The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 342: Blackhawks Down

Episode Date: February 14, 2020

Mark Lazerus joins the show to discuss how the Chicago Blackhawks got stuck in the position they're currently in, how they can control the trade deadline market if they decide to go that route, and how much of a bad defensive team's struggles are the fault of the system versus the personnel.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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With your host, Dimitri. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Amitra Filipovich. And joining me, Mark Labelof. What's going on, man? Not much, man. How are you? I'm good.

I'm excited. I got you in the middle of this Western can. Let the Blackhawks have you on. One of the dumbest trips I've ever seen, it's Winnipeg, and then Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary, then Winnipeg again. Yeah. I've never seen that before. Oh, you know, they want to get you here frequent flyer miles.

I'm telling you, Jonathan Tavis had the right idea. Just put them all together. Play all the Winnipeg games at once. You only go to Winnipeg once a year. You go to Calgary once a year. You just play them all at once. Well, I don't know the Blackhawks have had this this season, but I have noticed, I think the league made a bit of a concerted effort to have teams play like back to backs, like home and homes with certain teams. I think it's usually like if it's been like a non-divisional opponent, I've seen a lot of like randomly just two teams getting it out of the way. Blackhawks always have one with Denver, with Colorado every year and Jonathan Tate's bitches about that too because it's, you know, go to Denver.

And that's a longer flight than people think. They're a division opponent, but that's like a two and a half hour flight. Right. And then you've got to come back the next day and play and the players hate home. I know growing up as a hockey fan, I loved. home and homes as I was an islanders fan and watching them go Rangers and back and forth. I love that. The players hate them. Well, that must be especially tricky one if you're a second of the back-to-back is in Colorado as well. Right, exactly with the air, yeah. To do. Anyway, so we're recording this on, what is it? I think it's Wednesday. I lose track on these road trips. At this point of the season, the lead up to the deadline, yeah, it's all over. I think I'm in Vancouver. Yeah, we are in

Vancouver. I know that for sure. It's Wednesday afternoon we're recording this. I'm making sure to note it because as I was telling you before we started recording my most recent podcast with Chris Mason, we were high on the Predators during their pregame skate that that morning, and then that night they just get, I think, 6-2 lost. Everyone keeps waiting for the Predators to put it together. It's been 60 games. I'm not sure they're going to put it together. Yeah, yeah.

Well, I think that's a good lead into this Black Hawk scene. Welcome to Chicago, yeah. I've seen a lot of that this year where, like, and listen, they certainly started playing better. What was it? It was like that early mid-December to like... Just like last year was like December 18th. It was like an exact date where they flipped the switch and all of a sudden look like they could maybe sneak into it.

They're kind of running into the same problem they had last February, which is they're running out of gas now after pushing, pushing, pushing. Well, the strange thing for me is, and you know, you can comment on this much more closely following the team, but they're still just as bad defensively, just from looking at the numbers and from kind of watching them in preparation for this podcast,

it's, they've offensively gotten better, especially in terms of like the rate at which they're generating chances. And it feels like, I mean, Jonathan Taves sort of coming alive after a slow start to start the year. That certainly helps and gives them kind of like a second line or in case they want to load up that top line when they're trailing like they did in

Edmonton. It gives them some options to kind of flexibility offensively. But it's, it's strange because I remember last year after they hired Jeremy Cullen, he kind of got a free pass because it was like pretty big shoes to fill considering who's taking over for and he was hired midseason, implementing new systems and, you know, rookie coach. Everyone was like, let's give him a full offseason, full training camp. I don't know, Black Hawk's fans are willing to give him that, but yes, I think most people that looked that outside. You've got to give them some leash here. Right, exactly. And then, you know, I think Stan Bowman certainly did his best to try and kind of throw him a bone in terms of like, went out and acquired Calvin Dahan, Olimata guys who would conceivably shore things up defensively in their

own zone. But the numbers are pretty much exact, like identical. They're like, the league rank is the same. And I think they're bottom two or three and basically every single shot chance, expected goal metric defensively at five on five and all situations. They're like the actual raw numbers in his selves are slightly better. I'm not sure how much of that. It's just like the difference in the game. The difference this year is goaltending. They have the best, maybe the best goaltending duo in the league, you know, up there with, you know, Ranta and Kemper and a couple other ones. But, you know, Robin Lennar has made such a difference for this team. Is that a Cam Ward going out there for your games? Or Jeff Glass or J.F. Barubei or Anton Forzberg,

you have a Vesina finalist playing out of his mind. You know, he's coming down Earth a little recently these last few weeks, but it's just extraordinary goaltending for the first half of the season. And Crawford is looking like his old self now. And that's why, you know, I keep trying to talk myself into them, like, maybe they can do this, because you look at all the teams in this middling mess of the West and there's so much mediocrity. Like, nobody's really good or scary. And then you look at the gold tending the Blackhawks have. And you think, well, their floor has to be a little bit higher than everybody else. Like, they're not going to completely bottom out because of the goal tend.

But like you said, I mean, when you're giving up 36 shots a game, I test-wise, they look a little better lately since they've been turning it around since, you know, about mid-December. and a lot of the analytics are a little better now. You know, shots are shots. They're going to give up a ton of shots. Yeah, I mean, Calvin DeHaan's out for the season. And, you know, Andrew Shaw is out for the season probably. They're missing a lot of key pieces. Brent Seabrook, whether that's good or bad, is out for the season.

The fact is they got Adam Boquist, who's 19 years old, playing 22 minutes a night on the top pairing with Duncan Keith. You got Eric Gussison having to play a huge role. You've got Slater Cuckoo, who should be the number seven, and he's in the third pairing playing every night. they had Dennis Gilbert out there for a long time playing, you know, Nick Seeler, they're picking up off waivers. I mean, they don't have, this isn't the 2013, 2015 Blackhawks. We had a second pair of Oduya Jalmersson and, you know, had just this incredible depth.

Yeah, it's a strange mix because, you know, you can make the argument that Kane and Taves are still sort of on the, like, the latter legs of that prime where, especially if they had more help by the match. Yeah. Like, on certain nights you see it and you're like, okay, like they can still carry this team. But I remember, like, I think it was Vegas's first year. I think Justin Boren wrote this piece about how one of the sneaky things they did is basically they targeted everyone like in their mid to late 20s in that like physical prime and everyone was kind of firing on all cylinders and that's what made them so special. And when you look at this team, it's kind of the exact opposite where they have all these guys that are kind of on their last legs and then all these guys who are probably being asked to do too much too soon. It's funny. Like I walk into the room and I look at Brandon Sot and Brandon Sott and Brandon Sought like 26, 27 years.

I'm like, who does he hang out with? Yeah. Like everyone's either five years older than I were five years younger than you know. He's just like this long. guy in his physical prime on a team that's full of aging veterans and teenagers. Yeah, him and Eric Gustafsson are just like hanging out in the background by themselves. Yeah, well, I guess it leads to sort of like philosophical or the radical question. I'm not sure where you stand on this in terms of like when a team's this bad or their metrics

are this bad defensively, certainly personnel plays a part in it. And we're talking about how, you know, thrusting a guy like Adam Boquist into basically the heat of the battle on the top pair. They're clearly at this point, we can argue about how much. Duncan Keith has left, but I think we'd both agree that they're probably asking him to do too much at this point. He's played 26 minutes a night at age 37. It's ridiculous. And you know, you can talk about his fitness all you want and it's certainly a marvel. But I think if they toned it down and had someone who could reliably take those minutes, they'd love to do so. Yeah, he's still a top four defense

in the NHL easily. Just maybe not like number one. A borderline top pairing guy, but he should not be your number one playing 26, 27 minutes a night. And so I guess that's like, you can kind of make that excuse. But at the same time, I look around the league and there's certain coaches and their systems that make me think, like, if you brought in a Barry Trots. And I certainly, like, you can argue we should win the Jack Adams every year based on his effect on his teams or what John Chortarillo is doing this year defensively with that Columbus team. Like, they don't have a Seth Jones type. But with some of these best defensive teams, I look at them and there's no particular reason to believe that they have this special sauce of talent that the Blackhawks can't replicate.

I do think some of it certainly has to be put on the coach and a defensive system. Well, yeah, I mean, you look at Barry Trott. He's the perfect example. The year before he got to the Islanders, they were the Blackhawks. Yeah. They were. They were. They were. And basically the same personnel, he comes in and he changes it. But there's only a few coaches in the league that do that. I was talking with Robin Leonard the other day in Winnipeg. And we were just talking about goaltending philosophy in general. And he's saying, look, this is an offensive league now. Nobody plays defense

anymore. You know, who are the defensemen that get the big contracts? It's the guys who play offense. Yeah, put up the points. It's all about moving the pucking. You know, goaltenders have to accept the fact that they're going to see 35, 37 shots a lot of the time because that's the way the game is going. It's all about attacking. It's not about sitting back. And he said, there's a few teams that don't do that. But for the most part, this is the way the league is trending. It's towards just outscore the opponent, which as a, as a viewer of the game is more fun. The Blackhawks are always in the fun quadrant of Sean Tierney's charts, you know. But it's interesting because at the start of the season,

you know, we talked all offseason about, well, now Jeremy Calton will finally get to implement his system, this mythical, you know, manzone hybrid system that we've been waiting to see. And I'll have a full training camp. He didn't have that last year. That That was his big, that wasn't his, he wasn't using it, but that was our excuse or how you would explain why they were so bad defensively is they didn't have enough practices during the season. You bring a guy in midseason, completely changed the way they play from Joel Quenville. So they had the training camp and had all the preseason games and they were horrendous defensively in October. And they were playing like four men low. Like they were actively trying to be more defensive and they were still giving up 40 shots a night.

So in like late October, early November, you know, Colin said the hell with it. and he let that second winger kind of go back up high and try to, you know, because the problem was they were getting handed into their own own because they couldn't get out of the zone. They couldn't move the puck in transition. So he freed them up to do that. He let the, you know, three low and too high. And all of a sudden, they started winning.

They were very effective in November. They had a big winning streak. They were scoring at will. And that's the way they've been playing ever since. This still isn't the Jeremy Colleton system. We've all been, you know, waiting to see. Like, they clearly can't pull off the man. This is not a team that can play man to man.

Yeah. They don't have the speed. So there has to be some element of zone in there. It's just kind of a mess right now where they don't really have any defensive structure, any defensive identity. They're missing key players. And I don't know what you can reasonably expect out of this blue line, but you're getting what is probably reasonable to expect.

Yeah. Well, it felt like last year was much more sort of like off the rush they were going to be. And this year, it's a lot of, and maybe it is part of that sort of man's scheme. It's just like a lot of freelancing. It feels like a lot of like just broken plays. I mean, the game against Edmonton last night, like, it just, guys just not where they're supposed to be always chasing the puck. I wish hockey were always like that. It's more fun.

That was a fun game. It's really fun to watch. I think as a coach, I'd probably be pulling my hair. No, absolutely. Yeah, this isn't what Jeremy calls and wants. This isn't what we practiced. This isn't what he expected to look like when he came in.

This isn't what he was brought in to do. Yeah. I mean, Joel Quentville was a defensive-minded coach in theory. Right. You know, he always thought that, you know, the offense comes from defense.

So defensively minded that he was playing two defensemen on his fourth line last night. That's right. I can't believe that happened. You know, he got fired after that game in Calgary last year where he left a guy in the, I didn't put a guy in the box on a major penalty and it wound up being like a seven-minute power play. Even the greats are prone to brain farts, I guess.

But yeah, it's, you know, Quenville allowed the offensive players to freelance. Like, that's what made Patrick Kane and Jonathan Taze and Marion Hosa, Patrick Sharp so great. But, you know, guys like that were also, other than Kane, were terrific two-way players too. So they were responsible in their own end. They don't have a lot of that now.

They've got Taves and Saad. They don't have a Patrick Sharp who could score 35 goals and be great in his own end. They don't have guys like that right now. Well, and that's what leads me to this like philosophical sort of divide where it seems like, and maybe they've sort of identified this as like a market. Teams are going so far away from it that they feel like they can get value and that's why they trade for an Alex Nealander. That's why they trade for a Dylan Ström. Nobody can explain the Alex Nealander trade. You look at the foot speed and it's like, forget defensively, forget, just like in today's game, it's such a clash and you see it.

And I think they want to play fast. They want to move the puck. They want to be running gun. But they don't really have the personnel beyond a couple guys, you know. Part of it is they don't have the puck movers to get those guys the puck in space. But part of it is also they don't have the personnel or the horses to go back, get the puck and carry it themselves. Right. Yeah, it's just they don't have the personnel.

That's what it comes down to. This team, is there a coaching issue? Probably. There's probably some of that. There's growing pains with any new coach. But this is a personnel team issue. They don't have enough good players. Yeah.

They have two really good lines. They got a great top six. Dominic Kubal League was a great find. He's a big reason why they started turning things around when he finally got moved to the top. line, which should have happened a lot earlier. And he really kick started Taves. You got, you know, Kubolik, Taves, Cajula. Cajula is a really nice piece up there.

He does everything that you need him to do in that spot. And then he got sod, Doc, and Kane, or you put DeBricket and Strom up there. I mean, they've got some really good offensive talent, like high-end guys. What they don't have is those middle guys. They've got really high-end guys and then a whole bunch of fourth-liners-a-h-h-h-h-l guys. You know, Ryan Carpenter's a really nice player. Like, he's been a good fine for them. But he shouldn't be playing, you know,

He shouldn't be centering Patrick Kane, which he did for like a month. Yeah, there's a lot of David Camp. Yeah, David Camp meant, man, the freaking Blackhawks love them some David Camp. Like, he's a perfectly fine player. Jeremy Colleton, I think he has, like, a shrine to David Camp at him. He loves him some David Camp. And he's a perfectly fine, like, he's a Marcus Kruger type player with a little bit more offense, but, you know, he's not going to be this 20 goal score they envision.

He's like this analytics darling. And, you know, I know Barry Smith, who was the director of player development, loved him. And he was on Colleton staff last year. year. Colleton loves him. His teammates love him. He's a good, he's a fine little player, but he's being put in roles he shouldn't be put in. He should be the fourth line center the way that Marcus Krueger was. Yeah. Well, I guess that's what, and you hit on this earlier, the tantalizing thing is what I look at, because most teams are imperfect, right? Like, I think you look at a team like maybe Tampa Bay this year where when they're healthy, it's like there's very few flaws in that roster, but for the

most part, you have to kind of pick the shoes. Yeah, you used to cover teams like that. Yeah, you did. So I think, yeah, you can speak to this very well. But, um, With this Blackhawks team, like they have the golden. I guess that is what kind of the tantalizing part where it's like... Yeah, if they could just put it together. The issue is they're missing one other piece. Like, if you look at it and with the players they have, you think they should be better on the power play,

but I believe they're like bottom three or something. 29th, I think, in the power play. Like three for the last 46, I think it is. Yeah. Something awful like that. No, the power play is an absolute disaster. Zach Smith was on the power play. Top power play union yesterday.

And I applauded. I actually suggested that. And I did a podcast a night before. I said, put all the penalty killing guys on the power play shake it up, like send some kind of message because the power play is just horrendous. They all just feed it to Patrick Kane, stand around away for him to do something. Right. Yeah. Teams are on to them. Yeah. Oh, innovative strategy. Well, I guess, I mean, yeah, so the power play is one thing. I think the goaltending, like, let's stick on that for a second.

I've talked about Robin Leonard a bunch on the show this year, but I can't stop marveling of the fact that he basically, he did go from like the best, most goalie, friendly, defensive environment in the league to arguably the worst. And he'll tell you that. right up there. Yeah, he will, I mean, yeah, he should be, he should represent himself as, as his own agent, but he's, um, they're right there with like the Jets and I think the Rangers and pretty much like every, they're just bleeding. Yeah. And he is holding them up there, Crawford as well. And that's why I'm fascinated to see sort of how they view themselves. I think, you know, you wrote recently, or I think yesterday, uh, after the game about how they're making it a lot easier on Stan Bowman to sort of pull the plug on the season and maybe kind of look ahead if, if they keep losing like this because I'm going to, you know, fall out of the race. But I think regardless, even if they were right there, like, I just don't see how you can justify going for it with this roster, unless you really do believe that they're just getting a playoff series and Robin Leonard's playing so well. That's the thing. Goaltending is that great equalizer where you start to think, well, we got Patrick Kane and great goaltending. Let's

just get in and see what happens. I understand that appeal. And again, you have to factor in the fact that Blackhawks haven't made the playoffs the last two seasons. They haven't won a playoff series in the last four seasons. Like, you've got, you're, you are squandering years of the of Taves and Kane here. There's an urgency that, you know, Stan Bowman, I don't think his job is in jeopardy. I think it might have been last year. I think it was basically Quenville or Bowman at that point. And I don't know as a GM if you can, if you play the long game, if you think your job's in jeopardy.

Maybe you start thinking, well, I got to get us in this year. I mean, we've seen GMs do that all the time where they're not thinking four years down the road anymore because they're not going to be here four years down the road if they do that. So I think that, you know, when they still got games in hand. They're still, I mean, if they win, if they beat Vancouver and then go and beat Calgary and then go finish in Winnipeg, they're right there. Nobody in the West is scaring anybody. Should they be buyers? No, they should not be giving up any futures.

But everything I heard was that Stan was leaning towards standing Pat saying like, all right, I'm going to let these guys make a run at it. Because I don't think you're going to get a first round pick for Eric Gustafin. He's having a down year. I don't think, and most teams don't want to trade for goaltending. You never see goalies moved at the deadline. It rarely happens because it takes too long to adjust to a new team. as a goalie, it's way harder to adjust as a goalie than as a defenseman. I think these goalies can adjust to any other team because there'll be only a step up.

Well, maybe, yeah. I mean, Leonard's, Leonard's on it all over the place, but Crawford's never played for another organization in his life. He's a phenomenal world-class goalie who's won two Stanley Cups and probably should have a Con Smyth to his credit. But do you want to just throw him into a new system and just assume he's going to carry you in? Most teams are very, look at, if San Jose didn't go out and get a goalie last year, who's ever going to go get a goalie? So unless you're going to get some premium value for these guys And the Hawks don't have a second round pick next year Because the Andrew Shaw, Trey, they'd love to get that back

But are you going to give up one of these guys for a second round pick? Yeah If you think you have a chance at a playoff spot, I don't think you do that. I think the Blackhawks want to stand pat But if they just flame out completely on this five-game trip, they're going to have to start aggressively marketing, you know, Gus of Sin, maybe a Cajula,

he's the kind of piece that does get moved at the deadline, a good kind of versatile up and down the lineup player or one of the goalies, yeah. You keep hearing talk about, well, they'll trade Leonard and then he'll re-sign in the off-season, but that never happened. Yeah. No, it doesn't.

Yeah, that'd be a crider, but yeah, we don't see that. I mean, we kind of, he, Bowen kind of box himself in here, though, right? Because, like, this summer... This is a mess of his own making. It was very telling what, maybe that desperation you talk about, more so than him liking this group.

Maybe it was like job preservation, but we give up three picks. I know one of them was a seventh, or whatever, but a second and a third for Andrew Shaw, you give up another pick in Dominic Cahoon for Olimata, like you trade whatever, not great futures, but you trade for Calvin Han and take on a salary. Clearly, like, there was a lot of let's win now approach to all. Well, it was, all of those moves on the surface made some sense. I mean, they made the Cahoon for Mata trade. I was surprised, but they needed, God, they needed some kind of stabilizing force

on the back end. I like Cahoon a lot. He's a really, he's that versatile guy. He's a 15, 20, whole score type. So that was a big ask that they gave up. And then, but then they went out and traded for DeHan, and they gave up like nothing for him. They gave up Anton Foresberg and Gustav Foresling. Yeah. And it's like, well, if you're going to do that, you shouldn't have made the Mata trade.

And I think that if he knew he was going to get to Han, he wouldn't have traded for Mata, who's got a couple of years left on that deal at four, four million a year or something like that. So, and then, you know, Shaw on the surface makes great sense. He's a depth score. He knows those. He's a beloved fan favorite in Chicago. Again, another guy who could play up and down the lineup.

He's played on Jonathan Taves's wing. He centered Patrick Kane and Brandon Saw to great success. But Dahan and Shaw, you knew they weren't going to play 82 games. They never get to play 82 games. They're injury risks. Shaw's coming off all those concussions and the style of game he plays. You had to foresee this coming as a really real possibility. And Dahan, it sucks because Dahan was just really coming into it because Keith was out when

Dahan got hurt. And Dahan was playing great. Like he had really figured things out in Chicago. And he was looking like a number one defense. and everything that they wanted them to be. And it's such a bummer that he blew out of his shoulder. Because this team looks a lot different if you've got to Han and Keith, you know, and Boquis has been playing perfectly well.

And Connor Murphy, who's really turned into a very good defenseman. You'd have a real top four then. Then you could have Gustafson in that third pairing role where he's more of a power play specialist playing fewer minutes, but, you know, protecting him and sheltering him. This defense didn't have to look this bad. All the moves Stan Bowman made, you could envision them working out, but they were all risky moves because of the end. injury risks involved and all of them came through.

Well, and they were all moves that signal that he wanted, like, they didn't want to take a step back to the scene. They wanted to get back in the room. Right. Yeah. The Blackhawks don't do rebuilding. And that's part of the problem is they can't. Yeah.

Every time the Blackhawks lose, I'm bombarded with comments on stories and people on Twitter telling me they got to blow it up. They got to blow it down. Get rid of everybody. You can't. Taves, no movement contract. Kane, no movement contract. Seabrook, no movement contract.

Keith, no movement contract. Crawford, no movement. What are you going to do with these guys? Like, what do you think you? you can do. You can't tear it down. A huge chunk of this team and its salary cap, you know, uh, um, responsibilities are locked in. You can only try to do with the Bruins do, which is retool on the fly. The problem is they haven't found enough David Pasternaks out there and Charlie McAvoy's. Right. You know, they had one in Yoki Haru. I don't know why the hell they traded them. And then,

you know, you know, Kikubalik, that's a great addition. Boquist. He's coming through, but he's not, the problem is you got this really good young group of players coming up. And they are very good. Like, They could be stars. It could be Doc. I'm sold. He's going to be great player. But by the time they're really coming into their own, the other core is going to be on the decline.

The windows are not lining up here. But they did have those guys, and that's why I don't want to let Stan Bowman off the hook. Part of it was... No, you shouldn't. This is a mess of his own making. I mean, whether it's, you know, the money they gave Bickle, and then obviously what happened with his...

Tavo, yeah. It is all shame. But that was, you could tell that was going to be a bad move as soon as they signed that contract, then they have to move to... If you watched that 2013 play... I'm not so sure that you would have been so sure that that was a bad move. He was great.

They won a copy because of him. Those player types and that frame and that's short of a sample size. That never works out. Those guys, like, it's funny because we're talking about a four-year, four-million dollar contract. Like, third-liners get that money now. I mean, it's like nothing now. Yeah.

The problem is, the problem with that wasn't the contract. The problem was they gave up Tevo-Terra Vinen to get out from one year of that contract. Right. That's incredibly short-sighted. Yes. You could add Tevo-Terovinan, who's on a very reasonable contract. in Carolina and is a terrific player that everybody knew he was going to be, you gave him up to get rid of a $4 million contract.

That's atrocious. You traded Phil Dono for Dale Weiss and Tomas Fais for the worst trade stand moments ever made. And I think they gave up a second round pick. I remember. Yeah, I was in my basement. Yeah, gave up Phil to know and a second round pick. I was in my basement watching Kung Fu Panda with my kid when that trade came across. And I immediately was like, are you kidding me?

That's the worst trade I've ever seen. And, you know, Phil DeNose up a legitimate number one or number two center. in the end of just Selke. He's a guy who I think I had him on my Selke ballot last year. Yeah, they could use a guy like that right now. Yeah, you think? Somehow also lost. I don't mean to keep going over this.

They've made a lot of bad moves and they made a lot of good moves over the years. And right now the bad moves, you're paying for the bad moves. But I mean, I don't know how you can really sit there and harang the guy because a lot of these moves were we have to win now moves. And they were doing it. And they were winning now. They won three cups in six years. What fan base, what GM wouldn't give his left arm.

to have a run of success like that. Eventually the bill comes due. Would you say, well, if we could have Tavo, Tara Vina and filled a noback, but we have to give up two of those cups, are you going to do that? No. I don't think those things are mutually exclusive. They're not. You could have those cups and fill those guys.

The mindset, if I'm a hockey fan, I want a GM that's going to go for it when we have a chance. You know, we always talk about how GMs in the NHL are so timid. Stan Bowman was never timid at the trade deadline when his team was a contender. And no, he did not hit on all of them. But Antoine Vermet, that was worth the first round pick. they want to stay on the cup because of that move. Sometimes you just got to go for it. And in the years that they went for it,

it was worth going for it, even if it didn't pan out, and now you're paying the price. And that's why I think the other 30 fan bases certainly wouldn't help be throwing a pity party. Nobody's feeling bad for the Blackhawks. I love it when other fans chime in when the Blackhawks fans are having these

like lamentation sessions online. Some Blues fan up until last you'd be like, yeah, poor you. I'd love to see, I don't know how much you've hammered this home, how much you've written about it, how much you feel comfortable writing about it, But because I think it was pretty clear for even nationally, like behind the scenes, everyone was talking like that power struggle between Bowman.

Yeah. Their preference is how they wanted to go about it. And I think they sort of made a lot of those decisions and made their bed in that summer of 2017 after that embarrassing round one sweep against the predators where they decide to get ahead of it. They moved Panarin out because impending contract and playoff perceived struggles. Johnerson. They moved Jalmersson. And I think that's something you point back to and you go like that was a big time like Crossroads moment here. Yeah, I talk about that a lot in that, you know, this was always going to happen.

You're never going to stay on top forever. But the Blackhawks could have kept that window open at least two more years if they didn't overreact to that Predator's sweep. Yeah. I mean, you had, they won 50 games that year. They won the division, I think. They won the top seat in the Western Conference. That's what made it so shocking. They lost to the 8th seed.

But the Predators went on to the Stanley Cup final day. That was the beginning of their being really good. So, like, in hindsight, well, yeah, that team was really good. And it was the Hawks offense just disappeared for a week. And offense has never been the Blackhawks problem. They overreacted so badly to that. And that was a 50-win team that Corey Crawford was holding up, and then that Panarin Kane and Isam off line.

It was a little bit of smoke and mirrors, and Kane even said as much after the season that maybe weren't as good as the record suggested. But that was still a really good team. That was a contending team. And they went and they blew it up as a just a ridiculous overreaction to one really bad week. It was a badly time.

It was one week. And the offense just vanished. They scored like one goal in three games. I mean, it was a disaster, but it was one really bad week in a fluky-ass game where dumb things happen all the time. It's hockey. And if they had kept Panarin, even if they were going to lose Panarin eventually after that, they weren't going to give him $13 million. But they would have had him for two more years.

He would have Kane playing at that level that he'd play with Panarin. His hockey soulmate, you know, job are on the blue line. They were skeptical about how good Panarin really was or like they never publicly admit that. But I mean, when you make that type of a trade, I think there was. There was this belief among some. The fan base felt this way, and there were definitely some people in the organization that told me this. They were dumb for thinking about that Panarin wasn't a playoff type performer. Right.

But he had, I mean, in his first playoff series, he had seven points and seven games against the Blues in a first round. The Hawks could have won the Cup in 2016. That was a good enough team. That was just a great series. They lost by one goal. And then everybody shot the bed in the Predator series. So, I mean, to put it on that, it was just. And it made Kane mad.

I mean, that was his guy. Like, he was making Kane the player he always dreamed he could be. Having a guy that thought the game in that same ridiculously creative way he did, you could have had two more years of that. You could have had Johnerson, Joel Quenville's favorite player. Quenville stormed out of a pre-draft meeting when he found out Johnerson was traded. He was so mad. They fired Mike Kitchen.

I mean, it was the opening, you know, that war between Stan and Joel had been simmering since 2012 when Bowman added Barry Smith to the basically had him go out to practice to work on the power play. against Joel's wishes. Like, Joel didn't want it, and he did it anyway. But winning cups heals everything. But then once the cup stopped coming, right, then, you know, firing my kitchen was Joel Quendell's best friend. This reason he's on his staff in Florida now, too,

was the shot over the bow, trading John Morrison and Panera within 20 minutes of each other as two favorite players. I mean, it was all downhill from there. This decline was going to happen eventually, but they could have kept that window open two more years. It should have been, last year should have been the first year of the decline. Not the fourth or third. Yeah.

Well, I think they're an interesting spot as we approach this deadline because, and we don't see teams really ever take it creative, but having moved Dehan and Seabrook to TIR, I think they've opened up like $13 million. Oh, they got money to spend right now, yeah. And, you know, there's teams out. They could facilitate some very interesting creative trades. It might be too exotic for that HL standard. It seems like there's a lot of teams this year. We're always talking about, oh, you got to weaponize your cap space, got to weaponize your cap space. But I don't know if this might be the most boring trade deadline I've ever seen.

I don't know if there's anything to really accomplish. Like, yes, the Blackhawks should absolutely, that's what they should be doing, is taking on a terrible contract and getting a second round pick out of it. Like doing all the sweeteners that they had to give up over the years, the Tavo Terra Vinen's, all those kind of moves, the Vinnie Hinoza to get Marion Hostess's contract off the books. All that stuff, they should be doing it now. It should be kind of a nice little twist for them. I don't know what's out there to really exploit, though.

The mushy middle of this league is this faux parody they have. who's truly selling right now, who's truly looking to get rid of a contract, I'm not sure you can get a whole lot out of it. But that's what they should be trying to do. I think they should take advantage of that. I think the opportunity presents itself for a team to really just fully embrace,

taking advantage of that void, because there are so many teams that are like, let's wait a couple weeks to see what happens here. We've already seen, I think, Pittsburgh paid a pretty high price for Jason Zucker. I know he had a couple more years ago on his deal, for example. You know, Jack Campbell, I know that he's also a pretty cheap cost-control goalie, but he got what, like,

good picks and a 24 forward. Those are the types of moves that the Blackhawks should be like frantically, not frantically, but aggressively pushing. No, I agree. Contenders. But it depends on, but are they going to trade Brandon Sade? They shouldn't,

unless they get just their doors blown off by somebody. If someone gives you a second round pick for Brandon Sade, who's just been terrific this year, you're going to give him up with another year. I don't see them doing that. It's just, I'm not sure. The,

the piece of, they have to offer, the goal tending is the interesting one, because those are legitimate star players. And there's like not another one's available, basically. Right. But is Eric Gussison, I don't know, if you've watched Eric Gussison play, I like watching Eric Gussison play because he's a high risk, high reward player, he's a really good offensive player. But he's a nightmare in his own end some nights. Is that the kind of guy you want to add to a playoff push, a guy who's going to, you know, cause as many goals as he generates? I don't know what they have to offer in that way to really entice, but all they can do is take on a bad contract.

That's the only way they're going to add a lot of assets, I think. And I'm not sure there's any teams that are really looking to do that right now. And it has to be expiring contracts because Seabrook's going to be back next year. DeHon's going to be back next year. This is temporary cap space they have. So I've got one for you. I've been doing all right. I'm going to be writing next week about it, so I'm going to spoil it, but I'm going to go back to the well.

Vegas, really tied up against the cap. Basically, have no flexibility right now. They've got Econon and expiring 3.85. he's a guy. I don't think Vegas too much of getting him out of there. Reeves 2.775 also expiring. Nick Holden 2.2.

That's quite a bit of room there with guys who I think Vegas could ultimately do without to improve their roster. Are they all coming up UFAs? Yeah, they all UFAs, all three of those guys. Their goaltending has been very suspect. I know they love Mark Andre Flurry. I think some healthy competitions

certainly does not hurt, especially given that Fleury's late 30s. Take your pick of Crawford, or Lennar, and both those guys, their cap hits are high enough where it makes sense for Chicago to be selling Vegas in, like, we'll take back one of these bad contracts that are expiring. We'll give you a goalie, so we'll give you a net positive. Give us something. Give us a bigger worth a while.

Yeah. That'd be interesting. I believe, I'd have to check this, but I'm pretty sure Crawford still has a full no movement this year or might be a 10-team no trade. I don't know if he would, he wants to stay in Chicago. He's been his whole career in Chicago. if he would be okay going to a team where he's probably not going to get the number one job in the playoffs. Right. Because like you said, they love Flurry.

I'm not sure that it would be interesting. Crawford's been good this year. Like he's not, hasn't been, Leonard's kind of stolen a bit of the shine because his numbers are better. Robert's been significantly better than Leonard during this whole hostry gear. He's kind of taken the net back. Right. Like Leonard's back to be in 1B and Crawford's been 1A. Leonard's kind of come down earth a little bit.

Crawford's been great. And he's, you know, he's 34, 35. He's got, you know, in goal of years, he's got a couple of good years left them. them. You know, we all thought he was going to retire after those concussions that knocked him out for a year and a half, but he's right back to his old self now. Yeah, if I'm, if I'm a contending team and I don't like my goaltending situation, I am knocking down Stan Bowman's door. It's just, it's so hard to say. I mean, two years ago, the Blackhawks got a first round pick for Ryan Hartman. They got a first round pick, and like a, at the time, a high end prospect didn't pan out, Victor Edsel.

I remember that, yeah. But a first round pick for Ryan Hartman. And now, you know, you're looking at maybe you can get a second rounder for Augustuson, who was at 60 points last year, or Corey Crawford, a two-time Stanley Cup goaltending? I'm not sure that there's the value that they, that they, that they, that these guys deserve.

And I think that given the fact that they are not mathematically eliminated, even by a long shot, that, you know, you're in a four-game win-streeking and you're in a playoff spot, I'm not sure they're going to be willing to move one of these guys because one of the reasons they're in this position is because every single night they have a top-tier goalie. It's the opposite of the Toronto problem,

where whenever they put a backup goalie out there was a disaster. They don't have that problem. Every single game, they have a number one goalie, and they're not going to make the playoffs if they trade one of those guys. Kevin Lankin or Colin Dealey are not going to do what Robin Leonard or Cory Crawford are doing. So unless they get first round picks, unless they get high-end prospects, unless they get some player with term that they really like, I don't think they're going to move these guys just for the sake of moving them. Yeah, that's fair. I just think, you know, I mean, it's a lot easier for me from the outside, obviously not being invested, not having an owner to answer to it to be like, this

team's not very good. Yeah, the Blackhawks are not okay spinning their wheels. Exactly. They're spinning their wheels for a long time now. I do want to say, though, and not necessarily that you're making this point or that, or that anyone is, but I do sometimes think, like, people think a bit too, um, sort of short-sidly about these moves at deadline. I know, like, uh, I saw this recently where someone was talking about what the, the

caps could get for Aalia Colchuk, right? And they have like a treasure chest full of, of draft picks, some of which are Chicago's in summer. And someone was like, do we need another second round pick? Like, we need players who can play a, right? right now. And I think what people lose sight of is like you can have more picks and then come the draft. There's players that are available that you can use those picks. And you move those picks. Right. It's just capital. It's currency. It's not. You don't have to make that pick. And so I think

sometimes this time of year I just wanted to say that just for anyone listening. Yeah. And the fact is, the Blackhawks have five draft picks this coming. That is not okay. Right. That is not good enough. They got no second rounder, no seventh round. No, who cares about a seventh rounder. But they've got five picks to work with. They don't have any extra ones to deal. They're missing two. So they have to recoup some of this draft capital. You have to do something to do that. And that's the dilemma Stan Bowman faces these next, what, 11, 12 days, whatever it is, he's got to decide whether making a long shot run at the playoffs.

I think 25% is the actual, is there odds right now to make the playoffs? It was 40% four days ago. They're actually pretty close. It's just that there's like five teams that are just as close. It's them, Winnipeg, Minnesota. I mean, which of those, does Winnipeg inspire confidence? Does Minnesota inspire a confidence? Winnipeg and Chicago are like that Spider-Man meme.

They're just like pointing out. You have no defense, but you have. have some high-end talent. What do we do? Good goalie that at the same team. So I don't know how you move forward. You have to decide is a long-shot playoff bid worth more than maybe a second and a third-round pick? And I mean, this is an entertainment business. If you start moving these guys at the deadline, you are waving that white flag.

And there are still 22,000 people in the United Center of night. They're still selling out all these years after the glory dimes. But that's, you know, there's little pockets of empty seats all of a sudden. the secondary market, those seats are 50 bucks instead of 200 bucks like they were a few years ago. Eventually, that's going to end. And I don't know, the Blackhawks are such a business. I don't know if John McDonough and Rocky Wirtch are going to be okay with them waving that white flag.

Okay, we've been killing Bowman here so far. I want to give them credit for something. Kirby Doc. Two Stanley Cups, he deserves credit for it. Yes, I mean, I just mean recently. 13 and 15 were a recent move. A recent move. Kirby Doc, I remember at the draft, I was blown away that they passed up on

Bowman and Byron. I think at the time, a lot of people were like, David invested so much. Turkot or Byron was one or another. And I think Turcotte was the local guy, but Byram was like, they've drafted so many defensemen lately. So that was their kind of their logic. And Doc has stepped in and he's really flashed, I think, lately that. He's been the best player of the draft so far. He's combo, right? Yeah, he's, he looks terrific. He went through a 27 game stretch where he didn't have a point and he looked great the whole time. I mean, he's just, he's big, he's strong,

he's fast. He's way faster than I thought he, like, I always heard of the knocking him. Well, he's a pretty good skater. He's a great skater. Oh, he destroyed Jonas Brody off the rush. Oh my God, he broke his ankles. Brodine went, he literally went flying. He was like, literally one of the, like, he's like Nicholas Jobs. Right, right, exactly. I mean, it was just an incredible movement.

And he's doing that, like, almost on the regular. Now, ever since they put him on that second line with Sod and Kane, where he's got some real offense to work, he was playing with Zach Smith and Ryan Carpenter most of the years, they're kind of easing him in. But he's so confident and poised. He's really strong on the puck. He's got a little bit of that Hosa, Saad, kind of, you know, just try to take this thing for me mentality.

He is going to be a real good player. And you know, you look at him, you look at Dominic Kubalik. You look at Dominic Cahoon. You go to Artemi Panera and Stan Bowman and his scouting staff do a terrific job in the draft. They do a phenomenal job better than anybody does in European scouting. The problem has been the, you know, huge contracts they've given to older players. I mean, that's what it comes down to. Yeah.

You know, it always comes back to that Brent Seabro contract. The second it came out, you gave eight years? Eight years? They are, you know, you don't want to bang on a guy for, for being loyal to a beloved icon who's the most important guy in that locker room. But at the same time, it was an awful contract. Yeah. I love that there was a no move clause attached to that as if the contract itself wasn't

already self-fulfilling prophecy. Yeah. I mean, that's what I do like. And there's going to be growing pains. And so we're kind of speaking out of both sides of our mouth where it's like you want immediate on eyes results, but you also want to get that next wave of talent going. And I think part of it has been by necessity because I think they haven't had other choice, but whether it's getting focused on the top pair and regular 20 plus minutes.

Which wouldn't have happened if DeHan didn't get hurt. Yeah, whether it's Doc. Like, they're at least giving these guys an opportunity, which I hate when teams bring up a young guy, heralded prospect, plays on the fourth line with two grinders, doesn't put up points and then they're like, well, he's not producing. Stan Bowman deserves credit for the drafting and the scouting that they've done. Jeremy Colleton deserves credit for the way he's brought somebody. I don't know why he didn't like Henry Yoki Harju.

It's baffling to me why he was, Joel Quinville was happy playing. him 25 minutes a night and then Colleton comes in and yeah, send him to the world juniors, then let's trade him. I don't understand that, but he's done a really good job, kind of easing dock in with Boquist. You know, Bochrist was supposed to be this defensive nightmare. I heard guys, people in the organization last year that said he might never play in the NHL because he can't play defense. He's like a defensive defenseman right now because it's all he's focusing on.

He's not worrying about playing offense because he's trying to, he's playing solid defense. So Colleton deserves credit. Bowman deserves credit. The timing of all this is just awful because, again, it's going to take a couple years. You got Ian Mitchell's coming in from Denver at the end of the college hockey year. He's a very well-thought of defensive prospect. Nick Bowdo-Dand's another first-round pick coming up. There's a lot of hope in the system.

The problem is they're going to be coming of age when all the other guys are 39, 40, 35, 36. Yeah. That's the problem. It's just the windows aren't lining up. And it's just, and again, I hate saying this stuff because it makes me come across as an apologist. You won three cups in six years. If this is the price you pay, you pay it every single time. Yeah.

It could have been handled better. But the fact is they won three cups in six years in the cap era, and it's hard to bitch too much about that. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. There's a lot of... Can you really say that they haven't maximized Kane, Taves, Keith,

when they won three cups. Yeah. Even if it's three cups in 18 years of their careers, did they not maximize them? I don't know. Yeah. They sold a lot of tickets and they won a lot of championships. Yeah.

Well, especially the era before that for this franchise. They weren't even on TV. They were broadcast locally. Yeah. I think it's a nice little change. there anything else of this team? I mean, we haven't really talked about what the Brankat. He's having a tough year. He's on pace for like 18 or 19 goals. 41 last year, yeah. And it's, it's five on five play. He's still getting a decent amount

of power play looks, but it's weird because he's actually shooting at a higher rate than last year. And they're good shots. He's getting good chances. Like, again, it's just such a dumb sport sometimes. Like, it's just fluky. Like, I remember three years ago, Marian Hosa went through a year like that, and then he was great the next year. And Brandon sawed two years ago was like top five in every possession metric and couldn't score. And he was dragging Jonathan Taves down with him because it was the same thing. And then they both turned it around.

Taze had a career year last year. It feels like, I mean, De Brinke, he's not a one-dimensional player, but he's a largely, like, he's a phenomenal shooter. He needs to score goals. And he's talking about it. The other day he's talking about, I can do other things well if I'm not scoring

that I could be helpful. I'm like, yeah, but you're a goal scored. You've scored 41 goals last year. You have to be in the 30s at least every year. I don't, you know, this is his third year. his first two years were just almost perfect in every way. This is a hiccup, and it's going to be interesting to see how he handles it. He so far mentally he seems to be handling it well.

He's trying to shoot his way out of the slump. He's not getting hesitant. He's not deferring. He's doing what you want him to do. But man, he keeps breaking sticks and hit and post and, you know, just all these little fluky things that just hockey is so frustrating for. Yeah, I mean, at 5-15.15% in his rookie year, 15.3 last year when he scored 41, a certain number of double digits where in power play but he was still a lethal

5-15 score this year 3.5%. Yeah, I mean it's... He's like a defensive defenseman shooting from the point. He's not all of a sudden this bad. It's just he probably wasn't as amazing as he was last year. He's certainly not as ineffective as he is this year. He's probably a 30 to 35 goal score. And this stuff tends to even

out over time. You know what's like the big time untapped angle or story and maybe it's just impossible because the players either don't actually you want to become that reflective, like in the moment, or they can't articulate their thoughts, or it's a lot of voodoo.

But the scorer who goes through the shooting percentage drought, but, like, is still getting shots. Like, you look at the Brinket's shot chart, same as last. He's always in the Ovechkin spot. I mean, he's doing everything he's supposed to be doing. The puck just aren't going in. And unless, like, you know, sometimes you hear after the season, oh, he goes for a wrist surgery or something.

But barring that, sometimes the puck just doesn't go in for guys, right? Hits the post. Goalies, for every reason, makes a save. and it can go... Your podcast is named for that. It's the GEO, man. Exactly. And so for us from the outside,

it's like it's so easy for me, especially he's under contract for three more years after this one, I believe when his contract kicks in, to go next year he's in a... He might not score 41 again, but he'll probably be a 30 goal school. Yeah, he'll be worth the $6.3 million,

whatever it is. But in the moment, especially for the player. Like, it's so difficult to think that way. I don't know, like, it's... I don't know if it's harder from the inside or the outside. If you're on the outside, you see his numbers, oh, it's a brinket just sucks this year. Right.

But then you watch, you know, I'll watch him and be like, man, he keeps shooting and it's not going in. So I see that part of it at the same time I'm seeing him every night not produce when they need him desperately. All these one goal games they're losing. And he had an awful night in Winnipeg. He had two just horrible turnovers that on the power pad led to directly one to a short-handed goal that changed the game and one to a short-handed chance. He's had some bad games. And I was surprised that Colleton Healthy Scratch Dylan Strome last night in Edmonton. I thought Debrinket was going to get a scratch.

Like if anyone deserved it, like if you're going to try to light a fire under the guy, that's what you do. You know, this was the time to do it with the Debrinket, but it's hard to scratch your arguably your most lethal shooter. Yeah, well, they need the goals. And they just need to bet on regression happening, this season as opposed to next year. Like, it's going to happen eventually.

That's what Colin said. He's the kind of guy that can score 10 goals in two weeks all of a sudden. You know, he could have that, maybe not that Ovechkin level, but he can do that. He scores hat tricks. This isn't a guy who scores every night. He scores hatrics. He scores in bunches. Yeah.

He's always been that way. He's like, as even go back to his eerie otters days. I mean, he was a streaky score. When he scores, he scores a lot, but he just hasn't been able to find any kind of groove this year at all. Yeah, I think every, the most misused thing is calling goal scorer the streak. It's like literally everyone not named Alex Lavechkin is a streaky goal scorer. Like, he's the only guy who consistently scores.

And it's tough because for me, it's like, I feel very good about the Brinkat still being that player. And I think he could not change anything and just start scoring. Right. But if you're caught in and you're considering weighing all these options. Count on that. Exactly. And that's like the fan base after that Winnipeg game were just, oh my God,

like the comments on my story just tearing him a new one. Like he's like the worst player and trade him and, you know, send him to Rockford, all this. And it sucks because like, you know, you can't always respond to passion with impassion. Yes. But the answer is, yeah, he'll be fine. Right. It's going to, it'll turn around. This just happens.

It's mathematically impossible for him to continue at a 3.6 shooting percentage for the rest of his career. It's not going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's what's the... But nobody wants to hear that. Nobody wants to be told. It's very unsatisfying. Sometimes the puck doesn't go in. God, Jonathan Taze, if I had a dollar for every time, Jonathan Taze just said, I just need to see one go in during a slump. Oh, he's at a tough couple games in terms of cause one. Right. And he's been on a great run since he had that horrible start to the year where the puck wouldn't go in for him. And then the puck started going in for him and now the puck's not going in for him again. That's hockey, man. It's a dumb sport. It's a dumb sport. It's a dumb sport. It's a

dumb sport and we try to quantify it and it's impossible to quantify because it's just, it's so often doesn't make any sense. No. That's what I love about it. Well, we need to quantify it because that's my job. Well, I understand that. But you can never get your arms fully around a sport at this dynamic. I think if you fully could put a number to everything.

We're going to get all these player tracking numbers and it's going to be amazing and it's going to revolutionize everything and it's still going to not explain anything. Yeah. When it comes down to it, you know, the puck rolled up on his stick a little bit as he was hitting the one-timer and that made it, it's just such a dynamic fluky sport that will never fully be able to explain why at Alastair Brinket is shooting at 3.5% at 5 on 5. But see, actually, not that we're going to get immediate answer or anything or like always, but it's going to be years before we figure out how to use this numbers.

Of course, but it'd be interesting to like, because it is kind of lazy analysis when you look at the brinket shooting percentage. Part of it is randomness. Part of it might be the past. Part of it might be defensive attention guys. He's not playing with Patrick. Kane as much as he used to. He's not playing with Dylan Strom as much as he used to. There's a lot of things going on. And so sometimes in the one hand, it's very dissatisfying to say shooting percentage. On the other hand, in the grand scheme of things, that is what it is what in terms of the descriptive parts of like why it's happening.

Yeah. I mean, it'll lead us in the right direction. But when it comes down to it, you know, sometimes it's just not going in for you. All right. Is there anything else with this team? Is that? I don't know. I think we touched on a lot. All right. Well, let's get out of here. You got a busy night. You're going to go to the 10. Another hockey game. It's all hockey games during hockey season, isn't there? There is, yeah, 82 of them. There's been a lot of injuries. And I saw, I think it was, I think it was Pierre LeBroner tweeting about this today,

but it seems like there's been a slid and part of it could just be kind of a collection of unrelated injuries. But since the extended break and a lot of these biweeks and teams are playing a ton of games now in this stretch of the season, for whatever reason there has, I mean, a cadre guy. that's Jones Jones Connor McDavid right now Connor McDavid and then obviously

I think completely but you know best wishes go out to the well-beaster and his very frightening incident last

but yeah there's a lot going on it's that time that season but it's exciting and you know we talked a lot about this trade deadline here and

forward to it and hopefully it won't be disappointed in like we are every year yeah it's gonna be like Rendon Dillon for us on a trade board here's 30 guys that get moved

and like three of them get moved and a bunch of scrubs get moved All right, well, plug some stuff. What are you working on? Where can people check me out at The Athletic, along with just about every other hockey writer on the planet, it seems. I've got up, actually, I'll have a story up later this week

on Robin Leonard and Corey Crawford and how they play such wildly different styles to get basically the same results. This is a blast, man. I'm glad we got to finally. Yeah, it's fun. Hopefully do it again. Absolutely.

And that puts a bow on this week's episodes of the Hockey PEO cast. There was three of them in total. If you are still listening, you're a champion. Thank you for doing so. If you haven't listened to the stuff we've already put out yet, go back and listen to the episode we did with Chris Mason, where we deep dive the National Predators. And the episode with Ufebaudine and Jonathan Lindquist, where we talk about the effect the Cedines had on the Canucks, the NHL, Sweden, the sport as a whole and all of that stuff as we celebrate them during this Cedine week when their jerse is being retired by the Vancouver Canucks. While I still have you, if you've enjoyed this week's episodes of the PDOCAST or past episodes, please consider taking a minute to go and share the love on iTunes by leaving us a five-star review and a positive rating that goes a long way.

And I really appreciate it, especially the ones that have a nice little personal touch and have some sort of an inside joke from the podcast. I get a good chuckle. Listen into those. The other thing is you can also go. and if you Google the Canadian Podcasting Awards, AlkipedioCast has been nominated as an outstanding

sports podcast. So if you go and vote for us there as the outstanding sports series, we're right up there with a Steve Dangal podcast and 31 thoughts and a few others. That would go a long way. I think voting is open until February 18th and each one counts.

And it's just an honor to be on the list with all those great podcasts, but it'd be cool to take it home and have some bragging rights on them as well. So anyways, I really appreciate you taking a couple minutes out of your time to go and spread the love and let the world know that you've enjoyed the Hockey P.O cast, and we'll be back next week. There's a lot of good stuff on the horizon. I'm looking forward to previewing the trade deadline and then obviously after the dust settles on it, analyzing each deal in excruciating detail. And hopefully we have some fun stuff to talk about. So I'm looking forward to that. Thanks for listening.

and we'll roll the outro music and get out of here. Peace. Hockey P.D.Ocast with Dimitri Filippovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.