The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 393: Zero-Sum Hockey

Episode Date: April 29, 2021

Sean Shapiro joins the show to help deep dive the ups and downs this season for the Dallas Stars, the excitement behind Jason Robertson's special rookie year, and the future of NHL broadcasts in the States. Topics include: The battle between Dallas and Nashville for 4th in Central Underlying numbers vs. results for the Stars 1-goal games, and waiting for regression in short season Impact of COVID on player performance this season Contextualizing Anton Khudobin's struggles Roope Hintz's production despite uncertain status Unlocking combination of Hintz and Robertson Details in Robertson's game that have made him successful Jason Robertson vs. Kirill Kaprizov for the Calder Not taking John Klingberg's contributions for granted Miro Heiskanen's next contract NHL's new TV partners in the U.S. The financial impact the deals will have How the league can better sell the product If you haven't yet, please go take a minute to leave a rating and review for the show. If you're busy and don't feel like writing anything, it's all good. Just hit the 5-star button. Each one counts, and helps us out. If you're feeling extra generous, you can also leave a note about why you recommend people check the show out. Thanks for the help! 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.

Are you ready for the most ridiculous internet sports show you have ever seen? Welcome to React, home of the most outrageous and hilarious videos the web has to offer. So join me, Rocky Theos, and my co-host, Raiders Pro Bowl Defensive Inn, Max Crosby, as we invite your favorite athlete, celebrities, influencers, entertainers in for an episode of games, laughs, and, of course, the funniest reactions to the wildest web clips out there. Catch React on YouTube, and that is React, R-E-A-X-X. Don't miss it. This podcast episode is brought to you by Coors Light.

These days, everything is go, go, go. It's non-stop hustle all the time. Work, friends, family. Expect you to be on 24-7? Well, sometimes you just need to reach for a Coors Light because it's made to chill. Coors Light is cold-loggered, cold-filtered, and cold-packaged. It's as crisp and refreshing as the Colorado Rockies. It is literally made to chill.

Coors Light is the one I choose when I need to unwind. So when you want to hit reset, reach for the beer that's made to chill. Get Coors Light and the new look delivered straight to your door with Drizzly or Instacart. Celebrate responsibly. Coors Brewing Company, Golden Colorado. Progressing to the mean since 2015, it's the HockeyPedioCast. With your host, Dimitri Filat. Welcome to the HockeyPediocast.

My name is Dimitri Philopovich. And joining me is my good buddy. Sean Shapiro. Sean, what's going on then? I am, you know, you're the only one I can see this, but it's the first, I've taken my first trip post-COVID, post-getting two vaccines. I'm actually talking to you in a hotel room. And so for the first time in like, I don't know, forever, I'm eating unhealthy food like close to midnight because I've been living in my own house and I've tried to limit myself from doing that. And so now I have got the beer. I've got combo.

and bad habits apparently return as soon as they return quickly. I love it. I love it. I've cracked a beer here as well as well. We're recording later than I usually record in the mornings. So we're doing like an evening show here recording on a Wednesday. It's going fun. I feel like we've got a good catalog of shows going together.

I was reflecting on all the ones we've done. And we of course, I think our first one was it was like the summer of 2018 when Eric Carlson was available. and he was linked to the stars, and we were talking about whether they should trade him for Heiskenen. We did the legendary one after the effing horse bleep episode, which was an all-timer. We hung out in your hotel room before COVID and drank beers and talked about Dennis Gariano for an hour, the dentist system. And we did a deep dive about the stars en route to their appearance at a cup final last year. So this is the fifth installment, I think, of this, and I'm looking forward to it.

you're not covering the team the Dallas Stars that is on a day-to-day basis anymore. You switch to a different role of the athletic. But at the same time, you do have a good grasp on the happenings of the team. And you were going to a bunch of their games this year. So I figured, you know, we're going to get into more league-wide stuff in the back half of the show and talk about broadcasts. And you're some of your reporting on the league's TV deals and stuff in the States. But I figured we had to talk about this Stars team because I haven't talked about them much on the podcast this year. and first off, they're entrenched in one of the few remaining sort of playoff races of intrigue

heading into this final couple weeks of the regular season, but also I feel like even for their own standards, this year has been so remarkably Starzy that it warrants our attention and a conversation about whatever the hell has been going on within this season. Yeah, as you said, I don't cover the team anymore, but I probably made it to about a third of the home games this year in Dallas. I moved up to, I moved this past weekend out of Texas, but this was the... You moved to Michigan, right? Yep, moved to Michigan.

What a big couple of weeks from Michigan, getting first Jacob Rana and then Sean Shapiro. It's huge. Big, big weeks, big weeks for Michigan. But I did spend up until this past week I was living in Dallas still and went to about a third of third, a third, maybe half of all the starters. game. So obviously, saw them more than any other team. And so, and obviously still have a good grasp on what's going on there. And yeah, I mean, that team, what a, I laugh when Saad, Saad Yusuf took them. He's done a great job when he took over the beat for me. I told him it's

going to be, I think you and I probably used this line on the podcast at some point in one of the prior five appearances of most exciting team until the game starts. And somehow this season, and it's been, it's not super exciting, but it's been oddly entertaining. There's a lot for him to write about. I mean, the overtime losses alone are just, are just laughable to me. Like this team, we're talking 12 overtime losses with 49 games right now. Like, that's a pace for, I'm not the math guy, but that's a pace for something like 18 or 19 in an 82 game season. Yeah.

And at some point, I think they won their first one. and then they lost 12 of 13 games that went past regulation before finally going on a bit of a streak here recently. But I think what's so interesting about them is if you look at the overall, if you just pull out the standings page and you hadn't been following the season, you'd be like, this is the most just average generic season an NHL team could have, right? They're like around 500. They're like on the cusp of a playoff spot.

There's nothing necessarily of note there. And I think the ride there has certainly been all over the, the place and there's been very big highs and very low lows and we're going to get into all that. But I found the most starzy stat of their just complete average and is this season. So they've played 3,004 total minutes so far. They spent 1,0004 of them, so pretty much exactly a third leading. They spent 1,0005 minutes, so nearly identical tide. And they spend 996 minutes trailing.

So pretty much split, you just carve the game down into three thirds. and it's just it's so beautifully symmetrical and it comes out to this perfectly even package and there's no team like it really but the ride there has been so notable it'll be great i'd we'd have to do the exact math but like they opened the season they uh they blasted nash like they're plus 11 right now like overall for the season like they blasted nashville and detroit in the first four games of the season like if you take away i think we'd have to do the exact math maybe we could even do that easily right now I believe if you took away those first four games, they may be at exactly zero, just running complete, complete even since they kind of, remember, we all remember how

poor Nashville started and how bad Detroit is. If we take away kind of that, that launching point, I think we're at complete zero, zero sum hockey for 45 games. That's, that's going to be the title of today's podcast, zero some hockey. I'm loading it down right now. Yeah, they've pretty much been alternating wins and losses for the entirety of the season. And that's a great encapsulation of it. Yeah, I mean, listen, like, the reason why I do want to highlight this playoff race, though, is, as I said, is, you know, technically the door is still open, I guess, for fourth and the west and the east divisions, but both those cases, like the team that's currently

sitting in the driver's seat is up in points and as games in hand. So it seems like they have a pretty good advantage there. here in the Central, the Preds technically are up two points on the stars at the time of this recording, but the Dallas Stars have two games in hand on them. They play each other one final time on April 1st coming up here. So I do think it'll be very close. I think Michael McCurdy's most recent projection had him at like the stars were 61.6 points and the Predators were 61.4 or something. It's pretty much as close as you can have. It might even come down to a tiebreaker honestly, which I think unfortunately the Predators have it and regulation wins. But yeah,

It's two very tight teams, and at the same time, I'm sure you went through this dance with the stars quite a bit over the couple years you covered them. But the process seems pretty sound. I think basically based on any underlying metric you look at, which is what the show does, they look like the far superior team to the predators, right? Like they're significantly better at 5-1-5. They've got that positive goal differential you mentioned. I think those shootout and overtime losses obviously aren't ideal. and it might say something negative about, you know, the underlying process for them. But at the same time, if they get into the playoffs, that's not something you have to worry about

because you're never playing three on three or going into skills competitions. And so like just purely in terms of being a five-on-five team and some of the performance indicators we look at, this should be a far superior team. But we're heading into these final, whatever, five to seven games for both teams. And it's about as close as it's like a dead heat between the two of them. Yeah. Yeah, and it's like you look at how Dallas has played in both the metrics, like the 5-on-5, the metrics line up, and as you mentioned on that, but even like you watch them play,

and they're a good hockey team, and they are a better hockey team than Nashville. I've watched Nashville and Dallas both in person enough times. Dallas is a better hockey team, obviously, in the main facet of the game on 5-on-5. And Dallas is a better hockey team even with, and this is something I'm sure we'll talk even more about, Dallas is a better hockey team without all of their actual good players. There's no, like, Gradulov's, Radulov has only played, what, 11, 13 games. They've had a goalie tandem that has been without their Vesna finalist from two years ago. Sagan hasn't played at all.

I mean, this is a team that is a good hockey team with a fourth line that the other night was Joel Esperance, Justin Daly, and Tanner Caro. Like that's a, and no disrespect. all three very nice humans actually. Those are definitely three names. Those are three names. And Dallas is, if they were just a little bit, now you make your own luck, right? And so in the overtime thing, the overtime thing is kind of, it's hard to say they're unlucky

because you kind of have to, it's been around enough as a coach, you have to better handle it. So I can't call it completely unlucky. but if they were slightly better in that facet of the game, say they're even, they've got 12 overtime losses, say they win just, I don't know, just five of those.

We're looking at a spot where they're, they're what about two, three points ahead of Nashville, two games in hand, and it's kind of one of those things where they're locking it down because that's what the Dallas stars do when they get a lead. They lock things down and it gets boring, and they would do that in the standing.

And so it's just really, they've missed managed, they've been both unlucky and they've also mismanaged over time too because they have, there are things and tweaks where you can pick here and there. And this is one of those things where this may be one of those things where we talk about Rick Bonas, where Rick Bonas is a coach, he is given a lot of credit for what he's done dating back to helping the stars get through that crazy Jim Montgomery firing and obviously keeping, and he's real, that calming voice that all the players love playing. for in the bubble, but one of the reasons Rick Bonas was an assistant coach for so long and

has never really had that head coaching role hold is kind of that kind of it factor that in that making that final decision. And that's where you kind of need that in from a coaching perspective in that overtime selection. I think too often, for example, too often in overtime, sometimes it works, but too often they throw out someone like Radick Fox or Blake Como to start overtime and Essel Lindell just be like, okay, we're going to play defensive. And it would be one thing if that was working all the time, but they're still losing overtime games. Like, it would be one thing if it was so I just think it's kind of, you can't rip on Rick bonus for what he's done, but you also have to, he's obviously, he's moved past the point of being that interim guy. He's the full time head coach.

He deserves definitely some blame for this team should be five, six points higher in the standings. and they should be the one playing with the league in this final race over Nashville as opposed to the way it is. Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. So, the Preds are 12, 4, and 2 in one goal games. The stars are 8, 6, and 12, including 2 and 12 in games decided pass.

Well, there were 2 and 12 in games decided pass regulation. They won their most recent 3. You know, I generally, in a 56 game season, like there's so much less time for that stuff to even out. I mean, we're kind of seeing it right now with the stars having won their past three, right? It's kind of like that regression that you'd expect to see. But the time is dwindling here for that to kind of fully take hold. And so at the same time, teams with, let's say blowout wins are wins of three or more goals.

So like pretty decisive for the most part. The only ones with more blowout, quote, blowout wins than the stars this year are Vegas, the Rangers, Colorado, Pittsburgh, Tampa Bay, and Minnesota. They've got 13 of them. The Preds only have eight. You see that in the goal differential, right? I think they're plus 15 for the year. The Preds are minus 10.

And so that combined with the five and five metrics where I believe they're pretty much top five or six in like every single from Schott shared to expect the goals to hide danger, it's all stuff you like to see, right? And that doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to translate to them jumping, leapfrogging in Nashville because Nashville has UC Sorrows. playing out of his mind. And, you know, in National's defense as well, like, they've battled their own set of injuries and not having their key players, as you alluded to, right? Like, Thorisberg hasn't played at all in February. They had LS out for 20 games. Yosey was out,

at home was out. Like, they've navigated their own sets of trials and tribulations this season. But for the stars, like, I guess when you're having this conversation, we have to acknowledge the impact that the weird nature of the season has had. like it feels like there has been kind of a cloud hanging over them from like the literal outset, right? Like the start of their regular season was delayed because the entire team was basically in COVID protocol. They didn't get started until 10 games after everyone. They'll have jammed 40 games into 69 days since the start of March, which is nice. But for them, maybe not so nice in terms of trying to optimize player performance.

And so it feels like that like Simpson's monkey paw situation, right? Where like they last year wished like, all right, we want to make it to the Stanley Go final. And then they got that. And then the negative trickled out effect that that was pretty much everything going wrong that possibly could have. And it just feels like it had some sort of stink on in this season where, you know, from player injuries to weird performances, it's been following them all year.

Yeah, it's like that kind of net hangover to from that playoff run where it's, The combination of some of it you could have expected, just like with the Sagan injury and the Bishop injury and stuff like that. That's stuff where by having the Bishop wants a whole other issue, but the Sagan injury, for example, the Sagan injury is one where he played through the labrum tear and all of that stuff. And then you have been, you look at all the injuries that guys kind of the wear and tear that that team went through. like the list is so long. You name a name and they probably, they were dealing with something, whether we know about it or not,

in that playoff. And then even into this season, like a guy like, like, I mean, Rope Hince, for example, like just think about what would happen if Rope Hintz was actually healthy. He's playing with a, undisclosed lower body injury, that he's essentially from,

and I'm 99% sure I know what it is, but he's playing through a undisclosed lower body injury where he is, it depends on how he feels that day. He's not practicing. He's not going through morning skates. He shows up to the rink. He shows up to the rink. He goes through treatment to be able to play that night if he's able to play.

And then once he plays, he's the best player on the ice. Like if he was, if he was fully healthy, it would be, it would be such a different story. Like, like, yeah, he has,

he's been there, but objectively, their best player this season. And it is wild to think that, you know, he's been either day to day or a game dime decision, which I know I've seen like fantasy owners have been infuriated with because they never know what he's playing. But it's just the reality that he's dealing with where,

and you know, I struggle with like, we don't want to glorify like, you know, that players need to play through her and stuff, right? Like it's, you know, he seems to be managing it. But at the same time, you know, you do wonder, what's going on there. It's been described as he's held together by by a string and duct tape in Elliot Friedman's recent 31 thoughts.

And that sounds like an accurate description. But so at least they've gotten games out of him, right? You go, they got less than 200 minutes this season out of Alex Radgelov or he was ruled out for the year. Ben Bishop has made, didn't make an appearance and won't. Tyler Sagan has yet to play. He presumably will play at some point here down the stretch. We'll see.

But that's like $21 million in cap commitments between those three that they have really gotten anything out of the season. And on top of the, yeah, and then on top of you had too, just, and this isn't a surprise because we kind of, we knew this. And I'm, I mean, you add into the fact there's the 2.8 million to a top four defenseman in Stephen Johns, whose career is essentially over too. Like there's just, there's that. Now, I'm not really counting him as part of that because he's a much different situation

than something like, let's say, but it's still, it just adds to that whole, if we start running the ledger on, on. and what this team is actually paying for and what it's actually getting just on the raw numbers. It's insane. It's crazy. And, you know, a player that has played, but I'm not really sure how to evaluate his performance this season has been Anton Hudobin. And the reason why I say that is because I feel like there's so many kind of contextual, complicating factors. And I don't want to be unfair to him.

Like, I don't know how to evaluate a goalie who's played 30 games because, On the one hand, it could just be completely random because that position is so volatile. And like the best goalies in the world have 30 game stretches where they just don't have good numbers. And it happens. At the same time, he's turning 35, I believe here. He just played 25 playoff games in like a six week stretch at the end of last season, which is probably the most in, you know, grueling stretch of pro hockey he's ever really played in his career, or at least in many years.

And the reason why the complicating part is, you know, we know, publicly that he's dealt with COVID before the season and talked on the record about how he struggled with the recovery of it. And so you put all of that together and it's like so difficult for me to evaluate what's been going on with his performance, especially moving forward when you're thinking about what they're going to do in that moving forward, right? You know, Jake Ongers look good, obviously,

especially for a guy who's 22 years old and making his first real stint around the league this year and has been perfectly fine. Ben Bishop, you don't know what you're going to get from a Manton-Hudobin. Both those guys have two years left on their deals, I believe, after this season. So just in terms of figuring out what you're going to get from Anton Houdobin as a goalie moving forward, I don't want to forget how recently removed we are from him looking amazing and winning all of our hearts over by being just a legendary character who's making ridiculous saves. But, like, he has not been good this season.

No, and I think that's something. You bring a point, too, of winning over our hearts. I think something that Stars fans have to do, and I don't think they want to do it, is you need to separate folk hero Anton Hudobin versus goalie Anton Hudobin. Because Hudobin, the story of Anton Hudobin in the bubble was tremendous. Arguably speaking, he was just good in the bubble. It's not like this was not J.S. Jagger dragging the ducks to the final. This was not Yarrow Halak with individually winning series. Like, Houdobin was good, but it was the story that was great.

It was the 34-year... He had some great performances. He did, he did. But just as far as the whole concept of that, this is, as far as an all-time group, he also had some duds, and he was just okay at some time. So I think it's very hard from a Starr's fan perspective to separate the folk legend of Anton Houdobin and the goalie Anton Houdobin. And so I think it's what makes him even harder to assess just,

kind of when, because you try to separate that stuff. And this season, he's, he's not been good this year. He has not been good. And it's, it's hard to, it's hard to figure out whether is it's the wear and tear and the breakdown from playing all those games in the bubble? Is it the fact that he could hardly work out because of COVID? Or is it simply the fact that, and this may just be the case, it's a lot easier to be number two, the number one. When, when, with him and Ben, when he was number two, and you're the number two guy and you're pushing Ben Bishop and you're challenging to try to steal minutes from him, it's a lot easier to do that than be supposedly be the guy and now be the guy that someone's pushing. So I think there's an element to that as well where he'll type of

thing someone, the goalie will never admit says, no, I always want the net and everything like that. But there are reasons certain guys, in Boston, why does the tandem work so well? Polak knows he's technically number two, but he's pushing rask. that's and hoodobin kind of lost the guy that he's supposed to push the guy he's supposed to try to steal some minutes from but at the end of the day we all know who would get game out of the playoffs it's i think there's something there to to that as well and that's just more of my own gut feeling and theory of hoodobin is a tremendous one b when he become when he has to become a one a that's a harder role than than being one b just it's just i think just i think

it's a fair assessment personally because i'm saying it Yeah. I mean, so he's got a 907 percentage this year minus 7.2 goals stayed above expected. Like his numbers don't look that bad because the stars are so good defensively where I think they give up the second fewest high danger attempts and expected goals against and whatnot. So like we're not talking about the catastrophic numbers here. But I think just the way he's looked and I'm far from a goalie evaluator in terms of watching their technique and being like, oh, this is like what they need to tinker with here. but I think it's pretty clear just from the raw high test that he has looked off. And I thought, you know, the one goal he gave up against the Red Wings recently, like that pop fly where he flubbed it and it went through him basically and tapped

in it from behind. That was kind of like a fluke event. But a few games before that, I thought Razor made a really astute point on one of the broadcast where he was kind of saying like, yeah, Houdobin hasn't looked very sharp this season in terms of like the way he's reading Pucks and like how he's reacting to them. it feels like he has flubbed a lot of pucks where he's just not fully like realizing where it's going he's made up the reads have not been there right he's made up for because of how athletic he is and that's why he's been and that's why the stars are have been able to handle and survive

how his play has been but the initial reads you look at where he's starting and and sometimes it even creates a highlight real save and it's something where you'll look and oh that's a great save, but there's too many times where he's sometimes even creating those own scenarios for himself where you're looking, whether it's the two-on-one and reacting, or not reacting slow, but not picking up on the fact that this guy's coming down the wing or committing only the shot, or it's way more, it's a lot of things like that. And I don't know, maybe there's a theory, and I don't know, we'd have to ask a goalie coach of this. Maybe there's something to the fact of there's not been much practice time. And goalies have,

goalies with how condensed the schedule is maybe there hasn't been the time to just spend it to spend time with his goalie coach and work on them maybe i don't know i'm just throwing random theories out there right now but yeah i don't know it's it's a really tricky one for me to value i just wanted to point out he hasn't looked good and there's many possible explanations were why but and it's fair point and it's it becomes even the bigger question too of just if this team does get in you would tell me before this season hey Ben Bishop wouldn't play, you would say with 100% lock that, okay, Anton Houdelman's going to play in the playoffs. If this team does get in and Anton Houdlob would probably, because it's Rick Bonest and that's how

he coaches, he loves his veterans. Anton Hulb would probably get game one. But if they lose game one, five, four, what's stopping Jake Ottinger from being game two? Like, Audinger has objectively been the more reliable goalie this season. I do think it's like very tantalizing from the coach's perspective of even during this bad year for him, I think it was a couple games there in Florida against the Panthers earlier in the year where he stopped like 98 of 100 shots in two games or something like that. And it's like there's very few goalies in the world that can realistically do what Anton Hoodobin can do when he's at the top of his game. He flips switches really well, right? Like it's something where you can tell like there's a game

that you can tell where there's games where that switch has been flipped and he's not getting beaten that night or it's going to take something remarkable and the stars can weather a 75 shot storm that night and so I've seen too many of those games I've seen many of those games so I could see the pain in your eyes um okay well let's let's talk about something more positive because okay the combination of rupe hints and jason Robertson for me has been uh a bright light in this season And, you know, people are starting to catch on to it. We can talk more about Robertson's Calder candidacy and discussion between him and Caprizov. But I wanted to focus more on sort of the combination of those two and the way they've played off each other.

Because, you know, for me, we alluded to and talked about how Hintz is clearly playing hurt. And it's crazy to think that it is a lower body injury that's bugging a player who relies on his wheels as much as he does. And when he's played, like, he's still creating off the rush at this breakneck speed and just producing it. you know, he's got 38 points in 36 games. I think he's the top 10 in terms of points per minute generated. And so the combo of him and Robertson, I'm always so fascinated by like complimentary skill sets, right? I'm like trying to get the most out of both players involved.

And I think it's pretty clear that they've stumbled on something here where, you know, with hints, his playmaking and ability to create off the rush and Robertson's sort of willingness to do a lot of the dirty work around the net without necessarily feeling like he needs to do the heavy lifting in terms of puck carrying. I feel like those two have played off of each other so well. And they're clearly getting great results out of them.

But I really think they've stumbled upon a legitimate combination here that's producing like a top line pair. And there's no reason to believe they won't, assuming Hins can stay healthy. Yeah, they have. And I think like I find kind of, I use this comparison. I was trying to explain this to someone the other day. And I don't know if this will make any sense to anyone else. but I was trying to explain kind of why they fit so well the other day to someone. And I actually brought up a soccer analogy where Robertson's kind of like that striker

who knows that he can drop back and he can drop into the space and he can do, and he doesn't, he's technically the guy who's supposed to be up top, but he knows that there's that, that flashy winger that when he steps back, the other guy will step into that space. I kind of use that. And I don't know if enough people will get that analogy or not, but it's, it's one I used the other day. I was trying to explain to someone who was more of a soccer fan than a hockey fan the other day.

But they do play. It's kind of about that, where Robertson is his hockey IQ and his offensive IQ is off the charts. It's great. And you think about one of the things we heard about Robertson from his draft year on. And I've actually talked to Jason about it multiple times. And he can finally laugh at it. And it was always the, is he going to be able to skate well? enough to play in the NHL. Is he going to be able to skate well enough to the NHL?

The skating is going to hold him back. The skating, skating, skating, yada, yada. And he's a much better skater now. He's still not going to be a great. He's still not a great skater. It's still, it's never going to be pretty. But the wherewithal to know where to go, the work he does. And then I think the thing that is that we see is just the little, the ability to put that skill to go from working to putting that skill in to make that snap to switch right away. That's kind of the difference between a guy who is a career fourth line good player and a guy who has potential to be a great in the call the trophy conversation in Robertson.

Like I think there was the play the other night where he had the assist the other night where the puck comes to him from below the goal line. And 95% of rookies in the NHL shoot that puck right into the goalie's gut. And he makes the little slide pass over to Ben for the easy put away. Just little things like that where, and that comes after a nice forecheck. And it's the perfect compliment for Hintz, even more so in a year where Hince is banged up and can't do as much of that work. And like you look at the bubble for Dallas, what happened. And one of the things, one of the issues for hints in Gurianov, one of the reasons they didn't work together is they were go, go, go, go, right?

They were so fun on the rush. They were so fun in transition. But once they got into the offensive zone, it was like they needed to almost like circle back to start over again. Yeah. Instead, now they have hints, they have hints with that guy that can do the work in the zone and kind of help and kind of take a little bit that and then create for him. And at the same time, they've got that other line where Gurianov is playing with Ben. And it works kind of well where Ben is a very similar player where he can do that work. So Gurianov can be basically the guy that streaks up and down the flank.

It's it works really well. And it's something where it's, I talked about it's a shame that Hince hasn't been able to play more. It's a shame. It's not only for Hintz's sake. It's a shame to see what Hinson and Robertson would be able to do if fully healthy. And we always kind of talk about those long-term combinations and guys that you, you build around like that's a fun really fun combination to think about long term even if especially as they're going to have whoever the third guy is is going to keep rotating out because obviously

it's that's how these things work and the nchl right now it's joe pevelsky some nights whatever but yeah i could see tyler say again being there when when he slots in but you know since march first i'm using that kind of as a neat cut off here because that is sort of roughly when they started playing full time yeah they've played 295-15 minutes together 60s point four percent shot share goals are 21 to eight and you know it's funny you mentioned roberts in skating because i would i would say it's still not good oh it's not good no it's not good i was being i was being nice it's still not good he doesn't he doesn't really have uh the extra acceleration gear and the only reason i bring that up is because it doesn't matter like and and that's a testament

to how great of a hockey player he is and it kind of reminds me of someone like Mark Stone, obviously a wildly different player, but also someone who you watch him, it looks like he's like skating with like cinder blocks on and it makes no sense, but he's always the first one to the puck because he reads the ice so well and he can sort of make calculated decisions on where he needs to go and sort of pick his battles, right? And I've got some amazing Jason Robertson stats for you that I'm going to drop on you right now and hit you with. And listen, I know that despite the name of the show, the PDO cast, I normally try not to spend too much time reciting a bunch of numbers because I just find it doesn't make for very compelling

audio experience for listeners to hear me just rattling off numbers. But at the same time, in this case, I think they're really functional. And they're also going to help people that haven't watched a ton of Jason Roberts and kind of familiarize themselves with how he plays and why he's been so productive. And so I've been using, you know, since I started writing at Elite Prospects, I've got access to instat hockey, which gives me like all. all the tracking information and stuff in terms of like pulling up clips and stuff, right? And you can search by specific sequences and events they have labeled for you for every player,

like, and, you know, break it down into the most like micro sets you want. But for Jason Robertson, I was looking, I was curious because I was like, I feel like when I watch him play, he gets the puck and it's instantly off his stick. Like you never really see him sort of loitering around in the neutral zone with it. And I think it's why it's made him such a great combination with hints because hints loves carrying the puck. And so for Robertson, he's sort of the simplicity of his game. And I think it speaks like a maturity of a player who's as young as he is and has a little experience, being willing to be like, hey, I'm not very good at this. And my linemate is great at this.

So I'm going to let him do this. And I'm going to try to be complimentary where I can, right? And so I was looking at it. He's like the pinball bumper. Yeah. He is. He gets it. He quickly moves it. And then he instantly goes to open space. And he's got, so I don't know, this probably isn't like a very detailed number because sometimes you watch it and it's like, oh, that didn't necessarily look like what this tracking software is leading me to believe it was. But they've got Jason Roberts enlisted for 12 stick handling events this season in terms of like making some sort of move on the move with the puck. And to put in perspective, how small of a number for a 40-something game sample is, Carol Caprizo, who will talk to as. his calder foil has 91 stick handling events so far according to his stat and like group hey hence has 42 of them i believe or whatever in 35 games and it's like a very very low number

and it's not um by you know it's not an accident i don't think is what i'm trying to get to i think it really is by design and he understands that's the way he needs to play and kudos to him because he's getting the most out of the skills he does have which is when he gets the puck in tight, he's impossible to knock it off of. He has great skill and hands around to score. I think 12 of his 15 goals so far or so by my count have been within like a foot or two of the goal crease.

He's had a couple off the rush where he shot it from far out, but pretty much all of it has been, you know, dirty work around the net, which is amazing for a player of his age and his experience to be already doing that at this point. So yeah, he's such a wildly different player than Capriza, which is part of what makes the conversation so interesting to me. Like they couldn't be more polar opposites in terms of the way they play,

but they've both been so successful. And that's the awesome part of this, that there isn't necessarily one way you can play to be good. Like they're both showing us that you can do it any number of ways. Yeah, the Roberts and Caprice-off thing is really interesting. And we can talk about that because it is a factor of, there are two different ways to play. and you and I was joking of you on the Twitter messages when I said Roberts.

You and I message, I said Robertson for call. They were one messaging. But at the end of the day, and as much as a hockey nerd, I love watching what Jason Robertson does. But as someone who wants to be entertained, as someone who wants to be the what's next, the wow factor, you watch Capri-Suff. You watch a wild game for Capri-Suff. You watch Jason Robertson play.

because you're a hockey fan and you look for that nuance. Caprizov you watch just because I want to see something that's going to put me, that that's going to blow my mind. Robertson only really does that if you are a hockey nerd. It's a very interesting kind of dynamic. Yeah, you could show a clip of Caprizov to anyone that doesn't understand hockey and they'll be like, wow, that was a ridiculous play. Whereas Robertson you need to kind of be like, oh, like he read the coverage there

and found the soft spot in the offensive zone. And like, no, only massive nerds and huge stars fans would probably truly appreciate that. But like, it's, it's still an equally important attribute. Not everyone can just be dangling around. You need players that can do this stuff. Robertson does and he does it so well. It's interesting, too, when you talk about like the Calder Trophy too. Like there's the other big element that just to discuss.

And I know some people, one of the things that comes up is Caprisov is older. He's, what, 24 now, right? who he's played he's played in the KHL for as long as he did and um and Robertson is uh 21 he's turning 22 in a bit yeah either either way a younger player um and it's i don't know what the right judgment on that is i'm kind of of the thought process where 24 i'm still okay with the A i don't know what your thoughts are on i i'm fine with like to me a rookie is a rookie unless like like I think if someone I think if he was 25 26 maybe that starts to get to the conversation for me where like should we really be considering him a rookie or whatever but to me it's I'm okay with

his age personally I think it's he's a first year NHL player and that's what the award is so I don't think we should hold that against Caprisov and I also think just personally and as much as Jason Roberts season has been tremendous. You look at kind of what that final difference is. You talk about team success, right? Champions aren't born, they're made. And the secret to make your business reign supreme, Shopify, the all-in-one commerce platform to start, run, and grow your business.

Forget the off-season work. Shopify makes it simple to sell to anyone from anywhere. Whether you're selling warmups or wall hangers, it's time to start selling with Shopify and join the platform simplifying commerce for millions of businesses worldwide. With Shopify, you'll customize your online store to your brand, discover new customers, and build the relationships that create die-hard fans. Shopify filled all the sales channels to grow a winning business, from an in-person POS system to an all-in-one e-commerce platform,

even across social media platforms like TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. Shopify is a secret to becoming a business champion by making it simple for anyone to sell their products anywhere, taking the guest work out of selling. When you're ready to take your winning idea to the world, team up with Shopify, the commerce platform powering millions of businesses down the street and around the globe. Sign up for a free trial at Shopify.com slash bluewire, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash bluewire to start selling online today. Shopify.com slash blue wire. Who is, and if Dallas gets in,

Robertson is going to play a big factor in that, but where Minnesota is, they are where they are because of him, like at the end of the day. And it's, it's, it's, it's, there's so many elements of this that you can have the debate and you can discuss and everything like that.

And, um, I think the most important thing, though, is before, as we went into this season and two weeks into this season, it was, we all knew who the Calder winner. was. There wasn't going to be a debate at all. And now we can at least have a debate. And I think that's good for the sport, honestly. It is. Let's take a quick break here. And then, you know,

I've got some thoughts on Caprizov in the Calder and then we can finish up the podcast there. Yeah. So I've loved both players. I think Caprizov still does have the advantage just because of the totality of the work. I think, you know, the highlight plays and how they're exciting he'd been. He clearly has the edge there in terms of just like the phenomenon. He's been, I think, as you mentioned, the fact that Robertsons made this a race considering he started the year playing four or five minutes and had two goals in his first 12 games or whatever is a remarkable story in its own right, not to give him a participation ribbon here for a finishing second.

But it's like, it's what he's done over the past 33 to 35 games since the start of March is he's been as good as anyone. Like, he's literally top 10 in pretty much every single offensive metric. you know, for me with Caprizov, the moving of the goalpost in season really bugs me in the sense that if you want to argue that the age bothers you or the pro experience before this season in the KHL, that's fine. I have time for that argument. That shouldn't be held against Caprizo now because that's not what the award is about.

The award is about who had the best first season in the NHL, assuming that under 26 or whatever, or not who's going to have the best developmental arc over the next five years if you factor in their age and their NHL experience. That's not what this is about. And I think for me, like what Caprizov's done this season, considering that he is a 24-year-old now with all of that pro experience in the KHL, is even more remarkable to me, considering how he's transformed the Minnesota Wild Organization in the sense that he comes over with these massive expectations. right?

Like he, the Minnesota while we're waiting years for him, as hockey fans that have been paying attention we've been seeing the stats and the highlight reels from the KHL and being like, I can't wait to see what this guy looks like in the NHL.

And for him to come in and pretty much from day one, literally in his first game, he scores overtime winner against the Kings and just hasn't looked back since. For him to make that transition for me so seamlessly has been even more impressive. And, you know, not to knock Robertson's case,

but he was playing in Texas in the HL last year, had three games, a cup of coffee with the stars, I believe at some point in the season. Like, it was afforded the ability to kind of, you know, slide into the role and not necessarily need to carry the team from day one. Like what Caprizov's done. And, you know, that he's gotten the opportunity all season,

which accounts for some of the offensive production, obviously. But, like, I don't think we should lose side of that just because he's a 24-year-old. Well, I agree with that. I also think there's also value, and this is the pro-Kapresov case, and one of the reasons that I think at this point, I'm saying, obviously we'll see what happens in the last couple games, but I also think we need to remember if you're using it to find the slimmest of margins, you can talk about how a guy finished the season.

But I think when I look at the rookie of the year award, there's value in being the best rookie from day one to game 82, or game one through game 56 in this season. I think there's incredible value in that. I think there's something to speak to on that where I don't it's it's not the it's not the rookie who looked the best the last three months of the season. It's the rookie who was the rookie of the year. Now, if someone from from my perspective, say you're talking, looking at someone like Robertson who has been great over the last. For him to steal the call there from Capri So he has to outplay him by a ton in the last week.

He has to outplay him by so much in the last couple weeks of the season that you're like, okay, you know what? That makes up for that first month when Capri Soff was clearly the better player for whatever it was, the first 12, 13 games, whatever. I think you have to take the full season to an account. And it's great that we have a debate. But at the end of the day, the fact that Capri Sov was that good on day one, we shouldn't take that away from him.

Like, that's something we still need to remember. Like the sad part of pitting the two against each other for the purposes of this exercise is that they would be the perfect players to play with each other. Oh my. Yeah. Oh, yes, they would. In terms of Caprizov just carrying the puck, but then setting up like these beautiful tap-ins around the net for Robertson and having someone who could finally take advantage of all the opportunities he creates. Like it would be remarkable, obviously two players on different teams. But it's just funny to be thinking about it like that.

One final Robertson's stat to end this on a real. high note. I want the stars fans that are listening to be excited about this experience. And the craziest stat for me, I think, that I've seen. So, there's been 383 players who have played 500, 515 minutes the season.

So that's a pretty big threshold, but a lot of players. Yeah, yeah. The stars are scoring 3.96 5-on-5 goals per hour with Jason Robertson on the ice, to put it into which is the seventh most. All of the other players in the top 10,

are basically Vegas's best players, Stevenson, Stone, and Patcheretti and Theodore. It's a good team. Colorado's best players, McKinnon, Ranton, and McCar, and then Carter McDavid and Patrice Bergeron and Jason Robertson. And Robertson is doing that

while playing on a Stars team that is scoring like 2.15 goals per hour as a team at 515, and I think the only team is worse than them are Anaheim, Detroit, and Buffalo or something like that the list. It's a bad 5-1-5 scoring team and for him to be having

the type of on-ice impact that he has had in real minutes now. I think he's playing over like 18 minutes a night. Only Joe Pavelski plays more than him since the start of March. And that's another conversation here, the fact that Rick Bonas is, I mean, part of it is by necessity, I think.

Like they have to, but like Rick bonus, just fully unleashing Jason Robertson on the world, just trusting him him as basically as like his second most heavily used forward after everything we went through in the past with being like, please play your skilled forward. It's finally doing it.

And look at the results. It's beautiful. And the other thing, too, that just, I think one last, just Robertson thing, the fact they use him in the, the fact they actually use him in the shootout, because Rick Bonas has been such a, I'm going to trust Tyler Sagan, Alexander Radulov, Jamie Ben, and maybe the guy that scored that night. The fact that he actually trusts Robertson to go into the shootout, it's just so as much of like, oh, okay, this guy is living by a different set of rules than we were than Dennis Gariano of was last

year. Rightfully so, in some cases, in some cases. Now, that's a whole another conversation, but we, we don't have time for it. We've had that conversation before. Yeah, we can link back to like two other podcasts and that. Yeah, we've set our piece on Dennis Gariano. know. Well, okay, so just to put a bow on the star's component of this, I think moving forward, regardless of what happens over these next couple weeks, is it going to be a big summer for them

from a team building perspective because it's going to be all about sort of, in my mind, being proactive and kind of lining pieces up, right? Because after next season, you've got Pavelski Radulav and Klingberg all coming off the books. And this team is whatever it looks like, he's going to look wildly differently. And I'm not sure. it's necessarily good enough of a team to be like, all right, let's just, uh, let's just roll it back without preparing for what that feature is going to look like, especially with, uh, a player of Mirro Heiskenen and Stature, for example, needing a new deal as an RFA this summer. Like, there's going to be some big decisions that need to be made for the stars. So I don't know,

do you, do you want to take this from the direction and perspective of Klingberg and what we do, like what that looks like in terms of the rest of the star's tenure and sort of the near end, long-term future for him or from Heiskenen's perspective and sort of what that next deal is going to look like and how aggressive they're going to be with that contract. Yeah. The Heishkinin one is interesting because you just look at for one of the things that just to keep in mind, Heishkinin and Heishkinin's agent is Ian Pulver. Ian Pulver is Thomas Shabbat's agent.

So, and now Hachshkin's a much better player than Shabbat. But that is, that's the floor. So you got to think from Hayshkin as representation, from a group that already represents one of the other young defensemen that got a pretty big deal. That's where the floor even starts with Hachkin. And knowing what I know about kind of where Hachkin's camp is and where they've been before, I know they're probably going to be looking for that big deal. So the interesting thing with the stars,

and one of the lasting kind of legacies of this team and whether this team is able to compete and everything like that will be, it's going to come down to this. You mentioned Klingberg, you mentioned H. But the key question is going to be, did they overpay Estillendell? That is going to be the key question.

The key question is, because John Klingberg got Esselendell paid. And John Klingberg and Esselendelendel is a good defenseman, but he is overpaid. and John Klingberg got him that money by basically being, with what he's done as his partner. So Lendell has a particular set of skills and John Klingberg allows him to focus on those skills.

And it does, but you don't pay that much for that, those specific set of skills. No, without Klingberg there, yeah. Exactly. And so the question is going to be more so for Dallas, whether they can continue to compete in the future is, will Lendell's contract, will let they pay for that? And will it hurt maybe? And I don't think that contract would,

have hurt them in a non-COVID world. And I think it's just one of those where that contract is going to look even worse because of the flat cap. And as they figure it out, will they be able to keep and build it and be able, will they be able to keep Haitian and Clevelandburg? I don't know if they will, especially now with what's going to happen. I mean, Hince is going to, in a couple years, Hince is going to be up for big money if he keeps playing the same way. And it's, it's a tough spot. Like, I think Dallas, Dallas is kind of in a very, what you do with John Klingberg is a fascinating debate. And I am personally of the opinion that you don't trade John Klingberg. He's one of the best in the world that what he does, the way he walks the blue line, the way he does that.

To me, there are other ways you make it work. But I also understand that you have the conversation about do you strike while the value is highest? Personally, I would not, but it, But the thing I would say about that is I still feel like the value Klingberg provides the stars significantly exceeds. And I agree with you. How I think he's valued around the league for whatever reason, which isn't to say that there isn't a team or two out there that if he was made available would become supremely interested. But I think it's a situation where anyone that's like been super upset with Klingberg. making mistakes or or this and that like be careful if you're a stars fan because when he's when he's gone you're going to miss john clingberg like it's not going to look the same and like i remember

i tweeted out a highlight reel of him walking the blue line earlier in the season and like a stars a couple stars fans were like oh this is great but let's see him in the playoffs when he's not doing it's like he was awesome in the playoffs last year like he was there he was their best defense in the playoffs last year like yes hasten it was great but Look at what Klingberg did throughout the playoffs. He was their main play driver. He was the person who he was the player that pretty much drove that team. He was the reason this one of the main reasons the stars were able to not get hemmed in in that Vegas series.

I mean, if you take a look, if you kind of isolate Klingberg from that Vegas series, which the stars basically somehow will want the gentleman's sweep with the five games. Like that series, the fact John Kling, John Klingberg skated the stars to that five-game series. Now, his point totals were, his point totals weren't astronomical, but what he did to not let Dallas get hemmed in by a Vegas team that typically rocks other teams and Shotshare, like, that's, that's incredible. And it is, it is a very much, if you're a stars fan thinking the stars need to move on from John Klingberg, you are going to, uh,

it's the type of people it's the same type of people who tried to run sergey's Sergei's Zubov out of town and 56 is hanging in the rafters in Dallas so we'll just leave it at that yeah I mean it was certainly stretches last postseason where he was like just single-handedly willing them offensively to sequences even in the standing cup final against the lightning like he was otherworldly and but at the same time like he's going to be I think 30 by the time his next deal starts and he's a player who's been underpaid at 4.25 million for like the entirety of his NHL career basically, right? Like it was a great, great piece of business, obviously with risk and hairy by the

stars at the time. But when you sign a player with 41 NHL games at that point of the pro experience or in the NHL experience to the deal they did, like pretty much as soon as he signed at and he kept playing the way he had been before that deal, it was like, all right, this is underpaid for him at this point. And so this is going to be his last real chance to cash in. I wonder what he's going to be looking for, what the financial market around the league is going to be looking like at that point. But it's an interesting conversation. And same with Heiskenen, right? Because you mentioned Shabbat who got eight years, 64 million.

We've also seen guys like Werenzky and Charlie McAvoy go with a three-year bridge deal route to get closer to unrestricted free agency. Now, you know, He's only 21, right? So he's a bit of a ways away from that. But I think Hayskin, if I'm just thinking from a perspective of, I know on one hand, they're probably going to look, hey, we want big, biggest possible deal. If I'm H. Knoissekenen's camp, I'm looking at, I want that two, three, bridge your deal, not just to get closer to UFA status, but even more so to get out of flat cap status. Like, I don't want to lock in my, I don't want to lock in my contract in a flat cap world.

I want to put myself in a spot if I'm that type of player. I want to put myself in a spot where two years from now, I want to be able to capitalize when the cap does start to go up. When the escrow deal is finally paid off and teams can start spending, that's when I want, that's when I want to be able to make my money. And so it's going to be really interesting to see what the line of thinking is going to be from the two sides on this. I think Dallas is going to be, Dallas is going to want to get that eight year deal done because they know that they're going to have to pay. They know that it's going to cost them a ton more if in two years he's available after. If in two years of more Norris votes and more of the reputation finally gets out there, it's going to be Dallas is going to have to pay way more two years down the line.

So they're going to, Dallas, you've got to sign him for eight years now. If you're Hachkin, you're not signing away eight years at this point. No, you're not. You shouldn't. You shouldn't. That would be bad business. I mean, it's a lot of money to turn down. If he wants to take it, he can go ahead.

Go ahead. As his agent, I'm sure, yeah, I'd love that commission right now. But, yeah, and, you know, especially since the, you know, the complicating factor here is Kail McCar and Quinn Hughes are also are a phase as well. And it's not a complicated factor from high-skinned's perspective, but I wish, like, I could see what those deals are going to look like before I figured out what his deal. Because, like, you know, they're going to be sort of an extra-blade link between, even though they're different players. but yeah, it's going to be a lot of money. It's going to be a tug-of-war between the two sides, I'm sure. But, yeah, I'm very fascinating to see how it goes out.

So I think this is a good pivot point for us then because you're talking about the flat cap. And, you know, you are now the athletics. What's your official title? The business writer? NHL business is the official title, but business of hockey, NHL business, whatever you want to call it. I kind of call, I get to cover weird, weird. stuff and financial stuff and kind of try to write about things that no one else writes that on the sport I like I think on a daily basis so I like it things like that so this is a good

chance for us to loop and then the um and plug the the athletic uh fan serbian on broadcast you've been doing yep and also sort of tie that into um the future of of the NHL on television in the United States between ESPN and Turner and what that's going to look like and sort of the ambitions behind that and how it's going to affect the league from beyond just the entertainment product, just the financials of it. So I don't know, you can take that in any direction you want from that. It's kind of one of the things about the whole TV deal. So we now have in the United States, we have obviously there was the big deal of the NHLs going back to you. It's kind of funny, actually. It's a maybe a perfect way to, so I'm sitting in my hotel room right now.

And there was, I think it was the, what was the game that was supposed to be tonight? It was ours abs on NBC. Yeah. Or not, Avs nights. Yeah. So my hotel does not have NBCSA. I could not pull up.

However, I've got ESPN on in the background here. I got both ESPN and TNT on my TV. I know I couldn't get NBCSET on my TV. So I wasn't able to watch the, I wasn't able to pull up that game on the TV. I think that's a perfect encapsulation of, if you talk about the TV partners of where the NHL is going, That's a perfect example of they're moving from the channel that was NBC's auxiliary channel,

which was nice, to channels that people actually have and people actually watch. Like NBCSN, we have to remember its origins were the Outdoor Life Network. That's what NBCSN was. It was the Outdoor Life Network. But Turner, TNT, TBS, ESPN, ESPN, ESPN2, APN. all that stuff. Those are channels and those are places people actually look to go watch sports. It's places where they actually have it in a hotel room. If you go to a sports bar, they actually have the game, they actually have the TV set to TNT or ESPN because they know there will be a game

on that night. And the NHL in the United States, I think with the NBCSN deal, like they always, we're a top four, we're a big four sport in the United in the United States. You got to like it, right? Like, you got to act like it. You got to get, you have to be in a spot where the NHL will be in now where you have two national TV partners. The NFL has ABC, ESPN, CBS, NBC, Amazon. Either way, the NFL has, obviously that's the, that's the high watermark, has four or five. Major League Baseball in the United States has ESPN. It's got ESPN, Turner has a game. You have three networks on major league baseball, the NBA has ESPN and Turner. If you want to be a major force sport in the United States, you have to act like it, and you have to capitalize on these

deals, and you have to get the multiple partnerships. One of the biggest mistakes the NHL did was signing that 10-year deal with NBC in 2011. Signing a 10-year deal where $2 billion, $200 million per year on average, it was, the, a 10-year deal. It was a, they, devalued their product. They committed to, they basically, they locked themselves into something where they weren't able to put themselves into a position to adapt. Like the NHL may be those rights were the right price for the first two or three years of that 10 year deal, but they were devaluing their product and devaluing the money brought in, keeping the salary cap lower everything, by signing a 10 year deal. Like even this deal, one of the main criticisms I've heard just talking to people

is these deals with ESPN and Turner. There's a lot of real excitement about it. The one criticism is it's seven years, and they said, like, well, five years would have been more preferential just because with how rights change and how the world changes, maybe you're leaving money on the table by going seven years, but that's nothing compared to going 10 years and basically giving NBC sports all the power in NBC for that time.

And so the NHL is moving into a stratosphere where it needs to be to be a top four sport in the United States. I know, and part of the ESPN thing gets overplayed, and sometimes it does. Like, everyone's like, oh, well, people say, like, oh, magically it's going to be an ESPN, and we're going to snap our fingers, and every kid in the United States can play an hockey. That's not how it works. It's not going to be, it's not that simple. It does how, it is, however, that kind of default for,

pushing what sports people watch in the United States. It is that space where it drives culture, for lack of a lack of a better word. And it's something where you look at what the NBA is. And the NHL had a partner in NBC that was willing to let hockey be the old white guys in suits. That's what NBC let hockey be. NBC allowed the NHL to stick with that. You look at how they did their broadcasts. Like an NBC sports broadcasts, you talked about the ex andos of hockey.

You dumped it down a little bit and that's all you did. You look at how you look at the, and there's these people that are fascinating, that fascinating and interesting that play this game, that we never hear these stories ever on television. Maybe every once in a while they would do some sort of feature about how a player helped the charity or something like that. But really, we never hear anything about, other than Brent Burns, so they point it at and say, oh, Brett Burns is weird.

What else, what else, what else do we ever hear about players? Now, coverage of the sport needs to get to a point of how do you open avenues to get more people into the sport in the United States? Because Canada, everyone's going to still watch the game. Now, in the United States, you need a network that's going to, if someone, you need a network that does what TNT and ESPN do for the NBA where they actually talk about it all the time. I was talking to somebody from NHL Network today about how the reason NHL Network has really been, NHL Network for the last six, seven, eight years, however long it's been around.

It's the only place where if you wanted to turn the TV on at 11 a.m. or something like they had to hear them talk about hockey. It's the only place in the United States you could do that. And now hopefully through their ancillary programming, ESPN will do that and TNT will do things like that. And it's a really good step for the league just to be with these partners. Now, the deal does come with, you have to, you have to, the deal does come with some caveats for lack of a better word where like one of the other criticisms we talked about the term is probably maybe a little bit too long. But the other caveat is just the NHL probably, NHL didn't bring in the money they thought they were going to bring it on the deal. Like these are these deals are wins in getting the partners. but it is not, so Gary Bettman two years ago, in a pre-pandemic word, basically talked to enough people to know this pretty well, he told, he basically told the Board of Governors, he would be able to bring in $750 million per year from the U.S. TV rights, which is maybe, and he brought $645 million, which is still a good amount, but over the course of seven years, that's $700 million left on the table that didn't come in.

And now pandemic impacted it. The NFL rights impacted it. But it's still, from a Gary Betman standpoint, give him credit for getting Turner and he has banned to the table, but also don't give him a pass for saying like, oh, this saved hockey. No, it's a good deal. But it's not the great deal that it's not the great deal that is going to get rid of the flat cap anytime soon or anything like that. What's the same?

I rambled there, but no, no, you're right. You had a bunch of great points there. like I said it better than I could, but like what, what's the saying? Like, hockey is the greatest sport, but the NHL is like the worst league. Like it's, it's the product sells itself, right? Like you watch Connor McDavid skate really fast and do something in a million miles an hour. Like that is such a remarkable, um, athletic feat that anyone that's like a regular human being that is interested in competition in sports and cool stuff.

their television or their laptop or their iPad or their phone is going to be like interested in that it's up to the league and in turn it's broadcasting partners to enable people to get access to that in and like in a palatable way where you can watch it easily and respect it and and enjoy it and the league needs to do a better job of that i have a really good i have a really good point on this actually so like because the league has the so just to kind of actually actually tease a story that I can say this now because this will publish this will hold it I got a story coming out tomorrow morning I was given a demo recently of the NHL SAP coaching insights app and in that app they track any coach can pull up and

track how fast and how far a player has skated in that given game and so I have a graphic from where is it I'm going to read this to you right now while we're talking I have a graphic where from the, let's see, one of the Canucks Oilers games from earlier this season, where it shows me the max speed McDavid hit on each shift. Like he hit 20.6 miles per hour, 20.6, 22.2, 21, 22 miles per hour. And like you, like, just things like that where if, and that data is cool. Like that is the type of thing where like it's in the coaches iPad. What do the coaches, why do the coaches care how fast he's going?

That does nothing for them. Why are we like, like, wow, he looked really fast. He blew by our defensemen. Let's quantify the speed of that so that we can recalibrate. Why do they care about? No, let's put that on the broadcast. Like that makes, it's one thing to say, oh, Connor McDavid's fast. It's another thing to go and put into a broadcast and be like, hey, he's going 23 miles an hour

right there. That's the type of thing. where it's like, okay, that means something. Like it's just, there's so many things now that the league has, and there's this inventory of data and stuff like that, that is really cool that they could use to tell some stories that they just have never done it. And hopefully the changing of the broadcast partners,

hopefully the, hopefully that kind of, and hopefully some fresh minds who haven't run hockey broadcasting, and get some hands on this, hopefully that that leads us to actually using some of this stuff and actually kind of being able to take that step, be like, okay, let's, let's take some, sure, there's some things that work, but let's look at what we need to do. What, what, what, how do we get that kind of, that casual fan interested in, in making things enjoyable to them and wowing them and being like, hey, you know what? Like, I thought one of the, I know a bunch of stars fans were really excited, for example, like,

the goal that Dennis Garayano scored to send the stars to Stanley Cup final, that puck came in at 109 miles an hour. That is a astonishing number. Why don't we hear more about that? Why don't we bring more things like that into the broadcast as opposed to bringing up that one nugget every once in a while? Yeah, I agree. From the analyst perspective, I think the value is overblown

because I don't think it matters necessarily how fast the guy I shoot. I think from a storytelling perspective. It's like baseball. When you see a picture throwing 100 miles per hour, it's like, wow, that was cool. Like, I like seeing that it was 102 miles an hour. It says it on my screen. Like, that's a cool thing to show.

Like, it's like an entertainment. Like I'm watching, like, I got ESPN on the background right now. I'm watching, like, so I'm watching a guy pitch. That pitch, I will have no idea how fast that pitch. Yeah, you need to see it on the screen. But if they do 104, if it's the exact same pitch, if they put 104, but it was really nice, I would have no idea.

But if they put 104, I'm like, oh, wow, that's, that's cool. Like, like, you're like, it's a big number. And it's also makes you realize that you cannot do that as a regular person. And this is why you should be watching the pros do it because they do it much better than we can. So, yeah, and I think that's a good, good note to, to end on. I'm cautiously optimistic. I think the league needed a seat at the adult table here. And certainly, like, I think with NBC's coming,

I obviously could tell like the writing was on the wall and this was going to be the last year as some of the programming has been, especially this year, has been just so lackluster that I think NHL fans are right to be wanting and hoping for more in terms of the U.S. coverage. So hopefully we get that and they embrace this as a new first start an opportunity to implement some creative strategies. Sean, that's going to be it for today's show. This is a blast. You're a busy guy. I'm going to let you keep enjoying your unhealthy snacks here while. you've got your, of course,

hellroom to yourself. And what's your, what's your handle again? It's Sean Shapiro, right? Yep, Sean Shapiro. Yep. Sean Shapiro. S-E-A-N.

And you've got the, yeah, you've got the story coming up that people should check out. So this is a blast, man. I'm glad we got to do this. And let's check in sometime on the road. Maybe I feel like an off-season podcast for us

is going to be really good in terms of talking about random business stuff. Oh, it's always fun, man. Awesome. I'm looking forward to a sixth time. Awesome. Have a good, man. The Hockey P.DioCast with Dmitri Filippovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Filippovich and on SoundCloud at soundcloud.com slash hockeypedioCast.