The Hockey PDOcast - Episode 416: Making Changes

Episode Date: October 29, 2021

I start the show talking about Kyle Beach's bravery in coming forward, the cowardice within the Chicago Blackhawks organization that allowed this to happen to him, and the way everything has been handled.Then Jack Fraser joins the show to discuss teams that have either overperfomed or underperfomed so far based on our preseason expectations, and whether we need to change our projections for them moving forward. 0:00 - CW: Kyle Beach, Chicago Blackhawks, and the NHL 8:50 - The Avalanche 18:00 - The Leafs 31:00 - The Kraken 38:00 - The Lightning 46:00 - The Flames 51:00 - The Blues 55:00 - Mailbag Questions If you haven't done so yet, please take a minute to leave a rating and review for the show. Smash that 5-star button. Each one counts, and helps us out greatly. If you're feeling extra generous, you can also leave a little note about why you recommend people check the PDOcast 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 PEDEOCast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the HockeyPedioCast. My name is Dmitri Filipovich. And before we get to today's show, we're going to do something a little different given the circumstances. On Wednesday afternoon, Jack Fraser and I recorded an episode together. And then, as you know now, hours later, Kyle Beach went on TSN and held his remarkably brave interview with Rick Westhead, in which he came forward as the John Doe in the sexual assault lawsuit against the Chicago Police. Blackhawks and spoke to the world about his experiences. And so given that, we decided not to run the show that we had recorded before on Thursday morning, like we usually would have just out of

respect to the gravity of the situation. And honestly, it didn't feel right to be posted in a show talking about hockey and pretending like nothing was happening that was more important in the hockey world without acknowledging what had happened and speaking on it. And so, you know, while this is something that is incredibly uncomfortable and for me as well, you know, it certainly doesn't come naturally. There's a reason why we tend to focus our analysis on this show to what happens on the ice because it's something that I know a lot about. I feel like I can speak about it confidently and that's why we do that. But I think in this case, it's a really important thing for us to all talk about it as a hockey community. If someone like Kyle Beach who has gone through

what they've gone through can be so brave to go up in front of the world and share his story, then the least we can do is speak up in support of him and all of their survivors. So I don't know how you can be a human being and read the report from the independent investigation and listen to Beach Speak in his interview and not just feel entirely sick about everything. It was devastating hearing him talk about how Brad Aldrich and the Blackhawks organization not only affected his career, but much more importantly, his entire life since. It's been 11 years, and that's a long time for this to be coming in a light, and for, you know, justice to be happening.

So I don't know how you can, you know, I was just furious, kind of trying to reconcile all of that and the fact that it took this long for people responsible to finally start being held accountable. And, you know, while Brad Aldridge is the one that obviously committed the crime, the scary part is how many bystanders there were in that organization that seemed to just ultimately prioritize trying to win hockey games over the freaking health and safety of a human life. And that cowardly inability to step in and do the right thing, allow that monster to go on and work with kids and hurt others.

And that's a really upsetting part about this. Listen, we all make mistakes. And this is ultimately, I think, far more than some mistake you just make in passing. This is something that they knew about for years. And every single day they came to the office choosing to do nothing about it because it was in their own best interests. Like a mistake for a coach like Joel Cuombo is filling out the lineup card incorrectly before a game. and having to play with one less player.

This is not a mistake. And so because of that, I'm glad that the league stepped in and finally pushed Quineval out the door, although it is still insane to me that they allowed him, that the Panthers allowed him to coach one final game, even after the report was made public. We'll see what happens with Kevin Chevaldye off next. But I don't see how any of the people involved can, in good conscience, be allowed to continue being in any sort of position of power where they're responsible for overseeing the well-being of their players. they shouldn't be allowed to continue the, enjoy the benefits of their cushy jobs in the league.

We have to get these guys out of the game and actually create meaningful change beyond just throwing a band-aid on and blaming it all on one person and just calling it a day because it's clearly a deeper issue. And so that requires demanding accountability from the teams for cheering for the league we follow and the sport we love. And, you know, for the league, it's going to take significantly stronger actions than just, you know, a laughable $2 million fine that was levied against the Blackhawks, which is less than the three million. They fined the devils for Iqobot-wit contract. Like, what are we doing here?

How does that even make any sort of sense? We need to punish them swiftly, severely, and where it actually hurts, whether it's draft bics, whether it's future caps race, whether it's an aim removal from the cup. So, yeah, it was just, it was a failure by the entire institution, and that includes the players, too,

the other players who need to be better. it's surreal still to this day comparing the quotes from people who are still in the league if they're playing for other teams and those that aren't and feel like they can sort of speak openly about it like the difference in tone and transparency is just striking the ones with something to lose whether it's future job opportunities or whether it's current playing time or whatever they feel are still looking out for themselves this very day like for a sport that so proudly boasts about its leadership and character and teamwork a lot of these guys sure did let their teammate down.

And, you know, for someone like Jonathan Taves, who, you know, his leadership in particular, has been lauded for all of these years and just kind of trying to reconcile that now, I mean, by continuing to say that he had no idea what was going on at the time, he's either lying and knew about it and just chose not to step up and do anything to help. And that's obviously horrific, or he somehow really was that clueless to what was going on. if that's the case, then he's just the absolute worst team captain in professional sports, and there's no two ways about it. So I don't, there's no here both sides or yeah, but, or, oh, these are actually good people

in my dealings with them. It's not all of that is irrelevant. It's unacceptable from top to bottom, and it needs to be treated as such, and anything short of that, quite frankly, isn't enough. So that's all I've got right now. My heart goes out to Cal Beach, all survivors of abuse, and anyone that would, was affected personally by reliving this news, including those who may be suffering right now in silence and feel like they're not being heard. You are heard and we're here for you. And I would hope that

listeners on my show would, you know, this is nothing new, obviously, and I would hope that you would be able to feel that type of empathy and compassion as well. So thanks for listening to me, Rambl, a little bit here. I don't have anything particularly profound to add that that probably hasn't already been said far more eloquently by others, but I did want to use this platform to say something and just acknowledge what was going on and what was happening. So with that said, we're now going to get into the pre-recorded portion of the PDOCAST because that's what we do here. Hopefully, if you're feeling up for it and you want to listen, it can provide an ounce of

entertainment or escape for those you that need it right now. If not, I totally understand there are significantly more important things happening in the hockey world right now, and that's totally reasonable as well. So I hope everyone is keeping well, taking care of themselves, and have a good weekend, and we will talk soon. And joining me is my colleague from E.P. Ringsside, my good buddy, Jack, Frazier, Jack, what's going on, man? Not too bad. It's good to actually see you. Yeah, we're doing this in person in Toronto. This is episode 416, and we are recording it in the 416. six, so I had to make that little joke there. But how's it going, man?

It's going okay. It's been a crazy start of the season. Yeah. And I don't just mean that in the, oh, you know, there's all these games and everything. I mean, everything has completely turned upside down in terms of how teams are actually doing compared to how they were supposed to. So there's a whole lot of hot takes that are looking a little bit strange from the summer, but I'm sure that there's going to be even more hot takes based on these first seven games that are going to look completely stupid in just two or three months or so. So we better get as many as we can in before they get disproven. Yeah, I've had to remind myself a number of times that it's a long season, especially maybe it's because I got so used to the 56 game sprint last year

that it felt like everything was kind of fast-tracked. This year, we're six games in for most of these teams. Some teams have played even less. So we need to tone it down a little bit. But here's the plan for today. So I thought it would be fun to kind of bounce around and talk about some of the teams that have either underperformed or overperformed. I think especially the teams we had high expectations

before heading into the year, like the elite teams that have come out of the gate struggling for whatever reason. I think that's probably the most interesting topics for people to listen to. And we've got to discuss why it's happened, how worried we are about it, sort of whether we need to adjust our expectations moving forward. So let's start with the abs,

because I believe they were pretty significantly, in terms of preseason over-enders, they were tops by a fairly significant margin. And they've come out of the gate with a two four and one record, especially since the season opener where they kind of routed the Blackhawks. It's been a strange start to a year for them, especially that three-game road trip where they went into Washington and just got completely pummeled by the capitals.

And we can talk more about the capitals later if you want. But what do we make of this half's team? Because, you know, based on everything we saw last regular season, and they were about as dominant of a regular season team as we've seen since those mid-2000s Red Wings. And if anything, it seemed like they kind of got better on paper heading into this year. And so far, the results have not indicated that at all.

Yeah, I mean, there wasn't really much reason to think that they were going to be that much worse based on what they did in the off season. I think a lot of people had kind of set themselves up for all this AFS team is not going to be quite as good because they lost, you know, Philip Gruberauer, they lost a little bit of that depth. But like you said, you know,

whether it was projectors or betting odds or the analytical predictive models, you know, every sense was that this team was just, you know, going to be pretty much as good as it was before. And if you look into the underlying numbers so far, you know, this isn't exactly like a PDO dip that you can completely project as going to reverse. It actually kind of reminds me of that Vegas series where it really seemed jarring to see the avalanche get outplayed to the extent that they did in some of those Vegas games where you're seeing the afts get outshot, you know,

30 to 20 or something like that and you're just you know completely taken aback because you just it's like the you know emperor has no clothes like it really kind of surprises you and if you look at some of the players who have poor underlying numbers you know you're talking about guys like macar and mccann and mckin who are really lagging behind uh you know and that really kind of does take you into that like how much are you willing to put into you know six or seven games so far uh compared to you know oh we've never really seen this team have these kinds of struggles for any extended period of time before. Yeah, well, certainly, and, you know, it's worth noting beyond the fact that it has only,

what, seven games for them, they haven't really been at full strength yet, right? Like, obviously Vegas is kind of the extreme of this in terms of losing patch ready and stone and tuck, but McKinnon was all for the first two games, then Landiscock was suspended for two, Sam Gerard is out now, Devon Davis hasn't played yet, but you're right, I think, I was looking at this stat where I've got it down here right now. So McCar and McKinnan have been on the ice for about 55 on five minutes so far together. And the abs are down 6-2 and are getting outshot 26 to 15 in those minutes. And that's like that's one of those things where with those two players, I mean, we've certainly never seen that before.

And for each of those guys, it seems almost impossible that it would be that poor. Obviously a 50-minute sample size. That could easily swing in just one good game. But that's like, it's pretty jarring to see that just when you pull up their page. Yeah. No, it seems strange to think that, you know, Jack Johnson is not the weak link on the. team right now, which, I mean, personally, I expected that you... Have you looked at Jack Johnson's 5-1-5 on-ice stats?

They're hilarious. Yeah, there's a couple of players like that. Johnson, Gud Branson, is another guy who's had really nice on-eye stats. I personally hope that it continues for the rest of the season, but I don't know if I put my money on it. I love it because he's played, I think, five games for them so far, and there's been one goal, and it was the one that he scored, which was an insane, highlight real goal, and there's been, like, no high-age of chances either way.

Pretty much just nothing's been happening, which I think if you're Jack, Johnson and if you're the avalanche, you'll take that any of the day of the week. Just basically go out there and just let nothing happen and then we'll send our top guys out there. Yeah, well, as a Penguins fan, that was what I was told was going to happen when he got signed. And that wasn't quite the case. So, yeah, I'm ready for the Jack Johnson glowup of 2022. I think something we do need to consider in this conversation is the effect that not having Taves in the lineup is playing on this, especially on McCarr. I thought that, you know, our good buddy, Jack Hahn put out his hockey, hockey tactics 2021 book a while back.

and I finally got around to reading it recently while I was on my flight out here. And he had this great chapter about Duvante's and sort of really captured what makes him such an interesting player because we know that his underlying numbers have been awesome for years now. But when you watch him, nothing particularly special is happening, right? Like he's not the best skater. He's not the biggest hitter. He's not the most skilled player. But his teams are so good with him on the ice. And he sort of talked about how he's kind of this guy that just extends plays for the people he plays.

he's like a facilitator right and you see that where he makes this little play where he goes back and retrieves the puck and gets it to macar and absorbs the pressure and then all of a sudden macars are just able to basically skate out of the zone unimpeded and create a chance and it's been much tougher sledding so i think there certainly is something to that it seems strange that for a team that's as talented as colorado is to say oh they don't have do on daves and they're just completely cratered but sometimes like that little that little glue or sort of that missing piece like everything i'm toppling down if you remove it from the equation yeah yeah yeah And I mean, he was so good for them last year, you know, even more than the analytics people expected.

Like I think, you know, from my perspective, I was someone who had boosted him really, really hard before he ended up in Colorado. You know, even I was surprised by the fact that he was, you know, people were talking about him in the Norris conversation, which was, you know, a step above what I had anticipated ever happening. So I think that that's a big loss. Obviously, Gerard, you know, even if he's not a top 50 Canadian player, you know, I think that he also plays a really important role in their transition game as well. And, you know, if they're, especially, you know, from McCart's perspective, he's such an ambitious player and McKinnon as well, you know, you really do need those guys like Taves who can just kind of calm things down a little bit and create that little bit of extra space. Otherwise, do you do kind of risk ending up in a bit of a shootout and maybe getting pinned in a little bit? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's kind of what's happened in the car so far where he's already been on the ice for 10,5-15 goals against.

And I think that's going to happen when you have a 906 PDO wherever he's got. And that's obviously going to regress. but he's uncharacteristically. And part of it might just be like, I know he didn't play at all in the preseason. I don't know much of the stock we're going to put into that. But he just hasn't looked the way that I expected him looking heading into the season.

And it bugs me because whenever we see a defenseman with high point totals, I think the natural recourse is to be like, well, he sucks defensively, right? He's cheating and he's getting caught, but he's scoring a lot. And that's all we care about for the Norris. And that really hasn't been the case, especially last year. Like I thought Macarra was excellent at using his skating and, his stick to defend entries and just have break plays up and they really just didn't spend any time

in the defensive zone. And this year it has been a bit of a bit of a circus in defending and there's been a couple plays where he's been undressed and hasn't looked good defensively. And so that just bugs me because it kind of like gives credence to all those lazy arguments that people tend to make for these skilled defensemen. Yeah. Well, I mean, if you've been in the Norris conversation for your first two seasons, I'm willing to allow, you know, a little bit of time of getting undressed there. But I mean, speaking of the PDO thing, I think that it is worth also mentioning the goaltending, which, you know, there was a lot of talk about the Grubauer Kemper thing. And, you know, the thing is that neither of them has been very good to start the year. They both rank near the

bottom and goals saved above expected. You know, I think in Kemper's case, there was a little bit of hesitance with him just because, you know, he really isn't as much of a known quantity as Philip Grubauer had been. You know, in Grubauer's case, there were conversations about, oh, was he overrated because of Colorado's team defense? That was a big conversation last year where he gets nominated for the Vezna on one hand. You have these public models saying, okay, well, maybe he's a little overrated. And then you have these private models saying he's basically just like above water. And Colorado was just that good defensively. And, you know, he obviously goes to Seattle, a little bit of an open up. We might talk about that later. In Kemper's case, you know, he's just not quite been up to that level, even of what Grubauer was last year. And I think that it is costing them a little bit.

And he's certainly shown that he has the talent to be a quality. starting goalie and maybe even an upgrade over what Gru Bauer has been for them in the past couple years but he just hasn't shown it yet and I think that is just kind of aggravating those issues that are underlying that we've already seen with the AFs yeah I did a preseason sort of betting pod with Dom where we were talking about our favorite prop bets and stuff and I was like Darcy Kemper his over under his over under his 8 percentage was like 9-10 or something and I was like I don't see a scenario where it's going to be less just because that team was so good defensively last year and I do think he is a

a better or at least higher upside goalie than Philip Grubauer and sure enough it certainly has not played out that way but it is six games so so let's let's put a bow on on the abs conversation then I think we both kind of seem to be like have our eyebrows raised a little bit just because it hasn't been like they've been super unlucky I mean they have a bit but the underlying process hasn't been what we're used to seeing but it's a bunch of talented players with a good track record and they don't have all of their pieces right now so I think we're willing to give them a bit more time than than just seven games, right? Yeah, I'm not willing to have them out of the playoffs yet.

Although two or three games, maybe we'll change our minds on that. All right, let's switch gears then. Do you want to talk about, I got the Leafs next on my list, which... Yeah, I think we do have to go with the Lease. I'm surprised he didn't lead with them just to get the... Get the clicks, right? Well, I mean, if people already start listening, that's all that really matters. But hopefully they've stuck around for this segment as well.

So I'll start a conversation with us. a very interesting stat that I've been noticing. Shana Goldman, who is now writing for sports and done a fantastic job with her a couple articles for them, was using Sport Logic data. And she made a note in a recent piece about the Leafs, about how they lead the league in five-on-five offensive zone possession time right now by their tracking. And I remember in a recent game, in their most recent game against the Hurricanes, Sportsnet was flashing a graphic that showed that there was like a five-minute discrepancy

or something. It was like 18 to 13 in terms of puck possession time between the two teams. And just watching that game, I would not have guessed that at all because I thought the hurricanes pretty thoroughly outplayed them. I thought they got significantly better chances. And all the usual shot metrics we look at indicated that, right? Like they outshot them, they outchanced them, they outscored them, and yet the Leafs had the puck a lot. And I wonder, you know, first of all, we can just talk about that metric in isolation, But then as it relates to a team that should be this kind of high octane skilled team like the Leafs and whether that is an optimal strategy if they are intending to do so, because if it means you're kind of just like playing this stagnant game where you're just moving the puck around kind of harmlessly on the outside and cycling and not necessarily doing anything with it, that might not be the best offensive strategy for a team that in theory should be kind of moving up and down the ice and using their talent advantage on any given night to try and outscore teams. Yeah, yeah, I mean that that obviously struck me that puck possession stat because I think that we did see quite a bit of that last year in terms of the Leafs being happy to kind of carry the puck in the offensive zone, not only into the offensive zone, but once they're in the offensive zone kind of do the rounds and find that perfect chance.

They were near the bottom in terms of point shots, for example. And I think that that's pretty much continued here. You know, the thing is that, you know, according to the data that I have in front of me, they still lead the, the NHL and expected goals for per 60 at 5-1-5. And I believe in like slot shots as well. Yeah, exactly. You know, they are getting a ton of quality. But I do remember kind of having conversations with Jack Hahn even last year where he was

talking about, you know, whether we maybe have to consider that puck possession itself, as opposed to kind of creating a quantity of chances might actually not be the best way to go in all situations. And I mean, you know, you see kind of the inverse with the haves where they for a while had been kind of a not very high puck possession time team, but they would always rack up the shot attempts and everything like that because once they did get into the zone, they would just force the issue. Yeah. And obviously that didn't particularly work for them in terms of getting actual goals either. But yeah, I mean, you know, for the Leafs, it really is kind of this dual thing going on right now where on one hand you do want to kind of hit the brakes and say, okay, this team is leading the

league and expected goals for. It has a, you know, 5.5% shooting percentage. You know, they have I think like negative nine goals above expected, which is worse than the league by far. I think New Jersey is like minus four right now. And just say, okay, you know, once, you know, and the guys who aren't scoring are Austin Matthews and Mitch Marner and John Tavares, you know, guys who have scored and finished well in the past. So you want to say, okay, just give it some time. These guys will score.

And maybe one of the reasons that they're looking so frustrated is because they're guys who score 30, 40, and 50 goals. And they are not scoring any goals right now. And then there's the other side where you, look at them play like they did against Pittsburgh and you see them play like they did against Carolina and think, okay, maybe there is some legitimate kind of resilience problem with this team where the regression may go the other way around and they might start to actually legitimately struggle in the underlying areas of the game rather than regress upwards back to the mean of

shooting. Right. Yeah. There's this kind of this domino effect of like one thing leads to another, right where if it's easy for us to say after six or seven games or whatever like oh yeah their expected goals are super high if they just keep going this way they're eventually going to start scoring but there's the potential that whether it's tackled you know whether it's because the players start playing differently like the the actual process starts changing in terms of the way the team plays to try to attack and try to fix this and that could obviously have an effect on the underlying numbers i don't know i think it's fascinating because like any way you look at it they're due for more goals and we're recording this on wednesday just before uh tonight's game started and they're playing the black hawks and they

very conceivably could score eight goals and all of this stuff could be thrown out the window because the numbers are going to wind up progressing just from one game like that but yeah i thought that that that point about the the how specifically how long they're holding on to the puck and and how that sort of plays in with expected goals is a really fascinating conversation. Because we talked about this with the Islanders, I believe, last year in one of our playoff previews where everyone sort of thought of them as this horrible offensive team and just really wasn't the case at all. Like, in fact, when they really get the puck, they were so sort of strategic and opportunistic

with creating off of the rush and the counterattack. And that is a viable strategy, as weird as it sounds, because everyone would agree that having the puck is better than not having the puck, but it depends, I guess, on what you're doing with it. Yeah. And I think one thing we do it to keep. in mind in terms of how they've been holding onto the puck and, you know, how often they've had it in the offensive zone is that, you know, it's one thing and it's like the line that you always have about

these offensive teams is like, well, you want them to have the puck because if they have the puck, the other team doesn't have the puck. But the issue with that is that they've been one of the worst defensive teams in the league. Well, we need to talk about hole in Mazum. Yeah, yeah. So that that's a big part of it, you know, but really kind of when it comes down to it, there are very few leafs that are kind of in the, well, I'd say in the blue because of the player cards. That's my bias. But, you know, it really is kind of Matthews and Dermott are the only guys who are kind of in that positive area when you look at their expected goals for and against.

You know, everybody else is just kind of in the everything is happening, chaos, chances going out of their way. So if they are, you know, holding onto the puck for as long on the offensive zone as you, as they are, you would hope that that would have some kind of defensive dividends. ends. And the fact that it really, really isn't, I think, is kind of an indictment of maybe how that strategy is playing out and maybe points to a more pressing issue in terms of how they're playing, which is not the goals for, but what's happening defensively. Yeah, I'd say, you know, the play of Muzzin and a hole in particular has been a major issue. They've been on the ice for

86, five and five minutes together. They've already given up nine goals and only scored two, four. they've been outshot pretty significantly. And it seems like the common sort of belief is that Jake Muzin is playing hurt. And I think we'd agree he's a good player. So the fact that the performance has been this bad, like raises a red flag, that he might not be 100%. But if that is the case, it's just insane to me that you would be trotting out this player who's a valuable part of your team in the second week of the season if he's so hurt that he's just submarineing the team's results. Like for me, that it seems almost inexplicable and so short. excited. Like I understand it they're under a lot of pressure and maybe they feel like they don't have

better options. But like clearly this is not a strategy for success based on the way those two guys have played together. Yeah. No. And I mean, that pairing, I mean, especially Muson's end of things, has been a real strong point for the team, you know, especially right now because Brody is also, I think, struggling quite a bit. You know, Brody and Muson, that really is kind of the core of their defense when it comes to preventing scoring chances against. Because certainly, you know, Morgan Riley for all of his offensive. talent is not a scoring chance suppressor. So if you have muzzan not playing healthy and Brody struggling, then you really kind of

have broken the levy that's going to lead to an avalanche of chances against. And it puts the least in a real tough spot because if they can't put the puck in the net and they can't defend, then they're going to lose a lot of games. Yeah. Yeah. I don't really know what else to say about this team. I think Mariners' stats right now are truly. just baffling to me. I was like looking at it recently and he hasn't been on the ice for a 5-1-5 goal

for so far. He has one 5-1-5 secondary assist that happened like the puck went into the net but when he was on the bench already so he wasn't on the ice for it. And that's staggering for someone who's been on the ice for over a hundred five-on-five minutes so far. They've had 115 attempts, 51 shots on goal in that time. And so regardless of your mileage on the player or your frustrations with certain areas of his game and I certainly have them myself in terms of how he's, utilized in the power play and pretty much anytime he shoots the puck, I think it's a, it's a, it's a net positive for the opponent, but it's impossible for this to continue, right? Like the goals are going to start coming, even if he's playing differently, even if there's a ton

of pressure, even if something weird happened, documentary and all this stuff. Like, I just don't, there's nothing to suggest that this is the new norm. This is a player who has had an on-ice shooting percentage of over 10% at 515 for his career. And it's literally at zero now. Like, that's just not a thing. Yeah. No, I mean, really, when it comes down to the thing that I'm watching for, if I'm watching the Leafs, is the defense having to fix. And then the question of, you know, how are they responding in terms of, you know, this is probably the most adversity that's not in the playoffs that they've faced in the past four or five years.

You know, are they going to buckle and keep getting outplayed like they have in the past couple games or are they going to probably play? I know that that sounds very intangibles and great and grit of me. but I do think, you know, when it comes down to it, and you're losing 7 to 1 to the Mark Donk Penguins and you're getting, you know, destroyed by Freddie Anderson and the Carolina Hurricanes, you know, it does become kind of a mental test of, you know, how this team is going to respond to these situations.

And it may well be that they're going to respond by, you know, irrational tactical shifts that don't address the problems or, you know, line combinations getting thrown in the blender that don't make any sense. But, you know, either way, you know, we've always talked about, about how Leaves fans aren't going to care about any regular season results until they can actually do anything in the playoffs. And I think that this is probably as close as those Leaves fans are going to get to kind of how things are going to go in the playoffs is how they're going to respond to this adversity. So there's a crazy amount of pressure on them that. I mean, people certainly seem to

care how the Leafs are doing in the regular season this year. And I find that very interesting. It's a fascinating thought exercise to their two, four and one. If they were six and one, I think any conversation would probably be like, who cares? Let's wait until the playoffs, right? And that's understandable. Like they haven't earned the benefit of the doubt in that regard. Like when Tampa Bay struggles and we're going to talk about them here in a bit, it's different because we've seen them sort of flip that switch

and show us reason to believe that they can win in the playoffs. Not that the Leafs are lacking some sort of intangible quality that prevents them from doing so, but they just literally have not done so yet. And so I understand the skepticism. but it's it's funny how in two weeks literally like it flipped on on its head in terms of people being like I don't care about the regular season and then all of a sudden it's like the sky is falling and everything is the worst and we're not going to make it through this season and it's like it's seven regular season games and if they had won all of them no one would even be that excited so I think we need

to kind of keep that in mind yeah but it's the Leafs so it is they could be three and four and we'd still be having these conversations where where are we putting the panic meter on them right now because, you know, for the abs, we weren't, we weren't particularly panicked. Are we a bit more panicked about this leaves? Because they're the opposite. Like, their, their underlying numbers are actually better than the Colorado's have and the results aren't there. So you could argue that the process has been more encouraging than Colorado's has. Yeah. I was so, I would not be as worried about them just because, well, I mean, the avalanche are, I think, probably still pretty easily going to make the playoffs. Right. I think the leaves are also in a pretty

decent situation there just because the rest of their division, I don't think other than the big four aren't going to pose that much of a threat. Really, I think the main issues for me just come down to the team defense. Like if they can tighten that up, because if they just kind of swing through the rest of the season with these identical underlying numbers, but the goals start coming and they finish just like the fourth seat in the Atlantic division, you know, while being this poor defensive team, I think that is cause for some concern. Yeah, that's fair. Who do you, which, which team do you want to do next? Well, I just wrote on Seattle.

All right. Let's do it. Let's do it. I've been watching their games. I particularly focused on the past two because I figured we'd be talking about them. But I'll give you the floor in terms of teeing us up here for the Cracken. Yeah. So I think it's fair to say that this team we anticipated was going to be a very defense-focused group.

But with some, I think, underrated offensive elements to them, at least at 5-on-5. some decent play drivers there like everly and shorts for example who we figured you know they had played well in top six rules before and that would kind of carry over but you know from my perspective and and I think kind of anybody who was building any kind of analytical model or anything you know what really stood out was the fact that the defense really did have a really good track record in terms of how those guys were scoring chance suppressors a lot of guys who were in that kind of 90th percentile or higher in that area and it led to the team being a really good track record in terms of how those guys were in considered one of the best teams in the Pacific Division, you know, or the Western Conference,

depending on how enthusiastic the model was. And so far, I think, you know, early on, obviously, it's kind of, you know, they've only played two home games. They've had guys who've been hurt, Yanni Gord and Calli Yarn Crocker just kind of entering the lineup now. But I think that they have been disappointing in terms of kind of how they've performed, you know, not only defensively where they've been a below average team, but also offensively where they just have been really dysfunctional and not really able to generate anything dangerous at all, which doesn't bode super, super well for how, you know, whether they're going to compete with Edmonton and Vegas for the top of the division, like some of the models that they would. Yeah, certainly. I think

I think Yanni Gord coming back in the lineup is huge and he's looked fantastic in the three games, I believe he's played for them. And so that's going to help quite a bit. I, I, I, that crowd is amazing. I thought, like, you know, in the Canucks game, it was obviously fantastic. in the opener again in the habs like it was it was electric i think that's going to help them quite a bit i i don't know i don't know how i still don't know how i feel about i'm like i have a certain level of skepticism because i think that struggle to create offensively is going to carry over even though they do have these individual players who have performed in top six scoring roles before i think they're being asked to potentially shoulder a different type of burden

and like Jordan emberle having Matt Barzal get you the puck versus yani gore or whoever is going to be playing as his center I do think it's a slightly different proposition in terms of what we should expect from his goal scoring output right and so while I think he's a fantastic player and they're going to generate more scoring chances they have and I think they'll be they'll be fine I do think that is something something to consider and I think this could be a persistent issue for them yeah well I was looking at some of the numbers you know, not just kind of their, you know,

coursey and expected goals and stuff, but just kind of how they relate to one another. And it really did kind of strike me the way that they generate offense. Because I remember hearing, I don't know if it was from you or if it was from Ian Tulloch or Jack Han, that they were interested to see what Dave Haxall did to this team in terms of offense strategy. That was you, okay.

Saying, you know, that he was a guy in the past who took a lot, who his teams took a lot of point shots, didn't get a lot going on in front. And that's exactly what's happened so far. You know, I crunch the numbers today. Seattle's defensemen have taken 44% of the team's shot attempts so far. And, you know, if you look at the heat maps, it's all bright red at the points and then nothing going on in front of the slot. And, you know, the question is kind of is that a system's flaw on Haxstall's part where

he's really kind of empowering Dunn and Giordano and, you know, even guys like Larson to just throw pucks on net and try to get things going from there? or is that reflective of what you talked about where, you know, I think kind of the defense that people like me and also, you know, Dom did on the podcast last week there, is saying, well, you know, these guys, they've played top six roles before, you know, they're good offense drivers for a reason, you know, if they maybe aren't able to kind of carry the buck into the offensive zone and create on the rush or things like that, you know, that might also play into them using the defenseman as a bit of a crutch. And I mean, you know, it worked a,

in that Vancouver game with Dunn and Giordano getting two goals, but I don't know if that's a sustainable thing. And I mean, you know, 44% of your shots coming from defensemen, like that's, that's four points higher than the most defenseman heavy team last year. So if they keep that up, you know, it's kind of hard to see them turning things around offensively that much. It's so weird because Hacksstall was obviously with the Leafs last year and in the past, and they were like, as you mentioned earlier, like they did not take any point shots. And so it seems bizarre to me that he would come from. that and be just telling,

he dictating his defensemen to just shoot as much as they can. I wonder if it's just kind of like a random kind of natural byproduct of the game so far. But I'm curious to see how there are games against a team like Edmonton play, right? Because they're obviously constructed very differently and they profile analytically very differently. We saw in that Canucks game, they obviously wound up blowing it late and losing it.

But I thought they were getting a lot of reasonably good scoring chances throughout the course of that game, partly because the Canucks are a mess at times defensively at our kind of helter-skelter all over their zone, and it led to quality chances for them, and they should conceivably get those against the oilers as well. And obviously, it'll come down to whether they can convert them compared to the chances the oilers get. And I do like Edmonton's chances of converting their opportunities more, even if there's fewer in quantity. But I want to see a bunch of games between those two teams, just to see how that kind of push and pull between strengths and weaknesses plays out. Yeah, and I think that's exactly it.

The interesting thing for me about their defense is that it really is the inverse of what they're doing offensively, where they've actually been, you know, above average and actually pretty solid at preventing shots on goal and shot attempts. You know, the rank sixth in shots on goal against, you know, in the good way. Right. And 11th in preventing shot attempts against. And then, you know, meanwhile, they're below average expected goals against team. You know, their average shot quality, I think, is 27th in the league. and obviously their goaltending has allowed quite a bit more than that,

which means it's kind of the opposite of what we might have expected, where you saw these guys like Larson and like Alexiak and even Giordano, who have been in the past very good at kind of protecting that slot area, and it's been kind of the exact opposite, where maybe they're not allowing as many point shots, but what they have been allowing has been pretty good, and I would imagine that a lot of that comes off of kind of quick-punch rush chances, which if you're playing against teams like Edmonton, for example, or Vegas, you know,

you're going to be in quite a bit of trouble if you're allowing your opponents to enter the zone and get scoring chances with speed. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Recognized employees with Custom Ink. Show customer appreciation with Custom Ink. Outfit your teams with Custom Ink. Easily add your logo to your favorite products and brands at Customink.com. Make Custom Ink your Custom Gear partner with great customer service, quality products,

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slash bluewire to 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. All right. Let's move on to Tampa Bay. You have anything on Tampa Bay? I'm I'm interested. Obviously, three, three and one now. They had a nice win against the Penguins on Tuesday night. It was, I believe, it took them until that game to get their first lead of the season, which is pretty remarkable.

Leaving Chicago, that has the only team left that doesn't have one. Did we make enough of what an impact losing the entirety of that Gord, Goodrow, and Coleman line would do to this team's results? because I saw a lot of people refer to them as their third line. And we've talked about the fact that they were really their second line in terms of usage. And in the playoffs, Yanni Gord was literally their number one forward in terms of ice time. And so it was a bigger loss. And I think people were making it out to be. They obviously still have a ton of talent.

And when Nikita Kutrov comes back, like, I still wouldn't pick against them because they're that terrifying. But it is a significantly more uphill battle when you look at their. lineup now and that depth compared to where it's been in the past. Yeah, I think for sure. You know, there was an assumption, I guess, that, you know, the next guy up would just automatically be able to make things work for Tampa Bay just because that's been the case in the past where they've been able to pull these AHL guys out of nowhere and slot them into the lineup. And I just don't think that that's necessarily happened. You know, the Ross Colton hasn't done particularly well, you know, the rest of that bottom six hasn't been doing fantastic. And I think a lot of where it shows, you know,

the impact that losing that entire third, second line is, you know, it's not just kind of a defensive thing because they've been relatively good defensively this year. But I think people do or did understate kind of the fact that those players were also pretty good offensively as well, you know, especially Gord and Coleman, I think gave them some options in terms of depth that really helped them out, especially with Coutherab missing the whole season. And I think things started out quite well for the lightning in terms of their underlying numbers. and since Kucharov has been gone, they've slipped quite a bit. And maybe that's an area where it's easy to absorb losing Nikita Kuturav when you have two first lines and one second line and one third line.

But now if you have a first line, a second line and, you know, at bottom six, that isn't really that dangerous. Suddenly losing, you know, the best or second best winger in the world is not quite as easy to absorb. Yeah, I will say the one encouraging thing for them over these past two weeks is, is just seeing Victor Headman with two fully functional wheels look like Victor Headman again, and his number is just sort of understandably just kind of bounce back to levels that we'd expect from him, right? Like, it was so weird to me having arguments with people last year

that he was actually fine, and he was Victor Headman, in quotation marks, because he clearly wasn't, and that was through no fault of his own. Like, he probably should not have been playing because he was clearly physically limited. They wound up winning the cup, I thought he looked better as the postseason went along.

But like for him, part of the, his brilliance is being able to get up and down the ice at his size. And I think he's like the best at jumping in as a trailer on the rush and just somehow like hiding in plain sight despite the fact that he's like the biggest guy out there. And so just seeing him move around more freely and seeing the results bounce back to where they are. That's such a massive development for them because despite the fact that he was injured. and we saw the numbers dip. You never know. Sometimes a player just loses it or enters a different phase of their career or gets hurt and never bounces back physically.

And like he just at a snap of the finger clearly is back to being Victor Edmund. Yeah. Well, it makes my life a lot easier when no. And Victor Headman is a good hockey player. You know, last year there was quite a bit of, you know, these models must be broken if they say Victor Edmund isn't, you know, the best defenseman in the NHL by two miles, even if he was playing on one leg.

But, I mean, you definitely saw, like last year especially, you know, having that injury just completely, you know, no pun intended, kneecapped what he was able to actually do on the ice when he came to jumping into the rush, especially. Because, you know, he still had that instinct to do it, and he still did it quite a bit. And I think that's a big reason that they got out chance to out scored is because he would jump up into the rush. He wouldn't quite be able to keep up. And then the play would go down the other way, and he wouldn't really be able to help them prevent it. And, you know, when you have Jan Ruda as the safety valve, that's not exactly the best. thing. So, yeah, I mean, you know, headman doing well is obviously encouraging, you know, McDona has been doing pretty well as well. You know, it still is a little bit painful to see

headman skating out there with Ruta day in and day out. But it's, I mean, that's the biggest thing that they could have bag. And if they can at least just kind of absorb things with, with Hedman gone, or with Kucherov gone, sorry, then that's going to be important. But I think the Vasselowski is also worth talking about as well. Well, is it insane? to you that the best they could do was Brian Elliott this offseason. After how badly things went with Curtis Macleanie last year, like I understand they're working on a budget and they're not going to invest, considering how much they've invested in Vasilevsky, and they believe, I think, that he can play more than we typically

want goalies to play, even though his performance has been dipping in regular seasons as his workload increases expectedly. But it's just like watching Brian Elliott in that game against Buffalo. It was, anytime they don't play Vasilevsky, it's like. they're just punting the two points. And I get it. Like come the postseason, it's not an issue because Vasilev's going to play every single minute and he's going to do really well probably.

And that's fine. But you have to get there. And I think as their margin for error shrinks with the loss of that line with Kutrab out of the lineup, I think not having that luxury to have a reliable spell here and there for Asselevski is kind of an oversight on their part. Yeah. I'm willing to be a little bit more lenient towards them just because it seems like, is that the best backup goalie they could get applies to like 15 of the

teams the NHL that we're signing a backup goalie this year. Well, it speaks to like a fundamental philosophical flaw with the league where it's like, let's get an old guy because he's going to be good in the room and comfortable on the bench. We'll get Martin Jones or we'll get, yeah. You know, I think the thing is that, you know, Vasilevsky obviously had a Vesna caliber season last year or right in that wheelhouse. So far, he's been a little below expected. He's had some ups and downs.

Obviously, that first game against Pittsburgh didn't go exactly how he had planned it. But I think that that's also an important thing for this team as well. We'll just be trying to get. If not, he hasn't always been like the Ves and the caliber guy when it comes to like the above expected numbers. But if he can at least kind of keep up and be in that kind of top 10 range, then I think that that will solve a couple of their issues. I think he certainly was there last year. I think you don't necessarily want to be out of necessity getting into the habit of playing him 65 to 70 times when you're hoping that he's also going to play 20 times. comes the postseason, especially in this weird year where I think the second half the season is

going to be kind of compressed schedule-wise after the Olympics. But yeah, it's, it's summon a monitor. Like I think ultimately it's an inconsequential issue compared to like some of the issues other teams face. But when you're like nitpicking here and you're kind of like wondering why they did what they did, I think it's a small problem. It was fascinating watching. I watched the Penguins broadcast in the second game, the one they just won, and just hearing the broadcast being like, oh, the penguins have done their scouting report on Basilevsky, you got to shoot high on them. It's like, that's literally every goalie. Like the goleys are so good that you're not beating them down low.

You need to basically pick a quarter and then I guess that's a weakness. And I really want that to be stripped from broadcast that type of analysis. Yeah. If your analysis of Vasilevsky is shoot high, then I think that that shows you that your analysis of kind of picking flaws in goaltending's plays. not the best way to go. Yeah. All right.

Is there any other teams that you want? I know you were saying you wanted to get to Calgary a bit. Yeah, yeah. Just because Calgary was the one that I really stuck my neck out on over the summer. Yes, yeah, me too. Yeah. So, because there were a lot of people who were very, very down on the flames, you know, thought that they were going to tailspin and be near the bottom of that division.

You know, they had confidently, you were saying, you know, not only Seattle, but also, you know, L.A. and maybe even San Jose were going to pass them and things like that. And my answer the entire summer was Daryl Sutter. If there's one thing that you can count on Daryl Sutter doing, it's outshooting and outchancing his opponents. And I think people do kind of get in in their heads that if there's, you know, any NHL associated person who owns a barn is automatically kind of this dinosaur who's going to get pummeled in possession chances and play goons every night and things like that. Whereas, I mean, Daryl Sutter, you know, he probably isn't looking at, you know, money. puck every morning, but, you know, the things that he values in a team and what he wants them to do

tends to result in those outcomes. And, I mean, you saw it with the Flames results at the end of last season where their underlying numbers were exceptional. And, you know, for as much as their defense obviously took quite a few hits in terms of some personnel choices, you know, adding Coleman, you know, even adding Pitlick, you know, one of their biggest problems last year was the penalty kill. I think that they, at least at forward, address some of their biggest Do you think he acquired Zadorov so that they could get more in-season practice on the penalty come? I think they just might have.

Although they've, you know, for all the talk that Zadorov was going to be on the top pair all season long, they sure discarded that idea pretty quickly. I mean, it's just so evident that like Oliver Shillington, for example, just the significantly better defenseman. And it makes it so puzzling that they not only traded a third round pick or whatever to acquire Zudorov, but then gave him $3 million or whatever they did. Like I just don't understand that usage of assets. Well, I mean, the idea of having Tanev go from Quinn Hughes to Noah Hannafin to Nikita Zedorov was a little depressing.

Just testing the boundaries of like who he can carry. Exactly. Just, you know, yeah, really testing the RAPM models on that one. But yeah, yeah, and that's the thing, you know, again, I think people had the idea that Sutter was going to be playing a lineup of goons every night and that he was going to have good Branson on the top pair and Zadorov in the top four all season and everything. and he's shown a pretty quick willingness to kind of adjust things and make the changes that have to be made. And as a result, you know, as I think anticipated, you know, they're running a 57% coursey share

and a 55% expected goal share. Like whatever they're doing, it's working. And I think it's catching a couple people off guard, you know, even if maybe the underlying numbers would have told us in the summer that, you know, these early results are pretty much what was expected. Yeah, no, certainly. You and I were, you know, if it winds up happening, we can post our DMs with, with timestamps. But we were in on Markstrom for Vesna Betts because it was like, he's a good goalie. It's going to be a good system. They're going to be a pretty good team.

And assuming he can stay healthy, like he's going to have really good numbers. And he's looked awesome. So far aside from that first game against Edmond, we gave up a couple goals. But I think it's a really good team. And I think people are sleeping on them. I mean, you know, they just went and, you know, comfortably beat the Rangers and a devil. So I think people are going to pay attention a little bit more. But, like, I'm very optimistic of all this team, especially in that division. Like, I think, yeah, there's very few things to nitpick with them. Yeah, the one issue that I can see happening potentially is that he did have a reputation in the past for really leaning on his starters quite a bit.

And, you know, I don't know if you've seen the depth chart of goaltending in Calgary, but it's pretty much. it's Jacob Markstrom and then the guy that you and the man of Lodar yeah exactly you know it's and maybe he's gonna you know it's goaltending maybe he's gonna win the Vesna next year but I can see absolutely a situation where Sutter just kind of plays the hell out of Markstrom for the entire season I don't know where he is on Sweden step chart for the Olympics as well off the top of my head he probably would be in that starters net there yeah I think he's a really good goalie And they overplayed him last year, especially at the start, and they were just lying on him so much even before Sutter took over.

And, you know, he got hurt in his performance dip. But, yeah, I think he's really good. Yeah. It occurred to me that Robin Lennar is Swedish. Also a good goal, yes. But yeah, so that would be one potential concern would be if maybe Markstrom gets overplayed a bit or if he gets hurt, then things could slide. But, again, all the concerns about kind of the roster and, you know,

some of the changes that were made over the summer, you know, it's kind of like a Mike Sullivan situation where like if you if you have a coach that's good enough and has a strong enough track record they can kind of just get guys to play a system and increases your baseline so much yeah exactly so I am just as enthusiastic about Calgary as I was over the summer I don't think they're going to win a cup or anything but I'm especially excited to see guys like Lindholm and Manjipani kind of getting their due from people who maybe have forgotten that the Calgary Flames existed for the past little while yep that's that's very very pleased to see that yeah i'm with you on that um one final team i have here is you know we've been

talking mostly i feel like calgary obviously being the exception here but we're talking mostly about like underperforming teams uh a team that's overperforming so far i believe they haven't lost yet are the blues and you know their percentages are through the roof like they're basically scoring on like every shot they take and that's certainly not going to continue but i do i have to say i'm going to be doing a watchability rankings here soon i've been i'm surprised at how much i've enjoyed watching the blues like i think they're forwards or it's illegitimately fun group of players and it's not something typically synonymous with st louis blues hockey but

you know adding buchnevich adding sod who's who's who's been out for the past couple games but you know kairu and thomas stepping up and and and just seeing fad tarasenko who they like literally could not give away this offseason and understandably given his salary and injury concerns his shot rate and goal rate had been dipping for each of the past four seasons and his shot rate right now is absolutely insane and and it's six games games. I'm not expecting him to have like 28 shot attempts per 60 or whatever that he has right now. But like he looks good. I don't want to say he looks like, you know, Vlad Tarasenko in his prime, but he looks much closer to that player than anything we saw over the past couple years. And that's

very encouraging. And this is a team that, you know, it's going to surprise people in terms of what they typically expect from San Luis hockey. Yeah. And that was always the possibility. I mean, this team has been playing pretty chaotic hockey so far from a pace perspective. which, you know, Bennington has been pretty good, which they've pretty much, you know, needed him to be in terms of kind of how much they've been allowing defensively. I mean, I always find this team hilarious because just from an underlying numbers perspective, just mostly for David Perron reasons. Like, there is, whatever David Perron is doing out there, it is confusing the hell out of analytical models. Like, he has ranked as one of the worst scoring chance generators in the league for the past couple years in terms of, like, when he is on the ice, there are no shots that come from the slot. and yet he scores, you know, 70, 80 points.

You know, he has a, you know, he had a hat trick this year. I think he's been producing extremely well. And, you know, I looked at how the model has kind of changed his view on him over these first couple games, and it's even lower on him offensively than it was before. So I just have to admire anybody who's willing to break the models that much by just scoring goals and getting assists on outside shots consistently. Especially at this stage of his career. Like, he's been around forever now.

Like, I remember looking, I think it was before the season. I looked at his age and I was like I was stunned to see how old he was. Yeah, yeah, he's a 2007 drafty, I think. Yeah. Well, I mean, I remember being psyched about him getting traded to the Penguins. Right. Before they won the cup, you know, obviously they traded him for Hagelin. Yeah. But yeah, I mean, at that point, it really was kind of, oh, this guy is going to max out as like a 45, 50 point guy. And then he went to Vegas. And I think that kind of, you know, jolted his career a bit. And, you know, back in St. Louis, he wins a cup. And now he's doing this where he was, I think, point per game or almost a point per game last year.

Well, it's an awesome story. Like his career very easily could have been derailed with those concussions while he was in his first tenure with St. Louis and then, you know, just getting bounced around and you never know how that's going to turn out of our player's career. But, yeah, he's been quite a story. All right, let's finish this with, I have a listener question here. We don't typically do like mailbag stuff on the podcast, but I'm going to start doing them in written form for EP rings out. And I decided to take one of the questions I got from a listener here from Meeks, M-E-E-Q-S, asks, what's the biggest current market inefficiency for you in the league? I'm putting in the spot here.

I didn't give you any prep time. Yeah, Meeks, one of my favorite reply guys. Meeks is a big time reply guy. Shout out to Meeks. Do you want me to start the Convalier? Yeah, yeah. I have a vague idea, but why don't you take the point out here? I would say being able to properly evaluate your all young players as a team,

like it seems obvious but I find that so many teams struggle with pulling the plug on prospects that they invested draft capital and before it's too late and being able to recognize that you might have waifter the players and who you thought they were

and still before the league catches up because you you should be the first team that catches up to that you're seeing them play all the time you're seeing them practice you're watching them more closely than anyone else and being able to and that's something Tampa Bay has done really well over the years and being able to recoup assets or flip them for someone who can

actually help you, I think is really important. We tend to focus on identifying players and free agency from other teams or, you know, winning trades. But I think being able to value your own personnel and not get too hyped up on your own players is something that smart teams do really well. And not enough the league does effectively enough. Yeah. So my first thought there was was on the players like we talked about Devon Taves before, where, you know, Jack-on, one thing that he's emphasized is these traits that are overvalued and undervalued in players. So, you know, the overvalued traits would be, you know,

taking shots from the point or boxing people out in front or things like that. And the undervalued traits would be essentially everything that Devon Taves does. Right. So I think from a, you know, talent evaluation perspective, that's a pretty solid one. But one thing that I've been kind of thinking about is off-ice. stuff. And I don't mean kind of, you know, like, you know, in the locker room or anything like that, but I just mean like player development and coaching stuff, for example. So for example, you know, I'm the last guy on earth that could be described as like a goalie guy. But it does seem strange to me that goalie coaches are not in kind of higher demand of teams, you know, teams will go out

and spend, you know, millions and millions of dollars to bring in a high, you know, caliber goalie. And yet you don't really see kind of bidding wars emerging for goalie coaches or anything like that. You know, if I was kind of put in charge of a franchise, one of the first things that I would do would just be to basically ask everybody who the best goaltending coach out there was and immediately poach him for double what he's making. Are you saying this because the penguins went through this? Well, I mean, that was one thing where people were talking about how they had to move Jari this summer, you know, desperately had to move in. And I didn't have my hopes up at all that they were going to do that because, you know, the contract and how he had performed in the

playoffs, it really didn't seem like a likely thing. And, you know, essentially in the summer, instead of making the goalie change, they make the goalie coach change. And it's obviously super early, but Jari's looked pretty good so far. You know, it just seems like something where the inefficiency is paying big for a goalie. And it would seem to me that kind of making sure that you have everything going on behind the scenes to put them in a position to succeed. I mean, we've heard things about guys like Ian Clark, for example, or what they have going on in, you know, in the islanders. for example. In the aisle?

On the aisle, I guess would be more appropriate. And certainly not the Montreal Island. Yeah, it just seems like that is something that is not necessarily, you know, these guys aren't getting paid about as much as you might expect. And I think that you could probably extend that to other player development kinds of things. You know, the cost of these player development coaches and stuff is a lot less than the cost of an NHL salary. And, you know, if you have, like, for example, with Zach Hyman, for example, would you rather kind of go out and spend $5.5 million over seven years to get Zach Hyman?

Or would you rather try to develop some Zach Hyman's yourself? It seems like the cheaper option there would be to try to develop your own Zach Hyman's, and you're not guaranteed guaranteed to succeed. But I don't think you're going to be any worse from having a more fleshed out player development staff. Yeah. No, I think that's really well said. I think, you know, from a player evaluation perspective, I think for the most part, you still see some whiffs in terms of people not understanding how individual shooting percentage

works and, you know, buying super high on players who just had these outlier seasons or, you know, trading away a player and thinking he all of a sudden sucks just because he shot very poorly. But I think on ice shooting percentage is still something that messes with people's minds. And I have to admit, even like for myself, for example, where I can be like, if I'm watching a bunch of a certain player or a certain team, like you just, you kind of like trick yourself into believing that, oh like they're playing like super super poorly or oh something something's going wrong and then you wind up looking at it's like oh yeah he's not getting any saves or you know the puck's just not going into the net and i think we sometimes tend to overvalue um the control individual players have

on that you know there's going to be extremes obviously of players that can either drive high or low percentages but for the most part if you just kind of stick with the process there i think things will even out and you have to sort of you have to train yourself where you have to remind yourself not to just go purely off of the eye test because even a really experienced hockey watcher can wind up being tricked. Yeah, I mean, that's always the first thing that I say whenever somebody asks me, what is kind of the stat that they need to understand. You know, it's never war or RAPM. The first step that you need to dig is basically understanding that, you know, every single stat that you value can be completely messed with by a couple

puck bounces. And, you know, I think teams have maybe gotten a little bit better about this. I mean, based on the fact that Michael Bunting didn't get a six-year $25 million contract. That's probably a good sign. But, yeah, I think it is still a good lesson to keep in mind. I think for fans, though, I think fans definitely get tripped by it. Yeah. Oh, yeah. For fans, it's one of the most important things.

I think that isn't really considered properly. All right. Second question here. How have analytics change the way you watch games slash has it made you notice things when you are watching games that maybe you didn't before or like, you know, before you started really thinking about this stuff. Like, like, how has your viewing experience changed over the years or more recently? Well, I think, and this maybe even just ties into the chat that we just had,

that it just has made me a little bit less reactionary and maybe not overvaluing things like turnovers or, you know, guys missing the net or things like that as much as I used to. You know, I used to, you know, back in the day when I was just purely kind of a diehard Penguins fan and not somebody who was actually, you know, having to think about these things more carefully, you know, I would form these kind of hard set opinions and I would just get locked into confirmation bias, you know, first game of the season that would last all the way through. I think from an actual perspective of, you know, what am I valuing while watching? I think more of that has come from reading people who are writing cerebrally about the game, you know,

like valuing things like, you know, controlled zone entries and exits and things like that. And just kind of watching in general more carefully than I was before, as opposed to, you know, I'm keeping an eye on who's on the ice for which shot attempts and things like that. Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned this earlier as an overvalued skill because for me, like,

I've developed such a hatred for point shots. Like I, watching the fencemen that just wildly fire into shin pads is something that I, didn't necessarily care too much about even like five, six years ago. I would just look at raw shot attempts and just be like, all right, yeah, there's a lot happening in the offensive zone when this player is on the ice. But then just watching defensemen that just basically kill possessions for their team. Like there's a couple nice passes and then all of a sudden the puck gets them and they just

aimlessly shoot it and then the other team recovers it and they're out of the zone and it's over. Like, I just, that drives me crazy. And if I was a coach with any of these teams, I would be harping on that a lot. I think the other thing is it's actually. really made me more of an eye test guy, funny enough. Like I, because when you look at certain trends where you wonder why a player's numbers are the way they are, that's actually where I find the most use out of it. It makes me want to watch more closely to try to figure out why it's happening.

Like, Rasmus just aligned into such a great example where his analytics were so bad for so long. And then people were just so infatuated with his size and his ability to be fair. physical, right? And then you watch it and there's no one in the league that loses more battles around the net than he does. And it's just like a lack of hockey sense where he just doesn't seem to understand. And like he's punishing a guy with a cross check while the guy stick is on the ice tapping it into the net. And yeah, he was physical, but the puck went into his net because he could have played that way better. And so for me like trying to look at the numbers

and then really hone in on figuring out why they are the way they are is the most rewarding process, I think involved for me. Yeah, I think that's a great point. Once you get into analytics, it is going to make you a bigger hockey fan because you're more invested in it. And that is going to lead you to want to watch more hockey. And it's going to mean that, you know, if you already know the analytics, then you're going to want to naturally connect the dots of what's not necessarily being shown to you

or find out the process behind it. So you are going to be looking more carefully for that stuff. I think that's a really good point. All right. Well, that's going to be it for today's show. let's plug some stuff. What, what do you have been working on? And let's tell, tell listeners where they can check out our written work because we're

obviously colleagues. Yep. So still, EP ringside, have a piece on Seattle that's dropping today that you will already have heard the gist of in the past 45 minutes or so. But a lot more detailed stats and some insight into kind of the projection models and maybe what has changed from those projections, just from these first couple of. games there. And then you can follow me on Twitter at J. Fresh Hockey. You can subscribe to my Patreon, which is under the same name. And yeah, that pretty much covers what I'm doing right now.

Yeah. People should go subscribe to E.P. Ring side and go read the work. I'm really proud of the quality of the content that we have up there on pretty much a daily basis. So not to sound like a company show, but I believe in the work that we're putting out there. And I think if people enjoy this podcast and enjoyed our conversation. They're going to enjoy reading the stuff that me, you, Ryan Lambert, and everyone on the website puts up. So go subscribe and, yeah,

keep up the good work, man. This was fun. I'm glad we finally got to do this in person. And hopefully people enjoyed it. And we're definitely going to do a show here again, sometimes you know, down the road. That's good, episode 6,4, 7.

The Hockey PEDEOCast, Dim Philipovich. Follow on Twitter at Dim Philipovich and on SoundCloud at SoundCloud. slash Hockey PDOCast.