The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 339: Battle of Alberta Strikes Oil

Episode Date: February 6, 2020

Jonathan Willis joins the show to discuss the most recent instalments of The Battle of Alberta, Leon Draisaitl playing without Connor McDavid, the way McDavid and other stars are officiated, and how much the current state of the Pacific Division will influence Edmonton's moves at the deadline.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 is my good buddy Jonathan Willis J. Will, what's going on, man? Dmitri, it's been so long since we've done this. It's so good to hear your voice. Yeah, it is. You know, it's funny because I feel like last year I had you on a bunch and then you come to Vancouver for the draft and we finally meet in person

we finally do a show together live in the flesh and it's great. And then I haven't had you back on since. And I promise it's nothing personal. It wasn't like our meeting went poorly or anything. It's just the season's been kind of crazy here. It's been going and I didn't realize that I hadn't had you on for so long. And then on Saturday night, when I was watching that Battle of Alberta game, I was like, I need to have Jonathan back on and we need to like fully dissect

this and unpack it because there's a lot going on. So I'm glad we finally have the opportunity to do so. That's been a tremendous run of games. The last two Edmonton-Callegger games, both just fantastic contests. I think, I mean, you might disagree if you're a Flames fan, but that last one, maybe you don't like so much, but just in terms of energy level and, well, they're almost like playoff games, which, you know, for the 82 game, regular season grind is, is a welcome aberration from the norm. Yeah, we talk a lot about the, you know, it's an annual tradition to point out the unbalanced playoff and point system and the seating and how, especially this year, it's like, there's like 55 good teams in the Metro Division and then there's like zero good

teams in the Pacific and it feels unfair but at the same time I think my new stance and I've come and I've done a full 180 on this is as long as we get flames oilers in some capacity in the playoffs when we get a seven game series between these two teams the playoff system is good in my books yes yeah I could go for that and I was talking about this with a friend the other day how crazy would it be if you had and it would take a little bit of doing but you had Vancouver Chicago in the first round and the battle of Alberta in the Pacific I don't think anybody would be complaining about the Pacific division if that happened Yeah, well, I'm sure they would if the Leafs miss out by one point because there's so many good teams out east.

People will always find someone I'll complain about and I get it. I certainly understand the merits of it. But I mean, let's get into that Battle of Alberta in some of these games because, you know, I was obviously like everyone else glued to my TV and watched them. I know that you were out on Saturday and you had to watch it on tape delay. But, you know, watching those games and we can get into the actual, you know, the on ice play and how the Oilers significantly outplayed Calgary, I think, in both contests. But what really stuck out to me was that was the prime example of, like,

not necessarily the pros and cons that I have of fighting, but sort of the discrepancy between, like, the stuff I don't have time for, which is, like, the staged fights where it's, like, two guys that are fighting just because that's what they do, or because even in, like, the Cassian-Kachuk case, where it feels like every time you throw a hit in today's game, it needs to be answered by a fight-out. after no matter how clean or dirty it was.

But then you have like the organic stuff, whether it was in the first game with Nugent Hopkins and Monaghan and their hilarious little tilt or whether it was just the Saturday night free-for-all where it kind of felt like it was much more of a sort of organic development where it's two teams that have played each other in rapid succession. They really don't like each other. They obviously have the sort of geographical link as well. But it feels much more in line with sort of the spirit of the sport and the physicality. and I have much more time for that.

I think sometimes people can take it too far and go like, oh, you want to completely take all sort of physical contact and everything out of the game. And I don't think it's that extreme. I think it's just like you sort of pick and choose. And I much prefer the stuff where it kind of feels like it's just happening because it's the natural course of the game as opposed to this sort of like WWU style script.

Yeah, I completely hear where you're coming from. And emotionally it resonates with me because I'm not a fighting guy. I just, you know, when you see how some of these guys suffer post retirement, you think about, you know, a guy who made 600 grand a year for his NHL career and now he's basically wrecked as a human being at 33. That stuff's terrifying. I can't stomach that stuff. I know a lot of people maybe disagree with me, but it's one of those things that just for me personally, my entertainment, I can't, I can't handle that. But this, but what really gets me with that was the idea of, you know, designated enforcers and staged fights.

And this guy, he plays four minutes a night and all he does is fight 25 times a year. That stuff I absolutely loathe. This stuff I didn't mind so much, I think, is a natural expression of emotion. It makes a lot more sense. And I wonder, you know, because my other thing with fighting has always been that you don't see it in the postseason very often just because people understand you know you're fighting really hard to win two points you're not necessarily fight not two points but to win a game and not necessarily fighting yeah there we go so I'm class first team to eight points wins the playoffs I remember laughing the

first time I heard a player post game say oh it was just good to get the two points after a playoff win but there I went did it so um but sometimes you would see it in the playoffs I think about to have Vinnie La Cavillier and Jerome McGinlay in the Stanley Cup final in 2004. And stuff, that's much more what this felt like. And there it doesn't feel like it's something that's being put on. And there's something, there's something primal about it. Yeah, it's, it's hockey players fighting as opposed to fighters playing hockey, right? It's like, it feels much more sort of in the spirit of the sport where it's like,

emotions boil over. I totally get it. Like there's a lot of. And if you're seeing like seeing guys over and over again, you get agitated by the little things they do. And sometimes it just boils over and you get in the fight. And I think if that it's like a recurring theme and that's all the game has to it, then it kind of loses its purpose or it loses its value. Whereas I think again, as a classic example, he was always a type of guy for me watching him like, you know, scoring 50 goals, obviously a great player. But it's like then when he would actually get pissed off and drop the gloves with another good player or another team, it felt like it had some like added.

value because you'd be like oh wow like droma gilas really fired up about this and you'd see how he'd react after it and whether he'd play an even more spirited game and so i think there's certainly like a storytelling element to that as well so it really did highlight the difference between those two what kind of forms of fighting and sort of how special it can be when there actually is some something at the root of it as opposed to just your kind of standard fight yeah it it i i think we're in complete agreement about that the uh the the staged fight fights are not for me. I don't mind it if they're, you know,

a natural organic result of the game and your player, and you're not picking players specifically for their ability to fight. You're picking them for their ability to play hockey. Milan Ludic is just listening to this conversation, just like quietly weeping. I could not, it didn't surprise me on one level, the amount of blowback he got,

but there's a lot of anger in Calgary about, you know, his mostly, like he was pretty irrelevant. the outcome of both games and and whichever side of the battle you want to pick you know the the hockey playing battle or the the the fighting hitting i don't know what people were expecting like did flames like the they edmonton plays calgary often flames fans saw him a lot last year like that he's he's uh he's a fourth line guy at this point he's probably going to be worse than that next year i i mean he doesn't have the speed to impact the game and and i don't think that his last

of presence was in any way due to, you know, a lack of desire. I just think this is, this is who he is now. And if you're expecting something else, then you're not familiar with his career curve of the last few years. Yeah, I can see both sides of it. I do feel for him a little bit. And he had some comments after the day, the day after the game on Saturday where he was basically like, you know, this isn't the 80s anymore. Like, what am I supposed to do? I wasn't on the ice. I would have loved to have been on the ice for when that full dust up happened and everyone was pretty much having a dance partner. And he's like not just going to jump on the ice and just grab someone from the pile and start wailing on them. And I do totally get that.

But I also see it from like the frustrated fans, Flames fans perspective because, you know, when this trade happens when the season starts, I think the Flames had this idea that after losing in round one so meekly last year to Colorado, they had this misguided idea that they needed to get tougher, that they needed to get more playoff. ready and more physical and so they were sort of propping up that transaction of acquiring milan luchitch beyond the sort of contractual stuff as like come that that time of the season when we have games like this especially against the oilers and things get heated will be tougher and and you remember that like i think it was the eric francis column at the start of the year where it was like you know all the flames players feel like they're taller and they're stronger with luchich on the ice and then and we know that that's silly like how many examples are there of marx savard getting concussed with

Milan Luchich on the ice. So of like no, no individual players going to prevent violence and prevent the other team's players from opportunistically taking shots at your best players if they so choose. And so it was always a misguided belief. But I think seeing it actually play out like this where you have them on your team and it still doesn't matter and still doesn't influence it at all. It's like you get this sort of firsthand kind of,

you get splashed with cold water sort of if you're a flames fan or you're like, oh, wow, this actually is the reality. And now there's like no real leg to stand on. want to justify that trade or justify even having in your lineup if he's going to be there and it's still not going to matter at all in a game like that. Yeah, he, well, you know, the big dust up was a direct result of a play that happened on the ice. You know, Sam Gagne going hard to the net, Cam Talbot, freaking out the flames defense.

And, you know, you understand why they freaked out because he's swiping at a puck that's frozen and that often sets off tempers. But it was an organic moment. And if you're not on the ice for it, you're not on the ice for it. And you can't just go around and create that out a whole cloth, especially if you're Milan Luchich, because I mean, you know, it's not like Sean Monaghan can go and engage with Ryan Nugent Hopkins. You're not going to have anybody, you know, go up to Milan Luchis and go, hey, hey, Milan, let's,

let's get into this. It's a player role that's gone in today's game. And the, I mean, you reference the Eric Francis column and Francis. has a long history of presenting Calgary Flames official lines to the public. And I say, you know, like there's a role for guys like that. That's often he presents you what the team is thinking. And that's the main role of a lot of access journalism, which is it's there. And if the Flames were thinking that, which I believe they were based on that column,

based on some other things, I always thought it was a misguided idea. And I would have thought that a lot of Flames fans watching Luchich would have thought it was a misguided idea, but obviously anybody can make that mistake. Calgary didn't lose to Colorado because they didn't have a guy who couldn't keep up. They didn't have a tough fourth liner. That's not what wins you playoff series. It's more irrelevant in the playoffs than it is in the regular season. So this, hopefully it was a wake-up call for some people. Yeah, well, it's especially ironic because, you know, sometimes you do lose a playoff series and if it's like exceptionally tight, you can sort of, you can talk yourself irrationally into like, oh, if we just had this

one little X factor, it can make a difference. But it's amazing to watch that particular Flames Ave series and come away with that being the takeaway where it's like Colorado just absolutely speedbag them for five straight games. And they just like completely blew them off the ice. And to watch that and think, yeah, we need to double down on actually getting tougher and slower. It's pretty surreal. So I'm very curious to see where the flames go from this.

but it was sort of a similar thing, you know, beyond the fights and beyond the drama and Kachuk and Cassian and so on and so forth. It's like what really stuck out to me was the Oilers kind of just smack them around on the ice from an actual playing perspective where they felt like such a superior 5-15 team. And despite the, you know, largely positive results for the Oilers this year, that hasn't typically been the case where they've dominated so heavily a 5-15. So I think that was a pretty, that was kind of one of my other. big takeaways from from watching those it's just two games you don't want to buy too much into

them but if this is a potential series come to playoffs that that's going to be something to look back at well there's yeah like in terms of future playoff readiness i'd point to the first game between calgary and edmonton where calgary was far more dominant and uh i'd also point to um the potential of a march jordano injury which you would be a big x factor but but you're right about the oilers five on five play which i know is your larger point here. They're a better team now than they were at the start of the year in terms of how they're getting their results. They've basically, for the first three months of the season, they've been an elite special teams club. Fantastic results on the power play that I completely

believe in because guess what? You got Leon Drysidal, Connor McDavid on the ice together. Good things are going to happen, five on four, period. They spent a ton of offseason effort on the penalty kill. I'm not sure how much of the early season improvement, was a direct result of that effort and how much of it was, you know, we've got some competent people and we're also having a little bit of luck. So I was thinking the bottom might fall out on that a little bit. But five on five, they've been a mediocre team all year. And two things to me have changed.

The big one, which I'm sure we're going to talk about, is separation of Leon Drysidal and Connor McDavid. And the other one is the adaptation of some of their bottom six guys. because they had a bunch of people coming to a new team, and there was a bit of a transition curve for some of the European players, and then there were some injuries early on. So a guy like a Josh Archibald got off to a slow start because he played two, three games, get hurt,

miss a bunch of time, come back, and then try and find his way. And they've gotten through that period now, and I think we're starting to see some of these guys delivering more in line with their career norms. I really want to go along here on both McDavid and Dreis Eidel and do them separately, and you kind of segue with us there. Which one do you want to do want to go on first? Do you want to talk about McDavid or Dreisidel first?

Well, either. I think in terms of importance right now, the dry saddle lines red hot, but they're both fun stories. Okay, well, let's do, let's do Dreisidal first, because I want to unpack this. I mean, he's such an interesting player to me for a variety of reasons. I mean, you look at sort of a lot of the deeper models, the underlying numbers. They aren't favorable to him. I think he's around 47.

percent in uh you know and all the shot metrics and expected goals and high danger chances but on the other hand um you know we're going on what like a year almost two years now of him being an elite finisher i think he's like around 20 percent conversion rate on over four on around 400 shots over the past year and a half he plays so much he's such a workhorse for them i think he's like a top 10 transition player in terms of just purely taking the puck from his end of the ice and getting it all the way into the offensive zone. You know, he's around a 20% shooter, and he's like, I think he leads the league

in the amount of times he's hit iron as well this year, so you can even argue he's been a bit unlucky. He's got more 5-1-5 points than McDavid. He leads the league with 83 points in 53 games, and so there is that kind of imbalance there on the traditional metrics where just purely by the counting stats and then by the numbers, and I think even by the eye test where when he's going,

he looks like such a dominant force, and he looks like no one can kind of take him off the puck and everything's going his way, but then you look at the overall package with the underlying numbers and they aren't sort of representative of what you're seeing and what he looks like he should be. And I think if he's, it's much more so in the case where he's such an elite finisher and the puck with him and McDavid is on the ice is going to go in more often than not. So they can afford to have not necessarily the most sparkling 5-1-5 shot metrics and still get away

with it. But I think there is a bit of that frustration for people where it's like when you're discussing Dreisaitle and his value as a player and just, how dominant he is, there is a misalignment there between the two schools of thought. And I think there's a reason for that and a lot of it. So with these numbers, I kind of go back and forth between two viewpoints. And the first is, okay, the top line numbers that show you the larger scheme of time are more valuable most of the time, right? Like you're what, you're proved to be over an extended period of time. And then the second thing is, but there's a story behind them.

There are individual reasons that he spiked here and slumped here. And so the trick is synthesizing those two and not letting yourself get sucked into, you know, whichever viewpoint you happen to Richard really want to believe and come up with something misleading. So with McDavid and Drysidal together, they've been 49 to 50 percent coursey, I think, as a unit, most of their run. And there's a few reasons for that. Some of it's the defense, especially prior to this year. This year, we saw a bit of a transition because Dave Tippett likes a certain kind of defense.

But prior to this year, the Peter Shirelli, Todd McClellan editions of the defense were not puck-moving defensemen. Like outside a Oscar cleft bomb who they inherited, it was really not something they emphasized. And they built it, you know, with Adam, Adam Larson and Chris Russell and guys like that who, you know, have their uses but are not possession drivers by any stretch. So that's part of it. part of it I think too is the simple fact that they're playing these guys are ridiculous ludicrous amount of time you know you play they played them I thought they played them into the ground last year under first McClellan and then Ken Hitchcock especially as a unit because when you have them on one line and you really only have one line that's how you play

them in if you if you think that's not going to impact on ice performance you're dreaming and then this season um it was interesting because dry Cytle's game fell apart for about a month. It completely collapsed. I can't even remember what the on ice goal numbers were, but he was like minus 20 or something ridiculous over a month-long period, just abysmal. And his shot metrics were low 40s, like under 45 percent with Connor McDavid for much of it. And there was one point in time where the two guys were like minus 10 or 12 together over a 15, 16 game stretch and Connor McDavid was plus seven away from Drysidal and Drysidle was minus seven away from McDavid. All these numbers at five on five and by memory, so not exact. But it was one of those

things where you could clearly see if you were watching the games that Leon Drysidle was struggling mightily. And then if you looked at the numbers, Connor McDavid playing with basically nobody was fine even when he was away from Drysidle. And that drugged down their collective numbers together. and, you know, obviously submarine dry sidles numbers away from that. And what the coaching staff did was they said, okay, well, we can lean into this and try and move dry sidle into a position where he's, you know, sheltered on the wing, or we can force him through it by making him play down the middle where he has to skate more and really leaning into the problem.

And that was the, you know, that more so than the desire to get a one-two punch was the reason they moved dry-sidal to the middle, at least at the time when the move. was made, that was how they explained it, was we got to get dry sidle skating again, period. And he's not doing that enough on the wing. And I think what happened this time, something that the Oilers did this time, which they never did under the previous coaches, was they loaded up dry sidles line and they said McDavid can make do with what he's got. And to that end, they brought up Kylo Yamamoto, who has a very good relationship with dry sidles stemming back from previous NHL stints. They gave dry cytidal Ryan Nugent Hopkins,

who usually landed with McDavid when they've been split up in the past. And the result was that he had two really quality linemates. Like Nugent Hopkins, I think everybody appreciates, you know, he's not a superstar player, but he's a very good NHL player. He does a lot of things well. And he's certainly the third best forward on the Oilers. And then you bring up Kyler Yamamoto, who's been a revelation, partially because he's being used in a place where he can have success in a designated role.

And partially just because he's, you know, I think he's 20 now. he's developed. He's a good two-way forward. He's extremely good on the forecheck, which is a great asset to that line. And you get the three of them together, and you have the fact that defenses have to split between a McDavid line and a dry-sidal line. There's a lot of room for them to make noise. It reminds me of back when Kessel was at his best, and you had Malcon and Kessel on one unit and Krosby on the other. There was a lot of freedom for that line to make hay, and we're seeing that now with dry-sidal. Yeah, the usage is an interesting point because obviously, you know, when they're getting into, I think they're like just over 22 for the season.

I think they're actually playing a bit less than they were last year on average, but there was a stretch there where like they're just cranking out these like 26, 27 minute, a night appearances. And it was like, oh my God, how long can they keep going? And I think that was especially for Dreisaito, sort of a part, at least of those midseason struggles. but you know for those two guys especially when you watch them together a five on five i think there is an element to explaining those underlying numbers beyond just having a defenseman and whether they can get them the puck in space and in emotion um when they're attacking as opposed to them having to go back and do it themselves is they definitely i think sometimes not necessarily cheat but sort of try to make uh odd man rushes happen out of nowhere and it makes

sense because of how lethal they are, especially Dreisedos as a shooter, where it's like, yeah, if you can kind of, you can live with getting 47 or 48 out of every 100 shot attempts on the ice if a certain handful of those are going to be two-on-ones for those two guys where their conversion rate is going to be sky high. And I think there's some of that to it as well. You know, we often talk about teams that, like the Islanders, for example, where it's like they don't underbarried shots, they don't necessarily carry that much about their raw shot attempt total because they're sort of suppressing everything and keeping everything to the outside.

And so they're limiting the damage. This is kind of the universe of it where like it feels like they're trying to maximize their own damage at the spite of some of the overall totals. I'm glad you brought that up because I think that's absolutely true. And if you watch them play, there's, there's an element of that. Like I think that's a case where if you're if you're looking at this from the eye test perspective or the statistical perspective, you end up at the same result. and partially, I don't know if I'd phrase it so much as cheating as I would, the fact that when you put them on the same line and you're down by a goal, which, you know, the Oilers last few years have often been down by a goal, that they're getting paid to score, right? And especially when they're together, there's nobody else. If they don't get that goal, nobody else is getting it.

And then they absolutely, it does affect their playing style. You combine fatigue with that kind of incentives and you're going to end up with a line. that really pushes for for scoring even at the cost, even at some defensive cost, and certainly is willing to trade chances in the knowledge that they're more likely to finish their chances than you are to finish yours. Well, I haven't, selfishly, I think, you know, it's a big development individually for him. It's a huge development for the team as well, having that second line and being able to just know that you can play pretty much whoever with McDavid and he'll be fine and that if you have a second

line going with dry sidle and they can be a net positive as well all of a sudden you're you're cooking a little bit there if you're if you're tippet and the oilers but i think you know selfishly and individually for dry sidle like i don't know if you've come across this a lot i think you probably interact more with actual oilers fans who are just watching the team and cheer for the team and so there's probably not as much pushback but for me as more of sort of a a national audience there's a lot of like when you talk about dry sidle's production or how good he looks or his numbers it's it's it's greeted with a lot of dismissal and hand waving and eye rolls and people are just like well yeah he's playing with the best player in the world clearly that's going to lead to success for him and and i think there is an element

of that obviously we're we'd be kidding ourselves if we thought otherwise but now seeing him play with yamamoto and nujan hopkins and you know they only have 130 so five-on-five minutes together so it's still a relatively saw sample but they're looking very good and have had a couple dominant games of late playing together. And so if they can keep that going as well, I think there's going to be a lot more people coming around to the fact that Dry Seidel in his own right is one of the top players as opposed to being more of a passenger in a lot of people's eyes, I think. Yes. I think there's a lot of truth in that. I think the thing that has really killed Drysidal from a lot of people's perspective has been his numbers away from McDavid the past few years.

and something that I didn't like I understood that this was happening but I didn't properly appreciate it until I saw the current layout of the roster was the degree to which Drysidle was being asked to do it with nobody. Like it was funny, you know,

like if McDavid would get hurt and miss a game, Drysidal would step in and look phenomenal. Like he'd always look great. Every time, preseason, regular season, if McDavid wasn't in the lineup and Drysidal was the number one center, he'd look fantastic. And then on the rare

occasions when they'd be split up in the past, McDavid would draw, you know, Nugent Hopkins and whoever on right wing. He would, he would draw the best and Drysidal would get Milan Luch, each, and whoever. And his numbers would get crushed. And it was the same thing before, like, the Oilers used to have a real problem with Ryan Nugent Hopkins on the second line when Drysidal and McDavid were together, getting absolutely stomped. Like, I think he was at 42% Corsi at some point last year, just getting crushed. And then you'd look at the lineup and it would be like Jujar Kara and yes, I pull the RV or it would be Alex Chase on and Milan Luciich and you're going, okay, yeah,

yeah, there's, guess what? Ryan Nugent Hopkins can't do that with those guys. And it turns out Leon Drysidal probably can't do that with those guys either, at least not at the level that, you know, we all expect Leon Drysiddle to be at. But you play him with quality guys. And I think he's showing here that he is an elite center and his. his own right, but he's going to have to do it for a longer time before, you know, he convinces people around the league. And I think the idea of playing him with talent is something that

should always have been tried. And the fact that the Oilers are only getting around to trying it now is a real indictment, not of the past GM, but of the past coaching staff. Because the past GM often talked about the need for that one to punch down the middle. And it was the implementation by his coaching staff that was so botched. I'm not, you know, trying to defend Peter Schrelli here, but if you look at what's happened under Dave Tippett with the forward core, it's something that in three years, Todd McClellan couldn't be bothered to try. And that's a lot of people in Edmonton complained about it at the time. And it's astounding to me that we're only seeing it now and somewhat less astounding to me that it's actually working really well. Yeah. Well, I mean,

how long have you and I've been talking about it even on this podcast? I go back to some of our early episodes and it's also being like, yeah, we get it. McDavid and Joyce Hidal together's magic. And when they're clicking, it's really, really fun to watch. But for the success of this team, especially moving forward and sustainability, it's like you need something beyond that. It's like if you're getting 50% of your offensive production from one line, unfortunately those guys, you know, probably you're going to wear them too thin, obviously and play them too much.

But even playing them 20-someodd minutes of 5-1-5, it's still, there's so much left of the game. And if you're just getting crushed in all those other minutes, like that's going to, you know, take its toll on the team and on the individual players themselves as well. So yeah, I think there's certainly an element of that. You know, let's kind of pivot here and talk more about McDavid because one of my most recent fascinations and obsessions is tracking his penalty drawn totals because,

and I know this is something that Oilers fans have been keying in on for a while and they feel like he gets disrespected and isn't officiated properly. But I have this like theory now where it really, he reminds me of like obviously in a different way because he does it much more so with speed than like, Pure power like Shaquille O'Neal did, for example, in his prime in the NBA. But it's, I remember at the time, people would talk about how he was just such a different sort of specimen than everyone else that referees, when they would officiate his games,

it was kind of jarring where it's like you're doing all these other games and you're not seeing anything like it. And then all of a sudden, you do one of these games and you kind of need to like recalibrate, but you also need to make a decision of what you are going to call. Because basically, if you decide you're going to draw a hard line and officiate it, strictly by the rules, you could just be blowing the whistle on pretty much every single play and the league doesn't want that. And I know the NHL doesn't want to go back and devolve into that like 2005-6 era where

it's just like penalty after penalty after penalty. And they want a much more free-flowing five-on-five game. And so I think opponents really sort of take liberties and try to push the envelope and play the numbers game of seeing what they can get away with because, I mean, he's drawn 21 penalties this year and just under 1,200 total. minutes. There's 15 players that have drawn more. And I honestly, like, listen, I'm, I'm an unbiased party here. I'm not like, I also think it's kind of lazy to just constantly blame everything on officials. But I swear, I've seen individual games where he's probably been hooked and held 21 times.

And so the fact that for the full season, that's all we've come up with, I think there's certainly an imbalance there. And I think there's something really funky going on because I don't know what's what's happening. I don't think it's some sort of conspiracy or bias. I think it's just purely like referees just honestly do not know how to officiate them. I think that's absolutely true. And I mean, I'm not as sensitive to it as I should be because covering the oilers, there's the usual, like any market you go to, the star player doesn't draw enough calls, right? Like people are taking liberties with him.

There's not enough not enough being called against him. So it's one of those situations where I sometimes get deaf to it. Pardon me there. I didn't have my phone off. Yeah. So there's an element of that, but he absolutely does. Like, I don't know how watching him play you can't think that he should be leading the league and drawn penalties. I think by a wide margin.

Well, he plays more than anybody else. He's lightning fast. Like, he's faster than anybody else. He has the puck more than anybody else. He's the best player in the league, and that exerts pressure on defenses, and defenses have to react. There was a great example with that Giordano thing. Like, he was beat. He stuck his leg out.

A lot of people were in Edmonton were going, oh, it's another attempt to injury. He's got to, I couldn't believe the amount of pushback when I said, no, there absolutely shouldn't be supplemental discipline for this. It's a two-minute tripping minor. but when you watch the game the referees didn't call a two-minute tripping minor i think there's a lot of just really quick momentary things and they don't get called for him because they're happening at a speed that they don't happen for for anybody else i think there's also an element of he's it's kind of a blessing of curse where he's also so good and so um strong on the puck and so fast that a lot of times he plays through it as well and so yeah it might be more subtle where the defender out of necessity

has to sort of reach out either with the stick or with actually physically grabbing him. And it slows him down a little bit and he still kind of bursts through and gets a good look at the net. But like if he had been uninhibited, it would have probably been a much cleaner look, for example. And so we kind of let that skate by. I mean, there's just so many instances where I think for most other players, if they are operating at that different speed, once the stick for a defender becomes horizontal, like that's an automatic hook. And I think like just in the most recent game I was watching preparing for the show like there was a couple times where Jacob Chikrin just straight up like was like not even trying to hide it. He was just actively in the offensive zone just his stick was just horizontal the entire time up against McDavid's waist.

And it's like he's still getting shots off. So the referee is like, oh, well, he was fine. It must have been nothing. But I think there needs to be it's not a massive league wide conspiracy. I just think it's like it's such a fascinating subject. and I think it does need to be looked into a little bit because ultimately, like, it's, we want the stars in this league to be able to operate and perform at their absolute apex and very best because it's aesthetically pleasing because having high point totals and highlight

real goals is a good thing for the league to market to casual fans and to get people sucked into the beauty of the game. And so I think in this case where it's like you're allowing the other teams to routinely slow down the fastest best player that's also not an ideal way to go about sort of branding and operating as a sport and as a league well and i think you're you're touching on the the main issue here too like it's you're right it's not a league-wide conspiracy it's a league wide level of complacency towards star players so you know we're picking on connor mac david if we want to talk about elias peterson is it peterson or peterson paterson let's go what peterson okay elias peterson

in Vancouver. He's another good example of a guy who, you know, he's routinely impeded. I think you pick star players on any team in the league. You see that happening. And I'd like to see an NHL where the referees are, you know, make an emphasis on calling the rulebook for these guys. There's no wiggle room for defenders to cheat. There's a lot less wiggle room than there was, you know, in the Mariola Muayday.

I remember Brian Burke, Joe. I mean, with a little bit of bias complaining about Todd Bertuzi wearing a Detroit Red Wings sweater in a first round Vancouver series way back when because there were so many guys draped over him. I think it was Detroit. And so it's not like that anymore, but it's still defenders are allowed to get away with a little bit. And it's almost like the referee is like, well, yeah, what else is they going to do? And you got to take that out. You know, if you can't stop them cleanly, you don't get to just stick your leg out.

If you can't stop them cleanly, you don't get to water ski for for two seconds. You know, like you've got to let these guys operate. I think the NBA does this really well. I think the NHL does it pretty poorly. And if I were in charge of officiating, it would be something that you'd want to push. Because, I mean, this is what hockey's about. We want to watch, you know, McDavid going head to head with Goodrow. We want to see Patterson going head to head with Austin Matthews.

That's what we want to see. We don't necessarily want to see, you know, your defensive defense. fenceman water skiing. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's a good point. It is a legal thing. I think even like a guy like McKinnon, for example, like he's an even more powerful skater. I think there's probably even instances where he makes it look so easy. The referees just kind of look the other way. But I think there's like, if you crack down on it, I certainly think there's going to be a bit of a growing pain where players like are just by habit going to keep hooking and holding. And if you keep calling it, it is going to resemble that 2005, six game where there's like 10 power plays per game. And, and,

I don't think that's the right answer either, but the players will adjust. Like, it's, once they keep taking, if they keep taking penalties and they keep sending their team on the penalty kill and they keep giving up goals against, their coach is going to bench them, they're going to start learning, they're going to start adapting. I think we've seen that in the NFL, for example. It's a much more extreme case, but, you know, the league cracked down on trying to protect its quarterbacks because they are the stars in the league. They crack down pass rushers when they, when they sack them, and when they

tackle them not to be able to land on them anymore. And if they did so it kind of drove their helmets into them, they would charge them with an extra 15 yards. And we've seen guys now adapt and they're much more careful. They're still getting the job done, but they're doing in a different capacity. And I think it would be a similar thing here where the players would eventually get that out of their game. And it would be a much smoother and much more free-flowing product.

Well, and you mentioned 2005-06. Like, there were constant stream of complaints about the number of penalties and the tiki-tack calls, but look at what it's given us. Yeah, the game doctor, yeah, we talk about the modern defensemen. The modern defenseman's a direct result of the growing pains to 2005-06. There's a reason defensemen have gotten better over the last decade, and it's because you can't be Darian Hatcher anymore. You, you know, like, they killed the dinosaurs.

And if some guys can't keep up and you have a bad, if you have a year where there's a lot of penalties called and some guys can't keep up, well, that's the price of evolution. And we have a better sport now. than there was prior to the lockout. And if they continue to make transitions in that direction, it'll be a better sport going forward. Like, this is the fastest, most skilled hockey of my lifetime happening right now. I don't see any reason why I can't be faster and more skilled 10 years from now.

And that, I would like that even more. Yes, I would too. Yeah, we're nitpicking it. The sport right now is in a great place, especially compared it to the past. But this is the prerogative of hockey fans. complain about every little thing, right? Yeah, we're never going to be happy. No, but I, and this, the game is pretty darn good.

Oh, it's incredible. On a nightly basis, I'm blown away about how fun it is to watch. All right, let's spin this forward then and in this conversation with a look sort of both at the deadline, I think, but also moving forward towards the summer and, and kind of how the oil is operating moving forward because I think, you know, people would be pretty surprised by sort of the financial flexibility this team has, when you pair it up with the amount of needs they have and that's kind of an issue here and a sticking point and i think the other thing for can't hall and i imagine is also sort of evaluating realistically how good this team is and how much it

makes sense to try to push a bunch of chips in and really commit to this season if you're if you feel like you're not you know one of the better teams in the league but you know it is the thing that that really is fascinating about this discussion and i think leads to so many sort of varying opinions or uh different routes the owners can take is you know we we talk about the pacific division and how it's underwhelming compared to, let's say, the metro. I mean, you know, there's the one case of five points separate one through five, and at this point it's still unclear of how those teams are going to shake out and how it's going to look. But if you feel like you're going to get in, especially if you feel like you're going to be

in that Pacific Division bracket moving forward, like, you know, as much as we can sort of nitpick the Oilers and be like, oh, you know, they're not a dominant 5-15 team. Their bottom six is very questionable. the goal tending, we don't know how that's going to shake out. But if you have McDavid, you have Drey Seidel, you have the league's best power play, and you're playing a Pacific Division opponent in potentially rounds one and two, you're at the very least a coin flip to advance in the playoffs. And so that's a very enticing thing as well, especially for a franchise

that hasn't had much playoff success, that hasn't really had anything to show for him this McDavid era so far. And so I think just getting in there and giving yourself a chance with him is, I imagine, a pretty tantalizing thing to do. So I'm very curious to see how the oilers are going to operate, acknowledging that they don't necessarily have, you know, the most sort of financial flexibility to operate. But you can always get creative and move some stuff around just to see how aggressive Kenny Holland's going to be and how sort of incentivized they're going to be to really go for it this year as opposed to playing a more sort of patient waiting game going forward. Well, I largely agree with your perspective on the landscape. I think the Pacific Division on the whole is roughly as a.

good as any other division in hockey, but the problem is that it doesn't have a heavyweight team, and most divisions have one or two. You know, like you go to the central, you've got St. Louis and Colorado, you've got Tampa Bay in Boston, you've got in the Atlantic, you've got Pittsburgh and Washington and the metropolitan. Pacific doesn't have anything like that. The playoff race is basically the same, but the difference is that all the teams that are in the thick of the playoff race are also in the thick for the division ground.

And it does open up opportunities to everybody. I think Ken Holland temperamentally is ill-suited to be a main aggressive at the deadline. It's just it's not not in his history. You look at what he did in Detroit, there was basically a two or three-year run when Mike Illich was really, really ill. And the Red Wings were sort of, we're going to milk this for as long as we can, where he made aggressive moves at the deadline. But other than that, even when Detroit was a contender every year, very rarely did he make big moves. I think the other thing about Edmonton is there's two sort of issues with going in now. The first being that you can probably do a lot for a little.

We didn't really get to talk about the McDavid line because I rambled on and on about other points. But he's playing with James Neal and Zach Cassie. And James Neal doesn't belong on that line. Neil's been hurt lately. They had Josh Archibald playing left wing for, you know, as the primary fill in. Archibald's nice and fast and that works with McDavid. He's not a top line left wing by any stretch. So I think you can go out and there's always some useful winger who's available at a discount

at the deadline. You can go out and get somebody for a mid-round pick and maybe have a significant increase in output from your first line left wing position. So there's the ability to make cost-effective moves that'll have an outsized impact. And then the other factor is you look at the age. McDavid and Dry Settle, these guys are, they're young. It's, I don't say that in a way that, you know, the oilers shouldn't have been better or that there isn't pressure to get better right away.

But you're looking at this from, if you're not looking at this through a decade-long lens, you're looking at it wrong. You have to, you have to balance the needs of the now with the needs of the future. So I think there's a real emphasis in Edmonton on moves that, you know, if you can get a guy with term left, if you can get a young player, those are things that maybe they'd be more interested in with the idea that you're setting up for. success now and setting up for success over the next five years. So I think it'll be a hybrid deadline. They're probably, you know, if you get in in the Pacific, anything can happen much more

so than in the other three divisions. And you can kind of go into this with a, well, we'll take a rental if we can do it really cheap. And otherwise, we're going to try and service both short and long term needs. Yeah. I'm with you on playing the long game with McDavid and Dress Idol. I think also at the same time it's year five what now of mcdavit i think and you have one playoff run to show for it and you know we need we need that i mean that was a lot of fun um and you know you just look at like last year for example what having nathan mcannon on the national stage playing big playoff games just meant both for him and for the franchise and just for the league like i think the hl must be like just you know quietly uh rooting for for mcdivit to get there because i think that's

that would just be a good look for it and everyone would want to see that and so i'm very curious to see how they approach that like i think kentie holland smartly i think um when he took the job slow-plated and really uh patiently kind of assess things his track record you mentioned like it's fascinating because i think he actually did a sneakily good job of the past couple deadlines in detroit when they were clearly bottoming out and being a seller of like extracting a lot of good value and getting a ton of draft for guys who weren't in the Red Wings future plans. But then you do point to that sort of run before that

where I think there was some pressure from ownership to try to make some stuff happen where they were just like bleeding assets to get Eric Cole and David Legwant and so on and so forth and certainly moves that I think Red Wings fans still kind of resent this day. And so it is a bit of a mixed bag. It's, I think I agree with you in the sense

that I don't think it makes a lot of sense for this team to be moving premium assets for like a, a Chris Crater rental for example, but a guy I keep coming back to, and I know a PDOCast listeners are like, oh my God, this again, because I've basically, every team I've talked about, I'm like, it makes sense for them to go after this guy, but man, like a guy like Blake Coleman, who has a suppressed cap hit, who has another year after this one on his deal, and who basically has already proven that he doesn't need to play with top players, and he'll still score a ton of goals,

be a dominant penalty killer, and just contribute in every area of the game. Like, that's like an ideal player for Edmonton right now. I'm not sure what the price would be considering he does have that extra year in his deal and I think New Jersey loves him. But man, a guy like that is someone I'd be targeting much more so than one of these kind of flashy big name rentals. Yeah. Coleman, I think, is a, I, the thing there for me is I wonder if it isn't cost prohibitive, because if I'm New Jersey, I want an arm and a leg for him because they're not staring down a clock. I don't know what New Jersey is going to do because you could sort of embrace the all in rebuild, but you could also say, look, we've already got Jack Hughes and Nico Hichier and

we've got a bunch of guys and it wouldn't be, I don't necessarily know that we want to move Blake Coleman this year. But yeah, he's a great target. He'd obviously be a great fit in Edmonton. I just, again, you know, what's the cost going to be? And if Edmonton wasn't, and if Edmonton's not willing to pony up the chips for Taylor Hall, you know, I don't necessarily see them doing it for Blake Goldman either. That's true. Although I think people would be surprised by what the cost would be. I mean, he's not necessarily like the biggest name, right? Like I think like with a guy like Hall, I think we were ultimately a bit underwhelmed with that return.

And I'm surprised that the Oilers weren't were more heavily in it. I'm also very curious to see, you know, we'll see what happens with Polly Arby. But I think for a team like New Jersey, like that would be a. very interesting thing. I know he can't play this year, but like you sort of, you just get his rights and that would be like a major trade chip and bargaining chip there as well. So there's ways to get creative here. If you're getting hot, I think ultimately it really depends on how strongly you feel about this team and sort of, you know, how much you, you want to commit to it because unless it is a guy with term, like it is a bit of a risky proposition if you get in

and all of a sudden you lose like in five games and in round one year out. Well, Pilly Arvi's an interesting centerpiece. And the other thing with the doubt, I'm not staring at their org chart right now, so I don't know this for sure. But as I recall, they're not exactly loaded with left shot defensemen. The Oilers have about eight of these guys, some very decent prospects. So if you start with Pili-R-V and maybe a Dimitri Samarukov or something like that, maybe that does it. Maybe that's sensible. I'm not sure.

I don't think you're going to get it for the, you know, William Lajison and Palli-RV. I'm skeptical as to how much value and cash Aple U.RV has around the league. I like him a lot as a player. I'd be bullish on landing him and taking a chance on potential. But I don't think that necessarily reflects the consensus view of a lot of NHL teams. It wouldn't surprise me if they go for somebody, I don't know if Nashville falls out of Granland or somebody in that sort of range. But Coleman would be just a phenomenal addition. Yeah, the baseline here is so low to clear, right?

Like the bar, like in terms of like just getting a guy who can occasionally chip in on offense would go such a long way for the Siler's team. But at the same time, I think it's an interesting sort of philosophical or thought exercise to think about how you want to approach it or what you want to target in terms of like, you know, if you go for a guy like, let's say Tyler Tofoli, for example, who I think can be had for a pretty reasonable price and has proven that, you know, he's an efficient goal scorer in today's game. if you're bringing him in with the idea that you're going to play him on a third line with,

you know, guys who aren't at his talent level, I think you're ultimately going to be disappointed. So, you know, there's certain guys who can kind of create by themselves regardless of their situation. And then there's also the route of bringing in a guy to really kind of juice up that top six or maybe even that McDavid line so that he's not playing with Josh Archibald and Zach Asking in full time and maybe get him a more. more consistent shooter that can take advantage of the opportunities he creates with his speed. So there's a couple different routes you can go for it. And I'm very curious to see how they identify their biggest team needs and how they actually want to fill those holes. Well, the one thing I'd say, I know you mentioned Tafoli as an example.

I think they're going to get a left wing. They signed Cassie in long term. So obviously they see him, like you could bump him down to the third line. But if you're paying him $3.2 million over four years, you're probably not planning to do that. And Yamamoto has played so well. think either of those guys are getting dislodged and I don't think either is moving to left wing. Whether the casting decision was a good one or not, of course, is debatable. But I think they're going to be looking for a left wing instead of a right wing.

I don't know if Tafoli is one of the right shot wingers who can play left wing. I've only ever seen him at right wing. But there are guys out there. Minnesota is another good example. I know everybody kind of mentions Jason Zucker, who I think, you know, would be a fantastic fit for Edmonton. but he's not the only one. Like you look at the wild, they've got one right shooting forward.

They've got a ton of left shot wingers. They've got guys on the way. I think they're going to clear some people out. Maybe Zooker, but maybe it'll be somebody a little lower down the depth chart and somebody who, like they've got some guys in their early 20s who are left shots who would probably produce if played with talent. And that's the kind of piece.

Maybe it might be a guy that we're not really talking about, but who's a long-term fit. and who in the short term is an upgrade on, you know, James Neal or Josh Archibald. Yeah. I know it's a high bar. It's a high bar. I think you summed up perfectly, unintentionally maybe, but no, I think you made a good point there with my issues with the Cassian extension. Where it's like, we're targeting left-wingers because, I mean, listen, you're paying Zach Cassian.

So you can't, you have no more room left in the top six right wing. You got all of a sudden target elsewhere. where it's like, why are you committing yourself to that and kind of really decreasing your upside and sort of taking on all this risk, especially with that fourth year? I don't think it certainly could have been a lot worse, especially like when you point to Kenny Holland's track record

with like a just an ablicketer extension, for example. It certainly could have been worse in terms of years and also money itself. But man, like just inhibiting yourself from potentially targeting other positions just purely because, you're already paying for that one is such a no-no in my books. Yeah, I'm happy for Cassian. I think that where he is today compared to where he was when he landed in Edmonton,

like yes, he was granted opportunities, but he made the most of them. And at a player level, you can't help but be happy for a guy who managed to get security and term. To me, the play there was to let him go to free agency if you couldn't get a shorter-term deal because the problem that he would have had would be selling teams, on the idea that he can be a top six winger without a superstar center. He's, he's fast, he's big, he's skilled, like he's more skilled than I think he sometimes gets credit for. But, you know, if you go to free agency, you're looking at him as a middle six winger,

and I don't think he necessarily gets four years by 3.2. And I think if you're the oilers, you can afford to take that risk because basically anyone's going to produce with McDavid. You can say, you know what, we're happy at you at this number. We like you on that line, but we recognize the fact that a lot of your offense is being driven by who you're playing with, and we're not going to pay you for things that Connor McDavid is doing. So if you can get a better offer in free agency, power to you, we would love to have you at this number. I, you know, very, very grudgingly, I might have gone three by three, but that's sort of my outer marker.

Yeah, they're bidding against themselves. I find it really hard to believe that he was going to get a competitive offer, resembling what they ultimately gave them in the pre-ager market. Well, and I don't know. Like, you know, maybe there's an old school GM who just loves the combination. He sees him as a poor man's Tom Wilson as he was often compared to during the contract discussions and says, you know, I really need that grit combo. But I think you can get it for cheaper.

And I think if you look at Edmonton's history, you look at how Cassian got to the organization. You look at Patrick Maroon before that. the Oilers have not had a problem finding tough guys who can play on McDavid's line because Connor McDavid plays well with most people. Yeah. Well, yeah, that's the thing. I mean, you can love the sort of combination of those two guys, but if someone does want to talk themselves into that and pays him in free agency, you thank Zach Cassian

for his services. You shake his hand, you let him out the door, and then you find the next Zach Cassian and pay him the league minimum to play with Connor McDavid and build him up until someone else pays him, and you just keep doing that because you have Connor McDavid in town for the however many years. Maybe you trade for Blake Coleman and Blake Coleman's here. Oh, man. Blake Coleman with Connor McDavid, David, he would be the next big thing.

I'm all in on, I'm all in on Blake Coleman. No, but it's, it's the, it's the thing. And it's, it's a little bit, um, it, well, it's cold-blooded, but you kind of have to be that way. It's a business. Yeah, and there's, there's an opportunity. There's, you only have two slots next to the best player in the world and, uh, you, you, you don't want to be paying big money for it.

It would be like, you know, after Chris Kunitz had his point per game year, putting him on the Canadian Olympic team with the idea that only he could play with cross. Wait, that actually happened. No one would ever do that. That would never happen. No way. All right, Jonathan, let's get out of here.

Plug some stuff. What are you working on? Where can people check you out these days? Oh, boy. So I've had a bunch of big pieces lately. I am at The Athletic. I'm on Twitter at Jonathan Willis. Recently wrote a piece about the 2012 draft, a long meandering look through the

the most 1990s-ish draft of the modern era. Scouting has gotten a ton better. 2012, I think, is part of the reason that we've seen further evolution because there were some really interesting trends that, you know, led to, well, one of the most disastrous drafts in recent memory. And I explore that in depth. So check that out at the athletic. Who do you have going first of you redo that draft?

Man, I... Because it's not a... It's not a, like, it's a disastrous draft in the sense that the first four picks are really aggressively bad. But, like, there's talent in the draft. It's just, yeah. It was just, yeah, the identification of it and sort of properly slotting them where they should have gone was the issue. Well, you know, Brian Burke would tell you Morgan Riley and he's got a case. I always have loved Hamas Lindholm.

I don't think I take him first overall, but he's got a case. Yeah, Philip Forsberg. Philip Forsberg, who, you know, slid on draft day, Thomas Hurdle. Yeah, I think if you knew in hindsight that, like, you were getting this Vasilevsky, you could make that argument as well, right? Like, I acknowledge the risk of goalies, but the whole issue is, like, you don't know how they're going to develop or what they're going to become. If you knew, in hindsight that this was going to be the final product, just purely in terms

of value added, like, you'd be up there. Well, I wonder if we see a transition on goalies, because if you do redrafts, like the best goalies, you can always make a case for first round, but it's so difficult to determine them in their draft here and you end up, you know, thinking Zach Foucault's the guy who's going to be a franchise starter for a decade. I wonder a little bit if we don't see more of teams willing to gamble on them late in the first round, but then it's a trick of assessing them because, you know, a guy like Vasilevsky, full value. But 2012 is a weird year. It's a little bit like 2011 where I don't think there was a clear cut. There was no clear cut. Number one, there's

probably five or six guys you can make a really strong case for. And there's, there's talent as a group. Yeah, I mean, but you usually look at that draft. It's like Freddie Anderson 87th, Connor Hellebuck 130th. Yeah. Like, yeah, that's that's that's that's that's sort of the argument against draft in Gulles High. It's it's a if you can get a fifth round starter, that's pretty good. Um, all right. Well, it's, it's, it's the same problem with, it with doing it in free agency. You look at, I mean, if we can't draft like you, you look at any, any chart comparing cap hit to performance for goaltenders. And it's basically random noise. Like cap hit almost has almost no correlation. So if we can identify the guys in the NHL who are going to perform, why would we ever

think we can pick the best 17-year-olds? Well, and I was talking about this with Kevin Woodley on a recent podcast, but there's also an element of the entire league is going towards this new era of playing goalies for like between 40 and like 55 games. And if you're committing 10 million of your cap to one goalie, like a Bobrovsky or a price, you're going to also have this element of like bias where you're going to want to get the most bang for your buck there. So you're just going to keep playing them as much as you possibly can and even maybe to the detriment of their own performance and the team's success. And so I think that's a whole other can of worms as well where it's like this is why teams

are realizing that you're better off having two guys in the medium range as opposed to one completely overpriced guy. See, I'm not going to respond to this because if I do, we're going to be here another hour. Like this is a whole other podcast. Yeah, let's do it. let's make it a double header. Yeah. All right, man.

We'll put a pin in this and we'll talk about this at some point down the road. I'm looking forward to that. Very much a pleasure to be back. And thanks for having me, Dimitri. Let's do it again soon, Jonathan. Cheers. Hockey P.DOCAST with Dmitri Filipovich.

Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdocast.