The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 338: Caller Duane

Episode Date: January 31, 2020

Alex Prewitt joins the show to discuss a grab bag of topics that include the Sabres' continued playoff drought and why their fanbase has understandably had enough, how Nathan MacKinnon's shot took him to the next level, the pros and cons of the player tracking data the league unveiled during All-Star weekend, and Alex Ovechkin's chase towards Gretzky.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 joining me somehow for the first time this season. It's been since the Stanley Cup finale, we wrapped it up, and I had a discussion then. So it's been, whatever, six, seven months now. It's my good buddy Alex Pruit, Alex. What's going on, man? There's no way you've missed me. Oh, I certainly have.

I love having you on. You and I, I feel like always get into this, like, wide-ranging medley of topics. It's a nice reprieve for me because usually when I have people on, they're, like, beat writers that cover a specific team or whatever. And so we have a very, like, defined list of topics. we want to hit or like we get this kind of like tunnel vision on just the Columbus blue jackets for example or whatever whereas when I have you on like you bounce around the league and you do

random features and you get into some weird stuff and so I feel like when I have you on it really unleashes me to just like get into like this random assortment of topics that I always want to get into can we brand it like like Alex and Dimitri's grab bag of bullshit or something like yeah yeah it's something like I mean you know we could probably get some sponsoring for that I feel like I don't know um you know I don't know what that would be but uh You know, let's keep the flow. I'll see. HIPAs, I don't know, something.

Yeah, I'm sure we can make some magic happen. What's going on, man? How's it been? I know that, you know, you were kind of bouncing around. You're obviously doing different sports, but I feel like lately you've been zoning in on more hockey stuff, and that's great to see. I figured once the calendar turned, I should probably go to a cold place.

Yeah. But yeah, yeah, it's been, yeah, yeah. Was that your segue to talk about the Buffalo Sabres? Oh, it can't. be. I can start shrieking like Dwayne if you want. We can do that. I'm so fired up to be on this podcast. Oh, my God. So let's do it. You know what? We've been planning to do the show for a couple weeks now. So this wasn't on our agenda. We're going to talk about McKinnon. We're going to talk about the All-Star game. We'll do some trick-shot stuff in Svechnikov. But now that,

you know, we're recording this on the Thursday evening, it's like very topical for us to talk about the Sabre's story. And I just, I just love that this guy called her. Let's, Let's call him Calder Dwayne. I don't know what his last name is, but for anyone that hasn't seen this story somehow yet, he called into WGR, the local radio station there that covers the Sabres and had like an all-time, I think like four-minute rant or so. Like he was talking about Dominic Hachick's birthday. He was going on the full gamut of emotions.

And it was obviously became a huge, I think, national story because the Sabres, as teams sometimes do, tried to control the, message and basically got it taken down and tried to pretend like nothing happened and that uh kind of like like you know when you cover for a lie with another lie it's like worse than the original one sort of thing it's like it just made this story um so much greater and so now here we are talking about that part i missed they tried to take it down yeah there was there's something involved i think like i don't know what the details are so excuse me but if it feels like um based on what i gather they'd either like tweet it out a link to it or something and then they like they're

were like basically like trying to you know because it was such a great rant i think they were trying to sort of share it so at least on social and and then uh i think the sabers internally were pretty upset with it and um try it to sort of pretend like it hadn't happened i don't know if they were trying to scrub it from the internet or anything like that but i feel like they were like trying to kind of like put it under wraps and i know that um you know in the recent 31 thoughts columb delet eliot freeman does weekly he had a whole section about the sabers and how long it's been since they made the playoffs and oh boy yeah he got some pushback on that as well.

So, you know, it's nothing new that a team wouldn't like negative coverage, especially when they can control it. But, yeah, it's not a great look for the Sabres. Especially when they're going to miss the playoffs for the umpteenth time in a row or whatever. Very fitting. They're down two to one at home to Montreal right now, and Jack Eichael has scored his 30th goal of the season. So it feels like it's exactly the way the rest of the season is going.

Well, so I've got some, I did have a couple of thoughts. Like, you know, I wanted to obviously acknowledge that story, but I wanted to get into it a bit more so. And, you know, they're trending towards missing the playoffs again, as you just alluded to, and they haven't made the playoffs since 2011. And this is going to be the ninth consecutive season there on the outside looking in. And it just sounds like a big number. But then when you just take a step back and you think like how hard it is to go

in today's hockey world where it's like parity, the salary cap, where it makes it difficult for teams to be consistently good year over a year, the loser point where there's so much variability and, variance in terms of the standings. And for a team to just nine straight times miss out, I mean, it's, it's really bonkers. Like if the coyotes and Canucks make it as it looks like they might, that's going to leave the Red Wings as the next sort of longest drought. And that's going to be four years this season.

And so it's like. Aside from Buffalo, wow. Yeah. And so the Sabers are nine. And so it's twice. You're totally right, though. Like in this age of parody, it's like you almost have, every team, it seems like has at least lucked it, lucked into a playoff spot or by will or luck.

they've gotten in except for Buffalo over the past decade or so. I mean, St. Louis is going from last place to win in the Stanley Cup and Buffalo can't even at least sneak in. I mean, the hammer for me with that guy, Dwayne's call was when he said it was almost as bad as the Bill's drought,

which I'm sure everyone in Buffalo is like nodding their head at that. Yeah. Well, it is, I mean, you know, we talk about how the league is, you know, it's a copycat leap. You and someone's successful, teams are going to try to adopt it for themselves and the latest thing has been, as you mentioned, with the blues there, it's like teams just have a fire in their coaches.

Or like if they struggled last year and they went into this season being like, whoa, look at the blues, anything can happen. And it's sort of like it's this like shining light of optimism and an otherwise bleak situation. And then we have like the opposite end of the spectrum where it's, you know, the sabers were the poster child under, under Murray for the, you know, the full out tank, like bringing the trust the process to the NHL. And they really tore it down and sort of.

made no bones about the fact that they were trying to get as many first overall picks as they could, especially in the McDavid draft. And, you know, they wound up with Ico, which is a very nice consolation prize. But it has been, it's like a very polarizing topic in NHL circles, right? Whether it's successful, whether you can actually do it. We've seen examples with like the penguins and the Blackhawks in the past that have certainly pulled it off. But then you have teams like the sabres and the Oilers that seems like year over year, they're stuck in this kind of spiral of never-ending futility. And we'll see how, you know, the Red Wings go about it. It feels like the Rangers have really embraced that's sort of a full-on

all-encompassing rebuild. But yeah, the Sabers, it's just, I mean, it all comes back to, they've had Jack Eichael for five years now. And I know he's no Connor McDavid, but he's still, like the way he's played this year, especially taking his game to another level, he's been a top like five to ten-ish player in the league, it feels like. And that should be good enough to at least if you surround them with a certain baseline level of talent be competitive on an IP basis. And it looks like once again, they're headed for like 80 points and a negative goal differential and they're going to be like 13th or 14 to the east. And it's basically exactly where they were in year one of the Jack Eichel era.

And five years later, they're, they basically haven't moved at all forwards, I think. Yeah, when you go, just before this conversation, I went up like his relative stats and stuff. And, um, I mean, if you look at league leaders and like goals four per 60 relative, um, pretty much everyone at the top of the list, has another guy there, you know, McDavid has dry-sidal, Huberto has Datanoff, you know, Bergeron and Pastor Knocker, right?

You know, linemates who share the ice together and naturally get a lot of goals together. Jack Eichael doesn't have anybody. He's sixth, and the next highest saber is like 35th, 40th, something like that, Olison. He just seems like he's not getting much help again. I mean, it's crazy because, you know, I'd say if you're just looking at it, like big picture,

you have Michael, he signed there long term. You've got Reinhard and Dahlia and has like legitimate like grade A sort of like blue chip pieces moving forward. And it's like all three of those guys are top two picks. And beyond that for them to go this five years stretch or so without really like, you know, where they got Oliveson in the draft and sort of slowly developing him in Europe and having him come over this year, where I guess towards the end of last year, that's a boon. But like for the most part, and it goes back to this Ryan O'Reilly trade they made, it's like they've, they've done such a bad job of talent evaluation where I don't think this is sort of an indictment

on whether you can or can't fully tank and rebuild a roster because it feels like they've had their opportunities. They've just like mis-evaluated who they had and which types of players they needed to go out and get time and time again. And that's why they're here as opposed to not being able to build a roster a certain way. But hockey being what it is, it's going to become an indictment probably on tanking. that in the age of parity, you can't tear it down. But it doesn't really feel to me like they stuck with it.

I guess once Murray was out, then it seemed like that they were going for a little bit more. And granted, they had that really long winning streak last year, and I think I was as guilty of it as anyone. I went up there and wrote a big feature about Jack Eichael and how him and Phil Housley are super excited to kind of unite the old and the new and bring Buffalo back to where it once was. And, you know, I think, like, what I have from my conversation with Jack, he's very invested in that place.

And, you know, he was sitting at a restaurant and looking out the window and imagining what that plaza would be like if they actually did make the playoffs. And I don't think if you would ask him in this moment, you know, would you still be sitting there a year and a half later? And you guys are, you know, headed four, 13th and the east and your 10 points out of the playoffs. And you're on another coach, you know, with that, you probably would have said you were crazy. you know, they're turning in the right direction, but lo and behold, here they are. I mean, I'm kind of curious what's going to happen. I mean, like you said, this is a lost year,

probably for them. They're not going to make the playoffs. What happens if, are they going to sell at the deadline? You know, for Leak, shiri, Visi, someone down the line of Bogosje, are they selling these pending UFAs at the deadline? What's going to happen next off-season? You know, do they embrace a little bit more of a rebuild?

Do you try to have this kind of rebuild on the fly where you sign some more guys? you know, for the cheap on, you know, two, three-year deals at kind of the middle-of-the-road guys, $3 million, $4 million or whatever, and try to at least be competitive and feel, and, you know, I took a competitive team around guys like Eichol and Ryan Hart and Middle Stat and Dahlene or do you maybe wait or not?

I don't know. I don't know. I'm kind of curious if, you know, maybe they bottom out the rest of this year. Is that the smart move to do? You start thinking about Lafrenier and what your odds are because it's pretty clear, right, that they need, they need some other pieces. Yeah, I mean, it's the second you mentioned last year, like this year as well,

they started out super hot. You know, they started off earlier than last year, but things were looking good, and then the wheels just completely came off. And, I mean, I just look at, you know, Ikeles on pace. He's really taking his game to another level this year. He's on pace for 50 goals, I think, like over 100 points. He's got a point on, like, 45% or so on the team's total goals. And it's just like, you look at him when he's on the ice at 5-on-5,

and like they're basically as good as like the Tampa Bay Lightning. And I know that he gets to play with other teams best players in theory. So it's like not, you know, with or without you stats in that regard can be misleading. But it's like with him, they're like one of the best teams in the league. And without them, they're like the Ottawa senators. They're like down at like 45% goal share or something. And it's like that, it just comes back to that where they haven't been able to surround him with the talent and there's only so much you can do it as an individual.

And I think this summer, like they, you know, the question you asked there of how they're going to approach this, whether, you know, this sort of drought they're in is going to try to force them to maybe be more aggressive. It's like they already basically did that last year, I think, right? Like this past summer where, you know, they trade for columnail or trade over Henry Yoki Haru. They sign Marcus Johansson. Like, it felt like, and I have to admit, I viewed each of those moves in isolation as like, yeah, I like that. I think that's a net positive, but improve their team. And clearly, for whatever reason, it hasn't worked in hindsight. And so, So they kind of our back score, I guess the one sort of silver lining or saving grace is, is that fan base because despite that nine-year drought, like, you get caller Duane and you can like see that, you can like feel that passion, right?

And you see why the Buffalo market is always atop NBC's TV ratings for playoff games, even though Buffalo is not playing. And top of the ratings for the outdoor classic when Nashville and Dallas are playing. and it's like they love hockey and they want it so bad. And I guess the fact that they haven't been scared off, I know certain segments of the fan base online have really been vocal now about like something has to change. There's like, we can't take this any longer. But at least it's like anger.

I feel like when the fan base reaches that like apathy point where it's like they just like they've been so broken down that they don't even care anymore, that's the most dangerous part. The fact that like they still care enough to call in and have these four minute rent is I guess like in a way, at least that's something to build around. Yeah, and to that point, they're probably angry because they look at guys like Jack Eichol and Rasmus Dahlin who are, in my mind, foundational pieces. I mean, you have your number one elite center and you have your number one D, and that's what you want to build around, build up the middle and on the back end. And it's, you know, no matter what they do, and they spend, they spend well.

I feel like the Pagoolas have invested in that regard and, you know, good facilities, all that. And, you know, hockey craze market. it's just not getting done. I mean, they're certainly willing to spend, Alex. They're paying Vili Lionel, Cody Hodgson, and Christianeer Hall $3 million combined this season. Yeah, they're paying coliposo of $6 million and Jeff Skinner 9 million. So, you know, Marcus Deerhancy, you know, 4.5 or the next couple years.

So, I mean, that's not lacking. You know, you can't be frustrated for not spending, but you can certainly get frustrated at management for poor talent evaluation. you can certainly get frustrated at the lack of results. So yeah, I don't know if you can't really go all the way back to square one when you have such good players as your foundational core, but you got to figure out something. Maybe you add another member of that, add another member to that via trade

or you bottom out this year and hope you get it in the draft. But I don't know, something's got to change because there's probably a couple thousand more Dwaynes out there. Well, it's interesting that you brought up Skinner there, because I was just thinking from like a philosophical perspective and, you know, how teams manage their assets and spend their money. And this came up yesterday when Zach Asian got his obviously much more modest, but still like $12 million total or whatever, basically for playing and succeeding next to Carter McDavid, which seems like pretty much everyone could do. And we've seen that, you know, whether it's been Patrick Maroon or Alex Chassan over the years, like anyone that has played with him has scored goals. But, you know, last year, Skinner comes to Buffalo, and it's this great story where I think they did a good job identifying.

They could buy a low on him and they trade for him without giving up any real premium assets. He plays 75% of his minutes of I-1-5 with Jack Eichael. He scores 40 goals. It's a great story. And then they pay him $72 million, right, in this long-term deal. And then now this year, they split them up and they try to get depth scoring throughout the lineup after having paid Skinner. and his goals have basically been cut in half or whatever. And then this year they're kind of doing it again

where Eichael's top two linemates have been Sam Reinhart and Victor Oliveson. And guess who's coming up for new extensions this summer? Sam Reinhardt and Victor Oliveson. And I wonder how much more they're going to get paid just because they have played with Jack Eichol this year as opposed to if they'd play it on a second or a third line. And so it's like I get what they're trying to do and they're trying to find this match.

And they clearly, they want to provide Jack Eichol with complimentary wing. that can help him and get the most out of him as well. But it's like it also, the timing of it hasn't really worked out for them where it feels like they're kind of like they're paying guys for paying with and succeeding with Jack Eichol. And that's a tricky place to get into when you're an NHL team where you're just basically paying a guy for who he's playing with as opposed to what he can actually do by himself if the circumstance changes.

That's why, I mean, it impresses me what GMs like Brian McLeod in Washington and Jim Rutherford and Pittsburgh have done where, you know, you keep your core together. but you have to make tough decisions. You have to trade guys. You have to move salary out. And ultimately, you have to rely on your talent evaluation to get, you know, depth pieces. You didn't see Washington going out and paying a bunch of guys after they won the cup. They kind of had the tough reckoning that Chicago did back in the day when, you know,

they have to get rid of members of their core. And that's a smart thing to do. You know, you go find guys like Hagelin and Pannock and, you know, Hathaway or Nicked out. And they're a dime a dozen these days, I feel like. you shouldn't really be locking up. Credit Zach Cassian, he's capitalized at least on this opportunity. But what did he get four years?

I mean, regardless of the price point, to commit to a guy for four years like that, that kind of role, doesn't strike me as exactly wise asset management in today's hockey and today's NHL. No, certainly, especially when you have a finite amount of resources that you can spend even with a cap going up over time. I was going to do a bit on the Ryan-Oreilly trade,

but I feel like we've dug the blade a penalty here already so much. But, you know, it is like, just looking at it now, it's just thinking about it. It's like, can you even name, like, we all joke about the Matt Dushan trade is like, just, you know, what Ottawa gave up versus how we wound up working out for them

as opposed to Colorado, basically, like, completely replenishing their depth chart with that trade. It's like, I think the O'Reilly trade in a sense does get its due because of the success he had last year, winning the Stanley Cup and the Khan Smyth and all of that, but it still feels like in the grand scheme of things, just based on the player that St. Louis got versus what Buffalo has to show for it. And like the driving force or motivation behind the trade being like they didn't want to pay that $7.5 million signing bonus or

whatever. Like that in, I mean, it was bad in the moment. But in hindsight, it's like, my God, I mean, they really just, they basically have nothing to show for it at this point and we're like a year and a half removed. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just, I'm just, sure there were other factors. O'Reilly was pretty clearly added. Yeah, you wonder how. It was wanting out of there. Yeah, but you're absolutely right.

If you're going to move a piece like that, you better make sure you're going to get something back in return something that's going to help you, especially if you're in this kind of win now mode. And when you go out and get, yeah, Berglins, vodka, and Thompson, and you expect at least some of them to come up and contribute. Maybe not win now mode, but at the very least not in like the full-on kind of trust the process, Tim Murray era.

Yeah. Well, they got a bag of magic beans as opposed to one really, really good player. It was a big bag of magic beans and find something else to talk about other than the bummer that is the savers. Well, okay, so here's a, this is why I'm a not necessarily a broadcasting professional, but certainly a podcasting professional. Let's here's one positive. So Jack Eichael this year, one of the reasons he's taken his game to an X level is the goal scoring, where he's already got 30 goals now. As I said, he's on pace for nearly 50. part of it is volume and the fact that he plays an insane amount and shoots a lot.

But that isn't necessarily new from the first couple years of his career. The big change is years one to four, he shot 9.7% on high volume of looks. This year, he's shooting at like 17.5 heading into tonight's game. And so on the one hand, like after having a four-year sample size versus 50 games, you'd be kind of skeptical and be like, all right, what's the likelihood? that he legitimately just doubled his true shooting talent level. He's shooting less. I didn't realize

he's shooting less than he ever has since his rookie season. On the other hand, it's like the guy's clearly one of the more talented players in the game, came in with a pedigree. It ever felt right that in a league where, especially like now, the guys are shooting like 11, 12% at league average at least

for forwards, a guy of his talent level, acknowledging the volume would be that low under 10%. And I guess the question of like where he legitimately is and what it's going to look like moving forward is a good segue into talking about Nathan McKinnon and so the topic near and dear to my heart and I know that I see what you did there. You wrote about it recently and I think it's a it's sort of a similar I'd say statistical profile in terms of what McKinnon went through and so I really wanted

to I've talked about it before on this show at nauseam but considering we still don't have a satisfactory answer in my opinion I've heard theories of, you know, just individual maturity, training better, eating better, Matthew Shane leaving, and finally allowing him to sort of assume a leadership role and spread his wings and realize his potential. You know, the fact that he started off as an 18-year-old

and by the time he broke out, it was like, oh, he was only 22, and if a guy had been playing the H.L. for a year or two and then came into the league at that time, we'd think about him differently. But I still haven't, been satisfied, I think, in terms of like, finding out legitimate, and I don't think we ever will, maybe one day, you know, slip Nathan McKinan in some truth serum or whatever, but I know you kind of

were hanging around and you were talking to him about sort of the development and the evolution as a shooter and how he has changed that statistical profile. And I kind of wanted to sort of relitigate it a little bit of with you here. Yeah. So let's set the stage for the listener. So 2016, 17, Colorado, historically awful, 48 points, 22 wins, like cap era. level awful. McKinnon ends up with 53 points. He shoots 6.4%, score 16 goals.

The next year, in eight fewer games, he winds up with 39 goals, so 23 more goals. He literally doubles his shooting percent, more than doubles, from 6.4 to 13.7, and then goes up from 53 points to 97. So that's what we're dealing with here.

You know, per game, basis goes up, shooting percentage goes up. His time on ice pretty much stay the same. He went down by three seconds, per game. So it wasn't, you know, a ton more ice time. He was like clearly putting I think more shots on net on a per game basis, but not by much. So yeah, that's kind of the question what happened. The first thing that he brought up when I talked to him

and I had a couple conversations with him about just his game in general. First being when I profought him at the start of last season and then we caught up again recently when they swung through Long Island was just his spot. on the power play got moved. You know, for the first couple years of his career, he was in that bumper spot in the middle, and they eventually move him to the left wing to the so-called OB spot.

But, you know, unlike, obviously, he can tee it up pretty well, and his one-timer's gotten better over time. But I think that spot really freed him to attack downhill, to go laterally side to side, to use that kind of quick release wrist shot that, it's almost like a change-up where he kind of floats it in. And it's a seeing-eye puck, but it gets through traffic because he is so accurate.

It opened him up a little, but rather than that bumper spot where you're, you know, it's a lot of retrievals, a lot of puck support, maybe a quick one-timer, a low to high or something if you get the right out, kind of like OSHA does in Washington. But, you know, moving into that spot, I think he credited for opening his offense up a little bit on the power play. And maybe that fed into the rest of this game, I'm not sure. Certainly his power play numbers went up. You know, it goes from two power play goals in 2016-17, which is absurd.

Two power play goals. For a guy I played all 82 games and on PP-1 is. is ridiculous. And then, you know, he goes up to 12 the next year and then 12 the year after that. And, but again, I think we were trading DMs about this. That doesn't all, that also doesn't explain his dramatic uptick and even strength shooting percentage too. Right.

I mean, look at it overall, right? Like, so years one to four, 300 games worth, he shoots 8%. Years five to seven, and year seven is this year, um, 12.5% in 205 games. And it seems like, you know, that, on the surface, I think, for most people would be like, oh, you know, it's not that big of a difference, but if it's like, he's going to approach like 400 shots on goal this year, right? So it's like an extra 4% there. That's a massive difference for him. And so on the one hand, I'm sure the avalanche would have loved for him to right out of the gate just be this player. And who

knows what their franchise would look like if that had been the case. I know, you know, he had an amazing 18-year-old rookie season and then a bit of injuries and struggles here and there. But the one sort of silver lining there was after that third season, heading into the fourth year, they sign him to this seven-year, 6.3 million salary extension. And he's still going to be on that for the next couple of years, despite being routinely the top three player in the league. And it really is the type of like a franchise altering contract and sort of crossroads where it allows them to get so much more creative.

They don't have to worry about how much they're paying Miko Ranton, especially with Kilmacar still on his ELC. They can get so aggressive this season at the deadline, this summer, so on and so forth, so many different avenues to explore to improve their team. And so it's not necessarily like a replicable thing by any means. I don't think there's like a lot of sort of functional practical application here, but it just has been such a fascinating career arc to me where he, the talent was always there, but in a way, like, the execution kind of finally matched it at age 22,

and now he's blossomed in right there in the conversation with McDavid for best player in the league. One thing that struck me in my conversations with him is that he's extremely aware of his own numbers, of other people's numbers, of the cap situation. I think this is clearly borne out in the way he's approaching his next contract negotiations when he's coming out and saying, you know, I'll gladly take less for the benefit of the team, because look at what taking less did for Pittsburgh, for instance, or look at the good contract. That sounds like a terrible idea.

Which part? Well, taking the less money. I'm always like, players, you need to look out for yourself. Like, you know, it's... Oh, 100%. At the very least, though, he's thinking about this stuff. Yes, yeah. He's kind of aware.

He's aware of how awesome his contract is right now. Three more years left at 6.3 for a hard trophy winner's, or potential hard trophy winner is absurd. But more than that, like he's very aware, I think, of his own stats. And, you know, when we talked before the start of last season, I went back and looked at my notes. And one quote that stood out was, I feel like I'm an above-average hockey player. So an above-average shooting percentage makes sense.

We were talking about his breakout year the year prior when he had, what was it, you know, 39 goals and 74 games. And, you know, he said I wasn't like I scored 40 and shot 25%. So I think he kind of understands, like, yeah he's very aware of his own numbers and he's born out with a guy like Andre Burkowski comes in and I think Ryan Clark from the Athletic

wrote about this so I don't want to credit him correctly that you know Nathan McKinnon goes up to him and he's like hey I've looked at your numbers you need to shoot more you're a good player up watch your shifts and stuff so it wouldn't surprise me

that he had done similar analysis on his own game and I wish it's something I'd ask him about more specifically but maybe he looks at, you know, shooting shot locations or shot types or, um, he certainly diversified his shot selection. I think, I think you pointed this out. He's, he's almost slowed down a little bit at certain times when he's such a, like a bull with a pair of rocket boosters on the back of his hind legs sometimes when he's coming down the ice and just how fast he stick handles. He can almost get ahead of himself, but, um, I was kind of surprised at how many goals, for instance, he scored this year

that are from like really deep. He loves that kind of like pop out three high, uh, maybe, off the draw or something, kind of in the middle, in between his two defensemen up high, and then he'll almost, or even when he's moving laterally left to right, he'll almost just like float a shot in there. I mentioned before, kind of like a change-up. And he's scored like three or four times on that this year. And, you know, it's not necessarily like a wicked shot that he's blowing by the guy, but he just kind of floats it through traffic because he understands that, you know,

sometimes as much as teams are trying to block shots and clog the lane, you can almost use that to your advantage. And he doesn't get talked about, you know, in the discussion with, like Austin Matthews and Philip Forrestberg in terms of guys who creatively changed their shot angle and change the speeds to sort of deceive goalies kind of like, you know, a lefty pitcher in the M.O.B. But it's like we always think of him as... It should be, yeah. Well, we always think of him as this guy that's like all power.

And it certainly is. And it's the main driving force of his game. And it's like, you know, McDavid is much more sort of fluid, the kind of like artistic, like, in terms of getting from point to point being in the ice. McKinnon, there's no doubt about it. Like, he basically plants his foot and goes, and he's, he's like a horse. He just, like, it's remarkable to see the force that he drives down the ice with with the puck. And it's the same when the offensive zone on the power play, where he's constantly moving.

Like, when he gets the puck, it seems like he, like, makes, like, three or four small little, um, little moves before he even decides what he's going to do with it. And it's like, he can kind of, like, just operates as if he's just, like, pounded, like, a full pot of coffee or something over hopping on the ice. but I think he's... Oh, even the way his upper body moves too. He's always shaking and shimmying and trying to see people in that way. Well, and, you know, that's sort of a sneaky shot that you mentioned.

Like, you do see it where he's not necessarily, just especially in the power play, restricted to that kind of left circle of his. Like, he will sometimes switch with the defensemen and go to the top of the point and try to operate with a full scope of the ice there. and, you know, whether it's the one-timer and you sort of see the force he generates with it and you're like, you wouldn't, you know, it goes like bar down or somebody and he beats a goalie cleanly. You're like, how this guy ever shoot 8% for a 10 game stretch, let alone four seasons. You know, that's one thing. But it is just like, you know, even like off the rush at 5-1-5, as you mentioned, like it's the full array of weapons and the full scope of his shooting arsenal.

And that's why it's so, you know, remarkable to me. I think it is still even, even though you did talk to him and write about it and rank. Clark's done a good job of documenting it as well, and I had him on the podcast, and we talked about it a bunch as well. It's like it's still, I feel like there's more to kind of probe a way at there in terms of like revealing information of what sort of fundamentally changed there and how that kind of came to be. And maybe when we get, and you know, this could be a good segue into getting into the All-Star game and tracking data. But I think like being able to plot that much more visually in terms of where it's happening on the ice and sort of all the other factors to tie into it,

maybe that could be kind of illuminating for us as well. Yeah, let's get into that. I feel like we can kind of almost divide the tracking data into two buckets. One is what's going to be cool for the fans. Obviously, there will be overlap with people like us who are interested in, who are fans that are interested in the analytic stuff. But then what is useful for the teams? You know, I'm not sure if, you know, distance covered may be useful for teams to measure

how much, you know, how much ground guys are covering per game to measure workload and effort, but they already have ways of doing that probably. So, yeah, is average speed going to be beneficial for teams or is it just going to be something that's cool for fans to say, oh, look at Connor McDavid, he's so much faster than everybody else, which is what we already knew, but now we have some numbers to back it up. I'm mostly curious what data is going to be available to teams, whether they'll be able to scrape the raw data that's being logged

from this tracking system, whether they'll, and then what they're going to pull out of it. what teams are going to find actually useful. I don't know. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, so the league trotted out all the player tracking data. It'll have access to throughout All-Star weekend, you know, both in terms of the skilled competition and the 3-on-3 during the women's portion, but also on the Saturday with the actual All-Star game itself.

And I guess there's two ways to look at it, right? Like the glass-half-full approach would be, they were just sort of flexing on, us in the sense that they're like they were using this exhibition event as an opportunity to wet our appetites and sort of tease us with the potential of what they're capable of and kind of like show us the firepower power they all of a sudden have in this treasure trove of data it's like oh look what we can do on the other hand i've been following the NHL for long enough to kind of have this jaded opinion of things and maybe it's more realistic maybe it's just more negative but I feel like the league sometimes doesn't have a great grasp of what people actually

want. And I'd say if you were betting on it, there's probably a good chance they're going to mess up, at least initially, in terms of, you know, kind of just like throwing it all at us, like word vomit, and just being like, look at all this. And, you know, that exhibition. Yeah, on a website that doesn't even load or something. Yeah, on a website, it should be all over the place. But even on, like, the actual broadcast itself, right? Like, I think the user experience of it is really important. And I thought the way they went about it was just clearly way too cumbersome. I mean, just like intrusive to the viewing experience during the live gameplay, whether it was the name tags on the players on the ice,

or whether it was having this like chart in the top left corner with like the changing speeds of how past all the players are moving. And it's just like the numbers are just rapidly scrolling back and forth. Or that like puck trailer they had reminiscent of the glow puck days. Like all of that stuff. If they go that route, I think it's going to be a big swing and a miss. and I think it's going to turn off a lot of fans. And I already heard from a bunch of people during the All-Star process where they were like,

yeah, I don't want anything to do with this. Like, please no. Like, we don't need it during this HD era where it's like you can cleanly see everything on the ice. You don't need to muck it up with all this stuff. But I think if they have the right approach in terms of like, let's use this for replays, let's use this for analysis, let's use this on a more digital perspective. people can play around with the data and actually do like, you know, investigations and ask questions and find answers using it.

Like, I think that is like, the potential there is kind of overwhelming for like how we can play around with it and from a storytelling perspective what we can do. So, yeah, I guess it kind of goes into that like practical versus kind of like functional and sort of just like how, I guess how they're going to go about unveiling it and what they're going to give to us and then how we are going to use it ourselves. Like I think that's a big question.

Yeah, I think about other sports where there's much more, I'm going to say, like, digestible and advanced tracking data already available, basketball, baseball, even soccer to a certain degree. That doesn't really intrude on the broadcast that I watch, at least. Maybe it'll show up in a graphic or during a stoppage. Maybe it'll show up as a little, you know, something that will pass is completed, for instance, we'll drop down on the soccer scoreboard. But you don't really see a lot of, like, basketball broadcast being, kind of cluttered with, oh, you know, here's their percentage on picking rolls that's, you know, start with, start at the top of the key. And, you know, there's like a help side to. Whatever, whatever it may be.

I mean, there's an infinite amount of data available in basketball. If the NHL was doing it, like, from the NBA perspective, it would be like, there would be a point guard dribbling at the top of the key to start a possession. And, like, the NHL would, like, have, like, a tracker pop up on the screen. It would be like, this guy's dribbled one, two, three, four, five. And it'll just keep, like, counting up how many times you're going to be like, this is. a little like low highlight on it as it bounces and it makes a boing sound or something. Yeah. Yeah, I wish we could just kind of start because I do think that this is going to help clarify a lot of stuff for us.

I mean, I was trading some texts with Steve Valacette who runs ClearSight Analytics. And I mean, it's literally just an army of people every day tracking every single goal and every single shot in every single game. And he said that he's most excited for it because it's going to, to help decide or help accurately count shots that actually hit the net, which is such a basic thing, like counting shots, but the current data that we have right now is coming from people

who are sitting up in the booth. And, you know, they're all professionals, but they miss stuff. And that's why, you know, hits are wildly, wildly varied from building to building, but even shots that,

you know, Steve Valcott's saying that routinely every morning, his trackers will log games and they'll figure, you know, they'll count multiple shots per game that either were logged as shots and shouldn't have been logged as shots because they were going high or wide or whatever or shots that, you know, vice versa. So, I mean, that's an extremely rudimentary thing. I mean, shot count, but something that tracking is going to help us improve. And I feel like maybe if we temper our expectations a little, we might get a little bit more out of it.

But again, that's like the fan bucket. And then there's also the team bucket, like how our team is going to be able to use this data? are they going to be able to, are they going to get better player evaluation because they know, you know, which guys are better at cycle passes down low versus passes through the neutral zone or pass, whatever it may be. What is this data going to tell us or what is this data going to tell teams that will ideally improve their ability to actually evaluate players? Well, it's fitting you bring up clear say analytics because on the most recent PDO cast I had Kevin Woodley on and he uses that for his analysis and evaluating. goalies and you know off the air before we started recording he was kind of just like we're playing around on his laptop with uh some of the stuff and sort of the you know the like the actual interface of it online and and the information they have and you're right the first thing that stuck

out was to me was like how different uh there just like even bare like straight up raw safe percentages are to the ones listed on the NHL page uh yeah where there's clearly overcounting going on in certain ranks and certain scorekeepers. And then the other one is like, I mean, it seems so simple. It's crazy that in 2020 we don't have access to this yet. But just from like goalie analysis, it's like just knowing how often the goalie was screened, for example, like knowing how many times he had to move laterally before he made the save, like where there was a past proceeding the shot.

And it's like all this stuff is, you know, we're going to find that certain things maybe aren't as important maybe as others, but it's like when you go from, oh, this guy has stopped this percentage of the shots he's face to, okay, well, this is where those shots actually came from, everything that happened leading up to it, what the goal he had to do, and just accounting for all the factors, it's like it's going to open up this whole sort of landscape of, I guess, context more than anything that is going to be really invaluable for us. Yeah, could we break it down to such a level that we have similar to how baseball has like route efficiency for outfielders making

catches, could you have like goaltender? You know, save efficiency almost. How efficient they were coming off their posts and moving left to right to make a save, were they out of position? Is there a way to actually quantify that? Is there a way via tracking to quantify shot quality based on, you know, where bodies are and how high, you know, the launch angle at which the puff was, it's kind of infinite almost what we could do with this.

but again, we all have to get the data first and figure out what the hell we're going to do. There was one cool one, which I did know it on Twitter at the time during the All-Star game where they showed the kind of geometry of like the attacker in the offensive zone and then like the defensive triangle during three-on-three around them and sort of show the distance of how far the actual defenders were from the player with the puck.

and sort of those like coordinates. And I think that's going to fill a huge gap for us just in terms of defensive analysis, where right now we are very sort of results based, I feel like, in terms of what makes it so hard to quantify defense because the best event is nothing that ever happened. It's like the best defensive players are the ones who have the best shot and goal suppression numbers. But it's like finding out how that came to be. And on the flip side, you know, offensively, I've talked about this with like that basketball concept of like the gravity.

It's like, you know, the star player is like how close on the power player defensemen keeping to Alex Lovetchkin and how much space is that opening up for others. And sort of, I think it's going to explain a lot in terms of the defensive attention and where people are on the ice as a coordinate is going to explain a lot to us from like, I think answering a lot of our questions for why players have these wild shooting percentage, fluctuate. situations year and over year where it's like one guy just shoots 8% one year and then 17% the next year and then back to 11 and it's like part of it is inevitably I think we're going to find just luck and sort of the nature of the beast there's so much happening and so much moving around and the nature of like shooting that puck through a bunch of bodies towards a goalie like sometimes it's going to go in and sometimes it's not but um just kind of being able to account for the defensive attention and where they're getting around on the ice and back to mckinan for

example, like how he's going about actually launching those shots, I think is going to teach us and be very illuminating. And the other thing I'd say is quantifying passing ability, where it's like, right now we're so reliant on assists as our barometer of who the best passers are. And I think, you know, even with the most in-depth data, we'd probably conclude that like, yeah, the best passers over the past 10 years have been Henrik City and Nicholas Baxter and Joel Thorne. It's like, yeah, I'm sure that's going to bear out regardless, but, you know, we can get such more useful information from like that soccer component of sort of like the actual touches and the volume and the efficiency of the passing and completed passes. And, you know, it's going to be much more

process over results oriented where we're like a guy who's constantly passing to a guy who might be having a weird shooting percentage dip season. All of a sudden, his assists go down. And it's like, oh, you know, we can conclude that he was actually individually isolating all those factors and just viewing his own play. He was just as good regardless of how often the puck was going in the net as a passer. And so I think that's going to be pretty cool as well. Yeah. I mean, the hardest part is going to be like defining broken plays, 50-50 pucks, because that's a lot of hockey is just the fundamental nature of it. It happens on ice. The puck wobbles. There are ruts in the ice and the puck goes in the air. And it's a lot less clean than all these other sports that we're tracking.

right so I'm wondering like the information that we do get how much of the totality of the actual game is it going to capture I think they had they were talking that I don't know the guy who's running that I forget his name he's running the tracking company that the league's partnering with but talked about an example where you know you pass the puck off the back boards you know one of these like Hail Mary kind of old school Michael Grabner Rangers type passes where you just let it fly and then hope to win the foot race does that count as a pass You know, if you pass the puck and it wobbles in the air and then skips up in the air and it's an incomplete pass, you know, whose fault is that?

Is that how is that logged or, you know, if it bounces off the board? There's so many different kind of factor just by the nature of the sport itself that are so unique to hockey when it comes to actually logging this data, I feel like, that, yeah, it might be hard to distill. It will, but as long as you have, I think, a consistent definition. and then you have a large enough sample. Like I think eventually a lot of that stuff will sort of even out, right? It's like how often are guys exclusively making those passes? It's like probably not that often. Like in the grand scheme of things,

I don't think it'll ultimately affect the numbers that much. I'm sure they're going to be like the rare occasion. And that's why it'll be just as important to have the human element context of having watched that player and being able to account for that and sort of have it a mental note of like, oh yeah, well, maybe this explains why that's happening. Like you're never going to be able to erase that. but it'll at least be much more sort of instructive for people who can't really just like justify watching every single team every single night to look at some of those numbers and then maybe

the next time they're watching them they'll know what to key in on and be like oh I wonder why that's happening maybe I'll watch them and see and so I think it's going to be lead to a lot of many more questions but it's like it's a great place for the league to be in it's going to kind of take us out of this like stone age of like yeah all we have is like shots and assists and goals and And that's about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

But even settling on, like in a consensus definition of some of these things will be difficult because a lot, I mean, even like, you know, completed passes is to a certain, you know, tape to tape. Okay, that's a completed pass. But to a certain degree, it might be subjective, depending on, you know, what happens if the guy bobbles it or if the puck hops off his stick because it was a poor pass. But, yeah, I don't know. it's not just like shot quality. That's such a subjective thing, but, um, well, I'll give you a great actual real life

example of that. Like I've, over the past couple years, um, I didn't last year, but a couple years before that during the postseason, I do this like manual tracking project where I would count the, the, the breakouts and, and sort of try to learn more about like which defensemen were a low key, actually super effective because just looking at pure point totals for go for defensemen especially can be very misleading. and one thing I did notice, and you know, when you compare them with the information of a tracking company like Sport Logic or whatever that already has all this stuff, is there's a big difference of opinion in terms of a play that's very common in today's game. Like a low percentage of the time, you're going to have a defenseman exiting his own, and he's going to cleanly tape to tape, make a pass to a forward who's going to receive the puck cleanly and then carry it into an offensive zone.

Most times what teams do is like the defenseman just fires the puck off. up the ice and then a forward around center ice kind of like chips it a little bit and it's like basically a dump in and then the forwards go and retrieve it in the all the way across the ice and it's like it's really tough to know who to place that blame on whether the defenseman actually made a pass that could have been cleanly received by the forward or whether it was kind of off and so the forward had to adjust on the fly and audible and kind of tip it as opposed to cleanly receiving it themselves and it's like yeah so you're right it's gonna yeah it was it was late in a shift and you know he was just trying to get off the ice and that's their design to break out because they have

the other guys flying down the opposite wing and they want him to go retrieve the puck or say it's yeah it's also contextual it is but i think uh you know the big picture is going to be really important and i think also like just breaking down more like set plays especially in the offensive and defensive zone i think is going to be very very useful so oh i'm excited about it i think for power play that Yin's own stuff for power play and penalty kill, I seem to be extremely useful in that regard. Mm-hmm. All right, yeah, we're at the 50-minute mark here.

Do you want to touch on anything else while we're here, like whether it's something you worked on in the recent past or whether it's something you're going to be doing moving forward? Well, I spent some time in Carolina as part of my effort to get a little bit back in the hockey. It's been a couple days down there. I'd booked a trip actually before it turned out Justin Williams was coming back, So that turned out extremely lucky because I was able to be there as he was like going through his fitness testing right before.

So he had to do all the fitness testing that every single player had to do in the preseason, except he has to do it in December, January, whatever, before he's coming back. And it struck me just how ready he was. I think it was clear. I think he had a tough decision at the start. And that was why he decided to not come back to the hurricanes at the start of the season. but once he got that bug back and once he realized that he wanted to at least try

the nature of his person he wasn't going to give it anything less than 100%. So he's out there skating alone. He's getting guys like Cam Ward and Tim Gleason to come out and feed the pucks because he has no one to actually practice. I think he's off to a nice start, two goals and two games for Carolina.

But they've had such good growth from guys like Spetschnikov and I was really impressed by seeing Marty Nietzsche's up close. And I don't think that Justin really has to be anything more than kind of a bottom six guy. But isn't he the exactly like the kind of third line score that you would want in the playoffs? You know, obviously experienced, but a puck possession monster and capable of chipping in timely goals when it counts. And that's what you need to win in the playoffs. And that's probably about as good as a trade deadline acquisition as they were going to get.

Certainly. And that's why it was no surprise that, uh, There were countless other teams, like including the Bruins and others that were sort of check it in and seeing whether they could kind of, you know, dissuade them from going back to Carolina and maybe joining them instead for a long playoff run. But I don't know, maybe part of it is just me being a bit naive here. But like, without any inside information, I just felt like it was like so obvious the entire time. It was telling us that he was coming back. Like, you know, we've seen this in other sports much more so than in hockey, but I think we'll see it more during this like, you know, this whole. I know it's taboo, this load management era or whatever, but it's like, if you're an older player

with the mileage of Justin Milliams has and everything you've accomplished, it's like, why would you be going through training camp and regular exhibition and then playing in October or November, it's like you're so much better off. Obviously, you still need to like stay in shape and kind of keep going at it throughout the year, but it's like save yourself a little bit and kind of keep some fuel in the tank and then come back midseason, especially if it's a situation you're already very comfortable and familiar with like he is with Carolina. And so I think it's kind of a no-brainer. Like I've been thinking the Bruin should be doing that with Sedano-Chara for a long time now. And, you know, Miaramari Agar certainly did it for a while. And I think we're going to see

many more veterans follow that route. It just seems like it makes way too much sense not to go about it. Like 82 regular season games for a guy who's in his late 30s is just, it seems completely pointless. I've started playing fantasy basketball over the past couple years, and it surprises me relative to hockey, like how often guys just, yeah, like that, loan management, they just, you know, okay, we're on a back-to-back or something, we're just going to sit out this game.

It's not worth it. It's a long season. And granted, the pecking order and the standings is probably a little more established. You probably know what you have relative to the rest of the league a little sooner in the NBA than the NHL. But I'm with you. I mean, the only thing standing in the way is probably like pride, right? Like guys saying, no, I'm a hockey player.

I don't want to shut it down. I don't want to take a game off, you know, and we must play. But, like, that is very clearly not the wisest thing to do, especially if you're gunning for a long playoff running, because, man, is it a grind once you get to that point? And every little bit adds up. I mean, it's why Alex Ovechkin skips the All-Star game, you know. I think it's, well, maybe one of several reasons.

But, you know, the mileage adds up. And once you get that late in your career, I think you're certainly entitled to shut it down. And at the very least, you should listen to the, trove of biological, biomedical data that we now have at our disposal when they talk about, you know, workload and recovery and, you know,

okay, we saw that you skated a lot this practice. Maybe we take a little bit off this next practice, we take a little bit off this game because you got a hard, hard workload this past game. Yeah, I feel like we could definitely see that come in a little bit more. Yeah, yeah, it's pride. It's like the sort of hockey sort of... That's got to be it, right?

A lot of pride, yeah. Yeah. We hear from a lot of players, it's like, you know, it sounds good in theory. You're like, oh, you know, I'm good. I think I'm going to hang it up and then, you know, the game start and you're like, I'm just around my family all the time. Maybe I could get back out there. And obviously, your body's holding up.

A lot of the guys seem to get the edge. And I think it's a great fit for Williams and the canes. You know, you mentioned a matchkin there. I was thinking, I've never really talked about this with you. But, you know, you've clearly, you've gone on to do many great things and we'll do so moving forward, but you did also, in a past life, cover the Washington Capitals full time, and you're around, Ovechkenalada now that, you know, he's approaching 700 goals now, and we're kind of re-igniting this conversation of the chase for Gretzky

and where he can ultimately wind up on the goal scoring list all time. Like, do you wish, do you have a little litch, like that you were just kind of like hanging around there and just covering him during this part of his career? Yeah, and the team too. I mean, I really enjoyed covering, yeah, him and Baxter and Carlson. I mean, Hope he's one of my favorite conversations to have with anybody in the entire league. But, yeah, it wouldn't shock me one bit if, A, well, I think he'll definitely take a run at it. I think that's certainly in his mind and certainly important to him, especially now that he has a cup.

But B, it wouldn't shock me if he actually got there. I mean, Russian machine never breaks, right? It's shocking me every time I go to his hockey reference page, and I'm like, wow, he's 34 now. Like, it's unreal. And, you know, he's going to get 50 goals again. He'll be right up there at the league lead. He's still scoring the same way that he always has.

He's still as dynamic off the rush and as dangerous as he ever has been with that kind of left little lateral movement. He has just almost shooting right through guys. And then obviously the one-timer. as long as their power play is really good, and he's not literally the only weapon out there, and teams just can't, although they still try to put some player in his hip pocket

and play four on three, I still think he'll get his looks as improbable as it is, that he still continues to fire shots from that left circle, even though everyone knows that it's coming from there. So, I mean, unless he gets hurt, unless his body starts breaking down once he gets over 35, or I don't know, maybe he'll have some change of heart where he doesn't want to keep going once his contract is?

I don't know. I don't know any insider information here, but I find it really hard to conceive of a situation in which he's getting close. I mean, he'll hit 700, I don't know, probably by Valentine's Day potentially. Maybe by the time we released his podcast. Yeah, exactly. Right. So I think the, he has such admiration for Gretzky.

I think they get together at least, I mean, I know they have at least twice and gotten together for dinner. Well, usually when they go out, the caps go out on their West Coast, swing. He loves just sitting down with Wayne and I think picking his brain and I think the clothes I've seen Gretzky's rooting for him and thinks he probably can do it too. And records are made to be

broken and I don't know how many of Gretzky's records are actually going to fall. The fact that someone's even like close to this is remarkable. Without question he's the greatest goal score of our generation. Barry Trots, I think recently said he's the greatest score ever once you adjust for. Yeah, ever, ever, right? We could say ever at this point.

Yeah, God, I want to see him take a run at that because I mean what what a wonderful thing that would be for hockey too to have that kind of you know day to day uh it reminds me almost of like the mcguire sosa home run chase um can you just imagine what it would be like to have the you know the obi tracker as he counts down to getting gresky every single goal that he scores would be you know international news i think at that point yeah i guess we'll see like it did feel like for a while there he was the same thing that after his contract was up he'd be done or at least like maybe go close out his career in russia but, you know, he's got next year.

And then, now that especially with Backstrom signed for the four years after that, it feels like the writing's on the wall that, you know, those two guys, I know Backstrom's a couple years younger than him. But with how Ovechkin's going right now, it's, it's tricky because on the one hand, like, he's historically just destroyed or brought down our expectations so many times where it's like you can't compare him to regular human beings at this point. But at the same time, it's like we know that, like, especially at this age, all it takes is just like one bad injury or whatever and maybe the player is physically never the same

we're never able to recover and and um you know he's never he's been just remarkably durable and that's kind of the most under told part of his legacy i think throughout his career but it'll be fascinating to see i i really i want it's amazing that at age 34 he still plays with the type of force in vigor and excitement when he scores as he does and i want that to always be the lasting image i don't want to see him chasing that record looking like latter stages of Jerome Ginnla where he's like being wheeled around the ice and basically can't skate anymore and is purely a power play guy like I get it from a historical perspective if he's close enough it's like you kind of take the good with the bad and you just enjoy the fact that he's going to potentially be the number one goal score ever

but I never really want to think about him that way in terms of like just being a shell of himself physically because that physicality has been such a part of what's made him special over all these years. Yeah, and I'm not sure he would want to think of himself that way either. I'm not sure I can envision yeah, old man, Obechkin, climbing over the boards and playing seven minutes a night and six of which are on the power play or something. But yeah, I mean, his durability is just doing some quick math there. One, two, four, five. He's missed nine games since the lockout season. Yeah, and how many of those have either been like all-star? or like one time he missed curfew or something like right yeah nine yeah that's right one time

one time he showed up late to a morning skater or like a morning skater practice something and they sat him that night against san Jose i think that was the year i was covering the team or maybe right after that um nine games in seven years yeah eight years yeah uh for a guy who plays as hard as he does and plays the minutes that he does um that's absurd Yeah, it's crazy. All right, Alex, well, we'll have plenty more time to talk about that, and we'll have you back on the show sometime down the rule. Let's get out of your plug some stuff.

What are we going to people check you out, and what are you working on these days? S.I.com, and as of recently, thanks to our new partnership, thehockeynews.com, we're kind of cross-sharing some content there. So you'll see, you know, Kim Campbell, Matt Lark, and Ryan Kennedy, Jerry Clinton, those guys on our site, and you'll see me and Dan Falkenheim, I'm Chris and Nelson, other people on the hockey news site, so don't be alarmed. We're still working at the same spot. I would say go check out my stuff online.

I have seen a story recently on Akeemaloo, headed over to the Czech Republic to try and reinvigorate his career after everything that went down with Bill Peters incident. Talk to Martin Firk recently about him setting his record setting 109.2 mile an hour shot at the H.L All-Star game and the bevy of goals. oldtenders and other players and teammates even. He has bruised along the way there with his ridiculously hard shot. And then a good bit of Cain's coverage. In addition to hanging out with Justin Williams, I went and spent some time with Andre Svetnikoff.

He was attending a local youth hockey practice, and literally every single kid there asked him to do the lacrosse. And he did it, and they went well out. It's amazing. I've had people down there kind of postulate that, No, like, single event has done more to, like, gin up interest at the youth hockey level in Carolina than his lacrosse shot, like, since they won the cup. Every single kid at every single level down there is trying to pull off low lacrosse move. You know, Justin Williams' kid is spending time after practice.

Rod Brindamore's kid is, like, coming to the Canes rank and, like, trying the special golf move. Ryan to Zingles, cousins came to, like young cousins, age five or six or something, came to practice and all they wanted to do was like hang around, Svetchnikov. He is a delight to be around, and he is just in some ways kind of a wide-eyed teenager, but man, what skill that kid has.

And, like, surprising bite, too. I think until you watch him up close, you don't realize, you know, once his body fills out a little bit more, he's going to be probably one of the premier power forwards in the league, but also with the skill to pull off, some sort of ridiculous trick shot like that. He is, yeah, he's an absolute unit, man. All right, Alex, this was a blast.

I'm glad we did this, and we'll check in soon, okay? Thanks, bud. The Hockey P.D.Ocast of Dmitri Filipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovic and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.