The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 358: The D Stands for Drama

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

Sean Shapiro joins the show to discuss the Stanley Cup Final bound Dallas Stars, how them seemingly improbably got to this point, and everything that's made them a fun team to follow this season. The topics we cover include:3:00 The legend of Denis Gurianov10:00 What makes the Dallas Stars interesting18:00 Anton Khudobin making most of his opportunity24:00 How the Stars defense makes life easy for goalies33:00 Intersection of Stars, analytics, playoffs, and nuance45:00 Miro Heiskanen deserving all of the love54:00 Rick Bowness and the intricacies of coaching1:06:00 Jamie Benn turning back the clockEvery episode of the show is available on iTunes, Spotify, Soundcloud, and wherever else you may typically get your podcasts. Make sure to subscribe to the show so that you don’t miss out on any new episodes. All ratings and reviews are also greatly appreciated, especially the ones of the 5-star variety!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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Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dimitri Filipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Sean Shapiro. What's going on, man? Not much. There's been four days between hockey games, which for this time of year now feels like a millennium based off of 21 games and 42 days before that. So I've been able to watch movies and actually do the dishes before midnight each night.

It's been crazy. Wow, you're living the life. Well, I mean, listen, I haven't done a show in four months here. So we were talking off air before we started. But I want to thank all the listeners that are listening. right now for the patience. You know, there was some crazy times there. And with the season being stopped, the PDOC has had to figure some stuff out.

But hopefully we'll be back to regularity schedule programming here. And you and I are about the chat. Yeah, I was telling you, I've basically been a stay-at-home dad with my new puppy here, this mini golden doodle named Joey, who I shared some pictures of on Twitter and social media. And so it'll be interesting to see if I still have enough social skills to keep up a conversation with another human being for an hour because I've basically just been saying, good boy Joey for the past month straight. That's basically the extent of my dialogue.

I've got, I think the two-year-old human, though, who I think has a little bit better vocabulary than a dog. So she's actually been giving some more conversation back. This morning was all about her playing on her toy phone saying hello and goodbye and then hanging up her toy phone over and over again. For me, at this point, that would be intellectually stimulating. so but listen it's fitting that uh this is the show that brings me out of this hiatus because one of my favorite shows this season was when you and i were uh when you came to vancouver and we were

hanging out in a hotel room drinking beers and one of my favorite subplots this season has been trying to figure out what the hell the dallas stars are up to how good they actually are what what trajectory their season is on now that their trajectory is heading to the stanley cup final i mean it's about as upward as it can get so uh this is a fitting time for us to to kind of check back in and chat about them because i feel like last time we talked, they were in this like weird. They had a lot of highs and lows, but they were like in the middle of like kind of oscillating between those two. So it's good to be back talking about them again. Yeah, it's kind of funny. I'm trying to think back to where they were in that whole spot because this is such,

this has been such a roller coaster of a season for the stars where it's, you got to try to remember what's were the highs, what's were the lows and where you were for different spots. It's funny looking back on that because it's, I'm trying to remember even where they were in that Vancouver when we met in Vancouver. I think it was the middle of maybe the Justin Dalling Toadrag tour of Western Canada. I think that was then. But I might be getting it confused with something else. But I think that's when that was.

But it's kind of crazy to look back and all that stuff because I think that was, God, November. I don't know. I mean, I think we were vindicated, though, because of like a not a team Dallas Star-centric podcast, just like a national show that covers the full league. I don't think anyone has ever spent that much time talking about Dennis Gariano of the Man, the Myth of Legend. And boy, has he rewarded us in a big way this postseason. I mean, he's got a four-goal game. He literally sent the Dallas Stars to this downly cup final with the overtime winner.

I mean, the guy's doing it all. Oh, my gosh. And now he's, thanks to the player tracking, we see the game winning goal. It made 110 mile an hour, 10010 mile hour shot. Now, I'm fascinated to see how that holds up compared to other one-timers. league now that we actually get this player tracking because obviously you're getting more speed on a one-timer in a moving puck than the sitting still all-star game set up obviously so I'm curious to see but I mean if we're talking guys who are going to crank it at 110 are we talking about what is it

is it a group that select group that includes ovechkin line A and Denny is there any like I'm sure I'm curious how select that group is how many guys are hitting hitting that shot because that that's that's crazy and he is I asked him about it today actually right before we came on which is perfect timing and he had no idea it was that fast I made sure to tell him it was in kilometers because that's I think Denny knows that

knows that better and the and he was he said all of his friends back at Russia made sure he knew how fast a shot was so I don't know you think it's what it's probably line A Ovechka I really want to see them start tracking that consistently to be like okay this is should we be

should that be an eye-popping number or is or should it not be i don't know right especially with like the player speed when they're showing like it was funny when they show jame alexiag barely making it down the end of the ice to score that breakaway goal against the nights but for the most part when you see a guy skating fast as like oh like 35 last month like how fast is that relatively speaking i'd add pastor neck to that list i'm sure there's a few others we're not thinking of but oh yeah yeah it's my favorite part of that was um he sends that puck around the boards on the power play and then like with the most swag possible. Like is out of that Alexovescun playbook,

he's just lifting his stick up, basically calling for him to pass it up to Klingberg so that he can get it back. And you just knew that was happening. And I put together compilation on his playoff goals after that. And it's like, I think he had three of like, like identical goals from that right circle,

basically off one E. And kind of not even like going for the corners, basically shooting it through the goalie on the side. And, um, yeah, listen, people are going to be like, oh, did the Knights not watch any tape? Like how are they like, letting that happen. It's like, Ovechkin scored like 700 goals now doing that. It's when you're

really good from one spot and there's other threats on the ice and it's free flowing like that during the course of action. It's really tough. Like there's no way Pete DeBore was telling his players, okay, we need to lock in on Dennis Gariano from that circle. Don't let, we can, we can let Joe Pavelski beat us out front in front of the net, but if Gariano beats us on that one time or that's unacceptable. Well, yeah, I mean, Novetskin made an entire thing. I love to, Hovechkin looks like he's waiting for a bus on the power play. And it's not like anyone doesn't know what he's doing there. And on top of that, the other thing, too, just to give the Stars credit,

I wrote about this the other day, I mean, one of the things the Stars did, and Vegas was scouting, that's the other thing, but Vegas hadn't scouted a power play, like Stars switched their power play units in that last game. Denny had gone seven, eight games without a goal, and they switched Klingberg and Heskin, and in doing so, that opened up Denny for that little bit more space, because Klingberg, being a righty, getting that pass over to a lefty shot, it allows Klingberg to do more of the shot fake and that's what happens on that game winning goal where for heishkin then you don't really have that option right because hayshkin that that shot fake he's got to basically go across his body

then and it's so much easier to read for both the goalie and so that little stuff and i mean if you give a little bit of extra space to a guy with that can and it's incredible to watch so yeah it's he he's a guy who you and i have talked about i don't have to tell you on the merits of denny garyana but he's a guy who the stars have had some really good overall players in their history and they've had some guys who are like even Sagan and Ben at their peak. They were more playmakers than than pure like goal scores. I mean, Denny Garayanoff has potential to be this guy, to be this fun goal score that the stars have never really had for a long term.

Obviously they had Brett Hole, but Brett Hole was a two, three year existence in Dallas. Denny could be here for a while and he's so fun to watch, man. He is a game breaker. And I know like one of my big sticking points this season has been his ice time. know you've pointed out countless times that they kind of are encouraging them to take more shorter shifts and that explains like the actual quantity of volume of shifts he's taking is pretty comparable to the other top guys on the team it's just that he's taking shorter shifts and that leads in short rice time but I think what I love about him and I don't know like how sustainable

formula it is I'm sure as he gets older he'll develop more nuance to his game but it's that sort of one-gear mentality where when he has the puck he's just gripping and ripping it when he's out there. He's flying down the wing full speed. And it's, it is a bit jarring, I imagine, for the opponent because, you know, I think the stars, certainly in the Vegas series as a whole, they were doing a good job of, uh, kind of opportunistically counter attacking off the rush whenever the opportunity presented itself. But in a typical stars game, it's a lot of like nothing happening and there's cycling in the offensive zone for a little bit. And then Geryanaugh steps on the ice. And it's just this freight train going north, south for 30 seconds.

And then he's off the ice. And then you get back to regularies, get out programming. And so it's really tough in the flow of the game where if you're the other team you kind of get lulled into this little false sense of security and then all of a sudden you have this guy flying down the wing at full speed so it's it's really fun to watch yeah it's like it's kind of like a change up but instead of instead of the stars are throwing change up and then occasionally throw in a fastball it it is fun to watch and i love one of my favorite things about denny it's like that goal that he scored and overtime is great but i love the chance he had in the second period of that game where it's the little flip pass by Klingberg

and I think it was Theodore who just whiffs on trying to deflect it and anyone else on the stars it's not really that big of a miss for Theodore it just kind of goes to the corner but Denny's so fast that he gets behind him and forces Lennar into it basically was off the shaft of his stick and off the crossbar

just that little like sprint speed it's amazing to see him hit that in like those microbursts and we're seeing him more now one of the things that I've loved about seeing him more in the playoffs is like it's we're seeing more of it like in the zone like I think he's kind of realized that you know what it doesn't have to be blue line in defense of blue line in to use that speed I think he's noticing more he can go from standing still along the half wall or something like that and go win a battle just by being faster and he's learning more and more how much faster he is than everyone else and that's just that that makes him even more fun to watch yeah and he's one of the many story and many storylines that are fascinating with this team. And for me, that's why, like, one of the laziest narratives to come out of, uh, from the moment the stars wind up until now when we're talking, you see a lot of people who clearly just haven't been paying attention to this Dallas stars team going like, oh, well, this is one of the least deserving Stanley Cup finalists. I can remember like there's,

they're not interesting. They don't deserve to be here. And we're going to get into the merits of their actual performance and how they got to this point. But just from a, a storytelling perspective, which you do such a great job of covering this team, like, if you don't, find this team interesting, that's more on you than on the team, because if you've been following them all season, even before the successful run, it certainly has been anything but like boring, right? Like, like, there's so many stories to get into. I laugh at the, because obviously part of it's the, and you see it on both, on both the broadcasts because I watch both NBC, I kind of flip back and forth between the NBC and the sports net feed during

all this. And so obviously Nathan McKinnon is one of the best players in the world, obviously deserving of the airtime, but in the Vegas series, we're hearing so much about how Ryan Reeves is going to change this game, change this game, change this game, and okay, you can, I don't know, maybe you're friends with Ryan Reeves, I don't know, but you have, but if you can't get excited about the storytelling for the stars, like I think probably one of the lines I may have used when you and I talked back in November, or whatever that was, was they're the most exciting team until they step onto the ice. And they have, I mean, you look at this team changed coaches.

They started one, seven and one. They ended the regular season 04 and 2. They've got, if you're talking about a sentimental favorite for a team, I mean, the combination of Joe Pavelski and Rick Bonas, aside from whatever team plays them in the final, I mean, they're going to be, they're the sentimental favorite across the hockey world. You have this whole ongoing narrative of a franchise that ripped apart. It's two highest paid players, and now all of a sudden one of them is looking like the retroversion of Jamie Ben in this playoff run. I mean, this team, and I haven't even mentioned Miro Hachkinin yet, and obviously Miro is incredible.

Like, it's, this team is so full of storylines. It just, they've been, if you can't find a storyline for this team when you're doing a broadcast for this team or talking about this team or whatever, you must not have ever even Googled them because I don't know how, I don't know, I don't know, how it keeps getting lost. I'm like, oh, well, they're a boring team. They're a boring team. Like, they've played some, but. even a two one game with chances like Dallas has had, it's still exciting to me.

Like, I know people get, the stars have, there have been boring stars moments. They're hard, but this playoff hasn't been them. Like, there was boring moments back in December and January with the stars where you'd be like,

okay, this game really has put me to sleep. Even though there have been low scoring games now, they haven't been boring. They're close, they're exciting, they're tense, so.

No, I mean, and listen, like, in the flames and the half series, you basically got all the goals you could handle from them and their opponents.

And then in this biggest series, it was low scoring. But it was the type of low scoring game I want to see where they were sort of intentionally, not sitting back, but they were allowing the other team to create a lot. And then whenever they got a chance, they were doing something off the rush. And that's the sort of back and forth that you want to see over the flow of a game. I think part of it probably is just because heading into the playoffs and then after round one, we all just sort of penciled in and talked ourselves into Avs Nights as the Western Carpins final. And understandably so, like those two teams did seem like the sort of class.

of the Western Conference. And then so after the abs lose, it's like, okay, well, they had all these injuries and you're starting making some excuses. And then, oh, Vegas has all these shots on goal. Look at the disparity in that regard. Dallas doesn't deserve to be here. But I was just in preparation for this podcast. I was kind of going through the high wire act this postseason they've had or sort of

the crossroads moments. And I've got, say again, doing the splits in game four against the flames. And they were literally 12 seconds away from going down 3-1. Game 6. the flames, they're down three nothing before they even register a shot attempt, and then Gurianov scores four goals, they score seven unanswered. We get a bunch of

Matthew Kachuk memes. They go down in game seven against the asses on their four minutes left, and then ten seconds later, you'll keep around to us scores, and then scores Hattrick in overtime to win it. And then, listen, like, we can talk about

how much of this is luck-based, and we can get into this whole Stars versus analytics argument later, but the fact the matter is they're four and o in overtime this postseason they're nine and oh and one goal games since dropping i think game one to the flames and so part of that is luck but part of that from an entertainment value perspective is they're playing a lot of close games where one shot determines what's going to happen and that's sort of the beauty of the postseason that that's sort of that drama and that sort of you have to sit on the edge of your couch because the next shot is going to win it

is why we watch the nchl playoffs not to necessarily determine who is far and away the best team in the league because otherwise you probably just like the EPL do like the full season and just award the winner as opposed to going on a four to seven game basis yeah the stars team is is drama embodied like I don't under like this is this is a team that everyone should be if you're they should be trying to sell I mean this is a this is a team where this this team throughout their playoff run as you kind of said they're nine and oh and one goal games four and oh and over time. They are a team where you get into the third period and you know it is going to be tight. It is going to be one way. It's either going to be them pushing back or them trying to

defend a lead. Either way, it's going to be a game where something of consequence is likely going to happen in the third period at least. And that to me is, that's what makes playoff hockey great. I mean, we look at the five on, like there's the five on three kill against Vegas where just something like that where, okay, there's, yes, Vegas. did not get nearly enough traffic in front of the net. That is on Vegas. But this is a team that plays in moments like that and give the stars credit in moments like that

for stepping up and making something like that exciting. This is an exciting hockey team to watch right now. It's an exciting team with all the storylines going around it. And yes, they're not doing it by scoring six goals a game in this past series. But they have also shown that I think the other thing they've really shown about all of this is your narrative. narratives don't have to be pre-set. Like, if anyone, like, that's the other thing.

We get so, as a media, gets so connected to, well, this narrative or that narrative is going to sell this and stuff like that. I mean, you all Kivirontah. He's an amazing, amazing story. And he's a guy who we look at, look how well he's played even since having the hat trick. Like, he's a guy who has,

he's never going back to the H.L. He's a guy who's going to be part of this team going forward. And even if he didn't have those games after, this is what the whole Stanley Cup playoffs is about. he could have played that one game ever, and stars fans of people ever would remember the Yo-L Kivirontah game, and that would have been great in its own, and now he's just building on it.

He is. I mean, the hands-in-tight on that goal to send it over time against the Knights was, that was like star-caliber quality. Like, it was, uh, yeah, I mean, listen, and this is like a national broadcaster's dream. Like, you're just talking about that sort of, you're going into the third period, you know it'll be tight. Like, just, if you're telling fans,

you need to sit down and watch this game for the three hours. hours because something will happen at the end. You're not going to tune in. It'll be 5-1 in the first period and it'll be over. Like, you need to watch this all the way through. And in the second intermission, we're going to have 15, 20 minutes to hype up this third period, which is going to be drama-filled.

Like, it's, I mean, NBC in Sportsnet should be loving what's happening here. But obviously, I mean, there's no Nathan McKinnon or Austin Matthews or whoever else. So I'm sure they see it as kind of a negative. But all right, let's get into some of those personalities then. And I think, you know, Anton Hudobin is the natural starting point for us because when we say as journalists that we're not cheering for teams or cheering for the people and the players,

I think he's the prime example now that you point to is like, it's just awesome seeing this guy succeed because beyond just the quirky personality and the pictures you see of him and he's had so many countless memorable moments this postseason of like dozing off on the bench of his mask falling off against the flames

and him just being in disbelief, like so on and so forth. It's this idea that he's this 34, year old goalie who spent a better part of like five or six years in the minors he was playing a hl games as recently as like 2016 17 i believe for the for the bruns organization and whenever he's gotten a chance in the n hl which is over 200 regular season games he's been good he's got a nine 19 save percentage plus 32 goals able to expect it he's never gotten that full sort of runaway to be the starter i think there was that one season in carolina where like he got a chance out of the gate and then struggled and all of a sudden it was over for it for it.

him. And so he's making his first playoff start in his career in this bubble. And the numbers are just remarkable, but it's, like, stylistically, it's everything that sort of he embodies that makes a fun. And when I knew that I was going to talk to you about this, I was wondering, like, do you have any funny stories of hoodob and run-ins over the years of covering him that kind of stick out to you? Yeah. I mean, Anton's great. One of the things that immediately just, there's There's a reason that I have a whole thread on Twitter of pictures going back to of just hilarious things. Well, and up until this bubble, there were pictures I actually just took on my own phone following them on the beat. And now obviously it's the occasional getting something from a broadcast or whatever.

But Anton is hilarious. And one thing I remember, so the first training camp, he's with Dallas. So the 20, before the 2018-19 season, the stars have the, their training camp in Boise, Idaho. And they've got a replica of the Liberty Bell in front of the state capital in Boise, Idaho. Like anyone can come up and ring it or whatever. Like, it's, okay. And Anton and Radulov are kind of walking around at like 7.30 at night, 8 p.m.

at night after dinner, after they've had dinner or something like that. And all of a sudden, you just hear, because I was actually in that part of town around the time this is happening, all of a sudden you're just the bell just going off. like loud. And it's just Radjolov and Hudobin just pushing the bell back and forth at like 8 p.m. in the middle of Boise Idaho, which is a supreme

example of those two's friendship because they're loud and you can never ignore them. And like that's what they are in practice all the time. They're always yelling at each other in Russian. Every single practice, when Radulov scores against Hudobin, he celebrates even harder. Hoodobin gives it back even louder

whenever he makes a save. The best part is whenever they get goalie, coach Jeffrice involved to actually be a judge on this because Anton will like make a glove save and radd will try to yell at him that the glove was over the line and they'll like force Jeffries to come over as like the moderator and actually give a real ruling so one of them can be right like it's it's a beautiful friendship to watch on the ice it's it's one of the things it's one of the things I really miss about not being able to watch morning skates and practices during this whole bubble because there's moments like that that I know where I'm missing out on

the other the other thing that I love about Anton's personality is the fact that none of this is weird to him. Like we talk to, like, things might seem odd to us about and we bring it up and he'll look at you like, why is that odd? Or like, he doesn't like, he there was, so he lives in Siberia in the offseason. And I'm not kidding. He lives in Siberia. And he, there was a time earlier this season or late last season.

I don't know what it was. But essentially one of the former equipment managers. or staffers who worked with him when he played for the Houston arrows came up to Dallas and was talking to him before the game and asking Anton about like where are you like how he was doing and Anton's like oh yeah I live back in Siberia

and the guy laughed and Anton like looked him dead in the eyes like is that is that funny like is it funny that I live in Siberia like and I mean in a way yes but like I guess I guess not and then it's like there's so many little quirky

things about that that we notice just, and it's like, and I think that's why he's been so great in this playoff run is everyone, we get all these questions, he gets all of these, it doesn't surprise me at all. It doesn't surprise me at all who sees him on a daily basis, but we get all of the media questions now where it'll be like, well, Anton, you've, you've never done this before that, and, and now you're doing this. I mean, you must be, must be surprised, and Anton's like, no, like, it's, and it's, and it's, it's, it's, it's, he doesn't care about the outside narratives. He's always treated every single thing like it's, he treats every practice like it's game seven of the Stanley Cup final.

He goes, I think they've actually had to tell him to calm down a little bit in practice since he's carrying the starters load right now. And the other thing about Anton, just like we talk about his career, and I just, I wonder this aloud, if he's 6'1, he's probably an NHL goalie start and doesn't have to bounce around like that, like just to be completely frank. Like, he's a guy who really the only reason that he has to have this revelation at 34 is because he's 5-11. Like, that, to me, I think, is really what it comes down to, where if he's a little bit

taller, he at least gets that stamp of approval as starter material where a GM can say that in the off-season without having to deal with the questions of, well, he's a shorter goalie. Well, I guess part of it is, especially using this postseason, is stylistically too, I think. And that's why I think it's like a, it's such a mutually beneficial relationship of hoodobin's style and the stars' defense and the way they play. It kind of reminds me of, you know, it's funny, Jonathan Quick is that sort of 6-1 goalie, and he's a different athlete, obviously, in Hudobin. But at his peak, when the Kings were competing for Cups and winning Cups, the reason why

he was so good is because he was allowed to be this uber athletic, aggressive goalie that was coming out on shooters and sort of just, like, fighting the puck because he knew that they weren't going to, his defense wasn't going to let him down with backdoor passes and east-west stuff where the passing lanes weren't blocked. And with his Stars team, you see it. Like, I can't even really remember. any times during this run where he's been hung out to dry where he went out at a shooter and all of a sudden the puck was being passed to someone behind him for a tap-in and you just look at

the shot charts yeah yeah there's only one and the reason and it's amazing that i can remember and that's why it's just it's just game two against that second period against Vegas he got left out to draw the second period against Vegas and that's it like that it is but it's but it's one of those when it's that lives so vividly because how rare it was like Vegas goes tick-tac-tac-toe on that three on one and you're like wow that's that i haven't seen the three on one against him in a long time so and and that's what um that's what makes it sort of spinning it for not to not to think too far ahead we're recording this on the thursday afternoon before tampa bay and the islanders play their game six but if they are to play the the lightning like what the lightning do better

offensively than anyone else is those east west passes i can remember a couple times off the top my head where especially against the aisles who are sort of the eastern conference version defensively of the stars where Kuturov has made them pay with those passes for a tap-in behind Varlamov who was too aggressive coming out to greet him as a shooter. And then, you know, as a UFA, like I'm all for Hudo been going out, testing the market, getting paid, especially considering he's been a backup for so long. And if someone's going to offer him a bigger opportunity to play more games moving forward, but it's like, if I were him, I'd be thinking, man, like this is, this is sort of the perfect spot for him where moving forward, you play 30 to 35,

maybe 40 games. Ben Bishop is pretty injury prone, so there might be at that opportunity to play big games moving forward. It's comfortable there, and the system is just so perfect for him. Like, it is really one of those matches made in heaven. 100%. 100%. And that's something where that's two things that people really need

to remember about this run in Anton Houdobin. One thing is he loves and thrive. Anton is someone who, I like to use the word, he's a rhythmic goalie. He's someone who thrives on getting more work. And, like, he is, I got to pull up the execs. I'd have to pull the execs.

I think this playoff around, he's 8 and 0 or 9 in O when making 30 or more saves in a game. And he is someone who, when he's getting more work, he's happy. And the stars, and this kind of brings back, I'm sure we'll touch on this in a little bit when we talk about the stars and analytics and everything like that. Stars are fine giving him that extra work from the outside. And it fits perfectly into his confidence factor. I mean, he is a guy who this system plays so well. If you're a goal, you would love to play behind this system

because you've got to be able to make those, you can be aggressive on those shots, you can take away the angles, and there is the, even, and there's so few breakdowns. There's so few times that you actually have to sprawl out and do this, and it makes you look like a hero. I mean, people, like, people, Anton Hudobin had a great year, but he doesn't lead the league with a 930% percentage behind it.

different defensive system. I think that needs to be clear too. Yeah, and splitting the starts and everything. Like it's, I mean, just the stars were second and same percentage, I think, as a team last year. They were second again this year. Like, it's not, this isn't like it's coming out of nowhere. I think what is coming out of nowhere is the fact that Houdobins played 18 games in 37 days or something like that, which is like basically like half of what he plays over the course of the full regular season for his career. And so the fact that he's kind of held up, but he had a bit of a scare there in one of the games against Vegas where he was doing all sorts of acrobatics and it looked like he might have hurt his leg. But beyond that, like he's held up remarkably well. And now he's got

a bit of this break while they figure out who they're going to play in the cup final. So I mean, just the fact that like he's led the postseason in shots and high danger shots and saves in appearances like all that. Like it's just, I mean, it's a great story and it's awesome. But I do think that nuance in that context is very important because beyond just the name and the fact that he hasn't done it before, like the actual situation itself explains a lot of what's going on. Yeah, it does. And like I just, while we were talking here, I just pulled up his regular season log, and it's ironic enough, like Anton's best regular season game was actually, it was like a Tampa, 45 save

effort against Tampa that Dallas straight up stole in overtime. And that was a game where Anton was great in that game, and I'd have to pull up the full box over. I think the shots were something like 45 to 22 or something like that. But it was a game where the high. danger chances were just as similar. While Tampa, the entire game was spent hemmed into Dallas's own and Houdobin was busy and everything like that, I think

Dallas had just as many high danger chances and just as far as just going back against the rush. And one of the things that I, the Dallas Vegas series really spoke to me on is and I'm not going to go all Tyler Sagan saying analytics are overrated when he was asked about goal differential, which is okay. but I think one of the things that we're seeing more and more of is Vegas to me, I think the Star's exposed Vegas, everyone talks about Vegas being this great defensive team.

To me, the Stars Exposed Vegas has not been a great defensive team. You can't allow six to seven odd man rush as a game and be considered a good defensive team. Yes, they outshot their opponent. They only allowed 20-something shots a game or whatever. But if you're letting up that many rush chances, can you be considered a good defensive team? And I think the stars run to me, one of the overarching things that in Houdobin or Bishop, I think both of them would be having similar success. I think that's the other thing that we need to remember is, and this is more to the stars fans out there,

because I get a lot of stars fans who are like, oh, well, Ben Bishop is, Ben Bishop is washed up. He could never do this. No, Ben Bishop was healthy and playing. Fine, stars would be in the same spot. I don't think the goaltender. It's not the goaltender. It's not the goaltender, it's the system, and then the goaltender surpassing expectations that make it such a great story. But really, the stars run, to me, is the big definition of how do we define what good defense is? Because there is, is good defense limiting shots? Is it limiting quality chances? Is it controlling possession?

I mean, I think that's what this whole run comes out to define. And that's why the whole, if Dallas, whether they play Tampa or the Islanders in the final, I think it would be fascinating because those two would be two very different finals. It would be, like, I think, like, either way, like, Dallas Islanders final would be, that would be a muck and, that would be muck and grind. That would be both teams trying to frustrate the other. Well, Dallas, if they play Tampa, which looks like they will, I'm a side. I find hard to believe Tampa will lose two more, and so I'm assuming Tampa will win. But if they play Tampa, they could get outshot 35 to 16 in a game and still, and I wouldn't be surprised if they won because they could limit those chances.

And Dallas has shown, like they did to Colorado, they can frustrate a team that like. to fly. Well, and I think it's a testament to the versatility of the team, too, the fact that we've seen so many versions of this Dallas Stars team this postseason where in round one, they were clearly the superior team and they just dominated the puck versus Calgary, even when they were losing Cam Talbot was just facing a ridiculous amount of shots. Then in round two, we're like, oh, well, do they have enough offense to keep up with Colorado? And then they just straight up traded chances and goals with them and come out on top. And then in round three against Vegas, they totally kind of get back to that Star's team that we'd seen for large stretches of the regular

season where they are comfortable playing that 2-1 game but they're opportunistically going to attack on the rush whenever the opportunity presents itself and so depending on their finals opponent they're kind of well suited to play against their opponent and the way they see sort of the most easiest route to victory but i mean let's okay let's talk about the stars and analytics and and you mentioned the say-again thing and you mentioned the Golden Knights and, you know, what kind of defensive team they are. And I think for the most part, especially for the regular season, when you have the puck more often than your opponent, you're kind of a good defensive team just because you're limiting the amount of times the other team is going to be able to be in your zone, right? And so that makes it easier for your goalie.

But it's really really funny to, I mean, not funny, it's sad. It's very upsetting that watching the dialogue around the stars as if their success this post-season. season is some sort of an indictment against quote unquote analytics. And oftentimes people saying that do not even understand what analytics are or what they're talking about. It's kind of like, I agree with you 100%. It's like,

you mentioned the say again comment. It's like this, it's this like gotcha moment, right? Where it's like people are baiting him into saying what they want them to say. It's an old journalist trick where you know when you ask Tyler say again that, like what's he supposed to say? Oh, we're getting super lucky. we're pedoing our way through this postseason we're not actually this good no of course in the bat like as a

player on that team he's going to believe that what they're doing is is right and there is a lot of context to suggest that what they are doing is playing the right way and we're going to get into that here but then you just like get that quote and then all of a sudden it goes on twitter and and people that are putting it out know exactly what they're doing when they do that and it's up so it's it's it's annoying because i feel like it's sort of setting back um the the dialogue and the discourse and and it's not like this is a new formula, right? It's like postseason success. It's getting a bit lucky, being opportunistic with your scoring, and then having a good goalie.

And that's exactly what the stars have done. This isn't some sort of a revelation where, like, sure, a lot of people picked Colorado and Vegas to beat them, as did I. I think you did yourself as well. Because on paper heading in, they look like superior teams. That wasn't to suggest that they were going to be sweeps, that this Dallas team wasn't deserving of being on this stage. It was just that we thought they had more firepower. Clearly, the way Dallas played gave them a lot of trouble, and they wound up winning both those series.

And it doesn't necessarily mean that we need to throw every single number out the window and start from scratch. It's just the way the playoffs work and the way that sort of formula for postseason success comes together. Yeah, the other thing, too, is like the people who, you get a lot of people who say, well, you can't measure that with analytics. Actually, you can. You can know almost everything that people talks about. about most things people talk about that say you can't measure that with analytics you can

I think the craziest one I heard the other day was someone's it you can't measure the grit to block a hundred mile an hour shot well I mean that's pure my life that's not an analytic that's literally a stat block shots or a stat but um the other thing too is people who rip into analytics they find they find the simplest they water it down to the simplest thing and narrow it down to okay this is why coursey is good or bad and I actually and and and you know what I don't think Corsi is the best use of things. I think, like, for example, the Stars, the Stars Vegas series is a perfect example of we shouldn't be looking at Corsi. We should be looking at, okay, we should be looking at, we should be looking at quality chances, we should be look at rush chances, we should look at chances

from the slot, we should be looking at all these things. And to me, the biggest thing, and I don't know, you can tell me if I'm wrong, I think the people who want to rip into analytics are the ones who don't understand that there's more nuance at all. And so they therefore say, well, I'm just going to rip into the most basic level of it, which over the course of an 82 game season, the team with the best course, you should be the best team.

I think that is silver course, and it's just there's too much random happenstance in the playoffs. So we need to look at the more nuanced things. We need to look at, okay, in Dallas and Vegas, we need to be able to look at, okay, who was able to get to the home plate area that's been to find more, who was able to get more shots,

create more shots on the rush off of getting the goalie to move, all those things that we can balance and that are wonderful tools. But the issue is they're not really readily available, and they're not, and therefore we get these detractors to say, well, this simplest one that we, the kindergarten math, the kindergarten math doesn't really tell me anything, when really there's so much more.

And the stars, they use analytics. That's the other thing, too. If they win the cup, I guarantee you someone's going to say, oh, well, I didn't see the coyotes. I didn't see the coyotes winning the cup or I didn't see one of these other analytic teams winning the cups. The stars use analytics. You know who actually does most of their analytic work for the stars? They have the contract, an analytic company out of Montreal, and then their video coach

does a ton of their analytic work too. And some, and it's, and when, to me, that speaks volumes to everything. When your guy who is looking at those numbers and getting the analytic reports, and he's also your video coach, he's the one who, the stars basically take, he's supposed to look at the numbers and find the video to prove, to prove, okay, well, why is this happening?

They're supposed to be working hand in hand. So the stars are an analytic team. That's the other thing. Like, there are, like this whole analytic versus non-analytic team to me. Every team, if they haven't by now, every team within two, three years will be an analytic team. Every team uses analytics and they use it fine. It's just the people who

people who don't understand it and get lost on it and then try to strip context away from it. Like there's people who, I know you get sometimes like, for example, people get lost in the fact that you need context in this stuff too. Like Taylor Fadone is the star's third pairing defenseman. His analytics are typically great, but that's also he only ever plays in the offensive zone

and never plays in the defensive zone. And it's frustrating. You got me on a rant there, so you go ahead. Well, and sort of picking up on what you were saying there, I think any analyst worth their assault would be asking these questions and digging deeper. And that's why it's so ironic because I would say that people who are bigger proponents of analytics are sort of trying to get a better grasp on what is good defense, both on a player and a team level, sort of changing our opinion and our definition of what constitutes it. And based on the

limited numbers we do have just publicly available. what you'd say about the stars team is just it takes a quick glance on natural statuary this isn't some sort of rocket science for someone who can't grasp it it's like based on pure shot attempts just raw totals at five on five they were sub 50% during the regular season they were 18th in the league but then you go shots on goal they were slightly better but then you go high danger attempts which is clearly what they're valuing and they were seventh at 53% which is a very good elite team and part of that is defensively what they're doing and part of it is offensively

what they're trying to do with the puck as well and you look at like Michael McCurdy's heat maps on his website hockey viz offensively around the net it's just really red indicating they're shooting a lot from there they're trying to prioritize getting the puck into those high dangerous spaces

defensively it's basically the only places where they're giving up a lot are the two points on the edges they're basically blocking off the entire middle of the ice it's like a no-fly zone for anyone And so you put all that together. And none of this is sort of an accident. It's not like they're just sort of sitting back.

And certainly there's been moments where Anton Houdobin has stolen periods or games for them or the opposing team has had flurries where he made seven or eight great saves. And the other team probably should have scored. That happened to Vegas, certainly. But that's going to happen with a good goalie who has shown that, you know, he's a 9-19 goalie, as I said, for his regular season career. he's a 9-19 safe percentage goalie this postseason. This isn't some sort of out of this world 945

safe percentage performance where you're like, okay, well, there's no way this can continue. This is like what the stars do. And so I think anyone, any analyst that's looking at this would acknowledge this. And so while a team like the avalanche might seem more sort of analytically friendly because they're this like faster skating, offensively oriented,

team that has made a lot of smart moves that people have praised over the past year and a half, that doesn't necessarily mean that the stars just because they're the polar opposite are suddenly like the universe, right? Like, that's the beauty of this. It's that you can win many different ways. You can create a team many different ways. There are different philosophies in terms of what the best way to win in NHL is and that's sort of the beauty of it.

So I really push back on the idea and I know it's going to happen. It's already happening. If they win, it's going to reach an even higher fever pitch. unfortunately, but I really don't buy this argument that the stars are sort of disproving analytics. It's certainly not ideal that they've been outscored this postseason. That's not analytical. Like, it's literally the most simple goal metric. So, I don't know. There's just a lot of context and nuance too, that's missing. And that's sort of why I actually wanted to get back to doing this podcast, just because some of the content I've been seeing out there has just been

so baffling to me. Well, yeah, and that's the other thing, too. I think a lot of people are going to go and like to take this isn't as someone who is at them as a big soccer fan this is the stars aren't the hockey you can't be that you can't take the soccer analogy of parking the bus and winning a hockey game like in soccer you can do it because you can actually just literally pack everyone in there and you can't do that in the n hl you actually have to be good defensively even teams that you have to play to to what the stars have done. Like, if you were to, I would imagine,

if you were to go to any goalie in the NHL and you were to show them, hey, here's the shot location for the shots you'll face playing behind this defense versus the shot location you'll play behind playing this defense. They would pick to play behind Dallas's defense

every time. Like it would be, like it's, it is a ideal, like to me, that's one of the reasons where even if the star, so one of the things that's going to happen is a big offseason story for the stars is how do they,

are they involved in the goalie carousel? Because, well, Anton Houdobin has played himself into a pretty good raise and everything. We talked about how much he's benefited from that. But any other goalie, if Anton Houdobin is not back in Dallas, any of the other top goleys who are available are going to look at the Dallas situation and say, I'd love to play behind that defense. Not only is it easier on top of that, it makes me look good too. Like, it's like, that's, that's, that should not be forgotten.

Especially with, uh, with the questions in terms of teams, budgets and how much money is available. If I were a goalie who didn't have a very lucrative enticing offer out there, long-term available, yeah, I would take a one-year deal at a discount to go play behind this team for sure and build up those raw numbers and then head back into free agency being like, oh, look at my 9-30s, 8 percentage. This is pretty good, right? Exactly.

And the one thing, so you mentioned showing a goalie where the shots are coming from and then picking that. I think the other thing is knowing night in and night out that that is where the shots are going to come from because as you as you talk about those the heat maps like there's a clear pattern there of what the stars are allowing and what they're prioritizing and then once we talked about earlier knowing that you can just square up the shooter like goalies are so good these days i say this time and time again if you're in an hl goalie and you know the shots coming and you can see the shot you're most time going to save it there's going to be the occasional time where the it's just a

beautiful shot that beats you up high but ironically enough like hood open's glove has been so markable this postseason as well that most of the times it's like very lazy analysis you see on TV where someone's like yeah this goalie's weakness is getting beaten glove glove side up high bar down it's like yeah well the perfect shot will beat most goalies and Riley Smith in the most recent game coming down the wing beat hood open with a perfect shot and he's certainly not immune to that but most times especially down low if you can see the puck you're going to stop it so it really is uh you know the hood open and the stars defense go hand in hand and there's a lot of of contacts and nuance to it.

And hopefully we got into that enough. Let's talk about the defensemen and did they make that possible then. Obviously, it is kind of a team effort and there's a system obviously in place. But the numbers for the defensemen so far are so fascinating to me because, you know, Heiskenen, we could talk for another 40 minutes about him. And he probably deserves it because he's been kind of, you know, he's the last one standing. So he's getting more of the tension in love now nationally. But for a while there was McCarver's Hughes.

And so he's kind of the odd man. of that conversation for whatever reason. But his numbers have been so good that he warrants legitimate cons my consideration should the stars win the cup here as good as Hudeauben has been. But the breakdown for me is so fascinating where when you have high skin and ice at 5-1-5, they're up 1811 this postseason. When they have Klingberg on the ice at 5-1-5, they're down 17-19, but it sort of speaks to what you'd think about Klingberg, where it's a very high event, there's a lot going on.

Basically, it's like the embodiment of everything is happening. And then when neither of them are on ice, they're down 9-3. And it's just insane to me. That's over 200 minutes worth of action. And there's basically nothing happening. Obviously, it's a net negative for them. But it really is interesting sort of seeing that breakdown and the way you'd think based on that sort of sliding scale of the types of players that are involved, that it actually has played out that way for them this postseason.

Yeah, it's one of the things the star's system deserves a ton of credit for is how. after having the two main puck movers in Mero and Klingberg, the third pairing really doesn't matter. Like who it is doesn't matter. Like, for example, you have Joel Hanley and Andre Seckerer are playing in that role right now. They're both replacement level players. You can plug to, like,

I think that's the other lesson from the stars run here is you can have a third pairing of two replacement level players if they know their role within the system. If they know they can play zero-sum hockey for 12 minutes night, then you're golden. Like, Joel, like Joel Hanley, if you ask anyone who Joel Hanley is before this playoff run, even if you ask people during this playoff front, I still pip people don't know who Joel Hanley is.

And, but he's able to come in, plays a very simple game, but plays straight to the star system, allow, doesn't allow high danger chances, and, and fits perfectly in there. And it allows, you take basically, one of the ways I compare it to is the stars are able have for 40. This is why I like when Klingberg and Hishkin and have their own pair but then get put together for offensive zone faiths. But in general I like them on their own pair until certain situations. But that's why

you like them, you put you like in that, okay, well we get 48 47, 48 minutes a night of having the best puck mover on the ice. And we just need that if those other 13 minutes, we play zero sum hockey and we have an entire line that does that with the fox aligned, then we've

shortened the game for the other team and it's just frustrating. Well, that's what the, that's what the Predators were doing when they made the cup final, right? It was like Yanik Weber and Matterwin will play 10 to 12 minutes night because our top two pairings are going to be out there for nearly 50 minutes and we're going to be really good in those 50 minutes and these guys are probably going to get sheltered competition against, you know, third and fourth lines and just please don't screw up. And so it's worked out that way. I mean, with Heiskenen, it's interesting that you brought up that, you know, sort of squeezing out those offensive minutes with him in Klingberg

because I was looking at his numbers and like the 22 points obviously stick out where he's amongst the league leaders in postseason scoring. And you'd think that, you know, there was some sort of a shenanigans there in terms of like him getting some cheapies. And so last postseason, it's interesting you brought that up because, you know, when Jim Montgomery was trying to sort of create some easy offense from them during last year's postseason run, there was like nearly 100 minutes there at 5-15

where Klingberg and Heiskin and were out there together. And a large part of that was the 96 offense's own draws. They were out there. Basically, that's the only time he would sort of stack them as this like, mega line with Radjolov, Ben and say again, and try to create some easy offense because they struggled so much to create. Otherwise, this year, they've only played 11 minutes together so far at 5-15. There's postseason six offensive zone draws.

And they think part of that is just like Heiskenins minutes have gone up to nearly 20 seconds a night now in the postseason. And so if he's out there at all situations, it's really, it's a lot tougher to sort of pick and choose because he's probably going to be out there more times than not. And so in this case, they're like, we're just going to give most of the premium minutes to Klingberg to try to generate stuff here and then Heiskenen is just going to do everything else. Yeah, and I mean, it's kind of, it's a fair way to use Heiskenen though, too,

because they're using Miro in a way where he is their settler, basically. He calms the game down. He brings everything. When he's on the ice, pretty much as we said the numbers before, good things happen for Dallas. And Klingberg does get a bit more chaotic, but he makes it more fun to watch. And the other thing, too, that the stars are,

trying to do, and they haven't gotten to that success yet. One of the big things that they want to do, and they've had these conversations over and over again, and I don't know if they'll ever be able to do it, is they've been trying to get Essel Lindell to realize he can move the puck more. Esa Lindell is someone who, he's led the league in icings two of the last three years or three of the last four years or something like that, and they have worked so hard in having so many of those conversations of, Elsa, look, you can take these three extra strides because no one's going to, like, And so they've been trying, that's the other reason of all of us. They're trying to get more to this spot of where Essel and Dell, okay, it's okay for you to move with the puck.

You can take pressure off John that way as opposed to just passing and then moving on. It's the other thing, too, that's been just interesting. And the reason the Heishkin and has so much success and the guy who deserves so much credit for this is, Jamie Alexiak has not been a liability. Like Jamie Alexiak, this whole thing wouldn't have worked if Jamie Alexiore. didn't have kind of the resurgent. I don't even want to call it resurgent. He's never been this good.

If Jamie Alexiak hasn't had the postseason he's had, you're not able to do this as well. Then you have to mix and match more. But the fact Alexiac has been able to play well in the offensive zone, the defensive zone and kind of be that player that maybe people expected him to be when he was a first round pick,

that has allowed this all to work so much better. Yeah. Yeah, he's just like roving around there. I've noticed in the offensive zone, or he's just like behind the goal line. You're like, wait, what just happened there? But I mean, the thing with Heiskenen, and I think one of my favorite stats so far this postseason is in all those heavy minutes he's playing and his most common forward opponents so far are the usual suspects. It's McKinnon, Ranton, Goodrow, Monaghan, Landisog, Stone, and Carlson.

So the best players on the three teams he's played. He hasn't taken a single penalty. Yeah, it's amazing. And you just watch how much ground he covers and how effortlessly he does it and how well he uses his stick. It's just, it's really fun to watch. It's, it's, uh, it's, the picture perfect sort of modern day defenseman in terms of what I want my number one to be able to do. And he does it so smoothly. And yeah, it's, it's, it's really fun to watch. I mean, I, any, any way you slice it, the numbers look great for him. And he deserves to be, uh, getting recognized for it in a

Nandah Norse trophy discussion. And then I think should Dallas win, it'll be a very, very fascinating conversation between him and Houdobin because, you know, there certainly merits to both players. Yeah, and he's someone too where I think this is the run where whether the stars win or lose, this run to me is the reputation run he needs to win the Norris, just to be frank. Because so much, the Norris so much is he's not the guy, he's not going to go and do the Brent Burns, outscore everyone by 17 points or whatever by all defensemen. And he's not going to win the Norris that way. And so to win the Norris, you have to have that reputation moment,

whether it's, and for some guys it's finishing second or third and being in there for a little bit, or for Miro, I think it's going to be this, where there's going to be people who are going to, where there are going to be people where not only will he get first place votes in the future because of this run, all of a sudden he'll be when, when people who vote based just on counting numbers,

and they go and list three defensemen next year, and then they say, oh, well, who's my fourth and fifth? He'll be like, oh, I remember that Hachkinin guy was good. Like, he's going to get. give some fourth and fifth place votes in the future because of this run as well. Like, and I mean, I don't know whether he wins the Norris next year or the year, but he's going to win one because of the reputation he is deservedly built on this run. Yeah.

Oh, for sure. That's, that's exactly how individual player voting works. So, I mean, so far we're like 50 minutes in here. And I think if someone with listening, like the tenor is generally very upbeat and deservedly so. This team is four wins away from winning the Stanley Cup. But as I think even the most sort of staunch stars admirers would admit, it's certainly like far from a flawless team and listen like i think part of the reason why i was so

hesitant i like this team i certainly like their underlying numbers in terms of how they plan i thought it could generate a lot of postage success i mean they were a goal away from making the western conference final last year um is i had my kind of concerns about the coaching and we've touched on it earlier with uh goryanov's usage and like sometimes it's very frustrating for someone like myself to look and see like, oh, wow, Blake Como has played five more minutes in Dennis Gariano tonight. Like, that's cool. I love to see that. But I was watching the most recent quest for the cup episode and the stars are obviously heavily featured in it. And man, Rick Bonas, like, what a character, what a guy? Like, he just seems like kind of your cheery, you know,

dad coaching his kids soccer team sort of vibe where he's just like, just very, proud and he's like just letting everyone know it and and i think jimmy ben either yesterday or today i think think it was the 31 thoughts piece by earlier freeman was talking about how like he's like his favorite coach he's ever played for and obviously part of that probably is to do with the fact that he's his current coach and they're having success together but part of it is that sort of just uh personality vibe and i think sometimes for for myself i sort of look at um player usage or x's and o's and you kind of get hung up on that because especially in the postseason when it is so tight you want to sort of maximize to make sure your best players are getting added opportunities.

But there is such a sort of nebulous behind the scenes component to coaching as well, where it's like such a personality, person-to-person-driven thing as well. And for him to have that sort of connection with the players, like you can obviously see that from the interactions and from all the quotes you're hearing as well. Yeah, and I've actually, one of the things about Rick, and I actually have a story coming on him tomorrow, so this is perfect timing to discuss all of this. I mean, he is someone who,

part of it is his experience and how long he's been around the game, but one of the things the stars have that I don't think any other team in the bubble had is they want to win for Rick bonus. Like, I think there's, like, Vegas, Pete DeBore is a good coach, but I don't think there was no emotional investment

where Vegas says we want to win for Pete DeBore. And I'm not saying that's the reason the stars won the series, but it is a factor in all this. The stars as a team, I like to use the line I've been using kind of broken record style here is Rick Bonas has created a team

where the cliché is they'll run through a wall for Rick Bonus, but Rick has never asked them once to run through the wall. They like as a team, they basically decided with how Rick treats us, how he handles the human interactions, the day-to-day human side of things, that

makes them feel like, okay, we are going to we're going to win this for Rick and that's something that he's never told that's something that a coach can't create themselves on purpose like that's something that you have to do with actions and one of the things and I'll tell you this we'll put this story in there now

because my story will come out tomorrow it's around the same time when this publishes so back in January for our American listeners the Dallas Cowl back in January gets announced that Jimmy Johnson's going into the Football Hall of Fame and they showed in January, and they showed the clip of Troy Aikman's reaction,

and Troy Aikman has tears in his eyes, because Troy Aikman played for Jimmy Johnson, the Cowboys, one, two, three Super Bowls with him. And the stars were in Denver at the time. It was a Sunday night. A bunch of them were watching the game. And a conversation starts up of like, okay, wow, do you see a guy tearing up

because this coach is going to live in? Is there any coach that you've had would give you that type of interaction? And Matias Yanmark, of all people, said, you know what, if Rick bone it, I would cheer up like that because of bones. And like that is, and this is something where we're talking about a guy

who's a month into being the head coach. It's not like a guy who's been the head coach there for a long time or anything like that. This January 12th, it's been 34 days since Jim Montgomery's been fired. And he's got this team of guys that want to win for him. And the other thing I think Rick deserves a ton of credit for, I think that family side and letting guys know he's there, I think that's been,

we were able to play that up in this bubble because it's even so much more important in this bubble because they don't have their other families with them. But the other thing that Rick deserves a ton of credit for is he had to play, he had to keep playing Monty Hockey after the coaching teams. There was no time to reset and really change things. And bonus hockey versus Montgomery Hocker, it's not that different, but it has its tweaks. And he couldn't really apply those tweaks without a training camp. And that's what he was able to do.

Like the way that, yes, Hachin and Klingberg are great jumping into the rush. But Andre Secker does not get below the goal line if Jim Montgomery is the coach. Andre Secker is not there for that game seven assist. Jamie Alexiak is not jumping in for a breakaway if Jim Montgomery is the head coach. Joel Hanley doesn't have the green light to jump into the zone. Rick Bonas has basically, it's easy to think, oh, well, yeah, just say everyone has the green light midseason. Well, no, you need to actually build that trust in. This team is working.

And so he had to pretty much run Jim Montgomery system. He's created a system where his defensemen are willing to be more of that fourth man in. And the other thing that I think bonus has done, and I don't know, and this is the great question, because I don't know if this can apply to a regular season or not. The great thing that Rick does is he prepares a team to play to the other team's weakness. And so the stars have played, they play to Calgary's weaknesses, they play to Colorado's weaknesses, they play to Vegas' weaknesses. They'll play to either Tampa or the Islander's weaknesses.

this, and it's obviously something you can do over a full series. I don't know if that would, that's the great question, and that's the great question that Jim Nill and Tom Galardi will have to discuss in their heads over, is that something you can do? And can you plan for, can you play to the opponent's weakness 82 games a year? Is that something that you can do? You can do it in the playoffs, and it's great. I don't know if you can do it every, on an 82 game season.

That's the, that's the great question, because, teams that go and win and are great in the regular season, they just do their own thing and they don't give a damn what the other team does. So, can you, does that work in the regular season? I don't know if it does, but that's what Rick does. Yeah. Well, and it's, you know, kudos to him because I think you'd probably find if you gave truth serum to or pulled most players that, like, they have one sort of favorite assistant coach

that they love because that assistant can sort of be the player's coach, right, and doesn't have to be the hard ass that the head coach needs to be some time and isn't necessarily, responsible for ice time and so you're not quibbling with him about that and so the fact that they love them as an assistant coach is one thing but the fact that it's sort of carried over and had that effect while he's the head coach considering he's had an entirely different set of responsibilities is pretty impressive because I think that leap can be uh challenging if you don't handle it correctly yeah 100% and it's it's the it's the thing where it's easy to it's easy to keep corey perry and it's easy to keep cori perry and it's easy to keep cori

Perry happy or Blake Como happy or whatever when you're not the one handling their ice time. It's just, it's easy. And now that he's the one making those decisions and handling the forwards on a daily basis, that's been a group that he's had to worry to keep happy. And he's done a good job with that. Even when, even if some of the ice time decisions we still wonder and we can talk in the same thing, we've talked about Denny enough. But I think there's a lesson to be learned of, yes, keep telling Denny to take those quick shifts.

but maybe Denny should get four to five more shifts than everyone else. But that's a... Yes. We can keep for another time on that. When you're in the final, it's tough to quibble with it. But yes, I would love to see Dennis Garianov play more. I mean, the forward usage just is so interesting to look at because Joe Pavelski plays the most out of any forward in all situations at 1739.

Tyler Sagan is playing 1726. And then basically no one else is playing more than 16 minutes. It's like this remarkably tight gap between 12 and a half and 60 minutes for like every forward. And it's so counter to what I would usually like to see. Like if I were running a team, I guess it's easier if you have a Nathan McKinnon. It kind of solved that problem for you. But I do find that in NHL, top players typically aren't probably playing as much as they could or should. Like you like, for whatever reason we decided that this 20 minute benchmark is like where it's sort of

of ends and anyone that plays more than 20 minutes of forward. You're like, ooh, that's pretty exotic where, I mean, they're peak athletes and they probably know how to switch forwards to pick their spots and having them out there for 25 minutes, for those extra five minutes is probably valuable because if they're your best player, you're probably going to have a better chance to score goals and win. But I guess with the Stars team and the way it's composed, and it speaks to the fact that we've gone an hour and now without really talking about Sagan and Ben, you'd think that, you know, if you just look at the cap sheet and how much they're making, you'd normally be like,

oh, well, those are the guys that should be playing the most and say again, is playing the most. But at 17 and a half, that's not necessarily going to kind of just, you know, mess everything up for everyone else. So it's really interesting to see how they've sort of managed those minutes. And we can quibble with whether it's the right way to go about it, but it's working so far. Yeah. I mean, I guess the other thing it does, and it's just like you take for an example of they don't, Don't, the one thing the starters don't do, while you could say there's, well, you could say there's definitely some issues and you think maybe Ben and Sagan players making that much should be playing more. The other thing you don't run into is you don't run into a situation like Vegas where Vegas playing is paying guys on the fourth line who we talk so much about to play six, seven minutes a night. Like if anything, like we talk about, the whole narrative around the Vegas Golden Knights is there's such this deep team and they attack and they attack in waves and there's so many in their, and they're in there, and they're, and they're, and they're, and they're, and they're, and they're, and and they're, and they use everyone.

Well, the stars are actually that team. Like, you look at that series and everyone's like, oh, Vegas is that. No, the stars actually use everyone equally. Vegas is way more of our traditional hierarchy when it comes to lines. It's like it's, and it's something where the other thing that's just fascinating with the stars and what this run will do for both this team and both this team going forward and especially in this league where we're talking about kind of an economic crunch too, where I wonder how many teams will look at Dallas,

even if they lose in the final, and they'll look at Dallas and look like, well, you know what, we can have a guy like Yoel Kivirontah can be on our third line, and we don't have to worry about going to get this veteran. And yes, the stars have the veterans, but, like, Corey Perry is not the Corey Perry he used to be. We need to remember that.

Yes. Well, he kind of is when he's just flying around and just running into boards by himself. Yeah, but. I mean, you know, with, say again, it's tough because he's so clearly hampered by that wrist injury where, like, it's kind of a miracle that he has scored two goals just because he's getting no zip on that shot. He's clearly, something's bugging him there, but then the other thing that is not defensible, though, for Tyler with the wrist is his skating looks off too. Like, it does not. Like, his skating looks off.

And I don't know whether that's a, I don't know if there's some, if it's, hopefully, hopefully for him in off-season healing, it's just some mental grip of some one body in, but like having a bad wrist does not explain this, why, how poor the skating has looked to me. And that to me is actually more concerning than that. I would say that his activity and sort of involvement has improved recently. I'd say there were certainly stretches where I just thought,

like you'd forget that he was playing. I'd wonder if he was even like, like, dressed. It's gotten much better than the last three, four. They got much better after game one of the Vegas series. The thing with me is like the bend sort of turning back the clock is, I mean, I think it was after Jim Light's comments, I had you on for like an emergency podcast. And we were talking about Ben and NC again and sort of how much they were at fault and how much of it was sort of bad luck versus an actual decline versus, you know, them just not playing out. to their capabilities. And with Ben, we had this conversation that is such a deep and fascinating one, but it's like on a given night, you see the flashes of that peak fastball that he used to have.

But as you get older and as that mileage and that attrition, especially with the playing style he had, makes it so much more difficult to reach back and show that big performance every night. And ironically enough, I think like his most memorable regular season game this year was against the lightning when he had that overtime winner. remember that being like, oh, like that looked like prime Jamie Ben. And then those moments were very few and far between this regular season. But for the past three weeks, I want to say, like, I don't know how many games it's been, but he's really gotten back to that sort of, that traditional, like, just like, you're just trucking people, just play and keep away with the puck, finishing from in tight.

And for me, the biggest barometer of that is he's back to generating a lot of shot attempts and shots. And that's something that had sort of progressively started to erode as we see with aging players where in his prime he was this shot generation generating machine while also converting at a pretty high rate because he was shooting from such close proximity whereas now he was getting kind of pushed further and further back and the volume was decreasing and that was such a bad formula for him i don't know what's gone on but he's looked like you can kind of like squint now and be like oh that looks like yeah that looks like jamie ben that i know from yeah five years ago yeah one of the things about jamie too and i think we've seen

that we probably have used this line multiple times before, where Jamie Ben's style is not sustainable for 82 games a year anymore. It's just, it's not. It's not. But the other thing, too, is we're seeing in this playoff run, Jamie Ben has no wear and tear on them going into this playoff run. Every other playoff run, Jamie's had 82 games of wear and tear where he's been, I mean, he had a full offseason essentially before this playoff run to be,

to be the prime version of himself. And I think from a star's perspective, you're hopeful that this is a a site into like oh he's really dialed it back this is what jimmy ben is again but then you also have to take it with a grain of salt where he's never going to get four months again between the last regular season game in the first playoff game to to really beef up and be healthy and and have no lingering hips or back or any other things that that takes

all that that get pounded on every single collision he's in and now it's and then the other thing with Jamie too I was talking to Starr's assistant coach John Stevens on the phone the other day and after he gave me after he told me I was 0 for 3 and picking against them we were then talking about Jamie and he said one of the things that surprised him about Jamie Ben is he Jamie Ben has looked like a player that's been there before

he said he said a lot of the times he says like I see he said I expected Joe Pavelski to look like he's been here before I've expected I expected Corey Perry to look like he's been here before. But Jamie Ben, to me, you look at his game and you look how he's played and you look at his mentality. And he looks like he's been through this before and he knows what it takes to win a Stanley Cup. Like we talk about that great quantitative. It's great to have a cup winner.

It's the only reason Tampa even went and got signed Pat Maroon is because he won a cup. And Stephen said, well, you look at Jamie and he's found that switch that a lot of guys don't learn until they've won a cup and typically they need someone who's won a cup to teach them that and and the stars don't have that guy to teach him to that and so i don't know i don't even know how to properly quantify that but it's just an observation from the inside of like okay and maybe maybe it's 2014 olympics i don't know maybe that's what it is maybe it's that's what he's drawn back to of those those biggest games and it's the international experience i don't know and maybe and we go back to 2014 and that's when jami was at his best and so maybe it's all

tied to that i don't know what the great what the right answer is but i don't know what the right answer is but definitely do think whether this is an aberration or a sign of things to come it's something that i think stars fans should really enjoy yeah i don't know if it's a sign of things to come i mean at this age and the the track record i'd say it's certain i mean yeah you just enjoy it while it's happening um yeah it's you know pavelsky man like every time they've needed something he just goes out and in some different form he does it and it's kind of that eye-rolling thing where it's like that's such a color commentator thing to say. Like, oh, like, what a winner.

Like, he just makes the right plays. But then you actually see they need a goal or they need to, you know, change the, the trajectory of the game is on. And then all of a sudden he just goes out there and he gets the puck in the right spot. He scores some weird goal. And you're like, ah, he's done it so many times where it's clearly not a fluke. Like, it's by design. He's just really, really good at hockey.

So it's, it's been fun to watch. All right. I think that's enough on the stars for now. I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to talk about them in the coming days as we get into Stanley Cup final. Sean, this is a blast man. I'm glad we got to do this. It's good to be back. I'm happy to do it. What do you got coming out? I know you sort of alluded to a couple pieces that you have in the pipeline. Yeah. I got a story on Rick Blon is coming out. Same day this is published, just kind of looking at him. And we talked a lot about that impact on the players and what he's bent. But also, piece also. looks at kind of how Rick took that time to kind of tweak his tweak Moni system during that break just to kind of give him. And that's really the reason why, like, Rick Bonas being a good person is not the reason Jim Nill is thinking about taking their interim tag off.

It's what Rick Bonas did during that stoppage is why I's thinking about taking that tag off. We got that coming. I do want to give a plug out to one of our general assignment guy, Saad Yousif, has been working on a really fun Anton Houdobin story that's coming, coming sometime early next week, that I think everyone should check out where he's talked to, the amount of people he's talked about Anton Houdobin's history is tremendous. It's going to be, I've seen some of the conversations. I've seen, as Sade's been working on it, people are going to really enjoy that one.

And so I'll give Sade some love because he makes my job so much easier as someone who is helping me at least ask a follow-up question during Zoom press conferences because I ask one question. It's my only question. And then he'll text me saying, like, I'll follow up on that for you. So I want to give Sads some love. Awesome. Well, keep a good work, Sean. This was a blast. And I'm sure we'll check in down the road again and talk about this weird, wacky Dallas Stars team. Sounds good. Before we get out of here, I just wanted to give a quick shout out to those of you who took the time

during the P.D. Guess, hey, it is to reach out to me and provide your support and check in and make sure everything's okay. And let me know how much you miss the show and much you couldn't wait for it to be back. Trust me. While we were gone, no one missed doing the PDO cast more than myself. It was pretty excruciating, having to sit back and watch all these playoff games and not being able to come on here and provide my takes and just talk about hockey for an hour or whatnot. So hopefully today's show wasn't too rusty. It was definitely weird out of the gate coming in and just, and resuming talking about hockey. I haven't done this show in nearly four months now. It's definitely the longest I've ever gone since I started podcasting.

So it was a bit of weird out of the gate, but I think we worked our way into it. So moving forward, hopefully, we're going to get back to something resembling regularly scheduled programming. You know, just in terms of the logistics and behind the scenes, it made the stoppage in the season made it really difficult, you know, financially to keep doing the show as we were doing it before. But I think we're working towards a longer-term solution that's going to allow us to keep turning out new shows and, you know, hopefully guide us all the way through the Stanley Cup final. and what promises to be a really busy movement-filled off-season. So looking forward to that. And hopefully, you'll be hearing from me again soon, and it won't be another four months.

And, yeah, I just wanted to thank everyone for the continued support and the patience and hopefully we'll reward it with some more fun shows down the road. So until then. The Hockey P.D.Ocast with Dmitri Filippovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockey pdiocast. The podcast.