The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 400: Method to Mark Stone's Madness

Episode Date: June 12, 2021

Jesse Granger joins the show to discuss how the Golden Knights came back from down two games to beat the Avalanche, how Mark Stone was able to slow Nathan MacKinnon down, and all of the stuff that has and hasn't worked for them this postseason. Topics include: Why this felt like such a big upset The adjustments Vegas made after Game 1 What player usage tells us about how coaches really feel The Mark Stone vs. Nathan MacKinnon head to head What Stone does to make him so effective The way their defensemen flip the puck out of the zone Putting pressure on the other team with puck pursuit Alex Pietrangelo's impact when it mattered most Playoff officiating and coaches working the refs Rink bias for recording shots, chances, and other stats Things to watch in the next round vs. Montreal 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.

On a beautiful run through the park, on a pleasant day, you can easily get lost. No, no, no. She didn't kill him. Huh? In your true crime podcast. It was the pool guy. So obvious. Whatever motivates you works for us, it's all about letting your run be your run. And Brooks is here for every runner. Doing the research and sweating the details to create gear that works for you.

It's your run. Brooks, run happy. progressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey P.D.O.cast, post Dmitri. Welcome to the Hockey PEDEOCast. My name is Demetri Fulipovich. And joining me is my good buddy, Jesse Granger. Jesse, what's going on, man?

Not much. How about you? Oh, not a whole lot. Just enjoying playoff hockey. We are recording this the afternoon after the Golden Knights put the finishing touches on what I'd described as a rather stunning gum from behind six-game series victory over the abs, where they won four in a row after going down 02. and I guess prematurely ended

a Colorado season. And I don't know how to frame it, right? It's so weird because on the surface, you'd say these are two teams that were neck and neck all year battling for that number one seat. They literally finished the same number of points. There are games throughout the regular season, even though guys were missing in and out of the lineup for those

were all very closely contested for the most part. And the Golden Knights actually had a better goal differential. So it's weird to me to frame this as some sort of a stunning upset, but maybe that just speaks to the way the expectations we had and the way Colorado was playing heading into it. Yeah, definitely. I mean, the way they slaughtered St. Louis while Vegas struggled with Minnesota certainly changed the outlook of that series.

I think if both Vegas and Colorado had kind of swept the first round, it would have seemed a little, I think the perception would have been a little different. But the fact that Colorado ended the regular season as hot as they did and just the fashion in which, like when Colorado is one of those teams where when they're at their best, it just looks so much better than, like, even when the Golden Knights are at their best, we just saw it can be just as good if not better.

But it doesn't look visually as impressive as Colorado. No, and certainly I think, you know, the kind of methodically picked apart San Luis in game in round one I thought. Like, you know, it was a sweep. They outscore them 20 to 7. But it was just like progressively, they were like, okay, we're the superiority. And in game one of this series, as you mentioned, it was like, it was tough not to come away from being a bit shell-shocked, and I'm curious for your take in terms of, like, what the reaction in the room for the Golden Knights was after that, because obviously, I think, you know,

they probably expected a little bit short turnaround after that game seven in round one. They're playing their backup in net. They're flying out on the road, playing in altitude. Like, obviously, it was lined up for a disappointing start to the series for them. But it was one thing to expect that. it was another thing to be down Sebrun, to have a nine-minute penalty kill in the third period. The wheels just completely came off there. And one game, especially game one, certainly doesn't make a series.

And we're reminded of that time and time again. But I think it's human nature to come away from that and be like, all right, oh, this Colorado team is something else. And for them to bounce back from that, even after losing game two, but playing much better is a testament to the turnaround that they were able to kind of craft in the series. Yeah, this Golden Knights team is so confident in itself. And like even last year. Some might argue slightly, maybe sometimes too confident. Too confident. Yeah, last and I was going to, yeah, I think last year in the playoffs,

they were too confident. I think that they, and I think we saw a little bit out of Colorado this series in that they were just so good and had their way with teams that once a team kind of started giving them problems, they refused to adjust because they, in their mind, it's like, no, we're going to, we're better than them. we're going to do what's got us here. And I think that's kind of what Vegas did against Vancouver when Vancouver came back on them last year in the playoffs.

And then Dallas, taking care of them in five games was a shock. And it was like, I think Colorado had kind of a similar thing. Whereas this year, I think Minnesota, that series was good for Vegas. I think going to seven and having to adjust and having to beat a team that had given

you stylistic matchup problems, I think gave them a different perspective. I think they saw the way Minnesota battled against them. And they thought, you know what? We're more talented than them. If we work that hard, we like imagine what we can do.

And then that's what they did. They outworked Colorado. And back to the confidence factor. Like I, so I spoke to Jonathan Marsha, so pretty extensive conversation with him from the hotel the day after game one after they had gotten blown out. Or sorry, it was two days later because they had two days off. So it was the day before game two. And he, it wasn't speaking to the media.

I have to say the right things were a confident room. He was genuinely confident. like that 7-1 game is not us. We were tired. We were emotionally drained after that game seven. We're going to surprise people. And I talked to him about like what the vibes like in the room. What are you guys talking about?

And he brought up the Winnipeg Western Conference Final in 2018, the inaugural season. And Vegas, it was a similar setup. Now, it wasn't 7 to 1. I think it was like 4-1 or something that I remember now. It was 4-2. But the flow of the game did not feel like 4-2. It felt like Winnipeg blew them off the ice. And that atmosphere was insane in Winnipeg, I remember.

And I remember going to the bar afterwards and all the hockey media were there. And the entire conversation was, man, that was a cool Cinderella run for this team. But this Winnipeg team is a different monster. It's over. Like the story was really cool and this is where it ends. And then Vegas won the next four games. And Jonathan Marshall was a big part of that. I remember him's having his speech after the game after game one saying,

we're going to show everyone. Next game's a must win. We're going to show the world who we are. and he scores two big goals in game two. And then Vegas took that series over. And I remember joking with him. I'm like, I know you guys aren't going to win four straight against Colorado.

At the time, that seemed like just such a ridiculous statement. But he compared it to that. And then sure enough, Marcia So was one of the best players on the ice in this series. He was confident. He showed up. And sure enough,

they won four in a row. It was a little more shocking than I think that Winnipeg one was. But yeah, it's like this team has a confidence in itself that, like, that I don't think that they've had in maybe past years as strongly. Yeah, I remember. I hope my buddy Thomas Trans here and your colleague won't mind me outing him a little bit.

But he was obviously at the bubble last year for the entirety of it. I remember, and especially covering that Canucks series, he was very vocal about how he felt that, you know, Vegas, especially with like their antics and how much they were talking and chirping back and forth that he felt like they were overly confident. Maybe that's why, as you said, they were a bit surprised by the fact that Canucks hung in there with them. And yeah, so for them to actually turn around this series in that way, it is one thing. I'm sure to get to the NHL and especially to get to the postseason, you have to have this

immense self-belief that I'm sure regular people like you and I don't have, right? Like you are constantly having to push yourself and believe beyond what regularly we're capable of. But for them to actually then do it on the ice is an entirely different thing for me. And I think when we're framing this series, I know you wrote about this and this is kind of going been the key point for us where really flipped for me was between game one and two where even though they lost game two they clearly made a concerted effort to say okay we need to get away from playing carlson's line versus mckenon's line we need to get mark stone chander stevens and a max patch ready out there as much as we can even though we don't have last change here in game two and they did a much

better job of that and even though they lost that game i think the shots at five on five or like 35 to 13 or something like that for Vegas and it really opened the game up for the It certainly opened the game up for the Carlson line who got the feast a little bit on Colorado's middle six without Nazim Kadri in the lineup. And they scored the one goal, I believe, but Riley Smith hit the post like maybe three times in that game. And it was very illuminating for me because I think, you know, this covering the team on a day-to-day basis, you say certain things in the media. Sometimes you get like a moment of levity or a moment of truth and you're like, ah, it was interesting that they gave us that kernel. But for the most part, it's a lot of cliches. it's a lot of the stuff you regularly hear.

The exciting thing for me in the postseason is you can actually see how the coaches feel about their team based on how they dictate matchups, right? And after game one, it's clear that Pete DeBarre and his staff identified that and said, we need to mix this up or it's not going to go well for us. And Colorado in game two allowed it to happen because I'm sure they were very confident. They're like, we have last change, but we also have a really deep team. We have a ton of skill throughout this lineup. And we're not going to let these guys dictate.

take when we're playing Nathan McKinnon and shielding him from Mark Stone. And it didn't go well for them in game two. And then they went to Vegas and Vegas was able to really ramp up that matchup because of the last change. And then you could see by the time they came back for game five, pretty much every single you and I'm messaging, pretty much every single time Mark Stone stepped off of the ice, you could see Nathan McKinn doing like the Alex Havichkin thing where one of his feet was over the boards and he was ready to get out there. And they were very strategically manipulating those minutes as much as they could.

And so that was so illuminating to me just seeing that interplay between the teams and how their ideas of it changes the series went along. Yeah, I completely agree. And I kind of wrote about it too. Like Pete DeBore, I asked him so much about the matchups during the series. I'd probably ask him six times about the series. And he was so sick of it. Like he'd give me an eye roll and he'd say it's overblown. And it's like, Pete, I know you got to say that to me, but your actions speak louder than words.

the fact that when it's in Vegas, Mark Stone only touches the ice when McKinnon's on the ice. And then when it goes back to Colorado, Jared Bednar is doing everything in his power. There was like a couple minutes left in the first period. And I looked at the on natural statric. I look at the opposition time. And it was three seconds for McKinnon and Stone that he was on the ice together. I think it ended up being 13 seconds by the end of that first period. But it's like, like you said, their actions speak louder than their words.

and the fact that Bednar went in four games went from saying, yeah, we don't care who you put out there. It's Nathan McKinnon. It's Miko Ranton. It does not matter what you do. And like to that point, things had come so easily for them that I don't blame them for thinking that. Like, we're not going to change the way we're playing just because you're messing with the matchups. We're going to play our best players and you can do what you want. And then three games later, it was, we have to avoid this matchup. That's how bad that matchup was for McKinnon. And Stone gets most of the credit and he deserves it. I mean, He's the best defensive forward on the team.

He's the center of that, even though he's on the wing. But Chandler-Stevenson and Max Patch Ready, if they're not doing their jobs, what Mark Stone is doing is useless because they have three players on that line. So I think they deserve credit too. They did a phenomenal job. Look at you, you company, man, shouting out the rest of the guys on the line. Yeah, I thought Stevenson uses speed very effectively, right, to get to the spots that he needed to and help sort of insulate them or provide that support.

Yeah, you can see it in game one, right? like William Carlson was the top opponent for Nathan McKinnon. He played six minutes against him at five-on-five. The numbers are a bit skewed because that game got so out of hand and there was so, so little five-on-five time down the stretch. But McKinnon outscored Carlson two nothing in that time or the lines outscored each other. And the shots were six-nothing for Colorado. And Mark Stone was only on the ice for four minutes in that game against Nathan McKinn.

And then that totally flipped where it was nine and a half for Stone in game two and only 246 for Carlson. And that just continued. And so for the series, what we've got is 46 and a half minutes, head to head stone versus McKinnon obviously oversimplifying it they each had four other players out there supporting them but the shots were 31 20 for Vegas the high danger attempts were 15 to seven for Vegas the goals were 3-1 and the expected goal share was 70% for the golden nights and I think if you asked beat the board like between game one and two all right what are you

expecting from this adjustment I think he would say as long as we come out roughly even I will take that 10 times out of 10 considering how good McKinnon Landisog and Randon had been throughout the season. And so for them to actually be a pretty significant net positive along the way, not to mention what it allowed them to do down the lineup by playing Carlson against other lines was just, even I wouldn't have expected it. And you know me, I'm the biggest Markstone fan in the world. I'm constantly posting his clips and his steals. And even for me, after game one, what I saw McKinnon speed, I thought to myself, they can try this matchup, but I'm not sure that it's going to matter because the speed difference is so overwhelming that I wonder if Mark Stone will

actually be able to kind of, you know, sink his claws into McKinnon here and get a hold of them. And he did, to his credit. But you want to kind of talk about the process that you get into in terms of like how that happened and sort of the video work of like what they actually attempted to do on the ice to get those results? Yeah, yeah, it was fun. I went back and watched all every, every shift that Mark Stone took against McKinnon and tried to kind of see exactly what they were doing. And what you mentioned, to me, that's the most amazing part. of this is Mark Stone and Nathan McKinnon are two of the best players in the world. One of them is one of the fastest players in the world.

And one of them is probably the worst skater of that caliber of player that you will ever see. Because like Mark Stone is brilliant. But there's a reason he was a sixth round pick because coming out of junior, the scouts saw him take one skate stride. And they're like, absolutely not. And the fact that he's been able to turn into the player that he has with and his skating is improved. He's still not fast though.

And when you see him next to Nathan McKinnon, he's really not fast. And the fact that he was able to corral him in the neutral zone, which the neutral zone is the most open part of the ice. You can skate in any direction. It's the hardest part of the ice you would think for a player like Mark Stone. We talked about it. I've talked about this several times over the last week. He plays really well in small ice situations.

In the corners, in puck battles, he always comes out with the puck because his hand-eye coordination is so ridiculously good. all ice favors Mark Stone, whereas big ice situations usually favor Nathan McKinnon, but the fact that he was able to stick with him in the neutral zone. So what they essentially did is they played a one-two four check and the one was usually Max Patcherati. He's usually the F-1 that skates into the avalanche zone and tries to pressure their defenseman. He applies the initial pressure. And then what the avalanche like to do is they like to have McKinnon reload and come back towards his own zone curl in that circle and that circle became famous for Golden Knights fans because of the

Lake Tahoe game when Alex Petrangelo was miced up and he's all he's before McKinnon even had the puck he saw him make that circle build that speed and we know how fast Nathan McKinney gets going and he said oh boy and then McKinnon diced through the entire team and scored well McKinnon does that on a regular basis like that's that's a design play for them he comes back and then as he gets that speed the defenseman hands him the puck and he slices through the neutral zone his wingers he he enters the blue line with speed and his wingers are cutting to the net and they create dangerous plays like that. What Mark Stone is able to do is with Max Petch Ready applying the pressure in the defensive zone, him and Chandler-Stevenson are kind of just patrolling the neutral zone and letting their defensemen watch their backs.

And because Stone's anticipation for what is happening next is so unbelievably good, he's able to meet Nathan McKinnon at the red line almost every time. and despite being at a significant speed disadvantage, and he doesn't have to lay a huge hit. Like he's not laying huge hits on him. He's not even stripping him off the puck. He's just simply taking that lane away, forcing McKinn in to shift his momentum,

change direction. Now he's slowed down. And then by the time he gets to the Golden Knights Blue Line, he's not moving quickly. The defenseman closed the gap, super close and force a dump in. And if you force the avalanche to dump it in, they're just not going to win those board battles

against Alex Petrangelo and Shea Theodore in the corners, the way that they, that they beat you in transition. So to me, it's all based on Stone's ability to predict where that play is going before it's there. So he can get there and cut it off. Well, and that's that's the exactly. And I think in the neutral zone, it's so tough to corral a player like McKinnon, especially because the avalanche uniquely attack so much through the middle of the ice, right? And they do do that kind of boomerang where they allow, similar to what Connor McDavid does for the Oilers, where they allow him to build up extra speed by kind of reloading in his own zone. And then what I noticed in game one is if you give him, if you let him get into the back half

of the ice with that full head of steam, I don't care how good you are defensively, he's going to burn you because at that point it's kind of out of your hands. It's too fast. And I think for a lot of players, it's a bit of self-preservation, right? Like you don't necessarily, a lot of players can contest Nathan McKinnon in the neutral zone at the red line. I don't think they want to because you're opening yourself. up to be embarrassed quite a bit, I think, right? Like, if you go out there, you're on an island with

him and he just leaves you in his dust, that's going to wind up making a lot of highlight reels and be gift and pass around on social media. And not that the players are thinking about that, but it is that leads to the conservative nature of the sport sometimes. I'd rather sag back. And if he beats me in the defensive zone, well, then at least I was kind of in the frame and I don't look as bad, whereas if he's all the way by me in the neutral zone and I look like I've fallen down and he's broken my ankles, all of a sudden, that's an entirely different story. it. Yeah, definitely. It's, it's, the Golden Knights took an aggressive approach and like to me, what like you mentioned, it's mostly cliches, but every once in a while, you get a little

nugget of information. And I remember Max Patchretti saying, I think after game three or four, it was it was after they had won in Vegas. He, he said, we believe that the team that sticks to their structure longer will win this series. And in game one, we didn't stick to our structure. And they did. And they made us look bad. And since that point, we have stuck. to our structure better than they have. And when I went back and watched, like aside from Mark Stone's brilliance, the thing that stood out to me is, and the Golden Knights were just never in the wrong spot.

They, all of them, all 18 skaters, because Colorado, if you give them an inch, they're going to make you look, it's going to be seven to one. You have to be perfect. Almost every shift, every play. You have, all five skaters have to be in the exact spot they're supposed to be in. And the Golden Knights,

it may not be the flashy, like highlight real place, but it is a sight to behold, a hockey team playing within their system, and Pete DeBore is a great exes and a nose coach. He drew up the system. His players executed it perfectly, and it made a seemingly unstoppable offense suddenly look very human. Yeah, the defensemen really stuck out to me.

We're very aggressive in this series in terms of obviously offensively. I think Eddie O'Der in the broadcast was pointing out a lot on NBC channel of like how much offensively they were jumping in and when Vegas is at their best. That's when they're involved. But I thought defensively pretty much up and down. the lineup through their sixth defensemen. They were all, I think, taking us an extra step or two higher in protecting the blue line that they would have otherwise to help provide that support for guys like Carlson and Stone

when they're in the middle of so they're not left on an island alone. I think, okay, we should say if you don't like Mark Stone, this probably isn't the podcast for you and you save yourself some time and turn it off now. But I did want to talk to you a little bit about his process because, you know, you see the like the highlight rails that I put together of his takeaways. And you watch them on a nightly basis, obviously, covering the team. And it is easy to become a little desensitized because he does make it look so simple, where it's like he just sees someone with a puck, he goes and he takes it from them.

But if it were that simple, everyone would be doing it, right? And so for him to do it as with the skating quality that he does, obviously part of it is anticipation. Part of it is positioning in the first place, kind of being able to read the ice and see where it's going to go. But I'm just so fascinated. I'd love, imagine if you could just, I was talking about this, imagine you could just do a video session with him where you just sit down or you just watch shifts and you're like, all right, why, how did, what was the tell here?

I'm sure he's got like tells on players in terms of, all right, he's leaning up at this way or all when he does this, I know the puck's going to go here because there's no way otherwise for someone to like 10 out of nine, nine and a half out of 10 times. He guesses right where the puck is going to go. And it's, it's truly remarkable to watch. Yeah. So just getting to know Mark Stone covering him over the last three years, Mark Stone, the person, is an absolute hockey nerd.

The guy, like, we all have, like, I'm one of those people. The friend that watches every game every night. Like, dude, come on, this is the fourth game today. You've done it for the last 20 days. Like, do you really need to watch that hockey game? That's Mark Stone. When he goes home, like I talked to him about all time, when he goes home from practice, when he gets home from a game, he just goes home and watches all the games.

Like, he just loves hockey. He's done it since he was a kid. He told me, growing up, he wasn't the best play. but he was the smartest player because he, all his friends didn't want to, like they'd watch their favorite team and that's it. They didn't really like watching hockey that much. And he just loves watching hockey. And I think over 27 years or how, 26, 27 years, however old he is, of watching nothing but hockey every day for his entire life has made it to where he knows everybody's game. Like, it's not just the film study when he gets to the team facility and they're breaking

down and they're doing the pregame scout. Like he already knows these guys. He's been watching them all year. He, he, and his hand-eye coordination helps. I mean, the guy, like, I remember when the Golden Knights traded for him. I asked, like, Max Patch Ready and other guys, like, tell me one thing that stands out about him. And every single one, it's, he has the best stick in the NHL, best stick in the NHL, his, he, every loose puck he comes up with. If you try to saucer it over him, he's knocking it out of the air. That certainly helps. And like, I asked Mark, where does that come from? Is it just, are you just born with it? He said, he thinks it's because of his time playing on the, uh, the outdoor rinks in Winnipeg. He grew up in Winnipeg.

and he grew up playing on the frozen outdoor rinks just like everyone in Canada. But he mentioned that there wasn't checking in those games and they weren't hitting each other. So everything was a stick check. And he got just, that's all he did every day was those stick checks. And he got so good at it that now he, you see him. He doesn't use his body that much. I mean, he can when he wants to. He's a truck.

But for the most part, it's just his stick. He's just reaching it in there and pulling that puck away. Or like I said, if you try to flip it past him, he has a tennis racket in his hands. Like it's not getting, you're not. flipping the puck past him. If he can reach it, the blade of his stick is 100% intercepting it every time. Well, it's much more subtle. Obviously, like when he does the stick lifts or when he knocks, especially like when he's patrolling the blue line there on the penalty kill and he knocks the puck out as they're trying to enter and then sends it back the other way. That's obviously very visibly

impressive. For me, the thing that really stands out from watching all the tape is it's very subtle, but it speaks to that anticipation or being able to read the ice. When you watch him, how often do you see if the puck gets rimmed around the boards or if there's a rebound opportunity, let's say, and the goalie kicks it out, he's always the first one there. And for me, it's watching, it's probably the nerdiest thing ever, but watching the routes and the angles he takes to get to the puck allows him to make up for that speed, right? It's almost like, let's say, you've got a winger on the a abs, Brandon saw it. He's on the boards and he's waiting for a Colorado avonge defenseman to rim it around to him, right? And he's just standing there waiting for the puck

because he expects from all his time playing that the puck's going to get there, and then he'll be able to make a play out of his own. And Mark Stone finds this inside track to basically get there before the puck gets to him. And he does it so often. And every time I'm watching, I'm like, how did he, how did he do that? Because he winds up being the fastest player in those small areas of the ice, as you mentioned, and he kind of cuts it down into small little fragments where it otherwise, you know, you wouldn't think of it that way.

Yeah, I wrote in my story. if he wasn't a hockey player, he could teach high school geometry. Pete DeBoer mentioned when I asked him about, like, how does a player that's got that speed disadvantage, how does he play with a guy like McKinnon? And that's what DeBoer said is it's all about the angles and the routes he takes. He shortens the amount of distance he has to skate. He doesn't have to put as much effort into it.

And that's another thing is like, it's taxing to defend Nathan McKinnon. And that this Golden Knights team did it for four, five straight games at an impressive level without, really losing the intensity or the level of energy that they defended him with. Well, and Stevenson, to his credit, is the perfect pairing with him because as soon as he takes it away, it's basically instantly before the defense can get set, moving up the ice, tape to tape, and Stevenson basically can skate into it in a way.

It's watching that chemistry kind of unfold where it's, Stevenson is doing the skating. Mark Stone, if we're being honest, is doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of. of getting the puck and then making the pass up the ice where a lot of players would kind of be like, oh, cool, I got the puck. And they'd kind of like take a second to like settle and survey the playing field. It's almost like he knows where the people are going to go before he actually does the takeaway itself, which is remarkable to me in its own right. Yeah, it's, it's fascinating because this team is such a juggernaut without a top center, which has forever been like the required piece to building a team like this. And they're getting away with a guy who was a career fourth

liner in Washington and Chandler Stevenson. And I think the reason they can do it is, because like you mentioned, he is the perfect stylistic fit. You have two power wingers in Max Patcheretti and Mark Stone who are physical, really, really good at winning pucks down low, controlling the puck, but they're not the fastest. Max Patschretti is obviously a good skater, but he's not nearly as fast as Chandler Stevenson. And he's not on the fast end of elite wingers. So you put a guy with the speed and like Patricetti said, Stevenson is the fastest player he's ever played with. I don't know if I would go that far, but Stevenson is incredibly fast. And that speed, they talked about it early in the year.

What it does is when they get the puck, Stevenson, it's just B-line for the other zone immediately. And what it allows is either the defense either get beat by him. And like early in the year he was getting breakaways like an insane amount. And he would go five-hole every time like and score every time. It became a thing. And then like to the point where we'd ask him like, why didn't you go five-hole when he gets stopped on any shot? But anyways, they either get beat on the breakaway or what ended up happening was it got to the point where every time that line would get the puck, the other team's defensemen are immediately retreating.

And that backs those guys off. And it allows players like Stone and Patcheretti, who if you give them time and space, they're going to make the right pass. Suddenly that neutral zone is wide open because those defensemen aren't pinching in. They aren't pressuring in. They are backing up. And it's Chandler Stevenson's speed that's backing them up. and it's just opening things up for these two guys who would otherwise not have that type of room to work in the neutral zone. Okay, well, so related to that, I have a list of things here that I noticed from watching this series that I wanted to bounce off of you in terms of what I'd noticed from watching them.

One, related to that was, and I'm not sure how much of this was an adjustment to the opponent and feeling the need to change it up and how much of it was them doing so throughout the regular season as a tactic. but it felt like their defensemen were flipping the puck for these alley you passes out of the zone, like literally every time to the point where it became an issue because they had four delay of game penalties in this series, I think. And that's sometimes the problem you run into when you're on your back foot, deep in your own zone, just flipping the puck as high as you can. But I wonder how much of it was them identifying, you know, with how aggressive Colorado was, basically getting the puck out in space, letting their skaters skate into it,

and banking on the fact that they'd be able to put pressure on pretty much every defenseman not named Devon Taves and Kail Makar and force them into mistakes, trying to retrieve the puck with an Alex, Takora Chandler-Stevenson, kind of breathing down their throat. And so, you know, it had his pros and cons, obviously, in terms of the penalties and how much they were able to generate off of it. But it really did feel like it was like clockwork. Like they'd win a face off and instantly the puck would be, you know, 20 feet in the air. Yeah, it was, that's kind of a new thing.

I mean, it's not that they haven't done it at all this year, but to be honest, they haven't really had the chances because the division was so bad. Like, Colorado and Vegas, just, it was a joke. Like, no team other than Minnesota. Like, Minnesota was the middle team. Like, they weren't the juggernaut that Colorado or Vegas were,

but they could at least give them a fight. And then the rest of the division, St. Louis fell apart and the three California teams are horrible. And Arizona had a bad year. So it's like, no, they didn't do that. that is often during the regular season, but they also never played games where they, they were having to escape their own zone. It was just everything was so easy for them. They, I mean, they, they're winning their points percentage this year was like better than like,

up there with Tampa's in their all-time best regular season. And it's not because Vegas was an all-time great team. It's because they're a really good team in a division that had some really bad teams in this weird format where you got to play Anaheim eight times, L.A. eight times, San Jose eight times and they lost like, I think, two games of all of that combined. So, so yeah, that was a newer development. They didn't do it nearly as much in the regular season, but I think it's also because they didn't have a team like that. Like they played the abs a few times.

And like you mentioned, there were players missing in those games. So it's, I think it's tough to tell if that was specifically a read from Colorado and something that they thought they could exploit or if it's just, that's kind of how they handle that situation. and they just weren't put in that situation a lot this season. Every deep playoff run starts with building an amazing team. Doing the same for your business doesn't take a room full of scouts. You just need Indeed.

Don't spend hours on multiple job sites looking for candidates with the right skills when you can do it all with Indeed. Hate waiting? Indeed's US data shows over 80% of Indeed employees find quality candidates whose resumes on Indeed matches their job description the moment they sponsor a job. Something I love about Indeed is that it makes hiring all in one place so easy because with virtual interviews, Indeed saves you time. You can message, schedule, and interview top talent all in one place.

Indeed knows that when you're growing your business, you have to make every dollar count. That's why when you sponsor a job, you only pay for quality applications from resumes in our database matching your job description. Visit indeed.com slash blue wire and start hiring today. Just go to Indeed.com slash bluewire. That's Indeed.com slash blue wire. Terms and conditions apply. Cost per application pricing, not available for everyone. Need to hire?

You need Indeed. Well, it'll be interesting kind of looking ahead to this matchup against the Havs is because they certainly don't have a blue line, especially with Jeff Beatrice who kind of banged up that's the most fleet of foot or the best puck movers. And so for them, like, you know, they're calling guard as their size and boxing on in front of their net. And so not that Vegas is going to shy away from that sort of a physical matchup because they obviously have big boards themselves.

But getting the puck out in space and basically being like, all right, we're going to have a one-on-one foot race here and see who comes out on top. Like, that's probably a pretty advantageous for situation for them to be getting into time and time again moving forward as well. And I'm a bit surprised at myself in saying that. Like it obviously worked in this series. I generally don't love when teams do that because I prefer you make a shorter pass to someone in an outlet to actually get the puck moving with possession. because you are essentially basically doing a 50-50 ball for no reason when you have the puck. But in this case, it obviously worked out for them. Yeah, it's going to be interesting.

This Golden Knights team, I think their biggest strength is they can win games in a lot of different ways. And like they can play the fast game. They can play the down low heavy game. They can cycle it. They can do all that. And it's like we saw that in the first round against Minnesota. Minnesota was a big physical team that wanted to slow the game down and make it as much of a grind as possible.

And the Golden Knights, we're trying to open things up and, like, turn it into a track meet. Then you go into a next series against Colorado where it's the exact opposite. We cannot have a track meet. We've got to shut things down. We have to try to do to them what Minnesota did to us,

and they were able to. And now it's swinging, the pendulum swings back the other way. I think Montreal, and I'm kind of digging into it now, writing my series preview, man, they remind me a lot of Minnesota. In that, in that their lines are very balanced.

They don't have a superstar line like the avalanche do, but they've, instead of stacking one or two lines, they've spread their wealth a lot more. You have a guy like stall down on that fourth line, Perry on the fourth line. Like they've got more depth and they have big, like you said, big physical defensemen who clear out that front of the net. And I think the strategy the Canadians are going to use is going to be very similar to what Minnesota did and what Dallas did last year and what, and Corey Perry actually mentioned, he played for Dallas in that series against Golden Knights. And he mentioned today, I think we're going to do something similar in that we're going to protect our net,

we're going to force shots to the outside, and we're going to try to counter them. And the Golden Knights have been, despite being, I think, vastly superior team to Montreal, they have shown a weakness to that sort of strategy. It has worked against them. I think they're better than they were last year in the playoffs. But I do think that Montreal is built in a way that could give the Golden Knights problems more than you might think just based on how good the teams are. Yeah, it's almost like you lull someone into a false trap there in Vegas has seemed very accepting of it, right?

They're like, oh, yeah, we're going to get a lot of shots here and we're going to shoot it from the point. And then you're looking at it's like, huh, they have one goal on 37 shots tonight and this goalie is playing the best game statistically that they've ever had. How is this happening? And that's the thing is like, so this strategy that has worked against the golden nights, I think Vancouver was the first team to figure it out. They were down 3-1 and then they decided this team's too good. we're just going to sit in a shell and let him shoot. And then Thatcher Demko turned into superhero. And he's Thatcher Demko.

I mean, he's a solid goalie, but he shouldn't be shutting you down. And then Dallas did the same thing with Anton Kudobin. Again, solid goalie, not a superstar. And then Minnesota, it kind of worked with Cam Talbot. So if it can work with Thatcher, Demko, Anton Kudobin, and Cam Talbot, I'm afraid to know what happens when you do that with Kerry Price, who is an absolutely phenomenal goalie. So I'm telling you right now,

this series is probably going to feature a couple games. That is the shots are 45 to 12 for Vegas. And the score is 2 to 1 for one way or the other. Yeah, well, I mean, especially for those in the analytical community, this has been a long running, you know, eyebrow raised sort of deal where it's like what, like how do we explain what's going on with the Golden Knights, expected goals, totals versus their actual goals in these playoff games

and try to kind of reconcile that. And a lot of it probably has luck. Some of it, I'm sure, is, you know, getting more conservative in some of these tight games. And kind of playing into your opponent's hands in terms of shooting where they want you to shoot from. I didn't notice, I don't know if they changed the, like, who's scoring the games at T-Mobile this year or whatever. But my colleague, Jack Fraser, pointed us out to me that in the home game is so far this postseason in Vegas, the scoring chance numbers are all out of whack. they're not really lining up.

So it makes me wonder what's going on with expected goals there. Because I think in game six, they had them basically deadlocked with Colorado. And I don't know, just from the eye test from watching that game, it certainly felt like Colorado had the better chances throughout. So that kind of was an eyebrow raise for me. Yeah,

I did kind of see that on Twitter last night. And I didn't really dig into it or anything because I was covering the game. But I can say that the hit totals at T-Mobile are insanity, like madness. Like, madness. Like I can't even believe that it had. continued as long as it has. We've been saying this. I remember in the first year, in the inaugural year, it was either the L.A. or the San Jose series. I can't remember. It was one of the first two series. And there was like a 112 hits in one game. And somebody asked the opposing coach, like about the hits.

And he's like, if there were a hundred hits in that game, we wouldn't be walking. I promise you, there weren't 100 hits. And it's been, it's kind of been a joke since then if you, like, Ryan Reeves leads the league in hits every year. And if you look at his hits per 60 at home, it's like triple what it is on the road. So it's like if you just breathe on the guy at T-Mobile Arena, you're going to get a hit for it. And sometimes I sit beneath those guys. And like they're doing, it's a subjective thing, right?

Like it's one point of contact might be a hit for someone. It might not be for another. So I don't envy their jobs. But yes, they are very lenient with handing out the hits at T-Mobile. So maybe that is kind of bleeding into other stats as well. That's the, that's the Cal clutter Buck special that we call it in the league.

Yeah, no, I think it's a new phenomenon. It's mostly this postseason. It hasn't been in the past, so it doesn't explain some of the numbers from previous post seasons, but it is something to watch. It might be make for a fun story for you. Is there anything else from this series that we didn't touch on or maybe stuff to watch for moving forward in this matchup against the habs?

Yeah, I mean, like to me, the one guy, and you mentioned all six defensemen were playing really well defensively. To me, the ingredient Vegas is missing. and if they're going to beat Montreal and they're going to eventually beat who we think will be Tampa Bay, but you never know the Islanders like to ruin these things. Tampa Bay in the final,

I think Shade Theodore needs to be better offensively. We saw Alex Petrangelo, who has underperformed all season long. He almost made up for an entire season of underperforming it in like four games. That's how good he was. He was spectacular. But Theodore is still completely invisible offensively. and he, when he's going, it is a major difference maker in the way this team looks and how dangerous they feel. So to me, that's, that's like my negative takeaway is like,

where is that guy and what is going on with him? I don't know if he's hurt. Like, nothing has led me to believe there's an injury there, but he just doesn't, he's just not the guy that they usually see him. Yeah, especially compared to last postseason when he was playing at just a preposterously high level and, you know, did it for large stretches of regular season. And yeah, it's weird because there's on ice numbers for the postseason still are fine, but definitely watching them many more mistakes and kind of, you know, half-hearted efforts in terms of what he's trying to do with the puck. For a Pagaya, it's his talent as he is.

Like, he can really, once he's out there with a puck, he can really do anything that he puts his mind to it. And so I'd love to see him play better as all. You're right about Petrangelo. I have to eat a little crow there because I remember in the offseason, I was skeptical that that was the route they took to, like, improving their team given the amount of resources they had available. And I was like, I don't know if going from Nate Schmidt to Alex Petrangelo is going to like change the change their ceiling as much as they think it is based on name value.

And they had to trade Paul Stasney to make room for that too. And also basically have stretches this irregular season when they were like missing three skaters and we're basically playing very shorthanded as a result. But he was fantastic in this series. And, you know, both defensively and with the puck and just being involved offensively. And maybe he does elevate their offensive ceiling a little bit because as we saw in this series, he's jumping up into the rush. And he's kind of in the offensive zone attacking much more than you normally expect a room of the fencemen. So maybe they were onto something there.

Yeah. And not just his offense because he did. He activated a lot more. He pinched so aggressive. Like to the point where like when he was underperforming this season and when he was having his bad games, I'm like, oh, my God, this guy is crazy. Like he pinchers so aggressive. And this is coming for someone who's covered Shay Theodore for. three years. Like Alex Petrangelo is aggressive pinching at the offensive blue line.

He does that. But to me, what what really allowed Vegas, because we talked about the pressure they applied to Colorado, just so much pressure, constant, constant pressure. And the only way you can do that is if they aren't pressuring you. When the Colorado would get the puck into the Vegas end, Patrangelo was just so calm. He gets to the puck quickly. He makes the right decision. he moves it up and suddenly it's right back in Colorado's face. And to me, that was like you mentioned Vegas would throw it to their defensemen and then pressure him. Patrangelo was just unfortunate. The avalanche could not pressure him.

They could not get sustained pressure on him for most of this series. And that was what led Vegas to pressure the other way, I think. Yeah. No, that's a really good point. I think, you know, for me, the, I mean, officiating is always going to be a very touch-and-go subject in the post. season. I'm not saying there's anything to this. It is very convenient how after a tickey-tac call that decided Game 2 and Pete DeBore publicly had his comments, the number of calls going against the Ngo of the Knights significantly dropped to the point where I think there are like last four

penalties in the series, I believe, were all delay of games. You'd have to go back to the first period of game four to find a tripping penalty or something to Jonathan Marshall. So, and at the same time, watching it live, there weren't too many notable instances where I was like, wow, that was an egregious missed call. Like obviously the refs are going to miss it. It's the postseason. They let probably more go than they should compare to the regular season. But for a team that was contesting as much as they were in the neutral zone on everything and clearly making a concerted effort to pressure as much as they did, that penalty total, I imagine, is going to be driving Colorado and their fans crazy because of how good their power play was and how they basically

had very, very few opportunities in the final three games. Yeah, I wrote it that night when Pete DeBoer said that. I'm like, veteran, that is a savvy veteran coaching move. He's Greg Popovich right now. I know that guy has flipped series so many times in the NBA by complaining about officiating, hoping to, hoping that those, that press conference will influence the upcoming games. I don't know if that's what happened.

I think it's a combination. I think it could have played an impact. And I do think that, like, I'll just say it. and Bavs fans listening to this will hate me and say that I'm the homer. That call in overtime was complete BS. That was terrible. It was flimsy. Yeah.

It was terrible. That was a terrible call in a playoff overtime game. But having said that, in that game too, the other calls, the ones DeBore was like saying was embellishment, like Colorado deserved those six power plays in the first, I think it was four in the first period. And it was because they were swarming Vegas and they were just so much faster. And we all know, that's when penalties happened. When the other team is out skating you and they're faster than you, you have no option but to grab, to hook, to trip. Your stick gets caught in guy's skates because he's flying by you.

There was a couple of Nathan McKinnon drew him because he's just flying in so fast. The guy he wasn't even trying to defend him. He just couldn't get out of his way and trips him. So to me, it's, yes, Pete DeBore did try to influence the officiating, but I also think Vegas slowed Colorado down. And once Colorado wasn't flying around them, swarming them like they were in the first two games, of all the first period of the second game, suddenly they weren't having to commit as many penalties as they were early on. So I think it's a little bit of both. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair to say. Is there anything else? I'm kind of, I think we've covered most of it.

Like, I'm very interested in, you know, styles, do you make a fight? And obviously, we've kind alluded to the fact that they played a certain type of series against Minnesota, and they probably played it more on Minnesota's terms and they ideally would have liked. And then this Colorado series, they were much more assertive in terms of realizing that they had to play a certain way and it worked out for them. I think Montreal is going to try to lull them back into that. That's just dump the puck in every single time and cycle it around and shoot it from the point and then hopefully we can counter you. And then potentially in the Stanley Cup final, it's going to be similar to an half series against the lightning where they might have to hard match Mark Stone against

Braden Point and Akita Kuturov and go that route. I'm just, I'm just so fascinated in terms of that interplay from series to series in terms of having to shift the way you play and it's not necessarily as rigid as having one sort of identity and just playing it throughout. You kind of have to play to your opponent. Yeah. And this team is built that way. Like I think some teams are built to where it's like, doesn't matter what the other team does. There's one way for us to win. We're going to stick to this. And if we do this, we win. I think Vegas has built their team in a way that allows them to kind of like change. Like they can mold themselves to what they need to be in that series. there are so many fascinating aspects going into this Montreal series.

I mean, the fact that neither of them have played each other, they don't have any common opponents. It's been 500 days, I think, since they've played each other. We have no idea. We've kind of assumed that the North Division doesn't play great defense. And I'm kind of wondering what's going to happen when this team plays against one of the best defensive teams in hockey that's coming off a series where they're used to defending Colorado.

That's going to be interesting. I'm fascinated by how shell-shocked will the Habs players be. they haven't played in front of a fans. I mean, they've had a couple thousand for these last, $2,500, I think, yeah. They haven't played in front of a real crowd in almost two years, a year, over a year and a half. And Team Mobile Arena is absolutely insane.

And like, maybe that atmosphere pumps them up and, like, they come out and they're amazing. Or maybe they literally cannot handle, like it's been so long since they've played in that much noise that maybe it rattles them. And then the other side of that is when it goes back to Montreal, Vegas has been used to playing in front of crowds for months now. Maybe they can't self-motivate.

Maybe they can't, like, you have to adapt to building your own energy when there is no crowd. So maybe that, when it goes back to Montreal, like, I don't know. There are so many aspects to this series that are unknowns that are unique to the world we're living in right now. And it's just going to be, I'm pumped for this series. It's hockey's oldest team versus hockey's newest team of two completely different sides. You have the max patch ready angle.

I'm so excited for it. Okay. So speaking of unknown, it's kind of unrelated to the series against the HABs, but I was thinking because now Vegas has qualified, they're one of the final four teams for three out of their four years of their existence. They obviously have very high expectations for themselves. They've invested a lot into this franchise. Pretty much every offseason they've kind of ruthlessly in some cases pursued trying to

improve their team, even if it meant having to ship other players out and trying to kind up on the margins get better and add more money. If they had lost that game seven to Minnesota in round one, do you think it's true that they would have made some big changes in terms of potentially pursuing a Jack Eichel or someone like that? Because that was kind of like all the talks that I got behind the scenes. Everyone was like, all right, watch for Vegas. But I couldn't tell how much of it was just kind of like random speculation because

they're an easy sort of target to link to because they're always, link to everyone and how much of it was really like this could happen because this franchise doesn't settle for for having a first round disappointment without something happened. Yeah, I mean, I understand why everyone looks to Vegas because Bill Foley is aggressive as an like he is aggressive. He and like he's that way with his businesses. He's that way with everything. Like he and that's great. Like if you're a golden ice fan, that's what you want. And then you add in the fact that, like you said, the Golden Knights have been in on every big fish, basically since they've been a team. They tried to get Eric Carlson the first year that that thing fell through.

They ended up trading for Tomas Chitar. Then they get Paul Stasney is in free agency. They trade for Max Patch Ready. Then they trade for Mark Stone. Then they trade for Robin Lanner. Then they signed Alex Petrangelo. They were in on John Tavares. I remember they before he ended up going to Toronto. They tried to get Taylor Hall apparently but couldn't make the cap work at the trade deadline. Like this team goes for everyone. So I understand why. And plus they don't have the elite number one center like we talked about earlier. So Ikel fits that. But they've already,

this team is already so capstrapped and they've invested so much in a small number of players with Stone and Patrangelo and Patchretti and Flurry. I just don't see a way that you could, we mentioned they played with like 15 skaters like half their games this year. If you add Jack Eichol, I feel like it's going to be, they're going to have two lines of HL players making the minimum. Like it's the only way and like you're going to have no depth whatsoever.

I just don't see a way to make that work as as crazy as it sounds. I don't think Vegas is in on this one. That's fair. I had to run it by you just because that was like every conversation that I had with anyone affiliated to Vegas, they were like, oh, watch for this if this happens. I get it. I get it.

Oh, I actually thought of one final thing before I get out of here to watch for in this series. So I was thinking a lot while watching this app series, Alec Martinez, who, you know, is the best shot blocker in a league, at least in terms of volume was this season. I believe he had nine shot blocks in game six. He's at 26 over the first two games of the series. And he does so in a very, like, tactical way where he basically, like, lulls the shooter to sleep and then just goes down and blocks it.

And as opposed to, it's not like the Chris Russell school of, like, he's always in a defensive zone. and that's why he has high shot, block shot totals because he just never has the puck. Like, he's strategically seeking out shooters to basically make life easier for his goalie. It did come back to bite him a little bit in that game where he gave, I thought, Andre Berkovsky way too much space to basically walk into a zone and rip one by him. I imagine he'll see a lot of the Suzuki-to-Foley-Field line. I'm very curious to see that interplay between Caulfield, who's been shooting significantly more

as the postseason's gone on. It still hasn't scored, but we know he has a great shot from the lower levels versus Alec Martinez as a shot blocker coming down that right wing. I'm really curious to see that interplay of how often that happens, how successful Martinez is at it and whether call people can kind of get around him and actually get some quality looks off. Yeah, I agree. That's going to be fun to watch. Martinez has been such a great fit here. I was pretty critical of that trade when they sent two second round picks and took his full $4 million salary for the next two years. I was pretty critical when they made that trade, especially when you look at his animal.

his last couple years with the Kings. It looked, based on his stats, it looked like he was a horrible hockey player. And it's pretty clear that it was just a product of his environment and he didn't have a lot around him. And he got to a team that was really good and a lot like those early Kings teams he was on. And suddenly he looks like the Alec Martinez of eight years ago. And he's been a phenomenal fit to the point where now it's like, I'm saying like it's a total mistake if they don't find a way to bring this guy back.

and in these playoffs he's been key for him he's been he's made some offensive plays he's been scoring on the power play you wouldn't think of him as a power play guy but he's he's got his little office over there on the right circle and he just rips one timers and he's he's nailed a few of them and the other part of it is I don't know what his injury is but he is battling through something that is I believe to be significant and part of the reason I've heard some things that aren't like solid enough to report but also what what makes me believe that he's battling through a lot is he has not touched the ice since the playoffs started, except for a game. He hasn't missed a game. But aside from pregame warmups and the 60 minutes

of hockey, he has not touched the ice for a morning skate, an off day skate, optional, nothing. He has not touched the ice. And that's not like Alec Martinez. He's usually out there almost all time. So he's clearly battling through something and they're getting him ready for those games. And the training staff is doing whatever they have to do to get him out there. But the fact that he's playing, dealing with whatever he's dealing with, and he's laying in front of six, seven, eight, nine shots a game is just tells you like, that's, that's what that guy brings to this team. Yeah, whenever the Golden Knight season does end, we're going to find out that every single one of his limbs was hanging on by a thread and he'll require 47 surgeries

and the usual postseason stuff for hockey players. All right, Jesse, well, this is a blast. I'm glad we finally got to do this. Plug some stuff. What are you working on these days? where can people check you out. Yeah, we're working on a lot going into this Montreal series. It's going to be fun working with our crew. The Athletic, we have awesome guys up there in Montreal, a whole team of guys. I'm looking forward to working with them.

I'm working on some big feature stories as well that will publish on Theathletic.com. You can go there and I'm sure we have a deal running. I'm not sure what we have going right now, but there's always one. All right, well, this is a blast, man. I'm glad we got to do this and we'll check back in with you sometime on the road. Awesome. Thanks for having me, man.

All right. That's going to be it for today's episode of the hot. Hockey PEDEOCast. Thank you as always for listening. Hopefully you enjoyed the deep dive of the Vegas Golden Knights and their sixth game victory over the Colorado Avalanche with Jesse Granger. This was episode 400 of the PDO cast, as some of you may have noticed in the title, which is pretty crazy to say out loud and to try to think about it and wrap my head around. That is a lot of PDO casts, a lot of me talking about hockey, and a lot of you listening to me do so. So we couldn't do the show without you, the listeners. Thank you so much for continuing to support us and for

listening and for downloading and for interacting and all that good stuff. Whenever I hear from listeners, it really means a lot to me and I greatly appreciate it. And so if you want to continue to help support the show and spread the love, you can do so by leaving us a quick little rating and review. Just hit the five-star button if you're feeling extra generous. You can drop a line and let us know either what you enjoy about the show or why you recommend people check it out. And yeah, like I said, honestly, from the bottom of my heart, thank you so much for listening. It really, really means a lot to me. The show for me has been very therapeutic, especially through this pandemic and helping get me

through it in terms of just having something to do on a weekly basis and to prepare for and talk about and all that. And yeah, it's gotten us through some tricky times. Hopefully we are getting out on the other side of it and we've got some great playoff hockey to watch here. and as we get into the final four or the conference finals or however you want to call it, we're going to have more time to do specific in-series deep dives and all that good stuff. So look forward to more of that.

And yep, that's going to be it for today's show. Thank you as always. And we will be back soon.