The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 345: Live by the sword, die by the sword

Episode Date: March 10, 2020

Arthur Staple joins the show to discuss the New York Islanders up and down season, why the way they play and the way they've built their team leaves them with next to no margin for error, and the behind the scenes of their busy trade 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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my name is Demetri Philpovich and joining me. He's my good buddy, Art staple. What's common? Not too much. Always happy to be back in town. This is exciting. This is our fifth show, I believe. I was kind of going through the Rolodex in my head and we've done some pretty high leverage moments in Islanders history, I feel like. We were like right at the apex of the Garth Snow, Doug Wade Islanders. We did like the day after John Tavares left town and free agency. We did last year when obviously everything was going swimmingly with Islanders. And now I feel like it's a, it's a bit of a boiling point. point. I follow quite a, I'm a pretty active member of Isles, Twitter, I think. I follow along what's

going on. And people seem to be pretty, pretty upset. I think it's weird because it's all about sort of perspective, right? If you, like, missed the start of the year and you just jumped right into the NHL season right now. And you were like, the Islanders have like a 70% chance by most models of making the playoffs. They're right in the wild card mix. They're like 36 and 23 or whatever the record is. I'd be like, yeah, it seems like a pretty reasonable outlook for them. But I think just because of like how hot they were to start the year and how bad they look now, I think people are really good. of taking those two extremes. Yeah, you know, I think from a statistical modeling standpoint, when they were on the 15-0-2 run and started whatever it was 16, 3, and 2, they were outplaying their

numbers by an incredible amount. So much luck was involved. Their goaltending was at a really high-level both guys, Thomas Grice and Semyon Varlamov were playing really well. It was kind of the same formula they used for a lot of last season. Timely goals, that sort of thing, winning a lot of overtime games. So I think they were due for some sort of regression, but when that hit, it also combined with some pretty key injuries to some of their guys that are not household names around the league, but when the Islanders lose Adam Pelick and Casey Zezkas, it's a big deal because of the way they play. So I think those factors kind of combined, and especially the good start, you know, I think when you live in the world of fandom on Twitter,

especially NHEL fandom, the highs are very high and the lows are very low. So, you know, it's not, I think, to be where they are right now, if you had just sort of taken a whole season and not the super high start and the super mediocre last 45 games, you'd be like, okay, this is probably not a bad season for the Islanders in year two of the Lamerolo Trots era, that they're still fighting for a playoff spot for a team that made very few additions in the offseason. I did make some additions recently, but to be where they are, I think is probably about maybe where, in the best case scenario, you would have thought that would have been at the start. Right.

Well, I think with all of these things, as always, sort of perspective and nuance, and context is important. So it's tough because I remember like when that summer in 2018, when Tavares left, when their big moves were like bringing in Comorov and bringing Martin back and Philpua. And then I remember we had the show and I was like, I really don't see a path forward if they keep going this way

for this team to get back to being competitive. And then Barry Trots and Mitch Corden came in and they completely sort of moved all the pieces around to make the stingiest defensive team in the league. And I think they clearly rightly, identified that they have to play that way. They could keep playing this sort of run-and-gun tempo with Matt Barzales, pretty much their only elite offensive player left in the mix. And the thing for me that's interesting is the discussion of like what the outer bounds are

of how high you can achieve success as a team in 2020 playing that way and whether we're seeing them kind of bump into that now from this perspective of like, I don't know if you get this feeling following the team, but just watching them. And I unfortunately watch their five most recent game in preparation for the show, it feels like a very, like, tired group where when you have to outwork and outplay and grind each team and generating offense is like pulling teeth on a nightly basis, I'm sure it takes its toll. And once you start losing pieces, it's really tough to sort of combat that. I feel like their margin for error is significantly smaller than it is for a team of

Colorado where it's like they have rantan and McCar out, Burakowski, Khadry, and it just doesn't matter. Yeah. You know, I think not to bring it around to all. islanders and Leafs since they seem to be so symbiotically intertwined over the last few years. But I think the Leafs have found out this year the hard way that going all skill and speed and not having enough grit, jam, whatever hockey term you want to use, NHL in 2020 is not ready for that. You can still get run over and outworked. And the Islanders,

I think in the other direction, have found out that you can't just grind your way through two straight regular seasons with essentially the same group and even less of that missing some guys that they've been missing for long stretches. The grind is too much. I think you can see elements of it. I think the game in Ottawa when they gave up a shorthanded goal, Ryan Pollock just, you know, he's a good player. He looked tired.

He's playing 23, 24 minutes and it's not, they're not easy minutes. He's on the point on the first power play. He's one of the first guys out for penalty killing now because of Pelick being out. I think Nick Letty is in the same ballpark where a guy's guys that are not necessarily totally relying on their legs to get them out of danger, but are not necessarily physical guys first. They're losing a lot of net front battles, which didn't happen at all last year.

So, yeah, it's just, it's a hard way to win games. And I think they showed it's a hard way to win a couple of playoff rounds because really they were, you know, against Carolina last year, they could argue quite capably that they were the better team, those first two games, got a couple bad bounces. You didn't game three. It was right there. Couldn't score right.

Game three was tied right there when Lennar makes the one mistake and they kind of fell apart. So it wasn't an overall lack of skill that doomed them. It was just you get a little bad luck and you're a team that has to grind. You can't grind your way to four or five goals a night. It just doesn't happen in the league anymore. So I think fatigue is a factor. I think all those other factors that are kind of ingrained

and push to the side when they're going well where they can get a timely goal or get a couple big saves or really be stout in their own end. When those start to fray a little bit at the edges, the rest of it gets exposed pretty well. Yeah, I think that versatility is like really important. I think, you know, I consider myself a, and I'm a younger individual. I consider myself a more sort of like progressive modern game thinker. And I love when teams going to go against convention and tradition.

I'd love to see teams like the Leafs just try to outscore all their problems. And it's more fun to watch certainly. But it's no surprise you watch a team like Tampa Bay Lightning and what they did at this deadline where they add Coleman and Goodrow. And it's like they're trying to shore up their penalty kill. They're trying to find different ways to beat teams when the offense isn't going. especially if you're going to make a long playoff run and even over the course of an 82 game season,

that being able to beat teams in a different way and not just having like, it's great to have an identity, but there's going to be nights where that's not working or you don't have it. And if you can't beat them in any other way, it's, it's going to run into problems.

Yeah. And I think over this, you know, I think we kind of, I've divided it up as I've written, you know, 16, 3, and 2 versus I think it's 19, 20, and 7 now in the last 46. The divide of getting a save when they need it is really stark.

Thomas Grite. I think the first those first 21 games he may have played 12 of them I think he was at a 934 even straight same percentage 907 since then and you know the the exchange of Varlamma

of Robin Lennar for Varlamov was not met with a lot of welcome in the islanders Twitter Islanders fandom you know Robin Lennar touched you know touched a nerve when he came here with the story that he wrote on our site

just his openness in general I think he's gained himself a lot of fans even in the two stops that he's had this year. And the performance didn't hurt after that. Right. And he was playing at a Vesina Trophy level, for sure, all year. And when they made the decision to go away from him and go to someone in Varlamov, who I think they had some interest in trading for at the draft in Luce first year,

but it didn't work out. I think they thought, okay, well, we're making a different kind of exchange. I think four years for him may have been a bit much, but they were thinking long term with Ilya Serocha, and possibly coming over to team with Varlamov after this season. So I think there were some other factors that helped him get that long-term deal. But I think you're seeing him. He's been very steady this year.

I think you look at the even straight and save percentage numbers from the first hot streak to now. He's been 920, roughly what his career average is. But is that good enough for a team that doesn't produce? And when they fall behind or when he maybe gives up bad one like he did in Ottawa, to Anthony Duclair to fall behind, they just don't, unless they're desperately trying to rally as they did against the Rangers, or they did against Carolina. They're not the kind of team that can just go out in a third period when they're down a goal

or two and wave after wave after wave. They're just not built that way. First of all, and second of all, they're missing a couple of the key guys that can help turn pucks over. So the goal tending, I think, has not been at such an A plus level like it was so consistently last year for them to have success. Yeah, I think they're pretty much based on the evolving wilds model. They're like right at net neutral in terms of goals saved above expected. They're like right where they were.

but the issue is last year, Leonard and Grice were like plus 30. Right. You could put either one in and they were both excellent. Yeah, I think, you know, clearly it's been, if you look at it from like a big picture perspective,

I know we're so like everyone has tunnel vision. It's like what happened in the most recent game. But obviously this Lou Trots combination has been a massive success for that Islanders, right? They had 100 points last year. They swept the penguins, especially where they were coming from. I think it's an unequivocal success.

But it is that double-edged sword where I think, you know, a very specific image of the types of players they want on the team, how they want to play. And this is what I've been mulling over a lot where it's like, especially at the trade ad line, I was writing an article for your spin where I was like, which players should the islanders target? How can they improve their team? And a lot of the names, I was like, yeah, this player would in theory help the islanders. Can I see the islanders going out and adding this player to their current mix when they're like a pure offensive scoring winger that has no

defensive capabilities? Probably not. Spilling words in time over that is just kind of a waste. And so I think that rigidity kind of hurts them in this case where, you know, you mentioned Adam Pelick, who is a really good defensive defenseman, especially paired with Pollock, that they've been one of the better sort of shut down deep parings in the league, Casey Zizekis, you know, fourth line center in theory, but is so integral to how this Islanders team wants to play. For most teams, removing those guys, you're just next man up mentality. You're going to be able to replace it. But for this team, that rigidity of like not being able to just insert random players and expect that exact brand of hockey and how they want to play, I think really hurts them here,

and I think that's what we've seen. And also, I think what's hurt them is maybe for, and this is more for Trots than Lamerl. I mean, they both preach patience with their prospects. The situation with Noah Dobson was an interesting one that they decided very early on in training camp that they were keeping him, probably just to work out and maybe spell Johnny Boychuk or spell Scott Mayfield here and there. I think the plan for them was clearly less than 30 games if everyone were healthy. You don't get through a season with six healthy defensemen, so it happened pretty quickly,

and the problem for them was that it happened on the left side initially with Nick Letty first, and then Adam Pelick long term, so they had to adjust to kind of a plan B, and Dobson goes in, and it's really kind of a five-and-a-half defenseman style, because he's playing a little bit on his offside with Johnny Boychuk, which is limiting in all as well. specs and really, you know, averaging 11, 12 minutes a game as a defenseman, as a young defenseman, and still trying to work up, you know, off ice, building up strength. You know, it's, it was kind of an emergency operation. I certainly understand that.

But, you know, I think at to this point in the year, you haven't seen a lot of progression from Noah Dobson. And if you're going to keep a guy, especially a top 15 pick who's got a lot of potential as a top four defenseman on your roster all year long, he should probably be better at the end of the year than he was at the beginning of the year, or at least more prepared for the NHL style. And I think the play he made on the tying goal against Carolina

was a real example of, you know, he goes deep in the zone, he comes back, and he can stop and start really quickly, I think caught Warren Fogel off guard, sneaks around him and the puck comes out in front, and guys are kind of at sixes and sevens there and Bailey's by himself to tie it up. That's not a play that anybody else on their D can really make

on the right side. So I think when you see those kind of flashes, you kind of say, well, the other way, the five defensemen and spotting him in is wearing our other guys down. Do we need to continue with this and continue beating our heads against the wall for these last few games?

Because if that's the way they're going to get in, even if Johnny Boychuk can come back from that scary eye injury, this is what they've got. There's nobody else coming in. So do you want to just scrape to get in and then scrape by a, first round series against the Boston or Washington and call it a success. I don't think that

they're at that place right now. So I think you have to consider more, whether it's Dobson, Kiefer Bellows, who really wasn't even considered much of a prospect yet at the beginning of this year. He's got 20 goals in the HL. He had a couple goals in the NHL in a brief stint. Oliver Wallstrom was up for nine games. I understand the considerations with burning his entry level year if he plays another one. But these are guys that have potential for them. And I think we can kind of get into it more with the trades that they made, but when you, when you trade away three of your four top picks in the next two years, you've got to have those guys ready to go. Yep. And I sort of feel like at this point in the year, if you're not getting offense from your third and fourth line wingers,

why not give it a shot? Because you're also not getting enough defense to keep people off the board. So why not make a little bit of a, you know, make a little bit of room for a young guy who can kind of give a little bit of a jolt this time of year. And I think with Dobson, I think you might have to take the blinders off and let him play a little bit more regularly. Yeah. I think certainly the upsides there. And I always, you know, people get critical of young players. It's like, oh, well, they're sitting on the bench or they're sitting in the press box because they need to learn. They're making those mistakes.

It's not okay at this level. And it's like there's certainly certain vantage points you can gain from watching the game from that perspective. But I think also it's kind of like trial by air. You sort of have to make those mistakes. And the only way you're going to get better is by actually being out there and going through that. But yeah, I think it comes down to sort of what they're comfortable with, right? Like I think ideally they would love to have, I mean, we've seen that for, I think 50 minutes or so if I want to five on five. with that Devon Taves and Dobson.

If they were like a sheltered third pairing, if everyone was ideally healthy and they had all their pieces, I'm sure they'd love to use them in that capacity, but because of the injuries, they've kind of had to bump everyone up, I think, a bit beyond their comfort level. Yeah, yeah, and I think that's kind of a, you think down the road,

that would be an ideal second pair, maybe, you know, if you have Pelag. Especially if you have Pollock and, like, eating up off defensive minutes. Those are guys that I think you can kind of put people on their heels with. And I understand, Like you said, Barry Trots, I think when he came in, the best thing that he did was identify, we got to play the most conservative style we need to play because we're not going to outskill anybody. I think going into the offseason last year, they clearly knew that they needed a more potent threat up front. It didn't work out whether whatever trades, Lou was trying to make, Archie Panarin, whoever was out there, which was not a lot of people. So they really redoubled their efforts with their own guys.

And I think you see the limitations. so, you know, they're going to have to change their thinking at some point. You know, I think we sort of laugh about the idea of Lou Lamarillo at almost 80 years old, changing his thinking, but he can be a pretty progressive guy when need be. I think he understands. And I think hearing how excited Barry Trots was about the addition of Jean-Gabriel Pazzo leads me to believe that there's still a lot of good communication and sharing of ideas between the front office and the coaching staff.

if they work well together, it's not all on Lou. You can't just call Lou a dinosaur for going out and trading a pretty big haul for a third-line center. So I think this is what Barry wants too. And I wonder whether they make the playoffs or not, whether they win around or not, or go out meekly and quickly. This off-season is going to be a big one for those two guys in terms of how they think about their team, because they're going to have to do a lot of shuffling to get to that level that they want to be at. Well, yeah, I think, you know, it's easy for someone like myself or a casual observer from the outside that isn't a fan or isn't involved with a team to be like, you know, the Metro Division is remarkably good this year and deep. Realistically, the Islanders are probably like the fourth or fifth best team in that division, maybe the third if everything falls into place.

And it's like, is this really the time to be going all in or should you have a more patient outlook? But beyond Lou, as you said, turning 78 or whatever this fall, like they're pretty invested in this group, right? like whether it's Anders Lee, Brock Nelson, Jordan Eberley, Josh Bailey. Like they've invested pretty reasonable capital for the next four or five years and a lot of these guys who are late 20s, early 30s. So does it really make sense to be taking a step back for the potential of taking two steps forward later? I think, you know, I was critical a bit of the Pajot-Jad, because I thought it was a lot to

give up for a player like him and just the general principle of when a guy is shooting a career high and having a career year this late. career. I don't like paying top dollar for that, but it's tough to argue with the fit, right? Like he's sort of this dream player of slots in as a third center. We've already seen him eating up a ton of defensive minutes for them. I thought that goal he scored against the blues was very sort of tantalizing as that bumper sort of right-hand shot one-timer for Barzal to have as a pressure release valve. So, you know, listen, they have him now for six years, like, or is it five? Five years, right? Six times five?

Right. Yeah. So they're going to have them for a while. Yeah. It'll be like the rest, you know, age 28 to 33 years or whatever, like at a reasonable price. So I get it. And I think part of the, I don't know, you can weigh in on this, but considering how they sort of swung and missed at, in free agency last year, I think, you know, I look at it like, man, that first, second could be potentially used to go and sign some young star to an offer sheet down the road for $8.5 million per year. that'd be enticing higher upside in Pajos,

but I think they're thinking, like, who are the UFAs we've signed recently? It's been Semionovar Lama, when we gave him more years than anyone was comfortable doing, Andrew Ladd, and we sort of know how that worked out. And beyond that, it's, you know, filling, yeah, Derek Brousard, Tom Koonakle. This guy's kind of at the end of the line.

It's very, it's very slim pick, and so I think for them, like, they viewed this as their one rare opportunity to go and add an impact player, and I don't mind it from that perspective. So I've kind of come around on it a little bit, you know, the results obviously haven't been there for the team. They still need more scoring, but it makes sense.

And I think the desperation was certainly there when Sizekis went out when it was like a lot of Derek Brassard and Leo Komer out down the middle. Yeah, and Sizekis, I think, is going to be skating this week. He'll be back at some point before the season ends. And then you'll, you know, that's the vision that they had was having one of the deepest center groups in the east. And really, with Sizekis there and Pajou and your bottom six, not only does it give them, it takes a lot of the heat off of Barzal and Brock.

Nelson. But I think it gives them a comfort level if you bring up a Wallstrom or a Bellows or a Simon Holmstrom because you're not throwing them on a third line that's a complete black hole where you're not going to have any chances. They're going to be playing with Pajot, who's a decent offensive player and also a very positionally responsible player. So maybe you get a little more freedom as a young person. You see that down the road and you say, okay, I get what they're getting at. But also, like I said, those guys can't miss. You can't, if you bring up Oliver Wallstrom, he's got to score 15 goals as a rookie or whatever because you don't have anything coming now beyond that.

And they were already pretty thin, especially in terms of their forward depth as prospects. And I, so I get, you want to be strong down the middle. You want to be strong on D. I think when they're healthy, they are strong on D. And they do have some, you know, they do have Bodie Wilde in the system. They have some things coming on D and they feel pretty secure there. And in net, if you feel like that Ilyosuriken is going to come over, that's still the feeling. then you've got a young goalie who's already had a ton of international success.

So you can see what Lou sees, but also right now, like you said, what you've given up right now and even also given up a second rounder in 2021 for Andy Green, who may or may not be back, but it's probably more of a six, seven type guy if you want to keep him. The moves that they're going to have to make to improve even next year, unless they really feel like some of their young wingers are ready to go, So there's going to be, it's going to be a year where you see if Lou LaMerello still has enough on his fastball, because they're already at 70 million in commitments for next year. If my friend and colleague James Myrtle is right, the NHL's rosy projections of 84 to 88 million dollar salary cap are way out of line. And it's going to be more like 82 and you still got to sign Barzal.

You've got to sign Taves. You've got to sign Pollock. Barzal's not going to be an easy one. Even if the other two get done, Ron Pollock is probably a guy you want to sign long. term to six or seven million dollars a year as a top pair guy. You run out of space quickly, so they're going to have to get creative on Andrew Ladd's contract. Maybe a guy like Nick Letty has to go with two years left, who could be a valuable guy. Leo Kamarov could be a buyout candidate with two years left. Matt Martin's a free agent. He's a beloved guy in the room.

So they're going to have to make some hard decisions this off season to get to that place that you can see where they feel they can get to. I'm interested that, I mean, I get where you're coming from because I could see them drawing a hard line. I think the Barzell negotiation is pretty easy. He sort of just hand him a blank check. Exactly. Ask him how much it's going to take. But I think the Islander is, he is an RFA. So in theory, and we know that teams probably will not be going out of their way to mess around with that. So they do have quite a bit of leverage. But at the same time, it's like, you give them what he wants, because you need to keep him there for the rest of his prime. Yeah. And I think,

you know, the idea for that is probably not too different than it was with Tavares. I mean, obviously, it wasn't successful. Tavares, very different situation being a UFA. but, you know, I think the way that we found out that Lou was coming in was that he'd had this private meeting with Tavares and I think laid out his vision for what the team could be. So I think it's got to be along the same lines with Barzell. He is your star. He's a much younger guy and I understand the way that that Lou and Barry like to treat their younger guys, but, but you have to make some capitulations to the age in which you're working. And it's an age of superstars. And I think after last summer, the RFA frenzy, you know, the fact that it's really

just going to be him and Pierre-Luc Dubois as kind of the marquee guys, maybe that draws less attention where other teams are like, I'm not going to be in there competing for an offer sheet for a guy that they're just going to match right away. And, you know, there's not the traffic to create some confusion. So I, yeah, I wonder what it's going to end up being. I wonder if Lou sort of gives in to the modern, negotiations and says, all right, we'll do the four year four times eight and a half or something and let you get right to the edge of unrestricted free agency because we can't worry about it now because we have all these contracts that have just started and maybe by then we'll be ready to,

you know, give you the big 12, 13, 14, whatever the maximum stuff is by then. So that as in light of the Pajot trade and extension, that that's sort of my feeling now is where Barzal side is probably headed that they want to focus. us in on that Mitch Marner sweet spot of taking you right up to the UFA with as much money as you can squeeze out of them instead of going longer term or to your bridge deal. And yeah, I think it's going to be a big, big number, and it's going to be something that makes lose job even harder in the offseason. Well, and you look at his usage this year. I mean, he's gone up from, you know, 5-15 last year. He was playing 1358 this year, 1612, which is really high for him. And 1755 overall to 20 minutes.

And especially lately, there's been games where it's like 23, 20. 24 minutes tonight. And I wonder how much of that is by design and how much of it is sort of necessity because of all the scoring goals we mentioned, but also the injuries where they feel less comfortable rolling all those lines. I wonder in an ideal world how much they'd actually want him playing. And, you know, there's certainly, I think, setting him up for success. We can quibble about the wingers that they've armed them with. And I'd still love for them to have more of a sort of natural shooter playing on his wing. But especially lately playing with that Berlin Lee. Like that line has been one of the sort of rare bright spots for them, especially territorially and just dominating a five-on-five. Yeah, and I think the kind of the freelancing mistakes that Barzal has been prone to in the last couple years in general trying to conform to the system have gone away with the confidence that Trots has shown in him. And in the chemistry he's got with these two guys, and it's considering the amount of time they spent on the offensive zone to see Lee still, you know, 20 goals kind of on pace for another

career low. Eberley at 15, he's come on pretty well of late. but this is, you know, this is your top line. These are the guys getting, getting major minutes. You need to have everybody operating at full capacity, and it's been, you know, it's got to be frustrating for Barzol. And I don't think, I think people try to read the tea leaves and wonder if he's so frustrated that he'll say, I'll take whatever offer sheet I can get.

If it's 17 million per from Arizona, I'll take it. Right. I don't, I don't think it's that level. But I think there's got to be a mandate. And I don't, you know, I'm sure nobody's going to demand anything of Louis. but I imagine that in the summer, they have to understand whatever they do. They've got to come out of it with a top six winger

that is a no-conscience shoot-first guy and put them right on Barzal's wing. I know the chemistry with Leonette really is good, but they have to have more depth. Yeah. But once again, it goes back to what I was saying. Like how many of those guys are there where they have that one-shot ability

while also being a player that Barry Trotz is going to feel comfortable with in his own zone playing 18. to 20 minutes. The list is pretty low and those guys get paid quite a bit. Right. I mean, I think the guy that I've mentioned the most is Mike Hoffman.

Just because of his age, you know, he's going to be 31 this year. Maybe that means you can cut the term down a little bit. You know, maybe he takes, he's willing to take a, you know,

a Thomas Vanek style three times six and a half, three times seven deal that at least is short enough that you can squeeze it in and figure some things out. Because that's the kind of guy I think that would thrive with Barrasell. You know, I think Wallstrom is kind of the guy they've seen down the road that they want. But, you know, the year that he's had,

I don't think we're staring at a guy who's going to turn the corner next year, maybe even the year after. I think he's still going to be more of a work in progress. So, and to make even six and a half million a year fit with this group, it's hard to see it right now. And, you know, I think people have the pipe dreams of Taylor Hall wanting to come play with his old buddy Jordan Everley.

But that's going to be, you know, That would mean you'd have to get rid of one of your core guys that's been signed up. And, you know, I think they value the chemistry quite a bit, and they've certainly talked about it a lot. So I don't know that they're ready to make such a huge tear down, especially among their top nine forwards. I think the goal is to, you know, I think people kind of say, well, Josh Bailey's expendable. Josh Bailey is it now that he's on the other side of 30 is your ideal third line guy. Like if he and Pajot play together for the next four or five years, that's on a good team.

That's what you're going for. So I think to be able to add someone is probably the goal just because you need to have the right order. They've got the right order down the middle when Zizekis comes back. Now they need to put some people in the right order on the wings. Yeah, I think getting rid of Bailey to add a shooter somewhere else is kind of like patching up one hole by creating another. It's like they need that playmaking. I understand. It can be a frustrating player.

But, okay, let's get into the trade line deadline. And we've talked about green. We've talked about Pajo. You alluded earlier to potentially getting rid of Andrew Ladd's contract and figuring that out. Do you have any behind the scene stuff about about sort of where they were at with the Parisé stuff? I've seen it talked about that, you know, this was something that was in the works, even dating back to last summer. You know, there was speculation that once it became public, Lou just pulled the plug on it. He was like, this is too mainstream for me.

I can't do this. I'm really fascinated. You know, I think most Islanders fans actually, despite the fact that, you know, they paid these exorbitant prices for green and Pajot in terms of draft capital. It represented like a firm direction, kind of like doubling down with this group. You can argue whether that's the right way to go or not. But at least it's like the worst place you can be in the NHL is in the middle, not sure if you're competing now or trying to play a long game for them.

It's like, let's just go all in with this group. And I don't know. I'm not sure of necessarily flipping Ladd for Porese's contract would be considered going all in because it's like a slight extra cap here. I think it's an extra 1.5 per year or whatever for a couple more years down the road. But it would be like adding a player in theory a top six shooter, which they could actually use. So it makes sense in practice. I think just the contract itself was like, oh my God, this team is really just not even doubling, like tripling down on this group.

Yeah. It would have been it would have been a short term. You know, I think of Islander fans as, as they're not a needy bunch, but I think they want to feel like, someone wants them. They want to feel loved, yeah. Yeah. So when they make the trade for Pajou, they're willing to overlook the cost to say, like, this guy wanted to sign for six years with us?

That's awesome. Like, somebody wants to be a part of this organization. That's great. And I think when word comes out that Porese very much wants to be reunited with Lulamarillo and be part of his organization, again, it feels like, well, this guy's played a thousand games. He's a successful player. Overlooking the fact that in the short term, it probably would have helped them quite a bit.

you know, Zach Prys, he's having a good, a good year for a 35-year-old guy who's had his injury history. But, yeah, beyond this year,

you know, when you start to talk about, will they revisit it in the summer? My question is, why? Because in the summer, you've got a whole range of time and options,

and maybe they'll exhaust them all and come back, and land back on, we're going to get this guy because he's a useful piece for us versus Andrew Latt, who we don't feel is a useful piece, and we'll make it work

with the extra year and the extra couple million on the cap. But, you know, the fact that they've taken away all the potential sweeteners in terms of draft picks the next couple years to get Minnesota to pay even a quarter of that cap hit, I can't imagine that they'd even be willing to pay 50% unless they were going to give up something enormous to going back the other way. It's hard to see it being a benefit from the start of the year. I feel like that's one where you get the adrenaline pumping at the deadline and you're

like, this is going to be something. something that's going to help us compete, score goals, be a better team on the power play, have a guy who's a high character guy who wants to be part of our organization, and we'll worry about the rest later. That was Lou Lamarillo 15 years ago, and I don't think you can afford to do that as much anymore, particularly after you make the Pajot trade. And I don't have any insight whether they were going to give that first rounder to Minnesota to make this deal work, which would have been completely insane. Yeah. But kind of exciting at the same time, I can see your eyes. light up like, oh my God, that would have been amazing.

But I think in general, you know, Elliot Friedman, a reporter that the Islanders had inquired on Miko Kovu. I don't know what that deal would have been. Maybe they inquired no, right? Right. And they inquired on Joe Thornton, which, I don't know, who said no on that? Do Islanders know that there are players under 35 years old? They're like on cap-friendly sorting by age 35 plus. There is a decent size segment of the fan base that enjoys the nostalgia factor. and we've seen John Tenelli's number go to the rafters and Butch Gorring's numbers

go to the rafter. So the dynasty nostalgia still feels kind of strong at times. And that's where a lot of the long-time fans come from because of the misery from about 1993 to maybe 2012. You're not generating a ton of fans that way. But yeah, so some of these older players are very much on people's minds. However, in the summer, I would think that even a Mike Hoffman, if you can make that contract work, is probably a better.

option than then juggling some roster pieces around to make this trade. I don't think they feel like Andrew Ladd is going to be a viable player for them. His contract is completely buyout proof. They gain nothing other than being rid of him if they buy him out. So I imagine that they do want not only selfishly they want the cap to go up, but they want the cap to go up as much as possible because there will be a couple of teams. Otto is probably one that's going to need to make some cap commitments. I think Johnny Boychuk is another guy who's due very low.

little cash but has six million cap hit the next couple years. So I'm sure that they're hopeful that the cap does go up a lot so that they can not only have room to sign their guys, but also shed some of these other commitments that they really need to get rid of. Yeah, I mean, the tough thing is he's got, I think, three years after this one. So getting a team to basically acknowledge that they're not going to be, there's no chance that they're going to be a cap team for three years down to road. It is really tough. We saw what like the back-sus contract was just as onerous. When there's one year left, there's like 10 teams out there that'll take it on. The other thing that's, I mean, it's such a complicated trade that I think, you know,

I was just thinking about the ramifications of it. You know, Lad, as you mentioned, the bio-proof nature of it. I think he's got like 12 million left in terms of signing bonuses down the road, whereas Perese pretty much like, he's actually getting paid $4 million in real dollars for the final three years of that deal. But for Minnesota's perspective, I mean, we just saw what happened with the Canucks and Roberto Longo where they're stuck now with. this recapture penalty on their books because either Dale Talon didn't want to trade

Luongel back to them so they could like do LTIR shenanigans or whatever happened there. I think from Minnesota's perspective, like they're the ones inheriting all this risk with Prezy Retires, right? So for them to trade that contract for salary cap relief right now, Lee has this potential of backfiring where if they don't control that asset anymore and sort of how they handle the retirement down the road because he's not going to be playing three years from now and he's making $1 million. I'm so fascinated to see what happens if they can sort of justify that risk.

And what the league does? Because what is it? It's like a $19 million penalty or something in that final season. Like I think the Minnesota while will literally not be able to be camp compliant at that point if they have to keep that. So like I don't know what the league is going to do there. They might have to revisit that. But there's so many moving parts there beyond just improving their roster with a better player

at the same position. Yeah, and I think seeing how Minnesota's kind of made a charge, and Paris has been involved quite a bit. He's a 25 goals this year. He's still a viable player. So I wonder if that's going to change his mind when we get to the summer. Also in the summer, if Lou was thinking about we need to just shed salary, maybe that's, you know, Nick Lettie's a Minnesota guy. Maybe that's a place they send him because he's a much more useful piece for a team that acquires him than Andrew Ladd is. So yeah, so I think maybe it opens up some more creative options on the Islanders end.

I'm just curious when you utilize all of your creative options in one trade and end up with a 36-year-old guy who's got four years left on his deal at 7.5, have you done the most that you can do to make your team better? Yeah, that's a loaded question. It's a loaded question. Yeah, I don't know what else there is necessarily to talk about this team. I mean, the results haven't been there. They still need the goal score. I mean, you said the stat earlier. I think they're 10 to 13 and 6 in 2020, 2, 7, and 3 in their last 12.

They have 22 goals in their last 12 games. You know, it's the same old problem. The statistical profile is pretty similar to what it was last year. I think the goaltending hasn't been as good, and they're like slightly worse at everything, which I think can be explained by the injuries and how they've had to patch things up. But, yeah, I mean, they're still right there with like Columbus and Arizona, I think, in Dallas is like the best defensive team. So I think they're going to get Sazikas back.

Yeah. It's going to be huge. You know, they're not going to get Pellick back and I think that's a problem for them. But I don't know. Is there any other sort of storylines or things with this team that are kind of on the radar right now? No, you know, it's, it's, like I said, when you kind of lay it out the way that the islanders envision it with Serochin. And, you know, like I said, from everything I've heard, he's not going to make it over in time to burn the entry-level contract this year because his, Red Army team in Moscow is, you know, I think he just had two shutouts and two assists in a

sweep in the first round. So he's not due for a little while. But if that's your goalie tandem starting next year going forward for a couple of years. And Sorokin, you know, they see what happened across town with Igor Shisterkin, which who was kind of the Shasturkin and Syracan are kind of the 1A, 1B guys in the Russian system in the KHL. And Shastirkin has completely revitalized what the Rangers are doing. They, you know, they're getting rid of their Hall of Fame franchise goalie now to make this guy the number one. So I think the Islanders maybe think like, all right, if we bring our guy over, we've got one of the best goalie coaches around.

I think it might work for us. So if you have that in mind, and I think, you know, maybe the story of this season is how underrated Adam Pelick is. That he was such an integral part of what they did, such a steady guy who had grown from a guy who was a healthy scratch at the beginning of last season. and criminally underpaid at 1.6 for another year and then still an RFA at the end of that. It's an interesting dynamic that they have on D

and I think it's still credit to Barry for keeping essentially the same group of defensemen that Doug Wade had and couldn't stop a beach ball in their own end to this group now that's starting to fray a little bit. Like I said, they're not winning it. I think in this two, seven and three stretch they've given up nine goals that were either

net front deflections, rebounds, screens. They're not protecting the house as well as they did last year. But it's still a very impressive group. And I think Devon Taves, he mentioned earlier as a potential second pair partner with Noah Dobson, is a guy who is probably not, of the three RFAs they have, he's going to be probably the simplest one because he's not a big name. But he's a guy at age 26, who I think is grown into a pretty decent role and a pretty decent player back there. I think their top four on D is set for a long time with Pelican Pollock and Taves and Dobson, and even Scott Mayfield, who's pretty underpaid and can kind of spot in and out there.

It's still a pretty sturdy group. I mean, I think they can at least feel like they've solved some problems over the last couple of years and that they're focused very much on improving their forward group, especially on the wings, but they do need a lot of improvement there. Yeah, Taves Pro Bowls is the type of player where you want to sign him to more years just because I feel like, you know, because of his usage and everything and sort of how little time he spent in the league so far relative to his age, like the stuff players typically get paid for, which is offensive counting stats and box car stats, aren't

completely there yet. So you can get him at a bit of a discount. Whereas if you're having to revisit this two or three years down the road, it could be a completely different sort of salary ballroom. Right. Yeah. And I think when they start to think about how are we going to change and evolve to go from being a team that just grinds it out to being a team that, that, that, that, you know, that,

can open it up a little bit more. I think anybody who watches an Islander game can see that this is a guy who's going to be the one leading that charge because he's got such good skating ability. He's got good offensive instincts. He's going to be probably their top power play guy on the point for a long time as more of a distributor, not really a big shooter. But yeah, I think, you know, credit to Garth Snow for digging him out in the fourth round several years ago, which is also the same round, I think a year later that they got Ilyosarokin.

So we give a little... What's Garth up to him? Still on Long Island. I think he's doing some youth hockey coaching. Still being paid handsomely by the Islanders. But yeah, it's funny to think back to a couple years ago when Bill Wards were going up and he's got to go and fans were at their complete boiling point. And now we're a couple of years later with some modest success last season. The fans are still at their boiling point.

And we feel like it feels online like we're back to the boiling point spot because I think the expectations were raised so much when last year. Yeah, it's funny. So my editor at ESPN last spring had me rank the 16 playoff teams in terms of defense position groups, forward position groups, goaltending. And I made the mistake of putting the Islanders at 16 not because. You did it on purpose. We can.

You love, you love the, you love to endorse. I love to be, I love to be yelled out online and called names, of course. But also it was really funny because like the whole premise was just individual talent. And so, for example, I had like Pittsburgh ahead of them because I was like, Chris LaTang is a more dynamic player than any defenseman that owners have. And people are like, look at their goals against. Like, how do you know how much of that is, you know, trots, the system, the goaltending and the players themselves, but like fitting all of that together. It's so much goes into it. And this entire discussion of, you know, we're going to get much more info on this when the tracking data becomes available and we know how to utilize it and weaponize it.

But sort of quantifying defense and figuring out how this work. because clearly, you know, the islanders make a point of we don't care about shot attempts. We care about where they're coming from and pushing everything outside and kind of keeping the middle of the ice open or clogged in this case with their defensemen. And sort of how much of that is like coaching impact versus the players themselves. I think you having covered the 2017-18-Ilanders versus the 2018-19 and 2019-20, islanders, you can probably attest to the fact that relatively similar personnel's wildly different results. so probably coaching is there, but how many coaches other than, you know, trots and maybe Tortorella and a few others have that type of impact? Like, there's so many things to bake into

team defense. Yeah, and I think the messaging is important too. You know, Doug Waite had a very capable coaching staff, a lot of experienced guys. I mean, Luke Richardson is doing a good job with Montreal. I don't think he's forgotten how to coach. Same with Kelly Bookberger, who's now back in the Western League, but these were not inexperienced guys. Doug was not an inexperienced assistant. I think the messaging was just harder for that group. And I think that, you know,

in hindsight, the tension of the Tavares situation really push things to a breaking point quickly when they started to lose a little bit. That there was, you know, he tries to always maintain that very rock solid image, but I think he was struggling a bit. And I think it translated into some of his play

during the kind of the two-month stretch where they really fell off. Cliff. So I think, yeah, the messaging definitely helps now. Barry is as good a people person as, you know, as any NHL coach. I think he develops good bonds with his players and with his fellow coaches. There's a very streamlined message. So it does help.

But I think something that even goes back to, you know, when Jack Capuano had this team kind of pointed in the right direction in 1415 and 1516. And they were kind of ahead of the curve on play. playing a very up-tempo wave after wave after wave style. We're going to hound you and hound you and turn pucks over. And they were playing kind of that up speed, high-speed game. To be able to sustain any style like that for a couple of years,

it takes a lot of luck. You have to be healthy. You have to keep the same personnel. You have to keep that personnel has to keep the same mindset. And I think when you see, whether it's a Zizicus or a cal clutter, or even a Johnny Boychuk, whose play is definitely reflective of his age. And I think his minutes have been reduced accordingly before his injury. But I think when those guys who are the ones that are kind of setting the example,

you know, I think, you know, crazy as it sounds, Val Filpola, who had one of the all-time luckiest shooting years last year, I think losing a guy who's just as consistent a pro as that guy is to a team that needs some examples around it or needed some examples around it. It's just, you know, you kind of, there's small incremental losses, but they're hard ones to absorb. And I think, you know, when you see the way that they play now in terms of their forecheck, you miss a guy like Cizekis, you want him racing around in the offensive zone with a stick in a good position.

And I think the message doesn't change, but it maybe is received a little differently when the guys that are the most receptive to it aren't there. Yeah. Yeah, it is, I mean, the actual defensive results there are similar to the goaltoning isn't as good. But, like, just watching, I remember, like, I picked the penguins to win that. round one series. So did everybody. And just watching like literally after like the first game, I was like, oh my God,

like this defense cannot leave their zone with possession of the puck. It was like it was pretty much that. Like the entire game was played on one half of the ice and it would just flip after each intermission. But it was like, the honors just dump it in, just grind the crap out of them, get the puck back, do it all over again. And eventually if you're doing that, the puck's going to bounce to a spot where a guy can put it into the net.

And we haven't seen nearly enough of that recently. And I think part of that is what you're talking about. in terms of just that sort of sustainability of not. As soon as you remove one piece, no matter how sort of inconsequential, it may seem to a casual observer at home. It is kind of like a foundational jingo piece where all of a sudden the stack just comes crashing down.

Especially when you're not dealing with a top six that's super high end. Right. And you can't just sort of, you can't paper over the losses or the mistakes. And especially with how this team, and I do commend that. Like I think generally people think about the Islanders as, you know,

under a loo and even under trots like this like kind of throwback defensive team um you know not necessarily very modern but like i've actually i really like the way they deploy their forwards and and even their defensemen just the usage in terms of like they clearly have an idea of which players they want to get out there when they're attacking and which players make that possible for them and when you remove the players to make it possible all of a sudden everyone's having to do something that maybe their skill set isn't suited for sure yeah and i and now i think the best example is seeing Derek Prasard between Matt Martin and Cal Clodderbuck. I don't think that's what Derek Broussard signed on for.

You know, he's had to change his game a little bit, but he's, you know, I think if you look at his most frequent partners when he's been at center and really his best stretch has been as a wing, it's not an impressive group. And that's, you know, you're not going to be able to produce that way. I think he's a guy whose production is very tied to his confidence, like a lot of players, even at his age. So it's, yeah, it just, you know, it's sort of bit by bit wears you down as the schedule goes along. All right, Art.

Well, let's get out of here. This is where I'm going to let you plug some stuff. I know you've got a podcast of your own now, so I'm going to let you talk about that a little bit and where people can check out your work and what they can expect from you down the stretch here with like less than 20 games left. I know. Well, I'm at The Athletic. On Twitter at Stape Athletic. You can follow me for all of my Islanders and terrible music recommendations. and our podcast in its first year called No Sleep Till Belmont,

which you can get on Apple and Spotify and everywhere where you could find this fine podcast, which is much more established and streamlined than ours, but it's myself and former NHL or Mark Parrish, and we chop up all the Islanders topics twice a week, so it's been fun so far. Nice. Well, this is a blast. I'm glad we got to do this.

This is the end of our fifth episode. Hopefully we have at least five more down the road. I'm looking forward to it, and yeah, we'll chat soon. Thanks, Dimitri. Anytime. Cheers. we get out of here, I just wanted to do a couple, uh, quick little housekeeping notes. First off, I wanted to thank everyone for listening to the show as always. It's crazy to think that we are approaching episode 350 here and we'll blow past it, um, during the post season at some point. I, uh, yeah,

it's just, it's just surreal. I'm, I'm really, uh, thankful for everyone who listens to the show, makes this possible. Um, and hopefully you enjoy this conversation with Art Staples and, and, and all the stuff down the road. Um, you know, we are going to do, another mailbag episode at some point here down the road. So if you have any questions, and I know that usually, especially if you want to provide context or really get into a topic,

maybe Twitter's in the best format for that. So you can feel free to email me at at demetri. dot philipovic at gmail.com or at hockeypediocast at gmail.com and kind of feel free to get into it there and we're going to try to answer it and have some more fun with these shows. I've got some cool guests lined up.

I'm really, you know, There's a couple more shows here where we're going to talk about some of storylines. We're interested in down the stretch and highlighting individual teams. I've got Patrick Johnson coming on next week, I think, and we're going to talk about the Canucks and the rumors of Mike Gillis interviewing with the devils and how covering a team closely with all the coronavirus concerns and everything changing the media

landscape is. So, you know, I'm looking forward to all that, but I'm really looking forward to the postseason where we're going to be able to just kind of get into the nitty gritty of each individual matchup and really deep dive them. And then that's, you know, especially round one is clearly the most fun part of the season. So look forward to all that. In the meantime, please, you can help the show out by going in a rating and reviewing the show. Leave us a five-star review. Hopefully, you know, you genuinely mean it and you enjoy it.

And if you can leave, you know, some sort of comment, whether it's an Instagram, that joke or genuinely how the podcast, you know, how you consume it, what you enjoy, all that. I really love seeing all those and appreciate them. It goes a long way to words helping the show and helping kind of keep the lights on in this operation and keeping things going. So go rate review. If you're listening to this, you're probably already subscribed, but maybe go share the show with someone who you think isn't listening but might enjoy it.

And yeah, so we'll be back next week with a couple of shows, I think. as we gear towards this stretch run in the postseason. So thanks for listening. We're going to play the outro music now, and you're going to be hearing from me soon. The Hockey P.DOCAST with Dmitri Filippovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedocast.