me, if there's a hit to the head, I would like to see it be two in ten. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to never say never, but it feels like we're a long way from that happening in the NHL. But yeah, I'm with you.

Yeah, was there anything else that I had best coach here, I guess? This was such a tough one to answer because you could take it any number of ways that you, do you have one? I kind of viewed it from the perspective of like who's adapted the most, I guess, or because the game has changed so much over this decade, which coach has kind of come along for the ride the most and embraced it as opposed to being stuck in their ways

and being overly conservative as we typically think of NHL coaches. Yeah, I think I kind of took it as who's the best coach of the decade, and to me that's Joel Guenville. Right. I think that three Stanley Cups is a little difficult to ignore and apart from them basically taking away all of the players that he loved. loved, including Nicholas Jalmerson, who was probably, he would be Chicago's best defenseman right now, I think.

I think what he did, even though that team was continued to be gutted and it seemed like pieces were coming in and out and losing Panarin. I think that he continued to have success. And to me, like, that's commendable. And you look at what he's doing with Florida now. They're better than they were last year. I don't know about adaptation though I have a like I like Sheldon Keefe a lot

but that's probably because I've had experience working with him so I could see how adaptable he is but to me yeah it's Joel Quenville or Claude Julian yeah Claude Julian I was on this list as well although it is funny that you know he leaves the Bruins and I was pretty I was making fun of them a lot for that because I thought it was a mistake and an overreaction but then you know Bruce Cassidy comes in and it actually turns out to be a great coach in his own right and they have a ton of success and make a cup final as well so um yeah

i guess the the right answer for this for me would just be like coaching um you know sometimes we think of it is so rigid or static in terms of like you form an opinion on someone and then you just stick with it and you think it's always going to be that way and their assistants are going to have similar thought processes similar ways of operating to them but it's so fluid and and it's so like circumstance sense-based and I'm always most impressed by the guys who can sort of adapt and change and and you know learn new tricks and become more modern in terms of their player usage and and all that so you know there's certainly a lot of stuff that happens behind the scenes and in terms of motivation and and how you deal with your players that

we're not privy to from the outside but just from like a tactics perspective that's what I'm always most intrigued by right me too um are we going to do all decade team or because if we're not I would say like best goalie of the decade maybe yeah well okay let's let's let's do um let's do an all decade team break it down by position and then we can do some honorable mentions or like I've got I've got two two teams for example of first and second team so we can just get into a bunch of names but yeah we can do we can do our sort of first team here of like four as defenseman and goalie yeah I didn't really have like I didn't do forward or defenseman like positions like whether you were lefty or right to your left wing center right wing i just pick

like the three best forwards because like realistically in the same way that like team canada and team USA do for the Olympics they don't care what position you play you'll come to the team and you'll play because this is all-star well especially shifting centers through wing right which is basically what i did um so my first team um i had longquist in that yeah um and then my deep hair was key and Carlson. And then up front, Eric Carlson, to be fair. Yes, Eric Carlson.

Crosby, Ovechkin, and Patrick Kane. Yeah. So I had Crosby O'Bechkin and McDavid throwing out positional rules and just putting McDavid on the wing. And then I had, yeah, Eric Carlson, Duncan Keith, and Rick Lindquist. So we're right there in lockstep.

Yeah, Lundquist, just like the sheer volume of stats he accumulated pretty much any way you slice it and just how consistently dominant he was, similar to what we were saying about Ovechkin. I know he's sort of come back a little bit just because of the age and the workload and the team in front of him not being nearly as good. But if you just view it from like a totality of the decade

and how suspect the Rangers, even when they were winning games, were in front of him and how much he bailed them out, like it's, he's pretty clearly been the most dominant, most or just overwhelmingly great goalie of this decade. And you can't have any conversation about the 2010s without listing. him first of that position.

No, I don't think you can. And anyone who leaves him out of that conversation, suspect evaluation of gold ending, I would say. Yeah, I guess the conversation for me is much more interesting after that because you can get into that like Bobrovsky-Price-Holtby conversation in terms of who have none of those as my second goalie. Who would be your second best goalie? Mark Andre Fleury.

He doesn't have a single season under 9-10. yeah but there was a couple years there where if you were ranking goalies he'd be pretty low on the list i just think that the combination of a what he did in Vegas over the past couple years is nothing short of ridiculous um and then the fact that he was in pittsburg um for like matt murray didn't really come up until 2016 i want to say so for the first like bunch of that decade when Pittsburgh was still a very, very good team. He was their backstop and he was consistent and he's made, I think I was watching a top 10 the other day and two of the saves of the decade belonged to him or maybe even three of them.

I just, to me, his durability, his ability to make key saves, he does have a propensity for the soft one, but he's just been, he's been so consistent. and then when everyone thought he was kind of done, he goes to Vegas and is one of the best goalies in the league. I think the turnaround in perception or the narrative around him has certainly been one of the most surprising things for me because if we were having this conversation a handful of years ago, like it's funny because when I was putting together this list of the best games

or the best series, I ultimately omitted it just because it was like round one and it felt like it was such low stakes. But there was that one series with the paint. Penguins in the Flyers where the wheels just completely came off for Flurry and the Penguins and he gave up like, I don't know, like 20 goals or something over a three-game span and they got completely obliterated and there was like one like eight six game in there and I remember the narrative back then. It was like, oh man, like he completely falls apart when it matters most and

he's really struggled in the big games and then now I think people generally view him as the most kind of reliable, consistent guy there because of his work with Vegas and what he did in that one Penguins run against the Caps before Mammerie came back from injuries. So yeah, and it's credit to him because he's like clearly revamped his game or done a lot to actually influence that narrative well into his 30s. And so kudos to him for the longevity and for that turnaround. But it is funny how much how much that conversation around him has changed over the past couple years. Yeah, and I think I also really like him because he also seems to be a pretty fun guy. Like he's a part of different NHL initiatives and he does different marketing things to actively try and grow the game.

And I literally haven't heard a single person say a single bad thing about him. So you tack that on and maybe like that probably helps his case with me a little bit. but I just I think the whole response to you don't want me anymore I'm going to Vegas and now I'm going to take my team to the cup final yeah like I I don't think you can ignore that so I'd agree with you though if we were having this conversation maybe three years ago he's probably he's not in the discussion yeah which is yeah it's a it's a it's a good reminder of how much how much things can change so I think that was pretty much it is there any anything else we wanted to head on this list no I think uh we put a bow on

the decade. Yeah, what a decade it was. I'm looking forward to, you know, I think the NHL for as much as we like to kind of critique it and poke fun at it, and they certainly make it easy on us with various things they do is just the talent level right now and sort of where the actual on ice product is headed is clearly headed in the right direction. I think it's in a great place. And hopefully they kind of get out of their own way and allow it to blossom and grow and continue you to capture and keep new fans and we'll see what's going to happen there but um you know i just think from if you go back to watching those games from the turn of this decade and then watching it now like it's it's pretty clear that there's just more talent than ever in the league and

the players are just so good and then that's really fun to watch agreed yeah i think that we'll see changes on and off the ice in the next decade just based on what's kind of happened over the last few months. And I'm interested to see where the game kind of goes because I think that there's kind of a unique opportunity to bring in some new voices into the old guard, we'll call it. And I think that they can definitely have an impact on how the game is played in various tactics and ways to construct a team. So maybe looking back on this 10 years from now, we'll be able to say, okay, this is what

changed in the previous decade. but look how far we've come now. Yeah, I completely agree. All right, well, Rachel, do you want to plug some stuff? Do you want to let people know where they can listen to your own podcast? Yeah, I'm part of the Staff and Graph podcast with Ian Tulloch of the Athletic. Comes out every Tuesday morning, basically, and it's on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, basically wherever you get your podcasts.

That's where you can find Ian and I. And that's sort of what I'm doing because if you really want to come and see me, I'm at a rink at York University in Toronto. And I basically live there. I should probably start paying rent because I'm doing my master's there. So that's kind of where I'm at. All right. Well, this was a blast. I'm glad we got to do this.

Hopefully we did a good job of capturing the decade that was. And I'm looking forward to seeing what's next for us. And yeah, enjoy the end of this year. And I'll chat with you soon. Sounds good. Thanks, Dimitri. The Hockey P.D.Ocast with Dimitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdiocast.