The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 357: Jets vs. Predators 2018 Rewatch

Episode Date: May 29, 2020

Murat Ates joins the show to discuss the heavyweight tilt between the number one seed Nashville Predators and number two seed Winnipeg Jets in the 2018 postseason, how the wild back-and-forth nature of Game 3 perfectly captured what made the entire series so special, and how much both teams have changed in such a short period of time since. The categories we cover include:3:00 What made this series so entertaining7:00 How overqualified this was for a Round 2 matchup14:00 What aged the best21:00 Patrik Laine's shooting percentage and passing36:00 Connor Hellebuyck's follow-up act39:00 What aged the worst45:00 Roster turnover in a salary cap world57:00 Nik Ehlers' value and redemption1:02:00 The Turning Point and Most Rewatchable Moment1:09:00 The Biggest Heat Check Performance1:12:00 The Biggest 'That Guy'1:20:00 Doc and Eddie's Commentary Corner1:20:00 Most Unanswerable Questions1:37:00 Apex Mountain1:43:00 Who won the gameStay safe, get comfortable at home, kick back with a beverage of your choice, and watch along with us. The full game isn’t available on Youtube unfortunately, but you can still see the broadcast in its entirety on NHL TV. You can also go back into the archives of the show and catch up on the previous Quarantine Rewatchables we’ve already done: Penguins vs. Red Wings 2009 Bruins vs. Maple Leafs 2013 Canucks vs. Blackhawks 2011 Flyers vs. Penguins 2012 Capitals vs. Canadiens 2010 World Cup of Hockey 2016 Oilers vs. Ducks 2017 Blue Jackets vs. Lightning 2019 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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And joining me today for another episode of the quarantine PDOCast rewatchables is my good buddy, Maratitech. I'm Matt, what's going on, man? Hey, just hanging out in Winnipeg. How are you? Good. I'm excited. This is a fun one.

When I started this series, this was one that I definitely was on my initial list of games that I knew I wanted to cover. We're doing Preds Jets, 2018, and we chose to do game three because I just think it was the best from a storytelling, kind of wackiness back and forth perspective. I think this game really captured the sort of roller coaster, high event nature of this series in general, probably more so than any other game. Although it's a testament to how entertaining a series this was that there was legitimate thought given to a couple other options just because, I mean, there's so many, so many good games to choose from in this individual series. Yeah, I mean, in a series where there's a game seven and it's back and forth the whole way through the series. And it's the one that everybody wanted, right?

in that regular season, Nashville was a juggernaut, Winnipeg was on the rise, we wanted this series for so long, then you get into the, you get into the thick of it. It goes seven, but there's one, and I agree with you. I'm glad you chose this one. This is the one of all of them that it's just the memories have stuck the clearest, and I think it's the one that most fans relate to, too. I think the game seven, it's funny you mentioned that, is probably the one blemish on the resume of this series being considered like an all-time class.

because the first six leading up to it, no team wins back-to-back games. They're just trading punches. Both goalies at times look amazing. And then at other times you're like, oh my God, are they even going to make it through this series? And by the time we get to game seven, it feels like a balloon just gets deflated

because Pecorane just gives up these two absolutely horrendous goals. And Peter Labielat gives him the hook. And it was actually 2-1 for a while there. So it certainly wasn't devoid of drama because the Predators were technically one goal away from getting back to a tie game again. But it really just did feel like it sucked a lot of the entertainment value out of it when you were just like, oh man, like here we go again. Poor Picker-Rene, especially in the grand scheme of things of him winning the Vesna this year

and it being this kind of Cinderella redemption story for a goalie that had looked like his best years were behind him for whatever two, three, four years leading up to this one. Yeah, what a way to go out. And I remember that was the first time, actually right before game seven was my first time joining you on the PDO cast. We set it up. We were talking about how intense it was, how both teams were going 100 miles an hour through the neutral zone, both offensively and defensively, everything was there. But I'm with you. Yeah, game seven, those goals go in on Rene.

And there's this emotional sense, even within a goal for a long stretch, just like you said, that this isn't a comeback. This isn't one of those games. And you have that sensation the entire way through, whereas game three and so many of the rest, you know that anything could happen at any given moment. I mean, rewatching this game, it's not necessarily, it doesn't depend into any in our category. So I think it's just a good sort of intro topic. But what made these two teams so stylistically pleasant as kind of like these perfect foils for each other? Because we saw it throughout this regular season as well in 2017-18, where they were playing these high-scoring back and forth, exciting games. games and that's why we're all so fired up heading into the series because we'd already seen

these two teams go at it and so heading into it it really lived up to the building through those first six games and maybe it's just both were really like good well-rounded teams and when you get that type of a meeting you're going to lead to exciting games or was it something in particular between like the jets having these two awesome score lines and the predators having two top defensive pairings like what was it about the sort of the meshing of these two rosters and that made these games so exciting. Well, in terms of just stakes, every time that they played each other,

you had the National Predators who had a tremendous amount of success for a few years. I would say that they were the class of the Western Conference in a lot of ways. And then as the Jets are on the way up, that's their underdog year in a way. Nobody predicted that they would go as far as they did.

Everybody kind of knew, or at least I like to think everybody knew that they'd be pretty good. I was calling a playoff spot and I was confident on certain things. but the degree to which that they hit that level. And you know what? I think that one of the reasons why the series had stakes and why these two teams,

whenever they played against each other, things went off, is they're partly carbon copies of each other at five on five. Nashville pioneered that, well, the defenseman is going to pinch every time. We're basically playing four forwards, one defense in the offensive zone at five on five, and they do that with speed because they have forwards coming back. Jets basically went to the drawing board the season or the summer before and said, how are we going to meet the best practices league wide? And they have essentially emulated that same system.

And now you've got, you know, you're unleashing Bufflin and Truba and Toby Anstrom, even, he's one of the most aggressive fourth forwards in the series as well. And when you have that level of speed at both ends of the ice through the neutral zone as well, it sets the stage for quality hockey. I don't want to turn this into too much of a rant, but the next stage to that, and I want to know what you think about this, though, is that it's filled with characters in this series.

Like Dustin Bufflin's dance moves, P.K. Sub-Suban celebrations, the intensity of Blake Wheeler, the thousand-mile-an-hour greyhound chasing a ball, Brandon Tanev of the various amounts of five-on-five efficiency that you'll get from him. Goleys at both ends. there was just so much in terms of unique characters on the ice as well.

Yeah, and it felt like this postseason was the start of like CBC was really dialing in on that storyline of Connor Hallibuck just staring down the cameras in the locker room before the game. And yeah, I mean, the legacy of this game, it was the number one versus the number two team in the league and not just the Western Conference, literally in the entire league. And I remember feeling heading into it that this may as well have been the Western Conference final that these were the two best teams in the west that this was way overqualified for a round two matchup which is hilarious in hindsight because obviously Vegas swoops in the western conventon's final and beats a jet's team that you could argue deserve better but also maybe we're

just kind of a bit burnt out from this emotionally and physically exhausting seven game barn burner versus the predators but rewatching this game three in particular that held up really well that feeling of this being so overqualified for this stage and it just felt like with each passing goal like it felt so much bigger than just the round two matchup i don't know in the moment it felt that way as well right yeah 100% it did i'm with you like one of my notes and this is something i would have written at the time it's one of the things that uh i would have written months before i wanted that series 100% i did because of how good the hockey was and for me it was essentially the western conference finals as well because of how good those two teams were um

I actually asked Jacob Truba about a week ago. I got him on the phone and I was talking about bits of this game. So just perfect timing on your part, I should say. And I asked him if the series had been played in a different order. Because he was going on about, yeah, they were absolutely exhausted. They didn't know how hard they could work. They didn't know how hard they could hurt. They were burnt out by the end of this series against Nashville that he felt gassed against Vegas.

And as much as Winnipeg carried the flow of play at five on five, there were moments of mistakes where you could kind of attribute it to fatigue if you wanted to. So I asked them, if you played those series in a different order, would you have made it to the Stanley Cup finals? And he took a long pause and I was hoping that this was the, I wanted him to say yes very badly. But in the end he said, you know what, I can't what if. We can't what if. The diplomatic response. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's impossible to say, and we shouldn't take away from what that Vegas team accomplished that year because they were playing some incredible hockey themselves.

So it's kind of a, you know, a big what if. But on the one hand, like I think part of what did make this series so special was heading in for the most part, both teams like Nashville had gotten a bit of a scare from this kind of like young feisty Colorado team in round one. The Jets lost that game in game three against Minnesota, where Connor hell about got pulled. But for the most part, didn't have two. much trouble with the wild in their opening round matchup. And so both teams enter this series pretty fresh, as fresh as you're going to be, with no sort of real injuries to any of their key contributors. And so that led to the high quality of hockey. But at the same time, you're right, it does feel a bit disappointing that it was at round two as opposed to a Western Conference

final or even a Stanley Cup final. But this leads me back to, and this is very topical, because right now, you know, this week we learned about the return to play format. you know, the, what's going to happen with the play-ins and then the league trying to make, you know, whatever it can out of this crazy situation we're in. And people will argue about the asterisk or the viability or, you know, fairness to teams. And in my argument is, I don't think the NHL playoffs have ever really been about accurately determining who the best team is. I think they're mostly about entertainment value and drama and excitement.

And we're going to get that with this format. that it's never been about, oh, the best, like the best team rarely ever actually wins the Stanley Cup because there's so much luck and goal tending and injuries. And so this is a perfect example of that with a series where you could argue these were the two best teams in the league that year and one of them was out after round two and the other one was decimated by the time it got to the conference final. And there's not very much justice in that either. Yeah, I'm with you on that.

I love the idea that the playoffs exist and are long. are grueling and the Stanley Cup, I would say, you know, the narrative of it being the hardest trophy to win. Well, you see what these guys go through and the amount of punishment they put themselves through, absolutely. So, you know, are you necessarily getting the literal best team at the end in terms of, you know, the quality of the roster? No, not always because, you know, because of each series, I mean, 6040 Calgary versus Edmonton or whatever, or Calgary versus Winnipeg, whatever it's going to be coming up, I mean, that's close to a coin flip in reality terms or what have you. You do that a whole bunch of times. Any team can win in the end,

but to get it done, they have to go through so much. And that is drama and that is storytelling. And in terms of their individual experiences, it takes pain and blood and sweat and all of those things that get romanticized by the non-mathematical crowd. And I think that it's important that we maintain that, personally. I think that the drama of that, that, them going 100 miles an hour against each other like Nashville and Winnipeg did is important. And I think it's important to try to continue to, I don't want to say glorify that, but to respect it at the same time as recognizing, well, no, mathematically, it's not necessarily going to be the best team.

Yes. Yeah. Well, mathematically, you wouldn't throw out 82 games worth of dominance for a four to seven game sprint, but there's not too much entertainment value, I guess, in looking at it that way. So let's kind of set the scene for how we got to this game three. I talked about what these two teams went through in the round one matchups. In game one, it's funny because Connor Helberg got pulled in game three against the wild, and then he pitched shutouts in games four and five of that series.

And then in game one of this series, he stops 47 to 48 shots. And so he's basically going on the biggest bender you can go on as a goalie, where he's just stopping every single living thing. And you're thinking, oh, my God, the Predators are basically just run into a brick wall. and then you get into game two and it's this real fun back and forth higher scoring game where the Predators win in an overtime with Kevin Fiala

and so we enter this game three it's 1-1 you really don't know what to expect and I guess that that's a good sort of a pivot for us here to get into categories and go with what age the best so re-watching this game and it's not available on YouTube

unfortunately in its entirety you can only watch an extended highlight pack but I think most hockey fans probably have some version of NHL TV or center ice or whatever and you can go watch the broadcast in its entirety there like marat and i did let's get into categories what age the best for you rewatching this game it's the toughest road game in hockey you play the jets you play their fans 15 000 321 of them and they all know each other welcome to winnipeg canada's hockey home goaltenders helibuck and rene referees are brad watson and francis charon it's game

Three, Winnipeg and Nashville. Well, you have to understand that I'm comparing it to the Winnipeg Jets that I've just watched for the majority of the season. And so what age of the best for me is up-ice pressure and high-speed attack and the idea that every time that the puck's turned over in the offensive zone, you're going to go and try to get it back as aggressively as you possibly can. And like I say, whether that's Dustin Bufflin pinching up the wall, whether it's Toby Endstrom pinching into the high slot to create a four-four forward one defenseman situation at five on five, Jacob Truba, Josh Morrissey, they're built for that. Even Ben Shrott and Tyler Myers on the bottom pair for game three are built for that. So Winnipeg is playing this swarming, and I keep saying 4F1D situation, but it's just they're

willing to commit in a way that the current jets don't because perhaps of the talent deficit on the back end, but because they're able to commit hard with speed, with talent, with guys that are making reads reasonably well, nine times out of ten, you suddenly have options. And every puck carrier, they've got a shot, they've got a couple of passing options, they've got puck support,

and the more options you have and the faster you can process them, the better the quality of offense is, the more danger that you can do in explaining defenses. Winnipeg doesn't do that anymore. So when you talk about what age is the best, I simply miss that up-ice, high-octane brand of hockey.

Yeah, how many times in this game do you see a Jets defenseman, like at the side of the Predators net. I mean, the Jacob Trubba goal, it's four on four, but he's like in a terrible defensive position. If the puck goes the other way, he's basically trapped. Dustin Bufflin has a couple times where, I mean, he scores two goals from kind of the point in a more traditional defensive setup here.

But he has a couple chances in the third period where he's by the side of the net doing these like in tight back hands and really just kind of rolling around and not even playing a traditional defensive role, but more so being that sort of fourth forward on the ice. And I guess part of it is his personal thing. If you have a higher caliber, overqualified guy who's actually legitimately skilled, the risk reward makes sense because if you get that opportunity, he'll actually be able to capitalize where if you have a sort of fringe third pairing, A.L defenseman, it doesn't maybe make too much sense to be like, yeah, just go freewheel out there, freelance, go around the net and we'll

see what happens because chances are they'll score much less often than, you know, the chances you'll give up going the other way if they're trapped. So I guess the Palm Race's hands are a bit tied, but it is fascinating to see what this incarnation of the Winnipeg Jets looks like compared to the one we've seen most recently, as you pointed out. Yeah, and I mean, along the lines of that, it's so easy to miss Dustin Buffen and the impact that he has on games. But when you watch game three, there are moments like you say where, you know, he freewheels. He's a rover.

He's a rambler. And there are moments where he just decides to take things over. He'll chip and chase for himself and crash through two guys. And the Nashville Predators don't want to be the first one to the puck on the boards because they know what's coming if they do or like you say a common site would be as sort of one-handed wraparound as well and i mean you're not going to tell um you know Tucker poolman to play the same way you're not going to tell uh you know any of the the current winnipeg jets to be dust in balkland because you can't and and uh the jess are overpowered at most positions throughout

the lineup especially up front as soon as paul stasney arrives as well so there's some things you can do just like you say um when everybody's slightly overqualified for their job that you simply can't get away with otherwise. Yeah, I think it ties into that what you're saying, but what is the best for me was the pace of this game, the way it was played. It was exactly how I remembered. It was so back and forward.

It felt like, you know, when you get into some of these playoff games, especially as years past, you kind of glorify the drama or the excitement or like sitting on the edge of your seat because maybe you know the result was tense, but you actually go back and rewatch it and doing these rewatchables.

I've noticed that where you go back and watch a game from eight years ago and you're like, oh, I could basically skim through this entire period and not much really happens. I could just go towards the end of the game. And this one, it felt like you really were on the edge of your seat because if you went to the washroom during play, you were probably going to miss some sort of a scoring chance or big hit or a goal. And so that age the best for me, the entertainment value of really not taking any shifts for granted or not really being able to skip through any of it because the entire quality of play was so amazing throughout. Yeah, there are no bathroom break lines or pairings or or matchups in in this series

whatsoever. I'm 100% agree with you on that. I got another one here. Waiting for Kevin Fiala to put it all together. He was one of those like tantalizing young players for me where I felt like every September whatever site I was writing at matter. It would be like, oh, let's do a you know, breakout candidates list or something this year. I'd be like Kevin Fiala. I love it. his talent. He skates so fast. He's very talented. You can watch these highlight reels of him looking amazing. And he never really fully put it together. He'd show flashes. I mean, he scores a brilliant game two overtime goal in this series. He scored 20-something goals for the Predators and sort of limited usage this regular season. But, you know, heading into this play-in series that the Wilder

going to play against Vancouver, like he's going to be Minnesota's top player because in their final 20 games, he had 14 goals, 27 points. Like he was driving this. their entire team's offense. And it's funny because it feels like it was forever that we were waiting for Kevin Fiala to put it together. But then you look and realize that he's only 23 years old at this point. And it kind of reminds you of how quick we can beat a judge or write off players because we've been so, like we've just become accustomed to these 18, 19 year olds coming into

the league and just dominating right away in the league trending towards younger players. But then there are guys like Fiala that take a couple years to actually come into their own. And so just rewatching this, it took me back to those days of sort of waiting for Kevin Fiala to be a star. And then we look at where we are in the present day and it's arrived. Like Kevin Fiala is a stunt. Yeah, it's wild to think that because we get trained with aging curves and what have you. And we know what the overall trend is. But, you know, in an individual human beings case, I mean, the difference between 21 and a half and 23 is almost, you know, it's nothing pending the amount of opportunity that you get.

But one guy who sort of fits that role in a lesser degree, let's be clear for me in that case is Jack Roslovick, who you see in game three as a fourth line forward. He spends his first two seasons in the NHL, averaging eight or nine minutes per game, giving up minutes to Matt Hendricks, who he's much faster and more talented then. But because of NHL realities, he's not stealing minutes from somebody like that. Well, we're still at the point. Now, Jack Roslavik is 23. where heading into next season, you might finally see him break free of those low minute total. So we're finally going to, whether his fault or not,

get the sense of who the first step of the real NHL Jack Rausopic is. And does he go off like Kevin Fiala just did? No, he's not going to do that, but can he take a major leap? Well, here we are. And those are the sorts of things that you look for. And you look for seeds of stuff like that in these epics like Nashville, Winnipeg. What did you think of Patrick Lines? and nick eilers who at this time were coming off major regular seasons but were a bit snake

bitten throughout that that series i've got both guys in uh for various reasons in what age the worst so it's it's looking ahead a little bit now not that either guy aged the worst for me it's it's patrick glaney's shooting percentage that age the worst um and i remember when you and i did that podcast that you were alluding to previewing this game seven that was a big point of discussion at the time and even when you rewatch this game the commentators are sort of sort of tiptoeing around and they're talking about how close he's getting

to breaking through. He hits the post. Like he has a couple, I think he scores a goal in the series. Maybe it's even in the game seven where he shoots it off of Paul Stazney and it goes into the net, but he doesn't get credit for the goal.

And so it's like this tantalizing dance where you're like, he's getting so close. He's shooting the puck a ton. He's hitting the post. He's banking it off people, but he's not getting the credit for it. And this was also a trendy topic

at the time of what's a sustainable shooting percentage? for a shooting talent like Patrick Line, you see that release, you see when it goes off the bar and in, you're like, man, this guy's one of the best shooters we've ever seen, but it's come back down to much more of a sort of regular NHL level where he's at 12 to 13% now, as opposed to the 18% he was at this point in time. And so for me, that age, the worst kind of just, like,

now that we've had these two years of Patrick Line becoming more of a mere mortal as a shooter, and maybe it's an unanswerable question as well of where we go forward with him because I'm curious for your take we've discussed it on the pod but it's an endless sort of source of fascination for me of what we can expect from Patrick Line A into his mid-20s as a shooter. Yeah it's funny that it's happening against the backdrop of him becoming a progressively better and better player too right because I mean in game three the puck's on his stick so rarely he's not dominating by sheer will or physical ability the puck gets on on a stick and

And he's got that one trick. And at that time, like you say, his shooting percentage was incredible. And we were talking about him as a generational pure shooter. I think that the answer to how good he is going forward as a shooter is something that we're continually sort of firing tracers at and just a few steps behind in sort of guessing what's going to become. So you watch him come out of the gate with his 18, 19 percent or what have you. And I think in his rookie season, he shot better at 5 on 5 than on the power play. So you know that there's probably a little bit of witchcraft to that, like a little bit of, there's got to be something there that isn't sustainable because who outshoots shoots himself

on five on five compared to the power play. That just doesn't happen. So something's there. But then he throws a sky high shooting percentage in his next year as well. And you can watch just like you say. I mean, there are very few players who can shoot in a way that I don't see the puck between release and the net. And he is one of those players. So I'm not sure if I know the answer, if I'm like continually just a step behind because shot selection will be another thing.

He's not shooting from the doorstep necessarily ever. I don't know to what degree that impacts thing. A major debate in Winnipeg this season on the power play was, hey, did everybody else figure out the Jets power play? And I think, well, not everyone already knew what the Jets power play was going to do for ages. for years and years. And that's the same deal as in Washington with Alex Ovechkin. But I thought that the quality of service he was getting in those passes meant that he had maybe a fraction of a second.

He was a fraction of a second behind this year compared to in past years. So he's not beating goalies as the passes coming across as a rocket. He's got to do it with a shot. So suddenly he looks like a worst shooter. Is he? I don't necessarily believe that. So I don't know the answer to what he is. I just think he's good.

He shows it in this game. And he's shown flashes of it here and there in limited instances, but as he develops, like, you'd like to think that this is going to become a much more sort of regular part of his game. I think David Pasternak, he's been in the league a bit longer. He's already shown an ability to do this frequently where you use the threat of your shot as a weapon. So maybe he's only shooting 12 or 13 percent, but he's actually his on-night shooting percentage is going to be higher because he's creating so many easier tap-in opportunities for his teammates.

And in this game, I think it's the Dustin Bufflin's second goal that makes it that gives him the lead, I believe, where he fires this cross-ice pass. So he takes a shot, Pecoranay stops it. The rebound kind of comes to him. And in one motion, he fires a laser across the seam to Dustin Bufflin for an easy one-timer for him, which goes into the back of the net. And that's something we haven't seen nearly enough of, I think, from Line A as a playmaker where he's just using the sheer threat of him shooting the puck and what he can do if he gets it off to drag the defense. towards him and the goalie and create opportunities for his teammates. Fisher goes up to boards, Ryan Ellis, in some trouble. Here's Line, shoots.

Renei stopped him. Stasmeet al-crossed the ice score. Yeah, I think that, you know, that laser beam pass is a sign and a symptom. He's always had this, by the way. He has always been a plus passer. Now, does he always choose to use it? That's a different thing. In terms of sheer execution, Patrick Liney is a plus passer.

And I've been talking to, or over the last couple of years, I've talked to Jets coaches about this as well, that I think it's one of the most underrated aspects of his game. He, in fact, let's use the power play as an example. Oftentimes, you know, a rebound goes, the puck goes to the wall, and he's got to fire it back across the ice for Blake Wheeler to reset the whole threat basically from that same spot. And he's beating the same exact seams that Blake Wheeler did

to get the puck across the ice to him in the first place, or he makes a good choice about wrapping it around the back. And you started to see this year as well, where his playmaking would turn. into assists in production as well. First year he's ever had more assists than goals in his career. And I think that goes beyond the NHL, which is a wild, wild thing. And he's making fun of himself for that.

Like, oh, hey, I guess I got to score more goals. He was telling us the other day as well. But I think he has the chops. And the unique thing, the thing that I think separates a Patrick Lainey from a Kyle Connor, let's say, to use a Winnipeg example, or, or, well, Pastor Nack to a certain degree, but Pastor Nack has so much creativity as well. Patrick Lainey has a few different skill sets that he's developing separately from each other. He's got a bit of a power forward body, right?

He's a massive human being. He can play a, okay, I'm going to make a hit, take body position, protect the puck on the wall, like kind of a second half of career, Yarmier Yager did. He can do the rocket from far away in soft ice. And he also seems to want to have the puck on his stick. And you can see in game three against Nashville, he tries a move that he uses to this day where it's just a little drag on his forehand side as he's approaching a defenseman from, he moves the puck from the heel to the toe.

And it's just he's trying to get a sense of space or like buy a fraction of a second as the defenseman bites. And he just, he has a stick swatted away. Nothing good comes of it in game three. And you can tell, okay, he's still pretty young. There are all these different things that he can do. and I think he's still learning when do I do each one, when do I need the puck on my stick, when do I protect it for somebody else,

and when do I get rid of it to create threats on opposite sides of the ice? I don't think he had that figured out in game three or in that season when he was scoring 44 goals, but I do think he will as he ages in his career. Well, I mean, the shot is so electrifying that it's human nature. I mean, the athletes themselves on the ice, the opposition, and everyone gets puck watching, especially when the puck goes to him on the power play, it's human nature to just look over there.

And so that means if you're his teammate on the ice, you will have less attention on you, just kind of by rule. And so, I don't know, he's got, what, 13, 12, 17, and 17 primary assists in his first four seasons. Now those 17 this year are just in 68 games, so that's a nice little evolving. But I wonder, because their power play at this time was so dominant and so lethal, but the game has started to slowly shift. the more conventional setup was you have one dominant shooter on one wing, and then you have your Blake Wheeler type of a guy who's just going to be the quarterback

and sort of pass it around, like Nick Baxter or any other great playmaker of their day. And now we're seeing, you know, like Tampa Bay, for example, with, they have Stamcoast and Kutjarov, so they have the two shooters. You know, in Boston, you even have Pasternak, you have Marshan. Like, I think it's becoming a bit more easier, predictable to sort of key in if you just have the one shooter, if you know that the guy on the other wing is, really going to be looking to pass and you're going to kind of have to twist his arm behind his back to actually shoot the puck himself. So I think that's a great observation from you when you're pointing out

how line A makes those same passes across the ice to Wheeler. But Wheeler isn't unfortunately the type of shooter that Line A is. So maybe he's getting less of the benefit of the doubt as a playmaker because the puck's going back to Wheeler and then Wheeler's probably just holding in and waiting to pass it back to Leine. Yeah, it's a reset more than it is a second threat. For sure it is. Yeah. I like the Toronto, we should probably talk about Nashville and Winnipeg, but I like the Toronto Edmonton style too, where it's almost gone away from that model of, okay, we're going to exploit.

We know that we have one more option than the penalty kill can defend, so we're just going to wait and we're going to choose the option that they can't get to. I think that Toronto and Edmonton now are exploiting some roots of puck movement that are creating threats in surprising places sometimes, and there are better ways, it seems. There's a next generation of power play on the way, I think, with a little bit more what looks like chaos to me. I want to use that, though, as a pivot to things that aged poorly.

The Nashville Predators Power Play. I know they scored twice in this game. It's the worst example of a game to use. But I always looked at that team that year, and they passed it across and over the top, patiently back and forth. It was an umbrella from the early 2000s, as far as I conceived of it.

And I always thought for a team that was that good and had that many talented players and playmakers, and you have Suban's shot, that was something that I thought held the Nashville Predators back, and Winnipeg was able to be the better team, special teams-wise, overall in this series, despite being scored on twice in this particular game. Well, and the power play goal is the Nashville scored,

it's kind of like it's the exception that proves the rule, sort of, where their entire power play is designed to get the puck as far away from the net as humanly possible to P.K. Suban's of the blue line and him blasting it. And that was a great power play set up in 2007. I don't know. In 2020, I think we've become a bit more sophisticated in our understanding of not doing that

and not catering your entire power play around it. And we've even seen now, I mean, Suban's gone, but it's a lot of the same where they're just trying to get the puck at their point with Yossi and Ellis and just bomb away from far out as opposed to, I mean, when you have a shooter and a gifted passer as well in Philip Forsberg, it was always bizarre to me that they weren't sort of running their full powerplay through him as a dual threat because he's magnificent and it's just it's bizarre and it kind of shows in the results where there's too much talent on that team for them to be i mean last year they were

historically bad on the power play but even in their good seasons they've been kind of middle of the pack or or in the teens as opposed to a top 10 team based on their on their talent level yeah absolutely and it's something that you it's something that you kind of think well now with the coaching change are you going to see that shift or are Are you going to see something new and unique? And I'm not sure if Nashville had time to quite figure it out over the course of the amount of time that they were able to work with this season. But your point about Forsberg is so well taken. And even, I mean, watching this series actually, it was enlightening to see just how good Forsberg was all over again.

And I think that people forget, you know, Nashville goes up 3-0, and that's the plot of the first period. Everything's going wrong from Winnipeg. Austin Watson snipes off the bar. I don't know how many times Austin Watson does that in his career. There are some bounces that go through Connor Hallibuck. There's the Sub-Ban power play goal,

and it seems like everything circumstantially is going wrong. Winnipeg feels like they're playing okay, but they're getting beat 3-0, and this thing could go off the rails in an awful hurry. The plot of the second period is the comeback. But one thing that I forgot while watching their game,

first minute of the second period, Forsberg puts one off the post. Like he's creating chances. all over the ice despite the overall part of the game being the comeback and he was just so good that line was so good at that time yeah it certainly was and and i have them later on apex mountain but uh one member of that line in terms of just finishing up my what age the best victor arvidsen has a net front presence i love that you know he's five nine you typically wouldn't think of him as this sort of towering figure that the goalie can't see around but i forgot just this era of it was so

delightful watching him just do that kind of well-timed jump when the shot's coming and it was giving the jets and hellabuck fits in this series where there were countless times throughout where he would someone would shoot it and he was just jump at the right instance and they couldn't see where the puck was going and it was just it was such an effective little little play for them and uh this was sort of the peak of victor arbits and kind of just coming into our lives and being uh playing this role much bigger than his actual physical stature would suggest he should be doing yeah and it's I love stories like that because it shows it shows that it can be about will as opposed to pure physical gifts. And the fact that he's willing to pay that price creates chances for himself.

I think it was it was game six and that he scored just one of the most incredible deflections of the series. Winnipeg had the chance entering game six at Belanthia's place to put the series on ice and not have to deal with the seventh game. But he essentially took that one over early with just an incredible. long distance, pucks at his waist or higher sort of deflection as well. And again, I kind of forgot that he was capable of that, especially this season. You see Nashville's numbers falling off everywhere, no matter who you are, it seems. At that stage, they were willing to do anything it took and they got results for it. My final, what is the best, is Connor Hellebuck, just because of this three-year pocket of

information we have on him, where in this season he finishes second to Peke-René in Vezum voting. And I think it was deserved for the most part. I mean, he got seven first place boats. He led the league with 67 games, which was really high volume. He had by traditional stats and 922 save percentages was really good. He was fourth and goals saved above average. But funny enough, he was worse. He was 12th in goals saved above expected.

And it was because the Jets actually became this sort of quality dominating team where they were really tightening up everything around them as opposed to all the previous years. We'd seen an incarnations of Jets team. that were not as sort of responsible defensively. And so it was funny because after this season, I think a lot of it was, you know, he's getting in this new big contract.

We're sort of wondering how much it was him and how much it was the team. And then he really falls off in 2018-19. He struggles. His numbers dip. Laurent Brasois comes in and actually outplays him at times. And you're wondering what's going to happen there. And then he definitively bounces back in this 2019-20 season where he's not only the lock for LeBezna,

but I think he should be a heart-finding. finalist as well and he just simply carried a defensively deficient team to heights that they really shouldn't have reached. And so he aged the best for me because on the surface, his performance between this season and this 2018 run are similar, but the actual details of what he did personally compared to the context and the situation around him is wildly different. Yeah, absolutely. That was his arrival party. This was his proof. This was him coming back, you know, with the second smash hit album that nobody necessarily knew that he had in him. And I agree with the entire way that you laid it out.

This is the year that he put the Winnipeg Jets on his back. And, you know, subtly reading between the lines in the pressers that, you know, a Paul Maurice would have or teammates would have, you ask them why they've had success or why they were in what would have been a wild card spot less points percentage at the season's pause, Connor Hellbuck and goaltending is number one out of their mouth every single time, no matter what the rest of the answer becomes and it's well deserved. So when you say definitive, absolutely. His performance this season has been that.

That's a good pull too because I didn't differentiate. I think of this as a bounce back to that level, but it is a surpassing of, and I think when you think about Conard Hallibuck as a human being, he is an emotional guy, he is a fiery guy, he's a competitive guy, he wears his heart on his sleeve in kind of an oddball way, but I think that the doubting and the hating and whatever it was that happened last season when he fell off became a huge motivator for him to kind of step forward and become your performer who aged the best. It's a great turnaround.

Well, and now with previewing these playing series we're having, you're hearing a lot of, you know, players worried about playing Patrick Hayne or Carrie Price in a five-game series and how they can dominate it's like the flames should be very worried about playing Carter Hellebuck in a best of five to play in series because he could very easily just steal three in a row from them. And so it's interesting to see how slow people around the league maybe are to adapt to new development. But let's transition to what age the worst.

What do you have rewatching this in terms of what really has aged poorly over time? Well, I wanted to say, and this is Aftung-Tung in Chiiku, but it's just because it's just so obvious, Winnipeg's defense, right? Yeah. I mean, on that team, you have Tyler Myers playing. on the bottom pair, Ben Chirot playing on the bottom pair with him in game three, and Ben Chirot has been in a top four role in Montreal, and they love him there. Tyler Myers, I think you could make a solid argument for him being a very good number five,

or kind of a number four in Vancouver, something to that effect. But Winnipeg had the luxury of him playing on a third pairing, where he was able to actually focus in on his biggest strengths, which are from the offensive blue line in, and he scored a huge goal against Minnesota in the playoffs of that year as well. And then when your top four is built up of a buffalo and endstrom pair that nobody can score against all season long, I think they were top five as a pairing in terms of expected goals against and the various metrics along those lines and the chemistry that they had. And then Morris E. Truba, who are your sort of all-purpose young stars coming into their own, they were the ones that Paul Maurice used to play up against the Forsberg-Arvardsson and Johansson line. partway through the series, you sort of figured that out.

They had a tremendous amount of success against the cycle and against the overlap. You look at that and you compare to what you have right now. And it's too obvious. I can't land on that. So you know who I'll go back to is P.K. Suban. This series was the series that took him kind of off of that upper echelon of NHL defenders to me and to watch him kind of swimming on the ice during some of Winnipeg's key goals and sort of falling a step behind some of Winnipeg's key offensive players.

It was one of the biggest stages, the biggest stage I've ever seen him on. And I've kind of taken that small sample and thought to myself, well, you know what, he wasn't there. I expected him to be able to take over moments more than he did, especially in his own zone. And I didn't see it happen there. I don't know if that's tied to his gradual fall from Grace and moving over to New Jersey and things like that.

Like I love so much of what he does for the community and other sorts of things. I don't like taking him off of that pedestal, but I don't think that his play warranted at that stage. Yeah, I think physically, certainly with all the back stuff. And, you know, the year before during their run to the cup final, when they lost their penguins, him and Matthias Echholm were like the best defensive shutdown pairing in the league, and they were simply dominant.

And still in this year, I mean, he still finishes as a Norris finalist. In this series, they're asking him to play 25, 26 minutes a night. and they're sort of revolving their offense around and through him with point shots whenever he's on the ice as we talked about. But certainly you can see the physical limitations coming into play where he's a step slow to react. And he's sort of, I think swimming on the goals against is a great way to put it because it looks like he's sort of reaching to get to the play. And it's already in the back of the net and he's a step behind. And it's unfortunate. And, you know, maybe it should have been more of a warning sign because I actually thought last summer that it was a good,

by a low risk to take for the devils to trade a couple picks and in the potential that he would bounce back for them. But as we saw in this 2019-20 season, it was more of a sort of sign of things to come on the downward trajectory as opposed to a bounce-back potential. Yeah, if I remember right, and this probably would have been just before we were hanging out in and around the draft last year, but that was kind of the time of year that this happened in. And I remember the buzz being fairly positive that, you know what, New Jersey made an astute an astute trade there. And maybe they did, right? Maybe there's more to him in New Jersey as the years go by. But for me, I, and again, maybe it's because like you say, they relied on him so much.

If you really want to zoom in and only focus on plays that end in goals, you can find an awful lot of examples of him being also in picture or a step behind or swimming. And it really took the shine off of him as an elite guy for me that year. I mean, in his defense, though, part of it was their Nashville was pretty hard matching when they could, him and Eckholm versus Wheeler and Schifley. Wheeler and Shifley, especially in this game, we're so freaking good that, you know, it's going to be the case where, yeah, you're going to wind up on a couple of highlight reels with the puck in the back of your net when you're playing against those guys and maybe there's no shame in that. So I'm willing to give a slight pass just because, especially rewatching, maybe it should have been what age the best, but, you know, Wheeler finally breaks through and. scores that goal and on the parapet, I believe, to finally give them a five-for lead in the third. But, I mean, he misses a wide open net at one point.

Like, he was, we were talking about how he's not as much of a threat as a shooter as maybe he could or should be. In this game, he was firing a lot and he was trying to score and he finally broke through. But him and Shifley were all over the place. They were, they were, Paul Maurice was leaning on him to play in the 20s throughout the series, and they were hoarded him with pretty monster performances. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know if I'm jumping too far ahead, but I agree with you there that that would have been

the peak of that duo because Winnipeg uses them together so much. That was just a remarkable series from them. And also watching a lot of the last dance recently and things like that, right? If you guard Jordan, you're going to end up on a poster someday. So maybe what you're saying about Zuban going up against those two guys is just a fact of the situation. And Wheeler was a monster in this game to use a Pierre Maguireism in terms of just pure chance creation. long before that that 5-4 goal that you point to tons of chances that he was able to create. And I guess we can get into that later.

Other thing that age the worst, I think I already hit it a little bit too hard is Nashville's power play. I just kill that. Move on to the next era of NHL power plays as they get better and better. Okay, let me give you my biggest, what age the worst. And it stretches out the point you made about the Jets blue line into a, a topic and a discussion point for both teams, how much roster turnover both teams have had since. And a lot of it is just due to the fact that,

and maybe it's what age the best in terms of the quality of these two rosters and what age the worst was not being able to keep them together in its entirety in a salary cap world. Where for the Jets, six of their top 11 players by ice time in this postseason are, gone now, right? And it was quite the exercise to go back and look at what they were making in terms of cap commitments this year, as opposed to what they're making for their various current teams this season where Jacob Truba goes from 2.8 million cap hit to eight. Tyler Myers, 5.5 to 6, whatever,

but it's a long-term deal. Ben Chirot, 1.4 to 3.5. Brandon Tenev, 0.7 to 3.5. And then Paul Stasney, roughly around the same from 7 down to actually 6.5. But he gets a longer term deal in Vegas but then the guys they kept eilers Connor and line they are all under one million on their ELCs at this point they go to six seven point one one four and six point seven five uh respectively Connor Hellebuck was making two point two five two five he's making six point one seven which is good value obviously but quite a bit more to be paying blake wheeler goes up from five point six to eight point two five and josh morrisi zero point eight and he's about to start a six point two five million

million dollar deal and so it's crazy to see that the jets were able to have all of these players together on one roster one death chart and then look at just what they're making respectively now just two short seasons later yeah that is that is mind-boggling and earth-shattering and i remember at the athletic even leading into the trade deadline of that season it was a it was a point i tried to hammer home over and over and over again we all recognize that those young stars were on their way up and the sheer improbability of having that many good players on value deals, ELCs. It gave Winnipeg a unique competitive advantage at that time and it let them add a Paul Stassney at the deadline, even though St. Louis ate a little bit of his cap hit as well to make

that trade work. It let the team go all in in a way that it won't be able to do right now. and it created a little mini window last the season that we're talking about right now in Nashville playoffs 2018 and then last year when Winnipeg loses to St. Louis, you know, some of those deals had kicked in, but like you say, not all of them had. Josh Morrissey's money is about to go way up and there are others as well. That just when you list them all out like that, man, it just illustrates so much of how short, I mean, every team's looking for an advantage always the cap is an efficiency contest, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera,

but sometimes there are windows so unique and that's what this was for winnipeg in a lot of ways well the predators had it similarly where you remember they started that kind of trend of betting on their young players and giving them six seven year long term deals to suppress the cap hits where you have ryan ellis and roman yosie making 6.5 million dollars combined at this point in time and then obviously each guy's making more than that now individually and so um both teams were in that bucket where on the one hand they did a really good job of having all this young talent and be able to make the finances work. But on the other hand, they did a really poor job of keeping that together.

Or maybe we look at it differently because if either of these teams wins the cup, you don't really lament it because you just go, well, you know, flags fly forever. They won the cup. It doesn't really matter. You have that grace period now where it doesn't matter what they do because you're still living off with the fumes of that Stanley Cup win. Whereas because both teams fell short. you kind of look back at it and go, oh, missed opportunity.

Maybe they should have been more proactive thinking ahead and either trying to move money out or trying to make it all work knowing that, you know, eventually they would have to pick up the tab on all these guys. So it's kind of a mental gymnastics exercise depending on the result. And we kind of, we have the benefit of hindsight, whereas the GMs unfortunately don't. Well, if you're the National Predators, you hang that divisional flag and that flies forever after that season cup or no. I think Winnipeg too, just to throw it in there. I mean, they went hard at Paul Stassany in an attempt to come back last year with the same roster that they had done so well with.

And absolutely it would have taken more work. But you see what looks like in hindsight, a pretty clumsy cap dump where you give up on Yol Armia to Montreal and Steve Mason at the time he never plays again. And that's done to make some room. and yet Winnipeg would need more room on top of that if they were able to fit Paul Stasney in at the time. I think that the guy on the outs there would have been someone like Matthew Perra at 4 plus million and Winnipeg for whatever reason was using him on the fourth line at that time. I think that that deal for Armia and Mason, pardon me as a cap dump, was great and was proactive

and was a sign that they were trying to bring back this guy that seemed to fit in so perfectly, but it didn't work. and then that further wounds, you know, I think YOL Armia would have looked wonderful in Winnipeg this season as well. And it's just like you say, I mean, we have the benefit of hindsight, and these guys are making bets in real time. I don't know that you can blame, and I certainly I know Winnipeg better than Nashville situation. I don't think you can blame the Jets for their cap reality right now in terms of, you know, who they lost. I think it's wise to let Ben Chirot sign for the money he got in Montreal or Brandon Tanev in Pittsburgh or Tyler Myers in Vancouver. So I think that they did the right thing, but those guys are all helpful, useful NHL players,

and certainly you pay the price of that too. Well, I remember that trade that on in particular was a big sort of a watershed moment for Winnipeg where for years we'd all go, oh man, Kevin Sheldale's not doing anything. They're sort of conservative to a fault here. And they saw an opening. And you're right, they went and paid out a premium. They got Paul Stasney as a rental, which was a very, you know, counterintuitive move to the way Winnipeg had operated over the.

years and they saw an opening there and and it was such a perfect fit because for the entirety of that year we'd we'd go oh man a second line center especially a potential sort of passer and playmaker next to line a would look perfect here and he fit in so seamlessly where I think they went 15 four and one or something after he came into the lineup they bounced up to a top three shot share team which we know is a good indicator heading into the postseason and so it looked like a great move unfortunately it was just for a short period of time and just that one playoff run and it's kind of funny now to look back and and sort of they tried to rekindle that magic with the Kevin Hayes trade at the deadline the following year where another sort of second line center playmaker

trying to kind of rekindle that magic and obviously did not work out as well for them after losing in round one but yeah I guess we do need to give Kevin Schaubelda off a bit of credit for seeing that opening and actually pouncing and acting considering sort of the stigma that he'd had as a GM heading into that season yeah you might say that his reputation aged well as a result of that year as well because he sort of like you say he proved that he could read the room essentially right it was taking advantage of the unique context presented to him and then going all in in a way that you hadn't expected before so I think that that has probably bought his reputation we had a fan pull at the athletic kind of early this pause I was going to call it an offseason but it is

not and and just the the found support for for his work despite the bufflin scenario and everything else that went on this year is really high. And I think that I think that for a lot of fans that Paul Stasney trade was that a watershed moment. Nobody saw it coming. They knew Winnipeg was shopping, but Stasney? It was a coup. And Stasney waived as no trade or no move clause to allow that trade to happen as well. So especially considering we'd heard for years that players didn't want to go to Winni. And so seeing a player of Stasney's caliber decide to go, at least for want to playoff run was a big sort of moment for the franchise. A couple other what age the worst here, just to quickly go through it.

We've already talked about the fact that game seven was such a sort of anti-climactic disappointment, Patrick Lineate shooting percentage, the playoff format with one and two going ahead to head in round two. Here's one for me. Paul Fenton is shown celebrating with David Poil as his assistant GM after one of the goals, and he's hired by the Minnesota Wild 19 days after this game, and he's fired by the Minnesota wild 14 months after this game. So Paul Fenton, what a run.

Yeah, if anyone wants to deep dive that, look at Michael Rousseau's sort of behind the scenes of that year, like one of the most revealing pieces that I've ever seen. And I wouldn't have picked that up. That's a great point by you, how far that star had sort of fallen in such an incredibly short time. Yeah. Goleys leading the net, this is a big point of contention for me. I don't like when goalies leave the net.

I think the risk reward is so firmly in the risk category that it's not worth it. And in this game, Pecorane, and I know part of his charm or part of his allure is that he's such a good puck handler, and he creates a bit for the predators. He fights four checks. And especially we're talking about how aggressive Winnipeg was in this series. They needed it at the same time. There's one play in the first period, I believe, where he's leaning to go out of the net. And Patrick Liney almost beats him comically from Center Ice, faking a dump-in.

and then later on in the game he leaves the net and the puck goes to Blake Wheeler wide open in front and he just basically misses a wide open net and so there are two instances where it could have been a catastrophic result for Pecorane in this game just because he didn't want to stay in the net and it's an interesting sort of discussion because I know opinions vary on this but I just think of it as like how many good plays would Pecorina have to make stopping the Poconos the boards getting it to a defenseman for it to justify one goal against because he was in the wrong position. like 10 to 15 times you'd have to make a nice a subtle nice play like it just it's it's out of whack for me i just think goalies unless it's like a very obvious situation should probably stay in their net and focus on stopping the puck which is their job yeah i wonder if could you build the probability tree of the sequences i mean every marginally better breakout leads to you know some percentage of of blue line entries at the other side which leads to some percentage of shot attempts in scoring chance. I don't think it's there. And man, I got a big kick out of Patrick Line, kind of, you know, he knew what he was doing that entire play. He picked off and just

about scored a goal against the flow of play at that time. That was special. And I think that it's not a hill that I die on because I like just visually the idea of, you know, a goaltender coming out, making a pass. Like there's just, for me, that's more fun than the alternative of nothing happening or waiting for a defenseman to go in. But especially Jets fans will know that it has burnt Winnipeg, too. Connor Halibuck is a phenomenal puck-stopping goaltender, but there have been a lot of examples over the last few years where his puck handling gaps lead directly to goals against, including against Vegas the very next series.

There were a couple of key goals against the flow of play, and it just seemed to me, whether it was fatigue or whatever it was, that Winnipeg controlled, you know, scoring chances and shots and, you know, where they were getting their shots from. But all the expected goals in the world don't mean a thing if there's no goalie in the net to stop the eventual turnover. Yep, yep, that's well said. So you mentioned Nick Eelers earlier. What age is the worst, Nick Eler's takes.

And it's particularly with regards to playoff performances where in this run, he has just seven assists in 11 games, zero goals on 26 shots. He's scoreless, zero points in their first round defeat against the blue is the following year. But man, there were a lot of times where it looked like the jets might be perilously close to panicking and potentially trading them for whatever amount of cents on the dollar. And he rewarded their patience and their loyalty by having a monster season this year where he's 14th and 5-on-5 points per hour. He's leading the league in penalty differential. He, and you see it in this game. I mean, he draws, I think, two penalties in the third period,

but he's such a neutral zone monster where he's just taking the puck from one. end of the ice to the other so seamlessly in the blink of an eye and and you can probably count on one hand the number of guys who are capable of doing this stuff he can just as a puck carrier and so the discourse around them has always been so silly to me considering that people cite his point totals failing to recognize that he's not playing on that top unit power play he's not getting the benefit of any of those easy points and a lot of the stuff he does is just as important even if it doesn't necessarily show up on the traditional box score yeah absolutely it's one of the cases where counting points is just so limiting in the evaluation of a player,

and that's what leads to the idea of trying to study more than how many goals and assists a guy gets. That said, just to use the points example, too, if you go for the first X games of his playoff career that Nick Euler's has played so far, I think he's a point or two ahead of Pavel Datsuk at the same point in his career, right? I mean, like, I can see, and I can even in this game, I can see, I can understand watching him and thinking that there are moments where he is outmatched or out of his element in a certain on the wall in an intensity sort of context. And one of the interesting things that happens in game three specifically is after Nashville goes up three nothing, there's a winger flip.

Kyle Connor goes down to the line with Paul Stasney and Patrick Liney. Nick Eulers joins Mark Schifley and Blake Wheeler on the top line. And Nick Eller is part of what makes him great, his ability to fly through the neutral zone, read what's in front of him, adapt to it as he's going. as fast as he is makes them unpredictable for Blake Wheeler and Mark Schifley. And that's been a, I don't want to say point of contention, that's not the right phrase, but you can watch over the years of Nick Euler's making cameos on that line that he creates so much and does so much and his net effect is so positive. But there are moments where plays die because Blake Wheeler and Mark Schipley haven't

figure out who Nicolers is or what they're doing yet. And I think that's part of why they like Kyle Conner on that line as much as they do, because he reads off of them in a much more consistent fashion. So I could see, the point of bringing that up, is I could see a fan watching this game, seeing that he doesn't have massive point totals in that playoff, and then looking at these moments where they just kind of appear to be off rhythm on that line, and go, okay, this guy isn't ready for it.

Well, I mean, he's also an extremely young player on the cusp of what's eventually going to become, you know, this season, a huge breakout, and he's still getting better, too. So great point by you to have him. Imagine he was traded last year. Imagine he was traded for some top four or five defense at the draft last season, how that would have taken the success off of the Jets, the amounts that they were able to have this year. It just doesn't work.

My final, what age is the worst, and we'll move on to the turning point. Poor Pecker, Renee, we mentioned it earlier. No one will be able, like, in the category of goaltending is voodoo. Like, just his performance in this series is just inexplicable, right? I mean, he has two games in here where he's remarkable, I think, and they're both in Winnipeg, actually, in game four and game six, where it looks like they're dead to rights, it's over, and he has a shutout in one game, he gives up only the one goal and makes a number of critical saves, and he sort of looks like that really mobile athletic, just big goalie, just stopping everything in front of them, and then he gets pulled in game one, he gets pulled in game seven after just 10 minutes, and he gives up five and six goals. and the two other games, and it's like the performance is just all over the place. It's the ultimate sort of boom or bust or hit or miss

in this series where you really had no idea what you were going to get from them from a game-to-game perspective. Yeah, nothing really to add to that. I don't know if there's a goalie who has more of a boom-bust reputation in my mind. And, you know, that series seems to encapsulate it. The guy could do anything from Dominate, like you say, to that game seven, man. I mean, like, how do you come back from the game? that the next season, by the way. I mean, you're the Vesna winning goaltender who gets pulled 10 minutes

in the game seven. And yes, you should be on the hook in terms of responsibility for those goals. I mean, do you simply just accept that that is the right thing for that moment? Or do you take that personally and does that become something that then affects your ability to play and move forward for that team going forward? I don't know what to say. Well, considering his performance since, it probably did affect him. But at the same time, he's in these 37 hour or whatever, so it's probably just age-related as much as anything as opposed to some sort of psychological experiment. All right, the TSN turning point.

There's so many to choose from here, but obviously in a game that is so evenly divided between 3-0 in the first period and the Jets coming back, and you've revisited this. As you mentioned to Jacob Truva, but are you given a thought? You re-watched it.

What really sticks out to you as like where this game turned? And it can be more than one point, obviously, because it is kind of the seesaw performance. Yeah, I think that you have to find something in that three-goal swing in the second period. And I don't think that it's Paul Stasney's goal where Jacob Truba bounces it off of him from a long distance to make it 3-1.

I don't think it's quite there yet. Those two goals at four-on-four bufflins and Trubas within 18 seconds of each other, I think it's got to be something in and around that. So I, for me, the TSN turning point, is Austin Watson going out of his way to get a shoulder kind of high up on Blake Wheeler's, high up on Blake Wheeler takes a penalty,

Mark Schifley goes after him and all of a sudden it's four on four. I don't know that it was a vicious hit. I don't think it necessarily was, but it was a hit that Austin Watson could have avoided. And there's this build up all of a sudden. There's a next wave of intensity. And certainly Winnipeg ends up exploiting four on four coming back into the game, tying it, taking all of the momentum and eventually taking a strangle hold on the game. I think it starts with that cycle by the Jets leading up to it and then Austin Watson's hit on Wheeler.

So you mentioned this earlier, but my first. turning point is the Truba goal of the Truba bounces Oostasni it's part of it but it's this entire sequence of so with 30 seconds left in the first period Bufflin turns it over and Mike Fisher hits the post and it very easily could have been four nothing there and then 30 seconds into the second period Philip Forsberg hits the post and so you have two such close calls there within basically a minute of real game time that could have really blown it open I think and instead it stays at three nothing and considering the offensive caliber of this just. Jets team you never really felt like they were fully out of it although I will say the crowd was

pretty eerily quiet for a large stretch there where they were just sort of in disbelief and waiting for for something to happen and then eventually it does and it just come the roof just completely blows off the building but um I guess it kind of ties into that's my turning point but it's also tough to distinguish between the most rewatchable moment because as that game starts to shift that is the most rewatchable moment where you just just like you need to be glued to your TV or your laptop screen or wherever you're watching it because the energy and excitement in the building is just electrifying. Think about it.

It really should be a tie game right now. Here Stasney to Wheeler. And that's scour gets the goal. Tie game. Yeah, the loudest I have ever heard Bell MTS play. And that's an arena that gets loud and gets loud consistently at big moments was Jacob Truba's goal. tie it up at 3-3. So for me, that is the most rewatchable moment because coming out of Bufflin's goal to make it 3-2, the building is already as loud as it tends to ever get,

and the street parties outside are just dancing and roaring, and you can get the sense that the whole city has come behind this team. 18 seconds go by, and then you have Blake Wheeler flying into the offensive zone, laying the body. He was a very physical player of that series. You have Paul Stasney getting a piece of Roman Yose to slow up his pass. Jacob Trubal, like you say, to score that goal. He has to, yeah, and he rounds the net on his way there. Before he, before he does that, he cuts off Ryan Johansson at the wall. On a forecheck that comes, he starts off camera when that pass is getting made and he ends up there. It's the most aggressive pinch you'll ever see. So the whole building is just going nuts at that point.

And then for him to come around the net, get the pass from Wheeler, corral it, put that in, everything goes off. That is for me, that is the most iconic goal of the Jets 2.0 history at this point. Yeah, and because I think Wheeler had missed the net just prior to that, Jim Houston actually goes, this should be a tie game right now, like literal seconds before it is a tie game. So it turns out being very prophetic. And obviously in the mix, the crowd is already hyped up because it's 3-1, but Sheifley defended Wheeler. So Bufflin scores to make it 3-2. And he does a jig, I don't know. It was a strut sort of.

He like pops his jersey a little bit to the crowd to celebrate. And then they talk about how in the previous game or earlier in the series during a celebration, he had basically like punched Paul Stasney in the face by accident. And so the players and the Jets didn't want to surround him. So he was just celebrating on his own. And then when he scores to make it four three later in the period, he does his famous. And when we tweet out this podcast, I'll include the gif of him doing a little bit of a dent. and that's sort of the most memorable moment to me when I think about this game,

just remembering in the moment of him scoring and that enthusiasm and that excitement and it was like the full Dustin Bufland experience and it was so fun to watch. And so that has to be the most rewatchable moment. The Dustin Buflin experience is just a great way to phrase it because there is no other player like him ever as far as I'm concerned in terms of personality, the sheer amount of fun that he has. Yeah, I can get right behind that. And his whole career in Winnipeg from winking up at the camera in the middle of a scrum while battling a defenseman, you know, singing along in the penalty box.

And then you get on the biggest stage possible. I think it had already happened in the series where he'd pulled two guys out of a scrum in game three. And now he's doing like the strut, like you call it, on his first goal and a flat out dance on the second. And like, it's a man in his element having the most fun of his life and dominating some of the best hockey that has, that we've seen in Winnipeg, at least speaking for our market. It's just, it is the the iconic Bufflin experience. Well, well phrased. Well, it transcended hockey. It felt like it was like a performer, right?

Which I guess it's considering that we're watching the game, the players are performing for us, right? it's entertainment and so i guess everyone in theory is if you want to get literal about it but like just with the crowd going crazy and him and him and dancing and sort of uh they're serenating him and he's taking in the moment it does feel like sort of uh like a musician at their apex or something or like a w wrestler and the crowd is just like living it eating it up and he's uh in his element as you put it so it's a it's a really magnetic performance and i just loved it so much um the biggest heat check Yeah, so I've been trying to sort out exactly what constitutes a heat check performance. Do you want me to give you mine?

Yeah, hit me. So when I think of biggest heat check performance, like I wouldn't put Blake Wheeler in this because he's such a consistent contributor to them where you just expect him to be dominant and to be running the offense. So when I think of heat check, I think of like a player who typically plays a smaller role and in this particular game sort of does stuff beyond their regular. resume or their regular performance and so for me I had Tyler Myers because in this second period during this turnaround and I thought that the

commentators did a really good job of pointing it out he was completely flying out there I think I'm not sure how much of it was they were down three nothing so Paul Maurice told the team listen like we just need to create more offense we need to be more aggressive how much of it was in the team's identity to begin with but

he's basically taking the puck behind his own net on various points and just going fully coast to coast and creating with those long strides that are pushing the defense back to the point where on Bufflin's first goal, he does a combination of a zone exit, zone entry that leads to the goal five seconds later. And he's a mobile defenseman certainly, but especially as his career has progressed, I think the number of occasions where we've seen him perfectly execute that have been kind of limited.

And I guess that when you see a play like that, that's what gets you to pay big money for I'm in free agency because you're like, oh man, you can count on, you know, both your hands, how many people in the world are physically capable of pulling off what he just did and he just did it so seemingly effortless. You know, unfortunately, that's not a sort of staple in his game, but in this particular performance, I thought his skating was masterful. And as you mentioned, he was for all intents of purposes, like a third pairing defenseman for them at this point.

Here's Tyler Myers. Has he ever fired up in this second period? Skates the puck to set it. Two on three in the middle. For a little, here's Buckling. He shoots, he scores. Yeah, yeah, they would absolutely find ways to get him minutes, but he was the third-paring defenseman,

just a luxury in that spot. I used to marvel at this deke that he would do from a standstill at the blue line when he would get the puck and he get a forward come and pressure him. he looked off so many different players putting pressure on him at the point and was able to basically use his long reach to take whatever they left and deak around them from a standstill because he is a six-foot-seven defenseman with a wide wing span and then he'd attack from there but that coast-to-coast sort of stuff yeah you would try that from time to time but execute it like that no from the blue line in there were things that he could do that no one else in winnipeg had the the chops the reach and the the brazenness. Well, maybe Dustin Bufflin would have had the brazenness.

But there's something special about Tyler Myers attacking from the Blue Line in. Biggest that guy. So for me, it's, I mean, Matt Hendricks, I kind of forgotten. And then it's funny because,

you know, he has this, this kind of like, legacy as like a dressing room, dressing a leader, but it's really funny. There's like some hilarious tweets out there where like Oilers,

beat writers. are suggesting that the reason the team fell off after the 16th, 17th season and regressed was because Matt Hendricks wasn't around in the room to lift people's spirits and all this stuff. And it's funny. I think it happens in every sport, but in hockey in particular, like sometimes the legacy of some of these guys, like, Ruth vastly exceeds their actual on-ice contributions. And I think Matt Hendricks is a perfect example of that.

Yeah, I'm fascinated by Matt Hendricks and the cult of Matt Hendricks to be sure. I want to say first and foremost and lead with this that, you know, of the various NHL players who I've been in a room with or a scrum with or interviewed, he does absolutely stand out in the top 1% as having, like, the guy has an aura of some kind. There's a calm, serious confidence to him that just exudes leadership. It really does. You see him just moving through space and he commands respect. I perceive that and that's how I see him. Does that mean that at the speed he was moving in this series, which was one of the fastest ever at that point, that he's not a play killer? No, because he's a step behind.

He's their fourth line center. And he called himself even then he felt like a pace car and all the other cars were actual race cars flying by him. And it looked that way. You can see it. You can see plays that don't get made because he's not at that pace of the rest of the game. So, yeah, I absolutely, I'll laugh all day. at the suggestion that it was the absence of Matt Hendricks that is the reason for Edmonton struggles at times

while also wanting to respect that he is the leader that he is described as even if that doesn't necessarily change what happens with a puck and a stick and skates when the puck gets dropped. Yes. Yeah, no, I have time for that. I think when you lose sight of the fact that the Jets were good because of, you know, Shifley, Wheeler, Eilers, Conner, Aline, Hella, Buckling. I think those guys were maybe more impactful to the result than Matt Hendrix giving locker

room speeches, but obviously, just like any workplace setting, having someone that can kind of step up when things are tense or having someone who people alike can confide in and can talk to and can brighten the mood when situations are rough, like heading into your locker room during the first intermission when you're down to three nothing. there's certainly something to be said for that. I just sometimes we can, I think sports writers can get a bit carried away because it makes for a great story and can sort of like, it's a narrative that's very easy to paint, even though it might not necessarily be fully true.

Yeah, absolutely. And we all love our narratives, you know, as writers and fans love narratives as well. And I think that when a guy is unique enough that you can kind of, again, like, I don't know if this sounds hippie-esque, but you can sort of feel it in. the room. You can feel people defer to him. And if you as a writer are are actually feeling an emotion that you then leave the room with, you know, whether it's a guy that got angry or blew you off or, you know, like cussed at you or treated you really well, you leave the room with the feeling. And it's sort of up to you to sort of distill that. And whether you want to portray the emotional

situation and you end up overstating it because you feel something or whether you want to try to distill that and come up with some sort of a rational truth um you know what honestly i think about matt hendricks in that series and he stood out to me as a as a that guy too he's on my list i think about the overtime goal that i i think kevin fialis scored and um that play starts with winnipeg's fourth line on the ice in great position matt hendricks cycling the puck behind pecc Arena's goal. And there are a whole series of plays that go wrong, that Winnipeg is in a 50-50 position, and first it's Andrew Cop tracks back to try to cut off the forecheck. He's 50-50, it doesn't work. Jack Roslovick has his back. He's 50-50, it doesn't work. But one of the

major reasons that I remember, or the things that I remember thinking about that play, is that what happens between Hendricks' giveaway behind the goal and him getting off the ice such that somebody can get onto the ice and pressure that two-on-one maybe turn it into a two-on-two i think there's a lot of winnipeg jets that would have gotten there fast enough to stop that two-on-two from necessarily happening just by the speed of the change alone and that's that's my on-ice take away of matt hendricks in that series um the other guy i have is toby andstrom i kind of like it's it's been a it's been a bit of a time here but man like a sub six-foot defender that was probably ahead of his time and i think would have been much more appreciated had he coming to the league a decade

later but um just you know he was still awesome on that pairing with with uh bufflin at this point and it was also funny like i just he at this point in time they maybe just because of the embarrassment of riches they had on the blue line but he was like exclusively playing at five on five in this season or in this postseason i think he was playing like 16 minutes at five on five and he averaged 16 minutes total for for the full full season like it's hilarious to look at where he literally did not play special teams at all so um but yeah i mean just one of those guys where he was just like, even later in his career, so positionally sound,

just made these little plays. Like, even in this game, he has one moment where he goes back to retrieve a puck and a four checker's coming on him and he makes this little, like, backhanded chip play off the boards that goes to Bufflin, who then has the opportunity to make a play, and all of a sudden they're flying out of the zone in transition.

And it's not something that necessarily shows up, even if you were tracking zone exits, but it's something that he does constantly and effortlessly and just contributes to winning, and successful five-on-five play. 100%. I think one of the biggest litmus tests for me, if you're a Jets observer,

and when we watch hockey, it's so easy to focus on the big punctuated moments, right? And the goal that happens, the giveaway that leads to a goal against the great save or whatever it is. Toby Enstrom does so many things that won't show up on the highlight reel that put the puck in a better place.

And I stand by this. Nobody put his defense, his partner in better place. positions than Toby Hensstrom did in terms of just reading the play in front of him, making a reverse when it was appropriate to do, and not as a panic safety valve as so many guys will do when they're under pressure. Enstrom had the presence of mind to do that, and his boxouts are absolutely legendary. There are so many scoring chances that you never see because this five-foot-10 defenseman

with a stick that's probably better fitted for a six-foot-four player. He always played with the comically long hockey stick was boxing out, and the puck just glides through the slot instead of turning into a scoring chance. I think that he was an underrated player in Winnipeg and you look, whether it's through an analytical lens or if you just zoom in on him, ignore the puck and ignore the things that don't happen. You think of the things that he prevents. I think Winnipeg missed him.

I will say a footnote on that is that I think part of his low minutes in addition to him being perhaps underrated was he had all kinds of foot pain and injury situation there as well. His body was breaking down for sure in the final couple seasons. Well, final biggest that guy, so Alex Eamlin is playing on a third bearing in this game for the Predators. I kind of forgotten that they traded for him. He never played for Vegas, but they took him from Montreal in the expansion draft, and they flipped a pick for him. But the Predators for a couple of these years, when they had that dominant top four

that was basically playing for like 50 of the 60 minutes, they were like, listen, we're going to have two guys, and we just need you to go out there for eight to 12 minutes and just not mess up. and it was usually like mad erwin Alexi Mlin Yanuk Weber actually has a ridiculous goal later in this series but they were shuffling guys and it's just so funny to me like the job requirements for them

were so hilariously minimal where it's basically equivalent to your traditional fourth line player where it's like you're going to go out every once in a while just maybe you know just mix it up but please don't mess up and that's all we're asking for you and so it was funny to see that Doc and Eddie's commentary corner

So we watched the CBC broadcast here with Jim Houston and Craig Simpson. What did you think of it in hindsight? In hindsight, I have to be honest. I don't like it as much as I thought that I would. I grew up just in the era that these two guys were becoming the hockey night in Canada go-to people. And I was a huge fan, an absolutely huge fan. I thought that there was just a sharpness and you got more information from them speaking than sort of the fellas that.

that were just legends in Hockey Night and Canada lore, but were perhaps towards the end of their career at that time. And I remember just gunning for Jimmy Houston and Craig Simpson to take over as these guys. And I continue to think that they're articulate and informative and perhaps the standard. However, there are moments in this game where I think something wild and emotional happens

and there's an emotional resonance that they simply don't hit. And whether that's Bufflin or Truba's goal, there are moments that they're just articulately calmly explaining something that should from a fan's perspective, to my mind, be 11 out of 10 and you don't get that emotional sensation. I completely agree. Houston has that sort of consistency where it's kind of like a metronome. And I actually think Simpson does a really good job of breaking down the exes and nose and sort of pointing your attention to certain things after the play when they show the highlight of what you should be looking for as a casual fan. And so I really appreciate that. but the most recent rewatchable I did with Allison Lucan was the Blue Jackets and Lightning Game 4 from 2019.

And for all the jokes you can make about Pierre McGuire and all of his faults, like he's yelling the entire time. But in that particular instance, because the crowd is so raucous behind him, it actually sort of meshes with the cinematic experience of that game. And as this game crescendos in that second period with the Jets making their comeback, you would like to see a bit more of the commentators capture. that feeling and instead it's it's just that sort of steady consistency of them calling the game and telling you what's happening without actually sort of buying into the vibe which is weird because

if this game feels like a Jets home broadcast even though it is technically a national broadcast it's because it kind of is like you know they lead into this game and and jim hussen's saying like welcome to winnipeg the home of canadian hockey and i remember i started with sports net in 2016 and and that was the postseason that no Canadian teams made the playoffs. And internally, they were freaking out because obviously they would prefer for the Canadian teams to be in there because of revenue and because of viewership and everything. And so I think, you know, SportsNet and Canada in general was really buying into this from sort of selling that story of a Canadian team making a run.

And so even though this is a national broadcast, it certainly does feel like a Jets home telecast. Yeah, I noted and quoted and quoted the home of Canadian hockey. as well because I thought to myself, because you're right, I, you know, I covered that game in the press box. I didn't hear anybody commentate that, but I go back and I think of that. I'm like, well, there are a lot of places in Canada that have the right to argue that they are in fact the, you know, the home if there is such a thing. And I just, I found the other quote that really just threw me off. And it's, it's when Paul Stasney has that goal going off of him to make it 3-1 and Winnipeg has

life. And there's, there is a chance. It's not a dramatic goal. It doesn't come from a phenomenal player or zone time or whatever you might look for but there's silence and then a delayed reaction but a reaction indeed and it just sounds that's from from jim houston's voice and it just comes off as as robotic to me yeah and i think it depends on what you're looking for and let's be real he's one of the very best that does this okay this is this is this is nitpicking and it speaks to what i look for from a commentator and to use a winnipeg example i think dennis beaq is one of the best that live at this job. And the reason for me, you'll find moments where he says the wrong name or what have you. And if you're going from 100% accuracy, he probably legs behind

Houston on that front. But when the game crescendos, to use your great word, Dennis Bayek crescendoes. You know what the stakes are just from the tone of his voice. And it carries a certain amount of tension when it needs to. That for me, you know, I don't need you to pronounce, you know, a fourth line name, obscure name exactly correctly, I need to feel like you're conveying the emotion of the moment. And that's what I worried about when we're watching this. Well, and this is kind of an unanswerable question, but it ties into the broadcast. Why do broadcast focus so much on faceoffs? Like, I'm genuinely curious because I wonder if part of it is they're so easy to notice and kind of call attention to and break down in a quick

highlight after the fact or is it that a lot of the people calling the games are probably more old school minds who when they were growing up face-offs were propped up as the most important stat for a centerman for example and so there just hasn't been that much of an evolution and maybe they're thinking that catering to their audience at home for the most part everyone knows what face-offs are generally yeah winning it and getting it back to your players so you can have possession of it is important but when you watch these games there is like they prop it up so much where you would think that the face off was the be all end all and that the 20 seconds of play after it weren't nearly as important yeah i think that you hit on the most likely reason i'll add one more but the idea that

you can you can easily whatever your level and these guys are often lifelong hockey people and often even former players but no matter what level you are you can break down a face off and convey the result of it. It's easy to frame and discuss. And you get trends, I think, in broadcasts. And, you know, now the entries, entry stats are so prevalent or shot attempts or what have you. Sometimes the micro stat of the du jour, let's say, gets talked about because someone's gotten on to that topic in their own research and now they can't unsee it when it happens. So they have to describe it to you as it happens. And I think that's real. That's just human communication happens in trends.

The other reason I think that faceoffs get so overrepresented is how emotion connects moments to our memory. If you watch hockey for long enough, if you play hockey for long enough, whether as a fan, a beer league player competitively, there is some moment that someone won a face off that they needed to and you scored and your team scored, and you will never forget how that play went down. And you don't think about the rest of the faceoffs from that game and how they affected possession or the rest of the puck battles from that game, you remember the moment and it sticks with you forever. And we all know, like, I think the one that comes to mind

is Jordan Eberley and the world juniors, right? Like there's a faceoff win and a puck kept in at the line. We'll remember that face off for a really long time. And I won't ever remember another faceoff that took place in that entire 60 minutes of hockey. That's well said. So maybe it was an answerable question then. We just answered it.

There we go. Yeah, we sort of. Yeah, I guess that gives us one fewer unanswerable questions. Let's get into the unanswerable questions. What do you have from this game or the series? Two for me. And the first that sort of touched on earlier is that did this series kill the Winnipeg Jets when it came to the Western Conference finals? Is it the reason they didn't beat Vegas if you played it in the other order?

Would Winnipeg have made it all the way to the Stanley Cup final? I don't know that we can know that. Jacob Truba didn't indulge me and he conveyed that, you know, we'll never know the answer to that as well. But I like thinking about it sometimes because it's instructive as to, You know, if that's the case, and it informs us as to how the NHL should maybe proceed in the future when you have two of the best teams by far meeting so early. Yeah, that's the ultimate unanswerable question

because even, you know, even if the players had an opinion on it, there's no real way to sort of quantify it because it's this hypothetical, what if. But, you know, the big one for me here is, and I'm not sure it would have necessarily impacted the outcome of the series, although it was so close.

I mean, I think for the series, the high danger shot attempts were 84 to 83. Winnipeg. It was just such a tightly contested series and we just propped up the Stasney acquisition, how perfect it was, how well-timed it was for Winnipeg's needs. What Nashville did in this trade deadline was they traded their first round pick for Ryan Hartman. And he has a big goal in this series earlier on, or I think maybe later on in game four. But ultimately he's like kind of a bit player for them. He's a fourth liner. He's playing like 10 to 12 minutes per night. And it's just such a bizarre allocation of resources to identify him as someone that you're giving up your first

round pick for when you're a team like Nashville. And you can kind of lump that into their entire decision-making because they had this sort of hot run where David Poyle was considered to be the top GM in the league. He constructed this team and got all these guys with great value and won a bunch of big trades. But then they kind of lost their way. Like I think his white whale is sort of this like a second-line center, which is kind of ironic because Paul Stasney was that for Kevin Schiavoldeoff and he found him. But for Poyle, I mean, he signs Nick Bonino to a four-year deal in free agency the summer before. Then in the middle of this season, he trades Sam Gerard, who's a great young defenseman and a second round pick for Kyle Turris and then pays him

this big six-year extension. The trades they made, like they were just, it's this endless pursuit to the point culminating this past summer in signing Matthew Shane to this crazy long-term contract as well. They probably still haven't found their ideal center combination, but they've just been searching for it for so long. And so for me, the unanswerable question was considering how close these two teams were, could Nashville have been pushed over the hump if they had better allocated their resources this season, considering they didn't really have that much to show for the first and second round pick that they burned to make those trades. that's fascinating and i remember the 2018 deadline after this series where the the vibe around

the n hl seemed to be that nashville was trying to prepare itself for just in case it had to face winnipeg and it was as if their takeaway had been that they got pushed around as opposed to you know beaten on the score sheet and they sort of went chasing you know different solutions perhaps than than what might have necessarily made them better on the ice uh oh you know what did they traded a second round pick for brian boyle as a rental because he's a big center and that didn't work out then the year after they're trading or i guess that same year they're trading uh for for for wayne simmons they trade kevin fiala for michael granlin they're making all of these sort of reactionary we need to win now and get players who can maybe be better now even if it means sacrificing

our future and if they get over the hump and they win the cup everyone's saying great job you did you push the right buttons, but because they didn't, we look back of that and go, man, like, it'll be nice if they had Sam Gerard and Kevin Fiala and all these young players that were cost-controlled right now. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I'll pivot from there to my second what if or more or unanswerable question is center related for the Jets as well, right? Because Paul Stasney comes in and he fits that need.

He went on on a PDO bender. Let's be real about that, that in terms of the percentages on the ice. mentioned Euler's trying to get going in line and trying to get going and they were bouncing goals in off of Paul Stas. And you can you can just watch with your eyes all of the various goals that that line scored and some of them you know will never happen again. But he also played phenomenally well at five on five. He brought those young guys above 50% in terms of the shot metrics. He was a huge part of the power play which got even better when he took that exchange role with with Blake Wheeler on the side instead of Kyle Connor. He did it

everything he was supposed to do. And Winnipeg is still lurking for his replacement. Kevin Hayes, a hill I will die on is that Winnipeg will never know how good Kevin Hayes was. I think he's a fine second-line-in-center, but he was not played like one, nor did he necessarily deliver the results of one in Winnipeg. But I think a lot of that was usage-based, and I think Winnipeg will never know that he was actually a portion of what the Jets were looking for. I think he got close.

But he's gone. Winnipeg's still looking. And, you know, unfortunately, in Winnipeg, one of the big stories this year was Brian Little takes a puck to the ear and he has all sorts of problems ongoing from that. And he's still a question mark for whether he will or won't be available in any return to play scenario. So even in the two seasons before when they looked to upgrade Little, now he's a question mark in Winnipeg at centers. It continues to be very thin. So unanswerable, what if Paul Stasney had signed with Winnipeg in that offseason? Could they have gone further than St. Louis last season?

Would they have been able to continue to capture what magic he had created? Or was Winnipeg simply due to transition out of elite and into sort of a retool this year no matter what? And I have to say, like I thought as a UFA center and we know those guys typically get paid premiums regardless of, you know, potential risk on the back end of the deal, like he took less than I thought he was going to get in free agency. Now part of it is he probably wanted to go to Vegas. also the tax ramifications. Like I'm sure he actually winds up making more than the simple sort of cap-friendly figure that you see. But yeah, I think especially the three-year part of it. Like I would have thought that he could have gotten four, potentially even five years as a free agent

and heading into his 30s with sort of a deteriorating body and missing games throughout his career. Like I would have been worried about that type of a deal. But if you told me that you could have them for three years, like maybe that just wasn't on the table for the Jets. and that was only a Winnipeg sort of a discount that they got. I'm not sure what the story was there, but that's a good unanswerable question of how close they got to actually sort of engaging in those conversations.

Yeah, and solving the problem in a meaningful way to go forward, patched up, and really then not need to make that trade at the deadline for Kevin Hayes or whatever it was. And whether the Jets were able to put in two years or three years, whether they were not quite able to get up to that $7 million-ish figure, or, you know, what I believe is that probably, you know, Vegas would have been a priority all along or that Winnipeg wasn't, Winnipeg was close, but just not quite there in terms of Stassney's long-term destination and whether he had been able to keep it up. I'm not sure that we know. The best book that anyone can ever write is the trades that fell through.

And my big unanswerable is how close were the jets to trading Nikla Eilers at any point over the past two summers. And I would say it's probably closer. than a lot of Jets fans would hope. I'm not sure exactly, although I certainly know there's some merit to the conversations involving the Sabres and Rasmus to the line, and that's a scary thing to think about, but ultimately the

Jets came out looking good on the other side, and sometimes the trades you don't make are as good as the ones that you do. Yeah, absolutely. I think there's definite, definite, tough to say in these shoes, but I certainly believe that the smoke around Nikula's trade was real. and the idea of that return, Ristelainen, who can do a lot of things well,

but is certainly not a top-tier defenseman. And even though he gets perceived as one because of the things that he does well, and then you think of Euler's a stepboard. Yeah, you just made me gulp. I almost spit, take my coffee at that moment. All right, let's move on to Apex Mountain. Patrick Lainey's beard has two guys on a video chat right now with quarantine beards. Patrick Lines puts us the shame, and it was insane.

and I kind of forgotten about it because it's been a while now, but my God. I get asked about that beard as much as any other Patrick Lainey question, I think. It's like I, it just, it was so, I mean, he's a young guy, but he got a lot of ratiness and bushyness and scrae. It's not thick enough to be a top tier beard, but it's long enough to convey like a scraggly sort of, I don't know, charming rural finish. like dirtiness as a compliment to it. It's tough to put that thing in the words.

I'm kind of glad that it's gone. But you know what? If the fans are out there wanting it back, then we'll just have to go on a playoff run. I mentioned the Jofa line with Ryan Johansson, Philip Forsberg, and Victor Arbison. This season, 2017, 18, they were just insane. Like 33 to 15 goal differential, 56% shot share.

They outscore teams 10-5 in the postseason. And they were a nightmare and they were really tough. It felt like they were creating a lot pretty much whenever they were out there against this Jets team. And so especially since like that was their only real kind of conventional scoring line that could just generally organically create offense. Otherwise, it kind of felt like they were pulling teeth. And so, you know, they had a lot of pressure on them and they delivered. And so I certainly think they were at their apex. Was there anyone else?

It's really tough because there's a lot of guys who are like borderline, but also, there's a lot of guys, especially for the Jets, where you would like to think that their best performances are still to come. So it's kind of tough to say. Yeah, you know what? What I keep going back to, and it may not prove to be the apex for either of these players, and in fact there's probably a good argument that it's not.

But the 5526 Mark Schifely-Blake-Wiler duo, I think was at its very best during this season, this series specifically, I think may have been the best hockey that Mark Schifley has ever played. And he was physical in all three zones. He was defending well. His back check left was exactly what you would ideally draw up. You saw him playing with strength below his goal line and below the Predators goal line as well.

He was leading the NHL and playoff goals for an extremely long portion of time. Everything he touched seemed to turn to goal. And then Blake Wheeler, there's a good argument. I mean, there's a full decade of the guy being a top five even strength score in the entire NHL. And I think so many people overlook that and forget that. And it's to me almost a shame that he doesn't get that elite level recognition for a decade of his career. And at the same time, 2017, 2018, his point totals go off. And all of a sudden, we begin to recognize him as that elite talent.

But his points totals go off because of his power play performance. And he puts together those back to back, is it, 92 point seasons off the back of his power play. And now he's getting talked about as one of the best players in the NHL. He was one of the best players in the NHL for a long time. But he's exactly, he's coming off of his aging curve. And at 5 on 5, he's closer to a good second line winger than one of the best first line winger in the entire NHL. That said, by my way of reckoning, even though he's 31 years old in this series,

and that's on the down swing of the aging curve. And even though he wasn't tearing it up at five on five, he was excellent at five on five, but not one of the few bests that existed. He was a monster to me in this series and in this game. He was, and I thought that Paul Maurice did a good job in this game of getting him and Shifley away from at Coleman Suban

more than they had in the first couple of games in Nashville. And, you know, you have Yossi and Ellis as the second pair, and by pretty much any measure, they would be anyone else's top pair, but just stylistically, I think they're not as physically equipped to handle the sheer sort of size and dominance of Wheeler and Sheifley. And so they were able to kind of bullyball them a little bit as well. We're just kind of using their frame advantage to keep the puck away from them and keep the puck hemmed in the offensive zone. And so it was a bit of a tough matchup there for Nashville. And you're right. I mean, they were so good. And the two

of them, it's such a beautiful partnership. Like I, this is the thing. that I love more so than most things in hockey is like that passer with the shooter and you see it with Shifley just hanging out in the middle between the two circles on the power play and Wheeler getting it to them and it's just like they're so well suited to play together it's really beautiful to watch yeah absolutely and I think they think the game in such a similar way that you can you can see that chemistry and they're they have different physical skill sets to be sure but they both do a lot of cycling back and forth, cutting back, but while they're doing that,

they're perceiving so much of what else is going on on the ice. Like, if you were to ask any given player on the Winnipeg Jets to just stop, close their eyes, freeze frame, and tell you where all 10 skaters are and where they're going, Mark Schifley and Blake Wheeler would be the best too with that. And they see each other, they see each other's roots. And Shifley can pass as well as he can shoot. I don't think Wheeler shoots or snipes nearly as well as Shifley does,

but they can both do a lot of similar things. things. And I really do think that Shifley is sort of Wheeler's era parent as Captain Sirius in Winnipeg. And I think that's a fine attitude for the city of Winnipeg and given their skill sets as well. I've said many times that for as long as Blake Wheeler is at his peak, Winnipeg is at least within spitting distance of contention. It may be that age isn't kind to Wheeler and Shifley is the guy and Wheeler falls off to whatever extent he can stay. in that echelon and that that duo can work that's sort of what you're looking at i think is winnipeg's current window to win and what they'll rest their their forward hopes on absolutely um

okay who won the game it's got to be dust and bufflin right just for you watching this is just we talked about how we captured the full dust and buffalo experience but i mean two goals and assist four shots 2712 of ice time nine shot attempts with him on the ice at five-on-five it was 25 to 12 shot attempts 16 to 5 shots on goal for the jets he was just dominating doing it in a charismatic way dancing up a storm had a couple other plays we talked about earlier where he was in tight against rennie and easily could have had a hat trick and it was just it's when i think about this game and when i remember it i will remember his performance more so than any others even though you can make cases for how dominant wheeler was uh you know jacobobah really changes this game and winds up having a gordial

Hatrick. Like, there's a lot of contributors to this Jets team and that help them win this game and win this series. But for me, Bufflin's dominance was the thing that stuck out above all else. Yeah. When I think about it, he's the person that comes to mind the most above all else. You use the word transcends earlier. You know what?

In Winnipeg, he does transcend hockey. And he's the sort of player that, you know, in the coffee shop lineups, people who don't know anything else about the team will know what Bufflin is up to and about. and peak joy, I think, was that series for Dustin Bufflin, and so there's that. I got to say, though, I got to counter and say that for me, Blake Wheeler won the most. You know, he was a force.

Scoring chances that you talked about, he was creating for himself and his linemates all game long. There's the one that he skies above Peccarine right before the big turnaround in the game. There's chances at the other end of the ice in the first period. He's making interceptions on the penalty kill. He's running the power play. He's basically imposing himself,

on the game and then later that summer he signs a five year deal worth forty five forty one point two five million dollars from now until he's 38 years old and believe you me i think that cashing in on the season and series that he had makes blake wheeler one of the biggest winners of that of that of that night certainly i just wanted to commemorate bufflin because it's crazy that we go from this he winds up playing including the rest of this postseason 57 more nch l games and who knows if we're ever even going to see him again it's crazy to think about considering considering how good he was at this point. But, you know, we don't have to open to that whole can of worms,

but it was just really nice to rewatch him again and just remember how fun it was to watch him play hockey at his apex. And so I wanted to commemorate that, but certainly Wheeler, I mean, nearly played 23 minutes in this game, had 11 shot attempts, had five high-danger shot attempts. Like, he was just around the net the entire time and was probably the most dominant player in terms of creating offense for the Jets.

So you certainly can't go wrong with that. I think that's about it. I think, I mean, listen, We're at the hour 45 minute mark here. So we certainly have gone along here on time. But I think we've also, this game warranted it because there was so many things to get into. And I think we did it justice. Like was there any other sort of angles or nuggets that we didn't touch on?

Well, I'll just share from because I was able to talk to him very recently. I asked Jacob Truba what life was like in the Jets dressing room after the first period in the first intermission when they were down. down three nothing and all those great combat goals had yet to score. And Jacob Truba is an honest, honest guy in the same way that he refused to indulge in the what-ifism about if they had played Vegas first and then Nashville. When he says this, I believe them. And he conveys a sense of calm saying that, you know, had we not liked the way that we played, we would have probably been a little bit closer to panicking.

But at the end of the day, we know that even if you go down, in this game, it's a playoff series. There's a next day. We knew that. There's a next game to win. Even if we win, there's a next game to win. And what he conveyed was that the Jets had such an assertive confidence in the way that they'd been able to play all season.

Even in that first period when they go down, there's some balances that work against them. And I guess they hung their hat on that. But there was just a high standard of excellence for so long that the belief was there that they were able to come back from 3-0 down. And I'll pivot from that because it's one of the most compelling things about the Winnipeg Jets over the last few years to me is this. When Winnipeg goes on, you know, they win this game, they beat Nashville and 7, they slay their dragon. They beat the team that they've been lining up and sizing themselves up against all season long.

They go against Vegas and they lose. And they are genuinely, trust me on this one, shocked by that. There is a palpable sense of disbelief in the dressing room when that series and that game is over. Because of that same belief built over an entire year of playing at the highest possible level and always finding a game three comeback when they needed one against St. Louis one year later, there was no sense of disbelief in that dressing room. They were all ready to go to Cabo. Well, they thought going in the series, they said all the right things,

but there was no sense of shock. And it was an acceptance that, you know what, we had given up some leads late in the season. We had played poorly late in the season. When things got hard, you know, there was a little bit of a, that mental resilience was not there because they didn't have anything to point at.

Like to look at that example of them doing what they needed to do to overcome a moment like this 3-0 hole against Nashville. They have to go back most of a year. And I think that that belief mattered. so much and looking back was a huge part of not only the game three win but the series went against Nashville well and you you certainly look at it i mean losing stazney hurts but for the most part that team that lost to the blues was uh by all accounts relatively intact from this team and and they just were so statistically inferior especially down the stretch that i uh i personally picked

the blues to win that series because i was just like i don't know what's going on in winnipeg but their underlying numbers have plummeted to the point where there's clearly something flawed with this team and and I don't see any reason why they're going to get it together and so it's crazy to see sort of how much things have evolved over the past two years but I think part of what made this series such a great rewatchable in this game in particular was not only did it live up to the hype not only was the hockey great but it was it was such a useful exercise to go back and look at how much things have changed discuss and reflect on why that's happened and I think that's what makes these rewatchables fun for me in particular I know some people say like

we know the result of the game what's the point of going to rewatch it but in these particular instances like this one i do feel like it's such a whirlwind experience in the moment and there's so much happening that you can't really fully appreciate every single little piece of information until you kind of go back and reflect on it after time has passed and so hopefully you and i accomplish that not only for ourselves here but for everyone listening at home well thanks for inviting me along with it the big fear was always would it live up to the memory and it does and I think when it does, it's worth a deep time. So yeah, thanks a lot to meet you.

Do you want to plug some stuff? What are you working on these days and where can people check out? Well, of course, you know, Winnipeg Jets at the Athletic is where you'll find me. Twitter is WPG-M-R-A-T. I'm sure you'll tweet that as we promote the show as well. So there's that. But I mean, with the NHL's return to play plan, Winnipeg is in a really unique position of having equal cup odds as lottery odds,

small on both fronts but there's a lot of different moving parts and Winnipeg has had just a remarkable season from the Buffalo and Sega onward through whole pilot injuries, Conard Hellabout keeping them in the fight and so much more so it's an oddly fascinating time to think about the Winnipeg Jets

despite the hockey purgatory that we're all kind of living in right now so the athletic is where it's up awesome man well keep up the good work and before we get out here I just wanted to quickly remind everyone we're building up quite a catalog here of games we watch so hopefully you've listened to them if not go back into our archives to do so stay at home stay safe with us

get comfortable watch these games and take a minute to go leave the show a rating and review it's greatly appreciated at you during these crazy uncertain times so we're at thanks for taking the time i know this was quite the process and quite the exercise and i gave you a lot of homework to do but uh you passed it all with flying colors and hopefully we'll be able to have you back on sometime down the road hey i love the sounds of that thanks again The Hockey P.DioCast with Dmitri Filippovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypediocast.