The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 41: The Sochi Model

Episode Date: December 23, 2015

Jeff Marek stops by to show off his hosting chops and preview the upcoming World Junior Championship tournament. We look into Canada's goaltending pipeline, the young squad they're sending this year, and the novel idea of bringing the best players you have at your disposal. We also discuss who their biggest competition will be this year, and some notable names to keep an eye out for. For people that aren't overly interested in the tournament itself, there's a healthy dose of NHL-centric talk towards the end of the show. Every episode of this podcast is available on iTunes, Soundcloud, and can also be streamed from our website. Make sure to not only subscribe so that you don’t miss out on any new shows as they’re released, but also take a minute to leave us a glowing review. If you’ve been enjoying the work we’ve been doing please also consider chipping in to help support the show (www.hockeypdocast.com/donate). There are a handful of housekeeping costs associated with producing the show that need to be covered, and every little bit helps. Thanks for listening! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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And as always, by my co-host, Travis Yost. No, wait, Dimitri. Joe, Dimitri, what's up, man? Hey, man, it's going good. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, you're supposed to play the role of Travis Yos. Oh, I can't do that. No, no, what's supposed to happen?

It's what you're supposed to do? You're supposed to make a big declarative statement. This is what the beginning of your show is so awesome. Travis always comes in with something really big that grabs. You're like, this guy, like Travis is awesome, man. Travis, like, gets radio, gets media, understands all that kind of stuff. It's awesome.

So, okay, let's see one more time. Okay, coming down. Three, two, one. Hey, everybody, welcome to the PDO cast. I'm your host, Jeff Merrick. Trent is always by my co-host, Dimitri, Philipo. But Joe, Dimitri, what's up?

I am very excited about the world junior hockey tournament. That's it. That's Travis. You got to back it up with something that, like, displays your cred right away. Like, man, this should be a tournament of 96s. Why isn't that Sweden has the only 96s of any value in this? tournament. I'm going up and down the roster. All I see is 97's Dimitri.

You got a big declarative statement and establish the cred. Well, I love how I love, you know, you kind of do stuff as a human being that you don't really pay attention to because it just comes naturally to you and you probably do it all the time. And unless someone kind of points it out to you, you'll never really notice it. And it's funny how now that we've done 40 some odd shows, people go, okay, Travis is like the introses where Travis just goes full head of steam without any warning is definitely one thing. another thing is apparently we just signed off every time super abruptly like people are maybe driving their car or something we're like at the gym and all of a sudden we're just like all right well that was a good show and we just kind of end it and we just kind of end it. I never really know how to end it. It's usually always really awkward. I'm always like okay so we'll be back later. Yeah, I guess. I like honestly the format of the show is really cool. The opening of the show is a great hook. It's almost like reverse triangle broadcasting. We come in with a big statement right away and then you sort of drill down reverse triangle style so you get like deep. deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper.

And then I like the end of the show. I mean, Jesus, I mean, the MBSW show drag. We've done, like, extras that have lasted, like, half an hour while that loop plays at the end. Like, we don't know how to end the show. Like, our podcast, the end of the show is worse than the Saturday night live opening skit, where they still, after how many years, don't know how to end it. And that's why they all just drop in, hey, live from New York, it's Saturday night. But your show is awesome because it ends really abruptly.

And the reason I like that is. is because I hate encores and I hate really drawn out goodbyes. Right. Like to me, there's something really egotistical. I see this knowing full well that our podcast does it. Something really egotistical about doing a long, you know, emphatic farewell. Well,

goodbyes are just generally awkward. I feel like people just kind of suck at them in general. So it's fitting that in podcasts as well, we haven't really figured out how to end it. So you just kind of kind of cut the court and just walk away as fast as you can, I guess. What was the old Mitch Hedberg line about how, you spell Arkansas, you just start spelling and then you stop. It's kind of like I feel about how things should end.

Just like that, man. You're done, you're done. I've run out of words. I've made enough sounds and goodbye. Yeah. Okay. Let's, uh, we're going to do the, we're going to start off at least with a little talk about the World Junior tournament and then we'll see how far that takes us and

eventually we'll kind of bounce around the league and whatnot. And I'm sure we'll get into some NHL stuff. So hopefully everyone is as interested in this topic as we are and sticks around for the entirety of the show. But I don't know, it's a fascinating tournament. I mean, it always is, one of those things that, I don't know, I guess this is a good place to start. It's kind of a philosophical question for me. Sometimes when I take a little step back, I'm a little kind of

weirded out about how much emphasis and how much, how invested grown men are about how these like 18, 19 year old kids are playing. And I feel like sometimes there's like a fine line there where it gets like a little bit creepy. But I guess if you just take it for what it is, it's so fun. Here's what it is really. It is a, it's a development tournament. It's a tournament that, you know, lets the various organizations, uh, divided by country, uh, let them know where their players are amongst their peer group. Like, it's a development tournament. No different than the Iman Hulinka, the U18, the U17. There's tons of these, tons of these tournaments. And the U20 is no different. The only difference is that this is the last one in that program. This is the elite of the

elite before you turn pro, although there are some pro players in the tournament. And this is the one that you know Canada really looks at a different way than the rest of the world and you'll see this when it comes to attendance although so you know the other parts of the world are sort of catching on to the hysteria of it I think the rest of the world looks at it like a development tournament which it is right and I think Canada looks at it like

this defines our soul right we will define ourselves by it's it you're I'm of a couple of minds one it's a great tournament it's wonderful hockey it's awesome I love these kids and two I'm like man as Canadians we put way too much

stock in this one I feel like some people's like holiday season is directly impacted by how Team Canada does which is kind of funny it's like these all these teenagers that I don't know and I'm sure are gonna you know wind up getting way better at this sport

right now I'm gonna judge them so hard based on how they do and it's gonna be the end of the world if they don't win and it can definitely get crazy but I feel like at least kind of winning gold last year for Canada at least they kind of gave them a little bit of a grace period. Like I'm sure if they struggle in this tournament and flame out early,

people are going to once again freak out and panic. But like for a while there, I mean, what, they hadn't won gold since 2009, I believe, prior to last year. Yeah,

and in Ottawa. They hadn't meddled since 2012. Yeah. And people were just like so desperate for it. And I think that it's, let's start with Canada because there's two overarching topics for me. I guess there's a third one. Okay.

The first one for me is, is in the past they, I feel like they really struggled with roster construction in the sense that they sort of built their team. Like it was an actual team that you'd be using for whatever, the full length of a season where they'd take third line guys sometimes and be like, well, this guy plays for his second or third line on his junior team. He's going to be our third liner on our national team here.

And it seems like a flawed way to build a team. You should just take the best players and hope that they kind of gel together and go like that and instead they would go with guys like freder goce and stuff these these really big individuals who weren't very good at hockey and for a while there they were just sort of getting outclass by teams like like finland for example and stuff i remember that one year where it was kind of hilarious looking at those two teams and being like wow these these are the same like age groups like they were just like lapping them right so i don't know it's i think that's they've gotten better at that right you are a thousand percent right and the hockey canada model now uh for these tournaments and for

this one is as they refer to it, the Sochi model. I talked to Ryan Jankowski, head scout for Hockey Canada on our junior podcast a couple of weeks ago and he said, oh yeah, this is what we do. No longer do we think about ourselves, you know, as we're constructing an NHL team built for 82 games, we take the best possible players and we expect them to adapt. So if you're a first line player on your junior team in Moose Jaw, and we expect, and that role isn't available for you on Team Canada, we expect you to. adapt into the role that we want you to play because you're right they always you know for a long time

historically canadians and man canadians are so i should say we we are so you know so low to change anything which is why 72 in a lot of ways uh was an overarching loss as opposed to a win for team Canada and the country because it didn't force us to change anything about our game whereas the rest of the world did and caught up pretty fast but hockey Canada used to use that model they used to be we're constructing like an NHL team this is what a fourth line does this is what a third line does this is what Top 6 does. This is what a shutdown deep airing does. All this is all shut down deep airings when it comes to hockey Canada.

And that's the way it was done. But now it's no way, man. We are taking the best possible players. If you have instant chemistry, it's pretty much you're a lock on the team with whomever you have that chemistry with. And the program of excellence that hockey Canada has is this hot house for hockey players where you are taught a number of different skills. You are taught to play for a second, third line, for a second third pairing.

You're taught everything about the game, and you're expected to adapt if you want to play at the best on best level, which the U20 certainly is. So you're bang on about that. But it's now called the Sochi model, and we'll see how long they call it that until there's a new name for it. I'm surprised it's not called the Babcock. Right, yeah. It's crazy. That's a novel idea that they had to recently install.

Like, yeah, just take your best players. It seems like that should be something that's kind of common sense for people who are to put a team together. It's a mindset, right? And Canadians get their minds very, very fixed on things. And this is what happens. And I've always maintained this. You know, what would hockey be like?

I think we talked about this last time. What would hockey be like if it started today? If there was no history and no baggage. Is there any country in the world, you know, more so than Canada that has baggage when it comes to hockey, when it comes to constructing a team, when it comes to your expectations of what the game is, what it's about, and how it should be played? I mean, you have decades of history. and people that were involved in programs their entire lives that aren't exactly turning quickly on some things,

but you do have to hand it to hockey Canada. I mean, it took a few tournaments of getting their asses handed to them. It was painful. It was awkward, but finally they got there. Well, I mean, there's nothing worse than doing something just because that's the way it's always been done and not questioning it, right? Like, if you fall into that trap, you're just going to lose regardless. So the second kind of big topic for me is the goal tending. And obviously, Mackenzie Blackwood, who was supposed to be the starter from day one,

is suspended because of a pretty wild slash in his game. Like, I honestly think that could have been a lot worse than it was, right? Like, it was like a blatant slash to the throat area. Like, I feel like that was pretty vicious, honestly. It was a Friday night against Sudbury. It was Barry Sudbury. We were doing a CHL game. I can't remember I think I might have been doing a London game.

And I got a text from someone at the game from the Barry Colts. And the subject line was just, uh-oh, dot, dot, dot, Blackwood. And I'm like, oh, and so I called them right away. I'm like, what happened goes, I'm not sure that McKenzie Blackwood is going to be playing at the World of Junior Tournament. So why I goes, hang on, I'll send you the video. And it was a video where you can start to see the stick come up and about, and it's just on its way down and the camera pans off.

It wasn't until a little while later that we saw the full effect. But, you know, most general managers, now mind you, they have skin in the game because they'd like to see McKenzie Blackwood suspended for longer. because Barry's a pretty good team. Most general managers that I kept coming back to were saying like that's got to be 20 games. The one thing that David Branch, as he now writes his legacy position in the OHL, one thing he's been harsh on is suspensions and stick violations, headshots, all of it, fighting rules.

This is what Dave Branch is now hanging his hat on. So you know there was that tug of war between hockey Canada, what they wanted and what Dave Branch commissioner wanted. I'm kind of the mitigating factor here, of course, was there was no injury on the play. So that probably saved McKenzie Blackwood and Hockey Canada and Dave Branch for making an even more difficult decision. But I honestly, Demetri, I thought it was going to be more when I saw that thing.

That was, that was why. If you want to see a vicious stick swing by a goaltender, type in Seattle Thunderbirds, Tri-City Americans, and watch Olaf Colzig. Holy. It's from 19, what, 92 or 93 maybe? It's a vicious one. But this is sort of similar.

Thankfully, there's no injury on it. Well, the craziest part to me, I mean, the obvious, obviously the act itself was pretty crazy. But it was Blackwood kind of as soon as he does it. He just goes about his business. And like, he goes down and gets into his butterfly and makes a save. And it was just like, yeah, just nothing happened. Just pretend that there was a glitch in the security cameras. And I didn't catch that moment.

Yeah, everything's fine here. No one's taping the same, right? There's cameras. There's no local cable channel airing this one. Sure. So the other two guys that Canada brought to kind of hold the fort until he comes back are Mason McDonald and Samuel Montembo. And neither of those guys, now keep in mind, the queue is a notably kind of frantic offensive

league where you see these ridiculous point totals for forwards and whatnot. But neither of those guys have a 900% percentage this year. And I feel like that's probably not. not a good sign for Team Canada that if they have to rely on either of those guys. I kind of thought Aiden Hill would go, but nonetheless. Yeah, Samuel Montenbole plays for Blambeau-Briand of the QMJHL.

Draftic of the Florida Panthers didn't have the best possible season last year. And Mason McDonald was a second rounder to Calgary. Came back from Calgary Camp. Back was a little bit messed up. The Charlottetown Allenders, as a team, have been messed up pretty much the entire season. And they thought they were getting Daniel sprung back from Pittsburgh a lot sooner than when he actually showed up.

And just to be honest, Dimitri, he just hasn't been good. Like by his standard and by a hockey Canada elite standard, he hasn't been good. So once again, yes, there will be much hand-wringing when it comes to Team Canada and the net mining. Because neither have stood out. They really haven't. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like, well, it's been an issue for Team Canada for a while in these juniors, right? Like there was that whole

Zach Foucali argument where all this guy does is win but like by every sort of objective measure he just wasn't a really good goal here, right? He was playing, listen man, he was playing on a Halifax team that had Nathan McKinnon and Jonathan Duran on. He had a stack team in Halifax and he went to a Quebec team that's, you know,

hosted and almost went in the front door to the Memorial Cup like, yeah, you want my theory on why the goaltending has suffered in Canada for a while? Go for it. Okay, here's the deal. in countries like Finland and while now Russia in a lot of ways where a lot of Finnish net minding coaches have been exported, they have a very much a top-down system of information where all the information gets shared all throughout the country.

Whereas in Canada, there are, as you well know, little goalie camps everywhere and all the information is shared in these secret books. You know, every goaltending instructor has like his or her own way of how to teach the game and how to play. and like every sort of advance. If there's ever an advancement, it doesn't come from the top down. It just comes within one camp, and only those players are privy to it. What Canada needs more so than anything else, you know, not to, you know, kick foreign goaltenders out of the junior ranks, which they've done. But what they need to do is adopt more of a top-down, top-down goal-tending system

and not just little camps that protect all the new information when it comes to goaltending, because financially it works for those camps. That's, if you want to overhaul goal-tending in Canada, follow the finished model, it's top-down information. And you see it. Listen, man, look at all the great, you're going to see Ilya Samsonoff, okay, a goaltender, Washington pick last year.

He'll play for Russia. He's not coming over for a couple of years, but he's fantastic, and there's more Russia. For the longest time, we said, where have all the Russian goaltender's gone? You okay? Yeah, I'm good, yeah. What happens to you?

Did I put you to sleep? Yeah, my head hit the table. No, I was adjusting to a different sitting position. Droning on about goaltenders. Yeah, but they've imported, finished goal. All that information, you know, gets spread out over all of the camps. It's not just held by one. So I think more so than anything else, that is the big problem with Canadian goaltending.

Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. I feel like, do you think it's just one of those things where it took a while for it to come to Roos? Because, like, you look in the NHL and two of the best three goalies in the world are, like, fairly young in their prime Canadian. and it's not like they were in these junior ranks that long ago. Like, I don't know, just, maybe some of these guys, like maybe Mackenzie Blackwood or one of these other guys in five, six years is going to wind up looking like a really good NHL goalie. And it's just one of those things where it kind of takes time and some of these leagues,

like the queue, for example, just aren't conducive to really, really benefit, like really good-looking goalie numbers, right? So I don't know, it's kind of tough to comment on these guys that are 18, 19 years old. Yeah, it's the one position. And the cue is hard because they don't have a pool to draw from. that's really deep. And, you know, the American pool that do draw from in the Northeast, a lot of those players would just be blunt.

They don't want to go play in a French-speaking city. And they're more married to the college system than they are to junior hockey. The OHL draws from a lot of English-speaking and programs where, you know, players want to go play there. Ditto for the Western Hockey League. But it's, it's tough. And that's why you see in the QMJHL, they do really well in the import draft and bringing players in from the Czech Republic and bringing players in, you know, from different countries

in Europe, Switzerland. being another example, that's where they dine out because they have a hard time getting elite-level American players. Like, look at Noah Hanofin, for example. And Noah Hanofin could have left after the junior tournament last year and played in the QMGHL. Why didn't he? It's right. It's were held with Quebec. And if you're Noah Hanofin, it's your draft year, do you want to leave the place where you're comfortable to go to a big question mark in a different country in a different province,

in a different city where they don't speak your language in a year that's as huge as it was. last year for Noah Hannafin. So the Quebec league had some challenges. Plus the pool they draw from itself isn't exactly that deep. So those are some of the challenges. The Q faces, unlike the O and the Western Occulate. Right. Okay. Let's, let's, and I guess the third thing is I remember I was listening to your fine preview of the tournament on Sportsnet, which people can check out. But you guys, you were talking with Sam Constantino about how this is a fairly young team, Canada team. And I'm kind of, I don't know, just, it seems like a kind of convenient narrative to be like, okay, well, these guys are young and inexperienced.

And if, you know, things go bad early, how are they going to respond to that? And I don't really want to kind of get into that stuff because it seems like very, very convenient to talk about it that way. But it is an interesting development to kind of follow along with, I guess. I still, yeah, go for it. I was just to say the whole tournament's young. Like outside of the Swedes, who I just think are, I mean, they're going to be murderers in this tournament. I don't know how they lose a period, let alone a game. I just think, I mean, the Swedes.

This tournament is usually whoever has the best collection of 19-year-olds wins, but no one outside of Sweden really seems to have the market cornered on 19-year-olds. This is all about the 97s and not the 96thes, but Sweden, whether it's, you know, take your pick of, you know, Willie Neelander would probably be top of that list there. They've got some really, really high-end 96s in this tournament. And no one else really does. This is, for whatever reason, it seems, We're going to look back on this, you know, five, ten years from now.

And I think in hockey we're going to see to ourselves, where did the 96s go? Like, what happened in hockey? Like, when the 96thes graduated. Like, there's only, it only seems like right now, there's only a handful of really great ones. Yeah, that is interesting. So, I mean, the D is kind of interesting for me here because, like, there's a bunch of guys who, no doubt have pedigree. I mean, they've been drafted into the NHL and they've performed well in their various junior

leagues. But I still ultimately think, like, that's the one. one hole aside from goaltending that could be exploited because obviously I mean Darnelner sort of did everything for that team last year and won the player of the game when they won the gold medal and he's not there anymore.

So some of these other guys are just going to have to sort of step up and like a player I've seen a lot of here because he's sort of in my backyard in Victoria is Joe Hicketts and he's a phenomenal player and I feel like on the big ice surface he could really thrive because he's just one of those guys that whenever you look at him, he doesn't really look at him.

like an athlete. Like he's like a very small kind of husky looking, looking kid, but he he flies out there. Like it's honestly remarkable to watch him skate. And I think that for him, for example, he could really step up. But like some of these other guys, like, I don't know, like who kind of sticks out to you as could be key contributors for the team? On the, on the blue line, Joe Hicketts for one. I mean, he's, he's a returning guy. Thomas Shabbat's a great skater. He plays for St. John, Ottawa Senator's draft. He should be good. I really love Travis Sanheim of the Calgary hitman of the Western High League. He's the Philadelphia Flyers prospect.

Those to me would be the guys that jump in. But the one big, Josh Morrissey was really good last year too. So he's mentioned Nurse, we should probably throw Josh Morris into that mix, the Winnipeg prospect. But I'm with you. Hicketts is the guy. And what makes Hicketts doubly good for this tournament for Canada is his head coach, Dave Lowry in Victoria, is also the head coach of Team Canada. So if there's anyone that has a problem with buy-in or getting the message across to the players,

I mean, here's a guy that's been with Dave Lowry for a couple of years. Plus, he's a returning guy. Plus, he can play every situation. Plus, to your point, he's an outstanding skater. To me, much like you might say that, you know, Braden Point is that key player up front for team Canada. The Tampa prospect, because they need more good young prospects in Tampa. I would have to say, but as far as the back end goes, it's got to be Joe Hicketts, for sure. The Detroit prospect.

I mean, how can you go wrong with a hockey player named Portland? point. I feel like he was just born to be good. But it should be a defenseman. Like the kid's name is Braden Point and you got him playing up front. That's curious. It should be a D-Man. Yeah, I mean, this forward group is absurd. We were talking at the start of the show about how Canada's taken on this kind of strategy of just taking the best players. And really, you can't go wrong here. I mean, you could just put 10-11 guys in a blender here and come up with three or four different lines and they'd all be sort of equally as good. I mean,

You go down the list and it's just, it's stacked. I mean, most of these guys are kind of high-end NHL prospects, and they should really do well in this tournament, assuming that the D kind of holds up and can get them the puck. They shouldn't have a problem scoring, but I think you can say that just about every team in this tournament. Russia's dynamic up front, they can score a ton. The Swedes, I mean, be scared world.

The Swedes are fed. The Finns can fill the net. The Czechs can score. Like, the USA certainly, everybody in this tournament can score. Well, that's what makes the tournament fun, right? Like, people complain in the NHL about how offense is expressed and there aren't enough goals. And in this tournament, really, like, no lead is safe ever. And it just goes back and forth and you see complete meltdowns from, you know, guys that are very young and haven't experienced this stuff before on a big stage like this.

And I don't know, like, that's what makes this tournament must watch television for me pretty much every year. Yeah, it's fun. And you know what's even more fun is going back and watching old tournaments to realize, how good some teams and how good some lines were. Right. Like the other day, yeah, like the other day I was watching the Buffalo Tournament. You remember what the first line for Russia was? The Buffalo Tour that danced all over Team Canada.

No, what was it? It was Artemmy Panerran. Right, right. You have Genni Kuznetsov and Vladimir Teresenko. Yeah, those three guys are pretty good. Holy smokes! You want to talk about Murderers Row. So that's always fun.

But here's the interesting thing now, too. it seems as if now more so than ever. We're starting to see an accent placed on creativity and offense. I mean, you talk about, you know, believing in old myths and not challenging anything, Dimitri. For so long, you know, the old saying, you can't teach offense. We all just believe that we turn their brains off and said, oh, well, you either however you don't, you're either Mike Bossy or you're not. You can either score or you can't.

But you look at how offense is being taught now and how puck movement in the offensive zone is being taught, whether it's, you know, the Royal Road and getting past the cross, you know, moving the puck, moving goaltenders, whether it's white ice shooting, top grip, bottom grip shooting. Like, there's much more of a premium now placed on offense. And for me, that's really exciting when you consider the conversations we've had about dead puck and make the nets bigger and shrink the goaltending equipment. We're about to see, and maybe it starts with the Connor McDavid group, we're about to

see an influx of players that grow up believing that you can teach offense. And this is a skill set. And whether it's, I mean, one of the things we're starting to see now, and Pat Kane certainly does it at the Chicago level, is we're seeing consistent zone entries from elite level players on the wing. Nick Murkley didn't make this team. He plays with Colonies of Arizona draft. But he's one of those playmaking wingers.

It starts on the wingers for the cloner rocket. You look at Mitch Martin, the Linda Knights, the Maple Leaf's fourth overall draft pick. He's a winger, plays with Christian Dvorak and Matthew Kachuk. Where does all that begin? It begins on the wing. So no longer is it just, it's got to be the center guy, you know, the big strong guy, you know, carries a puck over the, over the blue line in the

middle of the ice, you're starting to see what much more creativity from all different areas. So I'm excited about this. Like, I'm excited about the young YouTube vine hockey players that are now coming through and you're going to see more of them this year of the tournament. Yeah, you're not, no, that's definitely a great point. I mean, that's huge because you see it at a young age where some of these guys just kind of get it coached out of their system and they learn how to play a certain way where, you know, you're told you're not going to make it to the highest levels or you're not going to get

drafted or you're not going to play minutes on your team if you're trying to be too flashy and trying to show people up and you've got to play the game the right way quote unquote and that's just like frustrating i mean i understand it it's in certain kind of contexts at the at the nchel level but like all these guys are so talented especially these top guys are like compared to the other guys they're playing against on a regular basis it'd be such a shame to see them being coached up for the nchel as opposed to kind of just like letting them experiment and try new things and see what sticks and what doesn't because that's i mean we mentioned earlier in the show right this is like that's the point of this tournament it's to like showcase your

skills and and and and work on your development and and for the world to kind of see how far you've come so i'm definitely with you that's that's it's a huge development you know what i was working the edmonton winnipeg game last night um on sports net and i mean i continue to marvel at nick eilers who i just love i mean the guy's got speed to burn now he's you know he's skating himself into the corners because of angling and he's playing against men and a number of different factors. But when it all finally comes together at the NHL level for Nick Eelers, I just hope there's a coach back there. Maybe it's Paul Maurice, maybe it's not. I just hope that there's a coach back there that allows him to be as creative as this guy can be because he's that next great dynamic

play. I saw him on a rush earlier on this season. Midway through the rush in order to get around a defender, he switched hands on his stick. in like without without missing a stride and it just happens so quick that you didn't notice it I'm watching like hey can we rewind that that's talking about my producer

I can we see that again like did I did he just did he just do that like we've seen you know cellio was on the point you know switches stick to take a shot wow look at him do that cordie how he used to do that but that's from a stationary position

he used to a guy does it mid-stried like it's it's remarkable how much these kids are trying and are allowed to do with the junior level and it's all because they don't have the mindset of, I can't do this because coach says I can't. Right. Yeah, that's huge. Okay, let's wrap up the tournament here, the talk at least. Who, I'm guessing you're going to say Sweden is kind of the biggest challenge for Team Canada

and the team that might be the favorite for the entire tournament in general. But what other teams are there? Like, I guess U.S. and Russia are both going to be up there, right? U.S. and Russia will be really good. the Russians are sending a different squad than we saw at the Canada Russia series. I mean, the blue line will be anchored by Ivan Proveroff, the Philadelphia Flyers draft pick. I mean, up front, Dennis Kurianoff, who's a Dallas pick,

who's outstanding. I mean, he's going to be one of the big shooters there, Blaslav Khamenev, the Nashville Prospect. I mean, you will see, Yvgeny Sveshtnikov, the Detroit player. The Detroit Prospect, whether he plays with Cape Breton, Maximum Lazaroff, who plays with on a line in Cape Breton. So that's going to be a really dynamic team. That team's going to be a lot of fun to watch. There will probably be the class of group B.

But as far as Group A goes, I mean, Group A is a group of theft. Canada, Sweden and the USA. And then Switzerland's always stingy and always comes up with A performance. And Denmark is also in that group. But USA looks good. I do have some questions about their defense. I expect to see a ton of Zach Werenski and Charlie McAvoy on the blue line. And up front, the best player in the tournament is a 17-year-old.

that's Austin Matthews. I can't believe it's taking us, you know, 30 minutes to get around to talking to Austin Matthews. But here's a guy that, you know, he plays in Switzerland. It's his draft year. We don't get a chance to watch him a ton. In some ways, Demetre, this is going to be the coming out party for Austin Matthews when everyone will finally get a look at. I mean, he played in the tournament last year, but this is our first real big chance to see

Austin Matthews peer on peer at the height of his powers. He is far and away the best player in this tournament, and he's draft eligible. it as we all know. Yeah, that'll be interesting. I obviously haven't watched any, like, full games. I've seen vines and gifts of him scoring ridiculous goals overseas. But, yeah, it'll be kind of fascinating to see how he handles it. And I'm looking at this team.

I feel like he definitely kind of needs to do some of the heavy lifting because I feel like a little bit of this forward selection is curious to me because they, we talked about how Canada is bringing just the 12 most talented guys up front. And they kind of, very surprisingly, didn't bring guys like Kyle Connor and Jeremy Brackle. I don't know, like, maybe in the sort of prospect community that wasn't thought of as a big deal, but for like me as an outsider who kind of just vaguely

tunes in around the draft and around this period, I was very surprised by that. Kyle Connor was huge. Jeremy Bracko, to some extent, was big. The word that I got on why USA Hockey said no to Jeremy Bracko was, are you ready for it? He doesn't play a measured enough game.

That was it now. Last time I checked, they're calling penalty of this tournament, right? Right. Okay, so there will be power plays? Yep. And you don't want Jeremy Bracko?

Okay, that's cool. All right. Okay, so we'll get that with that. Kyle Connor is the one that really shocks me. But to the Braco point, there was once a time in international hockey where, you know, the United States, their players, they didn't play a measure game.

There's a lot of running around. And, you know, almost as if they were scurrying to position as opposed to getting in and setting up, it almost seemed like it was a really rushed and hurried game. Other teams would just pick them off I mean, Canada would starch them, the Russians would starch them. I mean, everyone would starched USA because, you know, they didn't play a measured game. And I get that, and I understand the logic of it.

But when you have as gifted a passer as Jeremy Bracco, and in a short tournament, when you're looking for instant chemistry, I mean, him and Ryan McKinnis, Al McKinness's son, they play together in Kitchener, and you want to talk about, like, hot fines, you should see some of the highlights of these two guys together. Like the way that Bracco can find McKinness, is magical. Like, yeah, it's on, it's for, it's for thought, seriously. So that one, that one shocked me as well, but we shall see.

I mean, if they, you know, if they, listen, man, they're going to have a guy like Colin White probably on the third lines. When you're that deep, maybe you say to yourself, yeah, we can afford not to have some of these guys aboard, but, you know, Nick Schmaltz and Brock, Bessert, play together at University of North Dakota. That should be a special combination. Christian Dvorak, who's a standout with the London Knights, Arizona prospect. He should be someone that pops as well.

So there's a lot of talent on that team. On Sunny Malano, of course, who's playing pro hockey. Here's my question to you. I'm curious, always about the tournament and the kids and development, but I'm curious what the reaction is to the ice for people this year because this is being played in Europe, yes. But it's not the double IHF 200 by 100 size sheet of ice. It's that in between North America, which is 200 by 85,

and the 200 by 100. This is 200 by 92 and a half. So it's just that extra tiny little bit to the outside Dimitri. And for those that say, oh, you got to make the ice bigger and go 200 by 100, there's a lot of dead ice out there when you do that. You know, there's a lot of like cycle cycle look for Michael in the corner. Like it's really boring hockey. But I've always been a purport of the finish size, like the finish dimension of the rink.

I'm interested to see how people react to it because I love it. I love this size of rink for the game today. I'm curious if you and your listeners feel the same way. Oh, well, that's going to be definitely something to look forward to you. I can't say that I'm overly well-versed or accustomed to that ice size. But, yeah, no, that's going to be fascinating. It's just a little bit more. It's not like huge.

We can get lost or you can hide, but just a little bit more on the outside. Yeah. Well, I'm all for anything that kind of encourages more speed to the outside. So we'll see if that's utilized by guys. And I'm sure it's going to take a little bit of an adjustment period. they didn't really play like they had some exhibition games or whatnot while they were picking the team but that was all like

around here that wasn't actually in Finland was it nope there was some here a couple overseas as well but there's always there's always a lot here yeah you know they used to always play in Belleville because Belleville until the team left for Hamilton Belleville was the only rank in the CHL that had

the 200 by 100 double IHF size right which is why I was always you know I always felt this is what makes P. K.Suban even more of a freak. It's tough angling when you play that much on the 200 by 100 and the adjustment can be at times overwhelming. The fact that this guy was as good on the 200 by 85 as he was in the 200 by 100 almost says to

a man like everybody, like how this guy slipped to the second? Like how do you not look at Sue Ben and say he can do it on any size ice and say, you know what? There's something there. There's really something there. Yeah. I don't know. Well, scouting is just, I guess, an imprecise science.

but yeah no it's funny because like you watch him and you're just like it doesn't even make sense like if you were watching him by the eye test while scouting you'd do how would he not just like jump off the page and be the guy that you'd first gravitate towards like i just don't understand how guys like that slip through the cracks right like you can watch some some guys they like aren't very impressive physical specimens but just get it done based on like positioning and and kind of smarts and whatnot and you go okay well it's easy to see how if you catch this guy on the wrong night you wouldn't be very impressed by him, but like a guy like Suban, I feel, you never watch him and go like, oh, that guy's kind of whatever, he's just average. Like every time you watch him, he is, he's a

freak. And I'm assuming it was like that when he was in junior as well. So I just don't understand how that happened. Unorthodox skating style. I think, you know, people didn't look, I mean, this is what popped for a player like Cam Fowler right away in Windsor, where it's like you look at him to skate and you see yourself, holy smokes, it's Scott Niedermeyer, because he had that kind of stride. So right away, he got the extra eyeballs. And as we've seen with P.K. Subat, he don't look like Scott Nehremiermire. Like, he doesn't have, he doesn't have, but I mean, he gets around fine, thank you very much.

He's big and he's strong, but he kind of has that back and forth skating stride. It's not those like long, graceful, you know, Scott Niedermeyer-esque strides. And as we've seen with scouts, man, everyone's, everyone is, you know, quick

to point out difference. Yeah. You know, what was it that Yates once said? Greatness points out difference, genius points out similarity. And, you know, in a lot of ways, Suban is more similar to the great sin. He is different. The one thing, though, that I think a lot of people couldn't get past is the style of skating.

I butchered that Yates quote, by the way. And I know it's, that's the same spirit, but I know he phrased it a lot better than I did. Do you think a lot of our listeners actually know about that Yates quote, Jeff? I feel like it's a lot of overlap there. I'm going to find it on my, it's funny because I've referenced it. so many times that I wanted to get it right. If you can put up with me for two seconds, it's on my iPhone. While you're looking at it, I'm going to give the listeners a player to keep an eye on for

this tournament. I don't normally give these suggestions because I don't spend enough time throughout the season, paying attention to junior to fully kind of have a strong opinion. But there's this guy on Team Belarus named Demetri Filippovich. You texted me that the other day. I hear this guy's a good-looking kid. He's really turning some heads. Yeah, he's jacked.

have to see this guy, good looking guy, square jaw, great interview. Yeah, no, it's funny, I mean, his name spelled a little different there's a few extra letters there, and I'm not sure if he's actually any good, but it was funny, I think there were, Belarus was playing Canada and an exhibition game,

and I was, I don't know, I was going for a walker to get some coffee or something, and I look at my phone, and I just have like 20 notifications on Twitter from people being like, oh, like who says you don't play the game? I'm watching you right now on my television, so. And look at those.

Dick Tracy like good looks. Oh, there's still look. Here it is. I found it. Talent sees difference. Genius sees unity. I'm sure.

My note, I got weird. You ever go through like your old notes on your phone and see like, are you like me like when you hear a quote like you write it down right away? Here's a funny one. Yep. This is from Tom Watt, who is a long time coach around the NHL when describing his blue line. Like whenever I read something, I say, oh, I got to remember that.

That's funny. Check this out. It makes his old school. here's what I here's how I here's how I here's how I want my defense line to look virile agile hostile dancing bears um what virile agile hostile dancing bear that's pretty it's pretty precise and mom what described blue light all right there you go it's amazing uh all right let's uh let's bounce around the NHL a little bit I feel like uh for for those that the tuned in hoping for that stuff we'll give

them a little a little taste of that as well I don't know is there anything they're gone by Is there anything that catches your eye that, well, it's just me and you talking anyways. Okay, it's just you and me and my dog beside me. Yeah. A few things, I mean, everyone freaking out over the Montreal, Canadians. Yeah, that's interesting. Travis and I haven't really talked about them that much on the show. Like, what do you make of that?

Because I obviously have my opinions, but I'm kind of curious, what do you think? I went through it today, and I don't know, I was having a hard time. For whatever reason, Warren Ice has been giving me, like, nothing but headaches lately. Not that I'm the most adept at it, but I was trying to, you know, come up with sort of what to have. PDAO was for October, November, then contrast it to what it is now. And if I refer to my, so October to November, the PDAO was 102.2 and December was 93. Yeah. So, like, you look at what's happening with Montreal, and obviously, Carrie Price, and obviously

Brendan Gallagher, and the other thing that I keep coming back to is, you know, is their shooting percentage going to stay at 4.2? Well, no. You know, it's not going to, I mean, it's not going to be up to the lofty, was it before, like 9.8 or something that before it'll come down. It'll settle in the middle ground there. Yeah, it'll come down to league average.

But I kind of look at it. Like, I look at a lot of teams in this world of parity. Sometimes this is just what happens. Yeah. I was actually looking at it yesterday, and it's a really good point, because I think they lost Gallagher and Price in the same week,

and it was like sometime around November 22nd or something like that. It was towards the end of the month. And since then, their fifth in possession, and they're then 26th in save percentage and 29th in shooting percentage. And it's just one of those things where regardless of who you are or how well you're playing, if you're just not getting the bounces for a certain stretch of time, you're going to wind up just not getting the results and you're going to look a lot worse than you are. And I'd like to think that, you know, Bergevin and the guys running the haves are kind of well-versed enough

with this stuff to the point right now where they're not going to like panic. Like I feel like there might still be some teams in the league that would, but years ago most teams would be like, oh my God, like there's something, you know, horribly wrong with our team right now. And maybe the fact that they're missing those two big contributors makes it easier to sit tight knowing that they're both going to be back eventually. They're not like season long injuries or anything like that. So I think the halves are going to be fine.

But it's always tough to kind of appease the masses and justify your play and say, oh, well, we're possessing the puck and we're playing well. We're just not getting the results when you're just losing a bunch of games and losing them badly. So it's kind of a, there's a fine. line there, right? Last night was fascinating, too, because they got starched by Nashville, but if you look at scoring chances, I mean, it was it like 20 to 5 or 20 to 8 as far as like premium scoring chances go? And whenever I see something like that, Demitra, I'm not sure where you're at on this. Because I still believe in that the old school saying where you know

you're coming out of a losing streak when you lose games you should win, much in the same way, you know you're going into a losing streak when you win games that you should lose. And it just happens to a team. I mean, it's a long season. And there are going to be stretches where you look really bad. And there are stretches where you're going to look like the 77 halves. And your team is probably somewhere in the middle. I kind of see Montreal as being that squad. I didn't think they were going to be, you know, the elite team in the Eastern Conference. I didn't think they were going to be the world beaters. I kind of thought, I didn't think they're going to be as bad as they've been in December. I kind of thought they're going to be somewhere

somewhere in between there and i'm sure that that's where they're going to end up settling well it's funny how and the similar thing happened with the rangers maybe to a more pronounced degree now but where you start off a season so well people kind of uh just re-adjust their expectations or recalibrate like what you're capable of even if it's obviously not sustainable like the haves weren't gonna they started off nine and oh or something they're not just going to go 82 and oh of course they're going to have a stretch there where they lose five of seven or something like that and And it happens, and the injuries play a role in that, but it's just like an 82 game schedule is sort of conducive to that happening.

And it's funny how people can just freak out over those stretches, even though they know full well that the early season success wasn't going to continue. So you're kind of sort of better off in the public eye just being slightly above average for the full season as opposed to having these wild swings. It almost forces you to admit to yourself that if you're going to have either a winning streak or a losing streak to start the season, it's better to lose. Yeah, sort of.

If your team that's not going to sustain that losing, and it's team that that's better than the record says it is, I'd kind of rather lose. I would hate for people to recalibrate. Like if I'm, well, take New Jersey, for example, I mean, how are we talking about New Jersey a month and a half ago? Holy smokes, man, did we ever miss the boat in the New Jersey, the devil?

Look at all these guys. Meanwhile, it was that top line and some great goaltending. Yeah. That was really doing it for them. because once people recalibrate their expectations of you, well, that's just it because psychologically you've already screwed them over because you've shown them to be wrong. And then they don't want to be wrong again about you,

so they've doubled down on you. So in some ways, now, I'm sure Bruce Boodroni and I'm Dux feel differently about this, and Columbus certainly as well, it's almost in a lot of ways better to lose to start the season than it is to win. Kind of like the old saying, if you're going to lose, don't do it at home, because those are people that pay for your tickets. Right.

Yeah, you'd almost like to, you know, kind of go on a little bit of a slide early and then dulled in crescendo towards the end of the year. Yeah. So along a similar vein, I mean, you were mentioning how the HABs just absolutely outchanced and outpossessed the predators yesterday and just didn't work out.

I mean, a similar thing happened in Edmonton where the jets were just crushing them. and, you know, a little bit of that was score effects because the Oilers did go up early and it's just natural for a team to kind of shell and give up chances the other way as the game goes along. But it was just one of those things where the jets were just like caving them in so hard. And it must be such a demoralizing thing. Like there's no such thing as a moral victory, I guess you can see, right?

Where it's like, I'm pretty sure those guys in that locker room didn't go back and we're like, all right, well, you know, we played pretty well today. I feel like if we play well tomorrow in Edmonton in Calgary like this, we're going to win. Like they're probably pretty bummed out about the fact that they didn't get two points. And especially considering that every single game in that Central Division matters, there's definitely no moral victories there. I work in that game with Corey Hirsch and John Shannon. And I started the second intermission by saying,

I hope you're not playing the Edmonton gives up Odd Man Rush's drinking game in the second period because if you were, you'd be hammered right now. And Winnipeg own them on Odd Man Rushes in that second period. It's as if, you know, Edmonton just completely turned the, I'm going, you know, when you hit the snooze bar? Yeah. When you're trying to wait,

that's what Edmonton did in that second period. Not unlike what they did a week or later with, against the Boston Bruins, when Cam Talbert turned in the performance of his career. And Talbot held him in there. Like, really, I think that was all, because it was, honestly, Dmitri, it was just odd man rush after odd man rush after odd man rush.

I mean, most times that is a recipe for success. But last night, it just wasn't. It just wasn't to be from one back jets. Yeah. Well, I mean, on the other end of the spectrum, if you're the Oilers, like, obviously, that's not something you want to keep doing every night. But when you're a team that's not winning very many games, you kind of need stuff like that to happen sometimes.

And this Pacific Division is absolutely insane. I mean, there's five points separating seventh and second, and none of the teams are playing remotely well at all. And I don't know. The funny thing is I've been thinking about it a lot recently. And, like, how mad are the Kings, though? They're going to play a really, really good team in the first round that's coming out of the Central. And you're going to have whoever finishes second and third in Pacific just throwing rocks at each other for somewhere between four to seven games.

And I don't know, like we definitely need to eventually kind of readjust this system, right? Because like I'm all for the building rivalries and whatnot. But when the eight best teams don't get in and you have two juggernauts playing each other in the first round while two pathetic teams are playing each other in the first round, There's just something not really right about that. You know what? I think everybody should go to their bookshelf right now and pull out their dictionaries and take out the page that has the word

then the definition for the word fair on it and rip it out and throw it away because this concept of fair really spoils a lot of sports because you're right. Like there's going to be like Los Angeles could end up getting starched by someone in the central.

Yep. Right? And you're right. Like if San Jose sort of just holds on and it finishes one point below the Los Angeles king, they're going to cruise over either Vancouver, the flames, the ducks, if they

pull up their socks, the Oilers, or the coyotes. You know, it's probably going to, you'll probably smash them in four games and have an easy goal in the first round. And as we know, if you're going to win the Stanley Cup, you need to have at least one tap-in series. I would like to think, and this last time when they realigned, I would like to think that when

there's expansion, that some of this stuff starts to get addressed. Yeah. That's of the, okay, we had, I mean, it's, you know, the, the road to help him with good intentions. You know what they're trying to do. Like, you understand this or the way they're trying to build up the rivalries. It's just, you're right, like from a capital F fair point of view, it's just not. I mean, this is insane, right? Like, Calgary is one point out of a playoff spot and they're minus 25 and goal differential this year. Like, that's not a real thing. Like, in Dallas,

Dallas is plus 32. I mean, like, we're not even halfway through the season. And there's a a 57 goal gap there like that that's that's that's that's mind blowing to me where are you at on dallas these days oh man it's it wouldn't be a hockey ptodcast if we don't uh spend at least five minutes talking about the stars uh it's funny their uh early season it was all abs and now it's all stars i love them i think that i had uh i had mike johnson on recently and and we were talking about how the league is such a copycat league and i really hope from that perspective that they have postseason success just so that other other teams are kind of kind of feel inspired and incentivized and to copy this model of just getting like a freewheeling team that just

willing to open it up and play. And sometimes that kind of comes back to bite you. They're going to blow a lead more frequently than a kind of more conservative, safer team. But it's just like a funer product. And if more teams played like this, not even like, I'm not even talking about the goals. I mean, not every team's going to have Sig and Ben and Klingberg. What, even if you just kind of try to play like that, no one would really be talking about

this goal scoring issue in the NHL. I want this to be so successful in the playoffs that it's not even funny. I felt this way about Washington back in 208, 209, too. When they're just playing that up-tempo, fun hockey. Now they couldn't get a save, and that was ultimately their undoing. But I remember I kept saying to anyone that would listen, if you're a fan of hockey, you're hoping the Washington Capitals win the Stanley Cup. Because, you know, Carolina wins in 06 and it's all about foot speed.

Anaheim wins in 07. It's all about nuclear deterrence. Like every general manager just wants to ape whatever was successful the year before. And man, if we get a – if you're a fan of hockey, right – Coelius and I were talking about this on Sirius the other day. If you're a fan of hockey, your dream final this year is Dallas, Washington. Yeah. Are you all with me on that one?

Absolutely. You want like up-tempo, fun, hockey, like, you know, a bunch of five-three games and six-four games and, you know, trading chances and lead changes. you are praying to get Dallas and Washington. Well, what are guys like Jeremy Rona going to do if the caps win the cup and Ovechkin plays really well? Like, it's just one of those things where they're just probably, I guess, I mean, they're not rational human beings. They're probably just not going to give them credit or it would be like, oh, well, it happened one time.

It was a fluke. Let me see it happen again, right? Like, it's, I feel like if you're someone who's getting on Ovechkin's case at this point, you're probably not rationally thinking about this. I don't even think that the caps winning a cup at that. this point is going to really just alter your opinion. If you've convinced yourself that Ovechkin isn't one of the best players ever and of this generation, then you're just, you're probably not going to be convinced one way or another just based

on one postseason. See, I don't know how you can't. Like, that's the thing that stuns me about that type of, you know, that type of thought about Alexander Ovechkin, even if you're not a Washington Capitals fan. And I get that. I'm not someone that cheers for teams. I do cheer for people. But I get that.

Like, you can't hate someone who you consider. You can't like someone who you consider the enemy. I understand that. But just as far as appreciating sublime performance, how do you not look at what Alexander Ovechkin has done, the body of work that he's laid in front of us, and not say to yourself, this guy is one of the greatest of all time.

Like, I'm sure there were plenty of Boston Bruin and Toronto police fans that were loathe, although they did, to acknowledge how great Rock at Richard was. And if I look at anyone in history, style of game, way he played, style. If there's anyone that can compare Alex Oveshkin to, I keep coming back to Rocket Richard. Yet I can't think for the life of me, maybe you can help me or your listeners can too, I can't think of a more elite player at his position who's been more unfairly

criticized and insulted more than Alexander Oveshkin. Yeah, but I mean, most of that has to do with the fact that he's Russian, right? As part of it. Yeah. Yeah. Although, you know what? and I feel like he'd definitely get a more free pass. If this guy's Canadian, if this guy's American, I mean, he's getting a lot of free passes on straight leg and back checks.

I get that for sure. But, I mean, this is one of, like, you always say you don't appreciate it when you have it, and I feel that way about Alexander Ovetchen. I don't think people appreciate how good, how good a player he is and how greater performance this guy turns in pretty much consistently night in and night out. And so he's gone.

Like one day there's not going to be an Alexander. Listen, I still think he finishes his career in the KHL. And one day, there's not going to be Obeskin in this game. And we're going to miss them. Yep. We're going to miss them in ways that we can. See, the great thing about Ovechkin, too, is there's no secrets. That's what I love about him.

Yeah. There's no mystery anymore about Alexander Ovechkin. Here's the play, see if you can stop me. I love that. I'm going to set up over here for a one-timer. You try to stop me. Well, it's funny how there was that little stretch there around when Brugroo got fired and Dale Hunter came in where people were like, uh-huh, people have figured out Alex

Ovechkin. And the funny thing is, people kept bringing up guys like Dan Gerardy and Mark Stahl and being like, well, look at the success the Rangers have had in the playoffs against the caps. Dan Gerardy has figured him out. And like, looking back at that now is, is comical, but people were legitimately talking that way. And I don't know, I guess it's remarkable that as he's getting into his 30s now, that he's managed to have this shelf life and that he continues to just put up ridiculous numbers. And Travis and I talked about this, like, eventually he's going to stop being as effective a goal score as he is.

But he is so much wiggle room there just purely based on like volume. Like if you keep shooting over four times a game, I mean, he can stop being as effective a shooter and still score 40 goals just purely based on just the law of averages. Like he's, he's a unique creature. I feel like it's definitely going to be a while until we see another guy like him. His shoulders will fall off one day. Yeah. Like this guy, I shoot so many puck.

so hard. One day he's just going to show up and his coach is going to say, where did your shoulders go? I don't know. I just shot too many bucks. My shoulder goes out of the guy. Yeah, I know, probably. I took a little off the shot this year. I'm only going to get 25 this year. Sorry, coach. Yeah, oh man. All right.

Yeah, let's wrap it up. I feel like we did our due diligence here. Blather it enough. Yeah. Let's plug some stuff. I mentioned the preview podcast you did for the juniors. People can check out. That's fun. Yeah, you can get that one. download at iTunes,

check it out, iTunes rather check it out on SportsNet. Other than that, I'm just, it's funny to me just saying this to my wife the other day.

She's like, what's with you this year? Like, you're doing like a million things. And I kind of, I think I'm at this place now because whether it's a junior podcast or the podcast

or the podcast of Wish or doing, you know, do some hockey Central today about regular TV stuff, the Saturday show with Shannie and Peach and doing junior hockey.

I think I'm at a place in my career where I'm like, okay, nothing's really worked yet. I better take a venture your capitalist approach and do as many things as I can, invest in as many things and hope that one or two of them work. Well, you're doing the Oveckin.

You're a volume shooter in the broadcasting business. That's it. I'm doing the Vecan. I'm doing the new age, Mike Gardner. I'll just shoot, shoot. If you give me the puck, just go to the bench because you're not getting a back. So I'm putting this sucker on net. You're eventually going to lose your voice and you're going to have to do some sign

language or something like that. That might come into. Another thing you're doing, we should mention the people listening if they're like this dynamic with me and you where I'm. I've been joining you and Steve Culeus every second Thursday on your serious show, and it's been a lot of fun. So it's fascinating because I was, you know, calling out Jeremy Roanick there for a little bit. Deservedly so. I heard that he started a new podcast of his own and was making fun of people who never played the game.

So he brought that on himself. That's a big, that's a big plank for him. I don't know. I mean, I get the authenticity card to some extent. Like, listen, man, like, I get there are certain things that you can glean from actually having played. that are things that you can't understand. But at the same time, there are things that you can't understand

because you're too close to it. I'm not sure if I was talking about this on your podcast, your last time I was on, but I remember when I first read Ellen Etchingham, Theory of Ice, I was blown away. I was blown at that perspective, at that editorial slant, how she looked at the game.

I'm like, guys, I can't remember whether her blog that I read first or one of her pieces in Walrus magazine. I'm like, guys, this is fantastic. I've never thought about or looked at hockey like this. And of course I wouldn't. because I'm on, at that point, a trolley track of this is how the game is played. This is how I understand this game.

And that's why I like, I dig listening to this podcast. I love reading Ellen's work. I wish we'd come back and start writing about hockey again. But I don't, I mean, I just can't, I can't get down with the vibe of, you know, I played the game. And so I'm going to have the sort of, you know, the authority card to play on it when I speak. and you should all be, you know, stand in awe, the gravity of my statements because I played the game. Man, there are plenty of things that I can glean from hockey from people that barely know how to skate, build on how to hold a stick, and don't know the difference between a wrist shot and a wrist watch.

So the authenticity card is one that's always been troubling for me. But that's a cult of personality that's Jeremy Roneck, right? I mean, on the one hand, I completely understand the point of view of, like, if you've been kind of in the game and been thought to, think a certain way, whether you're a former player or a guy that's been in the broadcasting business for however many years. It's tough to adjust on the fly and be willing to experiment with new stuff. I completely understand that. But the whole point Travis and I try to make all the time is that this isn't rocket science. And some of these names and stuff might seem very convoluted and scary, but all this stuff is super simple and common. It's just common sense.

And if you've been actually following and watching hockey and are as big a fan as you claim you are, then all this stuff is stuff that you thought about before. We're just kind of putting names to it and putting numbers to it and trying to quantify it. And that's why I brought up the serious show because I remember Steve Culeas, for example, was a guy who used to be very anti-analytics. And he, I have to say right now, like I've been pretty thoroughly kind of pleased by how willing he is to discuss it and kind of open to it. and he's trying to learn and, you know, he's going to make mistakes. I mean, heck, like Travis and I make mistakes all the time with this stuff.

But as long as you're kind of willing to give it a shot and be open-minded about it, I respect that greatly. This is such a wonderful game and there's not one specific way to look at it. You know, I mean, the genius of the Zen Rock Garden is you can't see the entire thing. If you stand in one place, you have to move around. That's a philosophy behind it. And I believe that. Frank Zappel used to always say the mind is like a parachute. It only works when it's open.

And I agree with that. to Steve's point, because this is the first time that I've really worked consistently with Steve. And that's one of the first things, one of the first conversations that we had about it. He's like, you know what? I don't know a lot about this stuff, but I really need to because I have enough of a sort of kernel of it in my head. And it seems fascinating to me. And Steve's like me. Like, he's a curious guy.

Like I hope that I never lose that. And I'll tell you what, I had this really, I hope I don't think he'll mind if I tell the story. I had a really cool experience at SportsNet last week. So I was filling in for David Amber on the Edmonton games because he's on vacation right now with his family. So I'm doing a bunch of Edmonton games. And we were doing the Edmonton, it was out of the Boston game. Edmonton, no, it was Edmonton, New York last Tuesday. And I'm working with John Shannon and Louis DeBrusk.

And I love Louis. And whenever we talk, we end up talking about his son Jake Tons, obviously, because he's a first round draft pick of the Boston Bruins. Probably end up going to be traded in the Western League this year. And I just, I like the kid, and I think he's a hell of a player. But, Louie to me is the perfect example of what someone like Jeremy Roanick should be. He's a guy who played the game, but he doesn't try to play the authority card, which is, you can't tell me anything. I played the game.

You know, we had this conversation about analytics. I don't know. We got to find a better name for those, by the way. We had a conversation about analytics, the lack of a better term. Underlying numbers or something. Underline, okay, whatever it seems more palable because assist their analytics folks that deal with. So we had a conversation about underlying numbers. And he's like, well, are there any?

And he's like, you know, I get these emails every now and then from Sport Logic because all of us get like your daily updates from Sport Logic. The group out of Montreal. And he's like, well, do they run numbers on like deflected shots that actually make it to the net? I'm like, I don't know. Let me give Chris Boucher a call. And so I gave Chris a call and said, you have two seconds? And I handed the phone over to Louie. and I'll tell you, man, like I live for these moments like this.

So here's Louis de Brusk, and I'm hand on my phone, I'm listening to part of the conversation. We're on set hearing Louis de Brusk, former tough guy in the NHL, you know, analyst with the Edmonton Oilers, and we know how Edmonton media feels about analytics, having a really interesting conversation with Christopher Bouchet from Sport Logic.

And I know Christopher a little bit now from working with him this year, and he has a really, cool way of talking and explaining things and just watching like certain lights go off for louis as he's like in his mind he's played the game his entire life but he's learning something new about it right and it's even just by opening his brain this is what louis does like louis opens his mind up to different alternatives to make things interesting about the game and to your point you and travis like everybody can do this everybody just open up your mind a little bit and you know get out of the get of the trolley tracks of information that we've always been on.

Like, I understand that it might seem hard. And I get that it's comfortable when you just want to go on television and say, well, you know what? The problem is, this team isn't working hard enough and they need to bend their knees and they need to work harder for their coach. Yeah. It's easy to do that. Yeah.

And you don't get checked on it. You don't get checked on it is on the internet. And that's what they'll have a hard time. And that's where their BS gets called. And I, for one, have zero problem with it. And I'll tell you what, man, that seems. last week with Louis talking to Boucher kind of that was the highlight of the week for me

so that was pretty good and you know what JR could be that guy he had that level of curiosity he really and you know what the amount of information that he could gush forth would would be a waterfall no I'm not holding my breath well if

listen man if Jeremy Roanick ever wants to come on the Hockey Pediocast I'd love to talk to him so uh well I'll throw that one out there I've my issue with Jeremy and I talked about this one mvsw a couple weeks ago. My issue with Jeremy is I've had him booked on radio shows three separate times and three separate times he's bailed. So I just, at this point, I'm saying like, you know what, I'm not interested. Jeremy doesn't need me and I don't need him. Yeah, that is what it is. All right,

Jeff, it was a lot of fun, man. Yeah, dude, that was fun playing Dmitri Philip Opech out of the top of the show. How does it that I get it? I mean, you have a deeper, richer, you know, morning coffee kind of voice. How was it? Was it a tough task? Was that? Was it a tough task? How was it? It was hard, man. I mean, I had to hit all the right notes. Hey, welcome to PDO cast. I'm your host, Amiichi Filipovich. I'm joined as always my co-host, Travis, Joseo, Travis.

What's up? Yeah. Who's the woman that does the intro? It's, I think it's her producer's girlfriend, actually. Yeah. Oh, is it? Okay. It might be his fiancé.

I don't want to get him in trouble. So it might be, it's his partner of some sort. She has a very radio-esque voice. Oh, it's fantastic. Yeah. And it was honestly, it wasn't even the whole regression to the means. since 2015 wasn't even my doing. I was like, just give us whatever, give us

20 seconds to kind of lead it in. Who's line is that? That's a great line. I thought that was your... Whose line is that? It's, I don't know. It was a just producer came up with it, I guess. That was fantastic. Wow, trademark that sucker.

Yeah. It's a good line, man. All right, man, let's make this a monthly thing or something. Let's talk you back on, talk random stuff. It was a lot of fun. Yeah, thanks, man. That was a good time. How can we end this thing really abrupt?

The Hockey PEDOcast. Online at Hockey PEDOC com. Subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud, or follow on Twitter at Dim Filipovich and at Travis Yost.